The Future of the Pro-Life Movement

Was 2022 a net positive or negative for the movement?

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Jon Schweppe, policy director at the American Principles Project, joins Andrew to discuss the state of the pro-life movement: political uncertainty, mixed messaging, states rights, and next steps.

Show Notes:

Jon’s profile at the American Principles Project

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Comments (80)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    This was a good interview! I appreciate that it was short, too, and easily digestible.

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    David Chen

    Rich Lowry had a piece that Trump got what he wanted out of the pro-life movement and it has served its usefulness, and now thinks it is now a political liability. And the pro-life movement will grin and bare it to have a seat at the table, and because the new rule is that Trump is the rule.

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/09/21/social-conservatives-trump-abortion-00117193

    The only good thing about the Evangelical and Pro-lifers hitching their wagon to Trump is that now nobody needs to take them seriously when they get all preachy about morals and the Bible. If you are willing to get in bed with a corrupt ass-clown, you don't get to lecture others about morals.

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      Kmregan7

      I’ve rarely taken them seriously. Don’t throw stones. I’m not subject to your morals - I didn’t agree to be ruled by whatever your religion says - YOU did. Leave me alone and follow your own rules and I’ll do the same, unless you somehow convince a huge majority that those rules are something we all should follow….but so far you haven’t done that at all.

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    Wrob77

    I would prefer a debate between a pro-life scholar and pro-choice scholar on ethics rather than this surface level discussion on politics. Ethically the pro-life argument wins pretty easily in my mind.

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      Kmregan7

      Ethically the pro-choice argument wins in my mind. Of course- that’s because I, as a woman, think I’m my own moral agent, should be able to make my own healthcare choices…

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        Wrob77

        Whether one is a man or a woman should not disqualify one from weighing in on this argument. That is an ad hominem attack, attacking the person, rather than the argument.

        https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Ad-Hominem.html

        The reason I feel the pro-choice position to be inferior is because it often ignores the ethical status of the unborn child. A fetus is simply a human being at an early stage of development. The SLED argument is an effective argument as to why we shouldn't kill fetuses

        https://www.avemariapress.com/engagingfaith/argument-against-abortion-using-sled-acronym

        Pro-choice arguments tend to be based on emotional appeals for autonomy rather than logical arguments as to why a fetus is or is not a person. Also many arguments that a fetus is not a person can be used to justify infanticide. Size, Level of Development, Environment, and Degree of Dependency are all problems new born infants have as well as the unborn. Plus there is little difference between a late term baby that may be aborted and a new born infant.

        Issues of finances, life choices, and autonomy, can also be applied to infants. But we don't kill them because they are persons.

        Pro-life people simply believe that personhood should be extended to before birth. To do otherwise is to allow the killing of over a million babies every year. Many of these are not edge cases but elective abortions.

        I am not against having exceptions for life of the mother or fetal abnormality that will lead to death of the child. But that doesn't justify most abortions. I am generally for bodily autonomy as well. For example birth control I think should be widely available to give women control over their reproduction. But a woman's liberty ends when it infringes upon the life of another. And that is what abortion does. It kills a living human being.

        Many women are killed through abortion. At least 50% of unborn children are female.

        The state has always had an interest in limiting autonomy to forbid killing.

        Here is the best analogy against abortion I can think of. Imagine that you have a loved one who is in an accident and is brain dead. In many states, under medical supervision, if there is no chance of recovery, doctors will allow you to pull the plug on life support and let someone die because without their brain working we don’t know if the person is there or not. We call this brain death. We would consider pulling the plug in such circumstances ethical and in many circumstances legal. But then let’s say someone is brain dead but they have a hundred percent chance of recovering in nine months. Would we allow someone to pull the plug on an adult in a coma if we knew they would wake up in nine months? I would think not. If we don’t allow such a thing with an adult why do we allow such a thing with a fetus which is simply a person at an early stage of development? Is the fetus not just in a coma like state that we know will end if we let it? We don’t allow such things with adults why do we allow such things with a fetus which is a person at an early stage of development?
        Well the answer is because the fetus is not hooked up to a machine. It is hooked up to a real person. And that person has rights as well. And that is true. But the question is do the rights of an adult person allow them to kill a developing person who has done nothing wrong? Especially a person that you brought into being by your own risky behavior, that is having sex, may it be protected or unprotected sex. Certainly there is a good argument that a woman’s autonomy has been violated in the case of rape. But can we say the same thing for sex between two consenting adults? Most of us are aware of the risks of sex, even protected sex, to result in pregnancy. Abortion attempts to separate sex from any responsibility of what it is designed for that is to have offspring. It would be like if you gambled lost and the casino paid your debt. It would be like if you accidentally hit someone with your car and the person you hit insurance covered the cost of their care instead of your insurance covering the cost of their care because you were the one who hit them.
        In a world where there was no life support technology except the option to hook yourself up to another human being to be healed I would suspect many more people would die because in most circumstances we would find it inappropriate to sacrifice one person’s autonomy to heal another. But what if one adult in this world purposely or accidentally injures another adult? In a world where there is no life support technology other than hooking up to another person in this case where someone is responsible for an injury wouldn’t we require they make amends by hooking up their body to the one they injured? How much more a responsibility do we have when we have brought a life into this world by our own risky behavior?
        Certainly pregnancy can have profound health consequences. And no one should be asked to die to bring a life into this world. And while the mother has many valid interests In any other context we would say those interests do not justify killing a person. Yes a woman may have an extreme burden placed on her for nine months. But the baby being killed is being denied an entire life, some 460 months of potentially contributing to society. The scales are clearly tipped to the unborn child.

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  4. Emma

    Part of the problem is the pro life movement has too many men running their mouths on things they will never understand or have to suffer through.

    Jon is a great mascot for this.

    I'll also point out that this organization's board has no female members of child bearing age (or if they can still have babies, definitely higher risk) and no minorities. (A high risk pregnancy group.) That makes sense.

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    1. Pohl

      All non sequiturs as to the morality of abortion. But you’re right that it’s a good general rule to have some diversity for understanding the nitty-gritty and just for simple organizing in any advocacy or activist group.

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        Kmregan7

        Not really…women are the ones most affected and therefore truly understand the issue in a way men can’t.

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        1. Pohl

          As I said, there is no gnostic gender gap as to fundamental moral principles. I said all perspectives are welcome, but not that they are necessary to establish all things. Being a woman will not make it a whit easier to demonstrate why the unborn should often be aborted.

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    2. Zach Bauman

      If the women of the country were better at understanding that the wanton slaughter of infants was a bad thing, maybe you wouldn't have the first "problem."

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      1. Emma

        This is exactly what I'm talking about. Thank you. 😊

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        Kmregan7

        What “wanton slaughter of infants?”
        We are talking about abortion- the majority of which happen before there’s even an inkling of an “infant.”
        Infanticide is illegal.
        But thanks for proving the point.

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        1. Pohl

          Hmm. She could have dropped the wanton and just said something about the unborn or human beings. But “infant” is neither a euphemism (which one side of the debate is tellingly fond of) or a dysphemism, such as unborn “brats.” There’s really not much cause to object.

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            Kmregan7

            Infant is a very young child or baby- this a person who has been born and is the very youngest a person can be…

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        Driven away by the bigots

        Your reference to "wanton slaughter of infants" is going to help resolve the issue though, right?

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  5. Eaechols

    Without even getting to abortion, the thing that I didn't like about what Schweppe was promoting was how he felt like a 100% political animal who was only interested in abortion because he wanted to be at the head of the voting bloc on that issue. I had a hint this was coming because right at the top of the podcast Andrew says Schwepe is "more of a populist than a conservative" and not exactly in the Dispatch audience's usual quadrant. I have no objection hearing this dude's POV but I have trouble taking any populist seriously. This dude is trying to be a pro-life bloc whisperer and he will say anything he thinks will rally the bloc. So I don't think he was likely to bring anything interesting to what Andrew said was the conversation he was trying to have about "how much trouble the pro-life movement is in" and in the end I think this episode proves he had nothing insightful to say. Andrew might have been able to dissect Schweppe's thinking better during this conversation, which may have made this a better episode. Since he did not do that very well, I think this episode is a miss.

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  6. Jon Kirsch

    As someone who is pro-life, I strongly disagree with Schweppe's entire argument here, this idea that 'It's just a matter of framing it right and fighting in the public square' or that the pro-life movement can win by 'muddying' the waters with better messaging.

    The truth of the matter is that the pro-life movement has some moral reckonings to figure out. I'm one of those 'normies' Schweppe talks about. As someone who has had medical issues and with a mother with medical issues who is diabetic, I know how important it is for patients and their doctors or nurses to make the decisions. As someone who worked at a nursing college, I also know how often those supposedly 'rare exceptions' are not all that rare, especially on a national scale. So this idea that these women with frightening pregnancy complications, nonviable birth defects, and so on, can be written off by the pro-life movement as 'rare exceptions' is a huge, steaming pile of BS.

    As a conservative who has had medical issues, I feel for women who suddenly have Big Government thrust between them and their doctor. In a supreme act of irony, I have heard from moms who desperately wanted a baby, but due to the law preventing them from getting abortion care for their *nonviable, 100% sure-not-to-survive* baby, not only did they still lose their baby but now their chances of getting pregnant again is drastically reduced due to lingering health complications, triggered by what? Well-meaning but idiotic and extreme pro-life laws.

    Look, I consider myself pro-life 100%. I'm all for a world in which getting an abortion because having a baby would be inconvenient or not fit someone's lifestyle is something shunned in favor of better, more humane or loving options. I think there are all kinds of policy moves the pro-life movement can make to push the needle in that direction and I'm all for it. But what I don't support is this idea that Big Federal Government intrusion is the answer, that women's lives are essentially second tier, and that moralistic ideologues are suddenly frickin' experts on the endless complexity of human health and the human body. Give me a break.

    The pro-life movement has a lot of soul-searching to do. Messaging? Please. As Jordan Petersen might say, 'Get your own house in order' before trying to establish a federal abortion ban across the country. Maybe get it right in 1 state first and find the balance. Figure out how to give women the freedom to deal with problematic health issues in a way that's safe and humane first. Otherwise, we've seen how this story plays out: Take a look at Ireland, involving the needless death of a mother whose baby didn't have a chance of surviving anyway, a mother who found herself dying due to a completely avoidable septic infection, which then led to a domino effect that caused Ireland to rescind its abortion ban for good. *That* is the possible future that awaits the pro-life movement if we rest on our laurels and act like the other essential interests at play should bow to our own sanctimony.

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    1. Pohl

      “Abortion care.” Women as “second tier.” And invoking hard cases, which are, by definition, rare. This is pro-choice rhetoric and hard to square with being “pro-life 100%.” But, welcome aboard. I don’t want to turn down an ally in defense of women and their unborn children.

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      1. Jon Kirsch

        Roe had to go. It was made up law. But pregnancy complications endangering the mother and/or baby’s lives are depressingly not rare, certainly not how most would define it (8-10% of pregnancies).

        When I ask many of my pro-life friends “How can we make laws flexible enough so women have control over life threatening situations during pregnancy and don’t have to risk septic infection” or questions along those lines, the response I often get basically amounts to “Well those cases are rare so we don’t really need to worry about them right now.” And I’m sorry, but that not going to cut it if the pro-life movement wants to win over hearts and minds or be successful long term. I know that’s not what many pro-life folks want to hear. It’s because getting rid of Roe gives the US as a nation this golden opportunity to respect, preserve and value life on a new level that I don’t want to see this momentum go to waste.

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        1. Janicewfahy

          Roe got it right. Full stop. I don't have a problem with the fact that some fools came at it hammer and tongs and got it overturned. But I promise you that what replaces it at the federal level (sooner rather than later that, I reckon) will basically be Roe/Doe/Casey. Will 'prolifers' tilt at that windmill as well? Probably.

          Still, Roe got it right.

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          Kmregan7

          I mean…women are people. They’re real lives with all that entails and many already have children. The majority of people know that and trust women to make healthcare decisions- and yes, abortion is healthcare. As proven by the fact that many women who don’t receive one could actually die.
          Dismissing that isn’t helpful.

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        3. Pohl

          I appreciate your dispassionate reply. Let’s set aside, though, why you would include abortion as a solution to the endangerment of “baby’s lives.” If you have in mind fetal abnormalities or what you’ve termed “non-viable, 100% sure-not-to-survive” babies, I reject abortions as “care.” Maternal mortality rates in the US in recent years have varied from around 0.01-0.03%. Basically, several hundred deaths each year, or usually over 1,000x fewer the number of abortions, which is sadly how about 20% of pregnancies end. So, abortions are out of all proportion to threats to maternal health.

          Also, there are no states that don’t provide exceptions in the law for threats to the mother’s life. But we can certainly debate how well some of these were crafted. No one that I know is arguing, for example, to make it onerous to intervene in ectopic pregnancies. But the saying that hard cases make bad law is precisely because horrible things like rape and incest have always made up a mere 1-1.5% of all abortions. All of these basic numbers indicate that the heart of the matter is, perhaps as the guest said, a matter of messaging. Or areas for compromise maybe. But the average abortion isn’t represented by any of these things.

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          1. Jon Kirsch

            I think this highlights my concern as someone who is pro-life. Even in the last few days since we started this discussion, my understanding is that there is now essentially a class action lawsuit in Tennessee from a group of moms who could not get care despite having situations where their babies were certain not to survive.

            Regardless of the rarity of these situations, these cases are going to get wide exposure. People will hear about them. People will hear the eyewitness, heartbreaking stories of moms who were told by their healthcare folks 'Look, we know your infection is worsening, and it could kill you eventually, but it's not close enough to killing you yet, so we have to wait.' Those optics are *not* good and no amount of messaging fixes it. What would help provide a solution is if pro-life policies were more flexible in letting healthcare folks treat their patients without threats of jail, and giving healthcare folks the discretion they need to give life-saving treatment.

            The pro-life philosophy shouldn't be "We need to prevent the average abortion right this instant, and increased infections/deaths among mothers is an acceptable price." We have to walk and chew gum at the same time here. I'm not disagreeing with your goal, though I know it may seem like it. I'm saying that the current pro-life methods won't get us there. They'll get us Ireland - they'll get us high-profile maternal deaths and a subsequent backlash that will make Roe look almost quaint.

            The pro-life movement can be proactive on this though. They can craft/refine better laws with more flexibility. Prioritize the life of the mother while also preventing abortions which would previously have happened due to tragic and myopic reasons like 'I'm not ready for kids' or 'a kid won't fit my busy lifestyle' or what have you. Let's firm up the progress we've made by not overcorrecting.

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  7. Joe Fisher

    Anyone notice how Kevin sounds often like store brand Robert Downy Jr? I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. Kevin, you could do a perfect RDJ impression with almost no effort

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  8. Bigdonmck

    SCOTUS said abortion is an issue to be decided by each state. So why are we talking about passing a federal law on abortion...whether it be 6 weeks, 15 weeks or whatever?
    Won't any federal law passed on the issue eventually wind up again at the SCOTUS?

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    1. Janicewfahy

      "So why are we talking about passing a federal law on abortion..."

      Because Republican politicians are big fat LIARS (thank goodness for the rest of us that they're also gormless).

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  9. Karin

    25 minutes devoted to how to ban abortion by making it politically popular. Less than one minute devoted to actual policy that would encourage women to want to have babies.

    I rage listened, with David French’s words “Banning abortion is not the same as ending abortion” ringing in my ears.

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    1. Jon Kirsch

      Same here, my friend, and well said! I was looking forward to a fruitful discussion about solutions... but instead we were treated to a marketing treatise on messaging and trying to "win" without regard to making sure that there are actual policies in place that work.

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    2. Very Old Grumpy Guy

      Just a thought - how much would our collective anxiety be reduced if Trump was finally, unequivocally out of politics? How many excess births would that be worth?

      Another (David French) thought - NO ONE is pro-abortion. NO ONE wants more abortions. Seems like we could all get on some kind of the same page.

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    Tracie

    While I'm not about to argue the actual issue of abortion to any great extent in this forum, this discussion brought to mind a perception difference I've noted in old school conservatives since I've joined TD.

    Conservatives often appear to have had pretty good family upbringings. Makes sense. If the system worked for you, naturally you're in favor of perpetuating it. Maybe such conservatives can't imagine any situation where an unplanned pregnancy might truly ruin a life, or two.

    Having been brought up amongst people who I now judge to be 50-75% MAGA, I note the personal wreckage that marks many of their family lives. As with Trump's own family values, I grew up in an environment where 2-3 marriages were the norm. (My parents had 7-8 marriages between them, as I honestly lost count of one of my parent's number of matrimonies, and the other died mid-50s.)

    Trump appeals to a certain comfort with chaos in his base. Personally, I considered it one of the great moral imperatives in my life not to bring a child into the world without a stable family set-up. Ultimately, I decided to be a resource for the numerous neglected children that arrived in the next generation in my family. I can't imagine making someone else's family planning decisions, provided they're prudent enough to have any.

    Obviously, I can't project my own experience onto others, but given my knowledge of MAGA and proto-MAGA subcultures, I can't help but feel the Pro-Life movement fundamentally misunderstands Trump's base, if not the worldviews most prevalent in the American electorate.

    Thank you for a brief, enlightening discussion on the subject.

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    1. Brian The 2nd

      Interesting insight, thank you. I often wonder if because Red states compared to Blue states have higher rates of divorce and unplaned pregnancies, that the republicans in them tend to project their own problems (and solutions) onto the rest of the country.

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    2. Blane

      Tracie wrote "Maybe such conservatives can't imagine any situation where an unplanned pregnancy might truly ruin a life, or two."
      It's a matter of outlook, isn't it? If what you see in an "unplanned pregnancy" is a "mouth" to be filled and an "as$h01e" to be wiped, that's a different outlook than if you see a mind, a pair of hands, a heart, and a soul, i.e. a blessing. One will get a more harmonious result, don't you think?
      In popular art, you can see this in Kenny Chesney's "There Goes My Life" vs Bruce Springsteen's "The River".

      wrote "Having been brought up amongst people who I now judge to be 50-75% MAGA, I note the personal wreckage that marks many of their family lives."
      West Virginia (heavily maga) vs District of Columbia (heavily anti-maga). Look at the violent crime stats: DC is #1 WV is #29. I don't think personal wreckage is what bring Trump his support. I was a supporter of Trump, but am no longer. I'm an old, law-abiding black man, who lives in Virginia, and am one of the "conservatives with a pretty good family upbringing". I wasn't voting FOR Trump, so much as "against" something.

      wrote "I considered it one of the great moral imperatives in my life not to bring a child into the world without a stable family set-up. Ultimately, I decided to be a resource for the numerous neglected children that arrived in the next generation in my family."
      May God bless you for that.

      wrote "I can't imagine making someone else's family planning decisions"
      Neither can I, if that entails deciding when/whether to engage sexual relations or what kind of contraception to use when so engaging. But if those "decisions" include killing ones unborn children, I think the body politic should have a say about when and under what circumstances. I think this because "the law teaches", and there are unintended consequences for the rest of public when the law says "unborn child's lives exist at the pleasure and convenience of their mother alone". We can discuss further, if you like.

      wrote "I can't help but feel the Pro-Life movement fundamentally misunderstands Trump's base"
      Well, whatever one's opinion of Trump and/or the pro-life movement, Trump is the only sitting president to speak, in person, at the March for Life, the movement's signature event.

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    3. Bobby D

      I would tend to view the pro-life movement as a subset of MAGA. They’re just a particularly misogynist subset of MAGA.

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        Driven away by the bigots

        Hard disagree. The pro-life movement is so much more than MAGA. MAGA pro-lifers are a subset of the broader pro-life movement. Are you going to credibly argue that pro-life folks at places like The Dispatch (Kevin Williamson, David French, etc.) are MAGA? Seriously? How about the Never Trumper but still pro-life commenters here? How does your theory account for them? How can you ignore what's right in front of you?

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          Scarlette Tarte

          I disagree. MAGA is an emotionally driven (hate and anger) movement, and the pro life movement is too (trying to emotionally blackmail by using the word baby for fetus as an example)

          Not all, but most of pro life movement is Evangelical. Not all, but most of MAGA is Evangelical christian.

          The two are the same...in general.

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            Driven away by the bigots

            You need to get out more. I'm not saying there isn't overlap, but pro-life and MAGA are NOT synonymous. This isn't hard.

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        2. Bobby D

          There are exceptions to any rule, especially among elites .Ike David and Kevin. Even so, the typical foot soldier in the pro-life movement is a cultural warrior whose attraction to the issue rests in an opposition to the role that women have come to play in a post-feminism society. After all, it’s no accident that the pro-life movement consists almost entirely of Christians who hail from religious traditions that continue to place restrictions on the roles that women can play within the home, the church, and society. It’s no accident that Doug Wilson is opposed to abortion at any stage of gestation. Such a view is intimately tied to his misogynistic worldview—a worldview shared by most of those who make up the movement.

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            Driven away by the bigots

            This is the worst kind of assertion of fact without evidence. What about the countless women who are active in the pro-life movement? Are they also all misogynistists? Seriously, do you really believe people are so easy to characterize? I’m pro-choice but I have encountered all types of people in the pro life movement and debated, argued, and had quiet conversations. What you describe is not at all representative and seems like the same kind of baseless tribalism in action that makes any policy discussion much more difficult than it needs to be.

            My hope is that you just have a severely limited world view and need to get out and meet more people. Then maybe you won’t paint with so broad a brush.

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          2. Blane

            Bobby D wrote "Even so, the typical foot soldier in the pro-life movement is a cultural warrior whose attraction to the issue rests in an opposition to the role that women have come to play in a post-feminism society. After all, it’s no accident that the pro-life movement consists almost entirely of Christians who hail from religious traditions"
            Consider this from Charles CW Cooke (an atheist/agnostic), at National Review- https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/11/29/the-secular-case-against-abortion/

            I'm pro-life for the most selfish of reasons, and it has nothing (or little) to do with my religion. As a law-abiding black man, I'm over 100 times more likely to be killed by a lawless black man, than by anyone white--police or otherwise. You know why? What do you think young men—black and white – LEARN when they see their mothers, sisters, girlfriends kill their unborn brothers/sisters, nephews/nieces, sons & daughters? They hear “human life is NOT sacred, but cheap and exists for my convenience, and if she’s not convenient, it’s ok to remove her by any means necessary, including killing”.
            So black boys do drive-bys to protect their drug corners or gain street cred, and white boys shoot up schools where they’re being bullied. Why NOT, if I’m being inconvenienced?! Everyone who promotes abortion are complicit in these killings! You never heard of kids shooting up their fellow students in schools before the 70s.
            When Martin Luther King Jr spoke about work black people had to do on themselves he cited the fact that in the 1950s blacks committed 35% of the murders in the US, despite being only 10% of the population. Now it’s over 50%, at 13% of the population. Despite the MANY things that have gotten better for black people, the state of things in that respect, has gotten worse—because abortion clinics in the black community and the high abortion rate among blacks HAS ENCOURAGED young black men to view human life as existing for his convenience.
            The death culture promoted and encouraged by “Shout your abortion” and “Abortion on demand and without apology” teaches that “human life is not sacred, and not even distinguishable from animal life” (which I had a counter-protester at the annual March for Life tell me, and commenters in comboxes like this write at me!)

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