New Stanek WND column, "With Roeder trial, abortion dodges another bullet"

The personhood of a preborn life does not get a fair day in court today because in the early years of the pro-life movement we deployed a strategy that was fundamentally flawed. For almost four decades we have not focused on the core question where we should have from the beginning and that is the person in utero! Our mistake was to confuse the compromise of principle, with the principle of compromise. We sacrificed rape and incest babies to get laws that would immediately hold down the number abortions; this compromise saved lives but it virtually entrenched the 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions deeply into our society and opened the blood-gates of abortion-on-demand by sentencing millions more of our innocent preborn citizens to a violent death. To put it another way, we fought for legislative curbs that would save lives (they were thwarted repeatedly in the courts) by pruning away the branches of the abortion tree of evil one by one, hoping to eventually destroy the tree, but it thrived, fed by the root. It stood firmly entrenched, bearing its evil fruit that was fed to the masses by the abortion industry and their cohorts, which included an irresponsible media. In past years, when we tried to make this point, we were met with derision and ad hominem attacks. Professional marketers know that we pro-lifers are selling a product to the social marketplace; that product is: Every preborn person is a member of the human family and a citizen of the United States and is entitled to the same civil rights as any other born person.

When a product has a configuration flaw (and inherent contradiction), or a strategy flaw, it will not gain distribution into the social marketplace. Personhood in utero has been difficult to establish in the minds and hearts of most people because historically, human growth and development in the womb has been hidden from sight. This concealed phenomenon of nature made the womb-phase vulnerable to lies for over three decades; it has been obfuscated by a long list of contrived, slanted distortions, and false imagery. But now the false claims of the abortion industry and their advocates have been irrefutably exposed by science. The womb-phase is now an open picture show. Thanks to 3-D and 4-D fetal ultrasound, our eyes can see the unique drama of nature’s miracle in the womb. The fetus can be seen to yawn, cry, swallow, blink and execute moves. Personhood is glaringly visible and undeniable! A person lives in the womb! That is now our battle cry! We can, by a concentrated effort nationwide, force our adversaries to accept reality. Ultrasound opens the mysteries of life in the womb; it’s visible to the world of science, to legal scholars, and most importantly, to parents. What we now can see through science, confirms the truth previously derived through common sense—a female zygote, embryo, fetus, baby in utero, stands on her own right, her own dignity, character, essence, and she is equal in value to any freely born person.
Writers for Life