Louis Brown, executive director of the Christ Medicus Foundation, whom I mentioned here last week, had this to say about the legislation more broadly:

Though imperfect, H.R. 1 . . . presents the opportunity for a historic pro-life victory by protecting pregnant women and unborn children from the injustice of abortion. H.R. 1 protects life by defunding Planned Parenthood, takes away hundreds of millions of dollars from an abortion industry that has devastated poor and minority communities, and stands up for the life, health, and dignity of pregnant mothers and unborn children. The legislation also takes important actions to support medical care for the underserved by funding state provider taxes that are vital for many urban and rural hospitals.

Much more work still needs to be done to secure better life-affirming, dignified medical care for the poor and vulnerable in America. However, to protect the health care of all Americans we must first protect the right to life of all Americans. If our country fails to protect the most basic right, the right to life, in health care, all other human and civil rights will collapse. If we fail to protect the right to life in health care, those persons who are materially poor, living with disabilities, and racial minorities would be most at risk.

If our country can continue to advance in protecting the right to life, the tide of justice and dignity for the unborn and pregnant mothers will spark a new era of dignified medical care and an expansion of health care civil rights for all in which every patient is cared for and protected from conception to natural death.  If we more firmly protect the right to life in health care, our country can begin a new period of loving and caring for the sick and suffering and respecting and protecting their dignity.

H.R. 1’s defunding of Planned Parenthood is the beginning of a new time in America in which, by God’s grace, a pro-life health-care system will be built to care for, heal, and restore all our brothers and sisters, especially the poor and vulnerable, who are most in need.

Being a country that is more protective of the vulnerable, as Louis says, starts at the very earliest stages. The congressional Planned Parenthood divorce signals hope for a renewed American commitment to life.