The 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade came and went Wednesday without much fuss. The University’s anti-abortion group staked its usual spot on Free Speech Alley, but — in the long shadow of Barack Obama’s inauguration — the controversial Supreme Court decision took a backseat.The abortion debate is well-trodden ground. There is little new to say, and few can listen with an open mind.The extremes of either position — that life begins at conception and that choice extends to partial-birth — are both morally questionable, and no scientists, philosophers or preachers can authoritatively say when an embryo is entitled to human rights.So rather than ask where a fetus’ right to life begins or where a mother’s right to choose ends, let us instead ask a very different question — What if?During the past 36 years, opponents of Roe v. Wade — although never in the majority, according to a 2006 Harris Poll — have wielded an extremely large amount of political influence. They have organized marches on Washington, raised countless millions of dollars for advocacy groups and reliably shown up at the polling booth. Despite this, they have failed in their stated goal: to make abortion illegal. Though they restricted some practices and threw regulations in the way of many expectant mothers, they are as far from making abortion illegal today as they were three decades ago.What if, instead of spending this time, energy and money on fruitless political action, anti-abortion activist ignored the government completely and focused on social change and charity?What if, instead of spending millions on political campaigns, anti-abortion activists instead donated money to our nation’s foster care system?In the 2004 election cycle, the Pro-Life Campaign Committee spent almost $5.8 million on political advertising, according to OpenSecrets.org. That’s $5.8 million from only one advocacy group for only one election year.That’s $5.8 million dollars that could have been spent making adoption a more attractive alternative to abortion that was instead spent on ensuring that Rick Santorum, Sam Brownback and George Bush kept their power.Rather than making the world a better place, $5.8 million was wasted on the empty pageantry of patriotism.What if — instead of spending time protesting in Free Speech Alley and our nation’s capital — anti-abortion activists set up charity hospitals and clinics that made carrying a baby to full term more affordable?More than 100,000 traveled last year to the annual “March for Life” in Washington, D.C., according to a February 2008 article in The New American.That is 100,000 people that were motivated enough to travel across the country and walk through the biting cold.What if — instead of groveling at the thrones of power — these protestors volunteered their time at hospitals and clinics across the country?They could have lowered the cost of medicine and made the trials of pregnancy more tolerable. Instead they wasted their time and energy on a meaningless gesture that accomplished nothing.And what if — instead of opposing the morning after pill, comprehensive sex-ed and other measures that would have prevented accidental pregnancies — the anti-abortion movement would have focused on ways to prevent accidental pregnancies?Yes, many anti-abortion activists are against contraceptives, but let us ask “what if?”How many abortions would have been made irrelevant if effective, accessible contraception had been supported with the same energy anti-abortion activists have given to the constant spectre of Supreme Court nominations?Everything is a zero-sum game. Everything comes at the exclusion of other possibilities. When someone tells you to participate in a march in Washington, they’re telling you to march instead of spending time with friends, family and loved ones or making the world a better place.We will never know what the world would look like if anti-abortion activists had taken this route. And we never will.Abortion opponents sought political action. Instead of working through the free market and charity, they played the game of politics, and more abortions happened because of that choice.No one wants abortions to happen. Most people recognize a new life is something to be celebrated, not reviled. These measures could have brought the entire country — both anti-abortion activists and abortion rights activists — together in an effort to better our country.Instead, we were left with a polarizing issue that not only wasted our precious money, time and energy, but also gave our politicians the freedom to ignore the real issues while sticking to the safe, predictable rhetoric of the abortion debate.That’s a tragedy.If you want to improve the world, forget about the government and its laws.—-Contact Daniel Morgan at [email protected]