Pro-lifers must also be vigilant during the Trump presidency, she warned, because although Trump has pledged to sign pro-life bills, his rhetoric on other issues – such as statements supporting torture and the indiscriminate killing of family members of terrorists – has been troubling.
"The fact is right now President Trump is the de facto leader of the pro-life movement" and is "linked with it, as is his legislative agenda," she said.
"The pro-life movement is now tied to someone who is very unpredictable regarding these issues, and lacks credibility on them," she continued.
"It's unlikely that he'll treat these issues with the care and nuance that they require."
"His policies don't often witness," she added, "that we're called to respect the human dignity of everybody, from conception until natural death."
Other panel members agreed. Ross Douthat, an op-ed columnist for the New York Times, noted that the pro-life movement "has achieved sustained success," but must not "let it become a ceiling, then, on the movement going forward."
"To get to an actual pro-life society, you need both parties, or at least elements in both political parties, to agree," he said.
Pro-lifers must be willing to go beyond talking about abortion and discuss "what happens then with mothers in unplanned pregnancies" and form policies on adoption and healthcare and provision of prenatal care.
Charles Camosy, an associate professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University, said that a new era in the pro-life movement is taking shape.
"I might argue that it had its coming-out party last week in response to the coverage of the pro-life feminists who attended the Women's March," he said, referring to the Women's March on Washington that drew hundreds of thousands of protesters supporting "women's rights" and the protection of "marginalized" minorities. One of the march's principles, however, was promoting abortion access.
While the event officials would not let pro-life groups partner with or sponsor the march, pro-life feminists showed up to provide a pro-life message.
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The women "explicitly resisted … any sense that they were represented by the Trump administration," Camosy noted. They promoted a message of "resisting violence and lifting up the vulnerable on multiple fronts, from multiple angles" including victims of drone strikes, torture, and "discrimination against the disabled," he said.
"Indeed, the more Trump talks about torture, building walls, deporting children, intentionally killing the parents and children of terrorists, the more I think this fuels pro-life 3.0," he said, referring to his term for the new era of the pro-life movement.
However, one primary challenge facing this movement is the lack of an "underlying metaphysical vision," he said.
A deformed vision of the human person is still prevalent in society and will outlast short-term legislative gains, Roberta Bayer, an associate professor of political philosophy at Patrick Henry College, warned.
Even if the Roe decision that legalized abortion is overturned, "we're still in a culture where basically people are thought of as matter in motion," she said, and this is "taught in our universities, that's the whole ethos of our culture."
"And then the next generation comes along, and that [pro-life] law is reversed," she added.