“They Didn’t Get to Design our Uniforms”

This remark …

and the response of Destiny Herndon de la Rosa of the ardently prolife New Wave Feminists:

Good for NARAL Pro-Choice America. I say that with complete sincerity. How sad that they are better at being pro-life than we are, in this instance.

…reminds me of an oldie but goodie:

Here’s the thing: the Church teaches that human life is sacred from conception to natural death.  But the Christianist “prolife” supporter of Trump’s brutality to children is devoted to using the unborn as human shields for this

“The breaking point for Davidson came, he says, when he was asked to tell two siblings, ages 6 and 10, that they couldn’t hug each other. “

So when believers who respect the Church’s consistent life ethic want to know where the partisan Trump worshippers of the Old Prolife Movement are, the Christianist replies thusly:

I could muster some respect for that–if it were not a lie.  If it were actually the case that the Old Prolife Movement was just so consumed with activity saving the unborn that they just had no time for the issue of Trump’s criminal abuse of families at the border, then fine and dandy.  Can’t be everywhere at once.

But, in fact, the Old Prolife Movement lies through its teeth when it claims to be “focusing on abortion”.  It’s not.  It is focusing on defending the sadistic and cruel policy of ripping baby Jesus from the arms of Maria and Jose at the border.  That’s where the time and energy go.  And the unborn only matter insofar as they can be wielded as human shields for this, the real focus and interest of the Old Prolife Movement.

I am actually old enough to remember the genesis of the Prolife Movement and how it settled on its branding.  Back in the 70s, as it was first starting to germinate, opponents of abortion were criticized by those defending abortion as being merely “anti-abortion”.  The reply was that, no, we are pro-life–from conception to natural death.  I believed that and, as a Catholic, I believe it still.  A consistent life ethic defends human life from conception to natural death.  It is about the right to live, not merely the right to be born.

But then the prolife movement was co-opted by American conservatives and taught to regard the unborn as the opposite of every form of human life conservatives want to treat with contempt.  The poisonous drip of this lie has lasted 35 years and now we have arrived at the point where Old Prolife Movement “orthodoxy” means that we are indeed simply and solely anti-abortion and conservative assaults on the sanctity of human life are to be ignored, excused and even salivated over.  And so it has now come to pass that the most passionate, vindictive, gloating, and sadistic fans of ripping children from their parents’ arms are “prolife”, conservative, white, self-identified Christians, both Protestant and Catholic.

Indeed, so poisonously deranged is the Old Prolife Movement that when you point out the shameful fact that NARAL is entering the Kingdom of Heaven ahead of these Pharisees, the OPLM complains that the real reason you are noting it is that you are “secretly pro-abortion”.  So it is as predictable as sunrise that Destiny will be denounced as a “traitor” to the prolife movement for her perfectly legitimate praise of NARAL’s good deed and her criticism of “prolife” betrayal of these children.

No.  Somebody with a consistent life ethic is openly in favor of not tearing children away from their parents.  That is not complex.  And the Christianists salivating over this cruelty could, if they chose, humble NARAL by humbling themselves and joining them at the border to defend these children.  NARAL didn’t get to design the Old Prolife Movement’s uniforms.  The Old Prolife Movement did this to themselves.

Part of the power of New Wave Feminist’s witness is that they are listening to the Holy Spirit, not culture war BS from the Right Wing Noise Machine.  They measure acts, not by the question “Will this make liberals look good?” but by the only criterion that matters:  “Does this comport with the gospel?”  They have no fear of praising pro-choice advocates when they do the right thing.  And because they can stand side by side with them to fight the evil that is Trump’s kidnapping policy, they can also look at their NARAL allies and say, “How is it that you can see the dignity of these children, but not the dignity of children in the womb?”

The Old Prolife Movement needs to repent or perish and be replaced by the New Prolife Movement and the consistent life ethic.  It has become one of the worst and most scandalous enemies of the gospel and of the sanctity of human life.  It serves the Party of Trump’s culture of death, not God or the least of these.