Pro-abortion advocates are finally admitting abortion’s gruesome reality

(LifeSiteNews) — The primary success of the American pro-life movement over the past half-century is the stigmatization of abortion against all cultural odds. Despite ongoing attempts by abortion activists to “shout their abortions”; to insist on “abortion on demand and without apology”; and to characterize abortion as “jut healthcare,” it hasn’t worked.

When pro-life activists debate about choice, abortion activists win. People love choices. But when pro-life activists focus the debate on what is being chosen, they often win—because the reality that abortion kills a baby is incontrovertible.

Some abortion advocates have realized this. After Dr. Christina Francis, an anti-abortion OB-GYN testified about abortion on July 19 during the U.S. House Energy and Commerce hearing on the impact of the Dobbs decision, Congresswoman Kathleen Rice of New York’s 4^th District weighed in—to object to the word ‘abortion.’

“I would suggest you stop throwing the word ‘abortion’ around because you think it’s one that is going to raise emotions about having reasonable conversation,” she stated. “[The] word has been weaponized, in my opinion, by certain people in this country because if we’re going to have a real conversation about this, we have to stop using language that is going to prevent an actual meaningful conversation from happening.”

To sum up: Congresswoman Rice wants to have a meaningful conversation about abortion without using the word abortion because that word conjures up certain connotations in people’s minds.

Rice is correct that despite every attempt by the abortion industry and their activist allies to destigmatize abortion, Americans do not view abortion positively—even those who think it should be legal in some circumstances. But much of the movement she is a part of is taking a different tactic.

There’s been two children’s books in the last few years using the word, What’s an Abortion Anyway? and Maybe A Baby. An abortion doctor penned an article for Slate explaining how she talked about the issue with her kids, and noting that she didn’t have a problem using the word “baby” even though she prefers “embryo” or “fetus.”

While Democratic politicians want to fixate on abortion as fundamental healthcare (preferring phrases like “reproductive healthcare,” which avoids the word abortion and, they hope, a discussion about what abortion actually is) abortion activists are moving towards an unapologetic defence of abortion as killing. Thus far, this is not the central position of the movement—the mainstream media is too uncomfortable covering such statements.

But plenty of abortionists have admitted candidly that they are killing, but that this killing is justified. Two days before Roe v. Wade was overturned Sophie Lewis penned a manifesto for The Nation titled “Abortion Involves Killing—and That’s Ok!” An excerpt:

There is something infantilizing about denying the fact that embryos die when we scrape them out of the bodies of which they are a part. It sentimentalizes pregnant or potentially pregnant humans as fundamentally nonviolent creatures to imply that we can’t handle the truth about what we are up to when we opt out. And it patronizes abortion-getters to insist that we are only making a health care choice, rather than (also) extinguishing a future child. In my view, recognizing that gestating manufactures a proto-person requires acknowledging that abortion kills a proto-person. A baby is completely dependent on human care in order to stay alive, but its needs could be filled by any person—whereas a fetus, a proto-person, is ineluctably dependent on specific person.

It is time to acknowledge, Lewis writes, that “fetuses are killable” and that women have the right to kill them because pro-lifers have been winning the battle of rhetoric:

But what’s the point of acknowledging this now, at a time when abortion rights are so imperiled? For one thing, it would seem hard to deny that the euphemistic, apologetic, placatory “pro-choice” strategy hasn’t worked out thus far. So, why not risk coming out for what we actually want, namely, abortion—a clearly documented public good? The pending Supreme Court leak thrusts us into a situation in which we have little left to lose. Rather than cleave in desperation to the rearguard missions of defending the rights (to privacy, rather than abortion) enshrined in Roe v. Wade, we could consider this moment a chance to reset the terms on which abortion is fought.

The first stage of the propaganda battle—“choice” versus “abortion”—is coming to an end. The second stage—in which abortion activists admit they relied on convenient lies for years and come out to brazenly defend killing babies—will soon begin.

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Jonathon Van Maren is a public speaker, writer, and pro-life activist. His commentary has been translated into more than eight languages and published widely online as well as print newspapers such as the Jewish Independent, the National Post, the Hamilton Spectator and others. He has received an award for combating anti-Semitism in print from the Jewish organization B’nai Brith. His commentary has been featured on CTV Primetime, Global News, EWTN, and the CBC as well as dozens of radio stations and news outlets in Canada and the United States.

He speaks on a wide variety of cultural topics across North America at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions. Some of these topics include abortion, pornography, the Sexual Revolution, and euthanasia. Jonathon holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in history from Simon Fraser University, and is the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

Jonathon’s first book, The Culture War, was released in 2016.