Has the Pro-Life Movement 'Failed'
by Staff
January 29, 2009
THORNWOOD, NY, (christiansunite.com) -- Marking the 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision (decided January 22, 1973), which mandated legal abortion nationwide, the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person is hosting a special forum of original commentary from a select group of respected pro-life scholars and public policy experts who address the question of whether the pro-life movement has "failed.""Has the Pro-Life Movement Failed? Ask an Abortion Doctor," By Cathy Ruse and Austin Ruse -- Imagine yourself a typical abortion doctor, working anywhere in the country. You're a late middle-aged man who never gets to know your patients and doesn't care to. In the beginning you saw yourself as a hero in the fight for women's rights, but now years later as you travel a circuit of clinics, your unknown patients lying prone on table after table, the luster of your work has faded...
"The Pro-Life Movement has Both Failed and Succeeded," By Helen Alvare -- Catholics who voted for Obama (a disproportionately non-Church-going, self-professed- Catholic group) are very likely not thinking (like most Americans) about abortion at all. It would be incorrect, therefore, to claim that the election of this man is an accurate evaluation of the status of the pro-life movement. An accurate picture of the pro- life movement over the last 45 years, would rather have to acknowledge that the movement has both succeeded and failed...
"Time to Redouble Our Efforts," By Maria McFadden Maffucci -- I do not believe the pro-life movement has failed overall, in the sense that what we have been doing is wrong, or that what we have been aiming for is hopeless. I believe that pro-life individuals have failed to make the protection of the unborn an actual priority. The current election was not "about" abortion; many who voted for Obama voted for him in spite of, not because of, his position on abortion...
"A Temporary Defeat," By Anne Conlon -- William Buckley liked to remind conservatives (and liberals) that there were no permanent victories, no permanent defeats. Four years ago, after George Bush's reelection, the press saw mighty hordes of evangelicals everywhere on the political horizon; the urgent question then was would the Democrats-and even the nation's two-party system-survive? On January 22 (Roe v. Wade day), 2005, Hillary Clinton startled many supporters when, in an address to New York's Family Planning Advocates, she declared that abortion was "a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women," one that while "guaranteed under our constitution," should "not ever have to be exercised or only in very rare circumstances..."
All commentaries available exclusively on the Westchester Institute's website www.westchesterinstitute.net.
The Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human person was founded in 1998 to renew, deepen, and promote the Western tradition of moral reflection by conducting interdisciplinary, natural law analysis of complex, contemporary moral issues yet unresolved among Judeo-Christian scholars.
