Why We Can’t Reach Pro-life People

A tiny lens, a big lens

We can’t agree because we don’t see the same picture.

Having spent a lot of time around “pro-life” people and reading a lot of literature on the topic on both sides, I can see why we don’t agree.

Pro-life people are looking at what they consider murder.

Pro-choice people are looking at the whole world, and it’s complexity.

Let’s start with “pro-life.” They are not looking at a woman’s freedom to make her own life choices. Some may be secondarily concerned with that, but first and foremost, they see an embryo or fetus as a human life made in the image of God.

From that starting point, everything else cascades.

Seeing human life as more sacred than the rest of the creation, and ignoring that there is no separation from ourselves and the sustaining biosphere, a person concerned about murder of human life does not consider much else.

What cascades from that is rhetoric about religion, about sin, about roles, about selfishness, and about a fair amount of self-righteousness. After all, if you condone murder, what possible hope is there for you to be any kind of a decent person?

Are issues simple, or complex?

Of course, many who are pro-choice see the entire creation as coming before man, the “let US” in Genesis that is God’s own image.

Let’s look at those who see the larger picture: complex, finite planet with giant issues of inequality, injustice, racism and sexism.

Now that abortion is heavily restricted in the USA, but being realized as healthcare in other nations, we can see that chaos and confusion reign. The issue divides people faster than Solomon’s sword divided the old testament women who each swore the infant belonged to them.

Upon the reversal of Roe Versus Wade, we immediately saw people concerned about restrictions coming for their human rights, wealth disparity, the inequality of reproductive choices for BIPOC, the potential restriction of contraception, the separation of church and state, real concerns about spy technology, same sex marriage, trans rights, and economic status, health, and trauma woes for those threatened by forced births.

Most people see complexity.

That all these things should come up reminds us that reproductive freedom is connected to every other issue to the majority of people. Yet, to many “lifers” it is still all about “murder.”

To simplify an issue down to the idea that “some people are so selfish they will murder,” makes it far easier to block out all these other concerns. It will not matter to someone who sees “murder”, that another person entirely disagrees that a fetus is not a “baby” until there is sentience, a true heart, or clear brain activity.

It will not resonate with them that a weary, or impoverished mother, can’t afford more kids, or that there are other religions who don’t see the “murder.” They won’t respect that a dangerous pregnancy is a big risk, or that rape or incest should be a barrier to preventing murder.

The simple truth

They simply believe that murder is wrong, at least of unborn human beings. The suffering of a bigger picture shouldn’t change that. Criminalizing pregnant women is a logical step.

Reading pro-life literature you can find a lot of thoughts such as the following:

How could a mother murder her own child?

She knew having sex could result in pregnancy, yet doesn’t want her own kid, what a monster!

I can’t understand feminism, half of all fetuses are female…

Life begins at conception.

How can a good person say ending life is good?

What about the autonomy of the baby?

Abortion is dangerous, mentally damaging, and — also murder!

And the reads go on and on in this vein.

What is life?

To understand what people mean by “pro-life,” we have to ignore all life that is not fetal, human, assigned to female reproduction roles, or tangled up with the contradictory morality of religion.

Life, to many people means not biology, biosphere, natural systems complexity, or social inter-dependence. It means that any stage of human pregnancy means that there is a human being.

It is clear that we who see a bigger picture, about the quality of life on Earth, about justice and autonomy as equalizing human rights, about the finite capacity of the biosphere to support human — and other biological life — have a long way to go if we are to help others understand that to be fully human is to know there is more than one issue.

All of us are connected, but few understand the whole complexity as easily as we understand our own tribal emotions.

But until we see the narrow logic of their reasoning, we won’t win hearts and minds of those who are utterly convinced that morality is as simple as “A human life is a sacred life.”

When all interconnected life is considered worthy, we will solve this confusion.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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