The GOP needs to show that the party hasn’t lost its conscience. Candidates need to educate America about the realities of blue-state abortion policy.
SBA Pro-Life America is encouraging Republicans to highlight Democratic extremism in the final stretch of the midterm elections.
The organization’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, wrote a memo to Republican candidates, as noted by Mary Margaret Olohan, saying that “every top-performing message highlights the Democratic candidate’s support for late-term elective abortion.”
“Our message testing in swing races this cycle shows that going on offense to call out Democrats’ extremism on late-term abortion moves the margin 4–5 points towards the pro-life candidate,” the memo notes. Abortion is the human-rights issue of our lives.
On NRO today, John Gerardi writes that for the current Democratic Party, “any barrier to someone getting an abortion — cost, geography, gestational age restrictions, lack of qualified providers — must be overcome for the sake of making abortion accessible.”
In my latest syndicated column, I focus on New Jersey’s vindictiveness toward elderly Filipino women (as a common example) who pray the rosary outside abortion clinics:
The language of intimidation and interference around the new law is a power play to satisfy longtime pro-choice activists in the state that the government Goliath is sticking it to Garden State stalwarts like Christopher Bell and his Good Counsel Homes. With limited resources, the people of Good Counsel save every life they can — women find themselves there asking for help. To whatever extent that keeping pro-lifers away from abortion clinics is a priority for New Jersey lawmakers, practically speaking, it’s merely a bullying tactic looking to shut down a lifeline to desperate mothers.
Michael New’s post earlier this month points out that, “as a matter of public policy,” in Massachusetts today
there are effectively no restrictions on abortion whatsoever. An abortion can be performed at any time in pregnancy as long as the woman consents. A number of pro-life and conservative pundits were rightly disgusted by the largely sympathetic media coverage of this bill and the throng of cheering women surrounding Governor Healey as she signed this barbaric piece of legislation into law. . . .
Abortion policy is becoming more permissive in other politically liberal states as well. Indeed, many blue states have taken action to repeal existing pro-life laws or pass new laws expanding abortion access.
On the subject of abortion, even those who oppose it might prefer to look away, for the same reason others tend to describe themselves as pro-choice: (1) who wants to think about it; (2) a fear that there aren’t better options for some women than abortion. (There are. The Dems want to shut them down.)
I also point out in my column how ridiculously easy it is to get abortion pills. I know many pro-lifers who have demonstrated this by obtaining pills themselves without even showing any proof of pregnancy. We’ve read headlines about men who have obtained them to coerce women into aborting their babies. I write:
I came close to ordering abortion pills this week — just so I’d have firsthand evidence of how terrifyingly easy it is to get them. You go to a website. You check off what you want. You choose your shipping speed — overnight is an option. And then you are told: “Bonus: Get 10 Free Misoprostol Pills with every order.” I could have been buying shampoo off Amazon.
Planned Parenthood in some regions actively encourages women to have stashes of abortion pills on hand “just in case.” I don’t think anyone needed the prompting. Once pills are so easily available, they find their way into purses and medicine cabinets and wherever men who behave badly keep their poisons. It’s bad enough women have been convinced abortion pills on the ready are in their best interest, but feminists . . . are all but turning a blind eye to the ease with which they can become tools for abusers.
Politicians like New Jersey’s governor are benefiting from confusion and ignorance. The abortion industry’s talking points are meant to alarm the nominally pro-choice American. By bolstering the work of the Good Counsels of the world, instead, we might get to a place where we are no longer subject to such miserable politics perverting supposed health care and women’s rights.
Republicans need to show that the party hasn’t irredeemably lost its conscience. They need to educate America about what is really going on. I don’t know that they will. They’ve made it clear that ending abortion in America is no longer a priority of the party — it’s officially out of their platform as of the last presidential cycle. Donald Trump figures he already gave the pro-lifers what they wanted by appointing justices who voted to overturn Roe. There’s more than reason to believe he didn’t really care — and certainly sees no commitment beyond it. The GOP appears to fear Democratic scare tactics, or there would be no need for a memo to tell the truth about the extreme madness afoot.
If the GOP does play up Democratic extremism, the abortion industry will surely turn their abhorrent lies — that pro-life laws harm women — up to a higher decibel. But babies are dying — as we pretend they are merely health problems to be solved — and women are being brutally immiserated in the name of health care and freedom. It’s a perversion of the wonder of creation.
It remains to be seen whether Republicans care enough to weigh in.