The pro-life movement has been working, praying, and waiting impatiently for the day Roe v. Wade would be relegated to the trash heap of history. On Jan. 22, 1973, seven of nine Supreme Court Justices created a brand new constitutional right known as a “woman’s right to privacy.” This mysterious right that is not mentioned anywhere in the wording of the Constitution apparently can be found in the “penumbras” (zones created in the spaces where certain amendments overlap) and therefore carry the same weight as the actual words on the page.
The legal groundwork for this unique and bizarre interpretation of the meaning of words based on shared space between amendments began in 1965 when the Supreme Court considered Griswold v. Connecticut. Justice William O. Douglas coined the phrase — and the Supreme Court officially left a world where words mean things based solely on their understood definitions and took into consideration the cumulative effect of the overlapping spaces surrounding those words. There is a Greek word for that … hogwashamai.
Roe not only wiped away all of the laws in every state that protected life in the womb, it set a trimester system for any limitations that could be legally placed on abortion. In the first trimester, a woman could abort her baby at any time for any reason. In the second trimester, states could impose “reasonable restrictions” on abortion that supported the health of the mother, but bans were prohibited. States were allowed to ban abortions beginning with the third trimester.
The pro-life movement began in late 1974 into 1975, but it didn’t gain widespread evangelical support until the late ’70s and early ’80s as the Moral Majority and Ronald Reagan’s landslide election in 1980 moved the country to the right. Nominations to the Supreme Court went from being largely a perfunctory, mundane affair to an all-out war based on the candidate’s view of abortion. The pro-life community hoped that Supreme Court appointments would lead to the overturning of Roe. However, Casey upheld the central ruling of Roe but allowed states to pass additional abortion laws as long as they did not present an “undue burden” on the mother. President Trump transformed the current Supreme Court by appointing three conservative, pro-life justices. Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett may prove to be the justices pro-life evangelicals have been praying for, who will stand up for the truth, overturning Roe and Casey. If this happens, the Church must be prepared to do three things.
First, we must be prepared to face the wrath of the pro-abortion movement. Many of their leaders have promised a “summer of rage” should Roe be overturned. Already, we have seen churches, pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, and even Supreme Court justices attacked by pro-abortion radicals. We must face these threats with courage, refuse to be intimidated, and refrain from lashing out in anger at those who would attack us.
Second, we must be prepared to support crisis pregnancy centers and other pro-life organizations who work with women who are abortion-minded. We must be ready to provide services and encouragement to women who believe they are in a crisis pregnancy.
Finally, the Church must become more active in supporting foster care and adoption options. If Christians would step up and open their homes, we could make real gains in providing homes as places of transition for children whose mothers chose life. We must also be willing to adopt and assist those ministries that provide adoption services.
Let us pray that Roe becomes nothing more than a horrible memory in our history. Let us prepare for a world where every life is welcome as we continue to advocate and speak the truth about life to a world fascinated by death.