This particular Facebook post from a Methodist pastor is over two years old, but it's the first I'm seeing of it, so you'll pardon my tardiness. There are a couple easy to come across thinkpieces about this "brilliant" post from people who would inexplicably throw this pastor into a volcano for affirming the divinity of Jesus. First, the post in question:
"The unborn" are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don't resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don't ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don't need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don't bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It's almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.
Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.
Some discussions of this post have asked the reasonable question, do we really believe the pastor is against advocating for the unborn, or is he simply using this juxtaposition to humbly request that we apply the same fervor we have to protecting the unborn towards other maligned groups of people? I cannot find, at least not very easily, the genuine answer to this question, but we still have a particularly strong argument to make for why utilization of this argument for that angle is, still, wrong.
First of all, it's a classic false dilemma. We are implicitly asked "which of the least of these is most important to advocate for?" which is a question we need not answer. Each person is called by God to advocate for different groups, as we are all limited humans with the same amount of limited time in a day. This argument insists that the most good we can do is to help the most possible people, when it may be of unimaginable importance that we spend years helping even just one particular person. We cannot know who is the most important to advocate for, so we turn to God for guidance as to who requires our help the most. We cannot do it all and it is outrageous to chuck this "whataboutism" at people in regards to the groups that they chose to dedicate their time and effort toward. The unborn are a perfectly legitimate group of people in need of advocacy and we cannot hope to shame pro-life organizers for not doing enough for other groups of people the same that we cannot shame those who help rehabilitate convicts for not spending enough time knitting winter socks for orphans.
The other issue is perhaps a little more difficult to pinpoint. The classification of calling the unborn "morally uncomplicated" is, maybe a little unexpectedly, the most important detail here. It is a true statement, in fact, to call the unborn morally uncomplicated - there is indeed absolutely no argument that can be made in good faith to justify the murder of someone who is in every imaginable way pure and innocent, and also so incredibly vulnerable. This aspect of the unborn is very precisely the part about them that makes murdering them so painfully insidious. It is wrong, of course, to permanently condemn and ignore those of us who have committed grave sins, but it is in all actuality very understandable when we have issues seeing the humanity of a person who has, for example, raped and murdered several people. It is very difficult to trust these people and very easy to believe that they will always be a danger to other, innocent people in society. It takes great discipline and faith in Jesus to believe that people so lost could be redeemed. They are indeed very morally complicated.
It should be then, by comparison, very clear that it is wrong to murder an innocent baby, and yet here we are, where abortion is not only legal, but advocated for, celebrated, and viewed as a sacrament to its zealous supporters. This, specifically, is what makes it so important to advocate for the unborn, because they are faced with an unbelievable amount of adversity for a group that should be an open and shut case. The idea that we aren't advocating enough for other disadvantaged people while believing strongly that abortion is wrong isn't a sign of hypocrisy, it is quite frankly the most obvious position. It should be very easy to understand that abortion is wrong. The stance of even the most mentally unengaged, low effort thinker should be against abortion, as it is so self-evidently evil. The death penalty for murderers is, by definition, far more morally complicated. There is a lot to go through, a lot of questions to ask, and ultimately a moral and logical struggle to come to a responsible and thoughtful conclusion for the best interests of society as well as our humanity. There are no similar arguments to make when it comes to whether it is acceptable to murder innocent people. The unborn are, indeed, morally uncomplicated.
The post goes on to its obvious intention, the "gotcha" moment, where the speaker tries to assume their targeted audience's beliefs and then shame them for them. The people who fall into this category are the very same low effort thinking groups who believe intuitively that abortion is wrong, but fail to put very much effort into thoughtful contemplation about these much more "morally complicated" groups. Very few genuine "pro-life advocates" (that is to say, someone who actively works to combat abortion as opposed to someone who is merely against it because it is wrong) are not convicted similarly on the importance of welfare for orphans and widows. It is a position I have seen expressed by some select few unaware, non-reflective humans, but it is far and away a minority position held by only the most obtuse and thoughtless. Here, the post tries to misclassify all pro-life advocates as ceasing to care about the child once he is born.
I could go on for an additional dozen paragraphs explaining how I believe people who support abortion manage to still believe any conscientious pro-life advocate would similarly support throwing pregnant teenagers out in the streets, but I will summarize quickly for brevity. It does not take a majority of interactions to convince the person looking for any reason to delegitimize their opponent's position that inconsistent beliefs are more common than they are in reality. Even one interaction with someone who is against abortion but says something obtuse like "women who get pregnant out of wedlock are out of luck" will cause them to believe this is the majority position, as it is convenient to their position to believe so.
All of this in mind, it is actually still not hypocritical to hold these beliefs that even I would argue are inconsistent. It is unwise and thoughtless, surely, but the difference between shrugging your shoulders at a teenager who made poor decisions and is facing the consequences is worlds apart from "it is okay to murder a baby". There is nothing hypocritical about these positions. A person who would not care about the plight of the women who typically choose to abort is certainly thoughtless, as these two issues are tightly interwoven, but the reasoning behind the two positions do not conflict with one another. On one hand, murder is wrong, and on the other hand, suffering the consequences of your decisions is just part of life. They do not advocate, for example, the execution of teenagers who find themselves pregnant - they merely believe those teenagers should not kill their own children. These beliefs are fully congruent. Low effort, yes, certainly ill-advised, and, exceptionally, heartless, but not hypocritical.
Perhaps the conclusion that it is "easy" to advocate for the unborn has a few valid points to be made. It's easy because it's very obviously bad to murder the unborn. It is not a complicated situation to dissect. The conclusion is easy to come to for even the most room temperature of IQs. I would argue, though, that it is not truly "easy" to advocate for the unborn. We fight for a group that is undeniably innocent, but inexplicably difficult to represent. The very things the Methodist pastor claims makes the unborn "convenient" to advocate for, actually makes it quite difficult. It's very hard to relate to an unborn child, as while we were all once in such a position, we will never be again. It's easy to consider, "what if I were arrested for a crime I did not commit?" or "what if I found myself homeless through circumstances outside of my control?" In fact, many congruent situations ("what if I were in an irreversible coma and my family had to decide if I lived or died?") are not actually very similar when analyzed more seriously. There is no similar situation we could find ourselves in to that of an unborn child.
For lack of a better phrase, we have to do all the work. It is easy to find a convicted criminal, buy him a suit, and have him speak about what rehabilitation means and how difficult it is to find humanity in the prison system. It is easy to find a woman who believes she is "better off" for having an abortion and have her speak to a crowd about how important ending her child's life was for her own personal welfare. The people who suffer from abortion are not able to defend themselves, while the people who perpetrate it are free to speak unopposed. It is impossible to have an unborn child speak to a crowd. Even more difficult, they are nearly entirely invisible. It is easier even for animals to have their emotional pleas made visible and publicly for the world to see. An actual 20 week old ultrasound will be met with people genuinely arguing that it's not even a real picture. Despite the overwhelming availability of prenatal care information, people who seek to deny the humanity of the unborn simply do not look at this information or educate themselves.
Worse yet, people who advocate for the unborn are accused of nefarious ulterior motives. While the unborn as a group is morally uncomplicated, abortion itself is actually a very intense conversation. It is entirely understandable to be worried, scared, or feel helpless and, yes, even like your entire world is ending, to find yourself pregnant when you didn't want to be. It would be tone deaf to believe that it is an easy situation. The problem stems from the unavoidable reality that the unborn child is a human life, and that it is wrong to voluntarily end that life. The argument itself is simple, but the lived reality takes a much larger toll. Pro-life advocates, then, are viciously accused of being heartless and indifferent to the plight of the people who would seek abortions. The unborn may be morally uncomplicated, but advocating for them - and everything that comes with such a conviction - results in aggressive personal attacks that are difficult for the average person to stomach. People who would likely not support abortion in the majority of cases will compromise and attempt to appeal to the emotional attacks of abortion advocates to try and receive slightly less slandering and vitriol, simply because a hard "abortion is always wrong" stance comes with it so much infamy.
It is, in fact, very tone deaf to attempt to argue that the unborn are "convenient" to advocate for - as the people who advocate for the unborn are dehumanized alongside them.
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