Why I Lost Faith in the Pro-choice Movement

WHY I LOST FAITH IN THE PRO-CHOICE MOVEMENT

by JENNIFER FULWILER

... [The] pressure built and built over months, and eventually years. And then, one day it clicked.

I was looking through a Time magazine article whose infograph cited data from the Guttmacher Institute about the most common reasons women have abortions. It immediately struck me that none of the factors on the list were conditions that we tell women to consider before engaging in sexual activity. Don’t have the money to raise a child? Don’t think your boyfriend would be a good father? Don’t feel ready to be a mother? Women were never encouraged to consider these factors before they had sex; only before they had a baby.

The fundamental truth of the pro-choice movement, from which all of its tenets flow, is that sex does not have to have life-altering consequences. I suddenly saw that it was the struggle to uphold this “truth” that led to all the shady dealings, all the fear of information, all the mental gymnastics that I’d observed.
For example: If it is true that sex does not have to have life-altering consequences, then life within the womb cannot be human. Otherwise, when your contraception fails or you otherwise end up with an unplanned pregnancy, you just became a parent, and that truth was proven false.

If it is true that sex does not have to have life-altering consequences, then people should be able to engage in sexual activity as they see fit, without giving a second thought to parenthood. And if it’s true that it is morally acceptable for people to engage in sexual activity without giving a second thought to parenthood, then abortion must be okay. Contraception has abysmal actual use effectiveness rates, especially when taken over the long term. Combine that with the fact that the contraceptive mentality tells women to go ahead and engage in the act that creates babies, even if they feel certain that they’re in no position to have a baby, and you see how women would feel trapped, and think that their only way out is through the doors of their local abortion mill.

Over the years I’d heard many pro-lifers say things along the lines of, “If you’re engaging in the act that creates babies, you might create a baby; if you are absolutely certain that you’re not ready to have a baby, avoid the act that creates babies.” The pro-choice movement dismissed such statements, often sneeringly, as being overly simplistic and even oppressive. Yet is it not true? Now that I had taken a look under the hood of the pro-choice worldview, I came to see this as yet another example of pro-lifers respecting women enough to tell them hard truths that they may not want to hear, but need to hear. And far from blowing women off with pat answers, as I had always imagined pro-lifers did, when I took a closer look at that movement I found it to be quite realistic about the complexities of life, and surprisingly understanding that things don’t always work out the way they’re supposed to.