The abortion lobby is under pressure, and the stress of it is starting to show. They are grumbling and lashing out at their own supporters.
Take for example, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. The Associated Press and Politico reported this week that the longtime champion of “abortion rights,” is under fire from NARAL Pro-Choice America following her most recent interview on abortion with Roll Call’s Melinda Henneberger.
In response to probing, thoughtful questions from Henneberger about the reality of abortion in America, Pelosi said that women should not use abortion as birth control and that she’s “not for abortion on demand.” The abortion lobby clenched their fists in protest, calling the remarks “particularly disappointing and ill-advised” and falling “well short” of NARAL standards.
Pelosi’s faux-pas came just a week after Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, was lambasted for suggesting “abortion rights” is just not a big issue for millennials. Liberal groups like CREDO called for her resignation, ashamed that she would cast doubt on the status of abortion as a main issue.
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The abortion lobby is also antsy and restless. Planned Parenthood, the majordomo of the abortion industry, just broke a 100-year tradition of staying out of Democratic primaries in order to endorse Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. Many of their supporters were most displeased by the endorsement and took to Planned Parenthood’s Facebook page to show their outrage.
For the honchos of the abortion industry, it comes down to this: there is no room for error. When even the strongest advocates display a moment’s hesitation or reservation about abortion on demand, they must be kept in line.
Pro-life activists should pay close attention to our adversaries in order to take advantage of these moments and flip the media’s usual script on abortion. Putting pro-life leaders and candidates on the offense has been the bedrock of the pro-life movement’s electoral strategy for the last few years.
Now it seems to be working.
While a civil war begins on the Democratic side of this issue, the GOP presidential field is unified in its support for legislation such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and protecting the conscience rights of taxpayers by stopping taxpayer funding of abortion and abortion businesses. We’re not talking about empty promises made on the campaign trail, either. After all, Congressional Republicans just spent months creating a pathway to defunding Planned Parenthood, a longtime pro-life goal, through the reconciliation process.
The only missing piece is a pro-life president.
As Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser wrote at The Federalist at the start of the New Year, Planned Parenthood ought to replace the corks on their celebratory bottles of champagne:
“As 2016 begins, Planned Parenthood is still feeding on the U.S. treasury. But Congress, with courage and conviction, has shown the way forward. A year from now, with a pro-life president and congressional majorities, the smug merchants of death will be off the dole.”
When that happens, the divisions within the abortion industry will only widen. In the meantime, the cracks now appearing in their usual monolithic façade show we’re on the right track to victory.
