(Image by Bruno from Pixabay)

One feature of our blog is an occasional series of interviews with pro-life activists. To give a sense of these, below is a taste of what some of the interviewees to date had to say.

Kelsey Hazzard is founder and president of Secular Pro-Life. In our interview with her she made some points which chimed very much with our mission of having better conversations.

The abortion industry has invested a great deal of time and money into stereotyping the pro-life movement, in the hope of killing productive conversations before they have even begun. Sadly, it often works. But the flip side to this is that when the stereotype is finally broken, pro-choicers are often genuinely intrigued and realise that there is more to explore. Building relationships is key. Debates with strangers have their place, but the best conversations happen between people who already know and respect one another.

The strong tradition of pro-life feminism is something Dawn McAvoy of the Northern Irish organisation Both Lives Matter (now Both Lives) was keenly conscious of when we interviewed her:

…it was only a few years ago that I first learned that the foremothers of the modern feminist movement, those women who began the battle for female emancipation and equality in the 1800s were, without exception, anti-abortion. They viewed abortion as a tragedy resulting from inequality and injustice for women. They believed that when women achieved economic and social independence and were no longer regarded in law as the property of men, they would never resort to intentionally ending their own child’s life.

McAvoy’s drive and commitment are inspiring. ‘If we value both lives in pregnancy,’ she said, ‘we must commit to be in this for the long haul. We cannot stop. We must think big and think proactively rather than defensively to ensure the restoration of legal protections and status for both lives. And we must always remember that we do what we do because both lives matter, that is why we don’t just say no to abortion, we say yes to life.’

Another organisation with long-term commitment is the Zoe Community. ‘I think a lot of women fear that once they have the baby, everyone will forget they exist and think they’re sorted,’ said the charity’s founder Katie Edgmon. ‘We want to try to communicate to women that we are in it for the long haul, if they want us to be. Part of the beauty of bringing in a woman’s regular community around her is that the support isn’t temporary or foreign. Her support doesn’t involve travel or a queue – it can continue in an organic and familiar way, tailored to her own needs and context’.

Terrisa Bukovinac is well-known as a leading activist with Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU). Back when we interviewed her in 2020 (here and here) she was executive director of Pro-Life San Francisco.

One of the most interesting points in the interview was when we asked Bukovinac what forms of nonviolent direct action she thought would be effective, without them turning into a PR disaster. ‘You’re never going to avoid a PR disaster,’ was her response. ‘You have to go straight into it. You have to lean into that PR disaster. If you don’t have a PR disaster you have nothing.’ Bukovinac maintained that what gets media attention is controversy, not positive, uplifting pro-life stories. ‘The point is to drive that controversy, the point is to cause disruption and that means PR scandals’, she laughed, going on to argue that pro-life activists should use every non-violent tool available. ‘My tool of choice is the megaphone. I think that it is very under-utilised in the movement. When people hear you talking with a megaphone […] they’re forced to pay attention. It disrupts the status quo’.

Interested to read more? All our interviews can be accessed via the interview tag on the blog homepage.