Pro-life candidates just successfully withstood the most extreme pro-abortion presidential ticket in history. 

Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) invested unprecedented amounts of money in abortion as the issue that would win them the White House — but exit polling shows that voters preferred Harris’s position on abortion by just four percentage points. What’s more, that slim margin was still shy of a majority. 

Voters who said abortion should be illegal were even less likely this year than in 2020 to vote for the more pro-abortion candidate. Harris lost significant ground among young women voters — the demographic supposedly among her most ardent supporters. 

Abortion extremism did not — and could not — earn them the confidence of the electorate.

The outcome of the election, as well as the result of a number of ballot initiatives on abortion, further underscore that the movement has work to do to change hearts and minds on the issue. Some initiatives to protect life succeeded. Others failed. 

But what we do know is that care for women has powerful, lasting, bipartisan support. Striking majorities of Democrats and Republicans both support public funding for pregnancy resource centers. The work is both essential and politically popular. Several swing or legacy Democratic voting blocs are on record in favor of pro-life policy outcomes like paid family leave and improved pregnancy care. 

President-elect Donald Trump and the pro-life movement now have an opportunity to make America the safest place for pregnant women and their children in history. The next administration will be crucial to defending countless vulnerable women, providing them and their children with life-affirming medical care and social support — ensuring ethical medical practice and regulation of their care. 

Where President Biden’s administration abandoned and neglected, President Trump may champion and protect.

The incoming Trump administration has a chance to build on the pro-life victories of his first term and create a broader, holistically pro-life legacy. And they can start doing that by expanding the safety net for vulnerable women through funding and care networks, defunding Planned Parenthood, and protecting women from the reckless and negligent abortion practices that have become so commonplace in the name of “health care.” 

We know that expanding the safety net for vulnerable mothers is an effective way to help support their choice against abortion. Seventy-six percent of Human Coalition clients who are seeking an abortion say they’d prefer to parent if their circumstances were different. 

Giving women access to material resources, health care advice and referrals, counseling, and friendship empowers them to choose life at the same time they change their lives. And there are programs doing this already with tremendous success.

The Thriving Texas Families program has provided more than two million services and hundreds of thousands of referrals to government and social assistance programs. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program financially supported 1.9 million children and their families in one month alone.

This is what makes the difference for women in need. They don’t need radically expanded abortion access. They need care. They need safety. They need to be and feel truly heard and supported.

The legislative complement to this expansion, of course, is defunding Planned Parenthood and stopping the rampant expansion of abortion pills. 

Planned Parenthood does nothing to empower women facing an unexpected pregnancy. It exploits them and kills their children, because it profits from this model, not from supporting women. 

Many of our clients report struggling to get factual information over the phone from abortion businesses. They often get information about their options and about abortion itself from pregnancy resource centers, not Planned Parenthood. 

This exploitation of mothers must end. Women deserve to feel safe, empowered, supported, and informed at every stage of their life. Pregnancy is no exception, and politics is no excuse. Care for women is a unifying issue because it’s a human issue. 

President Trump faces a historic opportunity to deliver compassionate, life-changing care to vulnerable women and their innocent children in all 50 states.

Chelsey Youman is the national director of public policy for Human Coalition, a pro-life organization that operates a network of telecare and brick-and-mortar pregnancy centers for women across the nation.