What is pro-life, really?
What is pro-life? What is it really? The phrase is the tag line of anti-abortion groups. It means they believe that life starts at conception (the point at which one spermazoid has finally winnowed his way through the egg wall and begun the reproduction process). As such, “pro-lifers” believe that ending a pregnancy before the child is born is basically murder. The pro-lifers, as they see it, are trying to stop infanticide–the killing of children.
But that, of course, is a fun trick of compartmentalization. When they say “pro-life” they really just mean anti-abortion.
For example, there are many pro-lifers that support the death penalty. That seems like a bit of a paradox doesn’t it? There are also many pro-lifers that support our current occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. In this case, they’d be pro-war pro-lifers. At its extreme, there are even pro-lifers that believe in bombing abortion clinics. The irony (or hypocrisy) is here unmasked at its most brutish level, as a group would willingly kill the already born and breathing for the sake of those not yet born or breathing.
So what is pro-life, really?
“Pro-life” is a high-powered leash on the faith voters, for one. For example, a Republican candidate recognizes that he’s facing a popular opponent for a government position. He must find some way to get his “type of voter” to the ballot box. Can you find a more red-button issue than abortion? So the would-be politician (and his friends in the party) work to have a ballot initiative introduced regarding abortion. Then they scare the living daylights out of the “pro-lifers” in hopes that they’ll come out to vote on the initiative (and hopefully for the Republican candidate). In a more concrete example, consider how Obama was painted as an “infant killer” by the Right Wing.
Many admitted after the election that obviously he wasn’t out there trying to kill babies. They even admitted it was a tactic.
The essence of the strategy is “voter mobilization”.
And that’s all pro-life is. An even passing glance at the facts shows the absurdity, and compartmentalization of this view.
For example, many pro-lifers also harangue bitterly about one-parent households, and the death of family values. On the other hand, they would force a single mother to bear a child she cannot afford. When her parenting skills, her money and her patience, are completely exhausted, the same pro-lifers would blame her for being a bad parent. They are also the same people that consider welfare, food stamps and wic checks a “socialist program”. Well now who’s really being pro-life and anti-life? They forced birth on the single mother, despite the fact that the child’s life might be miserable.
When the mother than tries her best but still needs the national community’s help, the same pro-lifers would smack their teeth and say, “no, you can’t have any money. That’s socialism. You should’ve thought of that before you had a baby!” How pro-life is that? How is that pro-life? Consider that little nugget. A political name, “socialism”, will keep a pro-lifer from helping you live. They’re also perfectly willing to make your child’s life miserable over the same word. Their self-righteousness is more important than the life of your child. Is that pro-life? They’re pro-life when it comes to forcing you to have a child, and anti-life the moment you ask for help raising the child they forced you to give birth to!
Pro-lifers also say there are many options besides abortions. Like say… adoption. Unless you’re gay. Sure, pro-lifers support forcing you to have the child, and sure they’ll turn their backs to you if you need help raising that child, even as a single parent. But god forbid, two women or men, who are actually in love, would ever get a child to raise on his own This is the type of psychology that thinks Jaimie Lynn Spears would make a great single-mom but a married gay couple would have no clue as to how to parent. Put more simply, these are the types of people that encourage adoption as an alternative, but rail against funding for adoption agencies and go absolutely god-crazy if a gay couple adopts. It’s more “pro-life” to grow a child in the psychological limbo of the foster system than it is to have them grow with loving, attentive parents.
Perhaps the most jaw-droppingly absurd of all pro-life positions is the pro-war correlation. I’m damned if I can see how these two things complement each other, but you can find very many Americans who are pro-life and are very pro-war. Nearly a million civilians have been killed by our mutli-country occupations these last 5 years. Is that pro-life? Tens of thousands of young children died because of malnutrition and disease caused by the US embargo of Iraq before OEF/OIF. Is that pro-life? Hell, the Reaganites even gave Saddam the chemical weapons he used to slaughter thousands of Sunni and Kurdish families. Is that pro-life? I mean, Reagan was the “pro-life candidate”, right?
Let’s be completely honest for a second. “Pro-life” is one of these frightening neologisms like “peacekeeping mission” that imply something far more pleasant than they actually mean.
In fact, I would argue that over the course of the last quarter century, those who have voted strictly across the pro-life ticket, have caused exponentially more murders and deaths then they would have if they’d voted independently or even “pro-choice”. I made a little paradigm for us 
pro-life = pro-Palin = don’t believe mass extinctions being caused by mankind = continued destruction of lifeforms on this planet
pro-life = pro-Bush = pro-war = the death of nearly 1 million civilians
pro-life = pro-Bush = the destruction of the middle class = millions of Americans suffer
pro-life = pro-Bush = anti-national health insurance = tens of thousands of American babies still die of SIDS each year
pro-life = pro-Bush = anti-environmentalism = more toxins in air and food = higher cancer rates = shorter lives
pro-life = against same sex adoption = less kids have homes
That truth is, a pro-life position is merely a pro-death position with a myopic sense of focus. A true pro-life party would be anti-death penalty, anti-war, and pro-social services. For every abortion performed today, at least ten children will starve to death. Should the pro-lifers be more concerned with one unborn child, or the ten already-born children? Which concern is more pro-life?
I too am pro-life, but don’t think my opinion (nor the government’s) should have anything to do with how women’s bodies are handled. After all, I would be incredibly pissed off if there was a ballot initiative on vasectomies. Frankly, I know it’s reproductive thing, but I don’t think the government has any business telling me what to chop and what to keep within my body.
In fact, shouldn’t the government be spending it’s time and efforts improving our infrastructure, improving our education system, promoting peace and encouraging a global dialogue?
Wouldn’t that be really pro-life?
One Love, One Hope, One Struggle,
—Reverend Manny and the Twilight Empire
angrygirl said,
November 12, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Excellent post. I agree wholeheartedly that the abortion/forced birth issue is merely something to motivate the uninformed vote. Anti abortion advocates should be outraged as to the way they’ve been hoodwinked by the GOP year after year. Wasn’t Bush with his awful Supreme Court nominees supposed to end Roe v Wade? He had 8 years to end abortion, and did nothing.
Which is what the hypocrites always do. I think this ties in well with a previous post of yours called “Morons & Hypocrites”.
As much as I get annoyed with the anti abortion folks, I feel bad for them. I think they really believe they are doing the right thing, but they are so blinded and have extreme tunnel vision that they do not see the forrest for the trees. What’s that phrase? Cutting off one’s nose to spite their face?
The fact that anti abortion people would be against any demographic adopting really speaks volumes. It is reasonable and logical for one to draw the conclusion that the phrase “pro-life” really is just marketing, plain and simple. You are right on with calling out the comparementalization when you see it.
Continue to walk in the light of God, Rev Manny!
BoonDoggle said,
November 12, 2008 at 12:36 pm
another great post
Reverend Manny said,
November 12, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Hey AngryGirl,
I’m totally with you. I’m not anti-prolifers. As a matter of fact, I tend to share the same socio-economic bracket as pro-lifers. We should be voting in very similar ways.
Instead, both parties have created this “one-issue-trumps-all” system of alarmist democracy.
Here’s an exercise we should all engage in. Honestly list the top 50 things this country needs to get right…. even if abortion’s on that list… it’s only one of 50 things. What happens to the other 49 if we become single-issue voters?
Ditto on “pro-life” as marketing.
We all know what Bill Hicks had to say about people that work in marketing. hehehee
One Love, One Hope,
–Reverend Manny and the Twilight Empire
TallulahBankhead said,
November 12, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Thank you for breaking it down so lovely. I have always contended that Americans who are pro-life and pro-war are doing so because they need bodies to fight the wars. Let’s see if a child has undereducated and/or uninterested parents, what options exist for that child if they make it out of high school? Wal-Mart, factory job (if they still exist) or the military.
To me, this obsession with protecting and nurturing embryos and the lackadaisical attitude towards providing services & support for babies and children to grow up healthy, smart and strong is setting up a treadmill of bodies to fight and die in America’s various wars.
Until the pro-life movement can prove that they are activists for the best interests of birthed children as well, their platform will always be considered a testament to cynicism and hypocrisy.
And after last week, I’m hoping that more people see this bunch of crap for what it is.
May the GOP and its remaining faction of people who still think it’s 1954 Louisiana
be out of power for some time.
Reverend Manny said,
November 12, 2008 at 12:53 pm
hahaha…
You know, one of the things I really wanted to get into in this blog (But didn’t have space for) is how many pro-lifers support the Right Wing agenda on medical patents. It’s an unspoken dirty secret of modern medicine. Thousands upon thousands of kids every year for lack of a medications that cost pennies on the pill to make.
Here’s an area where pro-lifers could really gain some credibility. Why not fight the medical and pharmaceutical rackets? Isn’t it “anti-life” to charge somebody 2.000 dollars for a doctor’s visit? Isn’t it anti-life to refuse to pay for a 32,000 surgery because of a “pre-existing” condition?
“Until the pro-life movement can prove that they are activists for the best interests of birthed children as well, their platform will always be considered a testament to cynicism and hypocrisy.” … i really hope so…. i truly hope we understand how much of a wedge issue this is…
thank you so much for your readership and support Ms. Bankhead.
Munch the Porons,
–Reverend Manny and the Twilight Empire
One Fly said,
November 13, 2008 at 12:10 am
Mr. Rev, thanks for visiting Outta the Cornfield and I have linked to you. In that spirit you have been tagged.
Can you bless me now?
Joe O said,
November 13, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Once again, George Carlin said it first and said it best…
revmanny said,
November 13, 2008 at 12:25 pm
hahahah… so true!
Stephen Bauer said,
November 13, 2008 at 10:00 pm
You’ve covered an awful lot of ground. You’ve asked what pro-life means. You’ve brought in politics. You’ve brought in the inconsistencies and hypocricy of pro-lifers. I think it would take two whole books to cover everything.
The first principle is the God-given dignity of every person. The second principle is that you treat a thing the way you define it. Human life begins at conception and human life is sacred. People are not objects or commodities and do not have monetary value. All people have a right to, “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The arguments against life are all utilitarian.
To be pro-life means to believe in the sacredness of human life from conception until natural death. It is to be in favor of as much quality of life as possible, between conception and death. Pro-lifers should believe in justice and peace. People that are pro-life should be against abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia, assisted suicide, torture and war. Pro-lifers should be in favor of helping women in crisis pregnancies. They should favor adoptions. They should care for the sick and dying. Pro-lifers should believe in the right to health care and should believe in the alleviation of all poverty and suffering.
To be continued…if I can get the time….
nunya said,
November 14, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Why is it the me an immigrants are the only ones able to clearly see the Compartmentalization inherent in Americans?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmentalization_(psychology)
Good catch Rev.
Stephen M. Bauer said,
November 15, 2008 at 9:57 am
Re: the compartmentalization references. I see America as very polarized. Since the 1960’s some injustices were removed or lessened from American society. But the credibility of many icons was smashed, and with respect to values many babies were thrown out with the bath water. As a society, we are wandering and lost in relativistic morality and nihilism. We have become a culture of death. In parallel, society has gotten very complex, making it very difficult for many people see understand or see things clearly. I think that the depth and breath of the pro-life issues are actually complex and difficult. The mistake that the leaders of the pro-life movement have been making is to try and strive for merely legal solutions on abortion. I am afraid that the solution must come from the bottom up. We must first transform society from the bottom-up, from the grassroots and build a true culture of life.
Manny, in my opinion, what is most lacking in the pro-life movement is major, transformational leadership. If I may make an analogy. Imagine if the civil rights movement did not have MLK jr. I think that many more white people would have an opinion about the civil rights movement as you do of the pro-life people. I urge you to be open minded.
Stephen M. Bauer said,
November 15, 2008 at 12:07 pm
A timely statement from the Pope:
http://ncrcafe.org/node/2284
Save the Fetus….Abandon the Child | said,
November 19, 2008 at 11:06 am
[...] What is pro-life, really? – The irony (or hypocrisy) is here unmasked at its most brutish level, as a group would willingly kill the already born and breathing for the sake of those not yet born or breathing. So what is pro-life, really? … [...]
angrygirl said,
November 22, 2008 at 10:17 am
@nunya
Hey I was born here and see the compartmentalization too! Then again, most of my friends are immigrants.
Lizzie said,
November 25, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I agree with Steve. I believe that life begins at conception. Any woman who wanted a child but lost it, even at a few weeks, would tell you that they didn’t believe it was just a foetus.
Abortion wasn’t even ever brought to my attention until I came to the US, where it is part of liberal and feminist rhetoric. I believe it has been used as a marketing ploy by them too. I do not have anything against either liberals or feminists, but feminists in many non-Western countries would be disgusted to be accused of not believing in women’s rights just because they believe that the foetus is a baby. For them the issue is much more fundamental – rights to clean water, to raise their family, rights to love whom they love, to work, to equal pay, to keep their children or continue practising their faith even if they run from their abusive husbands, etc.
Pro-life does not mean pro-Bush, pro-Palin, or pro-war. It may be what you’ve seen, but the obnoxious ones also make the most noise. I feel that way about both sides. Pro-life does not even mean Republican, and it would be a gross misjudgment of all pro-lifers to make that assumption, just like saying that all who have faith are uneducated or ignorant or unwilling to help others.
I do believe that society and all pro-lifers have a responsibility to care for orphaned children, single mothers, and to do so without judgment. I do not believe in making the assumption that single mothers would be unqualified parents, or deciding that babies that potentially will be born with birth defects do not deserve a chance at life, and I am extremely heartbroken every time I hear of a married couple without any special difficulty who decides to abort because they decided they didn’t want children or because they’d have to give up their lifestyle. It costs at least $600 to abort in this town. Planned Parenthood says they have a “sliding scale” based on income, but this is still the lowest it goes, so it’s not a cheap operation, and you’d be amazed how many Montecito couples or real estate brokers or otherwise moneyed people do it because they like to maintain their “hassle free” lifestyle.
The death penalty is a separate issue all together, and I do not think it is related. Both pro-life and pro-choice people can be for or against the death penalty. The issue there is of innocence/guilt, which I don’t believe is relative as some claim. An unborn child is innocent – hasn’t even had the opportunity to be guilty of anything – while a murderer or a serial killer has guilt that cannot be erased.
The argument against the death penalty is usually about whether or not we are in a position to judge a man’s crimes. But the constitution does provide that we all have rights, but our rights stop where they intrude on another’s rights. One such right is the right to life, which arguably the state can take away when a man takes another man’s life. And for the victims of murders, several life sentences, free room & board, and free education is not enough to make up for the crime. The power of the law is specifically in its ability to convince both the good and evil man not to take certain actions for fear of harsh punishments. The punishment has to be harsh enough to deter even the coldest of men. Even so, the punishment has been refined over the years to what people consider “most humane” – at one point the guillotine was considered such, but now it is lethal injection.
So it boils down to yet another issue – who can judge, and what punishment is appropriate. Unless you’ve lost someone close to you, and especially to a brutal murder, I don’t think we’ll understand what goes through their minds when people protest the death penalty and talk about the right to life.
Stephen M. Bauer said,
November 27, 2008 at 12:06 am
In my two comments, I deliberately avoided the subject of the death penalty.
I disagree completely with Lizzie on the death penalty.
The Catholic church teaches that the death penalty, in theory, is not an intrinsic evil, for the reasons she states, never-the-less, the Bishops discourage it as much as possible. They teach that in developed countries that can support prison systems, there is no reason to ever use the death penalty. (Note though that Lizzie and the Catholic church do agree that the death penalty is not an intrinsic evil.)
I personally believe that only God is entitled to take human life. I believe in the seamless garment–a consistent ethic of life–that says that abortion and the death penalty are wrong.
I have heard Lizzie’s argument before, from others, that if one commits a crime like murder, that one forfeits their right to life, that the state can take your right away. I disagree. Either the right to life is God given or it is not. Man has no right to take it away, unless there is no other choice, such as a truly just war or self-defense. The “no other choice” part is the difficult part. And I admit this is not the tightest argument in the world, but this is my conscience. (I am not quite a pacifist.)
The death penalty is an element of the CULTURE OF DEATH, just as abortion and unjust wars are. The common denominator of all these solutions is that we are solving a social problem by killing people. This is what I call a CULTURE OF DEATH. As long as we have the death penalty, as a society, what kind of a message are we giving when we simultaneously oppose abortion? It is inconsistent at best and hypocricy at worst.
I disagree totally with Lizzie’s point about victims of murders. The issue must be about justice. I understand that the family of murder victims are victims too. Their emotions should be taken into consideration and prosecutor and judges usually do. But the emotions of the relatives of victims of murder should never be the sole determinant of the punishment for a murderer. That would not be justice. I know many people who favor the death penalty for reasons of revenge. That is not a justifiable reason for the death penalty. Revenge is not a Christian response. For the state to exact revenge on their behalf is wrong-wrong-wrong. People must face the fact that in the case of a murder, tragically, a substantial justice can never be achieved, as horrible as that it. Revenge is not justice, not in a Christian society.
Lizzie: I would encourage you to read about the history of the death penalty. My biggest reason for being opposed to the death penalty is that it has NEVER been justly applied. In the U.S. basically if you have money or connections and commit a henious crime, you will never get the death penalty. If you are poor, or better yet, poor and a minority, you stand a chance of being given the death penalty. Historically it has nothing to do with the actual crime. Prosecutors find cases that they can railroad and get a great deal of publicity out of so they can get elected to higher office. In the U.S. it has been poor minorities that no one in polite society cares about are the ideal targets for ambitious prosecutors. Prosecutors simply exploit white society’s fear of black men.
There is much, much more to this issue, from both a Christian and a humanistic viewpoint.
It really bothers me that so many Christians in the U.S. believe in the death penalty.
Please contemplate the fact that Lord Jesus Christ was an unjust victim of capital punishment.
Stephen M. Bauer said,
November 27, 2008 at 12:11 am
The reason that some pro-life people give for campaigning against abortion so much and not the death penalty is proportionality. There are several million abortions performed each year in the U.S., and what, 20 executions of criminals? Plus, throw in the fact that the criminals are convicted of something very bad, and no one has any human sympathy for them.
Stephen M. Bauer said,
November 27, 2008 at 12:15 am
I would like to hear what Lizzie has to say about people who were innocent but given the death penalty.
And what do you have to say about the stream of people on death row today who are slowly being freed on the basis of DNA evidence?
We do not have a perfectly just system.
Stephen M. Bauer said,
November 27, 2008 at 12:37 am
I’d like to throw in that statistically the death penalty is not a deterrent to murder. The state with the death penalty have the highest murder rates.
Stephen M. Bauer said,
November 27, 2008 at 12:42 am
Lizzie,
Granted, on a human level no one has any sympathy for someone guilty of a horrible murders. Never-the-less, isn’t it rather oxy-moronic to speak of “humane” capital punishment?
Are you willing to inject a condemned man with a lethal drug?
Even if not, are you willing to witness an execution?
Reverend Manny said,
December 11, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Phew… There’s alot here. Let me start with comment 9, re: Steve Bauer (and added apologies for responding so late… i’m a pro nerd now, and that can eat up more time than you’d expect and I haven’t been able to tend my blog with due diligence)
I’m firmly in agreement with you. All live is “sacred”. However I don’t see a “utilitarian” view on preserving life the same as being utilitarian and then having a pro-life view, and I think there’s a huge difference. In one, the utilitarianism is pointed towards preserving life, not destroying it. With that end in mind, it will be utilitarian in how it achieves that.
The other are the right wing utilitarians of the abortion debate. They have a separate stake, and they are utilitarian in using pro-life voters to empower themselves, thus exercising their utilitarianism THROUGH pro-life movements instead of towards those ends.
Anti-abortion utilitarians would favor sex ed (IMO), adoption and nationalized health care alongside with their legislative efforts. Their calculus would focus on the ENDS of decreasing abortions.
The way they’re operating now they’re actually shorting themselves. They’ve shut themselves into a snug corner on the right, and are too often allyed with close-minded hardliners than pragmatic utilitarians.
So depending on what you mean by “utilitarian” I could see it being used in non-pejorative way. I can also see, admitedly, how “in the long run…” thinking can be used to justify some pretty horrible stuff. Torture, Hiroshima, etc…
Good stuff. I look forward to extending this discussion.
As for the notion of sacred, I have to say it is one of those things I do admire about People of Faith. The Natural Law’ers who believe there are certain unalienable rights. There is an immutable dignity in that. However, I question it’s sprinkled use by some of the more intellectually stunted members of the pro-life community. It is used with an awful convenient selectivity. Abortion? “that’s under our spetrum”. Poverty and Suffering? “render unto caesar’s what is caesar’s”
Strikes me that Jesus would be far less worried about the letter of the law and much more concerned with increasing compassionate, neighborly action throughout humanity. But then… would that be utilitarian of Jesus?
–The Rev
Stephen M. Bauer said,
January 24, 2009 at 7:14 pm
At the bar you mentioned Calvinism/Puritanism, I think. I think the lust for capital punishment among the more fundamentalist/evangelical Protestants is a legacy of Puritanism.
Stephen M. Bauer said,
January 24, 2009 at 7:21 pm
You mention Natural Law. I believe in it greatly but have issues with it. My issue is that the way it is understood and articulated may have made a lot of sense to someone in the middle ages. It is not very persuasive with regard to specific issues today. It relies too much on logic, medieval logic, and woolly logic. We need a new genius to come along, like an Albert Einstein of philosophy to re-derive Natural Law for the modern mind. Much of the Catholic Church’s teaching on morality is based on the concept of purpose and Natural Law. To contemporary minds, including my own, it often just results in a blank stare. It persuades no one. I consider myself a fairly well-informed Catholic laymen, and so much of the Catholic expression of Natural Law seems so ethereal and vacuous.