"Pro-Lifers" Please Please Please Read and Consider This

"People will go all out for the unborn, but couldn't care less about those who draw breath."
- Robin J. Landwehr (in this blog post)

So lately there has been a SLEW of news coming out of the US regarding abortion limiting laws getting, or getting close to being legislated. As a feminist, this abhors me, as a person, this truly, truly distresses me. 

Now I don't live in the States and so those laws probably wouldn't affect me, but this is still my problem, because if they can get abortion bans legislated in one country, the potential for abortion bans to get legislated in other countries increases; if it happens in one place it could happen everywhere. And then it WOULD affect me. 

Many people pushing for these laws limiting abortions are calling themselves pro-lifers, if you are one, or know someone who is I'm pleading you especially to read this and hear me out. 

I respect your point of view, I really do, but it's just not practical, it's not equitable, and yes I will even say it's not ethical for the way the world is right now. 

I get it, you want to save lives and that is a beautiful, good aspiration. But why are you so focused on saving a fetus' life? What about the life of the person that is pregnant? Because even if there are no medical complications that physically endanger the pregnant person, forced parenthood can be truly detrimental to somebody's life.

I recently read this article in which one woman shared her experience with abortion, and this one quote really struck me:

"[Having the abortion] saved my life, not from the pregnancy itself, but from what enforced parenthood would have meant for me holistically in body, mind and spirit as a woman and human being." - Linsey Rosenthal (find that blog post here)

What it all comes down to is this: Once you analyze and dig deeper into it, it becomes a question as to whether anti-abortion is really pro-life at all. 

I saw this comment on facebook, and the woman said it beautifully:

"In an ideal world abortions wouldn't be needed. All pregnancies would be planned and prepared for. Women wouldn't be raped and impregnated. Young girls wouldn't be molested and [made] pregnant. Mothers would never get sick and be at risk having to choose their life or the life of the fetus. [...] [But] that is not the world we live in. The world you are fighting for is one full of unwanted babies, neglected children and orphans.[...]" Her facebook name is 'Andrea E. Polite'.   

And so I have a couple questions for people to consider. I am not accusing anyone of anything, so please don't get defensive. I just want you to read these and reflect on your answers to them.

1) When there are medical complications, is it really pro-life to endanger the mother's life to try and save the fetus?

2) Is it really pro-life to mess up someone else's life, or a couple people's lives to protect the life of someone who has yet to know what it is to live?

3) Is it really pro-life to force a terrible life upon the very children you are trying to protect? 

4) If you are pro-life, pro children's lives what have you been doing for the 153 MILLION orphans worldwide? 

5) If you are pro-life, what do you plan on doing for the unwanted children you fought so hard to give a life to? 

My comments on some of the questions:

1/2) Think about it. A fetus has life and nothing else in their life to lose. Everyone else, be it just the mother, or the mother and the people who would help her with the child, they have lived. They have lived years of their lives and have gained experiences and memories and people they care for. The fetus has a life to lose yes, but the mother has a life, as well as everything she has gained in her life to lose.

3) Okay so the unwanted child is here because abortions are illegal. Now what? Best case scenario they might be adopted/fostered by a loving family, but that's not always going to be the case. Children that would have been aborted could be neglected, and/or abused. Isn't it more ethical to spare them that fate?

People don't make the decision to abort a child lightly. (An exemplary story of that can be found here) And the reality is, if people need something enough they are going to find other ways of doing it, so by restricting abortions all you're doing is taking away a safe place to have them done, only endangering the mother's life further. That doesn't seem very pro-life does it? 

There are already so many ways to be pro-life in this world - you could help those less fortunate than you, you could fight for social justice. When there are so many children in the world who are not cared for, it doesn't make sense to have more unwanted children be brought into the world. We already have so much we could do for children, so much we need to do, why add more to the problems? 

Finally, the world is having a hard enough time sustaining the people already on it in addition to different plants and animals. If the world gets seriously overpopulated, each one of the billions on Earth will suffer. How is that pro-life? 

It's not. 

At best it's pro living thing. At worst tt's pro putting a cluster of cells above the needs of full grown people.  It's pro "I want this and that's what I'm going to get". It's pro not being able to see past your own beliefs. It's pro not having foresight. 

If you are so pro-life why are you not advocating for the lives of people already here? 

Yes a fetus' life is a life, and all life is precious, but we need to focus on protecting and nurturing the lives of those that are already here. 

We should be protecting the lives that have so much more to lose than a growing bundle of cells in the womb. 

We should be allowing the lives that can only nurture and give a good life to a beautiful child when they are ready to the time to get ready, the time to grow. 

We should be affording women the right to choose when her body is going to carry a child or if it will ever carry a child at all. 

We should be working on the lives of those already here, making them as wonderful and fulfilling as they can be. Adding a child to the mix means you don't just have one life to try to make as great as possible, you have (at least) two. 

Life is a beautiful gift, but life is not a good enough by itself to merit "worth living" and forcing that on a mother and a child is not pro-life at all.