‘Pro-life,’ but against a ban on legal abortion

When asked recently if I considered myself to be “pro-life,” my impulse was to respond “no.” While I consider myself to be very pro-life, my hesitancy was because I understood the questioner was actually asking whether government should make abortions illegal, or at least extremely difficult to obtain.

To me, “pro-life” means much more. It means caring for the child who is not aborted. That entails providing assistance, such as food stamps and welfare payments, to the single mother who is caring for that child. It means providing programs like Head Start so that child has a chance of escaping the vicious cycle of poverty that probably contributed to its conception in the first place.

Some who claim to be “pro-life” state their belief that life begins at conception, but act as if it ends at birth. That is, they protect the fetus but ignore the child. I don’t consider this to be “pro-life.”

I would love to see abortions become extremely rare, but making them illegal or difficult to obtain is not the solution. That simply drives women to “back alley” abortionists. Greater access to family planning, including birth control advice and prescriptions, would be a much better approach.

PETE HAMILTON
ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY

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