Fighting For The Unborn Gives A Voice To The Voiceless
By Will Ainsworth
May 3, 2018
Abortion is murder.
Those three simple words sum up my position on an issue that many falsely claim is a complex one.
As soon as I was old enough to understand the concept, my parents instilled in me the knowledge that life begins at conception, and protecting the rights of the unborn is a responsibility that must be shouldered by those of us who can give voice to the voiceless.
My mother, Sharon, is the director of the Real Life Crisis Pregnancy Center in Marshall County, and she uses that role to stress adoption as the proper response to unwanted pregnancies. My father, Billy, is a man of deep and abiding faith who supports my mother’s mission and helped foster my relationship with Christ.
For all of these reasons, I have devoted my brief time in public service to championing pro-life issues and fighting the abortion mills that operate in portions of our state.
Earlier this year, I carried and passed legislation that provides a generous tax credit to families that adopt children whether in-state or out-of-state. It is my hope that this incentive will provide a stable home and a caring family to children who simply want to be loved.
As a state legislator, I helped pass a constitutional amendment that will appear on the November ballot and declares Alabama to be a pro-life state so that we may stand ready to take action as soon as the abomination known as Roe v. Wade is overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
When a surreptitiously recorded video showed representatives of Planned Parenthood cavalierly discussing the sale of unborn infant body parts as if they were a publicly traded commodity, my fellow lawmakers and I enacted the Unborn Infants’ Dignity of Life Act, which criminalizes such transactions in Alabama.
Unfortunately, conservatives have been forced to fight not only the abortionists who take unborn lives but also the liberal, activist federal judges who enable them by distorting and misinterpreting the U.S. Constitution.
Two bills that I helped pass into law, one that prohibited abortion clinics from operating within 2,000 feet of a school and another that banned the barbaric procedure known as dismemberment abortion, were permanently blocked by a leftist federal judge appointed by Jimmy Carter.
It is my hope that President Donald Trump will be able to largely remake the federal court system by appointing conservative jurists who will strictly interpret the Constitution so that needed abortion restrictions like the ones we passed may take effect.
Despite these politically-motivated judicial roadblocks, statistics indicate that our efforts are having a positive effect in the fight to preserve unborn life.
Since 2005, the number of abortions performed in Alabama has declined by 41 percent overall, and the state saw reductions continue each year for ten consecutive years. In 2016, the latest year for which figures available, 6,642 abortions were performed in Alabama, which represents the second lowest number in more than a decade.
Compared to 2006, when 11,654 abortions took place, today’s figures demonstrate the progress we have made.
As a candidate for lieutenant governor, and, hopefully, once in office, I will continue to champion the pro-life cause and fight the liberal elites who mock conservative Alabamians for our stand.
That liberal contempt was recently on full display at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner when Michelle Wolf, who claims to be a comedian of some kind, made supposed jokes about this very serious life-or-death topic.
“Abortion. Don’t knock it ’til you try it. And when you do try it, really knock it. You gotta get that baby out of there,” she said as many of Washington’s gathered journalists chuckled their approval.
That is the kind of depraved mindset we are fighting in the on-going cultural war for the heart and soul of our nation.
If we are going to win that war and preserve the traditional values and cornerstone morals upon which this nation was built, we must have leaders at all levels who have the courage to join the battle, the voice to win the debate, and the determination to keep fighting until victory is ours.
I am reporting for duty.
State Rep. Will Ainsworth (R - Guntersville) is a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. Elected to the Legislature in 2014, Ainsworth currently represents Alabama’s House District 27, which includes portions of Marshall, DeKalb, and Blount counties.