Just two years ago, leading anti-abortion activists were euphoric as the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, thus ending the nationwide right to abortion.
Now, with a presidential election fast approaching, their movement is disunited and worried. Within their own ranks, there is second-guessing and finger-pointing, plus trepidation that Election Day might provide new proof that their cause is broadly unpopular.
Michael New, an abortion opponent who teaches social research at The Catholic University of America, offered an overview of how the movement had fared since the Roe ruling in June 2022.
“Things have not necessarily unfolded as we would hope,” he wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “There is certainly a sense among pro-life leaders that we should have had a stronger post-Roe game plan in place.”
“I always remind fellow pro-lifers that we were never promised a smooth glide path to victory,” he added. “There will certainly be setbacks and disappointments along the way.”
A key reason for the wariness is the anti-abortion movement’s recent losing streak on abortion-related ballot measures in seven states, including conservative Kansas and Kentucky. Nine more states will consider constitutional amendments enshrining abortion rights in the Nov. 5 election — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and South Dakota. In several of them, abortion opponents tried various unsuccessful strategies for blocking the measures.
"Pro-life people don’t wear rose-colored glasses; we know we have a huge task ahead of us,” Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, told the AP. “Because of the massive amounts of money being dumped into the ballot measures from those allied with the abortion industry and the Democratic Party, it’s an uphill battle.”
“We will continue to educate, to make people aware of the catastrophic result if these measures pass,” she added. “I have not seen flagging energy or any loss of determination among pro-life people.”
Texas is among the Republican-governed states that have enacted near-total abortion bans. Yet nationally, Texas Right to Life president John Seago said, the anti-abortion movement “is in a critical chapter right now.”
“Following a historic legal victory, we have realized that while we had enjoyed massive legislative and legal victories in the last decade, public opinion had not followed the same trajectory,” he added.
Troy Newman, who heads the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, recently published an online opinion piece assailing the movement he’s been a part of for 25 years.
“The tide has turned, and the pro-life message is now considered a political liability that could prevent President Trump’s victorious return to the White House,” Newman wrote.
“After evaluating the terrible mistakes of the pro-life movement over the last several years, I can only conclude that it is our fault,” Newman wrote. “We have had over 50 years to change the culture’s position on abortion only to have failed miserably.”
In an interview with the AP, Newman blamed those in his own ranks for the predicament — saying some anti-abortion leaders should have been more adamant in their positions. “We lose the minute we stop focusing on the babies,” he said.
Kristan Hawkins, leader of Students for Life of America, suggested via email that Newman’s views were ill-suited to the post-Roe era. She said the students in her organization were embracing the challenges of a state-by-state playing field.
But she acknowledged the magnitude of the challenges.
“I actually believe the biggest threat is ourselves — our mindsets — which will lead to decreased recruitment, training, and mobilization of our grassroots army of love,” she wrote recently in the conservative outlet Townhall.
“Look at the struggles we face this fall with several late-term abortion ballot referendums,” she added. “Most will likely be a political loss for our movement because, in most states, a politically sophisticated, organized, and well-funded state-wide movement is not present.”
Hawkins also acknowledged the anger among some anti-abortion activists over the inconsistent rhetoric on abortion coming from the Republican presidential ticket of former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
“I’m not here to make apologies for the Campaign and their political miscalculations, which are dividing us and could very well lead to their defeat,” wrote Hawkins.
Trump nominated the Supreme Court members who were crucial to overturning Roe and called it “a beautiful thing to watch” as various states took different directions. He has been evasive on whether he would veto a federal abortion ban if Congress approved one; his “leave it to the states” approach conveys acceptance of the current patchwork map in which abortion is widely available in at least half the states.
Eligible to vote in Florida, Trump has criticized as too restrictive a new state law banning abortion after the first six weeks of pregnancy. But he said he would vote against the ballot measure that would make abortion legal until fetal viability.
Trump’s support for a state-by-state solution was a factor in the decision of Charles Camosy, an anti-abortion Catholic academic, to declare he now feels politically estranged.
“The Republican Party has rejected our point of view. Democrats are running a candidate ( Kamala Harris ) who has made abortion rights a centerpiece of her campaign,” Camosy, a medical humanities professor at Creighton University School of Medicine, wrote recently in The Atlantic.
“Pro-lifers — those who believe that protecting vulnerable and unborn life should be a primary policy priority — now do not fit in either major political party.”
In an interview, Camosy said abortion-rights supporters were better prepared for the post-Roe era than their adversaries
“They were well-funded, they developed key relationships with the media,” Camosy said, while some Republican-controlled legislatures – in his view -- went too far with stringent abortion bans.
“I see this moment as an opportunity,” Camosy wrote in The Atlantic. “Pro-life 3.0 must welcome people from multiple political and policy perspectives, working for both prenatal justice and social support for women and families.”
Some other anti-abortion activists have forcefully renounced Trump, including leaders of End Abortion Ohio.
“We call on God-fearing American voters to withhold their votes from Trump until he evidences genuine repentance for his pro-abortion stance,” said the group’s executive director, Nicholas Kallis.
However, Ohio Right to Life president Mike Gonidakis is encouraging support for Trump.
“A vast majority of our statewide membership absolutely support President Trump and believe he would advance the protection of life at the federal level ... more than a Kamala administration would,” he said. “It is not even close."
Other anti-abortion leaders have made similar calculations.
One example: Back in April, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said she was “deeply disappointed” in Trump’s willingness to leave abortion policy to the states.
These days, in a move potentially benefiting Trump, the group plans a $92 million voter outreach program in battleground states depicting Harris and other Democratic candidates as “extremists” on abortion.
“It is imperative that the pro-life movement fully unify and mobilize to defeat this threat,” Dannenfelser said.
Among those embracing Trump is Frank Pavone, who continues to lead Priests for Life despite being defrocked in 2022 after feuding with his bishop over his anti-abortion and partisan political activities.
“Trump has brought in far more people than he has alienated,” Pavone said via email. “His statements have blunted the effectiveness of the dire, scare-mongering Democrat warnings that the Republicans will ban all abortions.”
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Anti-abortion signs lean agains a fence outside a recently opened Planned Parenthood clinic in Pittsburg, Kan., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — The death toll from an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb rose to 31, including seven women and three children, Lebanon's health minister said on Saturday, as Israel and Hezbollah traded fire.
Firass Abiad told reporters 68 people were also wounded of whom 15 remained in hospital, adding that search and rescue operations were still ongoing, with the number of casualties likely to rise.
The rare strike hit an apartment block in a densely populated southern Beirut neighborhood on Friday afternoon during rush hour as people returned home. It was the deadliest strike targeting the Lebanese capital since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
Among those killed were Ibrahim Akil who was in charge of Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force, and Ahmed Wahbi, another senior commander in the group's military wing.
Wahbi was described as a commander who played major roles within the group for decades and was imprisoned in an Israeli jail in south Lebanon in 1984. Hezbollah said he was one of the “field commanders” of a 1997 ambush in southern Lebanon that left 12 Israeli troops dead.
Hezbollah announced overnight Friday that 15 of its operatives were killed by Israeli forces, but did not elaborate on the location of these deaths. Meanwhile, the Israeli army spokesperson, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said on Saturday a total of 16 Hezbollah fighters were killed in the strike.
Israel earlier said Akil had been meeting with other militants in the basement of the apartment block.
Lebanese troops cordoned off the area preventing people from reaching the building that was knocked down as members of the Lebanese Red Cross stood nearby to take any recovered body from under the rubble. On Saturday morning, Hezbollah’s media office took journalists on a tour of the scene of the airstrike where workers were still digging through the rubble.
The Minister of Public Works and Transport Ali Hamie told reporters at the scene that 23 people are still missing.
The airstrike on the crowded Qaim street knocked out an eight-story building that had 16 apartments and damaged another one adjacent to it. The missiles destroyed the building and cut through the basement where the meeting of Hezbollah officials was being held, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene.
In a nearby building, shops were badly damaged including one that sold clothes and had a sign in English that read: “DRESS LIKE YOU’RE ALREADY FAMOUS.”
Friday's deadly strike came hours after Hezbollah launched one of its most intense bombardments of northern Israel in nearly a year of fighting, largely targeting Israeli military sites. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted most of the Katyusha rockets.
The militant group said its latest wave of rocket salvos was a response to past Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon. However, it came days after mass explosions of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies killed at least 37 people — including two children. Some 2,900 others were wounded in the assault which has been widely attributed to Israel.
The Lebanese health minister said Saturday hospitals across the country were filled with the wounded.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the attack which marked a major escalation in the past 11 months of simmering conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border.
On Saturday, Israel renewed an intense wave of airstrikes on southern Lebanon, according to an Associated Press journalist in the area. The Israeli military said its air force was attacking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, without providing further details. The militant group responded by firing a large number of rockets, local media reported.
It remains unclear if there were any casualties in the latest strikes.
Earlier this week, Israel’s security cabinet said stopping Hezbollah’s attacks in the country’s north to allow residents to return to their homes is now an official war goal, as it considers a wider military operation in Lebanon that could spark an all-out conflict. Israel has since sent a powerful fighting force to the northern border.
The tit-for-tat strikes have forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes in both southern Lebanon and northern Israel.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire regularly since Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel ignited the Israeli military’s devastating offensive in Gaza. But previous cross-border attacks have largely struck areas in northern Israel that had been evacuated and less-populated parts of southern Lebanon.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday that five of its workers were killed, and five others injured, by Israeli fire that struck the ministry’s warehouses in the southern Musbah area.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has already killed at least 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza-based Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between fighters and civilians.
—
Associated Press writer Jack Jeffery in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Emergency workers clear the rubble at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Relatives of the victims comfort each other near the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Smoke rises from Israeli shelling, seen from the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Smoke rises from Israeli shelling, seen from the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
The smoke trail from a Hezbollah rocket, seen from the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Damaged cars at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Smoke rises from Israeli shelling, seen from the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Emergency workers use excavators to clear the rubble at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Emergency workers clear the rubble at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A damaged building at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Emergency workers use an excavator to clear the rubble at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Civil defense workers extinguish a fire as smoke rises from the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Emergency workers use excavators to clear the rubble at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A man reacts as he speaks on the phone near the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Rescuers clear the rubble as they look for survivors at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Damaged cars at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Relatives of the victims react near the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Lebanese soldiers secure the area a day after an Israeli missile strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Rescuers at the scene a day after an Israeli missile strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A Lebanese soldier walks near an ambulance an a firefighter truck, securing the area a day after an Israeli missile strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Lebanese soldiers secure the area a day after an Israeli missile strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Emergency workers use excavators to clear the rubble at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
