From: Kermet Key
Columbus
Recently, a friend messaged me to ask how I could vote Democrat and be pro-life. She is a conservative Christian that voted for Evan McMullin in 2016. Her message began:
“As I think you know, I grew up being taught that Christians vote Republican. I believed everything I was taught up until some point in my adulthood when I started to have my own voice. I even remember thinking at one point, if I wasn’t a Christian, I would be a Democrat. Even though there are things I don’t like about the Democratic platform, it’s definitely much more in line with what matters to me treating people with love and dignity. My biggest obstacle is abortion. Not that that it will stop me from voting for Joe Biden, but I’d just like to better understand the pro-choice point of view.”
She went on to write about her time working in a maternity home after college, and how one of the girls there told her “this place treats me like an incubator. You only care about my baby but not about me.” She then added, “I still believe that life begins at conception, so I do think of abortion as murder. So I guess I see two lives that need to be loved and protected.”
My friend got it right: there are two lives that need to be loved and protected. We do not know how many lives were lost performing illegal abortions before 1972. The fact that there were enough to force a Supreme Court decision tells us that it did not matter that it was illegal; women still saw abortion as a viable alternative. Therefore, decriminalizing abortion meant that one of two lives would be saved. Women would no longer have to risk their life in some back alley. The Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade saved one life, the life of the pregnant woman, but what about the life of the unborn child?
It comes back to the issue of viability.
I am not talking about the biological definition of the word or whether the baby is capable of surviving, but whether a woman sees abortion as her best choice. History showed that women would risk their own lives if it seemed to be their best option. Sending them to maternity homes and making it illegal only sends us back to 1972. How do we move forward and make abortion seem like the least viable option?
What if we provided full funding to public housing, education, healthcare, and food programs so that women do not see motherhood as less viable than abortion? It would mean a change in priority for our tax dollars and maybe a few less billionaires. Over the last four years we have seen Trump Republicans willing to sacrifice more than just money for their ideas, but rather than continuing to sacrifice love and dignity we could embrace them and make our country a better place for all of us. That’s why I’m pro-life and voting Democrat.
Editor’s note: This letter is paid political content
