Despite his many faults, former President Donald Trump was an important ally of the pro-life movement. But as Roe v. Wade reaches another dark anniversary, the cause of protecting human life faces a difficult future. The new administration is arguably the most radically pro-abortion government ever.
President Biden is already working hard to roll back many of the administrative policies the Trump administration passed to protect the unborn. Biden is expected to reverse the Mexico City policy within weeks, which means the United States will once again finance international groups that provide or promote abortions. His administration also plans to crack down on employers who decline to provide contraceptive coverage to their workers and to reinstate Title X funding for Planned Parenthood and other abortion centers, which Trump had withdrawn.
When asked on Wednesday whether Biden would work with congressional Democrats to repeal the Hyde Amendment, a statute that prohibits the federal government from using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion, press secretary Jen Psaki played coy, saying, “I think we’ll have more to say on the Mexico City policy in the coming days, but I will just take the opportunity to remind all of you that he is a devout Catholic and somebody who attends church regularly. He started his day attending church with his family this morning. But I don’t have anything more for you on that.”
Biden’s personal displays of piety aside, these policy changes suggest that his administration won’t just tolerate abortion but will actively promote it and reward others who do the same. The Clinton formulation that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare” is no longer tolerated within Democratic circles. Biden’s example illustrates that even reputedly centrist Democratic politicians have embraced extreme demands that abortion be accessible to anyone, at any stage of pregnancy, for any reason whatsoever, and that all of us, as taxpayers, should be obliged to fund it.
There could be no greater departure from the Trump administration’s work to disentangle the federal government from abortion wherever possible and to empower individual states to decide the matter themselves. Much of this was done administratively and can thus be undone by Biden. But some of Trump’s most important pro-life achievements will be much harder to erase, such as his many conservative judicial appointments.
With three new Supreme Court justices and hundreds more judges appointed to state and federal courts, pro-life advocates stand a much better chance of success than they did before Trump’s term in the Oval Office. When the Biden administration oversteps the bounds prescribed by the Constitution or statute law, or when Democratic states attempt to force the pro-life movement into retreat, Trump’s judges will, we hope, yank them back on track. Federal courts might even take up cases on abortion precedent, which could lead to protections for unborn babies that no Democratic president could overturn.
All of this is to say that the pro-life movement faces challenges and opportunities under Biden. Pro-lifers have never been better positioned to scale back Roe than they are now, but they also face a hostile administration with an aggressive pro-abortion agenda and an army of abortion activists that feels empowered to punish anyone who resists them.
There is reason to hope that the culture is changing. Public opinion has trended toward increased abortion restrictions for the past several years. Even a good number of Democratic voters are hesitant to support some of the actions Biden is now proposing, such as repealing the Mexico City policy and the Hyde Amendment. So it is still possible that the pro-life movement sees success over the next four years. But it will also face a few more challenges along the way.
