Many media commentators and abortion industry talking heads believe the door has closed to pro-life laws, especially in states with new ballot-based laws poised to be added to state constitutions. And at the federal level, a narrative will be pushed that, given presidential priorities, new protections are off the table. Both predictions will prove false.
In the Washington Post after Kamala Harris’ epic loss, an abortion lobby representative said “(i)t would be nearly impossible” for a gestational limit on abortion to pass where ballot initiatives are in place. That shows a failure of imagination and a deliberate ignoring of what’s happening on the ground, I noted after the election, because the pro-life movement will creatively and strategically address the actual business of abortion for its impacts on women, the preborn, and the environment in the days ahead.
Old models make good history book lessons, not present-day plans.
The so-called “problem” for pro-life strategists asserted by the abortion lobby – that there is nothing that can be done to protect Life in this legal and political environment – is overcome with strategic precision from legislative and executive action that targets the risks created by the reckless approval, distribution, and monitoring of a deadly business.
Even at the height of Roe v. Wade’s perceived power, America saw limits on abortion passed and upheld, leading to a reversal of Roe, which noted it had been the work of fiction. Abortion was not in the U.S. Constitution, despite the “house of legal cards” built to fake it. But it held considerable power over the human rights issue of our day – abortion.
A deadly method and means of abortion ended when a case was made about dangerous and unnecessary risks. We saw this come to fruition in Gonzales v. Carhart.
To recap: Infamous late-term abortionist Dr. Leroy Carhart championed a barbaric death for the preborn as a living baby was born all but his or her head, only to have scissors shoved in the back of the neck, and his or her brain vacuumed out, to make delivery of a dead child simpler.
The barbarity of the death of a living child, the arguments about risks to women, and the reality of the cruel business of abortion led to a national uprising against that kind of killing, fought in legislatures and courts around the country until 2007 when the Supreme Court ruled that such a method of abortion could be regulated and ended.
It is in the framework of that legal takedown of Partial-Birth Abortion that a path forward opens for addressing the toxic reality of Chemical Abortion Pills, now the number one means of abortion in America and the world. Its legal foundation is the roadmap.
Considering the Gonzales ' decision in light of the national distribution scheme of No Test, Online Distribution of Chemical Abortion Pills allowed by the Biden-Harris Administration in the name of COVID, it’s clear to us that the law provides a clear pathway for addressing deadly Chemical Abortion Pills.
The Democratic Party’s willingness to expose women to injury, infertility, and death; to empower abusers; and ignore potential environmental hazards, doesn’t mean that the law – even in a Mini-Roe state like Ohio or Michigan – will be silenced.
“Access” cannot be the first pursuit of government as “convenience” does not trump patient safety, nor does it replace the need for clean drinking water. Support for abortion does not become permission for unregulated, unmonitored, and unsafe means and methods of abortion.
In this next round of legislative efforts, a new focus on the environment will be front and center as the Food and Drug Administration must give account for refusing to conduct environmental screenings and for failing to deal with a de facto license to dump pathological medical waste – chemically tainted blood, placenta tissue, and human remains – in the water supply. Legislation and administrative efforts will examine this boon to Planned Parenthood & company, huge supporters of the Democratic administrations that fast tracked, deregulated, and demanded these policies. What other business is allowed to dump medical waste without consequences?
As the win in Gonzales demonstrates, a legal fig leaf – including the Mini-Roes now in place in some states via ballot initiative wins – won’t be the end of the discussion.
The Pro-Life Generation has a siege engine ready for such legal walls at the state and federal levels, made in Gonzales v. Carhart, which ended a gruesome method and means of abortion – Partial-Birth Abortion – before the cracks in Roe’s logic were clear to all.
We can repeat that magic, to protect women, the preborn, and the environment from Chemical Abortion Pill distribution. The fact that the FDA approved a pill will not be a defense against liability or consequences for all the harms that followed.
Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action, with more than 1,500 groups on middle and high school, college and university, medical and law school campuses in all 50 states. Follow her @KristanHawkins or subscribe to her podcast, “Explicitly Pro-Life.”
Author's Note: Some of the above can be found in the Make America Pro-Life Again Roadmap, a legislative outline for State & Federal Officeholders.