In each of the last two congressional election cycles, the issue of abortion has figured mightily in several key congressional campaigns. Much to the chagrin of the abortion crowd, their so-called “pro-choice” candidates have, much more often than not, lost to their pro-life opponents.
In 2002, the abortion industry spent millions on several key Senate races designed to strengthen pro-abortion control of the Senate. Not only did the industry win only one of the contests where it had invested its support, the pro-abortion side lost control of the Senate.
In 2004, liberal interest groups again invested millions in the failed candidacies of a pro-choice presidential candidate and a host of congressional candidates, only to see more congressional seats move to the pro-life side and the re-election of a hated (by them) pro-life president. To add insult to injury, “moral values” was listed in election exit polls as the number-one reason why voters voted for conservative candidates.
Because they are slow learners, or perhaps because they are desperate, the people who run the abortion industry are again preparing to tilt with the abortion windmills in the forthcoming congressional elections. I’m inclined to think it’s because they are desperate.
Both the American Life League and Cybercast News Service reported recently that at the liberal “Take Back America” Conference held in June in Washington, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s new president, Cecile Richards, announced her intention to use Planned Parenthood’s massive resources, including its employees, to “swing the vote in 2006.” At the conference Richards, daughter of former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, said:
Planned Parenthood has 860 health centers around the country in 50 states. We have more members, more employees and staff, than the 50 state Democratic parties combined. We have the potential to swing the vote in 2006, 2008 and 2010, and that’s a lot of power. So the question is what are we going to do with it? The answer is: We’re gonna use it. We’re gonna marry our current reality as the largest reproductive health-care provider in this country with our opportunity to be the largest…advocacy organization in this country.
Part of the “current reality,” Richards neglected to mention to her audience was that Planned Parenthood is a tax-exempt 501c-3 organization that took in $272.7 million in government contracts and grants last year, accounting for approximately 31 percent of the organization’s total income. Another “current reality” is that if Richards actually does what she promised the Internal Revenue Service will be obliged to revoke Planned Parenthood’s tax-exempt status. And who knows what will happen to all those government grants?
For the past several years the bombast from the abortion industry has become increasingly more shrill as pro-abortion politicians and other apologists for that industry bemoan the potential demise of their sacred cow, the Roe v. Wade decision. They are becoming desperate, and for good reason.
Although they say they speak for the American mainstream, polling data suggests they don’t. Americans are becoming more pro-life, less likely to believe the pro-choice spin, and more likely to send avowedly pro-life candidates to Washington and to state capitals.
The shift in political power has resulted in an ideological shift on the Supreme Court, the great protector of Roe. For the first time in a very long time, the Court is no longer dominated by liberal activists. There is now actually balance on the Court, four liberals, four conservatives, and one swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, who did not vote with the majority in the awful Stenberg v. Carhart partial-birth abortion decision six years ago.
Add to that the fact that it is not inconceivable that the oldest member of the Court, 86-year-old John Paul Stevens, might provide the most pro-life president ever another opportunity to replace a liberal justice with a conservative. Richards and her cohorts have every reason to be desperate.
Ken Concannon is a freelance writer from All Saints Parish in Manassas, Virginia.
(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
