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- Repealed the pro-life “Mexico City Policy,” making groups that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.
