Media

Jezebel Surprised that Lila Rose and Pro-Life Women Are “Nice”

Michele Bachmann is the embodiment of all that is evil, but she pretends to be nice to steal people’s souls.

I got married on Saturday, so the last thing I want to do is think about abortion. But I must, so I visited Jezebel to see what’s going on in the wonderful world of people who don’t mind when fetuses are cut into pieces and sucked out of ladies. I was expecting to get angry or bewildered enough to write, and I was not disappointed.

There were many articles under the heading “Roe v. World,” and two of them were about Lila Rose and Live Action. I found the following reader comment under an article titled “Live Action Idiots Falsely Seeking Info On Your Uterus:”

So funny thing, I was pretty good friends with Lila during junior and senior years of high school. She was passionate about abortion then, but she was one of the nicest, most intelligent, articulate people I’d ever met. What LiveAction does is horrible, but I just find it so hard to reconcile the nice person I used to be friends with and the vitriol that gets directed at her. I’m not sure if this is a case study of an issue completely changing a person or just generally good people being crazy about certain things.

This is a weird failure of logic to me. It reminds me of when I converted to pro-life and later to Christianity and many of my pro-choice/agnostic/atheist friends concluded, after observing me speaking rationally on the subject (not waving a crucifix around and shrieking) that though I was once a good and rational person, I must have gone off the deep end.

It never occurred to them that the simplest answer is usually the correct one: that I am still a good and rational person, and that my new conclusions about religion and abortion were a result of that.

Similarly, this commenter believes that Lila Rose is an example of a “generally good” person being “crazy about certain things.” Is that more believable than the fact that a pro-life position is part and parcel with Rose’s goodness and intelligence?

I kept running into this as I read more articles, but none more tellingly than in Erin Gloria Ryan’s contemptuous piece on the Celebration of Pro-Life Women Leaders reception at the RNC this past August. It starts out typically:

The speaking lineup was a veritable Murderers Row of bright-eyed, charismatic women who think ending a pregnancy is the same thing as murder.

“Ending a pregnancy.” Doesn’t this phrase make you a little crazy? What is ending a pregnancy? What does that mean? Let’s break it down, Erin Gloria Ryan, using small words and simple concepts so you don’t get confused. What is a pregnancy? A pregnancy is when a baby is in a lady’s tummy. What does “ending” it do? Removes the baby from the lady’s tummy, and not by birthing it. What happens to the baby? It dies. What do you call intentionally killing an innocent human being? Murder.

Moving on…

Here is where Ryan gets bewildered:

I expected hostility, but what I got from women there was more of the same confusing polite sweetness to which I’ve been subjected by female attendees of the RNC. They’re nice, at least while I’m asking them questions.

Why is this confusing? I’m at a loss. Why are you surprised that women who object to the intentional killing of fetuses are “nice”?

I’ll tell you why Ryan is confused: because she really believes the stupid hype, disseminated by her peeps at Jezebel, that pro-lifers are just as “meh” about children in the womb as anti-lifers, and what we really want is to enslave women and force them to read Proverbs at their dinner tables with mean cowboy-hat-wearing husbands and their unwanted white Christian babies.

As she goes on, Ryan gets less convinced of the niceness of pro-life women because, well, they appear to be very convinced that abortion is wrong. Also, Michele Bachmann is from “Crazytown.”

(I once spoke to a young woman from California who seemed completely shocked that I did not find Michele Bachmann repugnant. When I asked her why she thought Michele Bachmann was crazy, she could not give me one reason other than she’s a “Fundamentalist.” When I asked, “What do you mean exactly by ‘Fundamentalist?,’ she muttered something about the earth being created in six days and changed the subject. This is but one illustration of why I take people’s opinions of Michele Bachmann with a grain of salt.)

It’s kind of dangerous to assume that the other side is full of maniacs and jerks, although there are both in all walks of life. Lila Rose, Michele Bachmann, and prominent pro-life women probably actually are “nice.” I have been occasionally guilty of the same bewilderment when meeting pro-choicers, but then, they are the ones who don’t mind when unborn babies die.

Keep this in mind: we are underestimated. There really are many – even those like Ryan who have some experience interacting with pro-lifers – who believe that our intentions are devious, that we really just want to force our religion on the world. To them I would say this: make no mistake - I don’t need you to believe that all life is sacred, but seeing as how this same belief is iterated in the founding documents of our country, our laws should reflect the sanctity of life, whether you like it or not.

   
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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1366134044 Jennifer Ayars Bush

    Spot on and fantastic, as usual. Congratulations on your marriage!

  • Michele

    Best wishes for your marriage!
    I had the same bewilderment, sadly, when I became truly pro-life (I was one of those *obnoxious* ‘I-would-never-get-one-but-I-can’t-deny-it-to-someone-else’ people. Ugh.). I kept going to all of these pro-life events where people were, like, all hug-y and welcoming and smiling and singing and being *legitimately* concerned about pregnant women and families. I was a little overwhelmed.
    Now I’m overwhelmed when I speak to my pro- “choice” friends. Choice in quotation marks, because I am *Always* told, without fail, that I don’t have a right to my own choices if those choices are: conservative, religious, pro-life, responsible, or have anything to do with a definitive definition of ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ … And usually they yell and say something about me believing in things because men have told me to believe them. Vomit.

    • PD

      “(I was one of those *obnoxious* ‘I-would-never-get-one-but-I-can’t-deny-it-to-someone-else’ people. Ugh.).”

      since when is it obnoxious to have your own view and allow others to have the right to make their own choices? i don’t know you, but somehow i feel you were less obnoxious back when you didn’t try to force your beliefs on others…

      • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

        You do know the difference between making a meaningful argument and just reiterating an empty question that dozens of others have already explained to you, right? The latter is what’s really obnoxious.

        • PD

          you do realize that we can both find different things obnoxious right? i stand by my statement that she is more obnoxious now than when she allowed others to exercise their choices. where the answer to this question been addressed to me before? it hasn’t. how obnoxious.

  • Leslie

    I LOVE your stuff Kristen! Congrats on your marriage!

  • hollywoodron

    Stop making sense!!! AAAARGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

    • PD

      i like you. you’re funny :)

  • http://www.facebook.com/taylor.ashman Taylor Ashman

    congratulations on getting married! and keep up the great work! there is so much good that could come from the two sides being more understanding of each other.

  • Ed DeMatteo

    Call security. She’s brandishing dangerous logic.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jason.hunt.96 Jason Hunt

    Congratulations to you and your new hubby!

    The main problem with these people seems to be that one’s actual character doesn’t line up with their stereotype.

    • PD

      i agree with you. however, i feel as if some people on both sides are to blame for stereotyping the other. whereas by saying “these people” you essentially throw an large diverse group of people into a stereotype yourself. hypocritical, no?

  • http://www.facebook.com/stickhorse.cowgirls Stickhorse Cowgirls

    Appreciate your words of truth!

  • kayjay

    Loved your article! So fun to read and 100% true! Many times when I am sidewalk counseling outside of clinics, I try to say to the girls, “I really am not crazy. I just know the truth and the truth is that you deserve more than this.”

    • PD

      “Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.” ― Voltaire

      • PD

        downvotes? pro-lifers don’t like voltaire? or is it the seeking truth part they don’t like?

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Seth-Murray/676313267 Seth Murray

          They don’t like idiot trolls.

          • PD

            there you go, don’t learn how to argue competently. just name call. that will get abortions illegal. how did i not see your intellectual superiority earlier?

        • Jordan

          Do you believe it is absolutely true that abortion is a right? Do you think it’s true that we are wrong?

  • PD

    i’m surprised they used the term “nice.” its not typically a term you hear when discussing people who are hell-bent on taking away freedoms from people. that’s not exactly what i would consider being “nice.”

    • http://www.facebook.com/petraphonic Clinton Wilcox

      No one’s talking about taking any rights away from anyone. No right is absolute. Right to bodily autonomy never trumps right to life. You have the right to bodily autonomy as long as you don’t harm or kill another human being.

      • PD

        in your first sentence you say nobody is taking rights away. then in the rest of the paragraph you yourself describe why the right to abortion (which we have) should be taken away… in the comments section of a website entirely devoted to revoking said right.

        cognitive dissonance anyone?

        • Solntsye

          The right to life is a natural human right. The “right” to abortion is nothing more than a tawdry display of human arrogance. The right to life is vastly more important than the right to convenience.

          • PD

            insincere argument.

          • Solntsye

            Hardly.

          • PD

            haha ok, you got me there. now i see your point :P

        • Clinton Wilcox

          As SoIntsye said, there is no such thing as a right to abortion. My entire post shows that no one has the right to take an innocent human life. Bodily autonomy does not justify taking innocent human life. I’d urge you to look up the definition of cognitive dissonance. Using big words does not lend support to a fundamentally flawed argument.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Seth-Murray/676313267 Seth Murray

      People who want to engage in evil and are angry that others don’t support them (or have already done so and are trying to cope with the guilt) always, ALWAYS twist words to try to obscure the factual reality of their wants and actions. They also present themselves as victims when they are, in fact, victimizing others.

      Your comment, PD, is a perfect example. Legitimate “freedom” and “rights” do not include initiating harm against the innocent and defenseless. No one has a genuine freedom to harm or kill another innocent person. And no one is obligated to support, endorse or pay for any such artificially fabricated “right.” If I or anyone else says or actively opposes your attempts to kill innocent people, we aren’t “taking away” your “freedoms” or “rights.” We’re just pointing out a fact, and doing so with much greater restraint (1) than you show to your victims, and (2) is probably warranted.
      If you wish to go and harm or kill innocent and defenseless people without interference from others, then just come out and say it. Don’t hide behind euphemisms and pretend to be a victim. The only reason you can say and do such things is that those who oppose you value human life, freedom, rights, etc., even yours, much more than you do.

      • PD

        “People who want to engage in evil and are angry that others don’t support them… always, ALWAYS twist words to try to obscure the factual reality of their wants and actions.”

        as case in point: your second paragraph. you “twist” words to support your own faulty logic and “evil” views. (you really think i’m evil??)
        “Legitimate “freedom” and “rights” do not include initiating harm against the innocent and defenseless.”

        there’s that word that “Dr.” Todd Akin loves: legitimate. remember when he said with legitimate rape, the women can’t get pregnant? (he’s so funny.)

        but you don’t see what you’re doing there? by saying legitimate freedoms and rights, you’re saying that some are not legitimate. but who decides which are legitimate? you? if so, god help us. the voters? if so, then the right to abortion is indeed legitimate. and please, oh wise one, explain to me: how exactly can there be illegitimate freedoms? you do know what oxymoron means, right?

        “we aren’t “taking away” your “freedoms” or “rights.”"

        you can repeat that as much as you want, but it simply isn’t true. in America we have the freedom to get an abortion. that is our right. you are attempting to take away this right. if you want to take away rights from women, just go ahead and say it. don’t hide behind opinions while calling them facts, and don’t pretend to be holier than thou. and don’t claim to value freedom more than me while simultaneously attempting to weaken my freedom.

        but mostly, come down off your judgemental high horse and stop thinking of yourself as god’s gift to humanity. spoiler: you’re not.

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Seth-Murray/676313267 Seth Murray

          You are right, PD, I am not God’s gift to humanity. Humanity, however, was God’s gift to me. And, unlike you, I intend to protect and cherish that precious gift both in myself and others.

          Your rhetorical sarcasm and ad hominem response might feel good to you, and might even score points with people who are easily confused, but the reality is that you’ve merely indicated that my argument was dead on and happened to hit a nerve. You are also really wasting your time if you believe that any of these amateurish tactics will have any effect whatsoever on me or the facts.
          Anyway, if you believe that something is true or real just because it was voted on or written on paper, if you believe that our freedoms and rights come from the government, or if you believe that your “freedom” or “rights” include the right to harm or kill innocent and defenseless human beings, then you are greatly deceived, and are a danger to yourself and others.

          • PD

            so you don’t have an answer…and resort to ad hominem yourself? and no i’m not greatly deceived or a danger to others. i have the right given to me by the government, and i choose to use that right. and by the way, there is no god, sorry…

          • Laura M

            ” i have the right given to me by the government”. Actual rights stem from human dignity, which the govt. has no power to grant , merely recognize, so no. I can just hear you saying “I was given the right by the GOVERMENT to own slaves and I’m going to use it”, if this was another time. You say there is no god, but still act as if the govt. was one, how funny.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Seth-Murray/676313267 Seth Murray

    Interesting article. I think it all comes down to erroneous beliefs, conscious or not. One can be the nicest of persons, and a fine neighbor or friend, but hold erroneous beliefs about life or society, and on the basis of those beliefs engage in or support fraud, extortion, assault, theft and murder. It is frighteningly common.

    We are, at our core, a mess of contradictory desires, emotions and beliefs. A self-examined life will gradually try to work through these and necessarily moves to one of two ends — either a consistent value of human life, morality, etc., or a movement toward utilitarianism in which any person can be disposed of if he is inconvenient.

    • PD

      i liked your post. i thought it was interesting and well put. then i got to the last sentence and realized you are engaging in a disingenuous argument. and an offensive one at that…

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=687816542 Giselle Northy

    “This is a weird failure of logic to me. It reminds me of when I
    converted to pro-life and later to Christianity and many of my
    pro-choice/agnostic/atheist friends concluded, after observing me
    speaking rationally on the subject (not waving a crucifix around and
    shrieking) that though I was once a good and rational person, I must
    have gone off the deep end.”

    This is so true. I had this happen to me too; I lost a friend of 5 years that was strongly atheist and a huge fan of Richard Dawkins. When he found out (at the time I had been Christian for a year and didn’t tell him) he freaked out on me and basically said I was now bat sh*t crazy, blocked me from facebook, and when I tried to politely contact him through email he sent hate mail back. It’s so easy for people like this to write Christians and pro-lifers off as being nuts because then they don’t have to take their beliefs into serious consideration.

  • http://twitter.com/Astraspider Astraspider

    Congratulations on your nuptials, Kristen. And, as a side benefit, maybe now that you’re off the abstinence train, you’ll stop peddling it as a prescription for, well, for just about everything.

    • Laura M

      Yes, because pointing out that if you don’t want to get pregnant the logical thing is not to do what gets you pregnant is a sign of not getting any, not of simple logic.

  • http://twitter.com/MarauderTheSN Marauder

    Congratulations, my fellow newlywed! :D

    I think Michele Bachmann has some truly bizarre and harmful beliefs about GLBT people, but I appreciate her dedication to the pro-life movement and I’ve never, NEVER bought the claim that she’s “stupid.” There are no stupid tax attorneys.