Pro-life Does Not Exist
Is it really possible to be “pro-life”?
“We proclaim that human life is a precious gift from God; that each person who receives this gift has responsibilities toward God, self and others; and that society, through its laws and social institutions, must protect and nurture human life at every stage of its existence.” (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops)
This statement has no truth behind it so therefore, pro-life can not exist. There’s no place in the world where pro-life exists, especially in the government. The government needs to stop making excuses and face that pro-life doesn’t exist. Truly supporting the life of every human at every stage of its existence is essentially impossible, so when someone calls themselves pro-life, they likely don’t know what that really means. Regulating abortions is just one main example of that. As Monica J. Casper, a sociologist at the University of Arizona states, “Let’s call anti-abortion legislation what it is: anti-woman, anti-mother, anti-child, and anti-freedom.”
Becoming pregnant is supposed to be an exciting thing, but this isn’t true for all. Women must make a decision that will change their lives forever. They can either keep the baby, put it up for adoption, or get an abortion. All three of these options should have equal accessibility across the board, but this most likely isn’t the case.
If you deny a woman an abortion, you are not only denying her the rights to her own body, but also forcing her to potentially sacrifice her own life in order to give birth. Being pro-life, typically means you are against abortions, however, this doesn’t mean you are always saving the fetus. Each case is circumstantial yes, but let’s say a woman is denied an abortion at 16, so she must put the baby up for adoption. The baby then doesn’t get adopted, so must go into the foster care system but then becomes homeless at 18 because they have aged out. “20 percent of foster youth will become homeless the day they age out.”(Dronen) But this person now living on the streets is better than letting the women get an abortion, right?
Another significant concern about putting a child into foster-care is the risk of mental health issues. According to the U.S. government run website that keeps all the up to date information on youth groups states that, “In one study, children in foster care were almost three times more likely to have considered suicide and almost four times more likely to have attempted suicide than those who had never been in foster care.” This doesn’t seem very pro-life. The fact that the government would rather have a woman give her baby up while these statistics exist, proves the government isn’t pro-life. Women should not have to wrestle with the fact that their child might end up living on the street or killing themselves because of the life they were given. How is this pro-life?
If someone claims they support the lives of others, why do they create policies that make women have to turn to getting an unsafe medical procedure? A woman might make this decision because she has no other option. In a Harvard article by Ana Langer, she says, “According to the World Health Organization, 23,000 women die from unsafe abortions each year and tens of thousands more experience significant health complications globally.” Where is the pro-life here? Women are being denied an abortion because it’s “saving a life” but is ultimately killing thousands of women and the fetus on top of that. Regardless of government restrictions, religion is also not an excuse for denial. This is shown through the personal experience of a woman who at first was anti-abortion because of religion. She got pregnant and miscarried because she wasn’t healthy enough to carry out a pregnancy but didn’t want an abortion. This happened twice. This made her realize that, “…. she couldn’t know exactly what their reasons were and it wasn’t up to her to dictate someone else’s decision.”(Green) Nobody has the right to tell anyone what they can do with their body. It is up to them and them alone, no government nor religious practice should be able to regulate that decision because you have no idea what someone’s going through and their decision could save a life.
Another point is, why do the people who say that they’re pro-life typically tend to be against other social groups? They also tend to turn blind eye to the harassing of those other groups or participate in the harassing themselves. If you are pro-life like you say, why do you think other groups of people are lesser than you? A writer in the Observer agrees by saying, “Those same individuals who are so vocal about saving fetuses because they are also human lives are the ones who turn their cheeks to injustices committed against brown and black folk, the LGBTQ community, disabled folks, the poor and the marginalized.” This is why pro-life doesn’t exist, there’s no human being on this planet who is pro-life. If you are so insistent about preserving every form of life why aren’t you doing everything and anything possible to make that happen?
Pro-life does not exist. The government needs to wake up and start realizing those facts. Regulating women’s bodies and denying them access to abortion is ultimately killing more people. If being pro-life means wanting to preserve every single human life ever why isn’t that the case? Why is it more likely for a child in foster care to take their own life to those who aren’t? Why are more women dying because of an unsafe abortion? Why are people still being harassed for who they are? That’s not pro-life. Nothing is. There is no mindset in this world that’s 100% committed to nurturing and preserving every single human life in any way possible. The time is now to determine if real pro-life can actually be achieved in today’s society.
Works cited:
Casper, Monica J. “Anti-Abortion Misogyny: It’s Never About the Children.” Breakthrough U.S, 23 July 2019, letsbreakthrough.org/anti-abortion-misogyny-its-never-about-the-children/.
Dronen, Christina. “Aging Out Statistics 2020.” Finally Family Homes, 10 Dec. 2020, finallyfamilyhomes.org/the-problem/.
Green, Emma. “The Experiment Podcast: In Between Pro-life and Pro-choice.” The Atlantic, 21 Dec. 2021, www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2021/12/pro-life-christian-changed-views-abortion/621028/.
“Groups with Increased Risk.” Youth.gov, youth.gov/youth-topics/youth-suicide-prevention/increased-risk-groups#_ftn.
Langer, Ana. “The Negative Health Implications of Restricting Abortion Access.” Harvard, 13 Dec. 2021, www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/abortion-restrictions-health-implications/.
Ortega, Natalie. “Anti-abortion is not pro-life.” The Observer, 25 Mar. 2021, ndsmcobserver.com/2021/03/anti-abortion-is-not-pro-life/.
“Pro-Life Activities.” United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, www.usccb.org/prolife.
Watson, Jim. Pro-life activists gather in front of the US Supreme Court at the 44th annual March for Life, 27 Jan. 2017, on January 27, 2017 in Washington, DC. https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/2/3/14487208/pro-life-abortion-movement.
