Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2021 14:59:42 GMT
I often support President Trump’s policies, believe illegal immigration is a serious problem, and think that our broken borders pose significant risks to America’s security and sovereignty. I also believe immigrants are people — no matter their legal status.
That doesn’t mean they can enter the country illegally or ought to face no consequences for doing so. It certainly doesn’t mean they should automatically be given the same rights and privileges as American citizens. Yet it does mean that, as conservatives, we should respect life and embrace a compassionate approach to immigration. This is something pro-life conservatives should intrinsically understand.
When reports emerged that migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border, including children, were being kept in cages in perilous conditions, liberals were quick to use this as a battering ram against President Trump. It’s Trump’s policies that created this, they claim. But the cages were created during the Obama administration and when similar conditions existed under his administration, Democrats didn’t seem to care.
What gets lost in the partisan one-upmanship is that real human beings are suffering. Children are suffering. Dismissing them as “illegals” or believing they are just lawbreakers who deserve harsh punishment ignores what plights they might have suffered that has brought them to this point. It ignores their basic humanity, and lacks compassion.
“The reports of the conditions for migrant children at the border should shock all of our consciences,” Southern Baptist leader Dr. Russell Moore tweeted recently. “Those created in the image of God should be treated with dignity and compassion, especially those seeking refuge from violence back home. We can do better than this.”
Moore is right: We can do better. We should, at a basic human level, all understand this, no matter our politics. But unfortunately, the immigration issue is falling into the same trap that plagues our toxic discourse on abortion.
In virtually every abortion debate, the pro-choice position rests on the assumption that the fetus is not human. The only way to promote abortion and not be considered an absolute monster is if the fetus is a non-entity to be considered only in practical or political terms, but never moral. “It” is a commodity. It has to be. Morality only applies to the mother and what evil Republicans are trying to do to her. There is only one human being in the equation, never two. To think otherwise, to even consider that the fetus might also be a flesh and blood person, however diminutive, is unconscionable from the pro-choice perspective.
So abortion supporters remove the issue of fetal personhood from their conscience entirely. Dehumanization is integral to the pro-choice argument.
This is how too many on the right have begun to view immigrants. Like fringe, radical feminists who actually celebrate abortion, too many conservatives today talk about illegal immigrants as something less than human, seemingly as a badge of honor.
Immigrants, illegal or otherwise, become not poor people deserving of Christian compassion and empathy, but not even people at all. Migrants become non-entities, not unlike how the left views unborn children — subhumans whose only possible value is as a political weapon to poke opponents with.
Even if their ultimate conclusions are wrong, pro-choice advocates have perfectly valid points about women’s freedoms and right to their own body, just as opponents of illegal immigration are not wrong that it is a legitimate problem that deserves serious attention.
But never at the expense of our souls. Conservatives: Do we care about human life or not? Particularly innocent life, and no, stepping across the border illegally might be wrong, but it doesn’t eliminate one’s humanity. If conservatives are pro-life, and we are serious about it, that should apply to more than just the issue of abortion.
Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Sen. Rand Paul.
www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/how-conservatives-talk-about-immigrants-is-far-from-pro-life?fbclid=IwAR38VSrnUGU9QEvsAOcZuycjHiTt4YOaRidpFyR2j4I5xhjO6Ca78s9cA2I
That doesn’t mean they can enter the country illegally or ought to face no consequences for doing so. It certainly doesn’t mean they should automatically be given the same rights and privileges as American citizens. Yet it does mean that, as conservatives, we should respect life and embrace a compassionate approach to immigration. This is something pro-life conservatives should intrinsically understand.
When reports emerged that migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border, including children, were being kept in cages in perilous conditions, liberals were quick to use this as a battering ram against President Trump. It’s Trump’s policies that created this, they claim. But the cages were created during the Obama administration and when similar conditions existed under his administration, Democrats didn’t seem to care.
What gets lost in the partisan one-upmanship is that real human beings are suffering. Children are suffering. Dismissing them as “illegals” or believing they are just lawbreakers who deserve harsh punishment ignores what plights they might have suffered that has brought them to this point. It ignores their basic humanity, and lacks compassion.
“The reports of the conditions for migrant children at the border should shock all of our consciences,” Southern Baptist leader Dr. Russell Moore tweeted recently. “Those created in the image of God should be treated with dignity and compassion, especially those seeking refuge from violence back home. We can do better than this.”
Moore is right: We can do better. We should, at a basic human level, all understand this, no matter our politics. But unfortunately, the immigration issue is falling into the same trap that plagues our toxic discourse on abortion.
In virtually every abortion debate, the pro-choice position rests on the assumption that the fetus is not human. The only way to promote abortion and not be considered an absolute monster is if the fetus is a non-entity to be considered only in practical or political terms, but never moral. “It” is a commodity. It has to be. Morality only applies to the mother and what evil Republicans are trying to do to her. There is only one human being in the equation, never two. To think otherwise, to even consider that the fetus might also be a flesh and blood person, however diminutive, is unconscionable from the pro-choice perspective.
So abortion supporters remove the issue of fetal personhood from their conscience entirely. Dehumanization is integral to the pro-choice argument.
This is how too many on the right have begun to view immigrants. Like fringe, radical feminists who actually celebrate abortion, too many conservatives today talk about illegal immigrants as something less than human, seemingly as a badge of honor.
Immigrants, illegal or otherwise, become not poor people deserving of Christian compassion and empathy, but not even people at all. Migrants become non-entities, not unlike how the left views unborn children — subhumans whose only possible value is as a political weapon to poke opponents with.
Even if their ultimate conclusions are wrong, pro-choice advocates have perfectly valid points about women’s freedoms and right to their own body, just as opponents of illegal immigration are not wrong that it is a legitimate problem that deserves serious attention.
But never at the expense of our souls. Conservatives: Do we care about human life or not? Particularly innocent life, and no, stepping across the border illegally might be wrong, but it doesn’t eliminate one’s humanity. If conservatives are pro-life, and we are serious about it, that should apply to more than just the issue of abortion.
Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Sen. Rand Paul.
www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/how-conservatives-talk-about-immigrants-is-far-from-pro-life?fbclid=IwAR38VSrnUGU9QEvsAOcZuycjHiTt4YOaRidpFyR2j4I5xhjO6Ca78s9cA2I
