Pro-Lifers Celebrate outside Supreme Court after Monumental Ruling Overturning Roe

Washington, D.C.— Pro-lifers gathered outside of the Supreme Court on Friday morning in anticipation of the Court’s release of its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

When the decision — which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the regulation of abortion to the states — was announced, they were stunned. For nearly 50 years, their movement has been held back from the starting line of the debate. Seconds after the ruling was released, they popped champagne to celebrate having finally made it there.

“I thought I was gonna pass out, I fell to the ground crying,” said Maison des Champs, a 23-year-old activist and climber who was mocked by late night host Stephen Colbert after dubbing himself “pro-life” Spiderman and scaling skyscrapers to raise awareness of the pro-life cause.

“I fell to the ground crying. . . . It kind of feels like New Year’s, everyone’s just hugging and celebrating,” continued des Champs.

The young man had already done plenty of both before speaking with National Review, indulging in a bottle of champagne being passed around and embracing fellow activists such as Joseph Foreman. an older pro-life advocate and longtime leader within Operation Rescue, a pro-life organization active since the 1980s.

Prior to involving himself formally in the movement, Foreman and his wife had taken “in unwed mothers for years just on our own.” Des Champs expressed gratitude for Foreman and all those who came before him.

“I’ve just started this, but he’s been doing this since the 80s, he’s been arrested. He’s really a pioneer… I’ve just started this, but it’s these guys who have put the years in and put the effort in,” he said.

Macy Petty, a 20-year-old found herself overwhelmed by the same kind of giddy reflection.

Petty told National Review that upon seeing the decision on her phone she “was overwhelmed. I literally fell to the cement… I was just overwhelmed with gratitude and humbled that I get to be here on this historic day.”

Petty and her friends have spent time working in pregnancy resource care centers “for years” and “have seen firsthand the hurt that abortion brings. I’ve seen so many women come through our doors who are saying ‘I went to an abortion facility. They didn’t give me a choice. They just shoved an abortion pill in my face.'”

She contrasted that with the pr0-life approach, “we’re here to stand beside them and empower them and show them that they they are more than what the abortion industry is telling them that they are.”

“There are so many people who are in this fight together. And so many people that came before us that we didn’t even get to meet. And so I’m just overwhelmed that I get to be in front of the Supreme Court today,” added Petty.

Other activists found themselves participating in some of the first abortion debates of the post-Roe era.

Among that cohort was Andrea Perez, who said she was “kind of in shock” when the decision was released. “The energy was palpable,” Perez told National Review.

Perez said she’s been pro-life since she was a teenager, but felt compelled to “put my money where my mouth is” a couple of years ago after coming to realize that “people suffer after having abortions. There are a lot of women who suffer in silence, and a lot of men too.”

According to Perez, the pro-choice activist who engaged with her “started off a little bit aggressive,” but she was nevertheless “glad to be able to have a conversation with him,” that feels difficult to have in most circumstances.

“Aside from the the grief on the other side and the sadness and the excitement on my side. I feel sadness that we can’t just have a conversation,” she said.

Conversation and action are what’s needed next, asserted Perez. “People need help, people need compassion. So I would really urge pro-life people to get involved now. Now is not the time to be stagnant… Now’s the time to get involved,” she argued.

Jaden Heard was involved in a similar, protracted conversation with a passionate pro-choice mother-daughter duo.

Heard told National Review that pro-lifers should seek to initiate “more” civil conversations with the opposite side, arguing that those, accompanied by advocacy for state-level restrictions, are what the movement “need.”

And while examples of the unpleasantness of Heard’s work on Friday abound — one group of young women shouted “I love you!” at a pro-choice man only to have him approach menacingly and reply “go to the hell you believe in!” — others outside of the Court stood as real-life examples of the value of advocacy like Perez and Heard’s.

Kristin Turner, communications director for the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, said she had spent her youth as a typically pro-choice progressive.

“It wasn’t until I started experiencing sexual abuse at the hands of a teacher that I thought I’d become pregnant at 16 with my abuser, and I researched what abortion was and saw the abortion procedure videos by Live Action” that Turner came around to her view that abortion represents the intentional taking of an innocent life, she explained.

If there’s anything to be taken away from the scene outside of the Court on Friday, it’s that while the political pro-life movement has only just been granted permission to approach the starting line, the more personal one received nearly as big a boost.

As one grinning activist told National Review, “this is just the start… we’re gonna celebrate today and keep working tomorrow.”