Open Letter to Governor Stitt: the Pro-life Case against the Death Penalty
Dear Governor Stitt:
As an organization, we at the Consistent Life Network have signed on to the letter calling on you to stop Oklahoma executions. The letter was sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Oklahoma, which was seeking many signatories.
As a pro-life/pro-peace group, we strenuously object to the ACLU’s position on abortion. Since we know that you’ve said you would sign any pro-life bill that crossed your desk, for which we applaud you, we want to make the case against the death penalty from a pro-life/anti-abortion perspective. Below we offer words from prominent abortion opponents who have done so.
Quotations in alphabetical order by last name:
Sam Brownback, then Republican United States Senator (later Governor of Kansas)
U.S. News and World Report, April 11, 2005. p. 34
If we’re trying to establish a culture of life, it’s difficult to have the state sponsoring executions.
Colby Coash. Nebraska state senator
quoted in Time Magazine, May 20, 2015
I’m a pro-life guy. I couldn’t reconcile my pro-life beliefs regarding the unborn with doing something different with the condemned.
Hanna Cox
Alabama Executes a Murderer a Day After Banning Abortions
New York Times, May 16, 2019
Alabama cleared the way on Thursday for the scheduled execution of a convicted murderer, a day after the state enacted a near-total ban on abortions, two actions on contentious social issues that often have people across the political spectrum invoking the sanctity of human life.
“It’s a contradiction that I always observed,” said Hannah Cox, the national manager of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty . . . Approving of executions, Ms. Cox said, is “a stance that cheapens the pro-life argument.”
Laura Hollis
Death is Not the Answer
Creators Syndicate, August 22, 2019
The embrace of death as solution is not a phenomenon that admits easily of “left versus right” political — or even cultural — divisions. Americans on the right often defend the death penalty just as vehemently as the left cheerleads for abortion . . .
How easily we accept the conclusion that death is the answer to our most serious problems. Unwanted baby? Kill it. Have an incurable disease? Kill yourself. Commit a heinous crime? The government should kill you. These precedents — and the assumptions about human life that underlie them — should frighten us.
Christian Josi, former Executive Director, American Conservative Union
Life locked away, not death
Washington Times, June 25, 2001
My fundamental problems with the death penalty began as a result of my personal concern, echoed by many on all sides of the political spectrum, that it was inconsistent for one to be “pro-life” on the one hand and condone government execution on the other.
Kathryn Jean Lopez
Stop the Death Penalty
National Review, February 24, 2020
I do think that good Christian pro-life people need to examine the witness of not having mercy for a Nick Sutton. People respond to love. Mercy is for the guilty. We can’t be callous in these circumstances, or our arguments about the life of the most innocent might not be heard. I understand why the governor did what he did, but the death penalty should prompt more of a cultural examination of conscience. It could bring a lot of people of good will — those “pro-life” and “social justice” groups that seem strangely divided — together.
Tom Neuville, leading Republican on the Minnesota’s Senate Judiciary Committee
Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 7, 2003
Life is a gift from God. It isn’t up to us to take it away. Whether you take an innocent life of a baby, or of a person who has committed a heinous act, it is still an act at our hands, and it makes us a less caring and less sensitive society.”
Laura Peredo, president of Ravens Respect Life at Benedictine College
at a press conference supporting a law to repeal the death penalty in Kansas
March 17, 2015
No crime can change the fundamental truth that every human life possesses dignity from the moment of conception until natural death. I am one of a growing number of young people who support repealing the death penalty—a reform that demonstrates our unwavering commitment to safeguarding life at all stages, without exceptions.
Topeka Capitol Journal
Advocates Seek Repeal of Capital Punishment, March 17, 2015
Conservative Republican political figures and the president of a Benedictine College pro-life student group delved Tuesday into ramifications of Kansas law authorizing convicted killers to be sentenced to death. . . .
Gov. Sam Brownback, an anti-abortion Republican who would hold the veto pen if the House and Senate passed a repeal bill, didn’t participate in the rally.
He did say in an interview prior to the event that anti-abortion activists had increasingly been drawn into the capital punishment conversation.
“You hear it connected,” Brownback said. “You hear it said more frequently now.”
Richard Viguerie
When Governments Kill: A conservative argues for abolishing the death penalty, Sojourners, 2009
Conservatives have every reason to believe the death penalty system is no different from any politicized, costly, inefficient, bureaucratic, government-run operation . . . But here the end result is the end of someone’s life. In other words, it’s a government system that kills people. Those of us who oppose abortion believe that it is perhaps the greatest immorality to take an innocent life. While the death penalty is supposed to take the life of the guilty, we know that is not always the case. It should have shocked the consciences of conservatives when various government prosecutors withheld exculpatory, or opposed allowing DNA-tested, evidence in death row cases. To conservatives, that should be deemed as immoral as abortion . . . But even when guilt is certain, there are many downsides to the death penalty system.
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For more of our posts on the death penalty, see:
Why Conservatives Should Oppose the Death Penalty / Destiny Herndon-de la Rosa
Is the Death Penalty Unethical? / Hannah Cox
The Death Penalty and Abortion: The Conservative/Liberal Straitjacket / Rachel MacNair
Racism and the Death Penalty / David Cruz-Uribe
Death Penalty Jurisprudence of Former Missouri Supreme Court Judge Laura Denvir Stith / Laura Denvir Stith
For more of our posts on pro-lifers making a pro-life case against other forms of violence in addition to abortion, see:
Abortion Facilitates Sex Abuse: Documentation
by Rachel MacNair
I recently wrote this item for our newsletter, Peace and Life Connections:
Rachel Maddow had an October 12, 2021 segment where she said, “One provider in Houston spoke of a 12-year-old patient who came in with her mother . . . The 12-year-old said, mom it was an accident, why are they making me keep it? She is 12.”
Twelve-year-olds don’t become pregnant by accident. While it’s possible she was impregnated by a boy near her own age, which is legal, more likely it was an adult pedophile who exploited her, which is statutory rape – a felony.
Why is this not being investigated? How do we stop such crimes if the only concern raised ignores the crime entirely?
This is another case where a focus on the availability of abortion leaves people oblivious to such glaring alarm bells.
Rachel Maddow
In addition to the 12-year-old that Rachel Maddow cites, there’s documentation of more real-life experience. Below I offer a sampling of cases that made it to court. Given the nature of the problem, instances where the abuse never comes to light are probably far more frequent than those where it does. And when it does, it only makes it to court a small portion of the time.
My notes are in italics.
Colorado – Smith
Smith v. Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, Case Number: 2014CV31778
Excerpt from Amended Complaint, Summary of the Case:
This case seeks economic and non-economic damages arising from the Defendants’ multiple failures to inquire about how a thirteen-year-old girl became pregnant, or what her relationship was to the adult man who brought her to the Defendants for an abortion, despite numerous opportunities to speak to the girl alone; their failures to report known or suspected sexual abuse despite numerous indications that the man had sexually abused the girl; and administration of a long-term and undetectable form of birth control to the girl despite her fear of needles, all of which enabled the man to continue his years of sexual abuse of the girl without discovery or consequence.
In July of 2012, the adult man was charged with two counts of felony sexual abuse and, in January of 2013, he was sentenced to 28 years in prison.
Ohio – Roe
Roe v. Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region, 122 Ohio St.3d 399, 2009-Ohio-2973.
Excerpt from the Complaint:
- In the fall of 2003, Jane engaged in a sexual relationship with her 21-year-old soccer coach, John Haller. At the time, Jane was 13 and in the eighth grade. The sexual relationship continued through 2004, and in March of that year, Jane discovered that she was pregnant.
- Jane told Haller. Haller convinced Jane to have an abortion . . . Haller called Jane and told her to schedule the abortion. And he also instructed her that if she was asked to provide a parental telephone number, she should give Planned Parenthood his cell-phone number in lieu of her father’s phone number.
- After the abortion, a Depo-Provera shot was administered to Jane, and she was given condoms. Haller and Jane resumed their sexual relationship. But within three days of the abortion, Haller ended the relationship. After the breakup, Jane and Haller’s sister, also a classmate of Jane’s, had an argument about Haller and his relationship with Jane. A teacher overheard the argument, including the references to Jane’s sexual relationship with Haller, and reported the suspected sexual abuse to the police.
- After a criminal investigation, Haller was convicted of seven counts of sexual battery. . . .
Washington – Savanah
State of Washington v. Savanah, No. 74924-2-1
Excerpt from appeals document:
After Savanah’s daughter, R, disclosed that she had been sexually abused, the State charged Savanah with four domestic violence sex offenses. At trial, R testified at length to the abuse. R stated that Savanah raped her for the first time when she was 14 years old. She recounted sexual abuse that continued for the next seven years.
R testified that she became pregnant three times, when she was 14, 16, and 17 years old. In each case, Savanah took her to Planned Parenthood for an abortion. Records from Planned Parenthood confirmed that Savanah took R to the clinics for the procedures.
Washington, D.C. – Butler
Butler v. Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, D.C., Case NO. 1:08-CV_00231. Filed February 12, 2008; Settled March 16, 2009
The petition states that plaintiff was 13 years old and became pregnant due to a rape; her mother took her in for the abortion. There’s no indication in the petition that the Planned Parenthood staff collected evidence to help identify the rapist with DNA, and no further information on whether he was ever charged.
Excerpt from Complaint:
- That within twenty-four (24) hours of her discharge from Defendant’s facility after the termination procedure, the minor Plaintiff . . . became very ill.
- That on or about September 8, 2006, the minor Plaintiff . . . presented to the emergency room at Civista Medical Center with severe abdominal pain and peritonitis.
- That a CT scan of the minor Plaintiff’s abdomen on September 8, 2006, showed a significant amount of bleeding in the abdomen with free air. Consequently, the minor Plaintiff underwent immediate emergency surgery to evacuate the large abdominal bleeding the day after the termination procedure performed by Defendant . . .
- That during the surgery on September 8, 2006, it was discovered, intra-operatively, that the minor Plaintiff . . . had suffered the following injuries as a direct and proximate result of the termination procedure performed by Defendant . . . :
- severe abdominal bleeding;
- severe vaginal injury;
- severe injury to the cervix;
- significant uterine perforation; and
- a small bowel tear.
- That a significant portion of the fetus that was allegedly removed from the minor Plaintiff . . . during the pregnancy termination performed by Defendant, was also found inside the minor Plaintiff’s abdomen on September 8, 2006.
- That the minor Plaintiff . . . is now infertile for the rest of her life due to the injuries sustained.
Conclusion
The first three cases show how abortion covers up the crimes and allows them to continue being committed. The fourth involved no cover-up, but shows that abortion isn’t just a simple solution to a victim’s problem.
Proponents of abortion availability need to come to grips with this. Offering instances of those under the age of consent – children too young to do the tasks of motherhood well – as an argument for abortion means ignoring the grim reality that their becoming victims of sex abuse, and therefore impregnated, becomes far more likely when abortion is readily available. Abortion facilitates the crime.
And treating abortion as the solution to the problem, without even bringing up the idea that the crime should be prevented, obviously facilitates the crime even more.
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For more of our posts on abortion’s relationship to sex abuse, see:
The Message of “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”: Abortion Gets Sexual Predators Off the Hook
How Abortion is Useful for Rape Culture
Re-Imaging Our Worth
by Rosalyn Mitchell
Rachael Denhollander is a survivor. She fights for justice as a Christian lawyer, mother, activist, and former gymnast. The author of What is a Girl Worth? asks a core question of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked United States Gymnastics, the Olympic movement, and broader society. She is the first public accuser of the now-convicted pedophile, former Team USA medical doctor Larry Nassar.
As a physician, Nassar preyed on young women, using his privilege to groom athletes, befriend them, and abuse their trust.
It would be naïve to assume that one man’s evil was responsible –a convenient answer that neglects the structural failures of institutions. All levels of power, with various culpabilities, are responsible, from local club gymnastics coaches to national team staff to organizations like United States Gymnastics and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Recently four survivors, Ally Raisman, Maggie Nichols, McKayla Maroney, and Simone Biles, testified at a United States Senate congressional hearing on the failure of these institutions. The truth came to light due to an alliance of brave survivors, journalists, law enforcement, and the broader public.
Therefore, as a gymnastics fan, I choose to reflect on this topic. I want to thank the online gym community, the Gymternet, for their coverage, specifically the Gymcastic Podcast and The Skating Lesson.
Using the lens of the Consistent Life Ethic, I ask: how could society allow such rampant abuse?
I’m not pretending to have all the answers and ask that we listen to the survivors. I write my perspective critiquing society’s commodification of human worth and argue that sexual abuse violently dehumanizes its victims.
This topic is a life issue as all people deserve to live free of violence from fertilization to natural death. We must protect human life against commodification as the worth of countless little girls is greater than any gold medal.
A traditionally elite sport like gymnastics sacrifices both bodies and minds to the dark side of the Olympic movement. During the Tokyo Olympics, as during every Olympics, the public fell in love with athletes. Gymnasts like Sunisa Lee, the first female Hmong American and Asian athlete to win an Olympic All-Around gold medal. She competed with legendary teammates like Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast of all time.
Yet for every Lee, and rarer still Biles, are millions of nameless failed athletes. The grim reality of the quantity needed to produce champions parallels a factory. American gymnastics became golden after adopting the merciless militancy needed to win Olympic gold.
The Karolyis, a pair of Romanian coaches who coached Nadia Comaneci, adopted a semi-centralized training system at the notorious Ranch in wooded Texas, where champions were made. Marta Karolyi oversaw the rise of the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics team as the National Team Coordinator. Success followed, counted in gold medals, with the program dominating the Rio Olympics.
Behind the scenes, the exploitation was an open secret: the control, the eating disorders, the injuries. Therefore, in an ironic twist of fate, a pedophile, Dr. Larry Nassar, offered relief from psychological and emotional abuse. Presenting himself as a friend, he would feed the gymnasts contraband like candy, flatter them with kind words, and offer “healing” pelvic massages. Many gymnasts did not know until afterwards of the sexual abuse disguised as a legitimate medical procedure.
How about parents? Away. The isolated setting discouraged communication with the outside world. Speaking up meant certain blacklisting in a culture that demanded obedience.
Imagine being a young gymnast. Would you risk your Olympic dream? All these factors enabled sexual abuse.
What for? Money. Fame. Ego. A cruel industry that capitalizes on pretty girls doing extraordinary athletics being commodified as plastic dolls.
Very few athletes, especially young women, are allowed to display their personalities. When interviewed, they’re trained to answer with empty phrases like, “I only want to do my best.” Never in terms of winning, as outward ambition is inappropriate. Athletes in a sport like gymnastics are performers, not people with thoughts and emotions.
It’s because of the broader culture of dehumanization that such abuse can occur, because human worth is commercialized. Phrases like “the cost of living” assign human life a numeric value. Life is cheap. Easily replaceable. People are taught that if they cannot perform they are disposable, as utility defines human dignity.
If gymnastics’ success was not profitable, I boldly argue, the abuse would not have occurred, at least not on this level. The cover-up and systemic failure to protect young girls are motivated by profit. One could not speak the truth because the truth was too expensive.
I counter this narrative by arguing that human life is too valuable not to speak up. A human being is inherently more precious than any gold medal. To answer the question that Rachael Denhollander asks – “What is a Girl Worth?” – the answer is that she is invaluable.
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For another post from this author, see: 300 Roses
For some of our posts on women’s rights, see:
Gendercide: Millions of “Missing” (Dead) Women
Abortion and Violence Against Pregnant Women / Martha Shuping, M.D.
The Myth of Sexual Autonomy / Julianne Wiley
How Abortion is Useful for Rape Culture / Rachel MacNair
Social Programs to Help the Poor are Pro-life
Sarah Terzo
by Sarah Terzo
Statistics in the United States
One of the most common reasons women give for having abortions is they can’t afford to care for their baby. In a 2004 study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, of U.S. women who had abortions, 73% gave this as one of the reasons
There’s evidence the situation may be even worse today. Women getting abortions are more likely to be poor than those who had the procedure roughly 30 years ago. While only 16% of women of childbearing age in the general population live below the poverty line, in 2014, 49% of women getting abortions did. In 2008, the percentage was 42%. In 1994, it was about 25%. The percentage of women having abortions who are poor is steadily increasing: 2.3% per year between 2008 and 2014.
Additionally, of women having abortions, 26% had incomes of 100% to 199% of the poverty line. Yet these women are only 18% of the population.1
In an article in the New York Times, demographer Diana Greene Foster said, “The patient population in abortion clinics is increasingly made up of poor women.”
Statistics in Great Britain
The abortion rate is increasing in Great Britain. There were 209,519 abortions reported in England and Wales in 2019, the highest number on record. The abortion rate went from 17.4 per 1000 women in 2018 to 18 per 1000 women in 2019. Driving up the numbers is an increased abortion rate for married women with children.
According to The British Pregnancy Advisory Service, financial reasons play a role. The BPAS is a chain of abortion facilities. Its director of external affairs, Claire Murphy, says:
The reasons for this increase will be complex but women and their partners, when faced with an unplanned pregnancy, will make decisions based on the circumstances they find themselves in — and financial instability or uncertainty can often play a key role in those choices.
Murphy believes the number of abortions will increase further due to financial instability because of the COVID pandemic.
Impact of Social Services
Laura Hussey
Researcher Laura Hussey wrote a dissertation in 2006 to address whether social service funding impacted women’s abortion decisions. She found lack of money influenced some women who were ambivalent to choose abortion. Hussey says:
In contrast to the assumptions of previous research . . . women’s responses to my survey suggest that even if economic need is not the only reason for choosing abortion, some women would choose otherwise if only they had access to assistance addressing that need.2
Hussey conducted her survey on women who came to pregnancy resource centers, who had considered abortion but chose against it. Hussey asked them about different factors influencing their decisions. Two questions were related to financial need:
“I got help affording a baby from a government program like welfare (TANF), food stamps, Medicaid, child care assistance, or housing assistance”
and
“I got help affording a baby from family, friends, my employer, school, or church or another organization.”
Nearly half (49%) said government assistance was “very important” to their decision, and 59% said nongovernmental assistance was “very important.”3
Yet many of the women rated multiple reasons as “very important.” None rated financial assistance as the only important reason.
Psychological and social factors were cited more frequently than financial ones. For example, the belief that motherhood is fulfilling rated highest , at 89%. Also, 75% said seeing an ultrasound of their babies was very important. And 66% cited a moral objection to abortion.
Another question asked in the survey was, “Think about the help you got from government programs, family, friends, or others, with your expenses like baby supplies, childcare, healthcare, housing, and time off from work or school. Do you think you would have had an abortion if you had not received this help?”
Only 8% of the women answered yes, and 23% said they were unsure. The rest said they would’ve still had their babies.
That 8% is a small number, but it represents lives saved. All lives have immense value and worth. Even saving one life would be worth it. And 23% were undecided, meaning that up to 31%, or almost a third, may have chosen abortion if financial help wasn’t available.
Hussey did another survey of women who chose abortion. She asked them their reasons. Two of the options were:
“I cannot afford to have a baby because I struggle to afford my own and my family’s basic needs,”
and
“I can afford my own and my family’s basic needs, but I cannot afford to have a baby.”
Hussey says:
Consistent with previously cited research, respondents commonly cited financial need as a reason for choosing abortion. The two financial need reasons my survey included for women to rate as “very important,” “somewhat important,” “not important” or “not applicable” were the least likely of all the 13 items in the battery to be rated as unimportant or inapplicable.4
However, those who rated financial reasons as very important frequently rated other reasons as “very important” or “somewhat important” as well. In fact, those who rated financial need as “very important” cited an average of 4.6 “very important” reasons. In contrast, those who did not rate financial need as “very important” chose an average of 1.1 “very important” reasons.
This seems to indicate that while financial need is just one of several reasons give for abortion, it’s still an important factor.
Women were then asked:
Other countries provide a lot of assistance to women and their families that the government, employers, and schools in the US do not provide. These countries give women things like free childcare, free healthcare, money they can use to pay their family’s expenses, and the chance to take months or even years off of work with pay after giving birth. Would you have made a different decision about your pregnancy if you could get that kind of help?
It was 22% who said they would’ve made a different decision. Had these resources been available to their mothers, 22% these aborted babies would’ve survived. Another 34% said they were unsure.
Only 44% of the woman said they were sure their decision would’ve been the same. This is less than half.
These statistics indicate that a better social safety net would save babies’ lives.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, there were 862,320 abortions in the US in 2017, the most recent year statistics are available. If 22% of women having abortions chose life instead, this would save the lives of 189,710 babies a year. And 34% were unsure whether they would’ve changed their minds. This implies that the number could be even higher.
Experience with Immigrants
Personal testimonies from pregnancy center workers also attest to the power financial problems have to drive women to abortion.
Maria Suarez Hamm
Maria Suarez Hamm is the former director of a pregnancy center in Maryland. She was interviewed by Hussey in 2012. According to Hamm, most of her clients are Latina immigrants. They came to her center while considering abortion. Lack of money, she says, is “usually the number one reason” why they were seeking abortions.5
Many immigrants, she says, were unprepared for the high cost of living in the United States. Most earn only meager wages, and many promised to send money back to impoverished relatives. Hamm says things look “impossible” to them. The temptation to abort to solve the seemingly insurmountable financial problem is hard to resist.
Hamm’s center helps these immigrants with baby items, maternity clothes, and other things they need. Through the center, she tried to meet their needs. However, her job would’ve been far easier if the government provided more robust programs to help. Very little financial help is available.
Higher welfare payments, subsidized childcare, increased food stamps, paid family leave, and greater eligibility for these programs could save the lives of around 190,000babies a year – as well as preventing born children and adults from going hungry and/or becoming homeless.
Social programs to help the poor are pro-life.
Footnotes
- The National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine The Safety and Quality of Abortion Care in the United States (Washington, DC: the National Academies Press, 2018)
- Laura Selena Hussey “Social Policy and Social Services in Women’s Pregnancy Decision-Making: Political and Programmatic Implications” (PhD dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2006) 206
- Laura Selena Hussey The Pro-Life Pregnancy Help Movement: Serving Women or Saving Babies? (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2020) 204 – 205, 206
- Ibid., 207 – 208
- Ibid., 36
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For more of our posts on poverty, see:
How Euthanasia and Poverty Threaten the Disabled / Sarah Terzo
Over 20 Million People Facing Starvation – And We Should Care! / Tony Magliano
“Millions Who Are Already Hanging by a Thread”: The Global Repercussions of Covid-19 / John Whitehead
“Is One Life Issue More Important Than the Rest?”: A Question That Might Not Need an Answer
by John Whitehead
Consistent Life Ethic activists generally have varying interpretations of the Ethic. Some take an absolutist stance on nonviolence, others allow exceptions to strict nonviolence. Some tend to specialize on working against a particular threat to life, others tend to work against multiple threats. Another difference among Consistent Life Ethic activists (which relates to the specialization vs. generalization difference) is varying views on whether working against a particular threat to life is somehow more important or a higher priority than working against others.
As with other differing views, I think Consistent Life Ethic activists need to agree to disagree on whether certain life issues take priority over others and live with such differences. Such tolerance of diversity is essential for several reasons. First, like other differing opinions, disagreements among activists about the relative importance of life issues are not likely to be resolved anytime soon. The enduring nature of such disagreements and the necessity of building up a movement require high tolerance for differing views.
Beyond the general need to tolerate disagreement within a movement, accepting disagreements about the relative importance of life issues is essential for an additional reason: The relative importance of different life issues probably has no real practical significance.
That is, whether all the life issues have equal importance, whether one issue is the most important, and which issue (if any) is most important need not have any meaningful effect on how Consistent Life Ethic activists pursue their activism. Let me explain why I think this.
“Most important issue” does not mean “only issue.”
Whatever their precise views on life issues’ relative importance, Consistent Life Ethic activists should be able to agree that no one threat to human life, however serious, is the only threat to life. Therefore, no commitment to any one issue exhausts the work that needs to be done to protect life. If any idea is central to the Consistent Life Ethic, this is it. (Indeed, I suspect most people, even if they don’t believe in the Consistent Life Ethic, would accept that multiple injustices or problems, as opposed to only one, need to be addressed in our world.)
Once we accept that multiple threats to life need to be opposed, I think it follows that we need activists working on multiple life issues. The alternative, that we all work to protect life against just one threat—presumably until that threat is somehow ended—is not realistic. Sad to say, threats to life or other injustices are rarely definitively “ended.” Often a victory for life and justice over a threat is followed by the threat taking a new form and the struggle continuing. Consider the long struggle against racism in the United States, which has been going on since the nation’s founding and is not over yet. If work against other threats to life had to wait until that struggle was won, we would still be waiting.
Trying to work against threats to life strictly one at a time, in order of supposed importance, is a recipe for never meaningfully working against those threats judged to be of lesser importance. We need to protect life against multiple threats. This means we need activists working against multiple threats, whether by devoting themselves to multiple life issues or by specializing on different issues. Such a diverse approach doesn’t require taking any particular view on which life issue, if any, is most important; it simply requires recognizing the importance of more than one issue.
Sustained activism requires passion, which takes different forms.
Not every believer in the Consistent Life Ethic is going to be drawn to the same approach to activism. Some people will be drawn to a generalist approach to the life issues, some to a more specialized approach; and those drawn to a specialized approach will want to specialize on different issues. This diversity is good, as it means people will devote themselves to the activist approach for which they have passion.
Passion for your cause is vital to activism. Passion helps sustain activists’ commitment over time, often even when the work is difficult or not immediately rewarding. Passion may also make activists more effective, as people are motivated to work that much harder on a cause that they care about deeply. Insisting that all Consistent Life Ethic activists follow the same approach or prioritize the same issue works against such passion.
In a more personal vein, I find that passion for a cause is essential for me. My own approach to Consistent Life Ethic activism has been to specialize on working against war and specifically nuclear weapons. For me, that is the most engaging and motivating way of upholding the Ethic. Opposing war isn’t my exclusive concern—I will certainly work on other life issues—but it is my focus. If I were pressured to switch my focus to another life issue or to give up a specialized focus, that would be devastating to my motivation and commitment. I don’t think I’m alone in this.
Conclusion
From these two conditions—the need to address multiple threats to life and the value of activists’ personal passion—I would draw the conclusion that Consistent Life Ethic activists should pursue whichever life issue or issues they like. Again, this conclusion implies no definitive answer one way or the other to the question “Is one life issue more important than the rest?” The practical reality is just that the Consistent Life Ethic movement needs different people working in different ways to protect life against the many threats to it.
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For some similar posts reflecting on the consistent life ethic, see:
The Price of Violence: When Dehumanizing the Vulnerable Hurts One’s Own Causes
Instead of Division, Schools of Thought
Pro-lifers for choice are dangerous
If we agree that a mother may kill a child in the womb, why not outside the womb?
by Richard Stith
Richard Stith
Anyone who has been to public debates on abortion knows that each side talks past the other. True to their self-definitions, the “pro-life” side argues primarily that the fetus is human and alive, while the “pro-choice” side speaks mainly of individual freedom. Rarely do they respond to each other’s points.
The intriguing possibility exists, therefore, that audiences may be convinced by both sides. That is, listeners may conclude both that fetuses are living human beings and that abortion should be permitted.
Indeed, the pro-choice side encourages us to hold both positions at once. We can support the right to choose even if we agree with the pro-lifers that abortion takes a life. We can believe what we want, as long as we do not impose our views on others. Politicians, including President Biden, seem particularly attracted to this I’m-personally-opposed-but stance. Back in 2015 he was very explicit about it.
I’m prepared to accept that at the moment of conception there’s human life and being, but I am not prepared to say that to other God-fearing [and] non-God-fearing people that have a different view. Abortion is always wrong. . . . But I’m not prepared to impose doctrine that I’m prepared to accept on the rest of [the country]. (1)
There is much evidence that a large number of people find themselves in this position. This year is the 50th anniversary of Judith Jarvis Thompson’s well-received piece, “A Defense of Abortion”, in which she explicitly argued that even if the unborn child is a person like the rest of us, its life may rightly be taken in abortion. Abortionists themselves may take such a stance: “I had a woman wake up in the recovery room and say, ‘I just killed my baby.’ And I said to her, ‘You did, and that’s okay.’” (2)
An unusually explicit New York Times/CBS News Poll published back in 1998 squares with the findings of earlier and later surveys in finding many people affirming both sides at once. That NYT/CBS poll found that approximately half of all Americans agreed that abortion is “the same thing as murdering a child,” as the Times questionnaire so graphically put it.
But these abortion-is-murder respondents were by no means solidly “pro-life.” About one third of them also agreed that “abortion is sometimes the best course in a bad situation.” Let’s call such people “pro-lifers for choice.”
My question is: what will our society be like if this mixed position continues to be influential?
How will such a stance affect public policy making in the future?
Please note that I am concerned only with subjective beliefs here, not with whether abortion really takes a life. Even if we assume abortion itself does no harm, we can still ask about the impact of persons who believe simultaneously in the right to abortion and in prenatal human life.
Isn’t our ability to defend life after birth seriously undermined by people who see no important difference between born and unborn children, and yet think those still unborn shouldn’t be protected by law? If it’s OK to kill a healthy child, what can be so wrong with involuntary euthanasia of seriously disabled newborns? And why care much about stopping child neglect, for example, if child murder is thought permissible?
Dr. Lisa Harris
Abortionist and medical school professor Lisa Harris wrote thoughtfully, “In general feminism is a peaceful movement. It does not condone violent problem-solving, and opposes war and capital punishment. But abortion is a version of violence. What do we do with that contradiction?” (3)
On a still more abstract level, the belief that violence against children may be none of the government’s business strikes at the heart of our notions of community responsibility. If we do not share a common concern for the next generation, what do we share?
Worse still: for those who consider abortion to be murder, it is not just any kind of murder. It is, as the New York Times poll put it, the same thing as “murdering a child.” And where there is a child, there is a mother.
Abortion, in the view of more or less half the American people, is the killing of a child by its own mother. Can we live with the belief that mothers have a fundamental right to take the lives of their children? I doubt it.
The mother-child relationship has been too long held up in this civilization (though no doubt sometimes with wrongful sexist intent) as the archetype of self-sacrificing nurture, as the centerpiece of all idealism. If we think it’s right to permit mothers to dismember their children, what violence may we still forbid?
The conclusion I draw is that an acceptance of the right to abortion by those who think it murder may have grave public consequences, regardless of whether abortion in fact amounts to killing. If many of us think (even erroneously) that abortion takes a life, then upholding a right to choose it cannot but dull our shared sense of responsibility for those elsewhere threatened by violence.
Notes
(1) Joel Gehrke. “Joe Biden: “Abortion Is Always Wrong” National Review, 22 September 2015.
(2) Lisa A. Martin, PhD, Jane A. Hassinger, MSW, Michelle Debbink, MD, PhD, Lisa H. Harris, MD, PhD. “Dangertalk: Voices of abortion providers” Social Science & Medicine 184 (2017) 75-83.
(3) Lisa H Harris. “Second Trimester Abortion Provision: Breaking the Silence and Changing the Discourse” Reproductive Health Matters, 2 Sep 2008.
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For more of our original posts from Richard Stith, see:
Equal Concern for Each Human Being, Not for Each Human Issue
Open Letter to Fellow Human Rights Activists
When “Choice” Itself Hurts the Quality of Life
The Mirror-Image Counterpart of the Selfish Society
Oppressors of Women Scapegoat Fetuses to Preserve Patriarchy
“Trust Landlords”: Pro-Choice Candidate Supports Eviction Rights
Abortion and Other Issues of Life: Connecting the Dots
by Father Jim Hewes
Abortion is not only a foundational life issue, but also is analogous with the other life issues.
War: A bomber pilot looks through a scope to target objects (the enemy) from a distance and destroy them; in the same way the abortionist looks through a “scope” to obliterate from a distance (the distance from the outside world to the world within the womb) objects (pre-born children), which also have become both the “enemy” of the mother and of society. Both practices are part of a single culture of death. A country initiates wars in foreign lands and yet at the same time allows a “war” to continue on pre-born children within itself. This is not a war waged for a few years, but one which has lasted over 50 years. Instead of hundreds or even thousands of casualties, there have been millions of pre-born lives lost, as well as the “destruction” of millions of women.
Death penalty: Each day in the United States, roughly 2,500 pre-born children are executed, without an accusation of a capital crime. They aren’t allowed to have a trial or any type of an appeal; they’re dispatched simply because they are voiceless, defenseless, and unwanted. Some 900,000 pre-born children live on a new “death row” (a mother’s womb) and their capital punishment is brutally carried out every day by these modern-day executioners, namely abortionists.
Racism: As many as 180,000 African American lives are destroyed each year through abortions. It’s been estimated that since 1990 the African American community has lost more than 10 million children to abortion. African American women submit to abortions at a rate more than twice their percentage of the U.S. population. Black (pre-born) Lives don’t matter. What could be more racist than ending these innocent lives?
Angels Unawares, commemorating migrants, inaugurated in St. Peter’s Square
Immigration: Undocumented immigrants often come to this country and are inconvenient, unexpected, not welcomed, not wanted and thus treated as disposable. Likewise, this is the core of the abortion issue for pre-born children (and their mothers in unsupported pregnancies) who are also unexpected, inconvenient, unwanted. This translates into to meaning that their lives are regarded as having no dignity or value and thus can be destroyed. Both issues reflect the attitude that some lives are less valuable than others.
Undocumented immigrants are often portrayed as an “aliens” diminishing our country’s security or “aliens” who are hurting our economy. So too are pre-born children considered alien non-beings, who threaten a woman’s lifestyle or her economic future.
There has been controversy about a wall being built along the southern border of the United States, but it has been forgotten that there has been a “Wall” already built there for over 48 years; it came from the Supreme Court decision of Roe v Wade. There are 140,000 (pre-born) Latinos each year, who are legally prevented from “entering” the U.S. because their lives are taken by abortions. Latinos account for 20% of abortions. If the pre-born can be victimized because they haven’t become citizens through birth, then what keeps this logic from being applied to immigrants who also haven’t become citizens yet? The pre-born will never have a path to citizenship. As I read about one Hispanic person saying, the single most dangerous place for a Hispanic in the United States isn’t on the way to the southern border, it’s in their mother’s womb.
Sex trafficking: Despite their humanity, those who are trafficked are often treated as less than human, as objects to be used. Even though the pre-born have a heartbeat, brain waves, and fingerprints they are not seen as humans but as products of pregnancy, a commodity, that can be discarded, thrown away. In addition, one study showed that 55% of women trafficked for sex had at least one abortion and 30% had multiple abortions during the time of trafficking. More than half responded that they were forced to have the abortions.
Maternal mortality: If supposedly “women’s health” (=abortion) means killing others and denying one’s motherhood, why is it not surprising that there were more than 135 expectant and new mothers a day — or roughly 50,000 a year — who endure harmful complications; this gives the United States the highest rate of maternal mortality in the industrialized world. In addition, the annual cost of pregnancy-related complications runs into billions of dollars. These women, especially African American women, endure dangerous and even life-threatening complications. Caring and offering alternatives for women heading for an abortion must be extended to women heading towards giving birth.
Euthanasia: There are many similarities between abortion and euthanasia/physician-assisted suicide. Both discriminate against people with disabilities (such as Down Syndrome), treating them as if they are no longer worthy of life, worthless, and better off dead. Both devalue the dignity of life. In both issues, there is the real problem of despair, of either pregnant mothers or people with health problems being overwhelmed by poverty, illness, or suffering. Both use the definition of “suffering” to continue to expand the reason for killing another. For example, advocates for killing will argue that a pregnant mother will suffer with trying to raise an “unwanted” child, despite many supportive resources available, or a person on hospice will suffer, despite strong pain management readily available. Both attack a group of people who are vulnerable, often dependent, and under immense pressure. A baby might stand in the way of someone’s future plans, just as an elderly or sick person’s care might inconvenience other peoples’ plans and their own expected routine. Both define their own concept of existence, with controlling the manner and meaning of the death of another. Both issues involve claims of bodily autonomy and personal choice/control over one’s body. In both, death is supposedly not the enemy but rather a means for ending potential suffering and the relief of future pain. Both are about unwanted bodily invasion.
Both undertake a permanent and irrevocable violent solution to what is a temporary and changeable situation, because they don’t see that the actual problem is unmet needs but instead see the vulnerable person as the problem. Both involve people who, through either external pressure and abandonment or an interior sense of a burden, feel impelled to take a tragic action. Both corrupt doctors, by turning them away from being healers and by giving them a license to become unjust killers. Both involve people who want to do away with conscience protection for doctors. Both are supported by wealthy donors who want to change the law. Both revolve around the issue of privacy. Both are disease-centered (with abortion supporters seeing pregnancy as a disease) rather than being human-centered. Both see death as the solution rather than finding creative and imaginative solutions that are life giving.
Both use similar tactics to change the law, invoking concerns about quality of life and relieving unnecessary burdens on families. Abortion is called “women’s health care/reproductive rights” while euthanasia is called “death with dignity/medical assistance in dying/compassionate care,” because in both, verbal engineering proceeds all social engineering. In abortion it is usually the mother who arranges for the killing of her daughter or son; in euthanasia, it can be the son or daughter, or some other family member who may arrange for the killing of the mother or father.
The disabled within the womb can’t survive on their own and their lives can be ended by “covert euthanasia,” just like those whose lives also can be terminated outside the womb when they are seriously ill. Both have the killing take place within the very heart of, and with the complicity of, the family, which is supposed to be the very sanctuary, the building block, and the basic unit of society, which by its nature is called to be the sanctuary of life. Thus, abortion and euthanasia parallel each other by bringing violence into the family, the heart of the most intimate of human relationships. There is now a proposal to allow a so called “after-birth abortion,” for survivors of the initial surgical abortion. This, like euthanasia, becomes another precedent for further violence and ending life outside the womb.
Both involve caring at times for someone who will not respond, such as a premature pre-born child or a seriously ill person who is heavily sedated to control pain. Both have viable alternatives: extensive support systems for pregnant women and pain management/palliative care/dignity therapy and logotherapy/hospice staff for the dying or for the seriously ill. Such alternatives entail a lot of time, energy, resources, and real compassion (not a false compassion), rather than relying on the easy and quick fix of just killing someone.
Ultimately, there is a great deal of connection between euthanasia and the abortion issue, as well as many other life issues, because of the assault in so many situations on the dignity of human life. These connections show that violence towards human life happens from the very beginning until the very end, and everywhere in between.
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For more of our posts linking opposition to other kinds of violence to abortion, see:
Open Letter to Fellow Human Rights Activists / Richard Stith
Abortion and Violence against Pregnant Women / Martha Shuping, M.D.
For posts linking abortion opposition to other kinds of violence, see:
Nukes and the Pro-Life Christian: A Conservative Takes a Second Look at the Morality of Nuclear Weapons / Karen Swallow Prior
Why Conservatives Should Oppose the Death Penalty / Destiny Herndon-de la Rosa
Wars Cause Abortion / Rachel MacNair
Making the Case for Peace to Conservatives / John Whitehead
“The Daily Show” Doesn’t Do Its Homework
by Rachel MacNair
Trevor Noah
On September 27, 2021, comedian Trevor Noah offered What Happens When a State Bans Abortions? in his ongoing segment, “If You Don’t Know, Now You Know.” What I know after watching it is that Trevor is competent at giving the conventional talking points in favor of abortion availability, the ones we’ve heard for decades.
There are rebuttals to what he said. He’s entirely lacking in curiosity as to what those might be. As for the idea that there are empirical studies addressing his points, that doesn’t seem to occur to him or his writers.
The one new part was about Uber and Lyft drivers in Texas being afraid to take people to Planned Parenthood at all. He had some good jokes on that. He also seems to be unaware that subjecting such drivers to civil suits isn’t in the heartbeat bill itself at all. It’s in the interpretation of “aiding” that opponents of the bill came up with. How ironic – the impact is because of pro-choice interpretations, not pro-life ones.
Trevor Noah Asserts: The Law Won’t Stop Any Abortions
Everyone knows the law won’t prevent all abortions. But the argument it won’t prevent any – indeed, the argument it won’t prevent a substantial number – crashes up against what empirical studies show. The vast majority of studies of any form of abortion regulations are done by people who oppose those regulations, so there’s not a pro-life bias in most findings.
For more details and references, see Chapter 15 of Peace Psychology Perspectives on Abortion, a chapter I wrote and a book I edited.
Here are highlights:
Women who ask and are turned down
Back when committees could decide whether women got abortions, one study followed women who were turned down, mainly in Czechoslovakia. Many mothers changed their minds, as over a third – 36% – denied they had made the abortion request, and 73% were satisfied with how the situation was resolved – that is, giving birth to their children. A few had placed the children for adoption, and the vast majority of mothers were raising the children themselves, countering the idea of major problems caused by an abortion not happening.
Funding
In the U.S., the Hyde amendment suddenly removed most federal Medicaid abortion funding. So funding was available one year and not the next. Also, funding stopped in some states and not in others since some states put their own funds into abortions for the low-income. This created a natural experiment – meaning all the requirements of an experiment were in place and researchers only needed to collect the data.
From one year to the next, abortion rates among the low-income served by Medicaid went way down in those states where Hyde took effect compared to those states where the state government continued the abortion funding.
But in each state, the childbirth rate stayed the same or went down.
To explain this, consider that abortion has a fairly unique feature. If I don’t brush my teeth, I’m the one who gets cavities. Even if cavity-filling is free, I’m motivated to avoid it. The same applies to a woman whose behavior can lead to pregnancy. Yet it doesn’t apply to the man who engages in the same behavior. If the government takes care of the bill, the activity is free to him, without consequences.
This would be irrelevant if the woman entirely controls her sexual relationships. It becomes relevant when she doesn’t.
Even outside male-dominated relationships, having an abortion require money becomes relevant to a couple’s decision-making – when to have sex, or how much trouble to take to get a condom first.
Distance of Facilities
Women in counties further away from clinics have a lower abortion rate than those nearby. This was shown early on in Georgia in the 1970s, where Atlanta was the place to go. Texas has been even clearer: the “supply-side” requirement of a 2004 law impacted only abortions past 16 weeks, and those dropped by 68%. With the 2013 law that led to several clinic closures, there was a 13% decrease in the state’s abortion rate in the year following.
Price
Studies done in various ways suggest that higher monetary costs do indeed decrease abortions.
Parental Involvement
The most commonly observed immediate impact of parental involvement requirements is a drop in the first-trimester abortion rate among minors, but not among teenagers who aren’t minors (aged 18 and 19). This was found along with no increase in the birthrate in each of several different states. There appears to be no difference as to whether it was only parental notification or instead parental consent that was legally required.
On a side note, one study found states with parental involvement laws were associated with an 11% to 21% reduction in suicides among females 15-17 years old. No similar impact was found on males in that age group or on older females.
Trevor Noah Asserts: Stopping Abortions Can Be Done with Better Supports for Mothers
No kidding. We at the Consistent Life Network have held this for a long time.
But Trevor speaks as if Texas were doing nothing. In fact, the state has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into a long-running program to help its pregnant women.
You can argue it could be done better. You can argue that certain social policies are also crucial. You can argue it’s inadequate. I for one would certainly like to see more.
But “inadequate” isn’t “absent.” Treating it as merely absent is an assertion that’s so easily refuted as to suggest anyone who does so hasn’t researched it at all. It’s easily googled.
I assert: Women Don’t Become Pregnant Unless a Man is Involved
The idea that men who think women are supposed to be sexually available to them would benefit greatly from vacuuming women out and making them re-usable – this is totally absent from Trevor’s presentation. But he’s presented on the point before. This tweet, still available online, refers to an earlier Supreme Court decision which ruled against some previous Texas abortion regulations:
I’ve often thought the astonishing sexism of his remark ought to have been career-ending, but of course it wasn’t. Abortion was the topic at hand, so someone who feels a sense of male privilege over women’s bodies writing only to male readers presumed to have that same sense is given a free pass.
Most of the time, he’s a good man. I usually enjoy his comedy, which I watch regularly. But this is one of many cases I’ve observed where I conclude abortion has a toxic effect on otherwise good men.
The Segment Privileges Some Women’s Experiences over Others
Women who’ve had abortions are a major portion of the pro-life movement – no one active in the movement can fail to know this, because it’s so prevalent. Women who feel traumatized, bullied, unsupported, conned – these women’s voices are every bit as relevant to the debate as the ones whose experience backs up The Daily Show’s view.
Here’s a continuum of women considering whether or not to get an abortion:
The segment shows one extreme in the continuum, and yet presents it as if it were everybody. That means deliberately ignoring so many women’s lived experiences.
If you’re puzzled as to why the pro-life movement is still so strong after all these years, that’s a major reason. You can’t make these women go away by pretending they don’t exist.
Conclusion
If the intention is to educate, as the title implies, and if the topic is what actually happens in a state with abortion bans, then to the writing staff of The Daily Show I say: please do more homework. I’ve given you some leads here, and with your research skills I expect you could find more, if only you could try to be thorough on the stated topic.
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For more thoughts from Rachel MacNair on similar topics, see our posts:
What Do Men Have to Say on Abortion?
How Abortion is Useful for Rape Culture
300 Roses
by Rosalyn Mitchell
Rosalyn currently works with the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform. She has also served as an intern for the Consistent Life Network.
Artwork by Sonja Morin
A rose is never just a rose. As Mother Teresa said, “How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers.” To me, a rose is symbolic of the struggle of each person to secure their God-given dignity. Liberation begins in the womb. Abortion ends the life of 300 Canadian “roses” daily, denying their right to life. Countless born roses wither, struggling to secure bread and shelter. Our common struggle is God’s struggle. He died on the cross so we can bloom through His perfect love.
What we believe about those unlike ourselves reflects how we treat others. In the culture, the pro-life movement is stereotyped as old, white, rich Christian men who want to control women. We pro-lifers know that isn’t true, but it would be a lie to say it doesn’t hurt. Worse still is when we stereotype the pro-choice movement as angry white secular feminists.
Today’s blog post doesn’t share my testimonies of pro-life conversions. Instead, I choose to share stories of two pro-choice women. My goal in sharing Katia’s and Lindsey’s stories is to show the culture, and pro-choice people, that we care about them. I hope, by engaging their humanity, they re-think abortion. How can they see the humanity of aborted children if we deny pro-choicers’ humanity?
While the reality of abortion cruelly ends the life of a child, women who support abortion should not be vilified. Abortion, a socially accepted ending of human life, starts with the dehumanization of the born. The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR) seeks to win people, not debates, by touching hearts through seeking to understand, love, and inspire. How can we defend human rights for all human beings if we dehumanize pro-choicers?
Katia gripped her bike handle, her slender frame standing in the distance, observing me with curious brown eyes. Developing the courage to approach, she began to tell me her story, deep brokenness becoming apparent. In some conversations you teach others, but today, she taught me the heart-breaking reality of mothers abandoning their infants in trashcans. Of a mother who lost her war with depression, committing suicide as no psychiatric treatment alleviated her pain. Committing suicide, she orphaned her children by throwing herself out a window.
Katia shared her story of being raised in Russia. Arriving in Canada as an immigrant, she navigates her teenage years as a stranger in a foreign land. How would she face an unexpected pregnancy? Fully aware of the child within, yet hardened by life, she thinks abortion is a kinder fate than life. Abortion to her is an exit from an endless cycle of generational trauma passed between parent and child. Dear Katia. If by grace you are reading this, I want you to know that life is cruel yet worth living. Your past does not define your future. This cycle continues unless each child has an opportunity to live. Abortion denies this opportunity. If you or any pregnant woman needs help, please visit choice42.com amongst other resources like pregnancy care centres. I care and see you.
Lindsey contrasted with Katia, with her infectious energy making the absurd seem joyous. Amongst counter-protesters, she stood out by creatively vying for attention. She held a cardboard sign engaging traffic to honk, “If you are horny.” Her message was not hostile, unlike other protestors whose objective was to shut CCBR down. She is a filmmaker who tells stories from the perspective of the “other.” The outcasts, the forgotten ones. Dear Lindsey. If by grace you are reading this, please know that there is none more othered than abortion victims. Children who are denied their humanity.
You have a quick wit and bright intellect. You asked why photos are used to expose abortion. As a filmmaker, you know the power of media to “other” people as our culture reduces children to a clump of cells. The graphic images we display are armour to protect against the lies that deny children their humanity. Yes, abortion is shocking. The reality of a brutal act that ends a child’s life. The photographs pierce through the mask of choice to ask what choice is abortion.
Society’s moral consciousness calls for justice. It becomes personal, as reflected by your shirt calling to end police brutality. Black Lives Matter challenged narratives like the American dream as flawed due to the systemic denial of freedom. Today I challenge our collective moral consciousness for the 300 Canadian roses killed daily through abortion. I challenge us to question the narrative of choice, which creates a grave of bloody roses.
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For more of our posts on personal journeys, see:
On Being a Consistent Chimera / Rob Arner
Why Conservatives Should Oppose the Death Penalty / Destiny Herndon-de la Rosa
Coming to Peace and Living a Consistent Life After Military Service / Eve Dawn Kuha
My Personal Journey on Veganism, War, and Abortion / Frank Lane
Off the Fence and Taking My Stand on Abortion / Mary Liepold
Sharon Long: My Personal Pro-life Journey / Sharon Long
Nukes and the Pro-Life Christian: A Conservative Takes a Second Look at the Morality of Nuclear Weapons / Karen Swallow Prior
“Shut Up and Enjoy it!”: Abortion Promoters who Sexually Pressure Women
by Ms. Boomer-ang
Andrew Cuomo
For the second time in 13 years in the same state, an abortion-promoting governor has resigned because of sexually “liberated” practices that displeased women. Besides Eliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo, other prominent “liberals” have acted the same. Some have gotten in trouble for it, some have gotten away with it. But their actions show that supporting abortion is compatible with sexually exploiting women, and that many women don’t like “liberated” sexual experiences.
Legal abortion has deprived women of once-accepted justifications for refusing a man’s sexual advances. In return, sexual libertinism helps generate demand for abortion. An early supporter of the post-1965 abortion push was Playboy’s Hugh Hefner. Is it any wonder that some men labeled as “women’s allies” for supporting abortion have sexually harassed, exploited, and/or abused women?
Powerful men have promoted abortion for both reasons related and reasons unrelated to sexual libertinism. For various reasons, including to wipe out justifications for rejecting their sexual advances, they imposed a sexual revolution about 50 years ago.
The sexual revolution put both men and women under pressure to increase their sexual activity. Men were told it was abnormal not to make more sexual advances. Women were told, “Don’t consider it harassment or exploitation. This is what you really want. This is what you really long for. Yes, you do! Be liberated! Shut up and enjoy it!”
Sexually demanding associates and bosses like Harvey Weinstein were portrayed as not abusers but teachers. How many men exposed for their sexual shenanigans react with, ‘I was just doing what was expected of me’? How many women endured their abuse convinced it was remedial sex education for their own good?
For years, the message has been: “The Sexual Revolution has won. If you complain or disrespect this victory, you’re a Religious Right, Puritan enemy of freedom.”
After all, didn’t the media report stories about Thomas Jefferson’s and John F. Kennedy’s extramaritial dalliances with happy excitement? Did not it treat Bill Clinton’s episode with Monica Lewinsky as happy entertainment?
Bob Packwood
For decades, Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon – a Republican abortion advocate – took sexual advantage of his female staff. Compatible with the image of exploiter as teacher, “at one point . . . he suggested it was his ‘Christian duty’ to have sex with a woman he thought deprived of it.”1 In 1981 or 1982, Mary Hefferman of NARAL was in his office, finishing up a discussion of abortion legislation, when he touched and kissed her in unwanted sexual ways. After that, Ms. Hefferman avoided being alone with him, but “she did not complain to anyone about the incident out of concern that it would adversely affect the abortion-rights cause.”2
But unlike many sexual harassers, Mr. Packwood did not get away with his behavior. In 1991, he and his first wife, Georgie, divorced. Soon after, a Washington Post investigated rumors about his womanizing and unethical activities. In 1995, the Senate concluded that his actions had “discredited” it, and he had to resign.
Georgie, quoted in the Buffalo News on September 10, 1995, said that his “shadow life made a mockery of my marriage . . . [and] a mockery of Bob’s dedication to equality for women.”
Eliot Spitzer
About a decade later, Eliot Spitzer was the Attorney General of New York State, and his agenda included closing down crisis pregnancy centers. In 2007, he became governor and championed a drastic bill to reduce a woman’s right to escape abortion and reduce a professional’s right not to participate in it. Roe v Wade denies women any protection from unwanted abortions in the first trimester. Spitzer’s bill would have extended that denial to all three trimesters. Pro-life publications suggested the bill could allow even chiropractors and massage therapists to cause miscarriages at any stage of pregnancy without the woman’s explicit permission and could require health care professionals to perform abortions in order to get licenses.
Silda Wall (Spitzer), divorced 2013
Before the bill was finalized, someone discovered that Spitzer was indulging in luxury prostitutes. His wife Silda, whatever she thought of his social agenda, looked very unhappy in the photo accompanying the news story about the prostitutes. In March 2008, Mr. Spitzer resigned. The Spitzers divorced in 2013.
But the media and prominent voices continued mocking those who objected to sexually libertine behavior – except if the exploiter espoused a “cultural conservatism” cause or belonged to a pro-life entity.
But then some women remembered that Harvey Weinstein had treated them as badly as the media was noticing Donald Trump had treated other women.
Harvey Weinstein
Weinstein was known as a big supporter of “women’s rights,” the New York Times acknowledged, but the story was too big to shove aside. Ironically, right after Trump’s election, the story of Weinstein’s sexploitation of women came out, and the #MeToo movement arose.
Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo, who had succeeded Spitzer as Attorney General, became Governor of New York in 2011. He and his wife, Kerry Kennedy, had divorced in 2005. His agenda was “culturally liberal.” In the middle of the last decade, he told pro-lifers (as well as people culturally conservative in certain other ways) that we don’t belong in New York.
In 2020, he proudly and excitedly signed a version of Spitzer’s abortion-promoting law. I don’t know how it compares with the Spitzer proposal. But one of its proud points is making it easier for parents to force a minor to abort against her will, no matter how late in gestation they discover the pregnancy. To celebrate this violent law, Cuomo had his girlfriend flick a switch that turned lights in New York City pink.
Kerry Kennedy (Cuomo), divorced 2005
However, late that year, it came to light that some women complained about Cuomo’s making unwanted sexual moves on them. His misdeeds, from reports I read, seem less severe than Packwood’s. Would Cuomo have gotten into trouble if this were before the Weinstein exposure? Would he still have gotten into trouble if he were moving more quickly and energetically in enacting more points of a culturally/ ethically “liberal” agenda? Where was First Girlfriend now? In any case, some of Cuomo’s fellow Democrats rumbled about impeaching him. In August 2021, he resigned.
(New York State got its first woman governor, Kathy Hochul, as a consequence, but I don’t have high hopes for her. That’s a different story.)
In his resignation speech, Andrew Cuomo said, “In my mind, I never crossed the line with anyone. But I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate.”
However, the “line” between acceptable and unacceptable sexual behavior had been redrawn before to the position he was used to in about 1970, before he entered his teens. That was the “generational and cultural shift” everyone spoke about. Maybe the line has been redrawn again since the Weinstein exposure, but it still is looser than it was before 1970, and we don’t know how long it will keep its new position.
They say baby boomers made the sexual revolution. But I was born at the height of the baby boom, and by the time I entered high school, the line was already at the position Andrew Cuomo was used to. Most women of my cohort felt they had no choice. Cuomo is a couple of years younger than me; maybe he didn’t remember the line’s pre-1970 position.
On August 13, the New York Times published a letter from a Gail Griffin saying, “Who drew the line in the first place? Whom did the [c.1970-2017] ‘rules’ serve? And most important, do you actually believe that the women being harassed approved of those ‘rules’ or enjoyed that treatment? . . . The fact is that women adjusted. Accommodated. Endured . . . The final test of a man’s ‘good intentions ‘ and respect for women might be whether or not he can identify enough with women to see how the . . . ‘rules’ dehumanized, demoralized, terrified, hurt, and deranged us.”
The media told us that sexual libertinism is what women really want, but only now are some taking seriously that a lot of women don’t like it.
Footnotes
1Helen Dewar, The Packwood Report, released September 7, 1995, Forward p. vi
2Testimony to Senate Ethics Council, Ibid, p. 65
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For some of our other posts on abortion and women’s rights, see:
Abortion and Violence Against Pregnant Women / Martha Shuping, M.D.
The Myth of Sexual Autonomy / Julianne Wiley
How Abortion is Useful for Rape Culture / Rachel MacNair
Oppressors of Women Scapegoat Fetuses to Preserve Patriarchy / Richard Stith
Gendercide: Millions of “Missing” (Dead) Women