Can we talk about how reprehensible the ‘Abortion or Welfare’ argument is?
I hear this a lot. The argument goes something like, “Pro-lifers don’t care about kids. If they did, they would support welfare programs.” Or “If Abortion is abolished, who is going to pay for these kids? You want them born, but you don’t want them taken care of...”
The idea that abortion is a solution for poverty strikes me as one of the most depraved angles of abortion supporters. And it illuminates why Planned Parenthood hasn’t denounced its eugenicist founder, Margaret Sanger. From a social perspective, people who make this argument view abortion as an inherent good because it weeds out the poor from society. But rather than forcibly sterilizing those whom they deem unfit (as the eugenicists did in the early 20th century), they have instead presented their view as morally superior with a manipulative ultimatum-abortion or welfare, as if these are the only reasonable solutions to poverty.
The idea that pro-lifers don’t care about children is, of course, a foolish accusation that is easily refuted. Christians essentially invented orphanages to care for unwanted children. In the first century, they cared for children in Greece and Rome that the pagans pretty much threw out like trash. And in the 1800’s, Evangelist George Mueller pioneered the modern orphanage and personally cared for more than 10,000 children in his lifetime.
Today, churches and charities work tirelessly to help children and single mothers in need. Pro-lifers resist the idea that the government should take care of poor children simply because it’s a foolish idea. Welfare does not help people escape poverty. It incentivizes poverty and single motherhood.
To refute this argument, one simply needs to point to all of the charities that exist to care for children and help people rise above poverty. One can also point out how horrible it is to suggest the poor are better off dead.
I could go on, but I wanted to get your opinions on this thought...
TLDR: “Abortion or Welfare” is a flawed and dishonest argument. It’s like “Pepsi or Coke.” The best choice is “neither.” The argument highlights that pro-aborts are still into eugenics, and it also disregards the work that pro-lifers have done, and continue to do, to care for children in need.