Watch What They Do Next

How dedicated is the pro-life movement to life? We're finding out now.

Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash

We are in an unprecedented moment in American history. The Supreme Court has just overturned Roe v. Wade, the most significant walk-back of civil rights in my lifetime. Across America, Republicans are in control of state legislatures and governor’s mansions. In several states, abortion became illegal the moment Roe was overturned. In many others, abortion will be broadly outlawed soon enough.

The so-called “pro-life” movement got what it wanted: The freedom to legislate women’s rights away. They no longer have to dedicate quite so many resources to battling in court. They are throwing up abortion restrictions left and right, practically giddy about the prospect of forcing women into pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood, and thrilled about the idea of throwing doctors, nurses, or anyone else who helps a woman procure an abortion in jail. It truly does scratch some of conservatives’ favorite itches: Punitive misogyny and authoritarian punishment.

And in this new, absolutely ecstatic right-wing landscape, a few individual abortion opponents are making noises about how now, just maybe, they might do something to help new mothers, babies, and pregnant women in need.

Not to sound too Elder Millennial about it, but L. O. L.

Conservatives have had the entirety of US history to expand the social welfare net. Anti-abortion groups have had the nearly 50 years since Roe v. Wade was decided to try to create the conditions for more women to choose to carry a pregnancy to term. Giving families more resources — making sure no child lives in poverty, that every person has health care, that new parents get paid leave, that high-quality and affordable child care is universally on offer — does indeed give vulnerable pregnant women more options. And yet it’s been overwhelmingly pro-choice people who have fought for women to have the real choice to carry a pregnancy to term and to parent their child with safety and support.

The “pro-life” movement has been absent. They have shown no interest in helping women make the choice to give birth and parent. They have only been interested insofar as they could manipulate or force women who were considering abortion into giving birth.

Right now, the pro-life movement is flying high. They are feeling emboldened and optimistic — overturning Roe was a huge victory, a surprise, I expect, even to some of them. With the wind at their backs, they know that they must seize this moment to make their vision of a pro-life world a reality.

What are they doing with that energy and optimism? They’re criminalizing as many people as possible for helping women who seek abortions. They’re making abortion restrictions as punitive as possible — passing laws that allow no exceptions for rape victims, incest victims, little girls, women whose pregnancies could walk them right up to the brink of death, women whose much-wanted fetuses have serious problems that will make their lives impossible or extremely painful. That is where today’s pro-life energy is going — not to help make childbirth safer for the millions of women now forced into it; not to support the millions of children who will be born into poverty.

Some of these pro-lifers have the nerve to feign charity. In the Atlantic today, there’s a piece featuring a handful of abortion opponents saying, hey, maybe we should support social welfare benefits! This is after one of those exact same people worked for right-wing organizations that fought against any expansion of government benefits for the poor or vulnerable. Oh, and the supposedly dedicated pro-lifers in the Atlantic article? They’re all pretty mum about the most effective ways to prevent unintended pregnancy.

In several conservative states, abortion is illegal right now. And in those same states, legislators are currently at work figuring out how to make abortions even harder to get, and punishments for people who provide them even stricter. Conservative legislators are taking aim at contraception — making it harder to prevent pregnancy, and then illegal to end it.

What they are not doing: Helping women prevent unintended pregnancies. Proposing laws that expand welfare benefits. Making sure that every mother and child has access to health care. Giving new parents paid time off. Making sure that working parents can afford high-quality childcare. Doing literally anything to keep more pregnant women and babies alive.