Following the June 2022 landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade (1973,) supporters of abortion rights predicted a dystopian Handmaid’s Tale-esque future for America in which abortions would be made illegal in short order. Pro-life activists, in the wake of the largest judicial victory for the political Right in several decades, had high hopes that abortion would be banned completely in Republican-led states, and the nation’s staggering nearly one million abortions per year would soon decline dramatically.

It turns out that the Left’s fears were unjustified and the Right resembled the dog who finally caught the car. Studies show that abortions rose nationally in the first three months of 2024; reaching the highest number in over a decade. According to the pro-abortion Society for Family Planning quarterly #WeCount report that tracks abortion numbers, the main reason for the increase in total abortions are the new laws passed in Democratic states that protect abortionists who use telemedicine to prescribe abortion pills to women in states that banned the practice, or restricted abortion access post-Dobbs. The sharpest increase in abortion numbers came from states such as Illinois and New Mexico which border states like Texas- which banned nearly all abortions, and Arizona, who’s abortion ban was triggered by the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The ‘right’ to kill the unborn is not just on the rise in states where you would expect pro-abortion legislation to succeed. Voters in Kansas, Montana, Kentucky, and Ohio, all Republican-controlled states that voted overwhelmingly for former President Trump in the 2020 presidential election, all enacted hard-Left abortion measures following Dobbs. Perhaps the most shocking development was the decision by Montanans to reject the Born Alive Infant Protection Act that was on the ballot in the 2022 midterms. The law would have mandated that babies born alive after an unsuccessful late-term abortion must receive life-saving care. The text of the failed measure reads: “Born-alive infant protection. (1) A born-alive infant, including an infant born in the course of an abortion, must be treated as a legal person under the laws of the state, with the same rights to medically appropriate and reasonable care and treatment.” If voters in one of the most conservative states in the union rejected mandating care for infants born alive, it is unlikely that the pro-life movement is set up for any major electoral victories in the foreseeable future.

According to The Associated Press NORC- Center for Public Affairs Research, support for abortion is on the rise nationally in general. 60% of Americans believe that their state should allow abortions if a woman wants to end her pregnancy for any reason. Pre-Dobbs, that number was consistently around 50%. Only about half of respondents who favor abortion rights said that their state should stop allowing abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy, after the point of viability. 80% of Americans oppose a national abortion ban, a measure proposed by Republicans for decades until former President Trump flipped on the issue, denouncing a federal ban.

“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state.” Trump said in a video posted on Truth Social in April. The Republican Party later scrubbed all language regarding protections for the unborn from their official 2024 platform.

Despite the rhetoric, and breathless fear mongering by the press in order to activate left-wing voters, the pro-life movement is no closer to ending, or even reducing the nation’s abortion rate than they were when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Allowing states to set their own abortion policy revealed a far more radically pro-abortion electorate than previously thought. The pro-life Right has their work cut out for them in an increasingly secular and culturally left-leaning country.