This weekend the country will be begin its 40th year of living under Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the landmark Supreme Court decisions that legalized abortion, sparking deep division in the nation between those who seek the right to protect life at all its stages and those who support a woman’s right to choose to terminate the life of her own child.
A third of my generation is gone because of abortion. Did I lose my best friend without even knowing it? Do men and women of my generation lack spouses who were aborted? Are brothers and sisters missing their siblings that never got the chance at life? We will never know.
An unplanned pregnancy is difficult and emotionally and physically stressful. But there are so many resources for women and families facing these crises. They don’t have to choose abortion. They can walk away from the facility and into a pregnancy resource center or a maternity home. Thankfully many women do just that. In fact, a few of them are featured in a new video from Students for Life about how my generation is the most pro-life generation in history.
The African-American woman who chose life after her doctors said she should have an abortion. The little girl with the big brown eyes who should have been aborted. The woman whose four siblings were lost to abortion. The dad who doctors said should abort his daughter. These are real people who faced abortion and its aftermath. They are survivors and heroes.
Those are the faces of the good news. The numbers are also encouraging. Businesses that make a profit on abortion are on the decline. According to Planned Parenthood’s latest report, the abortion giant’s private contributions are down 27 percent while its profits are down just over 70 percent. Planned Parenthood has also been steadily losing affiliates and clinics since the mid-90s, closing 30 clinics last year alone. The bad news is that government funding for Planned Parenthood compromises nearly half of its income.
The Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm, reports that states enacted a record number of pro-life laws in 2011 — 92 laws in 24 states, more than triple the 23 enacted in 2010. On the federal level, the House of Representatives voted to defund Planned Parenthood early last year after undercover videos showed several employees helping sex traffickers to cover up their crimes against underage girls.
With families struggling to pay the bills and put food on the table, why is the government funding the abortion industry to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars per year? Of course, abortion supporters say that the money abortion providers receive does not pay for abortions. But former Planned Parenthood workers, like Abby Johnson, Planned Parenthood’s one-time Employee of the Year, admit that’s not true and that all the money abortion providers receive goes into one pot and pays for abortions. Recent polls have found that over 70% of Americans do not want their tax dollars paying for abortion.
But the tide is turning and America is waking up. According to Gallup, this generation of young people, unlike previous generations, is pro-life. We realize how much we have lost to abortion — and continue to lose. It’s up to us to change the course of this nation, and we can do it in 2012. We are pro-life, we vote, and we’re in this fight to win it.
Kristan Hawkins is the executive director of Students for Life of America. For more, visit TurnTheTide2012.com.