I am starting to get the impression that Pro choice people have given up arguing for the morality of abortion or trying to rebut the arguments against the morality of abortion. Instead, they have turned their attention away from abortion and toward pro-lifers. Earlier today I saw a YouTube video about some abortion drug, and when I looked at the comment section there seemed to be about equal parts pro-life people and pro-choice people. The pro-lifers mostly made comments about the immorality of abortion, but the pro choice people made comments about the inconsistency of pro-lifers.
The main charge against pro-lifers was that they only cared about people before they are born, but not after they are born. One person said, "They call themselves pro lifers, but when the baby gets here they don't want anything to do with it! No food, no clothing, no education! Your on your own kids!" Even if that were true, it would have nothing to do with the morality of abortion. In fact, it wouldn't even have anything to do with the consistency of pro-lifers. Being pro-life just means you don't think we should kill people without good justification. That goes just as well for those who are born as it does for those who haven't been born yet. I don't think I've ever met a pro-lifer who thought it was okay to kill people once they are born. They are all consistent in opposing the unjustified killing of both the born and the unborn. Wherever they stand on government social programs is irrelevant to the topic.
But I don't think the premise of the argument against pro-life consistency is even true. The argument appears to equate pro-lifers with capitalists or anti-socialists. But if you ask capitalists themselves why they support capitalism or reject socialism, it's because they honestly believe capitalism has done more to lift people out of poverty and improve their lives than socialism ever has. Milton Freedman has said this, and Jay Richards has also said it. So capitalists do care about well being and human flourishing. They just don't think socialism is the best path to meet that end.
Besides that, haven't Crisis Pregnancy Centers done more for those who choose life than Planned Parenthood? Isn't the inconsistency rather on pro-choice organizations who support women who choose death for their unborn but not women who choose life for their unborn?
2 comments:
Many good points touched upon in a short space. Here are some of my thoughts that play on your points.
I agree that few really want to rationally debate the issue, or at least stay on the logic train to the final station. Last time I debated it several pro-choicers started quibbling about viability. When I said something like, "Okay, let's grant your view and timeframe for viability. Are you then willing to restrict abortion to only prior to that point?" That's when they all bailed out.
We can't expect reason from people when dealing with something so obscene on the face of it: supporting the violent destruction of infants. To salve the conscience, they must necessarily redefine terms and reject facts & logic and inject non sequiturs. It reminds me of a debate I once witnessed with a pro-gay pastor, who ended the discussion by admitting that even if Jesus came down one day on his deck and told him that homosexuality was wrong, that he'd still not accept it because of his *experience* with such people.
Maybe, though, it could be said that the red herring of "you pro-lifer's don't care about the babies after they are born" is in a sense consistent with their framework for thinking about abortion. It's often argued that abortion is prudent in the case of an unwanted or burdensome pregnancy, due to an assumption that such children will necessarily have a miserable life. The implication is that we should kill them for their own good. By this logic, us pro-lifers are bringing potential problems into fruition and should be prepared to address the solution.
You're right that this is a separate discussion, which we understand when talking about other issue. For instance, in WWII we didn't so much ask about what will happen to those occupied territories when we upend them to free their people, but afterwards we certainly got involved in reconstruction programs. And during the slavery debate, I think some actually did ask (in an accusing fashion) what would happen to the slaves once they were freed, i.e., will you abolitionists be willing to take them in and give them jobs.
...
It is ironic that orphanages, centers that aid mothers, food pantries, rescue missions, and various other direct charities are all infested with Christians. And we'd have more money to contribute to such things if the government didn't take so much in taxes to try to own this problem. At my own Christian company I knew a number of people who went to great pains to adopt children, sometimes going to China to get them. We also, as a corporation, support the local rescue mission.
I once witnessed someone debating children's rights advocate, Katy Faust, who brought up this point and challenged her on what she'd done. Wrong person to ask, as she used to be in a ministry in Asia dedicated to this exact task, and she personally took in a disabled boy that wasn't anyone's first choice. Also ironic is that if they really are pro-choice, then it's interesting that the left is more concerned to provide the logistics primarily for just one of the choices, and works so hard to promote only that option (often by unscrupulous means). The left seems to be, in practice, not just pro-choice, but pro-abortion, and all other factors considered, anti-reproduction in general.
You nailed it by pointing out that "both" sides want to help people; we just have different economic ideas about the most sustainable way of pulling this off. The left simply takes it as a given that their path is the only viable one, and therefore if you oppose it you must necessarily not care about the underprivileged. It's been pointed out often that the right is willing to concede that the left is simply mistaken, but the left takes the right to be just stupid or evil. However, I don't think that attitude is exclusive to the left.
The right looks at this issue through an entirely different lens. Koukl puts the crux of issue in the question: What is the unborn? Answering that is the first order of business. Pro-lifers are not willing to play the subjective games of making ephemeral qualifications on when we think it's a "person" vs some "lump of tissue." Removing "personhood" from a population group is the beginning of all historical atrocities.
Post a Comment