What does it mean to be pro-life? My answer may be different than the answer you’re used to hearing. I’d love for you to hear me out. In my life I’ve been an uninformed passionate pro-lifer as a teenager, a more informed, slightly jaded pro-lifer in my young adult life, and now, through intensive reading on both sides of the issue and my own personal experiences, have worked on becoming a consistently pro-woman and pro-life person. There is no debate that I can think of that generates more heat and controversy than the abortion issue. Generally, the argument seems to be reduced down to the woman vs the baby? What if we can support them both? What if abortion has actually harmed women and the feminist movement? I’ll get back to this.
A friend of mine said that her ethics professor at Gonzaga didn’t allow people to debate abortion in her class. I assumed it was because the argument became too heated and immature, but my friend went on to explain that the reason was that her professor does not believe the issue of abortion is an ethical question- it is an ontological question. In other words, the fetus in the womb is either a human person or it is not. If a fetus is a human person, then there is no way to ethically justify their termination. I’d ask you to sit with that for a minute. To my pro-choice friends- you tend to be very justice oriented. I am regularly impressed with your ability to recognize when basic rights and dignity are not being afforded to certain groups of people. I know that you care very deeply for women, especially poor women in terrible situations. So, I know that you just don’t believe a fetus is a person. Can I ask you to consider that most pro-life people do believe a fetus is a person- and that is why they are so passionate (sometimes to a fault) about this issue- it is just unfathomable to them that these little lives can be terminated. The pro-life movement has gone through various phases. In the realm of politics, it can be very frustrating to see the inconsistency and hypocrisy of certain politicians and political parties. It is also frustrating to see the media highlighting the hypocrisy of some pro-life people without noticing the hypocrisy and similar fear-mongering tactics that are also used on their own side. I am a Catholic. I am very formed by my faith. If you can take the time to actually read through the consistent philosophy and ethics surrounding life issues by Catholic theologians and ethicists- I think you would be surprised. There are many life issues- abortion, abolition of the death penalty, euthanasia, compassionate immigration reform, stewardship of the earth are all life issues. Politics has not solved these problems. Pro-life friends- I’d like you to consider that maybe focusing so much attention on laws and politics has not resulted in significant fruits and maybe we can contemplate other areas to focus our attention. I really believe that someday we will look back on abortion in our country the way we look back on slavery in our country- we will not understand how we could have justified such a tragedy. However, I’m no longer convinced we will get there through force and through political “gains.” It is only going to happen through a shift of heart. Pope John Paul II encouraged us to build a culture of life. We have to change the culture, not control the government.
My late mother had two very high-risk pregnancies. Doctors told her to abort my brother and I. I am alive and healthy because my mother was brave. My mother believed she could do hard things. I don’t hear an empowering message in the promotion of abortion. I hear the message that women aren’t strong enough to do hard things, that women can’t climb a career ladder while also raising a child, that women are too young to be a good mother. The burden of responsibility has been placed heavily on the women since the availability of abortion- after all she didn’t have to have that child. Please don’t think I’m minimizing the pain, struggle, shame and desperation women having a crisis pregnancy may feel. I think most pro-life and pro-choice people agree that we need to have a better conversation about women’s issues than the shouting match that tends to occur. We need to provide real choices to women facing a crisis pregnancy, we need to create a culture where men bear the burden of responsibility after creating life, we need to make it normal and possible for women to raise children while going to school, while climbing a career ladder. We need to prioritize good medical care and insurance for women. There is so much both sides could agree on, if we’d stop shouting and really listen to the other person!
In 2016 I found out I was having an ectopic pregnancy, my tiny little one had implanted itself outside the uterus and would die shortly, if left to rupture my fallopian tube, my little one would take me with her. My head was spinning with sadness, fear, and ethical questions. I called a very conservative priest friend who told me there is no ethical dilemma- in surgically removing my little embryo my intent is to save my life, the sad side effect is that my little embryo will die. My surgeon happened to be on the ethics board at the Catholic hospital- he reminded me that I was at a Catholic hospital. He told me that he takes very seriously these ethical matters, but also affirmed that this was not even a gray area. He said 1 in 100 pregnancies are ectopic, so he sees this very regularly and while he has the hospital ethicist on speed dial, he does not need to call him on the question of ectopic pregnancies. Another friend had a miscarriage, but her body hadn’t recognized the miscarriage and was continuing to progress as if she was pregnant- she was prescribed the abortion pill from a Catholic hospital. I bring up these stories because there is some reactive fear-mongering on the left (I say reactive because there is also plenty of fear-mongering on the right) that tries to conclude, if abortion is made illegal than women are going to be left to die in circumstances like mine. Again, I think this kind of argument becomes nothing but a shouting match. Both sides of the abortion issue want good, consistent, life-affirming practices in medicine for women.
FeministsforLife.org is an incredible organization. I would encourage you to check them out and see what they do. They work to provide real solutions to many of the problems that drive women to abortion. They show how all our feminist foremothers, including Susan B. Anthony, were against abortion. They claim that women deserve better than abortion and believe abortion is a sign that we have not met the needs of women. They promote a consistent ethic of compassion and justice by showing how women are hurting, women have been put in terrible situations and we must address their pain, their terrible situation with better solutions than abortion, more holistic solutions than abortion. The majority of women who choose abortion have not chosen it out of a feeling of liberation, but out of a feeling of desperation! A choice made in desperation is not a real choice. We, as pro-life people, must address women’s desperation, we must change the narrative that has been mis-written that we are hypocritical, that we don’t care about women and that we only care about babies in the womb-not out of the womb. I know this is not true. I know we can do better. I know we can agree on so much more than our culture wars allow. I ask forgiveness for the mistakes the pro-life movement has made. I believe if we start loving women better and caring for the poor and marginalized we will start to change hearts and, therefore, create a true culture of life.