It may seem to many conservatives that the Supreme Court’s Dobb’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade was a pyrrhic victory. (That is, “a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat.”)
The court’s ruling that there is no constitutional right to an abortion has energized the pro-abortion cause. Democrats are using the issue against Republican candidates in the midterm elections, sometimes successfully, jeopardizing the chance for conservatives to win back the legislative branch. In face of what seems to be a pro-abortion backlash, some Republican politicians are backing off of their earlier pro-life platforms. Even some Christians are toning down their pro-life convictions, so intimidated they are by the tsunami of pro-abortion sentiment they see in the media and in the polls.
But over-turning Roe v. Wade was indeed a great victory for the pro-life cause. And thousands of lives have already been saved.
According to a study from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, since Roe was overturned, 66 abortion providers in 15 states have been shut down. This means that no abortions are being performed in 14 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Together, according to National Review, in 2020 these clinics that have now shut down were responsible for committing 125,780 abortions. That is the tally for only one year.
Thirteen of these states have enacted abortion bans, so no clinics remain. In Wisconsin, a pre-Roe v. Wade law against abortion has gone into effect, so clinics have stopped providing abortions, though the state might change that law. Georgia has passed a “heartbeat” law forbidding abortion after six weeks–but permitting it before that–whereupon most of their abortion clinics have shut down, but 13 remain.
Yes, some women in these states who want an abortion are probably still getting them. We now have “abortion tourism,” in which women from pro-life states simply travel to a pro-abortion state. California governor Gavin Newsom is even putting up billboards in pro-life states, telling women who want an abortion that “California is ready to help,” going so far as to quote the Bible: “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these. (Mark 12:31)” This bit of blasphemy is apparently an effort to lure Christian women to avail themselves of the state’s grisly “services.” Though it may more likely make women consider their obligation to their “neighbor” in the womb.
The Guttmacher Institute, of course, as well as other pro-abortion activists and the media in general are presenting these figures about 66 clinics closing and 14 states not having any abortion facilities at all as being just terrible, a reason to elect Democrats and to pass a law legalizing abortion nationwide.
But overturning Roe v. Wade, though causing political turmoil, has already saved thousands of lives.
UPDATE: A court has blocked the pre-Roe anti-abortion law in Arizona from being enforced, at least for now.
Photo handout, Office of Gov. Gavin Newsom
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