by Most abortion opponents did not expect the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the passage of state abortion bans led to the expansion of legal abortion in much of the United States.
But here’s what happened: While 16 states ban most or virtually all abortions a year and a half after the Women’s Health Organization ruling Dobbs v. Jackson in June 2022, abortion numbers increased in states where it is legal. As anti-abortion groups prepare for their annual March for Life on Friday, they face the reality that the past year brought a series of defeats for their cause, with abortion rights supporters scoring victories in every abortion referendum. presented to voters, even in conservative parties. state. Those who oppose abortion are now on the defensive.
This is largely because their strategy has focused on passing bans, which have politically polarized and alienated members of the Democratic Party – a party that just a few decades ago included many supporters of the pro-life cause.
It didn’t have to be like this. As a historian of the anti-abortion movement and abortion politics, I wrote in early 2021 that ending Roe may “only marginally reduce the number of legal abortions” in the United States and “at worst, may lead to a pro-choice Democratic backlash that will expand the number of abortions.” “legal.”
I also pointed out another way to reduce abortions in the United States: expanding the social safety net so that more pregnant women decide to keep their babies. This strategy was advocated by some abortion opponents nearly 50 years ago, but it was largely forgotten after the anti-abortion movement allied itself with the political right in the Reagan era. Today, as the anti-abortion movement faces new challenges amid rising abortion numbers nationwide, the time may have come to rediscover this forgotten path.
After Roe, in 1973, resulted in the legalization of abortion in all states, abortion opponents were divided over how best to defend unborn human life. Most anti-abortion organizations favored a constitutional amendment that would protect human life from the moment of conception.
But a few abortion opponents (especially those who were liberal Democrats) believed that rather than embarking on what seemed to be a politically impossible pursuit of such an amendment, they could prevent abortions by offering help to women facing difficult pregnancies.
For example, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, whose husband, Sargent Shriver, was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, campaigned for federal legislation that would establish a national network of child care and crisis pregnancy centers. “The best way to fight abortion is to actually offer alternatives to abortion,” she declared.
This was not a new idea for anti-abortion organizations, which before Roe v. Wade had put forward proposals such as “birth insurance” to care for babies who needed expensive medical treatment, subsidized adoption, and government-funded daycare.
But Roe disrupted those plans and prompted nearly all anti-abortion organizations to make support for an anti-abortion constitutional amendment the litmus test by which they evaluate political candidates, regardless of their positions on other measures that could reduce the abortion rate by offer assistance to pregnant women who need support.
In the 1980s, anti-abortion organizations shifted their focus toward the more achievable goal of overturning Roe through a Supreme Court decision—a shift in tactics that solidified their support for the Republican Party, as Republican presidents and senators had many more Democrats are more likely to favor judicial nominees who opposed Roe.
Now that Roe is gone, anti-abortion groups have pinned their hopes on bans as the primary way to protect unborn human life. But those bans have proven more unpopular than they expected and have had less effect on the national abortion rate than they would have liked. Reports from late 2023 indicated that the annual number of abortions in the United States may have been higher after Dobbs than before the decision, as bans in some states were offset by greater protection of abortion rights elsewhere.
The anti-abortion movement believed that legal bans could move the cultural consensus in a pro-life direction, but the opposite appears to have happened. New abortion clinics were built in Illinois and New Mexico to serve women from nearby states with restrictive laws, while clinics across the country (including in conservative Florida) reported an increase in demand for abortions. After voters approved an abortion rights amendment to the Ohio Constitution in November, abortion rights supporters redoubled their efforts to get the issue on the ballot in other states, from Florida to Arizona.
In such a political climate, abortion opponents must focus on changing hearts and minds before changing laws. They need to earn the public’s trust by demonstrating that their respect for life does not end at birth.
A 2023 Guttmacher Institute study showed that 42 percent of people who had abortions had income below the poverty line. Other study showed that 40 percent of those who had abortions cited financial considerations as the main reason for their decision, suggesting that financial assistance would likely allow some women who abort to choose to carry their pregnancies to term. Paid family leave policies may be particularly effective in reducing abortion rates, according to a 2010 study.
Many religious and private charities are already providing assistance to pregnant women on a limited scale, but support for comprehensive national programs would extend the benefits of this strategy to a much larger number of women.
In the 1970s, when the movement included a substantial number of Democrats and many supporters of the social programs of the New Deal and the Great Society, proposals like those put forward by the Shrivers might have made sense to abortion opponents, but did they? What will conservative Republican abortionists say today? What do their enemies think of them?
To save unborn lives, the anti-abortion movement may have to go beyond partisan thinking and support any proposal that could reduce abortion, even when it comes from Democrats. At least in a few conservative states, some Republican lawmakers are already supporting free college tuition benefits, state Medicaid expansions for new mothers, reforms to the adoption and foster care systems, and paid family leave, all of which have the potential to reduce abortion rates. as they reduce the financial burden on those who care for children, or empower mothers to improve their economic prospects and obtain better-paying jobs.
Opponents of abortion should demand that legislators, both at the state and national levels, demonstrate their pro-life bona fides by supporting measures like these that will offer positive alternatives to abortion, just as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and other abortion opponents We (including myself) joined with abortion rights supporters to push for protections for pregnant workers. The Senate approved the Fairness Act for Pregnant Workers a year ago with strong bipartisan support.
Given that the anti-abortion movement’s narrow focus on bans has alienated potential allies and failed to reduce the number of abortions, a more promising strategy needs to be reconsidered. A paid family leave plan or a state Medicaid expansion may not offer the movement the same immediately satisfying sense of victory as a state abortion ban, but they could ultimately save more unborn lives.
Daniel K. Williams teaches American history at Ashland University and is the author of “The Politics of the Cross: A Christian Alternative to Partisanship.”
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