OPINION:
As we prepare to gather at the March for Life later this month, the pro-life movement is at a critical juncture. Abortions are on the rise despite the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Why? Abortion persists because it is sustained by a culture trained to discard what it finds inconvenient.
Abortion is a terrible symptom of a deeper disease. The fundamental sickness is what Pope Francis called the “throwaway culture,” a way of thinking that treats human beings, responsibilities and even the natural world as disposable when they become burdensome.
The pro-life movement knows this instinctively. We have always understood that protecting life does not end at birth. Our principles compel us to walk with mothers during pregnancy and long after, to support families and to insist that no one is disposable — not the poor, not the disabled, not the elderly and certainly not the unborn.
If we want to defeat abortion for good, we must recognize that killing the unborn is a terrible result of the throwaway culture itself. This culture teaches us that anything interfering with our plans — an unexpected child, a struggling family member, a demanding obligation — can be eliminated. It tells us that freedom means freedom from responsibility rather than freedom for love and sacrifice. In a culture that prizes convenience over responsibility, autonomy over solidarity and efficiency over love, abortion becomes thinkable and then acceptable and, finally, routine.
Recognizing this reality is vital because it means the pro-life movement must focus not only on legal victories but also on cultural reformation. Although laws can restrain evil, it is culture that embeds it, and only culture that can uproot it.
Ultimately, the root of the throwaway culture lies in our broken relationship with God’s creation. From the earliest age, we are now imbued with the idea that there is nothing sacred in the created world. Rather, everything is mere matter that can be manipulated, abused and disposed of for our comfort.
Trees that our ancestors once imagined were filled with fairies are now mowed down to make way for flat suburban sprawl. Electricity, which our forefathers experienced with wonder, is now consumed without any thought about where it came from. Oceans that once inspired breathless awe are now filled with trash. Those raised in a culture that treats the wonders of creation as things to consume will naturally treat other people as means to their own satisfaction as well.
To cultivate a culture of life, we must address this solipsism and restore a sense of respect for everything God created. In other words, if we cultivate respect for material creation, we can uproot the throwaway culture and help restore people’s respect for one another, especially the unborn.
Pro-life advocates understand the holistic nature of the culture of life. Our love for the unborn naturally pushes us to be concerned for the planet. After all, pro-life advocates believe that life is not a burden, but rather a beautiful gift. This belief demands that we care about the air our children breathe, the water they drink, the food they eat and the world they will inherit.
Yet for decades, our innate concern for the natural world has been stifled because the professional environmental movement has been monopolized by the radical, pro-abortion left. It speaks passionately about protecting nature while supporting abortion, population control and anti-family policies. It decries waste while treating children as carbon footprints. It claims to oppose a throwaway culture while endorsing the most extreme form of disposability imaginable: the destruction of unborn human life.
This is not just hypocrisy; it is a fatal contradiction.
When care for the planet is used as a Trojan horse for policies hostile to life, marriage and family, it rightly provokes resistance, but rejecting secular environmentalism does not mean rejecting stewardship. In fact, it is pro-life advocates who are uniquely positioned to reclaim it.
We care for creation not because we fear people, but because we love them. This is the alternative the pro-life movement must present: a vision in which every baby is welcomed into a beautiful world. It’s a vision rooted not in scarcity and control, but in responsibility and hope.
Marching for life, then, must be about more than opposing abortion. It must be a public rejection of the lie that anything — people or creation — can be treated as disposable. It is a call to cultural renewal, the belief that every human life is sacred and the world God created is a gift to be stewarded, not squandered.
That is the deeper work of the pro-life movement, and that is the future worth marching for.
• Clare Ath (@clareanneath) is the co-founder and executive director of Vita et Terra, a conservative Catholic environmental nonprofit rooted in pro-life values that champions care for creation.
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