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Tuesday, Nov. 3, Americans cast their votes and turned congressional majorities against the pro-life cause.
It may be easy to despair, especially following two years of strong, pro-life leadership that accomplished a historic year of defunding many abortion providers from federal Medicaid dollars, but the pro-life movement has fought through hostile waters before — and won.
Here’s how we navigate the next two years.
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Defending legacy pro-life provisions must be a first priority. We have known for months that the Hyde Amendment, protecting taxpayers from being forced to directly fund abortions, has been in the crosshairs for the next pro-abortion Congress.
Anti-abortion rights demonstrators march to the Supreme Court for the 52nd annual March For Life in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 24, 2025. (Bryan Dozier/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
But conscience protections for healthcare entities that choose not to provide abortions under the Weldon Amendment may also be on the line.
This pro-abortion majority wants to make Americans complicit in their extremism.
Both the Hyde and Weldon amendments have survived pro-abortion majorities before, including the 117th Congress. In 2021, the House Appropriations Committee advanced a Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education spending bill that omitted both Hyde and Weldon rider language.
Even though both chambers were led by pro-abortion majorities, pro-life organizations were able to rally, telling Congress that these protections are not up for negotiation.
This is the same message we must carry over the next two years.
Congress must also be reminded that preserving these riders is in its own best interest, attaining bipartisan public support.
According to the 2026 Knights of Columbus/Marist polling, 54% of Americans opposed taxpayer funding of abortion and 63% support conscience protections for healthcare providers.
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Pro-abortion members of Congress are also likely to urge the passage of the Women’s Health Protection Act. This bill is intended to codify the state of abortion extremism under Roe v. Wade, preventing any state or locality from restricting abortion before viability.
If this became law, it would also erase necessary safeguards for women like mandatory ultrasounds to confirm pregnancy or rule out ectopic pregnancies, eliminate waiting periods and allow unrestricted mail-order abortion.
Both the Hyde and Weldon amendments have survived pro-abortion majorities before, including the 117th Congress.
What pro-life groups have more accurately called the “Women’s Health Endangerment Act” has been fended off since it was first introduced in 2013. Under the 117th Congress, this bill passed the House of Representatives but did not reach the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome cloture in the Senate.
However, this new Congress is signaling less political restraint and may eliminate the filibuster to evade the necessary checks-and-balances of cloture. Pro-life groups must be unified in opposing this extreme tactic.
It is essential to remember that Congress is only one cog in the political machine, and we can still fight for life within the Trump administration and among the many states.
The pro-life movement has overcome many cycles of pro-abortion control since Roe and yet still was able to achieve the historic victory in Dobbs not too long after the 117th Congress.
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Administrative agency action is still on the table. The Food and Drug Administration’s review of the abortion pill is still pending, and its latest update to the courts suggest final results will be available to the public by March 2027.
Restoring in-person dispensing requirements as a minimum repair to mifepristone’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy is still on the table. It’s even more essential now that the agency’s review is airtight and able to withstand partisan scrutiny.
The Trump administration still has the authority to finally rescind the Biden-era Office of Legal Counsel’s politicized Comstock opinion and fully enforcing the law through the Department of Justice.
Stopping the mail-order abortion scheme harming women across the country will be essential to combatting the losses of this week.
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Still, we must not waver from our collective efforts in all 50 states. Losses in Texas showed us that we cannot become complacent in protecting life where we believe it to be the most secure.
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American politics is a cultural battle and, as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia stated, “[t]he permissibility of abortion, and the limitations upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.”
