Pro-Life After Dobbs
Seana McGuire, D.C.L.
The pro-life movement is at a crossroads. With the overturning of Roe, abortion policy is back in the hands of the people. As Americans approach their first presidential election with abortion shaping voter turnout, many are wondering what the future holds for the pro-life movement.
It could be tempting to be discouraged when you consider that seven states have already voted against pro-life measures. Ten more states feature abortion measures on their ballots, including Florida and Arizona. These may not go well either.
Yet there is reason to be hopeful amid a difficult political situation. Pro-life will not cease working to love and protect unborn children and their mothers. Its supporters are ardent in upholding the truth that all human life matters. In political defeat, the pro-life movement has opportunities to return to its fundamentals. If there are dark days, let’s embrace them as inviting fresh light.
REVISITING THE ARGUMENTS
Why does the pro-life movement care so much about the unborn? After all,
an embryo doesn’t look like a person. It doesn’t have hopes and dreams. It might not even feel until several weeks into pregnancy. The unborn are radically dependent upon their mothers.
Pro-life intellectuals can logically explain why abortion is wrong from a secular perspective. They focus on the potential for the unborn to mature into rational, moral agents. If left to develop, the embryo will become a child, a teenager, an adult. But she remains the same unique individual from conception until death— a member of the human species. Since all agree it is wrong to intentionally take the life of an innocent person, it follows that it is wrong to take the life of the unborn.
This argu ment is much stronger than that offered by pro-abortion advocates. They are left arguing that not every human being is a person deserving of life. They attempt to find qualities or markers to distinguish humans worthy of life from
those unworthy. Some argue for viability or birth, others for sensory perception or self-consciousness. No consensus exists because there is no objective basis besides conception for identifying the coming into existence of a new being.
For this reason, pro-abortion advocates now ignore this central issue altogether. They frame abortion in terms of healthcare access. They stonewall the question of when human life begins because no sound biological argument can be provided.
While pro-life arguments are stronger, they don’t move many hearts. Why? The reason is plain. For a woman, pregnancy, and her relationship with the child she carries, is experiential, not logical. While some pregnant women are moved by unfettered reason, most exercise their reason by the light of their hearts. In the case of an unplanned pregnancy, especially one that is further complicated by unsupportive partners, demanding work, or medical complications, the dominant emotion shaping her choices tends to be fear.
WILL IT B E LOVE OR FEAR?
The pro-abortion movement capitalizes upon fear. A pregnant woman does not have much control over her body. Her future, and that of her child, are generally
uncertain. She is frightened. The abortion option promises to alleviate this fear. She can control her biology. She need not be beholden to nature. She is an autonomous agent empowered to end this frightful situation.
What does th e pro-life position offer as an antidote to fear? Something even more powerful: Divine love. This love strengthens and comforts us in our times of greatest need. It provides the grace to understand that, even in the face of the unknown, we do not walk alone. The pregnant woman and her child are, quite simply, loved. Pro-life champions love, not fear, and being, not having.
BACK TO BASIC S: CREATION
The wisdom of the Church provides many ways to share this profound message. Each newly created life offers an immediate way of entering a loving dialogue about the importance of life. Christians appreciate that all life is an act of divine creation.
Moment to moment, our existence is possible because of God’s ongoing act of creation. Creation did not simply happen in the remote past; it is responsible for our immediate being. Life is profoundly dependent upon the Creator.
However much our culture celebrates autonomy, no one willed themselves into being. Through our parents, we all enter life pre-connected with others. We all live from conception until death within circumstances only partly of our choosing. The prevalent secular notion that we control our destiny is proven false daily with every frustration, every undeserved act of kindness, and ultimately, with our impending death. Our lack of volition in simply being suggests that life—existence— is pure gift, miraculously bestowed upon us.
What is its purpose? The abortion movement sells the idea that our purpose is whatever we wish it to be, playing upon the fantasy that we are the authors of our destiny. Most people know this isn’t how life works. At least, it is untrue of life’s most critical moments, which involve sickness, death, failure, loss.
Christians know we don’t invent life’s purposes. We discover them. Our primary purposes are inexorably connected to the reason why we were created in the first place, in the image and likeness of God. We were created in love to love. The call to love is deep within us, implanted there by our Creator. As revealed in the Gospel, we are called to love God and one another. Christ redeemed all of us because of unfathomable love.
WHAT POLICIES FIT?
Abortion rejects the gift of a human life created by God in love. It rejects the right of the unborn to simply be as they are. It reflects the profound inability, not only of a woman in fear, but of an entire people, to tap into reservoirs of love and trust. Abortion does not permit love. It does not recognize the great wisdom in trusting God’s providence in the face of the unknown.
How does the Christian vision map onto pragmatic public policy? Not easily. Laws are better suited to achieving justice than alleviating fear or instilling love.
Of course, abortion is a justice issue and, of course, pro-life rightly seeks legal measures to prevent the killing of the unborn. But most Christians properly want more than this.Their reasons for political engagement are deeper
than seeking to advance justice. Most wish to love the mother and child as members of the human family, our sisters and brothers.
After this election cycle, the pro-life community will revisit its ends and reconsider its means. Before Dobbs, the movement simply wished to overturn the travesty of Roe hoping to return to pre-Roe policies. In a few states, this may still happen. Yet in the 50 years since Roe, American culture has changed more than the Court.
Dark days are nothing new for Christians; we will not despair. But pro-life has its work cut out. Our current challenge is to figure out how to share not just logic and justice, but divine light and love—with a culture that sorely needs it. Let’s do this with the love and faith we share in Christ.
Seana McGuire, D.C.L.
Dr. Seana McGuire holds the Ambassador Michael Novak Chair of Politics at Ave Maria University, where she has previously served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty. Before arriving at Ave Maria University in 2004, she served as Associate Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. In 2024, she co-founded the Center for Catholic Citizenship within the Politics Department at
Ave Maria University. She has taught constitutional law and civil liberties for more than 20 years.
She also teaches at Ave Maria School of Law and serves as the prelaw advisor for students at Ave Maria University. Her writings are in the fields of rights in the Catholic tradition, separation of powers, religious liberty, civil society and marriage, as well as civil disobedience. She has mentored a generation of Ave students in discerning their careers in law and public service.
Interested in learning more from Dr. McGuire? Explore her new short course, “ProLife: Rights, Natural Law, and Catholic Thought,” from The Pursuit of Wisdom available in your app store or at thepursuitofwisdom.org.
The Wisdom Papers is a series of relevant reflections on contemporary conversations from the faculty of Ave Maria University.
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