As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear a Mississippi abortion case that could challenge the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, pro-life groups are rolling out a series of campaigns to educate Americans about abortion.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for the Mississippi Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case on December 1. The case centers around the 2018 Gestational Age Act, which restricted abortion to the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, except in cases to save the life of the mother or in cases of poor prenatal diagnosis. (Intentionally killing a preborn child is never medically necessary.) The Court will have to consider whether or not states can enact pre-viability restrictions on abortion, a decision that could redefine or undermine Roe’s standard for fetal viability. In anticipation of the Court hearing oral arguments for Dobbs, multiple pro-life groups — Created Equal, the Pro-Life Action League, Citizens for a Pro-Life Society — have assembled to form the Overturn Roe coalition.
Members involved in the coalition plan to gather outside the Supreme Court as well as other federal sites and government buildings across the country to advocate for Roe to be overturned. The groups will display banners bearing the message, “Abortion takes a human life” over highway overpasses. Already, there are 75 rally events and highway banner campaigns scheduled to take place in 26 states, with new locations being added daily.
Eric Scheidler, Executive Director of the Pro-Life Action League, told Live Action News that one of the campaign’s goals is to let the Supreme Court know, “We don’t accept this, we’ve never accepted it and that we have got their back and we want them to know that there’s a massive movement out there among the American people that is ready to receive an overturning of this horrible precedent.”
“This is a country that’s supposed to be virtuous,” said Scheidler. “And since 1973, we have allowed our society to be more and more and more founded on the slaughter of innocent children.” Scheidler went on to say that the impact of legalized abortion on the culture has been “horribly corrosive.”
“Women who have been told your freedom, your liberty, your pursuit of happiness depends on your ability to destroy the life of your own child — that’s a horrible message to send to women,” he said. “It’s a horrible message to send to a man that you can get out of the responsibilities of fatherhood, the responsibilities that you take on when you get involved in a sexual relationship with a woman.”
Scheidler emphasized that the upcoming Dobbs case is “not just something happening in Washington, D.C., far away in the capital for the lawyers and the experts and the court watchers, the policy wonks. This is something, this is a moment for every pro-life American to get involved, to be a part of making history, really inviting our fellow pro-life Americans to really be an active part of this historic moment.”
READ: What does a 15-week-old human being in the womb look like?
The Susan B. Anthony List, another prominent pro-life group, has also seized the opportunity to educate Americans about abortion and life inside the womb in anticipation of the Court hearing oral arguments for the Mississippi abortion case.
“Science continually affirms the humanity of unborn children. By 15 weeks, children in the womb have fully formed noses and lips, eyelids and eyebrows; they can suck their thumb, and even feel pain,” Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement.
According to The Hill, the pro-life group announced a $2.5 million television and digital ad buy. As part of its $10 million ad campaign, the Susan B. Anthony List will air three ads on broadcast and cable stations in Washington, D.C. on major networks, such as CNN, Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNBC, and Newsmax. Each of the ads is reportedly one minute in length, featuring the stories of a woman who was adopted, as well as an OB-GYN and a family practitioner. During the weeks of November 17 and November 29, voters in nine states will also receive the ads via text and digital platforms.
“[…W]e want to really encourage the pro-life movement to feel like the future is filled with promise and to be prepared for the very hard work that will fall to us if the Supreme Court does overturn that precedent,” Scheidler said. “Because then it returns to the states, you know, people then have a responsibility to, state by state by state, restore legal protection to unborn children.”
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