In the budget fight over last weekend, Democrats and Republicans showed that they were willing to compromise on spending.
And, as it normally goes with political compromises, the final deal that was ironed out has angered many on the Right and the Left.
If you ask conservatives, the $38 billion in cuts are a drop in the bucket, the equivalent of trying to put out a massive house fire with a water gun.
If you ask liberals, the cuts are borderline draconian, resulting in the loss of vital services for the young and the elderly.
Both sides disagree vehemently, but are unified in the belief that the budget isn’t all that great.
Some talking heads have declared the budget deal a victory for John Boehner and House Republicans. It may be.
At this point it’s too early to tell. But while Republicans may gain politically through the compromise, one segment of the population lost out big in the compromise: The unborn babies.
According to reports, in last-minute meetings between the president and John Boehner, the speaker said that funding for Planned Parenthood needed to be stripped from the budget.
The President responded that he couldn’t agree to that.
Ultimately, as you probably know by now, funding for Planned Parenthood was left in the budget. 
The President didn’t blink.
John Boehner did.
Democrats were only willing to cede so much on the issue of abortion. Republicans, on the other hand, put political expediency over babies’ lives.
I know.
Planned Parenthood has received federal funds for years. But just because an injustice has existed for years, especially one in which the endgame is dead babies, doesn’t mean we should just accept it as the status quo.
Democrats were willing to shut the government down over Planned Parenthood funding.
Republicans were not.
Republicans lost perspective.
Sometime politics obfuscates the issues. So I want to break it down for Speaker Boehner.
Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America.
Abortion is the destruction of a human being, an unborn baby, usually by tearing it apart limb from limb.
A decision to keep funding for Planned Parenthood without a fight is, in essence, a vote in favor of killing babies.
I understand the arguments of why Republicans shouldn’t take the principled stand to defund Planned Parenthood.
I know the Left would demagogue the efforts.
But at some point principles should trump politics. And when babies’ lives are on the line, that point has been reached.
Republicans have to decide now whether or not abortion is an important issue to them.
As tough choices and tough compromises loom in the near future, the Republican leadership in the House has to figure out how far they’re willing to go to protect life, how much political capital they’re willing to expend to protect babies.
This is not an intellectual discussion with purely hypothetical consequences.
This is reality in which babies are being dismembered compliments of our tax dollars.
It’s time to choose sides.
Are congressional Republicans in favor of life, no matter the political cost? Or are they willing to sacrifice babies at the altar of political expediency?
Last week we got our answer as John Boehner refused to take the courageous stand on abortion.
He failed.
Now it’s our job to be the conscience for Congressional Republicans and hold them accountable.
(Elijah Friedeman, author of The Millennial Perspective, is the grandson of Janis Friedeman, Great Bend. His columns can also be heard on his father, Matt Friedeman’s, radio program on American Family Radio.)