In a Tuesday article titled, “I Was Raised Pro-Life, But Now I’m Pro-Choice,” activist Gabby Weiss shares why she now supports abortion with Glamour.
Weiss describes her ultra-fundamentalist upbringing, in which women were allegedly viewed as “just a consumable commodity.” Homeschooled in the controversial Quiverfull movement, Weiss says she was taught that men are in authority over women, and that women exist solely for the purpose of reproduction.
As she began to question the morals she was taught, during her time in high school and college, she eventually experienced the painful rejection of friends and family. At some point during this time, Weiss claims she was raped, after which she “felt a visceral need to claim control” of her body. Weiss says that following the rape, she became pro-choice, as political issues including abortion “kind of just clicked into place” for her.
Weiss’ story is tragic, to say the least, and could be convincing on an emotional level. However, Weiss seems to view the pro-life movement as a front for furthering religiously motivated male power over women, offering no evidence other than her own personal experience in an isolated cult-like environment. While some men (whether religious or non-religious) may seek to control women, this is not the goal of the pro-life movement.
While some sexist individuals may be pro-life, this doesn’t mean that it is sexist to be pro-life. Weiss’s inference that the two are inherently related is clearly based on her feelings rather than reality.
For example, Weiss states, “It became clear to me that I wanted to be the one making decisions about my body, whether it was who I had sex with or whether I became a mother or not. It felt really violent that anyone would feel that they had the right to make that decision without my consent.” The obvious problem with this perspective is that it’s twisting reality: no pro-lifer is trying to force Weiss or any other woman to become a mother, to create a new life. In claiming “it felt really violent,” she is overlooking the true violence involved in the abortion debate: the abortion itself.
Weiss claims she now supports bodily autonomy, but fails to address any of the scientific evidence related to the fact that a preborn child is not part of the mother’s body. Weiss emotionally appeals to readers, all of whom should sympathize with her story, but offers no reasonable arguments whatsoever for why her experience justifies the brutal death of babies in the womb.
Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former abortionist, explains one form of this brutal death below, using medical animation:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgw4X7Dw_3k]
Interestingly, the advice Weiss says she would offer to her younger self is the exact advice she should take right now: “I would tell her to be curious… To try new ideas. To evaluate things herself. To push back. To search for the truth.”
She could start by finding the full truth about fetal development here, and learning exactly what abortion is by watching the non-graphic videos here (which did not exist at the time she claims to have learned all about what abortion involves).
