This year, pro-life organizations across the country are poised to fight abortion by defunding Planned Parenthood, restoring necessary safeguards on the abortion pill, challenging free-speech buffer zones, and more.
Pro-life leaders are confident several major cases will win back legal protections for the unborn and cut funding to abortion providers this year.
The largest grassroots pro-life organization in the world, 40 Days for Life, stood up an enhanced legal arm, the Institute of Law and Justice (ILJ), in Aug. 2023 to address increasing aggression against pro-lifers. To date, the ILJ has lost no cases and is taking one to the Supreme Court.
Major cases include 40 Days for Life v. County of Westchester, a suit against Westchester County, New York, to repeal its 100-foot buffer zone against pro-life advocates’ freedom of speech. The county repealed its unlawful ordinance in the face of 40 Days for Life’s lawsuit, knowing that the Supreme Court would end buffer zones nationwide; but 40 Days for Life is advancing the case against the remaining unlawful ordinances attacking free speech.
The Westchester case is one of several challenging buffer zones across the states and going before the Supreme Court; Turco v. City of Englewood, New Jersey and Coalition Life v. City of Carbondale, Illinois seek to overturn limits on freedom of speech around abortion centers.
The organization is also representing pro-life advocate Mark Houck and his family in a suit against the Department of Justice and Pennsylvania state and local law enforcement for forcibly raiding Houck’s home and arresting him on false charges in September 2022.
In a third case, ILJ has filed two complaints against Planned Parenthood for electioneering, in direct violation of federal laws governing unlawful political activities by tax exempt entities.
“Two Missouri Planned Parenthoods provided and advertised direct support to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; and the Sarasota Planned Parenthood allowed its facilities to be used for multi-day electioneering efforts for the Harris campaign, setting up phone banks and placing Harris/Walz signs on the building,” according to Matt Britton, ILJ board member ex-officio and general counsel.
Other Cases before the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court is also currently considering whether Medicaid dollars can fund Planned Parenthood in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, a South Carolina case that could redirect these funds towards real health care for women.
Abortion tourism, a problem arising from state variability in legal abortion since Dobbs overturned Roe, will also be addressed in the courts this year in the cases Matsumoto v. Labrador and Welty v. Dunaway. This could impact the trafficking of pregnant minors across state lines with parental permission or involvement.
State Action
Following Dobbs, major changes at the state level reshaped abortion law in America. Twelve states have banned abortion, and six more limit the procedure to under 6-12 weeks gestation. The abortion industry’s response was to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into ballot initiatives and deceptive messaging, but it was insufficient to convince Americans, said Bradley Kehr, Americans United for Life government affairs director.
States have already taken up the challenge of protecting against the harms of chemical abortion, as seen in Louisiana last year, and Kehr is hopeful more will do the same in 2025.
“Finally, states are promoting the good work of pregnancy care centers,” Kehr said. “This includes recognition and different channels of funding. AUL believes this is critical to ensuring expectant mothers get the prenatal, delivery, and post-natal care they and their families need.”
Defund Planned Parenthood
Defunding Planned Parenthood should be the resounding call of all pro-life advocates in 2025, according to Shawn Carney, 40 Days for Life president and CEO. “As Planned Parenthood goes, so goes the abortion industry in our country.”
The abortion behemoth received $750 million in taxpayer dollars during the Biden administration, accounting for a third of its massive budget.
“According to their own reports, true medical services constitute a negligible portion of their operations,” Kehr said of Planned Parenthood. “By redirecting this funding to community health centers, federal action can be taken to ensure that these resources are utilized effectively.”
The Trump Effect
The first presidential election since the overturning of Roe was an epic failure for abortion advocates.
“Kamala ran on abortion … and wasn’t going to apologize and that really backfired,” Carney said. “You really saw that with the Catholic vote.” Trump won the Catholic vote by 9 percent in 2024, compared to 1 percent in 2020.
Promising to defund Planned Parenthood was a Trump initiative in 2017, and Vice President J.D. Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., have both publicized this as a priority. Americans must remain vocal and hold elected officials accountable, Carney said.
“The pro-life movement is one of the few movements [Trump] listened to in his first term,” Carney said. “I don’t think he did anything we didn’t want him to do.” If Elon Musk is going to cut government spending, Planned Parenthood is “low-hanging fruit,” Carney added.
Chemical Abortion
The FDA’s removal of safeguards for chemical abortion pills remains a thorn in the side of pro-lifers, as the number of chemical abortions hits record highs. The Trump administration should reinstate basic, commonsense regulations, Kehr said.
The most important grassroots effort is the presence outside of Planned Parenthood facilities, offering alternatives to abortion, Carney said.
Life advocates should continue to pray, march for life at the local or national level, petition Congress to defund Planned Parenthood, peacefully protest abortion centers, and support local pregnancy centers, Carney said. “These are the five things we need to do in the first 100 days of 2025.”
Ashley Bateman is a policy writer for The Heartland Institute and blogger for Ascension Press. Her work has been featured in The Washington Times, The Daily Caller, The New York Post, The American Thinker and numerous other publications. She previously worked as an adjunct scholar for The Lexington Institute and as editor, writer and photographer for The Warner Weekly, a publication for the American military community in Bamberg, Germany. Ashley is a board member at a Catholic homeschool cooperative in Virginia. She homeschools her four incredible children along with her brilliant engineer/scientist husband.
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