Posted on 06/06/2003 10:32:33 AM PDT by Cathryn Crawford
The Pro-Life Movement's Problem With Morality
Exclusive commentary by Cathryn Crawford
Jun 6, 2003
Making claim to being pro-life in America is like shouting, “I’m a conservative Christian Republican!” from your rooftop. This is partly due to the fact that a considerable number of conservative Christian Republicans are pro-life. It’s hardly true, however, to say that they are the only pro-life people in America. Surprisingly enough to some, there are many different divisions within the pro-life movement, including Democrats, gays, lesbians, feminists, and environmentalists. It is not a one-party or one-group or one-religion issue.
The pro-life movement doesn’t act like it, though. Consistently, over and over throughout the last 30 years, the pro-lifers have depended solely on moral arguments to win the debate of life over choice. You can believe that abortion is morally wrong, yes, and at the appropriate moment, appealing to the emotions can be effective, but too much time is spent on arguing about why abortion is wrong morally instead of why abortion is wrong logically. We have real people of all walks of life in America – Christians, yes, but also non-Christians, atheists, Muslims, agnostics, hedonists, narcissists - and it’s foolish and ineffective for the pro-life movement to only use the morality argument to people who don’t share their morals. It’s shortsighted and it’s also absolutely pointless.
It is relatively easy to convince a person who shares your morals of a point of view – you simply appeal to whatever brand of morality that binds the two of you together. However, when you are confronted with someone that you completely disagree with on every point, to what can you turn to find common ground? There is only one place to go, one thing that we all have in common – and that is our shared instinct to protect ourselves, our humanness.
It seems that the mainstream religious pro-life movement is not so clear when it comes to reasons not to have an abortion beyond the basic arguments that it’s a sin and you’ll go straight to hell. Too much time is spent on the consequences of abortion and not enough time is spent convincing people why they shouldn’t have one in the first place.
What about the increased risk of breast cancer in women who have abortions? Why don’t we hear more about that? What about the risk of complications later in life with other pregnancies? You have to research to even find something mentioned about any of this. The pro-life movement should be front and center, shouting the statistics to the world. Instead, they use Biblical quotes and morality to argue their point.
Don’t get me wrong; morality has its place. However, the average Joe who doesn’t really know much about the pro-life movement - and doesn’t really care too much for the obnoxious neighbor who’s always preaching at him to go to church and stop drinking - may not be too open to a religious sort of editorial written by a minister concerning abortion. He’d rather listen to those easy going pro-abortion people – they appeal more to the general moral apathy that he so often feels.
Tell him that his little girl has a high chance of suffering from a serious infection or a perforated uterus due to a botched abortion, however, and he’ll take a bit more notice. Tell him that he’s likely to suffer sexual side effects from the mental trauma of his own child being aborted and he’ll take even more notice. But these aren’t topics that are typically discussed by the local right-to-life chapters.
It isn’t that the religious right is wrong. However, it boils down to one question: Do they wish to be loudly moral or quietly winning?
It is so essential that the right-to-life movement in America galvanize behind the idea the logic, not morality, will be what wins the day in this fight, because sometimes, despite the rightness of the intentions, morality has to be left out of the game. Morality doesn’t bind everyone together. The only thing that does that is humanness and the logic of protecting ourselves; and that is what has to be appealed to if we are going to make a difference in the fight to lessen and eventually eliminate abortion.
Cathryn Crawford is a student from Texas. She can be reached at feedback@washingtondispatch.com.
Congratulations on your article. It has drawn significant attention, and that is very good. I would like to add to the discussion.
As Pro-Lifers, we want to change the laws Re abortion as well as the culture’s understanding of the citizen waiting to be born. The Pro-Life movement has worked tirelessly, attempting to change the hearts and minds of adults in the voting booth and in government. However, this is addressing the problem after their minds have already been made up. Changing an adults mind on this subject is VERY difficult.
Recent news indicates that young people are increasingly MORE pro-life than older generations. The reason for this appears to be because they are exposed to more of the facts: Scientific, Biological, Logical—as well as moral & Religious. Many of the scientific data have only been available in recent years and are a powerful anecdote to the pro-choice propaganda we all are exposed to, especially for the youth who have yet to form their opinions on this.
More to the point on youth and this subject: Ask a first grader what is inside a pregnant woman’s “tummy,” she will say a baby. If you ask if it would be okay to hurt that baby in any way, she will say no. Try it with a thousand first graders; their answers will all be basically the same. The fact is, as little ones we are naturally pro-life.
My point here is that the pro-life movement has been missing the opportunity to educate an entire group of people who are already pro-life—and to help properly form their consciences and understanding about the rights of their fellow American citizens waiting to be born. I am focusing here specifically on Christian and private schools. With comprehensive Pro-Life education (Scientific, Biological, Logical—as well as moral & Religious) in Christian schools, from K-12 (and beyond), we can greatly reduce the number of natural pro-lifers in the 1st grade who become pro-abortion later on.
The sanctity of life of the unborn person is a simple truth that can and must be taught like any other subject. In Christian schools it should be the preeminent subject in religion class and receive the greatest attention and highest Respect. The war between the cultures of life and death is the single thing that has a bearing on the destiny of our nation and the very survival of our society. Every student beginning kindergarten is naturally pro-life. If the Christian schools were to nurture this gift and guide the proper formation of their Christian consciences with ongoing teachings while continuously building on successive lessons—over the course of thirteen years the vast majority of these students would be solid pro-life citizens. Protestant and Catholic leaders who control schools, Bible study, CCD etc. need only the will to make this happen. Each day this doesn't happen is another day of victory for the pro-abortion forces, because ignorance of the masses is the only hope the pro-abortion forces have for survival.
The solution to ending the culture of death does not realistically lie with changing or “reversing” the minds of pro-abortion adults; it lies with preserving the 99+ % of children that are already pro-life on their first day of school.
Parts of my thoughts here are from an article I submitted to Washington Dispatch this week entitled “Even Patricia Ireland Used To Be Pro-Life” I hope they accept it and publish. The rest comes from my work as founder of Christian Patriots For Life , and our main document entitled THE MISSING KEY OF THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT.
I would like very much to be on your ping list and if you would like I’d be very happy to add you to mine. We should all work together to help educate as many people as effectively as we can, because comprehensive education is THE MISSING KEY OF THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT.
Kevin
BY GEORGE, YOU'VE GOT IT!
But she's right (or half-right), and I'd have thought anyone with a Greek Christian handle would have been specially sensitive to this point. When we're bound together with God, morality becomes irrelevant, for the very reason that God isn't moral. God isn't law-abiding. God just IS, and his essence is both Truth (by virtue of his transcendant existence) and Love (by virtue of revelation, including the revelation implicit in creation's very existence). Salvation that consists of communion with God is not an ethical achievement, but existential -- a mode of being, not acting. Men are meant to be bound to God as sons, not slaves, and therefore in love, and not law.
Yet another outstanding line from you.
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