I think pro-lifers, as with any group of people regardless of what we are categorizing them based on, are a spectrum. Some do sincerely want to help, I've no doubt, but are inadvertently projecting the personal experiences they've had and the morals they've been imbued with into others' situations, not accounting for how others own different experiences makes "what they know" about being able to ride out the storm not as universally applicable as they want to wish it would be. It is easier to continue saying "I'm right, they just need to broaden their perspective" than accept looking at things differently is difficult or impossible if you live every day in chronic pain, or are a girl being sexually assaulted by multiple family members with no support network to escape from that. In their case, their heart I do think is in the right place, but their ability to empathize is limited in ways they are too ignorant to realize.
On the other end, and far too many fall here I'm afraid, are those for whom the whole project of "helping others" is a thinly disguised attempt at self-validation. They want their will to be what is acted on, their point of view to be validated. The person they are speaking to's struggles are of secondary concern to seeing their own worldview respected. Fairly easy to spot for two reasons.
One, the advice is always very generic and broad, rather than based on any attempt at a deeper exploration of the struggling person's situation and attempt to find out more about and speak to their specific circumstances. People struggling with depression on the level to consider CTB aren't acting out someone else's script, they are living their life, so going off that script is something divorced from any acknowledgment of their actual reality and will always fundamentally fail accordingly.
Two, when "success" has been achieved in the struggling person is calling a help line or going to an institution and so on, the person "helping" is gone from the picture and the person who is struggling has lost support they had trusted while they are struggling to figure out how to make it or if they even want to. And the reasoning is obvious: the "helper" gave up because there was no personal connection or genuine empathy. It was always about validating themselves rather than helping the person in pain. When they've gotten their win, what's to stick around for? Essentially it makes what is happening is these people exploiting suicidal people for personal gain and it fucking disgusts me. Anyone considering CTB has enough to contend with without you using them as a pawn in your game of self-gratification.
All of that is why I couldn't be pro-life. If you want to live and you have perspective you want to offer for someone who is on the fence about what they are considering, then that is one thing. It being a perspective for them to take if they want - not forced on them - coupled with an actual effort to understand their struggles, respect those struggles and respect they are feeling pain you are not, and therefore you don't fully "know what they are going through" is the proper way to approach matters. The ironic thing in pro-lifers not doing these things is that I think these things are actually more likely to save lives, because a lot of the people who can find a will to stay living are looking for people to actually care about them and offer support they can't find within themselves in order to find that will. Being there, but leaving it that person's choice to take that support and lean on it if they want to.
When you aren't staying by their side or respecting their autonomy as individuals, it only perpetrates the same notions of being unwanted and insignificant that make someone want to CTB in the first place in so many cases. We can and should do better to support those who are struggling than that. And it isn't even hard to do, you just have to put aside the self and focus on them, the person who actually matters in the situation of pain at the heart of their issues.
