Recent elections have brought discouraging news for the pro-life, pro-family Christians. Ad campaigns, as well-financed as they were deceptive, led to a small run of destructive decisions on life and recreational marijuana use over the last few weeks. Red waves turned into puddles. And hostile politicos burrowed deep into the federal bureaucracy have come out of hiding to weaponize the federal government against the voters. But the media have magnified this relatively short string of setbacks into a narrative of secular progressivism’s inevitable triumph, while muting stories that would encourage the pro-life movement.
Here are a few underreported good news stories that will bring joy, and encouragement, to the pro-life movement:
1. Pro-Life Laws Save One out of Every Three Children in North Carolina
After the Dobbs decision, the swing state of North Carolina swung in favor of life. After a new law took effect on July 1 protecting unborn babies from abortions after the first trimester, or 12 weeks, the number of abortions fell by nearly one-third — and the abortion industry is publicly grousing that it will “never” recover the lost business.
“During the first month operating under North Carolina’s new law that limits most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy and requires two in-person appointments for anyone seeking an abortion, the Guttmacher Institute reported that medication and procedural abortions provided in the state in July dropped by 31 percent from the previous month,” reported The Charlotte Post. Those numbers mean the new law protected nearly one out of every three unborn babies who would have been aborted.
In real numbers, the Guttmacher Institute reports that abortionists killed 4,200 babies by means of abortion in June. In July, the number fell to 3,000. And contrary to cases highlighted by the abortion industry and its legacy media myrmidons, abortions did not rise in neighboring areas such as Virginia, Maryland, or the District of Columbia.
The story claims that about 1,800 abortions in North Carolina take place after the first trimester annually, so something other than the trimester limit (which legally allows 90% of abortions to take place as scheduled) is responsible. Apparently, the difference is education and reflection. The new law not only protects babies at an earlier age — the previous law allowed abortion until 20 weeks — but it also requires that abortionists provide women more information about the procedure and give them time to think it over before acting. The laws says that women must receive medically accurate information about abortion during an in-person visit, then have 72 hours to consider it before contracting an abortion, which is life-altering for the mother and life-ending for the child. Evidently, this accounts for an even larger share of decisions for life.
Despite the pro-abortion movement’s continual insistence that it merely seeks to help women, its spokespeople occasionally acknowledge they’re desperately concerned about the threat pro-life laws pose to its business model. In the most cold-blooded sentence uttered in the media in recent memory, Isaac Maddow-Zimet of the Guttmacher Institute complained about the situation after the number of abortions fell in July: “Unfortunately, what we see in August is really not much of a recovery.” (Emphasis added.) The state’s modest pro-life law amounts to, in his words, “too much of an obstacle” for the abortion industry to continue to operate with the same volume (and profit margin) it did under Roe v. Wade.
“We will never be able to provide as much access [to child-killing] as we could before Senate Bill 20,” a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, Molly Rivera, told the newspaper.
Glory, glory, hallelujah.
2. Wyoming Abortion Facility Closes Down over Lost Profits
An abortion facility with the Orwellian name Women’s Health and Family Care in Jackson, Wyoming, is closing its doors, at least temporarily — and its owners couldn’t be clearer about their reason: They aren’t committing enough abortions to pay the rent.
“So costs are going up, but we’re not making more money,” said Office Manager Tulsa Versey, speaking bluntly on behalf of the facility’s abortionists.
Patients at the facility received a letter strongly implying the abortionists had to close down thanks to Bidenflation. “With the rising costs of overhead, including rent, labor, and supplies, our private practice is no longer sustainable,” the abortionists explained. An accompanying story in Wyoming Public Radio noted that, this year, the abortion office’s rent rose to $9,400 a month — a $1,100 increase.
The Wyoming taxpayer-funded radio network showed the level of objective coverage usually associated with National Public Radio, reporting (at your expense) that “the decision to shut down has been met with confusion, shock and panic from patients.” Note to NPR: That’s not the only possible emotional reaction to an abortion facility closing.
The abortion office plans to close down. Unfortunately, the facility’s abortionists plan to keep plying their trade, “just at different locations,” notes NPR. Giovannina Anthony — whom the story describes as living at “the forefront of the fight to try and keep abortion access legal in Wyoming” and who had a malpractice claim filed against her in 2006 — and abortionist Shirl “Doug” George plan to start separate private practices next year. Kathryn Noyes will join St. John’s Family Medicine. Anthony and George have not publicly announced when they will continue abortions.
The abortion facility closes December 15, and Noyes will not resume committing abortions until next February. Until then, the next closest abortion facilities are 280 miles away in Casper or 355 miles at a Planned Parenthood facility located on the edge of the Crow Indian Reservation.
St. John’s spokesperson Karen Connelly has said the facility remains skittish about Noye’s future role committing abortions in their facility due to Wyoming’s “uncertain legal environment.”
The state’s protective pro-life law is currently hung up in court. “After extensive prayer,” Governor Mark Gordon (R) signed Life Is a Human Right Act, a groundbreaking law protecting nearly all of the state’s unborn children from abortion, including from the abortion pill.
My friend, Michael New, has regularly said, “Pro-life laws save lives.” The North Carolina story shows pro-life laws begin saving unborn babies virtually at once. Even the threat of a pro-life law taking effect can make bona fide health centers think twice about partnering with the abortion industry. And as the Wyoming story proves, sometimes inflation-inducing government spending policies help do our work for us.
Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.
