A couple of years ago, a source mentioned something that surprised me: Pro-life activists were debating the best way to build social services for a world in which they've won: Roe is overturned, abortion is illegal, and there are a lot more babies. 1/x https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/anti-abortion-roe-wade-movement/615013/
Pro-life activists are in a complicated position on this issue: For at least two decades, the movement has almost exclusively allied itself with the Republican Party, which tends to favor cutting government social services. 2/x https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/anti-abortion-roe-wade-movement/615013/
Since then, the moment the pro-life movement is working towards has become more plausible: With Pres. Trump in office, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, and challenges ahead, there's a lot of momentum behind the anti-abortion movement now. 3/x https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/anti-abortion-roe-wade-movement/615013/
What fascinates me, and what I wrote about here, is who is captivated by this vision of a pro-life movement that's not all about partisan battles and opposition, but about investing in pregnant women and children. That question led me to... 4/x https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/anti-abortion-roe-wade-movement/615013/
..Cheryl Bachelder, the former CEO of Popeyes, who is backing a new effort to compile the social services available for pregnant women in GA. She's part of a network of socially conservative CEOs (many in fast food!) who bankroll the pro-life movement.5/x https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/anti-abortion-roe-wade-movement/615013/
I was the first national journalist Cheryl talked to about this. A lot of people who care about abortion are not publicly fighting partisan battles. This issue involves all sorts of activism, including efforts upend our ideas of conservative+liberal. 6/x https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/anti-abortion-roe-wade-movement/615013/
The final thing I'll say is this: The pro-life movement is full of internal debates about the best way to help moms and babies. My story looks at a nascent plan to build America after Roe, and the CEO who supports it. Read it here: 7/x https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/anti-abortion-roe-wade-movement/615013/