Politics, perseverance, and providence. According to experts, these were three key elements that led to last year’s huge pro-life legal win in the United States, when the country’s Supreme Court overturned the landmark legal case that had made abortion-on-demand legal throughout the country from 1973 until last year.
Just five days before the anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade (June 24), the One of Us Federation—a pro-life European citizens’ initiative—hosted a series of speakers in Madrid to analyse how the American pro-life movement achieved victory and what Europeans could learn from their experience.
Over three panels, the invited speakers discussed the aspects of politics, law, and communication.
Politically, the fight in America against abortion has involved a constant battle in the federal and state legislatures. State senators Amy Sinclair from Iowa and Eddy Lucio from Texas described how they searched for any opportunity to insert a law that helps protect the unborn. Their effort to change the law served to educate and call into question the legality of abortion. It was, in fact, the Texas ‘Heartbeat Law’ which prohibited abortion in the state once the foetal heartbeat could be detected that brought down the nationwide abortion-on-demand policy. Thinking they had the law on their side, an abortion clinic challenged the Texas law in court. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court, which not only sided with Texas legislators but also overturned 50 years of bad jurisprudence.
However, the linchpin was the Trump presidency, as recounted by Joseph Grogan, an advisor to Donald Trump during his time in office. In the U.S., the president appoints the judges who sit on the Supreme Court, though they are approved by the Senate. Going into the 2016 elections, it was foreseeable that whoever became president would have the opportunity to nominate at least one justice to the high court. Previous Republican presidents had promised to appoint judges with the tested jurisprudence to overturn the originally fatal abortion decision, but they had disappointed their constituents. Trump, Grogan related, went a step further and during his campaign put out a list of Supreme Court candidates he would appoint, should he govern. Pro-lifers were impressed and threw their support behind him. Once in office, he remained loyal and appointed two judges who helped tipped the scales toward the unborn.
Trump, Grogan admitted, hardly had a personal track record as a conservative pro-lifer. Besides being twice divorced and sexually abusive to women, before becoming the presidential candidate for the Republican party, Trump was publicly a pro-choice Democrat.
“But another thing that happened, as someone who sat with him in the Oval Office: he started to think about [abortion],” Grogan said. “I think the pro-life support for him moved him in the direction of the pro-life cause personally.”
He added that though the four years of Trump’s presidency were decisive, the constant work of the movement in the preceding decades was equally important and necessary. The fight was not over, though.
“I just want to point out that it’s really important at the community level for voters to continue to fight and have faith,” he said. “Now the question is, can we keep up the momentum?”
The caution is warranted. The Supreme Court’s latest ruling did not outlaw abortion but rather ruled simply that there was no inherent right to abortion and that the matter needed to be regulated by legislatures, particularly at the state level.
In the year since then, the battle has intensified from state to state, with some completely banning the procedure while others enact laws to legally protect the practice. Most disappointing for the pro-life movement though has been the decision of several states, including Kansas and Montana, to continue to support abortion even when put up to referendum. Overall, according to Grogan, the situation is complex, from the reasons why referendums fail, to how Republican candidates for the 2024 elections are choosing to position themselves on abortion.
“This is very much an unfolding story,” he said.
Legally, Jane Adolphe, a law professor at Ave Maria University in the U.S., called the overturning of carte blanche abortion a miracle.
“It seems to have to do with Divine Providence,” she admitted.
Many factors that all needed to coincide played into the decisive pro-life court decision, from the right president to the right conditions in the Senate, to the right judges on the bench, to the right case reaching the Supreme Court. She recalled how in 1987 then-President Ronald Reagan had attempted to appoint to the Supreme Court Robert Bork, a judge known for his conservative legal philosophy, only to face such backlash from the Senate that the incident coined a new term, “to be borked,” and, needless to say, the president had to find another judge to appoint. Nevertheless, Bork, who was also a law professor, and other judges formed an emerging generation of conservative lawyers, helping to later supply half a bench of conservatives for the Supreme Court.
Adolphe also lamented that her native land, Canada, did not have the same conditions as the U.S. Legally, culturally, and constitutionally, the pro-life movement faced much greater challenges.
One Of Us event organiser Ana del Pino echoed Adolphe’s lament. Europe, she said, found itself in circumstances more like those of Canada than those of the United States.
The last panel reiterated the importance of employing mass communication to humanise the unborn, counter the lies of the abortion industry, and depict the tragedy of abortion and the joy of parenthood in a moving way. Speaker John Klink also cited the important influence of communication-savvy moral leaders Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa on both public sentiment and world leaders.
All speakers agreed that it was the tenacious, hopeful perseverance of pro-lifers that had led to pro-life reversal in the U.S., and cautioned that the fight for life was far from over, since it is, in fact, raging on all fronts on both sides of the Atlantic.
William Saunders, with the Institute for Human Ecology, admonished, “Never, ever, give up.”
U.S. Pro-Lifers’ Message to Europe: Never Give Up
Iowa State Senator Amy Sinclair (right) and Regina Piñol.
Photos: Iowa State Senator Amy Sinclair courtesy of One of Us Federation
Politics, perseverance, and providence. According to experts, these were three key elements that led to last year’s huge pro-life legal win in the United States, when the country’s Supreme Court overturned the landmark legal case that had made abortion-on-demand legal throughout the country from 1973 until last year.
Just five days before the anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade (June 24), the One of Us Federation—a pro-life European citizens’ initiative—hosted a series of speakers in Madrid to analyse how the American pro-life movement achieved victory and what Europeans could learn from their experience.
Over three panels, the invited speakers discussed the aspects of politics, law, and communication.
Politically, the fight in America against abortion has involved a constant battle in the federal and state legislatures. State senators Amy Sinclair from Iowa and Eddy Lucio from Texas described how they searched for any opportunity to insert a law that helps protect the unborn. Their effort to change the law served to educate and call into question the legality of abortion. It was, in fact, the Texas ‘Heartbeat Law’ which prohibited abortion in the state once the foetal heartbeat could be detected that brought down the nationwide abortion-on-demand policy. Thinking they had the law on their side, an abortion clinic challenged the Texas law in court. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court, which not only sided with Texas legislators but also overturned 50 years of bad jurisprudence.
However, the linchpin was the Trump presidency, as recounted by Joseph Grogan, an advisor to Donald Trump during his time in office. In the U.S., the president appoints the judges who sit on the Supreme Court, though they are approved by the Senate. Going into the 2016 elections, it was foreseeable that whoever became president would have the opportunity to nominate at least one justice to the high court. Previous Republican presidents had promised to appoint judges with the tested jurisprudence to overturn the originally fatal abortion decision, but they had disappointed their constituents. Trump, Grogan related, went a step further and during his campaign put out a list of Supreme Court candidates he would appoint, should he govern. Pro-lifers were impressed and threw their support behind him. Once in office, he remained loyal and appointed two judges who helped tipped the scales toward the unborn.
Trump, Grogan admitted, hardly had a personal track record as a conservative pro-lifer. Besides being twice divorced and sexually abusive to women, before becoming the presidential candidate for the Republican party, Trump was publicly a pro-choice Democrat.
“But another thing that happened, as someone who sat with him in the Oval Office: he started to think about [abortion],” Grogan said. “I think the pro-life support for him moved him in the direction of the pro-life cause personally.”
He added that though the four years of Trump’s presidency were decisive, the constant work of the movement in the preceding decades was equally important and necessary. The fight was not over, though.
“I just want to point out that it’s really important at the community level for voters to continue to fight and have faith,” he said. “Now the question is, can we keep up the momentum?”
The caution is warranted. The Supreme Court’s latest ruling did not outlaw abortion but rather ruled simply that there was no inherent right to abortion and that the matter needed to be regulated by legislatures, particularly at the state level.
In the year since then, the battle has intensified from state to state, with some completely banning the procedure while others enact laws to legally protect the practice. Most disappointing for the pro-life movement though has been the decision of several states, including Kansas and Montana, to continue to support abortion even when put up to referendum. Overall, according to Grogan, the situation is complex, from the reasons why referendums fail, to how Republican candidates for the 2024 elections are choosing to position themselves on abortion.
“This is very much an unfolding story,” he said.
Legally, Jane Adolphe, a law professor at Ave Maria University in the U.S., called the overturning of carte blanche abortion a miracle.
“It seems to have to do with Divine Providence,” she admitted.
Many factors that all needed to coincide played into the decisive pro-life court decision, from the right president to the right conditions in the Senate, to the right judges on the bench, to the right case reaching the Supreme Court. She recalled how in 1987 then-President Ronald Reagan had attempted to appoint to the Supreme Court Robert Bork, a judge known for his conservative legal philosophy, only to face such backlash from the Senate that the incident coined a new term, “to be borked,” and, needless to say, the president had to find another judge to appoint. Nevertheless, Bork, who was also a law professor, and other judges formed an emerging generation of conservative lawyers, helping to later supply half a bench of conservatives for the Supreme Court.
Adolphe also lamented that her native land, Canada, did not have the same conditions as the U.S. Legally, culturally, and constitutionally, the pro-life movement faced much greater challenges.
One Of Us event organiser Ana del Pino echoed Adolphe’s lament. Europe, she said, found itself in circumstances more like those of Canada than those of the United States.
The last panel reiterated the importance of employing mass communication to humanise the unborn, counter the lies of the abortion industry, and depict the tragedy of abortion and the joy of parenthood in a moving way. Speaker John Klink also cited the important influence of communication-savvy moral leaders Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa on both public sentiment and world leaders.
All speakers agreed that it was the tenacious, hopeful perseverance of pro-lifers that had led to pro-life reversal in the U.S., and cautioned that the fight for life was far from over, since it is, in fact, raging on all fronts on both sides of the Atlantic.
William Saunders, with the Institute for Human Ecology, admonished, “Never, ever, give up.”
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