Don’t Count the Pro-Life Movement Out

Don't Count the Pro-Life Movement Out

Another pro-abortion president and his Freedom of Choice Act will not stop the fight to save lives.

Progress made by the pro-life movement at the state level in recent years faces virtual elimination if one policy endorsed by President Barack Obama becomes law. The result will be what no one wants: more abortions.

Abortion opponents are a resourceful bunch. When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state laws banning or regulating abortion 36 years ago, pro-lifers went to work to find the weaknesses in those two court rulings. And, you'd better believe that Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton have plenty of flaws you can take issue with.

But pro-lifers were not detoured. They started passing state laws to test the parameters of Roe and Doe. And since 1973, the Supreme Court has upheld many of them: Restrictions on public funding and non-physicians performing abortions. Parental involvement, women's right to know and waiting period measures. And in 2007, a federal ban on a particularly gruesome abortion method: partial-birth abortion.

These laws do more than test the legal limits of Supreme Court scrutiny. They save lives!

Americans United for Life — a leading pro-life legal organization — reports that in the past 15 years, Mississippi has adopted 15 pro-life laws. As a result, abortions in that state have dropped by nearly 60 percent. All but one abortion clinic in the state has closed.

One researcher has determined that such incremental, life-affirming laws are a significant factor in the nearly 20 percent decrease in abortions nationwide during the 1990s.

Passing these laws is a slow, tedious and sometimes painful progress, but it's one that makes a difference to the moms and babies whose lives are spared the pain and death that comes with abortion.

Unfortunately, more than 200 pro-life laws are being targeted by pro-abortion groups that have more than a sympathetic ear in our new president. Obama has promised to sign a measure called the Freedom of Choice Act, which would eliminate virtually every federal, state and local measure that limits or restricts abortion.

That means no restrictions on public funding of abortion, no parental-involvement or informed-consent requirements, and a re-emergence of partial-birth abortion.

There's no reason to doubt Obama's promise; his pro-abortion voting record and policy positions pave the way for him to sign such legislation into law.

But don't count the pro-life movement down and out. It has withstood devastating Supreme Court rulings and pro-abortion presidents before. And it will again.

Contact: Carrie Gordon Earll
Source: CitizenLink
Source URL: http://www.citizenlink.org
Publish Date: January 27, 2009
Link to this article:
http://www.ifrl.org/ifrl/news/090128_4.htm