I was one of many Facebookers who posted a status about the Right to Life March on Capitol Hill today. I posted the following quote from Blessed Mother Teresa:
America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe vs. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts--a child--as a competitor, an intrusion and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the dependent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters. And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners.
I didn't choose that quote to demonize those who have had an abortion, or who happen to be pro-choice. I chose it because of how well it illustrates the pro-life stance. Politics may have its sticky hand involved in this issue, but ultimately, it's not about the politics. It's not a battle between the parties. This is an issue of human rights; whether you are arguing for the rights of the mother, the unborn child, or you're not sure where you stand. Either way, what pro-lifers and pro-choicers can both agree on is that the world would be a better place if abortion wasn't needed.
I don't think pro-choice people are cold-hearted. I don't think they have a lack of respect for human life. I know that no woman ever relishes the idea of having an abortion. There are some pro-lifers who would like to have you think otherwise, but I don't represent that line of thinking.
I have seen many people today post things along the lines of "You [the pro-life community] don't know what it's like not to have a voice." Well, actually, we do. To quote Ronald Reagan, "Everyone who is in favor of abortion has already been born."
While I can't speak for everyone who is pro-life, I would like to give the majority of them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are pro-life for the following reasons, as am I:
Pro-lifers lobby on behalf of the rights of the fetus, who is utterly defenseless and voiceless. The pro-life perspective believes that life begins at conception, and is no less viable than an already-born baby.
Pro-lifers do not see a difference between abortion, and taking a gun to your neighbor's head. If abortion is a form of murder, then it makes no sense to compromise and live by the "what's good for you may not be good for me" philosophy. Just as we have laws in this country against actions that harm other people, the pro-life person cannot, in good conscience, accept abortion as a choice that may be reasonable for some, but not for others.
Being pro-life has nothing to do with stigmatizing women who choose to have sex outside of marriage. It has nothing to do with wanting to go back to the dark ages where women were regarded as nothing more than baby-making machines. It has nothing to do with condemning women who do not wish to become mothers.
The ONLY agenda that a pro-lifer has is to save the lives of children. To say that the pro-life stance includes condemnation, especially of non-Christian individuals, is an unfair stereotype projected by outspoken media hypocrites. A true pro-lifer would never support the bombing of abortion clinics, or the killings of abortion doctors. To allow such people to speak for every person against abortion is no different than allowing the terrorists of 9/11 to speak for all Muslims.
I wish more people could understand that you don't have to be religious to be pro-life. I wish more people could understand that you can consider yourself a proponent of women's rights and still be pro-life. Yes, the foster care system is over-burdened, but the pro-life person does not understand how the killing of unborn, yet viable children rectifies that already messed up situation.
There is much to be understood about both perspectives on abortion, but there is no chance of ever reaching a solution if both groups continue to hold on to untrue stereotypes about each other. The quest for understanding goes nowhere until pro-choicers accept that, for the pro-lifer, an unborn child is just as valuable as one who is already born. THAT, above everything else, is the crux of the pro-life movement.
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