The Culture War After Dobbs

By: Mike Flinn, originally published on January 22, 2026, Crisis Magazine

The pro-life movement was so focused on the courts that they often overlooked where the actual battle was being fought.

On June 24, 2022, the pro-life movement won. Roe was overturned. Prayers of thanksgiving went up, corks were popped, and the movement finally exhaled. After 50 years, we finally had a victory—the victory we’d been marching for, praying for, and fighting toward for half a century.

But while we exhaled, the pro-abortion movement sprang into action in the states. They understood that while they lost the federal court, that defeat meant nothing if they could win the minds of the people. While we attempted to pass strict abortion bans in states, our opponents understood that the average American was not ready to vote for those bans. The data proves they were right.

The latest statistics from the Society of Family Planning show that abortions have increased every year since Dobbs, including a 4 percent increase in month-to-month abortions over the first six months of 2025 compared to 2024. We cannot win without winning the culture; and right now, we are not doing enough.

Much of the increase since Dobbs is due to an increase in telehealth abortions, which the Society of Family Planning reports as accounting for 27 percent of all abortions nationwide. With abortions now easier to access than ever, we know that the legal, court-focused pro-life fight has failed. We need to win the culture first, court battles later. To do that, the pro-life movement needs to adopt a core Catholic Social Teaching principle—subsidiarity. Once we do that, we have to accept incremental wins in the courts whenever we can get them.

Winning the Culture Through the Idea of Subsidiarity

Subsidiarity is the Catholic principle that problems should be solved at the lowest level competent enough to solve them. In other words, problems are best solved at the level at which they arise. In practice, this means that the federal government shouldn’t decide local zoning regulations, nor should your city council dictate national foreign policy. Each level of society has its proper sphere.

The pro-life movement must adopt this framework. If problems should be solved where they arise, then we must begin where abortion actually originates: in the individual conscience. For 50 years, the movement was fixated on overturning Roe at the federal level; meanwhile, public opinion shifted decisively toward accepting abortion.

Yes, there have always been sidewalk counselors and prayer vigils outside abortion clinics. But that’s not enough to shift opinion nationally. 

If the best-case scenario occurred and 100 percent of abortion-seeking women encountered a sidewalk counselor, changed their minds, and then became pro-life advocates themselves, that would mean only 1.54 percent of the female population of child-bearing age are being swayed each year. That’s the percentage of women who seek abortions every year, per the Guttmacher Institute. While, over time, that would add up, the reality is that the best-case scenario rarely occurs. 

Most women proceed with abortion despite sidewalk counseling. Those pro-life advocates deserve respect—their sacrifice matters. But it is not enough to shift a nation.

The pro-life movement needs a cultural campaign aimed at the individual conscience, not courtroom battles. This campaign must reach beyond the 1.5 percent of women who seek an abortion; it must persuade the nation. It could take many forms—billboards, local television, social media—but the content must be consistent. 

Focus on the science of fetal development. Too many pro-life advocates argue from a theological perspective, which alienates the secular and the conflicted. Science speaks differently. Show people what a baby looks like at each stage of development with realistic images. If you are a sidewalk counselor, use actual photos of aborted babies, no matter how gruesome they are. Present the biological facts with no apology. Images persuade where words often fail.

Pro-abortionists win the PR battle with emotional narratives—the raped 12-year-old, the abused orphan, the homeless woman. Those stories represent a miniscule fraction of abortions nationally; we don’t need to grant them credence. Rather than matching story with story, all we need are images and science. A single photo of a post-abortion baby is more powerful than a thousand edge-case stories from the pro-abortion crowd.

Winning the culture takes time, but it is winnable. It’s winnable if we start with the individual conscience and then work outward. And yes, eventually we also need to win in the courts. Lucky for us, we have been given a blueprint on how to do this.

Incremental Change Is Better Than No Change

The pro-life movement learned a painful lesson in Kentucky and Kansas after Dobbs. Both states put constitutional amendments on the ballot designed to clarify that their state constitutions do not protect abortion rights. But the pro-abortion side successfully reframed the issue by telling the voters that these amendments would eventually lead to a complete ban on abortion. Alarmed by this, voters rejected the amendments. Why? Because the people weren’t ready for what they thought would come next.

Nebraska did it differently. Rather than ask voters about constitutional interpretation, Nebraska asked them directly: Do you support a 12-week abortion limit? The voters said yes. Nebraska understood what Kansas and Kentucky did not: when you give people a clear, understandable choice about abortion policy, they will support reasonable restrictions. Or, more accurately, the voters will support what they see as reasonable.

Yes, Nebraska’s 12-week limit is not ideal. Abortions still occur. But Nebraska’s pro-life leaders grasped a crucial truth: the American people are not ready for total bans. Yet they also reject the anything-goes, abortion-until-birth position. The middle ground is where voters will actually vote for protections on life. In Nebraska, that middle ground was 12 weeks; it may be 15 or 18 weeks in other states. But a 15-week ban, even an 18-week ban, is better than nothing. 

We must work on two fronts at once: find and pass the middle ground that voters will support now, while changing hearts and minds for the future. Once we begin changing individual minds, then we can incrementally tighten restrictions. Pass a 15-week ban today, then spend years building support for a 12-week ban. Then move to 10, then six. The strategy is simple: ask for what the people will give, then slowly change their minds so they will give more. If we push too far right away, we lose everything.

We waited 50 years to overturn Roe. It’s time we prepare for 50 more to win back the culture. But we must do it the right way—start with the hearts of individual Americans, not the courts.

Mike Flinn is a political commentator and content creator. You can find his work on YouTube at @Mike_Flinn and on X at @TheMikeFlinn.