The Times They Are a-Changin'

Good news for pro-lifers this year. According to Ramesh Ponnuru, we'll see a number of pro-life women take office:

Two pro-life women won Republican nominations for the Senate this week. A Tea Party favorite, Sharron Angle, and the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina are running for the Senate from Nevada and California, respectively.

A third pro-life woman, Susana Martinez, became the party’s nominee for governor of New Mexico, and a fourth, Nikki Haley, a South Carolina state legislator, is expected to be a gubernatorial nominee in her state. If they win their primaries, Kelly Ayotte, the former attorney general of New Hampshire, and Jane Norton, the former lieutenant governor of Colorado, will also be pro-life Senate candidates in November.

I found this part of Ponnuru's analysis interesting:

The number of pro-life women running for office has increased, perhaps paradoxically, because of the social changes of the last few decades. The first generation of women to become active in politics strongly identified as feminist and considered abortion rights central to their feminism. Pro-life women were more likely to be full-time homemakers. Their invisibility on the public stage contributed to an impression that the vast majority of women were pro-choice.

These days socially conservative women are likely to have careers, too. The growing number of Americans who consider themselves pro-life suggests that fewer people, of either sex, consider access to abortion to be crucial to women’s economic success.

Perhaps part of the reason that American opinion on abortion has shifted toward pro-life is that our real-life experience is starting to disprove the false rhetoric of the pro-choice movement. As soon as Americans believe you can be pro-woman and pro-life, one of the cornerstones of the pro-choice movement is abolished. Indeed, this November could be hugely important, not just for pro-life women politicians, but for the pro-life movement in general.