Can’t we end abortion without prosecuting mothers?

While the pro-life leaders have dug in their heels and opposed abolition, most pro-life people are open to abolitionist ideas. Most pro-lifers who don’t have a close connection to a pro-life leader or group are persuaded by abolitionism when they encounter it. We just have to draw clear lines between pro-life and abolition, explain the unbiblical thinking and treachery on the pro-life side, and call pro-lifers to cross the line.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade, essentially turning over the responsibility for abortion policy to the state governments and to Congress.

But in order to say that the States and Congress can write whatever abortion policy they want, you have to deny that the preborn child is a person. If the preborn child was a person, the Constitution mandates that they receive the rights to life and the equal protection of the law. In Dobbs, the Court ought to have recognized the humanity of preborn children and ordered that their rights be protected. The conference presentation to the right explains this in detail.

But, one might say, at least the states are now free to abolish abortion if they want to. The problem with this sentiment is that the states were always free to write whatever abortion sentiment they wanted to. From the get-go, Roe was an obvious violation of the Constitution and was therefore not binding on the states. Abolition bills prior to Dobbs contained nullification clauses directing state officials to ignore Roe and any subsequent similar court opinions.

The leaders of the Pro-Life Movement are the enemies of justice for preborn children. They have opposed abolition bills and abolitionism at every turn. They believe mothers should be free to have self-managed abortion with impunity. They teach heterodox beliefs and strategies which blatantly violate God’s Word. It is necessary to distinguish one’s self from them. It is necessary to draw a clear line between their unbiblical beliefs and our Biblical ones. Language is an important part of that.

The pro-life groups know that differentiation between us and them is key to the growth of the Abolitionist Movement and that’s why they often steal our language and pass themselves off as abolitionists. They don’t want us to be able to create a clear, category distinction between us and them. This is a clear lesson to abolitionists about the importance of linguistic differentiation.

We aren’t as interested in personal opinions as we are with objective truth, and the only objective standard of truth is God’s revelation to man. An atheist can have a personal opinion that abortion is good or bad, but he cannot ground his opinion in anything objective.

As William Lloyd Garrison wrote, “Take away the Bible, and our warfare with oppression, and infidelity, and intemperance, and impurity, and crime, is at an end: our weapons are wrested away—our foundation is removed—we have no authority to speak, and no courage to act.”

God, the transcendent source of all morality, is the only standard by which evils like abortion can be adequately rebuked. The Holy Spirit is the only one who can open the eyes of the wicked abortion supporters who do not have an intellectual problem but a moral one.

“Human life begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo development) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).” – Keith L. Moore BA MSc PhD DSc FIAC FRSM FAAA, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.

“Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception). “Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being.” – Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2

“The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are…respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development.” – Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17

“The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.” – Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3

“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed…. The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity.” – O’Rahilly, Ronan and Muller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29.

“Every human embryologist in the world knows that the life of the new individual human being begins at fertilization. It is not belief. It is scientific fact.” C. Ward Kischer, Ph.D., Author, When Does Human Life Begin? The Final Answer, Human Embryologist, professor, University of Arizona College of Medicine.

“In that fraction of a second when the chromosomes form pairs, the sex of the new child will be determined, hereditary characteristics received from each parent will be set, and a new life will have begun.” – Kaluger, G., and Kaluger, M., Human Development: The Span of Life, page 28-29, The C.V. Mosby Co., St. Louis, 1974.

“It is the penetration of the ovum by a sperm and the resulting mingling of nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the initiation of the life of a new individual.” – Clark Edward and Corliss Patten’s Human Embryology, McGraw – Hill Inc., 30

“The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are…respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development.” – Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17

Development of the embryo begins at Stage 1 when a sperm fertilizes an oocyte and together they form a zygote.” – England, Marjorie A. Life Before Birth. 2nd ed. England: Mosby-Wolfe, 1996, p.31

“Zygote: This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression ‘fertilized ovum’ refers to the zygote.” – Keith L. Moore BA MSc PhD DSc FIAC FRSM FAAA, T.; V. N. Persaud MD PhD DSc FRCPath (Lond.); and Mark G. Torchia MSc PhD. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1

“Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus.” – Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146

“Embryo: the developing organism from the time of fertilization until significant differentiation has occurred, when the organism becomes known as a fetus.” – Cloning Human Beings. Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Rockville, MD: GPO, 1997, Appendix-2.

“In man the term ’embryo’ is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy.” – Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160

“Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism… At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun… The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life.” – Considine, Douglas M. (ed.). Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943

“Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)… The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual.” – Carlson, Bruce M. Patten’s Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3

No. Every abolition bill applies only to crimes committed after the passage of the bill. OK SB1729, for instance, says “This act is prospective only and shall not apply to conduct committed prior to the effective date of this act.” This is consistent with American law which prohibits ex-post facto prosecution.

If abortion is criminalized as murder, there will be far fewer abortions. Many expecting couples will not risk murder charges, and many other couples will be more sexually responsible and not make babies until they are prepared for babies.

But there certainly will be some who risk murder charges and get the abortion anyway. How do we know that? Because killing born people results in murder charges and people still do it. There will be men and women who violate the law possibly in back alley-type abortions. That is not the fault of people who believe that murder should be illegal and that all humans have rights. It is fault of people pursuing abortions in back-alleys.

Abolition bills mandate that preborn children be treated as equal human beings. This means they cannot be simply killed, but it also does not mean that a potentially life-threatening situation like ectopic pregnancy can’t be treated. An abolition bill like OK SB1729 establishes that “This chapter shall not apply to…the undertaking of life-saving procedures to save the life of the mother when accompanied by reasonable steps to save the life of the unborn child.” This means that doctors can and should treat ectopic pregnancies, but should also attempt, to the best of their ability to save the life of the unborn child. See our blog: “Examining Ectopic Pregnancy Treatments From An Abolitionist Perspective” for more details and what this would look like practically.

In 2011, T. Russell Hunter was asked by his church to give a presentation about how the body could get involved in different pro-life organizations, so Russell began reading various pro-life websites. At the same time, for his doctoral studies, Russell began reading about the history of the abolitionists of slavery.

In short order, it became clear that many of the very practices and strategies that the abolitionists blamed for the delay of the abolition of slavery were being practices and strategies being employed by the Pro-Life Movement. Russell became convinced of the need for an alternate movement, one that would bring God’s Word to bear on the subject and which would not compromise.

Miscarriage and abortion are two completely different things. Heartless, psychopathic abortion supporters have worked to linguistically and legally link miscarriage and abortion so that they can scare people into believing that abortion bans outlaw miscarriage treatment. It’s no surprise that murderers are also liars. No abortion ban ever written would outlaw the removing of a deceased fetus from the uterus. OK SB1729, for instance, has language establishing that “This chapter shall not apply to…a spontaneous miscarriage.”

The body inside a pregnant mother’s body is not her body. Bodily autonomy is not an absolute license to use one’s body in any way they choose. Specific to this case, you cannot use your body or the idea of bodily freedom to intentionally kill an innocent human being.

We are a small team of people located in central Oklahoma, and mainly just travel close by or do day-long activism trips. But we really want to encourage people like you to be doing the work of abolition on your own campus/in your own town.

First of all, check out the educational materials on our website and make sure you fully understand the differences between being an abolitionist and being pro-life.

Even if you don’t have any other Abolitionists around you that you know of, you can start spreading abolitionism by flyering cars in public parking lots with abolitionist materials like what we hand out on campus. This literature, t-shirts, and more are available in our online gear store. Flyering (or dropcarding) is walking from car to car to put a flyer under the driver-side windshield wiper, or sticking a dropcard in the driver-side window, held between the glass and the window gasket. In case anybody asks you, this is a federally protected first amendment activity in public parking lots.

To get connected with abolitionists near you, go to the main

page of our website and click on your state. At the bottom of your state’s individual page will be listed any abolitionists churches, groups, or organizations that signed onto the Norman Statement, which is the doctrinal statement of today’s Abolitionist Movement.

Can you kill a born child because they are poor? No? Then you can’t kill a preborn child because they might turn out to be poor. Help the poor, certainly, but don’t murder them. Murder is only an appropriate answer to poverty or suffering if you’re a psychopath.

Some people will acknowledge the humanity of a human embryo but will argue that they are not worthy of protection until they have consciousness or sentience. Such people reject the notion of human rights. They believe that only a special class of humans have value. They are bigots, no different than those that perpetrated the holocaust and race-based chattel slavery.

The image of God in human beings is where we get our objective value, and we all bear the image of God equally. We thus have equal value and are equally deserving of the protection of the laws. The view that value derives from consciousness would result in those who with greater cognitive capabilities and consciousness being of more value than others. Putting human value on a sliding scale like that will always end in a atrocities.

Don’t be a psychopath. You don’t murder people because they might grow up to be unproductive.