There is a long-shot bill in the North Carolina legislature sparking some hubbub. It seeks to amend the state constitution to allow women who receive abortions to be prosecuted for murder. The bill follows similar ones in other states. They come from an ascendant faction in the anti-abortion movement known as abortion abolitionists.
I say “anti-abortion” instead of “pro-life” because abolitionists explicitly state that they are not pro-life, nor do pro-lifers claim them. They oppose pro-life laws that do not fully ban abortion (such as heartbeat bills) as an immoral compromise. For the abolitionist, it’s go big or go home.
The tortured reasoning that rejects saving some babies from abortion because you cannot save all babies from abortion aside, one might conclude the abolitionist position is logical. If abortion is murder, then at least some women who get abortions must be guilty of murder. If the abolitionist contention ended here, it might be less controversial. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Underlying issues reveal abolitionists’ rationality to be a mirage.
The first problem comes when you wonder what could happen to women who are trafficked or in abusive relationships. If a trafficker or abusive boyfriend threatens the woman into an abortion, should she still be prosecuted? The abolitionist answers: “Duress is no defense for abortion.”
This position is so repugnant that it does not deserve the dignity of an expansive response, no matter how much waxing eloquent about the “lesser magistrate” must be passed over. Let just this be said: If a master orders a slave to beat another slave with his supervision, who is guilty of the abuse? If an abortion only occurs due to duress, then only the tormentor, not his unwilling victim, can bear responsibility for the act.
Then comes the second problem, which is this: By insisting on immediacy, abortion abolitionists fail to understand how social change ought to be carried out. There’s a great line in the dramatization of Les Misérables about how the French Revolution “tried to change the world too fast.” Conservative thinkers such as Edmund Burke have noted that changes can be necessary, but when they are, they must be executed with wisdom. Rapid change brings about unforeseen consequences. No doubt your average Jacobin never intended the Reign of Terror, let alone Napoleon. The “solution” proved to be worse than the problem.
The proper method of change is put aptly by Francis Bacon: “Men in their innovations [should] follow the example of time itself; which innovateth greatly, but quietly, by degrees scarce to be perceived.” This is the path successful reformers have taken. For all their Bible-thumping, the abolitionists have not yet learned Paul’s lesson in 1 Corinthians 3:2: “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.”
The Christian tradition has sought to set the transition from milk to meat at whatever pace necessary. Augustine opposed banning prostitution because he did not think Roman society was yet ready for such a change. Likewise, Abraham Lincoln did not endorse abolishing slavery until disdain for slavery peaked in the 1860s, signaling America was finally ready to do so.
Obviously, Augustine (once converted) wasn’t sleeping around, and Lincoln was never a friend to slavery. They wanted to see the sins of their societies ended, but also understood the stakes of change. Banning prostitution too soon may have come back upon the church’s head. Abolishing slavery too early may have wrought calamity even more destructive than the Civil War.
JESSE RIDGWAY ABORTED HIS CHILD WITH DOWN SYNDROME. HE WAS LIED TO
Russell Kirk writes that “the test of a statesman is his cognizance of the real tendency of Providential social forces.” Abortion abolitionists know of no such concept, and so fail to realize America is not yet ready for the conversations they want to have.
Seeking to end abortion is noble, but as with all things, it must not be taken to an extreme. In their zeal, the abolitionists do more harm than good. One sees such agitating for rapid change that would execute the trafficked, and suddenly, the abortionist doesn’t look as maniacal.