One of the more baffling lines of thinking that emerged in our election was that parents were voting for the rights of their daughters to have abortions. Yard signs that read “Vote Like Your Daughter’s Rights Depend On It” checkered neighborhoods, including mine.
As the father of three daughters myself, it is more than a little bizarre — and grotesque — to think I would vote for the rights of my daughters to abort my future grandchildren. Grandchildren are a heritage, not an inconvenience or impediment to America’s daughters.
And yet, as the pro-life movement continues to find its way amid challenging setbacks after the Dobbs decision, signs and arguments like that offer opportunities to gain rhetorical advantage. Aside from the peculiar enthusiasm to see one’s grandchildren aborted, the vision for our daughters that these slogans communicate is deeply impoverished. It sets the cultural bar too low for men and women. A stunted imagination that pits a woman’s autonomy against her body is also an irresponsible vision for fatherhood, implying that men should want their daughters viewed as objects of sexual conquest and should vote in such a way as to attain that outcome.
Political commentator Liz Wheeler very perceptively noted this. She recently said that we must “provide a counter-narrative that when you are saying that you are ‘voting for my daughter’ when it comes to abortion what you are actually saying is that you are voting to allow multiple men to use your daughter as an object for promiscuous sex, to impregnate her without any intention of commitment or love, and then to give her the ability — even the encouragement, the incentive — to kill your sweet grandbaby so that other men can continue to abuse your daughter.”
Wheeler’s comments subversively flip the narrative on abortion. Instead of abortion “empowering” women, it does the opposite. Abortion empowers the worst instincts of men. It channels, instead of love and fidelity, what ethicist Charles Camosy, following Pope Francis, calls “throwaway culture,” in which obligation and commitment yield to individualism and promiscuity. Abortion takes life and cheapens the gift that only women are suited to give our country — the possibility of new life. In this vision, the idea that opposing abortion is repressive gives way to the possibility of reimaging autonomy in child-affirming, woman-affirming, family-affirming, and culture-affirming ways.
Women deserve their autonomy as any other human being does. “Autonomy” should not be a code word for “abortion.” It should be a code word for the freedom to become a lawyer or a doctor. It should also be a code word for the autonomy to be a wife, mom, and homemaker, too. Flawed understandings of autonomy pit a woman’s vocational ambitions, whether in the home or the workplace, against her body’s design.
Combating America’s abortion culture is a multi-theater conflict. Stemming abortion requires caring for moms and babies, but it also calls for championing the family. Pro-life Americans must (and do) push back on the culture of death with a united vision for the human person and the communities that nourish them. As a Christian ethics professor, I believe that Christianity is uniquely suited to offer a vision that welcomes children, dignifies women, and promotes marriage. Christianity counteracts the social forces that threaten these realities, by uniting all three under one comprehensive worldview. Historic Christianity has stood against abortion from its inception. Believing that all human beings are made in God’s image, Christianity teaches that children are the natural product of the embodied union of husband and wife. As early Christian history demonstrated in the Roman Empire, Christianity strengthened the place of women in society. It considers the family the seedbed for civilization. Children, marriage, and family are God’s “yes” to the gift of a creation order called “good” in Genesis 1. This is a far superior vision for human flourishing and the common good than what abortion offers.
Pro-choice fathers, your daughters deserve more than what America’s abortion regime offers them. I know you want what is best for your daughters. Abortion is not that. Your future grandchildren deserve to grow up in an America where their lives are not merely an option. The pro-life movement needs to fight for the dignity not only of the children but for the women, to prevent their being treated as easily discardable objects set before men’s desire for conquest. The good news is that we are already doing that. Keep doing so. The unborn have a right to life, and women have a right to be treated with dignity and respect, free from objectification. Abortion undermines both rights.
This article originally appeared at National Review on November 24, 2024.
