Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth

Pro-lifers in the past two years have made immense gains as CBS ruefully noted yesterday:

While the national GOP is trying to tamp down the abortion issue after Mo. Rep. Todd Akin’s controversial comments, it’s growing on the local level.

Americans have been divided over the issue of abortion since the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade almost 40 years ago, and at the state level the debate is louder than ever.

In the past two years alone, 32 states have adopted some form of abortion restriction.

The Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, tracks legislation. Elizabeth Nash, its state issues manager, said: “Since the November 2010 elections, we have just seen a huge tidal wave of abortion restrictions roll across states.”

In the first six months of 2012, 15 states passed 39 restrictions on abortion. Last year, 24 states passed 92 restrictions, an all-time record.

Restrictions include bans on abortions at 20 weeks; 24- to 72-hour waiting periods; and a requirement to inform women of suicide risks if they seek an abortion.

I have been involved in this struggle since 1973.  It has been a long fight and a bitter one, and all too often it has been easy to become discouraged.  However, I have always known that we were arrayed against powerful forces in our society and that this fight would ultimately be won through prayer, persistence and hard work.  We are winning, too slowly true, but we are winning.

SAY not the struggle naught availeth,

The labour and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

 And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;

It may be, in yon smoke conceal’d,

Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,

And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,

  When daylight comes, comes in the light;

  In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!

  But westward, look, the land is bright!

Arthur Hugh Clough