OPINION:
Democrats have spent the past three years spreading absolute panic about the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion across the nation.
When a 2022 leak preceded the high court’s official ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the legal battle that dismantled Roe and sent abortion back to the states, the weeping and gnashing of teeth was obsessive, incessant and unrelenting.
“For the first time, it became clear that young women today will have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers,” then-Vice President Kamala Harris lamented. “But even in the face of that loss, we keep fighting.”
In other proclamations, Ms. Harris slammed “Donald Trump’s extreme abortion bans” and said women cannot and should not be told by the government what to do with their own bodies.
And Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a former campaign manager for then-President Biden, at one point joined the chorus of those falsely proclaiming that “a vote for Donald Trump is a vote to ban abortion across the country.”
Democrats continue to contend that a right has somehow been maniacally stripped from them. While it’s true some states have severely restricted or even banned abortion, many others have expanded or moved to protect it, cementing the right to kill the unborn as somehow sacrosanct.
Nonetheless, Mr. Trump himself has repeatedly made it clear he doesn’t support a national abortion ban and favors allowing states to decide how they wish to handle the issue.
But if we’re to believe the boisterous panic that has spewed from liberal talking heads, women today are living in a dystopian nightmare — one in which abortion is inaccessible and unattainable. Yet a new study shows that abortion isn’t only alive and well, but actually thriving.
Far from some sort of real-life rendition of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” abortion numbers have actually grown since the overturning of Roe.
“Abortion volume is higher in 2024 than it was in 2023 or 2022,” said the Society of Family Planning, an organization that explores issues pertaining to abortion and reproductive health.
And as The Washington Times’ Valerie Richardson reported, there were 1.14 million abortions in 2024, up from 1.05 million in 2023. Monthly abortions ticked up from 88,000 to 95,000.
Plus, in May, Planned Parenthood’s annual report showed the abortion giant facilitated a record number of procedures, with 402,000 pregnancies reportedly ending between 2023-2024 at its behest. The numbers show that Mr. Trump’s so-called abortion bans are figments of overactive and confounded imaginations.
These numbers clearly undercut Democratic panic over what might happen across America — a worry liberals tried but overwhelmingly failed to use to rally against Republicans and muster votes in 2024.
But these realities also deal a decisive blow to pro-life Christians and conservatives who had hoped to see the obliteration of Roe reduce the total number of abortions in America. With that tally increasing due to the growing use of the abortion pill, tough questions must be explored and answered.
The key question: If the law won’t stop these procedures, what will?
It’s true that pursuing laws that protect the most vulnerable is good, noble and right. Regardless of what happens with statistics and numbers, the government’s perspicuous signal that states’ rights must win and that killing innocents is intolerable are the correct contentions.
That said, the only way to truly lower the number of abortions in America — and to do so because of conviction, not compulsion — is to change hearts and minds. We must show people why stopping the hearts of the unborn is immoral, unethical and inhumane.
The pro-choice movement has done an impeccable job using language to not only diminish the value of life but also to simultaneously convince women that dispelling mere “clumps of cells” is no big deal and is as commonplace and sane as taking Tylenol to alleviate a headache.
The inhumane nature through which language and words have been used and abused to manipulate desperate and terrified women is tragic, yet it’s a reality with which we must contend.
There’s a reason pro-choice activists loathe laws that require women to have ultrasounds before an abortion. It is by showing, not merely telling, that pregnant women might just recognize the unique, growing and God-designed life within them.
However, even if this isn’t a primary tool for changing minds, pro-lifers and Christians must dig deeper. Relying on the law to complete what can come only by changing a person’s perspective is lethargic and won’t solve the overarching problem.
Now is the time to engage in calm, loving conversations that help people understand the value of life from the womb to the tomb. Come armed with facts, statistics and other sentiments that poke holes in the lies and mistruths that enabled Roe to dominate the land for so long.
The pro-choice movement has propped itself up on a house of cards — one that is quickly toppled when the facts are discerned. Beyond that, though, the abortion conversation underscores a more pressing need: to point people toward God and His infinite wisdom.
What’s perhaps most remarkable about the Christian message is that Jesus Christ gave his life so that others could live. Abortion at its core — and outside of extenuating circumstances that are the exception and not the rule — demands the death of another for the sake of comfort.
It’s an inversion of all that is true and right. It’s my belief that the best way to change hearts and minds on the abortion issue is to share the broader biblical message of God’s love and grace. While it’s great to shift people on abortion itself, bringing them an eternal message not only rightens them with God but impacts their perspectives on a range of issues, abortion included.
Now more than ever is the time to speak truth boldly and in love, transforming hearts and minds in the process. That’s the only way we’ll ever truly win the abortion war.
• Billy Hallowell is a digital TV host and interviewer for Faithwire and CBN News and the co-host of CBN’s “Quick Start Podcast.” Mr. Hallowell is the author of four books.
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