How do we help women? Abortion isn't the solution

In a remarkable 1995 essay, the feminist writer Naomi Wolf made a startling admission. Acknowledging that abortion ends a human life, she criticized her fellow pro-choice advocates for downplaying its moral gravity. “Clinging to a rhetoric about abortion in which there is no life and no death, we entangle our beliefs in a series of self-delusions, fibs and evasions,” she wrote.

Despite this frank honesty, though, Wolf thought that abortion can be a “necessary evil,” an evil that should remain legal. After all, pregnancy (especially when unintended) can be hard. Pregnant women often face very difficult and even unfair circumstances that make abortion seem like a needed course of action. And this is precisely how many people think about it. They think abortion, even if not ideal, may be best for women. They think it’s the compassionate solution to a serious problem. And they think pro-life people just don’t care.

How do we respond to this kind of view in conversation with someone who isn’t pro-life? Here are three points to keep in mind.  

(1) Agree about the importance of helping women.

Your immediate response—after listening and letting the other person share their concerns—should be to agree that women too often face difficult circumstances and that they deserve our support (because they do!). This agreement builds rapport and shows that you really do care; it makes the other person more likely to be open to what you have to say later.

Many abortion supporters think pro-life people are callous or dismissive toward the real concerns of women. Your priority should be to dispel that stereotype. If you do that—even if you do nothing else—you will have softened the heart of the other person and at least opened the door to a possible change of mind in the future.

(2) Share why you don’t think abortion is the solution.

Most people don't think difficult circumstances justify the killing of valuable human beings who have human rights (like you and me). If unborn children count as valuable human beings, then killing them isn’t justified. You might illustrate this point by saying something like the following:

Here’s why I don’t think abortion is the solution. I think the embryo or fetus is a living member of our species, which is something that we know from science. I also think that all members of our species have rights and deserve protection from violence. You might disagree with me about this, but I think the fetus has a right to life just like a toddler does. So imagine this. Imagine that the parent of a toddler is facing extraordinarily difficult circumstances—abandonment by their spouse, loss of their job, poverty. Would getting rid of the toddler be a reasonable solution? I don’t think so. And since I think that the fetus matters just like a toddler does, I don’t think killing the fetus is the solution to difficult circumstances either. What do you think? Can you see where I’m coming from?

Remember: Pro-life and pro-choice people don’t disagree about the importance of helping women. They disagree about whether unborn children really are valuable human beings deserving of protection. If you can affirm the importance of helping women while directing the conversation to that core issue, you’ve already gone a long way toward persuasion.

(3) Emphasize that the real solution is both/and, not either/or.

Abortion often happens because women feel like they have no choice. Regarding her own experience, Wolf—in that 1995 essay—wrote that “there were two columns in my mind—‘Me’ and ‘Baby’—and the first won out.” Notice that this frames the solution to the challenges of pregnancy as either/or, mom versus baby, as if they are competitors and we have to pick one at the expense of the other. But that’s not an assumption we should accept.

Pro-life people are deeply invested in providing options and meeting the needs of women. Dozens of pregnancy resource centers across Minnesota, and thousands nationwide, provide practical assistance and abortion alternatives to pregnant women and new moms. Familiarize yourself with a center near you and the services it offers. Then, in your conversation, you can make a point of letting the other person know about the help for women and families that you support. You don't just oppose abortion; you want something positive and good and compassionate.

The truth is that pregnancy and parenthood aren’t either/or. They're both/and. We want to protect unborn babies, and we want to support their moms just as much.

This article first appeared in the July-September 2025 issue of MCCL News.