Today would have been the 53rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that said abortion was a right, and a decision that led to the deaths of tens of millions of innocent unborn children. It also happens to be my 43rd birthday, and the irony of the fact that I share the date of my birth with the dark anniversary of something I abhor isn't lost on me.
I thank God my parents were not "pro-choice" because, just a decade prior to my birth, some men in black robes decided a woman's "right to choose" trumped my right to live. Had things played out differently, I wouldn't be here, and neither would my three sons. Those boys will go on to do far greater things than I will ever accomplish. In fact, my middle son is in D.C. as I write this for the March for Life — to give thanks for the Dobbs ruling and continue the fight against abortion. Today, he and his group are praying outside of a Planned Parenthood.
I said when Roe was overturned, the fight was far from over, because it's not just a legal issue. It's a moral issue that requires the conversion of hearts and minds. As we saw yesterday, the Left has some serious anti-life, anti-natalist views, as many of them expressed disgust and wished ill on Usha Vance, Karoline Leavitt, and Katie Miller — three women in the Trump administration who are all expecting children this year.
And on the dead anniversary of Roe, the Democratic Party messaging is clear: they're telling women we have fewer rights than our mothers and grandmothers.
Today is a solemn reminder that because of Trump and Republicans, women across America have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers did.
— Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) January 22, 2026
My full statement on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade: pic.twitter.com/WjxJ9OBO9W
The statement reads:
Today serves as a solemn reminder that, because of Trump and Republicans, women across America have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers did.
And beyond this devastating rollback of fundamental freedoms, the overturning of Roe v. Wade has been a disaster for working-class women who cannot access or afford care, with tragic consequences for women who have died of medical complications after being denied life-saving interventions.
That is why, as Democrats, we will continue to work at the state and federal level to defeat anti-choice legislation, reject ballot initiatives that punish and prosecute women seeking an abortion, and fight back against the Trump administration's attempts to criminalize abortion medication and defund critical healthcare providers.
Democrats are united as we work to defend the essential right to reproductive freedom in America. We will not stop and will not falter in this work until the protections enshrined by Roe v. Wade are once again the law of the land.
No woman has been denied "life-saving interventions" because of these laws. Time and again, Democrats have to lie about pro-life laws in order to scare women and push their agenda.
In October 2024, the family of Georgia woman Amber Nicole Thurman asked the Kamala Harris campaign to stop using Thurman as a political talking point. Thurman died from complications after taking the abortion pill without follow-up care or oversight from the abortion provider (and more on those pills in a moment). The Kamala campaign did not listen to them. Instead, she repeated the lie that Thurman was denied care under Georgia's anti-abortion laws, even though she'd obtained abortion medication out-of-state.
Around that same time, New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof lied about Nevada's abortion laws, claiming the state used them to arrest a mom for suffering a miscarriage. That claim could not be further from the truth. It turns out the woman, who was about seven months pregnant, intentionally smoked meth, ingested cinnamon, and did everything she could to force a late-term miscarriage. When she gave birth at roughly 28-32 weeks gestation, deputies believed the baby was born alive and then killed, and deputies also said the woman admitted to all of this.
Oh, and this all took place in 2018 — years before Roe was overturned.
The Democrats also lied about Georgia's abortion laws again in the case of Adriana Smith, who was pregnant when she began experiencing severe headaches. Smith sought medical care and was sent home. The next morning, her boyfriend woke to find Smith gasping for air and called 911. Smith had multiple blood clots in her brain and was declared brain dead. Democrats said Georgia's abortion laws were keeping Smith on life support, and they blamed the Dobbs ruling. But Georgia has a law on the books that predates Dobbs: GA Code § 31-32-9, which states a doctor can't remove a pregnant woman from life support unless a) she has an advanced directive to do so or b) the fetus is not viable.
In June, Smith's son, Chance, was delivered and will be raised by Smith's family.
As for abortion pills, the Biden administration removed pretty much all guardrails and made it very easy to get the medication via mail with little medical oversight or follow-up. This means many women, including the aforementioned Thurman, face significant complications from the pill. A recent study showed 11 percent of women who have chemical abortions face "serious complications" including bleeding, retained "products of conception," and infections, including life-threatening sepsis. In 2022, Catherine Herring was separated from her husband when she found out she was expecting their third child. Herring's husband ordered the abortion pill online and spiked Herring's beverages with it. Thankfully, Herring caught on and was able to get medication to reverse the abortion pills she'd been given against her will. Her husband was arrested in May, 2022.
An Ohio surgeon was arrested in December for doing the same thing to his pregnant girlfriend. He ordered the medication online and force-fed her the pills, causing a miscarriage.
In Louisiana, a mom ordered the abortion pill from a New York doctor and forced her pregnant teenage daughter to take the medication. That New York doctor never examined the teen. The girl wanted the baby and even had a gender reveal party for her unborn child. Louisiana has tried to extradite the doctor and New York Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul is protecting the doctor. Gavin Newsom is doing the same thing for a California doctor who sent abortion pills to Louisiana.
Where were these Democrats to defend those women and their right to choose? Not only did Democrats not defend them, but Democrats are also actively working to protect the doctors who abuse them, who break state laws, and who cause untold damage to women and girls via the abortion pill. To the Democrats, this is acceptable collateral damage in pursuit of abortion.
So maybe Martin is right, in some regards. There was a time when women who wanted to have a baby weren't subjected to forced abortions with the tacit blessing of the Democratic Party.
Our mothers and grandmothers had the right to say no.