Print edition: 
The Protect Life Act, which passed the House last week and would prevent federal funds from going to pay for abortions, will likely die in the Democratic-controlled Senate. But there are more stirrings on this fundamental social issue.
The Nov. 8 ballot in Mississippi will include Initiative 26, known as the Personhood Amendment, that says: "The term 'person' or 'persons' shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof."
There is perhaps an even greater counterattack on what former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop's seminal documentary on the issue —"Whatever Happened to the Human Race?" —referred to as "the slaughter of the innocents." A series of initiatives organized by a coalition of pro-life groups would put legislation on ballots in every state requiring an abortion- minded pregnant woman to see a sonogram image of her fetus before termination.
I have long favored this approach as a means to substantially reduce the million-plus abortions performed every year in the United States. It imposes no restrictions on abortion, but gives women information. Catholic Conference spokesman Zach Wichmann said: "We have studies and statistics that show something north of 80 percent of women (seeking abortions) who view ultrasounds of their babies decide against abortion."
Mandating sonograms creates for pro-choicers an impossible intellectual — not to mention moral — dilemma. If they oppose women receiving information, they are censors. Pro-lifers are aligning themselves with truth-in- labeling and truth-in-lending laws requiring that information be provided to women (and men) in order to help make decisions presumed to be in their best interests.
When pro-choicers stand in the way of women receiving information about such a critical decision, they place themselves where they say conservatives reside, in the land of intolerance and ignorance.
The response to this proposed legislation goes something like this: "You are insulting the intelligence of women who are smart enough to figure out these things on their own."
Fine, I say. Then let's remove labels from cans, bottles and packages and do away with paperwork at the bank when a woman applies for a loan. Let's also rip Monroney stickers off vehicles at car dealerships, because women should be smart enough to figure out the price, options and miles per gallon on their own.
The reason pro-choicers don't want women to see what their babies look like in the womb is because, for too many of them, abortion has become a sacrament. Showing a pregnant woman a picture of her baby in the womb, heart beating, can only enhance the possibility that the child will be given the opportunity to live.
Legislators who vote for these pro-life measures will put themselves on the side of freedom of information and force the pro-choicers to admit they favor a single choice: abortion.
Over many years of speaking to women who regret their abortions, I often have heard the response that "if I had seen a picture of my baby, I would have made a different choice."
This legislation empowers women. It is the best way to reduce the number of abortions while waiting for the courts to catch up and restore the "endowed right to life" that stood for centuries until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Roe in 1973.
