People Who Call Themselves “Pro-Life” Are Lying:
Here Are 10 More Accurate Descriptions ^[1]

A Rejoinder ^[2]

1. Anti-Abortion: People who call themselves “pro-life” oppose abortion. Since that’s the only argument the “pro-life’ moniker is applied to we should just call their position what it is: opposition to a woman’s right to get an abortion, or anti-abortion for brevity.

The author assumes that abortion is a right. But note that even if something is legally granted or allowed that does not make it a right. A ‘right’ is something transcendental and immaterial: it cannot be granted to, legislated or taken away by men (sadly ironic in the case of the abortion movement who wish to continue to take away the right of life for the unborn). If it can, then it only exists for a time based on the benefactor’s forbearance of said right. And it could be removed at a moment’s notice depending on how the particular government feels about it. Rather, like the laws of logic and mathematics, human rights exist prior to and apart from our consent or agreement.

Second, the term “pro-life” faithfully reflects that for which we stand and, in fairness, I admit that this does imply that we do not support abortion (thus we are anti or against abortion). But those who are “pro-choice” are also against something: “anti-fetus” (at least with respect to those who have chosen not to carry their baby to full term). Therefore I will not agree to the nomenclature of ‘anti-abortion’ because abortion is more than about a woman since some other body bears the consequences of that decision (namely the child that is aborted).

2. Anti-Choice: This term works because the people who proclaim that they are “pro-life” are using that term to describe their position in regards to whether or not a woman can choose to have an abortion and absolutely nothing else. See the Fugelsang quote above. Therefore they are anti-choice. “Life” does not even enter the equation.

If choice means that we would prevent someone from taking a life, then yes we are anti-choice. But then so are those who are pro-choice (at least with respect to children who have been born). The point of contention then must be: is the ‘fetus’ a human or not? Alive or not? If a human and alive, then one may have a choice (in a volitional and legal sense) to take that life, but one does not have a choice (in a moral sense) to do so. The law has to rule on whether or not the child in the womb is a viable, sentient being. Science and logic say that it is; only human emotion says that it is not.

According to John Fugelsang “[o]nly in America can you be pro-death penalty, pro-war, pro-unmanned drone bombs, pro-nuclear weapons, pro-guns, pro-torture, pro-land mines, and still call yourself ‘pro-life.’”

Pro-life advocates are varied, just as pro-choice advocates. Some may feel compelled to support a few or all of these ‘lifestyle choices.’ If either group or representatives of a particular conviction are being inconsistent or hypocritical, they should be called on it as Mr. Fugelsang has attempted to do.

However, whether a pro-life person supports the items in the previously cited list is immaterial. That is, it is immaterial to the question at hand: is abortion right or wrong? Since the author has not actually made a case for the morality of abortion he should be more careful in his judgment of the immorality of others.

Note, however, that most of these matters center on war and/or conflict in the world at large. It is obvious that such an issue is on an entirely different scale than the life of a human growing in a womb. Enemy combatants, evildoers and such have earned, at the very least, intervention on the part of their justice system, nation or the world in general. A child in the womb has earned no such punitive action against it.

3. Pro-Fetus: This term works because a large swathe of the “pro-life” movement are the same people who support cutting funding to programs like WIC, food stamps, and other programs which generally help mothers and children. If they were really concerned with “life,” and not just the fetus, then they would aggressively commit themselves to make sure children have enough food to eat, a proper education, and a place to live. Since their concern for the fetus ends as soon as it is born, they are clearly pro-fetus.

There likely are many who are pro-life who support cutting funding to social programs. However, arguments can be made that such programs tend to (unintentionally) promote poverty itself. Human nature is such that when one receives something for nothing it does not tend to help us but rather affirms or perpetuates our economic standing.

Furthermore, though it is largely misunderstood or misrepresented, the capitalist system which many (though not all) pro-life advocates hold to, is meant to help people as much as, if not more so, than any government assistance. There is no false dichotomy here, as the author seems to think, between governmental assistance (read: taxed) and none at all. By providing tax breaks and incentives for businesses, government promotes the welfare of their own citizens by allowing these businesses (within the scope of moral and just dealings) to provide not only goods and services but also jobs and economic viability for a nation.

Certainly the author is correct to note that pro-life advocates can do no less as they champion the right to live for all human beings. However, I know of several pro-life people that offer to adopt, care for, and generally have given, out of pocket, to those causes that not only serve to promote life and care for the unborn but also for the same after they have been born. Of course this is merely anecdotal, but it is no less relevant (and certainly more) than the author’s assumption about the lack of compassion of pro-lifers for children after they are born.

4. Pro-Birth: Same reasoning as “pro fetus,” this term works because so many people who consider themselves “pro-life” stop caring about whether or not the baby is adequately taken care of the instant it’s born.

See commentary on point #3.

5. Pro-Controlling Women: It’s irrefutable that the people who would deny women the right to have an abortion are trying to control women. If someone thinks they’re more qualified than a pregnant woman to decide what she does with her body, without her input, that’s control, pure and simple.

If our ‘side’ is about controlling women, I wonder if the other side is about controlling men. As a man, I am often made to feel that I have nothing to say about this debate because, after all, it is about a woman’s right to choose. But, on the other hand, I would be welcome to speak up if (and only if) I would support a woman’s right to kill her child.

That aside, men have all the incentive in the world to be pro-choice. It allows them to wash their hands of all responsibility, care and support for a woman (not only when she is pregnant but when she has to go through an abortion procedure by herself). Being pro-choice, for a man, is a major freedom, but not in the liberated sense that women thought for which they were fighting.

Moreover there are many times or cases where we do, as a society, intervene or prevent someone from doing something harmful to themselves. Suicide is one such example. If a woman (or man) wants to jump off a bridge and kill herself, who am I to stop her? Except we (generally speaking) do because we value life to the point of not allowing them to carry through with their intent. We also intervene in the case of loved ones who are given to alcohol or drug abuse. Others step into their vehicles after a night of partying but are pulled over for erratic driving and charged with a DUI even though they haven’t (yet) harmed a soul and are using their own vehicle for a relatively innocuous purpose. We intervene in the case of child abuse or neglect, even minutes after a child is born (though before it was born it could have been, in some states and countries, legally killed).

But according to the logic above we, as civilized people, should have allowed such persons to do as they please lest they or others be led to the conclusion that someone is controlling them or telling them what to do with their body.

So let us drop the rhetoric: the issue is not about what a person is doing to their own body but whether what they are doing to their body is harmful. Furthermore, point 5 ignores the elephant in the room: her body notwithstanding, it is another person’s body that is involved in the decision – the child’s. And quite a few of those are female. I wonder why pro-choice advocates do not support their right to stay alive? Why do they think that they are more qualified than a pre-born woman to decide what is done with her body, without her input?

6: Pro-Abuse: Attempting to dominate or control another person in a relationship is considered domestic abuse, so how is attempting to control women whom you’ve never met not considered abuse? A woman in Ireland died last year because she was denied a lifesaving abortion for a pregnancy that was already ending in an unavoidable miscarriage. How are the doctors who denied her that life saving procedure any better than a man who tells a woman how to dress, or what to do? If controlling what a woman does with her time is considered abuse then denying that same woman a medical procedure should be considered equally abhorrent.

Pro-life advocates aren’t attempting to control or dominate women but we are fighting for recognition and protection of those who are controlled and dominated by the law, doctors and others who want the right to kill them.

I don’t feel qualified to speak on the matter of the particular woman in Ireland (as I do not know all the facts and was not there when the event happened) but I will say that taking a life in order to save a life has long been recognized by the medical establishment as a legal and moral action (within qualified parameters). Regrettably we sometimes have to make a choice between the life of the mother and her baby. In this case, termination of one life to save another is justified.

However, to extend this principle to the argument over abortion rights is a non sequitur. A decision to take a life in the case that one merely finds this life inconvenient to them is called murder. It would also be an exception to a rule (i.e. do no harm), not the basis for a new and perverse one (i.e. do harm).   

Furthermore, if this argument was valid, abortion would not be a right but a privilege. If it is up to a woman to decide whether or not she wants to keep her child, why are so many taxpayers footing the bill? It is my business, religious convictions notwithstanding, if I have to pay for abortion which, according to the author, is a medical procedure. Certainly, in most cases, it is not necessary (in the sense of a life being threatening). If this is all about choice, why do I have no choice whether or not I want my hard earned money to go to pay for someone else’s choice which I find immoral and repugnant? (yes, this also applies to what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms – see point #7 below).

7. Anti-Sex: My friend Justin insisted for a long time that the people who oppose abortion do so because they think that a baby should be punishment for premarital sex, and I was admittedly skeptical, but he actually proved it, here. I’ll let his words on this topic speak for themselves, he makes an excellent argument.

Justin insists or knows? In any case, the article clearly distinguishes between two kinds of pro-lifers only one of which, as it is asserted, “oppose abortion because they think that a baby should be punishment for premarital sex.”

Yes there is a link between sex and babies but I don’t think anyone needs to be told what that is. The argument boils down to consequences: the consequence of sex (premarital or otherwise) which may result in the conception of a child. Ken, the intended target of Justin’s piece, argues that having an abortion, merely due to not wanting to deal with the consequences of one’s actions, is wrong. In the main I agree: it is wrong for a man or a woman to want to have an abortion because they don’t want to raise the child who is conceived as a result of their ‘cohabitation.’ Why? Well again I ask: is it moral to kill a child in the womb? That is the issue. We all know how the child got there: but why is the child being punished for the actions of others? In other words, the author of this piece has (repeatedly) forgotten to include the third party.

8. Pro-Religious Control: A lot of the arguments that fuel the anti-abortion debate are religious in nature. Since not everyone follows the same religion, trying to assert your religious beliefs over other people can be considered nothing less than pro-religious control. Not all of the “pro-life” movement is opposed to abortion, necessarily, but they are in favor of controlling people on the basis of religion. Rick Santorum, for example, who strongly opposes abortion for religious reasons, had no problem with his own wife having a life saving abortion. Despite the fact that his own wife needed one, because of his religion, he continues to insist that it should be denied to other women. What’s more controlling than that?

All arguments (including those of the pro-choice camp) are religious in nature.  Indeed, every world-view is built upon something grander than whatever is legal. If not, the abortion rights movement wouldn’t ever have gotten off the ground because, at one time, abortion was illegal. What caused them to advocate for the right to abort? Their world-view which allows them to trump the rights of the unborn with their unfettered desire to copulate without consequence. Sure, this movement might not have a church to speak for them or a priest to sanctify their actions but what difference does it make? You either believe something or you don’t. You either fight for those beliefs or you don’t. And in this the pro-life and pro-choice sides agree. Thus the question is: which world-view will the legal system adopted? Which is righteous and which is evil?

Some control is going to be foisted on every party. Pro-choice people believe that the child in the womb is a living, human being. To not allow them to stop women from having abortions is to prevent them from saving another life (something that they feel compelled to do by their faith). In many, if not all cases, they would be arrested for doing so. The free exercise of religion then, involves a limit on said exercise to allow others to pursue their choice

9. Misogynist: Misogyny is defined as the hatred of women, and what’s more hateful to women than treating them like they’re too stupid to decide what to do with their bodies, by denying them a procedure which could be life saving, medically necessary or, in many cases, the responsible choice to make? I can’t think of many things more hateful than letting women die, or forcing them to carry a rapist’s baby to term, because you think you’re more qualified to make their medical decisions than they are.

The author writes: “Misogyny is defined as the hatred of women.” And what is more hateful to women than treating them like they’re too stupid to decide what to do with their bodies, by forcing them to be bathed in acid or have their necks punctured with metal objects and their spines snapped while they reside in the womb? Who would be so stupid and hateful of women who are treated in such fashion? Who are these hateful and hate filled people who think they’re more qualified to make medical decisions for these women than they are?

Do you know anyone who hates woman that much?

10. Hypocrite: I thought I’d end with this one, because after the previous examples it should be glaringly obvious that this isn’t a debate about “life,” it’s a debate about abortion and what women are capable of deciding in regards to their own bodies. History, and extensive studies,have shown that making abortion illegal doesn’t get rid of abortion; it only makes the procedure more dangerous and unregulated, which causes more women to die from complications. According to the World Health Organization, “illegal abortion is usually unsafe abortion.” Anyone who would call themselves “pro-life,” while simultaneously trying to outlaw abortions, making them more deadly, is a hypocrite.

Correct. Making something illegal doesn’t get rid of it. So do we really need to make a list of all the things that are illegal to do, say or imbibe that people continue to do, say and imbibe these things? Clearly the abortion debate cannot be simply reduced to being a matter of what is legal or illegal.

Besides, before abortion was legal, we could have made the same argument in reverse: making abortion legal won’t get rid of the abuse, hatred and neglect of woman or children of either sex. And we see that these things haven’t gone away. We still have people, like the author, that hate women so much that they are willing to let them die in the womb for the sake of choice, rights and all kinds of other reasons aforementioned. He is fine with them being mutilated, killed and outright discarded as trash.

The only thing that pro-choice advocates have guaranteed to be more deadly than an “unsafe abortion” when the act was illegal is “safe” abortions now that they are legal. Millions more have died than ever before. Well done; we have made hypocrisy a new killing field.

Conclusion I consider myself pro-life because I support programs and policies which help people to thrive, including abortion. There’s nothing “pro-life,” or noble, about forcing a woman to carry an unwanted fetus to term, especially when that fetus could put her life in danger, was conceived through rape or incest, or would be subjected to a life of difficulty and poverty because the mother is unable to provide for a child.

We can’t continue to allow people to pretend that they support life, on the basis that they oppose abortion. We have to be willing to say, “No, that’s not what you are, and I’m not going to let you lie about your position in order to make it sound more appealing. You are not pro-life. If you were, you would be fundraising for orphanages instead of protesting at abortion clinics.”

Abortion helps “people to thrive”? That is too easy. But I obviously forgot that some people have rights and others don’t. Kids, if you have escaped the death row that the womb has become in our respective nations, congratulations. You can now thrive without concern and even thrive to the point of stopping someone else from thriving if they get in your way!

Orphanages -right. Seriously? There are no orphans because we killed them all. But I guess we can congratulate ourselves for keeping so many children out of poverty. Maybe we should deal it the final blow by getting rid of the rest of those poor children whom we missed.

In conclusion, I haven’t lied. Pro-life people, for all our warts and weaknesses, are telling the truth. The problem is that the truth about this matter is ugly. The author of this piece is like the man who complains about his neighbour’s overturned garbage can, all the while declaring his right to live in a filth ridden and vermin infested house next door. So if I cause my neighbour to be upset because I have informed him about how offensive I find his living conditions, and how it is causing everyone else to be sick, I’ll gladly take my lumps. Someday, I hope, the city will hear me and condemn that house once and for all. Until such time I am, and always will be, pro-life.

1. www.addictinginfo.org/2013/04/21/pro-life-lie/ 
2. The following is something I wrote a long time ago but never had an opportunity to publish. The material is somewhat dated but as the Planned Parenthood scandal has erupted I thought it was, providentially, time to post it here. Readers should note that I am a Canadian writing about American political issues but any reader can see that this is applicable to our nation as well.