OPINION:
Like America itself, the pro-life movement is at the start of a golden age, and the reasons overlap. Pro-life advocates, like all others who work to defend American values, rely on the tools that our Constitution provides.
We need freedom of speech, religion and assembly. We need to be able to organize, march and protest peacefully. We need elections that are free and fair and a government that is not weaponized. We need to run organizations free from excessive regulations.
Never in America have these essential tools received a more effective defense than right now, thanks to President Trump and conservatives in Congress and on the Supreme Court.
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The message itself — that children in the womb have the same God-given rights and dignity as the rest of us, that abortion kills these children and harms the mother, father and everyone else — is backed by science, history, the evolution of jurisprudence and human experience.
The people conveying that message are motivated by a faith and love that enable them to persevere through any persecution and all the changes of history and politics.
I was privileged to personally know some of the most pivotal historic figures in the abortion battle: Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a key founder of the abortion industry; Norma McCorvey, the “Roe” of the Roe v. Wade decision; Pope John Paul II; and Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Nathanson and McCorvey both became strong pro-life advocates after having played a key part in unleashing abortion on America. That is the dominant direction of conversions: pro-choice to pro-life, not the other way around.
Mother Teresa taught that we end abortion by helping the mother to love, to give of herself for the child within her. This goes to the heart of a striking contrast I also discussed with Pope John Paul II.
The phrase “My body, my choice” is used by abortion supporters to justify killing others, but Jesus said something similar — “This is my body” — to teach that we, like him, are called to freely give our bodies that others may live.
People respond to this message. Most resources of the pro-life movement exist to help parents find alternatives to abortion. Pregnancy centers far outnumber abortion facilities.
Still, we who reject abortion do not reject those who have had abortions. Rather, our movement embraces them with compassion, mercy and healing.
The pro-life movement is winning because no lie can live forever. We challenge people to look at what abortion is — LookAtAbortion.org — and we challenge its supporters to describe what they defend.
For all their defense of abortion, you will never hear Democratic candidates describe how the procedure is carried out or quote the words “dismember” or “decapitate,” which are in the medical textbooks on abortion.
Our movement also gives voice to everyone from those who have had abortions — for instance, the Silent No More Awareness Campaign — to those who have survived abortion and to the former abortionists who have repented. Nobody can deny their experiences, and abortion supporters can do nothing to blunt the power of those voices.
We now have more power to let this truth shape public policy.
The Dobbs decision, which reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022, is a horizontal rather than a vertical victory. It is not a shift from the federal level to the states, because the battle has always been and always will be at both levels. Dobbs itself, like Roe, arose because of state laws.
It is a shift from the courts to the legislators. The people and their elected representatives, at all levels of government, can now set abortion policy, and the courts no longer have a constitutional reason to prevent them from protecting children in the womb.
Because abortion advocates fear the persuasive truth about abortion, they try to escape robust public and legislative debate and hide behind the robes of justices. Now that they have lost that hiding place, they seek to cut off such debate through state constitutional amendments.
That is not a sign of their strength; it is a sign of their weakness and fear.
Constitutional amendments imposing an unhindered right to abortion discard an established consensus among Americans against late-term abortion and taxpayer funding of abortion, and in favor of parental involvement and other reasonable regulations. That is why these amendments will not stand.
As for abortion “pills,” for all the reasons stated above, they will not survive the relentless march of truth regarding what abortion does to the baby, the mother and the rest of us.
Nor will they survive the power of love by which pro-life Americans give of their own lives that others may live, and that is why the golden age is just beginning.
• The Rev. Frank Pavone is the national director of Priests for Life, president of the National Pro-life Religious Council, pastoral director of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign and Rachel’s Vineyard. He also coordinates the meetings of The 115 Forum, a coalition of national pro-life leaders. Priests for Life is a family of ministries including pastoral and educational work, broadcasting, and political and legislative work through its lobbying organization ProLife Vote. See www.ProLifeCentral.org.
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