States-Only Abortion Experiment ‘A Failure’: An Inside Look at the Pro-Life Movement’s Federal Strategy

A pro-life leader told the Daily Signal that returning the issue of abortion to the states was a strategic failure of the movement, adding that pro-life advocates must turn now to a federal strategy.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of SBA Pro-Life America, said the movement is “not better off” following the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the regulation of abortion to federal and state lawmakers. “The states-only experiment is a failure,” she said.

Dannenfelser pointed to the rising abortion rate as evidence of the failure. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reports 1,126,000 abortions in the United States in 2025, a 21% increase from the pre-Dobbs era.

Even states with the strictest abortion laws are seeing abortion rates skyrocket. Texas, for example, banned nearly all abortion procedures in 2021, but saw a 40% increase in abortions from April 2022 to January 2025.

Declaring abortion a “states’ issue” has allowed the federal government to wipe its hands clean of abortion legislation, Dannenfelser argued. She called out policymakers for shifting responsibility, accusing them of using states’ rights as a “cop-out.”

Combating Abortion at the Federal Level

Dannenfelser walked the Daily Signal through the pro-life movement’s plan to return abortion policy to the executive and legislative branches, listing four of the movement’s priorities.

First, she said that the administration of President Donald Trump should enforce an in-person requirement for abortion pill prescriptions. In 2023, the FDA removed the in-person dispensing requirement, allowing for prescriptions via telehealth and for the pills to be shipped through the mail.

In 2025, Louisiana sued the FDA for removing the mandate, arguing that it allowed thousands of abortion drugs to be sent by mail to the state, which has a “near-total ban” on abortion. According to a May 2026 opinion by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, “The policy now facilitates nearly 1000 illegal abortions in Louisiana per month.”

“The battle is at this abortion pill,” Dannenfelser said.

Second, Dannenfelser argued that the FDA needs to research the side effects of the abortion pill.

“The drug itself is horrible,” she stated. “The FDA should be thoroughly investigating the after-effects.”

Because of the FDA’s neglect to study the side effects and its insistence on making it widely available by mail, “there is no informed consent,” she said.

She argued the abortion pill is harming women, calling it a “human rights disaster.”

Third, she said the FDA needs to ease access to abortion pill reversal treatments. And fourth, she said pro-lifers need to fight at the polls to elect “bold and courageous leaders” to Congress and the White House in 2026 and 2028.

“Our goal this cycle is to defend and expand our pro-life majorities in Congress. That is what drives our voter contact program. We invest in races where our efforts can make a difference between victory and defeat,” she said.

SBA maintains a National Pro-Life Scorecard, which it says “assigns every member of Congress—House and Senate—with a pro-life ‘grade’ to better inform Americans about where their members of Congress stand on life.”

“We’re prioritizing bills that eliminate or continue prohibitions on federal taxpayer funding of abortion, as well as bills that protect the unborn and their moms from dangerous abortion drugs,” the organization’s press office told the Daily Signal.

The group noted a bill led by Sen. James Banks, R-Ind., and Rep. Mark Messmer, R-Ind., the Forced Abortion Prevention and Accountability Act, which “establishes federal penalties for the intentional administration of abortion-inducing drugs without a woman’s informed consent,” according to a press release from Messmer’s office.