Marco Rubio has been saying what all Republicans (and anyone of good conscience, including Democrats) need to be saying about defunding Planned Parenthood: If the government shuts down, it will be because the Democrats insisted on funding the monstrosity that is Planned Parenthood. When asked at the RedState conference near Atlanta on Friday if he would defund Planned Parenthood, even if it meant accepting blame for a shutdown, he asked how Democrats and the media would spin things if Republicans were insisting on government funding for the NRA:

ERICK ERICKSON: Even if it means getting blamed by the media for doing it, even though it would be Barack Obama doing it, should Congress do everything — including risking a government shutdown — to defund Planned Parenthood?

MARCO RUBIO: You know what, I actually was asked that twice already this week. Why doesn’t anybody ask the Democrats or the media the following question: ‘Are you willing to shut down the government to fund Planned Parenthood?’ No one ever asks that question.

Let’s flip it. If we were funding the NRA in the government, what would the headlines read? ‘Republicans Will Shut Down Government Unless NRA Is Funded’. But here you have a radical group that basically is caught on camera talking about the dismembering of children, of unborn children! How they carefully manipulate them to ensure that they can sell their organs on the marketplace! This is offensive stuff. And there’s more outrage about a dead lion than there is about dead babies!

So the American people should not be funding an organization like this. And that’s why I think the work that Joni Ernst and Ben Sasse and others did last week was so important, which is, we take the money that they’re using — we take the money from Planned Parenthood — and we give it to federally qualified community health organizations that are providing healthcare to women without killing babies.

Thomas Valentine is a researcher for APIA and a junior at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.