Yesterday, the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) pinned this tweet to the head of their Twitter feed:
THREAD: White supremacists at #Charlottesville have close ties not just to Trump, but GOP & anti-choice groups.
— NARAL (@NARAL) August 16, 2017
As implied, this was the start of a series of blistering tweets defaming and attacking the pro-life movement in America, equating those who oppose abortion with neo-Nazis. In bolstering its argument, NARAL went on to point out that one group which attended the rally in Charlottesville has also taken part in pro-life events:
Heimbach’s “Traditionalist Worker Party” mobilized members to attend the white supremacist #Charlottesville rally: https://t.co/cRrA9pvB0y
— NARAL (@NARAL) August 16, 2017
… as it did for the @40daysforlife and @March_for_life: https://t.co/2gN7H4g7vo pic.twitter.com/wBQvABUHCx
— NARAL (@NARAL) August 16, 2017
Correlation does not prove causation, however. The presence of pro-life beliefs among some white supremacists does not mean that all pro-lifers are white supremacists or vice versa. The truth, in fact, is quite the opposite.
Pro-abortion views among members of the alt-right and white supremacist movement are well documented, as is the racist vision of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and other early proponents of legalized abortion. Meanwhile, the pro-life movement’s goal of ending abortion would have a significantly positive effect on minority communities, whose unborn children, as Catherine Davis pointed out yesterday, have been wiped out in vastly disproportionate numbers.
While the narrative of white supremacists and pro-lifers working together would be a beneficial one for NARAL and its allies, reality, as usual, turns out to be much less convenient.
Photo credit: Anna Levinzon via Flickr, CC BY 2.0
