If You Support Abortion, You Would Have Supported Slavery (Probably)
Inflammatory I know, but hear me out. Many of us wonder how we would have reacted and behaved during the time of slavery in America. Most of us concluded that we would never have supported such an inhumane practice; we would have fought bravely and boldly against such evil. Of course, without a time machine, one can never truly know. Or can we…
The simple logic suggests, if you are convinced by the abortion argument today, you would have believed the justification for slavery then. For after all, they are the same arguments and justification.
By understanding which arguments were faulty or outright wrong in the past, we can learn to recognize faulty and wrong arguments in the present. Then, one finds confidently himself on the “right side of history,” as they say.
Certainly the topic was a hot button issue for its time; passionate people persisted in their convictions that slavery was either evil, or acceptable. Both sides were equally as entrenched as we are on either side of abortion.
While studying the abortion debate I discovered that the arguments used to uphold slavery and abortion are the exact same. The evil book entitled “Justify Slavery”, authored by the Democratic Party, merely received an updated cover entitled, “Justify Abortion”. The content inside the book never changed. As we go through the main justifications for both slavery and abortion you will notice their sameness.
Let’s begin with the foundation of the argument: some humans are not as human as others. This is the dehumanization argument. It lowers the status of a being to less than human; perhaps an animal or even lower. For slavery blacks were less than human; “ape” or “monkey” was a common status assigned to them. Obviously labeling them an animal is dehumanizing. Others would say they are human, but that not all humans are equal, and that slaves weren’t “as human” as whites. Not all human life had the same intrinsic value based on an arbitrary reason.
In the case of abortion, the unborn are always referred to as their scientific names of “zygote” or “fetus” to obscure their humanity. Worse still, many will liken them to a “parasite” — dehumanization. However, no one has ever announced they are pregnant with a zygote, fetus, or parasite. They always announce they are pregnant with a baby. The unborn’s humanization is not subjective. Both evils depend on the dehumanization of the subject.
Next is the quality of life argument. For pro-slavery they reasoned that since blacks were uneducated, they would never make it as free men and women. Their life of freedom would be poor, short, miserable, unproductive, and ultimately unworth it. It would be better to stay fed and sheltered under slavery than to live a difficult life of freedom.
For pro-abortionists, an unwanted baby will have a miserable life. The care system is terrible, they may be handicapped, or something else. Death is preferable to all of this, so says the ones who wouldn’t be dying. Isn’t it wonderful that there are people smart enough to know if another’s quality of life is worth living or not?
Next is the economic argument. For pro-slavery, the loss of slaves would pose an economic burden on the owners. How would they keep their farms and lands running without free labor? By losing their labor, or paying for labor, the owners could not keep their living. There would be no profit, and the economic burden on the former slave owners would be too great.
For pro-abortion, the economic hardship placed on parents, or parent, to raise a child is heavy. These economic burdens are real, but they do not outweigh the life of another human, and economics certainly don’t justify dehumanizing those who place economic burdens on others.
Next is the appeal to rights. In each of those national debates, the immoral side hid behind other rights to shield themselves from their evil. Even though rights are important, those upholding evil abused the term “rights” in their justification.
For example, in the case of slavery, pro-slavery hid behind the idea of property rights and state’s rights. Now property rights are important, as are state’s rights, but they are used — rather abused — by being mentioned in this context. Property rights are irrelevant because blacks were people, not property. Even if the law deemed their status as such, such law a was unconstitutional and inconceivable. The same is true for state’s rights. Governments, and thus the states, exist to protect rights, not dehumanize and oppress. Neither property rights, nor state’s rights are relevant in the case of slavery, only human rights; and human rights trump property rights and state’s rights.
With abortion it is the same. This time they hide behind women’s rights, or in the case of the activists judges, privacy rights. Women’s rights are important, as is privacy; however, neither are applicable in the case of abortion. The issue remains human rights. “My body my choice” is true, but irrelevant when discussing someone else’s body. It is not your body being aborted, it is not your limbs being torn off, it is not your heartbeat ceasing, it is not your body at stake, it is the body of the unborn. The human right to life trumps women’s rights and privacy rights. Both principles are abused by those advocating for the dehumanization and killing of the unborn.
Last, and perhaps most trivial, is the way in which the lines are drawn to either support or protest these evils. The evil of slavery was upheld and championed by the Democratic Party and its band of thoughtless followers. The Republican Party staunchly opposed such evil, and it was the Christian faithful who did the most work in condemning such evil. Abortion follows likewise. It is the Democratic Party that seeks to claim that the killing of the unborn is good, legal, useful, and necessary. It is the Republican Party that opposes it, and the Christian faithful have been at the head, boldly condemning the evil practice of killing the unborn.
By studying the history of American slavery, you will discover that the Democratic Party had a very precise strategy to justify a national evil. In hindsight we all agree how abhorrent slavery was, and that all of their justifications were weak and in no way legitimized their dehumanizing ideology. If one looks closely at the present, one will discover that the Democratic Party is using the same justification for abortion, a national evil. A hard look at their book reveals that the content is the same.
The probable conclusion is thus: if you find abortion permissible and yourself won over by their faulty dehumanizing arguments, you would have believed, supported, and defended these same arguments in the time of slavery… probably.
