Janine Turner: Can Conservatives be Pro-Life in the Womb, but Not in the World?

Interesting piece from actress Janine Turner:

Conservative doublespeak in the media regarding the pro-life stance sends women running to the less judgmental Democratic party. This begs the question, where are the pro-life men and women in the media who should be defending the brave single mothers who choose life?

Though many conservatives work behind the scenes to support these single mothers, in front of the camera they close up like a clam.

This is why so many women choose abortion. They are afraid of the stigma. They hear conservative men and women spouting off statistics about how their children will be strippers, drug addicts and incarcerated and how they, the mothers who birthed the child, are distained by society.

Conservative candidates do occasionally pander to the single mother as heroic but then spout words like “child out of wedlock” and “illegitimate” in the next sentence accompanied by the woes the world has to offer her and her child. They insinuate her immorality as part of “deviant modern times.”

Not every pregnant woman is simply looking for a handout. Not every single mother wants to live off of the government. Not every single mother is amoral and ignorant. Not every single mother seeks a life without the father. Not every single mother is faithless.

Speaking of the father. Where is he? He is relatively blameless in the press – blithely carefree and unscathed.

Are conservatives considering the political ramifications, if not the moral ones? Their message in the media can be summed up as this, “I am pro-life. Abortion is a sin, yet woe to the single mother and her child. She is a modern amoral matriarch and her child’s life is doomed.”

This is the paradox presented to the conservative movement. Morally, how does one support the child yet alienate the mother who supports the child? How does one who cares for life, set that life up to fail from the very beginning?

Read the whole thing. The conservative single mother’s perspective isn’t one we hear too often in any segment of the media.

Janine is probably best known for playing Maggie O’Connell on TV’s Northern Exposure.  She’s also a singer, songwriter, and longhorn rancher. She hosts a weekend radio show on Dallas station KLIF and a daily radio show on ustream. Tomorrow’s guests on the ustream show include Andrea Tantaros from Fox’s The Five.