The pro-life movement can create a culture of life, but only if it leaves partisan politics behind
Our two major parties won't embrace a consistent ethic of life until and unless the pro-life movement forces their hands by leaving them behind in droves.
In a lame duck session this week, the supermajority Democratic conferences in both state houses in Illinois passed legislation that pushes the state further in the direction of pro-abortion extremism.
As promised repeatedly by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and any Democratic Party politician within striking distance of a microphone, Illinois now stands as a “safe haven” for abortion in the Midwest.
The new state legislation includes provisions that would:
Allow the attorney general to investigate and request the court to impose fines to sidewalk counselors and unlicensed crisis pregnancy centers for providing pregnancy-related services.
Mandate a two-hour continuing education course about abortion for all health care workers involved in maternity care and other reproductive health care.
Allow Advanced Practice Registered Nurses and Physician Assistants to perform surgical abortions and aspiration abortions not requiring general anesthesia.
Provide that no person can be found civilly liable for the wrongful death of a fetus caused by an abortion, except for when a fetus is live-born but subsequently dies.
Mandate that public colleges and universities, including community colleges, must make emergency contraception accessible for purchase in at least one vending machine on each campus.
Allow birth centers, which have been places where mothers can give birth, to also provide abortions.
Require abortifacients to be covered at no-cost under insurance plans not otherwise exempt from state insurance law mandates.
Ensure there is no cause of action against a licensed health care professional for the wrongful death of a person caused by an abortion where abortion is permitted by law and consent was given.
Protect information about abortion from subpoenas and orders for testimony issued in other states.
Though tragic in scope, in a state that has already stripped away even parental notification, these new provisions should come as no surprise.
But in the wake of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, this dramatic escalation should signal to anyone seeking a new way forward on abortion post-Roe that we desperately need to take steps along that new path.
In a state with supermajority Democratic Party control, and in an environment where Democrats are increasingly hostile even to moderation on the issue of abortion, Democrats, Republicans and independents should seriously reconsider the efficacy of old approaches to abortion policy.
No legislative path to curtailing abortion on the supply side has any hope of getting through the state legislature anytime soon. If anyone were under any illusion about that, the lame duck session should quickly disabuse them of that notion.
Short of wholesale changes in the makeup of the electorate, the state will remain in the hands of a Democratic Party that will not accept anything short of abortion on-demand up to the point of birth.
I would suggest three necessary conditions for change in Illinois, and indeed in any blue state:
Democrats who identify as pro-life should accept that their party has left them behind. Progressives have an immediate option: leave the Democratic Party and join the only economically left-of-center pro-life party in America, the Solidarity Party. Until and unless pro-life Democrats show the party they are willing not to vote for Democrats, they will never overcome the money heaped on the party by the abortion industrial complex.
Republicans who identify as pro-life should accept that their party has no shot of winning statewide anytime soon. Conservatives have an immediate option: ditch GOP orthodoxy in favor of a communitarian, common good conservatism that will drive down abortion demand. Support a robust child tax credit. Support free-at-the-point-of-access health care. Support a basic income guarantee. Support worker-owned cooperatives. Support fairness for women in the workplace.
If point two sounds suspiciously like abandoning the GOP entirely, I accept the inference. In Illinois and around the country, today’s Republican Party, with few exceptions, does not appear inclined to support common good conservatism. By pairing strategically with Pro-life Democrats and abandoning the Republican Party for the Solidarity Party – a party where the largest plurality are former Republicans – common good conservatives would prove to be a formidable force. Given that the Republican Party’s disgraced but still powerful standard bearer, Donald Trump, has already taken the occasion of the midterm red ripple to throw the pro-life movement under the bus, I would suggest the time is right for the pro-life movement to abandon a party that in many places around the country ran away from the movement in 2022.
Next week, I’ll join tens of thousands of Americans in Washington, D.C. for the March for Life. We’ll mark a half century since Roe, and the first March for Life since Dobbs.
I’ll join my friends in the Solidarity Party, Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, Rehumanize International, Feminists for Life, young progressives in the Democrats for Life of America, Secular Pro-Life, leaders in the And Campaign, and others who don’t fit the mold of the stereotypical, tribally Republican pro-life advocate. While I’m there, I’ll call on those who do fit that mold to break the mold and to embrace a consistent life ethic.
Be sure to follow my social media platforms on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for a special announcement about my own immediate future, and the steps I plan to take this year and next to chart a course toward a pro-life future for America.
I hope many of you, regardless of your party affiliation, will seek creative ways to move forward post-Dobbs to ensure that in every state in the union, abortion isn’t a choice any woman feels she needs to make.
Let’s mark the first full year after the fall of Roe by ditching the political path that turned abortion policy into a bitter, partisan fight for the last 50 years. Instead, let’s work together, even with people with whom we disagree on the issue of abortion, to create the conditions for life, and life more abundantly.