It’s good to see that Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah voted in opposition of taxpayer funding of abortion today. Too bad he didn’t vote that way in February with regards to Planned Parenthood. But it’s progress.

(Yes, it can be argued around, but funding the world’s largest abortion provider with hundreds of millions of dollars for “other” reproductive health services is like giving a gambler grocery money for his family so his own cash is freed up for use at the casino.)

UPDATE: More on today’s vote:

The passage of H.R. 3 is an important priority for the right-to-life movement. There is a fairly broad consensus among social scientists and public-health scholars that public funding restrictions are the best legislative tool that pro-lifers have to stop abortion. The reason for this is that these restrictions are largely self-enforcing. Other types of pro-life laws — including waiting periods, parental-involvement laws, and informed-consent laws — effectively require abortion providers to police themselves. Indeed, a 2009 Guttmacher Institute literature review found that 20 of 24 peer-reviewed studies demonstrated that public-funding restrictions led to abortion rate declines.