{"id":270825,"date":"2022-06-28T18:42:17","date_gmt":"2022-06-28T23:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=270825"},"modified":"2022-06-27T21:09:59","modified_gmt":"2022-06-28T02:09:59","slug":"projection-weapon-against-pro-life-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/projection-weapon-against-pro-life-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"Projection is being used as a weapon against the pro-life movement"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.<\/i><\/p>\n

The Supreme Court\u2019s decision in <\/span>Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health <\/span><\/i>has been handed down, with the Court overturning\u00a0<\/span>Roe v. Wade (1973) <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)<\/span><\/i>, returning abortion policy to the states for the first time since 1973. As soon as this possibility became apparent, pro-abortion domestic terrorists began vandalizing crisis pregnancy centers, interrupting church services, intimidating worshippers, and even published the home addresses of Supreme Court justices, culminating with the attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. <\/span><\/p>\n

But the worst may be yet to come, as a recent communique from the radical pro-abortion group \u201cJane\u2019s Revenge,\u201d outlined in a recent<\/a> <\/span>National Review <\/span>article<\/span>, chillingly clarifies. Wesley J. Smith rightly worries that we will relive \u201cBleeding Kansas,\u201d where pro and anti-slavery settlers clashed in an ugly foreboding of the coming Civil War. Meanwhile, the Jane\u2019s Revenge communique calls pro-lifers \u201censlavers,\u201d who \u201cmake life more difficult.\u201d Speaking of similarities to the Antebellum slavery debates, Jane\u2019s Revenge exhibits the same rhetorical tendency that the pro-slavery movement did: projection.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anna Freud, daughter of famed psychologist Sigmund Freud, described \u201cprojection\u201d as the process by which people accuse others of harboring the unacceptable urges or ideas they themselves possess, thus allowing themselves to justify their ideas or actions<\/a><\/span>. In this regard, the pro-abortion and pro-slavery movements are kissing cousins: if one dares recognize the injustice, he is accused of \u201censlavement,\u201d \u201cstirring up trouble,\u201d or \u201climiting rights,\u201d as if no other party to either slavery (the slave) or abortion (the unborn child) with rights of their own existed. A brief read of slavery\u2019s and abortion\u2019s foremost defenders reveals disturbingly parallel projection.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking in the U.S. Senate, South Carolina statesman John C. Calhoun said<\/a> that those who did not stand up to abolitionism \u201care prepared to become slaves,\u201d as if the anti-slavery cause wanted to enslave the slaveowners<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

After Georgia\u2019s 1861 secession, Senator Robert Toombs declared in his farewell speech<\/a> that if the government did not protect slaveowners\u2019 supposed \u201cproperty rights\u201d in the territories, \u201cyou cannot have free subjects or citizens; you may have slaves.\u201d <\/span>Toombs also stated that the southern states wanted \u201cequality\u201d with the north, apparently unaware that simultaneously defending slavery and \u201cequality\u201d is nonsensical.<\/span><\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Law professor claims abortion is necessary because motherhood is slavery<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Other examples are plentiful, although the two above are illustrative of the phenomenon: slave-owning aristocrats accused anti-slavery Americans of wanting to \u201censlave\u201d <\/span>the slaveowners. <\/span><\/i>Abraham Lincoln, analogizing to this phenomenon, said<\/a>, \u201cThe shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep\u2019s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one,\u201d and implored Americans to \u201crepudiate the wolf\u2019s dictionary.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The same projectionist language haunts pro-abortion circles. Yesterday\u2019s communique from Jane\u2019s Revenge calling pregnancy care centers \u201censlavers\u201d is but the latest installment. Displaying a stunning lack of self-awareness, abortion activist Renee Bracey Sherman wrote in the<\/a> <\/span>New York Times<\/span>, \u201c\u201cIt\u2019s easier to strip us of our rights when we\u2019re not treated as humans\u2026 Language matters and it leads to violence.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Indeed it does \u2014 when unborn children are routinely compared to \u201cparasites\u201d and \u201cclumps of cells,\u201d it assuages misgivings about slaughtering them by the tens of millions. The pro-life movement does not treat anyone as \u201cnot humans.\u201d Some of its leaders are women who have had past abortions. But the pro-abortion case requires us to ignore the humanity of others. Similarly, in Robin Stevenson\u2019s book, “<\/span>My Body, My Choice<\/a>,”<\/span>\u00a0a group of demonstrators are seen wearing T-shirts that read, \u201cThe Right to Live. The Right to Safe Abortion,\u201d as if the two sentences do not conflict, as if pro-lifers threaten anyone\u2019s rights to life. <\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond these few prominent examples, there are numerous others in passing conversations, on social media, or elsewhere, in which we are told that restricting legal abortion will \u201cthreaten women\u2019s lives.\u201d This is pure projection \u2014 abortion takes lives, and with it the human dignity that undergirds our civil society.<\/span><\/p>\n

For moral people, projection is necessary to justify misdeeds. This tendency lined the speeches of slavery\u2019s defenders in the years preceding the Civil War, and it today predominates pro-abortion op-eds, talking points, social media posts, and terror manifestos. Pro-lifers should learn to recognize projectionist language and answer it lovingly but forcefully wherever presented.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is only one side of the abortion debate that dehumanizes anyone, one side that is a \u201cthreat to democracy,\u201d one side that \u201cthreatens life.\u201d With all requisite grace and mercy, we must not let radicals obfuscate that truth. Repudiate the wolf\u2019s dictionary.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author. The Supreme Court\u2019s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health has been handed down, with the Court overturning\u00a0Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), returning abortion policy to the states for the first time since 1973. As soon as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":858,"featured_media":268364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7077,3],"tags":[19,17911,14778,17648,17909,17910,17908,5773,2318],"yoast_head":"\nProjection is being used as a weapon against the pro-life movement<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Projection is necessary to justify misdeeds. 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