Cutting off Planned Parenthood’s allowance

A pro-life tipping point?

Recent efforts by pro-abortion advocates to strip all legal protections for the unborn in states like New York and Virginia have backfired, turning the tide of public opinion toward the pro-life movement, according to a new Marist poll taken Feb. 12-17. Americans are now just as likely to identify as pro-life (47 percent) as “pro-choice” (47 percent), a label adopted by the pro-abortion movement. Just last month, a similar survey found more Americans identified as “pro-choice” than as pro-life by 17 percentage points (55 to 38 percent). Democrats moved in their pro-life identity from 20 percent to 34 percent.

“The recent legal changes to late-term abortion and the debate which followed have not gone unnoticed by the general public,” said Barbara Carvalho, director of The Marist Poll. “In just one month, there has been a significant increase in the proportion of Americans who see themselves as pro-life and an equally notable decline in those who describe themselves as pro-choice.” —Lynde Langdon

Across the nation

Arizona: A bill that would have repealed a legal requirement for abortionists to resuscitate babies born alive during an abortion procedure died in committee on Wednesday. The defeat followed a large pro-life demonstration that filled the Capitol building in protest of the proposal.

Arkansas: Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, signed a law on Tuesday that would protect the unborn from abortion at any point during pregnancy, except for medical emergencies for the mother, if the Supreme Court overturns its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Arkansas joins Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, and South Dakota in putting laws on the books that would prohibit abortion in a possible post-Roe world.

Kentucky: A bill that would protect babies from abortion on the basis of color, race, sex, national origin, or disability passed out of a state House committee on Wednesday. Legislators may also consider a bill that would require abortionists to tell women about a reversal process for drug-induced abortions. State Sen. Robby Mills, a Republican and a sponsor of the abortion-reversal bill, said that after women take the first abortion pill, “sometimes they feel like, ‘I’ve made this mistake. It’s done.’ We think it’s important for them to realize it’s not done and there are options.”

Vermont: Members of the Vermont House voted 106-36 Thursday in favor of a measure that would allow abortion until the moment of childbirth. The bill also states that unborn children “shall not have independent rights under Vermont law.”

Wyoming: The state Senate will soon consider House Bill 103, which would require abortionists to report to the state within 20 days of performing an abortion. The bill passed out of committee on Friday. —S.G.

Custody appeal

A Colorado mother of nine—three born children and six frozen embryos—is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a Colorado Supreme Court decision that decreed frozen embryos are property, not people. Mandy Rooks is fighting her ex-husband, Drake Rooks, for custody of the embryos, which were created by in vitro fertilization. He would like them destroyed, and she would like to keep them for implantation.

In Mandy Rooks’ appeal, Thomas More Society attorney Rebecca Messall likened the lower courts’ stance to slavery. “Granting human embryos the status of persons cannot be left up to 50 states, any more than the Kansas-Nebraska Act could leave the status of slaves to each state. The test of who is a ‘person’ must be decided for the entire nation in order to uphold the principles of ‘Equal Justice Under Law,’” she wrote, referring to the engraving on the Supreme Court building’s entrance. —S.G.