Justice, righteousness, and the gift of life

“There is no constitutional right to abortion,” writes Justice Clarence Thomas, concurring with the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

It is impossible to overstate the significance of today’s victory. In the much-anticipated Dobbs decision, the court just ruled that Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban is indeed constitutional. The ruling effectively overturns America’s two landmark Supreme Court cases, Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, which invented the right to abortion. Now, states will have the authority to more rigorously protect the lives of unborn babies if their lawmakers so choose. Tragically, liberal states will still have the freedom to allow legal abortion through nine months of pregnancy.

This allows conservatives and pro-life advocacy groups to push for policies that will abolish legal abortion and that recognize the legal personhood of babies in the womb. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 26 states already have laws in place that will achieve total or near-total protections for the unborn now that Roe has been overturned. These laws will recognize the dignity of unborn people. Lives will be saved.

Texas provides us a window into this lifesaving, post-Roe future. The state passed a novel pro-life law in 2021 that allows monetary penalties for abortions performed after six weeks of pregnancy when a baby’s heartbeat can be detected. As a result, abortion numbers have decreased. Sadly, some women may seek abortions in more liberal states, but thankfully, others are choosing life thanks to the law.

The Washington Post published an article last week highlighting the experience of a 19-year-old mother in Texas who was unable to abort her twin daughters because of the state’s new protections for the unborn after six weeks of gestation. The journalist writing the article waxed poetic about the now-evaporated dreams of this young mom who is raising her two children instead of fulfilling her desire to “swim with dolphins” in Hawaii.

As is typical of left-wing media, the writer made no such attempts to evoke sympathy for the babies who were spared a violent death. She did not make any effort to highlight what Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, called “the profound moral question” of when, how, and why taking an innocent life is justified. And yet, the article she wrote is unintentionally and undeniably pro-life. The Texas law produced the desired result: the preservation of not one but two little lives.

There was another unexpected, positive outcome of the Post’s story: Pro-life conservatives, after reading about the financial struggles of this new mom, started a GoFundMe page for her. They had raised more than $58,000 as of this writing.

This, of course, is what the pro-life side does and has always done. Despite the perpetually propagated pro-abortion myth that pro-lifers are only “pro-birth,” they, particularly Christians, dedicate innumerable hours and dollars to helping moms and families before, during, and after pregnancy. Pregnancy resource centers offer not only free sonograms and prenatal vitamins, but many also provide help with Medicaid enrollment, a refuge from domestic abuse, housing, and free parenting classes.

And that work will continue (and perhaps more intensely than ever) now that our country is ridden of the scourge of Roe. Despite the violence and intimidation by pro-abortion groups terrorizing pro-life organizations and churches, we will not be inhibited at all in our commitment to our work of persuading the public and caring for families. We won’t back down. Instead, we’ll double down. We’ve never been bullied into silence or compliance, and we certainly won’t start now.

As an American, I am proud that our system has, once again, corrected injustice for the oppressed. As a mom, I am so thankful to raise my children in a nation in which the “right” to abortion does not exist. As a Christian, I am overwhelmed with gratitude to the Lord for His incredible mercy in guiding these six justices in wisdom and truth.

This is a reminder of what, by the grace of God, hard, persistent work in the way of justice can accomplish. Let us never take that for granted. Fifty years of consistent activism, advocacy, persuasion, caretaking, and love have resulted in a lifesaving deathblow to Roe v. Wade.

May justice now “roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (Amos 5:24).”