The president of the International Right to Life Federation looked back at history and gave an overview of the current situation concerning the protection and preservation of human life at his banquet address during the International Pro-Life Conference in Toronto on Oct. 3.

Dr. Jack Willke is a physician, author, lecturer, TV and radio personality and expert in human sexuality, in addition to his role as head of the worldwide, non-sectarian federation of pro-life organizations from over 170 countries that is dedicated to the protection of all innocent human life from conception to natural death.

Having recently celebrated his 60th wedding anniversary, Willke joked that he has “retired” several times, but as the time finally approaches for real, he is going about writing the history of the pro-life movement in the 20th century, which is due out next spring. He reviewed pro-abortion arguments that have been put forth over the last several decades and demonstrated how they were all subsequently demolished.

The first big ones were was “it’s not a baby,” “look at all the back-alley abortions going on” and “an unwanted child is an abused child.” The term “pro-choice” was not in usage early on. But science is with the pro-life side in that it has shown us that there is a human being from the first cell, said Willke.

Willke criticized those who have attempted to put a definite number (probably inflated) on the incidence of illegal abortions. But he said the best figures on the number of women who have died from abortions place the yearly totals at about 1,200 deaths in 1940, 250 in the late 1950s, 39 in 1971 and 10-20 now. “Legalizing abortion didn’t save a single woman’s life,” he declared.

And, he added, current abortion deaths may be a lot higher in number than reported, for the reason that practitioners are attributing women’s deaths to other factors that hide the fact abortions are the cause. “The abortionist doesn’t want to sully his reputation,” Willke observed. “Abortion is frequently not listed on death certificates. This is a big coverup.”

With respect to arguments for abortion in cases of rape, incest or deformity, he pegged the number of assault-rape pregnancies in the U.S. at no more than 500 a year. Meanwhile, only three per cent of babies have anything “wrong” with them, with only one per cent having anything significant.

Other arguments that have been discarded are “it’s only a religious issue” and “the world is too overpopulated.” None of the arguments worked anymore, so pro-abortionists – after conducting focus groups and other research into what would “sell” – latched onto the word “choice.” On the pro-life side, the argument became one of “abortion hurts women.”

“The battle continues,” said Willke. “We obviously have to keep up the fight. We have to own the terms … Be careful of the language you use.”

Moving to the stem cell issue, Willke described how pluripotent cells are mimicking the actions of embryonic cells, thus making cultivation of the latter redundant. Embryonic cells have also been found to create tumours and there is still not a single health issue that has been ameliorated through them. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, have been found to be beneficial in the treatment of some 70 human ailments.

“We have an amazing time ahead of us,” Willke concluded, quoting Father Richard John Neuhaus in his previous appearance at the International Pro-Life Conference: “We are in for the duration … The darkness has never overcome the light.”