Editor's note: Penny Nance, CEO and President of Concerned Women for America, coauthored this piece.
The late Chuck Colson once said, “Politics is downstream from culture.” And when it comes to the abortion issue, truer words were never spoken. In fact, five states — North Dakota, South Dakota, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri — are down to just one abortion clinic, thanks to state efforts to protect innocent women and children. But as midterm elections get closer, this sort of progress does not come without major pushback. And there’s one pro-abortion organization particularly perturbed.
Planned Parenthood, the nation’s foremost abortion industry, is pouring millions of dollars into states, hoping to invalidate pro-life laws on the books. In North Dakota, and over a dozen other states, the out-of-state interest groups have filed lawsuits seeking to invalidate commonsense, pro-life laws and impose an unlimited right to abortion that goes beyond Roe v. Wade. Last year, these outside groups convinced a judge in Fargo, North Dakota, to overturn a pro-life law passed by the legislature. The judge ruled that the state constitution contains a “right” to abortion that jeopardizes every pro-life law in North Dakota.
North Dakota voters have an opportunity on November 4 to solidify into law their life-valuing beliefs, through a Human Life Amendment. The proposed constitutional amendment states: “The inalienable right to life of every human being at any stage of development must be recognized and protected.”
It’s important to note that a bipartisan majority of the state legislature put the proposed amendment on the ballot. It will appear on the November Ballot as Measure 1. The effort to pass Measure 1 is being led by ND Choose Life, a coalition of pro-life, pro-family, women’s and religious organizations, including Concerned Women for America of North Dakota. ND Choose Life, the broad-based coalition supporting passage of Measure 1 on the November ballot, recently blasted Planned Parenthood for contributing over $1 million to defeat Measure 1 on the November ballot. Planned Parenthood groups, all of which are based out of state, contributed $1,375,824 – a stunning 96% of all contributions received by North Dakotans against Measure 1, the group opposing Measure 1. Contributions to kill measure 1 were received from Planned Parenthood organizations in California, Illinois, Michigan, Utah, Montana, Vermont, and Minnesota.
Our great country is based on the ability of citizens to make laws that reflect the reality of their convictions. The reality is that North Dakota has one remaining abortion clinic because they have continued to advocate against abortion and for better options for women. The clinic, Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, North Dakota, has such little business that they only do abortions once a week and have to fly in doctors from — yes … you guessed it — out of state. North Dakota citizens, and many others across this country, are ready to reclaim the sacred lives of the most innocent among us. But organizations like Planned Parenthood continue to seek to destroy and overpower the voice of voters with sheer volume of money. In fact, they are so desperate that they must resort to lying about the Measure itself. Planned Parenthood has resorted to scare tactics, telling voters that Measure 1 will affect end of life care and in vitro fertilization, pure misrepresentation as no act by the State of North Dakota can trump these rights recognized under federal law. The worst part might be that they are doing it with American tax-dollars. According to conservative estimates, Planned Parenthood receives $1.5 million dollars of taxpayer dollars a day. Their $1.2 billion dollar a year budget is funded in large part, almost a full third of their annual budget in fact, by taxpayer dollars.
It is time to put a permanent stop to this backwards thinking. Having voters give their tax dollars to the very organization they are working against isn’t “balance,” its tyranny. No more allowing Planned Parenthood to buy its way into our judicial process for the purpose of killing and destroying America’s children and women. Let us continue to fight the giant; like David overthrew Goliath, together lets work to defund Planned Parenthood.