Category: Roe v. wade
The judgment behind the abortion numbers
For decades, we have been told that we may not be able to end abortion, but we can reduce it. Political reality requires patience. Incremental laws, strategic compromises, and careful coalition-building will, over time, bend the curve downward.
Fewer abortions this year than last. Fewer still the next. This is what we’ve been told, but the numbers are not bending in the right direction.
The same movement that insists on the humanity of the unborn defends strategies that refuse to treat that humanity as legally binding.
In 2020, the United States saw roughly 930,000 abortions. By 2024, annual abortions had surpassed 1 million again. Monthly averages have continued to rise, moving from roughly 88,000 per month in 2023 to nearly 100,000 per month by 2025 — estimated at over 1.1 million abortions a year.
This is not the trajectory we were promised.
Even in a post-Dobbs world — after decades of work, millions of dollars, and countless political victories — abortion remains not only legal in much of the country, but increasingly accessible.
According to the standard used to justify compromise, the results of our efforts have been thoroughly unimpressive.
If compromise is justified because it reduces abortion, what happens when it does not? If the entire framework rests on pragmatic outcomes, then those outcomes must be honestly measured. If they fail, the justification collapses with them.
The central question, though, was never whether compromise works. The central question is whether compromise is obedience.
Scripture is not silent on this. “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). That statement assumes that what is right is already understood — and then confronts the refusal to act on it.
That is where the abortion debate now stands.
RELATED: At its core, the abortion debate is very simple
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
For decades, the pro-life movement has argued — rightly — that the unborn child is fully human. Not partially or potentially human. Not a life that becomes valuable later. A human being, made in the image of God, from the moment of conception.
And yet, that premise is not applied in law.
Equal justice is withheld. Justice is knowingly delayed. Entire classes of human beings are acknowledged in rhetoric and denied in practice — through heartbeat bills, 20-week bans, and fetal pain bills.
The same movement that insists on the humanity of the unborn defends strategies that refuse to treat that humanity as legally binding.
To know that a child is fully human and yet defend a legal framework that allows that child to be killed is not a lesser evil. It is a greater evil — because it is compounded.
Scripture goes further. When knowledge increases, so does accountability. When leaders teach truth, they are bound to it. And when they fail to act on what they teach, they do not merely err — they invite judgment.
We have been told to evaluate abortion policy on outcomes alone. But Scripture does not separate outcomes from obedience. It ties them together. God does not bless disobedience because it is politically strategic.
When disobedience is institutionalized — when it becomes the operating principle of a movement — the results should not surprise us.
RELATED: The collapse of conservatism nobody wants to admit
Blaze Media Illustration
Abortion does not decrease under compromise because compromise is not a neutral tool. It is a moral decision. It trains a culture to tolerate the very evil it claims to oppose. It teaches legislators to delay what they confess is urgent. It forms a people who say that the unborn are fully human, while structuring their laws as though they are not.
This is why the numbers do not tell the story we were promised. Not because the strategy was insufficiently refined, but because it was fundamentally misaligned. The issue is not that we have failed to compromise enough. It is that we have compromised at all.
God does not require political feasibility. He requires obedience.
Obedience does not ask how much injustice can be tolerated while we make progress. It asks what justice demands — and then establishes it.
Until that shift is made, the pattern will remain. More laws, more campaigns, more assurances of progress — and the same or worse results. Not because we lack the power to change it, but because we refuse to apply what we already know to be true. Until we do what is right, we should not expect the numbers to change — because God does not bless disobedience. He judges it.
That is why we must fight to establish equal justice under the law for our preborn neighbors — not by regulating abortion, but by abolishing it.
How pro-life groups are misleading you on abortion numbers
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned nearly four years ago, countless pro-life organizations have pushed new regulations on abortion. Many of those same groups have rushed to declare victory, claiming that conservative states are now “abortion-free.”
But when pro-life organizations declare any state “abortion-free,” they celebrate a victory that does not exist — and drastically overstate the impact of pro-life laws.
The preborn babies murdered under the cover of our laws deserve more than semantic victories. They deserve equal protection.
These claims don’t just mislead. They undermine the cause these organizations claim to champion.
Exaggerating victories
The claim that some states are “abortion-free” isn’t rare. It has become standard messaging.
Students for Life published a map three years ago declaring that 14 states are now “abortion-free.” Frank Pavone, who leads Priests for Life, has made the same claim about Mississippi. National Right to Life called Kentucky “abortion-free” as recently as last summer. LifeNews has become notorious for amplifying inflated or misleading abortion claims from pro-life groups at the state level.
These declarations suggest abortion has been eliminated in these states. The reality says otherwise.
Pro-life leaders do not make clear that in every state labeled “abortion-free,” abortions remain legal for women who want to kill their preborn babies.
Many conservative states shut down abortion clinics and imposed penalties on providers. At the same time, those states wrote explicit exemptions into law protecting women from prosecution for willfully obtaining abortions.
That wasn’t a mistake. Pro-life organizations crafted and promoted that policy.
Self-induced abortions
Legal immunity for women who murder their preborn babies created a massive loophole. It also opened the door to a surge in self-induced abortions.
Women in “abortion-free” states can order abortion pills online from telehealth providers operating under shield laws in blue states or from overseas providers.
In many cases, it remains perfectly legal to order these pills, possess them, and use them at home. The scale of this practice — even in conservative states — is staggering.
Consider Kentucky, which National Right to Life called “abortion-free.”
In Kentucky, more than 2,800 women in 2024 received mail-order abortion pills through telehealth providers alone, according to data from the Society of Family Planning.
That does not include the more than 4,300 Kentucky women who traveled to other states for abortions in 2024, according to the Guttmacher Institute. It also does not capture self-induced abortions outside the formal medical system.
Kentucky is not an outlier.
RELATED: How a pro-life law in Kentucky lets mothers get away with murder
Carl Lokko via iStock/Getty Images
When all available data is considered, the 14 conservative states that have banned or mostly banned abortion — the same states pro-life groups often call “abortion-free” — saw at least 250,000 preborn babies murdered in 2024.
That number represents a sharp increase from the 181,000 abortions recorded in those states in 2019.
In other words, pro-life laws have not created states with fewer abortions. They have created states where abortion has shifted away from clinics and toward self-induced abortions at home — abortions that remain legal for the mother who commits them.
How can abortion increase while pro-life organizations claim success? Because many have misrepresented what they mean by “abortion-free.”
When these groups say “abortion-free,” they mean abortion clinics have closed. They do not mean abortions have stopped. It’s like calling a city “crime-free” because the district attorney refuses to prosecute criminals. The semantics conceal the reality.
Opposing abolition
Even more troubling, major pro-life organizations often oppose the bills that would actually abolish abortion.
When lawmakers introduce equal protection bills — proposals that would make abortion illegal for everyone, including pregnant mothers — pro-life organizations often mobilize against them.
This has happened dozens of times across the country. The reasoning stays consistent: Pro-life groups insist women are victims of abortion and should not face legal consequences, even when they deliberately order abortion pills and self-induce abortions at home.
When pro-life groups oppose equal protection bills and then claim their states are “abortion-free,” they don’t merely exaggerate. They sabotage.
Everyday anti-abortion Americans hear “abortion-free” and assume the fight is over. Activism slows. Political pressure fades. Donations and support shift elsewhere. Meanwhile organizations that should be pressing for equal protection instead suppress the only laws that would actually end abortion.
In the meantime, abortion continues unabated — simply moved from clinics to living rooms.
The pro-life establishment has redefined victory to fit what it has achieved, not what it claims to seek. It has declared victory over a substitute target — abortion clinics — while the killing of preborn children continues through abortion pills and interstate travel.
RELATED: Why the pro-life movement fails without a Christian worldview
wildpixel via iStock/Getty Images
Demanding honesty
Americans who oppose abortion deserve honesty from the organizations claiming to represent them.
If abortion can still be performed legally in a state through mail-order pills, that state is not “abortion-free.” If abortion numbers rise rather than fall, victory has not arrived. If pro-life groups oppose laws that would make abortion illegal for everyone, they owe the public an explanation.
Abolishing abortion requires equal protection under the law: making the killing of any human being illegal for everyone, without exception or compromise.
Until major pro-life organizations support that principle, their claims of creating “abortion-free” states remain not just premature but dishonest.
The preborn babies murdered under the cover of our laws deserve more than semantic victories. They deserve equal protection — and Americans who oppose abortion deserve leaders honest enough to admit when that goal remains unmet.
Nash Keen’s life proves the unborn deserve the law’s protection
Nash Keen holds the Guinness World Record for the most premature infant to survive outside the womb. Born at just 21 weeks’ gestation, Nash’s story forces us to grapple with an unsettling reality: In 29 states and Washington, D.C., the law would have permitted his abortion for at least another week.
At 21 weeks, abortionists commonly use dilation and extraction. Many call it a dismemberment abortion, and the term fits. The procedure requires pulling the child apart.
We’ve made real progress since the Dobbs decision. Thirteen states, including my home state of West Virginia, protect life from the moment of conception.
A Sopher clamp — a metal tool with sharp, serrated jaws — grasps a limb, the torso, or the head. The abortionist twists and tears the body piece by piece. The child has a beating heart and can feel pain. Arms and legs are ripped from the torso. The spine snaps. The skull is crushed so it can pass through the cervix. Blood and tissue are suctioned out. Then the abortionist reassembles the remains on a tray to confirm nothing is left behind.
This barbarity happens tens of thousands of times each year in the United States.
Consider the contrast. At 21 weeks, doctors and nurses fought to keep Nash alive. At the same stage of development, in other hospitals and clinics across the country, medical professionals ended the lives of other babies.
What separates those children? No coherent answer exists because no meaningful difference exists. Every child — born and unborn — bears God-given dignity and deserves the protection of our laws.
This year, Nash will turn 2. His survival, as rare as it is, reveals why so many Americans fight for life — and why we will win.
I plan to do everything I can to protect the most vulnerable among us. That’s why I’m proud to co-sponsor the Life at Conception Act, which aligns federal policy with scientific reality: Life begins at conception, and the law should protect it.
Policymakers must also do more to support mothers and fathers raising children. If we aim — as we should — to end abortion, our laws must protect the unborn and make it easier to raise a family in America.
RELATED: New York caves on forcing nuns and churches to fund abortion after knockout SCOTUS ruling
Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images
That’s why I have introduced legislation to give low-income families more flexibility to choose the child-care option that fits their situation.
I have also introduced legislation to eliminate marriage penalties that discourage single parents from marrying.
And I have also introduced a bill to close a loophole so women who choose not to return to work after giving birth cannot be forced to reimburse an employer for health insurance premiums from the year they delivered.
Similarly I support legislation that would hold fathers accountable for pregnancy costs as part of child support. I supported expanding the Child Tax Credit in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and I advocate extending the credit to cover the months of pregnancy.
We’ve made real progress since the Dobbs decision. Thirteen states, including my home state of West Virginia, protect life from the moment of conception. In Congress, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act finally defunds big-abortion providers.
The fight has only begun. As long as I’m in public service, I will work to protect every life from the moment of conception — and to ensure federal policy puts the American family first.
