Pro-Life Movement

The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…”

Jeremiah 1:4-5

Both my mom and my mother-in-law raised three children of their own, worked full-time as nurses, and still found time to volunteer countless hours at crisis pregnancy centers to help young mothers in need. They are just two among hundreds of thousands of pro-life women who do the same.

I have a number of pro-life friends who have decided not only to raise their own biological children but also to foster and adopt children in need. They are among the hundreds of thousands of pro-life families doing the same.  

Many women who have had an abortion––who have felt the pain and suffering that happens during and after an abortion––are now pro-life advocates. They don’t want other women to be misinformed about the realities of abortion and the devastation that it can cause. They want to bring hope and redemption. This is the pro-life movement. 

“If you’re going to be pro-life, be pro-life for the whole life.” 

I hear my pro-choice friends say this a lot and I couldn’t agree more. But I can’t think of a single pro-life person that I know that isn’t pro-life for the whole life. Sometimes it seems like when my pro-choice friends picture the pro-life movement they picture someone like the Monopoly guy with a top hat and a monocle longing to take away women’s rights. This and many other images are, of course, false caricatures. 

The truth is that the pro-life movement is filled with people like my mom and mother-in-law who give countless hours to those in need; it’s filled with families who foster and adopt, and filled with women who have had abortions. This is who makes up the pro-life movement that is so often ridiculed and belittled by the other side.

The pro-life movement that I know and love tries to fully embrace and live out these words:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8