Today, hundreds of thousands of Americans will gather on the National Mall to participate in the annual March for Life, commemorating the 42nd anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, which invented a constitutional right to abortion-on-demand.
Today is primarily a time for somber remembrance. A time to reflect on the enormous cost of abortion by remembering the more than 56 million children who have lost their lives since that fateful day in 1973 and the countless women who still suffer from abortion’s physical and emotional tolls.
But the March is also a time for celebration. Because of the hope it presents and the truth it professes, the pro-life movement–against legal, political and cultural odds–has been able to reorient the hearts and minds of an entire generation.
Every day, more than 2,000 pregnancy centers provide counseling, medical services and continued to support to women facing unplanned pregnancies, empowering them with life-affirming options. Across the country, courageous state policymakers continue to pass a record number of commonsense policies protecting women from a dangerous abortion industry and restoring respect for the dignity of both mother and child in law.
Because of those tireless efforts, more and more Americans consider themselves “pro-life” – particularly millennials who will make up a considerable portion of the March today.
Despite the many hard fought victories in law and culture, challenges persist. An ever-encroaching government is trampling on the conscience rights of pro-life Americans and Obamacare continues to find new ways to send taxpayer money to the abortion industry. Embarrassingly permissive laws on late-term abortion have left U.S. policy at odds with the majority of Americans and extreme among developed nations.
Today, the House of Representatives will vote on the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. The bill would prohibit any federal funds from being used to pay for elective abortion or health benefit plans that cover abortion, including those offered through Obamacare exchanges.
That’s a good and long-overdue step to ensuring that the federal government cannot continue to entangle tax dollars with coverage for life-ending procedures. But it cannot and should not be the last step for this Congress.
The vast majority of Americans – including nearly 60 percent of women – support legislation that would limit dangerous and gruesome late-term abortions after 20 weeks. That’s five months, or halfway through pregnancy, when children can feel pain and women are at increased risk for the negative effects of abortion. Because of national leaders’ failure to advance protections for women and unborn children, the U.S. is currently one of only seven countries – among them North Korea and China – in which elective abortion after 20 weeks is allowed.
Protecting the health of women and the lives of unborn children who are so close to viability is a policy the American people overwhelming support and our collective conscience demands.
The pro-life movement is a winning cause not because it always politically popular or easy, but because it’s a cause built on an undeniable truth: that every human being – from the moment of conception – is a person with inestimable value, dignity and the right to life. We cannot continue to deny that right to youngest and most vulnerable children in our society simply because they are small, dependent, disabled or simply inconvenient.
As today’s March concludes, we look forward to the day when the law respects the dignity and value of every human life. It will be a victory won one heart and one policy at a time and sustained by the determination and courage that has characterized the pro-life movement’s efforts for decades.
