In the aftermath of Dr. George Tiller's murder many people have asked whether anti-abortion rhetoric constitutes "hate speech" or an "incitement to terrorism." This rhetoric includes language describing abortion as a form of violence, as torture, an attack on innocent life, executing a child, killing, baby-killing, murder, child murder, mass murder, like slavery, a genocide, a holocaust, worse than any holocaust.

But whether or not it is hate speech, and whether or not it can be linked directly to the murder of Dr. Tiller and other abortion providers, it is language that reveals a frightening degree of anger, disrespect for and hostility not only to the people who perform abortions but also to those who have abortions -- pregnant women.

As National Advocates for Pregnant Women's video, Pregnant Women and Mother's Deserve Better explains, when individuals and organizations use this language -- "violence," "torture," "an attack on innocent life," "executing a child," "killing," "baby-killing," "murder," "child murder," "mass murder," "like slavery,"  "genocide,"  "holocaust," "worse than any holocaust" -- they are not just describing a procedure or the small number of doctors who provide women with abortion services. They are also talking about the millions of pregnant women who have had and will continue to have abortions, whether or not there are any doctors left alive to provide them safely.

Who are the millions of "murderous" women who have abortions? Sixty-one percent of women having abortions are already mothers. By the age of 45, 84% of all women in U.S. will have become pregnant and given birth and 43% will have had an abortion.

In other words, the women who have abortions are overwhelmingly mothers.

So we need to ask -- do the people who use this language really think the mothers who have had abortions are the same as, or worse than, those who carry out torture, kill children, and commit mass-murder? This question applies to TV personalities like Bill O'Reilly, to mainstream organizations like the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops and to  peaceful picketers like those who protested President Obama when he gave the commencement speech at Notre Dame.

NAPW believes that the pregnant women who have abortions, who suffer miscarriages, who give birth, who raise children, and who love their families deserve better.

It is time for all those who care about pregnant women and mothers -- whatever their views on abortion -- to write, call, and, demonstrate against individuals, organizations, and institutions that use this language. It is time to explain why you think it is wrong to equate pregnant women and mothers with Hitler. Here are some things you can do:

Regardless of your point of view about abortion, it is time to ask your spiritual, religious, and political leaders to give a sermon or speech explaining the difference between the personal decisions women and their families make and government sponsored genocide. While some women do feel that an abortion ends a life, or at least a potential life, they know that their individual and very private decisions and circumstances are not the same as decisions to carry out state-sponsored genocide. Government protection of private decision-making is not the same as government authorized military action against particular groups of people. Implying that the decisions individual women make to have abortions is the same  or worse than a holocaust denying and it should stop.

Regardless of your point of view about abortion, it is time to ask your spiritual, religious, and political leaders to explain the difference between pregnancy and slavery. People can oppose abortion without equating pregnant women to slave holders and their personal decisions with the institution of slavery. Claiming that the individual decisions of pregnant women and their families is like or worse than slavery denies the history, the meaning, and the lessons that must be learned from America's participation in the African Slave Trade and its history of state-sponsored slavery.

Students, especially, can use the resources offered by Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom to counter the elaborate and well-funded college campus programs arguing that the collective actions of pregnant women and mother are worse than any genocide.

Tell your story.  The anti-abortion movement has created the illusion that there are two kinds of women: those who have abortions and those who have babies. The truth is that the vast majority of women who have abortions are already or will someday also be mothers. You can make it hard to label mothers murderers, by showing that the women who are accused of creating a "culture of death" are giving birth and doing the caretaking  that is at the core of a true culture of life. If you have had an abortion and given birth experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth, adopted or raised a child -- tell your story with a picture, a sign, a 1 minute or less video and we will post it at advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/mystory .

At his Notre Dame commencement President Obama asked, "How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?"

One way to do this is to share NAPW's video and its message: People can oppose abortion without equating pregnant women and mothers, and the people who support them, with mass-murderers and baby killers.

Ms. Lafferty argues that NAPW has an “extremist agenda.” Specifically, she highlights the fact that NAPW  “defends drug-addicted women from prosecutions for endangering their unborn babies.” Indeed we do, and at least for one reason we would have thought Ms. Lafferty and her Coalition, would approve of: because threatening pregnant women with prosecution creates an incentive for them to have abortions.

Given how hard it is for most people to overcome an addiction problem quickly (just ask Rush Limbaugh) as well as the difficulty of obtaining appropriate treatment (especially for pregnant and parenting women), laws that threaten to punish women who carry their pregnancies to term in spite of a drug problem place substantial pressure on them to get unwanted abortions.

In fact, this kind of prosecution in North Dakota (one of the states where a personhood bill has been introduced) compelled a pregnant woman to have an abortion. In 1992 Martina Greywind, who was approximately twelve weeks pregnant, was arrested.  She was charged with reckless endangerment based on the claim that by inhaling paint fumes, she was creating a substantial risk of serious bodily injury or death to a “person” -- her “unborn child.”  After her arrest, a lawyer for the anti-abortion group Lambs of Christ filed a petition seeking to have the woman's brother, Ken Greywind, appointed her legal guardian. Mr. Greywind explained in court papers "I believe she is contemplating an abortion in order to have the charge of reckless endangerment dismissed.”

Ms. Greywind did obtain an abortion. And indeed, the prosecutor dropped the charges citing the fact that she had “terminated her pregnancy.”

We admit it. NAPW opposes laws that create an incentive for women to terminate otherwise wanted pregnancies. We would hope that such opposition would provide common ground for NAPW, Ms. Lafferty and her organization.

We would also hope that we could work together to spread the good news about these mothers and their children. Ms. Lafferty says in her comments about NAPW that we defend mothers who “are addicting their unborn babies and subjecting them to extreme risks of mental retardation or death.” Ms. Lafferty, like many people, believes that a pregnant woman who uses any amount of an illegal drug – and crack cocaine in particular -- will inevitably harm her “unborn child.”

For nearly two decades, the popular press was filled with inaccurate information about the effects of in utero cocaine exposure. Media hype, however, is not the same as scientific evidence. In 2004 leading researchers in the field of prenatal exposure to drugs signed an open letter explaining that these women are not “addicting” their “unborn babies.” “Addiction” they wrote “is a technical term that refers to compulsive behavior that continues in spite of adverse consequences. By definition, babies cannot be ‘addicted’ to crack or anything else.”

Moreover, these experts as well as federal courts and leading federal government agencies now confirm that “the phenomena of "'crack babies’ . . . is essentially a myth.” As the National Institute for Drug Abuse has reported, “Many recall that ‘crack babies,’ or babies born to mothers who used crack cocaine while pregnant, were at one time written off by many as a lost generation…  It was later found that this was a gross exaggeration.” And, as the U.S. Sentencing Commission has concluded, “[t]he negative effects of prenatal cocaine exposure are significantly less severe than previously believed” and those negative effects “do not differ from the effects of prenatal exposure to other drugs, both legal and illegal.” Most recently the New York Times, relying on actual experts, including the pediatrician featured in this NAPW video, set the record straight with a story entitled The Epidemic That Wasn’t.

So instead of assuming the worst, we could join forces and together oppose punitive approaches that are known to encourage some women to have abortions, and to discourage many more from seeking prenatal care.

NAPW knows that there are not two kinds of women – those who have abortions and those who have babies. Sixty-one percent of women who have abortions are already mothers, and another 24 percent will go on to become mothers.  Over the course of their lives, 85 percent of all women bring life into this world. NAPW advocates for all of them. We don’t expect Ms. Lafferty to join us in our work to ensure that women have access to safe legal abortion services, but we do hope she will support our efforts to ensure that women who do want to go to term aren’t punished for doing so.

Personhood USA apparently sees itself as the new, hipper, more effective incarnation of the anti-abortion movement. Personhood USA hopes that by establishing the "pre-born, as legal persons with protection under the law" it will end the "injustice of abortion."  Its attempt to do this last November through a "personhood" ballot measure in Colorado's failed miserably. Nevertheless, Personhood USA, is committed to "working tirelessly to establish personhood in every State."

What supporters of this approach don't mention is that if the unborn have legal personhood rights, pregnant women won't. There is really no way around this. As National Advocates for Pregnant Women's video demonstrates, if successful, this strategy will mean that upon become pregnant, women will lose their civil and human rights.

As Angela Carder learned it is not just life vs. choice - but life vs. life. Angela Carder, 25 weeks pregnant, was critically ill. More than anything, she wanted to live.   A court, however, ordered cesarean surgery based on claims of fetal rights. The surgery was performed over her objections as well as those of her physicians and family.  Angela Carder died two days later - the cesarean surgery listed as a contributing factor. The fetus was born alive but died within two hours.

Personhood USA doesn't address how personhood laws will affect women like Ms. Carder and others who have no intention of ending a pregnancy.  Perhaps this is why legislators in at least five states have introduced bills that carry their message and several more are working on ballot measures like the one in Colorado.

In fact, North Dakota's house recently passed a personhood bill that would require the state to interpret all of the state's laws to apply to "any organism with the genome of homo sapiens" including a fertilized egg. In addition to inviting such facetious Onion-like headlines as "North Dakota House Passes 'Homo' Rights Law, this bill creates the basis for policing all pregnant women.

Upon becoming pregnant, women would lose their right to medical privacy, since under North Dakota law doctors are required to report to child welfare authorities whenever they have reasonable cause to suspect that a child (an organism) is abused or neglected. Accordingly, if this bill passes, pregnant women in North Dakota who are obese, have diabetes, or smoke should probably report directly to child welfare authorities - or perhaps some new agency, such as the Department of Organism Protection.

Indeed, a recent horrifying incident in California could become commonplace in North Dakota.  A pregnant woman in California experienced a miscarriage at one-month gestation. Her doctor advised her to preserve the embryonic tissue in the freezer until she and her husband decided whether to request genetic testing or to take the remains to a mortuary.  When they decided against testing, they called a mortuary. They were asked for a death certificate and were directed to the County Coroner to obtain one. The Coroner instructed them to call the police. When they complied, the police heard the words "human remains" and responded by descending on their home, entering without a warrant, and searching for what they assumed was the evidence of a crime against a person.   

While the California case reflects miscommunication, families that experience miscarriages would have to expect such intrusions in states that pass personhood laws. Similarly pregnant women who miss prenatal care appointments, don't take prenatal vitamins, or drink any amount of alcohol could be deemed abusive under criminal child [organism] abuse and endangerment laws. Personhood laws would also provide the basis for prosecuting women for murder, manslaughter, or negligent homicide if they suffered miscarriages or stillbirths.

In fact states with these laws would look a lot like South Carolina, the only state that has, by judicial fiat, effectively adopted a personhood law.  More than 90 pregnant women and new mothers have been arrested there based on fetal personhood claims. Recently, a pregnant woman in South Carolina fell from a 5th floor window. The press reported this incident as a suicide attempt. She survived but suffered a stillbirth as a result of the fall. Last month she was arrested on charges of homicide by child abuse and is still being held without bail.

Personhood USA asserts that "each and every human being must be respected and protected from fertilization until natural death."  Their legislation, however, would have the effect of excluding pregnant women from this protection. People committed to a true culture of life need to oppose their legislative proposals, supporting instead ones that include the interests of the women who give that life.