Last week, the New York Times published an editorial titled “Why Abortion is a Progressive Economic Issue.”
Prompted by chaos in the Democratic ranks over the issue of abortion, the article argued that because lower income women are more likely to choose abortion, and because economics are a strong consideration for women who choose to abort their children, one cannot separate the issue from other progressive economic issues. Other writers have echoed this sentiment, packaging abortion alongside things such as wealth redistribution and universal healthcare.
The Times editorial follows closely on the tail end of the Abortion Positive tour, a ten-campus event sponsored by two abortion advocacy groups. The goal of the tour was to promote awareness of the idea that abortion access is a social good. The tour itself featured giveaways, speakers, and fun t-shirts monogrammed with inane statements like “Mind your own uterus” and “I got 99 problems but pregnancy ain’t one”.
Indeed, from editorials to campus visits, Twitter campaigns to celebrity videos, leftists are on a quest to dress up abortion as a social good and eradicate the shame and stigma associated with it. No woman, they assert, should ever suffer shame, guilt, or remorse for choosing abortion.
Abortion Isn’t Ultimately About Economics
Yet attempting to remove stigma by packaging abortion as an economic issue, or as a social good, contradicts the reality at the core of the abortion discussion. To reduce abortion to economics is to ignore the fact that an innocent human being lies at the very center of the abortion discussion.
It is to avoid the fact that a powerless and defenseless human is stripped of all rights in the name of a mother’s freedom. Taking this human life results in the shame and guilt experienced by many women. And no Twitter campaign or college campus tour can resolve that.
Supporters of abortion are generally only concerned with the wellbeing of the mother. Little attention is paid to the preborn child. Some abortion defenders do not even acknowledge the humanity of the preborn child. Others will split hairs on the difference between a human being or a person. Still others will implicitly acknowledge the child only long enough to rationalize his or her death (“the mother can’t afford a baby right now”).
Thus, packaging abortion as an economic issue or a social good may seem to make sense. But this packaging disregards the obvious truth: unborn children are human beings, and there is no amount of economic hardship that can justify taking their lives.
No Amount Of Covering Up Can Disguise Abortion’s Pain
The pro-life movement espouses a different frame of reference when it comes to abortion. Pro-lifers, while still concerned with the wellbeing of the woman, are first concerned with the life being taken. Indeed, the pro-life movement exists for the sole purpose of saving these lives. It is this goal that motivates pro-lifers to share the truth of abortion.
Indeed, one can cloak abortion in all the social justice language available to English-speaking listeners. But no matter how one tries to dress up the reality of abortion, it is still an ugly practice. It’s still the taking of an innocent life. Relabeling it as an economic issue or a social good is a classic example of the “lipstick on a pig” approach. And no amount of lipstick can cover up the dark, sinister, degrading practice that has produced shattered lives, brutal deaths, and disturbing stories.
Here are a few examples of the reality of abortion.
The reality of abortion is a woman who, after having nine abortions, finally saw the child she aborted and could not contain her grief.
The reality of abortion is industry workers who show women deceptive ultrasound pictures because if they show the actual unborn child, women are far less likely to choose abortion.
The reality of abortion is pro-life warriors finding dead babies in dumpsters behind abortion clinics.
The reality of abortion is women whose lives have been shattered by abortion and the psychological distress that is brought them.
The reality of abortion is Kermit Gosnell, a serial killer who butchered babies, proudly displayed their feet in jars, and who ran a clinic so disgustingly inhumane that he is currently in jail for his crimes against humanity.
The reality of abortion is a late-term abortionist who refused to call 911 for over five hours while her patient bled to death.
The reality of abortion is brutal procedures that kill preborn children by severing their limbs or burning their bodies.
The reality of abortion is a young woman who committed suicide rather than continue to live with her choice.
The reality of abortion is doctors and nurses who refuse to help late-term babies who survive abortion, even when the baby is viable and could survive.
The reality of abortion is that at least one innocent human life is taken during every abortion.
We Can’t Hide From The Reality Of Abortion
The reality of abortion is that it is not an economic issue or a social good. Such language just obfuscates the fact that abortion is the taking of a million preborn human lives every year in the United States alone.
One should never be distracted by the Left’s persistent attempts to categorize abortion as anything other than what it is. While economics may play a role in convincing mothers to choose abortion, at its core, abortion is a human rights issue. The reality is that abortion denies an entire demographic of innocent human beings their right to live.
Attempts to subvert the rights of the unborn in favor of a mother’s rights is nothing more than an attempt to justify the killing of innocent human beings.
There is no lipstick strong enough to hide that.
