A Chicago Teachers Union leader says falling enrollment in public schools can be fixed with abortion. A ProPublica piece details how population decline in Chicago has left dozens of public schools way under capacity, threatening their existence. But the vice president of the CTU has an odd suggestion: Enrollment will increase as people come to Chicago for abortions.

Jackson Potter, the vice president of the CTU, said the city “can bill itself as a progressive refuge — a place that protects immigrants, abortion care, LGBTQ+ rights and access to gender-affirming care for transgender youth and adults,” according to ProPublica’s paraphrase.

“We are going to need to be a citadel of protection,” Potter said.

The argument, of course, is hard to believe. Abortion makes it so there are fewer children, not more. However, it underscores the way abortion has often been linked to other, unrelated issues.

“Abortion rights are inextricably tied to social and economic justice movements,” the National Women’s Law Center argued in January.

The group connects the “autonomy” of abortion to “the right to organize” and “good jobs that include access to healthcare, benefits, increased pay, safe and healthy workplaces, and more.”

“Abortion bans threaten working people because being forced to continue a pregnancy may lead to income or job loss and make it harder to take care of themselves or their families,” the group argues.

“Economic justice” and abortion are also closely linked, it argues, since “for many people, deciding if or when they will have a child has an enormous impact on their economic security.”

“Not having enough money to care for a child or another child is the most common reason for seeking an abortion,” the group says. (Though this is true, it still doesn’t justify the ending of a preborn life.)

Advocates for other causes, such as the rights of individuals with special needs, have also claimed abortion is important.

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network and another disability rights group argued against Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks, filing an amicus brief in the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court case.

“Depending on their individual circumstances, people with disabilities may have a particular need for more time to weigh their options,” the brief argued. In other words, women with disabilities “need” abortions later on in their pregnancies.

But abortion is the ultimate attack on the human rights of all people because it treats some people as less deserving of protection than others. That is why it is odd that the supposed champions of human rights, including good working conditions, access to education, and protection of people with disabilities, align themselves with the cause of abortion.

Killing preborn babies is the beginning of dehumanization of people on the basis of characteristics or circumstances. Instead of supporting abortion, justice activists should start by promoting equal protection in the womb, where human rights begin.