I'm worried about the future of the Pro-Life Movement
Logical fallacies, two parties, and moving forward with Gospel solidarity
I remember sitting in class next to one of my high school best friends, clad in pea-green skirts and argyle socks à la Catholic school, quietly eating lunch while watching the 2017 inauguration of President Trump. I felt uneasy about his character, but as we watched him swear into office, I turned to my friend and said, “Well, at least we can hope that more babies will be saved, since he says he’s pro-life.”
Fast forward five and a half years: I sat at another lunch table with a college best friend, reading the news on her phone about Roe v. Wade’s overturn by the Supreme Court and send to the states. We were warily excited: we hoped it’d result in more children’s lives being saved, yet wished our government would make the abortion of pre-born human beings illegal everywhere.
My gut worry was onto something. The kicking of Roe v. Wade down to the states has produced chaos— our broader culture understands this SCOTUS move to signal that the definition of human life is dependent on which side of state lines you’re standing on. Additionally, accusations that conservatives “only care about the unborn and not already-born human beings” have ramped up in light of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” cuts of Medicaid and SNAP, as well as recent violent treatment of illegal immigrants. Regardless of your support or opposition to these, we have to address the reputation they’ve giving the pro-life movement as being hypocritical. And, since Roe v. Wade’s overturn many Republicans have come out to say they aren’t anti-abortion at all—the party we were once able to dependably count on to defend pre-born children has fractured itself on the issue.
Human life is human life. Pre-born children aren’t worth sparing from death because they’re innocent of crime and sin, they’re worth saving just because they exist as human beings. As it logically followers, even criminals who’ve committed the most heinous acts against humanity deserve not to receive the death penalty because they exist as human beings, just as much human as the tiniest pre-born baby exists as a human being. If we don’t agree that every single human life has equal worth, then no one is safe from injustice and all of us are trapped in a hellish experiment of logical fallacy propagated by the wider culture.
When I say that I’m pro-life, I mean that I desire the preservation of human life from conception until natural death—the “consistent life ethic,” “pro-life for the whole life.” I don’t want to see abortion, the death penalty, disregard for the poor, sick, and hungry, violent treatment of migrants, sexual assault, euthanasia, mass shootings, or any other form of unjust violence and murder by both deliberate and neglectful treatment of other human beings in our country. And I always will be pro-life, because I know that if our society is willing to pick and choose which lives to save and which to cast aside, we’re in for social warfare over disagreements on the definition of human life, the degeneration of our country, and human beings killed for the gain of the rich and powerful. Ultimately, more human lives will die.
We in the pro-life movement are not taken seriously when we don’t logically hold up the consistent life ethic, valuing human lives from womb to tomb for no other reason or condition than the fact that they merely exist. Pro-life friends, we need to get our act together lest we look like fools.
However, the consistent life ethic pro-life movement is not hopeless. Below I explore the logical fallacies about defining human life that many in our country have caved into, what became loud and clear at the presidential debate, the USCCB’s analyses of current events regarding the protection of the already-born, the impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill on pro-life endeavors, and how we can move forward in care for all human beings as children of God.