Why I left Pro-life, Chapter 1

"DEAD ENDS"

Pro-lifers claim that viewing ultrasounds reduces abortions. But there is no evidence for that claim.

People often ask me why I left the “Pro-life” Movement and what led me from changing my personal position from staunchly “pro-life” to supporting reproductive health autonomy, rights, and justice. How did I come to believe that the truly pro-LIFE position is actually the position that is commonly referred to as pro-CHOICE?

There is no single thing that led to this change, but there is a single moment— a moment that set in motion a slow unfolding of events that ultimately changed my mind and, equally as consequential, changed my life. What follows is the first chapter in my story.

Chapter 1: Dead Ends 

I was pounding away at my keyboard, searching the internet for the empirical data that I was positively certain truly did exist. I refined my search settings and revised my search terms over a dozen times, at least. Still, nothing. But it is what I did find that day that would challenge what I thought I knew to be true. 

It was January of 2019, and I was engaged in precursory research for an article that I was planning to write for an anti-abortion website.

It had recently been suggested (by whom, I can no longer remember) that the policies of the Democrat Party were more effective at meaningfully lowering the number of abortions than the policies of the “pro-life” Republican Party. Like the majority of “pro-lifers,” political partisanship was firmly entrenched within me during this time in my life, and the mainstream “Pro-life” Movement, by and large, was beholden to the “pro-life” Republican Party.

We “pro-lifers” had been repeatedly assured— through various “pro-life” outlets, from various Movement leaders, and from various talking heads on cable news— that the Democrats were the party of death: infected by a deep-seated hatred of babies, of motherhood, and of the family as an institution; united by a mutual loathing of and determination to destroy America; and possessed by a wicked desire to murder babies, even minutes before birth.

How could anyone, I wondered with disgusted astonishment, even suggest that the policies of such an evil political party were more effective than “pro-life” Republican policies at saving more unborn lives? I was sincerely aghast at such an incomprehensible, wrongheaded suggestion. So, I set out to prove the superiority and efficacy of “pro-life” Republican policies.

And what better way to do so - or so I thought - than by calling attention to the magically life-saving power of the ultrasound.

The magical ultrasound 

For a number of years, a flood of “pro-life” ultrasound legislation was being introduced in numerous states across the country. The legislation, a project of Americans United for Life, sought to require abortion patients to be given and to be shown an ultrasound prior to abortion.

The “Pro-life” Movement’s narrative surrounding this legislation was simple:

• Abortion patients were ignorant as to what an abortion actually was.

• The “abortion industry” - a scary term that sweeps up reproductive healthcare providers and reproductive health advocates into a single, villainous boogeyman who is then made to appear far more powerful than reality reveals - wanted to stop ignorant abortion patients from finding out what abortion really was.

• Therefore, the “abortion industry” didn’t want to perform ultrasounds or to show the ultrasounds to abortion patients, because patients would then “know the truth” and subsequently change their minds about getting an abortion.

• If patients changed their minds about getting an abortion, this would cost the “abortion industry” money— money that “the abortion industry” would otherwise be paid for performing abortions on ignorant patients from whom “the abortion industry” had hidden “the truth” about abortion.

Because the “abortion industry” - those greedy scoundrels - wanted to keep ignorant abortion patients in the dark, it was argued that ultrasound legislation was needed to protect ignorant abortion patients by making sure that ignorant abortion patients were “fully informed.” This was merely a matter of ensuring “informed consent,” while simultaneously “saving babies.”

The “Pro-life” Movement’s underlying assertion was also simple: When pregnant people viewed ultrasounds prior to getting abortions, the vast majority changed their minds and “chose life.”

For years, Movement leaders and media spread this assertion far and wide. Articles and blurbs on the homepages of websites championed the claim that large percentages of abortion patients changed their minds after viewing ultrasounds. Politicians at press conferences and in statehouses across the country hailed the magically life-saving power of the ultrasound. The Movement’s assertion was prolific. And it was the truth— or so I thought. 

One dead end after another

Over the years, percentages had been bandied about in “pro-life” articles and headlines, proclaimed by activists, politicians, and organizations, and shared across social media: x% of women continued their pregnancies after viewing an ultrasound, it was triumphantly declared. Implied in the various percentages championed by the “Pro-life” Movement was that these percentages were the results of studies and, therefore, evidentiary support existed supporting the claims being made. That is what I was after— the hard data, the proof. So I followed one lead after another, only to hit dead end after dead end. 

So, I pounded away at my keyboard on that day in January 2019, searching the internet for the empirical data that I had been so certain truly did exist.

Lead by lead, search by search, I pursed the hard data, only to hit dead end after dead end. It was truly bewildering for me — which is why this moment is kind of frozen in time in my mind. It caused such confusion within me.

Some search results led me to what turned out to be entirely fictitious claims that had spread like wildfire through the “pro-life” sphere with the help of excessively eager anti-abortion websites that hungrily pounced upon every opportunity to convince its readership of the magically life-saving efficacy of the ultrasound.

For example…

“78% of Pregnant Women Seeing an Ultrasound Reject Abortions,” boomed a 2013 headline at LifeNews.org. The article had originated at LiveAction.org and had been cross-published on at least two other anti-abortion websites: LifeNews.org and LifeSiteNews.com. “Ultrasound images save lives, change hearts,” cooed the original headline at LiveAction.org. “Ultrasound images save lives, change hearts: here’s the proof,” declared the headline at LifeSiteNews.com. 

In the article, author Sarah Terzo stated, “up to 78% of women [who] see an ultrasound of their babies choose not to have abortions.” Terzo cited an October 17, 2011 article in TIME Magazine as her source.— But that's not what the TIME article was saying.

Rather, the article in TIME merely discussed ultrasound laws and the laws’ supporters. The TIME article quoted a claim made by then-Congressperson Michele Bachmann. Here's the relevant portion in TIME (emphasis added):

Supporters [of ultrasound mandate laws] argue that making the woman listen to the heartbeat — or look at an ultrasound image of the fetus, as Bachmann’s bill also requires — is important for true “informed consent.” They also believe that women who are provided with this kind of information are less likely to end their pregnancies. According to Bachmann, a poll by Focus on the Family, a group opposed to abortion, found that when women who were undecided about whether to end a pregnancy were shown an ultrasound of the fetus, 78% did not have the abortion.”

Focus on the Family, however, issued a press release following Bachmann's claim that refuted Bachmann’s statement, as reported by the LA Times on October 23, 2011. "We don’t have any ‘studies,’ and we don’t publish any percentages like that,” said Kelly Rosati, Focus on the Family’s vice president of community outreach.

Bachmanm's claim contained a non-existent percentage from a non-existent Focus on the Family study and had seemingly come out of thin air.

Yet, two years later, in 2013, Bachmann’s “78%” figure was still being cited by multiple “pro-life” websites as proof that “Pregnant Women Seeing an Ultrasound Reject Abortions.” (In fact, LiveAction.org even continued using this fictitious statistic well into 2019.)

Other search results led me to anti-abortion organizations that exist for the sole purpose of supplying ultrasound machines to anti-abortion centers (AACs/CPCs/PRCs), or to statements from those organizations’ leaders. However, the organizations’ and leaders’ statements were unsubstantiated - and thus unreliable - partly due to a number of ethical failings effecting claim credibility: (1) data/sources and methodology were not made public; (2) data/sources were anecdotal; (3) data/sources and methodology were internal and had not been subjected to the peer review process; (4) data/sources were narrow and biased.

For example… 

In a 2016 LiveAction.org article, “How ultrasounds are shaping women’s views on abortion,” author Christina Marie Bennett offered an anecdote as proof that showing women ultrasounds lowers abortion rates. Bennett wrote (emphasis added):

I had the pleasure of taking a tour of a Save the Storks mobile ultrasound van. The gorgeous van will be used to travel near abortion clinics and offer free ultrasounds. As I sat in the van, I heard a video state that 3 out of 5 women who have an ultrasound in a Save the Storks van choose life for their child.

That “3 out of 5” statistic from the Save the Storks video that Bennett anecdotally cited as evidence had several problems. First, the reader was just expected to take Bennett at her word, as she provided no evidence for the claim. Second, after digging around online for evidence of Bennett's claim, I discovered that the “3 out of 5” statistic heralded in the Save the Storks video that Bennett had referenced traced back to a single “test bus” in New York City. As explained in 2014 LifeSiteNews.com article (emphasis added):

Joe Baker, the founder of Save the Storks, a group that is developing a fleet of state-of-the-art “Stork Buses” equipped with sonogram machines, told LifeSiteNews.com that on one of their test buses in New York, three out of every five abortion-determined women ultimately chose life.

The LifeSiteNews article provided no information about Save the Storks’s methodology used to collect the internal data from that single “test bus” in New York City, data that then led to the Save the Storks's founder assertion that “three out of every five abortion-determined women ultimately chose life” after viewing an ultrasound. Nor was any information included in the article explaining how Save the Storks categorized pregnant people as “abortion-determined.” Furthermore, the article did not provided any information to indicate whether these “abortion-determined women” merely signaled, at the time of the ultrasound, that they would carry a pregnancy to term or if Save the Storks confirmed that these “abortion-determined women” had in fact carried the pregnancy to term.

Nevertheless, that narrowly-sourced, single “test bus” statistical finding that “three out of every five abortion-determined women ultimately chose life” after viewing an ultrasound had found its way into the Save the Storks promotional video that Bennett would later cite as proof that viewing an ultrasound lowers the abortion rate. 

Save the Storks is an anti-abortion organization that partners with anti-abortion centers (AACs/CPCs/PRCs). As of this writing, Save the Storks makes the following claim on its website (emphasis mine): 

Owned and operated by local pregnancy centers, [mobile ultrasound buses] deliver holistic care to their communities. Bringing the pregnancy center to the front steps of the abortion clinic – offering real options and comprehensive support.

In fact, 3 out of 4 women who board a Save the Storks Mobile Medical Clinic choose life.

The footnote for the “3 out of 4” statistic states (emphasis mine): 

This number is based on 47.79% of our partners reporting. Most of these partners who reported in 2023 see around 54% of patients who are abortion vulnerable (an all-time high).

No internal data or methodology is publicly provided on the Save the Storks website. No explanation is given regarding categorization or what constitutes an “abortion vulnerable” pregnant person. (There is no mention of the aforementioned category, “abortion-determined women.”) The public is also not provided any information regarding whether the “abortion vulnerable” women merely indicated, at the time these women visited the mobile ultrasound bus, that they would carry their pregnancies to term or if these women were confirmed to have carried their pregnancies to term.

The only information currently provided in regards to the “3 out of 4” statistic is that AACs/CPCs/PRCs - monetary and material recipients of Save the Storks - provide some type of reporting back to Save the Storks, which is used to categorize pregnant people and generate a mobile ultrasound bus statistical success rate— a success rate that is impossible to independently verify. The success rate - the purported percentage of pregnant people who choose to continue a pregnancy after visiting one of the mobile ultrasound buses - is then used by Save the Storks to solicit monetary donations.

Issues of the validity and credibility of claimed ultrasound success rates continue today. For example, an ultrasound project of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Center, called the Psalm 139 Project, continues the “Pro-life” Movement’s pattern of making unsubstantiated claims without providing evidentiary support. The website, Psalm139Project.org, currently states, “Most women in an unplanned pregnancy who are given a glimpse of the life within them choose life.” No data or source information is provided. Just the claim.

In 2021, the State of Tennessee gave public taxpayer dollars to the Psalm 139 Project to provide ultrasounds machines to anti-abortion centers in the state.

Project Ultrasound describes itself as “a 501(c)3 pro life charity that exists to educate the public about the effectiveness of ultrasounds in deterring abortion and to give grants to non-profit crisis pregnancy centers for the purchase of ultrasound equipment and training to help women in their communities get free ultrasound exams.” On its website, Project Ultrasound boldly claims, “Various reports indicate that at least 60-70% of "abortion minded" mothers who see an ultrasound at crisis pregnancy centers change their mind and choose life.”

What are these “various reports”? No information or sources are provided. Just the claim.

There are similar problems on other sites.

Something is not quite right. 

Back to that January day in 2019…

I refined my search settings and revised my search terms over and over again, navigating from one dead end to another, like the various examples listed above. Hours passed.

As my endeavors continued to lead me to fictitious statistics, unsubstantiated claims with source credibility issues, and a few references to internal statistics that were impossible to independently verify, I became overwhelmed by intensifying feelings of perplexion and angst.

Where was the data? Where was the proof? Why wasn't I finding anything? I was confounded. I was vexed. I was confused.

As I stared at my computer screen, trying my hardest to muffle the little alarm bells that had begun ringing quietly in my mind, I found myself unable to shake an unnerving realization: “Something is not quite right with the ‘Pro-life’ Movement.”

What I discovered next during my search for evidence on that January day in 2019 would change everything…

Read Chapter 2.