The fall of Roe v. Wade came as a seminal victory for the pro-life movement, but navigating the aftermath hasn’t been easy as fired-up pro-choice advocates redouble their efforts at the ballot box, state legislatures and federal government.

That’s where the Life Leadership Conference comes in. The newly launched initiative seeks to unify the disparate universe of anti-abortion groups behind common goals, messaging and priorities — and the effort has the pedigree to make it happen.

Heading the initiative are two conservative legal luminaries: Princeton professor Robert George and Leonard Leo, co-chairman of the  Federalist Society Board of Directors and mastermind behind the first Trump administration’s overhaul of the federal judiciary.

The third member of the trifecta is Catholic philanthropist Raymond Ruddy, founder of the Gerard Health Foundation, a leading funder of pro-life causes.

“The Life Leadership Conference is our way of working to ensure that the pro-life movement’s ideals are fully and faithfully operationalized, to the end of winning more, and losing and compromising less,” the three leaders said in a memo to pro-life groups earlier this month.

“Membership in the Conference will be extended to those organizations and influencers who know how to achieve genuine victories, as well as to philanthropists and donors with a significant interest and stake in seeing progress towards our goal of building an America in which every child is protected in law and welcomed in life,” the memo read.

To sweeten the pot, the conference leaders also announced the creation of the Pro-Life Venture Fund, staked with a $30 million initial investment, “to be spent on member projects that will actually reduce the killing of unborn children.”

Serving as executive director is David Bereit, former national director of 40 Days for Life, who said the idea grew out of conversations with pro-life figures after the Supreme Court overturned Roe in June 2022 with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson.

“Already there was already some fragmentation and groups doing different things, but that really became increasingly problematic with the overturn of Roe v. Wade,” Mr. Bereit told The Washington Times. “All of a sudden we now have these 50-state battles, we have all these different situations and this new landscape, and we recognize that fragmentation is actually incredibly detrimental in this situation.”

Mr. Bereit, who has previously served in roles at the American Life League and Students for Life of America, said it was important for the pro-life movement to coalesce to move “not so much under one umbrella, but in the same direction.”

“When leaders, donors, grassroots advocates work independently and in isolation, they’re diluting the overall impact,” he said.

Indeed, the pro-life movement has hardly been on the same page since Roe. Some organizations supported Sen. Lindsey Graham’s proposal to enshrine a 15-week gestational limit in federal law, while others have said that no gestational ceiling is acceptable.

Others have backed President Trump’s position in favor of leaving the issue to the states.

More than a dozen red states enacted strict limits on abortion access after Dobbs, but pro-choice groups have fought back through the initiative process with reproductive-rights ballot measures, winning 14 of 17 ballot fights since Dobbs.

The post-Roe abortion record is also mixed. In the first 14 states that tightened abortion access after the decision, there was an increase in the birth rate of 1.7%, or 22,181 babies, according to a federally funded story in the Journal of American Medical Association.

At the same time, the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute counted 1,026,700 abortions in 2023, the highest number in more than a decade, while the use of abortion pills rose to 63% of procedures.

“There’s just this consensus that this is a moment for strategic coordination,” said Mr. Bereit.

The organization has not yet decided on specific goals, he said, but one of its priorities is to heighten awareness about the nation’s 3,000-plus pro-life pregnancy centers, which offer free medical and material support to expectant mothers and babies, and maternity homes.

“A lot of the local pregnancy centers go somewhat under the radar. We want to change that,” Mr. Bereit said. “This can’t be the best kept secret in a community.”

Also on the radar: Planned Parenthood of America, the nation’s largest abortion provider, which has been targeted for defunding by the Trump administration.

Planned Parenthood is also reeling from a devastating Feb. 15 article in the New York Times — not exactly a pro-life publication — headlined “Botched Care and Tired Staff: Planned Parenthood in Crisis.”

“Last year, they took in $699.3 million of taxpayer funding while also raking in hundreds of millions in donated money and customer traffic,” said Mr. Bereit. “There are going to be a lot more people saying, this is not the answer, let’s look for better solutions, shifting funding elsewhere.”

The conference’s membership is still being decided, but so far major pro-life organizations have shown interest in the coordinated effort.

“We’re excited to have many of the national groups already at the table talking about this, and we’ll be formalizing our membership here in the next few weeks and months,” Mr. Bereit said.

• Sean Salai contributed to this report.

• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.