Here’s What the Pro-Life Movement Can Learn from MADD
By: Brett Attebery, February 15, 2024
What can the Pro-Life Movement learn from MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving)?
As it turns out, many things.
But there’s one thing that really intrigues me given that we are in an election year, and there is much talk about new pro-life legislative initiatives.
As I looked through the history section of MADD’s website, in the year 2008 the Newseum’s First Amendment Gallery included MADD as the lead example of petitioning the government to change legislation to protect victims.
So how does that relate to the Pro-Life Movement?
Hasn’t the movement been petitioning the government to change legislation to protect victims ever since the time Roe v Wade first became a law?
We sure have!
But interestingly, the vast majority of that legislation has focused on the preborn baby as the victim that needs legal protection, and not on the mother as the victim.
Of course, it is entirely correct that the preborn baby is a tragic victim of abortion.
However, it is important to note, and obvious, that the preborn baby is not the decision maker about whether or not a woman will get an abortion.
The preborn baby’s mother makes that decision.
So my thought is, would it not be more effective in terms of helping more women choose life if we petitioned the government to change legislation in a way that focused on the woman?
What if instead of focusing on legislation that seeks to “protect” the preborn baby, which by the way such legislation will largely be ineffective because of the prevalent use of the abortion pill (read here, here, and here), we instead focused on legislation that supports the woman with her emotional and financial needs?
Yes, I know that there are laws that exist in some states that do exactly that.
But those laws are primarily financial support programs funneled through life-affirming organizations.
And that’s a good thing, of course.
But what I would like to see is legislation that forces the Abortion Industry Complex (AIC) to tell the truth to women.
Imagine state and/or national legislation that requires the AIC to give every abortion-seeking woman medically accurate information about abortion and also about carrying a pregnancy to term, along with information about emotional and financial support available to her if she chooses to carry her pregnancy to term.
As I’ve written in a previous article (Why the Abortion Industry Withholds Information from Women), the Abortion Industry Complex provides no such information because they know that if they did so, a majority of women would choose life, and that would be very bad for the abortion industry’s financial bottom line.
And if the Pro-Life Movement was able to successfully petition to pass such legislation, I believe the impact on reducing abortions would be phenomenal, like nothing we’ve ever experienced before.
Recent research (The Effects of Abortion Decision Rightness and Decision Type on Women’s Satisfaction and Mental Health) reveals that 6 out of 10 women who had abortions would have preferred to choose life if they had received emotional and financial support.
Can you imagine a 60% reduction in abortions?
That would completely take the wind out of the sails of the abortion industry.
The fact that the Abortion Industry Complex withholds information and support from women resulting in 6 out of 10 of those women making a choice they didn’t want to make – abortion – proves that Planned Parenthood and all the other organizations directly involved in or supporting the Abortion Industry Complex in any way, are victimizing women.
Don’t we want laws that prevent organizations from victimizing women?
I believe all we need is legislation that requires ALL women’s healthcare providers to tell women the TRUTH.
Brett Attebery is a Pro-Life Author and Speaker. He currently serves as President and CEO of Heroic Media, Chairman for the National Prayer Luncheon, Executive Editor of Pro-Life Magazine, and is the Founder of Americans for Shutting Down the Abortion Industry (ASDAI).