The Tragedy that is the pro-life movement

Generally speaking, I'm not a very socially conservative person, in the sense that I do not wish to impose my personal moral preferences on society as a whole.

However, there is one issue that puts me firmly in the "socially conservative" camp, and that issue is abortion.

Now, some people might see that as a contradiction, and I can't blame them. Some people innocently believe that being pro-life means imposing personal religious beliefs onto society.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I don't blame people who believe that pro-lifers are insane wackos for two primary reasons:

The pro-life movement itself was horribly thought out and organized. Most "mainstream folk" came to assume that only evangelical Christians were pro-life, and that being pro-life was directly tied to being a religiously active person. Sadly, that is largely the case, but it isn't ALWAYS the case. People can oppose abortion for a VARIETY of reasons. Nothing in my religion causes me to oppose abortion... I oppose abortion because of what I see as the taking of a life. My religious scriptures don't advise me on the issue - my judgment is completely my own. Here's where the biggest problem was... evangelical Christians (in the United States) saw absolutely nothing wrong with defining the pro-life movement as a Christian movement. How stupid and short-sighted. Instead of broadening the movement to include people who were less religious or even atheistic, the pro-life cause let it be known that it was content with the perception that being pro-life was synonymous with being Christian. Of course, I'm generalizing. Some pro-life Christians are remarkably far-sighted and awesome people, but I'm trying to speak about the rule, not the exception.

Second, let me paste a comment that was posted on my blog a few days ago under the name "White Metal":

ABORTION IS EVIL!Kill abortioners to show them what its like!DIE ABORTION!There is no excuse to end the life of an infant. Whether or not you think they are nice is irrelevant. It is a BABY. An UNBORN one at that. **** abortion. It is pervese sickness. It is satanism. There can be no other words for such sickness. It disgusts me. Think about it-they are CUTTING up a baby. Lets cut up abortioners too! Then the scream won't be so silent.**** ABORTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a horrible comment to make. I can understand the emotion behind considering abortion evil, but the way to lessen abortion is not through condemnation or threats. The pro-life movement needs to spend more time winning hearts. The pro-life movement in Canada is dead because the left did an excellent job of tying "pro-choice" with secularism, and consequently, "pro-life" with religious extremism. It doesn't always have to be that way. Winning hearts isn't always easy when pro-abortion orthodoxy dominates most fields in society, but it isn't impossible either. Society continues to renew itself every decade, every generation. Creating a pro-life majority might be out of reach in the foreseeable future, but creating an environment, where at the very minimum, government could place some commonsense restrictions on abortion besides the idea of "viability" is very possible... but instead, Canadians seem content to elect a bunch of demagogues who are spineless and conscious-less because they will do anything to spin common-sense restrictions on abortion into a full-fledged fear campaign.