Abolitionist and Incrementalist Approaches to Abortion
In this guest post, one of my close friends Nathan Herr writes an analysis of abolitionist and incrementalist approaches to ending abortion. He is particularly interested in considering which alternative view of how Christians should address abortion is most consistent with the Biblical text. With his permission, I have reproduced the paper he wrote on the topic for the Elders and Deacons of our Church. I found it a thought-provoking piece on a crucial societal issue addressed from a Biblical perspective.
Introduction: Abolitionists and Incrementalists
In the camp of those that oppose abortion, there has arisen some discussion and division between those who call for the immediate and total outlawing of abortion and those who advocate an incremental approach. Those who take an immediate approach generally refer to themselves as abolitionists. The incremental approach is what has been adopted by the broader pro-life movement. Both abolitionist and incrementalist pro-lifers desire for the preborn to have equal protection under the law. This means the criminalization of abortion at all stages of pregnancy for both abortionists and mothers without exception for rape or similar circumstances.
Now, many are those who would call themselves pro-life that would not be in favor of the criminalization of abortion for the mother and/or would advocate for rape exceptions or other things which undermine the principle of equal protection for the preborn. But in this analysis, I am only concerned with comparing abolitionist and incrementalist pro-lifers who both want equal protection for the preborn. For the remainder of this post, I will refer to pro-lifers commited to equal protection of the unborn under the law as incrementalists.
Sketches of the Positions
The key distinguishing mark of abolitionists is that they call for total abolition of abortion by law without intermediate steps, such as heartbeat bills or other restrictions on abortion. In fact, the abolitionists argue that laws restricting or regulating abortion are iniquitous decrees that are wicked and allow for the continued murder of children. Thus abolitionists call for the immediate outlawing of all abortion through a law that establishes equal protection for the preborn.
The incrementalists see total abolition as an impractical and unachievable goal at the present time. Thus the best way to fight abortion is by passing incremental laws which continue to restrict abortion until it will finally be banned at some point in the future. Incrementalists acknowledge that such restrictions are not sufficient, but prefer to pass such restrictions rather than do nothing so that lives may be saved.
The Incrementalist Case
The incrementalist says that the abortion restrictions which are achievable today are good because they help save babies who would otherwise have been murdered. Though such restrictions will not save all babies from abortion, they will save some. To take an all-or-nothing approach and thus delay action today would be to fail to save babies that could be saved today. While it is unfortunate that we are not able to ban abortion outright, the incremental restrictions limit the evil of abortion insofar as it is possible. Thus some incrementalists cite statistics that show that thousands of babies have been saved by incremental restrictions like the Texas heartbeat law.
A slightly modified incrementalist position argues that as society comes to a greater understanding of the wickedness of abortion over time our laws will gradually change to reflect society’s changing views. While our society should completely reject abortion, these gradations are partial obedience to God’s law. And this partial or delayed obedience is better than disobedience and is the first step toward full obedience. Incrementalists reject that to have a law that places restrictions on abortion is to implicitly affirm the killing of babies when those conditions are met.
The Abolitionist Case
Abolitionists see any law which fails to criminalize abortion completely as unjust and therefore unacceptable. For the abolitionist, a heartbeat bill is allowing the murder of preborn without heartbeats and thus is showing partiality against those without heartbeats. Biblically defined partiality is a great sin, thus such restrictions on abortion are not progress but continued injustice via partial laws. To support this case abolitionists cite passages such as Amos 5:24, Exodus 23:2 and Deuteronomy 16:19.
Second, abolitionists see the law as a teacher which teaches society what is right and wrong. Thus to pass restrictions on abortion is to teach society that abortion is okay in those circumstances. Abolitionists say that on the basis of popular arguments for restrictions like a 20-week abortion ban, a woman will think it is okay to have an abortion earlier in the pregnancy because there is something significant that happens at the 20-week mark (or at whatever stage abortion is restricted). She has effectively been taught that abortion is okay in her circumstance because the law allows it. An abortion ban after the baby can feel pain teaches that the baby’s ability or inability to feel pain is what makes abortion wrong or okay. A heartbeat bill teaches that life begins when the heart starts beating – or at least that there is some significant difference between a baby with a heartbeat and one without. And similar logic would apply to other abortion restrictions.
Third, abolitionists cite many historical or hypothetical examples to support their position. The term abolition is a call back to history, particularly the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and America. Abolitionists state that in the effort to end slavery, there were those that sought to do it gradually, but it was the abolitionists who in the end are the ones who ended slavery, both in Britain and America. A hypothetical that an abolitionist might use is “If you were living in Nazi Germany, would you support a law that only stopped the killing of some Jews?” These hypotheticals are intended to show that in other situations we would not apply the sort of thinking that is used to defend the incrementalist position.
Incrementalist Criticisms of Abolitionism
In responding to abolitionists, incrementalists point out that abolitionists are not demanding that the whole nation or whole world abolish abortion, but generally they are seeking for individual states to abolish abortion. Thus they call this geographical incrementalism. If one is seeking to immediately abolish abortion why would the abolitionist be satisfied with abolishing it in one state or even one nation? Is this not compromise? Further is it compromise to wait for the next legislative session or election to pass a law banning abortion? Surely abolitionists would agree that by waiting to abolition of abortion they are not affirming the murder of children until that law is passed.
Incrementalists also raise the contention that abortion is not a solitary issue. Abortion is caused by sexual immorality and our society’s overall desire to disconnect sex from procreation. Thus in order to end abortion there is other work that believers must do to bring our society into alignment with God’s law. To treat abortion as an evil that occurs in a vacuum is to fail to fully understand the evil of our society.
Incrementalists cite biblical examples of what appear to be incremental handling of sins. They point to where the Mosaic law regulated sins such as polygamy and slavery rather than banning them. These Mosaic laws gave protection for wives in polygamy or slaves in slavery, but did not ban these sins (Exodus 21:10). Thus, just as God was not approving of those sins by regulating those sins, so we are not approving of abortion if we regulate or restrict it.
Analysis
A vital point to recognize is that the abolitionist and incrementalist approaches have different goals. While both committed incrementalists and abolitionists work toward equal protection for the preborn, they seek it for different reasons. The incrementalists are seeking to save as many lives as possible and banning abortion is thus one tool to save lives. Abolitionists are seeking for justice as bibilically defined. So for abolitionists, if a heartbeat bill saves babies that is something to be celebrated, however that doesn’t make that unjust law good.
Abolitionists and incrementalists have different perspectives of the overall situation. Incrementalists see the situation like that of a lifeguard who observes a boat capsize and a dozen people from that boat begin to drown. The lifeguard is only able to save one at a time and thus may not be able to save them all before they drown. He must save them incrementally – one at a time. If he can not save them all that is not a moral failure on his part, his moral duty is to attempt to save as many as possible.
But the abolitionist does not see our present circumstance like that. Instead it as though there are pirates who attack boats and murder their occupants and this piracy is legal in the waterways of this hypothetical land. We are like the lawmakers of that land – the duty of the lawmakers would be to pass a law banning piracy outright. To restrict piracy on the basis of boat size, color, etc would be to fail in this duty and would be a moral failure on the part of the legislators.
Both abolitionists and incrementalists would agree that a heartbeat bill is unjust because it doesn’t protect babies without a heartbeat. But incrementalists would prefer a heartbeat bill over no restrictions on abortion. Incrementalists may say that a heartbeat bill is more just than no restrictions on abortion and is thus to be preferred, however it is only more just for those that are protected by it.
The only ethical lens by which an unjust law can be called good because it saves lives is utilitarianism. Abolitionists reject this utilitarian thinking and thus demand justice for all preborn babies over saving the lives of some preborn. Abolitionists urge believers to work to save babies through sidewalk counseling and similar measures.They show that they care about saving individual babies but on the question of legislative strategy they are not willing to support an unjust law in order to save lives. To support incremental restrictions on abortion is to use “the ends justify the means” thinking. The incrementalist says that the end of saving lives justifies the means of using an unjust law. For the abolitionist, this would be to participate in injustice – something that God has firmly forbidden. As Isaiah 10:1 – 2 states:
Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees,
and the writers who keep writing oppression,
to turn aside the needy from justice
and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
that widows may be their spoil,
and that they may make the fatherless their prey!
If one agrees that this passage applies to incremental restrictions on abortion, then it is impossible to continue to support such restrictions.
It should be noted that abolitionists are not necessarily opposed to increments. The key distinction for abolitionists is whether an increment would require moral compromise. Abolitionists want to work issue by issue. So while abortion is linked to other sins in our culture – fornication, adultery and others, we are not compromising to enact a law which addresses abortion but does not address all other related sins.
If we adopt the abolitionist view of the law as a teacher, then we must consider what the laws are teaching. In order to for an individual to understand that abortion is murder and should be treated as such, they do not necessarily also need to have a biblical view of sex overall. That the preborn are deserving of equal protection is a distinct issue that can be handled (at least in legislative terms) separate from other issues. The abortion laws and the arguments and media attention surrounding those laws are catechizing society on the topic of abortion. Incremental restrictions to abortion teach society that abortion should be regulated for reasons of the baby’s level of development or the woman’s safety; all such reasons distract from the fact that abortion is murder. It does not make sense to teach people first that life begins at a heartbeat with the intention of later teaching them that life begins at conception. Thus if we agree that people learn from the laws that are passed it is difficult to see how we can support incremental abortion restrictions.
For example to pass an incremental law such as the Texas heartbeat bill is to teach that life begins at a heartbeat or at least there is a significant difference between the baby with a heartbeat and one without. The website promoting the Texas heartbeat bill states “The heartbeat is a key and universal medical predictor of whether human life exists”. In this case not only is the law teaching that a heartbeat is the basis for receiving protection under the law, but also the material produced by the advocates of that law implies that life is not present without a heartbeat. If in the future abortion is to be abolished in Texas it will require the Texas people to be retaught from what they have been taught by their heartbeat bill.
Abolitionists readily acknowledge that there are other sins in our society – if abortion were entirely abolished tomorrow there would still be other sins to address. However to call this approach of addressing one issue at a time incrementalism is to confuse terms. Abolitionists are calling for abortion to be criminalized immediately, not the immediate establishment of God’s law on all issues. And though abolitionists call for abortion to be ended immediately, that does not mean that they expect success in a short period of time.
In my opinion “geographic incrementalism” as raised by the incrementalists is a red herring. Abolitionists are calling for the immediate end of abortion in that jurisdiction, whatever level that may be. To call for abolition in a given state is to take an abolitionist approach. In calling for abolition in his jurisdiction a man is seeking to have just laws for himself and his neighbor. And while establishing just laws on a national level or in other states or nations would be preferable, it is of lesser importance than establishing just laws for ourselves and our neighbors both born and preborn. For one to work to establish just laws in one’s own jurisdiction and not do so in the same way in another jurisdiction is not a moral compromise. So while there may be increments in the abolitionist approach they are not increments which require moral compromise, but the incrementalist approach is an approach of increments which include moral compromise. Thus this term of geographic incrementalism is a fruitless attempt for incrementalists to blur the line between incrementalists and abolitionists.
A practical issue with the incrementalist case is that there are no major pro-life incrementalist organizations which advocate for full equal protection for the unborn. All major pro-life organizations oppose laws which would criminalize abortion for the mother. Though these organizations may use terms like “abolish abortion” or “equal protection for the unborn”, they are unwilling to affirm that everyone involved in a preborn baby’s murder should face prosecution just as everyone involved in a born person’s murder would. Thus most pro-life incrementalists aren’t working towards eventual justice for the unborn; under what these pro life organizations advocate the preborn would have only partial protection under the law.
Conclusion
In my analysis, the key issue that separates the abolitionist from the incrementalist is their view of the law. The incrementalist views the law as a tool that can be used to limit the number of lives lost to abortion. For the abolitionist laws must be just and also laws are a teacher, thus any law which is unjust is reprehensible. In my analysis, the abolitionist view is the biblically and practically defensible approach. If one accepts that incremental restrictions are unjust it is impossible to continue to advocate for such restrictions. Further even if incremental restrictions are not unjust in and of themselves, they are teaching people (including pregnant women) about when and why life has value. The incrementalist may have the best of intentions but that does not mean their approach is correct.
References
Doug Wilson “Smashmouth Incrementalism the Third” Blog and Mablog, October 19, 2017
Toby Sumpter “Eight Tenets of Smashmouth Incrementalism” Having Two Legs, March 7, 2022
For my recent reflection of how Christians should view God’s law and legislation, click here. For my assorted reflections on a myriad of topics, click here. If you found this post helpful, please share on social media below and subscribe.