Tepid applause.
That’s how a crowd of 800-plus Catholics responded to Vice President Mike Pence at my organization’s recent conference. He had just called for a federal 15-week ban on abortion, which didn’t sit well with the decidedly pro-life crowd, nor does it mesh with what the rest of the pro-life movement wants.
Yet I can’t help but think that Pence was right. For the sake of both principles and practicality, we should rally around a federal 15-week abortion ban.
Don’t get me wrong: Like any good Catholic (for that matter, like anyone who’s pro-life or pro-science), I support ending abortion, full stop. Abortion is an injustice that hurts both mothers and children, so it should be driven from America as soon as possible.
Yet saying that is fundamentally different from making it a reality. If we’re ever going to get there, the pro-life movement needs to meet Americans where they are now, so we can set the stage for continued progress.
Right now, we’re at risk of losing the progress we’ve already made. Since the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade last year, about two dozen states have taken steps to protect mothers and children, with some ending abortion altogether. These laws have already saved tens of thousands of lives, with more children given a chance at life with every passing year.
Yet abortion advocates have responded with a coordinated campaign to pass ballot measures that eliminate all abortion restrictions whatsoever – even in red states like Kansas and Kentucky. They hope to achieve similar success in Ohio this fall.
Abortion activists are comfortably rolling back pro-life protections because they’re able to depict Republicans as abortion extremists. It’s a rich claim, since Democrats support murdering unborn children up until the moment of birth, even when the children are healthy and could lead happy lives outside the womb, with countless families willing to adopt them.
Yet since the right is all over the place on when abortion should be ended, the left is able to fear-monger that Republicans are going to end all abortions everywhere. And abortion activists can advance this narrative without admitting that they want no restrictions on abortion – anywhere, anytime, for any reason.
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Message discipline matters in politics. Right now, Republicans have no unified message, which gives Democrats the opening they want to expand abortion beyond even the permissive Roe era. Yet if Republicans coalesced around a federal 15-week ban, the pressure would be reversed.
The national conversation could move away from Republicans banning abortion on the first day of pregnancy to Democrats backing abortion up to the last day of pregnancy. That’s a conversation the left doesn’t want to have. As mainstream polling has shown, more Americans support a 15-week ban than oppose it, and we live in a democracy where the majority rules.
Only the pro-life movement can move the GOP in this direction. Pro-lifers are the beating heart of the Republican Party, just as the pro-abortion camp is core to the Democratic Party. If we rally around a federal 15-week ban, we can rally voters and lawmakers to enact this policy in future years.
That would be a huge improvement over the abortion regime that existed under Roe, and the states that want to go further still could. While a 15-week ban is far from perfect, it would give the pro-life movement a chance to prepare for the bigger fight that lies ahead.
Let’s protect as many mothers and children as we can today, so we can redouble our efforts to change minds, win hearts, and transform the culture tomorrow.
