Imagine someone telling an anti-trafficking organization
that if they really cared for children, they would do more to address poverty
in India that harms large numbers of children every year. Imagine someone
telling a clinic engaging in cancer research that if they really cared about
healing people of sickness, they would also focus on research for diabetes and
Crohn’s disease. These are ridiculous accusations, yet pro-lifers get them very
often.
I have seen recent news headlines aimed at pro-lifers for
being silent on the issues surrounding immigrants at the border. It is being
said that if one is truly pro-life and pro-family, one must also care and be
involved in protecting children who are being brought into the country
illegally by their parents. Make no mistake, I believe that the lives of
immigrants and their children are valuable and important. They are made in the
image of God just like you and me. The
issues of immigrant children and abortion are not the same, yet the two are
being equated in such a way as to attack the motives and sincerity of pro-life
individuals.
The fact that there are very important issues regarding
immigrant children at the border is not comparable with intentionally
dismembering, poisoning, crushing, and burning a little human to death.
If
the tables were turned, we might equate their seeming disregard for unborn
human beings with having no credibility when it comes to “caring” about immigrant
children. If this is really about consistency, wouldn’t it make sense to
want to protect human beings in all stages of development whether they are at
the border or in the womb? Why do many people seem to only care about children
when it suits a political agenda they have? There have been cases in the news
where an illegal immigrant wished to receive an abortion while in detention at
the border. Many people showed support for her “right” to have an abortion. If
all the outrage over the border crisis was genuinely about caring for human
beings, why was the concern only shown for the born immigrant? What about the
unborn immigrant? It is wrong to mistreat an immigrant, legal or not legal. If
this issue were really about human rights, then where is all the outrage over
the 3,000 innocent human beings that get murdered in the womb every day by
poisoning, crushing and dismembering?
Suppose pro-lifers are terrible human beings who care
nothing about immigrant children. How does that justify ending the life of an
innocent human being? It doesn’t. The immigration issue being raised against
pro-lifers is a clever ad hominem that impugns the motives and sincerity of
pro-lifers.
The issues of abortion and immigrant children are both
important. Please don’t read this post and think I don’t care about the immigration
issue. I do care. We should be concerned about children and families coming
into this country, and the problems we face at the border. But we should also be
deeply concerned about living in a culture that dehumanizes a group of people
simply because they are unwanted and inconvenient: the unborn. I have chosen to
focus time and effort in fighting the particular evil of abortion. If a person tries
to attack every social ill in society, that person’s effectiveness will be
diminished. Do not impugn the motives or the operational objectives of
pro-lifers as they seek to create a culture that values human life from
conception to natural death. Our objection to the moral evil of abortion does
not make us responsible for the issues with children at the border.