Abortion Foes Find a Friend in Donald Trump. But for How Long?

New York Times (May 6, 2017): Opponents of Abortion Warily Measure Progress, by Jeremy W. Peters:

President Trump has proven himself to be a friend of abortion opponents.  Left unclear, though, is whether he has any influence in the battle over the roughly $500 million Planned Parenthood receives each year.  Moderate Republicans are not lining up to end support of Planned Parenthood.  Even the bill passed in the House of Representatives last Thursday only reduces funding for Planned Parenthood for one year and leaves the organization eligible for money to support family planning.  The Senate will prove more of a hurdle in any attempt to defund Planned Parenthood.

Conservative Republican attempts to revive interest in completely defunding Planned Parenthood have now taken the form of vilifying the organization for focusing more on defeating Republicans than on supporting women.  The position is hopelessly out of step with American opinion.  The majority of Americans believe the group should receive public funding for its work.   

Christian conservatives, whom President Trump hopes to reward for supporting him in 2016, are becoming wary of his attempts to prove that he is a friend of their causes.  He has, for example, refused to end workplace protections for LGBTQ employees put in place by President Obama in 2014, although last March he did make the protections harder to enforce.  Christian conservatives are upset that the lives of those forced by Obama's executed order not the discriminate against LGBTQ employees are being "destroyed by the demands of the sexual identity activist class . . . ."  Trump may not be up to the task of coming to the aid of groups who hold such extreme and unyielding perspectives.