Volunteering in the Pro-Life movement in the 1990s, I remember praying for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, as if it would immediately end the abortion problem in the United States. As a high schooler, it seemed like a simple enough solution. Roe v. Wade caused the mess, so getting rid of it should take care of things. But now, after Dobbs v. Jackson, what has actually changed in the last three and a half years?
Even though abortion is now restricted to some degree in a majority of states (and throughout pregnancy in about a dozen), abortion rates have not fallen. In fact, there was a 1% increase in abortions in 2024 from the previous year, and sales of Plan B emergency contraception are through the roof (which can prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg), with one company experiencing“an incredible 3,000% surge in demand” after the Dobbs decision.
Overturning Roe was not so much a solution as a new beginning.
The law certainly matters, but, to some degree, it follows the culture. It’s not that law can’t shape culture, as, according to Aquinas, it is meant to induce and restrain from action according to right reason, in a way that promotes both the good of the individual and that of society as a whole. But when society has accepted personal autonomy as a sacrosanct principle, the way in which we think about law, the common good, and happiness shifts more toward obtaining rights and accomplishing individual desires, whatever their nature.
In this sense, Justice Anthony Kennedy pointed us to the crux of the abortion debate in 1992 when writing his decision upholding Roe in Planned Parenthood v. Casey: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life.” We can laugh at the absurdity of the statement, yet it accurately reflects the pulse of our culture.
Culture, more than law, shapes the way in which we understand human happiness and its relation to the sanctity of life. This is why Pope St. John Paul II pointed us to a goal that transcends judicial decisions (while not forgetting their importance). He called us to build a culture of life, rightly understanding that our current culture bears an intrinsic tendency toward death by treating others as an infringement upon autonomy or even a commodity. John Paul’s description of a “profound crisis of culture,” certainly still applies, one “which generates scepticism in relation to the very foundations of knowledge and ethics, and which makes it increasingly difficult to grasp clearly the meaning of what man is, the meaning of his rights and his duties” (Evangelium Vitae, 11).
Freedom stands at the empty heart of the culture of death, yet, when properly directed, can shape a culture of life as well. God gave us the gift of freedom not to grasp after our own pleasure and power but to imitate him in self-giving love. Culture is a way of life, and we need to build one that prioritizes life above other goods. People mean more than things. People, and commitment to them, lead to a fulfilling life, not the accumulation of goods. Pope St. John Paul II gives examples of simple “daily gestures of openness, sacrifice and unselfish care which countless people lovingly make in families, hospitals, orphanages, homes for the elderly and other centres or communities which defend life” (27), and this selflessness provides a model for Christian love which can resuscitate culture.
In addition, I would include education as a key element in fostering a culture of life, even if the opposite ordinarily occurs. Public schools serve as leading agents of the culture of death for the young, teaching them “safe sex” and occasionally facilitating access for abortions. More generally, they are places where we emphasize material success above inner refinement. Bereft of moral or spiritual aspirations, they fail to form young people in discipline and sacrifice for others. Ideology serves as a false substitute for faith, claiming outrage over environmental and social issues, while inflaming the root cause of these crises by discarding the wisdom of the past that attended to the inner order of mind and soul, one capable of translating this order into society.
Culture is transmitted by education, learning patterns of thought and action that give a people cohesion and shape their collective aspirations. This kind of education largely happens outside of the classroom—in the home, through friendship, and by means of entertainment. This is where the young learn what truly matters in daily life and what is worthy of their love and commitment. And it is in education, understood broadly as initiation into culture, that we can begin to form a culture of life if we teach our children to value personal communion and to nurture it through responsibility. Discipline, above all else, no longer wanting everything to be given, with constant entertainment and distraction, will prove crucial for forming a disposition ready to receive life as a gift, rather than a burden.
The Christian home and school can become gardens that cultivate vocations to family life, ones that we can no longer take for granted, with young adults ready to make the joyful sacrifice of laying down their lives in love for their spouses and children. This slow growth from below is where we need to concentrate, rather than quick fixes from above, in order to build a culture of life, one family at a time.
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Even before sound education or even “self-giving love”, it’s also a matter of intact imagination and will— being able to see that what’s involved in each abortion (or not) are TWO human beings/lives, not one. And, that fetal infanticide is not simply a backstop for contraception which is another diabolical misconception.
Pro Life movement needs to publicize the horrors of abortion. Please publicize the youtube video “Abortion Procedures: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Trimesters” from Dr. Anthony Levatino M.D. Gynecologist Obstetrician and former abortionist detailing the horrors of abortion procedures, at the different stages of pregnancy, including the danger of the pill for women. Show it especially to young women who are not told in school the true details of abortion at the different stages; in this video age this is a most effective way to combat the killings
Yes. Education is sure, legislation fickle!
Ryan T. Anderson says the pro-life movement needs to pivot to promotion of chastity and marriage.
Just sayin’.
Ah, but that is much, much harder and won’t win friends. And the contraception issue needs to be dealt with. I’m guessing most rank and file pro-lifers don’t find much wrong with contraception, and the younger ones don’t see fornication as a sin.
Chastity and Marriage is part and parcel to The Pro Life Movement, and securing and protecting our inherent Right to Life is binding in both State and Federal Court, via The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Right to Life is certainly not a right that is “reserved to the States” or the people, or commerce, for that matter.
This is what respect for life is up against.
I know at least one woman (we’ll call her “Cindy”) who had an abortion. Her pregnancy was the result of a transient dalliance in her late 30’s with a man about 15 years her junior.
This occurred at a house party thrown by a mutual coworker and everybody was surprised by their apparent comity and sudden disappearance (apparently to the “coat room”).
Several weeks after this “encounter”, she met a man she thought was more suited to her and they began dating. It was not. She complained about his lack of libido, attributing it to his cannabis use, until she looked at his internet history, which was more focused on men dressing as women.
Shortly after the commencement of this relationship, I received a call from a distraught co-worker we’ll call “Mary”, who was was also about 15 years younger than Cindy.
Mary was in tears, because Cindy called her and and pressured her to be her chauffeur to the murder mill. When Mary resisted it, Cindy attempted the emotional blackmail of “if you won’t take me, you aren’t my friend”.
My advice to Mary was “there’s nothing you can do to stop her, but she has no right to insist on your participation-if she threatens you this way, you never were friends”. Mary refused and Cindy found somebody else to assist in her homicide. One volunteer who ultimately was unable to drive was herself a client of that ghoulish place.
Today, Cindy’s social media depicts a grandmother (from her other children) who eagerly promotes and participates in various charitable endeavors. However, when there’s an election-look out. She furiously posts on behalf of the pro-abortion candidate.
I don’t think it is unreasonable to suppose that deep inside, she’s a victim of the small still voice that insistently beckons “what have you done?”. Any suggestion that abortion should be impermissible or restricted interferes with the inner dialogue that suffocates that small still voice.
Tens of millions of women have had abortions. Millions of others of people have provided permission, pressure or other forms of participation. While some will have a moral or spiritual epiphany, the rest will equate legality with morality. They will fight like hell to preserve that thin reed upon which they stand.
Hundreds of millions probably more accurate
Ah, but that is much, much harder and won’t win friends. And the contraception issue needs to be dealt with. I’m guessing most rank and file pro-lifers don’t find much wrong with contraception, and the younger ones don’t see fornication as a sin.
And how would you deal with the contraception issue? Have the Federal Government prohibit it? That’s not going to happen.
Educate people on its harms. Believe it or not (I would imagine you don’t), before contraception was given the nod by the Church of English in 1930, Christians generally thought contraception was sketchy.
We need fixed from above *and* below. It’s a both/and, not an either/or.
In a type of moral gymnastics few, if any, acknowledge that the abortion problem is in fact a problem with the morality of women. Slice it as you will, every abortion, with the exception of a Chinese style forced abortion, every abortion scenario contains a baby and a mother willing to kill it
And men somehow are not involved in fornication and rejection of their off-spring? Many women abort because the “baby daddy” refuse to have anything to do with the infant.
That’s often the biggest part of the equation. Not accepting responsibility for actions.
The man or wimp involved put extreme emotional and economic threats upon the expectant.
Life, pass it on if need be.
Allan above (1:01 p.m.) – In the old days, it took two to tango.