The old adage, “Be careful what you wish for,” is one the pro-life movement should have taken to heart. Since the Supreme Court fulfilled every pro-lifer’s wish and overturned Roe v. Wade, the movement has revealed itself unprepared for the new, post-Roe world.
According to a new report issued by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, abortion rates between 2020 and June 2023 jumped in 37 states by an average of 40 percent. That percentage is actually higher because the study did not count chemical abortions, which account for 52 percent of all abortions.
True, the report did not reveal numbers from the 13 states that passed pro-life legislation — Missouri, Iowa, Florida, and South Dakota among them — but those numbers would have been false comforts since women are crossing state lines to snuff out their children. Per Guttmacher’s report, for example, Kansas’s abortion rate increased a staggering 114 percent while Illinois’s is a more modest but still incredible 69 percent.
Then there is the fact that the pro-life movement has not very successful in many states. It is true that all the governors who signed pro-life legislation won reelection in 2022, but many of those general victories were followed by very specific defeats.
Kansans kept the “right” to abortion in their constitution 59-41 percent; Michiganians passed a pro-abortion state constitutional amendment 57-43 percent; Kentuckians rejected a pro-life declaration to their constitution 52-48 percent; Wisconsin voters flipped their supreme court by electing an abortion pure believer to the bench.
