Abortion. The word is part of the vocabulary of almost every American over the age of twelve. Abortion has been embedded in the American experience since January 22, 1973. On that day, the U.S. Supreme Court, with rulings on Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, struck down every state law governing abortion and replaced those laws with a ruling that granted the right to privacy for every woman, a right to privacy that included the right to have an abortion during her entire pregnancy. Legalized abortion on demand had come to America.
The restriction on the liberty appeared to be illusory...She must find a licensed clinic after month three; and after her child was viable, she must find an abortionist who believed she needed an abortion. When the full dimensions of the liberty were realized, the liberty was little short of unlimited.[1]The battle lines drawn over the right to life of the unborn remain as sharp and divisive as they did on that January 1973 day. Abortion continues to be an explosive front in the culture wars, as the recent Senate confirmation hearings for Judges John Roberts and Samuel Alito attest.
Yet, as the judicial, legislative, and public education battles rage, there is another movement at work to end abortion in America. It is the mostly unpublicized, often unnoticed work of the pregnancy center movement. Begun over thirty years ago, this grassroots effort, enlisting thousands of volunteers and funded almost entirely by local community contributions, encompasses over 2,000 local centers nationwide. While judicial and legislative efforts may take years to come to fruition, the pregnancy center movement works to "help stop abortion every day." While the ever-changing tide of American politics can bring a pro-life or pro-abortion President into office, and a higher court can quickly overturn a legal decision limiting abortion rights, the pregnancy center movement has experienced slow but steady expansion and increased effectiveness at reaching abortion-vulnerable women, one life at a time in the thirty-plus years since the Roe and Doe decisions. A closer look at the history, expansion, and transformation of the movement will reveal why it is one of the most vivid, undiluted, and practical applications of religion in contemporary American society.
Read the rest: Pregnancy Centers: A Practical Response to the Abortion Dilemma
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