Why the pro-life movement is succeeding

Each week, The World and Everything in It features a “Culture Friday” segment, in which executive producer Nick Eicher discusses the latest cultural news with John Stonestreet, president of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Here is a summary of this week’s conversation.

Forty-three years after Roe v. Wade, the pro-life movement is going strong. The annual March for Life, which took place today in Washington, D.C., is as well-attended as ever, and Republican presidential candidates cannot hope to receive the party’s nomination if they aren’t at least rhetorically pro-life.

I talked with John Stonestreet this week about why the pro-life movement is succeeding.

“We can’t underestimate the gift that ultrasound technology has been to the pro-life movement,” he said. “To use rhetoric like, ‘It’s a clump of cells,’ is not what most people have seen when they’ve seen pictures of ultrasound.”

Stonestreet said the way pregnancy care centers have used ultrasound to help women choose life is just one example of excellence in those organizations: They also reach out to women and men whose babies were aborted, and they provide parenting classes.

On the political side, he said “there’s been a remarkable amount of pro-life legislation” to limit the number of abortions.

“Things like, if somebody is doing this sort of procedure, they need to have admitting rights at a local hospital,” Stonestreet said. “That’s not an extreme position; that just kind of makes sense given the inherent dangers in the procedure.”

In addition to exposing some of the barbaric practices in the abortion industry in recent years such as those of Kermit Gosnell and Planned Parenthood, the pro-life movement, Stonestreet pointed out, can claim another important victory: “Everyday Christians have gotten better at making their case.”

Listen to “Culture Friday” on The World and Everything in It.