Marching Into Midterms 2022, Pro-Life Leader Encourages: ‘Pro-Life Is a Winning Issue’

Wrapping a valiant 14-year career with the SBA List, Mallory Carroll talks of engaging and advancing the pro-life cause as she steps away to raise a new life.

Mallory Carroll has served as VP of communications for the SBA List for the past 14 years.
Mallory Carroll has served as VP of communications for the SBA List for the past 14 years. (photo: Courtesy photos / SBA Pro-Life)

Tiny fingers and tiny toes — babies melt the hearts of just about anyone — but in the eyes of a pro-life warrior like Mallory Carroll, the protection of life at all stages has been her heart’s mission for the past 14 years.

Serving as Susan B. Anthony List’s (SBA Pro-Life in this post-Roe world) VP of communications, the job not only includes boots-on-the ground canvassing in battleground states, interfacing with politicians to advance legislation and strengthening pro-life pregnancy centers currently under attack, but also assessing the facts on what real Americans want when it comes to protecting life in the womb.

Carroll doesn’t step away from her role lightly — it’s life alone that leads her on a new journey: She is expecting her first child in coming months. When asked by the Register about this amazing journey — working steadfastly in the pro-life world while Roe ruled the land and now stepping away to be a mother to a child who will be one of the many to live in a pro-life generation, Carroll said with tears in her eyes, “It is still very surreal to me to be stepping back in this way and to ponder the miracle that my husband and I will soon meet this baby and hold him or her in our arms.”

Reflecting on her career and the last decade in particular, Carroll said she is most moved by this “incredible time to be in the pro-life movement, having seen the work of so many hands across politics, policy and activism culminate in the overturning of Roe v. Wade.” She also noted the leadership of her boss, Marjorie Dannenfelser, and the efforts “put into making the pro-life issue understood as something not only morally right but also politically smart.”

Quick to point out that the pro-life battle would be still worthy even if it wasn’t popular, Carroll makes it clear that it was not — and is not — failing:

“Pro-life is a winning issue; and especially in the last decade, we made that reality understood, which put us in a political and policy spot to be able to send a law like Mississippi’s 15-week protections for babies in the womb to the Supreme Court and to have the justices in place who could overturn that wrongfully decided precedent.”

As Jeanne Mancini recently announced, the March for Life will now see pro-lifers walk to the U.S. Capitol instead of the Supreme Court because the battle now focuses on state protections, even as pro-life activists are being arrested across the nation while attacks against pro-life pregnancy centers remain open cases. Just this week, President Joe Biden held his first “Restore Roe” rally in Washington, D.C., speaking at Howard University, a historically Black college. Carroll pointed out a major distinction she sees between the Republican Party and the abortion extremism exhibited my most Democrats.

“What’s notable, for me, is that I have seen the Republican Party come to recognize the political saliency of the pro-life movement, while the Democratic Party has, unfortunately, descended further and further to the abortion extremism today. Joe Biden used to call himself personally pro-life, and despite all the other issues our nation is facing, he decided to make abortion on demand, without limits, his No. 1 agenda item for 2023.”

And as midterms are taking place across the country next month, the pro-abortion regime at work in the Democratic Party does not seem to be changing position. Despite all of that, can pro-lifers hope for a change of heart? Carroll said, “The abortion industry has a truly breathtaking death grip on the Democratic Party. They cannot see how out of touch their horrific position is. I don’t think there will be change until they see political consequences of their extremism.”

Tactics have also taken a turn, with reports calling into question a new stream of black markets popping up in states that have abortion bans, offering unregulated abortion pills that cause drug-inducing abortions that can be very painful and even life-threatening to the mother, in addition to the unborn child. Carroll said the situation is even worse, telling the Register, “According to a recent Washington Post article, these distributors of illegal abortion drugs are advised never to meet with a woman face to face. Where is the compassion there? How can any abortion activist say they’re really helping a pregnant woman in need, perhaps facing an abusive partner, if all they do is mail abortion pills and say, ‘Good luck’?”

The Susan B. Anthony organization is doing the exact opposite, with canvassers knocking on countless doors across the country to spread the pro-life message. Motivation is led by a love for the unborn and women in their communities. “For the eight years we have had a field team, it has always been about more than just communicating a political message,” Carroll explained. It’s really about relationships and a personal touch.

“I have seen our canvassers hug women who, after decades, decided to share the pain they have from a past abortion with a stranger on their doorstep; our canvassers have connected women with pregnancy resources when they have been considering abortion, and even domestic violence resources, when they have learned of a woman or family in a dangerous situation. It is amazing to see hearts and minds change through this personal connection and lives enriched!”

And it is these pregnancy resource centers that have become “the unsung heroes of the pro-life movement.” The Charlotte Lozier Institute, SBA’s research arm, has documented over 2 million women and their babies given resources in a crucial time of need. “The service they provide to women, children and families is invaluable, and so especially as things move to a patchwork of laws across the states, I believe the work of these community-based resource centers will be increasingly more important,” Carroll said.

The post-Roe era has also launched a new program to be at the crossroads of women in need of real options when facing an unexpected pregnancy. Carroll told the Register about Her PLAN (Pregnancy & Life Assistance Network), “which aims to connect pregnancy centers and other life-affirming assistance providers with other community-based resources across a spectrum of care needs women may have when faced with an unplanned pregnancy: for example, food and housing, mental health and addiction recovery, legal services, child care, and so on.”

Her PLAN started in Texas, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi and West Virginia, “states most ambitious to protect life, and are already seeing such beautiful fruit,” Carroll continued. The idea is to work with “a state’s existing ‘pro-life safety net’ to strengthen that network for moms and families and then also identify where there may be holes or gaps.”

With programs like Her PLAN and thousands signing up every day to volunteer to canvas, working to change hearts and minds for the unborn, SBA Pro-Life is in a great position to carry on the vital work the organization has been doing for decades. Carroll’s compassionate voice and care for the unborn will not be forgotten and will only inspire the next generation of pro-lifers to carry the torch for life.

Considering this new era that her child is being born into, when asked what she imagines telling her child 20 years from now, she replied: “I imagine I’ll be able to tell this child that Mom worked really hard to fight to protect other babies and their moms from a great stain on our nation and that he or she has friends and peers that they might not have known otherwise. I hope this baby will be proud of me for following God’s call to stand up for the unborn and to sacrifice for the cause, as well as for the sacrifice I make now,” stepping away from a beloved job for an eternal vocation of motherhood while continuing to be a pro-life advocate.

God bless you, Mallory!