There’s a broader conversation about abortions and the prolife movement that needs to happen, and I’d like to simply scratch its surface with this post, so bear with me, because it can get lengthy.
The recent and much-awaited overturn of Roe v. Wade opened the floodgates to the vast and seemingly overwhelming number of questions surrounding abortion in the U.S.
By “questions,” I don’t mean those cases where abortions are necessary.
(They never are: Intentionally murdering a preborn baby is never necessary.)
Instead, I mean all the dilemmas that states making abortion illegal or more restrictive now face, along with the solutions Prolifers must come up with to address those dilemmas.
In light of how expansive this situation is, what follows is a rough outline for my post, so that both you and I know where I’m going:
- I’ll start with the key to NOT being a hypocrite in the prolife movement: Basically, a Prolifer ought to genuinely support and advocate for life and families.
- Then I’ll address how irrelevant abortionists’ one concern is and why: Some are worried their daughters won’t have “as many rights” as they did. But I’ll show you why they’re wrong, and what TRUE concerns actually look like.
- Later I’ll go over most Americans supporting legal limits on abortion, and how this will help the prolife movement prevail: Abortionists are losing the fight on ALL grounds.
Let’s begin with the importance of supporting families.
If us Prolifers say we care about life, then we must also care about what that looks like in the context of policy reforms that affect families, incl. parental live and child support.
I’m not saying that abortions happen because of a lack of decent parental leave and childcare (which makes it seem as though the preborn baby were an inconvenience—and to most women who have abortions, IT IS!).
What I’m saying is that us Prolifers may advocate for the rights of preborn babies all we want, but if we don’t advertise the MANY ways that we also help families and support instituting broader changes for parents, then we’re honestly being hypocrites.
Abortionists may argue we only care for babies up until they’re born, and unless we advocate for these reforms, they’ll seem correct.
Which is why I also wanted to bring up this article that rightfully concludes that “accepting short-term solutions like abortion only delays the implementation of real reforms like decent [parental leave]”:
Pro-choicers have always been skeptical that legal abortion “only delays the implementation of real reforms,” and have demanded evidence.
On May 13, a week-and-a-half after the leak of the draft Dobbs opinion, Marjorie Dannenfelser (the hard-driving woman who singly may deserve more credit than anyone else for making Dobbs possible) was allowed some space in the Washington Post. She wrote:
“governors in pro-life states are leading the charge to enact meaningful protections for unborn children and increasingly creative ways to ensure mothers have the resources they need to choose life.”
This belongs to a grander discussion on work and families because, as we’ve found out recently, there are many major companies that will cowardly sponsor the abortions of their female employees (by paying for their trips to states that offer them, for instance).
Why do you think they made this decision?
Many may argue that it’s because abortion expenses are cheaper than offering better work conditions, better parental leave, better childcare and scheduling options, more support for other healthcare expenses, and even postpartum assistance.
I agree!
Paying for a cheap flight beats paying for several months’ worth of maternal and paternal leave, for instance.
No wonder these companies (I’m especially looking at you, supposedly “pro-woman” Bumble!) would rather take the EASY way out than truly support their employees’ health and wellbeing!
This is incredibly unjust (and downright embarrassing as an American to witness) for several reasons:
- What about the male and female employees who need financial assistance with chemo or other potentially life-saving surgeries or treatments?
- What about the women who’d like help paying for their own vaginal deliveries, Cesarean sections, or postpartum hospital expenses?
- What about the couples who choose to adopt?
- What about those families where the children need expensive medical treatments?
Wait, no, I get it: It’s really only about killing the unborn and virtue-signaling: that’s it. That’s their incentive. Screw families that choose life, right?
Fortunately, there are companies out there who’ll bravely go against the grain.
Take a look at Texas-based Buffer, an insurance company that supports “its employees with adoption expenses and medical costs associated with giving birth. Its founder explains:
If employees are having difficulty or having problems expanding their family, we are providing resources for that. There’s a lot of medical expenses you can pay for around an adoption … more tax savings if companies put money toward that. With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, there’s going to be a lot more babies for adoption.
Not to be corny, but doesn’t that give you hope? It’s a beautiful thing to see people stand up for what’s right and just.
Speaking of which, and although I won’t link to it because I don’t want to give professor Emily Oster’s largely distorted perspective of the world more views, I wanted to bring your attention to a point of view that’s become more salient since Roe was repealed.
The misconception that women won’t have as many rights in the future with Roe gone
This part of my discussion will be shorter because I don’t intend to dwell on something so dumb.
With Roe gone, many women believe that their daughters, granddaughters, etc. won’t have “as many rights” as they did.
What they mean is that they genuinely fear that future generations of women will be worse off than they were simply because they will lack access to abortions:
- Never mind that abortions will still be legal in some states.
- And never mind that many states’ abortion restrictions are still LESS strict than those in most countries.
- Never mind that abortion WAS NEVER A RIGHT.
- Oh, and never mind that women here are among the freest in the entire world.
No, no.
If women here can’t ALL kill their babies, then, they allege, they’re repressed and won’t have as many rights as those who can kill those “inconvenient and parasitic clumps of cells.”
But these dimwits are ignoring the REAL concerns that plague the other side, those of the side that chooses life and actively care for and help pregnant women who choose life.
As I told Oster in a mid-July 2022 email in response to her newsletter that included the “fewer rights” concern:
I’ve been yearning to help out at my local pregnancy resource centers. (You know, the places that help women *choose* life.) However, in light of news of them getting vandalized (or worse), I genuinely fear for my life, and that of my toddler if I ever take him to “help” us. Where’s the concern for those places and their volunteers? I worry that I’d lose MY right to life if I help a woman work on her baby’s right to life.
But that’s not where my concerns end. I also wrote:
I worry that these people and some in government value killing preborn babies more than they value empowering families, instituting parental leave policies, and supporting pregnant women and their babies. After all, abortion only delays the implementation of real reforms, and I worry that the “mama bears” in those comments are only seeing the small picture, and raising their kids to care more about abortions than said policies.
I wasn’t done:
With Roe getting overturned, I worry about the misinformation on miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and preterm nonviable deliveries that’s becoming so rampant. Why one side is more intent on fear-mongering than actually helping is beyond me, and I worry that girls will grow up worried they can die or go to jail due to this fake news.
Lastly:
I worry for parents that teach their boys and girls that good sex is more important than a baby’s right to live, that consequences don’t matter.
That was the end of that part of my email to her. Although she wants or seems to want to come across as nonpartisan, my point was that her obvious partisanship can do more harm than good by alienating parents like me who want an unbiased, BS-free source of interesting research updates.
(Oh, and if you want another genuine Prolifer concern, why can women choose to kill their unborn children but men can’t refuse to pay child support? Make a baby: live with the consequences, both of you!)
Oster has yet to respond to my email. That’s how most abortionists seem to be, anyways: afraid to discuss their views because they know they’re on the losing side.
And also because they know they’ll come across as ignorant and narrow-minded as pro-choicer Brenda Davies did in this debate with Prolife advocate and Live Action founder Lila Rose :
Most Americans Support Legal Limits on Abortion, and Oppose Taxpayer Funding
As I was driving recently, I came across the replay of a great January 2020 interview on Conversations with Cardinal Dolan on satellite radio that I knew I had to bring up.
The interview is with Patrick Kelly of the Knights of Columbus. They’re discussing the Prolife movement and how important it is to continue the fight and combat all the misinformation, with the Cardinal noting that us Prolifers are significantly affecting abortionists because of all they’re doing to try to (unsuccessfully) dismantle our arguments.
But we have science and common-sense on our side, so we know we’ll prevail in the end.
The Cardinal begins: A new Knights of Columbus/Marist poll shows that 71% of Americans now support legal limits on abortion and 81% believe laws can protect both the mother and her unborn child.
(As a side note, you may also find this article on how UNpopular Roe is helpful.)
For more on this we’re joined right now by Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly of the Knights of Columbus.
This is the Cardinal playing devil’s advocate: You Prolifers have to get realistic and read the signs of the time. The vast majority of American citizens want abortion to be legal. They wanted it anytime, anywhere. You are trying to impose some silly outdated beliefs on these American people who want abortion unrestricted.
False!
Mr. Kelly: Our polling consistently shows, over the last 14 years, that there is a pro-life consensus in this country, and that an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that abortion should be limited.
So this idea that “we want unlimited abortion up until birth” is a product of the pro-abortion forces trying to force that narrative on us. It’s just not true, and it’s not where the American people are.
Cardinal Dolan: You’ve done a great service with this Marist poll, in unmasking what we’ve known for a long time, that this is a brutally manipulative distortion of the facts.
When I’m in a debate, the pro-abortionist will say, “Well, you know, the majority of American people want to keep abortion legal,” and I’ll say, “That may be true to some extent, but the vast majority of people in the United States also want legal restrictions on abortion.”
Mr. Kelly: What we’ve been finding for over a decade now is that there’s an overwhelming majority of Americans who want legal limits to abortion; that it should not be an unrestricted license. When we talk about the mother and the baby, it’s not an either-or proposition; it’s both-and.
That’s another thing that our polling shows: That over 80% of Americans believe that our laws can protect both the mother and the unborn child so there doesn’t have to be the false choice that abortionists set up between one or the other.
(Another side note that they refer to: There are thousands of pregnancy resource centers and countless other organizations that help pregnant women and families. This means there never has to be a choice between the mom OR the baby.)
Knights of Columbus has an ultrasound program where we put ultrasounds in these pregnancy centers and we put our 1500th ultrasound in a center last week in New Jersey.
So that’s a false choice between the mother and the child because they both have dignity and we need to protect them both.
They continue: [Abortionists are] really petrified, panicking, and into scare tactics where they’ll insist there’ll be a revolution if abortions are made illegal in more places, but again, they’d be wrong:
The statistics show that over seven out of ten Americans want thoughtful restrictions upon abortion and 60% of those that we polled said that they thought abortion should be a state decision, so there isn’t any room for a revolution.
Cardinal Dolan: It’s important for people in their state to actually have their voice heard on this issue. I was just at our state Capitol yesterday talking about this to our political leaders: There’s a real animosity towards creative, thoughtful alternatives to abortion.
There’s a lot of harassment of our crisis pregnant pregnancy centers and a lot of even discouragement at the noble, heroic act of adopting a baby. However, what the Marist poll is showing is that the American people are very, very generous, and if given the opportunity to support the expecting mother and her baby, they will do it!
I mean there up to 4,000 of these pregnancy centers around the country, and I think the number is just going to increase as we go forward, because, like I said, the American people are generous, and I think the majority want legal limits….
I had a pro-life Mass and there were demonstrators outside with signs like, “God loves abortion,” “Fascists Go Home,” and “New York Hates Pro-Life,” and they had big spotlights with pro-abortion slogans.
And to tell you the truth, I’m kind of flattered we’re getting to them: They’re worried about things!
On the other hand, you know the caricature of Prolifers as being these bitter, angry, hateful, judgmental people, but that couldn’t be more wrong! I hate to tell you but the bitterness and the vitriol is pretty much on the other side!
Whenever I go down to the Prolife March, which I try to do every year, I always make it up to talk to the cops who are on duty. I said, “Hey fellas, how are you?” And they’ll say, “This is the easiest day of the year! We have very often over a quarter of a million [people]—easiest day in the year! There’s no hatred, no demonstrations, no trash, no anger, no fighting. If there is, it’s the two or three pro-abortionists off to the side who always seem to make the evening news’.”
But I thought about what the Holy Father says, that the greatest way to attract people to the truth is through joy and love. Now you see that in the prolifers!
* * *
Here are more findings from the Marist poll that the Cardinal and Mr. Kelly discussed:
- 63% of Americans oppose new federal rules that allow sending prescription drugs for medication abortions through the mail instead of having women get them in-person from a specially certified health provider.
- Three-quarters say doctors, nurses, or other health care professionals who have religious objections to abortion should NOT be forced to perform them.
- A majority (54%) believe organizations who have religious objections to abortion should NOT be legally required to provide insurance coverage for abortion.
- Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Americans either “oppose” or “strongly oppose” using tax dollars to support abortion abroad, including 59% who self-identify as pro-choice.
It’s obvious the Prolife movement will prevail and that most people support limiting access to abortions. Prolifers are doing everything right, and abortionists have no scientific, moral, or ethical standing to win.
However, we can’t give up now: Yes, common sense, science, morality, etc. ARE on our side, but don’t think we’re finished. And don’t feel discouraged, either.
In the beautiful words of Pro-Life Utah:
Of course the abortion lobby wants us to feel overwhelmed and exhausted and discouraged. They’re finding that they can’t win by logic, reason, science, or morality.
The only course left to them is to wear us out and pressure us to give up.
But I won’t.
What is my exhaustion when compared to the lives of the children I can save by continuing to make my voice heard? Isn’t that a price I’m willing to pay?
What is my frustration, when put in the context of the good it can inspire? Nothing truly great has ever happened in the world without being preceded and motivated by frustration in some form.
Why should I feel anxiety, when I know the facts and know my cause is just? …
Am I going to let anyone take away my courage in fighting for the lives of preborn children?
Absolutely not.
Hold onto your courage. The future is still bright.
Stay strong, fellow Prolifers. The world needs us all now more than ever.