The Fight For Life Isn't Over

Today, January 20, 2023, pro-life Americans will March for Life in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands will march, as they have marched since 1973. But this year, it is different.

Thousands of pro-life activists will have multiple reasons to celebrate — and some reasons for unease — when they gather today in Washington for the annual March for Life.

The news media will do their best to ignore the event, even though it will be one of the strongest statements made by any group of people, except those who vote in a national election.

It's still a big deal---even "post-Roe."

Be informed, not misled.

"But I thought Roe v Wade was overturned."

This year's March, which includes a rally that has drawn pro-life abortion opponents from across the nation, has been held annually since January 1974 — a year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision established a nationwide right to abortion.

This year’s gathering — 50 years after that decision — will be the first since last June when the high court struck down Roe and returned authority over abortion to individual states.

But that didn't settle the matter of killing unwanted unborn babies.

This year’s theme — “Marching into a Post-Roe America” — embraces the pivoted position the pro-life movement finds itself in, as the battle largely shifts from federal regulations to the states. For activists seeking to reframe the abortion debate in America, the high court decision has certainly been a victory.

Since the high court struck down Roe and the matter of abortion was referred back to the states, 12 Republican-governed states have implemented sweeping bans on abortion, and several others seek to do the same.

But those moves have been offset by other developments. Abortion opponents were defeated in votes on ballot measures in Kansas, Michigan, and Kentucky. State courts have blocked several bans from taking effect. And myriad efforts are underway to help women in abortion-ban states either get abortions out of state or use the abortion pill for self-managed abortions.

Carol Tobias, president of the National Right To Life Committee says, “It’s almost like the old wild, wild West … everything is still shaking out.” 

With numerous Democratic-governed states taking steps to protect and expand abortion access, Tobias likened the current situation to the pre-Civil War era when the nation was closely divided between free states and slave states.

“I will not be surprised if we have something like that for a few years,” she said. “But I do know that pro-lifers are not going to give up — it’s a civil rights issue for us.”

The president of March for Life, Jeanne Mancini, depicted the June ruling as “a massive victory for the pro-life movement.”

But.

“But the battle to build a culture of life is far from over,” she said. “March for Life will continue to advocate for the unborn and policies that protect them until abortion becomes unthinkable.”

Prospects for any federal legislation restricting abortion nationwide are negligible for now, given that any such measures emerging from the Republican-led House would face rejection in the Democratic-led Senate. The main battlegrounds will be in the states.

Since June, near-total bans on abortion have been implemented in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.

Elective abortions also are unavailable in Wisconsin, due to legal uncertainties faced by abortion clinics, and in North Dakota, where the lone clinic relocated to Minnesota.

Clearly, the fight for life is not over. In many ways, it has just begun on a new front line.

Star Parker, President of the Center for Urban Renewal, sees the Hypocrisy of the Left

She says, "This is what pro-life Americans have been working toward and praying for all these years. And now we show that our nation is still a nation where dreams come true. And a nation where, despite often losing our way, sooner or later truth returns."

But she clearly sees the fight ahead. And she sees the "real fight."

And she notes this: 

Pew Research reports that, in Dobbs, the Supreme Court ruled to "end the constitutional right to abortion."

National Public Radio reported last June that the court reversed Roe v. Wade, "declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly a half-century, no longer exists."

The Dobbs decision was not just about abortion. It was about restoring the way the court should be doing its job.

The court cannot, despite what many in the media seem to think, create or end rights. The court's job, judicial review, is to apply, not create, reality. That reality is the U.S. Constitution.

The complaint all these years about Roe v. Wade has been that only someone with either a very active imagination or a very active conviction that their personal opinion is more important than what the Constitution actually says could find a right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution.

The conservative judges who ruled to overturn that decision did not rule as they did to "end" rights. They did it because nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is there anything written that can be understood to be a right to abortion.

Consider that the preamble of the Constitution explains its purpose "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Can anyone believe that the drafter of that passage felt that among those blessings of liberty is a right for a woman to abort her child?

And then she said this: "And, despite all the claims about caring about racial justice in our nation, my organization CURE reports in a new policy briefing, "The Impact of Abortion on the Black Community," that in 2020, "39.2% of abortions were on black women, who represent just 14% of the childbearing population."

Interestingly, the data also shows that 86% of abortions are done on unmarried women, which points to the critical link between this destructive behavior and the collapse of marriage and family, the pillars of a healthy society.

She said, "I believe that all the many problems that our nation faces begin with the absence of awe for the miracle of life. The other side of the coin of the right to life is the responsibility to protect life and the responsibility in the behavior that creates life. Reverence is the beginning of responsibility, and responsibility is the beginning point of what freedom is all about."

"We will not lay down and die."

“The approach to winning on abortion in federal races, proven for a decade, is this: state clearly the ambitious consensus pro-life position and contrast that with the extreme view of Democrat opponents,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America.

Dannenfelser says she’s not surprised by the divisive ups and downs that have unfolded since the June ruling.

“This is what it looks like when democracy is restored and we have a voice in the debate,” she said. “For 50 years, we had no voice because the judiciary was always going to shield public opinion from having an effect on the law.”

“We always knew it wouldn’t be a straight line (after Roe’s repeal),” she said, adding "we know neither side is going to lay down and die.”

The fight for life continues.

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Bold. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.