Pro-Life has a distinct and important definition

In response to Hailee Thayer’s article, “I am pro-life, but not in the way you think,” I would like to explain the pro-life position. I am not here to argue whether the Heartbeat Bill is constitutional or morally correct. From what I have read in The Record these past several years, there seems to be a lot of confusion on the beliefs and aims of the pro-life movement. I hope I can help clear up some of those misconceptions.

As pro-lifers, our argument is simple: we believe that all life is sacred, from conception to natural death. All life has value and is a supreme gift from God. The unborn are people, and it is our duty and privilege to care for and protect them from death by abortion. We believe killing our own children because they may cause us hardship or inconvenience is morally despicable. Human life begins at conception because that is the only logically consistent line to draw. Therefore, abortion should be abolished entirely because no matter what stage of development the fetus is currently at, abortion is murder. It is the intentional taking of a human life. Just as, by definition, vegans do not eat meat, pro-lifers, by definition, do not support abortion. Abortion is the very antithesis of everything the movement strives for, and those who believe abortion to be a moral good are not pro-life.

Pro-lifers can hold whatever opinions they like on other issues, but it is this one issue that determines whether you are a member of the pro-life movement. Immigration, healthcare, foster care, veterans, etc, are not part of the pro-life/pro-choice debate. There are two—and only two—questions that need to be answered when discussing abortion: “Are the unborn people?” and “Should we be allowed to kill them?” The aforementioned issues, while important, have nothing whatsoever to do with abortion.

Throughout history, there have always been people who claim other groups of people are not people. In America, those people are the unborn. Nobody is proposing immigrants, foster children, or veterans are not people and that we should kill them. If someone killed any of these because they believed they are inhuman, they would and should be convicted and thrown in prison for murder, as should be the case with every other person. The unborn are no different. Just because they are located in the womb rather than outside of it does not magically strip away their personhood.

The pro-life movement speaks for the unborn, as they cannot speak for themselves. The pro-life movement is unique in that it fights to have abortion “rights” revoked, rather than given. Every person in the pro-life movement is also fighting for someone else’s life and rights, rather than their own. Those who do not agree with the sanctity of life, and thus support abortion, have no business calling themselves pro-life. We need to stop trying to convolute the meaning of these labels so we can have an honest discussion about abortion, rather than arguing about what a movement “should” or “should not” include.