Taken together, these two realities provide a guide for pro-life America’s next moves. If banning abortion doesn’t end abortion, then what will? The answer is deceptively simple in concept, yet extraordinarily difficult in practice. Our nation must ease the fears and concerns—which are legitimate—of women who are already predisposed to view abortion as a last resort, not a first choice.
Doing so is a matter of both better policy and personal conduct. Better policy is embodied by Mitt Romney’s proposed Family Security Act, which would provide most American families with monthly financial assistance even when a child is still in the womb. Parents of young children would receive $350 a month per child, and parents of older children would receive $250 a month per child. Pregnant women could receive up to four $700 monthly payments, one for each of the last four months of pregnancy. The Romney plan isn’t the answer to child poverty and family financial insecurity, but it is an answer, and its concrete financial support for mothers and children would be a tangible statement of our nation’s moral commitment to young families.
No set of policies relieves pro-life Americans of personal responsibilities. That means fostering and adopting children. That means loving mothers in distress. That means sustaining and creating private institutions that provide shelter and assistance to women in need.
And this where the animosity that dominates American political discourse can be so destructive. The last thing pro-life Americans should want is to create the perception that they do not love pro-choice women and will not seek to help them and their children flourish. No virtue can be had in “owning the libs” when a hostile posture will close hearts and minds.
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