We are often asked to provide answers for students who are doing research. Below is a recent Q & A

1. Can you briefly describe your role, organization or connection to reproductive rights issues?

The Rainbow Pro-Life Alliance is primarily focused on bodily integrity of the preborn and their parents. Reproductive rights is an element of bodily integrity yet does not supersede it. Reproductive rights pertain to everyone with reproductive organs which begin to emerge 4 to 5 weeks post-fertilization.

 

2. What changes have you observed since the overturning of Rove v. Wade?

An escalation in the conflation of terms "reproductive rights" and "health care" with abortion. Crushing an offspring's skull at 12 weeks post-reproduction is the antithesis of "health" or "care". Treating human beings as property is not a 'right' we recognize.

 

3. Who do you believe has been most affected by recent reproductive rights policies, and how?

The pre-born have been most affected by policies that explicitly ignore their bodily integrity rights.

 

4. What role should state governments play in regulating reproductive healthcare compared to the federal government?

All levels of government should be committed to protecting the bodily integrity of all human beings regardless of location, anomaly, race, gender, age or ability.

 

5. What state-level policies have most affected your work? How have organizations adapted to increasingly different state laws?

An increasing divergent pattern has emerged where some states are expanding human rights in utero while others are drastically shrinking them.

 

6.  What do you believe is the biggest misconception the public has about reproductive rights and abortion policy?

The biggest misconception is that abortion is a 'reproductive right'. Conception is the effectuation of a reproductive right. Once one is pregnant they are literally 'with child' and a balance of rights between the pre-born and their parents ensues under a regime consistent with equal protection.

 

7.  What do you see as the most significant barriers facing people affected by reproductive healthcare laws today?

The most significant barriers are the denying of healthcare access to preborn children.

 

8.  Do religion, morality, or personal values play in shaping opinions on reproductive rights? What motivates your organization work?

We are motivated by science and love to expand human rights. Morality and religion are being used to inflict violence, discrimination and death on the most vulnerable in our society, including those in the LGBTQIA+ and preborn communities.

 

9. What policy changes or actions do you believe would improve the current situation?

Amplifying the 8,000 voices of those who have survived an abortion process.

 

10.  What perspectives or voices do you think are currently missing from public discussions?

Well, there's about 63 million voices missing because they were aborted.

 

11. How do people typically misunderstand your position? Which arguments are the hardest to respond to?

There are many contrived circumstances meant to confuse by conflating miscarriage care and labor induction with elective abortion. There are several circumstances where a child may need to be removed via medication or preterm delivery. Introducing additional steps to ensure fetal demise via starvation, dismemberment or poison is unjust, unnecessary and does nothing to improve the pregnant person's health.

 

12. What arguments or messaging strategies have proven most effective with the public?

Expose the violence of abortion.

 

13. How does your organization engage with communities or individuals facing unexpected pregnancies? What services or support do you provide beyond advocacy?

We conduct monthly virtual meetings to support individuals grappling with issues surrounding pregnancy. We offer a heightened awareness and care to non-hetrosexual persons who are pregnant.

 

14. What outcomes would you consider a success for your movement?

A society where acts of violence, like abortion are not tolerated.

 

Chastity's Pride Month Message:

SALUTE THE RAINBOW FLAG

 

The most potent weapon against the lesbian and gay community has been

the stereotypes that we have ourselves aided in creating. Our parades

are videotaped, but only our campiest brethren are not edited out; our

statements are recorded, but only the most extreme are heard; our

disagreements are noted, but only the most politically correct are not

filtered out. We find ourselves portrayed as an army of leather and

feather clad politically correct hot-heads marching in lockstep (in

heels??) to the beat of the same drummer.

 

And yet, when any group raises its head, not to denounce our more

eccentrically coffered siblings, but to disagree with the community's

self appointed coat-and-tie leadership, we are ostracized.

 

It is not too much to say that there is a concerted effort within the

gay and lesbian community to suppress the pro-life message. If you

come forth as a pro-life gay man or lesbian, you are likely to be

accused of sedition. To speak in defense of the unborn is to violate

the last taboo of the gay community. The argument that sexual privacy

rights necessarily are dependent on abortion rights is specious. In

the 1973 the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was a constitutionally

protected privacy right: In 1986 the Supreme Court ruled that

consensual homosexual relations were not. Therefore, for lesbians and

gays this specific constitutional theory of privacy rights is

irrelevant.

 

When was the last time that the Human Rights Campaign Fund or any

local gay political action committees endorsed a pro-life candidate

for office -- even if that candidate was also pro gay? And what about

the routine diversion of funds raised by AIDS walks to abortion

providers -- and this in the name of compassion for people with with

AIDS? Pro-life gays and to lesbians -- even those who have lost loved

ones to AIDS -- have actually found themselves excluded from AIDS walks

because they objected to this practice. When any march or rally is

proposed to seek redress of a grievance of the lesbian and gay

community -- anti-gay violence, for example -- it must be joined in

equal measure with a demand for reproductive freedom and abortion on

demand. We are exhorted in our publications and e-mail to resist any

restriction on abortion as if it intended to replace the daily

execution of 4400 of the unborn with 4400 of our own.

 

Of all Americans, those of us in the sexual minority community have

the most reason to be concerned about protecting human life. After

all, we know what it is to have our lives and rights trampled on,

especially the basic human right just to keep on living. Homophobia

has placed our right to life in danger every day: ask anyone who has

been bashed or someone whose insurance will not cover lifesaving

medical care. We fight back in every way that we can: we organize, we

lobby, we vote. We claim the same basic rights heterosexuals take for

granted.

 

But lesbian and gay Americans are not the only ones whose rights are

jeopardized. Everyday, the ugly face of prejudice shows itself when

the rights of others are shortchanged because of gender, race, state

of health, ethnicity, religion, politics, etc. The gay community has

come to the realization that we cannot work for our own rights alone

but must work to achieve basic human rights for all those who suffer

discrimination.

 

Why? Because our rights and the rights of others are the same human

rights. As gay men and lesbian women, we stay that all human life

deserves dignity and respect. No human life should be considered

expendable and the basic right to live should be guaranteed without

threat or harassment. That includes the unborn, a voiceless minority

with no defense against the worst of all abuses: death. Some 4400 are

wiped out every day. Why must we speak for unborn people? Simply

because they are people. To be pro-life and pro-gay is to affirm that

human rights are not discretionary.

 

America's abortion policy violates this basic concept of human rights.

Just like homophobia, abortion denies people their status as members

of human society. Just like homophobia, abortion tries to rid society

of real human beings who are considered threatening or undesirable.

Just like homophobia, abortion denies one's place as a member of human

society and even one's right to be alive in it.

 

No, not all lesbians and gays are "pro-choice" and it is far past the

time when the stereotype imposed on us by some of the "leaders" of our

community attempt to force upon us is removed. No survey suggests that

members of the sexual minority community are any more pro-choice than

the average American. While equal rights have not yet been won, we

have grown into a community as diverse as the nation. Closet doors

have been abandoned by the thousands. Invisibility and fear are fading

into history. Gays and lesbians come from many different backgrounds

and hold widely differing belief on many issues. We represent a

diversity and pluralism of beliefs at which the rainbow flag only

hints. To attempt to enforce a "party line" on all members of our

community is to betray the very cause we are fighting for: The right

to be different.

 

For years, mainstream society has rightly been condemned for not

letting lesbians and gays participate fully in the American dream. Now

we, in turn, are not permitting our own to be fully active in gay

society. We wave rainbow flags and envision multi-colored mosaics but

somehow these colors fade away when gay pro-lifers attempt to join the

parade. Gays and lesbians who tout ideological diversity prove

themselves hypocrites when they ostracize gay pro-lifers.

 

If the gay movement is to win the struggle against bigotry and

intolerance in mainstream American society, it must first eliminate

bigotry and intolerance within it own ranks. We must not do the work

of homophobes for them by stereotyping ourselves and enforcing a

blanket of political correctness. Even worse, they hinder our entire

march of civil rights. When gays and lesbians stereotype themselves

with a uniform of political correctness, we make it easy for anti-gay

fanatics to smear all of us.

 

The existence of the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians (PLAGAL)

shreds both the stereotype which the lesbian and gay community has of

pro-lifers as well as the stereotype which the straight community has

of lesbian and gay Americans. The voices of lesbian and gay pro-lifers

are testimony that gays and lesbians are, indeed, everywhere.

 

Twenty-five years ago others fought for our rights at Stonewall and we

can best honor their memory by defending the rights of others today.

Not only the rights of unborn Americans, but also the free speech

rights of gay and lesbian Americans. After all, the fight at Stonewall

was for our right to be different, not merely to replace the

conformity demands of straight society with the conformity demands of

certain elements of gay and lesbian society. The freedom of gays and

lesbians -- not the extermination of the unborn -- must be the

benchmark for gay liberation.

 

Abortion proponents have targeted the LGBТ community with a position

paper to the effect that our rights are dependent on the judicially

created "right to privacy" which is the foundation upon which Roe v.

Wade, and hence abortion, is based. The parallel analysis of changes

in abortion rights with changes in gay rights shows how specious this

argument is.

 

Since the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, there has been a slow and

consistent erosion of abortion-on-demand with the imposition of

mandatory counseling, waiting periods, and parental notification.

Prohibitions against the expenditure of federal funds as well as state

funds have been found constitutional. International family agencies

receiving U.S. aid have been prevented from counseling for abortion.

Casey v. Planned Parenthood replaced Roe v. Wade as the law of the

land on abortion; it replaced the "strict scrutiny" test of state

anti-abortion laws with a much weaker "undue burden" test, with four

of the nine justices calling for an outright reversal of Roe.

Thirty-two states now require parental notification and 18 states

require waiting periods and counseling as to risks and fetal

development. Both houses of Congress have voted to ban "partial birth"

abortions. And the number of abortions has been steadily declining for

at least a decade. The recent uptick in mailed abortion pills is harder to access as stockpiling and mind changing increase uncertainty in the numbers.

 

As abortion rights have been undergoing a consistent cutback, there

has been a simultaneous expansion of gay rights. In 1961, all states

and the District of Columbia had anti-sodomy laws. By the time of the

infamous Bowers v Hardwick decision in 1976, fully 50% of the states

had already decriminalized sodomy. Bowers held anti-sodomy laws

constitutional and stated that the fact that homosexual conduct occurs

in the privacy of the home does not affect the result. Bowers was

decided fully three years after Roe v. Wade, giving lie to the

argument that the "right to privacy" had any application to the LGBT

community: "Respondent would have us announce …a fundamental right to

engage in homosexual sodomy. This we are quite unwilling to do."

This is the same court, which by a 7 to 2 holding, found a fundamental

right in the abortion process.

 

When Bowers was specifically overruled by Lawrence v. Texas in 2003,

the 25 states that had outlawed sodomy in Bowers had been reduced to

only 13, of which only 4 enforced their laws against homosexual

conduct. In dissent, Justice Scalia noted that the LGBT community had

had considerable success in promoting their agenda to decriminalize

sodomy through democratic means. To be sure, there is plenty of

language in Lawrence as to "privacy," but it has little, if any,

relevancy to the actual holding based on the due process clause of the

14th Amendment.

 

Gay marriage (civil unions, domestic partnerships) is currently a hot

public policy issue, but it is the very antithesis of a privacy right

because it seeks state action for the approval and sanction of LGBT

relationships. Because the marriage contract is a three-party contract

(the state is the third party) there can be no meaningful talk of a

"right to privacy." The issue of marital equality is one which has

just started, with a few states taking positive steps and The several

states taking negative ones. The LGBT community need not fear the

competition in the marketplace of ideas.

 

Other than gay marriage (which does not concern the right to privacy)

and sodomy (which has been won largely by the democratic process and

not litigation) the Supreme Court's only other gay decision, Romer v.

Evans, is based on equal protection of the laws and not the right to

privacy. Romer disallowed a Colorado constitutional amendment which

would have denied gays the protection of anti-discrimination laws. The

argument for the right to privacy (“get out of my bedroom") is an

appealing one for the LGBT community but it has nothing to do with the

advancement of gay rights since the movement began with the Stonewall

Riots of 1964. The long fight to decriminalize gay sexual behavior was

won state by state through the democratic process. The success was so

absolute prior to the Lawrence decision that homosexual sodomy was

outlawed in only 4 of the 50 states, and even in those states it was

not enforced, leading Justice Thomas to call it an "uncommonly silly"

law. The fight for marriage equality is a public policy issue outside

any privacy concerns. Any other gay court decision has addressed equal

protection of the laws, once again not sounding in any "right to

privacy."

 

The position paper put forth by abortion advocates is a thinly veiled

attempt to shore up rapidly fading support for abortion-on-demand. Gay

Americans, much like their counterparts in straight America, have

differing philosophical, religious, moral, ethical, and pragmatic

attitudes toward abortion. This appeal to our self-interest will fail

as will the attempt to divide and conquer. Abortion advocates have

attempted to divide men from women, rich from poor, white from black,

religious from secular but it appears all this hard work will come to

naught. Abortion rights will fail because, unlike gay rights, they are

not the result of a democratic process but rather a brand new

"constitutional right" created by a court impatient with democratic

change