Editor’s note. This appeared on Page Two of the January digital edition of National Right to Life News. I hope you are enjoying every one of the 40+ news stories, commentaries, president’s column, and statistics and are sharing them with friends and family.
We are two days out from the annual March for Life which brings together in one place hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers from around the nation and the world. Remember that when the Washington Post and/or the Associated Press recycles their customary “thousands” attended gibberish. (The diminution used to be “tens of thousands” flooding the Mall on the way to the Supreme Court, but the Post and the AP couldn’t tolerate being off by “only” a 100,000+.)
The theme for the 2019 March is “Unique from Day One: Pro-Life is Pro-Science.” And science and technology (properly employed, of course) are magnificently pro-life.
The ultrasound that is misused to enable the abortionist to target his helpless little victim is the same technology that makes it possible for an unborn child’s first photo to be her ultrasound. (Technology is, as someone once wisely pointed out, “a useful servant but a dangerous master.”)
As we look ahead to 2019 and beyond, we understandably focus on Congress, the control of which is now split between Republicans (stronger in the Senate) and Democrats (who have the majority in the House of Representatives).
But there is much more going on that does not garner the headlines that makes pro-life spirits soar.
The aforementioned science/technology continues its unintentionally pro-life mission of making visible what not so long ago largely invisible: the unborn child. I cannot tell you how many times “baby” makes its way into the discussion—in commercials, in movies, and in videos, to name just three example. While that will never soften the impenetrable heart of the committed abortion activist, it is a day-in, day-out message to everyone else that “one of us” is bidding his or her time until they are in their mother’s arms.
And then there is the indisputable evidence that younger Americans do not buy into the more-abortion for less-reason paid- for-by-the public posture of the Democratic Party. According to Calvin Freiburger, a new survey conducted by the Polling Company Inc./WomanTrend released Monday of Americans aged 18-34 found that
Seventy percent of respondents favored some form of limits on abortion, with 42 percent directly against legal abortion and another 28 percent backing greater restrictions than are consistently on the books today, such as requiring parental notification and banning late-term abortion and taxpayer funding of abortion.
Fifty-six percent also opposed selling abortion pills online or administering them without a physical exam, and when informed that Federally Qualified Health Centers dramatically outnumber Planned Parenthood locations, 48 percent of millennials said they’d rather tax dollars go to the former (just 17 percent still preferred Planned Parenthood).
The importance of this latter point, in my opinion, cannot be exaggerated. Planned Parenthood receives as much puff coverage, as much unadulterated (and undeserved) praise, as any corporation in America. But…in the last month….
Of all publications, in December the New York Times ran a story which illustrated how terribly PPFA affiliates treat their pregnant employees. We learn from Natalie Kitroeff and Jessica Silver-Greenberg that “a dozen lawsuits filed against Planned Parenthood clinics in federal and state courts since 2013 accused managers of denying workers rest periods, lunch breaks or overtime pay, or retaliating against them for taking medical leave.” That is independent of settlements settled out of court.
As Katie Franklin explained, this latest scandal highlights three important truths about the nation’s larger abortion “provider”:
- Planned Parenthood endangers pregnancies, not pregnancy help centers.
- Planned Parenthood is dependent on taxpayer dollars, not pregnancy help centers.
- Planned Parenthood is inaccurately named, not pregnancy help centers.
Put another way, PPFA and the truth are like two ships passing in the night. Put still another way, Planned Parenthood specializes in attributing to others (in this case pregnancy help centers) what they, in fact, are guilty of.
“Although not exactly shocking,” Franklin wrote, the Times article “brings to light a few important points about the hypocrisy of the abortion industry and the lobbyists and politicians who defend them.”
One other incredibly important asset our Movement and unborn children enjoy going forward: pro-life President Trump and a fortified pro-life majority in the United States Senate. As the headline to another Times story observed, “Trump’s New Judges Are Everything Conservatives Hoped For And Liberals Feared.”
The overarching point of Zoe Tillman’s piece is “The U.S. Supreme Court hears a relatively small proportion of cases each year. Putting judges on the federal appeals courts — courts that set precedent for federal district courts and can only be reversed by the Supreme Court — has been, and continues to be, a top priority for the White House and Senate Republicans.
In other words his subject is not the Supreme Court, where President Trump has already nominated and had confirmed two justices: Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. That is hugely important, but not the only important judicial selections.
I hope you take a few moments to read Jacki Ragan’s inspiring answers to questions I asked her about what’s ahead in 2019 that appears on page five. NRLC’s State Organizational Development Department director reminds of a foundational truth about our Movement. We are only as strong as our grassroots pro-lifers make us and that each of us can, and must, make a difference.
“It is an exciting time to be involved in the RTL movement and to be a part of saving lives, educating people and, quite literally, making a difference,” Jacki told me. “ With new tools at our finger tips, the technology we have, there is absolutely nothing that cannot be accomplished. “