The Fight for Life
Yes, the fight for life continues. The first March for Life in Washington DC took place on January 22nd, 1974, the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s notorious Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions. These two decisions immediately killed all state laws regarding abortion. Up until January 22nd, 1973, abortion was exclusively the concern of the individual states. Virtually all states had some restrictions, many of them heavy restrictions if not outright bans, on abortion. The Supreme Court had now, in an exercise of “raw judicial power” (as one dissenting justice put it) made unlimited abortion the ironclad law of the entire country.
Needless to say, the reversal of those two decisions (often referred to simply as Roe) was an essential first step in rolling back the abortion regime. There were many attempts to circumvent Roe with laws at least limiting or discouraging abortion, such as parental consent laws, mandatory waiting periods, and so on. Many of these were shot down by the courts as violations of Roe. Some remained on the books and did some good . . . but only on the margins. For nearly half a century, Roe was the rock solid roadblock to any meaningful protection in law to unborn human life.
Corresponding Obsessions
Understandably, then, the overturning of Roe became the main goal of the pro-life movement. Preserving the ruling (or really its successor, 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey, but everyone still always used the shorthand “Roe”) became a corresponding obsession to the pro-abortion left as well. Senate hearings for presidential court nominees, which had been mostly pro forma since the founding of the American republic, became increasingly contentious. At least when the nominee seemed to be at danger of voting against Roe.
It started with the successful slandering of Reagan nominee Robert Bork in 1987 (an effort led by Catholic Senators Kennedy and Biden). A few years later, Bush nominee Clarence Thomas, after facing what he called a “high tech lynching” in the Senate, just managed to squeak through. The pro-Roe practice of personal destruction of every possibly pro-life court nominee reached a screeching crescendo in the unhinged campaign to derail and destroy Trump nominee Brent Cavanaugh in 2017. The overwrought hysteria of the Cavanaugh hearings provoked enough pushback that the nominee nevertheless made it through the process. Trump’s next pick, Amy Coney Barrett, successfully passed through the Senate as well, either because she was a woman, or because the left was still exhausted after the Cavanaugh debacle.
A Victory Lap?
Whatever the reason, the worst fears of the pro-abortion left came true. The court overturned Casey (and by extension, Roe and Doe) in the summer of 2022. To those of us who had been battling in the pro-life trenches it seemed like a miracle. It was even more dramatic in its way than the fall of the Berlin Wall. Roe had looked so unassailable for so long.
I remember one of the first reactions in the pro-life community was what to do about the annual March for Life. The March had taken place at the end of January every year (in truncated form, granted, in 2021) for over half a century. Did we even need it anymore? Should we retain the March as a sort of victory lap? If so, should it now take place in June, when the Court published the decision overturning Casey?
The Truth Sinks In
It didn’t take long for the truth to sink in. Victory laps were premature. The Supreme Court didn’t do anything to limit abortion. It didn’t even return us to the status quo ante. It simply allowed us access to the starting line. The actual race was about to begin. It was now incumbent on the pro-life movement to fight out the legal abortion battle state by state. And now we had to do it in a culture that had taken unlimited abortion as a given. In his Casey decision, Justice Kennedy explained that:
An entire generation has come of age free to assume Roe’s concept of liberty in defining the capacity of women to act in society, and to make reproductive decisions (Casey, 505 U.S. at 860).
In other words, the Catholic Supreme Court justice was telling us that people were just too used to the legal killing of unborn babies. It would be too hard to ask them to change. That was only two decades after Roe. We now found ourselves an additional three decades beyond that. The task of protecting unborn human life had become much harder than it was in 1973.
Why March On
And so the fight continues. Some states have restored laws, or passed new laws, restricting abortion. Others, including many of the largest states, have enacted laws protecting abortion, or even expanding access (in other words, actively encouraging pregnant women to abort their children). We will need to fight to defend pro-life laws, and to tear down pro-abortion laws, for a long time to come.
Given that reality, it’s good to see that the March for Life continues in its traditional place on the calendar. This year it will take place on January 24th, 53 years (and two days) after Roe v. Wade. Yes, the U.S. Supreme Court no longer stands in the way, but the Roe decision is an immediately familiar a symbol of state power v. innocent life. Also, abortion is still a national issue. For one reason, as explained, the fight continues across the country in all fifty states. We also need to be aware that the forces that push abortion will try to use federal law to force legal abortion back on the country, and in particular on those states whose citizens have chosen to protect unborn life.
Courage to Follow Our Conscience
Staying in the legal fight and maintaining high-profile events such as the March for Life is important for a number of reasons. Even apparently unsuccessful efforts can bear fruit. Let’s start on the negative side of the ledger. Anyone who has been involved in pro-life work over the years has heard the testimony of women who regret their abortions. I’ve heard more than a few explain that they would never have undergone the abortion if it hadn’t been legal. And not because they were afraid of breaking the law. More often, it was because the fact of legality created an appearance of permission, or just enough of a fig leaf that they could justify going against their own consciences.
Pro-life laws can work in a similar (but good) way. Yes, they won’t stop all abortions. But law is a teacher, for good as well as ill. The law sends a message. Also, just as feeling that we’re not alone can support us in doing wrong, it can also uphold us in doing good. Seeing fellow citizens publicly fighting to overturn unjust laws, even without success, or publicly expressing approval for an unpopular moral position can also encourage us to follow our conscience, even when it’s difficult or inconvenient.
Principalities and Powers
Finally, there’s more at stake than the protection of innocent babies, as important as that is. The fight over abortion is just a part of a much older and broader fight. This one goes back even before the fall of Adam and Eve, to the fall of Lucifer and his followers. Even worse than the injustice to unborn babies, abortion damages our society morally, and ravages the eternal souls of those who participate in it or promote it. It is just one front in the endless battle against “the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12)
It’s only one front, but this is the battle of our time. This is our fight . . . and it’s not over.
Featured image top of page: the 2020 March for Life proceeding up Constitution Avenue (author’s photo)
Earlier Pro-life Posts:
One of the things that led me to start up this blog in January, 2021, was the attempt on the part of the pro-abortion Powers to squelch the March for Life, using the Capitol riot as a pretext. Here are two posts from the first week of Spes in Domino:
