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Pro-life young people outside the U.S. Supreme CourtLifeSiteNews

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Thousands of pro-lifers have gathered outside the Supreme Court building in Washington D.C.  today to promote the overturning of Roe v. Wade as the Court hears oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson, a case which has the potential to reverse the 1973 precedent which established abortion as a “constitutional right” in the United States. 

 LifeSiteNews is on the ground covering the Supreme Court’s activities today and speaking with some of the estimated 5,000 pro-lifers who have gathered to promote the pro-life mission, including prominent members of the movement to protect the unborn under the law. 

 

Austin Ruse, president of the nonprofit NGO Center for Family and Human Rights and author of the new book Under Siege: Never a Finer Time to be a Faithful Catholic, told LifeSiteNews’ Jim Hale that “expectations are very high” for a favorable ruling by the Supreme Court. 

Things have never looked better at the court than they do today, in that building, right now,” Ruse said. “I think that the case for toppling Roe has never been better because the science is on our side. It’s very clear that Roe v. Wade has really twisted the law in this country and twisted our politics.” 

Ruse, whose organization has worked to promote the pro-life cause in the United Nations, said the Center for Family and Human Rights “has really won the day” in the U.N. over the past 25 years. 

“The other side has tried to get a global right to abortion and they’ve failed, because regular people have stepped up and stopped them,” he said. 

Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, said she’s “very optimistic” about the Court case underway today.  

“I’m optimistic because the March for Life shows us every year that Roe is not settled law, and the justices see that,” she said. “They see the hundreds of thousands of people marching past this historic building every January 22, and they can see this isn’t settled law.” 

“This is what we signed up for,” said political scientist Michael New, an associate professor at the Catholic University of America and prominent pro-life activist. “We’ve been waiting 48 years for this case. I think this is the best chance we ever had to overturn Roe v. Wade.” 

While New told LifeSite he didn’t want to make any predictions, he suggested Dobbs gives reason to be optimistic, noting that former President Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices whom New described as “abortion skeptical.” 

New added that regardless of the outcome of this particular case, pro-life advocates have done tremendous work getting abortion numbers down through pro-life activism. The associate professor urged those who want to protect the unborn to keep up their efforts. 

“Keep being faithful, keep doing legislation, keep doing service, keep sidewalk counseling, and most importantly pray,” he said. 

LifeSiteNews’ team spoke also with author and founder of 40 Days for Life David Bereit. 

Bereit, who has been a part of the pro-life movement for 20 years, said “it’s just a blessing to see the fruit of so many prayers of so many people today, and just to see so many people gathered here on a glorious day, in anticipation … of eventually the end of abortion.” 

“People realize that abortion has not helped women,” Bereit said. “It certainly has not helped the children who have died, and America realizes the child in the womb is a person, not a blob of tissue, and people are fed up with this. We see abortion in the forefront of our national conversation like never before. You see [abortion] bans like Texas did, like Mississippi has done, because they realize the federal government has failed to protect innocent human life, even though our nation was founded on an inalienable right to life.” 

Bereit told LifeSiteNews that the December 1 oral arguments for the Dobbs v. Jackson case in the Supreme Court “is the moment that so many of us have worked for and prayed for, for so long.” 

Bereit, who now does strategic advising for leaders of national and local pro-life organizations, pointed out that in Dobbs the Supreme Court will for the first time “look deeply” at the precedents establishing a so-called “constitutional right to abortion” in Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). 

Bereit said that millions of pro-life people throughout the world are “drawing hope” from the fact that the pro-life movement has advanced its cause so significantly that the Supreme Court is now re-examining precedent and could potentially overturn the “great injustice” of abortion. 

“They’ve got the opportunity and they’ve been challenged by the Mississippi attorney general to overturn Roe v. Wade,” the 40 Days for Life Founder said. “And whether that happens or whether it doesn’t through this case, it’s important for all of us to realize that when abortion ends at the federal level, it simply throws it back to the states. We need to be organized, we need to be mobilized, and we need to be fired up like never before in our pro-life efforts right where we live.” 

While acknowledging that there are great challenges facing the pro-life movement, Bereit noted that pro-life work including nonprofit organizations and sidewalk counseling efforts have borne fruit and saved lives.  

“Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more,” he said. “Where there’s darkness, the light pierces through that much more,” he said. “Each of us needs to ask God right now ‘what can I do?’ and then get involved and answer that call.”  

“This is our moment,” he said. “Get involved, find your place, go save lives, go change history. You are a part of building God’s kingdom here on earth as it is in Heaven.”