A collection of original commentary from selected scholars and public policy experts, answering the question of whether the pro-life movement has “failed.”

In light of the large percentage of self-identified “pro-life” citizens who voted for Barak Obama – an ardent advocate of legal abortion – there is a widespread conversation about the pro-life movement’s strategy, and many are publicly asking:  Has the broader pro-life movement “failed”?  Does “fail” mean we didn’t overturn Roe v. Wade, or does it mean more than that?  Is it time for a new strategy in some sense?  Is it a plausible argument that an Administration dedicated to unrestricted legal access to abortion might nonetheless promote a reduction in abortions through government social programs that encourage pre- and post-natal health care, parenting skills, income support and adoption?

The Westchester Institute presents the following original commentaries from a select group of respected pro-life scholars and public policy experts who address such questions. 

Has the Pro-Life Movement Failed?  Ask an Abortion Doctor
 By Cathy Ruse and Austin Ruse

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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The Sun Will Come Out . . . Tomorrow
by Nikolas T. Nikas and Dorinda C. Bordlee

The Words of President Obama and the Wisdom of Dr. King.

In the third week of 2009, our nation experienced a civil rights solar eclipse of sorts – a “syzygy” of human rights.  In the science of astronomy, a syzygy (nope, that’s not a mispelling) is the alignment of three or more celestial bodies along a straight line.  The word is usually used in context with solar and lunar eclipses when the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon are in alignment.

The March for Life on the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade aligned in the same week with both the celebration of Martin Luther King Day and the historic inauguration of our nation’s first African-American President. This alignment of three social-political celestial bodies highlights the paradoxical triumph and tragedy of civil rights at this point in our nation’s history.

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