If you’re pro-life, vote for Biden

As a liberal, practicing Catholic, I often struggle with the issue of abortion. I fervently want to support and protect all life, BIPOC, women, the LGBTQIA+ community, the environment and the lives of the unborn.

However, I also understand that the anti-abortion movement has been/is being used to systemically oppress women by removing the women’s right to choose what happens to her body. The anti-abortion movement fails to consider situations of rape, incest and danger to mother’s life, as well as disproportionally harming lower-income and BIPOC women due financial barriers hindering their healthcare access. I often feel as though I am cornered into a lose-lose; I either take an anti-abortion stance and fail to respect women, the poor and people of color, or I choose a pro-choice stance and forgo the lives of the unborn: it does not have to be this way.

In a 2005 study, The Guttmacher Institute found that 73% of abortion patients cited not being able to afford the child as a significant factor in their choice. This means that we should focus on alleviating the factors that cause women to have abortions rather than focusing on taking away their rights. Instead of restricting abortion access, we should invest our taxpayer dollars into programs teaching sex-ed and providing free or affordable contraceptives. We also need to heavily increase our support for mothers with the education, childcare and resources they need to raise their child. Making mothers feel more confident in their child’s future is much more effective at reducing abortions than taking away their healthcare.

While Biden will not overturn Roe v. Wade, nor stop all abortions, he will work to enact policy which aids those experiencing an unplanned pregnancy to be able to overcome social and financial barriers motivating them to have abortions. He will also remove harmful, Trump-era policies such as the “global gag rule,” which bars the US from providing international, federal health care for dying individuals if their country supports, or provides information on, abortion.

Trump leverages being “pro-life” as a way to win the Christian vote. He wants to mandate women to give birth yet fails to offer the social services required to support them. He may be anti-abortion, but he is not pro-life. Joe Biden is pro-life, but not in the conventional sense of the word. He does not support the killing of the unborn, but he is willing to engage in abortion’s grey-area and seeks to fix the reasons why women are having abortions. He will treat the underlying causes, not just the symptoms. If you truly care about the sanctity of all life, Biden is your best pick this November.