This week Arizona struck another blow in the fight to protect the unborn.
According to the pro-abortion lobby, the new legislation, signed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, works to "creates barriers, increases costs and denies access to services and providers to women who seek abortion care."
In my opinion, that is good news.
This legislation is a long time in coming, and it's full of plain-sense steps -- the sort of guidelines even those who allow for abortions should be able to get behind: a one-day waiting period, parental notification for minors seeking abortion, doctor's disclosure about the risks and alternatives.
But even changes this straightforward had been stonewalled by Democratic former Gov. Janet Napolitano, recently promoted to lead the Department of Homeland Security, who vetoed the same legislation when it reached her desk.
To her mind, it seems, we should make people wait before purchasing a hunting rifle, but dare not ask the same consideration before taking an unborn life. Our children can't be given aspirin from the school nurse without our sign-off, but who even needs to know about the impact of a life-altering abortion?
Pro-choice Democrats have only offered knee-jerk resistance to these conversations, which reminds me just how important it is that we elect Republicans to the highest levels of our state leadership. This November we will have gubernatorial elections in both New Jersey and Virginia. In both states there's a real chance to replace Democratic governors with Republicans.
Right now New Jersey is one of the worst states for protection of the unborn and does not even have any sort of ban on the cloning of embryos for research. Both of these states desperately need more legal protection, and with one election a pro-choice governor could block any forward movement and send us reeling in the opposite direction.
Next year, 37 more states will elect governors, half of those seats currently held by Democrats. With a pro-choice president merrily overturning the work of the last administration, it's easy to keep our eyes on Washington and think the next big fight will be our rematch in 2012.
But it isn't. In a year and a half we'll have a fight on our hands which we can't afford to lose.
It's up to us to ensure that in every seat, at every level, we put the right people in place who will stand and put pen to paper to protect our next generation. We've never needed Washington to set the tone for us, and we're certainly not going to start now. We'll fight for our children, born and unborn, in our own homes, our own states. In 2010, let's give them something to remember.