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The Nov. 6 election showed America’s increasing embrace of the right to life for all, including the unborn.
Pro-life gains was one of the key takeaways of the New York Times coverage of the election. Here is some of what they might have had in mind.
U.S. Senate Gains Pro-Life Majority
Several pro-life candidates won or kept seats in the U.S. Senate, including Kevin Cramer in South Dakota, Ted Cruz in Texas, Ron DeSantis in Florida, Mike Braun in Indiana and Josh Hawley in Missouri.
The Catholic Vote organization noted that those who opposed Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh were punished. “Not a single swing-state Democrat who opposed Kavanaugh won reelection. The one Democrat (Manchin) that supported Kavanaugh, saved his seat,” it said.
The Senate had a Republican majority before the election, but not a pro-life majority. Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins oppose the right to life for the unborn. With the new seats gained Nov. 6, the Senate has a true pro-life majority.
U.S. House Gains Pro-Abortion Majority
The majority party in the U.S. House changed from Republican to Democratic when the Republicans lost 30 seats and the Democrats gained them. This leaves the U.S. House of Representatives with 225 Democrats and 197 Republicans.
The Democratic Party Platform mentions abortion several times, calling for an expansion of abortion in the United States and around the globe, but it is unclear what specific legislative effects the change in House leadership will have.
The State Fight
Since abortion is increasingly a state concern, state politics matter to the pro-life movement more than ever.
Kansas’s governorship is in the “lose” column for pro-life. Voters selected Laura Kelly, who was endorsed by the country’s largest abortion money-maker, Planned Parenthood, and the group Emily’s List, which funds the campaigns of women who will support the abortion industry.
However, Iowa, Florida, Georgia and Ohio all elected governors on Tuesday who campaigned to protect the lives of the unborn.
Additionally, several state ballot initiatives addressed life issues.
The pro-life movement lost In Oregon, where voters refused to stop taxpayer dollars from being sent to the abortion industry. But measures designed to safeguard the right to life of the unborn passed in Alabama and West Virginia.
Alabama passed a constitutional amendment to “recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life.”
West Virginia passed a similar constitutional amendment saying “nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of abortion.”
Four other states — Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, and South Dakota — have similar laws that would prevent the legalization of killing unborn children in the state if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
All in all a good day in the fight to secure the right to life for everyone.
Tom Hoopes, author of The Rosary of Saint John Paul II and The Fatima Family Handbook, is writer in residence at Benedictine College in Kansas and hosts The Extraordinary Story podcast about the life of Christ. A former reporter in the Washington, D.C., area, he served as press secretary of the U.S. House Ways & Means Committee Chairman and spent 10 years as executive editor of the National Catholic Register newspaper and Faith & Family magazine. His work frequently appears in Catholic publications such as Aleteia.org and the Register. He and his wife, April, have nine children and live in Atchison, Kansas.
