What’s the Goal of the VeggieTales Creator’s Video About Abortion?

Michie

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The creator of Veggie Tales made a video that, in effect, makes the case against the importance of voting pro-life.

VeggieTales creator, Phil Vischer, has done some wonderful videos over the years. But his new video on abortion is quite a different product. If you have time, watch it (below) before you read my commentary.

Now, what do you think is the main goal of this video? Is it to urge Christians to not merely focus on overturning Roe to reduce abortions? Or, do you think the main goal of the video is to give Christians supposed intellectual and moral justification to vote against Trump and for Biden in 2020?

Since “vote” is in its title, it seems to be a thinly veiled attempt to achieve the latter. The motive behind the video doesn’t make its contents false, of course. Some of it is certainly true. In fact, the video rightly highlights that overturning Roe is hard, and it’s not the only thing that Christians and other pro-lifers should be doing to end abortion.

But informed Christians already know that. They are already engaged in ministries to prevent abortion and minister to those hurt by it. They also know that overturning Roe will not end abortion in America, but it will save thousands of lives (as the video admits).

Fallacies and False Data
If this video is intended to shift evangelical voting priorities, it should fail because the video’s case is built on fallacies and false data. It also leaves out several relevant facts.




    • It offers the false dilemma that we can only reduce abortions by the methods they suggest OR by overturning Roe. Why can’t we do both? We can and should, as most pro-lifers attempt to do.
    • It tries to make a case that changing the law wouldn’t matter much. It does so by making contrary to fact assertions and citing obviously false stats:
      • An “estimated” 800,000 abortions in 1930. Really? Who’s doing the “estimating”? There were only 123 million people in the U.S. in 1930. Today there are 331 million which are known to produce 800,000 abortions each year. Obviously, the 1930 “estimate” is wildly inflated: there were far less than 800,000 abortions in 1930 because we had only 37% of the population that we have now, and there was not the same access to abortion then as now.
      • More abortions before Roe and the rate is also lower now? Again, false. According to Dr. Thomas Hilgers, who did the definitive study on this back in 1981, the true annual number of pre-Roe abortions is somewhere between 39,000 and 210,000 with a median of 98,000 — nowhere close to the 800,000 cited in the video (which obviously makes their rate claim wrong). How could the video’s authors think their numbers were anything other than make-believe? It defies all experience and common sense to think you’ll get less of something if you make it legal. Does anyone really think we’ll get fewer murders if we just make murders legal? Fewer rapes if we legalize it? Incredibly, that’s what the authors of this video say has happened with abortion, and it nullifies the core of their argument.
    • It ignores the fact that the law is a great teacher, and that changing it yields great benefits. Many people take their moral cues from the law. They think whatever is legal is moral, and whatever is illegal is immoral. Slavery is a good example. We have a better moral view on slavery now than 160 years ago even though, overall, we are less moral now in most other areas. Why? Because the law has helped teach people since then that slavery is immoral. Similarly, most people thought abortion was immoral in 1973 as evidenced by the fact that most states outlawed it. Now we’re about evenly split. Why? Because making abortion legal made more people mistakenly think it is moral. It is not, as this one-minute video unequivocally shows.
    • It assumes that since Roe hasn’t been overturned yet, it won’t be overturned, so we shouldn’t keep it a priority (suspiciously two weeks before the most pro-life president in terms of policy and appointments is up for re-election). They ignore the fact that overturning Roe requires a long game that can take many years. It requires a case to come before the court that challenges Roethrough state law. This happens infrequently because states are not apt to pass such a law unless they think the court might take it and then vote favorably on it. A conservative court is more likely to welcome such a challenge. With Trump’s three judges, we may finally have such a court. That will be lost if Democrats win and pack the court — a threat Biden refuses to deny.
    • It ignores the fact that Roe would have been overturned in 1992 had Bork not been “Borked” by Democrats in the Senate (The Planned Parenthood vs. Casey case was at 5-4 decision with Kennedy, Bork’s replacement, writing the atrocious relativistic decision in favor of keeping Roe).
What’s Really Behind This Video?

Continued below.
What's the Goal of the VeggieTales Creator's Video About Abortion? | The Stream