Original article can be found here.
Republicans had a bad night in Tuesday’s midterm elections, losing control of both congressional chambers. But there is one group that suffered an even more devastating defeat: the unborn.
In all but one of the four states where abortion was on the ballot, voters chose unfettered late-term abortion over protecting viable babies in the womb. The results expose the weaknesses in the strategies of both the pro-life movement and the Republican Party as a whole.
The Results
Voters in Idaho, Nevada, and Virginia weighed constitutional amendments that sought to expand their states’ parameters for legal abortion to unprecedented levels. Missourians, meanwhile, sought to revoke a 2024 amendment that did the same. Vote totals are as of noon Wednesday.
- A 55 percent majority of Missourians rejected Amendment 3, dashing hopes of restoring the state’s ability to regulate abortion throughout all stages of pregnancy. The measure also would have outlawed sex-rejecting surgeries for minors, post-abortion fetal organ harvesting, and aborting a child due to disability screening results.
- Nevada’s Question 6 passed 63 to 37 percent, creating a constitutional right to abortion for “all individuals”-including children-well into the third trimester. The law rewrites the definition of “fetal viability” such that most premature infants would be considered nonviable.
- A shocking 62 percent of Virginians approved Amendment 1, establishing a constitutional right to a litany of reproductive decisions, including abortion through the second trimester-or until birth, if the profiting abortionist says there’s a mental health risk.
- Idaho, where abortion is all but banned, was the one bright spot of the night. Voters smacked down Proposition 1 by a 56-44 margin, thwarting extremists’ push to grant an unregulatable right to late-term abortion under the same restricted definition of viability activists put forward in Nevada.
How We Got Here
The Supreme Court upended the national abortion landscape in 2022 when it overturned Roe v. Wade and the national “right” to an abortion. The change marked a monumental victory for the pro-life movement, but activists proved unprepared for what happened next.
- Whiplash from the court’s sudden reversal sent pro-abortion voters sprinting to the polls to turn their outrage into action. Pro-lifers, still riding the high of the court’s decision, were caught flat-footed. Their sluggish and fractured response-compared to Big Abortion’s massive, unified coalition-led to a list of ballot box losses.
- In 2024, Voters in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota became the first to reject pro-abortion measures in the post-Roe era. Yet seven other states (including Missouri and Nevada) approved similar amendments.
- President Donald Trump’s political squeamishness on the issue of abortion has driven a wedge between him and pro-life leaders. It also appears to have infected GOP leadership, which stripped life from the party’s platform during Trump’s second presidential campaign.
Turn It Around
History does not look kindly upon those who set arbitrary standards for human rights. In fact, the Republican Party was founded specifically to oppose that mindset.
The midterm election results should serve as a wake-up call for both Republicans and pro-life leaders. The GOP cannot be weak on life and expect its pro-life base to enthusiastically swarm the polls. Nor should it become what it opposes in its haste to expand the party tent.
But the pro-life movement has also struggled for decades to unite and grow its coalition. In 2024, the opposition campaign against Nevada’s Question 6 raised exactly $0.00.
Yes, you read that right. While supporters of the campaign raised a whopping $13 million, pro-life groups failed to raise a single penny to oppose it. Now it’s set to become law.
How? Why?
There is no question that fracturing within the pro-life movement has hindered real progress for the nation’s unborn. As leaders bicker over details and strategy, more than 1 million babies die each year.
It’s time for the Republican Party and its pro-life pillar to remember who they are and what’s at stake. Put life back in the platform-and unite.
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