Matt Salisbury for National Review Online
How Pro-Life Doctors Can Go on Offense against the Latest Abortion Arguments
(Originally published on NationalReview.com January 19, 2024) As tens of thousands of pro-life activists parade past the Supreme Court for the March for Life today, one is reminded of the throngs who gathered there two short years ago during oral arguments for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe. More than 75 medical professionals, most of them doctors, rallied on the pro-life side in their white coats. The Associated Press decided to call those professionals “anti-abortion protestors wearing doctors’ uniforms,” erasing their credentials. Real medical professionals couldn’t be pro-life.
The medicalization of the abortion movement is one of the most significant and under-covered aspects of the debate. Pro-abortion activists have made stunning gains even in red states such as Ohio by presenting their argument as a matter of medical fact. The common feature of nearly every advertisement in the Ohio campaign supporting abortion was a doctor in a white coat, and these ads began early — a year before the first ballots were cast. We in the pro-life movement tried too late to counteract the narrative, and we failed.