WASHINGTON, D.C., July 19, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a brief interview with LifeSiteNews.com on Wednesday, one of America’s leading pro-life legislators offered encouragement to the movement’s faithful.
Congressman Trent Franks told LifeSiteNews co-founder John-Henry Westen that the parade of horrors revealed by the recent Kermit Gosnell murder trial and LiveAction’s undercover exposés of the late-term abortion industry are turning the tide of public opinion against abortion.
“The important thing for the pro-life community to understand is that we are starting to win,” said the Arizona Republican, whose Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks, recently passed the House of Representatives.
“If these little babies Kermit Gosnell now stands convicted of murdering, if he had done that five minutes sooner, before they passed through the birth canal, it would have been perfectly legal in many states,” Franks said. “That is a fundamental truth, and it is one that most people will respond to and say, ‘That shouldn’t be.’”
Franks urged pro-life activists to do everything possible to capitalize on the recent surge of publicity surrounding the abortion issue.
“It is important in moments like this for us to become more active than we ever have been,” Franks said, “especially in the blogs and on the internet, because people are really rethinking this issue.”
“Bills like the Pain-Capable [Unborn Child Protection Act] and the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act have made people really look at this for what it is,” Franks said. “Finally, we’re starting to be able to humanize the victim and show the inhumanity of what’s being done to them.”
“If we do that,” Franks said, “hearts and minds will change.”
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Trent Franks, who also supports traditional marriage, told LifeSiteNews that he thinks language is important when discussing abortion, which is why he always refers to the fetal pain bill as the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” instead of a 20-week abortion ban.
“Unfortunately, you know, the [pro-abortion] side controls the terminology a great deal,” Franks said. “But if you look at the polls and the support between a bill that is a 20-week abortion ban, and one that protects children beginning at the sixth month, there’s dramatic difference in the polling numbers, even though they’re exactly the same policy. So, how we say it is very important.”
Franks says it is important for pro-life activists not to allow abortion supporters to control the debate by distracting attention from the central issue of the sanctity of human life or throwing out accusations that abortion opponents hate women.
In Franks’ view, the pro-life cause is as much about keeping women safe as it is about saving babies’ lives.
“It’s not the Kermit Gosnells who are sensitive to women, like the media would almost have us believe,” said Franks. “What we’re really trying to do here is protect innocent children and mothers. That’s why we can’t let go of it.”
“They sometimes wonder why we’re so tenacious,” Franks said. “It’s because we have no choice.”
“Once we realize what has happened to mothers and unborn children in this country, those with conscience must respond.”