In my report in the latest issue of National Review on Ohio pro-life activists’ campaign against a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would enshrine abortion as a fundamental right, I noted that the pro-life side is being outspent by abortion advocates. One reason for that is out-of-state money.
Some of that money is coming from Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker. Of a piece with the billionaire Pritzker family’s use of its wealth to advance the cause of transgenderism (on which I wrote last year), Pritzker has started a national abortion-advocacy organization. According to the Associated Press, Big Think America, the organization, has already funded the pro-abortion yes-vote side in Ohio. Similar efforts in Arizona and Nevada have also benefited from its largesse.
There are additional unsavory elements to Pritzker’s effort to use his wealth to impose Illinois-style leftism on other states. In doing so, he is benefiting from a self-indulgent double standard. Two years ago, as the Wall Street Journal editorial board observed, Pritzker signed a bill banning judicial campaigns in Illinois from accepting out-of-state money. A federal judge found it unconstitutional in May, but not before it had served its purpose in the 2022 midterms, helping liberal judges in their elections.
Abortion advocates often cast themselves as the underdogs, fighting the powers-that-be. Nonsense. Their cause finds favor across the commanding heights of our culture and politics. It has plenty of money, from Pritzker and others. And its advocates are not content merely to maximize abortion in their own states; they wish to see other states follow suit. But for all this, pro-lifers have one thing abortion advocates never will: the truth about the unborn. May that truth ultimately prevail.