Secular, Feminist, and Pro Life

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Secular, Feminist, and Pro Life

The Message Goes Mainstream

By: John Stonestreet|Published: October 25, 2016 7:00 AM

Topics: Abortion, Life Issues, Worldview

The pro-life tent is constantly expanding, but some of our new allies might surprise us.

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In the third presidential debate on Wednesday night, Hillary Clinton said () women should be able to end the lives of their preborn babies /right up until the very moment of birth, long after a child is viable /outside the womb.

In a recent Marist poll reported by the Wall Street Journal, eighty percent of Americans and some sixty-percent of self-described pro-choicers oppose this extreme view. Instead, they support restricting abortion /to the first trimester of pregnancy.

Just more evidence //that the landscape is changing. Not only is Clinton’s extreme view on abortion unpopular

—it’s outdated. A 2015 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that millennials are more likely than their parents /to say that abortion ought to be legal /only in certain stages and certain circumstances. According to another poll by Students for Life of America, just 17 percent of millennials agree with the Democratic presidential nominee that abortion should be legal right up until birth.

* agree with; to think that something is the right thing to do

All of this led Ruth Graham /to conclude in Slate [that the pro-life movement is in the midst of a transition]. But it’s not just in the sense that it’s getting younger. It’s also attracting the non-religious.

Not that long ago, being pro-life meant you were almost certainly a Catholic or evangelical. But now, [the belief //that killing unborn babies is wrong] is transcending religious and even political boundaries.

Take Aimee Murphy, the 27-year-old founder of Pittsburgh’s Life Matters Journal. Aimee was raped by an ex-boyfriend who pressured her to get an abortion when she thought she was pregnant. That was when it clicked, Aimee says. “I could not use violence /to get what I wanted in life. I realized that if I were to get an abortion, I would just be passing oppression on to a child.”

Her appeal, like that of a growing group of young pro-lifers //who aren’t religious, is rooted in human rights, and [the belief //that our nation has committed an unspeakable atrocity in the name of convenience].

Kelsey Hazzard, founder of the group Secular Pro-Life, says () the non-religious argument against abortion has the potential to bring people on board //who would have never otherwise taken the message of life seriously.

And Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, a Dallas resident //who founded New Wave Feminists, sees [protecting the unborn and ending abortion] /as a deeply feminist cause. She told Slate () she doesn’t understand why so many fellow feminists treat fertility “like a disease,” as if abortion is the only way () women can achieve their dreams. The culture of death tells women () they must bear the consequences of pregnancy alone, and Herndon-De La Rosa calls that “a grave form of injustice.”

“We have to humanize the child,” she says “… this is a human being /with their own bodily autonomy,” an argument //that she says is “a completely feminist message,” but as we know has its roots in Christianity.

* an argument //that she says 그녀가 말하는 변론

 an argument //that is “a completely feminist message" 여권주의자의 메시지인 변론

=> she says (an argument) that is a completely feminist message

=> an argument //that she says is “a completely feminist message,

* as (an argument) we know has its roots in Christianity

Of course, many of these secular pro-lifers hold views /in other areas () Christians would deeply disagree with.

For example, Maria Oswalt, a senior at the University of Alabama //who leads her school’s Students for Life club, say

() LGBT issues and sexual wholeness have little to do with protecting the unborn.

That’s wrong. If we teach anything here /at the Colson Center, it’s that these issues are connected. One of the great lies of the sexual revolution is that the fulfillment of our desires is our greatest good. And abortion exists because babies

—which come from sex—get in the way of those desires.

But at the same time, we should be thrilled and grateful /to see the message of life taking hold beyond the church and conservative politics. Why? Because it’s true. The humanity of the unborn is increasingly undeniable,

and [the extreme abortion views () Hillary Clinton represents] are, in many ways, the past.

The future belongs to the defenders of life, even if they don’t always share our faith or our politics.

*to see [the message of life] [taking hold beyond the church]

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Further Reading and Information

Secular, Feminist, and Pro Life: The Message Goes Mainstream

Chuck Colson would often say that co-belligerency is helpful, not harmful, to causes Christians hold dear. And as John mentioned, truth is undeniable, certainly in sanctity of life issues, where an increasing number of non-Christians agree with the pro-life perspective. For more information on this new demographic, click on the links below.

Resources

The New Culture of Life
Ruth Graham | slate.com | October 11, 2016

Why I Am Pro-Life
Karen Swallow Prior | Christianity Today | November 17, 2011

80 Percent of Americans Support Limiting Abortion To The First Trimester
Jeanne Mancini | TheFederalist.com | October 7, 2016

Available at the online bookstore

The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage Culture
Scott Klusendorf | Crossway Books Publisher | March 2009

A Compassionate Call to Counter-Culture in a World of Abortion
David Platt | Tyndale House Publishers | February 2015

Stand for Life: Answering the Call, Making the Case, Saving Lives
John Ensor, Scott Klusendorf | Hendrickson Publishers | December 2012