I am pro-life. I believe that abortion is in no way a satisfactory answer to unplanned pregnancy.
Yesterday the US Supreme Court effectively overturned Roe v. Wade in the decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.
The decision was met with celebration and alarm as social media, news outlets and live feeds brimmed with responses from single words and sentences to paragraph long rants and sharply constructed memes.
Many Christians decided to create or share posts in “victory” over Roe v. Wade. I saw Christian people declare that we’d won. Some crowed that our opposition (i.e. those who’d support abortion rights, the legislators and governors, our next door neighbors) had fallen and that the cause of Christ had triumphed.
Here’s the problem. Abortion is still legal in the US. Only now, it’s the state legislatures that will determine it’s legality, not the Federal Government. Don’t believe me? Look here.
Today women are still making appointments to have their pregnancies terminated. The question in the US is not if abortion is legal or illegal. The question is “how legal” abortion is.
Living in Illinois, we see the Midwestern capital for abortion. It’s estimated that we will see an increase of 20-30,000 abortions in the next year alone from women in the surrounding states who’ll seek services here. That would take the number of abortions per year in Illinois closer to 100,000. (1)
The Illinois Reproductive Health Act (775 ILCS 55) ensured that even if Roe v. Wade fell, Illinois would be among the US leaders in guaranteed abortion rights (details here). In 2017, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner eliminated the trigger law which would go into effect when Roe v. Wade failed. So when current Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said yesterday that an “extremist court” bent on causing an increase in back alley abortions risked lives due to the Dobbs decision, he’s basically signaling to the rest of the Midwest that Illinois is doubling down and increasing it’s commitment to abortion rights.
So no, abortion has not been made illegal. In the five states that surround Illinois, only two have eliminated abortion for any reason except the life of the mother. And those in Arkansas and Missouri who are seeking an abortion for any other reason will find one not only in Illinois, but in Kansas, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky and Iowa. (2)
Christians and pro-life advocates, please abstain from taking a victory lap. The job is not done by a long shot.
We need to shut off the valve in order to stop the flow. Roe v. Wade is done. But the effort must now change into making abortion unthinkable, to eradicate the perceived need in the hearts of men and women for abortion. It’s a reality that many people believe that abortion of a child is the only answer to unplanned pregnancy. We must work to change that perception.
If we are Pro-Life, are we Pro-Foster care? Pro-Fatherhood? Pro-Truth Based Education? Are we willing to offer help to prospective parents with substance abuse problems or financial problems? Are we willing to raise the babies born to people who cannot raise them alone? What are we prepared to do to make abortion an inessential last resort?
The bigger question to the Church is do we believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ? If so, we know that complex issues can neither be abolished nor advanced with the stroke of a judicial pen because human problems are based in sin and not on social or legal dogma. We cannot legislate (or de-legislate) morality.
Instead of declaring victory, let’s continue to declare the same state of emergency that Christ declared until He returns.(3) People are dying each day without knowing the God who made them through faith in Jesus Christ. While the demise of Roe v. Wade is a battle won. It’s only one battle in the much larger war being waged for the souls of each human being, born or unborn.