The top Republican on a House subcommittee pointed out Tuesday that, contrary to proponents' claims, recent pushes to ratify the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment would benefit the pro-abortion movement. During a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, Ranking Member Mike Johnson, R-La., pointed out that groups on both sides of the debate agree that ERA ratification would be a big win for abortion.

But before we get into that, you may be wondering why in the world this decades-old, expired ratification effort is in the news again. Well, though the original 1972 proposal didn't get the support of the 38 states it needed, even after Congress extended the original deadline, the states of Nevada and Illinois passed their own ratifications in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

To get the amendment passed without restarting the entire ratification process from the beginning, ERA proponents need one more state to sign on and some kind of workaround to lift the congressionally imposed deadline. Some proponents of the amendment argue that Congress could simply vote to lift the ratification deadline, as does a 2013 Congressional Research Service report. Others argue that the Constitution didn’t give Congress the power to set a deadline in the first place.

Earlier this year, pro-lifers in Virginia mobilized against efforts to resurrect the amendment in the Old Dominion. “The only reason to pick the ERA off the dusty floor of history is because of a fierce desire to protect abortion at all costs," Students for Life of America executive vice president Tina Whittington said of Virginia's ERA efforts. “The ERA is out of sync with this century where women are already protected as equals in our legislation and the courts."

But the amendment has indeed made it off the dusty floor of history and found its way back to the halls of Congress, which brings us to Tuesday's hearing.

During Tuesday's hearing, subcommittee Chairman Mike Johnson, R-La., responded to proponents' "bold contention" that the ERA "has nothing to do with abortion" by stating that "pro-abortion groups are clearly saying now" that an ERA "would mean the end of laws that protect the sanctity of every human life."

As proof, he cited a recent article from the National Organization for Women, which says "an ERA – properly interpreted – would negate the hundreds of laws that have been passed restricting access to abortion care and contraception."

He went on to list a 2019 Planned Parenthood legal complaint that argues that Pennsylvania's ERA invalidates state-level abortion laws and should therefore allow for Medicaid-funded abortions, as well as a recent document from NARAL Pro-Choice America.

"The ERA would reinforce the constitutional right to abortion," reads a March 2019 email alert, which adds that an ERA "would require judges to strike down anti-abortion laws."

"Look," Johnson concluded, "the fact is that now there is essential agreement between pro-life and pro-abortion groups that the language of the 1972 ERA is likely to result in a powerful reinforcement and expansion of abortion rights."

The full hearing can be viewed here, and Johnson's statement begins at 2:10:45:

In addition to Johnson's examples, a 2018 post at the Daily Beast from pro-abortion journalist Stephanie Russell-Kraft explains: "A right to abortion based on an Equal Rights Amendment wouldn’t be about the abortion procedure itself. It would be about women’s ability to live equally as full citizens under the law."

After the hearing today, Russell-Kraft also discussed the strategy of trying to sell the ERA by divorcing it from the issue of abortion.

"I understand the political strategy of avoiding abortion, to get the #ERA passed," she tweeted. "But opponents are raising that concern no matter what. What do we lose when we talk about gender equality without including reproductive rights?"

“The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

Those words from Virginia Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam in defense of an extreme state abortion bill kicked off a national firestorm among pro-lifers, as well as those generally disgusted by the idea of killing a viable human infant in the name of “reproductive choice.”

Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill responded by calling what Northam described by its proper name: Infanticide.

"In just a few years pro-abortion zealots went from ‘safe, legal, and rare’ to ‘keep the newborns comfortable while the doctor debates infanticide,” said Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., in response. "I don’t care what party you’re from - if you can’t say that it’s wrong to leave babies to die after birth, get the hell out of public office.”

“I never thought I would see the day America had government officials who openly support legal infanticide,” tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

But of course, the major networks’ evening broadcasts made no mention of it whatsoever. In other news, water is wet.

Later that day, one of the bill’s Democratic cosponsors withdrew her support, saying that she only attached her name to the measure because she wasn’t aware of just how extreme it really was. And, make no mistake, it’s quite extreme.

But anyone who found the remarks genuinely surprising should take a hard look at how Northam’s fellow Democrats have treated abortion survivors in recent years. People do survive abortion attempts, and pro-life lawmakers have introduced bills to protect abortion survivors in the last few sessions of Congress. But most Democrats vote against them.

Last session, H.R. 4712, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, came up for a vote in the House of Representatives. It was a relatively short and simple measure to “prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.”

I.E., it would prohibit that “discussion” that Northam referred to on the radio from leading to the child being killed or left to die.

The bill passed by a vote of 241 to 183. All 183 “nay” votes came from House Democrats, and only six Democrats voted in favor of it.

A Heritage Foundation policy brief in favor of the bill explained that it would have augmented a law passed and signed in 2002: “However, as the disturbing case of Kermit Gosnell has shown, babies continue to be born alive and then killed after attempted abortions or are purposely delivered alive and left to die. The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act augments the 2002 law by providing for criminal consequences for health care providers who violate the law and requires that proper medical care be given by the health care practitioner present if an infant is born alive.”

In September 2015, the Obama administration issued a formal policy statement opposing an earlier iteration of the bill, saying that heightened legal protections for abortion survivors “would likely have a chilling effect, reducing access to care”; basically, hypothetical concerns about abortion access were more important to the Obama White House than protection for infants outside the womb.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., now the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, defended his opposition to the measure on the House floor, making the nonsense “argument” that the requirement to admit abortion survivors to a hospital somehow “puts children’s lives and health at risk.” He also said that the implication that abortionists “cannot be trusted to take adequate measures to save a living baby’s life, is insulting and untrue.”

Just to put things in further perspective here, Nadler said that just before the vote, on January 19, 2018; Northam’s infanticide comments are 376 days later.

Given where Northam's party members have fallen on the born-alive issue, given that the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate admitted that she “did not think” that there should be any restrictions on late-term abortion after Roe v. Wade, and given that the wider abortion activist cadre is quickly replacing the old mantra of "safe, legal, and rare" with "on demand and without apology," should anybody be that surprised by what Northam said?

The March for Life has announced the 2019 theme of its annual national pro-life demonstration, and it takes aim at one of the pro-abortion crowd’s flimsiest crutches.

Through its new theme, “Unique from day one: Pro-life is pro-science,” the March highlights the scientific underpinnings behind the pro-life movement.

“Pro-life is pro-science,” March for Life President Jeanne Mancini told reporters at a Capitol Hill press conference on Thursday, “and science should always be at the service of life, not the reverse.”

“Science makes it clear that human life and our uniqueness as individuals is true from the moment of conception or fertilization,” Mancini added. “And that’s why every january, we march.”

“For us to believe what the pro-abortion movement tells us about early human life and the flourishing of women and the decency of our culture requires blindness, deafness, and silencing of the truth,” said Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, a radiologist and policy adviser for the Catholic Association.

“But modern science has changed everything,” Christie said, referring to medical advancements such as in the area of prenatal imaging that give us a better look at our children before they make their birthday debuts. “It has opened our eyes, it’s opened our ears, and it’s allowed us to speak the truth with perfect confidence.”

At the press conference, Christie also pointed out that the original version of the Hippocratic oath also prohibited physicians who took it from participating in abortions as further evidence of the scientific support for pro-life beliefs.

At the event, the organization also unveiled this powerful video to accompany this year’s theme. It’s definitely worth a watch.

“Our DNA is present at the moment of fertilization, and no fingerprint ever — past, present or future — is like yours,” Mancini said, referencing the video. “And that’s what it means to be unique from day one.”

The 2019 March for Life will take place on Friday, January 18, on the National Mall, while other local marches and events are scheduled throughout the United States.