“A less confrontational, more pragmatic force is behind a record number of anti-abortion laws and pro-choice’s ‘bad year’” So says the Christian Science Monitor in a profile of my friend and former boss, Charmaine Yoest:
Yoest, the president and chief executive officer of Americans United for Life, a group that offers 39 pieces of model legislation for state lawmakers and advocates, is one of the key actors pushing a wave of highly restrictive – the other side would say dangerous and illegal – initiatives limiting access to abortion. AUL’s goal is to eat away at the underpinnings of the protections provided by Roe v. Wade – the landmark United States Supreme Court decision that extended the right to privacy to a woman’s decision to have an abortion – not necessarily to challenge it outright. At least not yet.So far this year, AUL and other like-minded groups have caught their adversaries flat-footed; some 22 states have enacted a record 86 new measures in 2011, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which studies sexual and reproductive health and supports abortion rights.
Just two years after the election of a pro-abortion rights Democratic president, it appears the antiabortion movement has been reborn.
Read more . . .
While I have you, can I ask you something? I’ll be quick.
Twenty-five thousand people subscribe to First Things. Why can’t that be fifty thousand? Three million people read First Things online like you are right now. Why can’t that be four million?
Let’s stop saying “can’t.” Because it can. And your year-end gift of just $50, $100, or even $250 or more will make it possible.
How much would you give to introduce just one new person to First Things? What about ten people, or even a hundred? That’s the power of your charitable support.
Make your year-end gift now using this secure link or the button below.
