Who Gets to Define What it Means to be Pro-Life? by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Today I am coughing and choking here on Long Island because of our unhealthy air quality.  The smoke from the wildfires of Canada have reached us. We, here in NY, are not alone in dealing with air so polluted that breathing is at risk. I think of the CA wildfires, the SpaceX rocket that exploded in April, the Ohio train derailment in Feb. No place is safe.

While coughing and thinking about this, two bits of news came into my consciousness, The first was the Supreme Court ruling narrowing the scope of the Clean Water Act.

My first thought was, do they and their children not have to live in this world too?  Do they think they can buy a clean environment for themselves and their families and the rest of us be damned? 

The next report I heard was from a prominent conservative commentator who explained how “prolife” he is and went on to describe his “deep concern” for life.

I know where this commentator stands on the issues in general. I have never heard him nor one of his compatriots support environmental rules. Their general take is that their freedoms are being abridged by such regulations.

To this I have this to say, Mr. Commentator, you cannot claim to be pro-life if you don’t treasure all life. That means immigrants. That means the poor. That means those from different racial, religious, cultural groups. That means ensuring that all children have healthy food to eat, water to drink, and air to breathe. That means supporting environmental regulations that benefit us all.

With these thoughts swirling in my mind, I got to thinking about what it means to be pro-life and who gets to decide? I believe it has nothing to do with forcing a woman to carry a fetus to term and everything about supporting precious life in all of Mother Nature’s splendor; trees, wetlands, oceans, marine life, savanna, forests, even insect life. Being pro-life also includes women’s healthcare and a pre-viable fetus is not an independent life.

Right now in the US, it’s the Supreme Court, that is setting up the paradigms we must all live under. And their corruptions are making life unlivable for the rest of us. In fact, their recent string of corruption scandals has cleared up a legal mystery for me.

Some of you may remember the case of Virginian governor Bob McDonnell from 2014. He was found guilty of 11 counts of conspiracy, bribery and extortion, by a unanimous jury of 12 people. I remember this case and thought at the time that they had him dead-to-right. There were loans, gifts of money, shoes, personal donations mostly from a businessman who received state government benefits in return. He was sentenced to 2 years in jail for his corruption. His wife was also found guilty.

The McDonnell’s appealed to the Supreme Court which voted unanimously to overturn the conviction. At the time it made no sense to me. That verdict included those we consider liberal justices as well as the usual suspects.  

The reasoning as was explained to me is that corruption has to have an element of quid pro quo, or you do something for me, I do something for you. In the eyes of the Supreme Court, the prosecutors proved a quid, and they even proved a quo. But according to the Supremes that didn’t mean there was a link between the two.  There was no tape of McDonnell actually saying, “thanks for the expensive jewelry, now, because of your gifts, I will sign this bill that will profit you.”  For more information, Dalia Luthwick writes a wonderful discussion about this case in Slate which you can read here.

But now with Clarence Thomas freely availing himself of handouts, I begin to understand. They used the “McDonnell rule,” as their definition of corruption. It let the governor and his wife off the hook and in doing so, themselves because they were and are doing the exact same thing!

Apparently decades ago, the right noticed that even when conservative justices were placed on the Court, they tended to soften their positions over time. And their holy grail of killing abortion rights was thwarted time and time again. In order to harden those positions, they began showering favors, goodies and lots of cash upon the Supremes. And now with their “McDonnell rule,” they have absolved themselves of charges of corruption. They’ve taken the loot, they’ve rubber stamped the agenda of the patriarchy.  But there is no tape saying, “tit for tat.” 

So who is defining pro-life? It turns out it is the same people defining corruption. Certain justices created the “Matthew Hale rule.” Hale is the infamous witch hunter from the 17^th century quoted by Alito to justify the Dobbs decision. At its heart, this decision wants to send women’s healthcare back to the “good old days” of 17^th century. Can you imagine a man being told, “oh yes, we do have the ability to treat your medical condition, but we would need modern medicine for that, and the law no longer allows us to follow modern medical directives. So nothing we can do.” It would never happen and yet that is exactly what is happening to women. We can see the horror stories emerge of women waiting in the hospital parking lot for their medical condition to deteriorate to the point where they can be legal treated. Or having to carry a nonviable fetus to term. There is nothing pro-life about that. Nothing!

Corruption uses power to gain wealth and then uses that wealth for ever increasing power. Controlling women’s bodies is all about power. Those who cozy up to Supreme Court justices are standing alongside power in an unholy alliance that works in tandem to further their agendas.  It is important to remember that the court’s wealthy benefactors got their wealth from a patriarchal system. They have a deeply vested desire to keep that system in place. As Carol Christ taught us, patriarchy is ultimately about controlling women and our reproduction.

Patriarchy as a System of Male Dominance Created at the Intersection of the Control of Women, Private Property, and War by Carol P. Christ

Patriarchy as a System of Male Dominance Created at the Intersection of the Control of Women, Private Property, and War

And that corruption has brought us a gutting of the Clean Water Act, the Dobbs decision, even the gutting of the voting rights act, their recent Alabama decision notwithstanding.

Those who control the vocabulary, control the narrative. I propose we call the people who are against abortion pro-birthers. They are clearly not pro-life at least by any definition that makes sense to me.  

POSTSCRIPT: Since writing this, I came across an article in The Nation which talks about international courts equating the refusal of abortion care to cruelty and torture. The authors, Payal Shah and Akila Radhakrishnan write the following:

“The Human Rights Committee is only one of multiple international bodies that have found that the denial of abortion care can violate global prohibitions on torture and ill-treatment. For example, the UN Committee against Torture, which monitors the Convention against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (which the United States ratified), has found that denial of abortion care and restrictive abortion laws can in some cases cause ‘physical and mental suffering so severe in pain and intensity as to amount to torture.’ The committee has also found that abortion laws that lack exceptions in cases of life or the health of a pregnant person, or in cases of rape, incest, or fetal impairment, may constitute torture and ill-treatment. . . .Until these laws are repealed, anti-abortion policy-makers will continue to instrumentalize the US health care system to commit human rights violations. In contravention of scientific evidence, we are seeing cases of health care workers in the United States forced to be complicit in inflicting torture and ill-treatment on patients who are entrusting them with their lives.”