What it Really Means to be Pro-Life
I am pro-life.
With that declaration I have, at face value, either affirmed or antagonized some readers. If one is hamstrung by the contemporary use of the term ranging from sophomoric to pedantic there is little need for further reading.
The unspoken reality about women’s reproductive rights places low-income women in the crosshairs. Therefore, my pro-life position, though not exclusive, is acutely aware of the challenges for low-income women. It might also be helpful to explain what my pro-life definition does not mean.
Rooted in my libertarian impulses, pro-life does not seek to rob women of their choice whether to bring a child into the world. Pro-lifers of my ilk believe Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) established a right to privacy and that right includes bodily autonomy cannot be legislated away. A woman’s choice is none of my damn business.
To truly be pro-life one does not engage in supercilious debates to explain when life begins. Such matters are left to the pro-birth contingency.
Those publicly claiming a pro-life position are often advocating for pro-birth. Once the child is born, through noncommittal silence, many become, in essence, pro-triage, where their morality is transmuted into a survival of the fittest motif.
Their work ends as the true work of what it means to be pro-life begins. Pro-birth operates on a nine-month continuum. For those committed to a pro-life timeline, it’s 18 years. Pro-birth proponents are the troubadours who perform before the banquet but are AWOL when it’s time to clean up.
No child born in America should be bound by a “sperm lottery” where one’s chances of becoming productive, however defined, depends on the social location of the parents. The pro-life position does not guarantee outcomes but it champions an equitable baseline.
Every child needs stability, safety, structure, consistency, emotional support, love, and education. With the possible exception of education, very little legislation, if any, can address these needs. However, some items can be enacted to minimize the impediments so that a child, regardless of the parent’s social location, could receive the attributes needed.
No child in America should ever go to bed hungry for lack of food. It is unlikely any basic needs can come to fruition if hunger is an issue.
According to No Kid Hungry, nearly 14 million children in the United States live with hunger. Many children face daily uncertainty about food as their parents make tradeoffs between buying groceries or paying bills. For some, the school-provided lunch is their only meal of the day.
When pro-birth masquerades as pro-life, as it often does, there is no space in the binary public discourse to discuss child hunger. Moreover, the child hunger gap cannot be satisfied with processed foods. This will potentially exacerbate health problems such as obesity and diabetes. It is not enough to ensure no child goes to bed hungry they must have the proper food.
Since ours is a culture that emphasizes work, the pro-life position asks: What is America willing to spend to assist women to successfully navigate work and motherhood?
This question opens the door to an array of possibilities from time management skills to subsidized car seats. How long are we going to laud U.S. companies that offer eight weeks of unpaid leave? How about 14 weeks of paid leave? It should not be viewed as a benefit that companies provide but a fundamental right.
The benefits of maternity leave are well documented. It improves maternal and infant health. Studies also show women who receive paid leave have a lower chance of reporting intimate partner violence and decreased rates of infant mortality.
A pro-life position must be willing to vigorously support improving the nation’s literacy rate. The National Literacy Institute reports that the United States ranks 39th in literacy. With 54% of adults reading below a 5th grade level and 21% functionally illiterate, it costs taxpayers nearly $2 trillion annually. There is a profound and inextricable relationship between literacy and poverty. The pro-life position demands that one be on the cutting edge of eradicating illiteracy, potentially lowering poverty, and promoting a better-educated populace.
What I’m offering merely scratches the surface. To be pro-life requires resources. It cannot be reduced to reflexively punishing women.
America would be a stronger society if it elevated the pro-life definition from the restrictive confines of abortion to a ubiquitous understanding that applies to the country at large.
The current pro-life position is used to codify laws that result in the death of innocent women, feigning a moral position up to the moment of birth only to be heard from no more.
Pro-life, as I define it, is an ongoing investment in human potential. It is the desire that every American child be afforded a baseline of support. Otherwise, we’re simply talking about pro-birth—a punitive position that disproportionately affects low-income women.
For 50 years pro-birth advocates have misappropriated the meaning of pro-life. After a half-century, I think it’s time to reclaim the title.