I can understand how an individual might be anti-abortion. I don’t agree, but I get it – life is precious and all lives (even potential lives in the form of fertilized eggs) should be nurtured and allowed to flourish. However, the so-called “Pro-Life” Movement is a complete fraud.
- They do not actually care about babies.
Any rational person would understand that the best way to prevent unwanted pregnancies (and thus abortions) is to promote & enhance birth control methods which can prevent unwanted pregnancies from occurring. But the Pro-Life movement does everything they can to eliminate any meaningful sex education and prevent access to birth control. Moreover, they reject social programs that would enable struggling parents to more easily care for infants and young children (e.g., paid maternity/paternity leave, flexible work schedules, daycare subsidies). That’s because they want to punish people for having recreational sex, most specifically women. - They do not care about life.
Once a baby is born, most pro-lifers don’t seem to care in the least what happens that baby. It’s fine with them if it goes into our flawed and overburdened foster care system or if a single mother struggles desperately to keep a roof over their heads. Moreover, the “pro-life” movement is linked with those who support death penalty for “criminals.” Finally, as with many Americans, the majority of “pro-life” individuals enjoy the products of slaughter (e.g., meat, leather) and even direct killing for sport (e.g., fishing, hunting).
I could take the pro-life movement more seriously if they would be consistent and start openly promoting sex education, social programs for mothers/parents and respecting all life (including going vegan). But as is, it’s a deliberately misleading movement angling for punishment, not solutions.
In addition to the moral and logistical flaws with “pro-life” positions, they fail to understand (or willfully ignore) some major problems with enforcing abortion as an illegal act:
~Miscarriages (or god’s abortions, as I like to call them) occur quite often, in about 30% of pregnancies*. In some cases, it would be impossible for authorities to distinguish between miscarriage and abortion. It would be outrageous to punish a woman for such a natural and common occurrence.
~Forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term when that pregnancy is due to rape or when it threatens her life is a violation of her bodily autonomy; it effectively objectifies her as a vehicle for pregnancy instead of recognizing her right as a full human being, with authority over her own body.
* miscarriage as biological ejection of fertilized eggs varies widely depending on the length of time, with as much as 75% chance in the first week and as little as 3% in the second trimester (link below), which is the latest a normal abortion would occur (up to 24 weeks).
http://www.pregnancyloss.info/info-howcommon.htm