Pro-Life Women Leaders Address CPAC Conference: We’re Winning on Abortion
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 19, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Some of the top pro-life leaders in the country addressed the conservative CPAC conference this morning where thousands of pro-life and conservative activists from across the nation are gathering. They had a consistent message for attendees: the pro-life movement is winning the battle on abortion.
Charmaine Yoest, the president of Americans United for Life, told the audience that polling data bears out the fact that the pro-life movement is ahead.
She said the mainstream media "wants to write our obituary" and tell the pro-life movement "America is pro-choice on abortion so just get over it and move on."
"The truth of the matter is that, despite the fact" that abortion is legal, there is much the pro-life movement can do "right now" to stop abortions and put Roe v. Wade into the "ash heap of history," Yoest said.
She pointed to research from University of Alabama political scientist Dr. Michael New, whose data has shown that laws such as parental consent on abortion and reducing taxpayer funding of abortions have saved lives.
"When you include a two parent parental consent statute," Yoest explained, states see a 31 percent abortion decrease among teenagers — something she calls "breathtaking."
She said the "pro-life movement is the human rights movement of our day."
Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life women’s group dedicated to electing pro-life candidates for state and federal office, also spoke at the CPAC forum.
Dannenfelser hearkened back to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and early feminists, women she said understood "you can’t build women’s rights on the broken backs of human beings."
"Roe devalues our ability to legislate protections for every valuable human life," she added.
The SBA List leader applauded how pro-life groups have unified to, at least temporarily, stop the pro-abortion health care bill in Congress. She said the "strength of the pro-life movement has brought together a bipartisan coalition to affect health care reform."
Carrie Gordon Earl of Focus on the Family also appeared at the conference and told forum participants about the success of the Tim Tebow pro-life ad that ran during the Super Bowl.
She said "82 million saw our Tebow ad during the Super Bowl" and noted that the Focus on the Family web site, which had the full story of Pam Tebow’s decision to not have an abortion, increased forty-fold after the ads were shown.
She also noted that "6 percent of folks who watched the ad reexamined their position on abortion. That equates to 5.5 million Americans."
"The goal of the Tebow ad was to begin a new, warmer discussion about Life across the country," Earl said.
Lila Rose of Live Action talked about her investigative videos that have shown how Planned Parenthood has engaged in unlawful and unethical activities like hiding statutory rape and urging teens to avoid parental consent laws.
"We want the unbelieving world to see what is really happening to unborn children [and] open the coffin on abortion," she said. "We seek to monitor abortion groups so the public knows about sexual abuse cover-ups at abortion clinics."
Rose sincerely believes "our generation can finish the work to end abortion in our country" and that the Generation X and millenials will finish off abortion.
Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America, rounded out the panel.
She urged pro-life advocates and college students to "act" and "work every day to reduce demand for abortion in the United States."
She added a note to women to say, "aborting your unborn baby is not freedom. Women think that, but talk to them afterward and they say it wasn’t."
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