David Quinn
Pro-life groups have as much right to be single-issue as any other group, writes David Quinn
Something I have noticed down the years is a constant retort on the part of those who oppose the right to life for the unborn, namely: “Why aren’t you pro-lifers equally concerned about the rights of the born?”
This line is, at bottom, a dishonest and insincere attempt to discredit pro-lifers. It amounts to a demand that all the problems of the world be fixed for those who are born before you are considered to have the right to advocate for the unborn.
It is a demand that pro-lifers fight to ensure that excellent services exist for the disabled, that poverty be practically eliminated, and homelessness be eradicated before they campaign on behalf of the unborn. Meanwhile, the unborn are to be granted no protection.
In fact, the accusation can be turned around. Pro-choice advocates can be asked why do they refuse to accept that social justice and equality begin in the womb?
Disabled
The disabled unborn are the most likely of all to be aborted. How can equality campaigners be happy about this? The babies of the poor are more likely to be aborted than the babies of the affluent. Why aren’t they concerned about this? Girls are more likely to be aborted than boys. Surely this should raise tackles among ‘social justice warriors’?
If the vast majority of the disabled are killed before they are born, then we don’t have to worry about disability services anymore. If more of the poor opt for abortion, then fewer poor people will exist in the world. And so on.
Pro-life groups have as much right to be single-issue as any other group. Some groups fight for the ‘right-to-choose’, and nothing else. No demand is made of them that they solve all the problems of the world first, before they get to demand a right to an abortion.
Children’s rights groups, tragically, often favour the right to an abortion, or else are silent about the issue. They are not told to be as concerned about unborn children as they are about born children.
Our Minister for Children does not face repeated demands that she extend her remit to unborn children. In fact, Minister Zappone, wants a very permissive abortion law. At a minimum she wants abortion-on-demand up to 12 weeks. The vast majority of abortions take place in the first 12 weeks, which is to be expected, seeing as this is the time-frame in which women first discover they are pregnant. Katherine Zappone should really be called the ‘Minister for Born Children’.
Some disability rights campaigners are completely silent about the routine targeting of disabled children in the womb, or else actually support the right to abort these children.
But while it is the case that pro-life groups have as much right as any other group to be single issue, many individual pro-lifers are extremely concerned about other issues.
For example, many ordinary pro-life campaigners are themselves raising disabled children and actively campaign for improved services for the disabled.
Many others are involved in organisations like the Society of St Vincent de Paul, which seeks to help the poor and the lonely in many ways.
Still others vote for parties that seek to improve welfare benefits, or else pursue other ways to alleviate poverty such as through job creation.
Demand
Another demand that pro-abortion campaigners insincerely make of pro-life campaigners is that they themselves adopt the children they do not wish to be aborted, especially disabled children.
But do they demand that those campaigning against homelessness or on behalf of refugees themselves accept into their homes the homeless or the asylum-seeker? No, and the reason they don’t is that the demand they make of pro-lifers is a tactic, no more.
A person who campaigns on behalf of the homeless campaigns on behalf of the homeless. How many such campaigners have homeless people living with them? Very few, no doubt.
In addition, many people on the pro-life side are pro-marriage and pro-family. If you want to decrease the abortion rate, then promote marriage because only 20% of abortions performed on British and Irish women are performed on married women.
And why is that? It is because marriage provides a stable foundation for the mother. It makes it easier to raise a child. This is pro-child in every way. The child is far more likely to be born precisely because the mother, if she is married, is more likely to feel she can cope.
Yes, there are married women who have abortions, and plenty of single women who do not. Nonetheless, married women are proportionately far less likely to have an abortion and that is simply an incontrovertible fact. (Some pro-abortion groups try to pretend otherwise by adding together married women and cohabiting women who have abortions, a terribly dishonest tactic.)
Also, to be pro-marriage is to be pro-the born child as well. Another incontrovertible fact is that children on average fare better when their parents are married.
Finally, if we asked parents who bring their disabled children into the world in countries like Britain or Denmark, how many would turn out to be pro-life, philosophically-speaking? I daresay a great number.
So, to be pro-life means not killing your child before it is born and looking after it afterwards. How can they be accused of only caring for unborn children?
Allowing your children to be born by definition means you want to look after your born child.
We can safely say, therefore, that pro-lifers care for the child before it is born and after it is born. But how much pro-choicers care about them before they are born? That is a question to dwell on.