By Guy Page

For Addison Bowen of Wallingford, taking a pro-life stand has nothing to do with being religious or Republican. He’s neither.

Bowen describes himself as a secular Democrat. For him, abortion is an affront to science and social justice. The articulate young man asserts it makes no rational sense to say a human is not a person while in a birth canal and then suddenly becomes a person after it leaves the mother’s body.

The person hasn’t changed – “the only difference is location,” Bowen said.

Bowen abhors how oppressors through history have sought to justify injustice by labeling victims as “non-persons.” The sign he carried at the Vermont Right to Life rally Saturday, Jan. 23 on the steps of the Vermont State House shows a whipped slave, Jews under Nazi tyranny, and an unborn child — all equally ‘not a person,’ separated only by the date in history.

Bowen may not share the premise of conscience-stricken slaveholder Thomas Jefferson who wrote, “I tremble when I consider that God is just.” But his firm grip on human nature and history is as damning and succinct.

“Times change, people don’t. We’re always looking for some group to exploit,” Bowen said.

As a prolife, secular Democrat, Bowen is not alone. While Democratic leadership in Vermont and nationwide uniformly, rigidly advocate for unrestricted abortion, there are dissenters in the rank and file. An organization called Democrats for Life of America has state chapters nationwide, including New Hampshire. Eighty-one of the 114 state and local candidates it endorsed won election in 2020.

A group named SecularPro-life publishes a blog approaching the abortion question from a rational, science-based perspective.

Read more of Guy Page’s reports. Vermont Daily is sponsored by True North Media.