It's almost a reductionist philosophy, and yet it is exceedingly popular on social media, a place where mob mentality always trumps critical thinking. Always.
As the debate has grown over Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas National Guard spreading and expanding their razor wire deterrent to all the illegal border crossings occurring in their state, the un-nuanced, simple-minded have had a heyday with provocative sloganeering.
Here's one of the dumbest:
To be fair, I don't much care for it when it happens on the other side. I wouldn't like this post anymore than I do one that said, "You cannot be PRO-LIFE and PRO-BORDER INVASION." It's extraordinarily non-beneficial, appealing to extremes in both rank and rhetoric.
Are there people who consider themselves pro-life but also exhibit an inexcusably wanton disrespect for those who come across the southern border in a desperate attempt to do nothing more than make a better life for themselves and their family? Yes.
Just as there are people who consider themselves pro-life but also refuse to condemn the now far too plentiful examples of capital crimes committed by those who have poured across the southern border illegally.
But neither exceptional case is the rule. Furthermore, it is exceedingly moot to use catch phrases like "pro-life" without defining what you mean by them.
To be sure, this is the standard practice employed by progressives against politically engaged Christians. They point to Christians finding a more comfortable alliance with the Republican Party over the Democrats, then demand to know how a Christian could possibly support (insert the position of one or even a majority of Republican officials here) - as though the designation of Christian has more to do with your fealty to an American political party's policy agenda than it does submission and surrender to the God-man.
I get that it's a shame tactic intended to put Christians on the spot and falsely accuse them of all kinds of hypocrisy. But truthfully there's no hypocrisy present if a person believes in the unalienable right to life for all living humans as well as a lethally strong national border defense. Both of those things, it can fairly be argued and believed, protect innocent human life. That is the essence of pro-life activism.
For years, I have cringed whenever confronted with similar sophistry when it comes to the alleged dualism of supporting both capital punishment for violent offenders as well as abortion bans: "If you say you're pro-life, you can't also say you support the death penalty - that's a self-contradiction!"
This is almost always shouted by someone who advocates the inverse: the legal execution of preborn babies and bans on state-sanctioned execution of violent offenders. It has always bordered on demented disgrace that a person could and would in good conscience argue for the right of a notorious serial killer to live while simultaneously suggesting that a blameless baby in the womb has no such right.
Consider the horrific circumstance of a child conceived in rape. What tortured moral logic is it to conclude that the innocent third party, the unborn child, should be subject to the death penalty, but the violent criminal who violated the very humanity of his female victim should not be?
Nevertheless, so that there be no confusion on this point, it is the same precise reason that makes a person pro-life when it comes to the unalienable rights of unborn children that makes them favor strong borders, favor gun rights, and favor the enforcement of capital punishment for infamous crimes. All of those things - from abortion bans to strong borders - are enacted to protect innocent life from criminal conduct.
Are there better methods to achieve those desired ends? Perhaps, but that's immaterial to the philosophically dim assertion that "you can't be pro-life and pro-razor wire."
