This week marks the 52-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s tragic Roe v. Wade decision. Friday’s March for Life is a great opportunity for pro-life pilgrims to come to Washington, D.C., and mourn the millions lives lost to legal abortion in this country. Of course, it is also a chance reconnect with friends, hear some great speakers, and return home inspired to build a culture of life. March for Life weekend is also a good opportunity to look at the current state of abortion policy in the United States and strategize about how best to build a culture of life in the future.
This year’s March is unique. That is because it is the first post-Dobbs March with a Republican in the White House. This places pro-lifers on some unfamiliar terrain. Pre-Dobbs, pro-life expectations for Republican presidents were fairly straightforward. We wanted conservative constitutionalists nominated for judicial vacancies and incremental pro-life bills signed into law. Here we enjoyed success. Over time, the quality and consistency of Republican judicial nominations improved. President George W. Bush signed a federal ban on partial birth abortions. Furthermore, the Hyde amendment has been mainstay of every federal budget proposed by a Republican president.
After Dobbs, things have changed. More than anything, pro-lifers need substantial policy changes from executive branch agencies. A top concern is the dramatic increase in chemical abortions. Between 2017 and 2023, the fraction of all abortions that are chemical abortions has gone from 39 percent to 63 percent. This has undermined some of the long-term progress that pro-lifers have made reducing the U.S. abortion rate. Furthermore, that women are obtaining chemical abortion pills through the mail has weakened the impact of recently enacted pro-life laws. HHS and FDA appointments that would restore original safeguards on chemical abortions and prevent medical professionals from prescribing chemical abortion drugs without an in-person medical exam would do considerable good.
However, this is complicated for two reasons. First, pro-lifers have had a decidedly mixed track record using the executive branch to build a culture of life. On the plus side, every Republican president since Ronald Reagan has put in place the Mexico City policy, which prevents U.S. foreign aid dollars from going to overseas entitles that perform or promote abortions. However, no prior Republican president has made much headway in improving abortion reporting standards or placing limits on chemical abortions. Even though President Trump put in place the Protect Life Rule in 2019, Planned Parenthood continued to receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government.
Second, in 2024, Trump did not run as a conventionally pro-life Republican. During the campaign, he said that abortion policy should be decided at the state level. He made precious few policy commitments to pro-lifers. Additionally, some of his executive branch nominees, including HHS nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., do not have a previous track record of supporting pro-life policies. Negotiations with Republican senators and the upcoming confirmation hearings will take on outsized importance
That said, as pro-lifers gather in Washington, D.C., for the March for Life, we should take heart. We are savvier, better organized, and better funded that we have been in the past. In the past 52 years we have overcome a wide variety of political, cultural, and legal obstacles. We succeeded in overturning Roe v. Wade. Perhaps even more impressively, we succeeded in reducing the U.S. abortion rate by more than 50 percent even while abortion was completely legal in all 50 states. The Dobbs decision has created some unexpected challenges for pro-lifers. However, hopefully we can use our leverage with the incoming Trump administration to continue our progress in building a culture of life.