The ‘pro-life’ contingent loves to claim that they’re protecting the rights of unborn children, nevermind that there isn’t any agreement on whether or not they actually have any.  I do believe that many on the other side of the argument truly believe what they’re saying, and that they are doing ‘the right thing’.  For the sake of argument, though, I’m willing to grant that the unborn do have the same rights as the rest of us, because pro-lifers need to realise that the term ‘equal rights’ doesn’t mean what they think it means when it comes to abortion.

First of all, what are the basic ‘human rights’?  There’s life, naturally.  Freedom and privacy are also considered rights by most, and the two are closely related.  These two don’t really mean much with regards to the unborn, though, as they have no will and thus have no real freedom.  Privacy is a non-starter, since they exist within another person and so are never really alone.  So naturally, life is the one that pro-life activists are focusing on.  But for them to achieve their goals, they have to use the ‘right to life’ to grant the unborn other rights, rights that no one else has under any circumstances–most notably, the right to another person’s body.

This is an important point because at this point, it is no longer about ‘equal rights’.  I am not obligated to give a dying person my blood or organs, or to feed a starving person, or to let a homeless person sleep under my roof. Sure, it would be nice of me if I did, but it would be an act of charity on my part, not something that I would be required to do.  Pregnancy is no different, in that carrying to term is an act of charity on the part of the mother.  She is, quite literally, giving of herself for the benefit of another. It is strange that in a country where any government security net is decried as ‘socialism’ that women are expected to give of themselves as a matter of course, with laws being crafted for specifically this purpose.

At the same time, the rights of women are being subverted.  They are expected to give up their freedom and privacy, so that they can be judged on the basis of what benefits someone else enjoys at their expense.  Decisions are to be made for them–decisions that may not be in their best interests.  Even their lives can be at stake, and some woud deny them even that for the sake of their unborn offspring (as an aside, I’ve never understood this mindset, as I’m not sure how a dead woman can give birth to a live child).

I don’t think pro-lifers are ‘wrong’, per se–as I said above, I think they truly think they’re doing the right thing.  However, they need to be honest, because what they’re advocating for is anything but ‘equal rights’.