Pro-life does not equate to anti-abortion. In a Viewpoint letter published last Thursday, “Chalk wars for life or choice,” Jennifer Vosters dealt with issue of pro-choice students writing over the Belles for Life Respect Life Week sidewalk messages. While Vosters is correct that there’s a polarized battle between the two sides at Saint Mary’s, she mistakes the pro-life position.
Being pro-life isn’t just being against abortion. Calling The Belles for Life anti-abortion is both mistaken and offensive to the pro-life community. Being pro-life means supporting the dignity of all human beings from conception to natural death. One of the activities they held this week was making cards for residents of the Cardinal Nursing Home. They hold activities with Hannah and Friends, an organization helping those with special needs, and St. Margaret’s House, which helps poor women and their children in need.
Marginalizing the pro-life as merely anti-abortion is insulting because it denies the extent of their deeds and beliefs. Pro-lifers do care about the unborn and fight for them passionately. However, in this culture, pro-life is about fighting for all stages of life. By calling pro-lifers anti-abortion, Vosters framed them as only caring for one certain group of people. “Anti-abortion” is exclusive sounding, and it is not what the Belles for Life are about. Calling them this minimizes the breadth of their beliefs and concerns.
Being pro-life is being for women. Pro-life includes being for women during crisis and difficult pregnancies while still supporting them and their unborn children. Yes, women should support other women so long as they are pursuing the good, but I have no obligation to support another woman promoting something that violates my conscience.
If women should empower each other, why did someone vandalize the Belles for Life pro-life sidewalk chalk? Saint Mary’s is about sisterhood, yet anonymous pro-choice women, arguing that women should empower each other, attacked the Saint Mary’s right to life group, which is counterproductive to what they claim women should do by empowering one another. No, this wasn’t a war, but an attack on the pro-life side during Right to Life week.
Gabrielle Jansen
SMC class of 2017
