For several years now, the so-called abolitionist movement in abortion politics was considered the fringe of a fringe. But the movement is gaining traction, and a recent debate sponsored by Students for Life of America’s Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement spotlights key strategic cleavages dividing pro-lifers. But do the abolitionists’ theological and biblical arguments withstand scrutiny? First, a bit of context.
Beginning about a decade ago, abolitionists in Texas called for ignoring Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in defiance of the Supreme Court and abolishing abortion at the city, county, and state levels. They channeled the spirit of an argument some leading pro-life constitutional scholars have long held as a plausible interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment: that all persons, born and unborn, are deserving of equal protection of the laws. Yet if this constitutional argument were adopted, it would entail a “maximalist” pro-life outcome of outlawing abortion across a nation in which many states have strong majorities that support it. And it has found scarce support among originalist judges. Whether for principled or prudential reasons, or both, they favored the view that the Constitution is silent on abortion and thus left the issue to the people of the various states to decide. In the Roe–Casey years, mainstream pro-lifers sought to marshal support for incremental pro-life laws that would survive constitutional challenges and save as many babies as possible. In the four years since Dobbs returned authority to legislate on abortion to the states, pro-lifers have continued to work incrementally as the abolitionist movement has called for abolition now by extending equal protection of state laws against murder to unborn children—and holding all parties to abortion criminally liable, including mothers. As evident in the White Rose Resistance statement, for example, several prominent conservative Christian influencers have signed onto a version of abolitionism.
While many abolitionists offer these arguments in good faith, many mainstream pro-lifers are not convinced. (For the sake of simplicity, I’ll refer to mainstream pro-lifers who prefer incrementalist strategies simply as “pro-lifers,” a terminological distinction the abolitionists themselves adopt). Pro‑lifers argue that criminal immunity for mothers was and continues to be prudent. In the first place, while abortion was historically a crime at common law in the United States, there is no tradition of widespread prosecution for the crime. Indeed, it has hardly ever been prosecuted in American history (perhaps only three attempts). This was partly because it is a hard crime to detect and prove. This difficulty is arguably more acute now, when most abortions are chemical abortions induced by mifepristone, which is not detectable by blood tests and presents like a miscarriage. In a post-Dobbs world, pro-lifers also argue we need to account for the noetic effects of a half-century of lies perpetuated by the institutions of law, courts, media, and education, which have deceived many women into believing the unborn aren’t persons. If correct, many women seeking abortion may lack the requisite mens rea (“guilty mind”) to prosecute them for murder. Moreover, pro-lifers maintain that it was and remains more feasible and politically palatable to focus on prosecuting abortionists than mothers, particularly in light of the consistent majority of public opinion over the last thirty years favoring legal abortion in all or some cases. And pro-lifers contend that the implication of implementing abolitionist measures in this moment—and potentially subjecting mothers to the death penalty in states like Texas—will generate a massive backlash against pro-life legislators and the movement more generally.
The abolitionist movement has called for abolition now by extending equal protection of state laws against murder to unborn children—and holding all parties to abortion criminally liable, including mothers.
In the recent debate, mainstream pro-lifer JoJo Ruba ably defended his view. Meanwhile, the Foundation to Abolish Abortion president Bradley Pierce’s theological and biblical arguments warrant a detailed analysis. The interlocutors stipulated that they agreed on the ultimate goal of full equal protection of the laws for the unborn—their debate was over the means. According to Pierce, pro-life incrementalism is contrary to “God’s way” and the “Christian way.”
Abolitionism is “God’s way” because the Bible tells us so. The Bible defines human life as beginning at conception, proscribes murder, and mandates murder be punished as a matter of both retribution and deterrence. Moreover, laws that exempt mothers from criminal liability for abortion violate the Bible’s proscription of “partiality,” a claim for which various Bible verses are cited. And how should this program be communicated to a largely post-Christian society? Pierce explicitly pooh-poohs appeals to instruments of persuasion like science, history, and natural reason, insisting instead on a form of divine command voluntarism and biblicism: “It is about Christ is King, and he says don’t murder people.” The suggestion is that when pro-lifers do not end every argument or pro-life law with, because Christ is King, they are dishonoring God. God’s way is to argue and legislate with proof‑texts from the Bible. And if the audience does not accept the authority of the Bible? Then, more cowbell: Preach unto them the Bible!
“God’s way” thus looks strikingly like a Reformed Protestant evangelical postmillennialism. While a kind of postmillennialism—the idea that Christ’s thousand-year reign will come after Christian evangelism of the world has largely been achieved—is not per se contrary to Catholic teaching, biblicism is. It is also out of step with the best of the American political tradition. I can’t help but recall Alexander Hamilton’s exhortation to Samuel Seabury, which Pierce would do well to heed: “Apply yourself, without delay, to the study of the law of nature.” That is, Pierce simply overlooks what the Bible calls the law “written on the heart” and how natural law theory was cultivated and preserved even by the best theologians in his own Reformed tradition, such as Francis Turretin.
If Pierce had attended to the study of Reformed masters like Turretin, he would have learned that the evidence of the existence of a moral law known in conscience by unaided reason is affirmed in Scripture, apparent by the common consent of nations, apparent to the individual conscience, an implication of God’s governance over rational creatures who have not received or heard or accepted revelation, and testified to by the noble pagan philosophers (Institutes of Elenctic Theology). Accordingly, when St. Paul preached on Mars Hill to the men of Athens, he didn’t beat them over the head with the Pentateuch, an authority they did not recognize, but instead appealed to their natural knowledge of God manifest in creation. Hence, morally reasoning with pagans in a way that appeals to the law written on the heart, without explicitly invoking Christ’s kingship as the pedigree of that law, is no dishonor to God. Similarly, a law that focuses on aiding women in crisis pregnancy or saving babies, which is not prefaced with an invocation of the Holy Trinity, is not an act of vice for that reason. It is rather an act of virtue that is referable to God’s glory.
If indeed the natural law is—as natural lawyers from Aquinas to Turretin taught—the eternal law of God impressed upon his creatures and made known to reason, what difference does that make for the debate between abolitionists and pro-lifers? Well, the natural law is expressed in positive law in two ways. First, by way of deduction. So a deduction from the moral principle do not steal is to make theft a crime in human positive law. But how shall thieves be punished? This is the realm of determinatio, in which legislators reason from general principles to specific conclusions by exercising the virtue of prudence to determine just what sorts of punishments would conduce to the common good, to justice and peace. Simply put: It is entirely possible that abolitionists and pro-lifers could have a good-faith disagreement over what sorts of punishments for the crime of abortion would be prudent (would be enforceable, save more babies, assist women in crisis pregnancies, encourage women to visit pregnancy resource centers, change women’s hearts, convert the culture of death to a culture of life, and the like). Mr. Ruba’s arguments on these and other prudential points deserve serious consideration.
It is fatuous to dismiss these considerations by crying partiality, as if prudence had no bearing on whether a legal classification that benefits or burdens a particular class of persons has any rational basis. That is not what the Bible teaches. The biblical injunction is clearly intended to require a judicial virtue forbidding favoritism of a disputant for arbitrary reasons or reasons unrelated to justice, like his poverty or wealth. Meanwhile, under the Old Law, all sorts of discriminations with a rational basis were permitted. For example, only descendants of Aaron of the Levites could serve as priests (Num 3:10), usury could be charged to foreigners but not fellow Jews (Deut 23:20), and debts owed to fellow Israelites were cancelled every seven years but not debts owed to foreigners (Deut 15:3).
None of this is to suggest a Catholic natural lawyer could not arrive in good conscience at a version of equal protection, particularly when cultural realities are favorable. Indeed, there are various Roman Catholic countries that impose criminal sanctions on mothers for abortion (even if prosecution of them is rare) that appear to be in accord with natural law principles (as in Malta).
But I am suggesting that the abolitionists’ foundational claim to bear the exclusive mantle of Christianity is as arrogant as it is absurd. The idea that one peculiar Reformed biblicist outlook just is “God’s way”—and the implication that the pro-life incrementalism is the way of the infidel—distorts the Bible, is ignorant of the broad Christian natural law tradition, and is an insult to the millions of pro-lifers who have honored God for decades with their tireless work to love mothers and save babies.