I am pro-life. I’m not just pro-birth or anti-abortion. I’m pro-life. That means I’m pro-babies and pro-elderly and pro-immigrant and pro-disabled and pro-peace. I’m anti-poverty and anti-discrimination and anti-hatred. I vote against abortion and against capital punishment and against toxic waste. I offer help to pregnant women, single mothers, overworked fathers, depressed teenagers, homeless veterans, middle-class suburbanites, undocumented immigrants, uneducated children, struggling students, lonely old men, and frightened refugees. I don’t think your life is worth any more because you’re white or American or intelligent or born. I don’t think it’s enough to be pro-life and not do anything about it. And while we may each be drawn to focus on a different pro-life issue, I’m not convinced that you can really be pro-life if you’re not whole-life–conception to natural death, no exceptions.
We can’t all pray outside clinics or write legislation or teach the next generation to value the dignity of each life. But we can all fight for life. We can love the lives around us and reach out to those far away. We can sacrifice for those who need it and refuse to be silenced. We can question and weep and rage and pray. We can fight.
- Adopt a cute little baby.
- Adopt a belligerent teenager.
- Adopt a child with a cleft palate, spina bifida, or multiple sclerosis.
- Thank a birth mother.
- Be a foster parent.
- Take a meal to a family that’s struggling.
- Start awkward conversations about hard issues.
- Take a pay cut to do something meaningful.
- Stop by your local crisis pregnancy center. Do whatever they need done.
- Write to your Grandmother.
- Have a picnic in the park for the homeless.
Throw a baby shower for a teen mother.- Offer to babysit for that frazzled couple you know–for free.
- Read up on immigration reform.
- Don’t buy clothes made in sweatshops.
- Show your children pictures of unborn babies.
- Spiritually adopt a prisoner on death row.
- Love your children.
- Love other people’s children.
- Share this article about what a blessing an autistic child can be.
- When a couple suffers a miscarriage, mourn with them.
- Get involved with your local Catholic Worker House.
- Buy generics–give the difference to Catholic Relief Services.
- Recognize that mental illness is an illness.
- Go through your closet once a year–give anything you haven’t worn to the St. Vincent de Paul society.
- Stop judging people because their ancestors immigrated after yours did.
- Support businesses that are taking a risk in order to fight for our first amendment rights.
- Give up your seat to an elderly/handicapped/pregnant/world-weary person.
- Give blood.
- Give a kidney.
- Give bottles of water to day laborers waiting for work.
- When an unmarried woman tells you she’s pregnant, figure out a way to tell her how proud you are. If your life is transparent, telling her she’s your hero won’t make her think extramarital sex is okay in your book.
- Read Dead Man Walking and all the footnotes.1
- Invite a woman dealing with a crisis pregnancy to live in your home.
Take your baby to a nursing home and hand her around.- Advocate for women’s health without advocating for killing unborn women.
- Buy a homeless man dinner.
- Watch this movie and tell me if it’s as cute as the trailers made it look.
- Watch Bella in a group and then discuss. Is abortion ever necessary? Would you have gone to the clinic with her?
- Watch Million Dollar Baby in a group and then discuss.2 Was there another way out? What value does suffering have?
- Teach your kids to tithe from their allowances; meet quarterly to pick a charity to give to.
- Study Just War Theory before you support a war.
- Study Just War Theory before you support pulling out.
- Have babies.
- Smile at them in public.
- Smile at them in private.
- Write your senator.
- Thank your priest after he preaches on any controversial topic.
- Give to people who need it–no questions asked.
- Give until it hurts.
I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc. is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say that they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expenditures excludes them.–C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity - Pay a fair wage.
- Tell your local crisis pregnancy center you’ll babysit for their clients–free.
- Tell your story.
Invite your aging parents to live with you.- Keep blessing bags in your car for the homeless.
- Talk–gently–about abortion with those who support it.
- Love post-abortive women (and men) extra hard.
- PRAY!
- Thank a veteran.
- Stand up to a bully.
- Don’t waste food/clothing/energy/an opportunity to help.
- Stay informed.
- Choose to believe that people generally have good intentions.
- Give your time, talent, and treasure to a soup kitchen, a battered women’s shelter, an assisted living facility, Habitat for Humanity, legal aid, prison ministry, a home for teen moms, a camp for the disabled…anywhere that helps anyone.
- Talk about atrocities being perpetrated in other countries.
- Sign the Declaration of Life and give a copy to your family members. It may not be legally binding, but it’s a powerful statement.
- Recognize beauty in every human face. And every body type. And every ability level. And every set of problems and addictions and anxieties.
- Figure out why research done on adult stem cells is better than on embryonic stem cells–on every level.
- Question Guantanamo Bay, nuclear proliferation, gun laws, and international debt.
Spend some time in Palestine and begin questioning that wall.- Befriend the outcast.
- Share the Gospel with someone.
- Buy locally.
- Take a risk on someone handicapped/uneducated/foreign when you’re hiring.
- Learn the facts about human embryology. Share them.
- Recognize that poverty is not synonymous with laziness.
- Live on minimum wage for a month.
- Smile more.
- Don’t use hormonal contraceptives.3
- Bake cookies for prisoners.
- Educate people about human trafficking.
- Don’t assume all homeless people are on drugs.
- Talk to a friend about her alcohol problem.
- Go to the March for Life.
- Blog about pro-life issues.
- Realize that war, poverty, capital punishment, education, discrimination, euthanasia, health care, immigration, affordable housing, fair trade, prostitution, and sweatshops are also pro-life issues.
Take your kids to the Special Olympics.- Pray for those who go hungry every time you eat. Eat accordingly.
- Talk to a theologian when dealing with end-of-life issues.
- Reduce, reuse, recycle.
- Mentor at-risk youth.
- Stop yelling at your kids.
- Walk more, drive less.
- Look for a need in your community. Meet it.
- Teach ESL for free.
- Befriend someone who disagrees with you.
- Listen more than you talk.
- Don’t give up on people.
- Forgive.
- Love everybody. No exceptions.
Your whole life can be a battle for life–every life. What would you add to the list?
- They’re out of date but little has changed besides inflation as far as I know. [↩]
- Warning: rated morally offensive by the USCCB reviews for violence and the obvious moral quandary. I had no qualms about showing it to mature teenagers. [↩]
- Or any, for that matter. [↩]
I wish to remain anonymous, but the email address provided is real.
I have some hard questions for you.
Are you pro-birth-control? If you don’t support birth control, then you are NOT pro-life. Free (or cheap) Birth control is the most effective method to reduce the number of abortions. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/05/study-free-birth-control-abortion-rate_n_1942621.html
Do you support the death-penalty? You said “Spiritually adopt a prisoner on death row” implying that you approve of the death penalty. If you support the death penalty, you are not pro-life.
Do you support government giving money to the poor for food, clothing and shelter (ie. Welfare)? It will mean increased income taxes for everyone. If you don’t support increasing taxes to provide welfare, then you are not pro-life.
You want the government to ban abortions and tell women what they can do with their bodies and for government to interfere in their lives. But you also don’t want the government to increase your taxes and tell you what to do in your life. Pick one. You can’t have both.
What should the penalty be for those women who do have an illegal abortion? If you ban abortions, you will have more Savita Halappanavar’s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar
Why should abortions be banned in the case of rape? No rape victim wants anything to do with her rapist, but many anti-abortion laws prevent these women from having an abortion.
I’m 99% certain you won’t be brave enough to post this comment to your blog and 99% certain you won’t answer. Most so-called pro-life people can not or will not answer these questions. It boils down to most of the pro-life community being pro-birth and anti-abortion. Prove me wrong and post this.
The tough thing about a post like this is that it’s not systematic so it doesn’t deal with every possible issue. Thanks for your questions to help clarify.
The thing about birth control is that many forms are, in fact, abortifacient. Hormonal methods can function by preventing the implantation of an embryo that has already been conceived and IUDs solely function that way–see the link I provided above for more info. As far as non-abortifacient methods go, the difficulty remains: a contraceptive mentality divorces sex from babies and makes babies an accident or a mistake rather than the natural result of sex. This means that when people who are using contraception do conceive–and they often do–the baby is a side-effect that should be disposed of. This is the reason that 56% of women who have abortions were using contraception at the time they conceived. Janet Smith explains the view that birth control actually leads to increased levels of abortion here: http://onemoresoul.com/contraception-abortion/risks-consequences/the-connection-between-contraception-and-abortion.html
I’m definitely opposed to the death penalty–that’s why I said I vote against it and why I recommended Dead Man Walking and the Declaration of Life. A life is a life, innocent or not.
I actually do support higher taxes so that there are government programs for the poor–being pro-life doesn’t make me a Republican. I don’t, however, think that this is necessary for a pro-life stance. I know many pro-life people who believe that aid to the poor can be done more effectively by private charities–and who put their money where their mouths are by starting, working for, and donating extensively to those charities. I happen to think that until private charities can provide all the necessary assistance the government has a duty to do it–with oversight and increased programs that encourage work, such as free child care for single parents who are working or in school.
I don’t know that I’d advocate a penalty for women who have abortions. I think I’d rather crack down on the clinics and abortionists, although I’m not so optimistic as to have gotten down to the nuts and bolts of “what if”.
As far as rape goes, it’s important to remember that the pro-life stance is that an unborn child is a human being. His father’s identity has nothing to do with his human dignity. Just as we wouldn’t execute the infant daughter of a murderer in punishment for his crime, we shouldn’t execute the unborn daughter of a rapist. Additionally, many post-abortive women report that their experience of abortion was as an act of violence. That doesn’t bring healing after a rape, but those who’ve carried the babies of their rapists to term report finding healing through the good–that innocent life–that came out of an evil act.
I’m sorry that you’ve had such negative experiences with pro-life people. Almost everyone I know who opposes abortion would be on board with every issue I raised in this post and is actively trying to help those who are struggling at any level. I hope my thoughts here helped to clarify some of this!
Very well written blog, very well written response to common critiques of pro-life movement. Until very recently I considered myself pro-choice, though I realize now I was desperately trying to convince myself of this. But, that’s another story (blog perhaps?). Unfortunately, most pro-lifers I know (these are the vocal minority I hope) are pro-death penalty, pro guns, anti-government assistance to the poor, and largely racist and anti-woman. That is what makes the pro-choice side so appealing, it feels, on the surface, like the honest and compassionate side. Thank you for being truly and fully pro-life! I hope more people challenge their own stance on other issues because of your words.
(I should have posted this here rather than as part of the response to Observations below)
To Simple Hiker: I second the Meg’s comments regarding birth control. Hormonal contraceptives are little less than human pesticides which not only pollute a woman’s delicate ecosystem, but our earth’s ecosystem as well as these powerful hormonal carcinogens are flushed out of a woman’s body & into our water systems. Studies show that many women seeking abortion were using some form of birth control when they became pregnant. It is long overdue that women stand up & reject the pharmaceutical companies’ control of their fertility/health in the form of dangerous chemicals & devices in their bodies. Finally, some of these devices are being exposed for the danger they are after a number of young women have died after using them.
Additionally, claiming that abortion only deals with “telling a woman what to do with their body” is an argument that doesn’t hold up, for abortion deals with the lives & bodies of 2 separate & genetically distinct human beings. How can abortion be about a woman’s body alone when the child growing within her has a different genetic code, possibly a different gender & blood type, etc.?
Keep asking questions…& keep honestly seeking answers. There is no doubt that abortion is a heart-breaking & difficult topic. Unless we treat BOTH the mother & the child with the dignity, compassion, respect, love & protection they BOTH deserve…human life in it’s various forms will continue to be devalued & in danger.
Yep, being pro-life is all that. (And a bag of chips.) Not nearly as narrow as people think. Way to go, Meg!
Simple Hiker, The best way to prevent abortions is to not have sex, or to carry the baby to term. Staying out of the abortionist’s clinic is also a good way to prevent abortions.
Spiritually adopting a prisoner is not supporting the death penalty. Why do you think it is?
Also, I know two women who conceived children through a rape, and both young women not only carried their babies to term, but raised them and loved them. Their children are adults now.
I think women who have abortions are already punished enough because they have to live with the knowledge that they killed their own child. Maybe those who perform abortions should be punished for doing harm to the babies.
I shared this all up and down! It put a fire in ma belly!
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Terrific list! I really love the ideas about saving money so you can give it away and not buying from sweatshops. Those two are more out of the box to me and
Like the first commenter, I wish to remain anonymous as well, although the email provided is real.
What about the situations in which a pregnancy is lethal to the woman carrying it? Is abortion still not allowed? Shall one woman have to die due to a ruptured ectopic pregnancy that will not survive with a dead woman carrying it anyway? I think the topic of abortion is much more complicated than you make it out to be.
Also, the fact that some women have successfully carried pregnancies conceived by rape to term and had healthy, productive children, does not qualify any of us to force women to undergo such psychological trauma.
To Observations: Treating a woman who has an ectopic pregnancy is not the same as abortion. Abortion is the deliberate & direct killing of a preborn child. When a woman is treated for an ectopic pregnancy, the aim & intent are to safeguard the life of the mother…not to kill the child. That the preborn child also dies is an unfortunate second effect to the surgery. This is called the principle of double-effect. If a pregnant woman decides to undergo chemotherapy for surgery & the child ends up not surviving…this is a similar situation. The child’s death is a tragic secondary result of the chemotherapy… but this cannot be called abortion…which, as I said above, is the direct killing of the child in the womb.
To Simple Hiker: I second the Meg’s comments regarding birth control. Hormonal contraceptives are little less than human pesticides which not only pollute a woman’s delicate ecosystem, but our earth’s ecosystem as well as these powerful hormonal carcinogens are flushed out of a woman’s body & into our water systems. Studies show that many women seeking abortion were using some form of birth control when they became pregnant. It is long overdue that women stand up & reject the pharmaceutical companies’ control of their fertility/health in the form of dangerous chemicals & devices in their bodies. Finally, some of these devices are being exposed for the danger they are after a number of young women have died after using them.
Additionally, claiming that abortion only deals with “telling a woman what to do with their body” is an argument that doesn’t hold up, for abortion deals with the lives & bodies of 2 separate & genetically distinct human beings. How can abortion be about a woman’s body alone when the child growing within her has a different genetic code, possibly a different gender & blood type, etc.?
Keep asking questions…& keep honestly seeking answers. There is no doubt that abortion is a heart-breaking & difficult topic. Unless we treat BOTH the mother & the child with the dignity, compassion, respect, love & protection they BOTH deserve…human life in it’s various forms will continue to be devalued & in danger.
I will add to this Godly List:
101.- Say a Compliment to any women expecting a baby, or if you see mom and dad together also compliment to the father. Praise them for having children.
Don’t forget 102 – Advocate for Climate Justice. The health of our Common Home is also a life issue.
I am also choosing to remain anonymous.
I can appreciate this article. I appreciate that it provides a more well-rounded stance on being pro-life. Yet, I wish that it would have addressed the importance of also standing up against racial discrimination. Over the past year, I have been disappointed in many pro-lifers who are silent when it comes to issues such as police brutality, systemic racism, and etc. These are issues that heavily affect the quality of life for so many human beings.
This is such an amazing post! I completely agree 100% with all that you have written. Thank you for being such a great witness for God and standing up respectfully for what is right. I am just in awe at this! I am a Catholic faith formation teacher for jr high and the things you write are exactly what I was looking to incorporate into my teachings on the sanctity of human life lesson. Being pro life is so much more that being anti abortion or pro birth and you have hit the point very well! Thanks!
Hi, I am really impressed that you are helping almost everyone and you don’t care if the person is black or white, English or Asian, national or immigrant, I really appreciate your efforts and really wanted to meet you in person, I also have some issues and no one is ready to help I hope if you can help me? I think can I email you for this?
I needed this so much! Thank you!
WOW!! I just impressed to read your advice.
WOW!! I am so much thankful to you for share this kind of speech .
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WOW!!
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Your heart is full of so much love and empathy for the disadvantaged people around the world. These are tough goals to meet, as we find ourselves short on emotions and resources to help others. Sometimes we just lack empathy and try to brush it off and move on. But if we all decide to contribute and help even a bit, this world will be a better place. More power to people like you.
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