The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Texas gave good reason for celebration for the hundreds of thousands who will arrive in Washington on Monday for the 39th annual March for Life.
The Court upheld last week the constitutionality of a new law in Texas requiring that abortion providers provide ultrasound exams and that women listen to the physician’s description of her unborn child and to the heartbeat before deciding to abort.
The law, signed by Gov. Rick Perry in May, was blocked by a federal district court in August which argued that the law impinged on free speech rights of abortion providers.
Now Texas may become not just the nation’s largest creator of jobs, but the nation’s best protector of human life.
Ultrasound images of unborn children are turning the abortion game around and it is why abortion providers and organizations such as Planned Parenthood that promote the barbarous abortion regime are so on edge about it.
There is a wide range of estimates on the percentages of woman who intended to abort that change their mind after seeing an ultrasound image of their child, but all these estimates show they have a major impact.
My own anecdotal surveys from crisis pregnancy centers around the country that I work with indicate anywhere from 62% to 95% of women who intended to abort change their mind after seeing these images.
Focus on the Family reports that 84% do. Focus on the Family also operates a generous program called Operation Ultrasound through which they provide ultrasound equipment and training to crisis pregnancy centers that apply.
According to Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is challenging the Texas law, “If this decision stands, it opens the floodgates for other states to insert themselves in an inappropriate way between doctors and women seeking medical care.”
What can you possibly conclude from a movement that labels itself “pro-choice” that opposes ensuring that women who make a decision as serious and grave as abortion have as much vital information as possible before making that choice?
Good information is the oxygen that enables good decision making.
The answer to the question is that the movement that labels itself “pro-choice” is not about promoting choice at all. It is about promoting abortion.
It is why the so called “pro-choice” movement opposes efforts to better provide women - disproportionately young, poor, minority women – with information that raises their awareness and understanding of what they are doing.
We might recall the impact that television images had after Hurricane Katrina when the reality of poverty in America suddenly was out there for all to see. No one could turn their eyes from this ugly and unpleasant truth.
Including our politicians. Our nation’s capital has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation. Any member of congress can see it by just walking a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol Building. But suddenly, when the images were on national television, the politicians were out there pontificating.
An ultrasound image of an unborn child is the same type of media event. Suddenly the mother-to-be sees what she didn’t know or perhaps knew and wanted to avoid confronting. That she is the bearer of human life and that she is close to murdering that very life that she chose to help create.
According to Americans United for Life, 460 pieces of legislation were considered in state legislatures around the nation last year.
The forces promoting ignorance are losing and light is shining through.
It is reason for optimism that increasingly more Americans are grasping that for a free country to function, we need informed and responsible citizens.
We need appreciation that our choices matter. And that the most important choice, as we learn in Deuteronomy, is to choose life.
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