“You’re Pro-Birth, Not Pro-Life” Is Just a Terrible Argument

Written by Peter Heck

I know that abortion apologists have come to believe it is their strongest counterpoint to say, “You are pro-birth, not pro-life,” but it is not.  At all.

The bizarre statement is utterly false, of course, given the overwhelming numbers of Christian and pro-life adoption agencies, care centers, churches, missions, and foster homes that nurture hurting and abandoned children.  But to demonstrate how morally repugnant of an argument this is for the left, suppose for a second that it was a true statement.

Suppose that every pro-life American arguing to end abortion cared nothing about what happened to the baby the second she began breathing on her own.  Is the left suggesting that such a fact would justify ripping her limbs off of her tiny frame while in the womb, and sucking her brains from her head?

If the solution to unwantedness inside the womb is execution, what about unwanted orphans outside the womb?

If the solution to children about to be born into poverty is murder, what about those children already living in poverty?

If the solution to sick children inside the womb is extermination, what about the ones on the outside living in children’s hospitals?

Every argument for abortion is an argument for infanticide or homicide, and the left’s current strategy of pointing out the importance of caring for humans without their umbilical cords attached only leaves their lack of concern for those with them attached all the more glaring.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s a wonderful thing to encourage pro-life people to be conscious of the difficulty of single parenthood, the dangers of poverty, and how so many of those lives spared from the abortionists’ instruments of slaughter are still at risk.

It’s a terrible thing, however, to use those realities as justification for keeping the dismemberment of inconvenient babies legal.  Yet that persists as one of the legal abortion crowd’s favorite talking points.  Social Justice priest James Martin, a favorite on the political left, popularized a version of this philosophy with a tweet months ago that continues to be recirculated online:

“What does it mean to be pro-life if you defend the life of a child in the womb, but not the life of a child on the border?”

This isn’t good thinking.  With all due respect to Martin, it’s apparent that this was a transparent attempt to earn likes and retweets as a way to appear fair and balanced, or curry favor amongst those embracing the spirit of the age.  After all, Martin would be decidedly unable to point to a single outspoken pro-life activist in America who was calling for children of illegal immigrants to be dismembered and have their heads ripped off.  But by his lack of discretion, Martin managed to lend misplaced credibility to a morally stunted false equivalency.

I once asked a caller to my old radio show who was intent on making the point that until I adopted a child, I shouldn’t say abortion is wrong:

“I’ve got three little children at home.  Suppose I told you right now that unless you agreed to adopt all three, I would go home and kill them.  What would you say?”

He stammered for a few seconds eventually saying that he would try to find a way to do that.  I complimented him for his heart and then asked him,

“Suppose you would have reasonably said, for whatever reason, that you just couldn’t take on the care of my children.  Would that mean that I would have been justified in killing them?  Or do you think that it should still be illegal for me to do that?”

He got my point, but claimed it was apples and oranges.  That’s true only if the baby in the womb is something other than a human being.  But it’s not.

All human life is precious at every stage.  And any person who uses disagreements over universal healthcare or food stamps as a way to justify murder, simply denies that truth.

This article was originally published at PeterHeck.com