Political discussions are peppered with sports and military metaphors and illustrations. The reasons are obvious. Politics is all about winners and losers, strategy, offense, defense, fitness, preparedness, winning graciously, and learn- ing from our losses.

Many famous quotes and heated discussions revolve around offense and defense in sports and war but it comes down to this — you are either on one side or the other. This is true in politics as well. We are either gaining yards or defending against attack.

The pro-life movement has been on defense for a long time. Oh, we have our gains here and there. We even have a win sometimes, but then quickly return to defense. I believe that there is a change happening that should encourage us in our pro-life work.

For many reasons — our culture, geography, history — Oregonians can be isolated from the positive yardage being gained across the coun- try. In some ways we are like the offensive line of a football team. We don’t always get to see the beautiful run or completed pass because we are focused on avoiding being crushed by the defensive lineman.

Oregon pro-lifers are on the offense and we are marching right into our opponent’s territory. I can make this statement with confidence.

Polling: Gallup released its latest poll on American views on abor- tion in May. While the responses to the “are you pro-life or pro-choice?” questions remain sharply divided, a clear majority of Americans believe abortion should not be legal in most circumstances. Wesley J. Smith points out in his blog Secondhand Smoke that pro-life and pro-choice are primarily political terms. Smith emphasized the “key finding” of the poll: “A whopping 61 percent would like to see abortion outlawed in “any/most circumstances.” I think Mr. Smith has it exactly right — what we need to watch are not political terms as much as what Americans believe about abortion.

Legislation: Across the country, a flood of pro-life legislation has been introduced. This is a result of the election of many pro-life state legislators and governors in November, 2010. Elections matter. We need to continue to work hard to elect pro-life candidates who take action when in office.

The National Debate: Taxpayer funding for abortions and Planned Parenthood has been a part of the national debate for more than a year. Discussions over healthcare reform, budgets, and even the nation’s fiscal stability, have been infused with the issue of whether taxpayers should be paying for abortions.

Planned Parenthood has been set on the defense, first by some scandalous behavior revealed through undercover videos by the group Life Action and, second, when the president of Planned Parenthood lied on national television, claiming that Planned Parenthood provides mam- mograms.

There are certainly times when we must defend our ground, but I believe that this is the time for us to be on offense, moving down the field and pushing in to scoring position.