Just after the Supreme Court announced its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, undoing the right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade, Republican senator Marco Rubio announced a “pro-family framework” for new welfare legislation “to provide comprehensive support for pregnant and new moms, as well as young children.”

“But even now that America’s pro-abortion legal regime has been overturned, our work is far from over,” Rubio wrote in an op-ed announcing the proposals in the Washington Examiner. “We can and must do more for unborn children and their mothers.”

These policy proposals have two political aims. One is to allow Rubio and other Republicans to present the rollback of reproductive freedoms as part of a “pro-family” agenda, born out of a sincere concern for mothers and children. Rubio’s plans are in line with the advice of conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who suggests that the GOP needs to become “more serious about family policy and public health” to sustain its antiabortion victories.