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Christian rapper Lecrae took some time away from his day job to call out Christians who are fighting against abortion and for the sanctity of life.
“What if the Christians who want to reduce the number of abortions, supported funding health care for women, dealt with the systemic racism that creates poverty for women of color, and addressed the income gap between White people and people of color.”
Lecrae’s tweet is saturated in fallacious rhetoric. It is a classic strawman argument, which sometimes involves distorting an opposing stance to make it easier to attack that stance and sometimes involves overlooking the opposition’s stance altogether and simply attacking their opponent’s motive or character.
This is exactly what happens here: Instead of addressing the question of whether or not abortion is a sin, one party (Lecrae) ignores that question altogether and simply attacks the opposition (pro-life Christians) to make himself look good. To successfully strawman your opponent you have to misrepresent them, which is dishonest, and in this case, Lecrae makes it appear that Christians only care about abortion, while Lecrae cares most about people.
Let’s break down Lecrae’s tweet:
“What if the Christians who want to reduce the number of abortions supported funding health care for women…”
First of all, Christians should not “try to reduce” abortion. That bar is too low. We should fight to eradicate abortion and make it unthinkable. As Christians, we believe that every human, seen and unseen, born and unborn, is created in the image of God, and God’s Word commands us very clearly in Matthew 19:18, ESV, “You shall not murder.”
Secondly, who says pro-life Christians don’t support healthcare for women? That is another fallacy, the classic either-or argument: Either you support abortion or you are against healthcare for women. This is clearly not true. As an example, President Trump tried to provide a huge service to the low-income community by defunding abortion providers and redistributing those funds to community health centers that provide more medical services than Planned Parenthood — but not abortions. That would mean community health centers, which outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities by nearly 20 to 1, would get more funding and thus reach more women while providing more services. That would be a net win for women’s healthcare.
I hope Lecrae isn’t suggesting that healthcare equates to abortion, though many who use his argument mean just that. The very definition of health is “to be free from illness or injury.” How does causing injury or death to a fetus translate into healthcare, especially since we now know that preborn children experience pain and distress during the abortion procedure? And what of the women themselves? A landmark study by the British Journal of Psychiatry found that women who undergo an abortion experienced an 81 percent increased risk of mental health problems, including alcohol/drug misuse, suicidal behaviors, depression, and anxiety.
The deceptive rhetoric of using “healthcare” or “reproductive health” to justify the killing of an innocent life is a tactic used by the pro-choice community to dehumanize unborn children, thus making the act much more acceptable. As Christians, we clearly understand that this type of deception goes against God’s Word.
Where is the justice for these lives? Shouldn’t they have rights? After all, they are living beings created in God’s image, known by Him while their bodies were yet unformed, all their days ordained and written in His book before one of them came to be, as Psalm 139 so beautifully describes. Who are we to sabotage God’s plans for His children?
“…dealt with the systemic racism that creates poverty for women of color,…”
The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a racist and white eugenicist who leveraged “colored” clergy to help empower and justify her deadly work in black and minority communities: “The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal,” she wrote. “We don’t want word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”
Her Negro Project, launched in 1939, was designed “to reduce the birthrate among the diseased, the sickly, the poverty-stricken, and anti-social classes, elements unable to provide for themselves and the burden of which we are all forced to carry.”
Planned Parenthood, which performs 40 percent of the nation’s surgical and medical abortions, certainly has carried forward her plan. Since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973, legalized abortion has resulted in the deaths of over 20 million black children.
Little wonder then that Pastor Clenard Howard Childress, Jr., has declared: “The most dangerous place for an African American to be is in the womb of its African American mother.”
If you want to talk about systemic racism, how about addressing why almost 80 percent of Planned Parenthood clinics are located in low-income or minority areas? Yes, I know…they provide “health” care. Abortions are the No. 1 killer in the black community. In 2016, there were more black babies aborted in New York City than black babies born.
Think about these statistics and then explain to your fans how these facts aren’t systemic racism, how this organization isn’t targeting the black community with the specific goal of “elimination and eventual extinction.”
…and addressed the income gap between White people and people of color.”
I’ve been told in black churches that we need to address the social ills that keep our communities at lower-income levels and poverty before we can address abortion. Really. Are our babies “less than” because their parents aren’t rich? Does their low station in life mean they deserve to die?
When do our churches begin to teach us personal responsibility? Too often we have become complacent in our own history and allowed powerful people to teach us the art of the blame.
I challenge you, Lecrae, to seek out the pro-life community. Among pro-lifers you will find so many who are adopting, taking in foster children, opening their homes to girls in crisis, funding expectant mothers, and throwing baby showers for them. We are concerned about supporting these mothers who made the courageous choice to have their baby despite the pressure to abort it. We stand for “health” care for all. We worry over the mental health of those who have aborted their child and wish to find ways to support them.
I pray that you will use your powerful platform to raise your community up without excuses. We want to see black communities thrive and reach their full potential as our rights afford us. We stand with both people of color and our white brothers and sisters in nurturing all of God’s children — from womb to tomb. We invite you to join us.
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