Pro-life, Pro-woman, Pro-child, No excuses
A controversial video has once again hit the Twitterverse. People have been enjoying arguing about it on X (formerly Twitter), and that’s great. More speech is good. but it’s highlighted some concerning mindsets on the politician and cultural right. It’s a video of a young woman airing a grievance with her ex-boyfriend. She explains that she was experiencing postpartum depression, and her ex kicked her and their son out of the house because she wasn’t able to perform chores but expected his time and attention, not to mention physical affection for her in her vulnerable state.
It’s a horrible story, and, if true (big “if”, to be sure, but for the sake of this essay, the truth value is secondary, strange as that may sound), calls for accountability. But the right has shown no mercy to this woman, with notable commentary from a self-described female “anti-feminist” that reads,
“So she didn’t want to cook for him, do the laundry, or clean the house, but she wanted to snuggle and be told she was beautiful. assuming that there isn’t more to the story that she’s not telling us. While kicking them out is extreme, he did have a right to expect more from her. And that’s assuming that there isn’t more to the story that she’s not telling us.”
Sentence structure aside, this highly-liked comment displays a discouraging and alarming lack of compassion coming from the right, and it’s critical to highlight that compassion for mothers of new babies is an incredibly crucial part of being pro-life and fighting to reduce the incidence of abortion. If the right is truly pro-life, that care for children needs to carry over into post-birth life, too. The left assumes this means being anti-gun and pro-big government spending for education and childcare, but the right should know that actually means charitable giving, supporting community pregnancy centers, and endearing church action to help abused and abandoned single mothers and their children.
The left pretends to be compassionate, but at the end of the day, is not. The right doesn’t even pretend to be compassionate, but often they are the more gracious political actors. It’s time to remind the right that being pro-life means being pro-woman, pro-mother, and pro-child.
