What does it mean to be Pro-Life

I am writing this in response to yet another pithy political statement I've seen going around lately.  It states this "Pro guns, Pro death penalty, Pro war, Anti healthcare...I'm Pro Life"

Okay, I have to admit that this is one of the stupidest things I've seen in a while.  First, being opposed to the Obamacare law or federal regulations of the health insurance industry does NOT make one anti-healthcare and to suggest otherwise is intentionally political and disingenuous.  Secondly, there are real numbers behind each of these statements that are required to put the lunacy of this pithy slogan in perspective.  For the record, I will use numbers for each of these from the mid 70s to the present except war where I will just use casualty figures from Iraq and Afghanistan. That said, for full disclosure, I'm not opposed to all abortions, just the use of abortion as birth control...also, I'm opposed to the death penalty...I'm against both recent wars, but not necessarily against all war...I believe in the right to bear arms, but generally don't want to be around them.  Now, let's actually look at the numbers.

It is estimated (no real number exists here) that 45,000 deaths occur per year from not having health insurance.  I won't try to refute or support this number.  It comes from the American Journal of Public Health, so I'll take it at face value.  Extrapolating that to the time period I'm trying to cover, mid-1970s to present, and that makes a total of about 1.62 million deaths...tragic to be sure.

In 2007, nearly 32,000 deaths were attributed to guns in the U.S. and tragically, 55 percent of those were from suicide.  It would take forever to get the exact numbers for every year, but this is probably a pretty good sample.  Extrapolating 2007 numbers over time, that equates to about 1.12 million deaths.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan killed 7,718 U.S. troops to date according to iCasualties.  Covering allied deaths as well, it brings the total number for both wars up to 28,221.  This, admittedly, does not track civilian casualties, but there are estimated numbers for this which brings the total deaths from these two wars to about 920,000.  This is a truly tragic number since about 890,000 of these are civilian deaths.  However, this is also one of the best reasons to avoid going to war in the first place...because people die.

This adds up to a tragic total of 3.66 million deaths due to these things.

Now, the argument here is that it is hypocritical to be pro-life and pro-death penalty.  Constitutionally speaking, the pro-lifers believe that an unborn fetus is a life and therefore its right to life is being denied through the act of abortion.  Also, those pro-lifers who are also pro-death penalty (the above statement assumes they all are, which is an unfounded assumption), generally believe that rapists and murderers who are on death row or been put to death have forfeited their constitutional protections because they have violated another person's rights to life, pursuit of happiness, to be secure in your person, and others. Therefore, these hardened criminals aren't necessarily considered tragic by everyone, so I'm counting them separately.  Since the death penalty was reinstituted in the U.S., there have been 1,283 deaths, not even enough to tick my total number up to 3.67 and so it remains at about 3.66 million total deaths due to these things.

Finally, according to a Guttmacher Institute study, 22 percent of all pregnancies in the U.S. end in abortion.  So, the Pro-Life group, per se, is arguing that abortion denies a person their right to life, thus the name.  A criminal has forfeited their right to life because of their crime, a soldier chooses to risk their life for their country, so right to lifers wouldn't even include those groups in their worldview.  I will, however, for sake of argument.  The tragedy of 22 percent of pregnancies ending in abortion shouldn't be a cause for celebration as it is for the Pro-Choice group.  This means that there are approximately 1.2 million abortions performed each year.  Since 1973, there have been over 48 million abortions.  So, next time, try not to compare the deaths of 48 million babies to the deaths of 1283 murderers and rapists.  However, in perspective, 48 million over 36 years is significantly higher than 3.66 million.  In fact, the total number of abortions surpasses the total deaths in ALL the other stated categories by 13 times.  So, in order for all those other categories to achieve enough deaths to add up to the 48 million abortions, we'd have to have our current conditions exist for 468 years...of course, after 468 years under current conditions, there'd be nearly 561 million abortions performed.  I'm gonna have to go with the Pro-Lifers on this one.