What Is the Pro-Life Movement Based On?
By: Vance Christiaanse
Tags: Pro Life

Pro-life v pro-choice is clearly an important issue in the United States but also, unfortunately, a divisive one. If you are not part of the pro-life movement yourself it can be difficult to know how to discuss this issue with pro-life proponents. My own pro-life experience has been with Protestant Christians who emphasize the importance of overturning Roe v. Wade. From this experience I have learned something important about the basis of the pro-life movement that I believe will help you when you have a discussion.

To establish my credibility, let me explain that my search for the thinking behind pro-life rhetoric began from the inside. As a new Christian in the early 1970’s I heard many anti-abortion/pro-life statements. These statements caught my attention because I assumed they were based on underlying Christian principles I needed to learn. How does Jesus desire His followers to act as citizens of whatever country they find themselves part of? How does He desire His followers to view the lost? How does He desire His followers to understand the Bible? These were exactly the kinds of questions I deeply desired to know the answers to as a new Christian, and the pro-life movement seemed like a very simple way to learn how being a follower of Christ works out in practice.

The Clarence Thomas hearings revealed for me that pro-life wasn’t about advocating for women or for truth. I let go of my goal to learn the thinking behind pro-life rhetoric for the purpose of adopting those underlying principles for myself, since I was so repelled by the pro-life attacks on Anita Hill. I started to view the movement from the perspective of an outsider, but still tried to figure out what all my friends were actually thinking. I continued to take it for granted that there was some theology everybody else knew about that explained what was important and what was not.

At that point, I still wasn’t paying much attention to Roe v Wade, since Roe v Wade obviously had little to do with the actual occurrence of abortions in the United States or with what was happening in people’s spiritual lives. In other words, I was still assuming the anti-abortion/pro-life movement must have -something- to do with reducing abortions. But then someone pointed out to me how bad single-issue voting was for our country. I started to realize my pro-life friends really weren’t focusing on any spiritual or social issues regarding abortion but instead, for some reason, on a legal concern. I thought this gave me a big clue about the underlying thinking I was looking for: it must have a lot to do with what a Godly legal system would look like.

This began the third phase of my search for the thinking behind the Protestant pro-life movement. In the first phase, I was trying to understand the thinking so I could faithfully adopt it. In the second phase, I was trying to understand the thinking to see where I disagreed, while letting everyone assume I was still pro-life. In the third phase, I continued trying to understand the thinking while revealing myself as an outsider.

When I started talking to pro-life friends as though I didn’t really agree with them, I wasn’t too surprised at first to get shunned. In fact, I was sort of delighted, because it showed the cult-like aspects of the movement. But I knew it wasn’t fair to fault the movement itself too much, since I’m sure even worthy causes can have followers who exhibit cult-like behavior. In other words, the shunning didn’t prove the thinking behind pro-life was necessarily wrong. But as the number of shunners approached 100% it did raise the possibility that, rather than cult-like behavior on top of some ideas I hadn’t found out yet, perhaps pro-life actually was just cult-like behavior on top of nothing.

During this third phase I read a bunch of books and asked my pro-life friends some tough questions. Nothing made much sense until I finally read a book about brainwashing. Then I realized I’d been approaching the whole issue incorrectly all these years. I see now that it is a mistake to approach the pro-life movement as a position based on principles that might be right or wrong or that I might agree or disagree with. This incorrect approach is encouraged by the media, which frames the issue as two opposing views on abortion. It is a mistake that my friends within the pro-life movement are making, and it is a mistake they want everyone else to keep making.

When you are talking to a pro-life proponent, you will be frustrated and ineffective — as I always was — if you assume the person has some idea or belief you might agree or disagree with. You will understand your discussion much better if you see the person as brainwashed. They repeat words about abortion but those words don’t make much sense. They don’t even make enough sense to agree or disagree with them. They just don’t make sense.

The pro-life movement is actually -not- derived from some basic principles of theology or government or humanity. It’s based on pro-life proponents feeling good about themselves by creating a division between people so they can be on the superior side. If you try to discuss any aspect of the apparent intellectual content of a pro-life proponent’s position, the person will necessarily take your attempt as a personal attack — because you’re attacking the idea that they are on the good side of the line they’ve made up to believe in.

One might disagree with my conclusion that the pro-life movement has no logical foundation. Isn’t the statement “abortion is murder” a big part of the basis of pro-life and isn’t that clearly an objective statement that different people disagree on? That’s certainly what pro-life advocates want you to believe, and something they want to believe themselves. But, as I talked to many pro-life advocates, I never found one who actually believes this themselves — even though they, of course, insist that they do.

Just ask a pro-life proponent who the murderer is when an abortion occurs. Then ask whether they advocate laws that apply either the Biblical or the US legal penalty for murder to that abortion murderer (or murderers). Suddenly abortion isn’t really exactly the same as murder any more. Another indication pro-life advocates don’t really believe “abortion is murder” themselves: why would anyone who really believed “abortion is murder” spend their time and energy battling Roe v Wade when they could spend their time and energy directly saving the lives of those murder victims instead? Thirdly, if pro-life proponents really believed “abortion is murder” and that overthrowing Roe v Wade would somehow open the door to improvements, wouldn’t they try to get you to vote along with them? (The problem for them is that if any new person joined them, they would be one person less exclusive. It’s all about how special they are.)

So “abortion is murder” is not really something anyone disagrees on since pro-life proponents don’t actually believe it themselves. It’s more of a slogan or tribal identifier than a belief upon which pro-life is logically built.

When you talk to a pro-life proponent, you can expect them to be rather robotic; they tend to ignore what you say and repeat canned speeches. When I was researching this I would sometimes send an email or make a Facebook post consisting entirely of one simple question. I’d get multiple paragraphs back and none of it would reference or even acknowledge my question. When this happens, don’t take this personally — the way I used to. Just understand they are brainwashed. Their position actually has no intellectual basis so it’s impossible for them to explain or defend it. They just randomly change the subject. What they will defend with great energy is their own righteousness and their belief in the things they’ve been told to believe.

I mentioned earlier that pro-life proponents won’t try to persuade you to change your own views, even though logically you’d expect them to do so based on the things they say they believe. The pro-life world contains many such contradictions, some of them almost subliminal. As they wash over you while the pro-life person is talking, you can start to doubt your own sanity. The person you are listening to seems like an intelligent, decent person after all. From the perspective of brainwashing, let this be an opportunity for empathy and compassion. Realize that at some point in the past, the person you are listening to probably decided to stop thinking for themselves and go along with what they were hearing because they couldn’t make sense of it either.

Pro-life is very much a social/tribal phenomenon. The pro-life proponent you’re talking to is under intense pressure to conform. If you try to talk to a pro-life proponent in the presence of other tribe members they will have to stick to the script. In safe, private conversations I’ve had pro-life proponents tell me they could never reveal their true doubts at church or to their friends. I can’t fault them; it wasn’t until I’d sold my house, moved to a different neighborhood and switched churches that I felt safe to be open about what was on my heart. If you expect a pro-life person to be open and honest, realize you may be expecting something they can’t afford to deliver.

I believe we need to talk to pro-life proponents. Just don’t expect an exchange of ideas. Be prepared for lots of emphasis on how wonderful the pro-life proponent is as a person and how terrible you are for not already agreeing with them. But keep trying and keep loving.