Not a big fan of the Right to Life movement, for both their sometimes violent tactics and for their absolutist approach to the law, I still liked very much the news that the movement has been contemplating a different approach than the classical “abortion is murder.”
According to Business Insider, the pro-life movement is now promoting adoption as an abortion alternative, “embracing it as a friendlier way to reach women.”
The Supreme Court will be deciding two important cases this term. One involves protest zones around abortion clinics, another the Affordable Care Act’s mandate on contraceptives.
The annual “March for Life” in Washington, DC, on the 41st anniversary of Roe v. Wade last Wednesday, drew thousands of abortion opponents, who braved wind chills in the single digits Wednesday on Capitol Hill to protest legalized abortion.
According to the AP, the march drew Catholic high school and college students from across the country, who participated in a series of events and prayer vigils which conclude with a rally and on the snow-covered National Mall, in the shadow of the ever-present Washington Monument.
The theme of this year’s march was “Adoption: A Noble Decision,” as an alternative to abortion, organizers told the AP.
The crowd booed when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R, Virginia, told them about an expansion of abortion coverage under Obamacare.
For his part, President Barack Obama also issued a statement Wednesday, saying the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision is a chance to “recommit ourselves to the decision’s guiding principle: that every woman should be able to make her own choices about her body and her health.”
According to WFMJ in Ohio, in Youngstown, a right to life rally “emphasized the importance of adoption, over their traditional anti-abortion message.”
“We really want Planned Parenthood to be defunded. Our tax dollars are paying for these abortions and they shouldn’t be. They should be helping people get adoptions and stuff like that and get pregnancy help etc.,” said Marti Runyan, Right to Life of Mahoning County.
I’m all in favor of adoptions and stuff like that, but I doubt very much that most right-to-lifers would be willing to put their tax money where their mouth is. It comes down to how much are we prepared to pay, as a nation, to save the life of one fetus.
Telling women that going through nine months of vomiting, frequent urination, incessant gas and an insatiable craving for pickles and brie—not to speak of staying off booze—just so some infertile couple out there will have a baby is the “honorable decision,” is far from enough compensation.
In a world in which a lost year in a young person’s life can mean the difference between being competitive in the job market and being left behind, it will take more than cheerful words and maybe a couple quotes from the Bible to convince women to do the right thing.
You want them to bring their baby to term? Pay for it. I would be delighted to see our country diverting funds from killing people in faraway parts of the world with very few results to show for it—to living wages for healthy, young women wishing to grow their fetus for adoption.
I try to imagine what I would charge for carrying another human being inside me for 9 months, and I have to say, you won’t get me to do it for less than $50 K. And that’s a bargain, if you ask me, compared to what any middle class couple out there would happily pay for a healthy, white baby.
So, friends at the Right to Life movement, get cracking! Start a door to door fundraising campaign, launch donation websites, not to make the lives of aborting women miserable, but to provide pregnant women with financial incentives.
Watch it bring down unemployment, too.
H/T to Menachem Gottlieb.