Does the Gay Rights Movement Hold Lessons for Pro-Lifers?
There is no more notable precedent in recent years for an underdog cause toughing it out.
Same-sex marriage advocates lost 32 times in a row before November 2012, when several states then voted in their favor. Yet at no point during that extensive losing streak did they settle for a “compromise,” like civil unions or domestic unions, as their ultimate goal. Neither should we, pro-life Americans, settle for a compromise—in this case, a 15-week abortion ban that (in the words of a prominent presidential candidate) “everybody can live with.”
After all, who is “everybody”? Progressives advocating for abortion at 40-weeks and denying healthcare to babies who survive an abortion? Conservatives who are simultaneously grateful to SCOTUS for effectively nullifying the bad science of 1973 but who still know that life begins at conception? Especially with Roe gone, a 15-week abortion ban that prevents only 3 percent of all abortions and essentially leaves us more pro-abortion than most of Europe is not winning. Winning is going all the way.
After losing referendum after referendum, same-sex marriage advocates didn’t go away; they went for broke. Just three years after winning their first referendum, they achieved total victory on June 26, 2015 when the Supreme Court—wrongly in my opinion—redefined marriage for all 50 states with Obergefell. And, less than a decade later, there is no meaningful political opposition to same-sex marriage. We must learn an essential lesson from our opposition’s success: a series of defeats at the ballot box does not mean ultimate triumph is impossible.
Fortunately, the winds are in our favor. People are waking up and rejecting the pseudo-science that has been shoved down our throats by an unholy alliance between radical activists and Big Pharma. Recently, the UK, Sweden, Norway, France, and other European nations pumped the brakes on drugging and mutilating children. Similarly, medical research reveals with increasing detail what we’ve already known to be true: Life begins at conception. Improved prenatal imaging and technology allow us to watch it with our own eyes.
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No number of weeks picked out of thin air is going to satisfy our adversaries. The anti-life left just wants us to believe that our righteous cause is politically pointless. But we will not go away. According to the latest polling, abortion is the top voting issue for between 5 and 12 percent of voters. There is no doubt this can impact an election in a closely divided America. But there is no way to know for sure if these voters are pro-choice or pro-life, or if, in the end, they’ll vote on another issue come November.
What we know for sure is that killing babies is evil. Due to that conviction, Republican candidates who flounder and fail to act courageously could lose support among pro-life voters. Donald Trump wouldn’t have won in 2016 without SCOTUS taking center stage following the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia. He needs that base to retake the White House, and that base, which resides well outside the Beltway, is nowhere near accepting 15 weeks in a post-Roe America.
President Trump, like many Republicans, disappointed many pro-lifers after Dobbs. But he rightly corrected course by bailing on a 15-week ban. There should not be no such ban, federal or otherwise. Not because such a ban is too pro-life, but because it is not pro-life at all. Let’s trust the truth and go to work.