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Has the Pro-Life Movement Failed? Not By a Long Shot, Ask an Abortion Doctor
Life News ^ | 1/22/09 | Austin and Cathy Ruse

Posted on 01/22/2009 11:51:41 AM PST by wagglebee

LifeNews.com Note: Austin Ruse is president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute and Cathy Ruse is the senior fellow for legal studies at the Family Research Council. This article originally appeared on The Westchester Institute for Ethics & The Human Person's website.

Imagine yourself a typical abortion doctor, working anywhere in the country. You're a late middle-aged man who never gets to know your patients and doesn't care to. In the beginning you saw yourself as a hero in the fight for women's rights, but now years later as you travel a circuit of clinics, your unknown patients lying prone on table after table, the luster of your work has faded.

Every day you walk through a phalanx of protesters praying for you to stop your work and trying to persuade your patients to walk away. A few doors away or across the street sits a pregnancy help center that has a new sonogram machine which is opening a door to your secret world and turning women against you.

And now there is a new threat, that among the young women in the waiting rooms are undercover pro-lifers with hidden microphones recording clinic staffers saying things that will be aired later on the O'Reilly Factor.

Your landlord doesn't want you as a tenant. Your state legislature passes new laws every year that hurt your business. Your home phone is unlisted and your medical colleagues shun you.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. On the day the Supreme Court handed down the decisions Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the New York Times and the Court itself said the abortion issued had been settled. Of course, nothing in our public life is as unsettled as the abortion issue.

Every year tens of thousands of Americans march in protest on the anniversary of Roe. The Catholic scholar Michael Novak has said that more people have marched in this march for this cause than any other in American history.

Roe established by judicial fiat a national rule of virtually unlimited legal abortion, and the fight against this monolith is not unlike an insurgency against an authoritarian regime:

Roe brooks no dissent and admits no compromise; it will not be moved from power; there is little opponents can do to topple the regime. Yet the rule of insurgencies is that if they do not wither away they will eventually win. The insurgency of the pro-life movement has done much more than stay alive. It has thrived.

The result of this iron rule of Roe is that a thousand pro-life flowers have bloomed. It seems pro-life initiatives spring up almost spontaneously at kitchen tables and dorm rooms all across the country. A woman who suffered from abortion decided to tell her story in public and a movement was born and now thousands more speak out. A young man got an idea about prayer and fasting and cooked up 40 Days for Life, a movement that is sweeping the country. Pro-life messages are emerging in the least likely of places, like popular radio and even Hollywood. And yes, hearts and minds are changing.

The result of this is that in poll after poll Americans say they want significantly more limitations on abortion than the Roe regime allows.

Notably, that opinion is shared by women. In an extensive survey of women conducted by the Center for Gender Equality, a group run by former Planned Parenthood President Faye Wattleton, a majority of women stated that abortion should either never be permitted or should be permitted only for cases of rape, incest, or where the woman's life is endangered. When asked to rank 12 issues in order of importance for the women's movement, the women ranked "Keeping abortion legal" next to last, less important than any other goal but "More girls in sports."

Roe was never based on law, but on the opinion of elite policy makers including those on the Supreme Court. The broadness and deepness of the pro-life movement is changing all that and Roe will eventually be reheard and will be overturned. Both sides know that.

Go listen to an abortion proponent speak. They are beleaguered. They are surrounded. They are defeated. The pro-life movement is coming at them from every direction.

Is the pro-life movement defeated? Not by the longest of shots.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abortion; abortionists; moralabsolutes; prolife
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Excellent commentary!
1 posted on 01/22/2009 11:51:44 AM PST by wagglebee
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To: cgk; Coleus; cpforlife.org; narses; Salvation; 8mmMauser

Pro-Life Ping


2 posted on 01/22/2009 11:52:39 AM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: 185JHP; 230FMJ; 50mm; 69ConvertibleFirebird; Aleighanne; Alexander Rubin; ...
Moral Absolutes Ping!

Freepmail wagglebee to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.

FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
[ Add keyword moral absolutes to flag FR articles to this ping list ]


3 posted on 01/22/2009 11:53:16 AM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

What about FOCA?


4 posted on 01/22/2009 11:55:13 AM PST by diamond6 (Is SIDS preventable? www.Stopsidsnow.com)
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To: wagglebee

There is one undeniable truth that Roe vs Wade couldn’t change. Where babies come from.


5 posted on 01/22/2009 11:55:46 AM PST by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: wagglebee

Abortion doctors are the bottom feeders of the medical profession.


6 posted on 01/22/2009 11:55:59 AM PST by lady lawyer
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To: wagglebee

Great!!


7 posted on 01/22/2009 12:01:01 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: wagglebee
My new niece or nephew is currently 13 weeks and one day old, and is about 6 centimeters CRL.

This is the fundamental reality that the abortion-pushers steadfastly refuse to acknowledge.

8 posted on 01/22/2009 12:02:16 PM PST by mvpel (Michael Pelletier)
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To: diamond6
What about FOCA?

FOCA, just like Roe itself, will further injure the legitimacy of the US government, but to the pro-life movement it will be a potent catalyst.

9 posted on 01/22/2009 12:07:45 PM PST by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
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To: Squantos

ping!


10 posted on 01/22/2009 12:11:58 PM PST by hiredhand (Understand the CRA and why we're facing economic collapse - see my about page.)
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To: wagglebee
This is one of the most uplifting commentaries on this subject that I've ever read. And following CatholicVote.com's new ad, I'm feeling pretty good about things, Obama notwithstanding. Check out the 41-second ad at: http://www.catholicvote.com/.
11 posted on 01/22/2009 12:36:30 PM PST by StonyMan451
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To: wagglebee

If abortion is legal, the key is to turn young women from having them and young med students from performing them.


12 posted on 01/22/2009 12:47:24 PM PST by Tanniker Smith (Teachers open the door. It's up to you to enter. Before the late bell. When I close the door.)
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To: wagglebee

One thing that gets me about this junta moving on washington is a feeling that this is all politics of the past, no matter what the punk-in-chief tries to claim. Their ideas are worn and threadbare, there executives washed up retreads. They are losing, they can feel it, and they can’t figure out why they feel that way, given the power they’ve just been able to grab.

It will slip through their fingers like sand.


13 posted on 01/22/2009 12:53:23 PM PST by ichabod1 (Change is not a destination, Hope is not a strategy)
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To: annalex
FOCA must be resisted at all costs. It seems that our Bishops are standing up to challenge better than ever, Obama, the Bishops and FOCA, which is encouraging.

Also, Obama can't sign anything that hasn't passed Congress. It would seem to be a steep climb for FOCA to pass the Senate since many of the Dems there ran as pro-life candidates. If necessary, possibly the Bishops of individual Senators could threaten excommunication if they support such heinous legislation? Unless I'm missing something, this isn't something that Obama can do all on his own.

14 posted on 01/22/2009 12:56:36 PM PST by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
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To: wagglebee
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose LIFE, that both thou and thy seed may live. - Deuteronomy 30:19
15 posted on 01/22/2009 12:58:21 PM PST by Faith
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To: AbeLincoln
I agree. Here's another uplifting commentary from the editors of the National Catholic Register, We Won't Go Away.
16 posted on 01/22/2009 12:59:30 PM PST by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
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To: Servant of the Cross

I agree, I am simply saying that no legislation, no matter how inhumane, can stop the pro-life movement.


17 posted on 01/22/2009 1:18:36 PM PST by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
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To: hiredhand

Seconded! Very uplifting!


18 posted on 01/22/2009 2:09:56 PM PST by Crolis (Kill your television!)
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To: annalex

Prolifers, remember the words of our new President, “YES, WE CAN!!”

Let’s stick together!!

We’ll never give up!!

Let’s Roll!!

“A nation that kills its children is a nation without hope.”
John Paul II


19 posted on 01/22/2009 2:11:10 PM PST by victim soul
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To: annalex

Prolifers, remember the words of our new President, “YES, WE CAN!!”

Let’s stick together!!

We’ll never give up!!

Let’s Roll!!

“A nation that kills its children is a nation without hope.”
John Paul II


20 posted on 01/22/2009 2:11:17 PM PST by victim soul
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