Why Should Pro-Lifers Be on the Defensive?

Bear with me here, as this is half rant/half stream of consciousness writing; I feel that I need to put pen to paper on this... or I guess fingers to keyboard? Anyway, there's been a lot in the news in the past few days about the shooter at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado. And that's not to mention the horrible shootings that have taken place in both California and Georgia today. So now news stories are running with "three shootings this week" all across the Internet. While all three are tragic, it feels like pro-lifers are on the defensive... and why should they be?

Seeing articles in liberally-slanted publication like Huffington Post or Slate make it obvious that many people have an animus towards anyone who does not support abortion. There's no reason why those that are against abortion need to give apologies for this mad men who killed three people. One of those people were pro-life! Also, the motive hasn't been released yet, and already people need to jump on the bandwagon and say this is indicative of anyone who stands against abortion. 

I ask a question then: are all Muslims represented by the terrorists in Paris? Or those in Syria. What about those that call for the death of police officers in the Black Lives Matter movement? It's absolutely ridiculous how little logic is used by people in the information age.

Artus Wolfaerts- Christ Blessing the Children

Luckily, Trent Horn had a really good article on this whole mess. It's worth a read. It is sad that he even need to write anything on the subject, but he makes some excellent points. My favorite:

 Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-choice America, told David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress, whose videos have brought world-wide attention to Planned Parenthood’s policy of harvesting baby body parts, 

"You don't get to create fake videos and accuse abortion providers of "barbaric atrocities against humanity" one day and act shocked when someone shoots to kill in those same facilities the next." 

First, the videos aren’t fake. Second, even if they were, it would still be true that abortion providers commit “barbaric atrocities against humanity.’” That’s because it is barbaric to dismember a baby, even if you don’t sell the baby’s parts for medical research. Therefore, it would not be wrong to accuse abortion providers of such barbarism, even if some people use this accusation as an excuse to commit violence. 

Third, if every social movement chose to never say anything that could become a catalyst for violence, then there would hardly be any successful social justice movements in the history of our country. For example: 

In 1859 abolitionist John Brown led a raid on a federal armory in West Virginia in order to arm a slave rebellion (three years earlier Brown had killed five slavery supporters in Kansas). Defenders of slavery argued that because Republican abolitionists endorsed the anti-slavery book The Impending Crisis of the South, and because the book was published before Brown’s raid and was associated with violence against slaveholders, it followed that abolitionists were responsible for violence against slaveholders (Michael Kent Curits, Free Speech, 274). 

In 1963 defenders of racial segregation accused Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. of being responsible for violence that accompanied the Civil Rights Movement. Of course, King was one of the movement’s most vocal proponents of non-violent protest, which isn’t easy when one is facing violent opposition. In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail King responded to his critics by saying, “it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence.”

Obviously, those that wished for an end to segregation and slavery didn't worry much about what the actions of a few, over-zealous people did. It did not invalidate the true spirit of what was trying to be accomplished. Unfortunately, we have to be prepared for a lot more of this literally stupid rhetoric. All we can do is try our best to speak up where we can, and make our defense a good offense. Give a reasoned explanation for our beliefs on personhood, and make others question their own ways of thinking.