They claim to be pro-life, but are they really?

Since January 1, there have been 353 mass shootings in this country, killing 455 people and injuring another 1,302. On average, more than 32,000 people die annually due to gun violence in America with the most recent mass shooting occurring last week in San Bernardino, California.

Sadly, we can only expect many more men, women, and children to die, because many elected leaders who are self-proclaimed “defenders of life” have refused to tackle what should truly be the pro-life issue our time: gun violence.  

{mosads}A terrifying pattern of hypocrisy has settled over our country. For five hours on September 29, members of Congress who call themselves pro-life obsessively attacked the president of Planned Parenthood, an organization acting within the law to provide services that have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Constitution. Three days after those hearings ended, the nation was shocked to learn of a horrific mass shooting at a community college in Oregon.  

The Oregon shooting left ten students dead and twenty others injured. Ten sets of parents gained membership to a community no one ever wants to join–and without assurance that anything will change because of inaction to address gun violence.

In November, we were horrified by the mass shooting at a Planned Parenthood health center in Colorado, where a domestic terrorist spewing dangerous anti-abortion rhetoric from highly edited sting videos killed three people and wounded nine others. It begs the question, with so many Americans being killed by guns why is the pro-life movement so narrowly focused on women who don’t want to be pregnant, rather than the prolific use of guns? Doesn’t being “in defense of life” mean you defend all lives, no matter what?

The list of real ‘life’ issues demanding the attention of our pro-life leaders is long – gun violence, Medicaid expansion, criminal justice reform, immigration reform, and safeguarding the Affordable Care Act to start with. All of which have life or death outcomes and are worthy of advocacy by the pro-life movement. Instead, there has been silence. The pro-life movement has chosen to value politically motivated grandstanding over women’s autonomy and equality. Abortion access is a good thing, and is necessary for dignity and justice for all people. Abortion access does not kill innocent people in churches, schools, movie theaters, or on live TV. Nor does it cause cancer, global warming, or racial injustices. It does none of those things. Yet, the pro-life movement continues to avoid ensuring meaningful solutions to these ‘life’ issues affecting us all.

How much more time will the pro-life movement spend ignoring food insecurity or alarming infant and maternal mortality rates, particularly within communities of color? How much longer will their efforts in ending poverty pale in comparison to the time and energy spent trying to outlaw abortion? It is time the pro-life movement embody the true meaning of pro-life and find solutions to a real moral dilemma: apathy to gun violence.

Matson has served as an editor at large for RH Reality Check, a daily publication providing news, analysis, and commentary on sexual and reproductive health and justice issues and as a vice president at the National Organization for Women. Merritt is a member of the Women’s Health Leadership Network at the Center for American Progress and a founding member of the Trust Black Women Partnership. She blogs at AngryBlackBitch.com. they are co-founders of Reproaction, a new direct action group formed to increase access to abortion and advance reproductive justice.