Pro-Lifers Need to Redouble Our Efforts

This and other observations regarding the recent election

Photo by Anna Hecker on Unsplash

With exception of wins in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota, so-called “abortion rights” have continued to be victorious in voting booths. While Kamala Harris, who wanted to codify Roe v. Wade as a Federal law, lost the election, President-elect Trump promised he would veto any federal abortion ban. Trump’s stance was politically tactical, clearly meant to cool the fears of “pro-choice” women who were otherwise drawn towards voting for him. This tactic seems to have worked: 52% of women voted for him, and he also gained a larger percentage of unmarried white women than in 2020.

Across the country, abortion is still legal as the status quo, with just a few states banning it. This all coincides with polling showing that Americans identifying as pro-life are a distinct minority—at 39%. This is at the lowest level since the 1990s (according to Gallup).

Trent Horn, in a video he put out just before the November 5^th election, summed up the Pro-Life situation well.

Trent also gives his advice on new tactics the Pro-Life movement needs to deploy.

This is a bleak picture for anyone who claims to be pro-life. Yet, there is always cause for hope, especially for those of us who are pro-life for religious reasons. We are pro-life because God is pro-life, and he calls us to spread that message of truth. While he asks us to persevere in the face of adversity, he does not demand success in our efforts. That’s up to him.

That said, we need to be introspective on how we can do better. To that end, similar to Trent, I have some thoughts below.

1. Focus again on incremental steps.

I’m sure there’s little disagreement over this first suggestion. President Trump said that he would not sign into law a nation-wide abortion ban. However, I’m not aware of him pledging to not sign something short of that. For example, how about a late-term abortion ban? A law that would override new state laws that allow abortion up until and sometimes after birth.

Also, there should be laws set in place that put in protections from complications for women undergoing medication-induced abortions. In certain states, these dangerous drugs are or are becoming available by mail. This is criminally hazardous to women’s health (and intentionally fatal to unborn babies).

These are but a few.

2. We should celebrate the procreative power of women’s bodies.

We need to remove the stigma that a woman’s body has a great disadvantage to a man’s, if not having a shameful weakness. The shame being promoted in today’s culture is the biological fact that women can become pregnant. Today, women are taught that they have the right to be sexually promiscuous in order to be equal with men, who of course cannot become pregnant. As such, in order for women to be equal, they must (they are told) fight their own bodies’ natural processes by taking hormonal birth control and when that fails, have access to abortion.

We need to promote the contrary—that the ability to get pregnant is not a weakness—it is in fact a blessing to the human race. We would not any of us be here without it.

This is simply motherhood. Because this is a great power, it should not be wielded irresponsibly with just any guy that wants to “hook-up.” We need to emphasize that a woman should have sex with only that man whom she wants to have a baby with.

Which leads me to 3.

3. We should promote marriage.

After watching numerous videos of feminists objecting to the outcome of the election, I saw as a common theme women shaving their heads in protest. While obviously enhanced dramatically due to the camera’s eye, I believe these were genuine emotional responses of fear and horror to the idea that they could become pregnant and have no recourse to abortion. Even more, the women in these videos are not responding to a personal crisis in their own lives, but something very much external to themselves. This is evidently a sign of great vulnerability to respond in such a way to a perceived, yet remote threat to their well-being.

While this is pathetically sad, this is decidedly not generally the response of women who are happily married. Married women, and couples for that matter, are not subject to such vulnerabilities concerning remote “threats.” Married couples know that they always have each other to get through such things. This is predominately not the case with single women, and those living in less stable relationships.

But in the realm of the pro-life cause, within the proper context of marriage, an unborn child is seen as a joyful thing, a gift, not as an invading monster to a woman’s body. And the woman’s husband, generally speaking, is a partner, helper, supporter, and father of the baby, not a loser and leech.

Thus, to make a better society with as few abortions as possible, we need to promote marriage.

4. We need to be more blunt.

We must assume that most Americans do not really know what abortion really entails. For instance, look at this graphic below that accompanies Trent Horn’s YouTube video on abortion:

“An abortion is a procedure to end a pregnancy,” the “abortion health information” explains. Abortion is just another medical issue that is cured by medicine or a surgical procedure, we are led to believe. It goes on to explain that abortions are done in two ways—with medication and procedure(s). “Procedural abortion,” it continues blandly, is, “a procedure to remove the pregnancy from the uterus.” This helpful information does not mention what exactly is being removed from the uterus. Pregnancy describes the state of being pregnant. This is a circular euphemism.

This is where we need to get blunt. Here’s what happens with a surgical abortion (click on image to see the video):

If you’re “pro-choice,” please look at this video. This is what the choice is about. If you’re "pro-life,” you need to redouble your devotion to the cause.