Anti-abortion vs. Pro-life – YE GAY OL’ VALLEY

By: Dani Langevin – Nov. 2016

Barney Frank once said, “Conservatives believe that from the standpoint of the federal government, life begins at conception and ends at birth.” How true this is. I haven’t met a conservative yet that is not pro-life and anti-death penalty. Isn’t that thought process counter-intuitive? I’ve asked some of my conservative friends to explain this contradiction and they tell me that the unborn fetus has the same rights as any person who is born from a completed pregnancy and that a person who commits a horrendous and violent crime has given up his or her rights to life. But this still does not answer the question of how can one be pro-life and pro-death penalty. A person, is a person, is a person. Thou shall not kill. Then I read an article in the Huffington Post that gave me my answer.

The article that was first published on johnpavlovitz.com, “pro-lifers are really anti-abortion. They are pro-straight, white, Christian fetuses. Life for them, comprises a very narrow demographic – one that bears a striking resemblance to themselves.”

Let me be clear before I go on: I am NOT anti-straight, anti-white or anti-Christian. The article goes on to say that their, “sanctity for life evaporates upon delivery. In so many cases this compassion really has a nine-month expiration date, as if life begins at conception and ends upon leaving the birth canal. The completion of that third trimester is actually the shelf life of their passionate regard for much of the living.”

These people who claim to be pro-life will quickly tear up my marriage license because, to them, I am abhorrent as are the millions of LGBTQ people throughout the world. In a quick stroke of a pen and slice of an accusing tongue these people who taut their love for the sanctity of life see me and my community as subhuman, not worthy of a blessed monogamous marriage by our creator. I wonder if there was a way to find out if a fetus would grow up to be gay how many “pro-lifers” would become pro-abortionists. If the life they are so adamantly trying to save, “eventually comes out as LGBTQ, they condemn its soul, harass it in the workplace and church, try to prevent its marriage, tell it where and when it can use a public bathroom, and bully it and drive it to suicide.”
Anyone who deviates from their idea of what a proper human being is becomes fodder for their retribution. “Convert to Islam, they will label you dangerous and applaud suggestions for expulsion and denying your right to openly worship.”

When young black men are gunned down in the street, pro-lifers, “not only have little grief over the loss, but readily blame them for their own execution.” In their eyes, prostitutes are over sexualized, perverted street scum. They didn’t bother to learn her name, that she is 16 and ran away from her opioid addicted parents’ home because she was being abused. Prostitution is what pays her bills. She knows no other way because nobody has ever loved her, not even those who say all life is precious. And speaking of how precious life is, “If that life is strapped to a prison gurney and pumped full of drugs that will cease its lungs from expanding while its terrified mind comprehends it all, they celebrate the occasion as justice being served – after a last meal they resent having to pay for.”

So, it seems to me people who say that they are pro-life are pro-life until they are not. Once that life engages in some questionable activity that these people find sinful, that life is no longer worthy of empathy, love, respect, understanding, or saving. This is abhorrent to me. Pro-life people shouldn’t get to choose whose life is more worthy than another. “All life is sacred; not only when its heart begins beating, but as it beats and when it struggles to beat and up until it ceases to beat.” If these people truly were pro-life they would, “defend it equally, celebrate it all fully, and protect it all passionately,” no matter how deplorable they may find it to be.