How Pro-Life Doctors Can Go on Offense against the Latest Abortion Arguments

The medicalization of the pro-abortion argument that we saw in Ohio is already being repeated nationwide. Here’s how defenders of life can fight back.

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Anti-abortion campaigners gather outside of an abortion clinic, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization abortion case, overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision, in Dayton, Ohio, June 24, 2022.

Megan Jelinger/Reuters

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.

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About the Author

Matt Salisbury

Matt Salisbury is Managing Partner at Pesch, a communications firm that ran the medical professionals’ coalition for the No on Issue 1 Campaign in Ohio.

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