A Collection of Thoughts on the Midterms
LAUREN POPE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:
Although imperfectly articulated, several newly elected Democrats have expressed willingness to work with the pro-life movement. They understand our desire to protect the unborn and are willing to help build a culture that is more protecting of life. Now, hear me, these same Democrats will very likely push for the loosening of abortion restrictions where they currently exist. I am not pretending that they are legislatively neutral, but on the wider question of actually reducing abortions, they can be our allies. They may not see abortion as the kind of evil that needs to be punished, but they do seem willing to regard it as a kind of bad thing worth taking steps to prevent.
The answer, the vision, is actually very simple: respect for the shared dignity of human life. That means working for policies that allow families to feel materially secure enough to bring a child into the world without fear of plummeting into poverty. It means safe, well funded schools. It means an end to paramilitary forces kidnapping families from bus stops. It means an end to forever wars that use drones to dump lava over huddled boys.
It means rebuilding trust within communities and an end to the politics of snark and hatred. Practically, working together means listening to one another in the spirit of good faith and taking accountability for harm. It also means repenting, whether secularly or religiously, of the pro-life moment’s decade-long embrace of consequentialism.
We, the pro-life movement, did evil so that good might come. This was a direct betrayal of our values and our ethics. Predictably, the good that came was a monkey’s paw scenario in which, yes, Roe was overturned, but the end result was more abortion than ever before. In the process we allowed for a radical form of cruelty to spread across the nation. I know, not all pro-lifers supported Trumpism, but the general cultural perception of us is that we are within the MAGA circle, and even those of us who are not must recognize that fact.
Rebuilding will require overcoming some frankly justified suspicions of us, but rebuild we must. The vulnerable must have champions, and the preborn are amongst the most vulnerable people on the planet. However, they’re not the only vulnerable people. This time, in the post-Trump wave of the pro-life movement, we must commit to fighting for all vulnerable people. Our friends in the Blue Tsunami — and they are our friends — stand ready to work with us as we advocate for the rights of so many oppressed groups. They will work with us to end abortion if we let them because so many who are pro-choice hate that any woman feels like it’s a necessary choice. Imagine a world where we have eliminated the pressures that corner women into having abortions. A world where a woman doesn’t have to choose between her job and her child or staying safe from domestic abuse or her child or her education and her child. These are things that the pro-life movement has long fought for, but with limited success because, frankly, they are in opposition to some Republican doctrine. They feel a bit too much like socialism. Well, to that I say, the Republican party has failed the pro-life movement. They’ve removed our cause from their party platform. They have abandoned us and made things actively harder for women and families. We do not owe them our loyalty.
MARIA OSWALT, CREATIVE DIRECTOR:
I have to be honest: there’s a part of me that wants to celebrate the blue wave. Yesterday’s election results were less an endorsement of Democratic policies than a clear rejection of Trumpism, and for me, there is much to celebrate in that. It’s a rejection of yet another war, a rejection of dehumanizing rhetoric, a rejection of the hypocrisy of politicians who say “love your neighbor” on Sunday and spend the rest of the week cheering on the masked abduction of hardworking neighbors, the extrajudicial executions of civilians, and the genocide in Gaza. The rejection of evil is something worth celebrating.
On top of that, I live in Georgia, where we just elected the first Black woman governor. That’s a milestone! She belongs to a group that wasn’t even allowed to vote until 1965 — in fact, I’m sure there are Georgians who voted for her yesterday who couldn’t freely vote 60 years ago either. All of that is worth celebrating.
But my celebration is restrained by the pricking of my conscience. When I entered the voting booth, I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Governor-elect Bottoms (or her opponent, Rick Jackson, for that matter). In the back of my mind, all I could see was baby Harriet’s open eye, soul-stirring even in death: https://paaunow.org/justiceforthefive/harriet
My conscience can’t ignore the dark side of the blue wave: the baby is quite literally being thrown out with the bathwater. With the Democrats taking control of Congress and Governor-elect Bottoms about to lead Georgia, I know what’s coming: a new wave of pro-choice policies. It’s already happened in Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia. They all try to dress it up in euphemistic language about reproductive healthcare and a woman’s right to choose, but I’ve seen the grisly reality of this “choice.”
I want better healthcare for women and a lower maternal mortality rate. I consider myself a feminist. I’m well aware of the difficulties of pregnancy and parenting, and I strongly believe the government should do more to help families thrive. I just can’t be convinced that the slaughter of innocent children in the womb will ever be justified. As New Wave Feminists says: our liberation can’t be bought with the blood of our children.
If you’ve never seen the reality of abortion, I urge you to put all your preconceived notions about this hot-topic debate aside and really, truly look. What “choice” looks like is thousands of tiny broken bodies, poisoned and dismembered and thrown aside. So many of the Democrats who won yesterday, including Governor-elect Bottoms, made their support of this violence a central pillar of their campaign platform. If they follow through and expand abortion, as I expect they will, it will be a blight on their legacies. “Love your neighbor” means loving your unborn neighbor, too.
JOHN WHITEHEAD, STAFF EDITOR:
The 2026 US midterms indicate that reports of the death of American democracy have been greatly exaggerated. The political party in control of the presidency and both houses of Congress has been dealt a major defeat by the opposition party. Despite concerns about President Trump interfering in the election; despite redistricting meant to favor the Republican party; despite huge amounts of money sunk into Republican campaigns, the party in power still lost control of the Congress in a free election.
This outcome is good news, to some degree. It means that the American political system is stronger than we might have feared. Also, Democratic control of Congress may provide a check on the unjust policies of the Trump administration, not least the ongoing war against Iran.
This outcome is also bad news, to some degree. Democratic control of Congress and many state governments puts Democrats in a much better position to pursue their own unjust policies, not least pro-abortion policies. Moreover, given the mixed record of the Democratic Party on war and peace, the Democrats may be lackluster at best in challenging the president’s hawkish policies.
Perhaps a federal government divided between two political parties is the best we can realistically hope for in the current partisan landscape. A divided government may check each party’s worst tendencies.
Nevertheless, I don’t want to be overly cynical or pessimistic. Free elections and nonviolent transfers of power are remarkable achievements that we should not take for granted. They are vastly superior alternatives to the kind of violent political change that historically has been all too common. As bitter—and bitterly disappointing—as American politics usually is, I am glad that our system can still produce such achievements.
DANE ROGERS, REHUMANISE UK:
I, on the one hand, view it as a relief that MAGA has taken some real losses at the polls. American rejection of the wars in Iran and ICE’s dehumanising lawless brutality are absolutely to be welcomed — though I don't wish to suggest Democrats on the whole come close to believing in the consistent life ethic, if they still believe in high levels of military, police and border control spending. Yet, at the same time, the ballot measures were (with the exception of Idaho) a calamity for prenatal humans and indicative of the wider public not really being there on understanding that violence is not the answer — with abortion in Virginia being more popular than same-sex marriage! The results were also, sadly evidence of complete callousness towards dysphoric trans youth that need access to HRT, who in every ballot measure other than Missouri‘s amendment 6 were thrown under the bus by conservatives. A wider pro-life culture includes suicide prevention, and puberty blockers and HRT are suicide and depression prevention for trans youth. Mercifully, there was no discussion of the legal expansion of assisted suicide or euthanasia at the ballot this year. The embryos killed by IVF never even got even the barest of mentions of protections — prenatal liberation here is entirely neglected at best, and their destruction has in truth been actively promoted by the Trump administration.
Missouri’s amendment 6 also showed that when abortion is paired with wider social conservatism on trans rights, it does not result in protections for prenatal humans. It only exposed the trans community to dehumanising narratives of being slanderously called sexual groomers and disordered — all while military presences in schools are simultaneously approved of, despite widespread sexual assault within the US military. The pro-life movement must reject the linking of anti-LGBTQ+ views with opposition to abortion. It does promote a culture of life, but expanding parental leave, making birth free, and preventing domestic abuse do (to say nothing of more radical and necessary measures to promote human equality such as banning evictions and full workplace democracy). Prenatal liberation can never be bought with attacks on transgender liberation; prenatal liberation must be paired with socialism, and redirecting funding from ICE, the military and policing into actually helping people with unplanned pregnancies, or left homeless by queerphobic parents. I appeal to those who want to see an LGBT-inclusive pro-life movement, to sign a open letter about this: https://sites.google.com/view/pro-life-letter
TIMOTHY KIRCHOFF, STAFF WRITER:
According to Gustavo Gutierrez, founder of liberation theology, poverty means an early and unjust death. Every time someone dies early and unjustly — every time someone dies in a way that we as a society could reasonably have prevented — it is an indictment against our society.
This is true of gun violence. It is true of healthcare access. It is true of the death penalty. It is true of deaths in immigration detention centers and all other deaths caused by our immigration regime. It is true of deaths caused by pollution and degradation of the environment. It is true of people whose lives are cut short by unsafe working conditions.
It is even more true when the early death comes to a child. It is true of people in other countries whose access to food or medicine was suddenly cut off by arbitrary changes to America's international aid system. It is true of the Iranian schoolgirls killed by an American missile and the rescue workers killed by the follow-up attack. It is also true of abortion. All of these deaths should weigh on our consciences because we are all responsible for them as members of the society in which they occur.
The question is not whether we are responsible for our neighbors. The question is how we live out that responsibility. The Republican Party's approach to so many of these issues has been somewhere between utter indifference to suffering and gleeful revelry in seeing that suffering inflicted. Even on abortion, they are not making a stand so much for human rights and the common good as for government power and their right to use it when and where they see fit. In other words, they have failed to take proper responsibility for addressing our society's poverty. They lost badly because they deserved it.
If the new Democratic majority takes responsibility and initiative with respect to fixing the many problems the current administration has neglected, exacerbated, or caused, then they will have — and deserve — more electoral success. The responsibility they take for reducing the prevalence of abortion in our society may not take the shape of legal restrictions, but if they earn my trust in every other respect, I will be much more inclined to trust them on this approach in practice, even if I continue to argue with them over principles.
BETH FOX, BOARD MEMBER:
I’m really not sure how to feel about the midterms. On one hand, many minority and progressive candidates won races in areas where there has never been someone of the ethnicity, race, gender, or political ideology in that office. That sort of diversity in our government fills me with hope. The increase in progressive representation in our legislature all means that the system of checks and balances may again work as it’s intended, turning the presidency back into a limited governmental authority. However, there’s also the great chance for political stalemates and government shutdowns which, while hard on everyone, are devastating to disabled individuals like me who rely on government support. Speaking of those supports, I am optimistic that the new congress may actually make real efforts to improve things like social security, Medicare/medicaid, SNAP, and other assistance programs that have taken a huge hit recently. Sadly, in my area I didn’t have any candidates for senate that I felt could ethically vote for.
For me, in the state of Virginia, the larger issue was the proposed state constitutional amendments. The first of these was paraded as a reproductive freedom amendment; the ballot question focused on protecting access to birth control, prenatal care, and miscarriage management, and on not prosecuting women who seek abortion or those who help them. That all sounds great, and I’d have happily supported the amendment if that was the truth of what it allowed. However, the actual amendment is much more insidious. It will strip away things like parental consent for underage abortions and and conscientious objection for medical providers. It removes restrictions around late-term abortions that were in place to protect the baby if born alive. It makes it illegal to prosecute anyone who provides an abortion. This fully deregulates the industry, which is extremely dangerous for any medical procedure. Because of this amendment, it will be easier for traffickers to abuse young girls and use abortion to hide their tracks. The so-called “back alley” abortion clinics will be operate at a fraction of the cost of hospitals and will not be able to prosecuted. This will disproportionately effect those living in poverty. True reproductive health care will still be unattainable by many as the amendment does nothing to improve access or lower the cost of things like birth control, prenatal care, or miscarriage management. Last year, 9,000 people traveled to Virginia for abortions. The state already had very lax abortion laws, allowing abortion throughout the third trimester when medically necessary. Now, late-term abortion will essentially be an elective procedure as only the doctor providing the abortion has to think it necessary for mental or physical health. The passing of this amendment was a huge step back for maternal and fetal health care in the commonwealth, and I am grieved for the lives that will be lost as a result.
The second proposed amendment was a marriage equality initiative. The passing of this amendment means that same sex and interracial marriages have to be recognized by the state in same way as traditional marriages. It is wild that it is 2026 and we are only now giving protections to those interracial relationships! I am grateful that this amendment passed and think it was a big step forward for marriage equality. However, it is important that we do not become complacent. Just because marriage equality is legally protected doesn’t mean that discrimination or acts of violence will disappear. Also, this amendment is being celebrated as marriage equality for all, and that is sadly not true. Missing from the protection of this amendment are people with disabilities. Many disabled individuals are unable to marry or even live with their partner because doing so would mean losing their disability benefits and the health care that many of us rely on to stay alive.
Finally, Prop 3, which also passed, will restore voting rights to people convicted of a felony after incarceration (with the exception of murder and manslaughter). Those with a felony conviction face extreme prejudice after incarceration. It is often difficult to find housing or employment. They are affected by the choices of our lawmakers just as much as, if not more than, the rest of us. If they have served their time, we must allow those with felony convictions to lawfully rejoin and participate in society. If we don’t, it’s hard to see how recidivism isn’t really the only other option. Of course, restoring voting rights is only a small piece of addressing the discrimination these individuals face that makes rejoining society difficult. I hope more progress will be made in this, but now these individuals can have a say in who is representing to help address other issues. That feels like a step in the right direction.
So, there was a lot of good done these midterms, and I have hope for what’s to come. However, I also know my state was not the only one to pass a radical abortion referendum, which makes it really hard to fully celebrate the wins. And in the case of Virginia, it’s even further tainted because that referendum was cloaked in the promises of protecting mothers, when in reality, it will strip away protections that currently exist. We will continue to work in Virginia and around the world to provide tangible supports to those who would be targeted by the abortion industry.
RICHARD STITH:
Politics is only a means to our end. We should be always focused on the end of saving lives, not on the means of winning political victories. And if we focus on our end, we can still be of good cheer: Every child born whole is a victory for life.
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