2010: Year of the Pro-Life Woman?

For those of you who don’t follow American politics, an important bundle of primary elections took place yesterday. The media took notice of the fact that many of yesterday’s winners are women: Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Nikki Haley of South Carolina (who faces a runoff election), Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman of California, and Sharron Angle of Nevada.

1992 was dubbed the “Year of the Woman” because five female Senators were elected. Unfortunately, they did not represent the 48% plurality of American women who are pro-life. Pro-life feminists hope that this year will be different. Both Fiorina and Angle were endorsed by the Susan B. Anthony List; Haley is pro-life, too.

If you’re wondering why the SBA List didn’t put its weight behind Haley, it’s probably just because the other two races have much higher stakes: Fiorina could replace Barbara Boxer and Angle could replace Harry Reid, who are both reliable pro-abortion votes in Congress.

But before we get too enthusiastic, let’s remember the other two winners. Lincoln, an incumbent, has a mixed record: she supported the partial-birth abortion ban but rejected a bill to stop taxpayer funding of abortion facilities. (Her opponent, Bill Halter, was also a mixed bag.) Whitman, who is running for governor of California, is not shy about the fact that she supports abortion funded by tax dollars.