With Roe gone, we still need a culture of life

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.