Unborn human beings in West Virginia and Alabama received a huge win on Tuesday when voters chose amendments that would protect their rights in utero if the Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade.
Without Roe vs. Wade, abortion would go to the states.
In West Virginia, voters chose to end taxpayer funded abortions. Alabama citizens voted that those unborn human beings have a right to life.
Alabama’s Amendment 2 “recognizes the rights of the unborn and ensures state funds will not go to funding abortion care.” Despite the millions poured into the state to defeat the amendment, 59% of Alabama citizens voted yes.
From AL.com:
The amendment was written by Rep. Matt Fridy, R-Montevallo, and sponsored by the Alliance for a Pro-Life Alabama.“It’s going to be a testament to the conservative values of Alabama. It’s also going to be a victory for truth because we were massively outspent $1.4 million [from Planned Parenthood] to $8,000 dollars,” Rick Renshaw, of the Alliance for a Pro-Life Alabama said.Planned Parenthood donated $1.38 million to Alabama for Healthy Families, who opposed the amendment.Renshaw said the amendment was not given a fair shake in the media.“We are disappointed in the outcome of Amendment 2, which paves the way to outlaw abortion in the state of Alabama,” a representative from the ACLU said in a statement to AL.com. “Our worry is that this amendment will prove to be much more insidious than it seems at face value, touching on much more about healthcare than just abortion. We hope that Alabama legislators will commit to ensuring that any clarification on this amendment will take into account the importance of having access to safe, high quality reproductive care in our state.”
Alabama already bans taxpayer funded abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. The state also bans partial birth abortion and women cannot have one after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
West Virginia’s Amendment 1 overturns a 1993 rule that allowed taxpayer funded abortions. The state’s Constitution will now read, “Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion.”
This will give the state room to make changes to abortion when it comes to taxpayer money or if Roe vs. Wade goes away.
Abortion advocates have denounced West Virginia’s amendment, but pro-life groups celebrated:
“West Virginians value life and reject abortion on demand,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List. “Over the years, West Virginia taxpayers have been forced to fund the destruction of more than 35,000 innocent unborn children—including late-term abortions—at a cost of nearly $10 million. This outrageous abuse ends now.”SBA List was one of the biggest backers of the amendment. Its volunteers visited more than 110,000 voters to support the measure. The group suffered a setback when Democratic senator and self-described pro-lifer Joe Manchin announced he would oppose Amendment 1 in the final debate before he won re-election.”The passage of Amendment 1 is a victory for the Mountain State and we hope other states will follow their lead,” Dannenfelser said in an email.—Tom McClusky, president of March for Life Action, said West Virginia voters supported the amendment for those very reasons. The group, which sponsors an annual demonstration to mourn the Supreme Court’s Roe decision, campaigned for the initiative to demonstrate that taxpayer dollars are used to pay for about 15,000 abortions each year. Amendment 1 was necessary to “ensure that nothing therein [the state constitution] secures a right to abortion or compels taxpayer funding for abortion,” according to McClusky.”No one should be denied their right to life, and no one should be forced to pay for a procedure that ends a life,” he said in an email. “West Virginia’s littlest and most vulnerable citizens are safer now because of it.”
As much as I hate the murder of unborn human beings, I don’t see Roe vs. Wade going anywhere. But in all honesty, we don’t need to overturn a law to stop abortion and I wish more groups would spend more money and time on resources to change the hearts and minds of people.
I changed my mind because of science. As a former pro-abortion person, science hit me in the face and I couldn’t deny the fact in front of me that inside the womb, a woman holds a human being.
The March for Life keeps growing. The pro-life movement itself keeps growing.
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