Pro-Life, That’s a Lie
The Supreme Court is set to issue its decision on pregnant women in the workplace in the coming days. As a pro-choice activist, I look forward to the day when women’s pregnancies can be accommodated.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that studies reproductive rights issues, 74 percent of women have abortions because they cannot afford a pregnancy or child. Perhaps if employers were required to accommodate for pregnant women, there would be a decrease in abortion rates.
It seems like something everyone from all sides of the abortion-opinion spectrum could jump onboard with. That is until I studied some of the pro-life groups and their comments about the case.
The first thing I noticed was silence. I studied a number of pro-life groups in particular: Live Action, Students for Life America, National Right to Life and New Wave Feminists. The only groups to openly suport the protection of pregnant workers were New Wave Feminism and Students for Life America.
Even so, many supporters of these organizations believe employers do not have a duty to protect the rights of pregnant women. One person writes, "I think that a company should be able to fire someone for any reason they deem necessary -- including pregnancy. Pregnancy can hinder some jobs. But it may not be a smart idea politically. I am very pro-life."
How is firing a pregnant woman pro-life? How is this helping the cause of preventing abortions? I also looked to Students for Life at Central Michigan University and their social media outlets and what did I find? Silence.
Yet for groups like the National Abortion Rights Action League, Planned Parenthood, the National Women’s Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union, all pro-choice groups that support the right to abortion are actively engaged in the Supreme Court case supporting a women’s right to work while pregnant.
Pro-life groups say they care about women, that they want to see abortion be “abolished.” But when there is a chance, a glimmer of light to help eliminate the reason most women have abortions, they are silent.
This silence is more powerful than any noise for support. This silence shows that the pro-life movement does not care about women and their dreams and destinies. This silence shows that the pro-life movement does not care about babies like it professes it does.
If the Pro-Life movement is “courageously abolishing abortion” like it claims to, start by supporting pregnant women and their rights.
