“It’s Been a Great Year”

By Dave Andrusko

        Mary Balch, NRLC’s director of state legislation, has never been known for hyperbole or overstatement. That’s why her conclusion in a recent interview with National Right to Life News was so significant.

        “It’s been a great, great year,” Mary said unhesitatingly. “We passed genuinely substantive legislation in a lot of places.”

        The list of achievements is so lengthy that the following overview only captures a rough sense of how well pro-lifers fared in their state legislatures.

        Oklahoma passed a trifecta plus one—an omnibus pro-life measure that included four components: parental notification, woman’s right to know, unborn victims of violence, and wrongful death.

        “Both Republicans and Democrats worked on this bill, and both want to claim credit,” Balch said. “They put aside their partisan differences on other issues to do the right thing.”

        Many legislatures did the right thing. For example, besides Oklahoma, West Virginia and Arizona passed Unborn Victims of Violence Acts (UVVA). Maryland, a notoriously difficult state for pro-lifers, passed a much more limited UVVA that applies after viability.

        A new thrust, Balch explained, is that six states—Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Texas, and Louisiana—appropriated money for pregnancy care centers and maternity homes. Ever creative, they accomplished this desirable outcome in different ways: by a free-standing bill, by using federal Temporary Aid to Needy Children funds, or by including dollars as a line item in the state budget. But whatever route they took, they reached a happy destination—helping provide women in crisis pregnancies with services they need to go forward.

        There were other triumphs: Florida (after a long, long battle) joined Oklahoma in enacting parental notice laws. Idaho passed a parental consent measure as did Arkansas and Texas.

        Meanwhile, Georgia passed a Woman’s Right to Know bill while Arkansas enacted a fetal pain prevention bill. This law requires that women contemplating an abortion be made aware of a brochure that documents how unborn children 20 weeks and older can experience pain.

        Knowing how slovenly many abortion clinics are, Florida and Indiana were able to pass clinic regulation measures. In addition, Arizona now has a ban on public funding of cloning while Indiana passed a comprehensive ban on cloning. .

        Balch was emphatic that pro-lifers not overlook how the Movement also made headway in a number of instances by winning passage in one house of a legislature. “That often means we will eventually prevail,” she said.

        And success also means defeating bad bills. In Virginia, for example, a law was cruising through that would have funded all stem cell research, including lethal embryonic stem cell research. Pro-lifers added just a few words, and now money can only go to research that uses sources other than human embryos.

        Asked if she had any final comment, Balch thought for just a second and said, “I can’t wait until next session.”