The country is becoming more pro-life since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade one year ago, activists say, but their fight to end abortion is far from over.
Almost half the country—24 states— have now implemented laws to restrict abortions after 12 weeks gestation, pro-life groups say.
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming have all implemented laws since the Dobbs ruling restricting abortions except to save the life of the mother. Most of these states also have exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Several of these state bans are being held up in litigation.
“One year ago, almost no one thought that was possible – not with Roe in the way,” Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins told Fox News Digital. She said momentum was on the pro-life side, as more states consider earlier limits on abortion than the Dobbs ruling considered.
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June 27th: Pro-life protester holds up New York Times newspaper outside Supreme Court. (Photo by Joshua Comins/Fox News)
Their work isn’t just about ending abortion, the activists say, as they celebrate how states are giving more support to women during and after pregnancy. Pregnancy centers and maternity homes now outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities 14 to one, they said.
Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, told Fox News Digital that 16 states now offer alternatives to abortion funding “to strengthen and support adoption agencies, as well as the nearly 3,000 pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes that exist around the nation to provide resources, care, and support to pregnant women in need.”
“Over the past year, many women have shared their powerful stories on the transformational lifesaving support these centers have provided for their families,” Mancini added.
SBA Pro-Life America also touted pro-life measures passed by several states in the past year, such as extended Medicaid coverage for mothers through the first year after a child is born in Wyoming; foster care and adoption reforms in Mississippi; and millions more in state support for crisis pregnancy centers in Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Kansas and West Virginia.
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Demonstrators protest about abortion outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Friday, June 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
GOP lawmakers in North Carolina promoted $160 million to go to childcare, parental leave and community college assistance, the group noted in a press release.
However, the activists worry about violence from opponents since the fallout over the Supreme Court decision.
Fox News Digital previously reported that over 100 crisis pregnancy centers, churches and pro-life organizations have been attacked since the court leak of the Dobbs decision. FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed in November that approximately 70% of abortion-related threats of violence have been against pro-life groups.
Hawkins recalled how Antifa and transgender protesters attacked a recent event she held at a college campus. Protesters reportedly shouted down her speech and assaulted pro-life students in attendance.
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Protestors at Virginia Commonwealth University interrupt Students for Life of America speakers. (Courtesy of Students for Life of America)
At another college event recently a professor shouted obscenities at pro-life students before grabbing and throwing items at their display. The professor went on to threaten a reporter who questioned her about the incident with a machete.
Despite the threats, activists continue to fight abortion through a variety of means. Legal groups are challenging state laws that mandate abortion coverage in employer health plans for churches and Christian schools. Students for Life said they are studying the environmental impact of chemical abortions, as they raise concerns about dumping human remains into “what becomes our drinking water.”
Pro-life doctors and medical groups are also seeking to bring another controversial abortion issue before the Supreme Court.
Alliance Defending Freedom, a faith-based legal group that helped draft the Mississippi legislation at the heart of the Dobbs case, is representing Christian doctors in a suit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. They argue the federal agency hastily approved the abortion drug Mifepristone before testing it to the agency’s full standards when it was released onto the market in 2000.
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A patient prepares to take the first of two combination pills, mifepristone, for a medication abortion during a visit to a clinic in Kansas City, Kansas, on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
In its lawsuit, they argued that the FDA classified pregnancy as an illness to approve the drug.
ADF contests the FDA removed safeguards such as a doctor’s exam or ultrasound to verify dating or rule out ectopic pregnancies, which may require surgical intervention.
Meanwhile, attorneys general in 12 Democratic-led states have also sued the FDA, challenging their restrictions on the distribution of Mifepristone, saying the drug is safer than Tylenol and Viagra.
ADF Senior Counsel Denise Harle told Fox News Digital that their case against the FDA was the “one of, if not the single most important case right now” against the federal agency.
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Under President Biden, the FDA made Mifepristone more widely available at retail pharmacies, including delivery by mail.
Mifepristone has been used in nearly 5 million abortions from September 2000 through June 2021, according to an FDA estimate. Medication abortions accounted for over half of all abortions nationwide in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Harle argued a federal agency should not have the power to set a nationwide abortion policy and it should handled by the states just as was decided in Dobbs.
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Fox News polling in April found 65% of American voters think Mifepristone should be legal.
Harle believes there is a “disconnect” in the public’s understanding about abortion drugs and polls may not make the distinction between the morning-after pill, which is a form of birth control, and Mifepristone, which ends a pregnancy.
In a statement, Hawkins also said that combating medical misinformation about abortion was one of the most important challenges their side faces going forward.
First Lady Jill Biden is among those who called the Dobbs decision “devastating.”
“The Dobbs decision was devastating,” Biden said in a White House conversation with four women about the ruling’s effect on them. “The Dobbs decision took away women’s constitutional rights, their ability to make their own healthcare decisions.”
While pro-life groups pledged to continue to fight abortion, some admitted that abortion advocates were working just as hard to expand abortion rights.
“Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade one year ago, many pro-abortion state legislators and federal leaders have actively fought against protecting the most vulnerable among us- the unborn – by feverishly working to enact and make permanent laws that would allow for abortion on demand, up until birth, paid for by taxpayer dollars,” Mancini told Fox News Digital.
Looking ahead to 2024, activists reiterated how they are looking for a GOP candidate who will boldly defend life issues. E. V. Osment, Vice President of Communications for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America decried Republicans who shy away from the abortion issue as a “losing strategy” against the “extreme” Democrats.
“The only way to win is to drive a stark contrast between the pro-life position and the extreme Democratic position of abortion on demand without limit. The ‘ostrich strategy’ of shying away or declaring it is only a state issue is a failure of leadership and a proven losing strategy,” Osment said.