Posted on 04/24/2006 6:44:36 PM PDT by RWR8189
THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT has witnessed a stunning turnaround over the past 10 years. A decade ago, on the heels of a 1992 election season dubbed "the year of the woman," the movement was deeply engaged in the fight on Capitol Hill to stop passage of the Freedom of Choice Act, legislation that would have enshrined in law the "right" to abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy for any reason or no reason. With the pro-abortion Clintons in the White House appointing radical abortion-rights advocates to the Supreme Court and rolling back Reagan-Bush era executive orders limiting abortion, the pro-life movement clearly was on the defensive.
Today, the landscape looks very different indeed. Two new conservative jurists sit on the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice John Roberts. Sandra Day O'Connor has been replaced by Samuel Alito. This is a potentially important development considering that O'Connor cast the deciding vote in the Stenberg v. Carhart partial-birth abortion decision and was the author of the "undue burden" test--an absurdly subjective standard that precludes almost any reasonable limit on the so-called "woman's right to choose."
The new Roberts court recently ruled in an 8-0 decision that statutes meant to fight organized crime racketeering could not be used against pro-life protesters convicted of violating trespass laws at abortion clinics. The court also declined to strike down a New Hampshire law requiring that parents be notified before their minor daughters obtain abortions, sending the case back to the circuit court for further review and chastising the lower court for overreaching on its decision overruling the Granite State statute. And another partial-birth abortion case is in the judicial pipeline and headed for the Supreme Court. Unlike Stenberg, which involved a state law in Nebraska, this case is a challenge to the federal law banning the grotesque procedure. Thus the new Roberts court will have the opportunity to revisit the previous ruling and subject O'Connor's "undue burden" test to rigorous constitutional scrutiny.
Moreover, legislatures in state after state have passed laws that enjoy overwhelming public support mandating parental notification for minors seeking abortions and requiring women seeking abortions to be fully informed about the medical facts and health implications of the procedure. In Michigan, for example, Governor Jennifer Granholm, a pro-choice Democrat, recently signed a bill requiring abortion clinics to offer women the opportunity to view ultrasound images of their unborn babies. Pro-abortion groups predictably opposed the measure, whose purpose is to fully inform women of the facts about fetal development before they make the potentially life-changing decision to terminate a pregnancy.
The most direct assault on abortion rights, of course, has come from South Dakota, where the legislature passed and the governor signed a bill outlawing all abortions in that state except for those to save the life of the mother. This puts South Dakota on a collision course with Roe v. Wade.
Clearly, the national tide is running strongly in favor of the pro-life movement. How are we to account for this reversal of fortune?
The polling on abortion since Roe has remained remarkably consistent: Most Americans support reasonable limits on abortion. In Gallup polling since 1973, fewer than 25 percent support the availability of abortion in all circumstances, so-called "abortion on demand." Thus, the position taken by the most extreme pro-abortion groups--the National Organization for Women, NARAL, the ACLU, and others--has the support of fewer than a quarter of the American people. A Zogby poll taken earlier this year found the majority of Americans, in some cases near 70 percent, support pro-life laws currently being considered on the state and national level--from prohibiting taxpayer funding of abortions to lifting requirements that health insurance plans cover the procedure to 24-hour waiting periods and parental notification laws.
The turning point for the pro-life movement may well have been the fight over partial-birth abortion. Most Americans had probably never heard of the procedure before former New Hampshire senator Bob Smith took to the floor of the Senate in 1995 with graphic illustrations of this gruesome procedure that entails a doctor killing a late-term, viable baby at the very moment of birth. Americans were repelled by the procedure and rightly recoiled. Few had suspected that the pitiless logic of Roe would produce this barbarous practice, one the American Medical Association says is never medically necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.
A large number of Americans also recoiled from the defense of a procedure that even some pro-choice advocates likened to infanticide. NOW and NARAL alienated millions of Americans with a morally obtuse defense of the indefensible. Many Americans concluded that if being for a woman's right to choose meant embracing such a hideous procedure, well, they no longer thought of themselves as pro-choice.
Other factors intervened that generated growing support for the pro-life movement. Since the day it was handed down, Roe has been at war with science and technology. Sonograms and ultrasound imaging were unknown in 1973. Today, millions of mothers get their first glimpse of their babies while they are still in the womb. The development of so-called 4-D ultrasound imaging has undercut pro-abortion efforts to dehumanize the unborn, to depict life in utero as nothing but a lump of unwanted tissue. Advances in pre-and neonatal care mean that babies born prematurely who never would have survived at the time of Roe not only survive, but also thrive and become healthy, happy children. Medical progress has made a scientific shambles of Roe's artificial trimester scheme.
The election of a pro-life president in 2000 also helped foster new respect for what George W. Bush calls the "culture of life." In addition to his nomination of constitutionalists to the Supreme Court, President Bush has repealed several of the Clinton-era pro-abortion executive orders. One of his first official acts was to reinstate Ronald Reagan's ban on U.S. foreign aid money going to international organizations that promote abortion.
Finally, the failure of extreme, radical feminism has de-romanticized abortion. The sexual revolution was supposed to free women to seek professional and personal fulfillment. The most extreme forms of feminism rejected traditional marriage, family, and child-bearing as vestiges of an oppressive patriarchal system. Instead, in too many cases, the false promises of radical feminism led to the empty, unfulfilled, unsatisfying lives of Sex and the City. And as women have become better informed about the health risks of abortion--physical and psychological--they have embraced the culture of life in increasing numbers.
For over 30 years, abortion advocates clamored for "abortion on demand," yet young women especially are becoming more pro-life than ever. In January, researchers at Hamilton College and pollster John Zogby found in a national survey that 70 percent of high school girls in the class of 2006 would not consider an abortion if they became pregnant; 68 percent of high school seniors said abortion is always or usually morally wrong; and two-thirds would require parental consent before a minor under 18 could legally obtain an abortion.
Is it any wonder that, as the 2008 presidential election approaches, politicians have noticeably moderated their pro-choice rhetoric compared with the triumphalism of 1992? That year, the pro-life Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, was humiliatingly denied a speaking role at the Democratic National Convention; in 2006, pro-abortion Democrats recruited the late governor's pro-life son, Bobby Casey, to run for the Senate against the pro-life Rick Santorum, much to the fury of the NARAL crowd. How times change!
Marjorie Dannenfelser is president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which mobilizes and advances pro-life women in politics.
There are only a hard core few who can look you in the eye and deny that an abortion does not kill one of the most absolute helpless of us.....
No wonder abortion is losing its appeal, since the appeal is murder and death.....there can never be one good thing that results from an abortion....
For over 30 years, abortion advocates clamored for "abortion on demand," yet young women especially are becoming more pro-life than ever. In January, researchers at Hamilton College and pollster John Zogby found in a national survey that 70 percent of high school girls in the class of 2006 would not consider an abortion if they became pregnant; 68 percent of high school seniors said abortion is always or usually morally wrong; and two-thirds would require parental consent before a minor under 18 could legally obtain an abortion.
Along with everything in the article, there is also the "Roe Effect", first proposed by James Taranto at the Wall St Journal. It's been 33 years since Roe v Wade became the law of the land. So, we have had 15 years of an increasing number of 18 year olds born who can vote one way or another for or against pro-life candidates. But wait. The living ones are probably from "pro-life" leaning homes or families since, ahem, they're alive. With each passing year they vote in increasing numbers.
But the children from the "pro-choice" families are 33 also. Except they were never born and therfore never voted. And even if the pro-choice mother has children, they're further behind in the cycle, so far, voting in fewer election cycles. So their deeply held belief, i.e., abortion on demand, is the seed of their own defeat at the polls. Could this effect have contributed to GWB's victories in 2000 and 2004?
bttt
The irony is inescapable.
I think "Pro Choice" should stay because there are many women and young women being raped, molested. NO female should carry a child in the cases of rape, molestation or incest.
Everyone yelling pro choice aren't even thinking of the horrible things that happen if a female gets pregnant.
oops I meant everyone yelling pro life
Problem solved, then.
We still have a long way to go but all lives that are saved are precious. Unfortunately, NYC is the abortion capital of America with a pro abortion mayor and predominantly pro abortion city council.
The silver lining is that the pro aborts are self-destructing.
Notice how the pro aborts always work religion into it and assume that you must be Catholic if you are pro life.
Ask a pro-choice person this, "Wouldn't it be great if there were no abortions?".
LOL!
I'll spot you that 1%, but the other 99% needs to go.
Is the child to bear the guilt of the father, and pay with her life?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.