The pro-life movement has turned a corner.

For decades, pro-lifers have marched on Washington. Now pro-lifers are marching in capitals across the country.

For decades, pro-lifers have been ignored or mischaracterized by reports in the major media. Today, pro-lifers are only more determined because of the attacks, and it’s the media whose reputation has suffered.

Take San Francisco, for example.

Last year, the city’s pro-lifers organized its first Walk for Life.

City officials made it known that, in this city of free speech, speaking out in favor of the unborn was not appreciated.

Perhaps police didn’t know what to expect from the first Walk for Life, or perhaps they were taking their cues from City Hall. At any rate, the Walk for Life’s impressive 7,500 participants were met by pro-abortion protesters who lined the streets jeering, yelling obscenities and pelting protesters with eggs.

It can be frightening to protest under those conditions. But it didn’t scare many away. It may have done the opposite and spurred people to action. This year, the crowd doubled in size to 15,000 — and police protection tripled.

 “It’s not just an event” anymore, said organizer Dolores Meehan. “It’s a movement.”

Indeed it is. One sign that the Walk for Life has become a movement is its impressive diversity. “We’ve got new energy on our side,” said activist Star Parker, a black urban activist from Orange County, Calif. “We will be silent no more!”

“We are the only real Democrats,” Democrats for Life activist Carol Crossed told the crowd. “We don’t pick and choose, and we don’t shun the vulnerable in our mission, the vulnerable unborn.”

Feminists for Life and Hispanics for Life joined black churches on the streets of San Francisco, so that the protest’s very make-up made it clear that a cross-section of Americans are adamant about their opposition to abortion.

Meanwhile, protesters from all around arrived in a rainy Washington, D.C., to march for life on a muddy Jan. 23. Last year, snow storms and subzero wind-chill temperatures didn’t keep marchers away. This year, the rainy forecast didn’t, either.

The signs that pro-lifers have turned a corner are everywhere. With the nomination of Sam Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court, it looks like the court is better poised than ever to at least overturn the tortured logic of Roe v. Wade, the court’s decision that in effect legalized abortion in all nine months of pregnancy, for any reason.

Today, polls are overwhelmingly against abortion. Some 86% of Americans polled say abortion should be banned when the unborn child’s heart begins to beat. That happens within the first few weeks of pregnancy.

Many states have already capitalized on the shift in momentum.

NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) Pro-Choice America just released its annual report. It gave 19 states “failing grades” for being too pro-life. These included Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, they praised 11 states for supporting abortion, including: Alaska, California, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

Pro-lifers should take this opportunity to press their case in those states and others.

If homosexual “marriage” activists, for instance, had this kind of bi-coastal massive show of support and a potential new supporter on the Supreme Court, what would they do? They would move decisively to make lasting legislative gains.

Pro-lifers can do the same. We suggest that states capitalize on the success of partial-birth abortion bans and start banning the dilation-and- evacuation method of abortion. Just a description of the procedure is enough to remind people of the truth about abortion: In the extremely common procedure, the abortionist inserts a pliers-like instrument through the cervix into the uterus, and tears the baby out limb by limb.

Education and information on abortion is vital. Passing on almost any information about abortion is like dropping a pebble into a pond. The more people hear the truth about what abortion is, the more pro-life people there are. The more pro-life people there are, the more people will be out there educating others.

The ripples will widen until, one day, the country puts the horror of abortion behind it — and we won’t need to march anymore.