We’re approaching 49 years of neither wearying nor resting in the fight to protect unborn children under the law, and a major victory has rarely felt so close.

A Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that recognizes the shallowness of the Roe v. Wade decision and the empty-headedness of Planned Parenthood v. Casey is far from assured. But should it happen, a favorable ruling in Dobbs would be an unprecedented victory for the millions who have marched in January snow and held innumerable prayer rallies for an end to legalized abortion.

Of course, it would also send the Left into paroxysms of fury, with calls for boycotts, secession, or worse. And unfortunately for social conservatives, recent history suggests that elected leaders who share their views are ill equipped to brave such a storm. The wall of shame is crowded with names of Republican governors who have backed down on socially conservative legislation when faced with a media firestorm, activist boycotts, or corporate pressure.

A post-Dobbs world may lead to similar capitulations. Untold numbers of nominally pro-life politicians have been able to get elected without thinking they’d end up playing with live ammunition. How many Republican governors are ready for Fortune 500 companies to move out of their states? For major airlines to threaten to stop serving midsize airports in red states? For the NBA or WNBA to celebrate Planned Parenthood with uniform patches and percentages of gate revenue?

The pressure campaigns on religious freedom and voting bills would look like child’s play if a state moved to enact restrictions potentially enabled by Dobbs. Social conservatives need to prepare a counteroffensive. A meaningful legislative agenda, coupled with a strategic PR campaign, could help steady the movement in the first heady and unstable months following, God willing, a favorable decision in the Dobbs case.

The first step is to build a visible counter-pressure to the virtue-signaling and woke gestures that will be sure to follow any Supreme Court decision permitting curbs on abortion. This would be easier said than done. A sense that overturning Roe is the end of a fight, rather than the beginning of a new one, would inevitably lead some to suffer from post-honeymoon syndrome.

Pushing past the fatigue would require strategic planning by state organizers — if the Court hands down its decision at the end of its term, July 4 could make a memorable day to showcase the pro-life movement’s numbers in Marches for Life in state capitals. Corporations that openly disrespect pro-lifers would need to hear about it, and loudly. Acting strategically also means not overreaching and pursuing bans that are outside the realm of the politically possible, and not opposing the good for being the enemy of the perfect.

Even more important than rallies and email blasts, however, would be a slate of positive actions to support mothers and their families at the state level. In a September interview with The Atlantic, John Seago, legislative director of Texas Right to Life, admitted that a post-Roe society oriented toward providing support to pregnant women “would require a higher level of commitment and investment” than the pro-life movement has previously shown. Obviously, crisis-pregnancy centers such as Birthright do heroic work, have changed countless lives, and deserve redoubled support. But responding to Dobbs with an agenda that rethinks support for vulnerable mothers would require more than just heroic efforts from civil society.

States could join the more than a dozen others that provide funding to crisis-pregnancy centers, or take a page from Texas’s book, which has increased the amount of general revenue going to its “Alternatives to Abortion” program from $3 million in 2010 to $74 million in 2021.

Pro-life conservatives should encourage their state legislatures to favor public funding for a broad range of pre- and post-natal assistance, such as home-visiting programs and initiatives aimed at curbing maternal mortality, which is especially high in the black community. For example, a bipartisan bill in Texas recently extended Medicaid coverage for new moms to up to six months following the birth of their child.

Of course, women in crisis-pregnancy situations often have financial concerns that go beyond the birth itself, which is where investing in traditional safety-net programs might make some sense. This could require revisiting some of the conventional wisdom around welfare policy — according to the Urban Ins­t­itute’s Welfare Rules Database, 13 states still have so-called family caps on the books, which deny additional benefits or reduce the cash granted to families that have additional children while on assistance. These and other explicitly anti-natal provisions in public policy should be consigned to the scrap heap.

Pro-lifers could also advocate expanded eligibility for the Women, Infants, and Children Nutrition Program, increased availability and affordability of child-care slots for low-income single moms, and stronger laws against pregnancy and parental-status discrimination. In the six states that offer child tax credits, eligibility could be extended to three months prior to birth. States that have a surplus could explore a new-parent tax credit, advanced to the date of birth, to help new moms and dads cover expenses during their little one’s first year of life.

Because of balanced-budget requirements and the federal printing press, states’ fiscal capacity will be more limited than the federal government’s, so the best place for direct assistance to families would be child benefits from D.C. (Reforming the tangle of low-income tax credits, as in Senator Mitt Romney’s Family Security Act, would be highly preferable to the supersized status quo of the Biden administration’s Build Back Better plan.) Some conservatives have advocated expanding child tax credits as a solution to record-low birth rates, which, based on other countries’ experience, is a fool’s errand. The pro-life case for universal child benefits, however, lies in recognizing that a little extra cash each month will make the lives of low-income moms that much easier. In a post-Roe America, broader federal spending on parents will make welcoming an unexpected child less of a financial burden.

Given that the White House can be expected to veto any pro-life legislation until at least 2025, new thinking must begin at the state level. States cannot and should not wait for Washington to begin developing new approaches to supporting pregnant women, new moms, and their children. Morally, there is a compelling case for a truly pro-life movement to begin developing new thinking now about a more robust safety net, with more public funds going toward making abortion, as the saying goes, not just illegal but unthinkable.

But, nearly as important, this kind of high-visibility legislative agenda would put the lie to progressives who want to paint restricting abortion access as an exercise of power. Pro-abortion advocates claim that the decision to end a human life in an abortion procedure is sometimes necessary because of financial exigencies. Tackling the material factors in a real, tangible way will leave progressives without that thin branch to cling to.

Let’s not kid ourselves: No matter how generous the safety net, there would still be college-educated women torn between an unexpected pregnancy and a promotion, and single moms with two jobs dreading the thought of another mouth to feed. They deserve our compassion and our earnest effort to make society more welcoming of them and their children. But the economic concerns that cause many women to seek out abortion would still be there after a victory in Dobbs, and pro-lifers must be ready to meet these concerns head-on.

In an America where Roe is curtailed, there would still be hard arguments to win, laws to pass, and hearts to convert. Many have spent long years heroically fighting in the trenches against Roe. A younger generation has picked up the baton and sees a potential finish line in sight. But caught up in the heat of battle, too few have had much time to think about what comes next. A favorable ruling in Dobbs has the potential to test the pro-life movement in new ways, but the preparation can begin now. States with conservative majorities don’t have to wait for Congress or the Court to begin taking concrete steps and putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to building a culture — and a policy framework — of life.