From The Confessional: Pro-Birthers Are Pissing Us Off

One of the hardest parts about the abortion/pro-life rhetoric that continues to plague our country, year after year, election after election, is the gross hypocrisy of it all.

The “pro-lifers” who stand in a woman’s way as she tries to make a choice about her own body because they so desperately want to “save a life!” but then vote into office politicians who refuse to feed, clothe, or provide healthcare to that same woman months later.

The “pro-lifers” who love standing on their stacks of Bibles while they spout judgment about abortion because it’s “murder” but then also blindly follow anti-science leaders who won’t wear masks to save lives during a pandemic.

And, worst of all, the judgmental Nancies and Bills who spew hateful rhetoric about how abortion is “evil”… until their daughter becomes pregnant and it’s a big embarrassing scandal that conveniently “goes away” one random Tuesday.

But that’s not all. They won’t even listen to you if you try to educate them. If you try to explain that programs offered through organizations like Planned Parenthood provide birth control, healthcare, and resources women need to prevent unwanted pregnancies, or if you try to explain that “pro-life” isn’t really pro-life if you don’t try to help save lives post-birth, they refuse to hear you. Apparently, facts are scary or too hard to comprehend, so they turn their backs and remain steadfast in their ignorance and oppression of women.

And round and round we go, while really going nowhere at all.

One blatant example of the pro-life hypocrisy is a new one—and we can thank COVID-19 for shedding light on it. Because the truth is, if you are truly going to advocate for “saving lives,” one would assume you’d also wear a mask, support vaccines, social distance, believe scientific and medical experts whose entire careers are focused around saving lives… you know, common sense stuff. Right?

This one, however, seems to be a tale as old as time. Pro-lifers have been solely “pro-birth,” not “pro-life” for a long ass time. We want to have optimism that the younger generations are smarter and see this backwards thinking for what it is, but it seems we still have a long way to go.

Christianity, sadly, brings out the loudest hypocrites because they feel empowered to judge. They feel they can justify their hateful stance because “the Bible tells me so,” when in actuality, Christians are supposed to be kind, loving, and welcoming. They’re supposed to help their neighbors and forgive transgressions. A true Christian would help a refugee mother in need who fled famine and war to save her child’s life. And yet, “Christians” voted en masse for a horrid man who tried to build a wall to keep that tired, homeless, hungry mother and her child out—while throwing insults at her as well.

Hypocrisy at its finest.

Or, how about the vehement pro-lifers who love to tell the world where they stand on this issue… that is, until they need one themselves. Then, suddenly, “it’s different.”

And worst of all is the blatant refusal to listen to reason. They don’t understand science. They don’t understand medicine. And they don’t understand that the way to reduce abortion rates is not making it illegal. It’s through education, birth control, and health care.

Or, they do understand, but they don’t want to hear you. They don’t want to hear you because it will turn their entire judgmental, oppressive narrative on its head, and they won’t know what to do with themselves once you’ve ripped their preaching pedestal out from under them.

Personally, I still have optimism for the future. I see the passion and the fire in the younger generation who sees the “pro-life” argument for what it is. But the truth is, women around our country still do not have the right to make choices about their own bodies. State and local governments are still trying to pass restrictive laws that prevent them from accessing the healthcare and procedures they might need.

We need to keep fighting this fight, for all women, for ourselves, for our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, and granddaughters. So that someday their right to control their own body will no longer be threatened, and so that the term “pro-life” will mean “advocating for all lives,” not a euphemism for women’s oppression.