[Image by 巻（Maki） from Pixabay]

We live in an era of outrage. Even the smallest thing, that seems completely non-controversial, can cause someone to get offended. Not just offended, in fact, but extremely offended, and to be Very, Very Vocal about this. When it comes to something that is controversial, such as abortion, the outrage dial tends to permanently hover somewhere between 9.8 and 10.

Sometimes, however, outrage is justified. Sometimes, people do outrageous things. People harass and abuse people, they trespass on or damage their property, they spew hatred about specific named people online, they capture people on film and share the footage widely, and sometimes, they do this purely because they happen to disagree with the other person on a topic such as abortion.

Pro-choice people have done all the above, and more, to pro-life people. This is really wrong, and sad, and unjust, and I wish it didn’t happen. Many decent pro-choice people also wish this didn’t happen, and I’m not going to try to talk to the unreasonable minority who think it’s just fine to do any or all of the above. They will not be convinced, and they are not worth my time.

When pro-life people see pro-choice people acting in an unkind, unjust, disrespectful, cruel or illegal manner, they are often tempted to highlight these actions. It’s a common impulse to want to link or share examples of bad acting by pro-choice people, especially since similar examples from pro-life people are often widely circulated. I think, however, that highlighting pro-choice abuse is a mistake, for several reasons.

The pro-life side does not come out of this looking well

Funnily enough, even though the impulse to share this kind of content is to try to get people to see the pro-choice movement’s true colours, this strategy can backfire. To speak plainly, it looks mean and petty to share examples of a bad minority acting badly. Those who share such content tend not to look like righteous warriors standing up for innocent victims. Instead, we come across as unedifying, immature, or just like we’re having a bit of a moan.

There may well be a double standard here, in that a pro-choice person sharing such content re pro-life people may not get the same kind of reaction. I don’t know why that is, but regardless, it’s not something we can control. If a double standard exists, we can’t change it – but we do have to live with it.

Highlighting abuse causes abuse

This is one of those annoying facts of the internet, but highlighting bad actions actually makes people more likely to do them. This is a well known phenomenon: even very serious violent crimes like mass shootings, or dangerous social phenomena like self-harm or suicide, are actually more likely to happen the more they are highlighted. It really does give people ideas when we draw attention to pro-choice abuse.

The internet amplifies the worst in us

Not so long ago, if someone did something outrageous in Manchester, people in Manchester would hear about it. Now, thanks to the internet, if someone does something outrageous in Manchester, everyone all over the world hears about it, within hours. The internet makes it seems like abuse and dreadful behaviour are more common than they are, and this only happens because people fall into the trap of sharing the content, again and again. It’s not good for us or our movement to be part of this problem.

The pro-life movement is not about us

One thing Ben likes to remind us of at workshops is that the point of the pro-life movement is not to make the world a better place for pro-life people. It’s to try to make the world a better, safer place for the unborn. It’s good to remember this, and rising above, rather than highlighting or amplifying, the abuse that pro-choice people inflict on pro-life people is a great way to do that.

We legitimise the pro-choice side doing the same 

Like it or not, pro-life people can also be abusive, unkind, cruel, unjust, and can also break the law. When we share examples of pro-choice people acting badly, we make it OK for pro-choice people to do the same when pro-life people act badly. Given the unfavourable view our movement gets relative to the other side, this is bad publicity we simply can’t afford. Far better to stay out of this altogether, to the extent that we can.

We don’t need every pro-choice person to become a paragon of virtue to achieve our aims. We just need to stop abortion. That’s a challenging and worthy goal, and it deserves all our focus. Highlighting pro-choice abuse can wait.

Muireann