Pro-life — all the way down

I'm pro-life. And I mean the whole word, not the bumper sticker. If life is sacred, it's sacred all the way down — the womb and the war, the cradle and the cell, the ICU and the ledge. You don't get to wave the word before birth and drop it the second the person can vote against you. A death is a death — every one worth the same VSL plus the same million, no passport, no jersey.

So here's the line I'll hold: most of what gets called “pro-life” is really pro-birth. Pro-birth cares until the cord is cut, then votes for the death penalty, the war budget, and gutting the healthcare that keeps the already-born alive. That's not a life ethic; it's a one-trimester ethic. Real pro-life doesn't blink at the cell, the battlefield, the hospital bill, or the man down by the river. All of them, or you don't get to use the word.

And I'll name the counterexample, on the record, labeled as my opinion. Donald Trump is what not pro-life looks like — the bumper sticker with the deeds running the other way. He wears the word on the trail and takes credit for ending Roe; set that against the verified record. The federal death chamber reopened on his watch — thirteen executions in his final six months, the most under any president in more than a century — after a seventeen-year federal pause. The repeal drives against the healthcare that keeps the already-born alive — the 2017 bills, then his administration asking the Supreme Court, in writing, to strike down the whole law. And the wall that was supposed to come down: a Republican signed the ADA — George H.W. Bush, July 26, 1990, let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down — and in my read the party that signed it now contradicts its own signature. Womb and war, cradle and cell, ICU and ledge, wall and ramp — all of them, or you don't get to use the word. On this record, he doesn't get to use the word. So: vote blue — or at the very least, vote human. (0g: the execution record, the repeal record, and the ADA signing are verified — sources: AP and Brennan Center reporting on the 13 federal executions; the National Archives on the ADA signing; KFF on California v. Texas. The reading — and the endorsement — are my labeled opinion, aimed at the record, not at a soul. Party-blind, same as the pardon clause: any politician, any party, gets measured against the whole word.)

And when I say “vote blue,” I mean it literally — as a moderate. Not a jersey, not a tribe. I mean vote for the pool. Vote for parks and rec. Vote for the library, the bus, the clinic, the sidewalk, the school lunch — the plain municipal things that actually make a person's day better and keep a person here. That's the whole word again, brought down to the ballot: pro-life is a budget, and a budget is a moral document. So the other half of the line matters just as much — don't vote pro-military. War spending is not pro-life; it's the war budget wearing the word. You can't hold the cradle sacred and hand the appropriation to the thing that empties the cell and the battlefield. Womb and war — you don't get to keep the first and fund the second. (My labeled opinion, party-blind: I'm measuring the whole word against the whole budget. A vote for the pool is a vote for life; a vote for the war budget isn't.)

Now the hard part, in my own words: the government doesn't belong in the doctor's office. Let humans make their own hard decisions — it's their body, their conscience, their call, not the state's. And I hold two lines at once, no contradiction: I won't pay for your abortion, and I won't shame you for having one either. Both. That's the dignity floor doing its job in the hardest room there is — your decision stays yours; mine is to neither legislate it nor throw a stone at you for it. And for any mother carrying the grief of a separation — any kind, no questions — the museum keeps a quiet room with no debate in it. (I'll fill in more in my own hand later.)

And mine isn't only against death — it makes life. Make life by blood if you're lucky, and every other way too: foster, adopt, mentor, teach, the kid in the studio, the stranger your words reach at 3am. The man who finished IVF and grieved the kids he didn't get says it loudest: go fill the world. Keep people here — call or text 988, build the pool, fund the lane, hold the floor (the dignity is the floor; you don't get to vote on it). Solve for life. Vote human.

If the sentence ever feels like it wants to end — in the US, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), any hour; or find help anywhere at findahelpline.com. You are not alone, and the story isn’t over.

And on what the text actually says — the bitter-water ordeal, Exodus 21, Psalm 139 — both readings, honestly ›
And all the way down: pro-life is pro-healthcare — the recipe and the receipts ›

⌂ The full Ethos — all the arguments on one page