Halfway through 2021, states have already passed more Pro-Life protections than any other year on record since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in all 50 states. This exciting news was highlighted in a recent report from the anti-Life Guttmacher Institute. Titled “State Policy Trends at Midyear 2021: Already the Worst Legislative Year Ever for U.S. Abortion Rights,” the report shows how concerned Big Abortion is with the growing and increasingly effective grassroots Pro-Life activism.
The Guttmacher report states, “More abortion restrictions—90—have already been enacted in 2021 than in any year since the Roe v. Wade decision was handed down in 1973.” While at the federal level, the radically anti-Life Biden Administration has worked to dismantle the strong Pro-Life protections enacted under Pro-Life President Trump, states are working to ensure the protection of preborn babies. State legislators are responding to the Pro-Life values of the silent majority, and the explosion of Pro-Life legislation indicates that the American people do not want the anti-Life agenda forced on them by the radical elites in Washington, D.C.
As scholar Michael J. New noted about the Guttmacher report, there is much to learn from the recent Pro-Life legislation. The Guttmacher findings show that the year with the second most Pro-Life laws passed at the state level was 2011, a year in which there were 89 Pro-Life laws passed. New makes the point that 2011 followed the passage of the Affordable Care Act; consequently, many states were concerned with passing laws that would allow for Pro-Life protections under the massive expansion of federal power under the anti-Life Obama Administration.
New writes of the 2011 laws, “For instance, some states passed laws protecting the conscience rights of health-care professionals, and others placed limits on taxpayer funding of abortion through government-subsidized insurance plans available on the state-based exchanges.” While many of the laws passed in 2011 were an attempt to respond to the perceived threats of the Affordable Care Act plans, New writes, “most of the pro-life laws enacted this year represent substantive efforts to protect preborn children.”
Texas is one of the states that incited the ire of the abortion group. In the report, the anti-Life Guttmacher Institute singled out Texas for having strong enforcement mechanisms in the newly passed Pro-Life laws. The Texas Heartbeat Act (Senate Bill 8), which was signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in May and takes effect on September 1, protects preborn babies from the time a heartbeat is detectable, as early as six weeks gestation. The law includes the provision that anyone can sue an abortionist or anyone who aids and abets the abortionist.
The Guttmacher Institute is not the only abortion organization scared by the Texas law. Earlier this month, anti-Life groups and abortion businesses filed a lawsuit to attempt to block the Texas Heartbeat Act before the date the law goes into effect. In the lawsuit, the groups claim, “If not blocked, S.B. 8 will force abortion providers and others who are sued to spend massive amounts of time and money to defend themselves in lawsuits across the state in which the deck is heavily stacked against them.”
The reality is that the abortion industry is terrified by the Texas law that will save thousands of tiny Texans and force the closure of businesses that profit from killing the preborn. Texas is just one of many states passing innovative and strategic laws aimed at protecting preborn lives.
As Michael New states, “the success pro-lifers are enjoying at the state level certainly bodes well for the future.” As the abortion industry tries to stifle Pro-Life measures, more legal challenges will make their way to the Supreme Court. New rightly notes, “The impressive number and variety of state pro-life laws offer the justices more opportunity to at some point uphold some of them, allowing pro-lifers to enact stronger legal protections for preborn children.”
Texas is the best place in America right now where we can boldly and aggressively end abortion.