NEW YORK — A new Time magazine cover story contends that pro-life advocates have been “winning the abortion war” through legislative successes, changes in public opinion and new ultrasound technology that shows the unborn baby.
“Pro-choice activists have been outflanked by their pro-life counterparts, who have successfully lobbied for state-based regulations that limit access,” writer Katie Pickert said on the Time website Jan. 3. “The pro-life cause has been winning the abortion war, in part, because it has pursued an organized and well-executed strategy. But public opinion is also increasingly on their side.”
Pickert made her case in the Jan. 14 Time cover story "What Choice?" The magazine cover says: “40 years ago, abortion-rights activists won an epic victory with Roe v. Wade. They’ve been losing ever since.”
“In many parts of the country today, obtaining an abortion is more difficult than at any point since the 1970s,” Pickert said.
Fewer doctors are willing to perform abortions, and the number of abortion facilities has declined from 2,908 in 1982 to 1,793 in 2008. The venue for abortions has shifted from hospitals to specialized facilities, which are easier targets for pro-life advocates and legislators.
In Pickert’s reckoning, pro-life legislative successes include various requirements, such as mandatory counseling, ultrasounds and waiting periods for women considering abortion; parental-notification requirements for minors; and new regulations on what facilities and abortionists may perform abortions.
In 2011, a record 92 bills that regulate abortions passed in 24 state legislatures.
Pickert cited surveys that report about 75% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in some or all cases, but most Americans also support state regulations, and only 41% of Americans self-identify as “pro-choice.”
“In a dynamic democracy like America, defending the status quo is always harder than fighting to change it,” she said.
She said there is a “generational divide,” with young pro-abortion-rights feminists not joining the feminist organizations that advanced legal abortion. However, she said these activists have an advantage over their elders in being more adept at Internet activism and being more relatable because of their age.
Pickert’s article said that pro-abortion activists are expanding their work beyond the term “pro-choice,” which some of them say is limited and outdated. They are now joining legal abortion to a broader agenda that includes child care, health insurance and economic opportunity, as well as contraception access and homosexual rights.
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“The pro-life cause has been winning the abortion war, in part, because it has pursued an organized and well-executed strategy.” Yeah, well, that and the fact the pro-life cause has the TRUTH on its side.
“[P]ro-abortion activists are expanding their work beyond the term ‘pro-choice,’ which some of them say is limited and outdated. They are now joining legal abortion to a broader agenda that includes child care, health insurance and economic opportunity, as well as contraception access and homosexual rights.” Yeah, well, that’s not likely to be effective because it does NOT have the truth on its side.
“Be of good cheer!” (John 16:33)
http://www.MerryCatholic.com
Now is not the time to relax our goal of overturning Roe vs Wade just because we have America moving in the right direction. Rather now is the time to work harder at achieving that goal. All those babies that have been lost to abortion are in heaven encouraging us to forge ahead. Our blessed Mother Mary is at the head of that cheer leading team to souls with the God standing behind them all.
THANK GOD FOR THIS GREAT CHANGE
And thus the wolf puts on the sheep’s clothing by calling it “Women’s Healthcare” when it destroys the health of women.
Interestingly, the Time editors further carried the idea that the issue is a “women’s rights,” rather than life-or-death issue, by heading the sidebar accompanying the primary story, “Has The Fight For Abortion Rights Been Lost?”
Um, pro-lifers are winning? Don’t think so.
I really wish that someone in the media would be brave enough to run the March for Life that happens every January in Washington, D.C. and now in CA. I understand that there are about a half a million people that March each year! That should be covered by the media no matter what the topic of protest is! I wonder if this Pickert is finally going to be the brave mainstream reporter to cover that kind and size of a protest truthfully or if there will be another.
I am finally able to send my oldest of 7 at 14 years old. I expect that these protests will just keep growing as all of the abortion advocates abort their children and all of us that disagree have children that reach the age that can join the March.
Someday some brave reporter that has the nation’s news ‘stage’ will speak out and cover it objectively. It is only a matter of time since it will only grow from here forward.
When you have the truth on your side, it’s only a matter of time.
To say we are winning the abortion war is really a bad joke. Yes, the number of surgical abortions may be going down, but this has been more than made up for by the gigantic increase in the number of very early chemical abortions caused by hormonal contraceptive means of birth control. For example, millions of doses of the abortifacient Plan B Emergency Contraceptives are sold annually (including to teenagers) each dose of which is capabled of killing a newly conceived baby. Of course Planned Parenthood and the Guttmacher Institute do not consider babies, killed between fertilization and implantation in the uterua to have been aborted, although in some cases they might concede there has been a “miscarriage.” Sadly, Catholics also are badly informed on the issue, which has led to reports that over 90 percent of Catholic women in their fertile years have used hormonal contraceptives, most often without being informed of how often this form of birth control causes an early chemical abortion.
I made a sarcastic reply when I first saw this TIME cover being touted by all the pro-life groups on Facebook. Because TIME is a magazine of liberals for liberals, I think its declaring that abortion rights are losing is nothing more than a “call to arms.” As long as we have legalized abortion, whether by surgical means or pharmacological means, pro-life is not winning. We cannot relax our guard, just because TIME declares us to be winning.
Pickert’s article,
If 75% of american’s think abortion should be legal in some or all cases
according to your comments or stats than America still lacks the integrity
to support the natural right to life. I know States laws are making a
difference in saving lives, but as long as the United States government
continues to fund planned parenthood to the tune of more than 400 million
dollars of our tax money, we will always be fighting an uphill battle.
planned parenthood does not need gov’t money,but politics, the death
peddlers and the party of death are winners in the convincing enough
to get the job done. America is brain dead because of government.
Matt from Seattle
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