October 13, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Anyone who has been unfortunate enough to wade into debates about abortion in the Twittersphere will rapidly become acquainted with one particularly stupid argument from abortion advocates: “Pro-lifers aren’t pro-LIFE. They’re just pro-BIRTH.” Several Canadian commentators have been tossing that insult about lately, and it got me thinking: Do they realize what they are actually saying about themselves?
For starters, the very accusation seems to say more about abortion advocates than it does about pro-lifers. Sure, I’m “pro-birth.” My wife gave birth to our daughter in August, and like any other expectant parents, we were thrilled and grateful that our daughter remained safe and healthy throughout the pregnancy, and that all went well at delivery. Are abortion advocates suggesting that they are, in fact, “anti-birth”? In many ways, this would be consistent. There is actually a complication to the abortion procedure (I’m not making this up) known as “live birth.” A “live birth,” of course, means that the abortion procedure failed. Abortionists are very “anti-birth,” and it strikes me that those accusing pro-lifers as being “pro-birth” may not have thought their insult through very thoroughly.
Even if the accusation of abortion advocates was true — that pro-lifers cared primarily about human beings prior to birth and didn’t care about them after birth — that would do nothing to justify abortion, which is the intentional and violent destruction of a human being developing in the womb. Even if pro-lifers were the worst of hypocrites, that would say nothing about whether or not it is moral to kill an innocent human being. As it happens, of course, abortion advocates are lying about that, as well. As I wrote in Chapter 5 of my 2016 book The Culture War:
As much as abortion advocates would like to claim that those fighting to expose the abortion industry and assist women in crisis only care about children in the womb, the evidence shows that nothing could be further from the truth. In the United States alone, there are more than 2,300 pregnancy resource centres serving nearly two million women every single year. Many of them, says The Witherspoon Institute, “stay at one of the 350 residential facilities for women and children operated by pro-life groups. In New York City alone, there are twenty-two centers serving 12,000 women a year. These centers provide services including pre-natal care, STI testing, STI treatment, ultrasound, childbirth classes, labor coaching, midwife services, lactation consultation, nutrition consulting, social work, abstinence education, parenting classes, material assistance, and post-abortion counseling.”
This is to say nothing of the enormous amount of charity work and financial assistance provided by churches and religious groups, which dwarf the contributions of those groups dedicated to legal abortion. The historical commitment of Christian organizations to the welfare and dignity of all human beings continues.
I could tell you hundreds of stories of personal sacrifice from within the pro-life movement, from pro-lifers adopting babies who were scheduled to be aborted, families taking in girls who were being pressured into abortion by their family and needed a place to live, students using money they didn’t have to pay for diapers and a crib for a young mom who decided to choose life, and simply befriending and walking with those who need it most. The abortion industry — and abortion advocates — care about one thing: Getting you that abortion, and getting paid for it. Once that’s over, they’re no longer interested.
And that’s perhaps the most insidious irony of the abortion advocates’ accusation that pro-lifers are simply “pro-birth”: It disguises that fact that their primary interest in women is as paying customers who may want to procure abortions. Does the abortion industry walk alongside women and assist them and help them with their new children, if they decide to choose life? Of course not. The abortion industry isn’t pro-birth.
They’re anti-birth.
