Anti-abortion activists brace for challenges ahead as they gather for March for Life
A year ago, anti-abortion activists from across the US gathered for their annual March for Life, with reason to celebrate: It was their first march since the Supreme Court struck down the nation’s right to abortion seven months earlier.
At this year’s march on Friday, the mood will be very different – a reflection of the formidable challenges that await us this election year.
“We have undeniable evidence of victory – lives are being saved,” said John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life. “But there is also an awareness of the significant hurdles our movement currently faces in the public conversation.”
Participants at the march in Washington will salute the 14 states that enforce bans on abortion during pregnancy. They will proclaim that thousands of babies have been born who might otherwise have been aborted, even though studies show that the overall number of abortions in the US rose slightly in the year after enforcement began.
Moreover, anti-abortion leaders know that their side has lost seven states in votes on abortion-related ballot measures. Even in red states like Ohio, Kansas and Kentucky, the outcomes favored keeping access to abortion legal.
In this year’s elections, even more states are expected to pass abortion rights ballot measures, and Democratic candidates in many tight races are likely to underline their support for abortion access.
“We have been around for more than fifty years, and I don’t know of a single year that has been easy,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Commission for the Right to Life.
“But after Dobbs it definitely got harder,” she added. “We have a lot of work ahead of us.”
Tobias was referring to the Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
Dobbs’s most important effect was to return decision-making on abortion policy to the individual states. Some Democratic-controlled states – such as California, New York and New Jersey – have strengthened protections for abortion access. About 20 states with Republican-controlled legislatures have banned abortion or tried to impose new restrictions.
After Dobbs, “I didn’t want anyone to get the false sense that we were at the end of our work,” said Brent Leatherwood, an abortion opponent who heads the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy department.
“We’ve gone from one focal point at the federal level to 50 different focal points,” he said. “It may take another 50 years before we truly create a culture of life that saves unborn lives and supports mothers.”
Even current claims of lives being saved as a result of the Dobbs decision are questionable. While the number of abortions has fallen to near zero in states with outright bans, the number has increased elsewhere — particularly in states like Illinois, Florida and New Mexico, which are close to those with more restrictions.
Anti-abortion leaders are well aware that their opponents in the abortion debate are portraying the wave of state bans as an infringement on women’s rights and a potential danger to their health.
The theme of this year’s March for Life aims to convey support to women facing an unexpected pregnancy: “Pro Life: With Every Woman, for Every Child.”
“Pregnancy care centers and maternity hospitals are the backbone of our movement,” March for Life President Jeanne Mancini wrote in a recent op-ed.
She and her allies have encouraged states to offer support programs to new mothers in need — to help them find housing, jobs and health insurance.
Among the scheduled speakers at the march is Jean Marie Davis, executive director of the Branches Pregnancy Resource Center in Brattleboro, Vermont. Davis says a similar center in New Hampshire helped her escape several years ago after she became pregnant while ensnared in a sex trafficking operation.
Other scheduled speakers include House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., a co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.
Mancini said last year’s march drew tens of thousands of people; she hopes the march will be bigger this year.
The participants, she said, will be in a “persistent mood.”
JJ Straight, part of a team at the American Civil Liberties Union working to protect and expand access to abortion, says her side also feels determined, especially in light of the recent voting results.
“We have seen a huge pushback in the anti-abortion agenda,” she said. “There is a huge coalition of people, regardless of party and other demographics, who absolutely draw the line at this kind of intrusion into their health care.”
One reason for uncertainty for all sides of the debate is the inconsistent way federal and state courts have tried abortion-related cases. There have been numerous legal challenges to various state laws banning or restricting abortion, some of which failed and some of which were at least temporarily successful.
A lawsuit is underway in Texas, filed by women who say the state’s abortion ban forced them to continue their pregnancies despite serious risks to their health.
In an even more prominent case in Texas, mother of two Kate Cox sought an abortion after learning that the baby she was carrying had a fatal genetic condition. Her request for relief from Texas’ ban — one of the strictest in the country — was denied by the state Supreme Court, and Cox left Texas to seek an abortion elsewhere.
For abortion rights activists, Cox’s case was a powerful example of how an abortion ban could be dangerous for women with pregnancy complications.
“Never in our history have we had such an overwhelming response to any cause,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “We got phone calls, emails, mail. Time and time again, people spoke of her with awe, of her courage to come forward.”
Seago, the president of Texas Right to Life, defended the Texas abortion ban. He said the Cox case and the ongoing lawsuit simply underscored the need for Texas health authorities to clarify what doctors can and cannot do when dealing with problem pregnancies.
Carol Tobias acknowledged that there can be difficult pregnancies.
“But I don’t think harsh circumstances should be used to establish state law,” she said. In such cases, she added, “the doctors have two patients. They have to take care of both of them as best they can.”
All new bans make an exception to allow abortion if it is deemed necessary to save the life of the mother. There are divisions within the anti-abortion movement over additional exceptions – for example, in cases of rape and incest, or when serious fetal abnormalities are diagnosed.
Other divisions have emerged over who should be criminalized by the new laws.
There is a general consensus among leading anti-abortion activists that women should not be prosecuted for seeking or obtaining an abortion. But there is support for criminal sanctions against doctors and others who help people get abortions; Some states, including Texas and Idaho, are trying to prevent people from leaving the state to have abortions or obtain abortion pills by mail.
Dr. Jamila Perritt, an abortion rights advocate and president of Physicians for Reproductive Health, worries that abortion opponents in states with bans will criminalize people who seek abortions outside the formal medical system.
“The impact of their campaign has been devastating – and it will get worse,” she said. “I worry that many more people will be arrested and prosecuted.”
One of the biggest uncertainties heading into Election Day on November 5 is how power in Washington will be divided between the two major parties.
Abortion rights advocates fear that a Republican attack on Congress and the White House could provoke an attempt to impose a federal abortion ban. Conversely, some abortion opponents — including Chris Smith — fear that a Democratic move could lead to a law overriding state abortion bans now in effect.
Such legislation — as modeled in the failed Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021-2022 — would be “an existential threat,” Smith said.
Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., has introduced a bill that would propose banning most abortions nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy. SBA Pro-Life America, a prominent anti-abortion group, supports the bill, said state policy director Katie Glenn Daniel. But the measure has fierce critics on both sides of the abortion divide.