Transcription
Chapter one. Why I'm not pulling any punches.
I used to be an abolitionist and I argued publicly for the position. As a result, I feel obligated to push back against the errors in the ideology that I previously propagated, especially since abolitionist principles extend to other areas of people's lives and politics. I'll explain more about why pushing back against abolitionism is so important near the end of this video, but for now, just note that this issue is especially important to me because I used to be on the wrong side of it.
Chapter two, the appeals of abolitionism.
I think abolitionism as an ideology is appealing for three primary reasons.
Number one, some in the pro-life movement argue that mothers are second victims in the abortion process and should be treated that way universally under the law. This is an obviously nonsensical and unbiblical position since a woman who intentionally kills her pre-born child is guilty of the sin of murder and should not be given blanket immunity under ideal pro-life legislation. This inconsistency makes no sense to anyone who thinks critically about the issue. If the pre-born are persons just like you and I, then a mother who intentionally takes the life of her pre-born child is obviously guilty of sin and in a just society should be guilty of a crime as well.
Number two, some men feel ostracized from the pro-life movement. And frankly, their feelings are somewhat understandable. While there are undoubtedly some men who have made significant contributions to the pro-life movement, many are not leaders in the movement's day-to-day operations. I normally try to be specific since it helps to clarify my arguments and claims here. However, all I can say is that the vibe of the pro-life movement seems unfriendly to masculinity. I think a large part of this vibe stems from the fact that when prolifers talk about a man who is complicit in abortion, they use harsh but accurate language. Yet, when it comes to women who are complicit, some prolifers messaging is the exact opposite in terms of both tone and meaning. I imagine that it's hard for some men to get over both how illogical this is and how it conveys an obvious favoritism towards women. As a result, a man joining the pro-life movement feels what I imagine an Asian would feel like joining a pro-affirmative action group. He might be down for the cause, sure, but the bias that he's likely to encounter might be a turnoff.
Number three, the abolitionist position is simple. You support equal protection bills and oppose everything else. There's no weighing of political realities, no analysis of trade-offs, no applying the ability to reason that God gave you to the realities of a complex world. You just vote yes on equal protection and no on everything else.
To summarize, abolitionism is attractive for three main reasons. First, the pro-life movement largely embraces the nonsensical second victim narrative. Second, the movement's bias towards women makes some men feel unwelcome. Third, the abolitionist stance is simple and requires little system 2 thinking.
Chapter 3, smashmouth incrementalism versus abolitionism.
The main difference between my position and the abolitionist position is not that they support equal protection and I don't, since I do support equal protection with no exceptions for women to be immune from prosecution. Rather, our difference lies in whether we would support legislation that further restricts abortion but falls short of equal protection. For example, if in California there was a bill that would ban abortion after 9 weeks gestation with prosecutions open to everyone except the mother, they would not support such a bill even though it would further restrict abortion in that state. Similarly, if the bill banned abortion after 9 weeks of gestation for everyone, including the mother, they would still not support the bill since they would believe it shows partiality and judgment towards the pre-born, even if not to the perpetrators. It's worth noting that roughly 21% of abortions happen after 9 weeks of gestation. So, such a bill would likely have some impact, even if minimal, due to the ability for women to travel to states with no such bans. So the difference between smashmouth incrementalists and abolitionists is not exactly the same differences that exist between the pro-life movement at large and abolitionists. Rather, my difference with abolitionists is mostly over legislation that further restricts abortion but falls short of full equal protection.
Chapter 4, unjust laws.
Now let's address some common abolitionist arguments. Starting with whether it is always wrong to pass unjust laws. Abolitionists frequently cite Isaiah 10:1-2 to support their position. The verses say, "Woe to those who make unjust laws and to those who issue oppressive decrees to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless." However, using this verse to condemn a smashmouth incrementalist in California who votes yes on an equal protection bill that fails to pass and then votes yes on a heartbeat bill that does pass makes as much sense as quoting "You shall not lie" to the Hebrew midwives who deceived Pharaoh to protect newborns and were blessed by God for it. Under ordinary circumstances, you should not lie. But lying to save human life is not only permissible according to the Bible, but applauded. We can reason likewise that it would be lawful to pass a law that falls short of equal protection in order to save some lives, especially since the smashmouth incrementalist is not the one responsible for the unjust law. He would pass equal protection if he could, but he's not acting as a lone dictator, but rather as a congressman who is reliant on legislative support from those around him in order to enact laws. It's also worth noting that while a heartbeat bill does not establish perfect justice, neither does an equal protection bill, which I and the abolitionists would both support. In some states, the death penalty is not permissible as a punishment for murder. And I assume that many abolitionists, maybe not all, but many, would agree with me that "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed" (Genesis 9:6). That is to say, the just punishment for murder is capital punishment of the guilty party. By this standard, equal protection bills don't establish justice. Some abolitionists try to get around this by arguing that there is a separation between the penology, or punishment, and the law that criminalizes the act itself. However, you can't separate the justice of a bill from the injustice that it enacts through the penology. For example, if it were legal to steal all property except candy bars, the abolitionist position would be that this is partiality and should be corrected. And since there is a distinction, they argue, between the penal code and the bill that criminalizes theft itself, they would have to support criminalizing the theft of candy bars. However, suppose that the punishment for all theft in this society was capital punishment. Now, the abolitionists would be in a real pickle. Either they would support the law that eliminates the partiality with the result that thieves of candy bars would be executed by the state, or they would have to say that they can't separate the punishment from the criminalization when considering the legislation, in which case their equal protection bill is itself unjust since it falls short of the justice that God commands for the crime of murder. So either the penology is separate, or it isn't. You can't seriously argue that the penal code is only separate when the punishment is harsher than the biblical standard for justice for that crime. So if they are separate, then own it and admit that you would vote for a bill criminalizing theft of candy bars with the knowledge that it would result in those who steal a $1 Snickers bar being executed if they were convicted. But if they're not separate, then you can't criticize a heartbeat bill for not establishing justice, since equal protection bills don't establish justice either.
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Chapter 5, acquitting the guilty.
Abolitionists may also argue that incremental legislation cannot be supported because it acquits the guilty. However, we have examples in scripture of the guilty being acquitted because of the hardness of their hearts or political circumstances. For example, Matthew 19:3-9 in the ESV says the following: "And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, 'Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?' He answered, 'Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh"? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." They said to him, "Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?" He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery." Divorce is also described in Malachi 2:16 as follows: "For the man who does not love his wife, but divorces her," says the Lord, the God of Israel, "covers his garment with violence," says the Lord of hosts. "So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not be faithless." So divorce without just cause is clearly not approved of by God. Yet he permitted men to divorce their wives without just cause for a time. Again, not because he approved of it morally, but because of the hardness of their hearts.
Also consider the story of Esther. A decree had been made authorizing the killing of all Jews on a specific date. The decree could not be legally revoked. So the king instead issued a second decree which allowed the Jews to defend themselves. This certainly acquits the guilty since a man who killed a Jew would not have faced prosecution by the state. The second decree is also obviously an incremental improvement over the previous situation. It showed partiality since the Jews' right to live depended on their ability to defend themselves, which would vary from Jew to Jew. Moreover, it was legal to attack one group of people, peaceful Jews, but not legal to attack peaceful non-Jews. So again, this is clearly an instance of partiality.
Another example of acquitting the guilty in scripture is found in the blood avenger, which is described in Numbers 35. If a man accidentally kills someone, then it would be legal for the blood avenger to kill that man unless he is in the city of refuge. Here, I also believe that God permitted this because of the hardness of men's hearts, not because he believed it was moral. We no longer have the blood avenger and cities of refuge, and I'm grateful for that since someone who accidentally killed someone else should not receive the death penalty. It's worth pointing out that the blood avenger system did not establish equal justice. It showed partiality and acquitted the guilty. If you were slow or otherwise unable to reach the city of refuge, you could be murdered under the law by the blood avenger, who would not be convicted for having murdered you. The partiality is that if you were physically slow or dumb enough not to reach the city of refuge, then you could be legally murdered. The acquittal of the guilty is that the blood avenger really would be morally guilty of murder if he intentionally killed someone who accidentally killed his kinfolk. However, under the law, he would not have been eligible for prosecution for that murder.
Chapter six, showing partiality and judgment.
Yes, there are obviously commands in scripture not to show partiality and judgment. However, smashmouth incrementalists are clearly not showing partiality and judgment since they are the ones who will vote yes on further restrictions of abortion. If abortion is legal up to birth in a state, the smashmouth incrementalists would vote yes on bills to ban the aborting of the disabled, yes on bills to ban the aborting of babies with heartbeats, yes on bills to ban the aborting of babies conceived in consensual sex, and yes on bills to ban all abortion, such as an equal protection bill. The smashmouth incrementalists are not partial. The legislators who prevent equal protection are partial, but those are not the smashmouth incrementalists.
In contrast, it could be argued that the abolitionists themselves are partial. They value the babies at the abortion mills enough to do sidewalk counseling. They value the babies in the womb of college students enough to go do college campus activism. But the babies that their legislators could save with a 24-hour waiting period bill, an ultrasound bill, and a heartbeat bill, they would not save. Now, to be fair, this is not because the abolitionists believe that some of the pre-born are not human or are not persons, but rather because they believe that incremental legislation is not a lawful tool for Christians to use. And this is why arguing with the abolitionists is so important. Because if incremental bills can save some lives, as they obviously can, and if they are lawful tools for Christians to use, then the abolitionists who refuse to use them are committing a sin of omission by not voting for these bills that would save babies. The abolitionist legislator is in Congress in a position to save some babies. And instead of voting yes to restrict abortion further, he is voting no on everything except equal protection.
Chapter 7. Introducing murder versus reducing murder.
Abolitionists seem incapable of making a distinction between the pro-life legislators who reduce the murder of the pre-born with incremental legislation and the pro-choice legislators who introduce murder of the pre-born with bills expanding access to abortion. Moving from abortion up to birth to a viability bill is a reduction in abortion. Moving from equal protection to a viability bill would be an introduction of abortion. There's a clear difference in the morality of voting yes on these two bills since they are in two completely different situations. And yet abolitionists essentially view them the same way. However, if they were to apply their logic consistently to, say, taxation, then they will essentially be forced to exit the political arena entirely. Most American households are not net taxpayers. Taxes on the highest earners are far above 10%, and we're currently tens of trillions of dollars in debt. If you believe, based on 1 Samuel 8, that taxation above 10% is always unbiblical in every time and place, and that "the borrower is a slave to the lender" (Proverbs 22:7), then you're in quite a precarious situation if you are an abolitionist legislator, being unwilling to apply scripture to the situation you find yourself in. You may very well feel that you must exit Congress altogether since you will either: a) only vote for tax bills that reduce effective tax rates to below 10% and show no partiality, which will significantly increase the odds that we default on our debt, or b) vote yes on bills that do show partiality and lower taxes, but not to the point of single digits. Either way, you're going to violate something. You're going to make the US default on its debt, or you're going to show partiality and allow for taxation in the double digits. An abolitionist mindset applied to every single area of legislation would leave America and the Christians within it worse off. An abolitionist senator votes no on a bill to ban the most extreme forms of pornography since he sees it as an implicit approval of the pornography that would remain in circulation. An abolitionist senator votes no on a bill to ban porn for minors since he sees that as an implicit approval of porn for adults. An abolitionist senator votes no on allowing some people to opt out of the Social Security program since it doesn't allow everyone to opt out or abolish the program entirely. An abolitionist senator votes no on K-12 education savings accounts since it doesn't abolish government-funded education entirely. One of the reasons abolitionist ideology needs to be pushed back against is that it removes a lawful tool that Christians can use to effectively love our neighbors as ourselves. If you were a child in the womb at a random gestational age, you would want the smashmouth incrementalist as your legislator since if he has the chance to save you, he will, which cannot be said of the abolitionist.
Chapter 8, a king versus senator.
Abolitionists also seem to ignore the very clear difference between a king with absolute power to decree as he wishes and a congressman or governor who does not. They will point to a senator or governor approving a heartbeat bill that reduces abortion access and claim that he is wrong because he's approving an unjust law that shows partiality. Yet, if the governor were a smashmouth incrementalist, he would obviously not be the one stopping equal protection or the one expanding access to abortion in his state. Again, abolitionism is appealing because it's simple, but that doesn't mean it is right. Abolitionists will also claim that incremental bills like heartbeat bills teach the culture that only babies with heartbeats matter. But what does not signing a heartbeat bill to save some babies teach the culture? From a pro-choicer's perspective, it would seem to teach them that you don't actually value all human beings equally. Since when you have a chance to save some babies through sidewalk counseling or campus activism, you do that. But when you have the chance to save some through the law, you literally vote against the restrictions on abortion. The more consistent testament to the culture about the immorality of abortion would be to pass incremental restrictions on abortion along with signing statements saying that equal protection is the goal and that this is an improvement over the status quo to help move us closer to that ultimate goal. In contrast, the pro-choicer who sees abolitionists vote no on incremental bills might reason that the abolitionists don't actually care about protecting unborn life since here they have a chance to protect some unborn human beings and they're not even taking it. The smashmouth incrementalist strategy tells the culture that we're not partial. We will use lawful means to save as many human beings as we can.
Chapter nine. But incremental bills do nothing.
This is obviously untrue, but also it's irrelevant to the abolitionist position since even if the incremental law protected the majority of unborn humans, they would still oppose it. If someone drafted a bill that banned all abortion after implantation with no special exception for the mother, abolitionists would still vote no on it, even though there are about a million abortions after implantation every year in the United States. It would also for sure equally protect all the children currently just dating after implantation right now in the United States, which would be around 3 million unborn children. So abolitionists really should stop pretending that this is about whether the incremental laws do anything. Because even if they did something extraordinary, they would still vote no. It's worth noting that we know incremental laws do something. By the way, for example, 24-hour waiting periods can help some mothers change their minds. And we have testaments of mothers saying that it did that. Seeing an ultrasound can help some women change their minds. And I'm not arguing that a bill mandating that women wait 24 hours and view the ultrasound of their child will drastically cut the numbers of abortions, because it won't. But there is good reason to believe that there is some positive impact, which does make a difference and should be considered.
Chapter 10. Keeping the pro-life label.
Some people will argue that even if the abolitionists are wrong, it is past time to abandon the pro-life label. However, it would be better to reform the pro-life label than abandon it altogether. Building institutions and cultural movements is very difficult. The pre-existing pro-life institutions can still be of great use to the anti-abortion movement if they are simply reformed, which I think is easier than some people suspect. These organizations are largely reliant on charitable donations. If donors to these organizations made public pacts to withhold their donations until the organizations commit to abandoning the second victim narrative and pursuing a smashmouth incrementalist strategy with equal protection as the stated and clear ultimate goal, then I imagine that these organizations would move quite quickly to meet their donors' demands. Now, some of you may be wondering why this hasn't happened yet. And I suspect that part of it is that pro-life donors aren't donating to advance the goals of a group that they are a part of or could ever become. Veterans supporting charitable organizations designed to help other veterans have a personal interest in ceasing donations if the organization starts saying something that harms veterans since they're a part of that group. Similarly, Jewish Americans supporting organizations that combat anti-semitism would have a personal interest in ceasing their donations if their organization started pushing some anti-semitic tropes since, again, they're a part of that group. However, when it comes to the second victim narrative, which certainly hurts unborn children, the donors are not members of the same group that they're advocating for. So, they have less of an incentive to end their donations than if they themselves were part of the victim group. Now, obviously, not every donor to veteran support organizations is a veteran, and not every donor to organizations that fight anti-semitism is a Jew. But the point is that when the donor can be on the receiving end of the harmful effects from the misguided rhetoric of the organization that they financially support, they then have a greater interest in ending their donations when the organization goes astray. Now, this issue is somewhat unique to pro-life nonprofits since none of those who are making donations will ever go back into the womb. So, organizations that push the second victim narrative don't threaten their actual well-being. But I digress. The point is that it's really hard to attract tens of millions of dollars to the anti-abortion cause, and reforming these institutions would be better than tearing them down entirely. However, if they're willing to let their nonprofits die on the hill that women are second victims in the abortion process, then I say let them take the donation somewhere else or start new nonprofits with the smashmouth and criminalist position. As for the term "pro-life" itself, I don't think it's as connected to the second victim narrative as the abolitionists claim it is or wish it was. Most of the self-proclaimed prolifers that I've spoken to in person on college campuses haven't thought about whether women themselves should be prosecuted. No doubt this is in part because the pro-life movement rarely discusses criminalization. However, the point is that for the majority of people, the term "pro-life" just means anti-abortion. And many prolifers simply haven't thought about criminalization yet. So claiming that the term "pro-life" itself is inherently connected to the second victim narrative and needs to be abandoned because of that simply is not true.
Chapter 11. An important caveat.
One possible difference between my position and the smashmouth incrementalist position advocated by people like Douglas Wilson is that I think it's morally acceptable for state legislators and state governors to consider national politics when deciding which bills to support and/or sign into law. I'm not sure what other smashmouth incrementalists' position would be on this specific question, and so I don't want to speak for them. So, please consider what I'm about to say as being my personal smashmouth incrementalist position and not necessarily that which would be advocated by others who use that label. If I was a legislator in Oklahoma, I think it would be reasonable to consider the implications of state-level legislation for national politics. If passing an equal protection bill would result in a Democrat wave at the federal level, which might result in abortion being protected until viability or birth under law, then I really ought to consider that before voting since a foreseen consequence of a yes vote could be that Oklahoma and all other states lose the ability to have any restrictions on abortion at all in the near future. So, I don't think it's quite as simple and straightforward as "if this is forward movement, then vote yes." Since if a small gain now results in a tremendous loss tomorrow, then what really happened was actually a net loss. Now, someone might object that this strategy could give legislators cover to avoid passing anti-abortion legislation. However, I don't think it necessarily does because I'm not suggesting that legislators have room to fuzzy up the political calculations. If they have the opportunity to further restrict or abolish abortion in their state and their best political calculation is that it would not result in a national uproar that removes their ability to restrict abortion at all, then they should pass it, and they would be in sin not to. Obviously, this is more complicated than turning legislators into two lines of code that effectively just check if the bill further restricts abortion, and if it does, vote yes. Nevertheless, it seems to be the right thing to do, even though it leaves room for some ill-motivated politicians to abuse the principle.
Chapter 12. Why all this matters.
For one, children in the womb who could be protected by incremental legislation won't be if abolitionists vote no on every bill that isn't their own. And some restrictions on abortion do save lives. Even if you think that the current restrictions accomplish very little, abolitionists would vote no on a bill that effectively bans all abortion after implantation, which, as of last year, was about a million abortions in the US. So the reality is that even if an incremental bill were effective, abolitionists would still vote no on it. Abolitionist principles also make it more difficult to achieve other incremental improvements in public policy since abolitionists oppose unjust laws, partiality, and acquitting the guilty, which as of now includes many of our laws and policies. Unfortunately, Christians are not in a position to take a country whose government taxes about a fifth or a quarter of its GDP and make it suddenly only tax 9% or less within the next year. It would be great if we had that option, but we don't, and voting no on any incremental improvements over our current situation will only hurt us. If you apply the same abolitionist principles to all the other evils of our day, here is what you would pretty much get. The abolitionist cannot compromise with the evils of his age. So, he votes no on a bill that would mandate age verification for people to access porn on the internet. The abolitionist cannot support theft through government-funded education. So, he votes against reforming public education spending through K-12 education savings accounts. The abolitionist has the opportunity to ban gender reassignment surgeries on minors, but votes no because he can't show partiality, and he thinks it's also wrong for adults to get gender reassignment surgeries. As you can see, abolitionism effectively ties the hands of legislators to the point where they might as well just stay at home and pretend to keep their hands clean. If your ideology leads to your legislators being forced to routinely violate your own principles or vote no on almost every single piece of legislation, then it's an ideology that you should abandon, as I did.
Let's [sighs] be frank. Some of you watching this video will see the problems that I've pointed out with this ideology, but you will be tempted to stay because of the community that you have formed. However, you would never want someone else's community to be the reason that they continue to believe something that is not true or harmful. You wouldn't want the Satanist to remain a Satanist because that's who his friends are. You wouldn't want the Democrat to stay a Democrat because that's who his friends are. And you wouldn't want the pro-choicer to remain a pro-choicer because that's who his friends are. So, if my argument is valid, then you have an obligation to leave. You probably know that you will get some mean messages online if you do, as I did when I left. For example, one account said that I had been castrated from listening to Doug Wilson. And another account questioned whether I had started dating a proifer and whether that was what caused my change in position. Neither accusation was true, by the way. But the point is, you shouldn't continue holding on to a bad position because there could be social consequences for abandoning it. And if abolitionism is a bad position to hold, as I believe it is, then you really should leave it behind.
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