Tell us what you think: What should abortion laws look like?

I want to share a concern that has weighed heavily on me following recent legislative efforts to strengthen protections for children in the womb.

Last week in South Dakota, a bill that would have protected unborn children under existing homicide and wrongful-death laws failed to advance—not because of pro-abortion opposition, but because several pro-life organizations testified against it. In fact, none of the usual abortion lobbyists even had to show up.

Last year, we sent out a survey about state abortion laws. Fifty-five percent of respondents said that state laws should always include legal consequences for women who abort their children. An additional 23% said women should face legal consequences in some circumstances. Only 9% said women should never face any legal accountability for the decision to abort their unborn children.

We also asked whether imposing some form of legal responsibility would reduce the number of abortions. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they believe it would.

Taken together, these results are telling. Most people understand that abortion is not a victimless act—and they recognize that the law plays a significant role in shaping behavior and protecting life.

For decades, our laws and messaging have been built around an abortion model in which a woman is acted upon by an abortionist. That assumption no longer reflects reality. Today, abortion increasingly occurs through abortion pills willingly ordered, received, and taken by women themselves. In these cases, women often become the sole actors in the abortion, including the disposal of their babies’ remains.

Of course, there are cases of forced and truly coerced abortion. We have litigated these matters on behalf of women, and the law must reflect that injustice. But acknowledging coercion does not require that our abortion laws categorically exempt all women from all penalties, as is currently the case in every state that has otherwise made abortion illegal. 

This is precisely what the South Dakota bill attempted to address: the growing gap between abortion law and abortion reality.

Why should a doctor be punished for aborting a child, while the mother—who brought that child to the doctor for the sole purpose of ending its life—faces no consequences whatsoever?

Abortion is not a passive act. It requires intent and agency. I’ve said this before—and I stand by it: to claim that women lack sufficient moral agency to take responsibility for their actions is to treat women as less than fully human. This cannot possibly be the pro-life position.

We can talk about optics and timing and strategy when it comes to penalties in the law. But to assert that women should never, ever, under any circumstance face consequences for intentionally ending the lives of their children violates the most basic principles of law and ethics.

The South Dakota bill did not target women. It sought to affirm a simple truth: that unborn children are human beings worthy of legal protection, and that intentional acts leading to their death should not exist in a legal vacuum. To oppose that principle—whether out of fear of backlash or misplaced compassion—is to risk conceding the very purpose of law itself: the state’s duty to speak clearly about who is a human being entitled to protection.

Compassion and accountability are not opposites. A just society can recognize coercion, fear, and vulnerability without erasing the reality of death or denying the state’s interest in protecting human life. When the law refuses to name what abortion does, it does not protect women—it abandons both women and their children.

We are now living in a post-Dobbs world in which the killing of innocent human beings is increasingly a private, unregulated act carried out behind closed doors.If we do not confront that reality honestly, we will continue to lose ground—not because the public has rejected the value of life, but because we have been unwilling to speak plainly about what abortion is.

Life Legal is committed to telling the truth with compassion—even when it is uncomfortable. And we are committed to ensuring that the law does not retreat from its most basic duty: to protect innocent human life.

We would love to know what you think. Please feel free to complete our updated survey.

Standing for Life,

Alexandra