Pro-Choice/Pro-Life: More Than Just Two Sides

By Student Media Opinion Correspondent Thomas Breeden

I am pro-life and I am pro-choice. I think education and professional consultation are always necessary, should be widely available and never denied to anyone in a pregnancy situation, wanted or unwanted. I share and respect the belief that human life is worth protecting and that its unnecessary loss is tragic and to be mourned.

I think that abortion is a frightening issue; I think it is a serious issue, one that
should be available after alternative options have been exhausted or deemed unfit by the mother and a trusted medical professional. I seriously doubt anyone wants an
abortion. I seriously doubt women would prefer abortion to methods that would
prevent or reduce the chance of pregnancy altogether and options like adoption or some alternative parental care.

However, I don’t think the imposition of a blanket ideology is practical or even ethical, no matter how righteous the ultimate goal. I think the circumstances and consequences of pregnancy are specific and multi-faceted. I don’t think there is a
single option that can be deemed right for all cases.

And I don’t think the labeling of viewpoints as either “pro-choice” or “pro-life” does anything other than serve to mislead, creating an artificial dichotomy, as if “prolifers”
are anti-choice and “pro-choicers” are anti-life. I think the political monikers used to designate these viewpoints should be forgotten. The over-simplification of the issues is not worth the sake of brevity. There is much variation in belief and practice within groups that are often labeled “pro-life” or “pro-choice.”

Many organizations on both sides of the abortion issue provide many of the same
services and share many of the same goals. This is because the abortion issue is so much more than just that.

The issue of abortion is a sub-issue in what is essentially a supra-issue whose
primary concerns include: child care, the potential and quality of human life, women’s physical and emotional health and many other socio-economic factors.

I think that by referring to yourself or others as simply “pro-life” or “pro-choice” is
a great disservice (however unintentional) to society at large and denies the complicated relationships and implications that exist between all these vastly important factors.

These factors, which all carry some weight, must be weighed together if one hopes to arrive at some sound, considerate stance on the legal status of abortion. You may already be aware that organizations like Planned Parenthood and Marie Stopes International provide, in addition to abortions, an abundant wealth of information on pregnancy, sexual health and peer and professional counseling and that the number of abortions can be reduced if politicians “adopt commonsense solutions, such as increased access to affordable contraception and comprehensive, medically accurate sex education,” according to PP’s website. But it’s important to realize that
many organizations deemed “pro-life” provide nearly all the same services as PP and MSI, sans abortion.

Sanctity of Life Ministries runs three pregnancy help centers in Northern Virginia
that provide free pregnancy tests, referrals for STD testing and sonograms, peer
counseling by trained volunteers, postabortion help, information on birth control,
pregnancy and fetal development—as well as information on abortion procedures, risks and options.

Feminists for Life is also a pro-life organization that provides support and resources for women raising children while working, in school or both. According to its website’s mission statement, FFL is committed to “eliminating the root causes that drive women to abortion primarily lack of practical resources and support.”

I think this position is obviously more practical and positive than the position of an
organization like the National Right to Life Committee, whose ultimate goal is to
eliminate abortion while “not hav[ing] a position on issues such as contraception, [or] sex education.” This quote is from the mission statement on their website. NRLC
opposes abortion without having any stance on related issues.

However, I think that Human Life International has one-upped NRLC. HLI exists “to fight the evils of abortion, contraception, sex education and family breakdown,” according to the mission statement available on its website.

Further down this same mission statement page, HLI notes, with pride, its involvement in the destruction of over 10 million condoms that were given to Tanzania by the United Nations.

Tanzania has an adult HIV infection rate of 6.2 percent as of 2007 according to
the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. An act like this has immediate and
devastating effects and I think this sort of extremism is absolutely moronic and that its sharp contrast with the goals and practices of previously mentioned “pro-life”
organizations illustrates the differences that exist within these broad and hastily named political entities.