The No Kool Aid Zone

Why I am NOT “Anti-Abortion”

Posted by Byron April 14, 2005 at 9:19 am
Filed Under Matters of Life and Death | 1 Comment |

Today’s Yahoo News article on the plea-bargaining of Eric Rudolph for the bombing murders described him as being “anti-abortion”. That’s probably accurate, given his rambling “justification” of his cowardly crimes.

Which is why I am not “anti-abortion“.

I am pro-life. That means that I believe that innocent life ought to be protected by law. That means that I do not justify, in any way, shape, or form, nutballs like Eric Rudolph. He is not one of us. He is an outlaw, a deviant whose disregard for life led him to these acts. He has no understanding of the fact that the end—ending abortion, the wanton slaughter of innocent human life—does not justify the means of wantonly slaughtering other human life. He may well be “anti-abortion”, but he is surely not “pro-life”; he is no more on my team than is Kate Michelman or Teddy Kennedy.

Sadly, the liberal mainstream media cares little for making this important distinction. Note the terms that the media uses: they will call our side “anti-abortion”—though that is not what we call ourselves; they will oblige the pro-abortion crowd, calling them the benign-sounding “pro-choice”—which sounds so positive, so tolerant, so reasonable. Next time a friend suggests that the media isn’t slanted to the left (in general), use this very simple test: ask your friend what she calls people who believe as we do. If she says “pro-life”, ask her to listen carefully to what the media calls us—and it will be “anti-abortion”, not pro-life. If she says, “anti-abortion”, then tell her that that is not the term we choose to use for ourselves, but that she probably calls us that because that’s what she hears from the media. Then, ask her what she calls the other side. Chances are that she’ll say, “pro-choice”, and tell her that that is exactly what the media calls that side. Then ask her if it is reasonable and fair—or if it is biased, sympathetic to the liberal side—that the media willingly allows the pro-abortion side to choose their label, but denies to pro-lifers the right to choose theirs.

Because the media isn’t interested in the truth, we have to keep blogging and speaking and writing, to make sure that no one thinks that the cowardly Eric Rudolphs are in any way representative of people who are truly pro-life.