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It’s fashionable in certain circles on the Right to degrade pro-lifers as dangerous absolutists at worst and electoral liabilities at best. The matter is settled, they claim: America is an abortion-friendly nation. Resistance is, if not futile, deeply impractical. Better to concentrate the movement’s efforts on winning hearts and minds.
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This chorus of groans grew louder this week as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser’s interview with the Wall Street Journal circulated online. Dannenfelser, whose organization hailed Trump as the “most pro-life president in history” until recently, now considers Trump “the problem” with abortion in America. Not administration underlings, not skittish consultants. But Trump himself.
“Trump is the problem. The president is the problem,” she said.
The reason is straightforward: Trump’s embrace of a states’ rights position on abortion, which Dannenfelser and most pro-life leaders see as an abdication of federal leadership on the issue. In their view, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court decision that returned the question of abortion to the states, was supposed to lay the groundwork for federal legislation to outlaw abortion at 15 weeks — the gestational limit SBA had championed as a national floor.
Trump and his supporters, however, see Dobbs itself as the endgame. The point, they believe, was to allow states to decide on abortion, not for the federal government to intervene once the Court correctly ruled that the Constitution didn’t guarantee the right to an abortion. It may not be ideal, but they believe it’s the best that can be hoped for given the political conditions.
And indeed, polls tend to buoy this theory of the case. A Pew poll from January found that 60% believe abortion should be legal “in all or most cases,” including 64% of women and 55% of men. Meanwhile, only 38% agree with the pro-life position that abortion should be illegal “in all or most cases.”
Other polls paint a brighter picture for the pro-life cause, showing high percentages of voters opposing abortion after 15 weeks and very few supporting legal abortion up until the point of birth. But the consensus view is that supporting federal legislation to limit abortion is politically perilous — and that’s probably correct. State referenda have reinforced this view, with voters in most states choosing to keep abortion legal — in some cases, strengthening protections beyond what existed under Roe.
Despite all this, Dannenfelser contends that “the movement as we know it is finished” unless Republicans ditch Trump’s states’ rights stance. She correctly holds that abortion is a national issue, whether anyone likes it or not — the Trump administration’s decision to defend the Biden-era regulatory regime allowing mifepristone to be prescribed via telehealth and delivered by mail renders the “states’ rights” position obsolete.
Indeed, women residing in states that have passed abortion bans can procure prescriptions for mifepristone online and have providers in abortion-legal states ship the drug to their door. Each year, more and more women choose chemical abortions, which account for about two-thirds of total abortions.
Of course, none of this means that pushing for a national 15-week ban is the smartest political play — only that it isn’t total surrender. Trump’s mail-order abortion regime renders “states’ rights” an illusion, effectively ending the pro-life movement’s efforts in the political and legal realm. If states do not possess the ability to regulate abortion within their borders, Dobbs is obsolete. This largely accounts for the rising total number of abortions each year following the ruling.
Unless the pro-life movement is prepared to abandon the political realm entirely, it is left with little choice but to continue making the case for legal recognition of its central belief: that unborn life is sacred and deserving of legal protections. That means pursuing laws that outlaw abortion — and under these circumstances, only a federal law could achieve that.
If that seems impractical, that’s because, well, I suppose it is. The more sensible move would be to accept the illusion of states’ rights and pursue more winnable political and cultural battles.
But on matters of life and death, moral obligation supersedes practicality. The cause of protecting innocent life cannot be contingent upon the political winds. That does not mean the pro-life movement is obligated to fight foolishly and blindly, but it must not unilaterally disarm by buying into fairy tales about states’ rights.
It bears mentioning that impracticality is not the same as futility. If abolitionists, suffragists, civil rights advocates abandoned the field the moment the politics turned against them, what would the nation look like today? As Jimmy Stewart’s character said in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, “lost causes are the only causes worth fighting for.” The pro-life movement has never been in the business of fighting only winnable battles. It has been in the business of doing what is right. And in this dark moment, doing what is right is all that is left to do.
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Pro-life leaders did enormous harm by cheerleading for Trump so shamelessly during the election — even as he and his running mate repeatedly voiced their support for mifepristone access. They then extolled him as a pro-life legend, as if in a trance, at the dawn of the Golden Age. This had the effect of diminishing the movement’s leverage among its own rank and file, many of whom now believe that Trump is unimpeachable on the issue of life.
But it isn’t too late to reckon with that mistake and fight with clear eyes. Dannenfelser, long considered the most influential of all pro-life leaders, now appears to be seeing clearly.
