"How do you outlaw abortion in an age that is obsessed with sexual liberty?"

Given the hysterical response to Nadine Dorries' modest proposal to reform the counselling given to women seeking a termination in the UK, it seems like an uphill struggle. But quietly, almost without anyone noticing, the Republican Party in the United States is showing how it can be done. It takes time and patience, but the results reflect well on what Dorries has accomplished so far. The best way to kill the abortion industry is not through religious moralising. It's through red tape.

So writes Tim Stanley in this September 1st piece in The Telegraph. He also writes:

The prolife movement woke up to the fact that it had prostituted itself to Republican candidates who neither had the will nor the congressional votes necessary to stamp out abortion federally. The administration of George W Bush had both and one of the few things he did accomplish was a block on funding for abortion overseas. But that was overturned by Obama as soon as he came into office (the President is equivocal on publicly financed health insurance, but he just loves publicly financed abortions). Forty years of messing around in national politics has done little for America's unborn.

Since the 2010 landslide, the prolifers have adopted a new strategy. Rather than shouting about a national ban and obsessing about picking the right presidential candidate, prolifers have refocused on making life uncomfortable for local abortion providers. Beneath the radar, state-by-state, they are starting to get the job done.

After giving some examples, Stanley concludes by stating, "The message for British prolifers is clear: stay away from talking about Jesus and stick to dealing with abortion as a matter of medical ethics. People don't like being preached to, but if they can be shown that abortion is applied dangerously, uncleanly, casually and all too frequently, then they may be open to curtailing it."

There's undoubtedly a lot to what Stanley is saying. It's interesting, however, that if his analysis holds true, or is at least true in many cases, it means that people are open to arguments based on "medical ethics", but not on ethics that are either overtly philosophical or theological in nature. Which begs the question: how lasting and significant are the advances being made for the pro-life cause if, in the end, this strategy relies on (to use Stanley's term) "the language of 'health and safety'"? I don't have an answer, of course, but it will be something to keep an eye on in the months and years to come.