When I Say I'm Pro-Life, This Is What I Mean

I am pro-life.

I respect the sanctity of every human life. This means that I am against abortion and the death penalty. (If you want to hear my reasoning on the latter, here is an article I wrote in undergrad on the subject.) It also means that I am anti-war, anti-torture, pro-gay and pro-union, and I have certain opinions on taxes, prison reform and immigration—because it's all connected for me.

But, while I am pro-life, I am anti-being-mean-to-women-in-difficult-situations. You will not find me demonizing a woman who has had an abortion. I will never picket an abortion clinic. I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those "Life Guard" t-shirts with a fetus in the cross.

Here's what inspired this post: I happened to pick up a copy of the Indy Star and saw this in an article about new laws going into effect in Indiana:

[If you are] A woman considering abortion: Your physician — regardless of whether he or she thinks it is true — will have to tell you that life begins at fertilization, though a federal judge put on hold a provision that required health-care professionals to say that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks. You'll also be required to view an ultrasound of the fetus unless you specifically decline to do so in writing.

I don't want to get into the science of reproduction, but my definition of when life begins is probably pretty early. However, this law troubles me. Here's the thing: I'm pro-life and anti-guilt, and I don't see how this law could be said to be aimed at anything other than guilt production. The part the federal judge withheld makes that even clearer. One of the lives for which I am, well, "pro" in a situation where a woman is considering an abortion is, in fact, the woman's life—not just her physical life but her dignity and overall well-being. Intentionally inflicting guilt upon someone, in my opinion, is life-destroying in its own way.

No woman should ever be shamed into keeping a baby—or, for that matter, into having an abortion (but that's a whole other can of worms). But I am pro-life. So what am I saying?

I think that preventing abortions needs to start long before a woman sets foot in a clinic. Sex education in public schools is broken (I grew up in a school system that had abstinence-only sex ed...which, honestly, is no sex ed at all). The spread of AIDS and other STDs, not to mention abortion and unwanted birth rates, is evidence enough that our society is failing to educate its members on sexual health. And I won't get too deep into this right now, but there are structures of shame and guilt in the church that hold women captive and turn the gift of life into a scarlet letter, and I can't imagine God doesn't find that offensive.

I am all about context. One thing that bothers me about this Indiana law is that it does not even give doctors the option of discerning the woman's situation. I don't think that ending a life, even an unborn life, can ever truly be justified, but an uncompromising stand against abortion will frequently fail to offer compassion and understanding to women making an unimaginably difficult decision. Attempting to "protect" an unborn child by turning it into a weapon against its mother is unfair both to the child and to the mother. There absolutely are loving, contextual ways to offer a woman alternatives to abortion, but simply telling her that life begins at fertilization (thereby implying she is choosing to end a life) feels, frankly, passive-aggressive and judgmental.