An open letter to CSB+SJU Students for Life

You do pick and choose. You’ve chosen the method of preserving life that most aligns with patriarchy and the status quo, the easiest. You’ve chosen to protect embryos, which, unlike people, cannot speak for themselves to assert their possibly contrary ideas to you. The anti-choice (pro-life) movement is intended to make perfect, spotless saviors of its proponents.

I would be more charitable toward the anti-choice cause if it operated honestly and in good faith, but instead, I’m writing this. It is dishonest to claim that over 625,978 abortions occurred in a year in the U.S. and ask us to consider how their lives could have contributed to our world without providing the necessary context. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, abortion can be a necessary medical treatment. The World Health Organization considers abortion an essential health care service. There are medical circumstances in which abortion is the only way to preserve the life of the patient. Removing abortion as a medical option means that pregnant people will die. This is exacerbated for low-income, BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ people, who already experience barriers to medical care.

In many of these cases, the embryo or fetus possesses birth defects that will cause it to die immediately upon birth, and sometimes the embryo or fetus is already dead in the womb. In these cases, abortion is a matter of avoiding medical complications in the patient and the trauma of stillbirth. Nobody is being saved by outlawing abortion. Additionally, 70-80% of pregnancies naturally don’t make it past 20 days. The cellular machinery malfunctions, leading to embryonic death. Embryonic and fetal demise are normal parts of pregnancy.

In the most recent article written by Students for Life, our campus pro-life club, the authors included a gruesome, fear-mongering description of a 40-week abortion. If they’d bothered to do proper research rather than deciding to play into shock and fear, they’d know that 93.5% of abortions occur in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy and that less than 1% are performed after 21 weeks.

I’ll also note that while later-term abortions do happen, they are not undertaken lightly. An abortion at 40 weeks would only be performed in a situation where the life of the person giving birth was in mortal danger or if a fatal defect had been discovered in the fetus.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, countries with broadly legal abortion have lower rates of the procedure. If you truly wish to reduce the abortion rate, you’d push for legalization. This goes without mentioning the increases in maternal mortality that an abortion ban brings about.

The same article rejected a call to speak against the genocide currently occurring in Gaza, citing a focus on problems closer to our community. I took a look at some statistics for Stearns County, finding that in 2017, the poverty rate for people under 18 was 12.3%, higher than the state and national rates. Since poverty is one of the greatest predictors of mortality, I’d urge Students for Life to consider this avenue for their activism if they wish to work toward actually bettering our community.

The article also claimed that life begins at conception, citing an article written by a pro-life activist lawyer as proof. Even if I grant that claim validity, there is a difference between life and the kind of human life that we live. Even Christian doctrine makes this distinction. An E. coli bacterium is alive, but not in the way that you are or I am. It doesn’t think or form memories; the same things can be said for embryos and fetuses. Their experience is so far from human that it is hard to justify prioritizing the mere possibility of their life over a living, breathing, thinking, loving person with relationships and an established life.

Perhaps the most egregious statement made in last week’s article was stating that the global use of abortion as a medical procedure is genocide. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, genocide is “an internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Nothing in this definition relates to abortion, embryos or fetuses. It’s dishonest and disrespectful to compare a necessary medical procedure to some of the greatest atrocities committed in human history. Not only has Students for Life rejected a call to preserve life in Gaza, but they have polluted the term “genocide” in the process. This comparison is disgusting.

On another note, the anti-choice cause is a deeply Christian one. In working to place Christian faith in government, the anti-choice movement works not only against one of the founding principles of this country but also against other faiths.

Abortion is supported in the text and practice of the major sects of Judaism. It is protected in even some Christian faiths. Further, non-Christians are under no obligation to follow Christian doctrine. Abortion bans are a cruel measure designed to limit women’s autonomy and perpetuate Christian cultural hegemony.

I promise that there is a way to fight for life in a way that doesn’t hurt others. I want you to find it. The anti-choice movement began in the late 19th century with doctors who explicitly wanted to restrict women’s autonomy and used bad-faith arguments for fetal life as justification. It seems that little has changed. I urge Students for Life, and the anti-choice movement more broadly, to reevaluate their cause and who their actions truly serve.