When being ‘pro-life’ isn’t enough

In my entire lifetime as a pro-lifer—almost a half-century—it has been accepted orthodoxy within the movement, from the top to the bottom, that we orient our work and witness around what we are for rather than what we are against. Hence, we have vigorously self-identified as “pro-life,” as “right to life,” as promoters of a “culture of life,” and we have just as vigorously rejected being labeled as “anti-abortion.” I am beginning to wonder if this has been a mistake.

It’s not difficult to see the case for calling ourselves pro-life. From the early days of the pro-life movement, mainstream media depicted pro-lifers as angry white men, typified by aging Republican politicians and decrepit Catholic clergy, when in reality pro-lifers were youthful, cheerful, and diverse. Further, political opponents argued that pro-lifers were simple-minded one-issue voters who cared about controlling women’s bodies and not at all about the quality of life that an “unwanted” baby would have after birth. These false narratives seemed easier to combat if we chose for ourselves a title that signaled our comprehensive commitment to the good of human life—including abortion resistance, yes, but also opposition to euthanasia, to physician-assisted suicide, and to the destruction and abuse of human embryos, together with an unwavering commitment to compassionate end-of-life care, assistance to women in crisis pregnancies, and a total womb-to-tomb “pro-life” ethic.

But this rhetoric has had one major problem: expanding the objective area drew attention away from the center of the target—for ourselves, but more critically for our opponents. We have been vulnerable to political taunts of this type: “if you really were ‘pro-life’ you would be in favor of anti-poverty measures which will improve quality of life for many and lead (indirectly—they say) to fewer abortions.” But if an anti-poverty measure includes funding for abortion, we know, and they know, we are against it because we are anti-abortion. Opposing the legal, state-sponsored killing of one class of persons must take priority over other life issues since it is more heinous. These opponents’ arguments correctly “call our bluff” on “pro-life” language. To be pro-life, as we understand it, is to be profoundly anti-abortion—to be unwilling to accept even one abortion for the sake of some putatively greater good.

The popular New York Times bestseller How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi seems to illustrate the point. It’s not enough, Kendi argues, to avoid being a racist yourself, like those who say of abortion they are “personally opposed,” or that they “would never have one.” Instead, Kendi argues, to be truly for racial equality in a structurally racist society, you must work constantly for antiracist policies and norms that chip away at the social sin of racism.

Applied to the pro-life movement, Kendi’s logic seems correct: it’s not enough to be “pro-life”; you have to be “anti-abortion” in a society that is structurally steeped in the evil of abortionism. You must name the sin, bravely and often. Therefore, I oppose the use of vaccines derived or tested on biological material taken from still-living human unborn children: only the most extreme, genuine necessity (think of the movie Alive!) could excuse the use of such vaccines. That is why I have called upon congressional leaders to pass a bill requiring food and medical manufacturers to label all products tested or developed using human fetal tissue.

“Protect unborn man from born man!” urged Pope St. John Paul the Great. I can think of no better rallying cry. Let us remain as “pro-life” as ever, but let us also become more deeply anti-abortion.

CATHERINE RUTH PAKALUK, PH.D., is assistant professor of social research and economic thought at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Her book (co-authored with Trent Horn), Can a Catholic Be a Socialist? has sold more than 10,000 copies. She is now working on a book on motive and meaning among religious women with large families.