Image by Alison Girone
CV NEWS FEED // To defeat pro-abortion ballot measures in 2024, a pro-life organization recently stated that it is crucial to “engage in ballot measure fights NOW by raising money and vocally standing in opposition.”
Kelsey Pritchard, State Public Affairs Director for non-profit Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, wrote an op-ed in the Ohio Star on February 4 titled, “Pro-Life Leaders Must Engage in Battle Against Abortion Ballot Measures Now.”
“Thanks to the Dobbs decision and pro-life leaders, 24 states have laws protecting unborn children at 12 weeks or sooner. Through ballot measures, abortion activists are trying to reverse that progress so anyone can get an abortion anytime, anywhere,” Pritchard wrote.
To fight back successfully, Pritchard argued that pro-lifers need to meet the ballot initiatives with better funding and informative resources for voters.
SBA Pro-Life America recently announced that “its goal for the 2024 election cycle is to raise and spend $92 million” in its “largest ground game yet” in the pro-life fight.
Funding is “vital” to spread the pro-life message, Pritchard wrote:
In South Dakota, where I live, support and opposition to the ballot measure is virtually even— with the majority of women opposing. Why is that? Because Planned Parenthood and the ACLU are sitting it out and haven’t poured money into the race. That’s an indication of how vital the money is to get the message out.
“Past losses show the pro-life side has an uphill battle. We have been majorly outspent in every race as outside left-wing groups and the abortion lobby have poured in tens of millions,” Pritchard wrote:
In Ohio and other states, abortion activists’ lies were carried by a left-wing media machine which operated like the abortion industry’s PR department. The media repeatedly masked their opinion pieces as “news” and repeatedly quoted so-called “independent experts” in their fact checks who were documented leftists.
Additionally, pro-lifers need to directly combat the pro-abortion ballots’ misleading language, which will be used to grant unlimited access to abortion for any reason, at any age, Pritchard warned.
Under the vague language of the pro-abortion ballot measures, “girls who aren’t old enough to get their ears pierced on their own will be able to obtain an abortion without a parent ever knowing,” Pritchard wrote. “Abortions won’t need to be performed by doctors and abortion facilities won’t need to be near hospitals or have hospital admitting privileges, putting women at serious risk.”
“Pro-life officials in states with 2024 fights need to start sounding the alarm now, informing the public of how extreme these measures truly are and clarifying exactly what the laws in their state do,” Pritchard wrote:
As the media and Hollywood attempt to drown out the voices of pro-life advocates in the states, it is crucial for elected officials and pro-lifers with a platform to take a public stand.
The pro-life leaders also “need more GOP elected officials to lend their voices to stop the ballot measure just as we saw in Ohio in the last few weeks of the campaign,” Pritchard wrote, noting the pro-life side gained momentum when “Gov. Mike DeWine and Sen. JD Vance spoke out against Issue 1.”
Additionally, attorneys general have a unique ability and “duty in guarding against deception and ensuring abortion activists aren’t violating the law,” Pritchard wrote:
In Montana, state Attorney General Austin Knudsen has rejected a misleading abortion ballot measure for logrolling multiple choices into one initiative and precluding Montanans from passing future regulations on abortion.
Pritchard also praised Arkansas AG Tim Griffin for “requiring activists to rewrite language because their proposed text was misleading” and South Dakota AG Marty Jackley for similar actions.
Pritchard highlighted when Florida AG Ashley Moody took a pro-life stand and “called out the proposed abortion amendment as one of the worst she has seen in terms of language that misleads voters, and questions why the sponsor did not provide clarity on when the right to abortion ends.”
Pro-lifers also “must successfully expose the misinformation spread by abortion activists— chiefly that pregnant women can’t access emergency care without writing unlimited abortion in the Constitution,” Pritchard wrote.
This misinformation “not only deceives voters, but it also puts pregnant women in danger by causing confusion on whether they can receive the care they need at home in their states for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and complications,” Pritchard wrote:
The truth is that every state in the country with a pro-life law has a life of the mother exception that allows for the timely and necessary care for pregnant women in an emergency.
“The Dobbs victory was an enormous breakthrough, but as with every other major shift in the status quo in our nation’s history, it will take time for the laws to reflect the reality of that decision,” Pritchard concluded:
We must persevere in working to undo the abortion industry’s 50-year political monopoly and the deeply rooted lies abortion activists have sown to legitimize taking the lives of more than 63 million babies in the womb. Future generations are counting on us.
