Disclaimer: Any opinions stated are those of the author alone and do not reflect the opinions/position of HCND.
Last Friday, the 44th annual March for Life took place in Washington D.C., marking the amount of time since the legalization of abortion via Roe v. Wade. Traditionally, those who support the anti-abortion cause of the March are deemed “pro-life”, whereas those who support the legality of abortion are deemed “pro-choice”. This makes being “pro-life” sound as simple as checking off a box in a voting booth; “Yes, I’m Republican and pro-life” (and often we assume that these two categories go together).
The truth is that “pro-life” reaches far beyond this one category. I write as someone who has attended several past Marches and strongly opposes abortion. I don’t believe abortion should be legal, but I also think it wouldn’t be “pro-life” to only be concerned about abortion. Pro-life rhetoric doesn’t stop at the womb, and anti-abortion does not equal pro-life!
Every human being on his planet should be celebrated and protected by the pro-life movement; unborn children and their mothers, children, teenagers, adults, and the elderly all fall under the great spectrum of human life. This means that one should aim to protect the dignity of everyone on this planet if they want to be “pro-life”. When I think of what it means to be pro-life, this passage comes to mind:
Not once does it mention abortion, but it provides a vast concept of what pro-life action fully entails; feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, invite the stranger, visit the sick and imprisoned…because every person that lives has dignity and is our family.
Trump’s administration has so far prided themselves on being “pro-life”, especially with the historic appearance of the vice president at the March for Life for the first time since its inception. A self-acclaimed “pro-life” government surely wouldn’t turn away thousands of thousands of refugees, right? Or plan to construct divisive, destructive structures such as a Mexican wall or the DAPL pipeline? Or nominate government officials who aren’t knowledgeable about important concerns, such as the education of disabled students or climate change? If your only claim to the pro-life movement is that you are anti-abortion, you are not pro-life; to ignore everyone living outside the womb is the opposite of everything “pro-life” stands for.
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