Is the protestant position on abortion contradictory?

I just wanted to pick up on this tweet.

I will never understand the Christians who say babies are born evil, wicked, and sinners by nature while simultaneously contending that abortion is wrong because they’re innocent and guilty of no crime.

— The Church Split (@thechurchsplit) February 15, 2023

I think that it runs with a number of misconceptions and confusions.  First,  a misunderstanding of what we mean by things like original sin and Total Depravity.  The choice of wording in the tweet suggests that the doctrines require us to regard people, including babies and those not yet born as monsters.  Total Depravity (the Reformed development of original sin) is a way of saying that sin affects all aspects of our lives.  Original Sin itself is the doctrine that we all sinned in Adam so that we are all under the just penalty of death.  In fact, the point is that even before I start doing and saying wrong things that I have the sin problem, I need to be right with God. I need a saviour.

Secondly, there is a confusion caused by the conflation of “sin” and “crime”.  Crime is specifically about our relationship to the law of the land.  All crime therefore is sin but not all sin is crime.  My wrong thoughts, by addictive habits, my selfishness and pride are not likely to get me arrested, fined or put in prison.

Thirdly, I think it just misses the whole point about why protestants/evangelicals are opposed to abortion. It is not about whether or not the unborn baby is sinless. If that were the case, then we would have no problem with taking lives in any other context. No-one would be safe.  No, as per God’s command to Noah in Genesis 9, our issue is very, very simple.  All humans are made in God’s image and so their lives are of great value.  We do not have permission to take the life of another. We should treat others with the dignity that comes with being made in God’s image.

What this means is that I take the preservation of life seriously.  This includes not only the refusal to intentionally take a life but also a conscious commitment to preserving life and to taking care not to be negligent with others.  This applies to my treatment of people from conception through to death. It applies to the strong and mighty and the weak and vulnerable. It applies to my best friend and my worst enemy.