In the United States the term "pro-life" has been appropriated by the right wing and used to describe people who think the government should limit access to abortion and/or birth control. In other words, so-called "pro-life" people believe the government should prevent women from making their own choices about when to have a child. But does having a certain political stance on how government regulates abortion really amount to being pro-life?
I would argue that the term is wildly misused as an effort by the right wing to guilt-trip people into siding with them on reproductive rights. It sets up a false binary between people who support abortion access and people who are pro-life, and it egregiously and purposefully suggests that people who support abortion access are anti-life.
Further, I would say that the vast majority of people who want to limit access to abortion are not, in fact, pro-life. Usually, they're just pro-birth. Many support cutting welfare benefits, apparently seeing no issue with subjecting babies who aren't aborted to a life of poverty without access to healthcare and other necessities. Still others actively advocate for state-sanctioned killings in the form of war or capital punishment.
Instead of buying into the ridiculous notion that the way to value human life is to ban abortion, I've compiled a list of positions and behaviors that actually prevent the loss of human life.
1. Oppose war.
Wars killed at least 108 million people in the 1900s, and an estimated one billion people throughout human history.
2. Oppose the death penalty.
Because what could possibly be more anti-life than state-mandated murder?
3. Support affordable childcare and maternity leave.
One of the biggest reasons women abort their fetuses in the first place is because they can't afford early childhood costs.
4. Support comprehensive sex ed.
Comprehensive sexual education that gives students medically accurate information about reproduction, sexually-transmitted infections and, most importantly, contraception is highly effective in reducing the rates of abortion.
5. Fund medical research.
If you want to truly save lives, invest in science. (Reminder: this includes stem cell research and HIV/AIDS research.)
6. Support poor families and welfare reform.
This goes with number three. Many (if not most) people who seek abortions do so because they can't adequately provide for a(nother) child. Our current welfare system just isn't enough.
7. Find homes for unwanted children.
Many "pro-lifers" attempt to derail the abortion discussion by asking why mothers can't just put their child up for adoption. Well, about 800,000 children are introduced to the foster care system every year and another 20,000 age out of it without ever being adopted.
And, drumroll please...
8. Support safe and legal access to abortion.
Look, the bottom line is that women have been aborting their fetuses for thousands of years and they're not going to stop now. In countries where abortion is illegal, it is incredibly dangerous, claiming the lives of 47,000 people each year. In countries where abortion is legal, abortion is forty times safer than a colonoscopy. Basically, if you want to save fetuses, there's nothing you can do. If you want to save actual living, breathing women, protect abortion access.
