Penna Dexter

The sexual revolution was well underway when the Roe v. Wade decision brought abortion to the nation. If anything, the free sex culture of the sixties brought about the demand for legal abortion. Now, the demise of Roe may very well shine a spotlight on real damage to the culture enabled by legal abortion. A couple of well-known cultural commentators predict this in pieces published at Townhall.com. 

Radio host Dennis Prager wrote last week that the 70’s feminists told women they could now “enjoy sex without commitment” the way men did. Roe facilitated the use of abortion as “a form of birth control.” Mr. Prager contends that, in this sense, feminism hurt women because “men impregnating women to whom they were not married came with no consequences.”

But, since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson makes abortion harder to get in some states, it has many women rethinking casual sex. Mr. Prager points to social media comments by women calling “for an end to hookups (casual sexual encounters)” and predicting “the end of the hookup culture.” Good riddance.

Star Parker, syndicated columnist and founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, writes that Roe “introduced a culture of death to our nation.” She explains that “When we lose appreciation for the sanctity of life, along with this we lose the sense of sanctity of behavior that brings life to the world. Marriage and sex become no longer responsible expressions of love and creation but expressions of egoism and self-gratification of the moment.”

The result is the “collapse of the institution of marriage and of childbearing” which has brought historically low fertility. “This,” says Star Parker “is what I call a culture of death.”

The Dobbs ruling overturning Roe gives us an opportunity to restore a culture of life.

Now it is up to the states to decide. Will they begin to undo the damage Roe v. Wade and the sexual revolution have wrought?