Audio only:
In this episode Trent examines “abortion abolitionists”, compares them to pro-lifers, and discusses if Catholics can support them.
When Protestants Were Pro-Choice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkbOEnDFKdc
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Transcript:
Trent Horn (00:00):
In today’s episode, we’ll answer the question, do Christians have to be abortion abolitionists or is it possible that Christians should actually oppose abortion abolitionism? In order to answer those questions, let’s take a look at what makes abortion abolitionists different from pro- lifers like myself. To do that, I’m going to examine the five tenets of abolitionism as listed on the abolitionist rising website. I also messaged abolitionists rising to see if they wanted to review the script for today’s episode, but didn’t hear back from them. Number one, immediate and uncompromising. Abortion abolitionists believe it’s wrong to support any law against abortion unless that law is a total ban on abortion that includes legal penalties for women who obtain abortions. So they would say it’s wrong to vote for a law that outlaws all abortions but only punishes abortion providers. Or they would say it’s wrong to vote for the law to change from all abortion being legal to abortion only being legal in very narrow cases like pregnancies caused by assault or if a woman’s life and health are in danger.
(01:06):
There’s two justifications you could make for this kind of position, a justification in principle and a justification in practice. Let’s take a look at both. A principle justification says we must do X regardless of the consequences because we’re morally obligated to simply do X. So for example, Christians must morally condemn drunkenness because the Bible morally obligates us to condemn this sin. A practical justification on the other hand says we should do X because it’s the best way to achieve some good end. So for example, a person might argue that Christians have a practical justification to ban alcohol because this would presumably reduce drunkenness. Notice in this case that the justification rests entirely on the practical consequences of the act and not the intrinsic morality of the act itself. That leaves room for saying the practical justification does not exist because it will not lead to the proposed consequences such as alcohol prohibition causing greater evils than it was supposed to prevent.
(02:09):
When it comes to abortion abolitionists, they rely primarily on a principle justification for saying that incremental pro- life laws are immoral. According to them, the very act of supporting these laws is evil and has nothing to do with the consequences. Even if the abolitionist approach did not result in a single life being saved from abortion, abolitionists say we are obligated to follow their methods because God has commanded that we do this. Their second tenant even says their movement is providential. They write, “We rely on the providence of God, not the pragmatism of man. Abolitionists do not trust in war horses or chariots. We trust in the spiritual means and methods God has given to us in his word. Abolitionists have always cried, duty is ours, the results are gods.” This reminds me of the man who prayed to God to save him from a flood and rejected two boats in a helicopter that came by to help him.
(03:05):
The man drowned and when he got to heaven, he asked God, “Why didn’t you save me? ” To which God said, “What more do you want? I sent two boats in a helicopter to save you. ” The abolitionist argument relies on the claim that God prohibits Christians from voting or lobbying for less than perfect laws to restrict abortion, but there’s no reason to believe this is true. When citing the Bible to make their case, abolitionists say it commands Christians to always work for justice, not show partiality and only do good and not evil.
Rusell Hunter (03:35):
And I think God could look down and say like, “Do you think that I’m not aware of the fact that you wrote into your law all sorts of exceptions and regulations and you can kill your baby if you do this, if you do it at this place, if you look at this first, if this is the reason that that baby was conceived, if this is the state of that baby’s genetics, are you not aware that I look at all that and I think that that is wicked, that you’re showing partiality?” I think that God is very clear. I hate this.
Trent Horn (04:10):
But the Bible’s commands to not be partial or to not neglect justice refer to choosing between feasible just and feasible unjust laws or practices, things that can actually be implemented. The reason pro- lifers that I know don’t work for things like a federal abortion ban is not because they’re partial or they prefer that some unborn children be aborted. It’s because it’s not feasible to enact such a ban since 60% of Americans want abortion to generally be legal and only about 13% want it completely illegal. So nothing the Bible prohibits Christians from choosing to save some children from abortion when the alternative is usually to save no children. I would also say I have no reason to trust the abolitionist interpretation of scripture on a subject like voting or lobbying that is so far removed from the context of the biblical authors, especially when many prominent conservative Protestants oppose their interpretation as well.
(05:11):
As a Catholic, I look to the teaching of Christ Church, especially on topics where the Bible is silent, such as on what kind of laws Christians should support. It isn’t cyclical to the gospel of life. John Paul II said, “In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law or vote for it. ” That means Christians can never vote to change society so it goes from abortion being illegal to being legal or voting to maintain the status quo of legal abortion. But the Pope goes on to say that a Christian can vote to outlaw at least some abortions even if he can’t vote to outlaw all of them. He writes, “When it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro abortion law, an elected official whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality.
(06:14):
This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects. Ironically, abortion abolitionists claim to follow in the footsteps of slavery abolitionists in being uncompromising, but slavery abolitionists used all kinds of compromises and incremental approaches to outlaw slavery. For example, the Foreign Slave Trade Act of 1806 banned British subjects from selling slaves to foreign powers, which was pitched in parliament not as an anti-slavery bill, but as a way to weaken France during the Napoleonic wars since the law allowed trading of slaves within the British Empire. However, the act bankrupted two-thirds of the slave trade, making it easy to outlaw the entire slave trade within the empire a year later. But even when that happened, owning slaves wasn’t illegal yet, only trading them. So complete abolition of slavery did not occur until the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833 and then finally ended with rescinding apprenticeship requirements for freedom in 1838.
(07:18):
But if today’s abortion abolitionists applied their techniques to abolishing slavery 200 years ago, some people in England might still be enslaved because this movement rejects moral pragmatic approaches that do eventually achieve their design good ends. Abortion abolitionists also say that it’s evil to pass a law against abortion unless it treats an unborn child like any other born child and so the law must jail or even execute women who obtain abortions. But once again, slavery abolitionists did not think that slaves had to be treated like all other free people for them to support bans on slavery. In 1807, Britain passed the Slave Trade Act and it punished slave traders with a fine of 100 pounds per slave in their possession. This was equivalent to a fine of about $3,000 today and it crippled many slave traders whose boats were inhumanely packed with slaves. But slave owners were not punished like other kidnappers of free people in Britain who could be whipped, sent to the penal colonies in Australia or executed.
(08:22):
Such punishments might have even hindered abolitionists from getting their bills passed and so they chose to operate prudently and not merely leave the results up to God. So since there is no principle justification for pro- lifers to adopt the abolitionist’s uncompromising anti-incremental legal strategy, all that remains is a practical justification. They might say we’ll have more success banning abortion if we make bans consistent in how they treat the unborn and women who obtain abortions. And all I’ll say in response to that is I’m not in principle opposed to laws that completely ban abortion or even require legal punishments for women who obtain abortions. My primary opposition would be that such requirements will have the practical effect of making those laws impossible to pass and thus deprive the unborn of legal protection. Unless an abolitionist can show me with empirical data how these laws result in more children being saved, I have no practical reason to follow their approach to ending abortion when incremental approaches have reduced abortions and save lives in places where many forms of abortion have been banned.
(09:31):
But honestly, when I read AR’s literature, it seems their ultimate goal is not to end abortion. If abortion ended, they would be relieved, but even if that did not happen, they would still rejoice because their ultimate mission is to do one thing and it’s not to outlaw abortion. Instead, their ultimate goal can be found in tenet number three, gospel centered. AR says, “We recognize that the chief weapon we possess in the fight against abortion is the gospel. Abortion is sin and the only answer for sin is repentance and a saving faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ.” Now, I agree the chief weapon we have in the fight against any evil is God who leads us through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but one of the ways God helps us win these battles is by equipping us with the natural virtue of prudence.
(10:15):
Our Lord said, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves so be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Part of being wise means using available goods to achieve other goods. That means we can use the good of reason to help people see at least abortion should be illegal even if they don’t yet see they stand in need of Christ’s salvation. During the debate over slavery in America, many Christians who claim to follow Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior defended legal slavery by citing Bible passages like Colossians 3:22, which says, “Slaves obey in everything those who are your earthly masters.” And they said that the Bible never commands Christians to free their slaves. Abolitionists in response had to appeal to natural reason and theories of equal rights to show that slavery, even if it could be tolerated in the past, could no longer be tolerated in the present.
(11:08):
According to historian Molly Oshat’s quote, “Unable to use the letter of the Bible to make a scriptural case against slavery in itself, the moderates argued that although slavery had been acceptable in biblical times, it had become a sin, but abortion abolitionists hold the opposite view as can be seen in tenet number four, biblical versus secular. AR says, rather than leaving the Bible out of our engagements, we are determined to that it should be the foundation for everything that we do. The concept of abolitionism, the removal of evils is derived from the word of God. Now I agree Christians should not be ashamed of the Bible, but that doesn’t mean we should always quote Bible verses in our arguments against abortion. In fact, when I see abolitionists debate pro- choicers, they usually rely on non-religious arguments like the kind I use rooted in the basic intuition that it’s wrong to killing us in human beings and the scientific fact that the unborn are human beings.
Rusell Hunter (12:01):
My sign’s really simple abortion is murder, right? Because you have a human being that is alive.
Trent Horn (12:07):
He must be a fellow vegan.
Rusell Hunter (12:09):
And then you- You don’t
Trent Horn (12:09):
Eat animals,
Rusell Hunter (12:10):
Right? I eat animals. I don’t eat humans.
Trent Horn (12:13):
So you like killing beings, but these beings you just will say.
Rusell Hunter (12:20):
So you missed the part where I said human.
Trent Horn (12:22):
Also, if we’re going to outlaw abortion in the United States, then the laws we propose can’t be seen as promoting one religion because that would violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. I’ve argued before about the benefit of living in an explicitly Christian society, but that’s not the society we have now. So until we get to that point, I’d still like to repeal as many unjust laws as possible. Besides, if we don’t cite the seventh commandment to pass laws against shoplifting, then we don’t need to cite the fifth commandment to pass laws against abortion. In fact, relying on the Bible alone to argue against abortion isn’t the best idea because the Bible doesn’t explicitly condemn abortion and some Christians have said thou shall not kill doesn’t apply to the unborn for various reasons. This led many conservative Protestant denominations to support abortion in the 1960s and ’70s as I noted in my previous episode when Protestants were pro- choice that’s linked below.
(13:17):
Now, I appreciate that AR says their fifth tenant means that quote, “The church must take the gospel to the ends of the earth and bring it into conflict with every dark deed of man.” The only thing I disagree with them on is what they mean by the church. They reject not only the visible hierarchical body of Christ that has historical continuity of the apostles for the past 2,000 years, but they also reject the common Christian view of an invisible body that unites all Christians, even Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant. Instead, the church is just anyone who accepts their narrow Protestant theology and their ultimate goal is to grow the membership of this church not to end abortion. You can see this on their website where AR explains why they won’t work alongside non-Christians, which to them includes Catholics. They write, “We are at war with every single worldview that has been set up against the knowledge of Christ, and this is why we cannot partner with those who hold our enemy’s worldview.” I want to stop right there though and point out, as my mentor and Protestant author, Scott Klusendorf notes that this is hypocritical.
(14:17):
In Scott’s book, The Case for Life, he devotes an entire chapter to critiquing fellow Protestants who refuse to work with Catholics to end abortion. Scott points out that those same Protestants would work with a Catholic doctor or a Catholic EMT to save the life of their own child, but they won’t work with Catholics to save the lives of other children. AR’s website continues. When those holding our enemy’s worldview say they are in support of our end goal, usually they assume that our end goal is merely abolishing abortion and they are wrong. Our end goal is the glory of God to which abolishing abortion is a means. The measure of our success is not how many babies we see saved, how many abolition bills are passed, or even the number of people whose hearts are changed. Rather, the measurement of our success is how faithful our obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ has been.
(15:09):
So the goal of abolitionists rising is to create an America where every single person accepts what they call the gospel of Jesus Christ and they think this will result in all people being not only against abortion but being against membership in the Catholic church because according to them, Catholics preach a false gospel.
Brett Baggett (15:27):
And I would guess all of you who want to abolish abortion, you want to labor to save babies even at abortion clinics until abortion is abolished. Let me just make sure that we do not miss this. You and I must not be unequally yoked with those who preach a gospel that God says damn nation to that. You cannot in any way have any sort of fellowship with or any kind of ministry participation with papists. That’s Roman Catholics. No one is saved through what the Roman Catholic Church teaches because they teach a false gospel. You cannot then do ministry with them.
Trent Horn (16:20):
This is why Catholics not only cannot support a group like abolitionist rising, they must oppose this group. Now that’s hard for me to say because I generally welcome anyone who will work with me to end abortion regardless of their religious or even non-religious beliefs, but I cannot stand by while a group that portrays itself as caring for the most innocent carries out its primary mission to lead people away from the church Jesus Christ established so that all people could find salvation in him. So if the members of abolitionists rising are willing to stand with me in public to simply present the arguments in favor of the humanity of the unborn and the inhumanity of abortion, I’d be happy to work with them. But if they believe it is more important to not vote for laws that can save children and try to get people to leave Christ Catholic Church, then I’ll have to take an active stand and show why they’re wrong and unlike them, I will do everything in my power to provide legal protection for the unborn as much as I can, even though they will often ignore the unborn in the name of leaving the results up to God.
(17:24):
And I will do everything in my power to religiously educate born humans that abolitionists rising will mistakenly try to convert because these people have already found the gospel in Christ one holy Catholic and apostolic church. So I hope this episode was helpful for you and if you’d like more resources on defending the pro- life worldview, check out the second edition of my book, Persuasive Pro-Life. Thank you so much for watching and I hope you have a very blessed day.