The news that Scott Brown opposes defunding Planned Parenthood probably shouldn’t be too much of a letdown for social conservative Republicans. Brown didn’t portray himself as a pro-life candidate. Unlike voters in Alaska who ended up with Lisa Murkowski as their pro-choice Republican senator, Massachusetts voters never had a real pro-life candidate to support. 

Nevertheless, one reason to consider a vote for Scott Brown a pro-life vote was that he could cast a decisive vote against Obamacare, which, among its other faults, would otherwise represent a massive expansion of abortion. The news that he is now opposed in principle to defunding Planned Parenthood (he didn’t state that he would vote against a budget that defunded the organization) doesn’t change the logic of that vote. 

Meanwhile, Tim Carney sees this statement from Brown as a reminder that, for political purposes, the fiscally conservative, socially liberal legislator is a fiction.