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Two years after the fall of Roe v. Wade—and in the heat of a presidential election year—the most powerful politicians on both sides of the aisle seem prepared to more or less wash their hands of protecting preborn children.
But nobody's happiness can ever come at the cost of another person's life. The hands-off approach of both major political parties says, effectively, that the death of the preborn is an acceptable price to pay for less political noise—or greater electoral success.
That just isn't true. But, for far too many Americans, a "hands-off" approach to abortion—one that sacrifices human lives for convenience, security, or peace of mind—does seem best. And this is a problem with which the pro-life movement must grapple.
The issue hidden by polling numbers is that approval for legal abortion isn't just about whether the practice is intrinsically moral. It's also about whether it's acceptable to look away from tragedy when it happens outside your home.
The impulse to look away is an interesting one. It's also very compelling to the average American. It's comfortable, and it feels like a compromise.
In large part, that's because most of us believe on some level that preborn children can be a barrier to human happiness—particularly in the case of an unexpected pregnancy. We accept on some level that having a child is a life-altering event, and thus if others want to avoid this seeming disturbance by—euphemistically—"doing away with the pregnancy," we should not get in the way.
Yet this all falls apart once we really consider what's at stake. If we see a neighbor unjustly beating someone to death, would it not be unforgivable if we just threw up our hands and said we were appalled but wouldn't meddle in their business? When we see injustice, it is our business to rectify it. We cannot just look the other way.
Furthermore, the battle for life isn't just about preventing abortions. It's about making it plausible to most Americans that unexpected children are, in fact, compatible with personal happiness.
Children are a tremendous cause of happiness, in fact—but that is a much more difficult and less necessary point to prove.
To prove that our neighbors can be happy while welcoming children amid inconvenient circumstances, we ought to work harder than ever to support vulnerable women and their children.
We already know the hardships that drive women to seek abortion. We know why so many Americans find it plausible that abortion is a legitimate answer for women facing unexpected pregnancies. The dilemmas these women face often feel insurmountable, all the more so because they frequently face them alone. Maybe they're struggling to find reliable housing, or their education is threatened by pregnancy. Perhaps they're in an abusive relationship and feel they have no way out. Maybe they're overwhelmed by shame.
These are all problems we can help them solve. And we know they want them solved—76 percent of women served by Human Coalition say they'd prefer to parent if their circumstances were different.
So it's time to lean into a comprehensively pro-woman, pro-child, pro-family cultural agenda. The lives of countless women and children depend upon it.
Of course, none of this is "new" work.
The pro-life movement is already providing resources, education, medical care, and social work for women all over the country. There is also a wide range of existing educational development, housing, and medical resource programs available for vulnerable women.
But our existing work must be undertaken more publicly, more diligently, more earnestly, than it ever has been. It must grow stronger, bolder, and more effective. And pro-lifers—no matter which presidential candidate is elected in November—must boldly advocate for policies that both protect preborn children and provide vulnerable women with support.
We have to show people the gift of life. The witness of the happy, secure mothers and thriving children we help establish will help once again make it believable that the death of children isn't necessary to be happy—and, being "unnecessary," is therefore unthinkable.
Jeff Bradford is the president of Human Coalition, one of the largest pro-life and pro-woman organizations in the United States, and co-author of Beauty from Ashes: A Christian Couple's Journey from Abortion to Redemption. Benjamin Watson is a former NFL player, VP of Strategic Relationships for Human Coalition, and author of The New Fight for Life: Roe, Race and a Pro-Life Commitment to Justice.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
