Since Roe fell

It’s been almost one year since 50 years of patient work by pro-life activists culminated in the overturning of Roe v. Wade—one of America’s most ghastly Supreme Court rulings. On June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court declared Roe unconstitutional, reversing a measure that had made abortion legal across the country since 1973. 

Since that day, at least 14 states no longer offer abortions and there have been many lives saved. Some believe that as many as 60,000 abortions were avoided. Pro-life pregnancy centers, meanwhile, have expanded services, sometimes with the backing of governor-directed state dollars and a fresh influx of donations from pro-lifers.

Pro-life Christians have always done an incredible job of helping to provide for women facing unplanned pregnancies. Still, they’re aware that the end of Roe demanded even more. More women in need means that pregnancy centers need more money, staff, volunteers, domestic items, and comprehensive support. 

The Human Coalition’s Chelsey Youman said her organization was ready for Roe’s reversal “because we’ve anticipated this moment for over a decade.” 

She said women are still facing the same difficulties they’ve always faced and the Human Coalition, along with other organizations like them, are there for them. 

It has also meant more cohesion between Republican and Democrat pro-life groups partnering to support women and their families. Democrats for Life and United for Life, two groups in different political camps, recently published a white paper urging legislators to make birth cost free nationwide. 

And though pro-abortion groups lament the disproportionate effect abortion restrictions and clinic closings have on “marginalized” groups, Roe’s overturn is surely good news for black babies, who are aborted at nearly three times the rate as other races. 

It’s no secret that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was a racist eugenicist whose legacy has continued in the work of abortion centers planted in black neighborhoods. Ironically, abortion advocates fail to connect the dots, but less access to abortion means the threat of her sinister vision is being countered.  

The overturning of Roe has also revealed other fronts in the fight. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s life was threatened just before the decision. Soon after the decision, multiple pregnancy centers were terrorized and ransacked by anonymous activists. Beyond that, abortion advocates are urging women to mail-order abortion pills and induce abortions at home without medical guidance. The Charlotte Lozier Institute found that abortion pill-related emergency room visits increased by over 500 percent from 2002 through 2015—long before the uptick in prescriptions and increasing lack of oversight. 

Another study found that women were four times more likely to have complications with a medication abortion. This rarely reported data never makes its way to the thousands of women being told it’s completely safe to take the abortion pill—same with the data surrounding the emotional and moral cost of abortion for both men and women. 

Woke corporations, of course, took advantage of the narrative. Companies like Disney, Comcast, Netflix, and others began offering employees reimbursement for travel to obtain an abortion. This was little more than virtue signaling, as the costs for travel are slight compared to what they’d need to cover for a woman’s maternity leave—and most women seeking abortions aren’t working in corporate America anyway. 

With Roe gone, progressive states appear rabid to expand abortion access wherever they can. In an act of blasphemy, California Gov. Gavin Newsom went so far as to print a Bible verse on a billboard promoting abortion. It took 50 years to overturn Roe. One year in, the struggle has been well worth it for babies born alive and the moms who will not suffer the trauma of abortion for the rest of their lives. Still, the long trek in the defense of life still stretches out before us.