Winston Churchill once said, “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” It is time for Republicans to wake up and realize that their silence on the issue of abortion is not golden. Republicans need to tell their story, spread the truth and, as Churchill said, “write the history.”

Thus far, Republicans have stood silent in the wake of overturning Roe v. Wade. This silence has resulted in devastating losses in recent elections, including the 2022 midterms, and allowed Democrats free rein to write their own version of history and spin the narrative that Republicans are abortion extremists who hold views contrary to the 63% of Americans who say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. If Republicans don’t change course on their abortion messaging soon, Democrats will be happy to continue writing our history for us. And as another old saying goes, regarding elections, “history is bound to repeat itself.”

Democrats have upped the ante this year, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on targeted ad campaigns in battleground states that paint Republicans as abortion extremists. For example, an ad in Wisconsin features “Anna,” a mother of two and an ObGyn, telling her story of ending “a wanted pregnancy because her baby was very sick.” Anna drives home the false narrative that Republicans want to take away her ability to make what she refers to as a “healthcare decision.” In 2022, over one-third of the Democrat Party’s TV budget was spent on abortion-related ads, and this year, for example, in the critical battleground state of Arizona, two-thirds of Democrats’ election ad spending in the state will be used to vilify Republicans on the issue of abortion.

If Republicans want to win, it’s time to go on offense. We need to engage in ad campaigns that tell the American people the truth – that the real abortion extremists are the Democrats who have adopted the Radical Left’s position of advocating for gruesome late-term abortions. Their policies include abortion up to and even after birth, which would place the U.S. on par with communist governments in China and North Korea, who permit horrific late-term abortions.

Take for instance, the radical Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), a Democrat bill that would codify unlimited abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including brutal late-term abortion procedures conducted on nearly fully-formed children. This inhumane bill has become the Democrat Party’s standard – it garnered a whopping 99% support from House Democrats in both 2021 and 2022, passing the House by 218-211 and 219-210 respectively, with only one Democrat voting against it both years.

Most Americans are against late-term abortions like those enshrined in the WHPA, which puts them at odds with the Democrats’ radical policies. On the other hand, Republicans enjoy the moderate position on the abortion issue. The Republican policy today is much closer to Bill Clinton’s when he was overwhelmingly elected president, twice, while the Democrats’ policy is practically the same as that of the Chinese Communist Party.

Abortion laws should be left up to each individual state.

Late-term abortions should not be permitted.

If the American public understood that these two sentences encapsulate the policies of the GOP and how horrific the policies of the Democrats are, they would support the GOP on this issue.

Democrats go out of their way to contort the position of Republicans on abortion, but Republicans don’t need to hide anything. We simply need to convey the truth about the gruesome and horrific actual steps of a late-term abortion such as the abortionist grabbing a baby’s leg and pulling the entire child, except for his or her  head, through the birth canal and outside the mother’s body. The abortionist then stabs the baby at the base of the skull with scissors, “spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening. …removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents.” This last step collapses the skull, allowing for the delivery of the now-dead child. This is barbaric, and uncomfortable to talk about. But it’s the truth – and every single Democrat but one voted multiple times to protect this horrific practice on full-term babies.

I am confident that if Republicans can expose the truth about the late-term abortions that Democrats advocate for, most Americans–who polling consistently shows oppose late-term abortions–will not be fooled by the Democrats’ expensive and extensive efforts to win their votes.

President Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 debates by going directly at the issue and telling the truth about abortion. Trump said, “If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby. Now, you can say that that’s OK and Hillary can say that that’s OK. But it’s not OK with me, because based on what she’s saying, and based on where she’s going, and where she’s been, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month on the final day. And that’s not acceptable.”

That was a winning message in 2016–and it will be a winning message again in 2024–if Republicans only pick up their pens and start writing the true history about abortion in America.

Lee Rizzuto is an American businessman who served as U.S. Consul General to Bermuda during the Trump administration.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Featured image credit: (Screen Capture/PBS NewsHour)