(LifeSiteNews) — On this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show, Jonathon discusses the challenges of reaching the average voter with a pro-life message ahead of the upcoming November elections.

Jonathon begins the episode by reminding listeners that in the United States, voters in numerous states that have passed strict abortion laws will vote on referendums to enshrine women’s abortion “rights” into these states’ constitutions this November. Some of these referendums, like Florida’s, would essentially allow abortion up until birth. He then takes a deep dive into why pro-lifers have been unsuccessful in getting the anti-abortion message out. 

He first emphasized how the debate is always framed in terms of “reproductive healthcare” and maternal mortality, without reference to the reality of abortion. The press will “fact-check” true statements made by pro-life advocates, using Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry as their standard for “fact-checking.”

Jonathon then noted that the current situation in the United States mirrors what happened in Ireland in 2018.  

“You have two interest groups that are fighting for the hearts and minds of the people. And one interest group is the abortion industry, which is attempting to dehumanize preborn children in the womb, is attempting to essentially deceive the public into forgetting everything they know about the baby in the womb and is attempting to assert a series of very pernicious lies. And they’re doing so with the full backing of the Fifth Estate; they’re doing so with the full backing of the press,” Jonathon said.

Jonathon noted that when pro-lifers write columns explaining that none of the states’ abortion restrictions do what the mainstream press says, like killing women or preventing them from getting care for miscarriages, these articles only appear outside of mainstream news sources.

“What we see in state after state is this narrative solidifying that abortion laws kill women, that abortion laws prevent women from getting the care they need for miscarriages, that women cannot get an abortion or cannot get the appropriate care if a pregnancy genuinely puts their life at risk,” he said. “None of these things are true, and yet all of these things are asserted without caveat and without correction consistently and everywhere.”  

Jonathon reminded listeners about the 2018 Irish amendment that removed explicit protections for unborn children in the Irish Constitution he alluded to earlier in the episode. He emphasized that the country’s abortion industry succeeded in passing this amendment by convincing the average Irish voter that if it didn’t pass, more women would die.

“Women like Savita Halappanavar, who was a dentist who died of pregnancy complications, and every autopsy, every single study done into this proved that abortion had nothing to do with her case, that an abortion would not have saved her life. And yet, that is not the fact that most people voted on,” he said.

Another reason the Irish referendum passed was that after pro-lifers started gaining a lot of ground through Google ads and social media advertising, the abortion industry succeeded in getting all digital advertising banned just weeks before the vote. While the abortion lobby didn’t need to rely on digital ads because they had the mainstream press in their pockets, the pro-life movement did rely on digital ads to reach voters. So without the media and the internet, pro-lifers could only go door-to-door to get the message out, and it ultimately wasn’t enough to stop the amendment from passing, despite a valiant effort on the ground.

“We see the same thing happening in the [U.S.] right now, where pro-lifers are fielding teams, and [there are] organizations that are going door to door, and seeking to reach the public, and seeking to expose the truth about abortion to as many people as they can reach. But they simply do not have the money that the abortion industry has – in Michigan, for example – one of the first referendums [where] pro-lifers were outspent by a margin of 16 to 1,” Jonathon said.

For more of Jonathon’s analysis, tune in to this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show.

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