There is an argumentation I see quite frequently that I really don’t understand. I’ll give one concrete example of this argument, but my fear is that we’ll get side tracked about that issue and not the argumentation which I see pulled out frequently for several arguments.
Here is where I’m seeing this argument today. A pro-choice liberal is quite bothered by the treatment of children at the border—getting separated from parents and what not. So the pro-life conservative responds by saying, “Where is your outrage at the separating of children from their parents in the womb?”
Now if all the pro-life conservative is attempting to do is draw the pro-choice liberal into consistency and to argue for pro-life, then it’s a relatively decent argument. Calling for consistency in one’s belief is right out of the playbook of Francis Schaeffer. We press folks who have inconsistent worldviews into consistency.
But what I don’t get is how in the world this is an argument for separating children from their parents at the border. It’s actually shooting your pro-life stance in the foot. If you use this as a defense of what is happening at our borders, you are doing so from a non pro-life perspective. The same statement could be flipped. You are outraged at separating children from their parents in the womb, why aren’t you outraged at what is happening at the borders?
Again, I’m not attempting to get into a debate on immigration. I realize there are complexities here. I don’t believe you have to be inconsistently pro-life if you are arguing for better border control and less immigration. But I do believe the way in which we argue for such a thing might betray an inconsistent pro-life position. I’m writing this, though, because I’m really confused by these arguments that I keep seeing. It’s not a consistent argument. Think of it this way:
You aren’t outraged by A, but in order to be consistent with C you should be.
You are outraged by B, but in order to be consistent with C _______.
What goes in that blank?
Let’s say that C is something like, “God values human life”. So our argument is that you aren’t outraged by abortion (A), but in order to be consistent with the fact that God values human life (C), you should be. You are outraged by what is happening at the border, but in order to be consistent with the fact God values human life, you _______.
Do you see the problem? This is why I said at the beginning that if you want to make the argument that pro-choice liberals are being inconsistent in their outrage and that all you are saying is that they should be consistent and therefore pro-life, then that is a fine argument. It is logically consistent. But it’s not logically consistent to make a positive argument about immigration from the injustice of a separate argument concerning abortion.
And that’s what I see happening over and over again on both sides of the aisle. The problem is that we’ve lost consistency and we only argue from polarity. It would do us well to focus on truth, consistent unchanging truth, instead of teams.
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