Kansas GOP Insider (wannabe): April 2018

Monday, April 30, 2018

Congressional Candidate Watkins Prepares for Matrimony with Planned Parenthood Award Winner

I have good news and bad news for fans of Second Congressional District candidate Steve Watkins. The West Point grad and former Airborne Ranger is getting married on May 12th. (Though a website at The Knot devoted to the couple has since been scrubbed, Google handily caches that stuff.)

Normally, I'd simply say, congratulations, and it's about time. Matrimony is awesome! However, there's something voters should know about Watkins' bride. It's something I would want to know as I considered the (overwhelming) number of Republican candidates for Congress in the Second District.



Fong Liu, Watkins' intended, is a Planned Parenthood award winner. Liu is an OB-GYN. When she was in medical school, she served on the board of Planned Parenthood Alabama, and won the 2004 Young Volunteer of the Year Award  (page 21) from the organization.

She earned the honor by being a "patient escort, lobbyist, educator and past president of her local chapter of Medical Students for Choice."

For me, this disqualifies Watkins as a viable Republican candidate for U.S. Congress. It's not uncommon for a candidate to have a spouse with differing political views, but this isn't a soft-sort of difference of opinion about something like tax policy. This shows a dramatic moral departure from what most Kansas Republicans demand from their Congressional candidates.

Looking the other way is unconscionable. Giving a Congressional platform that will allow a rabid abortion supporter access to lobby on behalf of Planned Parenthood is intolerable for me.

Liu is an obstetrician and gynecologist who has lobbied on behalf of Planned Parenthood, an organization that sells baby body parts. This is a woman who walked pregnant women in to meet their babies' executioners.

I can't find anywhere online in which Liu denounces her prior support or reveals a change of heart. If I were a voter in the Second Congressional District, I would need to see an Abby Johnson-sized turn in order to support Watkins' candidacy. I just can't stomach the potential damage of having her rubbing elbows with policy makers if her deepest political principle is ensuring abortion on demand and using taxpayer money to do it.

I don't live in Kansas' Second District, but I am happy to report there are a number of great candidates in that race. Pro-life voters have several choices so they can cast a vote that doesn't mar their conscience in any way.

I sincerely wish Watkins and Liu the happiest of marriages when they enter matrimony May 12, but if Watkins has an ounce of pro-life principle in his body, he will abort his campaign rather than provide his wife an opportunity to advance her favorite cause of abortion through his candidacy.


Side note: Folks should probably take a look at donors to Watkins' PAC and his campaign. I hear there are some politically savvy folks behind him, and this makes me wonder if they knew this and found it acceptable.