I have been pro-life since my first encounter with a preborn baby as a high school sophomore in a biology class in 1963. From that moment onward, I have not been able to comprehend how any rational person could credibly deny that we are looking at a fellow human being.
Consequently, I was profoundly shocked as several liberal states began increasing legal access to abortion in the late ’60s and early ’70s. I was, along with tens of millions of my fellow Americans, dismayed when the U.S. Supreme Court tried to take the abortion issue out of the hands of the American people in the infamous Roe v. Wade (1973) decision legalizing abortion in the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
Like tens of millions of my fellow countrymen, my heart was further anguished when the number of abortions nationally skyrocketed to approximately 1.5 million annually by 1975. I was an early volunteer in the pro-life army which sought to defend our unborn fellow citizens who were under such sustained lethal assault.
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All along pro-lifers understood that the judicial overturning of Roe would not roll back the bloody tidal wave of abortion that has subsequently swept across our nation. I myself have said many times that overturning Roe, which was done by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), would restore the status quo ante, the situation as it was before the Roe decision on January 22, 1973.
And of course, that was legally true. The overturning of Roe did not outlaw abortion. It just returned the decisions about abortion to the people in the various states. However, the assumption that we were returning to the America of 1973 on societal attitude toward abortion could not have been more wrong.
The strong push for state and national laws legalizing abortion on demand for all three trimesters in the wake of the overturning of Roe underscores the extent to which a half-century of legalized abortion (and approximately 65 million abortions) has undermined the moral compass of the nation.
While approximately 65% of Americans oppose abortion on demand for all three trimesters, America now tolerates scenes and activities that they would have rejected as horrific in 1973. This new reality is brought home to pro-life Americans on an almost daily basis. Just a few days ago I read of the rising phenomenon of “pill-packing” parties where groups of women gather to prepare kits to be mailed to women requesting pills to end their pregnancies. One such group celebrated preparing 350 such kits in one evening (potentially 350 dead babies). Between July 2023 and March 2024, such groups “provided more than 68,000 abortion kits by mail to residents in states with tight limits” on abortion.
In the wake of the overturning of Roe, we have seen many states rush to liberalize abortion laws, and violence against pro-life pregnancy centers has soared. Now, the Democrat party has nominated a national ticket that is demonstrably more radically pro-abortion than any in American history. Vice President Harris is for full three-trimester abortion and her vice-presidential running mate, Tim Walz, as Governor of Minnesota signed legislation allowing abortion up to birth and rescinded a law that required a doctor to try to save a baby that survived its abortion.
We in the pro-life movement have a substantial task ahead of us. We must speak for our fellow unborn citizens who cannot speak for themselves. In doing so we must be prepared to face many obstacles. A classic example of this is the recent Arizona Supreme Court decision that narrowly permitted the state-published informational pamphlet concerning the referendum on abortion in Arizona to call a fetus an “unborn human being”.
In the continuing culture wars, the battle over language will continue to be intense. If the cultural left has its way, it will censor our right to tell such essential truths as an unborn baby is a “human being.”
That unfortunate truth is part of the new reality we face as we seek to defend truth in the public square. May God give us the wisdom and perseverance to keep our nation from continuing the practice of child sacrifice which they euphemistically call abortion.
Dr. Richard Land, BA (Princeton, magna cum laude); D.Phil. (Oxford); Th.M (New Orleans Seminary). Dr. Land served as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary from July 2013 until July 2021. Upon his retirement, he was honored as President Emeritus and he continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor of Theology & Ethics. Dr. Land previously served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013) where he was also honored as President Emeritus upon his retirement. Dr. Land has also served as an Executive Editor and columnist for The Christian Post since 2011.
Dr. Land explores many timely and critical topics in his daily radio feature, “Bringing Every Thought Captive,” and in his weekly column for CP.
