Pro-Life

Pro-Life defines a political ideology concerned with the prevention of fetal abortion during some stage of pregnancy. It has been extended in definition by many organizations to include preventing use of the death penalty or abortion during any stage of pregnancy for any reason.

The issue (see abortion) is difficult to analyze in most classical systems of ethics due to the inherent conflicts that occur between the life of an unborn child and a mother, or, in cases of the death penalty and summary execution, between the life of potential or existing victims and the life of a killer.

A common, often essential liberal philosophy is to maximize the personal rights of adults, and this is often seen to supersede rights of the unborn. The contrasting philosophy of most American conservatives is commonly attributed to the Judeo-Christian interpretation of the soul as existing at the moment of the conception of a child, that is, once an embryo is fertilized.

Critics of the Pro-Life philosophy often point to contradictions in the opinions of many activists, such as those who support the death penalty but oppose abortion. Similar contradictions are argued to exist in the contrasting Pro-Choice movement.