"I'm not just anti-abortion, I'm pro-life."
It's a phrase we've all probably heard many times before and will likely hear quite a bit in the upcoming election months. But why do people make a big deal about this? The two terms mean the same thing, right?
Wrong.
Labels are tricky things, and we have to be careful about how we apply them. As someone who definitely identifies himself as pro-life, I would like to explain what it really means to be pro-life (so you can tell which politicians really are) and why it is distinct from being anti-abortion.
First of all, being pro-life is not merely taking a stance on a bunch of random issues (or just a single issue). It is primarily a specific world view that consists of certain beliefs about people and how they should be treated.
To state it simply, to be pro-life is to believe that every human life is precious and that all people should be treated with dignity and respect from the point of conception until natural death.
It holds that life is the primary right of all humans, and all other rights are meaningless without it.
While such a view commonly has religious ties, each of its aspects is backed by a great deal of secular scientific research and philosophical reasoning. It is a broad and rational theory that goes much deeper than many realize. When closely examined, it becomes clear the logic behind the pro-life stance is not based on some sort of blind, follow-the-leader teaching.
Being pro-life is not just a theory. It applies to real-life issues, and the positions a pro-life individual takes on certain issues flow from the underlying theory.
The issue most often associated with being pro-life is, of course, abortion, and here it is important to recognize that opposition to abortion is not an attempt to impose religious beliefs on people or to diminish the rights of women. It is based on the firm belief that in every abortion a human life is taken and that the right to life overrides a woman's right to choose.
Being pro-life, however, also involves consideration for women experiencing so-called "unwanted pregnancies." It calls for respect and gratitude toward any woman who chooses to give birth, particularly those who do so under less than desirable circumstances and considers it a duty to help women in this position in any way possible.
Really being pro-life means supporting women in their struggles and not looking down on them because of past mistakes. It means protecting the child in addition to recognizing and providing for the needs of the mother.
The pro-life world view also applies to several other issues.
For example, being pro-life demands opposition to capital punishment. There is simply no excuse for the state to take the life of any criminal, given our ability to keep people safe from violent offenders (to say nothing of the danger of executing innocent people). There may have been, in the past, situations where the only way to keep innocent people safe was to execute violent criminals, but such instances do not exist anymore.
Capital punishment needlessly takes a human life, which is clearly inconsistent with pro-life philosophy.
Pro-life thinking also holds that embryonic stem cell research, as well as other medical procedures such as invitro fertilization, that make use of human embryos are unacceptable. Again, this is not based on some archaic, anti-scientific view. Rather, it is based on the firm belief that the "clumps of cells" that are used in the procedures, and are often discarded and destroyed are individual human persons that deserve, at very least, the right to life.
It is not that pro-lifers are opposed to the goals that this sort of research is trying to accomplish, rather it is that the research employs a means that is unjust and is destructive to human life.
It should be no surprise that euthanasia is rejected by those who are pro-life. Such a practice, whatever the intent, is one that deliberately ends life. This diminishes the value of life by implicitly saying that certain lives are certainly not worth living. This goes against the very core of pro-life belief.
Being pro-life calls for opposition to war in most situations; however, it also rejects pacifism. Wars are terrible events that always result in the loss of a great deal of human life, and they should be avoided when at all possible. However, there are also rare - and I must stress, rare - situations where it is acceptable to fight. For example, there may be instances where going to war will actually prevent the loss of large numbers of innocent lives (such as in instances of genocide).
In almost any other situation, going to war is not consistent in supporting and valuing life.
All this said, it should be easy to see the profound differences between being pro-life and anti-abortion. "Anti-abortion" applies to a single issue, but "pro-life" is so much more.
Pro-life alludes to a world view and a philosophy that concerns many different issues and requires support for the value of life across the board.
Luke Fischer is a sophomore history and philosophy major. Reach him at lukefischer@dailynebraskan.com.
