5 Abortion Myths Debunked By Pro-Life Activists
UPPER MARLBORO, Maryland — Pro-Life activists addressed five myths which support a culture of abortion at the 2014 Students for Life of America National Conference.
"The principle reason why I am passionate about the pro-life issue is because I believe there's an empty grave in the Middle East that used to be occupied by Jesus of Nazareth," Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, declared. Moore added that Jesus "is a former embryo, a former zygote, a former fetus, a former crisis pregnancy who is now the ruler of the entire universe."
Below are the top 5 myths discussed at the conference. Myth number one was not discussed at the conference because the speaker was snowed in, but he spoke to The Christian Post in an interview on Wednesday.
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1. Abortion is needed because of overpopulation
"A lot of people think they are doing the socially responsible thing by not having children," but they are actually making society poorer as a result, argued Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute (PRI).
Contrary to what most professors tell their students, Mosher declared that "the socially responsible thing is to have children — providing the future consumers, the future producers, and the future taxpayers." The PRI president argued that if American families had an average of three children, "Social Security would be solvent forever," and if the 56 million babies aborted since Roe vs. Wade were working in our society, the deficit would be half or less than half what it is now. He also pointed to social science showing that children raised in large families have lower rates of crime, drug use, and premarital sex.
"The good book says that babies are a blessing for multiple reasons — for any Christian to believe the opposite is incomprehensible," Mosher added. Nevertheless, Mosher said population control activists helped legalize abortion, and their ideas still dominate college campuses. He mentioned a population foundation set up by John D. Rockefeller III which suggested legalized abortion and a two-child policy for the United States.
"They think of children as stomachs, and they forget that every stomach has two hands attached," Mosher explained. "Ever baby killed by abortion makes us all poor."
2. "Safe Sex" is Safe.
Kevin Bagetta, president of Love Facts, argued that there is no such thing as "safe sex." He cited statistics showing the contraception does not prevent all pregnancies or Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), and argued that "sexual abstinence is the only way to 100 percent avoid STDs and pregnancy."
"15 percent of those who use condoms 100 percent of the time still get STDs," Bagetta declared. He also reported that "21 percent of teen women using contraception will be pregnant within two years." Begetta suggested the site LoveFacts.org for more information about the "Risky Life Style" and "STD Roulette" involved in "safe sex."
While "safe sex" can have these harmful consequences, he argued, a chaste life does not. Abstinence means no STDs, no emotional heartache, no loss of freedom, and no abortion.
3. You need abortion to protect the health of women
Marguerite Duane, associate professor of Family Medicine at Georgetown University, argued that "it is never necessary to have an abortion for a woman's health."
As a medical professional, Duane addressed pregnancy situations where some doctors suggest abortion to protect the mother. In the case of an ectopic pregnancy, where the baby grows outside the womb, the professor laid out four options, discussing the morality of each.
The "watch and wait" option, where the doctor monitors the pregnancy and allows a natural miscarriage, is not abortion, and so is acceptable. Two other options – an abortefacient drug and cutting the baby out – are abortion and immoral. But the last option, that of removing the tube in which the embryo grows, is not immoral because it involves removing a diseased organ, not directly attacking the baby.
In this case, however, the surgery is not an abortion, because the goal is to save the mother and the child's death is only a consequence of helping her. According to the principle of double effect, Duane argued, this sort of procedure is neither abortion nor immoral.
4. Adoption is Worse Than Abortion
Russell Moore declared that "nothing is more contrary to human reason or human compassion" than the argument that it is better for a woman in a crisis pregnancy to abort her child than to make an adoption plan.
The idea that abortion is better than adoption, Moore argued, comes from the myth that abortion erases pregnancy. But rather than erase the reality of pregnancy, "abortion simply deals lethally, cruelly, and mercilessly with one of those two people to leave the other deeply, deeply broken." Moore emphasized that "those of us who have spent years counseling with, loving, and walking alongside people who deeply regret abortions realize" that abortion carries moral and emotional consequences.
Moore also addressed the stigma of adoption, both for the mother and the adopting parents. While Moore celebrated that the shame in adopting has largely disappeared, he lamented the myth that "making an adoption plan for one's child is a loss of control or choice." Instead, he argued, mothers wishing to give their children up for adoption have a great deal of control over who will adopt the baby, and "the act of choosing to give life and a future and a story to her child is an act of heroism."
5. Abortion could never be made illegal.
"Do you know abortion was illegal?" asked Steve Aden, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom. He noted that abortion was illegal under English and American common law for 700 years, and it only became legal in his lifetime. Rather than asking "can you really make abortion illegal?" Aden said people should ask "can you really make abortion illegal again?"
Despite over half a billion dollars per year in funding for "big abortion," Aden explained that the abortion lobby could not pass "the so-called Freedom of Choice Act in 2009," which would have made "making abortion illegal, illegal." Aden also praised the state legislatures in 2013 for introducing over 300 abortion restrictions. "Abortion is already against the law in most states for many purposes," he declared, and "the pro-life movement is already taking abortion down to levels we haven't seen since the late 1970s."
In light of this progress, Aden predicted the abortion industry will go extinct, declaring "big abortion is a dinosaur on a leash."
