Back to the present

Understanding abortion in the past will help us fight it today | Marvin Olasky

Associated Press/Photo by Rick Bowmer

This special section is half about the past and half about the present. Every January for more than two decades WORLD has reviewed pro-life progress and regress over the previous year, but this year, as the rise of the Obama administration leaves some warriors for life pessimistic, we wanted to do more.

Over the next four years the composition of the Supreme Court is not likely to become better from a pro-life perspective. It may get worse. God's steadiness may produce a miracle, and man's inconsistency may produce a Souter in reverse. Two decades ago some insiders swore that Bush nominee David Souter, who lacked much of a paper trail, was pro-life. They were wrong, but we shouldn't count on Barack Obama making a similar mistake.