The Conservative Strategy to Ban Abortion Nationwide

The council took up the ordinance at an October, 2023, meeting. ARFA members and their supporters, dressed in green, crowded the council chambers—as did their anti-abortion counterparts, dressed in red. “We love the fact that we are a full room,” Stanley said, with trepidation in his voice. When it was Scherlen’s turn to speak, he voiced his objections to the ordinance’s civil-enforcement provision: “I don’t believe in that at all. That takes me back to World War Two and what the Nazis did.” Other council members began to sound skeptical,...