Pro-Life Is As Pro-Life Does

Also: The Catholic Church does it again.

Anti-abortion and abortion rights demonstrators during a protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, May 3, 2022. (Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

1. Anti-Abortion, Anti-Family

I find it amusing that the party which is dedicated to repealing Roe is also dedicated to killing the most substantive pro-family piece of legislation in a generation.

Joseph Zeballos-Roig @josephzeballos

McConnell confided to a friend last year he was unnerved about Biden’s child tax credit. He thought the program could catch on with voters if it ran long enough. Then it’d be next to impossible for the GOP to dislodge it even w/a majority in Congress Via @jmartNYT @alexburnsNYT

But whatever. Don’t you dare suggest that Pro-Life Inc. has any motives other than a sincere devotion to the seamless garment of life.

---

Oh hey, this is kind of funny: The day before the Alito draft leaked, the group Missouri Right to Life was fulminating about the evils of . . . ranked choice voting:

Yup. Seems totally above-board. If you’re in favor of ranked-choice voting, then you’re also in favor of killing babies. It’s a straight line.

---

What’s maddening about this is that many pro-lifers really do just care about mothers and their babies. These are people who know how hard it is to raise a child under the best of circumstances. They understand that a person’s plans and a person’s life don’t often match up. They see the way that our culture views children as an expense and inconvenience. These folks want to help mothers who are in crisis and show them that they’re not alone. They want to help carry some of the load.

I love these people. Truly, I do. The world needs more of them.

And I wish American society was oriented in such a way as to be fully pro-life:

• Support systems for parents and kids.

• No capital punishment, even if it is constitutionally permissible.

• Accountability for cops who kill civilians.

• Willingness to work on gun violence, even when it conflicts with constitutional rights.

• Broad support for public health measures during once-a-century pandemics.

But instead, the pro-life movement—the marriage of abortion critics with the broader right wing—gives us a mishmash of policy demands that goes something like this:

• Abortion bounties.

• Firing squad or Old Sparky?

• Back the Blue!

• Come and take it!

• I ain’t gonna wear your slave mask or take your Bill Gates nanobots!

Why is this? I’m open to answers. A while back I suggested that it was because, for a large chunk of Pro-Life Inc., abortion is really about control. Many pro-lifers objected to this characterization as being uncharitable. Maybe they’re right.

So why, then? Why are abortion bounties okay, but mask mandates are Nazi-ism? Why are restrictions on guns unbearable? Why is Kyle Rittenhouse a conservative celebrity?

I’m not trying to be a wise-ass. I’m genuinely puzzled.

And what about the mirror version of this problem: Why does the political party that wants more support for parents and families, that opposes capital punishment, that wants more accountability for police and tighter restrictions on guns and so on—why does that party have no room for elected official even slightly critical of abortion?

In the comments, I’d like your best-case, good-faith answers.