In a recent article for Salon Magazine, Mary Elizabeth Williams writes,
Of all the diabolically clever moves the anti-choice lobby has ever pulled, surely one of the greatest has been its consistent co-opting of the word “life.” Life! Who wants to argue with that? Who wants be on the side of … not-life? That’s why the language of those who support abortion has for so long been carefully couched in other terms. While opponents of abortion eagerly describe themselves as “pro-life,” the rest of us have had to scramble around with not nearly as big-ticket words like “choice” and “reproductive freedom.” The “life” conversation is often too thorny to even broach. Yet I know that throughout my own pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was carrying a human life inside of me. I believe that’s what a fetus is: a human life. And that doesn’t make me one iota less solidly pro-choice.
She then goes on to coldly argue that some life is more worthwhile than others:
Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.
Let’s all be brutally honest with ourselves, shall we? When we make distinctions about who is worthwhile and who is not, who is viable and who is not, we espouse the same beliefs that I outlined in my previous post. We are then no different than Nazi believers in racial purity, or the Marxist pragmatists of the Khmer Rouge who saw people as either units of production or drains on the state.
The Lie, boils down to a hardened, unflinching selfishness which seeks to protect me over you at any cost. You threaten my perceived happiness and well-being. Therefore your life is an affront to my life.
And I would put the life of a mother over the life of a fetus every single time — even if I still need to acknowledge my conviction that the fetus is indeed a life. A life worth sacrificing.
The Lord and Creator of the universe, so valued a single human life that He willingly debased Himself to become like us. But He didn’t stop there. He shared in our death so that we—and that means you Dear Reader—can live.
Ms. Williams is no monster. She is the mother of children; children she no doubt loves, nurtures, and cherishes. What does it say about the power of The Lie, that a mother can think this way?
