Pro-life infighting helps no preborn child
A preborn child’s right to live should never depend on whether that child is wanted in the moment.
That conviction is why the pro-life movement exists and why our disagreements over how to protect that life matter so deeply. But when those disagreements become accusations that our own allies do not care about children or want to punish women, we risk weakening the very movement those children need.
The pro-life movement is having an important and increasingly public debate about how the law should treat women who have abortions.
On one side are groups such as the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, led by constitutional attorney Bradley Pierce. They argue that if preborn children are entitled to equal protection under the law, then laws against homicide should apply consistently to those who intentionally participate in an abortion. Their position is not that every woman who has an abortion should automatically be prosecuted or imprisoned. Rather, they argue that the law should permit questions of intent, coercion, culpability, and due process to be considered just as they are in other cases involving the taking of human life.
On the other side are organizations such as National Right to Life (NRTL), which has spent decades supporting laws that penalize abortion providers while specifically protecting women who obtain abortions from prosecution. NRTL and others like Americans United for Life and the Pro-Life Action League argue that women are often placed under enormous pressure by partners, family members, and the abortion industry itself. These organizations maintain that women should receive compassion and support rather than criminal penalties.
This is a serious disagreement with severe consequences; it concerns how the law recognizes the life of a preborn child, how it determines responsibility for that child’s death, and how it accounts for women who have been coerced or deceived. These questions deserve careful scrutiny precisely because human lives are at stake.
People of good faith within the pro-life movement can reach different conclusions. But we cannot allow disagreement over criminal law to become a test of whether someone truly cares about preborn children. Nor should we treat concern for women as evidence of indifference to the lives lost through abortion.
Both positions must answer difficult questions. Supporters of equal-protection legislation must explain how their proposals would account for coercion and individual culpability. Opponents must explain how their preferred laws would protect preborn children consistently and effectively. Neither side should be exempt from scrutiny.
But scrutiny requires an honest account of the argument. Calling someone “heartless” or “insufficiently pro-life” does not establish whether a law will save children’s lives; it simply makes the next conversation harder to have.
For more than half a century, the pro-life movement has included people with different political strategies, legal theories, religious beliefs, and philosophical approaches. What unites us is the conviction that every human life has inherent worth and deserves protection.
That shared conviction does not make every proposal equally sound. It gives us a common obligation to determine which proposals will best advance it. We should be willing to defend our positions, confront their weaknesses, and listen when another person identifies a consequence we have overlooked.
We should debate vigorously. We should challenge one another's assumptions. We should examine evidence, consider unintended consequences, and even be open to changing our minds.
But we should also extend to one another the same principle we so often ask the rest of the culture to embrace: every person should be treated with dignity.
We are surrounded by a culture of death, and the abortion industry continues to present the destruction of preborn life as a solution to women’s difficulties. Our task is to expose that false promise, protect the children whose lives it threatens, and help mothers see a future beyond abortion. That work demands conviction and sustained cooperation. We do not have to resolve every internal disagreement before we can continue that work together; we do have to stop treating every disagreement as proof of betrayal.
We will be stronger if we have our internal debates as allies seeking the truth rather than adversaries questioning one another's motives and commitment. We must remember that we all share the same goal: protecting innocent lives and making abortion unthinkable.
The preborn children we seek to protect gain nothing when we tear one another apart. They need a movement strong enough to confront abortion and serious enough to debate how to end it without losing sight of whom we are fighting for. And our disagreements deserve to be heard, but they cannot become louder than our defense of the children who have no voice.
Nelly Roach is the Founder and CEO of Choose Life.
