Well Dobbs is sure turning out to be a pro-life bust. Or is it?

Since the 2022 Dobbs decision, which didn’t outlaw abortion but simply put its legality back in the hands of the States, voters in California, Michigan, Ohio, and Vermont have passed amendments to enshrine abortion in their constitutions, and in Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana voters rejected ballot measures that would have added new abortion restrictions. Prior to Dobbs, anticipating that President Donald Trump’s appointments to the Supreme Court could lead to overturning Roe, sixteen states codified abortion rights ensuring they were established at the state level (New York, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Alaska, Illinois, Maryland, Rhode Island, Delaware and Maine). When Missouri implemented one of the strictest abortion bans in the country immediately after the Dobbs ruling, voters reacted by passing a measure in 2024 to enshrine abortion in their constitution. Later, the Missouri Supreme Court once again ruled against unlimited abortion:  a referendum approved for 2026 could reverse the amendment. We’ll see if perhaps the voters in Missouri have had a change of heart.

Suffice to say Dobbs is doing what it was meant to do, which is put abortion law in the hands of the voters and thus allow for debate, while pro-abortion activists busily craft work arounds to guarantee “this debate is over,” and slap a fresh coat of lacquer onto the veneer of “settled law.” The icing on this ugly cupcake?  Abortion pills sent through the mail and pro-abortion Governors offering “shield laws” to provide immunity from pro-life laws. The final pro-abortion/pro-life tally is most uncertain, and at this point there’s not much reason for optimism among pro-lifers, given the “sanctity” of choice and free-love cultism juggernaut (there’s actually something called “cuffing season,” which is finding a bed partner for the winter) rolling its way across the country.

So, the pro-life movement may be toast if law is the be all and end all. But law only provides order for an accepted conduct, good or bad. Being civilized is more demanding.

So now let our imaginations take flight and visit the fictional abode of one Joe and Linda Smith. They are newly married twenty somethings, no kids yet, their lives a cycle of eating, sleeping, working and keeping a home–wherein lies the problem that a mere glance around the premises will reveal, in all its frowsy glory: A brassiere draped atop a lamp, a jock strap dangling off the bed post, dust bunnies blowing about like tumble weeds, a quarter inch layer of dust on an end table (they’ve written off their constant sneezing to hay fever), a throw pillow positioned on the top of the sofa in a vain attempt to hide a cranberry juice stain on the wall (the result of tripping over a pair of galoshes while carrying a glass of the aforementioned cranberry juice). And then there’s the kitchen! The sink piled high with dirty dishes, an accumulation credited to the habit of simply taking down another bowl or plate whenever a clean one is needed, a finite supply judging from the Mount Everest pile of to-go cups and take-out containers that cover the counter space.

Both of them came from well-kept homes. This spate of civilizational decay can be traced to the fact that their most recent living quarters were dorm rooms which were always recovering from either all night cram sessions or all-night parties. As newly marrieds they haven’t worked out the division of household chores yet; and still being in the honeymoon phase they don’t want to risk spoiling it with a confrontation. And they’ve gotten used to it. Hey, it’s just us is their shoulder shrug attitude. And then. Real life intervenes.

One of them, take your pick, stands in the doorway, ashen faced and trembling, and announces the news that strikes terror in them both: My Mother Is Coming to Visit.

Now they survey their home not as just us but as how others would see it, and see it with fresh eyes. Who lives like this they ask themselves.? They vacuum, mop, wash the dishes and scrub the counter tops. Clothes are hung up, shoes are put in the closet, laundry in the laundry basket. The only solution for the cranberry stained wall is to paint but there’s no time to paint the whole room. One of them remembers seeing a new décor trend online where one wall is a different color. Forest green. Yes. And for the couch a beige slip cover from Macy’s.

Mother arrives. “Oh, what a nice place you have here! And one wall a different color! I hear it’s the latest thing!” And then the ultimate test. “Would you like a cup of tea, mom?” “Yes, but don’t bother, I’ll make it myself.” And now she’s in the kitchen, at the sink, humming, shoulders slightly swaying, happy as a wren in their nice, clean kitchen.

We get used to decadence. It’s never normal, you just get accustomed to it. And it can sneak up incrementally. In 1973 when Roe mandated abortion be legal country-wide, the backdrop was women in desperation situations, so desperate they resorted to dangerous procedures in back alleys. The scope and numbers of that were strategically inflated, but sympathy for “a girl in trouble” was grounded in reality, and heartfelt. But once enacted the backdrop changed. Abortion then became needed for women’s full participation in society (a rewarding career), then it became crucial to empowerment in general.

This last category is so paramount it necessitates denying that any other concern has value, and so abortion becomes viewed as not really killing because there’s nothing actually alive, or not alive yet. Or it’s just cells. It’s so important to believe that there is absolutely nothing wrong with abortion because if any of it is wrong, it’s all wrong. Take hope. Such rationale suggests a conscience gasping for breath. And the academic conundrum of it being killing in one state but not in another has the citizen who was pro-choice by reflex revisiting the issue. Dobbs did that. Questioning has been resurrected! The pro-abortion side calls that chaos.

So, abortion went from desperation, to full participation in society (get a job), then to empowerment ideology, and now it’s indignation. It’s righteous! Be proud! Abortion has existed for millennia, it’s nothing new.

But it was always sad. This modern incarnation is profoundly anti-social.

Mom toots her horn twice as she pulls her car away. Joe and Linda wave good-by and watch until her car turns the corner, then go back inside. Linda smooths out the slip cover and plumps the throw pillow while Joe washes out the coffee cups. He turns and says: “We should have people in.” Linda straightens up and says: “Yes!”