Catholic backers of Barack Obama argue that little progress on reducing abortion has been made through electing candidates who are formally “pro-life.”

So, pro-Obama Catholics insist, it matters little that Obama is completely committed to the expansion of abortion rights and to appointing Supreme Court judges who will uphold the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. What counts in terms of saving unborn lives is Obama’s pledge to enact social policies that allegedly will cause fewer women to choose to abort their unborn babies.

That assessment is dead wrong, according to a comprehensive analysis of the effects of pro-life legislation over the last two decades.

“However, an examination of the history of the pro-life movement and a careful analysis of abortion trends demonstrate that these arguments are deeply flawed,” reports Prof. Michael New, assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama and a visiting fellow at the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton. “In fact, the success of pro-life political candidates has resulted in substantial reductions in the abortion rate.”

New’s research demolishes the Democrat claim that reductions in America’s rate of abortion in recent years are a consequence of social policy changes introduced in the 1990s by Bill Clinton.

Instead, the decline in abortions was due to two factors.

One was the passage of an increasing number of incremental restrictions on abortion access by legislatures controlled by pro-life politicians. The other was the development of a more pro-life-friendly Supreme Court as a result of the inclusion on its bench of justices appointed during the Republican presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

“During the past 35 years, the pro-life movement has made some real progress — progress that pro-lifers could at times do a better job of advertising,” New says. “During the 1990s more states enacted parental-involvement laws, waiting periods, and informed-consent laws. More importantly, the number of abortions has fallen in 12 out of the past 14 years and the total number of abortions has declined by 21 percent since 1990.”

Summarizes New, “These gains are largely due to pro-life political victories at the federal level in the 1980s and at the state level in the 1990s, both of which have made it easier to pass pro-life legislation. Furthermore, since the next President may have the opportunity to nominate as many as four justices to the Supreme Court, the right-to-life movement would be very well advised to stay the course in 2008.”

— Tom McFeely