4 Reasons to be pro-life

By Emily Milne 

With the March for Life coming up on Saturday the 20th of May, we thought it'd be a good idea to write something that could help you in the counter-cultural position of being pro-life. As a student and after uni, I was proud to be a part of APS (the Alliance of pro-life students, who you can check out here: allianceofprolifestudents.org.uk) and here are just a few ways of addressing this topic.

1) The Sixth Commandment

The first reason is pretty simple and the most obvious: it’s a commandment in the bible: “Thou shalt not kill”. The unborn are human beings, they are alive and growing from the moment of conception, and abortion kills them. As Catholics we are called to respect all life, from conception until natural death. This is hard sometimes, because life is messy and we are living in imperfect times, but it is increasingly important in today’s society. Euthanasia is the deliberate killing of a person. Embryonic stem cell research uses embryos and then discards them.  Pope Francis says that we are living in a ‘throwaway culture’, where even human life is seen as disposable. If life is not seen as sacred, then what is?

2) Before I formed you in the womb I knew you

‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you’ Jeremiah 1:5. More than just respecting a right to life, Catholics are called to be pro-life because God is our creator, and He created us in His image! He desires that we have life “and live it to the full” – who are we to take that away through abortion, euthanasia or any other way? Additionally, Jesus Christ came into the world through Mary’s womb – he dwelt on earth as an unborn child, through all of those developmental stages!

3) Science and Faith

As Catholics, we’re also pretty up on the link between science and faith: as in, they’re not oppositional forces. Science supports the fact that human life begins at conception (just look in any embryology textbook!), that unborn babies have a heartbeat often before the mother even knows that she is pregnant, and that babies start learning things, like language, in the womb. People might argue that the unborn are human, but not persons, and that it’s therefore ok to kill them. This is profoundly anti-science: how can you have a human who is not also a person? How does one even measure personhood? Any criteria that get used will invariably be fairly arbitrary.

4) Love your neighour

We are called to love our neighbours as ourselves. When a woman finds herself in a crisis pregnancy, abortion is often her only ‘solution’ because she does not have people who would support her if she kept her child – either economically or socially. A growing amount of euthanasia cases are because people do not want to be a ‘burden’ for those that they love in their final days. Supporting women by helping eliminate the crisis that leads them to seek abortion (family pressure, financial strain etc.), rather than eliminating their child, is truly Christian. Remember – Mary had what would have been termed a ‘crisis pregnancy’! Through Joseph’s love and support she was able to fulfil the plan God had for the world. How beautiful is that? 

You can check out the March For Life at: marchforlife.co.uk, and maybe we'll see you in Birmingham on Saturday the 20th!