Pro-Life Activism is Lazy Activism

The outpouring of financial support all over the world after the Notre Dame fire had people wondering how every world problem hasn’t been solved already if some have that much money to give to a building alone.

Don’t get me wrong. Next to English and Theatre, history has always been my favorite subject. I even read the entirety of the Hunchback of Notre Dame where the description of the church goes on for like, twelve pages. So don’t think I don’t appreciate it as a piece of the past.

It’s easy to donate to such a cause. It is objectively important, it seems. It’s a building without any real heavy connotations.

You don’t have to reveal anything personal or political about yourself besides maybe religious beliefs (but even us agnostics can appreciate the value of a building from 1163).

But you won’t get unfriended on Facebook. Relatives won’t scorn you. You won’t get death threats. It isn’t personal.

We wonder how abortion has been banned faster than assault rifles, and it’s because pro-life activism is similar to Notre Dame.

“But it is personal!” you scream. “I could have been aborted. That’s a child’s life you are talking about!”

But there are also children taken from their parents, detained, and abused.

There are children in foster care.

Children whose lives are and have been destroyed by sex abuse in the church.

Children who are without fathers and mothers and brothers due to police violence.

Children who lose their lives in school shootings.

Children who will never get to enjoy the same quality of life in the future due to climate change.

But it’s different, standing up against gun violence or proclaiming that Black Lives Matter. Isn’t it? It’s “political.”

Pro-life activism is too, yes, but you don’t suffer the greatest attacks on your opinion. You could say you are objectively moral and just because you are protecting unborn children from murder. You call it…