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Pro-choicer called a 'murderer,' hits back with hard questions about what 'pro-life' really means

Is your community going to help pay for healthcare and education costs?

via National Organization of Women

A 'Keep Abortion Legal' sign in Washington, D.C.

Calling a pro-choice person a "murderer" is a sadly common inflammatory insult hurled by pro-birthers. In true medical terms, terminating an embryo is terminating a multicellular diploid eukaryotic organism, not murdering a person. Nonetheless, people still invoke images of infanticide in order to demonize people advocating for reproductive health care access. Normalizing a debate around whether abortion is murder has only further stigmatized the very real existential threats women face without birth control and safe abortion access.

A recent screenshot posted on the Murdered by Words page showed a heated exchange between a pro-choicer and the pro-birth person who called them an advocate for murder. The pro-choicer ignored the initial insult of "murderer" and continued the conversation by grilling the pro-lifer about how they intend to help build a world where people can healthily raise children.

murdered by words, abortion, pro-life debate, pro-choice debate, women's rights, murder, abortion fightAn inflammatory text about abortion rights.via Reddit

The response read:

"What happens next? Once you have succeeded in your quest to stop the termination of a pregnancy - disregarding the circumstances for why the woman or couple wants to terminate (failed birth control, rape, lack of financial stability, unsuitable environment, domestic violence, mental health issues, lack of employment, medical issues, lack of comprehensive sexual education) - what happens next?"

"Who pays for the prenatal or postnatal care? Surely not a couple working a minimum wage who can barely afford their rent. Who provides healthcare and funds medical bills for a single woman with no place to live? Or a married couple who struggle to afford the children they already have? Who assists the millions of children in foster care, still waiting to be adopted? Who helps them when they hit the street at 18 with no money or life skills?"

Will you and your ilk - the self-proclaimed 'pro-life' community help to fund comprehensive sexual education for teens? How about access to affordable birth control? Why not promote a vasectomy as a viable option for men who don't want children? How about funding scientific research so men can have more birth control options than just condoms? Is your community going to help pay for healthcare and education costs? Once you have succeeded in stopping the termination of a pregnancy, what role will you have in ensuring a quality of life for the foetus you so desperately wanted to save?"

abortion, women's rights, pro-life, pro-choice, toronto, university of toronto, canadaPro-life protestors. via University of Toronto/Flickr

The pro-life person simply responded by claiming it's the parents' responsibility, which ushered in a final call out of the hypocrisy of many factions of the pro-life movement.

abortion, women's rights, pro-life, pro-choice, abortion debate, children, babies, protestsA pro-choice protestor holding a sign.via Steve Rhodes/Flickr

The pro-choicer's rebuttal ended with a bang, calling out all the ways the pro-birth community fails to support life after conception:

"And there's the money shot. Here's a wakeup call - you don't get to come into my inbox and sh*t all over my Sunday with your over-inflated Messiah complex with your Facebook profile filled with delusions of superiority declaring yourself to be on the side of "life." when in reality your compassion stops just inside the vaginal canal."
"Don't embarrass yourself and pretend that you give a flying f*ck about what happens once a foetus is born, or about the people who aren't equipped to raise them. Don't pretend you give a sh*t about children when you aren't prepared to do a damn thing about the millions of struggling families on welfare, or the millions of children in foster care."
Don't pretend you give a sh*t about life, when you would rather just sit by and smugly proclaim women should 'close their legs' because it's less energy to do so than it is to lobby for resources that would make it easier for people to become parents. Go away."

Suffice it to say, the pro-birther had no rebuttal after that.

Since this article was published in 2019, there have been massive shifts in abortion law in the United States. Several states began passing very restrictive abortion laws to challenge Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court Decision that made abortion legal throughout the United States. In 2022, the Supreme Court, bolstered by 6 to 3 conservative super majority, overturned Roe in the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case. The decision returned legal power to the states and, as a result, abortion was quickly banned or limited in states such as Alabama and Arkansas, and rights were strengthened in others, including California and Michigan.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

This article originally appeared six years ago on SomeeCards.

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Catholic priest explains what it really means to be 'Pro-Life'

via Now This

In a video by Now This, Father James Martin explains how people who claim to be pro-life are actually only supporting one type of life, the unborn child, while so many others also need help.

Father Martin is an American Jesuit priest, writer, and editor-at-large of the Jesuit magazine America. He was appointed as a consultant to the Vatican's Secretariat for Communications by Pope Francis in 2017.

"Some people believe that being pro-life means being someone who reverences the unborn child in the womb, and that's true, and I do. But to be truly pro-life means to reverence all human life," he says in the video.

Father Martin then discusses all of the lives that pro-life people should value as well: The "Black man or woman fearing for their lives," "the refugee or migrant who are desperate to save the lives of their children," "the LGBT teen who is tempted to take their life because of bullying, harassment or violence."

The priest also explains that some people who've been cast away by society such as the homeless and death row inmates are lives worthy of saving as well.

"All these lives are precious, scared, and holy," the Father continues. "And all these issues — racism, refugees, homelessness, LGBT issues, the death penalty — are also life and death issues."

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She had an abortion at 19. Here's what she wants the author of a pro-life op-ed to know.

Renee Bracey Sherman was 19 when she had an abortion, and she doesn't regret it.

That, she says, is why she was livid after encountering activist Lori Szala's stark, anti-abortion op-ed in The New York Times, which is generating furious responses from readers.

Photo by Zach Gibson/AFP/Getty Images.

In the piece, Szala argues that labeling abortion an economic issue is "dehumanizing," both to prospective parents for whom child-rearing should be about more than money and to their prospective children.

"Parenting presents undeniable challenges, but no one argues that those challenges give parents the right to kill their children.

It’s also patronizing, and patently dishonest. Of course unplanned pregnancy presents challenges. But it doesn’t have to lead to economic failure. Abortion is society’s easy way out — its way of avoiding grappling with the fundamental injustices driving women to abortion clinics."

It's a belief, Szala explains, that is largely derived from her personal experience as a young mother-to-be who nearly ended her pregnancy — though she ultimately chose not to.

Pressured to abort when she became pregnant in high school, Szala says that she was dissuaded by a friend who told her she'd had an abortion and later came to regret her decision.

Bracey Sherman wants people to know that her choice to end her pregnancy without guilt is common to far more women — and there's data to back her up.

A longitudinal study published in 2015 found that 95% of women who had abortions felt that it had been the right decision. And other research has found that women seeking abortions are more certain in their decision than people considering other surgeries.

If she had the chance, Bracey Sherman says, she would ask Szala if she appreciated the freedom to make her decision on her own terms.

"Isn’t it nice that you had a choice?" Bracey Sherman asks, rhetorically. "Someone didn’t force you to do something that you didn’t want to do, whether it was to continue the pregnancy or not. Isn’t it nice that you had a choice?"

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images.

At the time of her pregnancy, Bracey Sherman says she was working a low-wage retail job and in an abusive relationship. The notion that people who are pregnant — particularly people of color — can simply pull themselves "up by [their] bootstraps" and make it work as a parent is a dangerous myth, she argues.

"[Szala] ignores the fact that so many people don’t even have boots."

Other critics of Szala's piece argue that, in a rush to chastise women who end their pregnancies, she fails to offer solutions for preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

Some pointed out that Szala, who works for an organization that owns and operates crisis pregnancy centers, could stand to benefit financially from people taking her advice.

Still others argued that terminating a pregnancy — for any reason — should always be a matter of choice and insisting it shouldn't be often comes from a desire to punish or control women.

Bracey Sherman wants more women to tell their friends and family about their experiences with abortion, especially in the face of a surge in high-profile, anti-choice opinion pieces like Szala's making it into print.

A 2014 study conducted by Sarah Cowen at New York University found that people who are opposed to reproductive rights are roughly 21% less likely to say they know someone who has had an abortion than those who are pro-choice. Bracey Sherman believes that's not by chance — and that people who terminate their pregnancies may be less likely to tell their anti-choice friends and relatives.

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images.

"Everybody loves someone who has had an abortion," she says. "Pro-life people have abortions, religious people have abortions, we all have abortions," she says.

After getting involved with reproductive rights activism, Bracey Sherman started a project called "We Testify," which highlights the stories of people who have terminated pregnancies in an attempt to broker an understanding with those across the aisle.

If people aren't hearing, she believes, it's not for lack of speaking out.

"We’re here. We’re making our voices heard," Bracey Sherman says. "The question is: At what point are people going to actually listen to us?"

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A pro-life and a pro-choice protest collided. There was singing and hugs.

On Jan. 21, millions of women across the country and world marched for equality. But not all of them agreed on what that meant.

Kate Munger, a 67-year-old Bay Area resident, had been asking around to find out what kinds of demonstrations might be going on nearby when she got wind of the Walk for Life West Coast, a massive march against abortion rights that takes place every year in San Francisco.

This year, the Walk for Life and the Women's March happened on the same day.

Photo by John Gress/Getty Images

Munger says she is strongly pro-choice, but abortion rights haven't always been her primary passion. Still, she saw this sharp coincidence as a powerful opportunity to practice democracy.

Munger, a lifelong singer and founder of the Threshold Choir, called up all the vocalists she knew and asked if they'd be willing to help her confront the Walk for Life ... with song.

She imagined meeting the opposition head-on with "blessings and songs." She wanted to fiercely oppose their ideas while also upholding their right to campaign for their own issues.

Still, it took Munger a while to commit to the idea. "It sounded too dangerous," she says. "It sounded too challenging."

Many of her friends agreed. But in the end, she found 11 singers willing to join her.

On the day of the march, Munger and her fellow singers traveled to San Francisco by ferry and began with some vocal warmups.

After a little practice — and steeling themselves for the confrontation ahead — the group took its place. They began to sing as thousands and thousands of pro-life activists bore down on them.

For hours, they hardly stopped to take a breath, let alone utter an antagonistic word. The 12 women simply sang, while holding a sign that said the rest:

"We don't agree with you AND we uphold your right to your beliefs in our democracy."

GIF via Ellen Silva, used with permission.

Munger says it wasn't easy to maintain composure. "We were two lines of six women being bored down on by literally hoards of people. At times it was really scary."

Most of the Walk for Lifers didn't pay any mind or didn't seem to get the message. But the few that did? Munger says "that made all the difference."

Photo by Emma Silver/KQED, used with permission.

According to an article by Emma Silver for KQED, one marcher stopped to hug Munger and the other singers before continuing on.

Others appreciated an opportunity for peaceful disagreement. That's really what Munger's demonstration was about, even more than abortion.

Though it was about that, too.

"I think we need to exercise our democracy, practice our democracy, not take it for granted," she says. "I don't feel that Donald Trump [and his administration] are showing any respect for democracy."

She's right. With so many people actively dismissing or criticizing protest efforts following the election, it's fair to wonder if the very pillars of our society are at stake.

And if they are, the voices of women and people of color are at the greatest risk.

Kudos to Munger for exercising hers without drowning out others in the process.

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