Why I Left Pro-life: Chapter 2

"THE CRACK"

S.P. Rogers

Sep 12, 2024

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The anti-abortion claim that viewing ultrasounds changes minds is false, and not supported by evidence.

Read Chapter 1

Chapter 2: The Crack

“Most women in an unplanned pregnancy who are given a glimpse of the life within them choose life.”1 I can still remember how it felt to be filled with this hopeful, intoxicating promise— the promise of “saving babies” through the use of the magical ultrasound machine.

I used to daydream about it. I'd imagine starting a non-profit organization that would provide free, mobile ultrasounds in neighborhoods around the city, wherein pregnant people would see an ultrasound and “choose life.”

Filling my mind was the image of a smiling physician in a white coat gently moving an ultrasound wand across the round belly of a young woman whose tender eyes danced with delight upon seeing her baby on the ultrasound screen.

I was firmly convinced that hundreds of thousands of pregnant people were being lied to by the “abortion industry” each year and being “tricked” into having abortions, only to find themselves sentenced to a lifetime of pain, trauma, and regret leading to severe depression and suicidal ideation. Having been fully persuaded of the “Pro-life” Movement’s assertion that abortion patients didn’t know what an abortion truly was, I'd often think to myself, longingly, “If only I could make ultrasounds free of cost and easily accessible, women could finally be able to know what an abortion actually is; they'll finally know that what is inside of them is alive. Then they can be spared the pain and suffering caused by abortion.”

It hadn't yet occurred to me, at that time, that the vast majority of abortions occur very early in the first trimester and, therefore, my innocent little daydreams would, in reality, involve transvaginal ultrasound probes. Nor had I yet realized the ways in which my conception of abortion patients irrationally infantilized them. In the minds of many “pro-lifers,” abortion patients are indelibly envisioned as irresponsible, heavily pregnant dupes on the verge of murdering fully developed, chubby-fingered infants.

I desperately longed to show pregnant people the truth about abortion. It was just a dumb pipe dream; and as misguided as it was, this longing of mine came from a place of love and hope, and an honest desire to help people.

I thought back to that naive, unfulfilled dream of mine as I stared despondently at my computer screen with an unfixed gaze of stupefaction, processing unwelcomed feelings of confusion and disbelief.

I had begun that January day in 2019, eagerly determined to find the hard data that would prove to the world that “pro-life” Republican ultrasound legislation “saved babies.”— This truth would thus serve as an example of the superior efficacy of “pro-life” Republican policies over those of the evil Democrats at reducing the number of abortions.

I never found what I was looking for.

Instead, my search for the evidentiary data on the magically life-saving power of ultrasounds had revealed that the “Pro-life” Movement - its leaders, activists, supporters, and websites - were swimming in and promulgating fictitious statistics, unsubstantiated claims from sources with credibility issues and conflicts of interest, and a handful of organizations’ internal statistics that were impossible to independently verify.

The studies proving that most people change their minds about getting abortions after viewing ultrasounds? They didn't exist.

While I didn't find what I was looking for that day, what I did find led to an irreparable crack in my trust of the “Pro-life” Movement: (1) most abortion patients do not opt out of getting abortions after viewing ultrasounds, and (2) many in the Movement knew this, but had continued to promote the myth to the public and push for the enactment of ultrasound legislation regardless.

The not-so-magical ultrasound

As I searched online for empirical data that day in January of 2019, I came across a number of credible studies indicating the exact opposite of the “Pro-life” Movement's claims. To my sincere astonishment and deep disappointment, the magical ultrasound machine wasn't so magical after all.

For example…

A 2014 study of over 15,000 abortion patients, published in the professional journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, found that, “nearly all pregnancies (98.8%) were terminated: 98.4% of pregnancies among women who viewed their ultrasound images and 99.0% of pregnancies among the patients who did not.”

A 2017 study examining the impact of Wisconsin's ultrasound law, published in the academic journal PLoS One, found that the law led to only a “small increase in continuing pregnancy rates.” Some women in the study reported that viewing their ultrasounds “increased [their] certainty about choosing abortion.” Overall, the study found that 8.7% of abortion patients continued their pregnancies pre-law and 11.2% post-law— a difference of just 2.5%.

In a 2009 University of British Columbia study, published in the European Journal of Contraception & Reproductive Health Care, “researchers gave questionnaires to 350 women who came to two abortion clinics, asking if they wanted to view an ultrasound. Nearly 73 percent got the ultrasound and 86 percent of them described it as a positive experience. But none changed their minds about having an abortion.”2

A house built on sand

As I ruminated upon the above-mentioned studies, along with several others, it felt as though I had been doused in ice water— unpleasantly jolted awake and acutely aware of the insurmountable differences between the empirical data and the messaging from the “Pro-life” Movement.

A realization hit me like a ton of bricks: The entire “pro-life” premise had been wrong from the start.

Abortion patients weren't ignorant about what they were doing. Approximately 60% of abortion patients are already mothers and had thus already been through all that pregnancy entails— including viewing ultrasounds. As one researcher explained, “women do not have abortions because they believe the fetus is not a human or because they don’t know the truth.” Even proponents of ultrasound legislation seemed to recognize this.

For example: In 2012, Pennsylvania State Representative Kathy Rapp held a press conference introducing ultrasound legislation called the Women’s Right-to-Know Act. During the press conference, Dr. Joseph Castelli Jr., who spoke in support of the legislation, stated that “the ultrasound does not, in fact, provide any information that a patient did not already have.”3 He said, “No one enters into an abortion glibly. . . . It’s always a struggle, seeking an abortion. . . . I don’t think anybody enters into an abortion not knowing what is going on. You’re not withholding any information or giving any information that they otherwise don’t have.”

Additionally, following the release of the above-mentioned 2014 study which had found that “98.4% of… women who viewed their ultrasound images” went ahead with their abortions, “pro-life” activists and organizational leaders told LifeSiteNews.com that “the results of the study are not particularly surprising.”

“Well, fucking shit!” I thought to myself. “If you know that ultrasounds aren't really effective at changing pregnant people's minds about abortion, then why the hell do you keep pushing these laws? What's the damn point?!”

The “Pro-life” Movement’s ultrasound laws had been “based on two assumptions: First, that an ultrasound image has an obvious meaning. Second, that any pregnant woman who sees an ultrasound will recognize this meaning.”4 Proponents acted “as if ultrasound images ‘prove’ that a fetus is equivalent to a ‘baby,’ and that pregnant women only have to be shown ultrasound images in order to draw the same conclusion.”5 But “science does not bear either assumption out.”6 Rather, “research shows that different women react differently to ultrasound images depending on their attitudes toward their pregnancy. While older mothers, and women who have struggled to conceive often express great joy, women who do not desire a child often remain indifferent.”7

The narrative of the magically life-saving power of the ultrasound had, all along, been a house built on sand.

“As it turns out, seeing the ultrasound images as such does little to change women’s minds about abortion. What matters is how women scheduled for abortions already feel.”8 One researcher explained, “As it became clear that certainty mattered, we looked more closely. Among women who were highly certain, viewing their ultrasound did not change minds. However, among the small fraction (7.4%) of women who were not very certain or only moderately certain, viewing slightly increased the odds that they would forego their planned abortion and continue with their pregnancy. Nonetheless, this effect was very small and most did proceed to abortion.”9

Furthermore, research has shown that “the most common reason women state for getting an abortion is not being able to afford caring for a child, and viewing an ultrasound wouldn’t change that circumstance.”10

The crack

Frustrated, I closed my laptop.

I didn't know what to do or what to think or how to feel. All I knew for certain was that there was simply no way to reconcile or to explain away the gulf that lay between what the “Pro-life” Movement had been telling people and what the empirical data showed.

Thoughts were swirling in my mind. “There’s proof these laws don't work, but - what? - we're just going to say they do anyway? Why? Why lie? How can they just lie to people like that? What is going on?”

I suddenly felt as though I was a member of an unpaid army of dupes, loyally giving our time and efforts to a movement whose leadership wasn't even being honest with those of us who were a part of it, nor with the public at large. Was I just another dupe in an ecosystem of self-perpetuating falsehoods? “What the hell was going on?”

I didn't know how to process everything I was feeling. It had never before occurred to me that the Movement could be dishonest. I had been swimming in “pro-life” messaging for years, and I wasn't prepared, or ready, to deal with the collision between my ideological allegiance and cold reality. I was too emotionally invested in the “pro-life” cause.

So, I ignored my better judgment and I buried my doubts deep into the caverns of my mind, hoping that I could, perhaps, pretend none of it was real.— That's the intoxicating effect of the “Pro-life” Movement: it creates in people a tendency to disengage critical thinking and dispassionate analysis, and fosters agenda-driven allegiance and blind trust.

But it was too late. Like a pane of glass under stress, a crack had formed in my trust of the Movement.— And that crack could not be undone.

To be continued…

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