A recent bill to put funding towards helping victims of sex trafficking was halted in the U.S. Senate today.

The bill would have created funding for victims of sex trafficking by the fees collected from sex trafficking predators. This seems like kind of a no-brainer right? So why was the Senate split 55 to 43?

I really don’t like to get political. But, Senate Democrats, you’ve forced my hand.

Democrats (with the exception of Democrats: Heidi Heitkamp, Senators Bob Casey, Joe Donnelly and Joe Manchin III) voted nay on the bill that would be the first in a real step toward helping those violated by the gross injustice of sex trafficking in America. Their reasons? The funding could go toward abortions instead.

If you weren’t convinced before that pro-choice politics are harmful to women, it seems laughable to deny it in light of today. The political agenda of the pro-choice movement has chosen the pursuit of maintaining all funds for federal abortions instead of helping women who have been the victims of horrible injustice, cruelty, violence and slavery within our countries own borders.

Washington had the opportunity to actually step in and legitimately help women who are oppressed, and instead the Senate Democrats slammed the great fist of pro-choice politics ignoring the appeal on behalf of women in need while simultaneously perpetuating the oppression of women and the unborn through funding abortions.

Let’s put aside the fact that women who are trafficked within the sex industry are often forced into abortions by their predators and federal funding and easy access combined with little to no legal guidelines for providers only aid this injustice.

Let’s also put aside the fact that the slogan “every child a wanted child” perpetuates the idea that our value is determined by how other people view us and this only serves to perpetuate the attitude that allows things like sex-trafficking to thrive.

That all aside, today illuminated how political the topic of abortion really is, so much so that 43 Democrats voted against a bill that champions human rights for a group of highly oppressed people because they have so attached themselves to the political agenda of furthering federal funding for abortions.

How can it be that we can, yet again, look into the face of oppression and still turn our backs simply because of a political agenda?

Their miseries philosophic quirks deride, Slaves groan in pangs disown’d by Stoic pride.

–Slavery: A Poem, by Hannah More