Since the fall of Roe v. Wade and a string of successive referendum losses, the pro-life movement has faced an apocalypse—that is, a revelation. We are finding out where the American people stand on abortion, and what previous polling did not tell us. As it turns out, many of those who identified as personally pro-life are still politically libertarian. Abortion groups were prepared for direct democracy referendums, and we were not. Our messaging, as I have observed in several essays for First Things, has been chaotic and unconvincing. This has left many groups scrambling to adjust to the new landscape.
Academics studying the pro-life movement have noted that the phrase “pro-life movements” is a more accurate phrase when examining the diverse range of different groups with different focuses that are frequently united only in their opposition to abortion. There are the traditional groupings—the political, pastoral, and educational arms of the movement—but even within these “arms” there is significant disagreement over strategy and other key issues. These differences have been brought into stark contrast in the post-Roe era as pro-life groups employ different strategies in the state-level referendums unfolding across the country.
A microcosmic example of this would be the 2022 referendum in Michigan. The main pro-life coalition, led by Right to Life of Michigan, employed messaging that focused on Proposal 3 as “too confusing, too extreme.” Other groups have employed similar messaging in other states, despite the failure of these tactics everywhere thus far. As I noted in my autopsy of the Michigan campaign in First Things, the strategy of avoiding abortion as the primary issue is based on several profound miscalculations.
Many Americans who call themselves pro-life are demonstrating a “revealed preference”—that is, they don’t like abortion, but they don’t want it to be illegal. Thus, the task of the pro-life movement should be crystal clear: to demonstrate why abortion is an act of violence that ends the life of an unborn human being. Only if abortion kills a baby can we justify banning or restricting it. People who do not believe this cannot be persuaded to support pro-life laws. Why should they?
The entire country is talking about abortion right now. Pro-lifers must define that word in the minds of the American public, not attempt facile messaging that insists this is about clinic regulations, or parental consent, or laws that are merely “too confusing.” Telling voters that they are too stupid or uninformed to understand what is being proposed is not, as it turns out, compelling messaging. Frankly, it also makes pro-lifers look disingenuous. Voters know that pro-life groups oppose abortion. To claim that we actually oppose these proposals for a laundry list of other issues is simply not believable.
What is incredibly concerning is that in the wake of these referendums, some pro-life groups appear to be learning all of the wrong lessons. Rather than commencing the hard work of changing public opinion on the central issue—the humanity of the unborn and the brutality of abortion—they are instead pivoting to accept a pro-abortion America as the new status quo and to instead operate inside the parameters laid out by the pro-abortion movement. Right to Life of Michigan’s new messaging, for example, implicitly accepts abortion as the default option in the post-Roe landscape, with the slogan: “Life. The Other Choice.” The explanatory paragraph beneath it on their website could easily have been written by Planned Parenthood:
The decision to continue or end a pregnancy has never been a choice of political parties or action groups. It is and has always been a choice of the woman. Choices characterize who we are and what we will become. They are rooted in hopes and worries, and even force us to face our fears and stand against greater odds.
You can even get swag like baseball caps printed with this slogan. It’s easy to understand what they’re doing here—but this is not merely an adjustment to post-Roe reality. It is a surrender. In fact, RTLM takes it even further, insisting that changing the culture by confronting the culture and facilitating conversations, something social reform movements have accomplished for three centuries, is no longer possible. I have personally seen thousands of people change their minds while doing street outreach and campus outreach with our own pro-life teams; other groups who engage in this culture-changing work achieve similar results. But according to the position of RTLM, based, it appears, on a wealth of inexperience, this is not possible. According to RTLM:
While anything is possible, people are not inclined to truly change their position on an issue as emotionally charged as abortion on a street corner amidst a brief conversation. It takes an openness on our part and an honest relationship.
This is, frankly, not true—and the only way one can assert that it is true is by claiming that the many pro-life groups who witness people changing their minds on the streets, on campuses, and at the doors are simply inventing stories and producing false statistical data that affirms the collective impact of culture-focused outreach. Those who say it cannot be done, as the saying goes, should not interrupt those who are doing it. The best way to discourage the upcoming generation of anti-abortion culture changers is to tell them that it is not possible to change the culture. Again, I have seen babies saved during brief conversations; I have seen mothers cancel their abortion after merely seeing abortion victim photography on the streets; in a single week on campus, our activists collected hundreds of testimonies of minds changed.
I cannot put this strongly enough: This shift in messaging matters. Abortion activists and their political allies are doubling down on their extremism and openly embracing feticide until birth as a matter of principle and of policy. Our task is to fight their propaganda tooth and nail, not contribute to it. Our job is to challenge their premises, not affirm them. We must confront the culture with love and with truth—because you cannot have one without the other. When we do that, we see lives saved. For those of you who are discouraged: Do not allow the defeatism of some groups who claim that the hard, street-level work of social reform does not work. Join the movement, and you will see for yourself.
