Amid growing hopes about the end of Roe v. Wade, state lawmakers have introduced what likely will be a record number of pro-life bills this year to protect unborn babies from abortion.
It’s only April, and already lawmakers in 42 states have introduced 536 pro-life bills, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research group. In comparison, 663 pro-life bills were introduced in all of 2021.
“The anti-abortion rights movement is invigorated — and it appears to be winning,” the left-leaning Huffington Post commented this week in response to the numbers. “The year is shaping up to be the most devastating on record for abortion rights.”
What is devastating for abortion is good for human rights in America. Hundreds of thousands of unborn babies could be spared from abortion and their right to life protected if these bills pass and go into effect.
For decades, states have tried to pass pro-life laws to protect unborn babies and mothers from abortion, but Roe v. Wade got in the way. The infamous 1973 ruling forces states to legalize abortions for any reason up to viability and allows abortions up to birth; so, many state pro-life laws have been struck down in court.
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Now, however, the U.S. Supreme Court is renewing hope that states may be allowed to protect unborn babies again. Last year, the justices refused to block the Texas heartbeat law, making it the first pre-viability abortion ban to go into effect in nearly 50 years, and thousands of lives have been saved.
Then, in December, the Supreme Court heard a direct challenge to Roe in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. Mississippi leaders asked the justices to allow states to protect unborn babies from abortion again, preferably from conception or, at the very least, after 15 weeks of pregnancy as most other countries across the world do. A ruling is expected in June.
These two cases have renewed pro-life advocates’ enthusiasm and spurred hope that protections for unborn babies no longer will be blocked in court.
So far this year, nine states have passed more than 30 pro-life laws, including Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Idaho, Kentucky and South Dakota, and hundreds of other bills are being considered in other state legislatures, according to the Huffington Post. These include “trigger” bills to prohibit abortions once Roe is overturned and 15-week abortion bans in case the Supreme Court does not completely overturn Roe.
Many states also are working to protect pregnant mothers by cracking down on dangerous abortion drugs after the Biden administration began allowing abortion businesses to sell them through the mail without ever seeing the woman. According to the Guttmacher Institute, state lawmakers have introduced 116 bills this spring to restrict the abortion drugs, and 14 have passed.
The growing success and enthusiasm of the pro-life movement has abortion activists worried.
Mini Timmaraju, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, told the Huffington Post that pro-lifers are making progress in ending abortion even while Roe still stands.
“We have seen lawmakers hostile to reproductive freedom launch an all-out assault on abortion rights and they aren’t slowing down,” Timmaraju said. “Even as Roe stands, abortion access is already being eviscerated at rapid speed across the country.”
If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, the Guttmacher Institute predicts 26 states “are certain or likely to ban abortions.”
Some of these states still have pre-Roe laws that prohibit abortions, and others have trigger laws that immediately will outlaw the killing of unborn babies in abortions once Roe is overturned. Some also have multiple pro-life laws in place including heartbeat laws and other legislation that would limit or ban abortions if the courts allow them to do so.
Altogether, these actions would result in hundreds of thousands of unborn babies being spared from abortion every year across the U.S. A group of 154 economists and researchers estimated that abortion numbers would drop by about 120,000 in the first year and potentially even more in subsequent years if the high court overturns Roe and allows states to ban abortions again.
Nearly 1 million unborn babies are aborted in the U.S. every year. Since Roe, more than 63 million unborn babies have been legally aborted.
