The American Spectator

As remnant groups of anti-abortion protestors straggled into Washington DC’s Metro tunnels yesterday afternoon, trying to figure out the foreign subway system and operate the complicated ticket machines with numb fingers, attendees at The National Review Summit were deciding whether it’s all worth it.

“Can politics be hospitable to life?” was the question debated by NR’s first panel as the 40^th annual March for Life came to a close. This year’s march reportedly attracted a record-breaking 500,000 people, who, in spite of freezing temperatures and a president unprecedented in his blatant disregard for the unborn, gathered to show their continued rejection of the Roe v. Wade ruling.

The tone of the panelists was an optimistic one. Encouraging signs for the pro-life movement which the panel noted include: the youth and subsequent energy of today’s pro-lifers, the 40 years of science which further arguments made in favor of life, the fact that the conversation is still a relevant one, legislative victories, and challenges being made to Obama’s HHS mandate such as the Liberty University vs. Geithner lawsuit.

The panel agreed that to change the tide in favor of life, anti-abortion advocates must dispel the myth that abortion helps women. Abortion is not something women want, but is a last resort when coercion and abandonment prove too much. Women should be insulted by the left’s custom of simplifying females to little more than “reproductive units.”

Small victories for life are being made, the panelists noted, but until American culture changes significantly, and generations of “man-boys” are taught to protect and provide, the war on innocent life will continue.