With the decisive victory of Donald Trump, the pro-life movement in American can breathe a sigh of relief. Following the thrilling Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, the movement suffered a series of surprising and stinging defeats at the ballot box, as solid red states like Kansas declined to enshrine unambiguous protection of the unborn in law, while other states like Ohio even entrenched the brutal practice of abortion in their state constitutions. These results were not only a rude awakening, but a potential portent of things to come—would the victory of the Dobbs decision galvanize otherwise apathetic left-wing voters? Would Kamala Harris receive a mandate, and make good on her promise to “restore Roe?
But Trump’s clean legislative sweep in early November saw the electorate shift decisively to the right in virtually every region and demographic; pro-lifers should now not only celebrate the non-arrival of the devastating “blue wave” that they had some reason to fear, but they should see the previous electoral fallout from Dobbs with greater clarity. As one pro-life commentator put it: “the backlash to Dobbs” was “real but underwhelming,” observing that no “pro-life senator or governor has lost any election held since the Supreme Court’s ruling,” and noting, further, that pro-lifers “will have more declared allies in Congress and in the White House next year than they had before Dobbs.” And, since it is even the case that a “higher percentage of women voted for Republicans this year than in the last pre-Dobbs election, in 2020,” this analysis should make it abundantly clear that the political fundamentals of the pro-life movement in America are as strong as they have ever been.
There is, however, a deeper lesson to draw from Dobbs. Both the immediate political setbacks and even the encouraging re-emerging trend seen in the analysis cited above could have the unfortunate effect of narrowing the focus of the pro-life movement on the wrong objects, and creating the illusion that the most important arena remains the struggle for the control of the branches of government.
Of course, due to the debilitating paradigm of Roe, this was, for a long time, quite true: no meaningful legislative victories could occur until that legal decision had been overturned. And, because doing so required a pro-life executive branch, the energy of the movement had, perforce, to be directed to that end. As the saying goes, “politics is downstream of culture”—hence, the decades-long project of “irrigation” by which grassroots opposition to abortion was channeled into an informed and mobilized voting bloc. But, paradoxically, now that political decisions about abortion have been returned to the states – and Congress, if it chooses — the importance of political power-plays will be increasingly de-emphasized as the realms of culture, conversation, and social consensus come to the fore.
The pro-life movement in America spent 50 years laying the groundwork for a stunning and heartening legal victory with Dobbs; now, it faces the prospect of an equally long battle, but not one that will be fought, primarily, via the ballot box—although this is still the place to consolidate pro-life gains. The overturning of Roe was, in other words, both an arrival and an outset; it was a triumph that inaugurated the second and final phase of the overall campaign. The pro-life movement in America needs to make abortion unthinkable before it renders it illegal; the ongoing political argument will be settled by winning the cultural argument. The ratification of the Human Life Amendment—which has been recognized, since the time of Robert Bork, as the Holy Grail of the pro-life movement—will, of course, be a sublime triumph in itself; but, even more than that, it will be the ratification of a victory already won.
But what does this mean, practically, for American pro-lifers in the years to come? At this juncture, the movement should draw a lesson from “woke,” that interlocking set of ideological commitments and social signals which have had such a drastic and pernicious effect on our culture. At its root, woke is the a radical left-wing weaponization of non-political spaces. The “shock and awe” tactics of this movement have been so effective because they have been waged on “civilian” terrain: the realm of manners, professional discourse, and social interaction. To take but one example: the start of seminar discussions in universities, board meetings in companies, and even large public events have all become, quite suddenly, places to watch cultural warfare unfold: will land acknowledgements be made? Will “preferred gender pronouns” be announced? If not, will a hapless master of ceremonies become the victim of a struggle session? And, if so, who will have the privilege of casting the first stone?
Instead of being depressed by the speed at which this politicization—of everything from HR departments to Hollywood movies—has occurred, pro-lifers should, instead, be emboldened. The same confusion which has been created by the sudden proliferation of gender theory’s pseudoscientific nomenclature cannot muddy the waters on the question of abortion: the era in which lies about “clumps of cells” could reign has ended forever. Indeed, the smokescreen which attempts to cover abortion in a vague haze of feminist empowerment is already a signal that evasion is the only strategy that remains available to pro-abortion movement. The phenomenon of “woke” is, therefore, to a certain extent, a rear-guard action, a withdrawal from the battlefield where pro-lifers have been victorious, and where so much left-wing social activism has been directed for so long.
Now, then, is the time to shine a light. Political issues which could be easily implemented by the Trump administration—such as reinstating the Mexico City Policy or defunding Planned Parenthood—should be taken as invitations to discuss abortion and its place in American society. Whenever late-term or partial-birth abortions are brought up, advocates of abortion cavil that these practices are vanishingly rare; if that’s the case, then why not ban the specific (and unspeakable) methods they entail? Such measures do not need to succeed: the more these policies are even raised in the political sphere, the more the pro-life movement can take the opportunity to make them moments for larger cultural reflection—and revulsion.
Whenever left-of-centre movements seek to consolidate their own gains in some realm, their allies in the media call for a “national conversation” about a given topic. The time for such a conversation about abortion in the United States is past due—and, with it, the equally dire need for a national conversion. For prenatal infanticide is a blight on the American conscience; the sooner this atrocious evil is discussed and debated in clear, frank, and unambiguous terms, the sooner a dark chapter of American history will, at long last, come to a close.
