Oct. 9 is recognized – by some – as National Pro-Life Cupcake Day, but not even the most sugary speech can conceal a message based in aggressive, misplaced judgement.
National Pro-Life Cupcake Day was founded by an anti-abortion movement, Cupcakes for Life, with the mission to encourage peaceful conversation about abortion, according to the movement’s website.
But valuable conversation doesn’t thrive alongside manipulation.
The basis of National Pro-Life Cupcake Day is to make cupcakes in celebration of children who don’t “have the chance to have a birthday because of abortion.” The use of a sweet little child’s treat – honoring aborted embryos – sends a clear message villainizing anyone who has gotten an abortion.
Movements like Cupcakes for Life are commonplace, especially among religious communities. When cupcakes aren’t used as the symbol for being chronically unable to mind your own business: Love, motherhood and even the legacy of Susan B. Anthony –– talk about irony.
There are countless non-profits and Crisis Pregnancy Centers, or anti-abortion centers which pressure already-pregnant people to give birth, aimed at eliminating the bodily autonomy of people with uteruses. The “pro-life” cause itself – so positive in name alone – masquerades in fake sweetener: a concern for developing life which won’t extend to children born to immigrants, babies in need of federally-funded support programs or transgender children in need of gender-affirming care.
And tragically, their movements are working. As anti-abortion restrictions tighten, clinically-performed abortions have decreased 5% in states without a total ban since 2024, suggesting new policies are successfully preventing people in need of abortions from accessing out-of-state care, according to the Guttmacher Institute’s most recent study.
Lighting a candle for unborn fertilized eggs doesn’t extinguish the bloody violence of pregnancy complications unaddressed because of banned abortions.
Adding sprinkles to misogyny doesn’t make it easier to swallow.
People with uteruses and allies, pro-choice advocates, people who have gotten abortions, people who couldn’t get an abortion when they needed one, don’t take any hate disguised as love for life, on Oct. 9 or any day.
They will ride high horses around hospitals of pregnant people without access to necessary healthcare and through crowds of victims of sexual assault. They will blindly skirt aside schools where living children learn how to hide from armed invaders, and apparently, they’ll be carrying cupcakes.
What an insult to such an adorable treat.
Having an abortion makes you no less deserving of a cupcake; claiming ownership over your own body does not make you evil.
So, make some uterus and ovary themed cupcakes, and share them with no one; celebrate your fantastic anatomy for you, and for the choice no one has the right to make for you.
