Isn’t consciousness what makes us valuable?
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.
Do abolitionists want to criminalize women who have abortions?
Abolitionists do not seek to “criminalize women.” We seek to criminalize the act of abortion. That cannot be accomplished without prosecuting those who have abortions. The Pro-Life Movement, on the other hand, seeks to make sure that every abortion law contains immunity for the mother so that she cannot be prosecuted for having an abortion. This protects a woman’s right to abortion. If a woman can perform her own abortion without being prosecuted, then abortion is legal. By insisting on blanket maternal immunity, the pro-life leaders protect a woman’s right to abortion.
Do abolitionists support IVF?
Common IVF practice includes the fertilizing of more eggs than can be implanted, the discarding of “low grade” embryos, and selective reduction abortion if too many embryos successfully implant in the uterus. The result is 32 human beings are conceived for every one live birth.
Such practices are self-evidently wicked. Though some believe there is an ethical way to practice IVF, we believe that the creation of life should not be done by scientists in a lab, but rather through the God-ordained method for creating life: intercourse of husband and wife.
Our page on IVF delves into this topic with significant depth, and includes resources for further research and education. AbolitionistsRising.com/IVF
Was Dobbs a step in the right direction?
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.
Wouldn’t an abolition bill outlaw miscarriage treatment?
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.”
If abortion is criminalized, won’t it just happen in less safe ways, unsafely?
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.
Since not everyone is a Christian, shouldn’t we argue against abortion from a secular perspective?
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.
Under an abolition law, would ever single aborting mother be charged with 1st degree murder?
No. An abolition bill simply makes preborn children equal under law. So all the immunities, justifications, and mitigating factors considered in all other criminal cases would also be considered when charging and trying people for abortion. Each instance would be considered on a case-by-case basis based on the facts of each case. Some men and women would get charged with first degree murder. Some would get charged with third degree murder or manslaughter. Some would not be charged at all, such as those women being coerced. It all depends on the facts of the case.
Can You Come to My Campus/Town?
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’t we end abortion without prosecuting mothers?
To put it simply, no. If someone is legally permitted to commit an act without any possibility of legal penalty, then that act is legal. In no way, shape, or form has abortion been abolished if mothers are permitted to self-manage an abortion with legal immunity.
The video on the right demonstrates exactly how easy self-managed abortion is.
Aren’t abolitionists and pro-lifers on the same team? Why do abolitionists criticize the Pro-Life Movement?
Pro-life organizations and politicians have been the primary people standing in the way of legislation to abolish abortion in more than a dozen pro-life states. In a state like Oklahoma, if we are to criticize those preventing abortion’s abolition, there is no one to criticize but pro-lifers. They do this because worldly pragmatism is their standard, not God’s Word. One of the best things that could happen for preborn children would be for National Right to Life, SBA Pro-Life America, and Americans United for Life to fold tomorrow. This podcast episode explains the various reasons why this is the case.
How would ectopic pregnancies be handled under an abolition law?
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.
Aren’t preborn humans just clumps of cells?
In the atheistic worldview, we’re all just clumps of cells, including the person raising this argument. But we’re not just clumps of cells. Humans are not simply the matter that makes them up. We are eternal souls. We are image bearers. And that begins at the moment we begin to exist, which is at fertilization.
That’s just your belief that life begins at fertilization/conception. Can you find any scientist who thinks that?
“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
What about bodily autonomy? What about my body, my choice?
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.
You can’t legislate morality, right?
You can ONLY legislate morality. Every law legislates based on someone’s view of morality. Every law is an instance of those in power establishing what citizens must not do because it is wrong. Speed limit laws are based on the immorality of risking your life and that of others. Child support laws are based on the immorality of a father leaving his family. Laws are inescapably moral. The question is not whether morality will be legislated but whose morality will be legislated? In the case of abortion, the question is will pro-child sacrifice people or anti-child sacrifice people be writing the laws?