Pro-Life demonstration in Washington

Terminate processing activity

Medically approved

Abortion Pro-life Pro-choice History of abortion

In the back alley

Is Abortion Genocide? (pamphlet) Planned Parenthood v. Casey Warren Hern Americans United for Life Depopulation conspiracy theory Crisis pregnancy center American Civil Rights Union Unplanned v -t -e

Pro-life is amarketingeuphemism to avoid having to say "anti", as inanti-abortion;^[6] it is a political neologism andemotionally loaded term used to define people who are allegedly in favor of 'protecting thelife of everyhumanfetus andembryo' regardless of the consequences, and are thus opposed toabortion and seek to discourage, restrict, obstruct, and/or outlaw its practice.Ironically, some 'pro-life' supporters are also pro-death penalty.^[7][8] Some jurisdictions get so strict about this that giving stillbirth ormiscarriage is considered murder.^[9][10][11] The more common and neutral termanti-abortion and the political/feminist termsanti-choice andforced birth are also in use. The pro-life platform often extends to opposingembryonicstem cell research, assistedsuicide oreuthanasia, and in some cases artificialbirth control. Its adherents' tactics range from the benign (e.g.,prayers in church or fliers) to the aggressive (e.g., heckling patients walking into clinics, using the legislature to push their agendas, vandalizing clinics) to the deceptive (e.g., setting upcrisis pregnancy centers, showing unwanted graphic pictures of inaccurately labeled or doctored photos, sneaking intoPlanned Parenthood as "undercover" and then fabricating/distorting evidence of wrongdoing) to outrightterrorism (e.g.,Eric Rudolph bombings, the assassination ofGeorge Tiller, andkilling doctors).

Pro-life propaganda by the French political party "Nouvelle Action Française". In English its translation is Abortionists Murderers!The Republic kills.

Origin of the term[edit]

Because being "pro-life" has largely become a politically conservative stance, it tends to have a high correlation with support forwar,gun nuttery, andcapital punishment (i.e., killing may be, at times, approved of as a method of defending the lives of innocent persons) and with opposition to euthanasia,welfare programs (such as food stamps), and potentially life-savingstem-cell research. Hence the trenchantpro-choice assertion that pro-lifers' defense of life begins at conception, ends at birth, and starts again atbrain death. However, even this may exaggerate "Pro-lifers" concern for "life", as these people also generally oppose universal access to quality, affordablehealthcare (including universal pre-natal and maternity care), most often with the reasoning that government public-health programs are unnecessarily costly and inefficient, whereas private-sector efforts are able to help more people with significantly less cost. In other words, they have a firm belief in thefree market^{[note 1]} and inminimal government.

This was originally not the case. The origin of the "pro-life" movement was in theRoman Catholic left during theVietnam War among Catholic social-justice activists, who opposed the war, capital punishment, and abortion alike. Those who hold this particular combination today now use the term "consistent life ethic". According to theOxford English Dictionary, the term "pro-life" was first introduced to modern language in 1960 by A. S. Neill in his bookSummerhill: A Radical Approach to Childrearing: "no pro-life citizen would tolerate our penal code, our hangings, ourpunishments of homosexuals, our attitude towards bastardy."^[12][13] The specific sense of "opposed to induced abortion" had developed in North America by 1970.^[14]

Post-Roe v. Wade (1973-2022)[edit]

In the United States, after theRoe v. Wade decision by theSupreme Court in 1973, the largelyProtestantreligious right latched onto abortion as a holy crusade and made it a core part of conservative politics, conveniently forgetting the other issues. Mostly their opposition to abortion seems to stem from them seeing it as part of afeminist plot to empower women with control over their ownreproductive rights, and with thesexual revolution more generally.Jerry Falwell and hisMoral Majority played a big role in making abortion amoral panic among conservatives andevangelical Christians starting in the late 1970s and 1980s. Today, being anti-abortion is almost a given among members of evangelicalmegachurches, with dissenting views on abortion met with accusations of near-heresy. It is used as awedge issue (or a single-issue litmus test) to convince many who otherwise hold liberal, moderate, orlibertarian politics, to voteRepublican.^[15] Anti-abortion politicians have spent the last two decades trying to find ways to "fight the holy war" with a variety of new tactics from bills attached to health care reform to revised (read: impossible to do) building codes.

The anti-abortion movement and U.S. racial dynamics[edit]

In recent years, anti-abortion activist groups in the United States have turned their attention toAfrican-American women. In 2011, one such group chose February – Black History Month – for a billboard campaign announcing that "Black children are an endangered species."^[16] A spokesperson for aTexas-based anti-abortion group which ran a billboard campaign featuring a young black boy and the caption "The most dangerous place for some children is in the womb" said that "the overwhelming majority of abortion facilities are in minority neighborhoods", and that the people living in those neighbourhoods needed to be informed of the alleged effects of abortion.^[17] Also in 2011, anti-abortion activists covered the south side ofChicago with billboards featuring the likeness ofBarack Obama, with the slogan "Every 21 minutes, our next possible leader is aborted."^[18]

Anti-abortion activists often bolster this "abortion=racism" stance by citingMargaret Sanger's admittedly problematic (though hardly unusual for her time) support foreugenics. Critics counter that anti-abortion conservatives are cynically employing agenocide conspiracy theory to drive a wedge between two groups of traditionally liberal Democratic voters (African Americans and feminists).

These efforts are reflected by some more radical factions of the African-American activist community. Someblack supremacist and black nationalist groups, including theBlack Panther Party and theNation of Islam, have long denounced abortion andcontraception as alleged tools ofblack genocide.

All of this becomes more than a little bitironic when you consider that there are others who oppose abortion at least in part because they see it as contributing to the"demographic winter" ofwhite people,^[19][20][21] And yet other who organize anti-abortion conferences that openly support eugenics (e.g., includingEdward Dutton).^[22]

Anti-abortion arguments also tend to overlook or to distract from historical discrimination against African Americans, who more likely to be in poverty and thus in need of access to abortions (as many cannot afford to raise a child).

Abortion in philosophy[edit]

In her 1971 paper,philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson proposed athought experiment:^[23]

The thought experiment is meant to show that personal autonomy should be more important than saving a life when the two are interconnected. Although this particular thought experiment would seem to support abortion only in the case ofrape, Thomson constructed similar thought experiments that broadened the permissibility of abortion in a wide range of scenarios.^[24]:60-61 Nonetheless, right-to-life proponents are not very likely to find this line of reasoning convincing.^[24]:61

Abortion in religion[edit]

TheUnitarian Universalist religion strongly supports abortion rights.

Buddhist views differ, but theDalai Lama said that abortion should be viewed according to each situation.Wiccans similarly have varying views on the issue, with no set precedent.

It seems to be possible toquote mine theBible to support either side of the argument.^[25] (No surprise there perhaps.) But all of the verses referred to seem to require substantial interpretation in order to get the required meaning, and are only of interest to one particular religious group. Evangelicals of the 1950s and 1960s (in contrast to 21^st-century ones) often quoted the Bible to argue that life doesnot begin at conception — mostly as a criticism of theCatholicdogma thatensoulment happened at conception. This view persisted in fairly mainstream evangelical thought until the late 1970s.^[26]

Some pro-choice campaigners claim that abortion is mentioned in the Bible, inNumbers 5:11-31. Called "the Adultery Test", the passage is an instruction to priests on how to deal with a woman accused ofadultery by feeding her "bitter water", which afflicts her with "the curse". Specifics aren't given inNumbers, but the curse of the "bitter water" is described very clearly as affecting her child-bearing ability. Like most Bible passages, however, there is a catch: translations differ exactly on what this magic potion is supposed to do. In theKing James Version (KJV) the relevant passages read:

²⁷And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people.^[27]

Some translations specifically suggest "miscarriage" in Numbers 5:22. TheNew International Version, as opposed to the poetic and subtle KJV, suggests it directly:

²⁷If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse.²⁸ If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.^[28]

This sort of translation issue is common throughoutholy texts, and is most likely due to the use of aeuphemism in the originalHebrew that never really caught on in English.^[29] Less literal translations agree that the "thigh" in the literal version is plainly a euphemism for "womb" (so it's not just modernBible-thumpers who are squeamish about female anatomy) but whether The Curse is an induced miscarriage or just rendering the woman sterile isn't clear from most attempts to get the passage into English. Any crude substance capable of causing sterility, or by the more literal translations causing "genitals to shrink" is likely to induce a miscarriage anyway. Either way, it's Biblical evidence for priests playing very fast and loose with the reproductive cycle, which is hardly "pro-life" as many self-described pro-life proponents claim it to be!

Another verse that somewhat touches on the issue isExodus 21:22:

²⁷If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.

This suggests that inducing abortion was viewed as only a misdemeanor, though it does not touch upon cases when this was done by the mother or someone else at their instruction, but traditionalJewish interpretation has been that killing is murder only after birth.^[30] However, abortion was usually prohibited by reference toGenesis 9:6 ("Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man."), though not as murder, while allowed to save the life of the mother.

Anti-abortion activists, to the contrary, are usually likely to quoteJeremiah 1:5 ("Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee…"), which has overtones ofCalvinistpredestination,^{[note 2]} andDeuteronomy 30:19 ("…therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live"), which in context is aboutfaith inGod and has little to do with abortion.

Abortion and Nazism[edit]

Linking abortion andNazism is a common anti-abortion tactic by comparing the relationship of ideas on what constitutes a human life found in abortion supporters' beliefs and those of the Nazis. One reason the Nazis had no problem murdering millions in cold blood was because they had lowered their expectations on what was considered a human life, therefore removing any moral objection to their killings. In summary, anti-abortion activists consider third party individuals who define living in order to signify that abortion is not murder as followers of this Nazi montage.

Nazi decriminalization of abortion in Poland and Eastern Europe was condemned by the War Crimes Tribunal during the Nuremberg Trials.^[31] However, this was explicitly aimed to reduce the population of Slavs, i.e. for racist, genocidal purposes — certainly not reproductive freedom (hence it was condemned as part of the Holocaust).

Some anti-abortion activists also bring up China's controversialone-child policy as astraw man argument, accusing their opponents of secretly supporting forced abortions, because wanting women to have a choice in their reproductive health is totally the same as a government enforcing strict control of child births, right?

Rush Limbaugh[edit]

The conservative commentatorRush Limbaugh coined the term "feminazi," defining it this way:

That Mr. Limbaugh is missing the entire point ofradical feminism can probably be agreed upon even byanti-feminists. Whether the comparison of abortion with the actions of theNazis holds water is a separate question.

Refutations[edit]

Before accepting the parallel between abortion and theHolocaust, one should keep these points in mind:

1. The Nazis only used abortion for eugenic and genocidal means. Weimar-eraGermany was, for its time, fairlyliberal on the abortion question.^[33] In 1939, the Nazis ushered in laws that did away with this general permissiveness, forbidding abortions by "Aryan" women while promoting it among non-"Aryans."^[34]:94
2. The Holocaust was agenocide. In these days, the Holocaust is less objected to for its large body count than for the fact that it was agenocide, or, as theUnited Nations says, an explicit attempt to destroy a nation, ethnicity, or race, or practitioners of a religion. Not only dofetuses not form any such group, but they are not even being targeted on the basis of being fetuses.

Anti-abortion and anti-science[edit]

The theme of the 2019 anti-abortion March for Life in Washington, DC was "Unique from Day One: Pro-Life is Pro-Science".^[35] Despite this proclamation, the anti-abortion movement has been rather anti-science, for example opposing stem-cell research, promoting many falsehoods on abortion such as thedebunked abortion and breast cancer link, abortion and mental health problems link, having doctors abuse their credentials and patient trust to promote the falsehood of "saving" ecotopic pregnancies,^[36] and deceiving women to go to religious crisis pregnancy centers. The March promoted two "scientific" non-peer reviewed papers.^[35] One paper was published by the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute:^[37]

At best, this is a gross oversimplification, and the origin of a human life is more of a political question than a scientific one.^[35] The egg and the sperm are also each alive; why not criminalizemasturbation or other forms of non-procreative sex for all the living sperm cells deliberately killed?

The second paper was an opinion signed by a few hundred members of theAmerican College of Pediatricians stating that life begins at conception.^[35] The American College of Pediatricians is regarded as a fringe anti-LGBT hate group by theSouthern Poverty Law Center.^[38]

Fetal pain[edit]

Some pro-life organizations argue thatall forms of surgical abortion will causepain to the fetus. Human Life International, an anti-abortion organization, claiming that abortion providers themselves back this claim up.^[39] This is patently false because fetuses are incapable of feeling pain before about 30 weeks, when evidence ofconsciousness begins (EEG readings of the fetal brain).^[40] This is because "Pain perception requires conscious recognition or awareness of a noxious stimulus."^[40] Nearly all abortions occur during the first trimester (13 weeks).

Post-Roe v. Wade repeal (2022-)[edit]

Anti-science, anti-healthcare[edit]

Following the nullification ofRoe v. Wade by theDobbs ruling, thewillful ignorance, or just plain ignorance of the biology of pregnancy by anti-abortion activists has come into focus as states have proposed new anti-abortion laws or re-examined archaic anti-abortion laws that were never nullified followingRoe v. Wade. Examples of common misunderstandings about pregnancy are:^[43]

1. The number of weeks of pregnancy is not based on the day of egg fertilization, but rather the first day of the most recent menstruation preceding pregnancy. This is not biologically sensible, but it is used because it is the most reliable measurement. Actual fertilization usually follows two weeks following that day. This is significant because abortion restriction laws are usually based on the number of weeks of pregnancy.
2. Actual pregnancy does not start when the sperm and egg join, but rather when the embryo implants in the uterus. The egg is fertilized in the fallopian tube that connects the ovary to the uterus, the fertilized egg-turned embryo must then travel from the tube to the uterus. If the embryo does not reach the uterus, it can lodge in the tube and become anectopic pregnancy, which can never become a viable pregnancy. It will kill the pregnant person unless it is removed medically, usually by methotrexate which dissolves the cells.^[44] This is significant for anti-abortion laws that apply to the fertilized egg.
3. 'Fetal heartbeat' is based on ultrasound views of early pregnancy that can show movement primitive heart muscle in the shape of a tube and without chambers. The ultrasound is usually shown to the pregnant person and close relatives, and is accompanied by a "lub dub" sound. The sound is not actually made by the heart muscle but by the machine itself. This is significant because anti-abortionpropagandists had a billboard campaign falsely claiming that fetal heartbeat starts at 18 days,^[45] and becauseTexas an anti-abortion "heartbeat law" 2021.^[46]
4. Pain is a complex concept that is difficult to measure and requires the nervous system to send signals to the cerebral cortex in thebrain. Knowing whether a fetus feels pain is impossible to determine, butfetal pain could not exist before the connections between the nervous system and cerebral cortex are connected at 28-29 weeks. The number of abortions at that time is extremely small since 90% of abortions occur before 13 weeks.
5. The time of fetal viability is not fixed but babies born around 20-24 weeks either die or have major health problems.

Many of the abortion laws are intentionallyvague,^[47] making them of dubious legality, but also having a chilling effect for healthcare workers who are likely to err on the side of caution rather than risk imprisonment even if it means endangering the life of the mother. For example, in Malta, which bans all abortions to save the mother's life, it is suspected that doctors unnecessarily remove the fallopian tube in cases of ectopic pregnancy in order not to be charged with performing an illegal abortion.^[48] In 2022, an American tourist visiting Malta had an incomplete miscarriage in which the placenta separated from the uterus, making continued pregnancy impossible. Maltese doctors refused to treat her unless she was nearly on the point of death fearing that that they would be charged with an illegal abortion otherwise. The woman was forced to be emergency medically evacuated toSpain to save her life.^[49] In Texas, a woman was forced to carry a dead fetus for two weeks because feared risking being criminally charged with abortion if they extracted the dead fetus with the standard and necessary D&C abortion procedure.^[50] Other cases have been reported where medical procedures have been unnecessarily delayed, thus further endangering the mothers' lives.^[51] In several cases, the procedures were delayed nine days until fetal heart activity stopped:^[51] a strand of fetal heart muscle was more important than the whole pregnant person.

Unintended consequences[edit]

• A significant number people have chosen to be sterilized rather than risk an undesired or life-threatening pregnancy in an anti-abortion state, an unintended consequence of the law.^[51]
• Anti-abortion laws are making access to dual-purpose medicines difficult to obtain, as in the case of methotrexate, which is used both to terminate ectopic pregnancies and to relieve the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and lupus (autoimmune diseases).^[51][52] Abortion-inducing medications also have broad uses in medicine, including management of miscarriage, induction of labor, cervical dilation before surgical procedures, and treatment of postpartum hemorrhage.^[53] Misoprostol is used to induce abortions as well as to treat peptic ulcers.^[53] Even when such medications are available, it is likely to make doctors reluctant to prescribe them even when they are the best option available for fear of being charged with inducing an abortion.
• The confusion about how to interpret anti-abortion laws, and in some states the inability of medical personnel to even mention the option of abortion to patients has resulted in a reduction of recruitment of doctors to states that either have or are likely to have anti-abortion laws, states that already have doctor shortages.^[42]

Intentional cruelty[edit]

Some anti-abortion laws are intentionally cruel, making no exceptions for rape,incest, or age of the mother. Shortly after the voiding ofRoe v. Wade, a 10-year old girl was raped and became pregnant inOhio where the abortion ban made no such exceptions. The girl was forced to travel to neighboringIndiana for an abortion.^[54] The effect of the no-exception anti-abortion laws has been called 'forced birth', and is particularly cruel in states without paid family medical leave (PFML).^[55][56]

Some anti-abortion politicians even want to give the death penalty to pregnant people who have abortions, such as Texas Representative Bryan Slaton in 2021^[57] and a 2022North Carolina bill (NC Bill 158) sponsored by five representatives.^[58]

Some legal experts have argued that because the Supreme Court's ruling onRoe v. Wade repeal denies the federal right to bodily integrity, the same legal argument could be made by a state to allow eugenics-based forced sterilizations such as had existed in the US between 1929-1974.^[59] The Supreme Court ruling that first allowed forced sterilizations in 1927,Buck v. Bell, has been cited twice by Justice Thomas in his dissents against abortion rulings.^[59] Thirty-one states still have forced sterilization laws that would go into effect if the Supreme Court allowed them again.^[59]

Statistically, the statewide abortion bans that have gone into effect in 2022 will cause increased deaths of pregnant people because in the United States, the risk of death from pregnancy is 14 times higher than the risk of death from abortion.^[60][61] The risk of death from pregnancy forAfrican American women is higher than the national average, so their death rate would be increased proportionally.^[61]

Theocracy[edit]

That the Supreme Court ruling inDobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization istheocratic is transparent. The six justices who supported the ruling are all conservative Catholics (Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett,Brett Kavanaugh,John Roberts, andClarence Thomas) except for Neil Gorsuch who is either Catholic orEpiscopal.^[62] Alito, the author of the ruling, felt compelled to cite archaic Englishcommon law (while dismissing an important part of common law,stare decisis out of hand) that preceded the establishment of the United States:^[63]

• Matthew Hale (1609–1676), called "eminent" by Alito, but who sentenced two'witches' to death.^[64] Hale also doubted women's accusations of rape and exemptedmarital rape from prosecution.^[64]
• Judge Henry de Bracton (c. 1210–1288) was also cited several times with his bookDe Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae.^{[65]:16,17,25,26,44} Bracton describes the 'proper' procedure for determining whether a woman is pregnant: "carefully examine her by feeling her breasts and abdomen and in every way", and if the exam was inconclusive she would be locked in a castle at her own expense and examined every day until conclusion.^[66] Bracton also stated that in cases of suspected fraud, "the woman cannot exceed the gestation period by a single day, even where the issue dies in utero or turns into a monster."^[66] Althoughdemocracies did not exist at the time of Bracton, he did emphasize the point that England was atheocracy in his book by stating that theking was the "vicar ofGod" with no equal.^[66]

It should also be clear that the decision is grounded more in conservative Christian religion than in law, since opposition to abortion is primarily among conservative Christians,^[67] and the Supreme Court was intentionally stacked with conservative Christians to rig this opinion.^[68] In contrast, abortion is usually considered permissible among religious Jews and Muslims (up to 120 days).^[69]

A Florida synagogue sued the State of Florida in July 2022, basically claiming the recently-enacted Florida law (HB 5, "The Act") that banned abortions after 15 weeks is theocratic because their is no religious exemption for Jews:^{[70]:19-20[71]}

Even within Christianity, there is no consensus about abortion, leaving the total ban on abortiondogma primarily within the Catholic realm.^[72] For example:

• Presbyterians have twice ruled (1970 and 2006) that an abortion decision is an "ethical decision of the patient".^[73]
• TheUnited Church of Christ issued a statement supporting "Freedom of Choice Concerning Abortion" in 1971.^[74]
• TheUnited Methodist Church has stated, "Critical to preserving life is ready access to proper medical care. This includes access to medical care that may include abortion when that is the way to preserve the most life possible."^[75]

Anti-abortion individuals and organizations[edit]

• Center for Bio-Ethical Reform
• Democrats for Life of America
• Lila Rose
• Operation Rescue
• Randall Terry
• Secular Pro-Life

Anti-abortion media[edit]

Examples of anti-abortion media include LifeNews.com (formerly Pro-Life Infonet) andLifeSiteNews – although both claim to be independent, the latter has a historic connection with theCampaign Life Coalition, aCanadianlobby group that opposes euthanasia andsame-sex marriage as well.^[76]

See also[edit]

• Susan B. Anthony List
• Consistent life ethic
• Every Sperm is Sacred
• Fun:Pro-life argument bingo — to make debating anti-abortion Internet dwellers a little easier.

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

• Abortion
• Bronze-level articles
• Conservative deceit
• Culture wars
• Discrimination
• Misnomers
• Neologisms
• Political movements
• Political euphemisms
• Propaganda
• Pseudoscience promoters
• Sexism
• Theocracy
• Trumpism
• War on science
• We're on a mission from God

• Pages using DynamicPageList parser function