'Full flourishing of mom and baby': Pro-life advocates reveal the movement's goals in a post-Dobbs world

Washington, D.C. – Two leading pro-life activists discussed with Fox News Digital their thoughts about the future of the pro-life movement — and why, even in a post-Dobbs world, they are continuing their fight for life.

Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, has led the organization since the fall of 2012. 

Speaking to Fox News Digital on the National Mall in the nation's capital shortly before the start of the 51st March for Life on Friday, Jan. 19, Mancini stressed the importance of accompanying women through their pregnancies and changing the culture surrounding pregnancy. 

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The theme of the 2024 March for Life was "With every woman, for every child," something Mancini said was a nod to "getting back to the pro-life roots." 

"The pro-life movement was made for this. I mean, this is why the march started," she said. 

Jeanne Mancini, seen here in a 2016 photo, told Fox News Digital that her goal is to make abortion "unthinkable."  (Albin Lohr-Jones/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

With the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade in the June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health decision, states were once again given the ability to make their own abortion legislation. 

The March for Life, too, is moving to individual states, Mancini told Fox News Digital. 

The first state March for Life was the 2018 Virginia March for Life, she said. 

"This year, we will be in 16 states," she said. "We plan to be in all 50 states in the next six to seven years."

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The national March for Life, she said, is a means of "uniting, equipping and mobilizing pro-life Americans in the public square." 

While there was a moral victory with Dobbs for the pro-life movement, the work on the ground, so to speak, remains, she said. 

"I wish that we could finish marching, but we haven't yet built a culture of life in the United States."

"The overturning of Roe didn't make abortion illegal at all. It just allowed states to be able to enact pro-life protections prior to 20 weeks," said Mancini. "And more importantly, it didn't make it unthinkable." 

Making abortion "unthinkable" is Mancini's goal.

"Anyone who thinks that our work is done and that we've finished building a culture of life right now is wrong," she said. "I mean, we're just not yet done. So I wish that we could finish marching, but we haven't yet built a culture of life in the United States."

Large crowds gathered on a snowy day in Washington, D.C., for the 2024 March for Life on Jan. 19, 2024. This year's march was the second to occur after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.  (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

Mancini highlighted the work the March for Life was doing this year to raise money for and promote the work of pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes, which assist women who are in need during their pregnancies. 

These organizations do not promote abortions. 

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A recent study, said Mancini, found that nearly a million people were served last year at pregnancy resource centers or maternity homes.

"And that's that's not including the unborn babies," she said. "So we could say nearly 2 million were served in the movement this year at the tune of $358 million in resources." 

One of the goals of this year's March for Life was to promote the work of pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes, Jeanne Mancini told Fox News Digital.  (Aubrie Spady/Fox News Digital)

In addition to providing "simple things" like diapers and formula, she said, some of the organizations also assist mothers with housing, health care, counseling and school credits.

"The pro-life movement is about the full flourishing of mom and baby," said Mancini. 

‘War left to be won’ 

Lila Rose, founder of the pro-life organization Live Action, began engaging in pro-life activism as a teenager. 

She is now married and a mother herself, and is pregnant with a child due this spring. 

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In a phone interview with Fox News Digital from California on Saturday, Jan. 20, ahead of her speech at the Walk for Life West Coast, Rose said that the pro-life movement still has a lot of work to do.

With the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs, "we won a crucial battle, but the war is left to be won," said Rose.

Lila Rose, who founded the pro-life group Live Action at age 15, sees a bright future for the pro-life movement despite legal setbacks over the last year. (Live Action)

"So that's that's why we march and walk. Because we're at war. And the war hasn't been won yet." 

In addition to cultural changes in society, Rose stressed the need to continue changing laws as well to protect the unborn. 

"The new north star of the movement is equal protection, as promised by the 14th Amendment," Rose told Fox News Digital. "So that's work that happens at both the federal and the state level." 

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These changes will likely not come quickly, said Rose. 

"As human beings, we often think about change in terms of days, weeks, maybe a few years," she said. "But the reality is the deepest changes, the generational changes, happen over lifetimes." 

"The new north star of the movement is equal protection, as promised by the 14th Amendment."

It is up to the pro-life movement to keep this work up in the meantime, she said. 

California, Rose's home state and where she's currently based, legalized abortion prior to the Roe v. Wade decision. 

In Nov. 2022, just months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe, Californians voted to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution. 

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Rose said the political situation in California is "very dire," but expressed hope and determination in regard to the future of the pro-life movement. 

"The ideologies that right now are in power in California politically do not have and cannot have a future, because they're anti-human, they're anti-family and they're anti-children," she said.

The pro-life movement must "take back institutions one at a time," Lila Rose told Fox News Digital. Above, a scene from the 51st March for Life in Washington, D.C. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The long-term strategy for California, she said, is to "take back the institutions one at a time" and usher in a culture of life. 

Rose believes that the current pro-abortion movement as a whole is unable to sustain itself. 

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"The pro-abortion opposition is very anti-natalist," she said. "They're very pro-population control. They are not pro-marriage. They're not pro-child." 

Added Rose, "And that's what's so encouraging about our movement. Those who believe in faith, family, freedom — they're the ones who are actually building the families and the institutions that are going to be the future." 

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