When Protecting Life Loses Its Heart

By: Amy O’Donnell, originally published June 11, 2026, Society of St. Sebastian

For nearly fifty years under  Roe v. Wade , abortion was treated as a constitutional right deeply embedded in American law, politics, education, and culture. Organizations like Planned Parenthood aggressively promoted it, especially in low-income and minority communities. Meanwhile, pro-life advocates worked incrementally to save lives and build toward Roe’s reversal.

Laws such as parental notification and consent requirements, ultrasound mandates, informed consent rules, 20-week bans, and the 2003 federal partial-birth abortion ban steadily advanced protection. In Texas, the 2021 Heartbeat Act and Human Life Protection Act (a trigger law) took bold steps. These incremental measures saved lives and laid the groundwork for success when  Dobbs  overturned  Roe  in 2022.

This mirrors William Wilberforce’s decades-long campaign of incremental restrictions on the slave trade, which ultimately led to abolition. Progress against great moral evils rarely happens in one leap.​

The Abolitionist Approach​

A small faction known as “Abolish Abortion” groups have opposed mainstream pro-life efforts. They testified against all key Texas bills, including the Heartbeat Act and the Human Life Protection Act, placing themselves in lockstep with Planned Parenthood, which also opposed those bills. They proudly call themselves anti-pro-life and openly oppose our entire movement, including the pregnancy resource centers that are saving lives every day. They reject any law that does not criminalize women who obtain abortions.

Despite passing zero laws and saving zero lives through legislative efforts nationwide, the abolitionists attempt to blame pro-life organizations like Texas Alliance for Life for abortions happening illegally in Texas and for abortions occurring out of state, where our laws have no jurisdiction. The legislative record answers that charge definitively.

In contrast, Texas Alliance for Life and its partners have passed nearly 60 pro-life laws over 39 years. The Human Life Protection Act ended elective abortions in Texas once Dobbs took effect. Reported elective abortions (legally required to be reported through the Texas Health and Human Services Induced Termination of Pregnancy Report) dropped to zero, with only life-saving medical interventions remaining. Abortion providers now face severe penalties: up to 99 years in prison, $100,000 in civil penalties, and loss of medical license.

Consider what the abolitionist approach would mean for Texas. Under their equal protection framework, which lacks passage of any laws and whose supporters are on record opposing pro-life legislation currently protecting life, every surgical abortion provider would still be operating in Texas today. Planned Parenthood would still be performing abortions in Texas. And we would have no laws to hold illegal abortion providers or abusive partners who force abortion drugs on women accountable.

​ The Real Threat We Face

Post- Dobbs , the fight has shifted. The Biden-era FDA weakened safeguards on mifepristone, enabling widespread mail-order chemical abortions that bypass physician visits. Shield states protect out-of-state providers shipping pills into Texas. International organizations like Aid Access traffic abortion drugs from other countries entirely. The federal Comstock Act, passed in 1873, prohibits mailing or shipping any article, drug, or substance intended to produce abortion, yet it remains unenforced. Lawsuits like Louisiana v. FDA offer hope for restoring common-sense protections at the FDA.

Texas cannot constitutionally block women from traveling to other states for abortions, as Justice Kavanaugh noted in his Dobbs concurrence. Our focus must therefore remain on offering compassionate alternatives and building a culture where abortion is not just illegal but unthinkable. The better we do at supporting women facing unplanned pregnancies in our state, the less they will even consider driving out of state for an abortion, and the less they will consider ordering chemical abortion drugs from other states.​

Why Criminalizing Women Is Counterproductive​

The abolitionists believe criminalizing women is the silver bullet to ending abortion. They call it equal protection. Most people have no idea that in Texas, equal protection under this framework means a woman who has an abortion could face life in prison or the death penalty. The abolitionists do not lead with that. But when pressed, they have said on video that if that is where the law leads, so be it.

The same all-or-nothing demand contributed to Canada ending up with no abortion law at all, with abortion legal through all nine months and funded by taxpayers. We cannot afford to ignore that warning.

The practical consequences are just as serious. Criminalizing women shields abortion providers. To prosecute providers effectively, mothers must have immunity to testify. Targeting providers stops abortions. Targeting women leaves the industry intact elsewhere.

Pregnancy resource centers, which are saving lives right now, would be negatively impacted. Right now, pregnancy center directors tell us that abortion-minded women are walking through their doors, handing over the abortion pills, and choosing life. Right now, women who have already taken the first abortion pill are reaching out for reversal — and babies are being saved. Under the abolitionist approach, that stops. The frightened young woman with a pill in her hand does not walk into a pregnancy center if doing so could send her to prison. The woman who regrets taking an abortion pill halfway through does not pick up the phone if the call itself could be used as evidence against her. The woman seeking post-abortion healing stays silent and stays broken. Their policy does not end abortion. It ends the lifelines and the progress we have made.   

Women experiencing complications from illegal abortion drugs will not seek medical care if they fear criminal prosecution. This is especially dangerous in our current chemical abortion drug landscape, where pills are shipped without a physician visit to rule out ectopic pregnancy, Rh negativity, and gestational age of the unborn baby. Each of these risk factors increases the complication rates exponentially.

​ The Path Forward

Texas Alliance for Life remains committed to protecting unborn children from conception while supporting women in crisis pregnancies. We must:

• Advance strong enforcement against illegal abortion providers and traffickers of chemical abortion drugs.
• Press for federal enforcement of the Comstock Act to stop the illegal pipeline of abortion drugs into pro-life states.
• Oppose criminal penalties for women who seek or obtain abortions, so that mothers may freely access pregnancy resource centers, seek abortion pill reversal, and find post-abortion healing.
• Support increased funding for and expand access to pregnancy centers, adoption services, maternal health programs, and post-abortion healing.
• Promote education that affirms the dignity of every innocent human life from conception and empowers women to choose life.

It is critical to reach the women and communities who have been told for decades that abortion was their only path forward. We must elevate the value of parenting, the beauty of motherhood, and the strength of family. We must tell women that they can have their babies, planned or unplanned, and still achieve great things. No woman should feel she must choose between her child and her future.

The abolitionist equal protection approach is not tenable, and its advocates have not reckoned with what pursuing it would actually cost. It has produced no laws, only opposition to the measures that ended legal abortion in Texas. Incremental progress has saved lives and remains the proven path. We must defend it clearly, reject division, and continue building a culture of life.

We have Texas. They have nothing to show for their approach but opposition to the very laws that ended legal abortion in our state. That contrast speaks for itself, and it is the case we must keep making clearly and confidently at every opportunity.

Amy O’Donnell is Executive Director of Texas Alliance for Life.

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