Pro-Choice
I am pro-choice, and always have been. My thought process is pretty simple. I’m a man, and I can’t put myself in the place of a woman who has to make the decision to have an abortion or not. And, while I understand and appreciate that different folks have differing views on the beginning of life; that moment is an ethical/religious decision. What is the belief of one person is not the belief of another. And like all religious tenets, I don’t have the right to force my religious view onto anyone else. That’s what pro-choice has always been about – the choice that others get to make, not that I or other “old white men” get to decide.
And I have always understood how folks get to be “pro-life”, or at least “pro-birth”. I worked for a Democratic United States Congressman who was “pro-life”. It was back in the 1970’s, and the partisan line that now divides Republicans and Democrats over this issue wasn’t delineated yet. It was perfectly acceptable for Democratic operatives in the office to be pro-choice, while the “boss” was pro-life. The Congressman was deeply religious, an Irish Roman Catholic from the West side of Cincinnati, and he listened to his faith leaders.
Pro-Life
But I do make a distinction between “pro-birth” and “pro-life”. My Congressman was truly “pro-life”. He was opposed to abortion, but in favor of early childhood care, Head Start programs, aid to women and children, and all the other issues that improved the lives of those children who came into the world, wanted or not. He was “pro-life”.
But there are many today who are “pro-birth”. They don’t want abortion, but they are unwilling to “pay the cost” of sustaining the lives they demand come into the world. In Oklahoma, in Texas, and in all of the states that are moving to end abortion, they are doing nothing; nothing to care for the mothers that are forced into full-term pregnancy, or the children they are mandating to term. That’s not their problem. They are taking all of the credit for ending abortion, but none of the responsibility for what happens thereafter.
Pro-life means for life, not just for birth.
We are two days after the latest massacre, of children, in the United States. This is a uniquely American problem, a toxic mix of our culture, our politics, and the economics of gun manufacturing. There are now nineteen more children who will not see a full-term life.
Pro-Birth
Texas Governor Greg Abbott determined to place the blame on the lack of mental health facilities in Uvalde. He invoked the inevitability of a “madman with a gun”, a Satan-incarnate as inexorable and unforeseeable as the tornado. Candidate for Texas Governor Beto O’Rourke interrupted the Governor’s press conference yesterday, to raise a “pro-life” point. He called Abbott out – placing the blame on laws that allowed an eighteen year-old shooter easy access to semi-automatic rifles and ammunition. It was an ugly but necessary encounter (CNN).
The insurmountable grief of the tragedy feels like it should be beyond politics. But, of course, it’s not. The absolute failure of our government to protect us from these continuing tragedies can’t be ignored, and more importantly, should not be deflected as just “evil” or “inevitable” or a failure in mental health. Every country has mental health issues, but only one country has this plague of mass shootings. Governor Greg Abbott has done nothing but encourage Texans to buy more guns, bigger guns, guns with all the “bells and whistles”. He can’t deflect from his own words and actions, and Beto had the courage to call him to task.
Butcher’s Bill
Abbott and his Texas cohorts claim to be “pro-life”. But their actions are obvious. They are “pro-birth”, demanding that their own religious views be followed by others. But they aren’t pro-life. It they were, they’d look at their own state: mass shootings in Uvalde, El Paso, Midland-Odessa, Sutherland Springs and Santa Fe High School. The butcher’s bill in just Governor Abbott’s term is 87 dead in mass killings (Texas Tribune). If they were pro-life, they’d do something about it and take action to literally stop the bleeding.
They would follow the basic founding rights of America: the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For 87 people in Governor Abbott’s term, and so many more, those rights were denied by a man with a gun.
They aren’t pro-life at all.
