There were significant developments in 2024, especially in the political landscape, on issues related to the protection of innocent life.
Though the pro-life movement has faced many new challenges since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, this year was perhaps the most eventful since the issue of abortion was returned to the states. We learned much about where Americans are, as well as how important the federal government remains, on this important issue.
During 2024, the Democratic party advanced the most radically pro-abortion agenda in the history of our nation. The Harris campaign promised to expand the priorities of the Biden administration, which had already dramatically expanded access to chemical abortion. Using COVID as an excuse to lessen FDA restrictions during the pandemic, the administration fought to preserve access to abortion drugs without an in-person physician visit, through the mail, and at a growing number of retail pharmacies.
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The administration and campaign also doubled down on falsehoods about pro-life restrictions in states such as Georgia. The tragic story of Amber Thurman was a central part of the messaging, despite the fact that she died from complications from a chemical abortion. In fact, chemical abortions make up the majority of all abortions today and are four times more likely to cause complications than surgical abortions. However, when given the chance to weigh in on how the FDA mishandled chemical abortion access, the Supreme Court declined to hear the issue. All these developments indicate how central chemical abortion has become in threatening innocent, preborn humans.
Just as historic was the GOP’s decision to abandon the pro-life cause, removing its longstanding support for pro-life policy from its platform. During his campaign, president-elect Trump consistently side-stepped the morality of killing the preborn, focusing his argument on the fact that abortion is now a “state issue.” The Republican platform also abandoned its language that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. In summary, on the issues of marriage and life, the GOP became the party of choice in 2024, while the Democratic party fully embraced death.
Also in 2024, voters in 10 states took up the issue of abortion. Seven states voted to enshrine abortion in their state’s constitution. For the first time since the Dobbs decision returned the issue to the states, pro-lifers won … in three states. Only the state of Nebraska voted to enshrine the preborn’s right to life in the state constitution. In Florida, the pro-abortion amendment failed to meet the required 60% threshold it needed to pass, but a majority of voters (57%) still supported it. In a state with approximately a million more Republican voters, the issue further revealed how much the political landscape has shifted on this issue.
In addition to abortion, the ethics of artificial reproduction technologies were front and center this year. For example, both President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance expressed strong support for IVF and called for health insurance plans to cover the procedure. Though IVF has helped couples struggling with fertility have children, the way it is currently practiced and under-regulated results in more destroyed and imprisoned lives each year than even Planned Parenthood. Further, the industry has reduced children to customizable commodities. Over 1.5 million human embryos that were conceived through the IVF process are currently stored in freezers.
In other words, Christians should be concerned not only with the unjust taking of life but also the unethical making of life. The church’s silence or, even worse, complicity in this area is scandalous.
The most positive political development in 2024 was in West Virginia, where voters passed an amendment to ban euthanasia or any form of so-called “medical assistance in dying” in that state. Though the deadly practice advances in much of the rest of the world, at least in America, the legalization of doctor-assisted death has stalled.
The Church has been in the fight for life from the very beginning, and we cannot sit out this moment. In 2024, the Colson Center worked with the Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists to produce videos that tell the truth about chemical abortion and abortion pill reversal, or APR. We also directly engaged the issue of IVF and other artificial reproductive technologies, in writing and on video. And we continued to tell the dark story of so-called “medical assistance in dying.”
If the Church is to be the Church in this moment, Christians must be equipped to stand for the sanctity of life, seeing every life as made in the image of God.
LifeNews Note: John Stonestreet writes for BreakPoint.org. This article was originally posted here.
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