Roe gave women a rallying point to claim equality with men on issues related to childbirth. For thousands of years a man could physically walk away from a pregnancy with little outside consequence. Now for the first time women could seemingly walk away from that unwanted pregnancy as well.

Abortion's Effect on Men
In an interview on KUED-TV in Salt Lake City, women's rights activist Gloria Steinem articulated the feminist view of utopia for our society, "We've had a lot of people in this country who have had the courage to raise their daughters more like theirs sons.  Which is great because it means they're more equal.  But there are many fewer people who have had the courage to raise their sons more like their daughters.  And that's what needs to be done."

Today's man lives in a world of confusion over what is expected of him. Rosemary Bottcher, author of Feminism: Bewitched by Abortion sums up the double standard saying, "A man is expected to be mature when he fathers a child; he is expected to endure inconvenience and hardship ... But the woman, according to feminists, is so selfish, immature, irrational and hysterical that she cannot stand the fact of nine months of inconvenience in order to bring life to another person ... or to some other family who might adopt that child."

The feminist movement made sure that our entire society condones a woman's killing of an unborn child. If a man is caught running away from the responsibility of a child, he is chastised.  But a woman has the "right" to escape the consequences of a carefree lifestyle.

Hope for the Future
In the three full decades since the Roe decision, technological advances have carried our debate over life issues to new levels. Just as Francis Schaffer predicted, issues like euthanasia (doctor-assisted suicide), stem cell research and cloning are now dominating headlines. Yet the technology many use to further a culture of death in America may become a double-edged sword.

General Electric, perhaps inadvertently, is teaching people that wombs hold much more than "tissue." There, during the primetime hours of network television, many of us got our first glimpse what resides in a womb, and it looked like a child.  As General Electric ran ads for their new 4-D Ultrasound technology, viewers were greeted by an active preborn baby with distinct features.  Singers set the mood with a voiceover of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face."

Kellyanne Conway, president and CEO of the Polling Group, points out, "Did you ever notice that even the people in Hollywood name their babies in the fourth month of pregnancy."

A preborn baby that is wanted by its mother is a "baby," and any other preborn is a fetus. The test for what is alive becomes, "Is it wanted by someone?"

As we see the couple in the GE commercial marveling at their baby's first photo, taken several months before the child's birth, it becomes harder to deny that baby's humanness.  It becomes apparent that the preborn baby in the womb is alive, regardless of the mindset of its mother.

- Stephen and Candice McGarvey are freelance writers living in Northern Virginia.

In part II of this article, we will talk about what America's pro-life advocates are doing to on several fronts to fight against the effects of Roe v. Wade.