What is pro-life?
Pro-life is about treating children the same whether it's before or after they're born.
Aim
Our aim is to reduce abortion.
Activities
Real Choice holds debates and talks on "life" issues and uses the lessons learnt to shape the abortion debate.
What we have learnt
It seems to us that the abortion debate is in stalemate. On the one hand, we hear about a woman's right to choose, yet it's far from clear that abortion is what they really want. So many women tell us about their regret and how choice was the last thing they had. On the other hand, we hear about the unborn child's right to life, yet the number who die through abortion continues to rise.
However, we believe there's more to this story. Most pro-choice people we know here in England do not hold the lives of unborn children in disregard. It's just they have great compassion for women in difficult situations and feel it would be wrong to deny them a way out in their hour of need. They do support abortion but only as a necessary evil. It is this view and not some ethereal right to choose that underpins most public thinking on abortion.
As regards us pro-lifers, I don't know any who don't have great compassion for women in these situations. It's just we can't get our heads round how the way out has to hurt the unborn baby.
With all this compassion going round, it's hard to see how we have to live with all these women backed into a corner and all these broken babies. We wonder if another approach might be to focus on our main area of agreement: that women who have young children should be able to lead happy and fulfilling lives.
If we direct our compassion for women into improving the situations of pregnant women and the parents of young children, this has to be good for women and it can't be bad for the unborn child. Our suspicion is that for many women, relatively small and simple improvements may be enough to swing their choice away from abortion - and make it unnecessary to be so evil.
As a first step we tried to find objective information on why women chose abortion. However, it became clear that this was an area that had not previously been looked into.
So in 2008, we conducted a survey of 209 women who had previously had a social abortion in England and Wales. We asked the women what made them choose abortion and about their feelings around the whole experience.
Based on their feedback, we have produced a list of suggestions for improving conditions for pregnant women and the parents of young children – to give them a better deal so they can have a Real Choice.