Since the Supreme Court’s decision to correct Roe v. Wade, many in the mainstream media have claimed that for decades, conservatives have not only worked to end this injustice but have somehow “conspired” to do so. It’s as if an insidious cabal has met in shadowy places, working like termites to undermine the framework of our justice system.
“For 40 years, largely as an outgrowth of Roe, the Federalist Society has been gaining sway and power in American law schools. And then as those lawyers entered the legal profession and got on the federal bench, they achieved more power,” according to David Kaplan on National Public Radio
In her article, “Embryo Men — Decades of Conspiracy, Christian Nationalism, and Fear Led Us To the End of Roe v. Wade,” Religion Dispatches writer Carmen Celestini writes, “It’s imperative that we acknowledge the power of conspiracy — and of fear and how it’s a motivating factor — woven into the language of religion and God’s work.”
Self-described feminist author Jill Filipovic, writing in The Guardian, explains that Roe was overturned because “the right-wing anti-abortion movement that sprung out of the white supremacist movement that fought to maintain Jim Crow and school segregation. The racist, misogynist Religious Right gained tremendous power within the Republican party.”
Were these writers not serious, their fulminations would border on comic hysteria.
The reality is that a large and broad coalition of Evangelical Protestants, traditional Catholics, and social conservatives have worked to end elective abortion as a federally protected act. To do so, we have not “conspired” in dark secrecy. Rather, we have employed all the tools at the disposal of every citizen in our system of ordered liberty and constitutionally-protected rights.
We have made mistakes, not always speaking or acting wisely or in love. But looking at the history of the pro-life movement, we see an overwhelming preponderance of compassion and courage, demonstrated in a host of ways.
We have met privately for prayer and planning. We have created roughly 2,300 crisis pregnancy centers, serving hundreds of thousands of young women and providing them not only with prenatal care but job training, housing, and many other kinds of support. We have adopted and fostered untold numbers of children.
We have marched, lobbied, and strategized. We have created such groups as the Federalist Society and the American Center for Law and Justice, whose litigation has advanced arguments in the courts concerning the sanctity of life. We have encouraged young pro-life men and women to become attorneys, judges, and public servants.
Our policy and advocacy organizations at the state and national levels, including Family Research Council, have developed political and legislative initiatives to protect the unborn and their mothers. Our candidates have run for office at every level of government.
We have made arguments grounded in science, reason, law, and, when appropriate, faith. We have published scholarly articles and popular op-eds. We have paid for ad campaigns and supported, individually and through political action committees, pro-life candidates.
We have sought to persuade our country, through every appropriate means, that the dismemberment of an unborn child is nothing less than an act of moral squalor, and that their mother deserves better than abortion.
All of these things have been public. They have also been scrutinized and attacked — often viciously and unfairly — by those who disagree with us.
And here’s something much of the media are ignoring: The abortion industry and its allies in higher education, the entertainment industry, and local, state, and federal politics — remember Barack Obama as the first sitting president to offer remarks at Planned Parenthood’s national conference in 2014? — as well as millions of ordinary Americans have done exactly these same kinds of things.
There is one great difference: In the case of Roe v. Wade, conservatives won. For the Left, this is unacceptable.
More than unacceptable: it is outrageous. We have upended a regime the Left has worked for decades to enshrine, a regime that has left more than 63 million little ones in its bloody wake. I’m reminded of the last words of the Wicked Witch in “The Wizard of Oz” — “What a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?”
This is part of the Left’s anger. The self-anointed elites are offended by the destruction of their carefully constructed socio-political regime. What is, to so many of our opponents, self-evident — their wisdom and moral superiority — has been affronted and even defeated. Their world is teetering, their minds reeling.
I truly do not wish to gloat; gloating is a reflection of pride, which is the root of all sin. Now is the time to serve, to reach out to women whose pregnancies are unwanted in every way possible. We must also forgive those who regard themselves as our enemies, showing them the same grace and truth God in Christ shows those who have put their trust in Him for eternal life.
And we must not quit. Now is no time for complacency. There is danger in the states for the most vulnerable among us. Our work on their behalf must go on.
Rob Schwarzwalder, Ph.D., is Senior Lecturer in Regent University's Honors College.
