The number of abortions is dropping, and not just in states with laws protecting unborn babies and their mothers. Across the country, abortions have dropped by an average of 12 percent since 2010, protections or not. What great news!
The question is, why?
People who make their living aborting babies say better access to contraception caused the drop so we don’t need laws protecting babies. We don’t need parental consent or waiting periods. We don’t need to tell women a chemical abortion can be reversed or protect babies from being dismembered in the womb.
That’s what pro-abortion activists say. I say there’s another reason.
Between 2011 and now, states passed 267 laws protecting unborn babies and their mothers. That’s more than were enacted in the entire previous decade. And what happened right before then? Pro-life candidates triumphed in the 2010 elections.
Their election gave pro-lifers greater influence and a louder voice. And that’s key: even when pro-life bills didn’t pass, were vetoed or were struck down by the courts, and even though some states didn’t budge on pro-life issues, abortion stayed in the spotlight. What abortion really means—what it really does to developing babies and to women—was highlighted in the national conversation.
Laws regulating abortion and where they’re done are forcing abortion facilities to close. According to Operation Rescue, the number of surgical abortion facilities dropped from 713 in 2009 to 551 in 2014—down from 2,176 in 1991. Some doctors who used to do abortions are now speaking out loudly against it. A 2011 survey showed that 14 percent of ob-gyn doctors were willing to do abortions. Just three years earlier, that number was 22 percent.
More good news: abortion is also dropping because teen pregnancy is decreasing. The last official figures, from 2010, showed the lowest level in 30 years—57.4 pregnancies per 1,000 young women ages 15-17. The peak, in 1990, was almost 117 per 1,000. And the rate continues to fall.
I hope and pray this means teens are figuring out that “hooking up” is a road to nowhere. Despite what TV scriptwriters would have us believe, 68 percent of boys and 67 percent of girls between 15 and 17 have never had intercourse, according to Abstinence Clearinghouse. And according to a 2002 survey, “93 percent of teens believe they should be given a strong message about abstinence.” Pro-life student groups are making big strides, too. And because they’ve had to fight for their right to organize, a harsh light has again been turned on what “choice” really means to the abortion crowd: choosing life isn’t allowed.
New technology like ultrasound has provided a window to the womb in ways never before imagined. An entire generation’s first baby picture was taken in the womb!
[tweetthis]Pro-abortion activists don’t want you to think about what abortion really is.[/tweetthis]
Think about the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act just passed by the US House. How many photos of 20-week-old babies in the womb did you see on the news? At 20 weeks they can’t be seen as anything but babies. Think about the gruesome but necessary conversation that led to the passage of Kansas’s ban on dismemberment abortion. Pro-abortion activists did their best to censor that conversation. They don’t want people to truly think about what abortion is. They don’t want people to see what they actually do to women and their babies.
But we see and know what they do. Even if traditional media hide the truth about abortion, social networks like Facebook and Twitter give us a powerful voice in today’s version of the public square.
I have no doubt that your support of life has made a difference. Every pro-life vote, every call to a legislator, every donation to the cause, every conversation, post and tweet in favor of life have kept the pressure on. Keep it up!
Right now, that means pushing your senators to follow the House’s example and pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act that protects babies from 20 weeks gestation. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is introducing the Senate bill today.
Keep our pro-life momentum going. Tell your senators to back him up and sign on as co-sponsors.
Leave a Reply