Abortion, Violence, and Political Rhetoric: Falsely Equating Pro-Life with Pro-Violence
All language is influenced by values. What assumptions does this headline make?
Many people have analyzed the events of the Capitol Riot on January 6th, 2021. Conservatives and liberals were both quick to condemn the riot. However, conservatives pointed out the hypocrisy of condemning the Capitol Riot while either being silent about or endorsing the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots. Similarly, some leftists have used the Capitol Riot as an excuse to slander those who strive to protect life in the womb – pro-life activists.
Leftists are okay with violence so long as it supports their political agendas. They are okay and often actively support the violence in Portland and other cities. They whole heartedly support the violence perpetuated against unborn babies in the heinous act we call elective abortion.
Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director turned pro-life champion, was in attendance at then-President Trump’s rally which preceded the Capitol Riot. Some have claimed that Johnson suffers from “cognitive dissonance” since she condemned the Capitol Riot and also condemns the killing of innocent babies. Molly Osberg seems to imply that Johnson inconsistently holds the view that conservativism is the philosophy of both law and individual liberties. According to leftists or pro-abortion people, this is absurd since the “most prolife president” (i.e., the president that does not support the woman’s right to choose) called for blatant violence to stop now-President Biden from being inaugurated.
Of course, many see right through this leftist charade. Just because some people are violent does not mean everyone who is conservative is violent. Similarly, just because some liberals or leftists are violent does not mean that all of them are violent. (Nonetheless, a stark difference remains since conservative voices condemned BOTH the BLM/Antifa riots and the Capitol Riot.) Additionally, conservatives acknowledge that someone’s liberties end where another’s begin. That is, a person’s right to choose to kill their baby is non-existent since all humans have a fundamental right to life.
As Michael Knowles, a commentator for the Daily Wire, aptly teaches, if you control the language, you control the people. Knowles exposes how somehow both phrases, “killing of innocent babies” and “reproductive rights,” mean the same thing – the right to an elective abortion. Knowles demonstrates how values influence the language we use when describing something. Furthermore, specific phraseology can be pushed to subtly convince the less informed to believe a specific way. This leftist/pro-abortion rhetoric has become even more dangerous. While pro-lifers rightly point out that abortion is violence against babies, some are beginning to compare pro-lifers to violent rioters. According to the abortion-rights narrative, rioters and pro-lifers both want violence.
In her article, Long Before the Capitol Riot, Anti-Abortion Extremists Showed Us the Dangers of Inflammatory Propaganda, Beca Andrews, a reporter for Mother Jones, has stated:
“[T]here were quite a few anti-abortion extremists at the pro-Trump rally, if not in the Capitol afterward as well. You’re probably thinking, hmm, ok, that makes sense—and it does! But the overlap of these universes cannot simply be boiled down to the fact that Trump supporters are more likely to strongly oppose abortion.
The violence we saw at the Capitol—and the inflammatory rhetoric and disinformation that led up to it—in fact mirrors what’s been plaguing the debate around abortion for several years.”
She claims that it is not mere coincidence that people who oppose abortion attended a rally for a man who has been called “the most pro-Life president.” Rather, Andrews claims that the riot at the Capitol mirrors the violent rhetoric of pro-life people. Only… where is the violent rhetoric? Andrews calls the phrase, “Act like abortion is murder,” a veiled call to violence. She assumes that treating abortion as murder entails vigilantism. That simply does not follow. Abortion is the unjustified killing of a human person, but the orthodox pro-life view is clear that attacking abortion clinics is not the way to go. Afterall, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Deut 32:35; Rom 12:19).
Ken Peters became the subject of another article. Peters is the founder of the Church At Planned Parenthood. Huffington Post contributor, Melissa Jeltsen, describes Peters as “[a]n anti-masker who wrongly believes Trump won the 2020 election.”
She goes on to report:
“Peters recently moved to Knoxville to begin the latest chapter of his organization, The Church At Planned Parenthood, or TCAPP. In his own words, TCAPP is a worship service at the gates of hell. Peters and his supporters set up as close to a Planned Parenthood clinic as possible, in order to sing and pray against what they see as the evils of abortion. His most recent target: the Knoxville clinic.”
Peters rightly describes his work as an assault on Hell. However, some have (willfully or otherwise) chosen to misunderstand his terminology. In late January, a man armed with a shotgun shot the Knoxville Planned Parenthood while the location was closed. According the Jeltsen, Peters encourages pro-lifers to this violence. She quotes Kim Clark, an attorney from Legal Voice who has represented Planned Parenthood in a suit involving Peters. Clark said:
“He says these totally incendiary things, and uses metaphors and [religious] references that are clearly meant to be threatening. He publicly has bragged about the number of people who carry guns to TCAPP protests. At one protest, he actually asked for hands in the crowd of how many people had been to jail for the cause of abortion. But in the next breath, he claims that he doesn’t endorse violence.”
An example of these so-called incendiary things:
When someone mused on Twitter that Black Lives Matter protesters should burn down abortion clinics because they were “literally designed to destroy black lives,” Peters retweeted the message, adding “Boom” and two fire emojis.
Apparently pointing out hypocrisy and inconsistency is akin to a veiled call for violence. Additionally, carrying firearms, an expression of the second amendment, is interpreted as threatening. (As a side note, this is what happens when people are not familiar with weapons. They start to view weapons as inherently evil. A culture that refuses to be educated on the right to bear arms and the responsible wielding of weaponry will soon find itself defenseless.)
Finally, going to jail does not equal violence. Many have been arrested for attempting to go into abortion clinics and convince women of their pending error. Some have been arrested for protesting too close to a building. Being arrested does not mean the pro-lifers seek violence. Jesus was arrested. Peter and John were arrested. Paul was arrested. “We must obey God rather than men.”
Here's another example of leftist rhetoric. An article on Vice also tried to equate being pro-life with being pro-violence. The article quotes Erin Matson, director of pro-choice organization that monitors pro-life advocates. Matson says:
“Anti-abortion agitators have been calling and supporting the president’s call to storm Washington for some time. I know and am confident that, as time goes on and more of those photos are analyzed, that we’ll see more and more overlap between the anti-abortion movement and the white supremacists who tried to overthrow the United States of America.”
There is so much to unpack in this quote. It can be overwhelming to the individual who seeks both truth and objective facts to analyze such a fallacious couple of statements. Matson assumes the President has called for violence “for some time” as if this spontaneous Capitol Riot was planned by the former President, who would have access to many more advanced forms of violence than disgruntled Americans. Second, Matson places pro-life advocates alongside white supremacists. Even IF the majority at the Capitol were racist, that would not invalidate the pro-life position. This is a guilty-by-association fallacy. However, seeing as everyone who is not a leftist is deemed racist, taking Matson’s claims seriously is a difficult thing to do. So, Matson lumps, racists, rioters, and pro-lifers together in one group of those who “tried to overthrow the United States of America.”
In a previous section of the Vice article, Carter Sherman claims that some pro-lifers “took part in the siege of the Capitol Building.” The word “siege” paints a vivid, but horribly inaccurate picture. A siege is term associated with long-term, well-planned warfare. This is quite the opposite of a spontaneous, poorly organized riot.
The above examples of the leftist/pro-choice rhetoric highlights a dangerous trend to equate trying to stop the violence against unborn babies with violence itself. This is part of a larger issue of subtly redefining words to fit ideological agendas. Whereas violence most commonly means the intentional harming of another being, violence is now being used to describe an attack against anything the leftist hold dear. Are you against reparations and Critical Race Theory? You’re committing violence against Black people (even if you’re Black!). Do you believe in traditional gender roles? You’re committing violence against women (even if you’re a woman!). Do you believe that abortion ends an innocent life? Newsflash! You’re also committing violence against women (even if you’re a woman who’s adopted multiple children like Justice Amy Coney Barrett). Violence has been redefined to include thoughts, beliefs, and words.
While words that actively, overtly, and intentionally call for unjustified violence may not be protected free speech, the words themselves are not violence. Similarly, even an evil thought of violence is not violence itself (except in some abstract sense). If an evil thought is not violence, why is a good thought of protecting babies’ lives considered violence? With this issue we see the leftist paradigm coming to a head. Everything that is not leftist is violent. Speech is only free if it is leftist speech. Everything else is either violent, racist, sexist, or some other -ist or -ism that no longer bears clear meaning.
The reader is challenged to read over all the hyperlinked articles and to think deeply about how values influence rhetoric and vice versa. The human mind must be trained to defend against rhetorical tools and to search for truth. Classical liberals, conservatives of all sorts, and libertarians (and leftists if they knew what was good for them) need to be very winsome in navigating the cultural language wars in which we live.
Mitchell D. Cochran is a family life educator, a financial coach, and a board certified biblical counselor. He is the cofounder of Hope Initiative Consulting, LLC. and is currently attending Calvary University for his M.A. in biblical counseling. Mitchell is active in local politics in Lubbock, TX, where he lives with his wife, Katherine.
