The First Few Weeks of a Post-Roe America
“Where were YOU when Roe v. Wade was overturned? Where were you the day of the Dobbs decision?”
This is a question that is going to be asked for decades, possibly centuries.
“Where were you the morning that the Supreme Court of the United States decided to take a stand against the mass killing they had allowed for 50 years and take the first step at ending it?”
Well, I was in my house in Tampa Bay on a zoom call with the Illinois Right to Life team. We were discussing media strategies for when Roe was hopefully overturned and anxiously refreshing the Supreme Court blog- the website that would let us be among the first to know the decision.
You see, we had been anxiously been watching this website for weeks on end. Every day, there were two or three “decision days”: days when the Supreme Court could decide the Dobbs decision, and every one of those days we were waiting anxiously. It was getting towards the end of the session, and we were getting nervous.
So when we read the text, “We have Dobbs” we couldn’t click on the link to the decision fast enough.
Roe had been overturned, and our country was now on the track back to promoting a Culture of Life in America, but our work had just begun.
Immediately, I finished drafting our Illinois Right to Life Press Release, while taking phone calls from media and fulfilling interview requests. We sent out celebratory social media posts and I sent out my ‘Sav Speaks Life’ Press release to the Tampa Bay area.
Later in the afternoon, I was called to downtown Tampa to speak for the celebratory rally. Although it was an extremely windy day, and the time I was allotted to give my speech was much shorter than some I had done in the past, this was probably one of my favorite speeches I had ever given. This was one of the best days of my life- the beginning of so much hope and joy for young woman- and I couldn’t be more excited to share the word.
From Tampa, I had packed an overnight bag in a hurry earlier that day because I was headed to D.C.! We had received an email earlier calling all Pro-Life Leaders to Washington, D.C. and I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity.
After a mostly uneventful flight, I arrived in D.C. It was approaching midnight, and I had it in my head that I NEEDED to make it to the Supreme Court on the day Roe was overturned to thank God for this enormous blessing.
The feeling that I had that night, and the mood that carried into the next morning was almost indescribable… our nation was finally out of the grasps of the most unjust, deadly Supreme Court decision of all time.
The conversation outside the Supreme Court the next day was one of utter joy, but also a little bit of anxiety: now that Roe is overturned, the eyes of the world are on us. Everyone is going to be watching what those in the Pro-Life Movement will do to help women in crisis pregnancies.
After getting home from D.C., I immediately left Florida again to go help with media in Illinois for a week. The main questions we were getting at Illinois Right to Life were, of course, “What now?” “What will you do from here?”
And that’s the big question, right? What do we do from here? No doubt the Pro-Life Movement is more relevant and needed than ever, but we need to come together to figure out where our focus needs to be and how we can best work to help and support women. Comment or email your thoughts and ideas.