Unique: A pro-life lawyer who helped work on the case before the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade said that “all lives are valuable, no matter how short” as he reflected on the decision on its second anniversary.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Erin Hawley said the Supreme Court reaffirmed on June 24, 2022 that states and their people “ultimately have the ability to protect life” and that the court was “very clear that there is no fundamental right to abortion in the Constitution.”
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decisionThe Dobbs case, which overturned the 1973 decision Roe v. Wade two years earlier and the 1992 decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey, allowed states to make their own laws regarding abortion. The Dobbs case was inspired by a Mississippi law that banned most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
“In fact, when the 14th Amendment was enacted in 1868, almost every state at every level criminalized abortion,” Hawley told Fox News Digital. “So the court actually made clear that there wasn’t a fundamental right to abortion in the Constitution from way back, and that Roe made a mistake by enacting it through judicial fiat. And in the end, people in states can choose to protect life.”
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Erin Hawley speaks to the media as she departs the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on March 26, 2024 (Getty Images)
“Dobbs made it clear that there is no constitutional right to abortion in the Constitution, it never existed,” Hawley said. “It was illegitimate from the start, and that means people can and do protect life, and we’re seeing these debates play out all across the country.”
Hawley, who serves as senior counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom and vice president of the Center for Life and Regulatory Practice, said there have been “some great progress” since the Dobbs case was decided two years ago.
A total of 41 states have enacted it Restrictions on abortionHowever, many states have exceptions for rape, incest, and risk to the mother’s health, and every state with an abortion ban includes an exception for risk to the mother’s life. There are 14 states with a near-total ban on abortion and 27 states with restrictions based on the length of pregnancy, including three states with a six-week ban.
In states that have abortion bans, there are also laws to support new mothers during and after pregnancy.
“Many states have taken steps to protect life,” said Hawley, who is also the wife of GOP Missouri Senator Josh Hawley. “In addition, states that have protected life with their laws have really expanded opportunities for empowerment for women. In fact, every state that has enacted laws to protect life has increased support for pregnant and new mothers, some by hundreds of millions of dollars in aid annually, and I think that’s a powerful example of how pro-life states are serving women and children, not just during pregnancy, but afterward as well.”
Pro-life activists turned to Washington, D.C. and other cities across the country over the weekend ahead of the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision to advocate for abortion restrictions, as despite no abortion protections at the federal level, Democratic-led states still allow women to obtain abortions and some states have even passed laws following the Supreme Court ruling that make abortion access safer for women in their state and women traveling from other states to obtain abortions.
The National March for Life is also held each year in January around the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which was decided by the Supreme Court on January 22, 1973.
Hawley said the March for Life remains important, as does any state advocacy or effort to communicate to the American public the “value of life.” He said science shows that life begins at conception and he and his colleagues at the Alliance Defending Freedom believe “life is valuable no matter how small or how fragile it may be,” adding that “the value of a human life does not depend on its size.”
He said, “After the Dobbs decision, the American people finally have the opportunity to accept the reality that every life matters, no matter how small.”
Now, Americans have a chance to vote on their beliefs about abortion through ballot measures. Voters in several states have voted on these ballot measures over the past two years, and other states have ballot initiatives up for election this November in which voters will have the opportunity to decide the fate of abortion access in their states.
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Senator Josh Hawley and his wife Erin Hawley wait in line to cast their vote on Election Day on November 6, 2018 in Columbia, Missouri. (Michael Thomas/Getty Images)
Hawley emphasized the importance of “changing hearts and minds” on the topic of abortion restrictions, saying that he believed the pro-life movement must “continue to support women and show them that they have other options and that these options can empower both them and their unborn child.”
The #WeCount survey released last month found that despite abortion bans in states, the number of abortions has not decreased, as women receive abortion pills in the mail from states that have laws to protect prescribers. And a new study by the Guttmacher Institute found that women in states with abortion bans are traveling to other states for the procedure.
He said, “The pro-life movement really needs to convince the American public that all lives are valuable, no matter how short.” He added that before the Dobbs decision, polls showed that most people thought Roe went too far, believing “babies should have received protection early in pregnancy, even though Roe allowed that to happen.”
Last year, a Texas woman made an unsuccessful legal attempt to obtain a court exception to the state’s abortion ban to abort her fetus, which had a low survival rate, citing concerns that carrying the pregnancy to term could affect her health and her ability to have more children. The woman, Katie Cox, ultimately left the state to get an abortion.
There have also been other legal challenges against state abortion restrictions claiming there is a lack of clarity on when physicians can legally perform abortions in a medical emergency, though guidelines were recently released by the state medical board in Texas attempting to provide clarity to medical professionals on when they can perform the procedure without fear of consequences.
Hawley said the state’s abortion law clarifies when a doctor can legally perform an abortion to save the life of the mother.
“The Supreme Court is deciding at this point to leave this decision up to the discretion of the doctor,” Hawley said. “As long as the doctor’s actions are objectively discretionary according to his or her professional medical judgment, there is no reason the doctor should violate a state law.”
Pro-life campaigners celebrate outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC on June 24, 2022. (OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)
“Every state in the country has a law that allows lifesaving procedures from the definition of abortion, every state allows treatment for miscarriages, and every state allows treatment for ectopic pregnancies,” she added. “So this idea is actually a lie. Women deserve lifesaving treatment and should not be denied it, and no state has a pro-life law requiring that.”
Earlier this month, Supreme Court Government against In a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory approval process for the abortion drug mifepristone, the Court ruled that challengers to the agency did not have standing to sue on claims that the drug had an excessively high rate of complications.
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Hawley fought the case against the FDA.
“The FDA must be held accountable for its decision in 2021 to remove the most basic safeguards before a woman can take a high-risk abortion drug,” Hawley told Fox News Digital. “In 2021, what the agency did was remove the first in-person visit, which is the only opportunity to check for things like an ectopic pregnancy and to accurately assess gestational age. We very much hope and expect that the FDA will finally be held accountable.”
