The American Spectator

Forty years ago today, the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in the United States. Since January 22, 1973: 

• More than 54 million babies have been aborted in the U.S. alone.

• The rate of abortions in the U.S. has become one of the highest in developed countries, averaging 1.1 million abortions a year.

• Approximately one in three women has had an abortion by age 45.

Yet the number of abortions in America has declined slightly in recent years, and Kristan Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life, said at a recent Heritage Foundation event, “The tide is turning.”

Reports indicate that today’s young people are more pro-life than ever. Terming them “the pro-life generation,” Hawkins declared, “The energy of the pro-life movement is in its youth.”

“Technology is on our side,” Hawkins said. “We’ve seen the ultrasounds of our siblings, Googled ‘abortion’ and seen the bloody images, and sat with a friend as she cried about her abortion.”

Abortion numbers are down in the U.S., but government funding for abortions is up. According to Planned Parenthood’s new annual report, the nation’s largest abortion provider performed a record number of abortions last year, and received 45 percent of its revenue from taxpayer-funded government sources.  

Barack Obama has earned the title of “the abortion president” for his unprecedented measures supporting the destruction of innocent human life. He has contentiously appointed such notable pro-abortion advocates as Rahm Emmanuel, Tom Daschle, Hillary Clinton, Elena Kagan, Kathleen Sebelius, and countless others to posts of power. He signed a bill that overturned the 13-year long ban on funding abortions with tax dollars and cut funding to abstinence education programs. He’s also been busy peddling the United States’ anti-life message around the globe. 

Obama’s abortion record is shocking, but it should come as no surprise from the leader who, (from Life News): 

• Voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act four times.

• Repealed the pro-life “Mexico City Policy,” making groups that perform and promote abortion eligible for U.S. foreign aid funds.

• Increased Planned Parenthood’s government funding from 30% to nearly 50%, sending more than $487 million in taxpayer funding to the country’s number one provider of abortions.

• Refused to sign an emergency budget, putting funding for the military at risk, until Planned Parenthood funding was included in the budget.

• Pushed through Obamacare, mandating that all Americans fund abortion and contraception, with no exceptions for religious institutions or religious individuals who are vehemently against abortion and contraception.

Not so fast, BO. A poll from earlier this year found that the majority of Americans are pro-life, and the opinion polls that report otherwise don’t mean much when one learns that the phrasing of the poll question sets the results up for inaccuracy. 

Legislators are behind life, too. From ABC News:

Americans United for Life released its annual “Life List” this week, celebrating states with the most restrictions on abortion as being the most protective of human life. The nonprofit named Louisiana as America’s “most protected” state and Washington as its “least protected.”

A law passed last summer in Louisiana now requires women to wait 24 hours between the time they undergo mandatory ultrasounds and the time they can have abortion procedures. This law also requires that the fetal heartbeat be made audible unless the woman specifically requests otherwise. Unless the woman is a victim of rape, and has reported it, she must listen to a description of the ultrasound.

Just three weeks ago, Texas defunded all Planned Parenthood clinics in the state – many of which do not perform abortions — for being affiliated with an organization that advocates them.

Another encouraging sign for the pro-life movement is Planned Parenthood’s frantic retooling of its public image. “They’re moving away from ‘abortion,’” Hawkins said. “Always say pro-abortion. We are ‘anti-abortion.’”

Anti-abortion demonstrators will descend on the nation’s capital this Friday in the hundreds of thousands for what is predicted to be the biggest March for Life ever. The crowd is expected to rival Obama’s Inauguration Day gathering, sending a large, loud and clear message to the abortion president about overturning Roe v. Wade.