Pro-Life Is Pro-Woman and Abortion Is Pro-Nobody

Editor’s note: The original version of this article was published by CNSNews.com. Click here to read it. 

There’s a twisted perception that abortion fosters the empowerment of women. And then there’s the barefaced reality that abortion hurts women.

The former receives tiresome, exaggerated, and over-covered attention that portrays pro-life men as the culprits. The latter is real-life, heartbreaking, rarely catches the media’s attention, and opposed largely, by women.

So when Cosmopolitan, a woman’s magazine that has long supported casual sex and abortion, lends an ear to the women behind the pro-life movement, we have to stop and give thanks. Perhaps pop culture will hear us as we speak up and say pro-life is pro-woman and abortion is pro-nobody.

Yes, you read that right. Indeed, Cosmopolitan ran a piece entitled, “The March for Life’s New Message: ‘Pro-Life Is Pro-Woman.’” While Cosmo’s columnist seems to view the “pro-life is pro-woman” message as a rebranding, she is willing to let pro-life women speak for themselves.  

 “We know that a message many people hear in our country is that in order to be ‘pro-woman,’ you have to be pro-choice. I would offer that nothing could be further from the truth,” Jeannie Mancini, President of March for Life, explained to Cosmpolitan. “I see that as rhetoric and I see that as false. Life is empowering for women. A woman’s capacity to have children is an incredible thing, not something to be ashamed of. It doesn’t mean that I am defined by that, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend it’s not part of me. It’s an incredible gift.”

Mancini wasn’t a lone pro-life quote plopped among a cacophony of pro-abortion voices, either. The article also introduced readers to SBA List’s Mallory Quigley and Life Matters Journal’s Aimee Murphy as they shared concerns for abortion’s harmful emotional and physical effects.

Pro-life women represented in an unlikely pop culture outlet is exactly what we need. While some feminist readers will leave furious all-cap messages in the comment sections, other readers might think deeply and compassionately on abortion’s female victims. We can only hope that their words will encourage young readers to speak up on behalf of the unborn girls whose lives are snuffed out by abortion. Girls who will never have the opportunity to learn, play, compete, laugh, or love.

Beyond that, Cosmo’s female readers might be moved to mourn for the women who died undergoing an abortion. Women like Jennifer McKenna-Morbelli, a 29-year-old kindergarten teacher who died at the hands of notorious abortionist LeRoy Carhart. Or maybe they will demand justice for 22-year-old Semika Shaw or 41-year old Karnamaya Mongar, two women who died from botched abortions in Kermit Gosnell’s “House of Horrors” abortion clinic.

The good news is that we can still reach women’s hearts and minds about abortion. One Cosmopolitan columnist’s own conversion can testify. Sue Ellen Browder was a pro-abortion advocate and columnist for the sleazy woman’s magazine. But during her research on abortion and the women’s rights movement, she experienced a lightbulb moment.

“What people don’t realize is that the early feminists were pro-life; the suffragists who gave women the right to vote were pro-life,” Browder told LifeNews.com. “The pro-life women’s movement is the authentic women’s movement of the 21^st century.”

Pro-life women are speaking the truth about abortion in love. We can pray culture continues listening to us.