How Abortion Doesn’t Address Women’s Real Problems
by Jim Hewes
Many abortionists (Dr. Malcom Potts, Dr. Frasier Fellows, Dr. Willie Parker, etc.) claim that the reason for doing abortions is to help women.
For example, Dr. Kathi Aultman stated: “performing an abortion, I was doing something for the wellbeing of women.” (Written Testimony of Kathi A. Aultman, M.D. FACOG, November 1, 2017 House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice H.R. 490, the Heartbeat Protection Act of 2017).
She stated that she stopped doing abortions because she saw that abortion was not truly helping women (including the tiny developing women within in the womb).
Real-Life Stories
A woman wrote a letter to the newspaper sharing her experience: “I had an abortion because I had no job, no transportation, and was living in my parents’ basement.” After the abortion, she still had no job, still had no transportation, and was still living in her parents’ basement. The abortion was an attempt for a “quick fix,” which did not address her real underlying needs.
In fact, if she had connected with a crisis pregnancy center (according to a Charlotte Lozier’s Pregnancy Center Report there are more than 2,752 pregnancy centers across the United States), she would have found practical support. The staff would have helped her address her fears and work though them, knowing she was not alone. In addition, they could have helped her find a job or job training, possibly helped her find adequate transportation, find affordable housing, had a baby shower for her, and/or made available “mentoring moms,” who would have supported her in all sorts of ways. With this support, she might have thrived despite her challenging circumstances. What she truly needed was not an abortion, but practical help and a new perspective.
Consider another actual case: a single mother of several children facing an unexpected pregnancy. She lived in a small apartment and was behind on her rent. She was also behind payment on a storage unit which held many valuable possessions. She was on the brink of being evicted, and the owner of the storage unit was going to toss all of her items.
Fortunately, she connected with a crisis pregnancy center which quickly mobilized resources; a donor paid for her overdue rent, including the storage unit. The center connected her with an ob/gyn doctor. She experienced an ultrasound of her baby. A local parish organized a baby shower. She continued to receive ongoing support during this seemingly crushing situation. She then gave birth to her baby and was delighted with this new member of her family. If she had gone through with the abortion, it wouldn’t have addressed any of her seemingly overwhelming problems. She may have remained still feeling alone and very isolated, with the added burden of the abortion.
Another valuable resource is “Walking with Moms in Need”. This involves parish outreach ministries, where many women in unexpected pregnancies have found all sorts of support, including financial aid and caring people to accompany these vulnerable women in so many other ways as they face such difficult circumstances.
Many vulnerable pregnant women face housing insecurity. Abortion doesn’t help them find safe and affordable housing for keeping their child, but there is housing available in the many wonderful maternity homes throughout the United States. Women also have the loving option of adoption, blessing both their child and couples longing to grow their families.
Research Evidence Supporting Life
Research further underscores this reality. A peer-reviewed study in the journal Cureus by David Reardon, Katherine Rafferty and Tessa Longbons found that 60% of post-abortive women surveyed testified that they would have continued their pregnancy if they had had more financial security and/or more emotional support from others.
Conclusion
Abortion provides a temporary illusion of relief without addressing the underlying issues women face. Real solutions—practical, emotional, and financial support—truly empower women, offering them the chance for a fuller, more hopeful life for themselves and their children. With increasing abortion restrictions and the current defunding of Planned Parenthood, whose main focus is abortion, this approach is more needed than ever.
It’s an illusion that killing one’s child will actually help women. There are more life-giving alternatives, which will in the end truly benefit vulnerable pregnant women.
In fact, in many cases an unexpected or untimely pregnancy can actually end up as a catalyst to addressing underlying problems and eventually bring about practical solutions, which can offer the person a chance for a fuller life than before the pregnancy.
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For more of some of our posts from Jim Hewes, see:
Death Penalty and other Killing: The Destructive Effect on Us
Consistent Life History: Being Across the Board
Reflections from My Decades of Consistent Life Experience
The Consistent Life Ethic: My Christian Perspective
Abortion and Other Issues of Life: Connecting the Dots
A Personal Reflection on a Just War
Abortion and the Christian Bible: A Consistent-Life Perspective
Abortion When it Involves a Rape: See the Faces
Mourning the Dead and Protecting the Living: Remarks from the August 9th Peace Vigil
Our quarterly peace vigil against nuclear weapons fell on August 9th, the 80th anniversary of the US bombing of Nagasaki. The vigil was an occasion both to mourn all those killed by the nuclear weapons used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and to call for action against the threat posed by nuclear weapons today. Below is a selection of remarks and readings from the vigil.
Marie Dennis
From remarks by Consistent Life Network endorser Marie Dennis, of the Catholic peace organization Pax Christi International:
Marie Dennis
For moral arguments to change the opinion of political decision-makers will require a sustained effort by communities of faith to develop synergy between nonviolent activism (like this [vigil]) and “insider (realpolitik) negotiations for policy change.”
Religious institutions, including the institutional Catholic Church, need to develop collaborative strategies with faith-based peace movements like Pax Christi, plowshares activists, peace fellowships, all of us—to help politicians hear and heed the demands of ordinary people for an end to the nuclear nightmare…
It is time to replace the logic of violence in which we are mired with a new logic of nonviolence, opening the space for creative, life-giving alternatives; training us for active love and healing rather than for fear and killing; providing solid ground for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Pope Francis said, “The consistent practice of nonviolence has broken barriers, bound wounds, healed nations” (letter from Pope Francis to Cardinal Blase Cupich, April 4, 2017). Nowhere is this transformation more desperately needed than in freeing the world from the terrifying threat of nuclear weapons.
Many years ago, Jesuit peacemaker Rev. Richard McSorley, SJ wrote, “The taproot of violence in our society is our intention to use nuclear weapons. Once we have agreed to that, all other evil is minor in comparison” (Rev. Richard McSorley, SJ, “It’s a Sin to Build a Nuclear Weapon,” U.S. Catholic, 1976). Consent to the presence of nuclear weapons in our world not only accepts the risk of a nuclear conflagration in the future, but also undermines the ethical foundations for the common good here and now.
Judy Coode
Judy Coode of Consistent Life Network member group Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore read from the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech of Hiroshima bombing survivor Setsuko Thurlow:
Judy Coode speaking
I was just 13 years old when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb, on my city Hiroshima. I still vividly remember that morning. At 8:15, I saw a blinding bluish-white flash from the window. I remember having the sensation of floating in the air.
As I regained consciousness in the silence and darkness, I found myself pinned by the collapsed building. I began to hear my classmates’ faint cries: “Mother, help me. God, help me.”
Then, suddenly, I felt hands touching my left shoulder, and heard a man saying: “Don’t give up! Keep pushing! I am trying to free you. See the light coming through that opening? Crawl towards it as quickly as you can.” As I crawled out, the ruins were on fire. Most of my classmates in that building were burned to death alive. I saw all around me utter, unimaginable devastation.
Processions of ghostly figures shuffled by. Grotesquely wounded people, they were bleeding, burnt, blackened and swollen. Parts of their bodies were missing. Flesh and skin hung from their bones. Some with their eyeballs hanging in their hands. Some with their bellies burst open, their intestines hanging out. The foul stench of burnt human flesh filled the air.
Thus, with one bomb my beloved city was obliterated. Most of its residents were civilians who were incinerated, vaporized, carbonized – among them, members of my own family and 351 of my schoolmates.
In the weeks, months and years that followed, many thousands more would die, often in random and mysterious ways, from the delayed effects of radiation. Still to this day, radiation is killing survivors . . .
To the officials of nuclear-armed nations – and to their accomplices under the so-called “nuclear umbrella” – I say this: Listen to our testimony. Heed our warning. And know that your actions are consequential. You are each an integral part of a system of violence that is endangering humankind. Let us all be alert to the banality of evil . . .
When I was a 13-year-old girl, trapped in the smoldering rubble, I kept pushing. I kept moving toward the light. And I survived. Our light now is the [Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons]. To all in this hall and all listening around the world, I repeat those words that I heard called to me in the ruins of Hiroshima: “Don’t give up! Keep pushing! See the light? Crawl towards it.”
Lauren Pope
Lauren Pope of member group Rehumanize International read from The Crazy Iris and Other Stories from the Atomic Aftermath, an anthology of stories remembering the bombings of Japan:
Lauren Pope
We hadn’t heard a single bomb drop, we hadn’t seen a trace of an enemy plane. The sky had been perfectly peaceful . . .
Nearly all the people had burned clothing and they walked along in files like ants.
Had they been burned by the flames from the sky? I wondered. I was convinced then that what I had seen in the moment in the factory had indeed been some kind of “fire from heaven.”
Since I knew so little about the geography of the city, I decided to walk in the direction of the green hills I could see in the distance.
The overhead wires that the trolley cars ran on were plastered all over the streets like cobwebs and people with bare feet were stepping over them. Some brown-colored animals – whether dogs or cats I couldn’t tell- lay tumbled by the road.
Everything had been burned! I thought. Everything had a brownish color. Even the asphalt on the street had turned the color of an old frying pan.
- From “Human Ashes” by Katsuzo Oda
Jack McHale
Jack McHale of Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore read this poem by the late Daniel Berrigan, SJ, a Consistent Life Network endorser:
Jack McHale
SHADOW ON THE ROCK
by Daniel Berrigan, S.J.
At Hiroshima there’s a museum
and outside that museum there’s a rock,
and on that rock there’s a shadow.
That shadow is all that remains
of the human being who stood there on August 6, 1945
when the nuclear age began.
In the most real sense of the word,
that is the choice before us.
We shall either end war and the nuclear arms race now in this generation,
or we will become Shadows On the Rock.
Our thanks to all the member groups and other organizations who co-sponsored this event: the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore, American Solidarity Party of DC-Maryland, Rehumanize International, Pax Christi USA, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Little Friends for Peace, the Isaiah Project, the Assisi Community, the Norfolk Catholic Worker, and the Hampton Roads Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
Reasons to Fear, Reasons to Hope: The Nuclear Threat after 80 Years
by John Whitehead
The nuclear threat is now 80 years old. Nuclear weapons became a reality with the first successful test of a nuclear weapon, the Trinity test, in New Mexico on July 16, 1945.
These weapons’ ability to destroy human lives and societies was demonstrated with horrific clarity a few weeks later when two American-made nuclear bombs were used against two Japanese cities: Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9. How many people were killed by the two bombings remains unclear to this day: one post-war estimate put the number of people killed in the bombings and their near aftermath at roughly 100,000; later estimates put the number at roughly 200,000. By either estimate, though, the bombs were unambiguously devastating.
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY
As the United States and other nations built more nuclear weapons, these weapons would go on to destroy lives through their production and testing. Nevertheless, since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have never again, to date, been used in wartime to destroy cities or other targets.
For 80 years now, a war fought with nuclear weapons has been a real possibility. Over these years, humanity has lived with the knowledge that nuclear war, if it ever occurred, could kill unprecedented numbers of people, cause catastrophic genetic and environmental damage to our world, and ultimately destroy humanity. Everything humans have been or have built over hundreds of thousands of years could be wiped out in a matter of hours by nuclear weapons.
This anniversary year, which marks eight decades since the invention of nuclear weapons, is an apt time to reflect on the nuclear threat. What is the status of the threat today, and what does this mean for all of us?
Reasons to Fear
A survey of the world in 2025 gives significant reasons to fear that a nuclear war might occur. The number of nations that possess nuclear weapons has grown from the original one, the United States, to include eight other nations: Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. Many of these nuclear nations are mired in deep conflicts that could escalate to the nuclear level.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has set the United States, Britain, and France against Russia. During the war, in the fall of 2022, when the Russian invaders were losing ground to a Ukrainian counter-attack, American officials reportedly feared Russia might resort to nuclear weapons. Russia did not use nuclear weapons at that time, but as the war continues, the possibility of their future use remains.
US-China relations have been tense for years. Against this backdrop of international tension, China may be building more nuclear weapons, perhaps in an attempt to deter the United States or gain more influence in the world. The ongoing rivalry, aggravated by nuclear competition, could someday flare up into nuclear conflict.
India and Pakistan have been adversaries since their founding and have fought multiple wars. As recently as this past May, hostility between the two nuclear-armed nations broke out into open military conflict before thankfully being stopped by a ceasefire. The next outbreak of hostilities might not end that way, though.
North Korea’s fractious relationship with South Korea and the United States is another potential flashpoint for nuclear conflict. Even conflicts involving states that do not yet possess nuclear weapons raise ominous questions: Will the recent bombing campaign by Israel and the United States against Iran lead Iran to make an all-out effort to build nuclear weapons? If so, what will a Middle East with multiple nuclear weapons-armed states mean for the future?
Amid this array of conflicts and tensions, the network of international treaties meant to limit and regulate nuclear weapons has been unravelling for years. The United States, under President George W. Bush’s administration, decided to leave the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which had limited this potentially destabilizing technology.
More recently, during President Donald Trump’s first term, the United States left the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, which had abolished a particular type of nuclear weapon. The New START Treaty limiting US and Russian nuclear weapons is set to expire in February 2026, and renewal of the treaty is far from likely. The legal barriers to an unrestrained nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia are falling away.
Given all these circumstances, a recent decision by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a group that has sounded the alarm about nuclear weapons almost since their invention, makes sense. The Bulletin has long provided regular assessments of nuclear and other dangers to humanity. These assessments are visually represented by a “Doomsday Clock”: the graver the Bulletin assesses global dangers to be, the closer the clock is set to midnight. This year, the Bulletin set the clock at 89 seconds to midnight.
Reasons to Hope
The current dire conditions make pessimism or even despair tempting. Such responses would be mistaken, though, because the dangers today are only part of the story.
More important than any of the disturbing events or trends above is the central, inescapable fact that we’re still here. Humans still exist, and we still have the power to shape future events.
Further, the time that has passed since nuclear weapons were invented is a sign of hope. For eight decades, we have lived with the power to annihilate ourselves—and we have not done it. In the past, we have been through crises and tense periods as serious as what we are facing today, during which nuclear war was highly probable. Yet we did not fall into the abyss. We did not start a nuclear war.
The history of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union offers a clear example of how nuclear dangers can be averted. In the early 1980s, combined US and Soviet nuclear weapons arsenals numbered almost 70,000. Given the extraordinary hostility between the two nations, the idea of major reductions in nuclear weapons seemed absurd. Nuclear war between the two nations seemed far more likely.
Nevertheless, within a few years after this period of extreme danger, the Cold War effectively ended. The United States and the Soviet Union (and then its successor state Russia) began radically reducing their nuclear weapons down to roughly 8,000 weapons combined.
Granting that current nuclear weapons arsenals still pose a serious threat, we should not overlook the extraordinary accomplishment of these earlier weapons reductions. What had been a ridiculous dream became a reality in less than a decade.
Humans’ 80 years of survival since the invention of nuclear weapons should not be a cause of complacency. We need to work against the nuclear threat today.
However, these years of survival and past accomplishments, such as earlier nuclear weapons reductions, are a crucial reminder that catastrophe is not inevitable. The mere fact that nuclear weapons were invented and used in 1945 does not mean we are doomed to use them again in the future.
Other signs of hope are the efforts made by so many people all over the world to reduce or end the nuclear threat. A global campaign created the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which prohibits the use or even possession of such weapons. Ninety-four nations have signed the treaty, which demonstrates that a huge section of humanity is not prepared simply to accept the ongoing threat from nuclear weapons.
Within the United States, the Back from the Brink Campaign is working to reduce the nuclear threat by advocating for policy changes that will make nuclear war less likely. Many of these policy recommendations have been incorporated into legislation currently before the US Congress: H.Res 317 in the House of Representatives and S.Res.323 in the Senate. American citizens can take action by urging their representatives and senators to support these resolutions.
These initiatives, together with the larger fact of humanity’s survival, should encourage us. The nuclear threat today is grave and requires a response. We should support efforts to respond to the threat.
We should act now to ensure that we can continue, 20, 50, and 100 years from now, to celebrate humanity’s survival. We should act now so that one day we can look back on the nuclear threat as a threat we have overcome.
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The Consistent Life Network will be co-sponsoring a peace vigil outside the White House in Washington, DC, on August 9, the 80th anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing. Please join us as we remember the lives destroyed by nuclear weapons and advocate for peace in our world. If you would like to attend, contact John Whitehead at jwwhiteh@yahoo.com.
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We have an extensive list of posts on nuclear weapons, which you can find under that category All Blog Posts
Raising Lifelong Defenders of Dignity: Teaching the Next Generation the Consistent Life Ethic
by Nathanial John
Editor’s note: Nathaniel is a Christian writer and so writes from that perspective, but many of the comments will also apply to people from other traditions.
You can learn a lot about a society by listening to what it protects.
We live in a world that shouts loudly about rights—but often falls silent when it comes to the dignity of the voiceless. Whether it’s the unborn child, the poor family in a war-torn region, the elderly person with no advocate, or the wrongly incarcerated—we have a growing habit of dividing life into “worthy” and “inconvenient.”
For those of us raising or teaching young people, the question isn’t just what we believe—it’s what we’re passing on. Are we giving the next generation a piecemeal ethic? Or are we handing them a complete vision—a consistent, compassionate conviction that every life matters, from beginning to end?
Welcome to the Consistent Life Ethic (CLE)—not just a theory, but a call to live, parent, and educate with holy integrity. This article isn’t just a roadmap; it’s an invitation to raise youth who don’t just react to headlines but live by a deeper principle: that all human life is sacred, and no one should be discarded.
What Is the Consistent Life Ethic, Really?
The CLE isn’t a political movement. It’s not a slogan. It’s a lens—a way of seeing people.
Coined by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in the 1980s, the Consistent Life Ethic affirms the sacredness and interconnectedness of all human life. It challenges us to speak with one voice against abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, war, systemic poverty, racism, and every other force that devalues or destroys human beings.
It’s not about picking one issue that stirs our passion and ignoring the rest. It’s about being consistent. If we believe life is valuable, we must protect it—everywhere it’s threatened.
And that’s not easy in today’s world.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
Young people today are growing up in a world full of contradictions. They’re told to “stand for justice,” but justice often gets fragmented by partisanship. They’re told to “believe in equality,” but some lives are treated as expendable.
If we want to raise kids who are more than activists—who are advocates with a moral compass—we need to help them understand life issues not as isolated controversies, but as a deeply connected moral vision.
Making It Real: Teaching the Interconnectedness of Life Issues
This isn’t about dumping all the world’s problems on a child. It’s about helping them see people through God’s eyes. Here’s how:
1. Use Real Stories, Not Just Arguments
Instead of opening with a political debate, open with a name. A face. A story.
- The teenage mother who is wrestling with an unexpected pregnancy.
- The veteran who is struggling with trauma and homelessness.
- The prisoner on death row who met Jesus and changed—but may never be free.
When you teach through human stories, you show that life issues are people issues. And that’s what touches the heart.
2. Connect the Dots with Curiosity
Help kids and teens ask better questions:
- Why are people more likely to choose abortion when they’re poor or unsupported?
- How does racism affect access to healthcare or housing?
- Why do some people feel like death is more dignified than life?
These questions don’t just educate—they form empathy. And empathy is the starting point of every lasting conviction.
3. Use Scripture as a Compass, Not a Weapon
If teaching from a biblical perspective, let the Bible shape the worldview, not just back it up. Verses like:
- Micah 6:8 – “Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly . . .”
- Psalm 139 – “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
- Matthew 25 – “Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for Me.”
Show them that God cares not just about the start of life, but the whole of life.
Raising Advocates, Not Just Opinion Holders
Let’s be honest—most teenagers aren’t looking to be theologians or politicians. But they are looking for something real to live for.
Here’s how to inspire them:
1. Give Them a Reason to Care
Talk about justice not as a cause, but as a calling. We’re not raising “pro-lifers” or “social justice warriors.” We’re raising peacemakers. Whole-hearted, courageous defenders of life and dignity.
Let them see how this ethic transforms everything:
- The way they treat the kid at school who’s different.
- How they view addiction, mental illness, or poverty.
- How they think about war, forgiveness, and mercy.
2. Help Them Take Action, Not Just Take a Side
Help youth translate conviction into compassion:
- Start a “Dignity for All” campaign at school or church.
- Volunteer at shelters, soup kitchens, or pro-life clinics.
- Write letters to leaders or make art that speaks truth to culture.
Teach them that change doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it whispers through kindness, consistency, and courage.
Tools for the Journey: Resources for Parents and Educators
You don’t have to figure it out alone. Here are some resources to support you:
🧠 Learning Materials
- Consistently Pro-Life: The Ethics of Bloodshed in Ancient Christianity by Rob Arner – Theological and practical introduction to CLE.
- “Pro-Life Kids!” by Bethany Bomberger – A colorful, age-appropriate picture book.
- Youth Education: CL Kids! , a project of the Consistent Life Network, offers several resources.
📲 Websites
- Consistent Life Network – Articles, advocacy tools, and events.
- Rehumanize International – Especially great for youth-led initiatives.
- Students for Life – Strong on student activism with a pro-life focus.
🎧 Podcasts & Media
- Peace & Life Conversations – from the Consistent Life Network
- Many more can be found through searches on YouTube.
A Better Way Forward
Raising children with a Consistent Life Ethic doesn’t mean giving them all the answers. It means giving them eyes to see—really see—every person as someone with inherent worth, or in theological terms, made in the image of God.
It means teaching them that human dignity doesn’t come from usefulness, popularity, or perfection—but from the God who created us.
In a world full of contradictions, we can raise a generation that’s consistent. Not perfect, but principled. Not loud, but rooted.
And maybe—just maybe—these kids we teach today will be the ones who finally break the cycles of violence, division, and dehumanization.
Because once you truly believe every life matters . . .
You start living like every life matters.
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For more of our posts about educating, see:
Two Practical Dialogue Tips for Changing More Minds about Abortion
Dialog on Life Issues: Avoiding Some Obstacles to Communication
Turning Problems into Potential: Positive Social Movement Dynamics
by Rachel M. MacNair
There are several features of social movements commonly seen as problems. Yet when underlying psychological dynamics are understood, they can be explained and accommodated. At times, they can even be converted to positive developments.
So Many Problems We Have
One such feature is a perception that one’s own movement has a distressing number of problems, while the movement’s opposition is seen as running smoothly. Yet the opposition, similar to one’s own group, is not likely to publicize its personality clashes, territorial squabbles, financial difficulties, and insufficient volunteers.
This is something of a variant of the “out-group homogeneity effect.” In this case, it is an out-group unseen-problem effect.
The in-group is the group a person belongs to and identifies with. The out-group is a group a person considers to be other people. People can easily see the differences between individuals in their own in-group; for instance, one person is shy, another obnoxious, one is punctual but not trustworthy, and so on. There is a tendency for these understandings of individual differences to drop when a person looks at an out-group. The less known the out-group is, the greater the “out-group homogeneity effect.” People in an out-group are distant, so differences get blurred. The more distant the group, the greater the blurring. This is where the idea comes from, in referring to another racial group, that “they all look alike.”
The resulting deindividuation can easily become dehumanization. One of the things a nonviolent campaign seeks to do, whether aware of this mechanism or not, is to reduce the out-group homogeneity effect by reducing the sense of its group as an out-group in the minds of its opponents.
Those in power tend to see opposition forces as being a mass of people rather than a set of individuals. They are fully aware that the people they deal with in their own group are individuals, but a group of people protesting them tends to be stereotyped as being homogeneous. If those people use violence, the distance is maintained and the out-group retains its status all the more. Efforts at humanizing interaction break down those stereotypes; the out-group homogeneity effect lessens as the distance between groups erodes.
This works both ways. People who want to start nonviolent campaigns against those in power may also tend to see these people as more similar to each other than they are. Demonizing the opposition and viewing them as homogeneous are strong psychological tendencies in a conflict. Paying attention to ways of having human interaction with people from this out-group will result in a fading of the bias to see them as similar, when the reality of their individual differences becomes clear.
Meanwhile, being aware that the opposition to any social movement isn’t a monolith but actually has many of the same problems we do is simply a matter of being in touch with reality. Movements are made up of people. People have problems.
Divisions
Another common feature is a diversity of perspectives seen as distressing divisiveness. Many of these differences are so common they can be categorized as present in most large social movements.
The solution is to understand them not as divisions, but as multiplications – “schools of thought” that constitute complementary perspectives. Varied schools of thought can achieve more than any one school by itself would.
For example, “purists” believe compromise is immoral, while “pragmatists” believe it’s necessary. When both are active, the purists keep the compromises from being overly watered down. The pragmatists can use the purists to make themselves appear more moderate and therefore more effective in legislative settings.
As another example, people who believe in digging out “root causes” will dive more deeply, but those who instead believe in “reform for now” can alleviate current suffering and make progress. Both approaches are necessary.
Newcomers provide much needed energy and avoiding of ruts. Experienced people provide knowledge of what has actually worked and not worked in the past. They may at times have conflicts, but it’s long been understood that both are needed.
Keeps Getting Worse?
Yet another common problem is that there is a constant feeling that events are worsening at a time when they’re objectively improving. This causes unrealistic discouragement.
One reason is that our efforts in the real world fall short of perfection. Therefore, when perfection is the comparison being made, rather than comparing to previous conditions, disappointment is bound to result.
Another reason is that smaller problems come to the forefront when larger and more urgent problems are solved and therefore no longer overshadow them. Progress actually encourages the recognition of a larger number of problems. The contagion of successful social justice movements in one area encourages people to think in terms of social justice and rights in a wide array of other areas.
Yet another reason is that advocates tend to push how very bad things are with the idea that people will be pushed to action the more they think that things are awful. They don’t take into account how that very negativity may discourage people – if we’ve done all this work and it’s still so terrible, then it’s futile. Why bother to work further?
Keeping in mind progress that has actually been made is important to counter these ways of thinking. It’s more in touch with reality, and it inspires more work in the future. We realize that all the work in the past has in fact made progress. Therefore, there’s solid reason to think our current work can make more progress.
The Stubborn Won’t Listen
Finally, the dynamics of cognitive dissonance gives insight on why people may be stubborn about refusing to understand how terrible a social situation is once it’s explained to them. Other understandings they hold dear may override the social-justice presentation. This idea is developed at length in my post, Explaining Belligerency.
Once activists understand how cognitive dissonance is working against them, they can turn this psychological dynamic around to make it work for them. For example, letting people know that nuclear weapons and abortion are both way less than they used to be at their peak allows people to have less trouble trying to account for why they’re good people in a good nation and yet have such violence going on.
Conclusion
Many of the problems that are common to social movements and which seem intractable can become much easier to handle when the underlying psychology is understood. This will help avoid unwarranted discouragement and make movements more effective.
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For posts on similar themes, see:
Instead of Division, Schools of Thought
Applying Pacifist Insights to Abortion
The Creativity of the Fore-closed Option
Does J.D. Vance’s appeal to an ordo amoris (a ranking of love) make any sense?
In January 2025, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance cited the Catholic concept of “ordo amoris” in the context of the debate over immigration. He said that “there’s this old-school [concept]—and I think it’s a very Christian concept, by the way—that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then, after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.” Vance’s statement resulted in much controversy about whether he correctly described the concept.
Here are slightly edited notes from a discussion of this question among four members of the CLN board:
Richard started:
The background deep context in which the discussion about the ordo amoris is taking place is Peter Singer’s idea of “effective altruism.” Singer thinks that we should walk right past the hungry, the imprisoned, and the other local needy if more good can be done with our contributions over in Africa or India or some other place. That’s one reason why he also advocates infanticide of handicapped kids. They’re just too expensive. They don’t deliver enough bang for the buck, compared to mass immunizations in Africa, for example.
Both the Good Samaritan parable, and the Gospel of Matthew emphasize that we will be judged according to how we treat those who call out to us, either in an auditory way or in terms of their plight lying close before us. We cannot adopt a philosophy which lets us ignore the cry of neighboring humans, even if our refusal to help is done in favor of a greater number of more distant humans.
Peter Singer is teaching people that a consistent morality requires equality, and who wants to be against equality? That’s why his appeal is so dangerous. He calls a preference for helping one’s actual neighbors “tribalism” because it fails to consider the needs of all human beings equally. But the value he denigrates as tribalism I would call communitarianism. Lending sugar to a near neighbor builds community as well as providing calories. Individuals who consume sugar we send abroad are never going to be related to us in such a close and multifaceted way. Gift giving is important for many reasons besides the satisfaction of physical needs.
As for migrants, I would say that it is not permissible to deny aid and shelter to those whom we meet in the USA. They are now our neighbors, too, even if they were not yet our neighbors a few years ago.
We should not ignore the needs of those who remain further away, but they should have less priority.
This ranking of our love makes sense to me.
Bill commented:
The issue has some complexity. None of us individually or generally organizationally can respond to all needs in the world. There is always a need to prioritize. There are different ways to do it. I think we all disagree with Peter Singer’s approach to that. There are other rational approaches, and there are approaches that are beyond the rational. The Church of the Saviour tradition, of which my church is part, emphasizes call. We listen to God and seek to hear God’s call on our life. We act in accordance with that call. We are not then much concerned with how what we are called to do relates to global priorities. We are rather assuming that each person, as well as each collective body of persons, has a particular role to play. If everyone fulfills their part, it will all be taken care of. I think that has strong roots in the Christian tradition. I expect it also has counterparts in other faith traditions, but I don’t know enough about other traditions to specify anything. I also think that there are ways of looking at the general concept that can work for secular people. A secular way of putting it might be that we each have our own niche in the larger work, and we need to find that niche and live into it fully.
Julia countered:
Thank you for clarifying your own position, Richard. It seems much more reasonable, humane and CLE-compatible than Vance’s, and I share your critique of “effective altruism,” which is a particularly impersonal form of utilitarian ethics.
You did seem to be conflating a critical position toward effective altruism with the “America first” approach to public policy that Vance was directly defending. The latter is what the popes have rightly critiqued – particularly the idea of placing limits on our concern for others based not only on physical distance but on degrees of difference from “us,” or on specific categories like national origin, race, or level of need. That’s what I object to as incompatible with the CLE (and also with Catholic teaching and Christian faith more broadly).
It also just occurred to me that physical distance is a very different kind of factor in considering one’s personal practices as an individual, versus in the public policies of a country with a large economy and a long-running practice of international aid.
This difference may be at the root of our very different readings of Vance’s comments. Please correct me if I’m mistaken here, but maybe you heard his description of the “ordo amoris” concept in terms of applying it at an individual level, and then thought, “Well sure, of course, otherwise we’d be left with effective altruism.” In which case you’d be right, up to a point (although I don’t think it’s quite as simple as a choice between those two concepts at an individual level either). But that overlooks the context of what idea Vance was explicitly defending, namely “America first,” specifically as reflected in domestic policy in open hostility to immigrants, and in foreign policy in the abrupt cutoff of existing humanitarian aid programs without so much as a phase-out.
There’s a pretty significant difference between attempting a moral defense of that kind of mass-scale callousness on the one hand, and factoring in geographic proximity when deciding where to give one’s time or money on the other.
Richard responded:
Yes, Julia. That’s exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking that the ordo amoris idea is a pretty good way of setting priorities for an individual. And I didn’t like the idea of the pope and others just plain debunking it, especially given the menace of effective altruism (which has even reached a study group in my own parish). I wish the pope and others had given your clarification, namely, that the ordo amoris has got to have a very different meaning for a large institutional actor. Or maybe it just doesn’t even apply to such an actor.
Rachel closed with this comment:
Vance was using ordo amoris as a way of justifying being cruel to people at a distance, and I think that’s why Cardinal Prevost (now Pope Leo) had that reaction to using it that way. But Singer uses “effective altruism” as a way of being hard-hearted to people near you on the grounds the same amount of money could do more good elsewhere. That gets especially vicious if that means killing disabled infants that are near you in favor of, say, mass vaccination programs.
But in either case, whichever direction they aim it, hard-heartedness is contrary to any form of true ethics.
Misleading and Distracting Language on Abortion
by Ms. Boomer-ang
In many points relating to abortion, the most commonly-heard voices distract our attention from what we really need to know and keep us focused on minor or misleading parts of the story. Following are examples:
1. Media reporting on parents trying (unsuccessfully or successfully) to prevent their daughters from having abortions diverts attention from and covers up the probably much more common cases of parents forcing their daughters to have abortions against their will.1
2. The media often claims that where abortion is illegal, women die in illegal abortions. But women dying in legal abortions is so common that Feminists for Life has a page on its website with examples, called “We Remember.” See also a list of patient deaths at Planned Parenthood alone.
3. The media often covers people arrested for having or providing abortions where they are illegal, while ignoring the pro-life political prisoners, including in the United States, like Heather Idoni.
4. When people equate “forced birth” with fascism, why don’t we point out that abortion and infanticide (of “deformed” or “bad ancestry” children) are a cornerstone of fascism? In fact, don’t fascist societies have examples of abortion without choice?
5. Misusing the word “choice,” including to describe when support for abortion is unconditional and opposition to forced abortion is conditional.
Don’t many pro-life voices make this mistake too? It is easy to use words, phrases, and concepts the way “everybody else does,” often after hearing them on television and other media, “where even people who disagree repeat them.”2
6. Calling abortion a “strictly religious issue.” Why don’t we point out all the non-religious pro-life voices and mention organizations like Secular Pro-Life?
7. Calling morning after pills and abortion pills “Plan B.” For many people who use them, aren’t they Plan A? And as for those who take them only when it is snuck into their food or medicine without their knowledge, they could be Plan Zero. And what Plan number are they for those who take them only to fulfill requirements, such as for school or social services?
8. When someone says that the morning after pill prevents abortions, how about pointing out that it still doesn’t prevent the killing of fertilized pre-embryos? The actual difference is that we never know whether there were any pre-embryos to kill and whether they would have miscarried on their own.
9. Shouldn’t we ask:
a. what the effects are of taking morning after pills several times in one menstrual cycle?
b. what are the effects of morning after and abortion pills ingested inadvertently by people other than fertile women? For example, when they are snuck into food, and it’s impossible to control who eats it? Consider especially post-menopausal women, pre-pubescent girls, males, hemophiliacs, and people with certain kinds of cancer.
10. When the media celebrates aid organizations like UNICEF for giving refugee women in places like Congo morning after and abortion pills, how about asking whether this is upon the woman’s request, consent, and knowledge? Are they required to take them for admission to shelter camps? Are the pills mixed with other medicine and the women not clearly told that, if they are pregnant, they will cause miscarriages?
11. When a report claims that abortion rates are highest in some places where abortion is illegal, shouldn’t we scrutinize the calculation of these rates? In comparisons, shouldn’t we study whether the figures for all places used the same data? Unfortunately, even some pro-life voices have repeated rather than confronting these reports.
a. What is counted in the number of abortions? In some places, was every morning after pill snuck into food, often with no guarantee who ate it, counted as a requested sought abortion? Meanwhile, in other places, a morning after pill taken deliberately after intercourse by a fertile woman in the fertile stage of her cycle was not counted as even a fraction of an abortion.
b. Typically the abortion rate means abortions per a certain number of women. But additional measures should receive attention. Would the statistics be different when using the ratio of abortions to live births? When using the percent of women who have at least one abortion? Doesn’t each of these three statistics have a different psychological impact on society?
12. When the media spotlights doctors who move from places that restrict abortions, why don’t we report doctors who move to such places? In fact, a study of over 60,000 OB-GYNs, explained here, suggested that the share of physicians who are OB-GYNs decreased less in states that restored abortion restrictions.
13. When somebody equates forbidding abortions to requiring blood donations, organ donations, or Caesarean births, how about pointing out that abortion is more similar to these three procedures than carrying a pregnancy to term? Abortion, like the three procedures, requires intervention. Carrying most pregnancies to term need not require intervention.
FOOTNOTES
- Examples: Doris Kalasky, Elliott Institute Newsletter, Winter 1993-1994; and abortiondocs.org-content/uploads/2020/02
- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny (New York: Random House, 2017), pp. 59-60
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For more of our posts on dialog and persuasion, see:
If You Can’t Explain the Opposition to Your Case
Two Practical Dialogue Tips for Changing More Minds about Abortion
Dialog on Life Issues: Avoiding Some Obstacles to Communication
Why a War of “Regime Change” in Iran Would Be a Catastrophe
by John Whitehead
What direction the conflict between Israel and the United States and Iran will take is unknown. As of this writing, the ceasefire between Israel and Iran is holding and the United States has not bombed Iran again since June 22. We can hope this situation continues.
Military conflict among these nations might resume, however. Renewed fighting could take the extreme form of an effort by Israel and/or the United States to overthrow the current Iranian government.
Such an attempt to bring about “regime change” in Iran would be catastrophic. Overthrowing Iran’s government and installing a new one would be extremely difficult to achieve and would likely lead to extremely violent consequences. Further, even if regime change somehow succeeded and led to a stable new Iranian regime, that might not resolve the ongoing conflict over Iran possibly building nuclear weapons.
Threats from Powerful Sources
Israeli and American policymakers have made statements pointing toward the goal of “regime change” in Iran. During Israel’s bombing campaign against Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Iranian government’s overthrow “could certainly be the result” of the military conflict. He also opined, in reference to Iran’s ruling elite, that “80% of the [Iranian] people will throw these theological thugs out.”
Netanyahu’s address, at the outset of the campaign, to the Iranian people also implied the hope of regime change: “As we achieve our objective [of destroying Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities], we are also clearing the path for you to achieve your freedom,” he said.
US President Donald Trump has also suggested regime change is a possibility. Posting on social media shortly after the US bombing, Trump wrote “It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed this sentiment, saying in an TV appearance that “if Iran is committed to becoming a nuclear weapons power, I do think it puts the regime at risk . . . I think it would be the end of the regime if they tried to do that.”
Whether any of these threats will turn into action is anyone’s guess. Threats from the leaders of nations that have already attacked Iran should be taken seriously, though.
The Long, Costly History of Regime Change
The United States and its allies have a history of overthrowing governments and attempting to install new, more friendly ones. The track record of such regime change is a grim one.
In 2001, the United States led an invasion of Afghanistan, overthrowing the Taliban regime. The United States spent the next 20 years trying to support a new regime and defeat a Taliban insurgency. After tens of thousands of deaths, including more than 46,000 Afghan civilians killed by the warring parties and more than 6,000 Americans, and more than $2 trillion spent, the US project in Afghanistan ultimately failed. The US-supported regime collapsed, and the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
In 2003, the United States led an invasion of Iraq, overthrowing Saddam Hussein’s regime. The United States then spent eight years trying to support a new regime and defeat an Iraqi insurgency. The US withdrew from Iraq in 2011 only to return in 2014 to fight the newly emerged ISIS terrorist group. US involvement in Iraq led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, including roughly 200,000 Iraqi civilians killed by the warring parties and more than 8,000 Americans. The war in Iraq, along with related military operations in Syria, cost almost $3 trillion.
In 2011, the United States and its allies carried out a bombing campaign against Libya to support insurgents who eventually overthrew Muammar Qaddafi’s regime. Compared to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, this regime change war was relatively low cost for the United States: the war lasted about seven months, no Americans died, and the operation cost roughly $1.6 billion.
The war was more costly for the Libyan people, though. The new Libyan government failed to establish effective control over the country, and Libya was soon split by a civil war. Libya remains troubled by armed political conflict to this day. Precisely how many people have died in 14 years of conflict is unknown, but the toll might be very high.
We have no reason to believe that a US war of regime change against Iran would be any less difficult or costly. Such a war against Iran may even be far worse than these earlier wars, for simple reasons of scale.
Iran is very large country, at 1.6 million square kilometers (about the size of Alaska), and a very populous country, at 92 million people. To provide relevant comparisons, Iran is more than double the size of Afghanistan and more than four times as populous as Afghanistan was at the time of the US invasion in 2001. Iran is more than triple the size of Iraq and more than three times as populous as Iraq was at the time of the 2003 US invasion. Iran is actually somewhat smaller than Libya but more than 14 times as populous as Libya was at the time of 2011 war.
Tony Masalonis and Herb Geraghty hold signs
Invading and occupying a country as large and populous as Iran and trying to establish a new regime that could govern the country would be an even bigger challenge than these previous regime changes—and thus would likely be far bloodier and more costly. Beyond the scale of the task, an occupying power and a new regime would have to contend with uniting a country that has various ethnic divisions, such as between the Persian majority and Azerbaijani, Kurdish, and other minorities.
Writing in the Guardian, Patrick Wintour commented that if the current Iranian government is overthrown, “Azerbaijan and the many Kurdish militant movements might see a chance to carve out ethnic enclaves from Iranian territories.”
Beyond all these considerations, proponents of regime change should also contemplate the fact that the disruptions produced by a war in Iran might lead to some of the country’s enriched uranium stockpiles going missing or being seized by groups with their own agendas. A war of regime change in Iran might lead to uranium falling into terrorist hands. War on Iran might thus prove to be a self-fulling prophecy, bringing about the kind of nuclear danger it’s meant to prevent.
Would Even Successful Regime Be Futile?
Finally, another scenario should be considered. Let’s set aside the legitimate concerns about a war of regime change and assume a near-miraculous outcome in which the current Iranian regime is replaced by a stable new one without terrible destruction and loss of life. Even in such a situation, the new Iranian regime might continue to pursue the capacity to build nuclear weapons.
In a debate over Iran, Dan Caldwell, a Marine veteran, made the striking observation that Iran, as a large nation that is ethnically and religiously distinct from its neighbors (being non-Arab and Shia Muslim) may wish to have the power that comes from a nuclear program regardless of what regime rules the country. The current Iranian nuclear program might arise from conditions more enduring than the personalities or ideology of the ruling elite. We cannot know what some hypothetical future regime might do, but Caldwell makes the valuable point that we shouldn’t assume that a different government will mean entirely different policies.
Conclusion
For all these reasons, seeking regime change in Iran would be profoundly unwise. Further, a policy that would probably cost huge numbers of lives and trillions of dollars while likely accomplishing very little is not, in my judgment and I would guess most people’s judgment, a moral policy.
Concerns about Iran or its nuclear program should be addressed diplomatically, which means dealing with the current Iranian regime. Let’s hope those making decisions in the United States and Israel come to realize this.
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For more of our posts on how wars are unjustified, see:
The Huge Mistake: The U.S. Joins Israel in Bombing Iran
Gaza War: Outrageous and Foolish
The Preferential Option for Nonviolence in Just War Theory: Opportunities for Just War and Pacifist Collaboration
The Civil War Conundrum, 150 Years Later
Finding Common Ground on and Learning from World War II
Seeing War’s Victims: The New York Times Investigation of Civilian Casualties in Iraq and Syria
The Huge Mistake: The U.S. Joins Israel in Bombing Iran
Editor’s note: This is a quick response to last weekend’s events, and we expect to have more to say with the rapid developments this situation is likely to have.
The date of publication, June 24, is also the third anniversary of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, so we pro-lifers in the United States are observing it in various ways all over the country.
by John Whitehead
Israel bombed Iran for many days in an apparent attempt to destroy Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons. Iran retaliated by bombing Israel. Hundreds of Iranians and dozens of Israelis have been killed to date. US President Donald Trump contemplated joining Israel in bombing Iran, and finally did so on June 22, 2025.
American involvement in Israel’s war against Iran war is a catastrophic mistake. Here are some reasons why:
The current war against Iran is not a war of self-defense.
While Iran might be pursuing the capacity to build nuclear weapons, Iran does not yet have such weapons nor is it clear when Iran might have such weapons.
The Trump administration’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, told Congress in March 2025 that US intelligence’s assessment was that: “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not authorized [a] nuclear weapons program.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when he announced Israel’s bombing campaign against Iran, acknowledged that he did not know when Iran might build nuclear weapons, saying, “It could be a year, it could be within a few months.”
Even if Iran did build nuclear weapons, there is no guarantee Iran would use such weapons against Israel, the United States, or any other nation. Using these weapons could carry very serious negative consequences for Iran.
Attacking Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity is thus not self-defense against an attack but an attempt to prevent some future, uncertain threat. Unleashing actual violence to prevent speculative future violence is not justified.
Waging war on Iran may encourage the spread of nuclear weapons.
The lesson other nations watching the current war might draw from recent events is that they should build nuclear weapons for themselves as quickly as possible. Possessing such weapons could serve as insurance against attacks such as Iran is enduring.
The current war may escalate out of control.
If Israel or the United States decides the current bombing is not sufficient to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions; or if Iran retaliates by killing American troops in the Middle East, the war could get much bigger. At worst, it could escalate into a war by the United States to overthrow Iran’s current government.
Past US wars of regime change in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya show how disastrous such wars turn out to be. Such a war in Iran would likely have similar results.
For all these reasons, the United States should not have joined Israel’s war on Iran.
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For more of our posts on how wars are unjustified, see:
Gaza War: Outrageous and Foolish
The Preferential Option for Nonviolence in Just War Theory: Opportunities for Just War and Pacifist Collaboration
The Civil War Conundrum, 150 Years Later
Finding Common Ground on and Learning from World War II
Seeing War’s Victims: The New York Times Investigation of Civilian Casualties in Iraq and Syria
==================================
On the anniversary of the Dobbs decision, see our posts that comment on Dobbs directly:
Major Obstacle Removed! (June 24, 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade)
Reflections on the Alito Draft Leak of May 2, 2022
Post-Roe Life-Affirming Help / Rachel MacNair
Post-Roe Stats: the Natural Experiment / Rachel MacNair
Roe v. Wade: Legal Scholars Comment
Abortion and Slavery
by Jim Hewes
The film Harriet portrays a moment when the enslaved woman Minty—better known as Harriet Tubman—asks her “owner” for permission to start a family. He refuses, reminding her that any child she bears would belong to him. That scene evokes a chilling truth: under slavery, a person could be reduced to mere property, their humanity denied. This historical injustice offers a profound, though sensitive, parallel to the modern issue of abortion. It got me to thinking about the parallel relationship of slavery to abortion. I don’t believe that it’s a coincidence that June 19 marked the official end of slavery in the United States and is near June 22, which marks the Dobbs anniversary, which overturned the horrendous abortion decision of Roe v. Wade.
A Global Tragedy
Some might wonder about the relevance of comparing slavery in the past to abortion in the present. Walk Free estimates that about 50 million people worldwide live as slaves. According to the World Health Organization there are many more abortions worldwide — around 73 million. In other words, 200,000 pre-born children are killed each day because they also are dehumanized and treated as disposable objects.
A Word of Caution: We have to be careful in using such a comparison because slavery, especially in the United States (like the Holocaust to the Jewish community) has a designated meaning and a deep wound to a specific group of people, namely the African American community, which has looked at slavery as the nation’s original sin, whose effect reverberates for generations. The arguments for abortion and slavery are not always exactly the same.
Control over Life and Body
In slavery, some slaveholders forced Black women to give birth (sometimes after a rape) to produce new slaves, future property. Enslaved women were acutely aware that they didn’t “own” their bodies, unlike the perception today of women (even if this perception is skewed). Although many women feel pressured to have an abortion by partners, parents, and a culture of death, many still describe abortion as an act of desperation—a way to escape an unbearable situation, even if it leaves lasting emotional wounds.
Where enslaved persons were denied ownership of their own bodies, many women today are told they have total autonomy over their pregnancies. But this autonomy often exists in a vacuum of fear, pressure, or lack of support. Crisis pregnancy centers and pro-life communities strive to offer the alternatives that so many women long for.
Life, Death and Personhood
Both the arguments for slavery and the arguments for abortion rely on a central claim: that a human being is less than human, sub-human. The dehumanization of Black people relied on unscientific and immoral claims that they were inferior. The dehumanization of pre-born babies relies on similarly unscientific claims that they are “a clump of cells” or part of a woman’s body. The two approaches also championed a form of “choice” that focused on the belief and feelings of the slaveholder and the mother, over the fundamental rights of the enslaved and pre-born children.
Pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood define abortion as “health care” to destigmatize the reality, as slavery was normalized as an ordinary part of the economic stability. Slavery opened up economic possibilities for slaveholders. Similarly, abortion is advocated in order that women can gain education and continue economic progress. In fact, both slavery and abortion advocates claim that if these practices were abolished, there would be a negative economic outcome.
The Illusion of Freedom
In abortion, only the mother gets a “choice,” and only slaveholders, not the enslaved, got a vote. In both cases, the person with the most to lose was excluded; both in the name of so-called “freedom.” It’s not anyone else’s business what they do with this commodity (products of conception). The slaveholder’s “property rights” and the mother’s “reproductive rights” are framed as inviolable freedoms, despite the human cost.
Dred Scott in 1857 was (just like Roe vs. Wade) a 7-2 decision. In the decision, Justice Roger Taney said Blacks were nonpersons without any protection of their human and civil rights. In Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackmun held that pre-born babies were also nonpersons. Pre-born children are still not considered persons under the 14th Amendment — the Dobbs decision returning abortion policy decision to the states continues to mirror slavery, which was legal in some states until the Civil War.
The Dred Scott decision told the abolitionists they couldn’t impose their morality on the slaveholder. Those who support and promote abortion state the same thing to pro-lifers—don’t impose your morality on women. Those who support allowing abortion often state that if you are against abortion, then don’t have one. Who are you to impose your morality and laws on us? Those who held the enslaved or supported slavery might have also said that if you don’t like slavery, then don’t hold a slave. Who are you to impose your morality on us or enact laws that hinder us from holding slaves? Slavery advocates promoted the idea that slavery was good because it was sanctioned by the nation’s highest court. Millions of Americans tragically believe abortion is okay just because it is still legal in many states.
The reason abortion is supported for the poor is that what is available to the rich should be available to the poor. The problem with this statement is that the premise is wrong. Abortion is seen by some of the wealthy as a good thing, and so should be available to the poor. Back in the 1860s, we would find that mainly the rich could afford slaves. Would those supporting abortion for the poor also want to see the poor given money so they could afford slaves? They wouldn’t because of the immorality of slavery. So, too, abortion is not helping the poor but only trying to aid the poor to kill their own.
The Power of Truth and Image
Abolitionists wielded education and imagery as powerful tools, showing the brutal reality and indignities of how slavery was such a scourge on society. They accomplished this through engravings, stories, and exposés. The pro-life movement today does the same, using fetal imagery, sonograms, and developmental milestones (heartbeat, brainwaves, fingerprints, etc.) to expose the humanity of the pre-born. One may not always remember what they are told, but they will remember the pictures. As philosopher Nicholai Berdyaev said: “The greatest sin of this age is making the concrete abstract.” Abortion, like slavery, thrives when the victim is hidden from view. The images of pre-born children remain completely left in the shadows to perpetuate the falsehood of what abortion really does to an innocent, helpless voiceless, human being.
So, supporting either abortion or slavery is a failure for people to see the intrinsic evil of their practice, and to see that no person could own another, within the womb or outside the womb.
Conclusion
The ultimate question that connects slavery and abortion is: who counts as one of us? It is clearly reflected in this statement:
Dred Scott and all slaves were told that they were not persons but property and we’re telling babies in the womb that they are not children, but they are property of their mother. It was ‘inconvenient’ for slaveholders to not have slaves; and it’s inconvenient’ for mothers to have children they don’t want. But that doesn’t make them any less human.”
— Lynne Jackson, great-great-granddaughter of Dred and Harriet Scott
Statues of Dred and Harriet Scott outside the St. Louis Courthouse where the case started.
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For our post discussing the Scott case, see:
Our Experience with Overturning Terrible Court Decisions
For another modern-day application, see our project website, Peace and Life Referendums:
Finally Abolishing All Slavery