Catholic Vote
Pro-life progress in a divided Congress: Heritage Foundation details legislative gains, administrative setbacks
By Grace Porto
CV NEWS FEED // A report The Heritage Foundation released March 24 provides a comprehensive review of how the 118th Congress, which ran from January 2023 to January 2025, navigated the post-Dobbs policy environment.
Authored by Melanie Israel, a visiting fellow at the foundation’s DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family, the 31-page backgrounder evaluates both legislative advances and the challenges posed by the Biden administration, which was committed to expanding abortion access through regulatory means.
“In the monumental Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court returned abortion policy to the American people and their elected representatives at the state and federal levels,” the report begins. “Roughly half the states now have robust pro-life protections for women, girls, and unborn children.”
The report details that the U.S. House of Representatives passed several pieces of legislation with pro-life implications following the Supreme Court’s June 24, 2022, ruling.
One was the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would require babies who survive abortions to receive the same medical treatment as any other infant. The House also passed the Pregnant Students’ Rights Act, which would have required universities to inform pregnant students about their rights, resources, and available accommodations. The Supporting Pregnant and Parenting Women and Families Act blocked a rule that made it difficult for pregnancy resource centers to receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) grants.
Likewise, pro-life lawmakers opposed multiple pro-abortion bills that failed to advance in the Senate, such as the Right to Contraception Act, which, Israel writes, “would define contraceptives so broadly that it would include abortion-inducing drugs, imperiling state and federal policies regulating abortion pills,” and the Reproductive Freedom for Women Act, which “expressed support for abortion and a ‘sense of Congress’ that the abortion-on-demand regime of Roe v. Wade should be ‘restored and built upon.”
The report highlights how pro-life senators used procedural tools to stop legislation from being fast-tracked.
“Senators sometimes seek to use [unanimous consent, or UC] as a workaround for controversial stand-alone legislation,” the report explains. “In these cases, any Senator can stop a UC request by raising an objection, which is exactly what pro-life Senators have done.”
For instance, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, objected to the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act, which the report states would have covered up the trafficking and abuse of women. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., and Senator Ted Budd, R-N.C., objected to multiple other bills that would have increased funding or legal protections for abortion providers and procedures.
Pro-life members in both chambers preserved critical funding restrictions through the appropriations process.
“For many years, Congress has included in annual funding bills riders such as the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits spending taxpayer dollars on most abortions,” the report notes. “The 118th Congress maintained the status quo by incorporating these long-standing pro-life riders in fiscal year 2024 appropriations.”
In addition, the report recounts the efforts Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., made to block Department of Defense promotions over its abortion travel policy, which would have paid for abortion travel benefits for service members in violation of federal law.
On the oversight front, the report discusses congressional intervention in a Washington, D.C., abortion case where pro-life advocates discovered remains of five unborn children, who were victims of illegal late-term abortions, as CatholicVote previously reported.
“Following intervention from pro-life activists and Members of Congress,” Israel wrote, “the [D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner] reversed course and said that the bodies would not be destroyed — for now.”
A substantial portion of the report is dedicated to federal rulemaking and executive action.
“The Biden Administration used every avenue it could find — legal or not — to resist the Dobbs decision,” Israel writes.
Among the key policies reviewed were a Department of Veterans Affairs rule that “provides for abortion procedures and abortion referrals and counseling to veterans at VA medical facilities,” as well as a rescinded Trump-era rule protecting conscience rights and a reinterpretation of Title IX regulations that “redefines biological sex to include sexual orientation and gender identity and redefines pregnancy to include abortion.”
Regarding abortion pill access, the report explains that “the FDA stopped requiring that these risky drugs be dispensed after a doctor has screened a woman for complications in person. Now, the FDA has effectively approved mail-order abortion pills and online pill ordering yet does not track injuries short of death.”
The Heritage Foundation report criticizes the Department of Justice for disproportionately enforcing the FACE Act against pro-life individuals while neglecting protection for churches and pregnancy centers. Between May 2022 and June 2024, there were at least 96 attacks on pro-life organizations and 316 on Catholic churches, yet only four FACE Act charges were brought for such incidents.
Furthermore, Israel discusses failed legislative efforts to codify a right to IVF. She highlights a pro-life alternative — the RESTORE Act — which supports ethical, restorative approaches to infertility.
The report concludes, “Policymakers at every level of government should remain committed to welcoming and protecting every innocent human life regardless of its circumstances or level of dependence.”