Recently, in the first major Supreme Court abortion ruling since the 90s, abortion clinic regulations were struck down in Texas, making abortion less safe for women. This travesty is discouraging, but we cannot stand idly by as it happens. There are good ways to respond.
- Continue the Fight
This case has underscored our need for Supreme Court justices who value judicial restraint. As Concerned Women for America CEO and President Penny Nance stated, “The justices created and self-defined this extra-constitutional ‘undue burden’ to advance their political ideology and, in doing so, just five justices are able to halt the efforts of a whole state to protect its citizens.”
And that noble effort in the states cannot end. States need to continue to test laws that protect its women with health standards. There are many other legislative efforts to continue; we should not assume all regulation of abortion is futile.
- Provide True, Safe, and Merciful Medical Help for Women
Our movement is the pro-life movement, not the anti-abortion movement. We are not just against something, we are for something. We are for safe health standards for women and protections for the unborn. We are for alternatives to abortion, such as adoption and parenting.
Pregnancy centers provide great resources for women who are hurting. We need to pour ourselves into that effort, and add to it! The pro-life movement backs pro-life care centers that offer tangible pre-natal care and, in some cases, delivery for mothers in need. We need much more of this to be the true health alternative to abortion, as well as pointing women to the existing community health centers as a resource for them.
We also need to be able to step in to offer grace-filled medical care when an abortion goes wrong. One woman in Virginia was being counseled against abortion by a pro-life medical doctor, but she chose abortion. She ended up in the emergency room later — with that same pro-life doctor on call. Instead of condemning her, he treated her abortion complication with mercy and quality care. This touched her so much that she wrote her story and sent it to the pro-life clinic, saying she had made a mistake, a big mistake, but also that the doctor treated her with the same care as any of his other patients.
With sub-par clinic standards, ER visits and abortion trauma from abortion complications will surely continue, and we will be there, ready with unconditional love, which will truly transform hearts.
- Offer Women Emotional Healing
Allowing these lax abortion standards to continue to exist, the Supreme Court has ensured that there will be more abortions and more health complications; the incidence of abortion trauma will only increase.
One of the practices that this ruling will allow is the taking of an abortion pill regimen at home, in Texas as it is in many states. The FDA recently made this drug more easily available in the U.S. for later and later weeks of pregnancy. This “medical abortion” (named as “medical” because it is not a surgical abortion) sometimes results in the mom being able to see her tiny inch-long baby come out, more formed than she realized — with discernable toes and fingers at 9 or 10 weeks. I can’t possibly imagine how traumatic this is for women. The pro-life community needs to respond by making RU-486 reversal possible through administering progesterone after a woman takes the first pill.
If a woman goes through with this and any other traumatic abortion, we need to offer healing to women who will need post-abortion counseling and may eventually begin to question the pro-choice movement and its motives.
- Trust in the Lord
The highest court of our land has forsaken its very purpose — to uphold the laws that protect its citizens. But there is a higher court still — a Judge above all, a righteous Judge. And His righteousness will reign. The Lord has a heart for each woman and child affected by this ruling. He is the ultimate protector. I don’t know what kind of cosmic battle is occurring in the spiritual realm, but I know Who will ultimately win it. I know that through all this pain, the Lord will bring stories of healing and redemption, of judgement and punishment according to His perfect will. We should thank God for the simple joy of following Him in the midst of the darkness of the world, even when everything seems stacked against us.
In a devotional I recently read, David Jeremiah quotes former Sen. George W. Norris (R-Nebraska): “It happens very often that one tries to do something and fails. He feels discouraged, and yet he may discover years afterward that the very effort he made was the reason why somebody else took it up and succeeded … whatever use I have been to progressive civilization has been accomplished in the things I failed to do rather than in the things I actually did do … I would rather go down to my political grave with a clear conscience than ride in the chariot of victory.”
I pray that our recent setback will end as a stain on the pro-abortion movement rejecting women’s health and pave the way to assured victory for the pro-life movement in the future. If not, our conscience is clear.
Chaney Mullins serves as CWA’s Special Project Writer.