(Don Nelson) – The November elections were a huge win for pro-lifers and resulted in huge gains in the Congress. That’s what makes the comments of SOME conservatives and SOME Republicans so unpersuasive when they try to kick pro-lifers to the curb and tell the new Republican House majority not to take on socially conservative issues like abortion.
Pro-lifers have earned the right to action on our issues. There would be no Republican majority in the House nor the substantial gains in the Senate without so many candidates taking a pro-life position.
Pro-lifers have known for many years that there is a general pro-life advantage for candidates taking a pro-life position. This year was no different. Right after the election, the Polling Company found that 31 percent of voters said that abortion “affected” their vote. 22% of all voters voted for pro-life candidates, while only 8 percent voted for pro-abortion candidates. That gave pro-life candidates a net pro-life advantage of 14 percent. There are not many legislators who will kick a cause with a 14 percent advantage to the curb.
When asked “did the issue of funding for abortion in the Obama health care law affect the way you voted in today’s election?,” 31% of all voters said yes. 27 percent of all voters voted “for candidates who opposed the health care law,” and 4% who said they voted “for candidates who favored the health care law.”
That means 87 percent of the voters who opposed the abortion funding provisions of the Reid-Obama-Pelosi abortion health care law supported the candidate who held our position. National Right to Life’s Douglas Johnson says ” there has been a net shift in the pro-life direction in the House of 40 to 55 votes, depending on the issue.”
It was also a good year to have pro-lifers on your side. Despite being vastly outspent by abortion advocates, National Right to Life notes that their PAC “supported 285 federal candidates nationwide. Of those, 235 (or 82%) won their races.”
“In the most competitive races, National Right to Life PAC actively worked in 122 federal races nationwide. Of those, 84 (or 74%) won” with nine are still undecided at the time. Of these twenty candidates were in highly competitive races against candidates supported abortion supporting EMILY’s List. In 70 percent of those races, the pro-life candidate supported by National Right to Life PAC won.
Now you know why Planned Parenthood, NARAL and others are in hysterics, begging their supporters for more money and promising not to go away. There were exceptions like Harry Reid. But Reid had to pretend to be pro-life and paint himself as the “reasonable” pro-lifer and his opponent as being an extremist. More on that in the days to come.
After the election one conservative Nevada radio personality asked whether the pro-life position is a conservative position. O well. There may be some conservatives who are not pro-life but a substantial majority are. And not only is the pro-life position the conservative position, it’s THE American position.
The Polling Company found that 53 percent of those voting in 2010 said they opposed almost all abortions and only 41 percent supported abortion regardless of the reason. And most of that 41 percent (25 percent) would limit abortion to the first three months of life. That’s why a spokeswoman for Gallup can call the pro-life position “The New Normal.”
That’s also why pro-lifers can expect to and will see important pro-life legislation and action not only in the Congress, but in the states. There’s no doubt that we’ve earned it.
(Don Nelson is president of Nevada LIFE )
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