There appears to be a divide among organizations claiming to uphold life. This divide comes at a crucial time when unity could make the difference in infusing a culture of life back into our society and discourse.
Even before the overturn of Roe v. Wade (1973) through Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health (2022), pro-lifers and abortion abolitionists were at odds on the best approach to stop abortion, setting the stage for legal and intellectual stand-offs between the two. Some pro-lifers hold to incrementalism in law, but compassion in approach. Abolitionists reject this viewpoint, and since the Dobbs decision, have become increasingly vocal and effective in championing laws recognizing fetal personhood and protecting the preborn without exception.
Christopher Maska, from the Texas Alliance for Life’s General Counsel, says the following about the abolitionist view:
They believe that the only truly pro-life position is to pass laws that recognize the crime of abortion is murder and that all who participate in abortion, including the mother, should face the criminal penalty for murder, including the death penalty where it is a criminal penalty for murder. Previously, I have written why practically this is a bad idea. If one wants to have the fewest numbers of abortions, one should target abortionists and those who traffic abortion pills, who can potentially kill thousands of unborn children, not the mothers who at most are responsible for a tiny fraction of the abortionists’ toll. To convict these kingpins, one will most likely need the mother’s testimony, and the best way to get the testimony is by giving mothers immunity. Mothers should be given blanket immunity because that best protects the unborn child.
Maska further stated:
But to the Abolitionists, either you believe that the mother who gets an abortion has committed a capital crime or you are not really pro-life. Their website has a page that instead of confronting the real arguments against their position, engages against certain straw man arguments and concludes that those who don’t buy their argument that equal protection is a simple thing are at best suffering from ‘born privilege’ and are acting contrary to the Bible. An example of recent Texas legislation shows how the Abolitionists disagree with the rest of the pro-life movement.
Abortion abolition organizations have put forward legislation in Texas, Missouri, and other red states like Iowa and Alabama, creating the scenario of penalizing women along with the purveyors of abortion for the crime of murder. Abolitionists not only view this as sound policy, they deem it a constitutional right.
Paul Abbott III and his End Abortion Alabama organization was part of a May event where lawyers, legislators, and anti-abortion advocates gave greater voice to their plans and concepts. 1819 News’ Craig Monger reported on the event:
House Bill 518 (HB518), also known as the Prenatal Equal Protection Act, is aimed at providing ‘equal protection’ under the law for unborn children who are killed by abortion. HB518 would permit criminal prosecution for abortions in the state with several exceptions. Under the bill, prosecutions where the victim is an unborn child ‘must be treated the same as if the unborn child were born alive.’
Alabama’s legislative session ended without the bill getting a hearing or a vote in the House Health Committee, but its author, Rep. Ernie Yarbrough (R-Trinity), appears fully invested in the idea, having filed similar legislation two years before.
These abolitionist aims are gaining a greater audience and appear to be having greater effectiveness. But just because an idea gains traction, does it make that idea right? The left knows well how to repeat fallacious arguments until people start believing that they are true. Does it make it any better that the right is now using the same tactics?
In my mind, the abolitionist approach cuts against the grain of the pro-life movement’s embrace of both mother and preborn child. As Maska argued, these laws could have the unintended consequences of making vulnerable women too afraid to seek help for their pregnancy if the threat of being targeted or prosecuted is on the table.
According to arguments over this issue, such as those taking place in the Georgia Legislature, these legal measures are deemed insufficient in actually protecting life, preborn or otherwise. While seeking to give full protection to the preborn, they simultaneously strip protections from women who are being trafficked or are the victims of incest or rape. These real horrors are a cancer on our society, leaving women trapped and adrift, feeling as though they have no other options. These tactics employed by both the pro-abortion left and the anti-abortion right seem to only serve to further victimize both mother and preborn child.
Many abolitionist laws are rattling around legislatures, either gaining passage in one chamber but rejected in the other, or stalling in committee. Laws on both sides of the debate will always be impractical and incomplete, particularly without a return of hearts and minds to a culture of life.
Those of us who champion the cause for life have enough bad to combat from the left and the intellectual elites. Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights organizations are pushing abortion up to birth, the abortion pill, and transgenderism, while simultaneously encouraging the eugenicist wave of IVF and designer babies. All these tactics are subtle and overt means that oppose life as God designed. One would think the two factions seeking to uphold life could get on the same page and oppose the sicknesses in our society, rather than each other.
We are wasting precious energy while the culture of life is further eroded rather than rebuilt. We need better solutions than the ones being presented.
Jennifer Oliver O'Connell, As the Girl Turns, is an investigative journalist, author, opinion analyst, and contributor to 1819 News, Redstate, and other publications. Jennifer writes on Politics and Pop Culture, with occasional detours into Reinvention, Yoga, and Food. You can read more about Jennifer's world at her As the Girl Turns website. You can also follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
Don’t miss out! Subscribe to our newsletter and get our top stories every weekday morning.
