Life Wins – Abortion Bill Recap – American Family Association of Indiana
Life Wins – Abortion Bill Recap
Abortion Bill Signed into Law – Final Thought
As you probably know, the Indiana legislature passed Senate Bill 1 through all the steps required to pass a bill. About an hour after this happened, around 10:30 pm on Friday night, Governor Eric Holcomb signed Senate Bill 1 and Senate Bill 2 which included about $74 million in spending to help Hoosier women with pregnancy needs, adoption help, and prenatal resources for infants. One new program alone, the Hoosier Family First Fund, has $45 million in it with eight specific ways the state will help.
There are already almost 80 crisis pregnancy centers in Indiana that help women with pregnancy resources. Here is an online national map of those centers.
Senate Bill 1 will go into effect on September 15th. At that time, every abortion clinic in the state will be required to close. A doctor performing an abortion outside this law could lose his/her medical license. This will reduce the number of elective abortions dramatically and Indiana will not be a destination stop for abortion.
This is historic. Yet, as you know it was an exhausting roller coaster ride of ups and downs to get here.
I look forward to moving on, but I have a few final thoughts on this because the battle over this was intense and caustic.
I understand that not everyone who claims the pro-life label is happy with this bill but here are a few random thoughts for perspective. I don’t like all these, but I cannot create my own legislative or political reality.
• Those who demand everything from the legislature usually wind up with nothing.
• Politics reflects culture. In our sex-obsessed, truth is relative, morally confused, hate-filled, life is cheap, post-Judeo-Christian society, I believe it is by the grace of God that anything like this passed at all.
• The far left pulled out a lot of the same threats and tactics that they did with the RFRA battle over religious freedom. This time they failed.
• Following the loss in Kansas had Indiana not passed something it would have had serious negative national ramifications for the pro-life movement in other states.
• The Biden Administration, which supports abortion in every circumstance and with tax dollar support, called the passage of SB 1 “a devastating step.”
• The media, and pro-abortion, legislators who label this a woman’s issue act as if the 40% of women who are pro-life simply do not exist.
• Dead babies can’t vote or speak of their trauma. So, the tug of emotion often favors the pro-abortion side.
• There were many policy ideas or approaches to this, but it takes 26 votes in the Senate and 51 in the House to pass any of them. You can only do what you have the votes to do.
• After 6 years of pushing for it, and 28 primary challengers running in support of it, 94% of the House voted against the Nisly bill to ban abortion.
• Although three months is a lifetime in election politics, it is possible that a few House and Senate Republicans could lose this November because they voted to remove exceptions for rape and incest. With a lousy economy, rising crime, and an unpopular president, this is one of the only cards the Democrats can play this election cycle, and they will. We could have a slightly less pro-life legislature in 2023.
• On the other side of this, there were a couple of Republican legislators who revealed that they were not pro-life despite what they may have said before this battle. Some of them are not running again, others may wind up with a primary opponent in two or four years.
• There are no pro-life Democrats. They are a single-view, liberal, monolithic block on all major statehouse issues.
• Every legislator and pro-life leader I have spoken with is physically and emotionally exhausted from this intense fight. They deserve our prayers and thanks for standing for life.
• Churches must continue to educate their congregations on issues of the sanctity of life and help women needing pregnancy and parenting assistance.
• I would not be surprised to see Planned Parenthood or the ICLU attempt a lawsuit to try to delay the implementation of this law even if they know they will ultimately lose. They have the money to go to court and have a history of lobbying liberal federal judges to keep abortions going despite a legally losing argument in the end.
• I and other pro-life, pro-family, leaders have taken a lot of harsh criticisms from some people who call themselves abolitionists. They are so opposed to exceptions that they have convinced themselves that this bill was a complete failure. I said that this bill is not perfect. However, as the legislative clock ran down, a decision had to be made after efforts to fix some of the bill’s problems with amendments failed.
By Thursday evening it really became SB1 or nothing this year. Many abolitionists wanted to choose nothing. This is foolish in my view because SB1 still saves lives, but yes it does allow some abortions.
As I wrote last week, I respect and praised some who chose to vote “no” on a principle, but they were not ones who could not then also respect those who voted “yes” on a life principle.
A few activists have been extremely harsh toward those of us who decided not to let the perfect become the enemy of the good when lives are at stake. They believe compromise is evil. Frankly, however, to be logically consistent with their all-or-nothing approach, I feel as though if they saw an orphanage on fire and could only save the kids on the first floor, I guess they would just let it burn, and then, it seems, they would curse those who ran in and grabbed one of the kids before the building collapsed.
• This legislation will unfold over the next 5 months before the 2023 legislature. At that time, legislators should review the effectiveness of this new law, and adjust it if needed.
In Their Own Words:
“The task is not to turn the world upside down but in a given place to do what, from the perspective of reality, is necessary objectively and to really carry it out.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
