A flood of pro-life laws have been sweeping the country, most notably in Arkansas and North Dakota, causing plenty of teeth-gnashing and angst among the pro-abortion crowd. And while it isn’t unusual for pro-lifers to be attacked, a new and disturbing trend has popped up: comparing pro-life Christian lawmakers to the Taliban.
It was mentioned repeatedly at Blog for Arizona, including these lovely passages:
This is a cautionary warning. Mullah Cathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at Center for Arizona Policy have been relatively quiet in this session of the Arizona legislature (the “show me your papers to pee bill” is one exception), but next year is an election year and the CAP will want to give the Christian Taliban something to wage a crusade at the polls. I would not be surprised to see what is happening in North Dakota introduced in the next session of the Arizona legislature.
… If people remain silent as women are systematically deprived of their constitutional liberties and rights and reduced to second class citizens — simply by virtue of a pregnancy — and become property of the state, this dystopian fable can all too readily become a reality.
The people at Mother Jones not only throw out the Taliban word, but they break out comparisons to the Inquisition, too, in a discussion about contraceptives being made available for single people. And another pro-abort blog jumped on the bandwagon last month, calling pro-life Christians the Taliban and “fetus fetishists.” Another blog made the reference over the closings of abortion clinics.
This isn’t a new trend, either. The phrase has even been thrown around on MSNBC and “The View” in the past.
Why is this such an offensive comparison? Well, let’s just consider a few examples of the atrocities the Taliban has committed. They force children to be suicide bombers. The U.N. has estimated that, between 1996-2001 alone, the Taliban had committed 15 human rights massacres. They engage in human trafficking, and women live in a state of constant fear and oppression, where they are routinely beaten, abused, and attacked. They also routinely murder Afghan civilians.
Then there’s the case of Bibi Aisha. Bibi was forced into marriage with a Taliban fighter at 14, who often beat and abused her. At 18, she attempted to escape from her abusive marriage and returned to her parents, but she was caught. As punishment, her husband and his family took her into the mountains of Afghanistan, where they held her down and cut off her nose and her ears, leaving her to die. She miraculously survived, but how many women in her position don’t?
Or there’s the story of Malala Yousafzai, a female student who bravely spoke out about the right to an education for girls. The Taliban shot her in the head and neck. She also miraculously survived.
There was also a couple who were caught by the Taliban trying to elope. They were promised that if they returned to Afghanistan, the Taliban would allow them to marry. Instead, they were victims of one of the most gruesome and awful death sentences possible: stoning. The video shocked the world.
And according to these pro-aborts, this is what we, as pro-life Christians, are like. For daring to defend the lives of the unborn, pro-life Christians are in the same class as an organization which murders people and commits human rights abuses on a regular basis. It’s ironic, in a way, considering that pro-lifers seek to defend life, and the Taliban does nothing but abuse it and take it away.
It also serves to show how weak the pro-abortion arguments against life are. Pro-aborts know that the unborn are not just products of conception or clumps of tissue. They know that a life is taken during an abortion; it’s been admitted many times. They can’t win on the basis of science and facts, so they have no choice but to resort to despicable ad hominem attacks.
