FROM SFLA NEWS

FACT CHECK: Sorry Reveal News, Proven Science Isn’t Up for Debate  

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Caroline Wharton - 14 Oct 2022

Sometimes, pro-abortion propaganda is really just laughable in its claims, and if you’re in need of a good chuckle, we can fix you up because a new podcast/report featuring Students for Life of America (SFLA) recently came out with several disinformation doozies on contraceptives, abortifacients, and more. Complete with logical fallacies and scientific misunderstanding, this report by Reveal News promises to entertain — if not to exasperate. Here’s a couple of our favorite take-ways from the podcast:  

The Anti-Kudos Abound  

When discussing SFLA and explaining our organization to listeners, Reveal News reporter Amy Mostafa stated, “Students for Life is becoming the new face of the anti-abortion movement. The group has a large staff and a bigger budget than many other anti-abortion organizations. And Students for Life has a large social media following.”  

A student from the University of California Berkeley Elizabeth Moss continued, “There’s also Students for Life Action, which is a 501(c)(4), meaning they can lobby our legislatures. And through Students for Life Action, they also are responsible for writing some life at conception bills.”  

Mostafa agreed with her, stating that Students for Life Action’s (SFLAction) state bills protect life and prohibit abortion from the moment of conception and adding, “Students for Life also has built some serious political clout.”  

You have to love anti-kudos and inadvertent flattery. After all, there’s no more sincere compliment than one that was unintended, right?  

No Buts About It: Science Says Life Begins at Conception  

In the podcast, we do have to agree when Mustafa makes an interesting point, stating, “Understanding exactly when Students for Life believes a group of cells becomes a life is really important.”  

That’s absolutely true; understanding when life begins is important because we need to know when life begins as a humane society in order to be able to protect life through all its stages — not just when our lives are mature enough to demand and procure such care themselves. Science tells us that life begins at the moment of conception when the sperm and egg meet to create a totally unique person that has never occurred before in the universe and never will again.  

However, our agreement with Mostafa ends when she goes off into the unscientific deep end and claims in the podcast that no one can really know when life begins. She states: 

“For Students for Life and many other anti-abortion activists, this moment of conception is when a life begins and therefore when a pregnancy begins. This is a religious idea, not a medical or scientific one. But for Students for Life, it means that anything that interferes or even has the chance of interfering with a fertilized egg is an abortion.”  

Just in case her science denial wasn’t clear enough, she adds, “It’s not science that considers a fertilized egg, a life. It’s…Students for Life and others who believe that’s when life begins.”  

Obviously, Mostafa hasn’t done much research on when life begins or she would see overwhelming support from the scientific community that life begins at conception. SFLA doesn’t create the science; we just follow the majority of American biologists who agree life begins at conception (fertilization). A quick Google search works, too — articles from Ivy Leagues like Princeton will pop up quickly with their own research and textbooks supporting this fact.  

Just Because a Scientific Fact is Older Doesn’t Mean It’s Wrong  

Mostafa also takes an aim at SFLA’s position on abortifacients, particularly hormonal birth control and Plan B. She claims that labeling drugs/devices that prevent implantation as abortifacients is “medical information,” but this is the exact reasoning that is actually on the packaging of Plan B — which is when Mostafa makes a really ridiculous point.  

She says, “This language goes back to the early 2000s, under George W. Bush’s administration,” and basically makes the point that well, since George Bush isn’t the President anymore, this science must not be good anymore. It’s too old.  

An interesting point when you consider that she brought a pro-abortion medical source, Diana Blythe, onto the podcast for this segment who revealed that she has been in the field since at least 1982 — which is several years before Bush was even President! Clearly, we must discount anything Blythe says for this reason.  

Or is gravity still considered scientific fact even though it was discovered in the 1600s? What about the fact that the earth is round? That scientific belief is thought of as happening around 500 BC — does the age of this fact make Mostafa a flat-earther?  

The point is: The science has stayed the same on the back of the Plan B pill packaging because the science is still true. Deal with it.  

READ NEXT: Notre Dame Professor Works Around Indiana Law & Catholic Values to Arrange Student Abortions

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