On Monday, the country marks two years since the Supreme Court overturned half a century of legalized abortion nationwide, a tumultuous two years that has held both wins and losses for the pro-life movement.
Since the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision reversed Roe vs. Wade in June 2022, a total of 24 states have passed bans on abortion at 15 weeks or earlier. The Dobbs case dealt with a 2018 Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks.
Bans or restrictions on abortion are currently in effect in 21 states, namely Texas, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Idaho, Utah, and Arizona.
In the other three states that passed abortion bans, Iowa, Wyoming, and Montana, the laws are blocked in court for now.
Already, state abortion bans have resulted in tens of thousands more babies being born per year, a source of great joy for pro-life Americans across the country.
About 32,000 more babies were born per year due to state abortion bans enacted since Roe was overturned, according to a November analysis by the Institute of Labor Economics. Births have increased in every state that has an abortion ban, the analysis found.
“Since the Dobbs decision, we have gained major ground in the fight for life,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
However, Dannenfelser warns allies not to take the high court’s decision for granted.
“This could be the last Dobbs anniversary we celebrate if we don’t win this election. If Joe Biden and the Democrats win, they will nuke the filibuster and pass the [Women’s Health Protection Act] to ban states from having laws protecting unborn children and mandate all-trimester abortion all across the country,” she said.
Attorney Erin Hawley, who served as co-counsel with Mississippi on the Dobbs case, believes that legally, Dobbs “one hundred percent” has more staying power than Roe did. Hawley is senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom and the wife of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO).
“Roe from the get-go was just an act of judicial activism,” Hawley told The Daily Wire. “Even prominent liberal pro-abortion scholars long criticized the decision for having no constitutional basis at all.”
“In contrast, I think Dobbs gets the constitutional analysis exactly correct,” she said. “What Dobbs says is that the Constitution nowhere protects the right to abortion, and so that means the states and the people have the ability to protect life.”
Thanks to Dobbs, she said, many state abortion laws now “just need to be rational” rather than meet the “undue burden” standard.
“The undue burden test really hamstrung states. Again, you cannot really protect life at all up until viability,” she said.
Amid the major legal wins and the tens of thousands of unborn lives saved, however, there have been losses for the pro-life movement as well.
At the ballot box, abortion has not been a winning issue for the pro-life movement.
The public’s reaction to the Dobbs ruling boosted the flailing Democrats five months later during the 2022 midterms. Voters in swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania ranked abortion over inflation or crime as the most important issue in exit polls.
As the 2024 presidential election cycle heats up, Democrats have hammered the abortion issue and seized on personal stories of women who were prevented from obtaining an abortion in their home state.
Misinformation has spread about women allegedly suffering miscarriages or other adverse outcomes due to state abortion bans.
Ballot initiatives on abortion in Ohio, Kentucky, and Kansas also did not go the way pro-life advocates hoped. This November, more abortion initiatives will appear on the ballot in South Dakota, Colorado, and Florida.
Meanwhile, more abortion cases have reached the Supreme Court, including cases dealing with the abortion pill and emergency room abortions.
Earlier this month in another setback, the court unanimously ruled against a group of pro-life doctors who were pushing for more Food and Drug Administration (FDA) restrictions on mifepristone, one of two drugs frequently taken together to cause an abortion.
The court is also set to rule soon in a case about Idaho’s abortion ban, the first time the court has considered whether a state abortion ban is constitutional since the demise of Roe. The Biden administration is arguing that Idaho’s abortion ban flies in the face of a federal law, the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act, which requires federally funded hospitals to provide patients with stabilizing care. Idaho bans all abortions except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape and incest.
Despite the setbacks, the many state bans are a beacon of hope for pro-life advocates, who hope to continue the legal momentum as well as continue to work to change the hearts and minds of pro-abortion Americans.
Meanwhile, women are sharing stories about how overturning Roe saved their babies’ lives.
Baby Jacob’s birth mother walked into a Florida Planned Parenthood for a late-term abortion, but the state’s 15-week ban made her change her mind, and she picked Ashley and Dusty as his adoptive parents, the couple shared recently during a video press call with Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
Another mother who joined the call, Neesha, smiled as she described how Georgia’s heartbeat law saved the life of her baby boy, whom she gave up for adoption after initially considering abortion.
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“I’ve never seen a baby so happy,” she said. “They do everything I wish that I had the time to do. The way they love him and nurture him and care for him. They support him, they uplift him, they are encouraging to him.”
Neesha added that she does not think adoption is discussed enough. The organizations that help moms are not promoted as much as abortion, she said. If she could do it over again, she said, she does not think she would have chosen a different path for her baby.
“I hope the heartbeat law goes into effect across America because I think a lot of people do not understand the importance of carrying your child and making sure that baby has a life,” Neesha said.
“I believe that there’s help out there,” she added. “There are genuine people who actually care about not just the baby but the mother as well, making sure that she is okay during pregnancy and follow up after.”
