Yes to Pro-Life Realism, No to Pro-Life Defeatism

Frank DeVito of the Napa Legal Institute argues that “pro-life policy purists” need to face political reality: The public isn’t with us on abortion. Pro-lifers should therefore not push the Trump administration to do more to restrict abortion, he argues, although they should urge it to make the case against it more forthrightly than it has done.

He is, of course, correct to note that public opinion is not where pro-lifers would like it to be and that this fact imposes real constraints on what pro-life policies are possible. He is right, too, to say that pro-lifers would be foolhardy to push for bans on IVF. But he takes too narrow a view of pro-life political possibilities, in part because he adopts a false binary view of the prudential question that pro-lifers need to ask.

About the Author

Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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Frank DeVito of the Napa Legal Institute argues that “pro-life policy purists” need to face political reality: The public isn’t with us on abortion. Pro-lifers should therefore not push the Trump administration to do more to restrict abortion, he argues, although they should urge it to make the case against it more forthrightly than it has done.

He is, of course, correct to note that public opinion is not where pro-lifers would like it to be and that this fact imposes real constraints on what pro-life policies are possible. He is right, too, to say that pro-lifers would be foolhardy to push for bans on IVF. But he takes too narrow a view of pro-life political possibilities, in part because he adopts a false binary view of the prudential question that pro-lifers need to ask.