There seems to be a rush to short circuit the argument based on this idea that pro-lifers don’t care about life after birth. Apart from being demonstrably untrue (there are many examples of philanthropy among Christians and other religious people who oppose abortion), it’s not a good way to understand the other side’s point of view at all. Some of the earliest Christian leaders (Barnabas, Tertullian, Athenagoras etc.) strongly opposed abortion and infanticide, which were fairly common at that time in different forms, so it’s hardly new or based on modern politics. It’s not necessarily twinned with other policies like an opposition to public services either (logically or in practice); for that I would largely blame the fact that Republicans have gotten away with murder for years for being the ‘pro-life’ party. Anesthetizing fetuses beforehand or proving that they feel nothing in the first place would not change the opposition at all, and with good reason; your ability to feel pain has no bearing at all on whether you are human or have value. I don’t think the question of how human a fetus is will ever have a satisfactory scientific answer, but as long as some people believe that a fetus is fully human there will be strong opposition to abortion. I don’t support a lot of what these people do or believe (and I’m not religious, although I do come from a religious background), but saying “anti-abortionists aren’t pro-life; if they were they would support contraception, well-baby exams and other social programs” is like saying “atheists don’t care about people; if they did, they would support charities”. Some of them do support these things, some of them don’t for different reasons, some of them have different ideas about how to deal with these problems and some of them really don’t have compassion for other people or don’t know the issues. It’s not fair to presume that religious people are all in the last category.
