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“The mission of the right to life movement is to protect the most fundamental of human rights: life.”

The right-to-life movement, often referred to as the “pro-life” movement, is a familiar presence in American political life. Mainly as an opponent to abortion and other reproductive healthcare, but also as a group willing to stand up and proudly proclaim: you don’t get to decide the bounds of your life, God does.

And that God sure is vindictive, isn’t he? Someone without control of their bowels, dependent on morphine, with failing organs, that person must continue to live, even if they don’t want to. God says so.

This piece isn’t even really about the difficult choice facing those who have terminal illnesses, nor is it about the prohibitive cost of end-of-life care in America. It could be about those things, but getting bogged down in semantics is never productive. No, this is about a politically reactionary group attempting to wrench control of people’s lives from them and those that love them.

And they claim to do it in the name of God.

Dramatis Personae

So, who is the pro-life movement? In short, they are a (mainly) Christian (mainly) right-wing group that sprung out of the upheaval of the 1970s in America. In the following 50 years, they have become increasingly politically powerful, crafting legislation that, unchanged, gets enacted across this country in an effort to tighten government control over people’s lives and bodies.

That’s not to say so-called “pro-life” sentiment emerged, fully formed, from the Supreme Court steps once Roe v. Wade was decided. There was opposition to abortion and euthanasia (pro-life groups always use this terminology, never “dignity in death” or “physician-assisted suicide,” which are preferred by most everyone else) prior to 1974, mainly in the form of the Catholic church.

It wasn’t until the Evangelicals got involved, however, that things really started to kick off. The long game that is the evangelical takeover of American politics in favor of reactionary, conservative values has been well-documented, so I won’t rehash it here. (The episode of You’re Wrong About on the Pro-Life movement covers it at a high-level, so curious readers can start there.) But the interesting bit, at least to me, is the inconsistency of the movement’s morals.

Who is it that deserves to live?

According to National Right to Life’s website, everyone. So why is it that they do not oppose capital punishment? Or war, for that matter?

Could it be because they consider those convicted of crimes or those overseas to be somehow less deserving of what they refer to as “the first and most unalienable right of man?” What about pregnant people who face death or illness as a result of their pregnancy? Are they less deserving of living their lives?

I won’t leave you in suspense. Yes.

Somewhere on the path of promoting “biblical morals,” the movement forgot to pretend they love each and every one of their neighbors. They give the game away too easily. This movement was never about “life” or “the rights of unborn babies,” it was always about political control and wielding the state as a way to consolidate power.

There is an emotional appeal behind every statement made by this lobby. That’s the reason the public almost never hears about their stances on physician-assisted suicide. It’s easy to argue on behalf of the “poor, defenseless baby.” Harder to do so on behalf of a sound-minded adult.

I’m loathe to platform any of the arguments of this group, but I feel I have to, just for a moment. Pro-life advocates will argue that disabled or terminal patients aren’t of sound mind, and that laws allowing for physician-assisted suicide are too permissive. They fearmonger about “suicide tourism” and how allowing people to choose their own fates will lead to the erosion of American life as we know it.

I’d like to push back, but do I need to? We can all see how ridiculous those arguments are. The only one with any weight is perhaps the point about legal wording. Let’s examine that.

Oregon’s “death with dignity” law was passed in 1998, the first of its kind in the United States. It includes extremely rigid requirements, including the sign-off of two separate physicians, a 15 day wait period, a life-expectancy of 6 months or less, a notarized statement of intent on the part of the patient, and perhaps most insultingly, the requirement a physician must provide “alternate options.”

As if the decision to kill oneself is taken lightly.

Up until 2022, the law also required patients to be residents of Oregon, something that was prohibitive to many. The repeal of this requirement led to the “suicide tourism” panic among right-to-lifers.

The language of the Oregon law acted as the template for all similar laws that followed. Almost all of them are similarly or more restrictive.

Let’s refocus, shall we? Inconsistent morality.

God decides when or if you live. Unviable pregnancies must be carried to term because God decided to allow conception. God decides when or if you die. Terminally ill patients must suffer and take on (in some cases) insurmountable medical debt that then passes to their loved ones. If God loves us all as his children, why does he require us to suffer? Is it possible God does not speak through Josh Hawley and JD Vance?

Despite their extremely vocal nature, this group is not representative of the American people, at least in ideological terms. Gallup polling produced after the Dobbs decision reported that only 13% of Americans are in favor of abortion becoming entirely illegal. This coupled with the 71% of people in favor of the legality of physician-assisted suicide, makes any conclusion claiming the popularity of pro-life policies and positions disingenuous, at best.

So, why do they persist? I will not claim there are no true believers. Some people are adamantly anti-death in all forms. I do not agree with them, but I applaud them for their moral fortitude. No, like all things in politics, it comes down to money and power.

Evangelical groups want greater control over American life. They know that when people are afraid, they turn to the church for guidance. That’s not a value judgement. This is neither good nor bad, it just is. This truth of human nature is why there’s almost always a religious bent to past moral panics (hello, Anita Bryant. We missed you!). It becomes bad when those religious groups use their power to exploit or endanger people. And in America, they always seem to.

In the view of pro-lifers, some lives matter more than others. That seems morally inconsistent until you remember the fact that their movement is one of political control, not of morality. There is no consistent religious doctrine behind it. These politicians and policymakers desperately want to force their will onto every American, regardless of the complexities of their personal situations.

How is this about Jack Kevorkian?

It isn’t. Or, well, it could be. Jack Kevorkian was the son of Armenian immigrants. He was loud and unapologetic in his view that he, as a doctor, played God. There perhaps isn’t a more useful face to put to the moniker “Dr. Death.”

That’s not how he’s most useful to this conversation, however. His conviction came because of his own behavior, not because of the actions of the pro-life lobby. They had a hand in opposition to his Supreme Court case, but the actions that landed him in prison were of his own making. Jack Kevorkian is instead a great example of someone whose life doesn’t matter in the eyes of the pro-life movement.

Kevorkian was, by every meaningful metric in American society, a criminal. He went to prison and everything. Had the state sentenced him to die for his crimes, those who so readily call themselves “pro-life,” those who protested his acts of mercy as the calculated actions of a murderer, would have cheered as he was euthanized by the state. In this hypothetical, these people are so pro-life they want to see someone die about it.

This is the most poorly kept secret of the movement. People who are burdensome or unwilling to be controlled deserve to die, in their view. Everyone else must submit and be ruled by their (nominally) Christian ideology. These people and their theoretical children must live, no matter their opinions on the matter. It isn’t about population growth or empathy for people with disabilities or even about God. It’s a movement that’s about power, not life.