Our Way of Pro-Life Is Fading

In the 1990s, after the Casey decision reaffirmed and strengthened Roe v. Wade’s constitutional right to abortion, some conservatives became alarmed by the judicial usurpation of politics and the eclipse of democracy. “Law, as it is presently made by the judiciary, has declared its independence from morality,” warned the editors of First Things. They dared to describe the American government as they found it then as a “regime.” The premise was that the American people still had a connection to God, but that the American regime, increasingly a juristocracy, was imposing morally illegitimate laws that alienated the people from their own government. They asked: What form of resistance was necessary and legitimate for the godly people?

The pro-life and conservative movement did not do anything radical in response to questions posed by First Things. The jurisprudence of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas inspired the next generation of conservative-leaning jurists, identified and formed by the Federalist Society. Pro-lifers kept voting for Republican presidents, and kept up the pressure to appoint justices whose philosophy required them to overturn Roe. And so it came to pass. In the Dobbs ruling, the juristocracy, was — at least temporarily — beaten back.

About the Author

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

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In the 1990s, after the Casey decision reaffirmed and strengthened Roe v. Wade’s constitutional right to abortion, some conservatives became alarmed by the judicial usurpation of politics and the eclipse of democracy. “Law, as it is presently made by the judiciary, has declared its independence from morality,” warned the editors of First Things. They dared to describe the American government as they found it then as a “regime.” The premise was that the American people still had a connection to God, but that the American regime, increasingly a juristocracy, was imposing morally illegitimate laws that alienated the people from their own government. They asked: What form of resistance was necessary and legitimate for the godly people?

The pro-life and conservative movement did not do anything radical in response to questions posed by First Things. The jurisprudence of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas inspired the next generation of conservative-leaning jurists, identified and formed by the Federalist Society. Pro-lifers kept voting for Republican presidents, and kept up the pressure to appoint justices whose philosophy required them to overturn Roe. And so it came to pass. In the Dobbs ruling, the juristocracy, was — at least temporarily — beaten back.