Dear Pro-Life Partners November 1, 2022

“The Top 10 Worst Things about the Anti-Choice Movement”

The following is a list of the final three myths about the pro-life community (part 3) with suggestions
on how to respond in case you are ever in a conversation with someone who believes these lies. Each of
these statements employs fearmongering, misinformation, and smokescreens to distract the reader
from facts, common sense, and core pro-life beliefs.

8. “Miscarriage is a crime. The number of women jailed for miscarriage, an incredibly common
experience, is abhorrent, and is a growing problem.”

(Sigh). This is simply untrue, and I am becoming almost as weary of this lie as I am of all the blatantly
false claims that we support “banning abortion for rape, incest, and the life of the mother.” (Every
state with an abortion ban has an exception clause specifically for the mother’s life.) As for frequently
jailing women for having a miscarriage, how ridiculous. This argument refers to one woman whose
drug use led to her baby’s death. The crime was not the miscarriage, but the cause, perpetrated by the
mother. Miscarriage as a spontaneous event is not a criminal offense and constitutes healthcare (as do
ectopic pregnancies). Unfortunately, the widespread availability and use of abortion pills muddies the
waters considerably. I daresay more and more women are reporting miscarriages when seeking
medical help as a result of a medical abortion. As a matter of fact, a recently viewed Planned
Parenthood training video encourages employees to instruct women to do just that. This is problematic
because it skews statistics, rendering them invalid, and makes it impossible to determine how
prevalent and harmful medical abortifacients have become. It is unfortunate that a woman who is
going through the heartbreak of miscarriage may have to defend herself because of others who would
abuse the system, yet I would hope that all women can receive care in the aftermath of pregnancy loss.

9. “The anti-choice movement isn’t just attacking reproductive rights, it’s also attacking LGBTW+
rights.”

For the record, we do not attack reproductive rights. Go for it! The thing is, once a person’s
reproductive rights have been realized, then someone else’s reproductive rights are on the chopping
block. Yeah, we’re against that. As for LGBTW+ rights (what happened to the Q?), they are not on our
agenda. This is a distraction and irrelevant to the core of the pro-life movement (saving babies’ lives).
We strongly believe that every person has value, so although we may not agree with certain views or
lifestyle choices, this does not mean that we wish to strip others of their inalienable human rights.
10. “The same extremists behind anti-abortion policies also support inhumane immigration policies.
These policies include the regular denial of critical reproductive health care, the abuse and neglect
of pregnant women, the separation of children and parents, and even more devastating realities for
those in custody at the border.”

More subterfuge to distract the reader from the pro-life message and paint us as heartless and
tyrannical, but here are some thoughts:
1. How was this correlation between “extreme anti-abortion policies” and “inhumane immigration
policies” drawn? Seems like they were just slapped together to make an unsubstantiated point.
2. “Critical reproductive health care” refers to abortion, which is an oxymoron, since it very rarely
improves someone’s health. (Why are we expected to provide abortions to immigrants anyway?)
3. It is interesting that pregnant women are a concern when it fits the narrative, yet there is little
acknowledgment or support for the 2700+ pregnancy centers across the United States.
4. We do not deny there are horrible conditions surrounding immigration that need to be solved.
Dignity and respect are basic tenets of the pro-life movement, so we certainly have no desire for
anyone to be harmed or treated poorly, either at the border or otherwise.

Partnering with You for Life,

Linda Verhulst, MRL-WR