Two years after the Supreme Court ended the federal right to abortion, the fight to protect the unborn rages on.
And there is no bigger threat to life than a Kamala Harris victory this Tuesday.
Even without a Harris victory, this election’s state ballot initiatives could advance a similarly radical pro-abortion agenda across the country.
“If we have a Harris presidency, if the Democrats take control of Congress, we know that they’re going to pass the [Women’s Health Protection Act], which is going to ban states from having pro-life laws,” Kelsey Pritchard of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America told Align in an interview Thursday.
More radical than Roe
While the repeal of Roe v. Wade returned decisions on abortion policy to state and local government, the WHPA would prevent states from imposing any restriction or limitation on abortion.
In writing the Roe ruling, the Supreme Court took care to acknowledge the moral issue inherent to abortion, explicitly defining it as a procedure ending “prenatal life.” It forbade states to regulate abortion only up until the viability of the fetus, which generally occurs between 24 and 28 weeks.
Tellingly, the WHPA dispenses with any references to human life, employing the euphemisms “abortion services” and “essential health care.” Rather than representing a “restoration” of Roe, it is far more radical.
“It’s essentially going to allow abortion until birth in every state,” Pritchard said.
While the WHPA has previously failed to garner the 61 votes needed to pass in the Senate, Harris has vowed to eliminate the filibuster, lowering the necessary number of votes to a simple majority of 51.
Abortion until birth
Even without a Harris victory, this election’s state ballot initiatives could advance a similarly radical pro-abortion agenda across the country, said Pritchard.
New York, Florida, Nevada, and Maryland are among the states asking voters to enshrine abortion in their constitutions this Tuesday. Like the WHPA, these initiatives are open-ended enough that activists could use “lawfare” in order to force taxpayers to fund abortion up to birth.
As an example of this, look no farther than the abortion policy of Harris’ running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.
Thanks to Walz, said Pritchard, Minnesota has “no limits whatsoever” on abortion. “And that’s as extreme as China.”
“We are one of only eight countries that allow abortion in all nine months,” she continued. “Almost all of Europe has a limit after the first trimester or 15 weeks. But we are out of step with the modern developed world.”
Calculated deception
Such radical abortion policy is also out of step with most Americans, 73% of whom oppose abortion after 15 weeks.
Why the discrepancy?
In a memo, SBA Pro-Life America has likened these vaguely worded “reproductive rights” initiatives to “Trojan horses.”
“Even when so many of the American people still aren’t comfortable with abortion after a certain point, the way the abortion industry has been able to spin the issue has deceived people into going along with their agenda time and time again,” Pritchard told Align.
Much of it comes down to who has deeper pockets. With the help of George Soros and other donors, noted Pritchard, the pro-abortion side outspends the pro-life side seven to one. So far, pro-life advocates have failed to win a single ballot measure fight.
Cause for optimism
Still, Pritchard sees cause for optimism this year.
“The good news is that we’ve got some measures that are in very red states this year, like South Dakota, Nebraska, Florida, and Missouri,” said Pritchard.
“Particularly with GOP leaders like [Florida Governor] Ron DeSantis, who are standing strong and exposing what these ballot measures will actually do … we think we have a real shot at winning some of these this year.”
Whatever partial victories it seeks today, SBA Pro-Life America’s overarching fight is against what it calls the abortion industry’s “culture of death,” which Pritchard noted “has a hold on all of our major institutions … higher ed, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and many C-suites.”
She singles out journalists in particular for abdicating their traditional role. “The media need to wake up and realize that their job is not to be the abortion industry’s PR department.”
Fighting the lie
Such powerful backing, continues Pritchard, has allowed “this lie that an unborn child isn’t a child but is a clump of cells … [that] they’re not human until they’re born” to take root in America.
“This lie has legitimized the taking of more than 60 million lives since Roe [was ratified in 1973],” she said.
While SBA Pro-Life America advocates “compassion” for women dealing with unexpected pregnancies — devoting much of its work to defending pro-life pregnancy centers from Democrat attacks — the group’s consistent message is the nonnegotiable “humanity of the unborn child” and the moral wrongness of abortion in any circumstance.
“We will never relent on that point,” said Pritchard. “The more [the American people] have to confront that, I think the more people we’ll eventually win over.”
In the meantime, Pritchard urges pro-life Americans to make their voices heard on Tuesday.
“Life is literally on the ballot and lives are on the line this election,” said Pritchard. “We have to show up to vote, and we have to vote our values and vote for life.”
The way she sees it, the stakes are higher than any immediate outcome. “Our future generations are really depending upon us.”
Abortion, Pro-life, Susan b. anthony pro-life america, Pro-abortion, State ballot initiatives, Women’s health protection act, Filibuster, Politics, Kamala harris, Ron desantis, Election 2024
