Pro-Life Voting Is Working

(This is an article I wrote for a local Christian newspaper, the Christian Times in September.)

Pro-life voters should reject the long discredited claim that abortions have increased under pro-life president George W. Bush. This has been used to argue that voting for a pro-choice candidate with preferred economic policies is just as pro-life or even more pro-life because those policies would lead fewer women to abort.

 

Nonsense-and that argument is absurd.  What if the issue was slavery? What if someone said that the best way to reduce slavery was to vote for a pro-choice slavery advocate because his economic policies would reduce the need for slaves?  Pro-lifers are not content with merely reducing abortion.  We want to end it, not amend it.  Pro-lifers are not going to surrender the rights of a whole class of people (the unborn) just because an abortion candidate’s policies might slightly reduce the level of genocide against them.

 

Pro-life voting is making a huge impact.  The yearly number of abortions has fallen 25 percent in the last 17 years from 1.6 million in 1990 to 1.2 million abortions. There was an eight percent drop during the Bush years from 2001-2006. 1.2 million abortions is alarming, but it is 400,000 fewer per year.  That’s the number of all the people in Reno, Sparks, Carson and Douglas.

 

One of the biggest reasons for the decrease in abortion is pro-life legislation. Political science professor Michael New (link at www.nevadalife.org) says that pro-life legislation, like parental notification, waiting periods, informed consent and others, is a significant, if not the most important, factor in reducing the number of abortions, especially among teens.  When studying the impact of this legislation, he found that among teens, pro-life legislation has reduced abortion by 40 percent!   New also found that when pro-life laws were repealed, abortions went up.

 

The Partial Birth Abortion Prohibition Act has had a huge impact and so will The Unborn Victims of Violence Act.  There’s been a significant change in public attitudes on abortion of about 10 percent toward the pro-life position since the pro-life Republican leadership was elected and made an issue of partial birth abortion.  The public saw what happens during an abortion as the Congress debated it.  The Congressional debate made it relevant to the media and created opportunity for pro-life groups like Nevada LIFE to discuss it publicly.

 

Neither of these bills would have made it out of committee if it was not for the pro-life leadership of the Congress from 1995-2006.  Bill Clinton vetoed The Partial Birth Abortion ban.  Gore and Kerry would have vetoed both.  George W. Bush signed both.

 

These two bills, while not banning any abortions, nevertheless have had a huge impact on public opinion and are laying the foundation for the eventual end of abortion in America.

 

Finally, the Supreme Court is within one vote of overturning Roe and allowing state legislators and Congress to end abortion in America.  The next president will pick two or more justices and the oldest justices on the court are abortion supporters.  Another pro-choice justice will set back years of progress and impact abortion decisions for years to come. 

 

Pro-life voters should not be misled.  Pro-life voting has had a powerful impact on the judiciary, the numbers of abortions and the attitude of the nation.  These pro-life politicians and presidents are laying the foundation for the end of abortion in America.  A vote for a pro-choice president and a pro-choice Congress is a vote for more abortion.