pro life essay with facts

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Why Pro- Life?

The case for inclusion.

Abortion ends the life of a human embryo or fetus. Is this killing morally permissible? Or is it an injustice?

More than 150 years ago, a Boston physician named Horatio R. Storer pointed to the heart of the issue. "The whole question," he observed , "turns on ... the real nature of the foetus in utero ."

Does the unborn child have a right not to be intentionally killed? Does she matter like we matter? Does she count as one of us?

Yes, she does. This position is based on a fact of science and a principle of justice .

Science: The unborn is a human being

First, the unborn (the human zygote, embryo, or fetus) is a human being—a living human organism at the earliest developmental stages. This is a fact established by the science of embryology. Four features of the unborn human are important:

Distinct. The unborn has a DNA and body distinct from her mother and father. She develops her own arms, legs, brain, nervous system, heart, and so forth.

Living. The unborn meets the biological criteria for life. She grows by reproducing cells. She turns nutrients into energy through metabolism. And she can respond to stimuli.

Human. The unborn has a human genetic signature. She is the offspring of human parents, and humans can only beget other humans.

Organism. The unborn is an organism ( rather than a mere organ or tissue)—an individual whose parts work together for the good of the whole. Guided by a complete genetic code, she needs only the proper environment and nutrition to develop herself through the different stages of life as a member of our species.

"Human development begins at fertilization when a sperm fuses with an oocyte to form a single cell, a zygote," explains the textbook The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology . "This highly specialized, totipotent cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual."

The scientific evidence , then, shows that the unborn is a living individual of the species Homo sapiens , the same kind of being as us, only at an earlier stage of development. Each of us was once a zygote, embryo, and fetus, just as we were once infants, toddlers, and adolescents.

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Justice: All human beings have human rights

Second, all human beings have human rights. Everyone counts. This is a principle of justice.

Unborn humans are different from most born humans in a number of ways, but those differences aren't relevant to whether or not someone has rights. Unborn children may look different from older human beings, but appearance has nothing to do with value. Unborn children are less physically and mentally developed, but toddlers are less developed than teenagers, and that doesn't make them any less important. Unborn children are dependent on someone else , but so are newborn children and many people with disabilities.

Defenders of abortion often argue that unborn humans aren't "persons" who have rights because they lack certain characteristics. One problem with this view is that it excludes more human beings than just unborn children. If unborn children aren't persons because they lack higher mental functions , for example, then human infants , people in temporary comas, and patients with advanced dementia aren’t persons either.

Another problem is that this approach undermines equality for everyone . If characteristics like cognitive ability or physical independence make us valuable, then those who have more of those characteristics are more valuable than those who have less. None of us are equal according to this view.

Historically, every single attempt to divide humanity into those who have rights and those who are expendable has proven to be a colossal mistake. Why think abortion is any different?

The truth is that we have human rights simply because we are human —not because of what we look like, or what we can do, or what others think or feel about us , but rather because of what (the kind of being) we are. That's why every human being matters, and every human being matters equally.

Why abortion is unjust

The argument for the pro-life view, then, may be summarized like this:

The unborn is a human being.

All human beings have human rights, which include the right not to be intentionally killed.

Therefore, the unborn human being has human rights.

This is why abortion—the intentional killing of human beings in utero (through lethal suction , dismemberment , crushing, or poisoning )—is unjust. It's why both pregnant women and their unborn children deserve our respect, protection, and care.

Answering arguments for abortion

Here are some of the most common arguments offered in defense of abortion—and why they don't work.

Many abortion supporters say that women have a right to choose , or that we should trust women and let them decide . People do have the right to choose to do lots of things. But there are some acts that aren’t just and shouldn’t be permitted by law because they harm innocent people. The question at hand is whether abortion is one of those harmful acts. There are good reasons (see above) to think it is. ( Read more about this argument.)

Bodily autonomy

Women have a right to control their own bodies, many defenders of abortion argue. Bodily autonomy is very important, but it must respect the bodies and rights of others . Most people agree, for example, that pregnant women shouldn’t ingest drugs that cause birth defects. And if harming unborn children is wrong, then dismembering and killing them (through abortion) is even worse. Moreover, parents should provide basic care for their children (including during pregnancy) because they are responsible for the existence of those children. ( Read more about this argument.)

Tough circumstances

Pregnant women often face very difficult circumstances. But if unborn children are valuable human beings, like born children, then killing them is no more justified in tough situations (e.g., financial hardship) than killing born children in those same situations. Our response to the difficulties women face should be to provide support, resources, and ethical alternatives —so no woman feels like abortion is her only option. ( Read more about this argument.)

Although rape and incest account for less than one percent of Minnesota abortions, these cases are very real. Rape is a truly horrific crime, and the crime is made even worse when the woman then becomes a pregnant mother against her will. Abortion, however, compounds the violence of rape by taking the life of a vulnerable human being who has done nothing wrong. Both the mother and child deserve support and care in the midst of this very painful and unfair situation.

Adverse diagnoses

An adverse prenatal diagnosis is heartbreaking. But just as disease and disability don't justify killing born children, they aren't good reasons to kill unborn children either. Moreover, support and alternatives to abortion are available, including adoption for children with special needs and perinatal hospice in the event of a terminal diagnosis. ( Read more about this argument.)

Saving the mother

In rare and tragic cases, saving a pregnant woman's life requires ending her pregnancy (such as through premature delivery or C-section)—even though the child may not be able to survive outside the womb. This is uncontroversial, though, because it's better to save the mother's life than to let both mother and child die. It is not the same as intentionally killing the child, which is never medically necessary .

Imposing a view

Some people express personal opposition to abortion, yet don't want to impose that view on others by making abortion illegal. But the reason to personally oppose abortion is that it unjustly takes the life of an innocent human being. And surely the law ought to protect basic human rights and prevent violence against the defenseless. No one would say, "I'm personally opposed to sex trafficking, but I don't want to impose that view on everyone else." ( Read more about this argument.)

Forcing religion

People often say that pro-lifers are trying to force their religious beliefs on the rest of society. But the pro-life position is supported by science and reason and is held by many non-religious people . Opposition to killing unborn children is no more inherently "religious" than opposition to killing teenagers (or anyone else). Moreover, the fact that a person's position on an issue may be influenced by religion should not exclude it from public consideration. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s work in the civil rights movement, for example, was heavily influenced by his religious convictions. ( Read more about this argument.)

Danger of illegal abortion

Before abortion was legalized, some say, many women died from illegal abortions—and this will happen again when abortion is banned. The truth is that antibiotics and other medical advances produced a dramatic decline in maternal deaths through the middle of the 20th century. This drop occurred before the 1973 nationwide legalization of abortion, which had no apparent effect on mortality rates. Indeed, a wealth of evidence shows that we can protect the rights of unborn children and have a high standard of maternal health at the same time. ( Read more about this argument.)

Punishing women

Some abortion supporters warn that when abortion is illegal, women who have abortions will be put in prison. That's not true. Before the legalization of abortion in the United States, women who underwent abortion were virtually never prosecuted (practitioners of abortion were targeted instead). Post-abortive women deserve compassion , not condemnation.

Gender equality

Some feminists argue that gender equality requires legalized abortion. The challenges of pregnancy and childbirth do fall uniquely on women and not men (though men are equally responsible for their children). But the burdens of caring for five-year-old children fall on the parents of five-year-old children and not on everyone else—and laws against killing or abandoning five-year-olds are not unjust for that reason. Despite differing circumstances, everyone should be equally prohibited from taking innocent human life. More can and should be done, however, to hold men to their responsibilities as fathers and to accommodate the essential role mothers play in our society. ( Read more about this argument.)

Men and abortion

Some people say that men shouldn't express an opinion about abortion. It's true that men can't fully understand the experience of pregnancy, but it's also true that abortion is either right or wrong irrespective of the experience of any particular person . The pro-life view is held by millions of women. That view cannot just be dismissed because of a trait of a person who happens to be advocating it. If abortion really is the unjust taking of innocent human life, then both women and men ought to speak up on behalf of the unborn girls and boys who have no voice. ( Read more about this argument.)

Additional arguments

Do laws work to stop abortion?

No, abortion is not health care

Are pro-lifers misogynists and hypocrites?

Is abortion actually good for unborn children?

The frozen embryo rescue argument doesn't show that some humans are expendable

Abortion is the opposite of love

Is there a moral right to abortion?

The values of pro-choice people actually support the pro-life position

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Four pro-life philosophers make the case against abortion

To put it mildly, the American Philosophical Association is not a bastion of pro-life sentiment. Hence, I was surprised to discover that the A.P.A. had organized a pro-life symposium, “New Pro-Life Bioethics,” at our annual conference this month in Philadelphia. Hosted by Jorge Garcia (Boston College), the panel featured the philosophers Celia Wolf-Devine (Stonehill College), Anthony McCarthy (Bios Centre in London) and Francis Beckwith (Baylor University), all of whom presented the case against abortion in terms of current political and academic values.

Recognizing the omnipresent call for a “welcoming” society, Ms. Wolf-Devine explored contemporary society’s emphasis on the virtue of inclusion and the vice of exclusion. The call for inclusion emphasizes the need to pay special attention to the more vulnerable members of society, who can easily be treated as non-persons in society’s commerce. She argued that our national practice of abortion, comparatively one of the most extreme in terms of legal permissiveness, contradicts the good of inclusion by condemning an entire category of human beings to death, often on the slightest of grounds. There is something contradictory in a society that claims to be welcoming and protective of the vulnerable but that shows a callous indifference to the fate of human beings before the moment of birth.

There is something contradictory in a society that claims to be protective of the vulnerable but shows a callous indifference to the fate of human beings before the moment of birth.

Mr. McCarthy’s paper tackled the question of abortion from the perspective of equality. A common egalitarian argument in favor of abortion and the funding thereof goes something like this: If a woman has an unwanted pregnancy and is denied access to abortion, she might be required to sacrifice educational and work opportunities. Since men do not become pregnant, they face no such obstacles to pursuing their professional goals. Restrictions to abortion access thus places women in a position of inequality with men.

Mr. McCarthy counter-argued that, in fact, the practice of abortion creates a certain inequality between men and women since it does not respect the experiences, such as pregnancy, which are unique to women. Some proponents of abortion deride pregnancy as a malign condition. A disgruntled audience member referred to pregnant women as “incubators.” Mr. McCarthy argued that authentic gender equality involves respect for what makes women different, including support for the well-being of both women and children through pregnancy, childbirth and beyond. He pointed out that in his native England, pregnant women acting as surrogates are given a certain amount of time after birth to decide whether to keep the child they bore and not fulfill the conditions of the surrogacy contract. This is done out of acknowledgment of the gender-specific biological and emotional changes undergone by a woman who has nurtured a child in the womb.

The most compelling argument against abortion remains what it has been for decades: Directly killing innocent human beings is gravely unjust.

Mr. Beckwith explored the question of abortion in light of the longstanding philosophical dispute concerning the “criteria of personhood.” The question of which human beings count as persons is closely yoked to the political question of which human beings will receive civil protection and which can be killed without legal penalty. The personhood criteria range from the most inclusive (genetic identity as a member of the species Homo sapiens ) to the more restrictive (evidence of consciousness) to the most exclusionary (evidence of rationality and self-motivating behavior).

Mr. Beckwith has long used the argument from personal identity (the continuity between my mature, conscious self and my embryonic, fetal and childhood self and my future older, possibly demented self) to make the case against abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. To draw the line between personhood and non-personhood after conception or before natural death is to make an arbitrary distinction—and a lethal one at that. Mr. Beckwith noted, however, that none of the usual candidates for a criterion of personhood is completely satisfying. Even the common pro-life argument from species membership could, unamended, smack of a certain materialism.

The most compelling argument against abortion remains what it has been for decades: Directly killing innocent human beings is gravely unjust. Abortion is the direct killing of innocent human beings. But political debate rarely proceeds by such crystalline syllogisms. The aim of the A.P.A.’s pro-life symposium was to amplify the argument by showing how our practice of abortion brutally violates the values of inclusion, equality and personhood that contemporary society claims to cherish. In the very month we grimly commemorate Roe v. Wade, such new philosophical directions are welcome winter light.

John J. Conley, S.J., is a Jesuit of the Maryland Province and a regular columnist for America . He is the current Francis J. Knott Chair of Philosophy and Theology at Loyola University, Maryland.

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Pro-life Speech & Essay Guide

Are you daring to be bravely and boldly pro-life, and giving a class speech or writing an essay on a life-related issue?

If you are, YOU ROCK! And we put together a few tips and tricks to help you knock it out of the park.

Choosing a topic.

The first, and sometimes, most challenging, part of writing a speech or essay is choosing what to write about. Fortunately, if your aim is to compose your paper on a pro-life topic, you have lots of great options.

There are a variety of life issues impacting our society today. Choosing to speak or write about one of these from the position that all life deserves dignity and respect is very admirable. Your paper is not just a homework assignment, but a chance for you to educate your fellow classmates (and teachers) about the facts surrounding life issues and even change their minds.

When choosing your topic, keep in mind that some are very specific and others are broader. How precise your topic is will determine how you outline your composition, what evidence you research, and what you choose to explain in further detail later on. Here are some examples of broad and specific topics:

Broad topics:

• Healing after abortion
• Planned Parenthood
• Development of the unborn child/the science of Life
• Human dignity
• Physician assisted suicide
• Organ donation

Specific topics:

• Abortion hurts women
• Abortion hurts men
• Abortion procedures
• Why do women have abortions
• Abortion around the world
• Abortion clinics in Illinois
• Is it a baby, or is it just tissue?
• When does life begin?
• Milestones in the first nine months of pregnancy
• The 20 week ban on abortion (when can a baby feel pain?)
• Pro-life is pro-woman
• A man’s role in the abortion debate
• Why Planned Parenthood should be defunded
• Alternatives to In Vitro Fertilization/Alternative solutions to fertility problems
• Healthcare directives
• How to choose the best hospice
• The dangers of physician assisted suicide
• Why are you pro-life?

Knowing your audience.

Before even thinking about how you’re going to write your speech or essay, take a minute to think about who your audience will be. Will it be your fellow classmates? Your teacher? An organization or student group?

Knowing who you are talking or writing to can dramatically change how you present your information. Students in your class may have no background knowledge on the topic you are about to present, so more detailed information and explanations might be necessary. Your audience might also include some individuals who are pro-choice or indifferent on your topic. In this case, it would be helpful to spend some time reviewing common pro-choice arguments so you understand where they are coming from. On the other hand, a church group or pro-life club may be very receptive to your position and have some knowledge of your topic. This means you might adjust your presentation to focus only on information they will find new or helpful.

Also, when talking about topics such as abortion, don’t forget fact that there may be someone in your audience who has had an abortion or has been impacted by it in some way. Hence, the tone which you choose to take is extremely important. It can influence how well your audience responds to you and how open they are to listening to what you have to say.

In our experience as an educational organization, we recommend being very factual and realistic, but doing so with a loving and compassionate tone. It’s also helpful to bring along or provide a resource to those in your audience who may need healing, counselling, assistance, or more information – such as Illinois Right to Life.

Gathering your sources.

Before you begin your research, it’s helpful to start gathering your sources first. Based on the subject or argument you choose, you are going to want to obtain your information from sources that have special expertise on your topic. For example, in researching the development of the unborn child, scientific and medical studies in the field of neonatology may be ideal. Information from those who specialize with pregnancy and birthing, such as Obstetricians and Gynecologists, could give tremendous credibility to your speech or essay as well.

Rest assured – all the information found at Illinois Right to Life (on our website or in our printed materials) is fact based and credible – so go ahead and use it! We only choose from the best sources when we research our information. Furthermore, our sources are intentionally linked or cited in all our articles and webpages, so you can refer to them directly.

Note: It is best practice to link or cite your information to the primary source (the study, article, or data report where the information came from) rather than a secondary source (the place where you found the link).

When researching information on life-related issues, here some suggested, credible sources you might find helpful:

• American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG)
• Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Illinois Department of Public Health
• Charlotte Lozier Institute
• Alliance Defending Freedom

Facts, facts, and more facts.

One of your greatest tools when supporting your claims is science, because the reality is: science is pro-life! For example – the scientific and medical communities are both in agreement that life begins at fertilization. A human being, separate from the mother, is created, with its own unique set of DNA. Hair color, eye color, skin color, sex, and body type are already determined. All of this = scientific fact.

That’s why, don’t be afraid to embellish your speech or paper with facts, statistics, and studies. The truth is in the science.

Note: Make absolutely, positively, sure you reference and cite ALL your researched information with your sources, using either MLA or APA format (or what is required by your teacher).

Tell a personal story.

There are many, many individuals who have come forward to share their personal stories and experiences with abortion, adoption, euthanasia, and other life-related issues. Some of these include people who have been hurt by abortion, survived abortions, chose life, were placed in adoptive homes, and more. Perhaps, you have a personal story or experience as well that you feel comfortable sharing.

Testimonies like these can be incredibly powerful and informative at the same time. Students and teachers alike can be captivated and moved by a real-life story (note: a story can make a great attention getter).  Combining real-life experiences with facts is an extremely effective way to educate your audience.

Researching the opposing arguments.

As we mentioned before in “Knowing your audience,” there may be students, teachers, or other individuals among those you are speaking or writing to that are pro-choice or indifferent on life issues. One strategy is to put yourself in their shoes, identify the key questions and arguments they may have, and address them in your presentation.

Regardless of who you are speaking to however, reviewing and refuting the common pro-choice arguments is a great practice that can really bolster the credibility and persuasiveness of what you present. Some common opposing questions and arguments are:

• It’s a woman’s body.
• It’s not a baby. It’s just tissue.
• No one can really know that human life begins before birth.
• I’m personally against abortion, but I’m still pro-choice.
• Everyone should have the right to choose.
• This is a religious issue.

Like we’ve said before, science and the facts are on your side. Check out our website for information and answers to arguments and questions just like these. “Our They Say, You Say” video series is also a great place to find pro-life responses to many common pro-choice claims.

Being interactive.

There’s nothing better than listening to a presentation that’s both informative and engaging. To help your audience better understand what you’re presenting and get them involved at the same time, things like visual aids, props, games, and questions for the audience can be great additions to your presentation.

When deciding what to use, think outside the box. Visual aids and props can be multimedia presentations, pictures, handouts, or items. For example, you might use a fetal development model to show the development of the unborn child with actual, life size, representations that your classmates can see, touch, and hold.

In addition, games and questions to get your audience interacting with you can be both fun and educational. It’s often helpful to design your activity so that it conveys a specific scientific fact, concept, or statistic. For example, statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that because of abortion, one-third of your generation is missing today. One way to help your audience understand this reality might be to have one-third of the class stand up and then ask the rest of the students how they would feel if their friends who are standing had never been born. Then, follow this up with an explanation that this is exactly what abortion has done to your generation – wiped out one-third of your friends and peers that could be in your class today.

So be creative! And have fun with it.

Using Illinois Right to Life as a resource.

Through all your research, writing, and preparing, we want you to know that Illinois Right to Life is here to help! We have tons of information on several different pro-life topics and life-issues, published and made easily accessible on our website at IllinoisRightToLife.org. Also, don’t forget to check out the some of our neat handouts and brochures. You can be absolutely sure all our materials are 100% fact-based and credible.

If you have a specific question you’d like answered, feel free to email us at [email protected] or call 312.422.9300.

Thank you for sharing the pro-life message and helping us turn Illinois pro-life.

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Abortion Debate — Pro Life (Abortion)

Pro Life (abortion) Essays

Hook examples for pro-life (abortion) essays, personal story hook.

Meet Sarah, a woman who faced the difficult choice of whether to have an abortion or carry her unplanned pregnancy to term. Her experience sheds light on the emotional and ethical complexities of the pro-life stance.

Rhetorical Question Hook

Is every life, no matter how small or vulnerable, deserving of protection? This is the question at the heart of the pro-life abortion debate, and it's one we'll explore in-depth.

Statistical Hook

Did you know that there were [Insert statistic about abortion rates or procedures] abortions performed in [Insert year]? Explore the implications of these statistics in the context of pro-life advocacy.

Historical Hook

Take a journey through the history of the pro-life movement, from its origins to key milestones such as [Insert historical event related to pro-life activism]. Discover how this movement has evolved over time.

Quotation Hook

"The ultimate test of our humanity may be our willingness to defend the most vulnerable among us." — [Insert author]. This quote encapsulates the essence of the pro-life argument. Explore the moral and ethical foundations of this perspective.

Scientific Discovery Hook

Recent advances in medical technology have provided unprecedented insights into fetal development. Discover how these scientific discoveries have influenced the pro-life position.

Legal Debate Hook

Delve into the legal battles surrounding abortion rights, including landmark cases like [Insert case name]. Explore how pro-life activists have worked within the legal system to challenge abortion access.

Ethical Dilemma Hook

Imagine you're a medical professional faced with a choice that challenges your personal beliefs. Explore the ethical dilemmas that healthcare providers encounter when balancing pro-life convictions with patient autonomy.

Comparative Analysis Hook

Compare and contrast the pro-life perspective with other viewpoints on abortion, such as pro-choice and religious perspectives. Analyze the key differences and common ground in the abortion debate.

Human Rights Hook

Are unborn children entitled to the same human rights as adults? Explore the pro-life argument that emphasizes the inherent value and dignity of every human life, regardless of age or stage of development.

Abortion Should Be Illegal Essay

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An Understanding of The Pro-choice and Pro-life of Abortion

A comparison of pro-life and pro-choice views on abortion, why abortion is a wrong decision, the reasons why abortion should be illegal in the united states, let us write you an essay from scratch.

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The Right to Life: Examining The Ethics of Abortion

Argumentation of anti-abortion and abortion-rights in united states, media portrayal of pro-life versus pro-choice to americans, pro life point of view: giving life a chance , get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

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The pro-life movement is a social and political movement that advocates for the protection and preservation of human life, particularly emphasizing the right to life of unborn fetuses. It opposes the practice of abortion and seeks to restrict or eliminate access to abortion services.

Mother Teresa was an influential voice in the pro-life movement. She vehemently advocated for the sanctity of life, particularly speaking out against abortion. Mother Teresa believed that every life, no matter how vulnerable or disadvantaged, deserved love, care, and protection. Her unwavering commitment to the value of human life and her global impact made her an inspirational figure for many in the pro-life movement. Dr. Mildred Jefferson was the first African American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and a prominent pro-life advocate. As a physician, she believed that the medical profession should prioritize healing and saving lives, rather than ending them through abortion. Dr. Jefferson co-founded the National Right to Life Committee, a prominent pro-life organization in the United States. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, an American obstetrician-gynecologist, played a crucial role in shaping the pro-life movement. He was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) and actively advocated for abortion rights. However, after witnessing the development of ultrasound technology and performing thousands of abortions, he experienced a change of heart. Dr. Nathanson became a prominent pro-life advocate, exposing the reality of abortion through the documentary "The Silent Scream."

The roots of the pro-life movement can be found in the United States, where it gained significant momentum in the latter half of the 20th century. The movement emerged as a response to the legalization of abortion in the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade in 1973. Initially, the pro-life movement focused on grassroots activism, organizing rallies, marches, and protests to raise awareness about the sanctity of life and advocate for the protection of the unborn. Religious groups, particularly Catholic and evangelical communities, played a crucial role in mobilizing support for the movement. Over the years, the pro-life movement has expanded its scope to encompass a range of issues related to human dignity and the value of life, including opposition to euthanasia, assisted suicide, and embryonic stem cell research. The movement has engaged in legal battles, lobbying efforts, and educational campaigns to influence public opinion and policy-making. Pro-life organizations have emerged, such as the National Right to Life Committee and the Susan B. Anthony List, to coordinate and amplify their advocacy efforts.

Public opinion on the pro-life movement is diverse and often influenced by individual beliefs, values, and personal experiences. The issue of abortion, which lies at the core of the pro-life movement, evokes strong emotions and deeply held convictions on both sides of the debate. Supporters of the pro-life movement argue that every human life, including the unborn, deserves protection and that abortion is morally and ethically wrong. They often emphasize the rights of the unborn child and advocate for legal restrictions on abortion, promoting alternatives such as adoption and increased support for expectant mothers. Opponents of the pro-life movement, on the other hand, emphasize a woman's right to choose and argue for reproductive freedom and autonomy. They believe that decisions about pregnancy and abortion should be made by the individual, free from governmental interference. Public opinion polls on abortion and the pro-life movement have shown a range of perspectives over the years, often reflecting a complex mix of religious, moral, and political beliefs. These opinions can vary based on factors such as age, gender, religion, and political affiliation.

The topic of the pro-life movement is important to write an essay about due to its significant impact on society, ethics, and individual rights. It encompasses a complex and deeply divisive issue: abortion. Exploring the pro-life movement allows for an in-depth examination of the philosophical, moral, and legal arguments surrounding the right to life and the autonomy of pregnant individuals. Writing an essay on the pro-life movement provides an opportunity to delve into the historical, cultural, and religious factors that have shaped this movement. It allows for an exploration of the various perspectives, ranging from religious and moral beliefs to legal and political considerations. Additionally, the pro-life movement intersects with other relevant topics such as healthcare, women's rights, reproductive justice, and public policy. Furthermore, the pro-life movement is a subject of ongoing debate and activism, with its implications reaching beyond national borders. Analyzing this topic enables a critical examination of social attitudes, legislation, and the influence of grassroots organizations and interest groups.

1. A Gallup poll conducted in 2020 found that 46% of Americans identified as "pro-life," indicating their belief in the sanctity of life and opposition to abortion. 2. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization focused on reproductive health, in 2017, 58% of women obtaining abortions in the United States identified as religiously affiliated, with 17% identifying as Catholic and 27% as Protestant. 3. The pro-life movement has witnessed significant legislative efforts across different states. As of 2021, more than 20 states in the United States have enacted laws restricting abortion access, including mandatory waiting periods, gestational age limits, and regulations on abortion providers.

1. Guttmacher Institute. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.guttmacher.org/ 2. National Right to Life. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nrlc.org/ 3. Americans United for Life (AUL). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://aul.org/ 4. Pew Research Center. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/ 5. Pro-Life Action League. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://prolifeaction.org/ 6. National Abortion Federation (NAF). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.prochoice.org/ 7. National Right to Life News. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/ 8. Journal of Medical Ethics. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://jme.bmj.com/ 9. Family Research Council (FRC). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.frc.org/ 10. National Catholic Register. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ncregister.com/

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The Pro-Life View on Abortion

Welcoming all humans throughout life.

Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in modern society, with strong opinions on both sides. At Americans United for Life (AUL), we believe in the sanctity of human life, and that every human being has inherent dignity and worth. That’s why we advocate for pro-life policies that protect both women and their unborn children . We’re working hard towards the day when all humans are welcomed in life and protected by law.

The Humanity of Pre-Born Children

At the heart of the pro-life view is the belief in the sanctity of human life. In opposing abortion, we acknowledge the humanity of the child in the womb which fuels our effort to protect the pre-born child’s life. From conception, the preborn human being has a unique and complete genetic composition derived from both the mother and the father. As early as five (5) weeks’ gestation, the preborn human being’s heart begins beating. The preborn human being begins to move about in the womb at approximately eight (8) weeks’ gestation.

Every Human Life Matters

We believe that every human being, from conception to natural death, has inherent dignity and worth. This belief is based on our understanding that human life is a gift, and that we as a society have a responsibility to protect and cherish human life. We reject the notion that some lives are more valuable than others, and that it is acceptable to end the life of an unborn child for any reason. We believe every human is valuable and should be protected. All humans, including babies in the womb, deserve the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. One human’s pursuit of happiness does not allow them to end the life of another.

Protecting Women and Children

We believe that protecting women and children is essential to building a culture of life. We never advocate for harm to come to women. In fact, abortion is what harms not only the pre-born child but also the mother, both physically and emotionally. Women who undergo abortions are at increased risk for a range of health complications , including breast cancer, infertility, and psychological trauma. The child, on the other hand, is denied the right to life and the opportunity to fulfill his or her potential. In our support of mothers, we’re working to ease the burden of childbearing by making birth free. We believe that every woman deserves access to comprehensive health care that respects her dignity and protects her health and well-being.

The Reality of Abortion

It is important to understand the reality of abortion: it ends a human life. Consider the impact of over 60 million human lives that have been ended. How many future presidents, sports stars, or cultural icons have been aborted? We will never quite know the impact of the reality of abortion because our potential as humans is so infinite. Abortion is not a simple medical procedure, but a life-changing decision that has significant consequences for women, their future families, and our society. In the United States, more than 60 million abortions have been performed since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973. That’s 60 million lives that were never given a chance to live and make a contribution to society. We believe that this is a tragedy that must be addressed. Americans United for Life works in advocating for pro-life policies and programs that provide alternatives to abortion and support for women and their families.

Building A Culture of Life

At Americans United for Life, we are committed to building a culture of life that respects the dignity of every human being. We believe that every life matters, and that it is our duty to protect the most vulnerable among us. We advocate for pro-life solutions that promote the health and well-being of women and their unborn children, and we work to raise awareness about the reality of abortion and its impact on society. Join us in this important work, and together, we can build a world where every life is cherished and protected.

The tragic reality of abortion pills is that they are unsafe and unjust.

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There’s a Better Way to Debate Abortion

Caution and epistemic humility can guide our approach.

If Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization becomes law, we will enter a post– Roe v. Wade world in which the laws governing abortion will be legislatively decided in 50 states.

In the short term, at least, the abortion debate will become even more inflamed than it has been. Overturning Roe , after all, would be a profound change not just in the law but in many people’s lives, shattering the assumption of millions of Americans that they have a constitutional right to an abortion.

This doesn’t mean Roe was correct. For the reasons Alito lays out, I believe that Roe was a terribly misguided decision, and that a wiser course would have been for the issue of abortion to have been given a democratic outlet, allowing even the losers “the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight,” in the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Instead, for nearly half a century, Roe has been the law of the land. But even those who would welcome its undoing should acknowledge that its reversal could convulse the nation.

From the December 2019 issue: The dishonesty of the abortion debate

If we are going to debate abortion in every state, given how fractured and angry America is today, we need caution and epistemic humility to guide our approach.

We can start by acknowledging the inescapable ambiguities in this staggeringly complicated moral question. No matter one’s position on abortion, each of us should recognize that those who hold views different from our own have some valid points, and that the positions we embrace raise complicated issues. That realization alone should lead us to engage in this debate with a little more tolerance and a bit less certitude.

Many of those on the pro-life side exhibit a gap between the rhetoric they employ and the conclusions they actually seem to draw. In the 1990s, I had an exchange, via fax, with a pro-life thinker. During our dialogue, I pressed him on what he believed, morally speaking , should be the legal penalty for a woman who has an abortion and a doctor who performs one.

My point was a simple one: If he believed, as he claimed, that an abortion even moments after conception is the killing of an innocent child—that the fetus, from the instant of conception, is a human being deserving of all the moral and political rights granted to your neighbor next door—then the act ought to be treated, if not as murder, at least as manslaughter. Surely, given what my interlocutor considered to be the gravity of the offense, fining the doctor and taking no action against the mother would be morally incongruent. He was understandably uncomfortable with this line of questioning, unwilling to go to the places his premises led. When it comes to abortion, few people are.

Humane pro-life advocates respond that while an abortion is the taking of a human life, the woman having the abortion has been misled by our degraded culture into denying the humanity of the child. She is a victim of misinformation; she can’t be held accountable for what she doesn’t know. I’m not unsympathetic to this argument, but I think it ultimately falls short. In other contexts, insisting that people who committed atrocities because they truly believed the people against whom they were committing atrocities were less than human should be let off the hook doesn’t carry the day. I’m struggling to understand why it would in this context.

There are other complicating matters. For example, about half of all fertilized eggs are aborted spontaneously —that is, result in miscarriage—usually before the woman knows she is pregnant. Focus on the Family, an influential Christian ministry, is emphatic : “Human life begins at fertilization.” Does this mean that when a fertilized egg is spontaneously aborted, it is comparable—biologically, morally, ethically, or in any other way—to when a 2-year-old child dies? If not, why not? There’s also the matter of those who are pro-life and contend that abortion is the killing of an innocent human being but allow for exceptions in the case of rape or incest. That is an understandable impulse but I don’t think it’s a logically sustainable one.

The pro-choice side, for its part, seldom focuses on late-term abortions. Let’s grant that late-term abortions are very rare. But the question remains: Is there any point during gestation when pro-choice advocates would say “slow down” or “stop”—and if so, on what grounds? Or do they believe, in principle, that aborting a child up to the point of delivery is a defensible and justifiable act; that an abortion procedure is, ethically speaking, the same as removing an appendix? If not, are those who are pro-choice willing to say, as do most Americans, that the procedure gets more ethically problematic the further along in a pregnancy?

Read: When a right becomes a privilege

Plenty of people who consider themselves pro-choice have over the years put on their refrigerator door sonograms of the baby they are expecting. That tells us something. So does biology. The human embryo is a human organism, with the genetic makeup of a human being. “The argument, in which thoughtful people differ, is about the moral significance and hence the proper legal status of life in its early stages,” as the columnist George Will put it.

These are not “gotcha questions”; they are ones I have struggled with for as long as I’ve thought through where I stand on abortion, and I’ve tried to remain open to corrections in my thinking. I’m not comfortable with those who are unwilling to grant any concessions to the other side or acknowledge difficulties inherent in their own position. But I’m not comfortable with my own position, either—thinking about abortion taking place on a continuum, and troubled by abortions, particularly later in pregnancy, as the child develops.

The question I can’t answer is where the moral inflection point is, when the fetus starts to have claims of its own, including the right to life. Does it depend on fetal development? If so, what aspect of fetal development? Brain waves? Feeling pain? Dreaming? The development of the spine? Viability outside the womb? Something else? Any line I might draw seems to me entirely arbitrary and capricious.

Because of that, I consider myself pro-life, but with caveats. My inability to identify a clear demarcation point—when a fetus becomes a person—argues for erring on the side of protecting the unborn. But it’s a prudential judgment, hardly a certain one.

At the same time, even if one believes that the moral needle ought to lean in the direction of protecting the unborn from abortion, that doesn’t mean one should be indifferent to the enormous burden on the woman who is carrying the child and seeks an abortion, including women who discover that their unborn child has severe birth defects. Nor does it mean that all of us who are disturbed by abortion believe it is the equivalent of killing a child after birth. In this respect, my view is similar to that of some Jewish authorities , who hold that until delivery, a fetus is considered a part of the mother’s body, although it does possess certain characteristics of a person and has value. But an early-term abortion is not equivalent to killing a young child. (Many of those who hold this position base their views in part on Exodus 21, in which a miscarriage that results from men fighting and pushing a pregnant woman is punished by a fine, but the person responsible for the miscarriage is not tried for murder.)

“There is not the slightest recognition on either side that abortion might be at the limits of our empirical and moral knowledge,” the columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote in 1985. “The problem starts with an awesome mystery: the transformation of two soulless cells into a living human being. That leads to an insoluble empirical question: How and exactly when does that occur? On that, in turn, hangs the moral issue: What are the claims of the entity undergoing that transformation?”

That strikes me as right; with abortion, we’re dealing with an awesome mystery and insoluble empirical questions. Which means that rather than hurling invective at one another and caricaturing those with whom we disagree, we should try to understand their views, acknowledge our limitations, and even show a touch of grace and empathy. In this nation, riven and pulsating with hate, that’s not the direction the debate is most likely to take. But that doesn’t excuse us from trying.

Pro-Life Arguments Explained – Part 1

• By Lauren Roman
• February 24, 2022

Abortion has always been a contentious issue. We encounter and engage people with a variety of deeply held beliefs. Every Christian needs to understand fundamental pro-life arguments and be ready to speak truth with love .

We can passionately argue against abortion while treating people with love and respect. And we must . Regardless of a person’s actions, choices or beliefs, we are not against them . Rather, we are against abortion .

Winning hearts for Christ is infinitely more important than “winning” an argument. In any situation, as we argue for life and against abortion, this is our foundation: we are pro-life and pro- love .

What Are the Top Pro-Life Arguments?

The pro-choice arguments we encounter often revolve around women’s “constitutional right to abortion.” Most on the pro-life side need to better understand why abortion is not a constitutional right before we can address this argument effectively. We’ll unpack this in Part 2 of Pro-Life Arguments Explained .

The heart of the issue isn’t the law. The reality of human life – when does it start, why does it matter – is what determines the interpretation of our legal rights.

The Science is Certain: Human Life Begins at Conception

Pro-life arguments stand firm on the biology of the human life cycle. Science focuses on objective information, not religious, political, philosophical or personal beliefs. For this reason, many of the pro-choice people you engage with may not share your faith or biblical worldview. So, start with the facts.

A scientific survey of Americans asked who they believe is most qualified to decide when human life begins. Of five choices – biologists, philosophers, religious leaders, Supreme Court Justices or voters – 80% of participants viewed biologists as the best authority to determine when life begins.

Subsequently, more than 5,000 biologists from academic institutions worldwide were surveyed to answer this question. 96% of biologists affirmed that human life begins at fertilization.

This is a compelling fact for pro-life arguments. The point at which human cells become a human being is central to the abortion debate. The biological truth is clear.

When an egg and sperm cell join, the two become one. It’s called a zygote, a single cell with a unique genetic code. Scientists definitively classify organisms by their DNA. A biologist asked to identify an unknown zygote would turn to genetics. That single cell has the same DNA as the adult organism – is this zygote Homo Sapiens or Pteromys Volans ?

Pteromys Volans happens to be a Siberian flying squirrel. How could a biologist determine a specimen’s exact species? That’s right: DNA.

Related Article: Science vs. Bible: When Does Life Begin?

The Moral Imperative: Human Life Has Innate Value

Upon conception, a Homo sapiens zygote exists. But is it a person ? Are all people equally valuable?

Every human being is precious to God. Jesus made that clear on the cross! Every person is an image-bearer of God Himself – even before birth. As Psalm 139:13-14 explains (NLT):

13  You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body      and knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14  Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!      Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

Pro-Life Arguments and Christian Beliefs

A biblical exposition on the value of human life would take far more space than we have here. Pro-life arguments are typically more persuasive if they don’t stand on religious morality. Many pro-choicers disregard faith-based arguments against abortion.

We can reframe the moral question with a hypothetical scenario. Suppose an omniscient philosopher presents a man with two zygotes: one Homo Sapiens , one unidentified. This man must choose which one will live. He thinks, “The world’s already overpopulated… a single cell can’t feel pain… let’s see what the other one turns out to be.” It’s decided.

The philosopher then reveals the human zygote would have grown into a woman who became a medical researcher and discovered a cure for cancer. The woman’s life would’ve saved countless people from terrible suffering, grief and death!

Does that change the equation? Is the human zygote now more worthy of life? This fantastical scenario illustrates the pro-life saying:

"Each Unborn Life Isn't a Potential Person – It's a Person With Potential"

We all know it doesn’t take extraordinary accomplishments for a person’s life to matter. Generally, people instinctively know that preserving life is right and taking life is wrong.

If murder laws were repealed, would most people suddenly decide it’s acceptable to take the life of any person they choose? Of course not!

Objective Truth is a Slippery Slope

We have a human conscience that guides our morality. I would argue the basis for conscience is objective truth, which requires a source of objective truth – i.e., God. Without conscience, human existence devolves into Lord of the Flies .

There’s no definitive “good” or “evil” without objective truth – people live to dominate or be dominated. The value of each person is subjective, determined by those in power. Their calculus is self-interest, i.e., “Does this person enhance or detract from my enjoyment of life?”

Fortunately, that is not our reality. People generally believe that compelling justification is needed to take a life with moral impunity. The reasoning may be circumstantial (e.g., self-defense), or it may hinge on the other person’s state of being, as it does for abortion and euthanasia. Many justify these practices based on a person’s degree of development, decline or infringement on other people’s rights. But this is a dangerous slippery slope.

Who Can Rightly Assess a Person's Worthiness to Live? By What Criteria?

If the assessment is up to society, the results may preserve life or promote death. Consider the unintended consequences of China’s 35-year One Child policy. The socio-economic factors of Chinese culture have historically made male children more desirable than females. Many couples decided their child must be a son to preserve the family.

Once technology allowed parents to learn the sex of a preborn child, tens of millions of girls were aborted. This horrific tragedy created a massive gender imbalance. As of 2021, there are approximately 35 million more Chinese men than women. And this societal crisis adversely affects more than 1 billion people.

Selective and Elective Abortion

Ironically, many pro-choice advocates oppose selective abortion while supporting elective abortion.

In a 2014 press release , a prominent abortion provider decried the proposed “Abortion Non-Discrimination Act.” Although the bill was intended to prevent selective abortion (based on gender, race, etc.), they declared it a veiled threat to reproductive rights. The same release unequivocally stated: “ We oppose sex selection abortion.”

So, it’s wrong to take a life based on sex or race, but acceptable if the mother’s reason is… anything else ? This is logically untenable!

The Pro-Choice Argument Can't Be Both

One cannot advocate for unrestricted abortion access while morally condemning sex-selective abortion.

Our human way of life, underpinned by common morality, testifies that every person has inherent value. We must hold this to be true from conception to natural death. If not, we create “gray areas” that invite unethical abuse of the most vulnerable among us.

We’ll explore this further when examining the legal aspects of “choice” in Part 2 of Pro-Life Arguments Explained .

Related Videos:

• See Life Episode 1: The Truth About Life
• Level of Development ≠ Equal Personhood
• How a Former Abortion Doctor Became Pro-Life

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About the Author

Lauren Roman

Lauren Roman is a truth-telling creative communicator and irrepressible encourager! She speaks, sings, and writes with bold transparency, motivating others to pursue true freedom in Christ. Lauren’s acting background (All My Children, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Nashville, Grace Unplugged) shines through her entertaining style, captivating diverse audiences. With the humility and humor of a “recovering perfectionist,” she shares practical biblical insights that inspire us to put faith into action! Lauren’s debut children’s book ThinkGood, BeGood! arrives in the Summer of 2023. Learn more and order at www.wethinkgood.com .

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Unraveling the Science Behind the Pro-Life Movement: A Comprehensive Introduction

• By: McKenzie Hammons
• Thought Leadership

With an abundance of information at our fingertips, the science behind the pro-life argument has never been more understood than it is today.

Women can now learn more about their pregnancy than their grandmothers ever could. The information we know now was not readily available to the average woman of the Roe generation. Scientific discoveries, technological advancements, and increased access to new information all point to the sanctity of human life.

For example, the use of fetal ultrasound machines only started to become more widely used in the 1970s, changing the way women were able to connect with their preborn babies. Science continually validates the humanization of preborn lives, favoring the pro-life argument.

Introduction to Pro-Life Science

People look to science to give them insight on topics like the mental health ramifications of women post-abortion, the biology of fetal development, whether fetuses can feel pain, the physical and emotional effects of abortion on women during and after various abortion procedures, and more.

Religious, moral, and ethical arguments can be better amplified through science. Although we are living in a time where objective truth is offensive to many, perhaps biological and scientific fact can grip the hearts of those swayed by the world’s confusion

Defining pro-life: Terminology and perspectives

When discussing the pro-life movement, it’s essential to understand the terminology and various perspectives that exist. Pro-life refers to the belief that a fetus has a right to life, and thus, abortion should be restricted or prohibited.

The opposing view, pro-choice, advocates for a woman’s right to choose whether to continue or terminate a pregnancy. While some may identify as pro-choice, not all would advocate for unlimited abortions.

The relevance of science in the pro-life debate

Science plays a crucial role in the pro-life debate by providing evidence-based information on fetal development, abortion procedures, and their consequences. This knowledge is vital in shaping informed opinions and promoting constructive dialogue.

Fetal Development & Viability

The life of a preborn baby is often described in a way that minimizes its value. Because if we avoid humanizing fetuses, abortion is deemed okay. The PR machines of the abortion industry try to justify the horrendous acts it commits, yet many are ignorant of the reality of fetal development.

The preborn heart begins beating and pumping blood in the earliest stages of heart development, between 21 and 24 days after conception. Thankfully the Texas Heartbeat Law brought national attention to this fact. The heart is the first organ to function in a human embryo, as it pumps blood to create rapid growth.

Milestones in fetal growth

While a pregnancy may be callously referred to as a “clump of cells” by some, a fetus (defined in the dictionary as an unborn baby) is not a mere ball of tissue.

First, a fertilized egg is considered a germinal that becomes an embryo that quickly becomes a rapidly developing fetus.

Fetal development progresses through various milestones:

1. Fertilization : The sperm and egg unite, forming a zygote.

2. Implantation : The zygote attaches to the uterine wall, becoming an embryo.

3. Organogenesis : The embryo’s organs start to develop.

4. Fetal stage : After 10 weeks, the embryo becomes a fetus and continues growing and developing.

Ph.D. Andréa Becker found it interesting how little public attention is given to fetal development in all stages of pregnancy. Becker examined countless research papers, pondering how various groups define and refer to the fetus. Becker found that one, “Abortion provider and scholar Lisa Harris (2008, 2019) describes acknowledging that abortion ends potential life, especially once a fetus starts to resemble a small baby. This is both danger talk and one of the ˜things we cannot say’ in abortion care.”

Abortion providers know that humanizing the life they’re terminating affects their bottom line, so they must be careful to maintain ambivalence and sterile boundaries to avoid mothers creating emotional connections to their children.

The viability debate: When does life begin?

Some argue that life starts at conception, while others believe it commences at a later stage, such as when the preborn baby can potentially survive outside the womb. This discussion has significant implications for the pro-life movement and informs legislative decisions on abortion restrictions.

A new scientific discovery found that the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg, light is emitted in the womb. Scientific Reports describes the light as an explosion of zinc fireworks, the signature that life is formed.

God is in even the smallest of details. John 1:4-5 says, “In Him [Jesus] was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” (NKJV). God stamps his signature at the moment of our creation, marked by light. This is

scientific evidence that even at the earliest stage of gestation, preborn life is precious and should be protected.

But, what does a biologist say when life begins? Americans are no longer unified under the logical consensus that human life begins at fertilization as “only 38% of Americans view fertilization as the starting point of a human’s life.” Another study found that 45% of Americans believe life beginning at conception is a “philosophical or religious belief,” not rooted in biological and scientific fact.

Biologists from 1,058 academic institutions were surveyed, and 96% affirmed that life begins at fertilization. Perhaps the other 4% decided to leave objective truth up to personal opinion and feeling.

Abortion Procedures and Their Impact

Depending on what stage of development the baby is in, abortion procedures vary.

Common abortion methods

Abortion methods vary depending on the stage of pregnancy and include:

Medication abortion (AKA the abortion pill)

Drugs like mifepristone and misoprostol to terminate a pregnancy up to 10 weeks. First mifepristone starves the baby of nutrients. However, if the abortion reversal pill, progesterone, is administered, then the effects of the mifepristone can be countered to save the baby. After the first pill, misoprostol is taken to force contractions to expel the dead or dying baby.

Vacuum aspiration abortion (D&C) Typically this method is performed up to 14 weeks gestation. A suction device removes the baby along with the placenta. Then other tools are used to scrape the lining of the uterus to ensure all baby parts are expelled so that infection should not occur. At this stage in pregnancy, a baby’s nerve cells have developed rapidly, and the baby can respond to touch.

Dilation and evacuation (D&E)

A combination of suction and surgical tools removes the fetus and placenta after 16 weeks. This procedure is used during a second trimester or late-term abortion. First, the cervix must be dilated for one to two days to prepare for the evacuation procedure. Suction is used to vacuum out the placenta, but unlike earlier abortion methods, the baby is too big to fit through the suction instrument. The baby must be removed in pieces with a clamp.

Complications from this procedure may include uterine perforation, cervical laceration, infection hemorrhage, maternal death, and future pregnancy complications.

The physical and emotional consequences

Abortion can have both physical and emotional consequences. Physical risks include uterine perforation, cervical laceration, infection hemorrhage, maternal death, and future pregnancy complications.

Emotional effects are highly individual and can range from relief to regret, guilt, or depression. A new retrospective study found that:

● “Only wanted abortions were associated with positive emotions or mental health gains.

● All other groups attributed more negative emotions and mental health outcomes to their abortions.

● Sixty percent reported they would have preferred to give birth if they had received more support from others or had more financial security.”

Ethical Considerations in the Pro-Life Debate

Although some proudly share their abortion story, other pro-choice advocates simply believe abortion is a necessary evil. While they acknowledge abortion ends a human life, they believe a woman’s right to choose is more important than the life of a nameless fetus.

The retrospective study surveyed women with a history of abortion and found that 43% believed abortion is inconsistent with their values and preferences. However, they elected for the abortion anyway.

Another study showed that 58.3% of the women who went through with an abortion, did so to satify others (family, partner, etc.) and 66% of the women who had an abortion believed they were making a mistake in having the abortion.

Moral arguments for pro-life views

Pro-life supporters often argue that life begins at conception and that abortion is morally wrong because it ends an innocent life. Some base their views on religious beliefs, while others argue from a philosophical standpoint.

There is a misconception that to be pro-life is to be religious, and that pro-life activists are just pushing their religious views. The Secular Pro-Life organization says, “You don’t have to be religious to have a problem with killing humans.” A preborn baby is a human life, and human life is valuable and deserving of protection.

Balancing women’s rights and fetal rights

The pro-life debate involves the complex task of balancing women’s rights to bodily autonomy and reproductive choice with the rights of the fetus. While pro-life advocates prioritize the baby’s right to life, pro-choice supporters emphasize the importance of a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body and life circumstances.

Legal Aspects of the Pro-Life Movement

Legislation, politics, and social opinion are all impacted by scientific fact as a basis of understanding. Significant court cases and legislation have shaped the legal landscape surrounding abortion.

Key court cases and legislation

In the United States, the landmark case of Roe v. Wade in 1973 established a woman’s legal right to abortion. However, subsequent cases and legislation have modified and limited access to abortion services because of the scientific facts that the case was founded on.

Roe v. Wade was based on fetal viability being understood to be around 28 weeks gestation. As science has progressed, younger babies can survive outside the womb. The age of fetal viability is still heavily debated. Yet, the logic of Roe stood on faulty grounds wherein the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case could challenge the ruling’s validity. This new landmark decision interpreted that the Constitution of the United States does not grant a right to abortion.

The Role of Education in Shaping Opinions

Often when people are presented with the full picture of what abortion really is, they change their minds. Understanding the intricate details of fetal development humanizes the baby, points to a Creator, and convicts hearts. Becoming aware of the brutality of the various forms of abortion procedures changes perspectives too. They are not simple, standard procedures—they can have lasting physical and emotional effects.

PreBorn! Network Clinics discuss with women about abortion, adoption, and parenting. The Clinics explain the abortion procedures at their various stages so that women are informed of what will happen to their bodies, and their preborn babies, if they were to visit an abortuary to go through with the procedure.

The pro-life message is that a fetus is a life, and it is a human life, deserving the right to life just as much as any of us. We are living in the information age, and technology makes it easier than ever to comprehend the humanity of preborn lives, mimicking each stage of fetal development.

Pregnant moms can track, in real-time, all of the rapid changes their baby is undergoing week by week during pregnancy.

While information is more readily available, we also live in a deceived generation that prefers subjective truth to scientific fact. Women vulnerable to abortion need compassionate lovers of Jesus to speak truth and love into their lives, empowering them to choose life.

PreBorn! Network Clinics offer vital support services for pregnant women, such as prenatal care, counseling, financial assistance, and parenting classes to help women make informed decisions about their pregnancies and access resources that may encourage them to consider alternatives to abortion.

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The Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice Debate

What does each side believe?

ThoughtCo/ThoughtCo

• Reproductive Rights
• The U. S. Government
• U.S. Foreign Policy
• U.S. Liberal Politics
• U.S. Conservative Politics
• Civil Liberties
• The Middle East
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• Ph.D., Religion and Society, Edith Cowan University
• M.A., Humanities, California State University - Dominguez Hills
• B.A., Liberal Arts, Excelsior College

The terms "pro-life" and "pro-choice" refer to the dominant ideologies concerning abortion rights. Those who are pro-life, a term that some argue is biased because it suggests that the opposition does not value human life, believe that abortion should be banned. Those who are pro-choice support keeping abortion legal and accessible.

In reality, the controversies related to reproductive rights are much more complex. Some people back abortions in certain circumstances and not in others or believe such procedures should be " safe, rare, and lega l." Complicating matters is that there's no consensus on when exactly life begins . The shades of gray in the abortion debate are why the reproductive rights discussion is far from simple.

The Pro-Life Perspective

Someone who is "pro-life" believes that the government has an obligation to preserve all human life, regardless of intent, viability, or quality-of-life concerns. A comprehensive pro-life ethic, such as that proposed by the Roman Catholic Church, prohibits:

• Euthanasia and assisted suicide 
• The death penalty
• War, with very few exceptions

In cases where the pro-life ethic conflicts with personal autonomy, as in abortion and assisted suicide, it's considered conservative. In cases where the pro-life ethic conflicts with government policy, as in the death penalty and war, it's said to be liberal.

Pro-Choice Perspective

People who are " pro-choice " believe that individuals have unlimited autonomy with respect to their own reproductive systems, as long as they don't breach the autonomy of others. A comprehensive pro-choice position asserts that the following must remain legal:

• Celibacy and abstinence
• Contraception use
• Emergency contraception use

Under the Partial Birth Abortion Ban passed by Congress and signed into law in 2003, abortion became illegal under most circumstances in the second trimester of pregnancy, even if the mother's health is in danger. Individual states have their own laws, some banning abortion after 20 weeks and most restricting late-term abortions . 

The pro-choice position is perceived as "pro-abortion" to some in the U.S., but this is inaccurate. The purpose of the pro-choice movement is to ensure that all choices remain legal.

Point of Conflict

The pro-life and pro-choice movements primarily come into conflict on the issue of abortion . The pro-life movement argues that even a nonviable, undeveloped human life is sacred and must be protected by the government. Abortion should be prohibited, according to this model, and not practiced on an illegal basis either.

The pro-choice movement argues that the government should not prevent an individual from terminating a pregnancy before the point of viability (when the fetus can't live outside the womb). The pro-life and pro-choice movements overlap to an extent in that they share the goal of reducing the number of abortions. However, they differ with respect to degree and methodology.

Religion and the Sanctity of Life

Politicians on both sides of the abortion debate only sometimes reference the religious nature of the conflict. If one believes that an immortal soul is created at the moment of conception and that "personhood" is determined by the presence of that soul, then there is effectively no difference between terminating a week-old pregnancy or killing a living, breathing person. Some members of the anti-abortion movement have acknowledged (while maintaining that all life is sacred) that a difference exists between a fetus and a fully-formed human being.

Religious Pluralism and the Obligation of Government

The U.S. government can't acknowledge the existence of an immortal soul that begins at conception without taking on a specific, theological definition of human life . Some theological traditions teach that the soul is implanted at quickening (when the fetus begins to move) rather than at conception. Other theological traditions teach that the soul is born at birth, while some assert that the soul doesn't exist until well after birth. Still, other theological traditions teach that there is no immortal soul whatsoever.

Can Science Tell Us Anything?

Although there is no scientific basis for the existence of a soul, there is no such basis for the existence of subjectivity, either. This can make it difficult to ascertain concepts such as "sanctity." Science alone can't tell us whether a human life is worth more or less than a rock. We value each other for social and emotional reasons. Science doesn't tell us to do it.

To the extent that we have anything approaching a scientific definition of personhood, it would most likely rest in our understanding of the brain . Scientists believe that neocortical development makes emotion and cognition possible and that it doesn't begin until the late second or early third trimester of pregnancy.

Alternative Standards for Personhood

Some pro-life advocates argue that the presence of life alone, or of unique DNA, defines personhood. Many things that we don't consider to be living persons might meet this criterion. Our tonsils and appendices are certainly both human and alive, but we don't consider their removal as anything close to the killing of a person.

The unique DNA argument is more compelling. Sperm and egg cells contain genetic material that will later form the zygote. The question of whether certain forms of gene therapy also create new persons could be raised by this definition of personhood.

Not a Choice

The pro-life vs. pro-choice debate tends to overlook the fact that the vast majority of women who have abortions don't do so by choice, at least not entirely. Circumstances put them in a position where abortion is the least self-destructive option available. According to a study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute, 73 percent of women who had abortions in the  United States  in 2004 said that they couldn't afford to have children.

The Future of Abortion

The most effective forms of birth control —even if used correctly—were only 90 percent effective in the late 20th century. Today, contraceptive options have improved and even should they fail for some reason, individuals may take emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy.

Advancements in birth control may help to further reduce the risk of unplanned pregnancies. Someday abortion may grow increasingly rare in the United States. But for this to happen, individuals from all socioeconomic backgrounds and regions would need to have access to cost-effective and reliable forms of contraception.

• DeSanctis, Alexandra. "How Democrats Purged 'Safe, Legal, Rare' From the Party", November, 15, 2019.
•  Finer, Lawrence B. "Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives." Lori F. Frohwirth, Lindsay A. Dauphinee, Susheela Singh, Ann M. Moore, Volume 37, Issue 3, Guttmacher Institute, September 1, 2005.
• Santorum, Sen. Rick. "S.3 - Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003." 108th Congress, H. Rept. 108-288 (Conference Report), Congress, February 14, 2003.
• "State Bans on Abortion Throughout Pregnancy." State Laws and Policies, Guttmacher Institute, April 1, 2019. 
• Key Arguments From Both Sides of the Abortion Debate
• All About Abortion Rights
• Abortion Facts and Statistics in the 21st Century
• Understanding Why Abortion Is Legal in the United States
• Pro-Choice Quotes
• Abortion on Demand: A Second Wave Feminist Demand
• The Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Decision
• Is Abortion Legal in Every State?
• Supreme Court Decisions and Women's Reproductive Rights
• Biography of Norma McCorvey, 'Roe' in the Roe v. Wade Case
• Roe v. Wade
• Unwind Teen Book Review
• The Difference Between Liberals and Conservatives
• What Are Single Issue Voters?
• What Is the Libertarian Party Platform?
• The 1969 Redstockings Abortion Speakout

Training Pro-Life Advocates to Think Clearly, Reason Honestly, and Argue Persuasively

Introducing Equal Rights Institute

ERI is dedicated to equipping the pro-life movement to argue intelligently, honestly, and persuasively about abortion. We teach relational dialogue tips and the top pro-life arguments in blog articles, videos, podcasts, and our two full-length courses. Our goal isn’t just to help you win a debate, but to show you how to help pro-choice people change their mind. We provide responses to the toughest pro-choice arguments, based in questions of personhood, bodily autonomy, and self-defense, and we treat pro-choice people with respect by responding to the strongest version of their arguments.

You can be a more confident and gracious pro-life advocate; we’re here to help.

LATEST ARTICLE: Abortion and Resurrection: An Easter Reflection

With Easter in mind, Andrew offers a reflection on being pro-life and the evil of abortion in light of Jesus’ resurrection.

LATEST PODCAST: Intellectual Honesty, Transparency, and the Pro-Life Movement (with Apologist Dr. Randal Rauser)

Josh’s favorite Christian apologist, Dr. Randal Rauser, joins the show. Randal describes himself as “progressively Evangelical and generously Orthodox.” Josh asks him about open-mindedness, his observations about the pro-life movement, when it’s appropriate to call leaders out publicly, and the difference between an “agitation apologetics model” and an “agreement apologetics model.”

LATEST VIDEO: How to Dialogue with Crazy Extremists: Three Lessons I Learned from Teaching Philosophy

Does it feel like you’ll never be able to have a dialogue with those crazy extremists on the other side of the abortion debate (or any other issue)? In this video, incoming staff member and PhD candidate Rebecca Carlson explains how to make good conversations possible. Drawing from her experience teaching dialogue skills to philosophy students, Rebecca shares three lessons, highlighting both that bad dialogue isn’t a problem limited to any one side of any debate and that we have the power to make conversations better.

One Thing Every Pastor Can Do to Prevent Abortions in Their Congregation

I’d like to suggest one minimal leadership decision that any pastor or parish priest can make that is likely to save lives within their congregations: make a public commitment on behalf of the whole church that they will treat women who become pregnant with grace and compassion instead of shame and rejection.

Click below to read about this idea, practical tips for sharing the idea with your pastor, as well as a pledge for pastors to take.

Purchase the Equipped for Life Course!

Just two months after starting Equal Rights Institute, Josh and Timothy Brahm gave their first seminar together on pro-life dialogue. In order for that to be possible, they had to very quickly take their growing body of original content and combine it with the most helpful tools they had learned from other pro-life leaders.

From August 2014 to August 2016 only about four hundred individuals had the opportunity to experience ERI’s full seminar in pro-life dialogue. Until now.

Check Our Speaking Availability

We travel the country giving speeches related to practical dialogue tips, relational apologetics, and rigorous philosophy.

Learn about our most requested topics, read endorsements and see where we’ve spoken before…

Equal Rights Institute vehemently opposes any abortion-related violence, including violence against doctors that perform abortions, and attacks on their facilities.

KNOWLEDGE BASE

• The meaning of ‘pro-life’

The meaning of ‘pro-choice’

Misconceptions about the pro-life position, arguments against the pro-life position, references/further reading, what does it mean to be pro-life.

• Being pro-life means believing that all humans, born and unborn, have a right to life.
• Because of this, pro-lifers are morally and legally opposed to abortion, embryo-destructive research and assisted suicide and euthanasia.
• People who are pro-life often disagree about what precisely the law on these issues should be and how it should be implemented.
• The term pro-choice refers primarily to support for legal abortion. It exists on a spectrum. Some who identify as pro-choice think abortion should be legal up to a certain number of weeks gestation or under certain circumstances, and some advocate an extreme view where abortion should be legal up to birth.
• Pro-lifers believe that mothers and their unborn babies have a right to life.

The meaning of ‘pro-life’

The following article is more of an explanation of the pro-life view and not primarily a justification. Individual articles on specific topics featured on the Knowledge Base provide a more detailed overview of specific arguments offered for a particular position.

To be ‘pro-life’ means that you believe that all human life, from conception to natural death, is morally equal or is equal in dignity. Pro-lifers believe that all human beings have a ‘right to life’, which means they have a right not to be killed.

There is no uncontentious definition of ‘pro-life’ (or ‘pro-choice’). Many people who identify themselves as pro-life have disagreements about what that term means. 

For many people, the pro-life movement is most strongly associated with being anti-abortion. This is certainly part of the pro-life position, but it is not exhaustive of it as the above definition indicates.

Importantly, from the above definition, a number of implications can be drawn out.

The ‘pro-life’ view does not discriminate – the right to life applies to all human beings without restriction. The following considerations are irrelevant when it comes to a human’s right to life:

It does not matter how big or small a human is. Whether they are a zygote or fully grown, they have a right to life.

Physical or cognitive development

It does not matter how physically or mentally developed a human is. Whether they have a  severe or mild mental disability; whether they are cognitively immature (as is a late-term unborn baby or a newborn infant); whether their physical development means they do not yet have a brain (as in an embryo in early-stage pregnancy or in vitro); whether they have advanced dementia and no short or long-term memory: all of these human beings have a right to life.

It does not matter where a human being exists. Whether that be inside or outside his or her mother’s womb, they have a right to life.

It does not matter how dependent one human is on another. Whether they have a physical and/or mental disability that means that they are unable to wash or feed themselves; whether they are a newborn who relies on his or her mother’s breast milk for survival; whether they depend on their mother for nutrition (via their placenta) and the appropriate growing environment (their mother’s womb): they all have a right to life.

Unborn humans are humans too and have a right to life

Importantly, pro-lifers recognise that since the right to life belongs to all human beings without exception, it also applies to unborn human beings, even from the earliest moments of their existence. The science of embryology shows that life starts at conception. 

• A survey of 5,577 biologists in 2018 showed that 96% of respondents agreed that a human life begins at fertilisation. Steve Jacobs, who conducted the survey said: “The majority of the sample identified as liberal (89%), pro-choice (85%) and non-religious (63%)”.
• “ Human development begins at fertilization , when a sperm fuses with an oocyte to form a single cell, the zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell (capable of giving rise to any cell type) marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual ”. – Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology , (10th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2016. p. 11) [emphasis added]
• “ Development begins with fertilization , the process by which the male gamete, the sperm, and the female gamete, the oocyte, unite to give rise to a zygote ”. – Sadler, T. W. Langman’s Medical Embryology (10th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2006. p. 11) [emphasis added]
• “ The main results of fertilization are as follows: Restoration of the diploid number of chromosomes, half from the father half from the mother. Hence, the zygote contains a new combination of chromosomes different from both parents. Determination of the sex of the new individual. An X-carrying sperm produces a female (XX) embryo and a Y-carrying sperm produces a male (XY) embryo. Therefore, the chromosomal sex of the embryo is determined at fertilization ”. – Sadler, T. W. Langman’s Medical Embryology (13th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2015. p. 42) [emphasis added]

From these core definitions and the fact that all humans, unborn or otherwise are still fully and completely human, a number of pro-life views follow by simple logic.

• Intentionally ending the life of an innocent human being is wrong (pro-life view)
• Abortion intentionally ends the life of an innocent human being (empirical fact)
• Therefore abortion at any stage of pregnancy for any reason is morally wrong .

Assisted suicide and euthanasia

• Assisted suicide and euthanasia intentionally end the life of an innocent human being (empirical fact)
• Therefore assisted suicide and euthanasia are morally wrong .

Embryo destruction

• Embryo destruction intentionally ends the life of an innocent human being (empirical fact)
• Therefore the intentional destruction of, or disregard for, human embryos is wrong .
• This follows from the pro-life belief in the dignity of human life from conception to natural death.
• The creation of human embryos for research purposes, as well as their subsequent destruction, is a violation of their right to life.

Killing any innocent human being for any reason is morally wrong

For pro-lifers, their belief in the right to life forms the basis for all moral and legal prohibitions on killing.

The pro-life view makes no judgement about the character of those who do any of the above things . Saying that ‘abortion is morally wrong’ is not saying anything about the culpability of those who perform, engage with or have abortions. For example, pro-lifers recognise the often difficult circumstances of women who choose abortion and make no judgements about her character.

In the case of abortion, the pro-life view recognises the right to life of both mother and child (cases where there is a supposed conflict will be addressed below).

Pro-lifers usually hold that the above practices should be illegal too. The intentional destruction of, or disregard for, human embryos, should not be funded at all, and the collection of human embryos for this purpose should be illegal.

There is considerable disagreement about how these legal ends should be achieved as well as any specifics of law.

There are politicians who have called themselves pro-life but have either said or acted in ways contrary to this. Such persons either have a different, much looser, definition in mind or perhaps do not understand what it means to be pro-life.

As with the definition of pro-life, there is no uncontentious definition of ‘pro-choice’. The term pro-choice could refer to anyone who is in favour of choice about almost anything. Most people are pro-choice about what flavour of ice cream people should be allowed to buy and what mode of transport to take to work.

However, most people are not pro-choice about whether the law should permit someone to steal from their neighbour, or choose whether or not to drive through a red traffic light.

The pro-choice movement is far more restricted in its scope than the pro-life movement in the sense that the pro-choice movement is concerned only with abortion and not assisted suicide and euthanasia or embryo destruction.

Being pro-choice typically exists on a spectrum from radical supporters of abortion who advocate for abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy for any reason, to people who support abortion up to a certain point such as 24 weeks, 16 weeks, 12 weeks or earlier. 

Only 1% of women in Great Britain support making abortion legal up to birth, whereas 70% of women believe the abortion limit should be reduced to 20 weeks or lower .

Pro-choice definition: the belief that, in some or all circumstances, abortion is morally and/or legally permissible.

Many arguments against the pro-life position are based on misconceptions.

Misconception #1 : Pro-lifers only care about babies before they are born

Reality : Pro-lifers care about babies before and after birth

• As a matter of principle, it is untrue that pro-lifers only care about babies before they are born. As the definition of pro-life makes clear, all human beings, babies born and unborn, have a right to life and their lives ought not to be intentionally ended.
• As a political matter, it is also not true that pro-lifers only care about babies before they are born. Since there is no organisation campaigning to remove the right to life of babies outside of the womb, pro-lifers tend not to discuss this issue. If there were a political movement to remove the right to life of children after birth or supported infanticide , the pro-life movement would oppose it.
• As a matter of fact, there are numerous pro-life organisations that provide practical support and assistance to mothers and families particularly those with newborn babies, the biggest of these in the UK being Life Charity , which raises millions of pounds each year from pro-life people to provide emotional and practical support to mothers and their babies, which includes providing housing and community support around the country. Over 12,000 mothers have been provided with housing by Life Charity. 

Misconception #2 : Pro-lifers do not care about the lives of women

Reality : Pro-lifers care about women (both born and unborn) and their babies

• As a matter of principle, pro-lifers care about the lives of women. As the definition of pro-life makes clear, all human beings, unborn babies and their mothers, have a right to life and their lives ought not to be intentionally ended. They are each worthy of respect and protection under the law in virtue of the dignity of being human.
• As a political matter, one of the pro-life movement’s slogans is “ Love Them Both “. The pro-life movement does not believe that society must choose between mother and baby, but that both can be loved, helped and protected.
• As a matter of fact, there are numerous pro-life organisations that provide practical support and assistance to mothers and families particularly those with newborn babies. See the above section for more details.

Argument #1 : Abortion is a personal choice. If you don’t like abortion don’t have one.

Reality : Abortion is a choice that profoundly affects more than one person. It ends the life of one person and can seriously affect the life of at least one other. “If you don’t like chocolate ice cream, don’t have it” is a reasonable thing to say. Given that abortion ends the life of an innocent human being with a right to life, “If you don’t like abortion don’t have one”, is not.

• As a matter of principle, the pro-life movement believes in the right to life of all humans, including the mother and her child. There are all kinds of choices that society rightly opposes. For example, society does not accept the choice to steal from someone else, nor to discriminate against someone based on the colour of their skin. While the choice to steal from another or to discriminate based on skin colour are personal choices, we do not accept that these things should be morally or legally permissible.
• As a political matter, laws, in general, are a form of restriction on actions. Red traffic lights, for example, impose a restriction upon drivers, but it is a restriction we all recognise as perfectly reasonable. Given the pro-life commitment to the right to life, it is equally reasonable that unborn babies should be protected under the law.

Argument #2 : Being biologically human is not morally important. What is morally important is being a ‘person’ and humans do not become persons until some time after conception/fertilisation.

Reality : Being biologically human is morally significant. To say otherwise is to reject any notion of human equality and dignity of human life.

• To base our moral value on our being ‘persons’, and then defining ‘person’ by some psychological trait or other, is to reject any basis for human equality whatsoever.
• Abortion already has devastating consequences for the most vulnerable in our society but a denial of the pro-life view, if extended beyond the womb (and, logically speaking, there is no reason why it should not be [see below]) will have far-reaching and devastating consequences for the most vulnerable in our society.
• As a matter of fact, there are academics and activists who argue in favour of the moral and legal permissibility of infanticide. They reason, consistently, that if late-term abortion is morally permissible because the unborn baby is not self-aware and therefore not a person, then ending the life of an infant shortly after birth is also morally permissible. This is a direct consequence of the rejection of the pro-life view.
• “ Embryology: Inconvenient Facts ” by William L. Saunders, Jr.
• “ The Wrong of Abortion ” by Robert P. George and Patrick Lee from Andrew I. Cohen and Christopher Wellman, eds., Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics(New York: Blackwell Publishers, 2005)
• “ The Pro-Life Argument from Substantial Identity ” by Patrick Lee
• “ Human Beings are Animals ” by Patrick Lee
• “ Human Personhood Begins at Conception ” by Peter Kreeft
• “ I Was Once a Fetus: an Identity-Based Argument Against Abortion ” by Alexander Pruss
• “ I Was Once a Fetus: That Is Why Abortion Is Wrong ” by Alexander Pruss
• “ When do Human Beings Begin ?” by Dianne N. Irving

Dear reader,

In 2021 abortion campaigners brought forward an amendment to the UK Government’s flagship Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that would have introduced abortion on demand, for any reason, up to birth (including sex-selective abortion).

Thanks to the support from people like you, this amendment did not go to a vote and pass, but we expect the abortion lobby to make another attempt to introduce this extreme abortion law change shortly.

This would be the single biggest change to abortion legislation since 1967 and would leave England and Wales with one of the most extreme abortion laws in the world.

Please sign the petition to the Prime Minister, asking him to ensure that his Government does everything in its power to stop the introduction of abortion up to birth.

Explainer - Why it is time to reduce the abortion time limit

Explainer - how pro-lifers in malta achieved a major victory and stopped abortion coming to…, roe v wade overturned: what does it mean, abortion time limits.

16-year-olds with anorexia could be granted assisted suicide in Scotland, expert warns

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Sex-selective abortion

Disability-selective abortion

Privacy Overview

• Abortion , Constitutional Law , Family , Human Dignity

The One and Only Pro-Life Argument

• April 25, 2022

For the sake of argument: Let us stipulate to every “good” reason for abortion. Abortion is necessary to vindicate women’s equality in society, economic opportunities, and full sexual liberty. Abortion is necessary because women are oppressed, because they are often unable economically to care for children, emotionally unprepared to do so, and left abandoned by predatory males. Abortion might be thought necessary to spare a child a miserable life, an unwanted life, or a life hampered by disability. Abortion is sometimes necessary as back-up birth control to end an unintended pregnancy and avoid motherhood. Abortion is necessary to avoid pregnancy and childbirth resulting from rape or incest. And abortion may be necessary to safeguard pregnant women’s health—physical, psychological, and emotional. All of these things make abortion’s availability necessary and desirable.

And let us assume also (again, for the sake of argument) the existence and prevalence of every possible “bad” motivation for restricting abortion. Abortion restrictions or prohibitions are intended as devices to keep women in socially subordinate roles. Abortion restrictions are advocated and enacted for religious reasons, to force various churches’ religious views on others. Abortion restrictions are advanced by the worst of moral hypocrites, unwilling themselves to bear the oppressive burdens they so cavalierly pile on women. Anti-abortion folks do not care about women and their lives. All these terrible motivations are present and are what really drive the so-called “pro-life” position.

Let us assume that all of this is true, and stipulate to it—for the sake of argument. Assume the very best arguments for abortion and the very worst of motivations for laws against it. (Please note, my friends, that I am not embracing any of these views myself. I am merely noting them, and conceding them, for the sake of argument.)

Here’s the key question: Would any of this justify a freedom to kill a born , living child? A six-month old? A newborn? Would any of these things—poverty, economic or social stress, lost or delayed opportunities, single-motherhood, male abandonment, sexual autonomy, conscientious but unsuccessful use of contraception, the child’s disability, rape or incest, the emotional or psychological distress of parenthood—justify what we would otherwise recognize as the simple murder of a living newborn, infant, or toddler? Would any ostensibly bad motive for forbidding mothers to kill their children—hypocrisy, callousness, intentional subjugation of women, discrimination, a desire to impose unwelcome religious beliefs upon others—render the deliberate killing of born, living human children right? Would such factors make child murder sufficiently defensible that the decision should be left to the choice of the mother?

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Hopefully, you are repulsed by this notion. Of course, none of these factors, even if true, would justify child killing!

Even if you are an abortion-rights proponent, you are repelled by any such suggestion. Offended even: For the unstated implication, obviously, is that the same argument should hold true with respect to abortion—that abortion is exactly like child-murder. And that notion is (I am assuming) highly offensive to the defender of abortion rights: abortion is not like child murder because the fetus is not at all the same thing as a child!  

That, I submit, is, in the end, the entire issue. If taking the life of the living, unborn human fetus amounts to the same thing as taking the life of a living, born human child, then all or nearly all the “good” reasons for such killing, and all the “bad” reasons for banning such killing, tend to wash away. (There would still be situations of genuine, tragic necessity—self-defense—but that is essentially all.) Everything turns on whether the living, unborn human child in utero is a separate, living human being possessing a moral status as such, so that killing him or her is the same as killing a born human child.

Everything turns on whether the living, unborn human child is a separate, living human being possessing a moral status as such.

If the living, unborn child is a living human being, morally entitled to be treated as such, nothing else matters. It does not matter (does it?) that pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood impose real burdens on women because, no matter that reality, it would never justify killing another human being (would it?). It does not matter that a pregnancy is not the woman’s “fault” (as if that were somehow relevant) or that the pregnancy was the result of a reprehensible sexual partner who abandoned her, or worse, a predatory or violent male criminal. All that might be true, and still, it would not justify killing an innocent, completely vulnerable, separate human being (would it?).

Conversely, if one collates all of the other, collateral pro-life arguments for restricting abortion—the age or stage of development of the unborn child; the seemingly greater illegitimacy and reprehensibility of certain reasons for abortion, such as sex-selection of a child to be born , race hostility or disability eugenics , spite of an ex-boyfriend, social pressure or convenience , or simply callous moral indifference—one is, in the end, adding only a series of makeweights. They add persuasive, rhetorical force only, in the sense that they serve to make clearer, or place in starker relief, the central point: the humanity of the living human fetus.

Finally, there are the pro-life arguments that constitute irrelevant and perhaps even harmful distractions: the woman’s sexual ethics, the failure to use contraception, or “waiting too long” to abort. These are beside the point. As I’ve argued previously, by the time of any abortion, these matters are long in the past and do not bear on the question at hand: the right of the unborn child to live “does not depend on any kind of judgment about the parents’ sexual morality. The decision on the table is whether to kill a distinct living human being. Nobody should care about sexual ethics at this point, for purposes of either condemnation or justification of abortion.”

When all is said and done, then, there is one and only one pro-life argument: that abortion kills a separate, living human being. That argument is premised on a simple proposition of biology, not one of theology: the human organism—the entity that is first a zygote, then an embryo, fetus, newborn, toddler, teenager, and adult—is the same human biological organism, merely at different stages of his or her life cycle. (If you had killed me at any of those stages, you would have killed me .)

Is there really any room for doubt about this, as a factual proposition? If not, shouldn’t that be the key point in any debate over abortion, and the response to any red-herring argument about women’s rights, social policy, sexual ethics, or men’s behavior? If the unborn child is a human being, does that not profoundly limit the scope of morally allowable arguments that might be made to justify killing him or her? Doesn’t it essentially eliminate all such arguments (except self-defense—where killing the fetus is a tragic necessity to preserve the life of the mother)?

If I am right about this, the focus of pro-life advocacy should always be, first, last, and always, on the human being gestating inside his or her mother’s womb.

Is Killing the Unborn Different from Killing the Born?

Is there any sound basis for distinguishing the killing of unborn living human beings from the killing of born human beings? I can think of just two arguments.

The first concerns the fact of pregnancy itself. In the case of a born child, the burden of pregnancy is past and could not possibly justify killing the child. But enforced, continued pregnancy is a distinct burden on the woman. This is undeniable. Pro-lifers need to be sensitive to this reality, concede its force, and do everything they can to embrace and support pregnant women in need . But the key point remains: however real the burden of pregnancy, it doesn’t warrant the killing of another human being. It warrants something different: the compassion, support, and love of others.

The second distinction one sometimes hears is that abortion is different because unborn children simply lack the same human moral standing as born children—that unborn lives do not matter. Even if biologically the same as the human organism that is later born, the unborn child is not morally worthy of regard as a human life, until birth. The human fetus is a morally inconsequential clump of cells and can be disposed of—killed—for essentially any reason.

The focus of pro-life advocacy should always be, first, last, and always, on the human being gestating inside his or her mother’s womb.

Sometimes the claim takes the form of positing that the unborn child, while perhaps a human being, is nonetheless not a “person”—as if this were a meaningful, coherent, real-world distinction. This gambit tries to hide a morally and philosophically ludicrous position behind an artificial legal construction invented by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade .

That characterization was among the (many) dubious holdings of Roe . (There is a far-more-than-plausible argument that the unborn are properly regarded as legal “persons” for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of the “equal protection of the laws.”) But that’s not the point here. The point is that legal “personhood” (or not) is a fictitious construct of law and does not answer the basic question at hand: is there a morally justifiable basis for treating this type of human life as inconsequential and disposable, such that it can be killed without the same concern one would have with killing a born infant? One cannot wave one’s hand, incant the word “person,” invoke the Supreme Court’s ipse dixit , and have done with it. One must address the question and the facts.

That is where the moral debate should be joined. The unborn are surely not less human because not yet born. To be sure, they are vulnerable, fragile, and not fully developed. But the same can be said of newborn infants. Exactly what is it that supposedly makes members of this class of living human beings sub-human, such that they can be killed at will for the assumed benefit of others? And isn’t it more than a little bit disturbing how closely such a position resembles claims made in the past to support slavery or racial genocide?

The onus should be on those who would permit some human beings to kill other human beings simply because they are young, weak, dependent, vulnerable, or undesired.

How Does This Affect the Argument over a Constitutional Right to Abortion?

How does all this affect the legal argument for abortion as a constitutional right, the issue currently before the Supreme Court in the Dobbs case? (I wrote about Dobbs in two essays here last summer, and one for First Things last October.)

Hugely: once the humanity of the fetus is recognized, the game is up, for two reasons.

First, it gives the lie to Roe v. Wade’s risible characterization of the living human embryo or fetus as only “potential” life. Such a characterization is, really, if one thinks about it, almost laughably preposterous—either intellectually incompetent or willfully obtuse. Did the justices really think that the living human fetus is not living? That is simply factually false. Or did they think the living human fetus is not human? That is false, too. Roe’s foundations rest on one or the other (or both) of these literally fatally flawed premises.

Second, even under any of the odd, oxymoronic, question-begging legal theories offered for Roe —“substantive due process,” or “privacy,” or “equal protection,” or “bodily autonomy”—the claimed individual right to abortion must yield, under the Court’s doctrine, to a “compelling” interest on the other side. But what could be more compelling an interest than protection of living human beings from willful killing by others? The protection of human life—protecting the weak from the violent depredations perpetrated by the strong—stands at the very apex of the functions and duties of the state. If the unborn child is factually a human life, then saving such lives from the violence of others is a compelling interest if ever there was one. Indeed, it is a moral obligation and imperative.

This is true whether or not the unborn are classed as legal “persons.” For regardless of how one resolves that question of technical legal status, there is undeniably a compelling interest in protecting human life as such. If unborn human life fits that description, the legal case for Roe vanishes—as do essentially all other practical, moral, and philosophical arguments for abortion.

As it turns out, nearly all the “good” reasons for abortion—which I started by assuming to be valid—are in fact severely flawed. And the supposed “bad” motivations for banning abortion are usually complete red herrings, sideshows, or simply untrue. Nonetheless, it is important to keep one’s eye on the ball: the singular focus of the pro-life position should be on the unique, vulnerable, precious, living human being in the womb who is killed by abortion. Compared to that, nothing else really matters.

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Abortion Facts

From the Alan Guttmacher Institute

• 862,320 abortions were committed in the U.S. in 2017.
• As of 2016 , there are 186 abortions per 1,000 live births (about 1 in 5). This means for every five people, there is one missing because of abortion.
• 18% of pregnancies end in abortion.
• 46% of abortions are committed on women less than 25 years of age. That breaks down to 12% on adolescents, and 34% on women ages 20-24.
• Approximately 1/4 of American women have had an abortion by age 45.
• Abortion disproportionately affects black and Hispanic women. Black women make up 13% of the population, yet obtain 30% of the abortions.

View more non-graphic educational videos about abortion procedures from former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino HERE .

Dilation & Curettage (D&C) Used through the 12th week. After dilation of the cervix, a curette is inserted into the uterus. The baby’s body is cut into pieces and extracted, often by suction. The uterine wall is then scraped to remove the placenta and confirm that the uterus is empty.

Dilation and Evacuation (D&E) Committed up to 18 weeks. Forceps are inserted into the uterus, grabbing and twisting the baby’s body to dismember him/her. If the head is too large, it must be crushed in order to remove it.

Dilation and Extraction (D&X or Partial Birth Abortion) Committed in the 2nd and 3rd trimester. The cervix is dilated. Forceps extract the live baby by the feet until the head is just inside the cervix. Scissors then puncture the skull, allowing the abortionist to collapse it by suctioning out the contents. The dead baby is then fully removed from the mother.

Hysterotomy Used in the last three months of pregnancy. The womb is entered by a surgical incision in the abdominal wall, similar to a Caesarean section. However, the umbilical cord is usually cut while the baby is still in the womb, cutting off the oxygen supply and causing suffocation. Sometimes, though, the baby is delivered alive and left unattended to die.

Intracardial Injection Performed at about four months. The chemical digoxin is injected into the baby’s heart, causing immediate death. The dead baby’s body is then reabsorbed by the mother. This method is often used as “pregnancy reduction” when a mother carrying multiples wants fewer children.

Prostaglandin Committed during the second half of pregnancy. A hormone-like compound is injected into the muscle of the uterus causing intense contractions and pushing out the baby. The violent contractions often crush the baby to death, though many babies have been born alive using this procedure, then left to die.

RU-486 Known as chemical/medical abortion. Used through the seventh week of pregnancy, RU-486 is a synthetic steroid that blocks the hormone progesterone. Women then take a second drug, prostaglandin to induce contractions and expel the dead baby.  Ella , another abortion drug which is falsely labeled as birth control, works in the same way.

Saline Injection Usually committed during months four through seven. A 20% salt solution (the normal salt solution is .9%) is injected through the mother’s abdomen into the baby’s amniotic fluid. The baby ingests the solution and dies of salt poisoning, dehydration, and hemorrhaging of the brain. The baby’s skin is burned off. A dead or dying baby is delivered. A baby born alive is usually left unattended to die, though some have survived.   Gianna Jessen  is a survivor of a saline abortion.

Suction Abortion After dilation of the cervix, a suction curette (a tube with a serrated tip) is inserted into the uterus. The strong suction (29 times the power of a household vacuum cleaner) tears the baby’s body apart and sucks it through the hose into a container. This is the most common method of abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Heart Attack Abortion Late-term abortion is a multi-day procedure and is typically done through a lethal injection of Digoxin. On the first day, the woman will go into the abortion facility to begin the dilation process with seaweed sticks called laminaria. These sticks naturally expand after placement, and they allow access to the baby. The abortionist will then use an extremely long needle to inject Digoxin into the fetus’s heart, which will cause a cardiac arrest (commonly known as a heart attack).

On the second day, the woman will continue to be artificially dilated while still carrying the dead fetus. She will be administered Misoprostol, the drug to stimulate labor. There may also  be a second injection of Digoxin.    On the third or fourth day, the mother will deliver the dead child.

RISKS OF ABORTION

Medical Complications

• Heavy bleeding
• Incomplete abortion
• Damage to the cervix
• Scarring of the uterine lining
• Uterine perforation
• Damage to internal organs

Psychological Complications

• Eating disorders
• Relationship problems
• Flashbacks of the abortion
• Suicidal thoughts
• Sexual dysfunction
• Alcohol and drug abuse

Higher Risk of These Issues Later :

• Breast cancer  
• Cervical, ovarian, and liver cancer
• Placenta previa
• Pelvic Inflammatory Disease
• Endometritis
• Ectopic pregnancy

Click here for more on Abortion Risks.

Earth Day 2024: Planet Vs. Plastic

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Born in 1970, Earth Day has evolved into one of the largest civic events of all time. When we observe the 54 th Earth Day on April 22, the health and safety of the planet couldn’t be timelier, especially when it comes to dealing with the proliferation of plastic.

Over the past 60 years, around eight billion tons of plastic has been produced, according to a recent study in the journal Science Advances — 90.5 per cent of which has not been recycled . As a result, this year’s Earth Day theme— “Planet vs. Plastic”— demands a 60% reduction in the production of all plastics by 2040.

Just how big of a challenge is this? What type of numbers are we talking about? Here’s some perspective:

• In 1950, the world produced just two million tons of plastic. We now produce over 450 million tons .
• Half of all plastics ever manufactured have been made in the last 15 years.
• P roduction is expected to double by 2050.
• More than one million plastic water bottles are sold every minute.
• Every year, about 11 million tons of plastic waste escapes into the ocean.
• Only 9% of plastics ever produced has been recycled.
• Plastics often contain additives that can extend the life of products, with some estimates ranging to at least 400 years to break down.

Plastic is literally everywhere

An advertisement from the American Plastics Council in a 1997 edition of the New Yorker suggested that plastic wrappers and containers were the “sixth food group” that were there to keep contaminates out of our food.

Close up shot of microplastics on a hand.

In a twisted type of irony, Microplastics are now in almost everything and everywhere. Even in in much of the food we eat and water we drink! Microplastics are tiny particles of plastic (from ½ inch to microscopic) is synthetic that never disappears. As Stephen Jamieson recently explained in a Future of Supply Chain podcast, “We're ingesting a credit card size worth of plastic every single week as humans, and the real health impacts of that, we don't truly know and don't truly understand.”

What is the world doing about it?

In the Podcast, Stephen discussed the upcoming fourth session of the United Nations Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee he is attending in Ottawa, Canada from 23rd to the 29th of April. The goal is to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, that will, as Stephen stated, “by early next year, actually ratify a new treaty at the United Nations to eliminate plastic pollution by 2040”.

What can businesses do about it?

Think about optimizing your entire supply chain for sustainability, rather than just individual functions.

For example, you may be pulling certain levers in your design processes, or manufacturing plants, only to realize that the sustainability gains in that process are offset by much a much larger negative impact on logistics or at the end of life of a product.

Perform Life Cycle Assessments on your products

A Life Cycle Assessment is a method for the compilation and evaluation of the inputs, outputs and the potential environmental impacts of a product throughout its life cycle (ISO standard 14040).

In simple terms, it’s a way by which you can understand the sustainability footprint of a product throughout it’s full lifecycle, from “cradle to grave.”

By enabling product footprints periodically across the entire product lifecycle, you can gain insights on the environmental impacts of your products across the entire lifecycle for disclosure and internal product and process optimization.

Design with end of life in mind

As Earthday.org says, “We need to invest in innovative technologies and materials to build a plastic-free world”.

And this starts with how we design products and packaging material in the goods we manufacture and deliver. The sooner we phase out all single use plastics, the better. We need responsible design and production solutions that facilitate a product and package redesign that enables companies to engage in the circular economy and reduces waste without sacrificing quality.

Enforce compliance at each step of the product lifecycle

If you look at most companies’ website for their mission statement or purpose, sustainability is front and center. And supply chain sits right in the middle, both as a major contributor to the problem, and a major opportunity to improve.

But you can’t manage regulatory and sustainability requirements, track registrations and substance volumes, classify products, and create compliance documents, as well as package, transport, and store hazardous materials properly with accurate labeling you won’t be able to measure how you are performing.

This takes a stepwise approach to:

Record: The first step is to gather all necessary ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) data along the entire value chain. This data cannot be found easily in one single system. Currently this is a highly manual and therefore time consuming effort compounded by data quality challenges.

Report: There are more than 600 ESG frameworks/standards out there and they are being constantly developed further (Take the evolving plastics taxes across Europe for example). The requirements for companies are constantly changing. A high effort is required to keep up with the current requirements to report along the respective regulatory & voluntary frameworks.

Act: In many companies sustainability action is already happening but in many cases this this is still partly disjoint from the strategy or not yet covering all business processes

What can we as individuals do about it?

The reality is that everybody has a role to play in the “Planet vs. Plastics battle, and the sustainability of the planet in general.

Little things like using reusable bottles and straws and bringing reusable bags to the store are great first step.

You can also go to earthday.org to learn more about the battle between planet vs. plastics, and find an event near you where you can help clean up the planet.

Let’s make every day Earth Day, to protect this beautiful rock we live on for future generations.

To learn more, listen to The Future of Supply Chain Podcast – Earth vs. Planet .

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Gender pay gap in U.S. hasn’t changed much in two decades

The gender gap in pay has remained relatively stable in the United States over the past 20 years or so. In 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers. These results are similar to where the pay gap stood in 2002, when women earned 80% as much as men.

As has long been the case, the wage gap is smaller for workers ages 25 to 34 than for all workers 16 and older. In 2022, women ages 25 to 34 earned an average of 92 cents for every dollar earned by a man in the same age group – an 8-cent gap. By comparison, the gender pay gap among workers of all ages that year was 18 cents.

While the gender pay gap has not changed much in the last two decades, it has narrowed considerably when looking at the longer term, both among all workers ages 16 and older and among those ages 25 to 34. The estimated 18-cent gender pay gap among all workers in 2022 was down from 35 cents in 1982. And the 8-cent gap among workers ages 25 to 34 in 2022 was down from a 26-cent gap four decades earlier.

The gender pay gap measures the difference in median hourly earnings between men and women who work full or part time in the United States. Pew Research Center’s estimate of the pay gap is based on an analysis of Current Population Survey (CPS) monthly outgoing rotation group files ( IPUMS ) from January 1982 to December 2022, combined to create annual files. To understand how we calculate the gender pay gap, read our 2013 post, “How Pew Research Center measured the gender pay gap.”

The COVID-19 outbreak affected data collection efforts by the U.S. government in its surveys, especially in 2020 and 2021, limiting in-person data collection and affecting response rates. It is possible that some measures of economic outcomes and how they vary across demographic groups are affected by these changes in data collection.

In addition to findings about the gender wage gap, this analysis includes information from a Pew Research Center survey about the perceived reasons for the pay gap, as well as the pressures and career goals of U.S. men and women. The survey was conducted among 5,098 adults and includes a subset of questions asked only for 2,048 adults who are employed part time or full time, from Oct. 10-16, 2022. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used in this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

The  U.S. Census Bureau has also analyzed the gender pay gap, though its analysis looks only at full-time workers (as opposed to full- and part-time workers). In 2021, full-time, year-round working women earned 84% of what their male counterparts earned, on average, according to the Census Bureau’s most recent analysis.

Much of the gender pay gap has been explained by measurable factors such as educational attainment, occupational segregation and work experience. The narrowing of the gap over the long term is attributable in large part to gains women have made in each of these dimensions.

Related: The Enduring Grip of the Gender Pay Gap

Even though women have increased their presence in higher-paying jobs traditionally dominated by men, such as professional and managerial positions, women as a whole continue to be overrepresented in lower-paying occupations relative to their share of the workforce. This may contribute to gender differences in pay.

Other factors that are difficult to measure, including gender discrimination, may also contribute to the ongoing wage discrepancy.

Perceived reasons for the gender wage gap

When asked about the factors that may play a role in the gender wage gap, half of U.S. adults point to women being treated differently by employers as a major reason, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in October 2022. Smaller shares point to women making different choices about how to balance work and family (42%) and working in jobs that pay less (34%).

There are some notable differences between men and women in views of what’s behind the gender wage gap. Women are much more likely than men (61% vs. 37%) to say a major reason for the gap is that employers treat women differently. And while 45% of women say a major factor is that women make different choices about how to balance work and family, men are slightly less likely to hold that view (40% say this).

Parents with children younger than 18 in the household are more likely than those who don’t have young kids at home (48% vs. 40%) to say a major reason for the pay gap is the choices that women make about how to balance family and work. On this question, differences by parental status are evident among both men and women.

Views about reasons for the gender wage gap also differ by party. About two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (68%) say a major factor behind wage differences is that employers treat women differently, but far fewer Republicans and Republican leaners (30%) say the same. Conversely, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say women’s choices about how to balance family and work (50% vs. 36%) and their tendency to work in jobs that pay less (39% vs. 30%) are major reasons why women earn less than men.

Democratic and Republican women are more likely than their male counterparts in the same party to say a major reason for the gender wage gap is that employers treat women differently. About three-quarters of Democratic women (76%) say this, compared with 59% of Democratic men. And while 43% of Republican women say unequal treatment by employers is a major reason for the gender wage gap, just 18% of GOP men share that view.

Pressures facing working women and men

Family caregiving responsibilities bring different pressures for working women and men, and research has shown that being a mother can reduce women’s earnings , while fatherhood can increase men’s earnings .

Employed women and men are about equally likely to say they feel a great deal of pressure to support their family financially and to be successful in their jobs and careers, according to the Center’s October survey. But women, and particularly working mothers, are more likely than men to say they feel a great deal of pressure to focus on responsibilities at home.

About half of employed women (48%) report feeling a great deal of pressure to focus on their responsibilities at home, compared with 35% of employed men. Among working mothers with children younger than 18 in the household, two-thirds (67%) say the same, compared with 45% of working dads.

When it comes to supporting their family financially, similar shares of working moms and dads (57% vs. 62%) report they feel a great deal of pressure, but this is driven mainly by the large share of unmarried working mothers who say they feel a great deal of pressure in this regard (77%). Among those who are married, working dads are far more likely than working moms (60% vs. 43%) to say they feel a great deal of pressure to support their family financially. (There were not enough unmarried working fathers in the sample to analyze separately.)

About four-in-ten working parents say they feel a great deal of pressure to be successful at their job or career. These findings don’t differ by gender.

Gender differences in job roles, aspirations

Overall, a quarter of employed U.S. adults say they are currently the boss or one of the top managers where they work, according to the Center’s survey. Another 33% say they are not currently the boss but would like to be in the future, while 41% are not and do not aspire to be the boss or one of the top managers.

Men are more likely than women to be a boss or a top manager where they work (28% vs. 21%). This is especially the case among employed fathers, 35% of whom say they are the boss or one of the top managers where they work. (The varying attitudes between fathers and men without children at least partly reflect differences in marital status and educational attainment between the two groups.)

In addition to being less likely than men to say they are currently the boss or a top manager at work, women are also more likely to say they wouldn’t want to be in this type of position in the future. More than four-in-ten employed women (46%) say this, compared with 37% of men. Similar shares of men (35%) and women (31%) say they are not currently the boss but would like to be one day. These patterns are similar among parents.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published on March 22, 2019. Anna Brown and former Pew Research Center writer/editor Amanda Barroso contributed to an earlier version of this analysis. Here are the questions used in this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

What is the gender wage gap in your metropolitan area? Find out with our pay gap calculator

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Carolina Aragão is a research associate focusing on social and demographic trends at Pew Research Center

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Guest Essay

Mike Pence: Donald Trump Has Betrayed the Pro-Life Movement

By Mike Pence

Mr. Pence was vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 and is a former candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Serving as vice president in the most pro-life administration in American history was one of the greatest honors of my life. Of all our accomplishments, I am perhaps most proud that the Supreme Court justices we confirmed voted to send Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history, ending a travesty of jurisprudence that led to the death of more than 63 million unborn Americans.

Since Roe was overturned, I have been inspired by the efforts of pro-life leaders in states across the country, including Indiana , to advance strong protections for the unborn and vulnerable women.

But while nearly half of our states have enacted strong pro-life laws, some Democrats continue to support taxpayer-funded abortions up to the moment of birth in the rest of the country.

Which is why I believe the time has come to adopt a minimum national standard restricting abortion after 15 weeks in order to end late-term abortions nationwide.

The majority of Americans favor some form of restriction on abortions, and passing legislation prohibiting late-term abortions would largely reflect that view. Democrats in Washington have already attempted to legalize abortion up to the moment of birth, and they failed. But they will try again, with similar extremism, if abortion restrictions are not put in place at the federal level.

Contrary to Democrats’ claims, prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks is entirely reasonable.

While Democrats often hold up Europe as a model for America to emulate, a vast majority of European countries have national limits on elective abortion after 15 weeks. Germany and Belgium have a gestational limit of up to 14 weeks. A majority of European countries are even more restrictive, with Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Italy and Ireland banning abortion on demand after 12 weeks.

When it comes to abortion policy, America today appears closer to communist China and North Korea than to the nations of Europe. By prohibiting late-term abortions after 15 weeks, America can move away from the radical fringe and squarely back into the mainstream of Western thought and jurisprudence.

That’s why it was so disheartening for me to see former President Trump’s recent retreat from the pro-life cause. Like so many other advocates for life, I was deeply disappointed when Mr. Trump stated that he considered abortion to be a states-only issue and would not sign a bill prohibiting late-term abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, even if it came to his desk.

I know firsthand just how committed he was to the pro-life movement during our time in office. Who can forget the way candidate Donald Trump denounced late-term abortion during a debate with Hillary Clinton in 2016, highlighting how she and other Democrats would allow doctors to “rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.”

In 2018, ahead of a Senate vote on a 20-week national ban that was passed earlier by the House, the president publicly stated that he “strongly supported” efforts to end late-term abortions nationwide with exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother.

Now not only is Mr. Trump retreating from that position; he is leading other Republicans astray. One recent example is an Arizona Republican running for the U.S. Senate who followed Trump’s lead and pledged to oppose a federal ban on late-term abortions. When our leaders aren’t firmly committed to life, others will waver, too. Courage inspires imitation. So does weakness.

While some worry about the political ramifications of adopting a 15-week minimum national standard, history has proved that when Republicans stand for life without apology and contrast our common-sense positions with the extremism of the pro-abortion left, voters reward us with victories at the ballot box. In fact, voters overwhelmingly re-elected Govs. Mike DeWine of Ohio, Greg Abbott of Texas and Brian Kemp of Georgia, after they signed bills prohibiting abortion after six weeks.

But what should concern us far more than the politics of abortion is the immorality of ending an unborn human life. At 15 weeks of development, a baby’s face is well formed, and her eyes are sensitive to light. She can suck her thumb and make a fist. She is beginning to move and stretch. And she is created in the image of God, the same as you or me.

Now is not the time to surrender any ground in the fight for the right to life. While the former president has sounded the retreat on life at the national level, I pray that he will rediscover the passion for life that defined our four years in office and rejoin the fight to end late-term abortions in America once and for all. The character of our nation and the lives of generations not yet born demand nothing less.

Mike Pence was vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. A former governor of Indiana, he was a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

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