Jake McDonald
There are many positions and policy stances in today’s tension-driven society that will lead to the raking over the coals of a person holding such views. For the majority of the last two decades, traditional views regarding marriage were the most socially controversial to hold, but after the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015, there is a new champion of controversy: the pro-life stance.
The pro-life movement is a sort of enigma; it is a melting pot of millions of people from different backgrounds with different abortion-related policy views and with different ideas of how to advance the movement.
The movement, for instance, is divided on the well-known “three exceptions” of rape, incest, and the mother’s life, or on the level of policy intervention, with many wanting a federal ban and others wanting it to be left to the states.
These two divisions, though, are not primary stumbling blocks to the movement as a whole. They are almost semantical, for now, when talking about an issue so broad as abortion. The true stumbling blocks, however, are the infighting among the movement and the lack of consistency in ideals and policy.
When a movement is as heterogeneous as the pro-life one is, infighting is almost an unavoidable reality. Clear direction, though, can alleviate this issue.
Take the previously mentioned division on abortion exceptions, for example. The problem with this division does not rest in the sheer nature of the division. Regardless of one’s opinion on whether exceptions should be made, the goal remains the same: to put an end to the heinous killing of unborn lives.
The problem instead rests in the fact that many in the movement do not understand this universal goal; they feel the need to label their counterparts and allies as radical or as not truly devoted to the cause. This conflict then shifts the focus from pro-life policy to proving one’s correctness on the topic.
I think Marco Rubio recognized this when he fielded a question asking him to clarify his position on the exceptions, saying, “If I’m president and there’s a bill that’s passed that saves lives but it has exceptions, I’ll sign it.”
This idea of incrementalism must be embraced by the movement if it wants to find success in the coming years; change comes slowly, not in the form of one unilateral bill, but in the form of opinion-shifting and in multiple bills that each take one more step in the right direction.
Taking this approach, too, would allow for all pro-lifers to unite on getting such a proposal passed, and then the debate can be had later as to the need for exceptions or whatever else.
Infighting has become an issue, too, in the tendency of active members of the movement to criticize the inaction of less passionate members. Understandably, those who go pray at the street corners of clinics or who volunteer for a pro-life PAC often get angry when they see others not sharing the same boldness. But what must be recognized is that movements cannot realistically be made up solely of passionate members; there will always be a large group who is pro-life in stance only, and that is not necessarily a negative thing.
As long as opinion is shifting on the issue and politicians see poll numbers growing for pro-life stances, positive action will come.
The easiest way for a movement to become delegitimized is for it to display a lack of consistency. This problem is a multi-faceted one; not only is it noticeable when inconsistency arises, but it produces an abundance of material for opponents to use in sound bites or on social media.
One instance of this in the pro-life movement is the silence on adoption reform. This silence is particularly concerning because the response of a pro-lifer when asked what is expected of a woman who cannot raise a baby is to “put it up for adoption.”
Firstly, this response is simply insensitive given the emotional nature of the topic at hand. Secondly, it showcases the lack of depth in the pro-lifer’s understanding. The adoption system in the US is in need of an overhaul. There are simply not enough families willing to go through the rigorous red-tape of the process, which leaves all too many children in the foster care system.
Adoption reform is an entirely different topic that would take many more articles to discuss, but pro-lifers must have a basic understanding of the issue to know that pro-life policy and adoption reform go hand-in-hand. To fail in this understanding is to exemplify inconsistency to a society waiting on the first hint of a mistake from the movement.
Welfare reform is another foundational piece of the complicated, all-encompassing pro-life stance; the movement cannot just simply advocate the abolition of abortion, only to leave the millions of babies who would be born from this policy left to fend for themselves.
Education on the related issues is necessary if the pro-life movement wants to grow and wants to be seen as a legitimate group fighting for a justified cause.
The pro-life movement has experienced steady growth since the turn of the century, but infighting and inconsistency greatly threaten its future viability to produce real change. Introspection and education of all in the movement is a necessity; we must recognize that unity and consistency are the building blocks of a successful movement.
If this recognition is achieved, then real, pro-life change will soon become reality.
