Telling people you’re pro-life is a form of activism
[This article is based on a transcript of “Telling people you’re pro-life is a form of activism” courtesy of volunteer Ben Tomlin. If you’re interested in volunteering to transcribe more of our content, please complete our volunteer survey.]
My name is Monica Snyder and I’m an atheist. I’m the executive director of Secular Pro-Life, and our board president Kelsey Hazard, also an atheist, about once a month publishes an interview with a pro-life atheist asking them why they are atheist and why they are pro-life.* This series is part of our mission to create space for atheist and agnostic and humanist and just non-religious pro-life people. That part of our mission can be kind of challenging because not only are pro-life activist circles typically pretty overtly Christian and kind of alienating to anyone who doesn’t happen to be very overtly Christian, but also non-religious pro-life people are more likely to run in social and professional circles that are very overwhelmingly pro-choice, or at least appear to be, and that tends to intimidate and silence secular pro-life people.
One of the effects of this phenomenon is that we are more likely to have atheist donors and volunteers, or agnostic or humanist or whatever, who ask to remain anonymous because they are not out as pro-life in their own social and professional circles. I sympathize with why coming out as pro-life can be very intimidating for people who don’t personally know anyone else who is pro-life—I really do—but that’s also why I admire it so much when someone who runs in that kind of social environment does tell people that they’re pro-life.
This interview we published recently [at the time of the video] is an example of that. Kelsey not only asks L.P. why she is atheist and why she’s against abortion, but also what she does to contribute to the pro-life cause, and L.P. says, “I know I should do more, but being present and letting folks know that you can be a progressive and be pro-life, and that those views are not incongruent. Donating money and time are probably the easy ones; being the only pro-life person in your friends and family group, the harder.”
So she says she knows she should do more, and I’m always happy for people to do more, but actually telling your immediate social circle that you’re pro-life when you are a non-conventional, non-traditional pro-life person is a very powerful form of activism. In many cases you may be literally the only pro-life person that they know, or that they know that they know, and just knowing you as a friend and as a full human being helps inoculate them against the more ridiculous stereotypes of pro-life people. It helps to start to break down the narratives that you have to be very conservative or very Christian to be pro-life, and, more importantly, the narrative that being pro-life is just about pushing your religion on other people.
And even more broadly, outside of the specific religious or political views you hold, friendship breaks down partisanship, and it helps people better hear what the other side is saying even if they don’t agree. I’ve seen this directly in my own life. For most of my adulthood, I was the only pro-life person in many of my social circles, and I had pro-choice friends tell me that I had really changed their view, not necessarily to convert them completely to being pro-life, but just to keep them from the more extreme assumptions of the pro-choice side. Although also, some of them have since converted to being pro-life.
So if you are a non-traditional pro-life person and you feel like you don’t have the time or the money or the resources to do any meaningful pro-life activism, please consider the idea that just telling even a couple of your friends or co-workers or whoever that you are not okay with abortion, that is a form of pro-life activism.
* If you’d like to share your perspective as a pro-life atheist or agnostic, please complete this survey, and your responses might appear as one of our interviews.
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