PRO-LIFERS WORKING FEVERISHLY IN STATE LEGISLATURES.(Brief Article)

Understandably, most people's attention tends to focus on the national stage where pro-lifers do highly publicized battle in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives. But grassroots pro-lifers know that there are 50 state legislatures. Many times, crucially important action will also be taking place closer to home.

Not every state legislature meets every year and, even when they do, often the "window" for passing bills is narrow. As this article is being written, pro-lifers around the country are vigorously promoting their legislation and attempting to thwart pro-abortion initiatives.

Since many states are still in session, any coverage is necessarily a snapshot in time, a picture that could change significantly. Having said that, NRLC State Legislative Director Mary Spaulding Balch is working closely with NRLC affiliates to carry the day for unborn children and the medically dependent.

Balch told NRL News that anti-life forces are contesting pro-life legislation aggressively, especially in bills to ban cloning. She noted that in several states, "such bans sailed through one house only to come to a halt in the other." What happened?

"It was as if the universities and the biotechnology industry suddenly realized that state legislatures were serious about stopping so-called `therapeutic cloning,'" she said. This euphemism was coined by cloning proponents to try to distance themselves from cloning embryos which would be implanted in a woman's womb (labeled "reproductive cloning"), which is widely opposed, and the cloning of embryos whose sole purpose is to be lethally experimented on ("therapeutic cloning").

Balch said that many states have passed bills in one house of a legislature with pro-lifers meeting fierce resistance in the other legislative body.

"Nebraska is unique in that it is the only state that has just one house (the Senate), but what has happened there is not unusual," Balch said.