Pro-Life Success in the States: Strategies for the Current Decade and Beyond

On Thursday March 15th at 11AM at its headquarters on 801 G Street NW, The Family Research Council will be hosting its monthly Family Policy Lecture. The speaker will be Professor Michael New from the University of Alabama who will give a presentation entitled "Pro-Life Success in the States: Strategies for the Current Decade and Beyond"

In this provocative presentation, Professor New debunks the notion that the sharp decline in the incidence of abortion during the 1990s was caused by the strong economy and increased contraception use. Instead, Professor New will argue that the most important reason for the abortion reduction was the tremendous amount of success that the pro-life movement had in enacting protective legislation at the state level.

Indeed, during the 1990s many more states passed parental involvement laws, waiting periods, partial birth abortion bans, and women's right to know laws. Using a comprehensive dataset of abortion rates from all 50 states, Professor New demonstrates that each of these laws has been effective at reducing the incidence of abortion.

Some people have questioned the effectiveness of the pro-life movement. However, in this lecture, Professor New documents the real success pro-lifers have enjoyed in recent years at both passing protective legislation and devising approaches that are effective in persuading women to seek alternatives to abortion.

These state level strategies paid real dividends during the 1990s and will doubtless prove effective in the future.

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Michael J. New, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Alabama. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Dartmouth College, Dr. New received a master's degree in statistics and a doctorate in political science from Stanford University in 2002. Before coming to Alabama, Dr. New worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard-MIT Data Center.

Dr. New's research interests include the impact of pro-life legislation, state level fiscal limits, and welfare reform. He has given presentations on his pro-life research at Harvard, MIT, Holy Cross, the University of Pennsylvania, Louisiana State University, and at the last 4 conventions of the National Right to Life Committee. His writings have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Investor's Business Daily, National Review, The Weekly Standard, National Review Online, and The New York Post.