Although the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this summer, many are surprised to learn that some form of abortion is still legal in all 50 states.

According to organizations leading the fight to ban abortion, this is largely due to the lack of any measures against dangerous over the counter and mail-order abortion drugs.

End Abortion Now (EAN) and Action for Life (AFL) are working to end abortion in the United States through providing equal protection to preborn children, a strategy which they say is a big shift from the traditional incrementalist approach that institutional pro-life leadership has pursued through heartbeat legislation and early trimester bans.

Instead of working on bans that begin at specific points during pregnancy, EAN and AFL are working to abolish abortion from the moment of conception, providing preborn people with the same rights and protections as people after birth.

EAN began as a grassroots ministry that met outside of abortion clinics and has now grown to a nationwide network of over 900 churches that saves an average of 8 babies a day, nationwide.

Action for Life is dedicated to ending abortion through drafting and supporting legislation at the state and federal levels.

The Sentinel spoke with Dennis Sarfate, President of Action for Life.

“We’re asking for equal protection,” Sarfate said. “We are saying that if it’s a human life in the womb, then they deserve the same protections that people outside of the womb deserve.”

Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Colorado, and Arizona are the main states AFL is focusing its efforts in for 2023, through working to pass legislation that will outlaw abortion and secure the same rights for preborn children as born children. In other states like Idaho, Texas, and Oklahoma, Action for Life is coming alongside other organizations to help with the cause.

Over the last several years, Action for Life has worked with legislators in 20 states across the country to file legislation that would provide equal protection for the preborn, and has encouraged states to ignore Roe by passing laws that would ban abortion.

The Sentinel asked Sarfate how AFL’s focus has changed since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, a judicial decision that AFL and EAN argue was unconstitutional from the beginning.

“The difference now is that we don’t have to deal with Roe. We’re not calling for the state legislatures to ignore Roe, because that’s already been lifted, so we are strictly working on equal protection – you can’t murder people, so you can’t murder babies.” Sarfate said. “It’s a relief to not have Roe to fight against anymore, because that was an excuse and a thing that politicians hid behind for years.”

According to Sarfate, the fight to end abortion has shifted since the ending of the Roe v. Wade era.

“So you’re really not seeing a whole lot of change. There’s still women going to Planned Parenthood, there’s still women going into certain doctor offices to get abortions done and ordering pills online, so there’s really not a lot of difference.” — Dennis Sarfate, President of Action for Life

“I think we’re seeing the Left do what we had been trying to do, by saying it’s a state issue,” Sarfate said. “States have their own sovereignty for their own laws, but at the same time you’re getting a lot of reaction from the Left compared to what has actually been done to end abortion.”

Sarfate explained that although the overturning of Roe was a victory for the pro-life movement, it has not affected most abortion statistics:

If you listen to articles from the Left and all these pro-choice organizations, you’d think that there were zero abortions across the states.

 

Meanwhile, they really haven’t stopped. They might have had a couple of days of interruption while legally trying to figure out the groundwork of where they can go without getting into trouble with the law, but I think most of those states have gone back to allowing abortions to take place.

 

So you’re really not seeing a whole lot of change. There’s still women going to Planned Parenthood, there’s still women going into certain doctor offices to get abortions done and ordering pills online, so there’s really not a lot of difference.

In states that have made it more difficult to get abortions, post-Roe, there are still numerous ways to order abortion pills through the mail. The Sentinel asked if AFL’s bills would outlaw chemical abortions as well, and how that could be enforced.

Said Sarfate:

Ours are the only bills that address chemical abortions. We are banning the immoral action of killing a person in the womb, by whatever means, including 'do-it-yourself' abortion pills. The biggest problem with outlawing the drugs is that since some of them have legitimate uses, we could only ban illegitimate use. With our bills, all we are doing is treating children who aren’t born just the same as children who are born. That’s the crux of the matter. The point is, these children are people and we can’t just kill them.

Action for Life and End Abortion Now focused heavily in Louisiana this past year, and worked with Rep. Danny McCormick to file H.B. 813 to establish equal protection for all humans from conception.

As Bradley Pierce, an attorney with Foundation to Abolish Abortion and a key advisor to Action for Life, explained, H.B. 813 would not create a new law, but recognizes abortion as homicide.

The bill passed its initial hearing in the Louisiana House of Representatives, but establishment Republicans began to interfere when it reached the floor of the Capitol because they believed it was unenforceable. However, according to Action for Life, H.B. 813 was a historic victory, as it was the first complete abortion ban to pass a committee hearing in Louisiana.

Jeff Durbin, pastor of Apologia Church in Arizona and leader of End Abortion Now, says that winning the abortion battle is as simple as being consistent in one’s faith and applying it to the political sphere.

Durbin explained the ideology behind the equal protection bill Action for Life has filed across the country to The Sentinel:

Our equal protection bill is one that’s consistent. There’s not much to it. All humans deserve protection from conception. Very simple. So we’ve been able to work with churches, as well as talk directly to legislators to find who in leadership is going to be brave and not compromise, and find legislators that will be consistent and put bills into those states. And so when we put those bills into the states, we gather the churches in that state to rally and also to talk to their legislators to cosponsor the bill and to pass it.

According to Sarfate, the biggest obstacle to passing AFL’s equal protection bills has been the rest of the pro-life movement. Said Sarfate:

The biggest obstacle is from the "pro-life" industry, organizations that continually take money from donors and then don’t do anything to end it. They insistently go for 15 week bans or 6 week bans. Even after Roe was lifted, we saw Republican leaders across the country say, ‘well we should have a 15 week ban,’ like they did prior to Roe being lifted.

 

And now, the pro-choice side will be using the same tactics we used in our bills to pass legislation state by state. They always used Roe as this major guideline, as if Roe was law even when it wasn’t, because no one would say anything about it. And now that it’s lifted, they have to go state by state to pass bills, and they’ll do it in places that are blue, like Illinois and New York and California.

Sarfate said that red states will be challenging as well, and that the biggest fight currently is to find out who will pass legislation that will truly ban abortion:

Heavy red states, like Alabama and Georgia, might not be passing laws that end abortion through equal protection, but they’re not going to pass laws that allow abortion, either. So that’ll be our biggest fight, seeing who’s on our side and aligns with us, and who’s actually ready.

 

People always use the football analogy of the five yard line. They’ll say, who’s ready to push with us? Well, who’s ready to push it through with us? What state politicians will stand with us and say, ‘there is nothing left to do besides end it, and let’s do that.’

The Sentinel asked how people can get involved and help End Abortion Now and Action for Life.

“We need prayer but we also need action,” Sarfate said. “We can’t just be out there praying without actually putting together some kind of motion to end it ourselves with our own hands, our own money, whatever it takes.”

“People always use the football analogy of the five yard line. They’ll say, who’s ready to push with us? Well, who’s ready to push it through with us? What state politicians will stand with us and say, ‘there is nothing left to do besides end it, and let’s do that.’” — Dennis Sarfate, President of Action for Life

Sarfate said there are multiple ways to help:

People can call state and local officials and ask them if they’re pro-life and support bills to end abortion. They can come alongside us by partnering and pledging money to help draft bills and cover mail costs and communications. If people want to run for office, they can call Action for Life and we can help see what running for office in their state looks like. We did that for someone in Arizona this year. We didn’t win but we know what it takes now and know how to prepare for the next election.

 

We need prayer, but we also need financial support and groundwork help. We also need people to run. We need solid Christians to run for office. Those are the kind of people who will stand firm and say ‘I’m running for office to end abortion because I actually care about all life.’ And that’s our goal - to end abortion. This is not a money-making operation for us. We want to end it, hit delete, and move on and do something else.”

End Abortion Now and Action for Life’s biggest focus for 2023 is the state of Georgia.

“We’re up against the pro-life industry,” Durbin said. “Even with Roe v. Wade out of the way, they’re still fighting the same way with 15-week bans and total partiality. You can kill this child, but not that child. The pro-life industry is a business, and it’s staying alive through regulation. We at End Abortion Now want this to be over with and to wash our hands of it and walk away. I don’t want to do this ministry anymore. I want justice established.”

“Our bill in Georgia does what both the U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of Georgia require, and provides equal protection,” AFL attorney Bradley Pierce said, in a video posted by End Abortion Now. “Laws should protect born people and the preborn equally. I’m looking forward to the battle that’s going to happen. A fetus is a person, and should be protected from conception to natural death. Now Georgia can prove it. You say you want to abolish abortion? This bill does just that.”