A little less confrontation, a little more action

U.S. Catholic Magazine
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Beyond politics
A handful of Democrats are trying to do just that, advancing legislation that they say could reduce the abortion rate by 95 percent in 10 years.

The bill, developed and promoted by Democrats for Life (DFL) as the “95-10 Initiative,” has the support of prolife Democrats in Congress, and DFL leaders soon hope to have the support of more members from both sides of the aisle and of the abortion debate.

The initiative was born in the wake of the 2004 election, when everyone was talking about moral values.

“The election sent a really big message,” says Kristen Day, DFL executive director. “A majority of people think the abortion rate should be declining. But no one is doing anything to make abortion rare. They’ve only been working to keep it legal. So we looked at the reasons women have abortions.”

Their initiative, introduced last November, includes prohibiting the transport of a minor across a state line to obtain an abortion; fully funding the federal government’s Nutrition for Women, Infants, and Children program; requiring insurance to cover contraception; providing grants to nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations for ultrasound equipment to provide free examinations to pregnant women; making adoption tax credits permanent; and initiating a five-year study by the National Institutes of Health on why women choose abortions.

Day acknowledges that reducing the number of abortions by 95 percent is ambitious, but she notes that in Michigan, where one point of the 95-10 initiative was put in place—a public awareness campaign informing women of abortion alternatives—abortion rates have already dropped. Though many factors affect abortion rates, including the economy, Day and other prolifers credit the public awareness campaign and use the Michigan statistic to justify a nationwide public awareness campaign.

Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, a group dedicated to spreading the prolife message among Catholic priests and parishes, gave some parts of the Democrats’ plan cautious approval.

“There are many proposals in this package, like women’s right-to-know provisions, funding for promotion of alternatives to abortion, strengthening of adoption practices, and more,” he wrote in a column last May. “These are key goals for all of us to pursue. The precise way in which these and other proposals in 95-10 should be written into law will, of course, need to be carefully debated and refined.

“And in the end, we cannot be content to reduce the numbers of abortions,” he wrote. “We have to acknowledge that laws permitting even a single abortion undermine the very fabric of our freedom and our republic.”
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