
Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear knows that the pro-life movements have received some very important victories courtesy of the Trump administration. The horror show that was “reproductiverights.gov” is no more. The Mexico City policy was reenacted, meaning U.S. tax dollars may not be legally used to support the violence of abortion in other countries. Trump also signed an executive order that supports the Hyde Amendment’s ban on federal funding of abortion in the U.S. He pardoned pro-life activists who were unjustly jailed for peacefully protesting abortion in various contexts. The thrust of the born-alive protections for babies who survive abortions were made official administrative policy.
It was a firehose of good news during the very first week. And it all culminated in Vice President Vance giving one of the best pro-life speeches I’ve ever heard at the March for Life, one which I argue marks the formal start of Pro-Life 3.0. With the end of Roe and the coming of Trump populism, our movement is no longer beholden to a strange (at best) alliance with neoconservatives and libertarians. Our populist vice president focused his March for Life remarks squarely on being “pro-family and pro-life” in the “fullest sense” possible. We are on the verge of seeing a new pro-life movement, led by Vance, that is focused on creating the conditions for the possibility of prenatal justice (something we simply must have, no question about it), as well as on changing structures and systems to be more friendly to life. Look for much more talk about “Make Birth Free,” massive child tax credits, and paid family leave.
As Roger Severino put it after listening to Vance’s speech: “The future of Life policy lies in Family policy.”
But it is not all sunshine and rainbows for the pro-life movement. Far from it. The only party willing to take us seriously hung us out to dry on our central concerns in the lead-up to the 2024 election. Caving to political pressure, the GOP platform essentially became pro-choice for the overwhelming majority of abortions. They also caved at the other end of life, removing opposition to physician-assisted killing. Furthermore, the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary raised eyebrows among many in our movements, especially given his very public support for abortion for most of his life.
Our continued loss of the majority’s opinion, even in deeply conservative states like Florida, underscores just how much the pro-life movements remain at a cultural disadvantage. Add to this the fact that one major political party appears to be taking our support for granted while the other totally despises us. Indeed, once Democrats regain power, many of these very good executive orders will simply be reversed. Plus, the strategy of withholding federal funding from hospitals and other institutions in order to produce very good consequences when it comes to protecting women (and children) from radical gender ideology will look different when Democrats wield the same power to coerce pro-life institutions and individuals to do abortions or face similar consequences.
Still, not everything on the horizon is dark. RFK Jr.’s confirmation could actually provide some very important opportunities for our movements. Given that the Senate Finance Committee voted to advance his nomination on Tuesday, his confirmation seems likely; all that remains is the vote of the full, Republican-majority Senate. It just isn’t at all clear what he believes about abortion and, after decades of being forced to cite a version of the Democratic party line, he may now be more free to express previously hidden opposition. During his Senate confirmation hearings, RFK Jr. claimed that “every abortion is a tragedy” and insisted that we could not be a moral nation with 1.2 million abortions each year. Furthermore, he said that President Trump asked him to study the safety of the abortion pill, mifepristone, a drug that is quite dangerous for women and—mostly due to the power of abortion politics—has escaped rigorous safety oversight. As HHS secretary, RFK Jr. could make sure the abortion pill gets evaluated for safety like every other drug. This would be a huge win for women and likely for babies as well.
But other opportunities also present themselves, especially when one thinks about Pro-Life 3.0. If we truly care about how structures and systems relate to having healthy, vibrant families and children, then we simply must focus more on what is behind the terrible U.S. rates of obesity, diabetes, cancer, and more. All of this has created, remarkably, a decade’s worth of falling life-expectancy for the richest country in the history of civilization.
RFK Jr., the Means siblings, and several others are leading a movement to “Make America Healthy Again,” and MAHA is poised to take off in a very significant way if these folks are put into a position to lead. We need structural and systemic reform of the intersection of Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Medicine, and Big Government. We need to ask and incentivize the relevant players to value the overall health of our children over making quick bucks by addressing their chronic, lifelong diseases. Doing this will mean going after some of the richest, best-positioned industries in the United States and forcing reforms onto them that—at least in the short term—they (and their shareholders) will hate.
But we simply must succeed at doing this. The alternative is many more millions of slow, painful deaths of our children—their bodies full of ultra-processed food and massively invasive and expensive drugs prescribed by a health care system that has lost the concept of “whole person care” that is implied by the dignity of the human person. Focusing on this set of issues is not only not a reach for the pro-life movements; it is right in the center of our wheelhouse. MAHA is pro-life.
So, no, despite the very good things we got a couple weeks ago, pro-lifers do not have everything we want from this administration. But as we figure out what Pro-Life 3.0 is going to become, and especially which structures and systems we want to prioritize in terms of reform, we are presented with a number of important and interesting opportunities. Paying close attention to the signs of our times, let us jump onto this new ground with both feet and fight for the dignity of the human person.
Image by Gage Skidmore. Image cropped.
Trump for Women
On Wednesday, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” It requires…
Give the National Endowment for the Arts Back to the Public
For decades, Americans have become increasingly alienated from the American arts establishment. The main source for their…
Manners, Methods, and Greatness
Browsing Footprints in Time, the memoirs of Winston Churchill’s longtime private secretary, John Colville, I found a…