After almost five decades, the pro-life movement has finally succeeded in overturning the 1973 Supreme Court ruling, Roe v. Wade, which prevented states from protecting unborn children from abortion. This monumental achievement was made possible by the tireless efforts of millions who prayed, marched, petitioned, voted, and made their voices heard. The recent ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization marked a generational win and an answer to prayer.
Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, the pro-life movement must direct its efforts towards achieving its ultimate goal – ending abortion by ensuring equal protection for children in the womb. Being pro-life means affirming that the lives of innocent human beings deserve legal protection from violence, both before and after birth. There can be no distinction between someone’s biological humanity and their legal personhood. All human beings are persons, and there are no classes of sub-personal human beings. From the earliest embryonic stage to the very end of life, each and every human being is a person and a bearer of fundamental dignity and an unalienable right to life.
Some claim that the Constitution is “silent” on abortion, but the principle of “equal protection” has undeniable implications for the question of elective abortion. The 14th Amendment expressly forbids states from denying “to any person within jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” No exceptions to the equal-protection principle are stated, implied, or even contemplated. The principle extends to everyone without distinction of race, ethnicity, sex, age, size, location, stage of development, or condition of dependency. State permission of elective abortion, no less than the permission of infanticide or the killing of the cognitively disabled, the elderly, or members of any other class of persons, is incompatible with the principle.
Adopted in 1868 to ensure that no group or category of human beings would be denied basic rights, the 14th Amendment defines United States citizenship by declaring that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States… are citizens of the United States,” and provides that all citizens are entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizenship. The amendment then goes on to provide that “no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” These due-process and equal-protection guarantees apply to and protect everyone, regardless of citizenship.
Every branch and level of government must take steps to secure equal protection for the child in the womb. The pro-life movement and elected officials should embrace policies consistent with that framework, including acknowledging through constitutional provisions and legislation that children from the earliest embryonic stage forward are legal and constitutional persons entitled to the equal protection of state and local laws, and preventing states and localities from denying such protection. They should also ensure that fetal-homicide, wrongful-death, and child-endangerment laws, including the federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act, are vigorously enforced to protect all preborn children, so that preborn babies and their families can obtain justice against the criminals who harm them. Extending state and federal child tax credits to include preborn children as “qualifying children” on tax returns will ensure that American families receive deductions for all of their dependent children. Clarifying that embryos in cryopreservation are not legal property or quasi-property under state law and cannot simply be discarded and destroyed is also important. Making support for equal protection a litmus test for elected officials and judicial nominees at every level of government, ensuring that children in the womb are afforded due process and legal representation in judicial proceedings through the appointment of guardians ad litem in appropriate circumstances, and passing robust and enforcing existing prenatal child-support laws from conception to ensure that all men take responsibility for the children they father are other crucial steps.
In his “House Divided” speech, Abraham Lincoln predicted that the United States could not endure “half slave and half free…. It will become all one thing or all the other.” Echoing those words more than a century later, Ronald Reagan declared that “our nation cannot continue down the path of abortion, so radically at odds with our history, our heritage, and our concepts of justice.” For that reason, he invoked the 14th Amendment, saying, “the well-being and the future of our country demand that protection of the innocents must be guaranteed and that the personhood of the unborn be declared and defended throughout our land.”
Although Americans are divided on abortion after Dobbs, life will triumph. The same constitutional principles that ensured equal protection for black Americans also protect defenseless children in the womb, from New York to California and everywhere in between. It falls to us to ensure that this guarantee is enforced. That is our unified paradigm for victory, and nothing less will be acceptable.
The North Star of the pro-life movement remains the same as ever – the end of abortion through ensuring the equal protection of the laws. The pro-life movement must direct its steps according to the existing guarantee in our Constitution that secures equal protection for all.
This statement was organized by Live Action and signed by Lila Rose, Founder & President Live Action; Kristan Hawkins, President Students for Life Action/Students for Life of America; Shawn D. Carney, President & CEO 40 Days for Life; Penny Nance, President & CEO Concerned Women for America; Jeff Bradford, President Human Coalition; Ryan T. Anderson, President Ethics and Public Policy Center; Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence Princeton University; Albert Mohler Jr., President The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Hadley Arkes, Founder & Director James Wilson Institute; Steven H. Aden, Chief Legal Officer & General Counsel Americans United for Life; Peter Breen, Executive Vice President & Head of Litigation Thomas More Society; Mary Szoch, Director of the Center for Human Dignity Family Research Council; Ramesh Ponnuru, Editor National Review; Ryan Bomberger, Co-founder & Chief Creative Officer Radiance Foundation; C. C. Pecknold, Professor of Theology The Catholic University of America; Michael O. Kenney, President Pro-Life Partners Foundation; Terrisa Bukovinac, Founder & Executive Director Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising; Gerard V. Bradley, Professor of Law University of Notre Dame; Charles Camosy, Professor of Bioethics Creighton University School of Medicine; Andrew T. Walker, Associate Professor of Ethics The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Josh Craddock, Legal Scholar James Wilson Institute; Adeline A. Allen, Associate Professor Trinity Law School; Ron Robinson, President Emeritus Young America’s Foundation; Patrina Palmer Mosley, Founder & Principal PPM Consulting; Missy Martinez-Stone, President & CEO Reprotection; and Robert S. McDonald, M.D., Surgeon The Saint Gianna Molla Guild of Northeast Wisconsin.
