I am a Catholic, white, female American with strong beliefs and opinions but dislikes confrontation and talking about politics.
I acknowledge that usually the only political stance I ever post about or share is protecting the unborn because this is a belief that I hold strongly and am well-versed in defending. I never want to post about something controversial that I don’t know enough about to defend.
I also acknowledge that while I make side notes in said posts with a plea to keep a consistent ethic of life, to stand up to protect life from conception until natural death, I know a chunk of the “pro life” group don’t do this and this is their reasoning (usually): We need to be a voice for the voiceless. Other matters regarding protecting human life do not matter until we protect the most innocent: the unborn. How can we as a society ethically sound if we don’t do this first? Countless abortions happen daily and if we can finally get society to value innocent life, only then can we get them to value the lives later on. How can ALL LIVES MATTER, if we first don’t protect the unborn, a human in their earliest stages of life? Of course all lives matter, but something needs to be done about abortion because it’s murdering innocent children.
This is often a pro-choicer’s point, that pro-life people only want to protect the unborn, not the child there-after, which while this is generally untrue, the defense usually stays with that innocent child and their mother, not with the systematic social issues or implications.
The point is, it is exhausting to defend human life on every front. I am anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, anti-death penalty, etc. I firmly believe we need to keep a consistent ethic of life and if we could all just take a step back for a moment to understand Black Lives Matter, every single person who considers themselves to be pro-life should understand.
Being pro life means a lot of things. Yes, it means protecting the unborn but it also means being anti-violence. It means fighting oppression. It means standing up to protect our brothers and sisters that are being murdered at the hands of our police. It means protesting police brutality. How can all lives matter if black lives still don’t?
We need to be actively receptive to and give support to those around us who are suffering. Sometimes that means peaceful protesting. Sometimes it means calling out a family member or friend when they say something racist. Sometimes it means realizing something you said or did was racist. Things will not change unless we are part of that change.
