2023 | Week of April 17 | Radio Transcript #1512
For Wisconsin Family Council being pro-life means we recognize the humanity and inherent worth of every human person from the moment of conception through natural death. We don’t believe the circumstances that brought about the conception, including sexual assault, diminish the value of the unborn, nor do we believe that assisted suicide or euthanasia is ever right.
Admittedly, that belief in its entirety is not particularly popular right now in America or even in Wisconsin. But polls don’t determine right and wrong; for Christians, God’s Word does that. Polls just give us a snapshot in time of where the culture is. Often polls inform us about how well or how poorly certain messaging is working over time and at a given time.
In the case of the pro-life issue, we’ve had a real wake-up call…one that tells us our messaging hasn’t been effective in convincing people that life begins at the moment of conception and has inherent value just because the baby is a human being and therefore should have rights and protections from that moment on.
Nearly fifty years of people hearing that abortion is a right, indeed an inherent freedom, for women in America and that it is healthcare, has had a profound impact. When liberals use the words right, freedom, and healthcare in relationship to abortion, their message resonates, sad to say, even though we do not have a right nor the freedom to kill another human; and true healthcare is about saving lives, not taking lives. But the liberals have won the language game for the time being.
That said, let’s take a look at the current state of abortion in Wisconsin. Last June, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and sent the issue back to the states. Wisconsin is one of a handful of states that had a law on the books that pre-dated Roe. Our abortion ban goes back to 1849, just a year after our statehood. Once Roe was overturned, this ban went into effect. Just how effective has that law been?
Last week a pro-abortion group, Society of Family Planning, issued a report summarizing the impact on abortion since Roe was overturned. The report, entitled, “We Count,” indicates that nationally between July 2022 and December 2022, there were over 32,000 “cumulative fewer abortions” when compared to the average monthly number of abortions observed in the pre-Dobbs period.[1] Of course, this pro-abortion report sees this number very differently from the way we do. What we know is that in that 6-month time period last year, over 32,000 unborn babies were allowed to live, and the same number of women were spared the trauma of abortion.
This same report looked at several individual states where abortion bans have been in place, including Wisconsin. According to the report, before the Dobbs decision, Wisconsin had 605 abortions each month on average. After the court decision came down late last June, that number dropped to less than 10, resulting in over 3500 babies being saved from last July through this past December—and all those babies’ moms being spared, as well.
Remember, these numbers aren’t from a pro-life group; they are from a pro-abortion organization bemoaning the life-saving results of having in place a law that bans most abortions in Wisconsin. The life-saving we’ve had in this time period is cause for rejoicing.
We need this pro-life law to stay in effect as long as possible because every day it is in effect, real lives are saved. Unfortunately, this situation is vulnerable. The winner of the Supreme Court election earlier this month, Janet Protasiewicz, made it very clear that she is pro-abortion. When Judge Protasiewicz takes her seat on the court in early August, the liberals will have a 4-3 majority on that court.
Sooner or later, and probably sooner, the court will hear a case designed to overturn the life-saving law our forefathers had the foresight to enact. In the meantime, we rejoice in babies being saved and women spared, we work to get better at our education and messaging efforts, we hold to our pro-life principles, and we pray that God will rule and overrule in the hearts and minds of each justice as they consider this life and death matter.
This is Julaine Appling for Wisconsin Family Council reminding you the prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
