Social conservatives fought for nearly fifty years to overturn Roe v. Wade and rejoiced over their victory last year when it happened. A good number of celebrants have been surprised, however, at the many defeats the pro-life cause has been suffering at the hands of voters in the states, which is the new locus of the ongoing battle.

The clearest argument against Roe v. Wade was set down in the dissenting opinions at the time and reiterated in various forms until it won last year. There is no specific right to abortion set out in the Constitution and the Court exceeded its powers in inventing one. The Constitution specifies places where great conflict had occurred, where governments historically would overreach and specifically forbade the government to mix in — freedom of religion and of speech, freedom from seizure of property without due process, and on down the list of the many freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. (READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: Wokeism Aims to Destroy All Identity)

No such freedom to abort a fetus was asserted. Therefore, the Warren Court was wrong to invent one — that’s not the Court’s business. So ruled the court last year.

The result, though, was not the affirmation of a constitutional right to life for the unborn but rather that there is no bar in the Constitution to the states to legislate on the issue as they see fit.

And in many states, with the support of the electorates, they are tending towards permitting abortions with few restrictions, resulting there in far less protection for the unborn than had been under Roe v. Wade.

We who value the beginning of life and believe it must be protected have lost our momentum to this counterattack. And the momentum is not likely to be regained without a good deal of soul searching. If we are in the minority, how can we expect that we can get a law passed in a democracy? Even if we did, how can we expect that it would be effectively observed?

The law in a working democracy will reflect the will of the people. Change one, you can change the other.

But changing the will of the people, touching their hearts so that they feel differently about this issue, is a much greater thing than winning a point of law. Yes, it required building public support, but it was carried through by the branch of government intended to be the most remote from public opinion, responsive primarily to the Constitution and the laws under it. After 49 years, we got a majority to agree that Roe v. Wade was bad law. Great — but the task facing us now requires much more of us.

A fetus is so perfectly helpless, the demands of a new life upon us are so great, and the pleasures of sex freed from consequences so immediately powerful that it takes a large conscious choice to give up the freedom for a quick fix that abortion offers. Add to this that abortion is understood by those who support its availability as a right, something fundamental and untouchable. How much censorship of speech should we allow, or suppression of religion? How much violation of due process? None at all! They are rights. (READ MORE: Unite Against the Woke-Radical Islam Alliance)

And so the resistance to restrictions on abortions are deeply felt, and any infringement of what its supporters feel is a right is too much. Thus, the extreme nature of much of the new abortion legislation passed in many states, including now a red state like Ohio.

The answer lies in another direction. 

When Jordan Peterson began to write and to speak about the emptiness of meaning in life and that the only way to find meaning is by accepting responsibility, he found a deep and passionate response that he had not expected at all. It remains at the center of his teaching, which draws on his experience as a clinical psychologist, his readings in Jung and Campbell among others, and now with increasing power, on his deepening engagement with the Bible.

Former UK Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks hosted Peterson as a speaker in his BBC series on morality in the 21st century. Sacks writes eloquently of the emphasis of the Bible on responsibility:

The Bible is more concerned with cultivating habits of responsibility than merely prescribing rights. Rights are legislated by states. Responsibility is created by society. You cannot have one without the other. A system of rights must be accompanied by a culture of responsibility.

The state of our American society and much of our Western world is unbalanced. We insist on our rights, as we must if we want them to last. But we have become alienated from responsibility. Save for a few on the vanguard, like Dr. Peterson, we’ve not found a way to talk about responsibility equal to our need. Unbalanced by responsibility, we assert rights ever-more expansively, inevitably bumping up against others’ assertions of similarly expanding rights. And so we come to the war of everyone against everyone, for on rights we cannot compromise.

The way out of this trap, the way to halt the unbalanced and malignant assertion of unlimited rights, is to reset the balance through responsibility. We must choose it ourselves, of course, but that alone is not enough. We must be ambassadors of the culture of responsibility that once was our heritage, the Bible’s endowment. We have squandered it and now we must replenish it. (READ MORE: This Evil Will Not Stop With the Jews)

But how can we compete with hedonism, with unlimited sexual pleasure, with a get-out-of-jail free card for the commitments of parenthood?

We can do so by conveying the kind of deep pleasure that only meaning can bring. Just like sexual pleasure, there is nothing that can substitute for it. Nor is it in necessary conflict with sexual pleasure — both can be realized in a whole life.

Can we make the case? Do we believe it ourselves? For if we don’t, we can’t communicate the genuine appeal of meaning to anyone else. It is much harder to change culture than to change a legal precedent. 

Even though it is harder, it is our task. It requires our devoted work, which itself will testify to just how moving and powerful responsibility and meaning are. Our living example and our devoted love of our fellow citizen will make the case. May it be sooner rather than later that we win this peaceful battle for the soul of our Western culture and our American democracy.