Rantz: Gov. Bob Ferguson defunds treatment for babies born addicted to drugs, funds millions for abortion

Washington Democrats and Governor Bob Ferguson claim to champion the vulnerable, yet they have once again revealed their disturbing priorities.

Ferguson, in a move of pure political pandering, has pledged to backfill federal funding cuts to Planned Parenthood. At the very same time, a one-of-a-kind center dedicated to saving the tiniest victims of our state’s drug crisis is shutting its doors forever, thanks to budget cuts Ferguson and his party oversaw.

The message this sends to the people of Washington is as clear as it is terrifying: under the leadership of Bob Ferguson, the right to an abortion is more sacred than the right of a newborn to survive drug withdrawal due to a parent who became hooked because of the drug legalization Democrats created.

Money to terminate pregnancies, not support newborns

At a July 9 press conference, Ferguson vowed to cover about $11 million to Planned Parenthood, which it likely will lose due to the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” He said it would come from the Washington Healthcare Authority, a fringe state agency most recently in the spotlight for promoting a so-called “safer drug supply,” which would provide opioids to addicts.

At a time when the state struggled to fill a $16 billion shortfall, why are taxpayers funding the nation’s largest abortion provider? And at what cost? Ask the staff at the Pediatric Interim Care Center (PICC) in Kent.

For decades, the internationally-renowned PICC has cared for drug-exposed newborns. These are infants born into agony, trembling with withdrawal from the fentanyl, meth, and heroin their mothers used. PICC was the only private, non-profit facility of its kind in Washington, a literal haven that nursed these fragile babies through the hell of their first days. It only cost about $160 a day to care for these children.

Now, it’s gone.

Concurrently? Washington state’s newborn drug exposure rates are almost double the national average, according to KING 5 report. The numbers are so strikingly high because Washington Democrats both decriminalized drugs and prohibited the state from removing children in the care of drug-addicted parents.

Alarming priorities from Bob Ferguson

The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Ferguson will move mountains and drain our funds for Planned Parenthood, a national, well-funded organization whose primary business is ending the lives of children. Yet, for the babies who make it through pregnancy and are born into a world of pain, he and his party offers nothing but a closed door for a local facility. He champions “choice” but denies a chance at life for infants who had no choice in their suffering.

This isn’t just a budgetary discrepancy. It’s a moral declaration. It tells you everything you need to know about the soul of the modern progressive movement in our state. Their compassion is selective, their priorities are political, and their allegiance is to a radical ideology, not to people. They will fight to the death for the right to terminate a life but won’t lift a finger to save one that’s just begun, especially one that serves as an inconvenient reminder of the devastating social consequences of their soft-on-crime, soft-on-drug policies.

Bob Ferguson is showing you exactly who he is. He is a politician who believes your money is better spent funding abortions than it is comforting a baby shaking from fentanyl withdrawal.

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