June 12, 2022: The End of the Roe Era
Now that four years have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, where do we stand?
Our headline at the time was “Major Obstacle Removed.” We knew we had plenty of work ahead. The only problem solved was the reign of the Roe v. Wade decision; the reverberations of Roe continue even if it’s no longer in force.
We still need all hands on deck. It was always going to be true that some states would pass abortion bans and others would double down on their pro-abortion practice. We still need all the creative ideas and hard work we can get.
The predictable backlash was intense, just as it was with SCOTUS’s school desegregation case in the 1950s and for similar reasons. As would also be anticipated, and is in the nature of backlashes, we see many signs this is subsiding.
The impact of abortion bans has now shown the prediction of an upsurge in women’s deaths hasn’t come to pass. Such deaths continue about the same as women’s deaths under all-legal abortions. No back alley has developed that’s worse than the front alley already there under Roe.
Referendums on abortion coming up November 3: Virginia has a pro-abortion amendment, Nevada has a required second vote on a pro-abortion amendment, and Missouri has one trying to overturn the pro-abortion amendment of 2024. Idaho petition signatures are being counted for a statute to overturn their state’s abortion ban.
Several pro-abortion amendments were passed or defeated in 2024.
California has the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere. Governor Gavin Newsom is someone who might be talked into clearing it out by commuting everyone’s sentences before he leaves office. This would not only help in California, but be a good model for the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Here’s a petition asking him to do this.
Heartbeat International has started a page of Documented Cases of Abortion Pill Poisonings and Forced Abortions. This will serve as a resource for educating on this major problem with the drug regimen. If you’re aware of additional cases, they have a form on the page for submitting those.
Latest on the Blog
Since every pregnancy ever has had a man involved in its creation, Jim Hewes discusses Men and Accountability when it comes to their unborn children.
Daniel Ellsberg has narrated an excellent 29-minute video which is embedded in the post that John Whitehead wrote reviewing it: A Chance for Humanity to Survive: The Urgent Message of ‘An Ordinary Insanity’
Quote of the Week
Pope Leo XIV
Quoted in:
Zeale, June 8, 2026
If life ceases to be recognized as a fundamental value, what future can our societies have? . . . Can a community that casts into the shadows the unborn child, the elderly, the sick, those who suffer in silence, or those who depend entirely on the care of others be called fully just?
The defense of human life is neither a partisan issue nor a confessional interest: it is a goal of civilization. Every human life must be recognized and safeguarded from conception to its natural end, in every circumstance of its existence. When this certainty is obscured, the most vulnerable are the first victims, and the law loses its deepest meaning: to serve and protect every person. For this reason, the moral greatness of a nation is manifested, above all, in its capacity to accompany, protect and love those lives that are most fragile.