Sex Pistols song "Bodies" - pro-life?

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According to Wikipedia: "In 2006, National Review magazine put the song at #8 on its list of the “50 Greatest Conservative Rock songs”, citing a pro-life message.[4] So too, music critic Robert Christgau called it “effectively anti-abortion…”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodies_%28Sex_Pistols_song%29

I’m not aware of this song ever being considered “pro-life.” Am I missing something here?

In a not-too-entirely-coincidental irony, Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) was in fact cast in an ill-fated revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar” just last year, which makes me wonder if he really is pro-life:
rollingstone.com/music/news/johnny-rotten-incubus-brandon-boyd-set-jesus-christ-superstar-tour-20140404

Pro-life song? Not pro-life? Somewhere in-between?
 
The song is graphic and depressing. A former priest at our parish thought it was good when I showed him it. It is ‘neutral’ in my opinion, but is so graphic and gross it’s hard not to come away without feeling disgust with abortion.
 
I’ve had the impression that it is, certainly, an anti-abortion song as I do know the song.
 
I’ve always thought of it as an anti-abortion song, which is downright awesome in my opinion, and it’s very graphically anti-abortion too. **“Mommy!!! I’m not an animal!!!” ** hehe

On the same note, I’ve also long thought that Leonard Cohen’s “Diamonds in the Mine” is an anti-abortion song as well with a bit of a comical edge to it… especially the line about how “some very clever doctor” has “sterilized” the woman, and the man in the song seems very disturbed by the fact that… "the only man of energy, yes the revolution’s pride, he trained a hundred women just to kill an unborn child!" …etc. The whole song sounds like a diatribe against abortion.
 
I don’t know that it’s “pro-life” so much as “anti-abortion”, if that makes sense - usually those two are interchangeable terms but while this song is absolutely, unequivocally anti-abortion (I always took the basic message to be one of complete disgust, trying to shock people into realising abortion is not a quick and easy solution or a lifestyle choice, it’s murder), it still feels wrong to call this “pro-life” because it also seems to imply abortion is the worst of a set of awful choices, and that there’s nothing inherently good about babies or giving birth to more humans.

I have to say, for a band who weren’t exactly strangers to controversy and causing offence for its own sake, I always found “Bodies” their most shocking song.

Also, for those who might think they’ve found an unlikely Catholic champion in the Sex Pistols… while John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) was indeed raised a Catholic, he also released an extremely scathing anti-Catholic song, “Religion”, on the first Public Image Ltd album.
 
From what I remember from the liner notes of the compilation album “Kiss This”, which included recollections from all the surviving members on the songs, Johnny Rotten said he wrote the song not so much from any side on the abortion debate but to process an encounter with an insane fan who seemed overly proud about telling him about her abortions. Urban legend even claims she showed him one of her aborted babies, which disturbed him.

However, it seems it was the attitude and not the act he was reacting to, according to a quote from the BBC via Wikipedia: "That song was hated and loathed. It’s not anti-abortion, it’s not pro-abortion. It’s: “Think about it. Don’t be callous about a human being, but don’t be limited about a thing as “morals” either. Because it’s immoral to bring a kid in this world and not give a toss about it.”
 
  1. This sounds like the thoughts of someone whose own mother considers them to be
    a “postnatal abortion”. At least how that reads to me.
  2. Too graphic? Good. I went to a state university and of course there are many causes, people on campus. I was stuck in a very liberal sociology class with a very pro choice professor. Needless to say, one day the pro-life campaigners were on campus and they were handing out pro-life literature. Where they stood, they had ENORMOUS printed signs that were pictures of actual abortions! :eek: Blood, guts, arms, legs, it was beyond gruesome. After seeing this I go to sociology and a very good portion of the students in the class were visibly shaken. I remember two girls in particular crying in a heap in the doorway over the pictures. I can’t say that they were pro-choice, but it I had a good feeling that day that seeing such abortions versus “just hearing about them” are two entirely different things. Sometimes shock is good.
 
Hmm. I don’t think it can be so simply pigeonholed.

The final verse goes:

“Ah! F*** this and f*** that
F*** it all tha f*** out of the f***ing brat
She don’t wanna a baby that looks like that
I don’t wanna a baby that looks like that” (my emphasis)

This leads me to believe it’s not a mere anti-abortion song. Rotten pillories Pauline for her abortion, then, at the very end, admits that he shares her revulsion.

It lets no one off the hook.
 
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