The political obsession with the federal government often masks the realities of America’s politics. Case in point: While Democrats have unified control of the government in Washington, D.C., Republicans at the state level have turned 2021 into the year of the pro-life movement.
According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, a record number of abortion restrictions have already been passed this year. Through the first six months of 2021, 90 abortion restrictions have been passed at the state level, topping the prior record of the 89 seen throughout 2011.
This comes despite the fact that the deck remains stacked against the pro-life movement in the courts. As Mississippi prepares to defend its 15-week abortion ban before the Supreme Court in its next term, the court’s confused abortion jurisprudence has led many lower courts to treat any law that is even perceived to limit abortion as invalid until declared otherwise.
Yet, while South Carolina GOP Gov. Henry McMaster is the latest in the long line of pro-life officials complaining about the stranglehold of the courts, the pro-life movement has continued to push forward at the state level with the approval of voters. Republicans, as the default party of pro-lifers, control 30 state legislatures — 24 of which have GOP governors.
Voters have given their politicians a mandate, and in several states, those politicians have fulfilled it. This year, Arkansas passed a near-total ban on abortion. Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas have passed bills banning abortion when a fetal heartbeat is detected (as early as six weeks into the pregnancy). And Oklahoma and Texas have joined the 10 other states who have “trigger” laws on the books, which would enact near-total abortion bans if the legal abomination of Roe v. Wade is overturned.
One needs only look at how frantic Democrats have become in the abortion debate. Unable to address the scientific fact that life begins at conception, they have resorted to threatening Supreme Court justices and grand acts of performative opposition to carry their argument. Kamala Harris, known for harassing pro-life groups as California’s attorney general and for opposing practicing Catholics serving as judges, said in 2019 that she wanted to give the Justice Department veto power over state abortion restrictions.
This isn’t a proposal she made because the pro-abortion movement is winning. It is losing at the state level and in the cultural arena. It rests only on the whims of the Supreme Court, which could (and should) significantly alter the legal and political landscape by giving states more latitude to protect unborn life.
There’s no doubt that all of the momentum is on the side of the pro-life movement, even with unified Democratic control in Washington. The year 2021 has been a banner one for the movement, and it will need to continue to push forward in the face of an increasingly desperate pro-abortion movement and the courts serving as their only shields against progress.
