I am pro-life. For me, a statement like that could lead to the loss of many allies. I have friends and family that are strongly pro-choice. And, they will argue that by being pro-life I am threatening a woman’s right to make medical decisions regarding her body and women’s health overall. They will say, and I agree with them, that you can't legislate your own morality or religion. They will argue with me about science and when life begins. I also have friends and family members that are strongly pro-life. They will argue that I am not, in fact, pro-life. They will argue that if I had ever voted for a “pro-choice”candidate, which I have, I am endorsing the “unfettered killing of babies,” and I am pro-abortion. Additionally, I know people who have received abortions for a variety of reasons, and I still support them completely and without judgment. However, I recognize that by making this statement, they might not see me as a safe person. All around, this would have been an easier issue to just skip all together, because in this very moment, I can’t picture a single person that is going to like this post. It doesn’t side with any one ideology completely, and all sides might have a criticism. And, in some cases, those criticisms might be rather divisive. But, I made a commitment to myself to cover all issues, so here it goes.
I consider myself pro-life because, for the most part, I personally disagree with abortion. And, I want to reduce the number of abortions. But, I can’t ignore the evidence that anti-abortion laws don’t reduce the number of abortions. If they did, maybe I would think differently. But, they don’t. According to a study published in May of 2016, “In countries where abortion is completely illegal or permitted only to save the life of the pregnant woman, the most recent data places the average annual abortion rate at 37 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44. In countries where abortion is legal in most cases, the rate is 34 per 1,000 women.” Latin America has some of the most intensive anti-abortion laws in the world and the highest abortion rate at 32%. Criminalizing abortion does not prevent abortion. It just seeks illegal and dangerous ways for women to seek abortions. Additionally, it puts women’s health at risk.
Maternal deaths are increasing across the country. According the World Health Organization, the United States is the only developed country where maternal deaths are on the rise. Unsafe abortions are one of the three leading causes of maternal mortality.
In 2011, Texas slashed family planning funding by 66%. As a result, 82 family planning clinics closed, ⅓ of which were Planned Parenthood clinics (which offer a myriad of health care options including safe, legal abortion), cutting the number of women the state could serve in half. Low income women were especially at a loss to affordable birth control and had more babies. And alarmingly, pregnancy-related deaths nearly doubled, with 72 in 2010 and 148 in 2012. We are failing at offering affordable, accessible, and quality healthcare to women.
So, if criminalizing abortion doesn’t prevent abortion, what does? Contraception and sex education. And, I am big proponents of both. In Eastern Europe, abortion rates have fallen from 88 out of 1,000 women to 42 out of 1,000 women over the past 25 years due to a rise in contraception popularity and accessibility. Colorado began offering free birth control to anyone who wanted it in 2009, and over the first 5 years of the program, saw unintended pregnancies drop by 40% and abortion fall by 42%. It also reduced teen pregnancies. The fact that contraception decreases abortion rates has been proven time after time after time.
I am encouraged when I hear that abortion rates have dropped by 40% in the past 25 years and, as of 2014, was at its lowest point since 1973, the year Roe vs. Wade was decided and abortion was legalized. Notice that in the graphic to the left, that abortion has continued to fall under Barack Obama. Barack Obama may be a pro-choice candidate, but he also has policies that make healthcare and childcare more affordable, contraception more accessible, and policies that support a living wage and a reduction in poverty. All of which reduce the number of abortions.
Why do those things reduce abortions? Because, the majority of women having abortions are doing so because they cannot manage the financial burden of having a child. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 49% of women having an abortion in 2014 had incomes less than 100% of the poverty level ($11,670 a year) and 26% had incomes between 100% and 199% of the poverty level. Three-fourths of women cited one of three reasons for having an abortion: “concern for or responsibility to other individuals; the inability to afford a child; and the belief that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents.”
For me, being pro-life, means being pro-all-life, before and after birth. And, that is one of my primary issues with the GOP. They tout their pro-life stance and anti-abortion laws (which don’t reduce abortions) as the moral standard, but enact policies that are certainly not “pro-life.” Additionally, pro-life voters continue to vote for them under the guise that they will ultimately outlaw abortion (which won’t reduce the number of abortions) despite the fact that we’ve had numerous Republican-led administrations since 1973, and none of them have effectively outlawed abortion.
And, the biggest dissonance for me comes in the pro-life voters who are voting for Donald Trump. A man who shows no regard for the ways his mass deportation plan would rip apart families (and cost the U.S. $4.7 trillion), or who has insulted and mocked Latinos, Muslims, the disabled, African Americans, Asians, and women, is not pro-life. A man whose son compares human lives to Skittles is not pro-life. A man who supports torture (which doesn’t work) is not pro-life. Yet, 78% of white evangelicals are expected to vote for Donald Trump.
“If these numbers hold, and on election night a reporter looks into a camera and says evangelical Christians proved Trump’s most faithful supporters, the reputation of the evangelical movement will be tied to Trump for years to come. This will put evangelicals in the difficult position of having to explain…
- how you can claim God’s love for kids with special needs while supporting a man who openly mocks people with disabilities,
- how you can oppose sexual immorality while shrugging off the transgressions of a strip club owner who brags about his sexual exploits and extramarital affairs and who publicly sexualized both of his daughters,
- how you can make grand announcements about your efforts to move toward racial reconciliation while working to elect as president a man people in his own party acknowledge is racist, and who is widely supported by white supremacist groups,
- how you can appeal to “religious liberty” to justify denying wedding cakes to gay and lesbian couples without challenging a candidate who wants to increase surveillance of Muslim neighborhoods, create a database of Muslim citizens, and ban Muslims from visiting the U.S., which would suggest the only “religious liberty” you want to protect is your own,
- how you can claim your conservative views on women’s roles aren’t anti-woman while supporting a misogynist who says he likes to have a “young and beautiful piece of ass” on his arm, calls women “bimbos” and “fat pigs,” and distributed unflattering pictures of a political opponent’s wife as a campaign tactic,
- how you can claim it’s unfair to characterize evangelicals as anti-intellectual while following a man who believes conspiracy theories from the National Enquirer, thinks climate change is a hoax, says vaccines cause autism, and displays such breathtaking ignorance regarding the state of the world and foreign policy that no former presidents will endorse him and multiple generals, foreign policy experts, editorial boards, and heads of state have denounced him as dangerously uninformed,
- how you can quote Bible verses about “welcoming the stranger” while supporting a candidate who wants to turn away desperate refugee families,
- how you can call yourself “family values” voters while supporting Trump’s mass deportation, which would orphan or displace 4.5 million children who are U.S. citizens but who have at least one parent who is an undocumented immigrant,
- how you can claim it’s a “morally good choice” to elect a president who wants to bring back waterboarding and other forms of torture, who wants to target the families of terrorists because “that’s what they do to us,” and who admires the tactics of Vladimir Putin and Saddam Hussein?”
For me, being pro-life means working towards income equality, paid family leave, and early childhood education. It means capping childcare expenses, reforming the foster care system, encouraging adoption. It means fighting campus sexual assault and racial injustice. It means funding medical research on Alzheimer’s, HIV & AIDS, and working towards mental health reform and disability rights. It means supporting LGBT rights and quality education. It means reducing deaths associated with gun violence, and insuring more families through the Affordable Care Act. These things honor the integrity of human life and the value of family life. And, many of these things reduce the number of abortions. And, if you have been following my posts, these are the things the Hillary Clinton is fighting for.
I am pro-all-life. I want to reduce the number of abortions. And, I want to value the integrity of human life throughout its life. This is why I am voting for Hillary Clinton. Instead of voting for laws that don't reduce abortions, I'm voting for policies that do, because I am pro-life.
No comments:
Post a Comment