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The Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson a year ago this month. Ever since, the pro-life movement has been burned in rhetorical effigy in the press and punditry. Pro-abortion language and ideas—often laden with insults, distortions, and barely concealed prejudices—aim to intimidate pro-life champions into abandoning the courage of their convictions just as opportunities for significant pro-life protections have become possible for the first time in more than 50 years.
No one expected all of society to be remade in that short time. We didn't have a Black president the day after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. We haven't solved all the issues of race, but the party of Lincoln cannot give up that good fight for equality.
In the same way, the pro-life movement still has its work cut out for it, beginning with rejecting the false assumptions and prejudices that went unchallenged during Roe's dictatorial reign.
The pro-life generation rejects prejudice against people based on race, sex, age, perception of abilities, income, or the events of their conception. We oppose shaming people for things out of their control, and history will prove that conviction right.
As we look at abortion policy proposals and their impact on real people, we need to at least discuss the implications of "exceptions" for rape and incest, which automatically allow for the ending of lives based on how they came to be. These are too often accepted in the same breath as a separate category—intervention to protect the life of the mother—that is not an act of abortion, which always involves the intent to end life, not save it. In abortion, intent matters.
Conception-based prejudice once led to laws blocking the legal rights and opportunities of people born out of wedlock—now, not an issue at all. Does American society, having once rejected second-class citizenship based on conception by married or unmarried parents, really want to curtail the right to life of those conceived in tragic circumstances? Do we really want to regress?
Yet in states like Oklahoma and Louisiana, and in Congress, some work to add back those negative assumptions about the worth of human beings based on how their lives began. But prejudice doesn't end in silence.
On CNN, Sen. Marco Rubio illustrated how to make a simple statement with power. "I believe that science is clear. That when there is conception that that is a human life in the early stages of its total development that is worthy of the protection of our laws." On the tragedies of rape and incest, Sen. Rubio said:
I think both of those instances are horrifying and fortunately, they are extremely rare. It happens. And anytime it happens, it's horrifying and it's a tragedy. But I personally and honestly and deeply believe that all human life is worthy of protection irrespective of the circumstances in which that human life was created. I personally believe that you do not correct one tragedy with a second tragedy.
Republican candidates in the 2024 presidential race should state their convictions with that kind of directness and heart. That won't mean every vote ends in victory, but victory is sometimes a process.
Pro-life voices still face plenty of challenges in the debate over abortion. Seemingly all of science and biology can be tossed out for word play, as the union of egg and sperm as the beginning of new life is now mysteriously confusing. Important medical information frequently gets obscured—for example, that chemical abortion pills were approved with a Black Box warning because they can kill the mother using them.
The prejudice against inconvenient science often leads to shooting the messenger, but it doesn't change the facts that some drugs and devices do end young life. The Plan B box clearly states that it can interfere with an established new life.
And the abortion lobby, along with its allies, continues to smear strong pro-life women, consistently painting the pro-life movement as a collection of Stepford Wives somehow brainwashed into leading national organizations that secretly are directed by men behind the scenes.
Discounting the voices of women who know what it takes to balance work, school, and relationships is a longstanding pro-abortion tactic, and that prejudice extends to men—except those supporting abortion-loving women. Polls show our nation is more nuanced than that stunted characterization.
Going into the election cycle, people who vote pro-life first will want to hear from candidates on the issue that matters most to them. It's not complicated. The GOP should not allow prejudices, distortions, and smears to prevent it from making a case for life. Anything that results in the loss of more than 64 million lives is worth our time and attention—not to mention more honest discussion.
Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America & Students for Life Action with more than 1,400 groups on educational campuses in all 50 states. Follow her @KristanHawkins or subscribe to her podcast, Explicitly Pro-Life.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
