Tuesday, Ohio became the most recent conservative state to defend a “right” to abortion. Only a year and a half ago, pro-lifers celebrated the legal significance of overturning Roe v. Wade. Since then, voters in state after state have protected the right to end innocent, preborn life. 

This is a “you are here” moment. Many people, even if personally opposed to abortion, are not willing to restrict anyone else’s freedom. This is part of the legacy of Roe: Americans learned an absolute allegiance to absolute autonomy along with what Joe Rigney called the “cruelty of untethered empathy.”  

Andrew Walker tweeted,  

We won a generational legal argument in overturning Roe, but the teaching effect of a fifty year law to etch a lie about what human life is and when it begins has reaped tragic and generational consequences to reverse.

Political strategies are so important: timing, wording on ballot initiatives, etc. But most of our work to defend life is upstream from the ballot box.