A recent blog post by author Libby Anne, “How I lost faith in the ‘Pro-Life’ movement,” went viral last week.

Anne presented a moving criticism of the pro-life movement, revealing stark discrepancies between the goals of the pro-life movement and the traditional ways in which pro-life individuals aim to accomplish these goals.  Despite her arguments, Anne’s blog post neglected the primary question of the pro-life/pro-choice debate: when does a human life become a person deserving the protection of the law?

Arguments on both sides of the issue abound in the abortion debate. But at its root, the arguments of the pro-life movement all hinge upon the idea that human life has dignity and should be protected. Embryology research has proven that human life begins at conception. Therefore, the question becomes: when does this human life become valuable and necessitate protection under the law?

The answer to this question is the crux of the pro-life argument. Though articulating both the question and the answer is no simple task, members of the pro-life movement believe abortion should be outlawed because every life has value and deserves the legal right to life.

Anne asserted that the pro-life movement neglects the best way to reduce abortions: widespread promotion of birth control.  She is incorrect for two reasons, however. First, while birth control may reduce abortion numbers in the short-term, especially in developing nations, it has failed to reduce unintended pregnancies in developed nations that have provided readily available birth control since the advent of the pill.

In fact, according to the Guttmacher Institute, unintended pregnancies have been on the rise in the United States over the past few years, and it is these unintended pregnancies that often result in abortion.  Also, according to the Guttmacher Institute, more than half of all abortions are performed on fetuses conceived while the woman is on birth control.  The fact that more than half of pregnancies that result in abortion began despite the use of birth control makes birth control an impractical answer.

The second and more important reason for the lack of promotion of birth control is that it goes against the very basis of the pro-life argument: human dignity. Pro-lifers as a whole do not advocate outlawing birth control, but many of them see the promotion of birth control as disrespectful to the dignity of women and the union of the couple.

This is the result of the normalization of contraception allows the consequences of sex (the possibility of pregnancy, emotional attachment, STDs, etc.) to be disregarded. This allows men to view women as objects for sex and not as beautiful and dignified persons who deserve to be seen as much more than physical objects. Women tend to have a much better understanding of this because they are much more closely affected, but many men and women alike in this age of birth control act as if there are no consequences to the sexual act.

Birth control allows the consequences of sex to be pushed aside, and makes it easier for both parties to assume that they can enjoy sex without thinking about the emotional and physical meaning behind the act. Eliminating the need for these considerations eliminates the respect of the dignity of the man and the woman involved in the sexual act.

The pro-life movement recognizes these negative effects of birth control and thus strongly condemns its widespread promotion.  There are certainly an array of complex reasons that someone would choose to use birth control, but it does not actually lead to a decline in the number of unintended pregnancies, in part because it increases sexual activity.

It does not make sense to promote something that allows the consequences of sex and, in certain cases, the dignity of women to be ignored. The promotion of birth control does not solve the unintended pregnancy problem, but instead leads to a culture where the consequences of sex are not fully considered by both parties. This leads to a devaluation of sex, as well as the people involved.  Therefore, a movement focused on the value and dignity of every human life cannot encourage the use of birth control.

Stephen Wandor is a senior aerospace engineer who truly enjoys the “wandors” of flight. He also enjoys a wandorful pun from time to time to lighten his overly political world. Please feel free to contact him at swandor@nd.edu.