Marketing Forced-Birth as Pro-Life

Since Roe vs Wade, the religious right have been fighting to have it repealed and abortion made illegal again. Many states have passed laws which eventually were thrown out by the Supreme Court. However the five Injustices, three of which were appointed under Trump have changed the nature of SCOTUS. They refused to even hear the new Texas law before it went into effect Sept 1st. They are currently hearing the Mississippi law which if they find in its favour will end Roe vs Wade. 

Dr Heather Cox Richardson provides an overview of the Texas Law and what it means to women in Texas and possibly in every other Red state and a brief history of the anti-abortion movement. The Republican Jesus Red Southern States claim it is because they are "Pro-Life" however they rank at the bottom in terms of poverty, infant mortality, maternal mortality and anything else that might make it easier to carry a child to term and raise it to adulthood. Their politicians are opposed to any programs that might improve the lot of the actual living, even vaccinations or wearing a mask.

Their argument, in favour of advocating for forced-birth only, is spelled out in this article which will likely make you nauseous but read it anyhow. John Pavlovitz, whom the "Pro-Life" people hate because he calls them out for what they are, summed it up quite eloquently. His articles  are Here and Here. 

Embryos are relatively easy to advocate for. They don’t encroach upon people’s privilege or confront their politics or challenge their theology or require much from them in the way of lifestyle change. . .

. . . By opposing abortion, religious people can feel the intoxicating, easy high of self-righteousness and moral virtue—without having to actually love or help people: strange, disparate, uncomfortable-for- you-to-be-around people. That’s because embryos can be idealized into something pleasant and palatable, devoid of any of the messy characteristics they find undesirable in actual walking-around human beings. They aren’t yet gay or Muslim or liberal or Black or poor or atheist (or whatever other qualifiers trouble you), and so affinity with them is uncomplicated, solidarity with them does not cross the lines of their tribalism.

Anti-abortion believers get to feel like noble advocates for Life, while still holding onto their prejudices and hang-ups and hatred.

 Or as George Carlin put it, "If you are pre-born, you're fine; if you are pre-school, you're f**ked".

One of the advantages of pushing an extreme position is that you are not bound by facts or reason. Emotion beats rationality any day. Two examples of the misinformation used to oppose abortion:

Life begins at conception. What is life? The sperm is alive. The egg is alive. The embryo (<8 weeks) is alive. The fetus (>8 weeks) is alive. Science can define the stages of pregnancy but cannot define when life begins. That requires theology. Genesis 2:7 (KJV) says And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. So when a baby draws its first breath, it becomes a living soul and a human being. This is what the Jews believe, that existing life should take precedence over potential life, and a woman’s life and her pain should take precedence over a fetus. I expect most rational people would agree that Jews are just as moral as Republican Jesus Christians.

A fetal heartbeat can be detected at six weeks. Yes and no. Ultrasound can detect a small flutter in the area that will develop into a heart. These are electrical impulses from the cells that will be the heart's 'pacemaker'. The sound is made by the ultrasound machine itself. The heart has no valves so cannot beat. A true heartbeat caused by the sound of heart valves that can be heard on a stethoscope usually occurs after about 10 weeks. The term 'fetal heartbeat' is very misleading as used in forced-birth laws.

The 'forced-birth' crowd like to talk about 'murdering babies, or murdering children'. An embryo or a fetus is not a baby or a child though it has potential to become those, and then a teen ager and an adult and an old person but they don't talk about abortion as 'murdering teenagers'. They are playing on images with their language which is good marketing, of course.

When the forced birth people talk about a pregnant woman, you are always shown images like on the left, never like on the right which is what most women look like if the seek an abortion. In 2018, 92% of abortions were preformed at under 13 weeks.

This is what embryos look like at 6 and 8 weeks. Bean size. When 65% of abortions occurred in 2016. mid-term (2nd trimester) abortions are usually because the woman had to come up with the money or if young teens, because they feared their parents to deal with it earlier. Third trimester abortions which account for about 1%, are usually tragic, either the mother's life is in danger or the fetus is terminally malformed. 

Of course it is the third trimester  abortions the 'Pro-Life' people focus on because they are the most gory. They talk about children being torn limb from limb, even as they exit the womb. 

These images are how you are to imagine aborted embryos and fetuses. Ruddy cheeked, blonde, blue-eyed, healthy and white. . . because these are the only children that matter. . . so long as they are not poor. Or gay or atheist or. . .

You are never to imagine these children. They may well be very much loved but their mother may not be able to afford another mouth to feed.  In 2014, 75% of abortion patients were poor or low income. And 59% of patients who obtained an abortion already had one or more children.

CDC Stats were available for 2018. There is no mandate for states to report abortions and not all do. Of 48 reporting areas in 2018, there were 614, 820 abortions reported: 11.3 per 1000 women aged 15 to 44 years and 189 per 1000 live births. Early medical abortions accounted for 38.6%. Women in their 20s accounted for 57.7% of abortions. 

Guttmacher Institute provided the following data. in 2019, 29 states with 58% of women of reproductive age were considered hostile to abortion, 14 states with 35% of women of reproductive age were considered supportive. using 2014 rates, 1 woman in 4 will have an abortion before age 45.  Adolescents made up 12% of abortion patients in 2014: 18-19 8%, 15-17 3% and <15 0.2%. Of abortion patients in 2014, 39% were White, 28% Black, 25% Hispanic and others 9%; 17% mainline Protestant, 13% evangelical Protestant, 24% Catholic, 38% no religion, 8% other. in 2014, 51% of abortion patients were using birth control the month they got pregnant, 24% condoms and 13% a short acting hormonal method.

Criminalizing abortion won’t stop it – it’ll just make it deadly. Women will continue to terminate pregnancies and put their lives in danger in the process. In 1967, 42% of American maternal death rate was attributed to botched abortion. This does not matter to the 'Forced-Birth" movement as they were likely poor anyhow. And be sure that if the wives, daughters and mistresses of the 'Pro-Life' lawmakers and their wealthy friends need abortions, they will get them in a safe clinic.

The government cannot (yet) require Americans to follow the Catholic Church's prohibition against divorce or (yet) forbid a woman from using birth control. And neither should it utilize one particular interpretation of Christianity to make a woman bear a child. but the Republican Jesus Christians are will on their way to establishing an authoritarian theocracy. They may have stirred up a hornets' nest or be the dog that caught the car, but the voter suppression laws may well keep the rabble at bay.

And regardless of what O'Toole is telling Canadians, the religious right vote solidly CPC and will fight to once again make abortions illegal in Canada.