The Battle Over the Future of the Anti-Abortion Movement if the Supreme Court Overturns Roe v. Wade

BY ABIGAIL ABRAMS/WASHINGTON, D.C., TIME magazine
MARCH 25, 2022

On a cold, clear weekend in January, tens of thousands of anti-abortion activists convened in Washington for their annual gathering, the March for Life. The mood was triumphant. In the next few months, the U.S. Supreme Court is widely expected to pare back or overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established the constitutional right to abortion. Anti-abortion activists have been fighting for this moment for nearly a half century. For three days surrounding the march, they danced and prayed and tearfully embraced in the streets.

But under the surface, the weekend was fraught with tension. For decades, the well-organized, largely grassroots movement has worked to unite a diverse cross-section of American society behind their cause: white evangelicals, as well as some Catholics, Black protestants, Hispanics, and conservative Democrats. Now, with their goal finally in sight, the different factions of the movement have disparate ideas of what a post-Roe world might look like, and how the movement should channel its considerable political power toward achieving those visions.

Continued: https://time.com/6160143/anti-abortion-roe-wade-supreme-court/


Lawmakers are racing to mimic the Texas abortion law in their own states. They say the bills will fly through.

‘Copycat bills’ are a tradition that has been a hallmark of the antiabortion movement for decades

Caroline Kitchener
October 19, 2021

Less than 48 hours after Texas’s abortion law went into effect, banning almost all abortions, West Virginia state delegate Josh Holstein was reminded of the promise that got him elected in 2020.

Holstein ran as a “100 percent pro-life” Republican alternative to the two-term Democratic incumbent. He would pursue a “heartbeat bill” that would ban abortion once cardiac activity is detected, around six weeks of pregnancy. On Sept. 2, the day after Texas became the first state to successfully implement a six-week ban without court interference, a West Virginia resident called Holstein and other state delegates to task in a private post on his Facebook page. He wanted to know: Can we do the same thing in West Virginia?

Continued: https://www.thelily.com/lawmakers-are-racing-to-mimic-the-texas-abortion-law-in-their-own-states-they-say-the-bills-will-fly-through/


What abortion access looks like in America even before the Supreme Court reconsiders Roe v. Wade

By Tierney Sneed, CNN
Sat October 9, 2021

(CNN)The blockbuster clash over Roe v. Wade now in front of the Supreme Court comes after a successful, decades-long guerrilla warfare campaign by the anti-abortion movement to attack access to the procedure around the edges.

Since the 1973 decision that enshrined a constitutional right to an abortion, activists and their partners in statehouses across the country have enacted more than 1,300 laws that have made the procedure more difficult to obtain.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/09/politics/abortion-restrictions-roe-v-wade-access-supreme-court/index.html


The Right-Wing Divisions Over Texas’s Abortion Law

SEPT. 16, 2021
By Irin Carmon and Benjamin Hart

Though Texas’s strict new abortion rule seemed like a blueprint for its red-state brethren, the path forward is a bit more complicated.

I spoke with senior writer Irin Carmon about why the law is dividing some conservatives — and why all the anti-abortion factions might wind up satisfied in the end.

Continued: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/09/the-right-wing-divisions-over-texass-abortion-law.html


How the Anti-Abortion Movement Used the Progressive Playbook to Chip Away at Roe v. Wade

Mary Ziegler and Robert L. Tsai
Sat, June 12, 2021

The Supreme Court captured its biggest headlines last month not for a decision, but for a case it agreed to review next year: Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The case turns on a 2018 Mississippi law banning abortion at 15 weeks, but its impact will likely reach well beyond one state. To uphold Mississippi’s law—which the Court’s conservative majority is expected to do—the Court will have to undo all or part of Roe v. Wade.

Such a sweeping decision might seem like an opportunistic swipe at abortion rights, a conservative court suddenly reversing 50 years of precedent with a single move. But if the Court does rule that way, the story behind it will be far more complex and important to understand. The attack on Roe has been decades in the making—and its successes owe not just to the strength of the conservative anti-abortion movement, but to the progressive playbook that achieved breakthroughs on civil rights, gay marriage and even abortion.

Continued: https://news.yahoo.com/anti-abortion-movement-used-progressive-060015339.html


Roe v. Wade ruling matters, but mostly as a symbol. It has not protected abortion rights.

Abortion rights don't hinge on whether a new Justice Amy Coney Barrett votes to overturn Roe. They're already at death's door by a thousand smaller cuts.

Ziad Munson, Opinion contributor
Oct 26, 2020

Here's a reality check for both sides of the abortion issue: The days when the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling protected widespread and easy access to abortion, along with the days when overturning Roe might dramatically reduce the number of abortions, are decades in the past.

The value of Roe today is not so much practical as it is symbolic. For the pro-choice movement, Roe has become an important public face of reproductive rights and a symbol of women's equality under the law. For the pro-life movement, Roe represents an original sin that activists have spent almost two generations working to erase.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/10/26/amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court-abortion-impact-overstated-column/3742728001/


USA – Dismantling the RNC’s Legacy of Hostility To Abortion Access

This week, the Republican National Convention has featured graphic and deceptive rails against abortion—the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that Trump has made mainstream over the last few years.

8/27/2020
by ANDREA MILLER

This brand of over-the-top opposition to abortion (Abby Johnson promised “the most provocative, impassioned, memorable” anti-abortion speech in history) may seem like a departure from the genteel conservatism of past conventions.

But, in reality, nearly 40 years of GOP opposition to abortion and the party’s failure to respect the importance of making fundamental decisions about our reproductive lives has led us to this point.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2020/08/27/republican-national-convention-abortion-dismantling-the-rnc-legacy-of-hostility-to-abortion-access/


That Supreme Court ruling on the Louisiana abortion case wasn’t a big win for pro-choice advocates after all

The fate of Roe v. Wade is more uncertain than ever

Published: July 17, 2020
By Mary Ziegler

When the Supreme Court handed down its ruling striking down a Louisiana law that would have limited abortion access in that state, progressives celebrated. Their reasoning on June 29 was simple: By joining the court’s liberal justices, Chief Justice John Roberts had proven his commitment to the principle of precedent.

But the court had also sent several cases — all big wins for abortion rights — back to lower courts for reconsideration.

Continued: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/that-supreme-court-ruling-on-the-louisiana-abortion-case-wasnt-a-big-win-for-pro-choice-advocates-after-all-2020-07-17


USA – Why anti-abortion groups are backing away from abortion bans

Why anti-abortion groups are backing away from abortion bans
Debate around a Tennessee bill shows a big shift in anti-abortion strategy.

By Anna North
Aug 22, 2019

When legislators in Tennessee debated a bill earlier this month that would ban abortion as soon as a pregnancy can be detected, opposition came from a surprising place: anti-abortion groups.

Though the groups National Right to Life and Tennessee Right to Life oppose abortion, they also oppose the Tennessee ban, because they believe it would never stand up in court. If such a ban were to make it to the Supreme Court, the groups worry it would fail: “There is no objective evidence that we have more than one vote to overturn Roe v. Wade,” said James Bopp, general counsel of the National Right to Life Committee, which describes itself as “the nation’s oldest and largest pro-life organization,” in testimony against the bill.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2019/8/22/20826982/abortion-tennessee-laws-2019-alabama-georgia-ohio


As States Race to Limit Abortions, Alabama Goes Further, Seeking to Outlaw Most of Them

As States Race to Limit Abortions, Alabama Goes Further, Seeking to Outlaw Most of Them

By Timothy Williams and Alan Blinder
May 8, 2019

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Amid a flurry of new limits on abortion being sought in states around the nation, Alabama is weighing a measure that would go further than all of them — outlawing most abortions almost entirely.

The effort in Alabama, where the State Senate could vote as soon as Thursday, is unfolding as Republicans, emboldened by President Trump and the shifting alignment of the Supreme Court, intensify a long-running campaign to curb abortion access.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/us/abortion-alabama-ban.html