I tend to separate pro-lifer’s into two groups. The first group is what I consider the “honest” pro-life position. It’s defined by an honest attempt to achieve a rational and ethical position regarding abortion and the surrounding issues and being able to engage in healthy discussion on it. One example would be parts of the Catholic Church which maintain a anti-abortion, anti-poverty, anti-war stance which while you can certainly disagree with parts of it and how they go about it, they are at least consistent with pushing for less violence and more support for people. Other “honest” pro-life positions would be anti-abortion with reasonable exceptions for the safety of the mother while providing support for families in need to help alleviate the need for abortions.
The other group is the hypocrites. But they aren’t just your run of the mill hypocrites, they either consciously use “pro-life” as a political weapon or have been duped by it while holding other positions that are clearly anti-life. They tend to be war hawks and firmly against any government assistance to alleviate poverty. They want to “protect” the fetus up until the minute it’s born, and then it can be abandoned to die of starvation for all they care. The pretend to care, but then they try to gut any program to help the poor including food assistance and healthcare. They never seem to even pretend to care at all about the mother.
And the reason of course, is that it's not about the fetus. It’s about the blood libel. Many readers on Kos will know but for those who don’t, blood libel is a claim used historically against Jews accusing them of killing babies to use the blood in religious ceremonies. The claim constantly gets recycled over the years in slightly different packaging but one of the latest version is the Qanon pizzagate conspiracy where prominent Democrats were killing babies in the basement of a pizzeria to drink their blood to prolong their lives.
I was originally perplexed as to why anyone would even begin to believe any version of the blood libel. The pizzagate story is pretty damn stupid. But the people telling the stories are not trying to convince me of anything. They are telling the story to convince themselves that I as a Democrat am so depraved that any course of action against me is justifiable. The blood libel is meant to dehumanize the other so that any violence against the other is perfectly justifiable. In fact, action is demanded to stop “it” through any means necessary.
And that is the purpose of the (hypocrite) pro-life position. Being pro-life means that your opposition is killing babies. No other thought is required or desired. It doesn’t matter what other views the pro-lifer has, at least they’re not the ones killing babies. It doesn’t matter if all their political positions are greedy, planet destroying, or oppressive because at least they’re not killing babies. Here, let me show you pictures of what you awful people do! Hypocrite pro-life is even worse than traditional blood libel because it co-opts the honest version of pro-life to give it a veneer of respectability and better hide the anti-semitic roots.
Of course there is the unstated Christian Hegemony underpinning many of the assumptions around pro-life. The fundamentalist Christian version of the soul being attached to the fetus is a driving factor. It can’t be a reverence for life in general, as what they eat for dinner had more sentience than early stages of human development. So by assuming these masses of cells have souls that need to be saved they are fighting for the eternal life of these poor defenseless beings.
That focus on the eternal life AFTER this one is part of the problem. A theology that prioritizes a mythical next life of reward for followers can be used to extract all sorts of value out of the followers’ lives in this world. In the case of abortion, once a child is born it is no longer of concern to the pro-lifer. If the conservative God wishes to bless or curse that child, what is it to them? If they are poor, then in the next life they inherit the earth.
The Republican Party has become increasingly focussed on Pro-life as a means to garner enough popular support for their oppressive, greedy, earth destroying policies. The oligarchy needs a topic so commanding, that its followers are willing to go along with all the other policies that the followers may not benefit from or even be harmed by. But at least they are opposing the baby killers.
Unfortunately it doesn’t end with just corporate greed. As the fascists continue to strengthen their grip on the Republicans, the blood libel will continue to be used against, well anyone. The first step in genocide is the dehumanizing of the target group. This is followed by localized violence and eventually organized killing (I’m not saying it will get this far, just that these are the steps). If the Republicans are allowed to further criminalize abortion, we will eventually get to a point where it will be criminal to express a pro-choice position as that will be considered incitement to violence against a fetus.
Pro-life is not designed to make sense. It's designed to dehumanize the opposition in order to justify any position or oppression.