There have been a lot of fascinating discussions about how the digital revolution will impact everything from prayer to marriages to the Church as a whole, but one of the areas that I find most interesting is how it has impacted the fight for the dignity of human life. Based on my own conversion to the pro-life position and what I’ve observed in society at large, I think that new media will play a key role in turning the tide against the culture of death, specifically on the issue of abortion. Here’s why:
1. Pregnant women feel less alone
When I was in high school, an acquaintance of mine found out she was pregnant. She felt like she was the only 17-year-old girl on the face of the planet to be in this condition and, I had to admit, it seemed that way to the rest of us, as well. We lived in an upper-middle-class area where teen pregnancies simply did not happen (not that anyone knew about, anyway). This feeling of utter alienation was a big part of her reluctant decision to sneak off to an abortion clinic and “have it taken care of.”
I thought of this the other day when I came across an online forum for teen moms. Though many of the girls were in unfortunate situations, it was heartwarming to see them come together in mutual support to discuss everything from how to tell your parents you’re pregnant to the best ways to organize your bedroom to share it with a baby. You see this same thing happening in online forums for women of all ages and backgrounds: expectant mothers who would otherwise be without any kind of support network finding community and support on the internet. I often wonder if my friend from high school would have felt empowered to make a different decision if she had had something like that available. There’s little doubt that the existence of online communities has saved many babies’ lives.
2. Widespread knowledge about fetal development
I remember one of the moments when I first attempted to form an opinion about abortion. The subject had come up in my ninth grade health class, and it made me wonder about life within the womb. Obviously an “abortion” the day before a woman’s due date was wrong, but what about earlier stages of pregnancy? I had almost no familiarity with the subject and no ideas about what newly conceived life was like. I was curious, but the only way for me to get more information would be to do research at a library, and I wasn’t that curious to put that much time and effort into the subject. When I later heard the explanation that first-trimester abortions are nothing more than the removal of a “blob of tissue,” I had no reason to question it. If a ninth grader were in that same situation today, thanks to the internet it would take her almost no effort to satisfy her curiosity about unborn babies. In a matter of seconds she could have pictures of the hands and feet and fingers and toes of newly conceived babies up on her computer monitor—and when she encountered the “blob of tissue” argument, she’d immediately recognize it as false.
3. More information about the abortion industry
I don’t recall ever hearing about disturbing abortion clinic practices before I had an internet connection. Back when our only sources of information about the world were the local newspaper and the big networks’ nightly news programs, it was easy to buy into the idea that all abortion clinics are nice places where women are completely respected, because you never heard anything different. Now that we can get our news from a variety of sources outside of the mainstream media, we hear stories that never would have made it onto the CBS Evening News—and it’s changed the way many people view abortion clinics. Hearing stories of babies surviving termination attempts, women being pressured to get abortions, clinics disregarding standard safety procedures, etc. has undoubtedly given the public mind a more balanced view of the abortion industry.
4. More information about each side of the debate
Anyone searching on the topic of abortion is bound to come across both pro-life and pro-choice websites, and I think that any truth-seeking person would have to admit that there is far more openness on one side than the other. One side openly displays detailed pictures of unborn life within the womb; the other almost never does. One side is willing for people to see what these procedures really involve by watching videos or viewing pictures of actual abortions; the other side seems to go out of its way to cover up this information. One side uses normal terms when describing abortions and their impact on unborn life, referring to “arms,” “legs,” “hands,” etc.; the other side does linguistic acrobatics to disguise reality with vague terms like “products of conception” or “fetal parts.”
5. It’s easier to find alternatives to abortion
At least where I grew up, pregnancy resource centers were not widely known in the 80’s and 90’s. This may have been different for people in conservative Christian circles, but the average person in the places I lived was probably not even aware that maternity homes and pro-life crisis pregnancy centers existed, whereas everyone knew that abortion clinics were around. If a woman in a crisis pregnancy 15 years ago had had the whim to seek assistance to keep her baby, she may not have known where to begin to find that kind of help, if it existed at all. These days it would only take a woman a few seconds of searching online to find an abundance of pro-life aid programs to assist her both in her pregnancy and in the months beyond the birth.
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The internet may have its downsides, but I think there’s little question that the way it facilitates information and communities can only help the pro-life cause in the long run.
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Wonderful, perceptive insights—and also very encouraging! Here’s another way I see: the Internet is enabling worldwide movements like 40 Days For Life to extend beyond their local gatherings.
Before the Internet, it was extremely difficult to organize hundreds of simultaneous prayer gatherings. But now, the 40 Days for Life website gathers everyone, trains everyone, and provides materials easily, quickly, and cheaply. They have plenty webcasts, databases, and easily-accessible information to fuel the movement.
The same is true for political pro-life activism. It’s never been easier to rally a mass amount of people around a particular cause than in the Internet age. And so now we’re seeing events like the March for Life become more than a Washington D.C. phenomenon. While Catholics are marching in the Capitol, others coordinate similar marches in other places, champion online advocacy, and put in phone calls simultaneously with others across the country. This organizing has been hugely enabled by the Internet and social media.
Building a movement has never been easier than it is now in the digital age, a potent reality for the pro-life cause.
(Shameless plug: we dedicate a whole chapter to this connection in the upcoming “Church and New Media” book: http://www.facebook.com/churchandnewmedia)
Absolutely! I am on my fourth pregnancy, but this is the first time with Facebook. I already have an ultrasound of my 20 week baby’s face as my profile picture, as pretty much every other pregnant couple does immediately after the big scan!
I heartily agree with this article! Much of my conversion to the pro-life cause was a result of internet research: of discovering when human life actually begins, as defined by science. Social networking has only helped to develop, strengthen, and sustain my pro-life convictions.
And thus God pulls good out of developments that on first impression seem to be full of evil (internet porn, e.g.)
TeaPot562
Agreed. With the Internet, it’s very easy for pro-lifers to find quick, thorough rebuttals to the “ball of cells” argument and “Violinist” analogy, among others. Also, it’s easier to organize flash mobs and protests and such, and to thoroughly debunk the “abortion is a religious issue” argument (by providing the link to www.secularprolife.org, among others).
Loved seeing a positive view on the internet. I think I have become more pro-life… in the sense of more appreciative of children as the fruit of marriage… since reading blogs.
I totally agree! It is so important to reach the pregnant woman. Searching the internet she can find real people who have been where she is and show what a blessing her child could be to her or to someone else. You can protest and do flash mobs, but praying and reaching your audience is so much more effective.
@Julie, My heart has changed from seeing blogs and websites with women unable to have children and how much they long for a child of their own.
I disagree! The internet is progressively leading to more loneliness and confusion. Loneliness, because people are loosing sight of the need and even ability to relate person to person; and confusion, because the amount of information on all sides found online is overwhelming and it is difficult to determine credibility of sources and reliability of content!
With respect to #3, there are certainly some rotten apples in the abortion clinic bunch, but I’d hardly call the alternative better. “Pregnancy Crisis Clinics” are notorious for misleading patients, pressuring mothers, sometimes badgering them for hours without letting them leave, and they are especially notorious for being cold and harsh towards the mother after birth, as if their only goal were the baby’s pulse, not its well-being.
I’m not going to lie. I was raised in a firmly pro-choice household. However, I respect the father’s rights and my husband has let me know that he would never consent to an abortion. But even knowing that I would have to go with the alternative, even being young and broke and probably very desperate in that situation, I would never set foot into one of those crisis centers. The internet may have provided horror stories for you about abortiion clinics, but it did the same thing for me and a lot of other young women in regards to pregnancy crisis centers.
CyraEm, have you actually ever been to a CPC?
The pro-abortionist hate Crisis pregnancy centers for a simple reason: they want a big number of abortions.
They consistently favor policies that increase the number of abortions:
1) They try to legally restrict (and gag) crisis pregnancy centers
2) They fight tooth and nail against parental consent or spousal consent laws
3) They fight tooth and nail against mandatory ultrasound or otherwise informed consent laws
4) They want abortion to be subsidized by the government.
Their idea of “choice” is for a 14-year old girl to be taken to an abortion clinic by the school adviser, be denied an ultrasound, be falsely informed (“we are just going to extract a blob of tissue”, at a stage when the unborn baby already has fingers and eyes) and finally, when the fragile and misinformed girl consents, they do it without her parents knowing.
I suspect that they do it for two reasons
1) Money. More abortion equals more money.
2) Politically they know that a right not exercised is a right lost. They need millions and millions of women having abortions so that they can claim abortion is a woman’s right.
Jen, your reasons are absolutely sound! I was talked into Facebook and Twitter (I was already a blogger) at the Family Research Council’s “Blogs for Life” Conference before the March for Life. They realized how powerful a force the internet is, and how it could be utilized for the Culture of Life.
Two years and thousands of tweets later, I have to say they were right!
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