By Jonathan Rogers
Jonathan Rogers
On Monday, in Part One we talked about how some of the bigger recent pro-abortion debacles hinged on secrecy that provided cover for flagrantly unethical behavior (here).
According to a Grand Jury report and covert videos taken by a pro-life organization, abortionist Kermit Gosnell and Planned Parenthood, respectively, got away with utterly shocking behavior until their actions became known to authorities and to the public. What I’ll talk about today is how this contrast with the exact opposite phenomenon on the pro-life side of the aisle.
To go back to my college professor’s point about how civil society promotes better behavior, where there are stronger social ties between individuals and groups, there will be stronger pressure to engage in moral behavior.
The Right to Life Movement runs on the fuel provided by thousands of local groups working for a common purpose. And that is the common defense of innocent human life, a goal that pro-life President George W. Bush described as being “welcomed in life and protected in law.”
Pro-abortion groups are top heavy with barely discernible grassroots. They exert influence because they have deep pockets and because they are the favorites of the national media organization.
The strength the National Right to Life Committee possesses is a reflection of vibrant local organizations. Face-to-face interaction and personal relationships are the coin of the realm in local communities across the nation.
The most obvious difference, as you would expect, is at the state level where our Movement’s superior numbers and organization cannot be hidden by a hostile media or spent into submission.
The pro-life movement is highly volunteer-driven and locally organized.
Our greatest activists are soccer moms and fathers who talked to their neighbors and friends who pass along action alerts to a few dozen individuals on their contact lists.
Social connections through the shared identities of living in the same town or state provide a stronger medium for advancing the pro-life message. The strong social ties they forge reverberate within their communities and hold their legislatures accountable, very often because the legislators are their neighbors!
Which is why the Right to Life movement has always seen some of its best and brightest work done on the state level.
Every year states pass dozens of pro-life laws which share the basic truth of the pro-life position and educate citizens while saving lives. And this year is shaping up to be a banner year indeed.
While pro-abortion groups are embroiled in scandal, pro-lifers are winning important victories. Nine states have introduced Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Acts, others are working to pass bills to “opt out” of abortion coverage in the state insurance exchanges that were mandated by ObamaCare, still others are passing ultrasound laws, while clinic regulation laws are experiencing a renaissance in light of what was reported about Gosnell’s abortion clinic.
The pro-life full court press on state legislatures was of course in part made possible by last November’s elections, which saw even greater gains for pro-lifers at the state level than at the federal level.
My conclusion? That well organized pro-lifers create a positive peer pressure effect in their communities that can protect against the secret and ultimately lonely concealment off the pro-abortion position.
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