Pro-Life Leader Tells Montanans to Reject Pro-Choice Narrative
"Let this amendment become a boomerang against the abortion industry.”
Pro-life leader Father Frank Pavone told The Montana Chronicles that the Montana pro-life supporters need to refuse to accept the narrative of the pro-choice side that “they solidified their right to abortion.”
Pavone said this is not the case.
In November, Montana passed CI-128 by almost 58 percent of people voting in favor of the referendum that creates a right to abortion in the Montana Constitution.
With the passage of CI-128, Montana is now a “radical state” in terms of their abortion laws, according to Pavone. However, he said that the state legislators and governor were good.
Pavone said pro-life people have to continue to do exactly what they were doing before the Montana abortion referendum vote. According to Pavonee, pro-lifers need to continue to inform fellow Americans about what people think about abortion and what these amendments say.
“When you ask people the specific questions about policies that these amendments lead to, they don't agree with them. The problem is that these amendments are not written in such a way as to draw out those implications,” he said.
Pavone, who previously served on the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, added that ballot measures are “written in a way that people would have no idea that those are the implications.”
The Priests for Life leader said the Montana referendum talks about “the right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to an abortion.”
“The right to make decisions about one's own pregnancy includes the right to decide to continue one's pregnancy,” he said.
“If one has a constitutional right to make one's own decisions, well then, what happens when someone else is making the decision for them to get an abortion?” Pavone said.
Multiple studies have found women who have gotten an abortion end up regretting it.
According to a study published in the medical journal Cureus, almost 70 percent of women who have gotten an abortion say it doesn’t align with their values and preferences.
Furthermore, another study done by the Lozier Institute shows that more than 60 percent of women who get an abortion felt pressure from people to get the procedure.
“This study confirms earlier findings that the hidden epidemic of unwanted abortions is real, and far larger than most people imagine,” said lead author David Reardon, Ph.D., a Lozier Institute associate scholar and director of the Elliot Institute.
“We tend to think of abortion coercion in countries with oppressive regimes like China. In fact, this shocking hidden epidemic is happening all around us,” Tessa Longbons, Lozier’s senior research associate, said.
Pavone said that one thing people in Montana can do is let this amendment “become a boomerang against the abortion industry.”
He added that people in the abortion industry don’t screen for unwanted abortions.
“They don't probe. Are you being coerced? Is this someone else's choice, or is this your choice? This amendment gives us a chance to focus on the element of coercion in abortion. And again, make it boomerang and challenge the abortion industry to implement their own words,” the pro-life leader said.
“If this really is the woman's own choice, well then make sure it's her choice,” he added.
Pavone said that most abortions would not occur because, in the majority of cases, “it’s actually someone else’s choice or it’s circumstances beyond the person’s control that they would prefer.”
He added that the women would “prefer to have the baby.”
A phrase in the Montana amendment that needs more scrutiny, according to Pavone, is “good faith judgment.”
“Why did they not say medical judgment instead of good faith judgment? There's a difference between those two things. The reason is good faith judgment doesn't require the medical precision of a medical judgment.”
The Priests for Life leader said that now that the abortion referendum is part of the Montana Constitution, it means that “this should be the basis for even more attention and more discussion than before.”
“Anybody that studies the [Montana] Constitution is going to see this. They're going to want to know what it means. They should know what it means. And so let's probe it. All of this stuff is fertile ground for a lot of very probing discussions and legal challenges,” he added.
Pavone said that it automatically follows that once an abortion referendum is passed in a state, people try to weaken the current abortion laws.
In 2022, Michigan passed a referendum that gave the state a constitutional right to abortion. After this passed, groups attempted to overturn its law about performing an abortion on a minor without the written consent of a parent or legal guardian.
For the people in Montana who worked against the abortion referendum, Pavone said that they will be celebrated at the National Prayer Service, which takes place the same day as the March for Life.
“We're gonna honor the folks in all the states that had these amendment battles,” he said.
The National Prayer Service will take place on January 24.
- - -
Zachery Schmidt is the founder of The Montana Chronicles. If you have any tips, please send them to montanachronicles@proton.me.
Photo “Frank Pavone” by Frank Pavone.