We must make an ethical argument against the horrific injustice of abortion

The Pro-Life Movement, 

Forty-One Years After Roe

by Gerard V. Bradley

One year ago...

The pro-life movement has won a great battle by convincing the American public that an unborn child is a person. But that is not enough. Now, we must make an ethical argument against the horrific injustice of abortion.

Every organization or movement needs to pause occasionally and take a critical look at itself: its goals, its agenda, and its tactics. Businesses stage “retreats.” Nonprofits schedule “in-service” days. Schools undergo periodic accreditation visits. They do so to refresh and, if need be, to revise their strategic vision. Then they recalibrate their practices in light of missions accomplished and failed, doors opened and closed, tactics that work and ones that don’t.

Social justice movements are no exception. Assessing them is complicated, however, because they tend to be made up of many different organizations with distinct but complementary missions. This is true of civil rights groups, environmental advocates, immigration reform outfits, world peace organizations—and the pro-life movement.

With due recognition of its many components, then, let’s ask: how might the summary of its strategic reassessment read, on this forty-first anniversary of Roev. Wade?

First, there would be—and should be—thanksgiving and even joy. It is evidence of Divine Providence and proof of human love that we are here at all. Quick quiz: which other developed democracy can claim a pro-life movement that is a fraction of the one in the United States? Answer: none.

And there would be none in America, according to the Supreme Court. In 1973, the Court anticipated that Americans would peacefully embrace abortion as they had already embraced (with a push from the Court) contraception. There would be no pro-life movement, they thought, because the sexual revolution demanded abortion. There would be none because the last citadel of resistance to that revolution—the political sway of the Catholic bishops over rosary-praying, bingo-playing parishioners—would soon be a memory (again, with a push from the Court). There would be none, too, if we had obeyed the Court in 1992, when Casey v. Planned Parenthood sanctimoniously called on the contending sides of the abortion controversy to stand down, because, well, the Court had spoken.

But we pro-lifers are still standing. And marching, and voting, and protesting, and counseling. We are still joining crib clubs and running diaper drives. The Court’s great expectations have been confounded. We took up this hard but essential work, work that so many other nations declined. Americans of all faiths answered the call to serve—to try to save—the least among us. It is a task that brings spiritual rewards but yields few earthly treasures. Prayer has sustained us all the way. We can rightfully delight in the fellowship we have forged while on this path.

We have done more than simply persevere. We have succeeded on many fronts. Sidewalk counselors and women’s care centers have saved countless babies. They have saved countless women’s lives too, from the moral disintegration that they would have suffered by aborting their son or daughter. All pro-lifers have contributed to these rescues, by promoting a culture of life that made these front-line interventions possible and these rescuers’ messages plausible.
We have, for example, limited government funding for abortion, starting with the Hyde Amendment in the mid-1970s. These limitations are important, because government funding would credential abortion as morally respectable and even good, which is precisely why Planned Parenthood and their allies push back so hard against de-funding. They know, too, that it is not about money. It is about moral stigma.

The HHS abortifacient mandate opens up a back door to removing that stigma, and it will not be long before RU-486 comes knocking. That abortion “pill”—really a pharmaceutical regimen—is presently used up to nine weeks of pregnancy, but it is clinically just about as safe and effective all the way through the first trimester. Within a few years, these “chemical” abortions are likely to be the dominant mode of abortion up to around thirteen weeks. The next Democratic administration might well add RU-486 to the list of essential services covered under Obamacare. This prospect makes opposing today’s mandate all the more critical.
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