Are Pro-Lifers Even People?

My knee-jerk reaction is to say of course, but gauging from public discourse lately, it appears as if we are not to be treated the way everyone else is treated under ordinary etiquette.

I’ve heard sermons preached against us, calling our character into question. Unprovoked insults are hurled at us on the internet. We’re called “anti-choice zealots”, “misogynists”, and “sickening douchebags” (which has been propping up a lot lately on my facebook, I don’t know why).

We’re none of those things. We’re ordinary people. We work in offices next to you. We’re doctors and nurses, businessmen and engineers, we’re tradesmen and teachers, and we’re men and women. We’re husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, we’re sons and daughters. We’re conservatives and liberals, capitalists and socialists; we’re Christians and atheists, and a whole host of other beliefs. We come in many varieties, such as the sane and the insane, just like those outside the pro-life movement. The only thing that brings us together is that we hold to the belief that the unborn should be treated as people, not choices.

Is believing that so wicked so as to pretend as if we aren’t deserving of ordinary decent respect? Is it so immoral that we don’t buy into what mainstream culture tells us to believe?

We know abortion is a tough decision with long-lasting emotional consequences; this isn’t new information to us. The thing about pro-lifers being people, is that some of us get into difficult situations as well. We come in all backgrounds. Pro-lifers have to face the same miseries and receive the same good fortunes as everyone else. We are rich and we are poor. We are loved and we are lonely. We are rape victims. We’re well-connected and we’re without support. We have disabled children.

Pro-life philosophy is a defensible position. I’m asking for nothing more than to be treated the way you treat everyone else who holds to a belief you disagree with. I don’t think this is too much. I don’t think someone holding polar opposite views from me could logically deduce that I’m too evil. I’ve studied logic, if I assume the negation of my view; I don’t arrive at the conclusion that pro-lifers are wicked. Maybe I’ve missed something; if not, it would be nice to be treated as if I’m not evil.