Ben Shapiro speaks at anti-abortion fundraiser in South Bend, is met by protesters

SOUTH BEND — Ben Shapiro began his talk to an audience of more than 1,700 gathered for Right to Life Michiana’s annual gala on a predictable note.

“Roe vs. Wade is dead, guys,” Shapiro said, earning him a round of applause from participants who paid $55 to hear him speak.

What followed Thursday night was a debate workshop for abortion opponents who seek to rebut common claims of their ideological foes, who are fighting in Indiana and around the nation to preserve the choice to have the procedure.

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Shapiro, who is both renowned and reviled as a conservative polemicist, rose to prominence in a world where the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision guaranteeing abortion access was a looming obstacle. With the court having struck down the law this June, his speech at Right to Life’s fundraiser came off as pragmatic rather than celebratory.

“It’s now up to localities and states to protect the unborn, which means that our job just got a lot more vital,” Shapiro said. “It was always a hard job, but there was a barrier in the way of actually getting things done. Well, now that barrier is gone.

“Politics isn’t just a matter of electing the right people,” added Shapiro, a frequent critic of former President Donald Trump. “It’s a matter of getting the wrong people to do the right thing.”

As is common when Shapiro visits cities or college campuses to speak — with his standard fee ranging from $50,000 to $100,000 — a group of protesters gathered outside the Century Center to rebuke both him and Right to Life Michiana, the area’s leading anti-abortion organization.

About two dozen protesters who say they’re South Bend community members declined to speak to a reporter or give identifying information. They wore masks or covered their entire faces in fear of being harassed by local conservative groups working to identify counterprotesters at a drag show the Michiana Proud Boys tried to disrupt last week.

Most protesters stood across Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and faced a line of hundreds of attendees, holding signs saying "Stop Christian fascism" and leading chants like, “Get your rosaries off our ovaries.”

One particularly attention-grabbing sign, held by someone wearing a mask that appeared to portray the likeness of President Joe Biden, invoked the president’s recent gaffe involving the late U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski, a staunch anti-abortion advocate: “Where’s Jackie? I thought she was going to be here.”

Right to Life honored Walorski with a lifetime-achievement award before Shapiro’s speech. The honor was accepted on her behalf by her husband, Dean Swihart, and her mother, Martha Walorski.

Antonio Marchi, the executive director of Right to Life Michiana who recently replaced longtime leader Jackie Appleman, said many gathered never thought they’d live to see a post-Roe world.

He commended Indiana legislators for passing a near-total abortion ban in August. But lawsuits against the state, one of which is filed by a group of abortion providers that includes Whole Woman’s Health of South Bend, shows the fight has only begun, Marchi said.

The ban on abortions, excluding several rare exceptions, took effect Sept. 15. But a week later it was temporarily barred by a Republican judge in Owen County. In response to the abortion providers’ lawsuit, Special Judge Kelsey Hanlon wrote that there’s a “reasonable likelihood” the right to privacy in the Indiana Constitution protects decisions about family planning, including the choice to have an abortion.

Oral arguments will be made in mid-January, meaning abortion remains legal in Indiana. Marchi praised Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, who was in the audience, for his coming defense of the law.

'Women are more fulfilled when they have babies'

Shapiro said anti-abortion advocates must now win the moral argument regarding the procedure. To that end, he spent about a half-hour making what he called a “secular, humanist” case against nearly all abortions — he makes a clear exception only when the life of the mother is at stake.

“A lot of people think that with Roe v. Wade over, the fight is over,” he said. “No, no, no — this is when the fight actually starts.”

A slim majority of Indiana residents say they support abortion in the case of rape or if the life of the pregnant person is endangered, according to a survey conducted this summer that didn’t ask about cases of incest. Two of five Hoosiers say they oppose abortions after six weeks, while a quarter support them beyond that timeframe. About 35% of people said they were neutral.

Indiana’s near-total abortion ban allows exemptions for all three of the above cases, as well as when fatal fetal anomalies are present. Medical professionals have criticized the portion protecting a mother’s health as troublingly vague, however.

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An Orthodox Jew, Shapiro said he wants to help people who oppose abortion because of their religious views to avoid being lumped into the category of “religious crazy people.”

He rejected the view of some non-Orthodox Jews that abortions may occur under certain circumstances barred by Indiana’s law. A group called Hoosier Jews for Choice is part of a lawsuit against the state that alleges the new law violates Jewish people’s religious freedom.

Shapiro’s anti-abortion stance is at bottom a belief in the Judeo-Christian view that people are more fulfilled when they raise children. He called a woman’s choice to have an abortion because she isn’t financially or emotionally ready “absurd.” No one is truly ready to be a parent, argued Shapiro, who has three young children.

“Women are freer, women are happier, women are more fulfilled when they have babies,” Shapiro said. “How this has become a controversial proposition in America is beyond conception.”

“If we actually wish to have a civilization,” he added, “we’re going to have to fall in love again with the idea that … women having babies is an active good — in fact, the highest active good.”

Email South Bend Tribune city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jordantsmith09

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Ben Shapiro speaks at anti-abortion fundraiser in South Bend