At this year’s March for Life a woman told fellow pro-lifers that the movement must try “anything and everything” to change the culture and save lives now that Roe has been overturned. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision returned the fight to the states on June 24, 2022, but it did not erase the moral battle Americans are waging in homes, classrooms, and marketplaces.
Good. Bold talk is exactly what the moment demands; timid conservatism will not build a culture of life. The March for Life organization itself has long said that the most important work is changing hearts and minds — not just winning court cases — and the question now is whether pro-lifers will match their convictions with real, relentless action.
Let’s be clear about the stakes: before Roe fell, the nation was still seeing hundreds of thousands of abortions a year — Guttmacher counted more than 930,000 in 2020 — which proves how entrenched the culture of death had become and why legal victories alone won’t be enough. Pro-lifers who think the job is done are asleep at the switch; the cold facts demand a full-court press to change minds, resources, and incentives.
Practical policy matters, and conservatives should lead with both principle and results. Preserving measures like the Hyde Amendment — which researchers estimate has reduced abortions by millions since 1976 — is commonsense stewardship of taxpayers and human life, and it’s exactly the kind of durable policy victory we should defend while building broader, lasting support for mothers and children.
But policy without culture is brittle. The left has stacked schools, media, entertainment, and Big Tech with messages that normalize abortion and hollow out the family; beating that back will require boots-on-the-ground work: supporting crisis pregnancy centers, funding maternity homes, promoting adoption, and showing through example that single moms and struggling families can flourish with community help. Conservatives ought to stop apologizing and start organizing — in churches, PTA meetings, and local school boards — where the culture is actually made.
We must also be sharp on new battlegrounds like chemical abortion, telemedicine, and the pills mailed across state lines; experts warned before Dobbs that access to at-home abortifacients would blunt legal gains, so a multi-front strategy is necessary that includes legislation, education, and support for alternatives. The policy analysis after Dobbs has been clear: legal change opens a window, but preserving life at scale demands aggressive cultural and practical measures as well.
So when a pro-lifer at the march tells us to try “anything and everything,” we should take it as a rallying cry — not a gasp of despair. Roll up your sleeves, defend policies that work, build real support systems for mothers and children, and fight for hearts as fiercely as we fight for laws. America was built on courage and conviction; if we do the hard work now, we will make abortion unthinkable for future generations.
