Banning Abortions is Not “Forced Pregnancy.” Protecting Babies Doesn’t Force Women to Get Pregnant

Opinion   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Jan 31, 2022   |   1:58PM   |   Washington, DC

“Forced pregnancy” has become the new go-to attack phrase by the increasingly radical pro-abortion movement.

It’s a clever but completely deceptive phrase that serves two purposes: making any limit on the killing of unborn babies in abortions seem cruel and unethical, and disguising the pro-abortion movement’s radical demand for abortion without limits up to birth to make it appear reasonable and just.

A new campaign ad from the American Civil Liberties Union and Oberland equates pro-life laws like the Texas heartbeat ban and waiting periods to forcing women to be pregnant. According to PR Week, the short video tells viewers that “Banning abortion is forcing pregnancy.”

Kate Charles, chief strategy officer for Oberland, said they want to change (manipulate) the way people think about abortion so that the phrase forced pregnancy/forced birth comes to mind instead of pro-life.

Here’s more from the report:

The key was using the term “forced pregnancy” instead of abortion, which centers the narrative on the pregnant person.

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“We felt by changing the terminology we were highlighting the pregnant person’s life, and the cruelty and control that politicians are trying to enforce on people, which are very un-American, and these restrictive laws that are controlling bodies,” said Charles.

This is completely false. Pro-life advocates are not forcing anyone to be pregnant. Only rapists do that. In the vast majority of pregnancies, the woman had a choice and took a risk knowing that pregnancy was one possible outcome of sex. With contraception inexpensive and readily available and the option to practice abstinence, almost no one is being forced to be pregnant.

Once a child is conceived, the mother and father are responsible for the well-being of that child. Pro-lifers are not forcing a mother to be pregnant, they are saying it is not ok for her – or the father, for that matter – to kill their child.

In other words, the same parental responsibility that is required for a child after he/she is born should apply before birth, too.

As Emily Albrecht of the Equal Rights Institute explains: “Let’s imagine for a moment that there is a single-mother with a 2-year-old son, and she is at the end of her rope. She’s struggling to make ends meet and finish school, so she comes up with a plan to kill her son and make it appear that he died of natural causes. I think we can all agree that it would be horrendously wrong for this woman to kill her son, and us telling this hypothetical woman that she can’t kill her son isn’t “forcing” her to be a parent. She already IS a parent—we’re telling her that she can’t kill her son!”

Telling parents that they cannot kill their child is not forcing them to be parents, and it’s the same with abortion. An abortion kills a child in the womb, a unique, living and irreplaceable human being who depends on his/her mother to survive.

There is nothing unreasonable or cruel about saying, “Don’t kill a child in the womb.” Quite the opposite, the pro-life movement is based in love and compassion. Its mission is to protect children from violence and death and help parents in need make the best choices for themselves and their families.