In 2022, living in the United States brings an experience of getting some kind of right taken away, if you are anything but a cisgender, straight, white, man. 

This can be seen with many examples including the fact that there is still employment discrimination against LGBTQ+ employees in the US and the gargantuan number of anti-trans bills that have been passed in the last few years.

But one of these examples that affects the most amount of people is the “debate” on abortion. This debacle affects every person in the US with a uterus, or about half of the entire country.

There are many different sides to this situation.

Some want abortion to be completely outlawed with absolutely no exceptions. Some want it completely outlawed but with exceptions such as the mother possibly dying in pregnancy, rape or incest. Some do not think it should be outlawed because they recognize that it is not their choice what someone else does to their own body. 

Laws like this enable a very dangerous loophole where people who are victims of rape can end up being put in prison because they did not want to carry the resulting pregnancy.

Some politicians are even attempting to defund Planned Parenthood themselves, which wouldn’t only stop them from giving people abortions but also the many other services they provide that include STD testing, birth control and other contraceptives, support for LGBTQ+ youth, and many more.

Where did this hate for abortion start though? Why do people want to get rid of abortion all together in the first place?

The first answer that might pop into your mind is something along the lines of, “Well the church has always been against abortion, so that’s why they’re banning it.”

However this is a common misconception about why the rush to ban all abortions began. What actually happened is much worse.

Evangelical Christians, the ones who are most vocally against abortion, actually started out in support of abortion. Even after the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, they stood in support of it. 

Many evangelical groups refused to characterize abortion as “sinful”, citing ones right to their own body.

The Baptists also supported the ruling, passing a resolution to encourage acceptions for abortion including incest and rape.

When and how evangelical and baptists started claiming to be “pro-life” or anti-abortion is able to be pinpointed not when Roe v. Wade was decided, but later on.

The start of it came when a Supreme Court case began to pull evangelicals further into politics. This Supreme Court case, Green v. Connally sought to stop giving tax exempt status to schools that excluded against black people.

Paul Weyrich, a conservative evangelical political activist, wanted to get all evangelicals involved in politics so they could pass laws that allow segregation. While evangelicals at the time thoroughly identified with the Republican Party, they tended to stay out of politics.

Weyrich knew he needed to get them all to rally against a common enemy. He knew that racism, while present with white evangelicals, wouldn’t be as much of a driver as some other issues.

After lots of testing, in 1978, Weyrich chose abortion, a full five years after the Roe v. Wade decision.

He partnered with pro-life movement leaders and started the full movement.

With this movement, the evangelicals voted to not re-elect Jimmy Carter, but instead Ronald Reagan.

For context, Jimmy Carter, while governor of Georgia, tried to limit abortion as much as possible. While on the other hand, Ronald Reagan, while governor of California, passed one of the most liberal abortion laws in the country.

The evangelical pro-life movement was completely manufactured just to get more Republicans in office, and to attempt to stop desegregation in schools.

Even ignoring the historical context behind this issue, statistics have shown that absolute abortion bans are not popular in the US.

According to a Gallup Poll, as of May 3rd 2021, 80% of the US population supports keeping abortion legal in all or most circumstances. Only 16% believe it should be illegal.

And as the opinion that will overturn Roe v. Wade gets leaked, it makes one wonder how all of these abortion bans can be put in place when the vast majority of the US is against them. 

Along with this, statistics from the CDC show that the vast majority of abortions (92.7%) are performed during early gestation (≤13 weeks). Another 6.2% are performed between 14 and 20 weeks gestation. Less than 1% are performed after 21 weeks.

Additionally, according to the NIH, it has been shown that a fetus does not develop the necessary brain complex to feel pain until around the beginning of the third trimester, around 26 weeks gestation. This means that over 99% of abortions are performed when the fetus cannot even feel pain.

Getting mad at someone wanting to abort a fetus before the third trimester is akin to charging someone for homicide after killing a bug. The only difference being the bug can actually feel pain.

The remaining less than 1% of abortions that happen during the third trimester, or as some like to call “late term abortions”, have reasonable causes behind them.

The main reasons why some can’t get an abortion until the third trimester is due to barriers that prevent them from getting on earlier in gestation, barriers caused by anti-abortion laws.

The other main reason is due to lethal fetal anomalies, or detected terminal illnesses which would cause the future baby great suffering and early death.

Even ignoring this as well, which the US Congress seems to have a talent for doing, the entire “pro-life” movement in full of hypocrisy and double standards.

They say their pro-life, but make women who cannot afford to have a baby birth one, putting the baby in an extremely difficult situation.

They say their pro-life, but force mothers whose baby will be born with a terminal illness to give birth to them, and watch them suffer and eventually die early on in life.

They say their pro-life, but don’t bat an eye when teenagers die after not being able to seek a safe abortion.

They refuse to let people have abortions, but then quickly switch to being pro-choice once the issue comes to wearing masks or getting a vaccine.

The entire pro-life movement is hypocritical and invasive, and completely based off of fallacies.

It shapes abortion as some sort of state sponsored homicide that people are enthusiastically taking part in, when in reality it’s not. Abortions is not a moral nor a political issue.

Abortion is necessary healthcare and in some cases, is literally a life saver.

If you would like to see a different perspective on this situation you should check out this article.

If you would like to see a non-opinionated news story regarding abortion you should check out this article.