Failure To Communicate
If my work did not depend on the study of life issues, I may not have perceived the subtleties behind this clever marketing strategy—not to mention avoided being enticed by its message.
The image described above—what is it marketing?
This image and many others like it advance and verifiably sell the pro-abortion position. Studies indicate that ads presenting “pro-choice” as empowering to women and as a value indispensable to women’s equality literally cause women to buy into the pro-abortion stance and make it their own. Aired to influence women in “the swing states” during the last presidential election, one such advertisement featured a well-built Olympic diver. Surfacing upon performing a “perfect 10,” she looked at the camera and proclaimed: “More than anything, I ask for courage—courage to grow, to make my own decisions, to make mistakes. My life is blessed with so many choices. Please, grant me the strength and the wisdom to make the right ones. And the courage, always, to defend my right to do so.”
Referring to the effects of this commercial, Robert Kuttner, author of “For Many Voters a Choice About Choice—The American Prospect Online,” revealed “that the gap between pro-choice and anti-abortion widened to a majority of 22 points in Wisconsin, 21 points in Michigan, and 18 points in central Ohio.”
Statistics indicate that most women and pro-abortion advocates recognize that the fetus is a baby, yet they remain pro-abortion. Paul Swope, northeast project director of the Caring Foundation and president of LifeNet Services, reported on a study titled, “Abortion: The Least of Three Evils—Understanding the Psychological Dynamics of How Women Feel About Abortion.” His article—appropriately titled, “Abortion: A Failure to Communicate”—points out “all of the scores of women involved in the study (none of whom were pro-life activists and all of whom called themselves ‘pro-choice’) agreed that abortion is killing.”
Statistics
Abortion equals self-preservation not only to frightened mothers who did not plan their pregnancies, but also to international women’s rights activists. Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) and other pro-abortion organizations habitually claim that abortion is necessary to women’s health and without it women will suffer and some will die. Abortion is “life saving reproductive health care,” Planned Parenthood, NARAL and others argue. These anti-life groups lead people to believe that abortion is practiced to save the lives of women and prevent the birth of babies with “defects.”
But an important report published in the 1998 issue of International Family Planning Perspectives revealed shocking evidence to the contrary. “Despite the abortion lobby’s insistence that abortion is a women’s health issue, in no country do most women cite the health of the mother, the child, or even the expansive ‘other’ category as the primary (or even as a contributing) factor behind their decision to abort.” Less than 20 percent (and, in most cases, less than 10 percent) of women listed health risk to the mother or baby as the cause of their abortions. One report disclosed that 20 percent of Kenyan women stated “risk to health” as the motivating factor behind their abortions.
Further research, however, uncovered that the study surveyed only 20 women who “could not cite economic…or relationship issues” as reasons for wanting an abortion. Similarly, further investigation into the high number of Asian women indicating “fetal health risk” as the primary basis for having an abortion revealed that the “fetal health problem or ‘defect’ precipitating the abortion [was] simply that the child…[was] found to be a girl, rather than a boy.” Limited accessibility to tests needed to determine such defects suggests women are most likely claiming their babies have deficiencies without ever being tested.
Results of this international study indicate that women around the world are not aborting their babies because of risk to the health of mother or child. Rather, “70 percent to 90 percent” abort their babies for social or economic reasons. One of the most common explanations given for having an abortion is the desire to postpone childbearing. These women find self-affirmation in their work and pursuit of higher education. Motherhood does not yet fit into their identity. Hence, pro-lifers must persevere in the mission to show them how self-affirming and empowering motherhood can be!
FOOTNOTES
1. Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., National Right to Life director of Education & Research, details this study in his article, “Why in the World Do Women Have Abortions?”
(This article courtesy of HLI Reports, a publication of Human Life International.)
Self-Preservation?
Joyce Arthur of the Pro-Choice Action Network supports these findings in her article, “What Pro-Choice Really Means” by declaring, “the abortion services community is well-aware of what is really inside a pregnant woman. But so is almost everyone over the age of six.”
Why do people continue to be pro-abortion when they know abortion kills a baby?
The aforementioned study explains, “[u]nplanned motherhood…represents a threat so great to modern women that it is perceived as equivalent to a ‘death to self.’
While the woman may rationally understand this is not her own literal death, her emotional, subconscious reaction to carrying the child to term is that her life will be ‘over.’ This is because so many young women of today have developed a self-identity that simply does not include being a mother. It may include going through college, getting a degree, obtaining a good job, even getting married someday; but the sudden intrusion of motherhood is perceived as a complete loss of control over their present and future selves.
It shatters their sense of who they are and will become, and thereby paralyzes their ability to think more rationally or realistically.”
Thus, “their perception of the choice is either ‘my life is over’ or ‘the life of this new child is over.’” As Swope notes, “This helps to explain the appeal of the rhetoric of ‘choice.’” It empowers women to see that choosing abortion is a tough decision, but a courageous one necessary for self-preservation.
