The Wheels of Pro-Life Change on Abortion Turn Slowly, But Keep the Faith 
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by Laura Echevarria
LifeNews.com Editorial Columnist
March 28, 2008
LifeNews.com Note: Laura Echevarria is a LifeNews.com opinion columnist. She is the former Director of Media Relations and a spokesperson for the National Right to Life Committee and has been a radio announcer, freelance writer active in local politics.
*One in four teens has a sexually transmitted disease.
*Pro-abortion members of Congress have requested that funding for abstinence education be cut off.
*The National Education Association allowed the Feminist Majority Foundation to host its leadership conference for young women at the NEA facilities. The speaker? Infamous late-term abortionist George Tiller.
*The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is developing a policy that would require all OB/GYNs to refer patients seeking abortions to abortion clinics—regardless of whether the physician personally opposes abortion or not.
*In Great Britain, the Royal College of Psychiatrists recognizes that abortion can lead to mental illness. They recommend that doctors inform patients of these risks. The same week, the General Medical Council, which governs physicians, said that doctors must separate their personal opinion from their practice. They must let patients know their personal opinion of abortion if they are pro-life and those same physicians must refer for abortions.
*Also in Great Britain, 1,300 women have had five or more abortions. Fifty-four of that number had already had seven or more when they went to have another. Liberal Democrat MP Phil Willis said the statistics showed that there was “a massive failure in the system.” His recommendation: long-term sterilization.
With news items like these over the last two weeks, it would be easy to be discouraged about the advancement of the right to life both here and abroad. Certainly, we all know that pro-abortion groups and their sympathizers need to have their reality checked but they would rather continue on their merry way denying the facts.
But for the rest of us who are not living in a warped fairy-tale, it’s clear that all of the pro-abortion policies in the world have not fixed any of the problems we face today.
Throwing more condoms at teens and sexually transmitted diseases, ignoring the truth of post-abortion syndrome, introducing young people to abortion as some kind of panacea for whatever ails them, building modern feminism on the crumbling foundation of abortion on demand—all of this is patently ridiculous.
But in the world of the pro-abortion activist or sympathizer: you have to be 100 percent, no compromise.
This means no abstinence education, no counseling about abortion and mental illness and you can’t have any reservations about any kind of abortion. Ever. Period. Late-term abortionists like George Tiller are heroes and doctors with a conscience must be made to conform to aging notions of feminism by referring for abortions.
But if we read between the lines, there are bright spots that show we are making headway:
When the Royal College of Psychiatrists can no longer ignore the evidence that abortion—not childbirth—is more likely to hurt a woman emotionally and mentally—we’re making headway.
When a liberal member of parliament in Great Britain recommends long-term sterilization as the key to curbing abortion, it smacks of paternalism and serves as a reminder of sterilization programs and eugenics and we’re making headway.
When the spokespersons for pro-abortion groups get older and ours get younger and, I should add, far prettier—we’re making headway.
When the tired, old sound-bites used repeatedly by those promoting abortion are dusted off and used yet once again—we’re making headway.
And as Americans gradually recognize that abortion is no longer something that magically makes a woman un-pregnant but rather an overt, intentional act of violence that destroys human life—we’re making headway.
Sometimes, the cogs turn slowly but they do turn. In doing so, they change time by advancing it and allowing the past to slip farther behind. Pro-abortion groups are stuck in the past and they seem content to remain there.
Not so with the pro-life movement.
Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. The times change and we change with them.
Onward and forward.
