Using, abusing, and losing women to get what you want doesn’t make you pro-woman.
During college, I went from staunchly pro-life to apathetic about abortion. This was driven by my desire to be accepted by certain people as a “good person” by supporting women in need. In returning to pro-life views, I’ve generally tried to see goodwill in those on the “pro-choice” side, since, according to them, they really want to help women, too.
However, I’ve increasingly seen how “pro-choice” does not mean supporting women. These better-named pro-abortion activists capitalize on tragedy and use women as pawns in a game aimed toward Big Abortion’s pocketbook and the deaths of millions of preborn children.
Don’t believe me? I brought receipts.
It’s not hard to find post-Dobbs headlines blaming pro-life laws for women’s tragic deaths and allegations of “injustices.” But there’s more to these stories than the liberal media and TikTok social justice warriors would have you believe.
Case in point: Ciji Graham died because she wasn’t given a standard cardioversion, a practice even ProPublica admits, per the more than a dozen specialists they spoke to, is safe for pregnant women to receive.
Nevaeh Crain died from sepsis during a tragic miscarriage. She was turned away from hospitals despite uninvestigated abdominal cramps and confirmed sepsis, and then, allegedly, her six-month preborn child’s heartbeat was used as a reason to delay treatment — all likely cases of malpractice.
Texas abortion law has exceptions for threats to the life of the mother. Regardless, though, an investigation needs to determine why doctors did not treat Crain via early delivery without intentionally killing her child, a safer medical practice that pro-abortion activists conveniently neglect to educate women about.
Pro-life laws aren’t impeding care; instead, pro-abortion doctors and activists blame pro-life laws for physicians’ choices that could be medical malpractice. State Medical boards should clarify the standard of care to alleviate any confusion, but politics seems to have gotten in the way there, too.
In Texas, the medical board director resigned after it was discovered that he was also working for Planned Parenthood.
In all 50 states, laws demand women receive life-affirming care, and pro-life laws specifically note that addressing a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage care must proceed. To say otherwise is yet another red herring used to toy with women facing tragic situations.
This year, Virginia and Pennsylvania Democrats proposed measures (via a constitutional amendment and bill, respectively) to take away parental consent for minors in abortions. In fact, a full 13 states — all of which allow abortion AT LEAST up to 24 weeks, including up to birth — do not enforce parental consent laws, the bare minimum when it comes to real healthcare.
That's good news for sex abusers and traffickers trying to hide abuses of young girls from parents, something Planned Parenthood has been helping child sex abusers do for decades.
These same bills also remove informed consent mandates. The idea that a woman can choose abortion as “the right choice for her” without being fully informed is utterly illogical.
Shockingly, in Nebraska, “lawmakers rejected an attempt to update state abortion statutes to require screenings for coercion and abuse” by Planned Parenthood and other abortion vendors.
Every U.S. Senate Democrat and all but one U.S. House Democrat voted against Students for Life Action’s “Pregnant Students’ Rights Act,” a budget-neutral bill simply requiring federally funded schools to inform pregnant students of their Title IX rights and the aid available to them.
Colorado Democrats attempted to ban abortion pill reversal, taking away women’s choice to stop their chemical abortions. And Senate Democrats fought against increasing restrictions on Chemical Abortion Pills, although they seriously harm up to 1 in 8 women who use them and are being used by abusive boyfriends to drug women and abort their preborn babies without women’s consent.
Pro-abortion Democrats blocked the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” legislation to federally require babies born alive in botched abortions receive life-sustaining medical care. Clearly, this isn’t about women’s wellbeing. How could you possibly justify infanticide as “essential reproductive healthcare?”
If all that doesn’t convince you that “pro-choice” is actually pro-abortion, maybe the way extreme pro-abortion laws are seemingly starting to correspond with lower penalties for rapists will.
In Virginia, Democrats are working to eliminate minimum penalties for rapists; in California, rapists can be sentenced to as little as three years in state prison; and in New York, rapists can spend as little as five years in prison. Rape is constantly used as a reason abortion needs to be legal. Go figure.
So, to those who genuinely want to help women: Don’t let the abortion lobbyists trick you. They will use, abuse, and lose women to get more abortions. You may care about women. But they don’t.
Mary Kate Horlander is a press specialist and online editor at Students for Life. She graduated from the University of Mary in April 2023 before working as a communications specialist for the State of North Dakota. She now works writing about abortion-related issues and legislation around the country.
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