Pro-Choice Doesn’t Have to Mean Pro-Roe

American abortion laws are among the most radical in the world. Unfortunately, though almost everyone knows that Roe v. Wade made abortion legal at the federal level, few people understand exactly how the case changed the country’s abortion laws. This gives me the opportunity to educate people when dialoguing about abortion at Arizona State University, and I’ve found that many pro-choice people change their attitude about Roe when they understand it better.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes.
Photo: Supreme Court Building. "Pro-Choice Doesn’t Have to Mean Pro-Roe"

Picture Credit: Duncan Lock, Dflock – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

One Way to Dialogue about Roe

Many people label themselves as “pro-choice,” but this label doesn’t tell us much. People’s views on abortion restrictions can vary greatly, from wanting no restrictions whatsoever, to only having legal abortion available in the first trimester in the case of rape. However, the majority of people I’ve spoken to on college campuses will vaguely agree that they don’t support late-term abortion. After providing them with a few simple facts about late-term abortion, almost everyone will agree such procedures should be illegal. The example dialogue below illustrates how a pro-life advocate can help a pro-choice person realize that they disagree with the extremism of Roe because of their existing beliefs about late-term abortion:

The New York Abortion Law: Rhetoric and Reality

New York’s broad new abortion law, dubbed the “Reproductive Health Act,” was sold to the public as merely enshrining Roe v. Wade into state law. On the surface, it seems to do just that by extending abortion-on-demand to 24 weeks and allowing for exceptions beyond that point in cases where the fetus is unlikely to survive outside the womb or when “necessary to protect the patient’s life or health.” If the New York abortion law only codifies what was already federal policy, it seems odd that the governor’s and Assembly’s official statements include multiple quotes praising New York’s “progressive” position on abortion. Perhaps this is a reference to just how “progressive” Roe is; after all, it created a national right to abortion so broad that babies could be killed at the point of birth based on an incorrect diagnosis or a temporary emotional state. But no, there are new abortion “rights” in this new law that put it outside even the realm of Roe, which the people selling the law knew even as they said it was the status quo. New York is again “leading the way,” but should anyone want to follow?

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes.

Statue of Liberty dark cloudy

The New York Abortion Law Says Killing Shouldn’t Be a Crime

One notable change in the Reproductive Health Act is that all language regarding abortion has been cut from the penal code and the new provisions were moved to the public health law. On a rhetorical level, New York is arguing that abortion is a health care right, even a “fundamental” one, and that as such it should not be considered part of criminal law. On a practical level, this means that, even though elective abortion after 24 weeks remains illegal, there are no legal grounds to prosecute whoever performs such an abortion. What exactly is the enforcement method for the few restrictions on abortion that survive this law? Are we relying on the moral conscience of late-term abortion practitioners to obey a law that shrinks their business yet has no method of enforcement? Consider me skeptical of the value of New York’s legal line in the sand at 24 weeks.

The move to strike any language about abortion or “born-alive infants” from the penal code also removes protection from two groups of children—well, two groups besides the vast number of children already being freely aborted under the law. In the first case, as was argued by opponents of the Act, there is now no law against the “involuntary termination” of a pregnancy, let alone a law against fetal homicide; this means that a woman whose child is killed prenatally in an assault or car accident can’t prosecute the killer in New York state. Supporters of the law attempted to argue that the woman has much better charges available with longer sentences, like felony assault, so it doesn’t matter that there is no law against killing the fetus. By this logic, a shooter who kills one person and injures nine others should only be charged for the one murder; the nine attempted murders don’t matter, since you’ll just get a life sentence under the higher charge anyway.

Why would state representatives say something that flies in the face of basic principles of criminal law? New York is unwilling to say that any injustice was done to the now-dead fetus, because, if it had any right not to be killed, it would be inconvenient for the logic of abortion as social good. They’re willing even to imply that the only right which is being violated is the mother’s right to her bodily integrity, but in that same bill they claim she has “a fundamental right to choose to carry the pregnancy to term.” On their own terms, they should argue that involuntary termination and fetal homicide are acts of injustice against the woman’s reproductive right, not only her right to bodily autonomy. The mother is disallowed by law from seeking justice for her child and is told that it is enough that the state might award justice to her. New York is so gripped by abortion fever that it would rather tell pregnant victims of assault how they should view their assault than grant them the right to seek justice for their murdered children.[Tweet that]

Six Bad Arguments from the Pro-Choice “Reversing Roe” Documentary

Reversing Roe

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.

On September 18th, Netflix released a documentary about abortion called “Reversing Roe.” I watched it, hoping that it was made in an unbiased way, fairly showing both sides of the debate. Unfortunately, as with most documentaries about abortion, this one was edited in a very slanted way, I think to intentionally manipulate the audience. As someone who studies video editing in his spare time (I know, I’m fun, aren’t I?), I recognized lots of subtle editing tricks the filmmakers were using to make people feel comfortable with pro-choice people and uncomfortable with pro-life people.

I decided that the best way for me to equip pro-life advocates to have productive conversations with their pro-choice friends about this documentary was to make a series of videos showing clips from the film and then provide commentary, both on the biased editing tricks as well as responding to the more substantive pro-choice arguments in the film. I spent the next few weeks doing a careful analysis of the film, shooting about 90 minutes of footage of me responding to the documentary, and then working with a new volunteer on editing them into shorter clips to post on YouTube. I’m modeling a video style that’s become very popular lately, where an expert (like a doctor or lawyer) watches clips from a show or movie and then comments about it. I haven’t seen any other pro-life advocates use this style, and I think these videos came out so great that we might do more in the future.

Click on the embedded playlist below to watch the clips for yourself, but I’ll make a few of my points below to give you a sneak peek.

Reversing Roe: Exposing the Bias

Reversing Roe: Exposing the Bias

Estimated reading time: 1 minutes.

Josh Brahm analyzes the documentary “Reversing Roe” and exposes the biased editing tricks and responds to the pro-choice arguments made.

Click on the embedded playlist below to watch the video series, or click on the button on the top left of the player to pick and choose which sections to watch.

Videos in the Playlist Above:

  1. Editing Tricks
  2. More Editing Tricks
  3. Gender Bias
  4. Pro-Choice Christians and False Stats
  5. Personhood, Bodily Rights Arguments, and Roe vs. Wade
  6. Did Pro-Lifers Make Up Partial-Birth Abortion?
  7. Do Tax Dollars For Planned Parenthood Help Fund Abortion?
  8. The Worst Pro-Choice Arguments in the Film

Question for pro-choice people: Do you see this documentary as being fair to both sides, or is it just something that in the end might be useful in motivating inactive pro-choice people?

Question for anybody: Should documentaries attempt to be neutral? Tell us in the comments below!

Share this video series with your friends using this link: EqualRightsInstitute.com/ReversingRoe

It’s Her Body

Editor’s Note: With his permission, today we’re sharing the first in Steve Wagner’s recent series of posts on how to dialogue about bodily rights. Steve Wagner is the Executive Director of Justice For All and serves on ERI’s Advisory Board. It is extremely easy for pro-life advocates in a conversation about abortion to imply, intentionally or not, that they don’t care about bodily rights. This is a huge mistake. Read Steve’s post to learn how to find common ground and empathize with pro-choice people.

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.

Some of JFA’s recent outreach exhibit panel designs feature images like this one in order to communicate concern for women and sympathy for their experiences of pregnancy. See the Stop and Think Exhibit page for exhibit designs and commentary. (Warning: There is one graphic abortion image visible in a few different outreach photos on this page.)

I was in the middle of a conversation with a few young women who had stopped to sign our “Should Abortion Remain Legal?” poll at Colorado State University in April.  They were putting their mark on the “Yes” side.  I asked a few questions, and each began to explain the limitations she would put on abortion at different times and in different circumstances of pregnancy.  Another young woman stopped and interjected, “It should be legal up until birth.”  Without much prompting, she gave her reason: “I have a right to do what I want with my body.”

At this moment, I wanted to launch into a precision set of questions and counter-arguments to show this woman and those standing nearby that her right to her body doesn’t entail a right to kill another human by abortion.  I have been thinking, writing, and teaching about appeals to bodily rights for more than 15 years.  I was ready.

But as I looked at this woman, I hesitated.  I stuttered and said something not too tidy, struck afresh by the fact that this topic affects this person very personally.  Reflecting on it later, I was a little embarrassed that I hadn’t had more to say, but then I realized there was something quite right about the approach into which I had fallen.  Rather than saying something intellectual, I think I said something more along the lines of sympathy and concern, a little like this:

I don’t know if I can fully understand what it’s like for matters so personal as your body and your right to do what you want with your body to be brought up on your campus.  I don’t know what it feels like to consider the possibility of being pregnant or to think about the government placing restrictions on your ability to control everything about your body.  These things are very heavy to think about.  Your right to your body is important.

I don’t want the conversation about a woman’s right to her body to end there, but I think it needs to start there.  Indeed, my conversation with two of the women who heard this exchange was very productive, I think due in part to the moment in which I chose sympathy over argument.  But the conversation can’t end with sympathy for the woman only, because this woman’s view that abortion should be legal until birth also affects an unborn person very personally (and not just one unborn child, but thousands each day).  If we focus on the unborn, though, without first seeking to understand the woman’s concern for her body, we not only will make practical success in the conversation much more unlikely, failing to build a bridge when we could, but we’ll also fail to accurately describe what’s true.  For what we’re discussing is a person with equal value to the unborn person, and yes, she has a right to her body that we should be the first to champion.  I mean “right to her body” not in the controversial sense of abortion but in the uncontroversial sense that she should be protected from harm, terror, assault, and oppression.  She should be valued as an equal.  In general, individuals and the government should leave her to be free, unless she is causing harm to someone else.