Charlotte Pence: Abortion must be an important social justice cause for millennials
The daughter of Vice President Mike Pence is urging millennials to channel their passion for social justice to include advocacy against abortion because it is a massive injustice.
In an Tuesday editorial in the Washington Times, Charlotte Pence, who is now a graduate student at Harvard Divinity School, opined that if her generation is to care for people who are marginalized and oppressed, they must be concerned with the plight of unborn children.
"Yes, abortion is a violation of providing life to a human being — but it should also be acknowledged as oppression in its barest form. It ostracizes the weaker members of society, and it places a particular burden on minority communities," she wrote.
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She noted that abortion rates continue to vary by factors like ethnicity, race, and income level, and compared the fight to save unborn lives to the abolitionist movement, which worked to end slavery and give meaning to every life.
"In the same way, we must accept the hard reality that in allowing the celebration of abortion, we are committing injustice against human beings. The families that deal with the ramifications of an abortion also experience trauma, which, in turn, impacts the communities in which they live, creating a destructive cycle," Pence said.
"Abortion is also a women’s issue, but not in the way in which the progressive left has used it. The pro-choice message tells a woman the way in which she should live. The narrative is not one of empowerment and self-sufficiency; it is of fear."
And women who have had abortions are not to be blamed, she stressed, because society has failed them.
"I refuse to preserve the lie we tell girls from the time they are young: That the child they carry is an inconvenience, that they are not capable of rising above unforeseen life circumstances, that we will not reach out to help them," she said.
Pence does not believe that an abortion-free world will begin with government, noting how the U.S. Senate recently blocked consideration of legislation that would provide medical care to children born alive following botched abortions.
"We are in a pivotal time in our culture that will decide the moral ground we stand upon. This has to be a grass-roots movement of kindness, love and a sincere demand that the weakest in our society no longer be silenced and removed," she said.
"Only then will we see a cultural shift where we start to right the wrongs of the past and move toward a better future for our children — the ultimate desired outcome for social justice. Policy change is not the only response here, but rather a coming together should be our fight."
Charlotte Pence is the author of Where You Go: Life Lessons from My Father and co-author of the children's book Marlon Bundo's Day in the Life of the Vice President. Pence's mother, second lady Karen Pence, a trained watercolorist and art teacher, did the illustrations.
"I have always wanted to be a writer. I want to be a storyteller. I want to connect people. I also want to help facilitate conversations about religion and faith," Charlotte Pence said in an interview with The Christian Post last fall.
"I am not sure exactly what it is going to look like but often in our millennial generation, topics of faith are not necessarily talked about as much. I would love to start that conversation because I think a lot of people are very curious about religion and faith even though it's not talked about."
