There’s a new pro-abortion message circulating through both the media and social media. For abortion advocates, abortion is no longer about ‘choice’ — it’s about ‘freedom.’ This new marketing tactic — propaganda if you will — has even taken over the name of one of the most vocal pro-abortion groups in the nation. NARAL Pro-Choice America has rebranded itself (for the fourth time) and will now be known as ‘Reproductive Freedom for All.’
Propaganda and abortion
NARAL’s name change isn’t about true freedom or honesty, it’s about manipulation.
The term ‘pro-choice’ was successful for so long because most Americans don’t want to be accused of being “against” someone else’s ability to make “choices.” By framing abortion as a “choice” (and hiding the victims), the abortion industry was able to convince Americans that abortion was nothing more than someone’s decision to not become a parent — and no one had the right to tell them otherwise. This tactic has largely worked, and most Americans have no idea how rapidly children develop in the womb or what an abortion entails.
Now that “choice” has been given to the people by way of state governments following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade, describing abortion as a “choice” no longer works to the advantage of abortion advocates. Without Roe in place to force legalized abortion upon every state, the people in individual states can now choose to vote in favor of pro-life leaders and laws protecting preborn children from abortion — which means the pro-abortion marketing machine had to come up with a new propagandistic message.
What fits the narrative better than the idea of freedom? Americans love freedom, and few would argue that any human being should not be free to make their own choices and live their own lives. But the very act of abortion ignores the freedom that belongs to every human being in the womb to live out their own lives.
No one should use their freedom to oppress (to death) innocent human beings.
A group effort
NARAL isn’t alone in its efforts to change the game; Planned Parenthood has been calling for “reproductive freedom” for years. Black Feminist Future created a campaign called ‘Abortion is Freedom’, claiming that pro-life laws are not about protecting innocent human lives from being unjustly killed by abortion, but about exerting “power and force” over Black women.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has also made statements about “reproductive freedom.” The ACLU’s Rose Mackenzie said, “This isn’t just about taking away people’s decisions during pregnancy; politicians are trying to erase our health care needs, our stories and experiences, and our existence.” She claims pro-lifers are coming after freedom of speech and artistic expression.
“Erasing existence,” however, is not being done by pro-life laws, but by abortion itself; pro-life laws are attempting to disallow others from erasing the existence of human beings living in the womb who have no voices to object to their own executions.
Likewise, for The New Yorker, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor wrote the essay, “Abortion is About Freedom, Not Just Privacy.” She argues that abortion is about the “fundamental freedom of women to control their own bodies.”
It’s not. Pro-life laws do not have the power to control women’s bodies, but they do affirm that no one — not even a mother — has the right to kill a vulnerable and innocent child in the womb.
Freedom to do what is right
The United States of America was founded on the idea that all people are equal. Because they are all equal, they all have fundamental rights including certain freedoms such as free speech, the freedom of religion, and the freedom of assembly. More Americans have now begun to name “freedom and independence” as what gives them meaning in life, according to a 2021 Pew Research poll, and freedom has been the rallying cry behind arguments regarding COVID-19, political protests, and abortion.
NARAL can rebrand itself as “Reproductive Freedom for All,” but that doesn’t mean all women want the so-called “freedom” to kill their children. In fact, women are more likely than men to be pro-life. Women don’t need abortion in order to be free or in order to be equal to men. The ability to kill their own children in the womb doesn’t lift women up to a higher status; it drags them down to the level of abusive men, who prey on those who are more vulnerable.
True freedom does not allow anyone to cause harm to another human being or to carry out any unethical or immoral act. As St. Pope John Paul II famously and rightly said, “Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” Freedom was never meant to serve as a free-for-all or as a justification for killing innocent and vulnerable human beings.
