Pro-life message will be a winner in legislative elections
The fight for control of the Virginia General Assembly is heating up. One thing is clear: Democrats learned nothing from the 2021 wave that turned our “purple” state red. Pro-life Virginians defeated Democrats, and exit polls showed as many as 8% of Virginia voters citing abortion as their top issue. Those voters backed Gov. Glenn Youngkin by up to 17 points.
Democrats, drawing zero lessons from former Gov. Ralph Northam’s abortion extremism, are doubling down on abortion as their ticket to keep the state Senate and recapture the state House. And though local Democrats complain they aren’t getting enough help from the top of the ticket, President Joe Biden’s campaign poured at least $25 million nationally into this abortion-forward strategy.
But there’s a problem with their strategy. The Republicans who lost adopted the “ostrich strategy” — refusing to even talk about abortion or fight back as their opponents spent millions on attack ads distorting their positions.
Democrats count on this. They underestimate Youngkin — who is popular — and the power of a compelling pro-life message that leads with compassion for women, seeks reasonable limits on abortion when science shows babies feel pain, and recognizes that parents are not “barriers” to the radical abortion agenda but the most important guides in their children’s lives. Legislation limiting abortion at 15 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother would save hundreds of lives a year.
In a recent interview, Youngkin described the state of affairs in Virginia, where brutal third-trimester abortions are legal for reasons of physical or mental health. Yet Democrats have pushed to eliminate even bare minimum limits. Today 25 states protect babies and mothers, but Virginia remains the southern United States’ destination for late-term abortions.
Democrats have ensured that Virginians continue to live under the barbaric late-term abortion laws of Northam. They’ve blocked protections for babies who survive abortions, while pushing a failed effort to enshrine a right to abortion on demand up until birth in Virginia’s Constitution.
This fact caused a stir in the GOP presidential debates, but it is true. Today, seven states and the District of Columbia allow abortion at any point for any reason. A long line of Democratic stars have backed zero limits on abortion, and want them paid for by taxpayers. Even Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was forced to retract support for some limits, proving this is the party line that Democrats with serious ambitions aren’t allowed to cross.
Youngkin and the Virginia
GOP are ready to stand up and roar in defense of babies and their mothers. Multiple ads are now reminding voters who the true extremists are in Virginia and nationwide: Democrats who would even leave infants who survive failed abortions to die.
When pro-life Republicans go on offense, Democrats get worried. Fairfax County prosecutor Steve Descano fretted on social media, “Arguing over a specific number of weeks is playing on the Republicans’ field.”
Wrong, Steve. Sixty-one percent of Virginia voters support protecting babies in the womb at 15 weeks, according to polling by WPA Intelligence. Democrats are not just playing on a different field; they are playing a different game altogether. There is not a single baby they would save at any point during pregnancy, or even after botched abortions.
Democrats’ refusal to discuss any limits comes straight out of their consultants’ snide playbook: “Debating weeks is not where we want to be … people are terrible at math and terrible at biology.”
As science provides a window into the womb, Americans meet complex little individuals whose hearts beat millions of times by 15 weeks, and who respond to a painful shot — with stress, grimaces and tears. By 15 weeks, doctors provide anesthesia to babies in the womb during surgery to keep them from feeling pain.
We are grateful for leaders such as Youngkin who expose the Democrats’ stance of late-term abortion. If pro-abortion Democrats keep denying science, it is they who will one day wake up wondering when they became a marginal party.
Kaitlin Makuski of Alexandria is the political director of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.