It’s been exactly a year since Bethany Bomberger spontaneously gathered outside a hotel ballroom with fellow anti-abortion activists, overwhelmed with gratitude and optimism when news of the Supreme Court overturned. against Roe v. Wade just hours before the Pro-Life incident. Women’s Conference officially opens.
“There will be life before Roe capsizes and life after,” Mrs. Bomberger said this weekend, tearful as she recalled the moment she described as “the impossible became possible. ” She and her husband lead an organization that opposes abortion, and that organization recently branched out to combat the growing acceptance of transgender identities – what she calls as “gender radicalism”.
As this year’s convention opened, Miss Bomberger took to the stage at a modest suburban convention center outside St. Louis. “Who’s here with me to let loose?” she asked the crowd, leading hundreds of women in the wave. “We are pro-life, we have life on our side!” She wears a small gold necklace with the words “mother”, a gift from her son.
The ruling last summer in Dobbs v. The Jackson Women’s Health Foundation removed the national right to abortion and sent the matter back to the states. It is also radical fight for abortion in the United States, closing some clinics, urging others to open, and setting up new wars abortion pill, miscarriage care And contraception. Legal abortion more than six percent off during the first six months after the ruling.
For those who believe abortion is the destruction of innocent life and have spent years fighting to end it, the 24th of May, said Shawn Carney, president and chief executive officer of 40 Days for Life. 6 marks “a momentous day in the history of our country”. . Mr. Carney’s organization is a co-sponsor of a Dobbs . Commemorative Rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, where a large crowd gathered Saturday morning to hear Mike Pence and Alveda King, the granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr.
“Work for Life continues across America,” Mr. Pence said. who has pledged to make abortion the focus of his presidential campaign.
Redi Degefa, who lives in Washington and works as a staff member in Congress, said she came to the protest Saturday morning to show that young women are represented in the anti-abortion movement. She said she graduated from college two years ago and, being a Catholic, she came with a sign that said, “Pray the Rosary to End Abortion.”
“This is both a celebration and a reminder that we must sustain this energy, the energy we have maintained for the past 50 years — we must duplicate it now and continue to grow,” said Ms. Degefa. “There will never be a victory until abortion is abolished in all 50 states.”
June quickly became the new focus of the anti-abortion calendar, a change from the Roe anniversary decided in January 1973. Mr. Carney compared the Roe anniversary to the Dred Scott decision in 1857. , which Americans don’t celebrate, and the Dobbs celebration of Juneteenth, which they do. He is among those who have suggested moving March for Life, the annual anti-abortion event held each January in Washington, to June.
Other activists are observing what they call “Dobbs Day” at state agencies this weekend, including in Georgia and Wisconsin. Some are calling for social conservatives to rename June “Month of Life,” a celebration of the decision seen as a blow to Pride Month.
In the gallery this weekend in Missouri, tables display bumper stickers, prayer bracelets and stacks of brightly colored “Children Protect Life” coloring books. The nuns in monastic robes mingled with young women wearing T-shirts that read “Love Wildly” and “Life Has Purpose.” A selfie station shows off a neon sign that says “Pro-Woman Is Pro-Life”.
Attendees were invited to “put on your best 1972 or 2022 outfit” to a dance party on Saturday night, alluding to the year before Roe was decided and the year the court reversed itself. back 50 years later.
Danielle Pitzer, director of sanctity of human life at Focus on the Family, said: “I’m glad to know I’m dancing to celebrate Roe’s ouster. She sported a kaleidoscope of “disco dress,” complete with loafers and a matching headband.
Although many American women mourn losing the national right to abortion, conservative women – and especially young women – promoted the anti-abortion movement and instilled it Fresh energy of a new generation. For them, this moment is a moment to celebrate and acknowledge the new challenges ahead.
American public opinion has turned more in favor of abortion rights, making the issue a thorny political liability for Republicans. The party has struggled to reach consensus on abortion restrictions, and many GOP presidential candidates have avoided the issue so far. At the same time, women still don’t stop having abortions, even in states where there is a ban: They turn to abortion pills or travel to other states instead.
Angela Huguenin, chief executive of And Then There Were none, an organization dedicated to persuading abortion clinic workers to join the anti-abortion movement, said: “This year we learned that there is still a lot of work left to do. many works to do. . She said that effort has been met with more hostility from many clinic staff over the past year. Dozens of clinics have closed since Roe was ousted, and many have been uprooted and relocated to neighboring states.
For true believers in Missouri, many of whom work or volunteer for anti-abortion organizations, some of the political consequences could be attributed to the failure of the media: If the public understood better. about the movement’s commitments to both mothers and babies, they’ll see things differently.
Some in the movement are skeptical that Dobbs represents a clear victory. Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, founder of the anti-abortion small group New Wave Feminists, was at a conference organized by National Right to Life last year when the court made its decision. The room erupted in excitement almost panic, she said. Her own feelings were more mixed.
“It doesn’t solve anything or do anything, it just creates chaos,” she said. Some of the new state laws do not include exceptions for rape or incest and, she said, “horror stories” have since emerged in which women are denied care because of pregnancy complications.
“The pro-life people may have won the battle, but they won’t win the war” unless they write better laws and advocate for a more comprehensive social safety net, she said. Mistakes, she added, “could easily lead to the codification of abortion rights.”
In Missouri, conference host Abby Johnson spoke to the women on stage Friday afternoon, sitting on a white sofa next to a group of former abortion clinic employees. Mrs. Johnson is a former director of Planned Parenthood and is now a prominent anti-abortion activist.
She warned raging mobs about the rise of medical abortion and the abortion rights movement’s dedication to “never stop killing babies”.
“We just got this big win,” she said. “Let’s keep winning.”
Zach Montague contributed to this article.
