Refutation of "The Unborn - So Convenient" by David Barnhart

Introduction

    A document entitled "The Unborn - So Convenient for Evangelicals to Love" by David Barnhart has been circulating on the internet for some time now.  It had always caught my ire but I had never thought to sit down and refute it at length.  Today, that time has come.

The Document

    This is a reprinting of the document.  This may not be how it originally was written due to the "telephone effect" of the internet, but here's the most recent iteration that claims to be written by David Barnhart.

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. 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.

Refutation 1: Whataboutism

    The first problem with David Barnhart's statement is that it engages in whataboutism, a distraction technique.  Oxford dictionary defines it as "the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation or raising a different issue."  It rises to the level of all the other logical fallacies.  Barnhart suggests that the opinion of those who are not engaged in all the areas of advocacy he mentions are somehow hypocrites or lazy.  The problem is, all the areas of advocacy he mentions would exist whether or not abortion was legal or illegal.  Barnhart suggests we cannot advocate only for one issue (pro life) and not all the others (incarcerated, addicted, poor, widows).  The problem is that no human being can sustain advocacy for all the areas in life that are lacking.  Indeed, Barnhart should recall that Ecclesiastes 1:!5 says that there is no way to fix everything that is broken.  There's too much broken in the world.

    So where would it end?  If I help the poor, advocate for the unborn, help the widow, and help the addicted, can someone critique me as being "bad" or "lazy" because I don't also help orphans?  How can one human being help them all?  It's not possible.  Even the richest philanthropist cannot help them all for very long, even if that was the goal.  God is our leader: if He tells me to focus on the unborn, or homeless, and I achieve great success helping people in that area, is it a valid critique for Barnhart to simply that I'm apparently "bad" or "wrong" or "lazy" simply because I can't help everyone who needs it?  No.  Jesus said (Mark 14:7) that we will always have the poor, for instance.  I am to advocate for those whom God wants me to, not everyone in the universe, which is impossible.  Barnhart is incorrect because "what about" is not a valid critique.

Refutation 2: Perfectionism

    As already hinted above, Barnhart is demanding perfection, in that everyone must help every person in need in order for our advocacy to be legitimate.  This is perfectionism because no one human being can help everyone.  This is the logical fallacy of perfectionism.

Refutation 3: Convenience is not Convenient

    My third refutation is that Barnhart's statement that the unborn are a "convenient group ... to advocate for" is simply untrue.  It's not convenient to be insulted and attacked on the internet.  How many people have been assaulted over their advocacy for the unborn?  Plenty enough.  It's not convenient for the liberal members of my family to insult me and claim, falsely, that I'm "killing pregnant women."  It's not fun to be accused of not helping women in dire straits (which I do).  Barnhart suggests this is about convenience, but it's anything but convenient.  If anything, I would have thought Barnhart would have instead accused pro life members of having a persecution fetish, because we get a lot of it.  I was at a liberal university and got lots of hateful comments when people asked me if I am going to the pro choice rally and I said I am not.

    What is more likely is that Barnhart likes the more photogenic advocacy efforts.  Helping the poor and homeless, helping widows, helping those who are addicted, you get many more and better photo opportunities.  You can take your photo with the people you're helping.  The optics are better and more convenient.  With the unborn, the best you can get is an ultrasound.  I know this "more photogenic" statement of mine is not entirely true, but I am bringing it up because it flies in the face of "more convenient."  I can hand out breakfast burritos in the homeless park in this big city and get more photo opportunities.  I have to pay much more money for an ultrasound.

    I suspect Barnhart is making this statement about convenience in ignorance.  He claims we can advocate for the unborn without it impacting our money, power, or privilege, and yet there are plenty of people I would like to talk to who are liberal and pro choice who, upon hearing that I am pro life, will not even listen to me.  I send money to Save the Storks, which distributes this money to women in dire straits.  Plenty of people in society and especially social media will refuse to listen to me if they find I am pro life, which strongly reduces my social influence power.  Has Barnhart ever been called a woman hater for being pro choice?  I have been called such for being pro life.  (Still, it wouldn't matter whether the accusation is offered or not.)

Potential Refutation 4: Fear

    I noticed that Barnhart made statements about how the unborn can't complain, can't question, and can't ask or make demands.  That's ironic for him to say.  The way this is phrased, it suggests that a component of this could be fear.  Is it possible Barnhart is afraid of the poor or homeless because he is likely to pass by them, and they can do something, but the unborn cannot?  Is Barnhart afraid of the complaints of those he advocates for?  Does this drive his advocacy, the fact that these populations could, for example, follow him home or show up at his church?

Refutation 5: Bearing False Witness

    Barnhart claims that advocating for the unborn is convenient and doesn't require time or money.  I refuted this above in point 3.

    But also, in the last paragraph, Barnhart makes a very sweeping generalization that all who are pro life hate their neighbor.  Barnhart has now lied because he cannot possibly know all pro life individuals and whether or not they trule hate their neighbor or not.  Sure, there are likely people who meet Barnhart's description.  But there are far too many who do not, and Barnhart, instead of making a fair and logical statement, instead makes a sweeping generalization that is a lie.  As such, I believe Barnhart owes many an apology.  And that, until he retracts or fixes his statment, which is a lie, he is ineligible to be a pastor, and as such his opinion can be dismissed.

Refutation 6: Mentioned in the Bible

    Barnhart claims that abortion is not mentioned in the Bible.  A cursory study of Molech worship in the Old Testament would disprove that claim.

    But here's the thing: Barnhart suggests that only what is mentioned in the Bible is a valid point of advocacy.  If this is true, Barnhart has some explaining to do.  For instance, while immigrants are mentioned in the Bible, the Bible never claims that we cannot have border walls or immigration controls.  The Bible mentions more about how they are treated rather than whether or not we must or must not allow them in.  So this is not entirely true.

    Then he mentions the sick.  These aren't really an advocacy group.  But sure, if that's true, is Barnhart making his rounds at hospitals praying over all the sick?  Does he and his elders visit every sick person in his church, even if it's only a cold?

    There are plenty of places and things to advocate for that aren't specifically mentioned in the Bible.  Drugs are not specifically mentioned in the Bible at all, yet Barnhart is here judging those he thinks don't help with those who are substance users.  Barnhart's own logic is broken because he tries to use the Bible inappropriately to tell us who we should be advocating for.  We should be advocating for all those groups, but our advocacy cannot be limited to just those groups.

    Indeed, if only read at face value, the Bible also doesn't resist the patriarchy.  I'm saying this only to refute Barnhart's point: if anything, the Bible supports "patriarchy" by telling women to obey their husbands (Ephesians 5; 1 Peter 3) and by specifying that elders and deacons must be married men (1 Timothy 3; Titus 1).  Understand that I believe the Bible doesn't support the patriarchy (in the sense of oppression), but Barnhart would likely disagree, yet here he is advocating against something that his Bible doesn't advocate against, in his own logic.  You see, in the logic of Barnhart, all male leadership is patriarchy, by definition.  Yet the Bible directly commands men to lead their families.  Is Barnhart advocating that (per Scripture) wives submit to husbands?  Likely he is not.

    Barnhart's logic here about what is mentioned in the Bible is all over the place.  Yet another example: the Bible does not directly say that all slaves should go free, yet it is likely that Barnhart and I both reject slavery as being wrong.  To just say "what's in the Bible" in this context is a huge generalization.  It's such a blatant generalization that it is a false and broken statement.