"Electric" -- not a word you'd normally associate with state government affairs. But such was the atmosphere for a gubernatorial bill signing in Montclair, New Jersey, on an otherwise gloomy August Thursday. Gov. Mikie Sherrill wore a bright orange blouse that seemed to reflect the celebratory mood. "We won't be intimidated," she said. "We won't back down. And we will get it done."
The backdrop for the event was a Planned Parenthood clinic. Sherrill recalled being at the same clinic the day Donald Trump's "hand-picked Supreme Court overturned Roe and turned back the clock on our rights." She returned to sign the Reproductive Health and Gender-Affirming Care Protections Act, aimed at securing the Garden State as a powerhouse for abortion.
Abortion clinics are closing across the country. Democrats like Sherrill want you to believe that's because of the cruelty of Donald Trump and the Republican party — she cited a one-year defunding of Planned Parenthood by Congress, which has since expired, as some of her evidence.
"We have seen attacks from the Trump Administration and other states on access to reproductive and gender affirming healthcare, and attempts to impose restrictions across state borders," the governor said in her prepared remarks. "No one should fear intimidation or violence for seeking healthcare, and no healthcare professional should fear punishment from another state for providing care that is legal in New Jersey," she added. "With this legislation, we are making clear that New Jersey will protect patients, providers, and the fundamental freedom to make personal healthcare decisions."
At the Montclair rally, Sherrill sounded like she was workshopping a Democratic presidential-primary stump speech. She mentioned Republican governors Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis by name.
The language in the new law is designed to make the jobs of Garden State pro-life organizations, like those of Christopher Bell and his Good Counsel Homes, more difficult. With limited resources, they save every life they can, offering assistance and shelter to mothers in need. Ditto efforts to curtail or outright shut down the work of pregnancy-care centers. (First Choice and other pro-life centers in the state have already had to go to the Supreme Court for relief and got unanimous procedural ruling in their favor.)
And about the big, bad Trump administration. There is no executive action that has caused abortion clinics to close. Clinics are shutting because, as Chuck Donovan, founder of the Charlotte Lozier Institute and longtime pro-life activist, has been predicting for at least a decade: brick-and-mortar abortion clinics are becoming irrelevant. The majority of abortions are now chemical procedures.
That would have been a bit of a buzzkill at the New Jersey signing party. Because Sherrill's money point was: "It's easier to get an AR-15 in the United States than it is to get an abortion."
It is terrifyingly easy to order abortion pills. You go to a website. You check off what you want. You choose your shipping speed — overnight is an option. And then you are told: "Bonus: Get 10 free Misoprostol pills with every order." I could have been buying shampoo off Amazon.
Politicians like New Jersey's governor are benefiting right now from confusion and ignorance. Abortion today is nothing like it used to be. Bolstering the work of the Good Counsels of the world, we might actually get to a place where we are no longer subject to such miserable politics perverting supposed healthcare and women's rights.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book "A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living." She is also chair of Cardinal Dolan's pro-life commission in New York and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.
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