The Left has done a great service to the Religious Right.
For decades, we’ve allowed them to write our story for us.
We have let them define themselves and to define us, with two simple words:
Pro-Life.
They have cleverly commandeered this phrase, claiming sole ownership, composing a convincing false narrative that they are the lone defenders of life—and we its hostile adversaries.
After Trump, they won’t be allowed to do that any longer. They’ve been exposed.
In the wake of the 2016 election, many Conservative Christians have steadfastly claimed that Life was their candidate deal breaker.
Life is the reason they voted for and still support this President.
Life is why they excuse his malevolence and ignore his indiscretions.
Life is the reason they tolerate his lengthy resume of filth.
Life is why their Christian faith can embrace him as Godly.
It is the single issue that, for them, fully covers his multitude of sins.
But when we reframe those two words, the reality of their commitment to the living becomes clear. If we take the phrase beyond the shorthand culture war slogan, to be “pro-life” should simply mean to be “for humanity,” shouldn’t it?
And if we look at the preponderance of the evidence and examine whether or not the Christian and Political Right are actually for humanity, it becomes fairly obvious:
Is it for humanity, to attempt to ban Muslims and immigrants and refugees from entering the country in the name of preventing some supposed danger?
Is it for humanity to separate small children from their families at our borders?
Is it for humanity, to try and take healthcare from millions of our poorest and most vulnerable, and penalize them for previous illness?
Is it for humanity, to leverage fear of people based on the color of their skin, their religious tradition, their sexuality, their nation of origin?
Is it for humanity, to level Native American burial lands to run oil lines?
Is it for humanity, to legislatively assault the LGBTQ community; to restrain their ability to marry and adopt and receive partner benefits?
Is it for humanity, to roll back protections for the planet we’re standing on, the air we breath, the water sustaining us, the atmosphere surrounding us?
Is it for humanity, to gut funding for the Arts and exponentially raise it for the Military?
Is it for humanity to gerrymander and bureaucratically exclude people of color from the electoral process?
Is it for humanity, to put Cabinet leaders in place who are intentionally dismantling the systems of education, commerce, environmental protections, and law that we’ve worked for hundreds of years to secure?
Is it for humanity, to taunt foreign nations into war on social media?
Is it for humanity, to ridicule and verbally attack women claiming to have been sexually assaulted, and steamroll an accused predator into the highest court over them?
And is it for humanity, to interfere with or legislate control over a woman’s autonomy over her own body?
Is it for her humanity to decide what she must do in the wake of an assault or a dire medical diagnosis?
Is it for her humanity to withhold birth control or medical treatment from her, or to determine what gynecological care she can receive and where she can receive it?
Is it for her humanity to demand that she lives under the religious convictions or personal preferences of another human being or political party?
Where is their passionate regard for the sanctity of the life of the human being whose uterus they seek to claim stewardship of and authority over?
It seems women don’t count as lives to these people (as if seeing what’s unfolded prior to Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, left any doubt.)
The right to life apparently doesn’t include them.
It’s time the Christian and Political Left speaks the truth: that though the Religious Right forever claims to be “pro-life,” they are not for humanity, outside of the most infinitesimal segment of it. They have no real interest in protecting anyone beyond the birth canal.
Their burden is a theocracy of control and subjugation, one where women’s desires and wills are an afterthought.
To them, terminating a pregnancy is clearly murder—yet executing criminals, shooting unarmed black men, running for-profit prisons, withholding healthcare, exacerbating pollution, and perpetuating war are all somehow acceptable collateral damage to the living.
In the end it comes down to compassion; to the ability to be moved by the suffering of others and compelled to alleviate it—to defend and protect and care for the living in every form and at every stage and of every kind and of every complexion. This is what it truly means to be pro-all life.
This Administration and its supporters have shown themselves to be largely bereft of empathy for the poor, for the sick, the marginalized; for foreigners, for outsiders, for the wounded—for diverse life here. They don’t deserve to claim stewardship of the living.
I am a person of Life. That is what my faith calls me to be. Compassion compels me to be pro-life—to be for humanity.
Like so many people who share my political and religious convictions, I want (through education and birth control) to see less unplanned pregnancies and (through affordable medical care) to see more pregnancies carried to term without life threatening complication. Everyone does.
In fact, this is the greatest lie of all those the Right reiterates in this conversation: that the Left loves abortion or rejoices in “murdering babies.” This is an irresponsible, inaccurate, and willfully dangerous intentional falsehood that simply contains no truth. Ultimately, we believe that women should have autonomy over their own bodies, and that no one can impose their morality on another human being. It’s really that elemental.
Our advocacy for life simply also goes well beyond the womb.
We treasure the already born as much as the unborn.
We are pro-all life because it is all sacred; not only when its heart begins beating, but as it beats and when it struggles to beat and up until it ceases to beat.
Unless you’re for all humanity equally, unless you’re a fierce advocate for every living being, you’re aren’t really pro-life—you’re simply committed to using women’s bodies as battle ground in a hollow holy war.
The Religious Right needs to face their refusal to honor the sanctity of life beyond the womb and outside of white Evangelical nationalism—and the Left needs to rightly take back the phrase, and redefine what it means to truly be pro-life.
