Editor’s note: This blog is offered in anticipation of Sanctity of Life Sunday 2025 (January 19, 2025). For more about how to discuss pro-life arguments with friends and family, please listen to our podcast here.
In this series, we’ve been looking at the buzzwords that our kids may be hearing in their schools. In our blog, “Beware of Back-to-School Buzzwords,” we discussed the big kahuna of all buzz words, social justice. Our culture is taking biblical-sounding words (words that carry wholesome and even righteous connotations) and using them to support agendas that completely go against the heart of God – and none more so than today’s buzzword: reproductive justice (or reproductive rights.) This is one that our girls, especially, have probably heard more than any other phrase.
Out of all the buzzwords/buzz phrases, we cannot think of one closer to the heart of God. He is deadly serious about how we are to treat children. Psalm 127:3-5 tells us that children are a gift, a blessing, and a heritage from the Lord. In Matthew 18:10, Jesus tells us that we need to be careful if we mistreat the little ones because their angels have God’s ear.1While we might debate what the phrase their angels means, we can know for sure that God vehemently cares about how we treat children. In fact, Jeremiah 32:35 shows that God considered sacrificing children to an idol as detestable. It was an abomination for the people to sacrifice their children in order to make their lives easier or better. This seems obvious to us, and yet here we are again.
What we assume they mean:
Reproductive Rights: Women or individuals have the right to make choices regarding childbearing and reproduction without government interference.
Reproductive Justice: It sounds like a human rights issue, protecting the basic human right to reproduce from being limited or curtailed in some unjust fashion. You might think of the horrific eugenics movement that forced many women to be sterilized usually due to their ethnicity or mental capacity. We would definitely be against those kinds of atrocities ever happening anywhere ever again. Or you might be thinking of the old “one child policy” from China. Unfortunately, that is not what our Western culture means by reproductive justice.
What they actually mean:
Abortion. And in many cases they mean completely unrestricted access for all people with a uterus to abortion through all nine months for any reason. In several states, this includes ending the life of the infant or allowing the infant to die without palliative care when a baby survives a late-term abortion. In fact, three states removed all protections for babies who survived an abortion attempt and 12 additional states never had any protections for such infants. Read more about that here.
How do we know this is what they mean?
Because no one is arguing against any other aspect of gynecological healthcare offered by abortion clinics! For example, no one is protesting Planned Parenthood for passing out birth control even if some people don’t think hormonal birth control is wise. There are no Down with Mammograms or End Pap Smears signs in front of women’s health clinics. Virtually all debate would end if they stopped offering abortions.
What they get right and wrong:
Almost every buzzword we reference in our buzzword blogs have a kernel of misguided compassion. The average person advocating for “reproductive rights” will cite a love for women, especially women in abusive relationships, extreme poverty, those with ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, or those who have been denied appropriate medical care. Devastated by tragedy, they champion the stories of women who have been denied lifesaving care and vow #neveragain can we let these women die.
But this isn’t just empathy; it’s toxic empathy based on a black-and-white fallacy that we have to choose between the lives of women or the babies they carry.
We agree we should care about the single mom, the teen who was raped, and the battered wife who doesn’t want to raise a child in an abusive home. Absolutely, these women and millions of others with similar gut-wrenching stories deserve our compassion and assistance. Rape is already traumatic, but abortion only adds another trauma. We do not know how God may choose to use this precious life despite the circumstances of its conception. And for the abuse victim, instead of removing the baby from the battered woman, let’s remove the battered woman from her batterer. Remove the crisis, not the pregnancy. We advocate for supporting women through their pregnancies and truly protecting their lives. We disagree that killing their children is the best solution for anyone, especially the children.
We advocate for supporting women through their pregnancies and truly protecting their lives. We disagree that killing their children is the best solution for anyone, especially the children. #reproductivejustice Share on XAnd what do abortion clinics like Planned Parenthood offer these women with tragic backstories? Abortions. That’s it. No other services for pregnant women. (Although PP is now the nation’s second largest supplier of cross-sex hormones. Hurray.) So while some women’s clinics offer some other health services, they do not have anything to offer a woman facing a crisis pregnancy except abortion. Most won’t even provide a sonogram or offer a referral to an adoption agency.
Reproductive rights advocates also rightfully hold the idea that life should be just. As we discussed in the first Buzzwords article, justice is a biblical mandate. People should be treated fairly without regard to ethnicity, skin color, intelligence, appearance, weight, political or religious beliefs, or economic status. Biblical justice means the law applies equally to everyone, and everyone should be given the same rights under the law–including fetal humans in utero.
Biblical justice means the law applies equally to everyone, and everyone should be given the same rights under the law–including fetal humans in utero. Share on XThe assumptions
The first assumption is that the baby inside a womb is not equally human or deserving of human rights. They treat it like just a clump of cells, but that isn’t true. From the moment of conception, it is a human being with its own DNA and acts in its own self-interest, even outside of the womb. Ending the life of an innocent human being is not a “basic human right,” No matter where that human is located.
The second assumption is that women having the ability to kill their own children is the only way for them to have fair access to economic or social success or power. Hey, we get it, having a baby is life-changing. Your life is not your own anymore, but that doesn’t mean your life ends. It changes. Your career may take a backseat for a bit, or maybe not. Amy Coney Barrett has seven children and is a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. One of my former students married very young and finished college with two babies. Parenting means someone else comes first in many ways, but that doesn’t have to mean the end of your personal goals (Also, parenting adds depth and richness to your life that is immeasurable.) But if parenting doesn’t seem feasible, abortion is not the only option. Literally millions of couples are waiting to adopt babies! A couple of us Mama Bears are adoptive mothers. It’s a blessing.
The third assumption is that people either cannot or should not have to control their sexual impulses. Newsflash: we know where babies come from. If you’re not ready for one, preventing pregnancy is simple. We encourage people with clogged arteries to eat healthy and say no to donuts and fried chicken, but nobody would ever dare to suggest that maybe people should avoid sex if they don’t want to get pregnant. (We didn’t say it was easy, but it is simple.)
(Here’s a fun mental exercise to do with your older kiddos: Brainstorm all the issues that would be either solved or extremely improved if no one ever had sex outside of marriage ever again. You might be surprised how many they can list!)
The fourth assumption is that if you don’t have a uterus, you don’t get to have an opinion. Remember when we had slave owners? What if someone said “Unless you own a plantation, the slavery issue doesn’t affect you, therefore you don’t have a right to contest it. “No womb, no opinion” makes as much sense as “no plantation, no opinion.” Just like no developmental level should exclude you from human rights, personal impact (or lack thereof) should not elevate or deny your voice when fighting for the human rights of others.
The final assumption is that a preborn infant only becomes eligible for human rights once they reach the point of viability, the ability to live outside the womb. But this is an arbitrary standard. What happens down the road for people on life support? The medically infirm child who still has to live with his or her parents far into adulthood? If history has taught us nothing, it’s that everyone can suddenly become a philosopher when it comes to denying other humans human rights, as we’ve seen with the holocaust, slavery, and a variety of other genocides.
“I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.” ― Ronald Reagan
How to talk to your kids about it:
Teach your children to keep the main thing the main thing: What exactly is in the womb? If the parents are dogs, it’s a dog, so if both parents are human, it’s human. And it’s always wrong to take an innocent human life.
Talk to your kids about how life is defined: How do we decide if something is alive? Here is a secular source on helping kids understand what alive means:
- “Most living things need food, water, light, temperatures within certain limits, and air.
- Living things have a variety of characteristics that are displayed to different degrees: they respire, move, respond to stimuli, reproduce and grow, and are dependent on their environment.”
By these standards, is the baby in the womb alive? If they found it on Mars, what would scientists call it? When do embryologists say life begins?
Differentiate between made in the image of God and not made in the image of God: Read Genesis 1:26-28 together. Discuss what it means when God declares that we are made in His image, male and female, and given dominion over the world. (We walked through some additional passages to read and discuss with your children on this issue in our blog, Politics at the Dinner Table.)
Teach your children the SLED argument for human rights.
SLED stands for:
- Size
- Level of development
- Environment
- Degree of Dependency
Do we lose human rights if we are smaller than others? Do we have more rights if we are bigger? Do we have more or less rights based on how developed we are? Does a two-year-old have fewer rights than a 20-year-old? Does where we live determine our human rights? If we are dependent on others for some reason, either age or health, does that take away our human rights?
If we don’t determine our human rights based on any of these standards, then the baby in the womb has the same rights you do.
Show your kids how current pro-life legislation already protects the mother.
According to many OB/Gyn experts, there is no medical condition that requires the deliberate killing of the unborn infant. If the mother’s health is in danger, we should deliver the baby and provide what care we can for it. Even if delivery leads to the baby’s death due to prematurity, that is not the same as the intentional taking of a life. Go to your current laws on the books and show them how the life of the mother is already taken into account. (Read more here.)
Conclusion
The terms reproductive rights/justice are being used to manipulate a generation into believing that their “rights” are being ripped away or that they can only live their best life now if they can have sex whenever they want and dump the products of conception (i.e. kill their children) instead of having to make responsible decisions. This is the tragedy of children being taught that the natural function of their bodies is harmful, that the thing that makes them unique as women is a gift to be tossed aside.
We have to help our children (and friends) understand the truths underlying this buzzword and be prepared to have conversations with others in order to bring clarity to the conversation. Millions of lives depend on it.
Recommended Resources from our Archives:
- Episódio 96. Como discutir argumentos pró-vida com amigos e familiares
- 7 Things Culture Gets Wrong About Abortion and Reproductive Rights
- Prepping Your Teens for Roe v. Wade Discussions
- Rezando juntos pela decisão da Suprema Corte dos Estados Unidos de revogar a decisão Roe v. Wade
- Os dois principais desafios relacionados ao aborto que você vai ouvir muito este ano
- 4 pontos importantes a serem destacados da publicação sobre “aborto tardio” que está circulando no Facebook
Jennifer DeFrates is a former high school teacher turned homeschool mom and Christian blogger at Heavennotharvard.com and theMamapologist.com. Jennifer is a CIA graduate (the Cross-Examined Instructors Academy, not the government agency…though I wouldn’t mess with her just in case) and has an abiding love for apologetics. She is also the reluctant ringleader of a small menagerie in rural Alabama. How cool is that?
