Recently we have begun seeing more comments informing us that we are actually on the same side as the Pro-Life Movement—that we are, in fact, pro-lifers, and part of the greater Pro-Life Movement, but just a more fringe and extreme element of it.
This post is for anyone who wants to understand why abolitionists wholeheartedly reject that and why we take offense at such statements.
The Pro-Life Movement is made up of millions of individuals and institutions who do not hold a monolithic view. No one entity determines what a pro-lifer believes or does not believe. However, the Pro-Life Movement is led by pro-life organizations and lobbyists who use the money and approval of millions of pro-lifers to achieve their legislative priorities.
The Pro-Life Movement has spoken clearly about what their priorities are, and what they do not consider consistent with a pro-life ethic. We're not talking about the pro-aborts who love abortion and who try to twist the term "pro-life" into any and all causes other than stopping the murder of the preborn. We are talking about the lobbyists and organizations themselves that do represent millions of pro-lifers.
Their lobbyists have gone to work executing their objectives, working against every abolition bill in every state they have been proposed. In 2022, when Louisiana was seriously considering passing a bill to abolish abortion entirely and had gotten the first-floor vote in the nation, all of the major pro-life lobbying organizations sprang into action to kill that bill. They stated unequivocally, "As national and state pro-life organizations, representing tens of millions of pro-life men, women, and children across the country, let us be clear: We state unequivocally that we do not support any measure seeking to criminalize or punish women and we stand firmly opposed to include such penalties in legislation."
They have been, and are, abundantly clear on this point. The problem is, without penalties for the mothers who abort their babies, the only necessary party to abortion can continue to abort with immunity and impunity. In other words, there is no such thing as illegal abortion as long as the primary actor in an abortion is free to do it without penalty.
She can order pills in the mail, self-induced abortion through herbal remedies, binge drink until her child dies, or any number of other methods to murder a child. There is no shortage of ways to kill a born child, and similarly, there is no shortage of ways to kill a preborn child. Without criminal penalties, abortion will continue to increase.
In fact, the Pro-Life Movement has not been effective at bringing down abortion numbers. There are good reasons to believe they have increased abortion numbers in falsely so-called "ban" states. Essentially what they did was transform Blockbuster video to Netflix.
In a state without clinics, a woman can order abortion pills online for free and have it shipped to her door. Abortion now is more anonymous, more affordable, and more accessible. This was not the case before Dobbs when the mail-order trade was essentially non-existent.
In order to better understand this point, imagine this scenario: A woman lives in the panhandle of Oklahoma. The nearest abortion mill is 4 1/2 hours away. She is a religious woman who goes to church on Sundays and would normally not consider abortion if for reasons of social pressure alone. Before the "ban" came into effect, she wouldn't dream of going to the abortion mill in town. She knows people who are staunchly anti-abortion, and if they saw her going into an abortion mill her reputation would be ruined. Now that Oklahoma has "banned" these clinics, she searches for abortion and realizes that she can have pills shipped to her door, for free. No 9-hour round trip journey in the car, no fear of seeing anyone or answering awkward questions about where she went over the weekend, no cost to her. She can do this anonymously, affordably, and it is more accessible to her than ever. She is a woman who aborts her baby who wouldn't have otherwise.
She does this without fear, because her state lawmakers have specifically exempted her from any punishment. This is the problem with the pro-life movement. In practice, they are no different than pro-choicers in their treatment of murder.
Understand that when you fight abortion under the pro-life banner, you lend influence to the existing pro-life infrastructure. They are happy to use their good name to do evil. They will say they represent you when they do it. They will credibly cite their influence over politics and the approval of their people, and they will prop up their credibility with lies about the current state of abortion in America. They hold all the cards under this banner. They run the March for Life and boast of hundreds of thousands of participants. They have the approval of the Catholic Church and the ERLC who represent millions of Southern Baptists.
When we say we are not pro-life, we are not just playing word games. We are not represented by these anti-justice views. If that is true of you, you should not bolster pro-life credibility by using their label that the higher ups define as anti-justice. That is in part why we are abolitionists and not pro-lifers, and that is why we will continue to criticize the Pro-Life Movement. They are our main opposition in state legislatures, and until they lose influence in these states, abortion will continue to be regulated as healthcare instead of abolished as murder.
