This June will mark four years since the Supreme Court handed down the landmark decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The ruling changed the abortion landscape in the country by sending the issue back to the states. Both sides in the abortion debate predicted specific long-term outcomes. Four years on, one thing is certain: we are not a pro-life nation. At least not yet.
Believing that a Supreme Court ruling would quickly shift the culture to become majority pro-life was always a foolish assumption. Laws are necessary. And Dobbs righted a moral and legal wrong. But the uphill battle is harder than previously anticipated. The pro-life message and mission remain the same.
There is no point in watering down the truth of life in the womb to make it more appealing for public consumption. However, the stark reality is that women of all ages (and men, for that matter) still believe abortion is the answer to “problem” pregnancies. This mindset existed before Dobbs and will exist after, regardless of what laws are passed. A predatory abortion industry bears much of the blame.
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One metric that shows how far we’ve come in the years since Dobbs is the annual number of abortions.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, “there were an estimated 1,126,000 clinician-provided abortions in the United States in 2025.” This is a bit higher than the 2024 figure, which was estimated at 1,124,000 abortions by clinicians. What is even more telling is that the number of telehealth abortions increased in states that have total abortion bans. In 2024, there were 74,000 telehealth abortions in these states. In 2025, the number increased to 91,000.
The abortion industry doesn’t see women in these states as needing life-affirming help to navigate a difficult time. Instead, they see them as desperate clients. Shield laws actually aid the industry in providing telehealth abortion services to women who live in states with total bans. Kimya Forouzan, a state policy adviser for the Guttmacher Institute, says as much: “Shield laws have become a cornerstone of the US abortion access landscape. By protecting interstate telehealth care, these policies help ensure that many abortion seekers, regardless of their address, can obtain the care they need and deserve. In an increasingly fragmented environment, strong protections for providers, patients and support networks are more important than ever.”
The aforementioned reality remains. The falling fertility rate points directly to either a complete lack of interest in parenthood among the younger generation or a delayed start. Parenthood is simply not a priority in an increasingly selfish society. The navel-gazing is a feature, not a bug, of America in 2026. And it’s been this way for quite a while. There are other factors at play, but the effect is the same. Life in the womb is not more cherished now because of the Supreme Court’s decision in 2022. In fact, the combined shield laws and telehealth provisions show unborn life is neglected as much as it was before. This is the disappointing but not surprising state of things.
As conservatives and Republicans look at the current climate, it is easy to feel discouraged. And to a point, we should be, if only to spur the pro-life movement into continued action. What we can’t do is view the reality before us and determine that the pro-life mission is an antiquated one. We can’t look at how the issue affects elections and conclude it’s too harmful, and therefore must relent. That Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey were overturned doesn’t mean an end to the journey. In many ways, it was just the beginning. Because the real work of changing hearts and minds could finally begin, untethered by so-called precedent.
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These new avenues to get an abortion present new challenges for both the movement and a Republican Party that seems less interested in being pro-life. If GOP politicians and their supporters don’t stick firm to protecting life in the womb, then who will?
It is imperative that we do not compromise our values just because contemporary conditions are worse than we expected. This goes for the average voter all the way up to the present-day leader of the party. Dobbs was always going to change things. And it is up to the pro-life movement to accept the fallout and respond accordingly.