On the Pro-Life Movement’s Growing Maturity
Jeff Walton
January 22, 2008
On the 35th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, the Pro-Life movement finds itself simultaneously heartened that abortions have been reduced to the lowest level since 1974, and aghast that 1.2 million children are still being aborted each year.
It’s a tough message to hear, but the steep drop in the still-astronomical number of abortions in this country is a positive shift. It’s just not the most amazing one: that would be the shift that took place in my own heart, the empathy for women facing unplanned and unwanted pregnancies.
Having been born post-Roe, I’ve never known a time when abortion wasn’t commonplace or deeply fought over. But the world I lived in presented a stark choice on matter: you were extinguishing human life, or you were not. Many people in the Pro-Life movement still hold this view, but it isn’t fully encompassing of the entire situation. Abortion is a two-person matter, and just as Pro-Choice activists only work on behalf of the mother, Pro-Life activists would be remiss if we only acted on behalf of the child.
In this reside the most recent successes of the Pro-Life movement: a shift in cultural attitudes that both address the needs of the unborn child and the mother. It is worth noting that there are now more crisis pregnancy centers in the United States than there are abortion clinics. Abortion providers are not available in 87 percent of U.S. counties according to a report issued by The Guttmacher Institute and the number of providers themselves continues a gradual decline. This contrasts with the dynamic growth of crisis pregnancy centers. CareNet, one of the largest networks of such centers, now has over 1,100 centers affiliated with it.
How did this happen? Abortions were at an all-time high of 1.6 million a year in 1990, the French abortion pill RU-486 was supposed to make them even more commonplace. Yet gradually, we’re seeing even Hollywood produce films like Juno and Bella that portray giving birth to an unplanned child as an honorable choice, even if not all these films embrace explicitly pro-life messages.
In my own suburban Washington, D.C.-area church, (a large, affluent congregation from a mainline tradition) I’ve witnessed the steady growth of a ministry designed to pair unwed pregnant mothers with supportive church members that can help with financial, physical and spiritual needs. While making a life-affirming choice is certainly a big goal of the ministry, the mother is at the center of the ministry’s care: even if she chooses an abortion, she is still cared for and loved in a continuing relationship. Empathy has overcome stigma, and the woman is treated as one of God’s children should be.
This aim of pairing up supportive church members with women in need is easily replicated to other churches, large or small. The results have been surprising: when the ministry began, it was generally thought that younger minority women in the inner-city would be the ones most served. Several years later, a far different reality has emerged—young white women that often have a good education and are from relatively affluent suburban households were connected with the ministry. The need was great in our own back yard.
Another key change in how abortion is addressed comes from pioneering groups like Feminists for Life: the organization often known for its simple yet eye-catching advertisements that simply state “Women Deserve Better than Abortion”. The focus is on the consequence to the mother, and how declining to have an abortion will ultimately benefit her as well as her child.
One of my good friends has voiced some discomfort with these approaches, saying that giving any sort of equivalency to the mother’s needs radically diminishes the intrinsic right of the child to live. After all, only one is murder. But what I see is a more holistic approach forming: the needs of child and mother not competing, but rather building each other up. It is just one of many reasons why abortion will continue to be rarer in this country, and most importantly, how God’s loving character will be disclosed to that many more of his children.
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