Exclusive: Reflecting on the ruling two years on, a pro-life lawyer who helped sue the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade said, “Every life is precious, no matter how small.”
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Erin Hawley said the Supreme Court will reaffirm on June 24, 2022 that “states and their residents will finally have the ability to protect life” and that “it’s crystal clear that the Constitution does not provide for a fundamental right to abortion at all.”
The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling two years earlier overturned Roe v. Wade of 1973 and Planned Parenthood v. Casey of 1992, allowing states to set their own laws regarding abortion. The Dobbs case stemmed from a Mississippi law that banned most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
“In fact, when the 14th Amendment was enacted in 1868, nearly every state criminalized abortion at some stage,” Hawley told Fox News Digital. “So the court really explained that there was no fundamental right to abortion in the Constitution, and that Roe was wrong to enforce that by judicial decree. And finally, people of the states can choose to protect life.”
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Judge Erin Hawley speaks to media as she leaves the Supreme Court in Washington, DC on March 26, 2024. (Getty Images)
“Dobbs made it clear that there was no right to abortion in the Constitution. It never existed,” Hawley added. “Abortion has been illegal since the beginning. That means people can and do protect their lives. And we’re seeing these debates happening across the country.”
Hawley, who serves as senior counsel and vice president of the Life and Regulatory Practice Center at the Alliance Defending Freedom, said “significant progress has been made” since the Dobbs case was decided two years ago.
A total of 41 states have anti-abortion laws, but many have exceptions for rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s health, and all states with abortion restrictions have exceptions for danger to the mother’s life. Fourteen states have near-total abortion bans, and 27 states ban abortion based on gestational age, including three with six-week bans.
States with anti-abortion laws also have laws to support mothers during pregnancy and after birth.
“Many states are moving to be pro-life,” said Hawley, who is also the wife of Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley. “And what’s more, states that have pro-life laws are really opening up more opportunities for women to be empowered. In fact, every state with pro-life laws has expanded support for pregnant women and new moms, some to the tens of millions of dollars a year. I think that’s a really strong example of how pro-life states are serving women and children, not just during pregnancy but beyond.”
Pro-life activists traveled to Washington, D.C. and other cities across the country over the weekend to protest the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision, because despite the lack of abortion protections at the federal level, Democrat-led states still allow women to have abortions, and some states have passed laws in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision that further protect abortion access for women in their state and for women who travel from other states to get an abortion.
The Nationwide March for Life is also held each January around the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision on January 22, 1973.
Hawley said the March for Life remains important, as do the support and efforts of every state to let Americans know “the value of life.” Science shows that life begins at conception, and she and her colleagues at Alliance Defending Freedom believe “any life has value no matter how small or fragile,” adding that “the value of a human life is not determined by its size.”
“After the Dobbs decision, Americans finally have a chance to re-embrace the reality that every life matters, no matter how small it may be,” she said.
Americans now have the opportunity to express their beliefs about abortion through the vote. Voters in several states have cast these ballots over the past two years, and others are heading to the polls this November, where voters will have the chance to decide the fate of abortion access in their state.
Democrats are looking to repeal the federal provision, which could affect mail-in abortions.
Sen. Josh Hawley and his wife, Erin Hawley, stand in line to vote in Columbia, Missouri on Election Day, November 6, 2018. (Michael Thomas/Getty Images)
Hawley stressed the importance of “changing hearts and minds” on the issue of abortion restriction, saying she believes the pro-life movement should “continue to support women and show them that other choices exist, and that those choices can be empowering for both them and their unborn children.”
A #WeCount study released last month found that state abortion bans aren’t reducing abortion rates because women are receiving abortion pills through the mail from states with laws protecting prescribers, and a new study from the Guttmacher Institute found that women in states with abortion bans are traveling to other states to get abortions.
“The pro-life movement really needs to work to convince the American people that every life, no matter how small, is precious,” she said, adding that surveys conducted before Dobbs showed most people thought Roe went too far and believed “babies deserve more protections from the beginning of pregnancy than Roe granted them.”
Last year, a Texas woman filed a lawsuit asking the court to grant an exception to the state’s abortion ban so she could terminate a fetus that had a low chance of viability, but was turned down, citing concerns that continuing the pregnancy would affect her health and her ability to have more children. The woman, named Katie Cox, ultimately left the state to get an abortion.
Other legal challenges to state abortion bans have been filed over a lack of clarity about when doctors can legally perform abortions in medical emergencies, and in Texas, the state medical board recently issued guidance seeking to clarify when medical professionals can perform abortions without fear of repercussions.
Hawley said the state’s abortion law is clear about when doctors can legally perform an abortion to save the mother’s life.
“The Supreme Court has now decided to leave that decision to the doctor’s reasonable opinion,” Hawley said. “As long as the doctor’s actions are objectively reasonable and within the bounds of professional medical judgment, there is no reason for the doctor to violate any state law.”
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Pro-life activists celebrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Olivier Douryery/AFP via Getty Images)
“Every state in the country has laws that allow for a life-saving procedure by definition of abortion, every state allows for the treatment of miscarriages, every state allows for the treatment of ectopic pregnancies,” she continued, “so this belief is simply false. Women have a right to life-saving treatment and should not be denied it. No state pro-life law requires them to do so.”
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court Against In a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory approval process for the abortion drug mifepristone, a court ruled that challengers to the agency had no standing to sue over claims that the drug had a high rate of complications.
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Hawley filed a lawsuit against the FDA.
“The FDA should be held accountable for its decision in 2021 to remove the most basic safeguard before women can take high-risk abortion pills,” Hawley told Fox News Digital. “What the FDA did in 2021 was take away the initial, in-person appointment, which is the only opportunity to test for things like ectopic pregnancy and accurately assess the stage of pregnancy. We very much hope and expect that the FDA will ultimately be held accountable.”
