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Could pro-life be a control tactic towards women, rather than the safeguarding of the unborn? That’s what Shefali Luthra wants you to believe. She recently spoke on MSNBC’s Way Too Early to promote her new book, where she makes such claims. Yet, the evidence she uses, instead of debunking the pro-lifers’ intentions, simply illustrates how perspectives have evolved.

The 19th News health reporter Luthra told host Ali Vitali that it wasn’t until 1880 that the criminalization of abortion spread across all states. However, she forces the narrative that this trend was orchestrated by a male-dominated medical establishment aiming to control women rather than grounded in moral or ethical debates. She adds that the move was evident of societal gender dynamics in the 19th century and not about gender based on biology.

Luthra goes on to articulate a belief that restricting abortion didn’t stem from medical, religious, or political spheres. Instead, she leans on the go-to narrative that tightening the regulations are about power and control. In her book, she claims that the right to an abortion is as old as the nation, if not older.

While Luthra’s research’s focus on the role of women and midwives in the past may be of historical curiosity, it doesn’t necessarily disprove the fundamental belief underlining the pro-life stance. Opinions can change over time. Isn’t that what the so-called “party of progress” should appreciate?

Discussing further, Luthra opines that the struggle over abortion rights, which has become a seemingly unavoidable hotbed issue, especially since the landmark Roe V. Wade decision, was not always the case. She argues that people, for the majority of our nation’s history, regarded abortions as a normal method of controlling their family planning and reproductive health— not a controversial topic.

Luthra’s argument, however, sidesteps the critical question in the abortion debate—whether the embryonic and fetal stages of development are distinct stages of life or not. By offering distracting arguments, and largely ignoring this fundamental question, Luthra assumes a typical leftist rhetoric.

After 50 years of Roe v. Wade, it’s clear that effort to overturn it always meets with a headwind. Such struggle stems from a significant matter of when life begins, not from conspiracies of control. The inference that pro-life is a strategy targeting women’s control diminishes the profoundness of this ongoing debate—it’s not mere noise, as she suggests. Ignoring the core question won’t resolve this dispute in favor of the democrats. The issue of when life begins needs careful questioning, not easy escape routes.

In conclusion, Luthra’s argument that pro-life intentions are powered by a desire to control women fail to stand up to scrutiny. It is just an attempt to sideline the true essence of the abortion debate—a profound consideration of when life begins. By disregarding this core question, she’s doing a disservice to the serious nature of the issue. Only by directly addressing this question can anyone hope to progress toward consensus in this contentious debate. Extra noise and distraction do nothing more than muddy the waters.

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