Groups Rally in Washington to Lobby 108th Congress on Behalf of Unborn
By Fred Jackson and Bill Fancher
January 16, 2003
(AgapePress) - A new poll indicates the vast majority of Americans favor many of the laws being promoted by pro-life groups.
What makes the poll so interesting is that it does not come from any group sympathetic to pro-life causes. Instead, it is a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll taken last weekend -- and the numbers will likely shock many conservatives. [See Poll Results]
Eighty-eight percent of the respondents said they would favor a law or proposal that requires doctors to inform patients about alternatives to abortion before performing the procedure. And 78% said women wanting an abortion should be required by law to wait 24 hours before going ahead with the procedure.
On the issue of prior notification, 73% said girls under 18 should be required to have parental consent before an abortion. Seventy-two percent said a woman should be forced to tell her husband before she has an abortion.
And in a key question about partial-birth abortion, 70% said the gruesome procedure should be outlawed, except in cases where the woman's life is truly in danger.
 Sandy Rios |
A group of pro-life organizations gathered in Washington on Wednesday to proclaim a renewed effort to force Congress to pass several pro-life bills which Democrats managed to block in the Senate last year. Concerned Women for America's director Sandy Rios praised the pro-life movement for the fight it has waged since the Supreme Court legalized abortion 30 years ago.
"Merely keeping this controversy alive for an entire generation has been an impressive victory for the pro-life movement," Rios told the gathering.
That victory, she said, was even more impressive in light of the opposition. "The opposition has come not only from a formidable political faction, but also from an establishment of the legal and medical professions, academic opinion, major corporate and philanthropic institutions -- and above all, from news and entertainment media that seem to regard the right to abortion as the very definition of freedom," she said.
Rios was optimistic this could be the strongest pro-life showing in Congress over the past three decades.
 Janet Folger |
"Seven out of ten in America say yes, we want to restore legal protection for children who are not yet born," Folger said. She pointed out the poll also revealed that most Americans want pro-life judges nominated to the courts.
"Two-thirds of the American people [66%] said yes, they want judges on that court who will uphold laws that restore protection to unborn children," she said.
Folger said the country seems to have turned the corner and become a nation that wants abortion ended. "We have the American people standing with us," she said.
See Related Article in The Washington Times
Cathy Cleaver, pro-life secretary for the U.S. Catholic Bishops, said pro-lifers can make great inroads in the fight to save the unborn in 2003 if they are successful in a massive education campaign. Cleaver believes women with unplanned pregnancies will be less likely to abort their babies if they realize the help available to them.
"There are approximately 3,500 crisis pregnancy centers or pregnancy aid centers [in the United States]," Cleaver said. "There are more places for women to go for help than there are for them to go for abortion. But women don't know those places are out there -- and they need to know that. It's their right to know."
Cleaver says that is how women will be led into making the right choice: the choice to let their children live.
© 2003 AgapePress all rights reserved.
E-mail this page to a friend
Printer-Friendly Version
Read all of our current headlines
