For more than 50 years, the American pro-life movement fought a primarily federal game of electing U.S. senators to later weigh in on Supreme Court nominations. At the same time, in select states around the country, strategic legislation moved toward the high court, for the hope of reconsidering the human rights injustice of Roe v. Wade. When that decades-long struggle came to a head in the summer of 2022 as the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe, too many tried to say that the battle was over. But it’s just beginning.
While abortion is always federal as national regulations, mandates, and taxpayer dollars support it, the states are clearly also at play. What’s new now in this Post-Roe era is a necessary fight at the state level to address foxes in the pro-life henhouse: weak-on-life Republicans who gleefully campaigned and fundraised off a perceived commitment to defending life but who refused to act when the time came.
Students for Life Action (SFLAction) has worked around the country as America’s state houses now address abortion without Roe’s roadblock. But when pro-life words don’t result in pro-life deeds, today’s committed GOP voter wants better options.
Case in point: the effort in South Carolina to hold accountable those who undercut the Human Life Protection Act, which would have protected life when biology teaches us it begins, at conception.
The historic legislation was filibustered and blocked by a handful of Republicans – dubbed the Sister Senators by an exuberant New York Times - who sided with the pro-abortion Democrats.
So, SFLAction got to work and did something about it.
In the June 2024 South Carolina Republican primary election, SFLAction deployed staff, students, and resources to the state, resulting in over 37,000 pieces of mail, almost 130,000 personal text messages, more than 51,000 phone calls, and thousands of doors knocked.
And just like that, the ranks of the Sister Senators were decimated – State Sens. Katrina Shealy, Penry Gustafson, and Sandy Senn were all defeated by SFLAction supported pro-life candidates. Needless to say, they weren’t happy; even more so when our staff showed up to their offices to drop off moving boxes.
It’s not just in South Carolina where we’re fighting this battle. During the Wyoming primaries, SFLAction exposed the records and views of several anti-life candidates, and 11 pro-life candidates won their respective races.
Of the Republican incumbents sent packing, one was Wyoming State Representative Ember Oakley, one of Joe Biden’s favorite Republicans who was a ringleader on the effort to gut SFLAction’s Chemical Abortion Prevention Act when it was still in committee. Another was former Speaker Al Sommers, who as Majority Leader helped deny advancement of our bill. He was denied a move up to the state Senate.
The message should be loud and clear: the pro-life vote isn’t going to be taken for granted anymore. If an elected official stands against Life or betrays our movement, we’re going to pack their bags for them.
It’s a necessary lesson that dozens of other politicians have learned this year. In total, across 156 competitive primary races where Students for Life Action was involved and educating voters, 86 unapologetically pro-life candidates won – including the defeat of dozens of incumbents. And we did it at a cost of $1,179 per candidate.
It also serves as a lesson for the D.C. swampy consultants. Not only is LIFE a winning issue, the grassroots activist model works; the incumbents aren’t invincible; and the primary-focused recipe to their defeat can be replicated in an affordable way across strategically targeted states and districts.
But winning primary races is only the start. There is less than a week until the election, and numerous swing states are facing tough abortion ballot or Constitutional amendment votes.
The balance of power for legislatures and statehouses depends on winning specific seats, and even speakership and leadership posts are within reach for pro-life champions. Likewise, hotly contested U.S. Senate races involving strong pro-life candidates and crucial electoral states for the presidency demand our attention.
That’s why SFLAction is focused on 12 key states as part of an even bigger general election push, with an agility and innovation that the behemoths of the pro-abortion industry or the ambivalent GOP establishment do not employ.
Regardless of the results on November 5th, securing primary wins will matter more than people realize. The Republican caucuses taking power in legislative chambers across the country next year will be more pro-life than ever before, leading to greater opportunities to pass our critical pro-life legislation. And those in office from state house to Congress are learning that pro-life words are not enough.
Abortion is the most important human rights battle of our time, and it’s not over. Those fights get easier when the right people are in the right place for such a time as this.
Protecting preborn babies and their mothers from the false choice and barbarism of abortion is righteous and worth all the blood, sweat, and tears. To join us in this work, the Pro-Life Generation will hold accountable those who claim to care. The issue is not whether a candidate has an R for Republican next to their name. We vote P – Pro-Life First.
Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action, with more than 1,500 groups on middle and high school, college and university, medical and law school campuses in all 50 states. Follow her @KristanHawkins or subscribe to her podcast, “Explicitly Pro-Life.”