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United States anti-abortion movement

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Pro-Life advocates make a silent complaint in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.

Pro-life generally refers to a political movement that opposes abortion. The movement began after the 1973 United States Supreme Court decision known as Roe v. Wade that deemed abortion a constitutional right. The pro-life view has grown to encompass opposition to euthanasia, human cloning, and human embryonic stem cell research. Pro-life adherents argue that these issues concern the right to life of human beings. The most common pro-life view is that life begins at conception and that any intentional killing of that life is wrong.

Pro-life and pro-choice individuals often use political framing to convey their perspective on the issues, and in some cases, to discredit opposing views. Pro-life people tend to use terms such as "mother", "unborn child", "unborn baby", or "pre-born infant". Pro-choice people tend to use terms such as "zygote", "embryo" or "fetus". Each side accuses the other of using a preferred set of loaded terms.

Disagreement among "pro-life" individuals

A major goal of the pro-life movement is to protect the right to life of those who don't have a voice. They feel this includes the fetus in utero, persons who cannot communicate their wishes due to physical or mental incapacitation, and those who are too weak to resist being euthanised.

Some pro-lifers, such as those subscribing to the philosophy of a Consistent Life Ethic, oppose all acts that end human life. They would argue that abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, and unjust war are all wrong and would also hold firm stances on issues relating to other choices where life may be ended. Others argue that the death penalty can be a just punishment for murder, justifiably inflicted by lawful authority, whereas abortion is an attack on innocent human life that could never be considered just. This issue is one that has gained more attention in recent years as some pro-life persons wish to have the concept represent a more unified ideal that includes outlawing the death penalty. This is particularly controversial and may be gaining attention because of the larger Catholic following in the pro-life movement that is also striving to adhere to recent religious statements from the Vatican on the death penalty [1].

While some pro-lifers are opposed to euthanasia of humans under all circumstances, others do believe that individuals, especially adults, should have the right to choose to end their life if they become terminally ill or severely disabled. One area of controversy is that many such individuals are unable to communicate their wishes. While some believe that direct euthanasia should only be an option for persons with the ability to communicate at the time the procedure would be considered, others believe that individuals should be allowed to state their wishes in advance, such as in a living will, or that family members and/or persons with power of attorney or guardianship should be allowed to make decisions regarding euthanasia for persons who are unable to communicate.

Cessation of life support for an individual who is unable to live without it is sometimes referred to as indirect or passive euthanasia. Although many pro-lifers support indirect euthanasia for persons judged by their doctors as having little or no hope for recovery, other pro-lifers oppose indirect euthanasia, even under those circumstances. Some pro-lifers strongly disagreed with the court decisions which allowed Terri Schiavo's husband to have her feeding tube removed. Indeed, most pro-lifers commenting on Terri Schiavo's case framed the issue as one of direct euthanasia, on the grounds that nutrition and hydration, in their view, do not constitute "life support".

Motivations

Two strands of thought can be distinguished within the pro-life movement: religous (primarily conservative Christian) and secular.

Religious

Main article: Religion and abortion

The first appeals to "revealed truth," or the shared religious values of a society. By this account, every human individual, from conception to natural death, is held to possess an equal value, accorded to him or her by their god.

Christian opposition to abortion is based on a number of sources. The Didache, a short early Christian treatise, specifically prohibited abortion. The Bible, unlike the Didache, makes no specific mention of abortion, although it does mention unborn life several times. For example, Luke 1:44 cites Elizabeth exclaiming to the Virgin Mary, "Behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb (John the Baptist) leaped for joy". Jeremiah 1:4-5, retelling God's appointing of Jeremiah to be a prophet, says: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you".

The Catholic Church holds both a religious and natural law stance on why abortion is unacceptable. It teaches that human life is sacred, and begins at conception. Abortion is thus equivalent to murder, and there are no permissible exceptions. When the life of the mother is in jeopardy, it is permissible to obtain life-saving treatment which may have the secondary effect of killing the unborn child, but no direct action may be taken against the child itself, and all life-sustaining options must be exhausted. (An example is chemotherapy treament for a pregnant woman with uterine cancer.) It also ascribes to a Consistent Life Ethic: euthanasia, the death penalty, unjust war, embryo research, in vitro fertilization (which involves discarded embryos), birth control (which may prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterine lining), and abortion are all condemned as violence. Church law provides that anyone who directly participates in an abortion is automatically excommunicated (provided he is aware of this penalty at the time of the act). A valid sacramental confession remits this penalty.

Other Christian denominations hold varying positions on abortion. Conservative, evangelical, or fundamentalist Christian groups are more likely to oppose abortion, whereas liberal or mainline Protestant churches are more likely to allow for it.

Islamic opposition is based equally on the concept that abortion is considered murder. Unlike Catholicism, Islam does provide for some exceptions where abortion is permissible, albeit as a "lesser evil", such as when the woman's life is in jeopardy. A number of Islamic scholars also believe that pregnancy caused by rape or incest is also a permissible ground for allowing an abortion to take place. According to a hadith [citation needed], the fetus is not considered alive until the 42nd day after conception.

Views vary between adherents of a single religion. While the more moderate Islamic view of "ending life only when absolutely necessary" is generally more universal among Muslims, a number of Christian groups, as well as members of the Jewish faith, have broken off from mainstream opposition to present a more ambiguous view, particularly on themes of abortion and euthanasia.

The Christian Alliance for Progress, most notably, has come out in opposition of abortion, but has advocated a programme of assistance and prevention as opposed to the criminalization of abortion, opposes the death penalty, but maintains a neutral stance on euthanasia. Their views have often brought them into conflict with other Christians. The Quakers have declined to express an official view on abortion, on euthanasia, but as a pacifist organization, they oppose the death penalty.

Jews are considerably divided in terms of life issues. Whereas it is a fundament of Judaism that the life is sacred, a number of factors based on historical events and the Torah have been put forward in support of abortion in certain cases, which has sparked a long-running debate among Jews.

Secular

The pro-life movement does not rely solely on religious justification. However, very few pro-life activists are atheist or agnostic.

One strand of thought argues in terms of legal philosophy (typically natural law), appealing to the right-to-life as a fundamental human right which should be guaranteed by law. Biologically speaking, the zygote created at fertilization possesses a unique genome of human DNA. Pro-lifers believe that this quality constitutes personhood, and therefore morally object to killing human embryos and fetuses. This contrasts with the beliefs of many pro-choice activists who hold varying opinions on what constitutes personhood.

Another strand of argument is based on the biological father's "parental rights", which posit rights of the man who impregnated the woman to some say in whether the pregnancy should be carried to term. This position enjoys very little support in recent case law in Western societies, where the woman's interests and rights to her body are considered to take precedence. One article describes this as "the right of fathers to legally prevent the brutal abortion death of their own prenatal children". [2] While this line of reasoning is sometimes supported on explicitly religious grounds [3], it is often entirely secular. In either case, it is often associated with political conservatism in general and a rejection of the current positions on female reproductive rights in specific.

Term Controversy

The term "pro-life" is often used interchangeably with "anti-abortion," even though pro-life does not always refer to just the abortion issue, sometimes refering more broadly to right to life issues, although frequently, stemming from its political conservatism, the movement is not "pro-life" in other respects such as the death penalty or general welfare issues. It has been pointed out that "pro-birth" may be a more apt description. Additionally, "Pro-life" is often considered a loaded term because it implies the opposing view would be "pro-death" or "anti-life" (compare Culture of Life and Culture of Death). Similarly, "pro-choice" is also often considered a loaded term that implies that the opposing view would be "anti-choice". Pro-lifers state they are not "anti-choice" because they do not consider abortion to be a legitimate choice. Both "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are examples of political framing: terms which define a political position in the best possible light, while simultaneously defining the opposition in the worst possible light (being "anti-life" or "anti-choice").

One method of resolving the dispute is simply to use the terms each group uses for itself. This approach is rarely adopted by news organizations. Most press reports, such as those of the Associated Press, use the terms "anti-abortion" and "pro-choice."[citation needed]

See also

References

Pro-life sites

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