It’s been lightly edited. <\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Does being \u201cpro-life\u201d mean something more than being against abortion?\u00a0 Every pro-lifer would, of course, answer \u201cyes.\u201d\u00a0 But exactly what<\/em> else it means is not quite clear.\u00a0 Does it mean one is against all killing, and thus that one must also work against euthanasia, capital punishment, and war?\u00a0 Does it mean that one is searching for \u201cpositive alternatives\u201d to killing, especially in the case of the unborn?\u00a0 Or does it mean that one is an all-around \u201cpro-people\u201d good guy, working to help everyone in every way?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Probably, it means all of these things to some extent.\u00a0 But I think it also means something more exact.\u00a0 I think that there’s a quite specific role that the pro-life movement has undertaken to perform. . . .<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I want to argue that the specific role of our movement is to be an exact mirror-image counterpart of the \u201cselfish society.\u201d\u00a0 That is, our job is to be a kind of counterbalance to the selfish tendencies in human nature and in politics\u2014so that we ought not to try to do all the good things, but rather only those things which we think selfishness is least likely to take care of.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n In order to make my point clear, let me first outline a model of a selfish society and of the rights which it recognizes.\u00a0 The role of the pro-life movement will then be simply to further those rights which self-interest leaves unprotected.\u00a0 I’m not saying that modern society is entirely selfish, but only that it is to a large extent selfish.\u00a0 Therefore, we can expect\u00a0 it won’t ignore matters affecting self-interest.\u00a0 However, it may ignore matters of human dignity which it thinks not relevant to self-interest, and so it’s in these matters that the pro-life movement is most needed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n A Model of the Selfish Society<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Even a totally egotistical and selfish person will grant some rights to other human beings.\u00a0 For example, he or she will agree in general that people shouldn’t kill each other.\u00a0 Why would the person agree?\u00a0 Simply because the person doesn’t want to be killed, and realizes that other selfish people won’t promise not to kill him or her unless he or she also promises not to kill them.\u00a0 Similarly, the selfish person will grant other people rights to property, because he or she wants them to respect his or her property.\u00a0 So even in a society made up of wholly selfish egoists, certain rights will be recognized (or at least public lip-service will be paid to them).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n But will a rational selfish person extend these rights to all<\/em> people?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 For if his or her motives are wholly selfish, he or she has no reason to grant any rights to someone who’s too weak to do him or her harm. Such a person will be interested in \u201cmaking a deal\u201d only with those who have something to offer to that person.\u00a0 For example, if someone else is too young or too weak to kill him or her, why should he or she agree not to kill that person?\u00a0 The selfish person has no reason at all to make such an agreement.\u00a0 A selfish person will recognize the rights only of those who are strong enough to hurt him or her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n We should add two additional points:\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n First, strength may be measured by group rather than by individual.\u00a0 So, for example, a selfish person will acknowledge the rights of even a very weak person, if the latter is a member of a group (say, racial, ethnic, family) which is strong enough to retaliate effectively.\u00a0 Or conversely, a selfish person will not<\/em> grant rights even to a very strong individual, if the former belongs to a group which is strong enough to suppress the latter.\u00a0 So, for example, an individual slave may be very clever and strong and yet have no rights, if the combined group of selfish slave-owners is strong enough to crush any rebellion. [Editor’s note: the same applies to condemned prisoners.]<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Second, even selfish people have their likes and dislikes, and they may like some other people.\u00a0 The can’t love these people (because love, as self-giving, is necessarily unselfish), but they might like<\/em> having certain others around, because they’re pleasant or useful.\u00a0 Thus even selfish people, for example, may want to protect their own children, because they find them cute, or helpful, or a status symbol, or because of some other self-interested reason.\u00a0 Thus, even though young children are too weak to be a danger to their parents, their parents may protect them insofar as they’re \u201cwanted\u201d (have no handicaps which make them not pleasant or useful). \u00a0Similarly, their parents may insist other adults not kill them, and in return they may agree not to kill the wanted<\/em> children of other adults.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n So our conclusion must be that pure self-interest will do a good job of recognizing the rights of the strong or<\/em> the wanted (individually or by group).\u00a0 But selfish persons won’t care at all about those individuals or groups who’re both<\/em> weak and<\/em> unwanted.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Caring without Selfishness<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Just as selfish persons are concerned about others the more they are strong or wanted, so pro-lifers ought to care about others the more they are weak and unwanted.\u00a0 Now, there’s no other class of human beings weaker than the unborn, and so whenever these children are also unwanted, they are totally ignored by our selfish society.\u00a0 It’s for this reason, I think, that pro-lifers have rightly concentrated so much on protecting the unwanted unborn child.\u00a0 That child is the underest of underdogs, so to speak, and so is both the most defenseless and the most oppressed (no other person today being totally killable on demand).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Pro-lifers, in other words, don’t think the unborn are more valuable than other persons are.\u00a0 Unlike the pro-abortion people, who give no rights to the unborn, we believe that all persons\u2019 lives are equally worthy of reverence and protection.\u00a0 However, self-interest will and does take care of the rights of the strong or wanted, and so the help of the pro-life movement is less needed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Now, with this model as a guide, I think the special vocation of our movement can be truly discerned.\u00a0 We’re called upon to help those who would otherwise be without help\u2014not those who already have plenty of help.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n For example, I don’t think the pro-life movement should be involved in trying to stop recombinant DNA research, even though this research, in my opinion, is a clear danger to the survival of the human race\u2014because of the simple fact that the rights of the strong are here as menaced as are those of the weak.\u00a0 The strong don’t want to be wiped out, and so we can assume they’ll do a good job of limiting such research for the sake of their own self-interest\u2014without the help of the pro-life movement.\u00a0 Pro-lifers shouldn’t fight against all dangers to life. They should mainly oppose the killing of the weak and unwanted.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n But we must go beyond protecting the right to life<\/em> of the victims of selfishness and aim at protecting all their human rights.\u00a0 So, for example, pro-lifers should protect not only the right of Down Syndrome kids to survive, but also their right not to be purposely or accidentally neglected\u2014insofar as selfish adults don’t give a dam.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Obviously, this is all a matter of degree rather than of absolutes.\u00a0 There’s a kind of social spectrum along which we all fit.\u00a0 At one end are those of us who are both very strong and very wanted.\u00a0 These are not the concern of the pro-life movement.\u00a0 At the other extreme are those both very weak and very unwanted.\u00a0 These are our chief concern.\u00a0 But we ought to be more concerned to fight for others as they near the point where they have no significant defenses against more powerful individuals and groups.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Popularity?<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n One last crucial point:\u00a0 If such is our vocation we can’t ever expect to be popular.\u00a0 For we shall always be found on the side of the unwanted\u2014the \u201cniggers\u201d or \u201cfetuses\u201d of every age.\u00a0 Even if, for example, we succeed in getting selfish persons to \u201clike\u201d unborn kids (say, by showing pictures of them cutely sucking their thumbs) or in getting them to see their own self-interest at stake (because, say, of a declining population or of a growing disrespect for all human life) we won’t become \u201csocially acceptable.\u201d\u00a0 For to the extent that the unborn become wanted, they become no longer our chief concern; and we must struggle in defense of those individuals and groups who have now become the most oppressed victims of a selfish society.\u00a0 As soon as our work is approved, it’s finished, and we are called to struggle elsewhere.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n ===========================<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n More of our posts from Richard Stith:<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Equal Concern for Each Human Being, Not for Each Human Issue<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Open Letter to Fellow Human Rights Activists<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n When \u201cChoice\u201d Itself Hurts the Quality of Life\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n A Friendly Approach<\/a><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Richard Stith This 1978 article\u00a0 was originally entitled “What it Means to be Pro-Life:\u00a0 Toward a Political Theory for Our Movement.” It appeared in The New Human, Vol. VII No. 2, March\u2013April 1978, a publication of the National Youth Pro-Life Coalition.\u00a0 It’s been lightly edited. Does being \u201cpro-life\u201d mean something more than being against… <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/466-Stith.jpg\")
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