About Us

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 Roe 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 beenthe stereotypes that we have ourselves aided in creating. Our paradesare videotaped, but only our campiest brethren are not edited out; ourstatements are recorded, but only the most extreme are heard; ourdisagreements are noted, but only the most politically correct are notfiltered out. We find ourselves portrayed as an army of leather andfeather clad politically correct hot-heads marching in lockstep (inheels??) to the beat of the same drummer.And yet, when any group raises its head, not to denounce our moreeccentrically coffered siblings, but to disagree with the community'sself appointed coat-and-tie leadership, we are ostracized.It is not too much to say that there is a concerted effort within thegay and lesbian community to suppress the pro-life message. If youcome forth as a pro-life gay man or lesbian, you are likely to beaccused of sedition. To speak in defense of the unborn is to violatethe last taboo of the gay community. The argument that sexual privacyrights necessarily are dependent on abortion rights is specious. Inthe 1973 the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was a constitutionallyprotected privacy right: In 1986 the Supreme Court ruled thatconsensual homosexual relations were not. Therefore, for lesbians andgays this specific constitutional theory of privacy rights isirrelevant.When was the last time that the Human Rights Campaign Fund or anylocal gay political action committees endorsed a pro-life candidatefor office -- even if that candidate was also pro gay? And what aboutthe routine diversion of funds raised by AIDS walks to abortionproviders -- and this in the name of compassion for people with withAIDS? Pro-life gays and to lesbians -- even those who have lost lovedones to AIDS -- have actually found themselves excluded from AIDS walksbecause they objected to this practice. When any march or rally isproposed to seek redress of a grievance of the lesbian and gaycommunity -- anti-gay violence, for example -- it must be joined inequal measure with a demand for reproductive freedom and abortion ondemand. We are exhorted in our publications and e-mail to resist anyrestriction on abortion as if it intended to replace the dailyexecution of 4400 of the unborn with 4400 of our own.Of all Americans, those of us in the sexual minority community havethe most reason to be concerned about protecting human life. Afterall, we know what it is to have our lives and rights trampled on,especially the basic human right just to keep on living. Homophobiahas placed our right to life in danger every day: ask anyone who hasbeen bashed or someone whose insurance will not cover lifesavingmedical care. We fight back in every way that we can: we organize, welobby, we vote. We claim the same basic rights heterosexuals take forgranted.But lesbian and gay Americans are not the only ones whose rights arejeopardized. Everyday, the ugly face of prejudice shows itself whenthe rights of others are shortchanged because of gender, race, stateof health, ethnicity, religion, politics, etc. The gay community hascome to the realization that we cannot work for our own rights alonebut must work to achieve basic human rights for all those who sufferdiscrimination.Why? Because our rights and the rights of others are the same humanrights. As gay men and lesbian women, we stay that all human lifedeserves dignity and respect. No human life should be consideredexpendable and the basic right to live should be guaranteed withoutthreat or harassment. That includes the unborn, a voiceless minoritywith no defense against the worst of all abuses: death. Some 4400 arewiped out every day. Why must we speak for unborn people? Simplybecause they are people. To be pro-life and pro-gay is to affirm thathuman rights are not discretionary.America's abortion policy violates this basic concept of human rights.Just like homophobia, abortion denies people their status as membersof human society. Just like homophobia, abortion tries to rid societyof real human beings who are considered threatening or undesirable.Just like homophobia, abortion denies one's place as a member of humansociety and even one's right to be alive in it.No, not all lesbians and gays are "pro-choice" and it is far past thetime when the stereotype imposed on us by some of the "leaders" of ourcommunity attempt to force upon us is removed. No survey suggests thatmembers of the sexual minority community are any more pro-choice thanthe average American. While equal rights have not yet been won, wehave grown into a community as diverse as the nation. Closet doorshave been abandoned by the thousands. Invisibility and fear are fadinginto history. Gays and lesbians come from many different backgroundsand hold widely differing belief on many issues. We represent adiversity and pluralism of beliefs at which the rainbow flag onlyhints. To attempt to enforce a "party line" on all members of ourcommunity is to betray the very cause we are fighting for: The rightto be different.For years, mainstream society has rightly been condemned for notletting lesbians and gays participate fully in the American dream. Nowwe, in turn, are not permitting our own to be fully active in gaysociety. We wave rainbow flags and envision multi-colored mosaics butsomehow these colors fade away when gay pro-lifers attempt to join theparade. Gays and lesbians who tout ideological diversity provethemselves hypocrites when they ostracize gay pro-lifers.If the gay movement is to win the struggle against bigotry andintolerance in mainstream American society, it must first eliminatebigotry and intolerance within it own ranks. We must not do the workof homophobes for them by stereotyping ourselves and enforcing ablanket of political correctness. Even worse, they hinder our entiremarch of civil rights. When gays and lesbians stereotype themselveswith a uniform of political correctness, we make it easy for anti-gayfanatics 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 ofpro-lifers as well as the stereotype which the straight community hasof lesbian and gay Americans. The voices of lesbian and gay pro-lifersare testimony that gays and lesbians are, indeed, everywhere.Twenty-five years ago others fought for our rights at Stonewall and wecan best honor their memory by defending the rights of others today.Not only the rights of unborn Americans, but also the free speechrights of gay and lesbian Americans. After all, the fight at Stonewallwas for our right to be different, not merely to replace theconformity demands of straight society with the conformity demands ofcertain elements of gay and lesbian society. The freedom of gays andlesbians -- not the extermination of the unborn -- must be thebenchmark for gay liberation.Abortion proponents have targeted the LGBТ community with a positionpaper to the effect that our rights are dependent on the judiciallycreated "right to privacy" which is the foundation upon which Roe v.Wade, and hence abortion, is based. The parallel analysis of changesin abortion rights with changes in gay rights shows how specious thisargument is.Since the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, there has been a slow andconsistent erosion of abortion-on-demand with the imposition ofmandatory counseling, waiting periods, and parental notification.Prohibitions against the expenditure of federal funds as well as statefunds have been found constitutional. International family agenciesreceiving U.S. aid have been prevented from counseling for abortion.Casey v. Planned Parenthood replaced Roe v. Wade as the law of theland on abortion; it replaced the "strict scrutiny" test of stateanti-abortion laws with a much weaker "undue burden" test, with fourof the nine justices calling for an outright reversal of Roe.Thirty-two states now require parental notification and 18 statesrequire waiting periods and counseling as to risks and fetaldevelopment. Both houses of Congress have voted to ban "partial birth"abortions. And the number of abortions has been steadily declining forat 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, therehas been a simultaneous expansion of gay rights. In 1961, all statesand the District of Columbia had anti-sodomy laws. By the time of theinfamous Bowers v Hardwick decision in 1976, fully 50% of the stateshad already decriminalized sodomy. Bowers held anti-sodomy lawsconstitutional and stated that the fact that homosexual conduct occursin the privacy of the home does not affect the result. Bowers wasdecided fully three years after Roe v. Wade, giving lie to theargument that the "right to privacy" had any application to the LGBTcommunity: "Respondent would have us announce …a fundamental right toengage in homosexual sodomy. This we are quite unwilling to do."This is the same court, which by a 7 to 2 holding, found a fundamentalright 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 toonly 13, of which only 4 enforced their laws against homosexualconduct. In dissent, Justice Scalia noted that the LGBT community hadhad considerable success in promoting their agenda to decriminalizesodomy through democratic means. To be sure, there is plenty oflanguage in Lawrence as to "privacy," but it has little, if any,relevancy to the actual holding based on the due process clause of the14th Amendment.Gay marriage (civil unions, domestic partnerships) is currently a hotpublic policy issue, but it is the very antithesis of a privacy rightbecause it seeks state action for the approval and sanction of LGBTrelationships. 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 hasjust started, with a few states taking positive steps and The severalstates taking negative ones. The LGBT community need not fear thecompetition 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 andnot litigation) the Supreme Court's only other gay decision, Romer v.Evans, is based on equal protection of the laws and not the right toprivacy. Romer disallowed a Colorado constitutional amendment whichwould have denied gays the protection of anti-discrimination laws. Theargument for the right to privacy (“get out of my bedroom") is anappealing one for the LGBT community but it has nothing to do with theadvancement of gay rights since the movement began with the StonewallRiots of 1964. The long fight to decriminalize gay sexual behavior waswon state by state through the democratic process. The success was soabsolute prior to the Lawrence decision that homosexual sodomy wasoutlawed in only 4 of the 50 states, and even in those states it wasnot enforced, leading Justice Thomas to call it an "uncommonly silly"law. The fight for marriage equality is a public policy issue outsideany privacy concerns. Any other gay court decision has addressed equalprotection of the laws, once again not sounding in any "right toprivacy."The position paper put forth by abortion advocates is a thinly veiledattempt to shore up rapidly fading support for abortion-on-demand. GayAmericans, much like their counterparts in straight America, havediffering philosophical, religious, moral, ethical, and pragmaticattitudes toward abortion. This appeal to our self-interest will failas will the attempt to divide and conquer. Abortion advocates haveattempted to divide men from women, rich from poor, white from black,religious from secular but it appears all this hard work will come tonaught. Abortion rights will fail because, unlike gay rights, they arenot the result of a democratic process but rather a brand new"constitutional right" created by a court impatient with democraticchange