By Maria Gallagher, Legislative/PAC Director
The untold story of Election 2014 in Pennsylvania is how well pro-lifers fared in legislative contests.
The Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation PAC endorsed 12 candidates for Congress, 69 candidates for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, and five candidates for the Pennsylvania Senate. Every single PAC-endorsed legislative candidate won his or her race.
Noteworthy is the fact that the pro-life endorsements crossed party lines—a number of pro-life Democrats won their contests. Female pro-life candidates also scored exceptionally well, shattering the myth that all women in Pennsylvania politics stand on a pro-abortion platform.
Of course, this welcome news for preborn children and their mothers will receive little airplay, since Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion operation, is playing up the fact that their Executive Branch candidates—pro-abortion Gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf and his flip-flopping running mate, Lieutenant Governor candidate Mike Stack—defeated pro-life Governor Tom Corbett and Lieutenant Governor Jim Cawley.
Yet, nothing was as touching as the Election Night moment when Governor Corbett, in a graceful concession speech, praised Chloe Kondrich, a special needs child who successfully won passage of a law to ensure that parents of unborn babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome receive helpful information and referrals. The legislation was especially significant, since statistics indicate as many as 90 percent of unborn children diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted.
Sadly and tragically, such legislation would have had scarce chance of becoming law under the incoming Wolf/Stack regime.
History will show that, in just four years, Governor Corbett made tremendous progress in the fight for life, answering the Kermit Gosnell tragedy with swift and decisive action. Abortion facilities that went uninspected for more than 15 years finally are subject to regular health inspections…abortion operations must follow basic safety standards…and no taxpayer dollars will be used for abortion under the health insurance exchange created in Pennsylvania through Obamacare.
It will be up to the pro-life General Assembly to keep Wolf’s rabid abortion policies in check, so that protections for unborn children and their mothers will not disappear in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.