Off-year elections in 2025 were an across-the-board setback for the pro-life cause.

Gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey resulted in two abortion-on-demand Democrats being elected. New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill is unlikely to be much of a change, though Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger, replacing term-limited Republican Glenn Youngkin, will be a radical one.

Spanberger pledged in her victory speech to defend abortion. With Democrats taking control of both houses of the state legislature after the 2023 elections, Youngkin was a redoubt against further repeal of protective pro-life legislation trashed by Democrats after their post-2019 takeover, e.g., parental consent laws. With Spanberger in the governor’s mansion, expect these laws to go away.

What is more concerning than statutory changes, however, is the likelihood of amendments to state constitutions ensconcing abortion on demand through birth.  Because of the staying power of changes to a state’s fundamental law, these policy shifts would far exceed the term of any particular politician, handcuffing future pro-life governors or legislatures from enacting pro-life legislation, a threat Spanberger et al. want to foreclose permanently.

An amendment is already underway in Virginia. That state’s process requires two approvals by the legislature (with an election, Tuesday’s, in between) followed by submission to the electorate in a referendum (next November). Expect the amendment to be fast-tracked when the new legislature — with Democrats winning a hefty majority in the lower chamber — convenes in January. The amendment mirrors abortion-on-demand amendments adopted in other states, but Spanberger will almost certainly push it as “codifying Roe” without admitting its full implications (i.e., abortion on demand through birth, likely with state subsidy, while nullifying Virginia’s parental consent laws).

Spanberger campaigned on ensuring Virginia remained the only Southern state without pro-life legislation. Turning Virginia into a Southern abortion oasis is a major plus for the abortion industry: One should expect proliferation of abortion facilities toward the North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia lines, shortening travel in comparison to pro-abortion Maryland. One should likewise expect Virginia will enact a “shield law” immunizing physicians from accountability in those states, even if they harm adult patients or ship abortifacients (mifepristone and misoprostol) to those states. There’s a reason out-of-state money poured into Virginia’s election (as, for example, into prior referenda in Ohio or judicial elections in Wisconsin).

There’s been less talk about amending the New Jersey Constitution, probably because there’s less danger of a pro-life majority entering the legislature and the state Supreme Court is pro-abortion anyway. However, there has been some discussion “just in case.” New Jersey governors are comparatively powerful chief executives (e.g., Chris Christie kept money out of Planned Parenthood’s hands), and, while the Garden State hasn’t elected a Republican U.S. senator since 1972, locals occasionally rebel (usually against high taxes) by picking GOP governors.

On the judicial and constitutional front, Pennsylvania voters voted to retain three state Supreme Court judges up for their 10-year reappointments. The Democratic majority on that court will likely consider in the next term whether Pennsylvania’s Equal Rights Amendment invalidates the state’s ban on Medicaid funding for abortion. Writing abortion into state constitutions can proceed in one of two ways: by outright amendment (most states that have popularly initiated referenda have already gone down that route) or judicial interpretation. Pennsylvania is now on target for the latter.

Finally, California voters jettisoned congressional district maps designed by an independent, nonpartisan commission in favor of partisan ones enacted by the legislature to increase Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The maps would go into effect in 2026. The aim is clear: Given the tiny margins by which Republicans currently control the U.S. House, the new California maps are designed to seat more Democrats. (Virginia Democrats attempted the same last week.)

How does that affect pro-life voters?  Having decimated their pro-life ranks by primarying out pro-life Illinois Democrat Dan Lipinski in 2020, the entire Democratic caucus now votes pro-abortion en banc. Flipping the House means no pro-life legislation could emerge in the last two years of the Trump administration, even if Republicans hold (as is likely) the U.S. Senate.  Keeping the Senate will preserve the possibility of appointing pro-life judges to the federal courts, but the split would likely stymie pro-life statutory initiatives. Consider the Hyde Amendment: Given Democratic cohesion during the current federal government shutdown, one can imagine intransigence against its inclusion in future federal budgets.

One last side issue: pro-abortion politicians and Catholics. Earlier this fall, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich caused a firestorm by announcing plans to award a “lifetime achievement award” to retiring pro-abortion Illinois Democratic Senator Richard Durbin. Durbin has earned a 0% rating on National Right to Life Committee pro-life rankings since at least 2015. Durbin eventually declined the award, but, on Monday, Cupich made a point of defending the aborted award by insisting he wanted to promote “dialogue” about multiple pro-life issues.

Tuesday’s electoral results attest that the other side’s priority is not “dialogue” but winning, unsurprising since the political process usually works by being successful at it. Three and a half years after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, when states were freed to protect unborn life, abortionists are not retreating. They are advancing, organized, and triumphant. They do not “dialogue.” They legislate. They litigate. They win.

If the Bible is any guide, we need to be “as wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Mt 10:16) — not sitting pigeons. If pro-life advocates hope to recover lost ground, they must learn to combine moral conviction with strategic intelligence, the union of innocence and shrewdness Scripture commends.