Why do abolitionists oppose incremental, pro-life legislation?

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.

What is an ectopic pregnancy?

An ectopic pregnancy, also referred to as an extrauterine pregnancy, is a pregnancy in which the baby has implanted in an abnormal location outside of the uterus. In most ectopic pregnancies, the baby is inside the fallopian tube. This is called a tubal pregnancy. In tubal ectopic pregnancies, the mother presents symptoms of pelvic pain, spotting, nausea, and abnormal hCG levels.

Tubal ectopic pregnancies are often diagnosed before 7 weeks LMP, (dated from last menstrual period). By this time, the baby has usually already died, as the fallopian tubes are not equipped to sustain a growing baby. The danger with a tubal pregnancy is that fallopian tubes have lots of blood vessels (meaning lots of potential for bleeding if ruptured) and are not very elastic (meaning it cannot appropriately expand as the baby grows). If it ruptures, the mother will suffer internal bleeding which can cause maternal death if immediate treatment is not administered, usually involving surgery to remove the fallopian tube, as detailed later.

Tubal pregnancies are 90% of ectopic pregnancies, but 10% of the time, the baby implants elsewhere in the abdominal cavity (such as on the cervix, ovary, myometrium, interstitial portion of the fallopian tube, abdominal cavity wall, or within a cesarean section scar). These babies have a better chance of survival, especially if the mother has endometriosis which means an abnormal placement of endometrial tissue outside the uterus. There are many reported cases of babies surviving non-tubal ectopic pregnancies. (See links at the bottom for examples.)

Using technologies including ultrasounds, doctors can detect where in the abdomen the baby has implanted and whether the baby is still alive. Whether or not the baby is still alive, we will be able to see chorionic villi (the primitive cells that would make the placenta), maternal blood, pregnancy cells and debris, and a microscopic baby.

Current Medical Practice

As we address in the following paragraphs the current medical practices contrasted with what we believe are morally acceptable treatment practices, be sure to understand clearly our distinction between the case of a living child in an ectopic pregnancy, and the case of an already deceased child in an ectopic pregnancy.

Whether or not the baby is found alive, the current approach for medical professionals is often to immediately intervene to remove the baby. This intervention can take the form of surgery to remove the baby from the fallopian tube or to remove all or part of the fallopian tube, (salpingostomy, salpingectomy, or partial salpingectomy). It can also take the form of a drug called Methotrexate used to chemically stop pregnancy growth and kill the baby if the baby is still alive. Even if the baby is not living, other pregnancy cells, such as the chorionic villi and amnion, can be, and this cell growth needs to be halted, in some cases immediately. Chemical treatment is not as effective as surgery, but it is less invasive, and some doctors give it a try at first to see if it will dissolve the area of concern. Methotrexate can only be used if the baby is very small, and the mother is stable.

None of these surgical and chemical interventions, if performed when the baby has already died, is an abortion. It is always ethically permissible and often medically necessary to use medical intervention to remove a deceased baby from the mother. In many cases, however, no medical intervention is necessary, so doctors sometimes do not pursue either surgical or chemical intervention, but instead practice watchful waiting, also referred to medically as expectant management. Research has shown that, in patients with an ectopic pregnancy who are properly assessed and their hCG levels are dropping, roughly 50% will end and be passed naturally with no need for surgical or chemical intervention.

Our Position

Most babies have already died by the time the ectopic pregnancy is diagnosed. However, when the baby is still alive, we do not believe the above surgical and chemical interventions, which cause the death of the baby, are morally permissible. The ethical treatment in these cases is watchful waiting/expectant management and an attempted transplant of the baby to the uterus if the mother’s condition worsens.

If the doctor and patient choose to pursue expectant management and the mother is stable, she can be sent home with very strict instructions about what to watch for and what to do if things start going downhill. If she is already in an unstable condition, she should be admitted to the hospital immediately. In either case, doctors should monitor her vital signs, hCG levels, and perform regular ultrasounds.

All of the current surgical and chemical intervention options, performed while the baby is still alive, result in the death of a living baby. We believe that such actions are premature and unethical. On top of being premature, we believe that this response, even though it may not be the intent, is a sort of shrugging off the value of the life in the womb, proverbially throwing one’s hands in the air as to anything that could be done to attempt to save the baby. The oath medical professionals take to “do no harm” and their duty to attempt to save every life should require them to recognize they have a second patient in the womb and at least try to save the life of the baby through a procedure that involves surgically removing the baby from the fallopian tube and placing the baby in the uterus with the hope that he or she will reattach. Most medical professionals do not believe that successfully reimplanting the baby in the uterus is possible, but there are some who do, including a hospital in China that reports an embryo reimplantation success rate comparable to IVF!

Imagine the current medical field’s response to a situation like ectopic pregnancy, but instead of a preborn child and a mother, it was happening with a newborn child and a mother. In the thought experiment, doctors do not believe it is likely or possible that a newborn can be saved with (x) condition, a condition that also somehow threatens the mother’s life. So instead of taking any (even long shot) action attempting to save both or expanding research efforts to find ways to save the newborn child, they immediately take a course of action that they know will directly result in the newborn’s death. They would likely lose their license to practice medicine if they intentionally killed the newborn without lifting a finger to try to save him. Depending on the exact situation, they could even face criminal charges. But because our culture and laws do not recognize the life in the womb as equal in value to born humans, the medical community has disregarded ectopic life and shown a lack of interest in current research on saving ectopic babies. The current medical response is irresponsible and negligent to their oaths and duty to equally treat every human being as a patient with intrinsic value.

Ultimately, our position is that the ethical treatment of an ectopic pregnancy in the case of a baby who is still alive involves watchful waiting/expectant management or an attempted transplant of the baby into the uterus. If, during watchful waiting/expectant management, the mother’s condition worsens and there are signs of a fallopian tube about to rupture or some other medical emergency while the baby is still living, a transplant should be immediately attempted.

Important note: some ovarian cysts mimic early ectopic pregnancies. When a woman is stable under watchful waiting, sometimes, what was first thought to be an ectopic pregnancy turns out to be just a corpus luteal cyst and the fact that she has a normal intrauterine pregnancy (IUP) is then later seen. For this reason, some medical professionals advise against the use of chemical intervention of Methotrexate due to risks and misdiagnosis of both mother and baby. Misdiagnosis of an ectopic pregnancy and subsequent treatment could lead to the completely unnecessary death of a healthy baby in a normal, intrauterine pregnancy and sometimes complications for the mother.

Another note: when someone at a surgical abortion facility tells you that they are there to have an ectopic pregnancy treated, they are lying. Ectopic pregnancies are real medical conditions which need to be monitored and treated through a hospital. They cannot be treated at an abortion facility. Surgical abortion facilities are designed to dilate and scrape the inside of the uterus only going through the vaginal vault and cervix. There are no abdominal incisions. No surgery on tubes. These facilities are not set up like that because they are not in the business of true medical care. That is not their purpose. And although they can dispense pills for an intrauterine (normal) pregnancy, they cannot dispense pills for an extrauterine pregnancy. Abortion pills to contract the uterus are different from pills to treat an ectopic condition. Also, ectopic pregnancy situations are true medical emergencies which require prompt attention, she needs to go to the ER, not make an appointment for next Wednesday at Planned Parenthood.

Links for Further Research:

Innovative Ectopic Pregnancy Intrauterine Transfer Surgery: Granting a Lifeline for Life

Could This Lead to Saving Ectopic Babies?

Miracle baby was carried outside mother’s womb

I carried ectopic pregnancy for nine months without knowing

Baby is born alive after growing in mother’s abdomen for 29 weeks

The mother who risked everything to have her ectopic baby

Baby born after rare ectopic pregnancy

Surviving Fetus from a Full-Term Abdominal Pregnancy

Ectopic triplet makes medical history

It largely depends on the method of birth control. Barrier methods such as condoms, diaphragms, or sponges which prevent the sperm from reaching the egg do not pose any risk of causing an abortion. All forms of hormonal birth control, on the other hand, pose a risk of causing an early abortion.

Hormonal birth control has three functions which serve to prevent pregnancy.

1) Stop ovulation from occurring.

2) Thicken cervical mucus so that sperm are not able to reach the egg.

3) Thin the lining of the uterus so that a newly conceived zygote is not able to implant in the uterus.

If 1 and 2 fail while 3 succeeds, an abortion is induced and a newly conceived human being dies. The frequency with which this occurs is not known precisely, but the total number is likely high given the widespread use of hormonal birth control.

Rape is a terrible crime. It should be a capital crime. For some reason, the secular culture is not willing to go this far. Those who commit this heinous act should face swift justice and victims of rape should receive the support of their families and communities. But it is insane and evil to murder a child for the sins of the father.

The argument for murdering babies conceived in incest is pure eugenics. That a child has a higher likelihood of having certain disabilities does not mean we should murder them.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Outlawing abortion is not the same thing as forced organ donation for four reasons.

1) There is a difference between ordinary and extraordinary levels of care. Donating organs to someone in need is an extraordinary level of care that should not be mandated. Simply not murdering your child is an ordinary level of care that should be mandated.

2) Children are only in the vulnerable position of needing their parents’ care because their parents created them in that vulnerable situation. When you put someone in a vulnerable position, you have a greater obligation to care for them.

3) Giving up an organ permanently is not the same thing as allowing offspring to live for nine months in the reproductive organ that was made for them to live in. In the same way that children have a right to their mother’s milk after they is born, they have a right to their mother’s uterus before they are born.

4) Not giving up an organ permanently is not the same thing as using forceps, suction devices, or chemical to actively kill a baby.

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

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 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.

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.

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.