Right to Life

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Planned Parenthood performed 333,964 abortions while receiving over $500 million in taxpayer funding in one year alone. Policymakers should ensure that no taxpayer dollars flow to abortion providers here or abroad.

Obamacare tramples on Americans’ freedom to choose health care coverage that aligns with their values, forcing many to subsidize life-ending drugs and procedures. Obamacare must be repealed so that families and individuals can have health care that meets their needs and respects their values.

The issue of abortion has roiled American culture and politics for more than forty years, most noticeably since the Supreme Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton effectively legalized abortion on demand at any time during pregnancy.

Many have argued that advocates for limited government are inconsistent in their support for pro-life policies that would protect the unborn. This ignores the obvious point that even the staunchest advocate of limited government still supports the principle that government should protect innocent life.

Others have argued that it is politically damaging for a party or a movement, such as the Republican Party or the conservative movement, to become identified as being pro-life. But thanks in large part to the work of the pro-life movement nearly half of Americans today identify themselves as pro-life and the vast majority of Americans believe that abortion should be illegal in most circumstances in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.

In recent years progress has been made in reducing the number of abortions, which nearly everyone agrees is a good thing, through parental notification, informed consent, and abortion clinic regulation legislation. Thousands of community-based pregnancy centers have harnessed the best of the power and spirit of civil society, providing compassionate counseling, holistic support, and accurate information to women facing unplanned pregnancies.

Constraints imposed by the Supreme Court limit how much progress can be made, but there remain further opportunities to protect the unborn and local, state, and federal elected officials should pursue them.

One area in particular is the conscience rights of taxpayers, employers, and medical providers, who have been targeted in an effort to force them to participate in or fund abortions. Elected officials should push back on these infringements on conscience, and make it clear that so long as “choice” is the law of the land, it must include the choice not to participate in any way in abortion.

Finally, the issue of abortion is not divisive, but the way many Americans choose to talk about it can be. Neither side wins and the American public certainly loses when instead of hearing a reasoned argument they instead listen to vitriolic denunciations and veiled accusations claiming base motives on the part of their opposition. While passions on all sides are high, those committed to their views should strive to maintain a civil and constructive dialogue, working to find common ground and mutual respect whenever and wherever possible.