Pro-Life Shouldn't Mean Oppression

by Lauren Boyer

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I’ve often heard people complain that pro-life people aren’t actually pro-life. That, rather than protecting life, they oppress women by using their own bodies against them, giving them no options, only ruined dreams and a life of poverty to be spent alone and under society’s judging eye. They strap strangers to electric chairs and they hold onto their guns at the expense of their little ones. 

Those people are not wrong. That’s not pro-life. Being pro-life is not about embracing selfish violence. It’s not even equivalent to being conservative. Instead, being pro-life means clinging to our natural rights. It means looking at Hobbes’ world of violent survival and choosing to live with the inconvenient respect of Locke. Pro-life means recognizing the dignity and value of human life despite the dangers, violence, and oppression that face mankind daily. Yes, it means recognizing that the human fetus is a living person with the right to exist — but it also means recognizing that women have the right to pursue happiness. Instead of holding one over the other, being pro-life means the government should fight to esteem both. 

Recently, pro-life advocate Abby Johnson made a comment implying that groups who oppose prosecuting women who’ve had abortions are not really pro-life. The Equal Rights Institute responded, saying, “Even though an aborted fetus and a murdered adult have the same value, a person who pays for an abortion and a person who hires a hitman typically have very different levels of knowledge and culpability about the value of the life that is being ended.” While this is true, my point isn’t to prosecute anyone.

What society — what this world — needs is less hatred and more understanding. The best way to kill violence is to enlighten. Mother Teresa once said, “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” I don’t think abortion is selfish so much as it is grossly ignorant of the life it takes. A 2005 study of the reasoning behind the choice to abort found that, “While fewer than 1% of women…would not consider or did not favor having a baby and giving it up for adoption, more than one-third of interview respondents said they had considered adoption and concluded that it was a morally unconscionable option because giving one's child away is wrong.” What this is is a misunderstanding of human life. These women have convinced themselves that it is less wrong to take away the life of their child than to let someone else raise them. It's a logic that implies a child's personhood depends on their mother's choice. If she plans to abort, they are only a fetus, i.e., disposable; but if she plans to give birth and place them with an adoptive family, then the child is a person worthy of consideration. No argument against adoption, for the sake of abortion, is a worthy one; ultimately, it is an empty promise that one’s comfort can be offered through another’s death.  

Upon realizing a fetus is a living human who should be protected under the law, we must remember the problem of abortion doesn’t end there. The pro-life movement so often forgets that there are other parties involved, and their interests should be protected alongside that of the unborn child. In a truly pro-life society, their interests wouldn’t be at odds. 

One argument that often comes up presents the mothers’ interests. It’s right to say that if a woman can’t walk out of a pregnancy, a man shouldn’t be able to either. Men who abandon their children should be held much more accountable by the law than they are at present. The sad truth is, in a patriarchal society, the government would rather feed a business that makes $1.7 billion each year by taking life and giving women trauma than legally confront rapists and neglectful fathers. While aiding pregnant women throughout their first years as a parent and connecting them to long-term solutions may seem expensive, the monetary cost remains cheaper than the human one: the lives otherwise lost to abortion. The pro-life movement must be careful not to forget one martyr for the sake of another. 

The oppressive nature of abortion surpasses its effect on children and mothers. It is steeped in societal values and drains the lives of minority groups unnoticed. It creates a situation where your worthiness to live depends on whether someone else wants you or can afford you — two measures which are dictated chiefly by societal values and hierarchy. In 2022, a study declared, “It is estimated that 60 percent to 90 percent of children diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted in the U.S., compared to 18 percent of all pregnancies ending in abortion.” The “less desirable” to society so quickly disappear when no one will speak up for them. 

How do we end this madness? For starters, if a woman wants to have a baby, it is far better that the government pay for her to have child support than to pay for her to have an abortion. If the woman doesn’t want to have a baby, adoption and emotional support as well as prenatal care should still be supplied to her if she is in need. But there should be no abortions, unless it is necessary for the mother’s physical survival, because extinguishing a life is no solution to discomfort.

It is essential that we remember to live out our pro-life values. Being pro-life should mean that no human has the right to take away the life of another. Rights don’t depend on the situations we are born into (like having a rapist father) or the ones we create (like committing a crime). Being pro-life means taking the proper measures to protect that life, innocent or not. It means loving our children more than our guns. It doesn’t mean forgetting the mother’s life when the child is born. I believe a pro-life society, in this sense of the word, is possible. Getting there is simple: we must first believe in it.