In my new book No Fear, I tell the story of Lila Rose, who, as an 18-year-old UCLA student, walked into a Planned Parenthood clinic in Southern California with a mission to expose the illegal activity of the nation’s largest abortion provider. Her courage to stand up for life has played a key role in bringing our nation to where we are today: 10 installments into the Center for Medical Progress’s undercover videos of Planned Parenthood. We are without excuse when it comes to what our laws and tax dollars are facilitating — the trafficking of aborted baby body parts. The question now is whether Republican leaders have the courage to walk into the Capitol and challenge President Obama over his commitment to keep the federal dollars to Planned Parenthood flowing.

[Tuesday] morning, another undercover video, CMP’s tenth, competed for the headlines with Senate leaders who insist they won’t even contemplate a government shutdown — even when that same government is making these atrocities possible. While the world watched another Planned Parenthood staffer talk about what a money-maker baby butchery can be, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was at a microphone calling the strategy to defund the group “an exercise in futility.”

Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), one of the three dozen who refuses to sign his name to any budget bill that doesn’t strip Planned Parenthood’s funding, can only shake his head. “If you’re telegraphing to the other side that you’re unwilling to have that battle, you’ve already capitulated. What you say is you’re going to use all the tools available.” Pro-lifers, and especially those in leadership, “can’t be afraid of having a battle,” he said.

With an explosive Iran deal on the table and a handful of days to keep the government’s lights on, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and company have their work cut out for them. But as our good friend Chuck Donovan pointed out, this “is a tall mountain worth climbing.” Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), one of the more outspoken members of the House Freedom Caucus thinks, “Leadership is going to have to choose: Do they want it to be a talking point, or do they want to actually do something about it?”

For now, the Senate is pushing for the former — with plans to move on two standalone bills: first, a year-long moratorium on Planned Parenthood funding; and the second, stiffer penalties for people caught violating the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (which Richards’s group has alluded to ignoring for richer organ harvests). Obviously, FRC supports both — a fact FRC’s David Christensen made quite clear in an interview with the Washington Examiner. But we also think, and David articulated, that “Strategically, just having a stand-alone vote does nothing to push the issue forward.” For his part, Speaker Boehner says he hasn’t “made up [his] mind” on how he’ll move forward.

FRC Action’s Super PAC, the Faith Family Freedom Fund, will try to help him do exactly that with a new Planned Parenthood ad campaign ratcheting up the pressure on members who lack the courage and conviction to stand for the fundamental right to life. “A shutdown,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) claimed, “doesn’t help us maintain our majority so we can have some influence.”

But what good is congressional control if you don’t use it for something? It’s time for the GOP to stop caring about their own majority and start caring about the majority of victims, whose deaths and dismemberment are being rewarded with a half-billion tax dollars a year. Republican leaders say they want the GOP to “govern.” But now is the time to lead.

Davis Suits up for Court

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis is back at work this week, but it’s anything but business as usual. Fortunately for her, her attorneys at Liberty Counsel understand that the best defense is a good offense. Mat Staver, who heads up Kim’s legal team, is suing Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear (D) for his failure to accommodate Davis’s religious beliefs. Kim, who spent five days in jail for daring to exercise her First Amendment rights on marriage, was forced to make her own accommodation when Kentucky refused to grant one.

After scrubbing her name from the county’s marriage licenses, Davis said she wouldn’t stand in the way of her staff granting them — but doubted they had legal standing without her authorization. Unfortunately, Kim had little choice in the matter, when the courts and her own Governor disregarded her fundamental freedom of religion. “I want the whole world to know,” Kim told reporters [Monday], “if any deputy clerk feels that they must issue an unauthorized license to avoid being thrown in jail, I understand their tough choice, and I will take no action against them. However, any unauthorized marriage license that they issue will not have my name, my title, or my authority on it. Instead, the licenses will state that they are issued pursuant to a federal court order.”

The compromise Davis seeks is a simple one: remove her name from the licenses that bear it. Instead, Governor Beshear seems intent on making an example of Kim, when he could be making an example of Kentucky’s willingness to compromise. Regardless of what the media says, Kim isn’t looking to force her faith on anyone — she’s looking to keep hers in the face of a far more imposing religion: secularism. “This case is far from over,” Mat Staver vowed. “We will not rest until a permanent accommodation is made for Kim Davis.” And, he went on, “lest anyone think what Kim Davis is facing is unique to her, you would be wrong. She is one of millions of people in the public and private sector whose deeply held religious convictions will collide with the opinion of the five Supreme Court justices issues just over two months ago.”

Next week, you can hear from Mat and Kim in person at the Values Voter Summit, where FRC is honoring Davis with its “Cost of Discipleship Award” — an award, unfortunately, that we may have plenty of candidates for if these issues aren’t resolved. To register for VVS, click over to Summit website.

Frank-ly Speaking…

North Korea, China, and Vietnam are all countries the United States routinely condemns for their shoddy human rights records. But unfortunately, on issues like late-term abortion, America has a lot more in common with these regimes than people know. Believe it or not, the U.S. joins these countries in allowing elective abortions after the 20-week mark of a pregnancy. It’s estimated that roughly 13,000 such late-term abortions are carried out in America each year on healthy babies, many of whom could survive outside the womb. Even worse, these abortions are performed without anesthesia for the baby, despite clear scientific evidence that they experience the excruciating agony of their deaths.

For this reason, Congressman Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) introduced the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act earlier this year. The bill passed the House in May, and it awaits a vote in the Senate. At least sixty percent of Americans support a nationwide ban on abortions starting in the fifth month of pregnancy, with few exceptions. In light of the gruesome videos and the admissions out of Planned Parenthood’s own mouth, there is no better time than now for this legislation.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.