Pro-life leaders are saying there is a
nationwide surge in optimism driving the wave of pro-life bills already
introduced in the first month of this year’s state legislative sessions. The nearly 50 new bills include bans on
dismemberment abortions and any procedure after 20-weeks gestation, fetal
burial requirements, and bills that would defund Planned Parenthood (PP).
“With the election of a pro-life
president, with all of the gains that we made across the different states with
last year’s election, I think we are very optimistic in passing laws that
protect the unborn baby and their moms,” says National Right to Life
Committee’s Ingrid Duran Samantha Gobba of Christian
Headlines.
In 2016, lawmakers approved 60 new
pro-life laws across the country, and leaders expect more of the same focus
this year … simply with more energy.
Eric Scheidler, director of Pro-Life
Action League, told Gobba the surge of pro-life bills is a reaction to years of
“elitist cultural bullying.” He pointed
to President Trump’s choice of pro-life advisers: Vice President Mike Pence,
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, and Attorney General nominee Jeff
Sessions. “It isn’t the person of Trump,
but it’s the whole phenomenon and all the people around him and the people he’s
appointed. That’s really what’s driving
this optimism,” Scheidler said.
So far this year, legislators in Iowa,
Virginia, New Jersey, and Florida have introduced 20-week abortion bans. Lawmakers in four states – Arkansas, Missouri,
Texas, and Rhode Island – have filed bills that would ban dismemberment
abortions. And the Kentucky and Iowa
legislatures will consider bills to defund abortion giant PP.
Laws restricting abortion already have
momentum. The pro-abortion Guttmacher
Institute reported last year that 288 bills (more than one-fourth of all pro-life
laws passed since 1973) came after 2010.
“That’s when Obamacare was rammed
through so cynically,” Scheidler said. “A
lot of reason behind the pro-life laws was an attempt to reign in some of the pro-abortion
measures of Obamacare.”
Until 2015, most pro-life measures
addressed medication abortion, private insurance mandates, and parental
involvement. Coinciding with the release
of undercover videos revealing PP’s involvement in the fetal tissue trade,
lawmakers began focusing on abortion facility regulations and the humanity of
the unborn child.
Some states have only one or two
pro-life bills introduced so far this year, while others have a whole bunch of
them. In Missouri, lawmakers filed
dozens of bills targeting abortion – 22 for which Missouri Right to Life
expresses support. The pro-life bills
include a ban on abortions due to an unborn baby’s sex, race, or a diagnosis of
Down syndrome; five bills addressing the sale or donation of aborted baby body
parts; and a bill that would extend greater protections to embryos conceived
through in-vitro fertilization.
In Iowa, where the most recent
pro-life law (a parental notification bill) passed in 1996, state senators have
introduced half a dozen pro-life measures.
They include a bill that would classify unborn babies weighing at least
350 grams (0.77 pounds) as a “person,” and a bill that would make dealing in
baby body parts a felony. After they
reclaimed the Senate in November, Iowa Republicans now have a trifecta … holding
the state House, Senate, and governor’s seat for the first time in 20-years. Iowa Right to Life director Jennifer Bowen
said the future looks bright for pro-lifers in her state. Iowa is “radically behind” other states in pro-life
laws, she said, adding lawmakers now have a chance to close the gap. “Planned Parenthood lost. Completely lost,” Bowen said. “I don’t think the reality has sunk in yet,
that voters responded very, very strongly in Iowa. … In the short term, we’re
seeing a lot of loud, histrionic hysteria that is quite distracting, but at the
end of the day they have to realize at some point that this abortion-on-demand
and without apology is not where Iowa wants to go.”
Some pro-life bills may be too
aggressive to survive a court challenge. Those most likely to succeed will mirror
measures passed last year that avoided court interference, Denise Burke with
Americans United for Life told Gobba. “When
we’ve got this great opportunity, we’re going to pass the tried and true,
things that we know are constitutional and effective,” she said.
Aggressive measures include an Idaho
bill to classify abortion as murder, a Texas bill removing abortionists’ medical
licenses, and an Indiana bill that defines human life as beginning at
conception … which would make abortion illegal.
So much pro-life momentum is
especially remarkable after last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt,
which struck down a Texas law requiring abortion centers to meet ambulatory
surgical center standards and abortionists to have hospital admitting
privileges. Pro-lifers at first feared
the decision would have broad implications for regulating the abortion industry,
but the focus changed in November. “I
think there’s increasing confidence among many pro-life allies and legislators
that Hellerstedt may have a limited shelf life with the potential new Supreme
Court,” Burke said. “So we’re seeing a
lot of what we’ve seen in the last couple of years, but just with renewed vigor
and enthusiasm.”
But not all states got a green light
in November to push through pro-life bills. Oregon Right to Life director Gayle Atteberry
told Gobba state leaders “laid down the gauntlet” and pledged to fight the
Trump Administration’s pro-life agenda in the state. Oregon Right to Life is promoting a few
pro-life bills, including one that would ban late-term, sex-selective abortions.
It’s also fighting a bill that would mandate
insurance coverage for contraception and abortions and notification for
religious organization employees that their contraception and abortions won’t
be covered. Despite strong opposition to
the pro-life cause, Atteberry remains optimistic: “God is working here, and
we’re not going anywhere.”
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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