PRO-LIFE LAWS MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE.

Pro-lifers have heroically sought to overturn Roe v. Wade for over 30 years. That mission will succeed when new justices who will honestly and accurately interpret the Constitution are nominated to the Supreme Court and confirmed by the Senate.

What we sometimes forget is that while court battles get the glitzy media attention, the day-to-day work of slowing abortion-on-demand and saving lives is typically done more quietly.

Michael J. New is a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard-MIT data center. He is the author of a fascinating new study published by the Heritage Foundation entitled, "Analyzing the Effects of State Legislation on the Incidence of Abortion During the 1990s."

Dr. New investigated the enormously positive impact that passing protective laws had in reducing the number of abortions. New analyzed data from all 50 states.

When comparing the number of abortions in 1990 with the number in 1999, New concludes that these laws helped account for a drop of 17% in abortions in the 46 states that reported data for both years.

Let me quote the basic outline of what Dr. New did in his thoughtful profile of state legislation. "Examining state abortion data for every year from 1985 to 1999, and holding a variety of economic and demographic factors constant, the Heritage study examines the impact of four common types of pro-life legislation: parental-involvement laws, Medicaid funding restrictions, informed-consent laws and partial-birth-abortion bans," he writes.

The thrust of Dr. New's conclusions are clearly true, although NRLC's tallies are slightly different. For example, NRLC's analysis shows that in the era following the Supreme Court's 1992 Casey decision, 21 states have passed effective informed consent laws, with 19 of them being enforced.