How to Be Pro-Life Without Being Pro-Life

I've had the suspicion for a while that some of the most militantly pro-life advocates don't really seem to care about the life of the unborn at all. Why should this surprise us, considering the fact that that these same people had no qualms in killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Iraq and are vehemently in support of the death penalty? For these people, their pro-life stance seems to be much more about finding someone to condemn than about coming up with policies the would have any discernible influence on the abortion rate. It would seem that the number of abortions performed in countries where the procedure is illegal is effectively no less than countries in which the procedure is outlawed. Yet this realisation has no effect on these pro-lifers, they will still condemn those who wish to think about ways to reduce the abortion rate, even if that means making abortion legal. Indeed, the very fact that we are having this discussion allows these people to vent their spleens, something the existence of this debate is, I suspect is a great comfort to them.

So apart from political expedience and a platform upon which to judge others, what is driving their convictions. Quite possibility, it is the oldest taboo in the fundamentalist worldview - sex. Since the effect of criminalising abortion serves only to make abortion more dangerous, it would seem as though the veiled rationale for militant pro-lifers is to punish people for having sex outside of marriage, either by making such people carry their pregnancies through to term or by giving them no other option than to resort to potentially life-threatening backyard abortions. That'll learn 'em - next time they'll respect God's sacred gift of sex.

The final consideration I have most recently come across is that it turns out that the pill is actually abortive in effect. The pill is designed so that if it fails to prevent ovulation, a pregnancy that has been conceived will not be able continue because implantation will be impossible. For those Bible-believing believers who believe that human life starts at conception this should come as a concern. But chances are, it won't. When the issue is abortion, it seems that it is one rule for militant pro-lifers and another rules for everyone else. You see by closing their eyes to the truth of the matter, they are able to abort with impunity while those living in sin will become society's scapegoats. And I suspect that they do this primarily because the men want to have sex at any cost and embracing something like Natural Family Planning would be much too inconvenient for their supposed convictions.