Published November 20, 2024
As conservatives slowly come down off the high of electoral victory, they are beginning to soberly count its cost. Donald Trump may have won, but pro-life lost. In seven of 10 states where abortion rights were on the ballot as a constitutional amendment, abortion rights prevailed—and would have in Florida as well if not for the state’s supermajority requirement. In Nevada, a state that Trump won by 3 percentage points, a “fundamental right to abortion” also won by nearly 30 points. Given Trump’s own campaign trail pivot away from a consistent pro-life position, this disjunction is hardly surprising. In case there was any lingering doubt, the nomination of vocally pro-abortion Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services would seem to settle it.
That said, it has long been clear that the pro-life cause rested on too narrow a plank, and a new generation of conservatives hopes to make use of the current opportunity to reanchor it on a far broader base. In a recent essay for The New Yorker, Emma Green offered a sympathetic profile of the new “pro-family” conservatism that has a fighting chance of shaping policy in a second Trump term. Her essay highlights three critical lessons for conservatives who want to change the culture of bearing and raising children in an increasingly childless culture.
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Brad Littlejohn, Ph.D., is a Fellow in EPPC’s Evangelicals in Civic Life Program, where his work focuses on helping public leaders understand the intellectual and historical foundations of our current breakdown of public trust, social cohesion, and sound governance. His research investigates shifting understandings of the nature of freedom and authority, and how a more full-orbed conception of freedom, rooted in the Christian tradition, can inform policy that respects both the dignity of the individual and the urgency of the common good. He also serves as President of the Davenant Institute.
