Pro-life movement growing with pagans and Secular Pro-Life members
While the pro-life movement has been and is mostly dominated by conservative Christians, a young diverse group of the nonreligious, humanists and even pagan voices are joining the protest against abortion on demand.
Annual March for Life events, which marked the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, included activism by young pro-life pagans in Texas and secular opponents of abortion nationwide, according to a new report by The College Fix.
Tarquis Stargift Thomas, a nursing student at Lone Star College-North Harris, became a minor pro-life celebrity when the Texas Young Republican Federation tweeted out her photo at the Texas Rally for Life along with a Catholic group.
The photo of Thomas got picked up by Pro-Life Texas, where Thomas and other pro-life pagans found it. “Science proves we are all created equal in the same matter,” she wrote. “Oh Goddess thank you. I hope that our courage will awaken other fellow pagans to do the right thing and see that abortion truly harms women,” with the hashtag #prolifemovementinclusive.
photo courtesy March For Life Chicago
Her friend Melody Ellen also shared a picture of them at the rally with the Facebook page for Pro-Life Pagans, founded in 2011 to “unify pagans who are pro-life, but feel they are alone,” and encourage them to join the broader pro-life movement.
Meanwhile, Secular Pro-Life, founded in 2009 by then-University of Virginia law student Kelsey Hazzard, also participated in March for Life activities. Hazzard and others regularly speak on college campuses, including Nicholls State University in Louisiana this week.
Hazzard wrote a piece for Opposing Views around the Roe anniversary arguing that support for abortion rights is often “influenced by beliefs of a fundamentally supernatural character.”
Mainstream pro-life organizations are increasingly working with the nontraditional groups.
Kristina Hernandez, director of communications with Students for Life told The Fix in an email, praising these partners who use nontraditional and non-faith based outreach “to recruit people into the pro-life movement who are oftentimes missed by the more conservative mainstream national pro-life organizations,” said Hernandez.
Students for Life has also worked with Democrats for Life “in the past,” she said. “I’m sure we have some membership overlap, and we share each other’s Facebook posts from time to time.”
Hazzard cited “one woman who is active in Pagan pro-life work” who is on the advisory board “for an upcoming Secular Pro-Life project to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Hyde Amendment,” which cut off federal funding for abortion in most circumstances.
It’s important to work with diverse pro-life groups, because “if we’re going to make abortion unthinkable, we have to reach out to every community and subculture,” she said.
Groups like Pro-Life Pagans “are doing a great job reaching a portion of people who are often overlooked yet need this message just as much as the rest of us,” Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, the founder and president of New Wave Feminists, told The Fix in an email.
“This is a human rights issue and all humans, no matter their color or creed, should be fighting to free society from the lie that women need abortion to be fully liberated,” she said.
Thousands turned out for the 2015 March for Life in Chicago, IL. to credit Lori Solyom, TC Public Relations.
[…] Humanists and other secularlists are increasingly becoming alarmed by this Mengele type approach to the unborn, but it may be too late. Sander’s inability to denounce late-term abortions is shocking and I’d recommend the Vermont Senator review the ‘House of Horror’ Kermit Gosmell case for an eye opening revelation. […]