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"Life is winning in America, in every town, in every city,” U.S. Rep.
Mike Pence (IN-6) told 260 attendees at the Broward Right to Life
Benefit Breakfast, November 17.
Pence, a pro -life conservative, said that abortion has declined by 20 percent since 1990. He also noted that polls indicate more young people now hold pro-life views. Even in Washington, he said President George W. Bush has sustained the pro-life cause by vetoing measures to fund stem cell research that destroys human embryos.
Defunding Planned Parenthood
The Indiana congressman opened a new front in the battle to end abortion this past summer when he authored a measure to prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving any federal tax dollars for family planning services. His Pence Amendment drove pinkshirted Planned Parenthood protesters onto Capitol Hill streets to decry the effort to end the tax-funded subsidy to the nation’s leading abortion provider, responsible for the death of some 264,943 unborn children in its 2005-2006 fiscal year.
The measure did not pass, but garnered 189 votes, a vote total that surprised even the Indiana congressman, who has vowed to continue his campaign to defund Planned Parenthood.
"It was an extraordinary start in an effort that will continue,” he said.
Pence draws inspiration from William Wilberforce, a nineteenth century member of the British Parliament and a slavery opponent who worked tirelessly to end it by removing the profit motive from trafficking in human flesh.
“For long as God gives me breath and a seat in the national legislature, that will be my inspiration because I really believe that if we can take the money out of abortion in America it will fall like the Berlin wall.”
Urban Outreach to End Abortion
Like Pence, Rev. John Ensor, who received the Dr. Bart T. Heffernan Guardian of Life Award at the breakfast, is seeking to end abortion by undermining its profitability. Ensor, executive director of Heartbeat International’s Urban Initiative, is starting pregnancy centers in urban centers targeted by the abortion industry. He led the launch this year of a pregnancy center in Hialeah and is seeking to establish 3-5 centers in Dade County.
Ensor told breakfasters that some 94 percent of abortion businesses are located in major cities where abortionists target minority women. African Americans make up some 12 percent of the U.S. population, but black women account for 36 percent of abortions, he said. Latinos make up 13 percent of the population, but Latino women have 20 percent of all abortions.
"The end of abortion as a business is now in sight when the pro-life movement is not only joined by but led by African- American and Latino leaders,” said Ensor.
"When they awaken and flow into this movement and lead it and become our voices, abortion will lose its legitimacy as [did] segregation. And we will look back on this issue the way we now look back on segregation and slavery and praise God that he has removed this second great stain from our country.”
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