In The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America, Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer explore the unique political and legal circumstances that resulted in the Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade. They detail the political twists and turns leading to that decision and are surprisingly sympathetic to the motivations and work of pregnancy centers and their volunteers. Ultimately, however, the book’s authors make the same error as did Roe: they assume that Dobbs must be wrong because access to abortion is necessary for women to flourish.
Dias and Lerer, both correspondents for The New York Times, begin their book in a surprising place. They define abortion not according to the revisionist trope of the day—a sterile health care procedure devoid of moral implications—but by its Latin root, abortire. Far from aseptic, abortire is pregnant with meaning. Its definition: “to disappear, to be lost, to miscarry” (preface).
Abortire brings into stark relief what happens when a child is aborted—she disappears, she’s lost. She’ll never have a chance to take her first step, to dissolve into giggles, or to find joy in small things. And her mom will never have a chance to delight in her God-given uniqueness.
Abortire might also describe an ideology that has lost its way. It’s a creed that sold out to the idea that a woman’s worth can be ascertained from her W-2 or the initials beside her name. The post-Dobbs world offers America a chance to do better.
Roe Was Wrong
There’s little debate that Roe was wrongly decided as a matter of constitutional law. Countless pro-abortion scholars have criticized the decision. For example, in 1973 (the year Roe was decided), Yale Law professor John Hart Ely said the case was “not constitutional law” at all and that it hardly gave any “sense of an obligation to try to be.” Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe referred to Roe’s reasoning as a “verbal smokescreen.” In his dissent in the case, justice Byron White described the majority decision as an “exercise in raw judicial power.” Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg criticized Roe for interrupting the democratic process.
Given that a right to abortion is found nowhere in the Constitution, why the staying power? Why did Roe endure for nearly 50 years?
Dias and Lerer argue abortion was “bound up with the story of the advancement of women for the past century” (13). They noted that Roe was “hailed as the crowning achievement of liberal feminism, instantly reshaping decades of law and life to follow” and that the decision “changed how millions of women and girls imagined their lives, offering the ability to control their reproductive futures” (13).
The post-Dobbs world offers America a chance to do better.
They’re not the only ones to think this way. Roe’s seven male authors agreed. They worried that motherhood “forced” on women “a distressful life and future.” The plurality in Planned Parenthood v. Casey upheld Roe’s fundamental right to abortion because they viewed abortion as necessary for women to achieve social and economic equality. Even today, when contraception is widely available with consumer cost and failure rate approaching zero, the three dissenters in Dobbs argued that Roe must be preserved because abortion is necessary for women to flourish.
Roe Was Based on an Impoverished View of Womanhood
These views buy into the false narrative that women need abortion to obtain equality. But as 240 women scholars and professionals explained in an amicus brief filed in Dobbs, women are fully capable of being mothers and having fulfilling lives.
There’s evidence that abortion forces women to become more like men. At a recent White Dudes for Harris event, the U.S. secretary of transportation, Pete Buttigieg, pushed Kamala Harris for president because “men are more free” when abortion is easily accessible. He said the quiet part out loud, acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, abortion isn’t all about a woman’s choice.
Indeed, most women who have an abortion don’t do so from a position of empowerment. One survey performed by the Human Coalition showed the vast majority of women who obtained an abortion said they’d have chosen to parent if circumstances were different. In another survey, two-thirds of women were ambivalent about their abortion. Nearly a quarter said their abortion was either coerced or unwanted. In addition, an astounding 60 percent of women said they’d have preferred to give birth if they’d had greater emotional support or financial security.
The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute confirms these numbers. It recently published a study showing that 73 percent of women said they chose abortion for economic reasons, at least in part. Yet another study showed that more than half of women who had an abortion said they’re unsure they made the right choice and that many suffer mental and physical consequences. A mere 4 percent said they felt more in control of their lives post-abortion.
These statistics are heartbreaking because they suggest many women have an abortion because they believe they have no other option.
Paternalistic Solutions
Abortion makes pregnancy a woman’s problem, as Buttigieg’s comments reinforce. Ryan Anderson argues in Tearing Us Apart that having abortion as an inexpensive option allows for a culture that blames women for having children. The accessibility of abortion on demand undermines the motivation to meet the emotional and financial needs of pregnant mothers. They could have sought an abortion, after all.
Take one example. The elite law firms where I once worked rushed to provide abortion to their employees when Dobbs was decided. They offered to fly women to states where abortion is legal, promising employees the freedom to end an unborn life. There was nary a word about free diapers, paid time off, or affordable childcare. The message was clear: Women attorneys are most profitable to the firm when they’re free from other responsibilities.
Yet Dias and Lerer identify the fundamental issue involved in the debate over abortion. It isn’t just about access to abortion but about “what it means to be a woman in America” (preface).
There’s no question the world women faced in the 1970s needed to change. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor graduated third in her class from Stanford Law School (behind chief justice William Rehnquist, her once-suitor). Her job prospects: legal secretary.
The answer to this—which Dias and Lerer say became part of America’s identity—was given by seven men (many of them elderly) on the Supreme Court. Those justices viewed abortion as necessary to prevent the distressing life of motherhood. That view is as impoverished as it is paternalistic.
Dobbs Is Born
The political twists and turns that Dias and Lerer painstakingly detail show an unusual convergence of events. Donald Trump was an unexpected nominee and then an unexpected president. He published a list of potential Supreme Court nominees. And he used that list. He appointed three justices committed to the original meaning of the Constitution.
Meanwhile, single mom turned nurse turned legislator Becky Currie sponsored and passed a Mississippi law that prohibited abortion (with exceptions for rape, incest, and danger to the mother’s life) after 15 weeks. The only abortion clinic in the state challenged that law in federal court. Mississippi elected pro-life Lynn Fitch as attorney general, who then hired Scott Stewart, an experienced appellate lawyer and former clerk to justice Clarence Thomas, as her solicitor general. Fitch and her team courageously asked the Supreme Court to not only limit but overrule Roe.
And then the Supreme Court actually did away with Roe.
Dias and Lerer blame the downfall of Roe on a conservative conspiracy. Others might call this remarkable series of events divine intervention.
Dias and Lerer suggest it was somehow wrong for pro-life advocates to urge their elected officials to nominate and confirm originalist jurists to the Supreme Court. But the political power to nominate and confirm is the only meaningful check on justices who are appointed for life. Roe wrongly constitutionalized abortion. Dobbs returned the issue to the people. That’s called democracy.
Challenge for the Church
Tragically, the number of abortions has increased after the Dobbs decision. According to a survey by Care Net (an organization of 1,100 pregnancy centers), 4 in 10 women who have an abortion attend church at least somewhat regularly.
These women paint a disappointing picture of their church experience. Only 7 percent said they discussed their decision with anyone at church. Three-fourths said the church had “no influence” on their decision to abort. Only 41 percent of churchgoing women believed churches were prepared to help them with an unplanned pregnancy. And nearly two-thirds believed the church would react judgmentally toward a single mother.
If women don’t feel supported by the church, they’ll often go to abortion facilities.
If women don’t feel supported by the church, they’ll often go to abortion facilities.
Christians should lament the rise in abortion after the fall of Roe. We can (rightly) blame the Biden-Harris administration for promoting easy access to high-risk abortion drugs by mail. But the Care Net survey tells us this story is incomplete. We must do more. We must tell women they matter more than their mistakes. That’s the gospel message, after all. And we must assure them the church will stand beside them as they choose life, affirm their bravery, and promise to provide the village it takes to raise their children.
The good news is that the church is well positioned. Most women choose abortion because they don’t see any other way, and many of these women attend church at least monthly.
Dias and Lerer end where they begin, with the conclusion that the post-Dobbs reality “will define American women . . . for years to come” (preface). One can only hope they’re right, but not in the negative way they mean. That reality should be one where every woman is valued for her inherent worth and where every woman has the support and resources she needs to choose life. The Fall of Roe is a reminder that if the church operates out of the truth of the gospel, the hope of Christ, and the joy of community, the new reality can empower women.
The Gospel Coalition