By Dave Andrusko

Editor's note. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

The June issue of National Right to Life News carries three stories that directly bear on recent pro-life successes in the states. One focuses on Nebraska, another hones in on Oklahoma, and a third provides an encouraging overview. That's why I couldn't help but smile when I read a front-page story in this morning's Washington Post headlined, "Antiabortion Efforts Move to the State Level."

It's not that I would expect a daily newspaper to know as much about or give as much attention to the grassiest of grassroots movement--us--as does National Right to Life News. But it's amazing how national publications periodically rediscover that not everything happens in Washington, DC.

The subhead, while using loaded language, is accurate: "Legislatures Often Mandate Restrictions." And the writer, Peter Slevin, is surely correct, for now, that with pro-abortion majorities ensconced in the House and Senate and a rabid pro-abortionist occupying the White House, it "make it increasingly unlikely that federal laws will be tightened or Roe v. Wade overturned."

What's amusing is that the impressive left that about five months ago, pro-lifers figured out that the environment in DC would be hostile so we diverted out energies to the 50 states. That is wrong in two senses.

First, we are as busy as ever defeating pro-abortion initiatives where we can in the nation's capital and minimizing the damage where we cannot. Second, following the lead of NRLC's State Legislative Department, pro-lifers across the nation are proposing and, in some cases, enacting laws. But that's nothing new; we've been doing it for 36+ years.

Our opposite numbers understate how aggressively we're pushing the ball forward, as demonstrated by several quotes. "The states are the battlegrounds and certainly the testing grounds of new kinds of restrictions," said Gretchen Borchelt, senior counsel at the National Women's Law Center, which defends abortion rights. "State legislatures can be more creative in what they're trying to push and see what works."

Exactly.

But the brunt of the article is, essentially, so what? Pro-life measures are close to totally ineffective, so why would we pass them other than to "harass" women who want to abort?

There are a dozen different reasons, but let me mention just three.

#1. They are effective, directly and indirectly. If, as the Post story indicates, Mississippi now has only one abortion facility, the lives of fewer unborn babies will be lost. And there's this that your everyday reporter would not know.

I have read correspondence from women who had aborted. Later, having become pregnant again, they wrote me how they remembered the kindness and generosity and offers to help from pro-lifers. With that as a backdrop, they did not abort their second child. More than a few became pro-life activists.

#2. There is a synergy at work that is rarely appreciated. For example, a part of the proceeds from the sale of "Choose Life" license plates goes to crisis pregnancy centers. Many have used those resources to buy ultrasounds.

When women see their unborn children, they often experience a moment of awakening that is decisive. Small wonder pro-abortion forces fiercely fight laws mandating that women have a chance to see an ultrasound of their unborn child before they make a life and death decision.

#3. Focusing, as the Post story did, just on the women in the abortion clinic misses the women who aren't there. When there are requirements that minor girls inform their parents (or obtain a judicial bypass), some will not abort. When there are funding limitations, many women who otherwise would have aborted won't.

That's not just us celebrating, it's pro-abortionists bemoaning. They will tell you that at least one million Americans (and probably a lot more) are walking around today because of the Hyde Amendment.

As I say there are many other critically important results that are associated with pro-life legislative initiatives that space does not allow me to detail. But as a way of wrapping up Part One, when state reporting requirements are tightened up, as is the case with the new Oklahoma law, we will learn a lot!

That will include whether abortionists and their staffs are actively undermining or passively ignoring existing state requirements. That can only lead to more lives saved.

If you have a minute, please read Part Two. I believe it nicely complements this discussion.