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The pro-life movement in the Netherlands is experiencing a resurgence among its youth. In response, a Dutch National Broadcaster NOS published a slickly-produced mini-documentary to persuade young people to change their views on abortion. A young Dutch Christian YouTuber responded with a video shredding the false claims and manipulation in the NOS’s ad.

The Pro-Life Resurgence in the Netherlands

Since 2016, the ‘March for Life’ in the Netherlands has grown enormously, attracting consistently over 10,000 participants (before the COVID-19 pandemic struck). This is despite stringent opposition in a country that is considered one of the most socially progressive in the world.

Researchers from Tilburg University found that Dutch young people between 20 and 40 are more likely to be pro-life than the older generations. This is despite abortion being fully legalised in the country since 1984, almost four decades ago.

Tragically, young people in the Netherlands have no memory or experience of their country before the murder of unborn babies was made legal. Now, almost 30,000 babies are killed each year in the country.

In response to the rise in pro-life young people, one of the Netherlands’ government-funded public broadcasters, Nederlandse Omroep Stichting, produced a blatantly ideological mini-documentary clip attempting to explain and dissuade young people from their pro-life stance.

The video claimed to present the “truth about the abortion debate”, while actively stigmatising and maligning young people who disagreed with the dominant pro-abortion narrative.

Young People Leading the Pro-Life Charge

But Carel de Lange (a.k.a. The Thinking Dutchman) was quick to call out the broadcaster’s blatant agenda.

De Lange has degrees in both science and philosophy, and, last year, he started uploading videos to his YouTube Channel, The Thinking Dutchman, where he presents “thoughtful commentary on anti-Christian content”.

In response to the NOS documentary, he uploaded a video entitled “The Real Truth About the Abortion Debate (Response to Dutch Documentary)” in which he systematically debunked the NOS piece.

Throughout his video, he showed that the NOS documentary was guilty of Bulverism — a term coined by C.S. Lewis to refer to a particularly dangerous rhetorical fallacy.

De Lange also demonstrated that the anti-life side was sloppy with — and sometimes outright inaccurate — in their usage of terminology and that they consistently let people’s feelings get in the way of the truth. He borrows the now-famous line from US cultural commentator, Ben Shapiro: “Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings”.

Some in the pro-abortion camp argue that, while unborn babies are humans, they cannot be considered “persons”. De Lange also responds to this claim.

You can watch the full video below:

In his concluding remarks, de Lange argued that the “mini-documentary is a manifestation of the post-truth culture we live in”.

“The focus is not on the truth about abortion itself, but on people’s beliefs about it. The makers of this video are guilty of Bulverism because they assume that the pro-life side is wrong and then they give psychological reasons as to why more and more young people become pro-life. This is completely backwards because you must first show that someone is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong.”

Thank God for people like Carel de Lange as well as ​​Eva Vlaardingerbroek, whom Bill Muehlenberg highlighted in his recent article. These Christian champions continue to fight in spite of the fiercest opposition.

If they can do it in one of the most anti-Christian western countries in the world, how much more should we be courageous in standing for righteousness here in Australia.

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Photo by Colin Maynard on Unsplash.