It’s Not Just About Abortion

Reproductive Health Faces Steep Challenges

Now organizations that describe themselves as “pro-life” are taking their battle beyond opposition to abortion. Determined to protect all of what they call “pre-born life,” these groups advocate sweeping legal protections not only for the fetus, but also for the embryo and even the fertilized egg.

Leaders of these organizations—often motivated by fundamentalist or ultraconservative religious beliefs—oppose emergency contraception out of the belief (scientifically unproven) that its use might cause destruction of a fertilized egg. They decry in vitro fertilization as violating traditional religious concepts of “natural” reproduction and also consider embryonic stem cell research to be a “pro-life” issue. In fact, 40 years after contraceptive use was legalized by the US Supreme Court’s Griswold v. Connecticut decision, the Religious Right is trying to turn back the clock on women’s access to contraception.