Have You Not Read S2E7 - Abolitionism Vs Incrementalism

Abolitionism and Incrementalism in the Fight Against Abortion

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Podcast. Thank you. I'm Dylan Hampton and with me are Michael Durham, David Casson, and Andrew Hudson. We have another question sent in from one of our listeners this week and it is on the topic of abortion.

It's kind of a two-parter so we're gonna split it up throughout the episode. The first part of the question reads, you are an abolitionist, this is directed to Pastor Michael I'm assuming, when it comes to abortion.

Doesn't that mean that you will give up any progress an incremental pro-life strategy would make? Would you honestly vote against a pro-life bill that will save some babies because it will not save them all?

This question flows into the active role that a Christian and the church at large should take in public square. Yeah, so good.

Question. The abolitionist position is one in which it distinguishes itself from a pro-life incrementalist position in that pro-life incremental laws and policies that are promoted have the unfortunate side effect of keeping abortion legal.

Right. It's just describing in in more restrictive terms when, where, and how babies can be murdered in the womb and because of that the abolitionist position which I fully affirm is this is not adequate.

Murder is murder. The standard that we're given is God's Word and God's Word fully affirms the personhood, the value of the life of the infant in the mother's womb and we can see that in myriad ways throughout the scriptures.

Scriptures are not silent on that at all but very vocal about that. Given that fact and given that we know that murder is sin and that God treats it as a capital offense, it is a great evil and indeed it's actually even more cruel given the helpless nature of the infant.

I would say any attempt to simply regulate it is a misadventure at best. So the reality of the situation you live in however is that you have a handful of abolitionist pastors, a handful of abolitionist politicians.

I think plenty of support for the biblical sentiment do not murder, don't kill babies in mothers wombs. I think there's a lot of support for that but political support there's very very little and so what happens is those who would like to cater to a religious conservative base will engage in a variety of you know passing legislation involving you know these these typical pro-life strategies of let's make it more and more restrictive and so the the claim is isn't this good that we're reducing the number of abortions in our state in Oklahoma, reducing as many abortions as we can in the state of Oklahoma, isn't that a good thing?

And the abolitionists respond and say they're not actually ending abortion. You're pruning some branches here and there which may or may not actually have any effect but you're not actually taking the axe to the root of the tree and ending it.

And so while you may think you're doing good, actually in this case good is the enemy of what is best which is simply ending the thing. So I totally agree with that understanding of the situation that we are in.

The question then comes down to the practical outworking of it. Unfortunately there are some times that pro-life legislation that it actually makes it more difficult for the ultimate abolitionist objective because of the ways that personhood or infants or medical care or the definition of murder and so on gets redefined or insulated or contorted or whatever by pro-life legislation there is a real danger of that keeping abolition from ever coming to pass.

So there there are sometimes direct conflicts in that way. If there is a bill, if there is some effort that does say like for instance that there shall no longer be any more surgical abortion in the state of Oklahoma and that happens I'm glad.

Now do I have a vote in that and in some fashion I do. I can make my voice heard, I can vote for politicians who would be in support of that but but when those same politicians then come out and say there's no longer any abortion in Oklahoma they totally misunderstand the situation.

Because chemical abortion which was always more prevalent is always is still going strong and so that's that's the real tension. It's like if there is an actual pro-life legislation that doesn't get in the way of ultimate abolition and actually does some level of good of course I'm glad that that happened and I would like to call for for the actual abolition.

But you see I'm not going to you know I would stand in the way of if I understood it in some things that were very complicated I would stand in the way of pro-life legislation that would actually hinder ultimate abolition but.

That would be the only reason I would. Now you called incrementalism in some ways good but it can be the enemy of the best. Yes. So incrementalism depending on how the bill is drafted for you know for instance problems with redefining personhood for example that would be an example of an incremental bill that isn't really incremental at all.

It prevents the the end goal which is total abolition. In your mind that is the bill that you couldn't support because it.

Prevents the end goal from being realized. Right. So you think of all sorts of examples you know the most common historical analogy that is used of course because of our American context is slavery and you can think about you know legislation saying you know persons owned as property count as three-fifths of a human being you know for counting and political purposes and so on and so forth.

In many ways a lot of pro-life legislation is doing just that. The modern-day three-fifth compromise. Right. Saying you know even Ginsburg before she died talked about abortion and said everybody knows it's more than terminating a pregnancy.

Right. But she's not gonna say it's a human life but it's more than just some sort of simple medical procedure you know maybe it's.

Three-fifths more who knows. Okay. So it's personhood then that is the that's the link that abolitionists you wish to abolish abortion have made with slavery. I mean there's obviously a connection there's emotional connection.

I mean every who wants to abolish slavery. Well everyone you know that's at least in the United States but if we can link that idea of personhood that it was wrong because these are human beings that is why slavery is wrong.

Abortion is wrong because these are human beings. It's supposed to be an apples-to-apples.

It's a one-to-one. Yes so when we think about what the scriptures say about those who have made in God's image that God fashioned us and did us in our mother's wombs that who we are is ultimately defined by our Creator because he's made us in his image.

That there is real genuine human vibrant life within the womb. We have myriad examples of that. The psalmist reflects upon his pre-born status Jeremiah. Does we have John the Baptist in the womb. A fully divine fully human Christ in the womb of Mary.

The scriptures affirm the full human person within the womb. And given that and given what the scriptures say about what murder is and I know in this podcast we've had a discussion about you know passages from the litical code about what happens if a woman gets attacked and her baby is born prematurely and dies.

Well then the person who caused that they die because of Genesis 9 as blood is required of. Exactly so when we read the scriptures we see that abortion is actually infanticide. It is murder in the name of all manner of false virtues and it has no place at all in any kind of a civilization.

It should not be present at all. It's a wicked wicked thing. It should go away. And there are many such.

Things yeah it's not pie-in-the-sky ism to want all abortions to be ended you know yeah that's not a incremental anti incrementalist approach to insist on stopping murder. If you were to reflect back on recent federal celebrations of Juneteenth this was a celebration in just one state for the liberation of former slaves yet there were still slaves and other states up until two years or sorry later after the 13th Amendment was passed.

It's not a reason to not celebrate the ending of unjust practices cruel evil practices if it happens one state at a time. But to insist that it should be ended is still.

The correct position but then you also have the cautionary tale that while everyone's celebrating the ending of slavery we're only celebrating the end of private ownership of slaves because federal ownership of slaves still exists.

Robustly. So and sometimes that's private. Yeah they privatize some some.

Corporations. Yeah exactly. So you publicly traded. Yes. So slavery is still large and profitable in the United States of America while people run around and make celebrations that slavery is over. This is a cautionary tale.

Is it not about not stopping and celebrating too soon when it comes to.

Abortion. So when we're talking about celebrating too soon a lot of times with the pro-life movement we're looking at people who if we use football as an analogy they're celebrating as they punt the ball away right.

And we're looking for that Hail Mary pass. And we know that like you said Hail Mary passes can work. We've seen them work before and those plays do occur. But we're every now and then we're applauding a first down or we're applauding gaining ground in the incrementalism that we see in other states.

But we're never ever looking to punt the ball away as the pro-life industry tends to do all right. Well I.

Think it might be helpful to move on to the second part of the question then.

Abortion, Self-Defense, and the Question of Harm to the Mother

All right you want me to read that up for sure. Okay. So the follow-up question is why can't a woman decide for herself if having a baby is too much physical risk to her. If we have the inherent right of self-defense doesn't that mean that the mother can use deadly force for example killing the infant to defend her.

Own life. All right. Yeah. So this is actually the clause that is set within so much pro-life legislation wherein the only given cause for abortion to still be made legal chemically surgically and so on would be if there was harm to the mother.

And then harm to the mother is defined in that broad term that we live in today where harm can be anything. So if the woman would be emotionally distraught at having to bear this child that would be considered harm to the mother and then therefore then she has legal recourse to kill the infant.

So this is the self-defense. It is the self-defense argument that is built into so much pro-life legislation which makes it completely a lot of it is just for show. I mean it's just you know it looks good.

Tries to get more donations in from the conservative religious base. But that little clause is there very very often. The self-defense approach. Isn't it a caricature of like the self-defense.

Argument though. Too sure it is. Yeah cuz what you're importing there is that the child is morally culpable for whatever harm you're doing rather than the actual self-defense argument being somebody is actually attacking you.

This might have.

Something to do with when you go and you you go to college and you take your pre-med classes and you go and you do your biology and your zoology classes that pregnancy is listed along with all the other parasites that the human animal endures right.

It's a parasitic relationship where this so-called fetus is drawing off of your energy and so on and so forth. So harm to the mother they're thinking of in terms of this evolutionary mindset zero-sum game zero-sum game there's the strong have to survive.

If it means my survival then whatever this weak thing is it needs to go. It is completely consistent with the neo-derwinian you know Marxist satanic worldview. We have to remember the.

Culture in which we're speaking I mean when we say harm to the mother that could be emotional financial or physical I mean this is the kind of even you talk about these things in college campuses for example speech is violence.

Just just words that make you think let alone may hurt your feelings is actual violence. So you can't just say you can't just use the self-defense argument and say well this. This would be okay because we would all agree.

And we have talked about this on the podcast before that. Somebody entering into your house wanting to harm your family. Love for neighbor love for your family means defending your family. That is true.

This is not a one-to-one correlation between someone entering into your house or attacking you on the street. They are culpable. They are. You know they have malice of forethought. That is not this child's intent.

They're not attacking like somebody invading your home. Again it goes back to personhood. If it's a person it's not a parasite. If it's a person their life is equal to yours. If the the woman's life is in physical I mean real physical danger.

We're talking like ectopic pregnancy. You know these horrible things that you know that can happen. Okay we're dealing with what. One percent one half one half of a point zero one percent. But you you put language like this in harm to the mother.

That can be expanded to all that won't reduce any abortions. Because harm can be defined however you want it to. So don't think.

That this is this is a coup de gras. Yes. Meant to be expansive not contractive.

Right right. So when we think about the the scenario being given here it's like you know let's just talk about abortion in terms of you know the self-defense arguments you know and it's a it's a bit of political rhetoric here trying to force those who would be Second Amendment advocates who are generally anti-abortion to try to have to rethink their position.

But it's a false liquidation. As we've already pointed out the woman can't decide for herself. When a woman does decide for herself that's when sin entered the world. This is eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

This is I will define what good and evil is for me. Thus I can kill my infant. And again the only reason why abortion is as big a money-making child-killing machine as it is is because of the wave after wave of feminism that told women in the first place that marriage was harmful to them.

Right marriage is harm. Before this it's religion is harm. Christianity is harm. Husbands are harm families are harm. And then when there's no family there's no husband there's no support structure. Right rules are harm.

All this then when women are committing fornication and getting pregnant outside of marriage and then they're told infants are harm. You know what's happening here. Well what's happening is that you keep eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and you keep getting misery upon misery upon misery of an upon misery a death is what happens when you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

You know. And so this is not a real equivocation. Do women feel unsafe. You better believe they do because they've denied all the structures that God made that were for their good. That's why they feel unsafe.

But then to turn that fear of the lack of safety and turn upon an infant and to slay the infant is indeed devilish. Chris Giesler just shot us a good idea to think about a better analogy than the Second Amendment self-defense situation.

What if you know we go the way of Canada and Brussels and so on and so forth. And you know euthanasia becomes more and more acceptable more and more of a thing to the point where if you have somebody in your household whom you're claiming is a dependent on your taxes.

Okay somebody you know an elderly person in your home a mother a father a great-aunt somebody and you're having to care for them. Right. You're having to provide for them. They're taking up space in your house your you know medical bills and so on and let's say they're pretty much non-responsive but they have not signed over any power of attorney to you so on and so forth.

But domestic rights of health care have been accorded to you know the citizens of these United States and so without their permission without them understanding. Without them knowing. You can just call up a doctor and they can come in and they can euthanize this person so that you are no longer being caused financial harm or emotional distress by having them in your house are we allowed to euthanize the Fed or.

Is that. Wow sorry I had to talk about economic distress but back to the point.

Yeah back to the point if that was going on and let's say that was the established law of the land. Okay. Which could easily it can be. Yeah it's not right. It's not far-fetched. No it's not. And so if that is the case and think about even mix it up with the redefinition of what family is you know this could be someone you don't even related to but identify as family.

Okay you've been claiming them on your tax returns but you're done with them so now you're gonna call the euthanasia doctor in to come and take care of them. Yeah let's say this was the practice of the land the law of the land and so on.

How would we respond. Would we respond with the very same type of support of incrementalism loophole pro-life legislation. And if we wouldn't then what's the difference. The difference. Well we can see them.

Really that's it. I thought we were people of faith. Like just because you can't I mean well with.

All the ultrasound technology. I was just thinking ultrasound but yeah and see. So.

Much. Yes I agree but we're not. But we're still that dumb. Yes we're still that's.

Childish and silly feigned ignorance and yeah chosen avoidance. But I am glad for.

All the ultrasound technology it has changed the game a great deal and I do think that the groundswell against abortion has been very much promulgated by the rise in technology that we've seen. I think that is good.

I'm very.

Appreciative of it but it's not enough to convince people to to not send. It's.

Just that yeah they want to but seeing those pictures right. So writing that.

Into the bill could be helpful for some but for those who are hell-bent to murder mm-hmm it's not a prohibition for them. Yeah it doesn't circumcise their.

Heart aches nor can hit. No so the self-defense question doesn't really expose anything but a false understanding of objective moral good and a false understanding of what harm is and defense is. But I think that this analogy concerning euthanasia brings it home a lot more clearly as to why an abolitionist approach is really the only consistent biblical one.

Christian Economics, Human Worth, and Closing Reflections

Now I think that the way in which we pursue abolition in dealing with other Christians and compelling others to join in I think we could always have room for improvement. But I think the actual position of abolition is is non-negotiable.

I mean.

You you described euthanasia and then you described abortion. And when you have a you know it's gonna be overused but when you have a Marxist view of the world when people people's value is an economic terms.

And this is Rahm Emanuel I mean there's there's there's a period of time when you have a when you have great value to society and everybody at large. Not really before that not really after that. These are the most vulnerable you know.

And and the scriptures tell us you know what the standard is regarding the most vulnerable. Mm-hmm. You know how what what the church's response is is supposed to be. But when your worldview is that human beings have their value is derived from their economic production.

You naturally arrive at abortion and euthanasia and anything else. But when you start from a biblical worldview where God assigns your value where your value is actually derivative it's like you you're that human life.

Whether they're very old very young or very robust their value is defined by the fact that they're in the image of God. They matter because God matters. That's.

The reason right. So you know that would actually be better explained as Christian.

Economics versus Satan's economics. Yes and and that's what we see. The problem with Marxist are is that they're so focused on capital if you're if you're if you're not capital if you're not building capital for the state then what good are you.

Yeah they're so focused on economic quality there are so focused on productivity they're so focused. Marxists are so capitalist not in terms of free but restricted but they they want you to be productive.

And if you're not being productive than what good are you. Right anyway. Well and what's.

Production. You know like I think we could all agree that elderly people in our homes have economic value to them. Of course. And yes and it's it's something that Satanists or Marxist can't quantify or they don't have categories for.

Yeah.

And they can't control either. I can't control. It is the problem. Right. And so there's a lot of there's a lot of value. And this is the other thing about you know I remember I was often at the side of the man who was perpetually ill and counseling with him week after week and he saw himself as pretty much just a drain and a useless person on the church and on the community.

And you know I had to counsel him about you don't understand how God is using you in the lives of those who serve you and the way that you're able to pray for them and encourage them. There's an entirely different mindset as a Christian then as a pagan.

Yes. And this is where it doesn't matter if your economic system is socialist or it's based in capitalist principles. If you're a pagan it becomes tyrannical it's misanthropic. It is is man-hating human destroying.

And everybody recognizes it. So this is comes down to like you know Marxism versus capitalism. You know actually a love of money is the root of all evil. And what we need to be doing is serving Christ diligently robustly creatively freely.

That's where.

Our value is is shown and how we worship and reflect the glory of God to each other to the church at large into the into the world. And frankly if there we have listeners who are older who think that their productive years are behind them you could not be more wrong.

We we need you but especially those of us. They're still you know rearing our children raising our families. We need your wisdom we need your experience we need your prayers. Yeah. Well since we've.

Wrapped that up we'll go on to. What are we thankful for. I'll start with you.

Michael I'm thankful for prayers for healing. I've been struggling with severe case of shingles but the prayers of God's people I've greatly appreciated. I'm getting over it faster than people think I should but I'm I'm not complaining and I'm thankful for the Lord's grace and a healing process I am.

Thankful for two working vehicles we have. Not every family you know has two cars and we're blessed with both and and I'm proud to say I've not made a car payment in about 14 years. Just fabulous. But we are at one of them is in the shop and my wife was able to use the other car and go run some errands and she was actually able to pick me up and we went to breakfast and then we went and did a little furniture shopping and then came back home and she's gonna be able to go do some errands tomorrow as well.

We have that flexibility because we have those two cars and we're in a in a city where repairs are easily obtained and we've been reading some stories and some from voice of the martyrs about some of the struggles that some of our missionaries and deal with in other parts of the world.

That stuff is not readily available so we have in our family we have nothing to complain about today that one of our cars one of our two is getting fixed. So it's just an enormous blessing and a lot to be thankful for.

Andrew recently there's been a stressing situation for my wife with her father. The giving up of family members to the outside that those who used to name the name of Christ is a distressing thing but there is no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of God's kingdom who will not receive many times more in this age and in the age to come.

Eternal life yes the family that we have in Christ it pales in comparison to our our biological parents or family. Even in today's society where we don't well from this church excluded I suppose have few children.

That's that's the common refrain nowadays have as few children as possible. But our family and I know we've mentioned this previously is growing all the time and it's important to keep our eyes on that.

And I'm glad that we have God's Word to remind us of situations like this where there are trying times with family. So I'm very grateful for the words of our master included in the book of Luke amen to that I'm thankful for.

The clarity that we are given by the Spirit in our meditations when we are are blessed to think on the things of Christ to think on him first and think of him most. There is a freeing and clear mind that is given to each Saint when those things are pursued.

And it is it's not the type of clearing that you would think in an Eastern type of meditation. It's filling up the mind filling up oneself with all the things of Scripture. And to fill oneself up it gives you clarity everywhere else.

So I'm thankful for the Spirit and his work and filling us up with all the the blessing of our considerations in Scripture and that.

Wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with having not read.