What a Year in Post-Roe America Reveals About Abortion

Tony Lauinger spent 50 years fighting to end abortion in Oklahoma. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June and the state criminalized the procedure, the president of Oklahomans for Life saw his once-improbable goal become reality.

Six weeks later, voters in neighboring Kansas soundly rejected an amendment to eliminate abortion rights from that state’s constitution. “That was the first alarm bell that went off,” said Lauinger, 79 years old. A string of defeats for abortion opponents in other states has followed.

Nodding to the political climate, Lauinger recently lobbied Oklahoma...