After Roe: Countering Common Attacks

June 24^th, 2022 In history it will live next to dates such as: January 1^st, 1863 June 19^th, 1865 July 2^nd, 1964 The day that Roe was overturned and the federalization of the systematic slaughter of millions of preborn babies was ended (see: Moloch). Since Dobbs was handed down much ink has been spilled and many articles written in celebration, and lament, of the decision. The end of Roe was never the goal of the pro-life movement, regardless of what Phil Vischer and his ilk have claimed. Ending Roe is but a step in the right direction.  Every person on the side of life always knew that.  However, it was necessary to undo Roe for a few reasons.  The first: It’s simply bad law. Second: Roe enshrined murder as a federal right and was immoral to its core. Unfortunately, our culture of “tolerance” has turned what should be a celebration into panic and chaos.  Those on the side of life expected attacks from the left on these issues, like those from Senator Elizabeth Warren: https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1541586785087766528?s=20&t=SWzuT8BpcX86FSYdlZiQZQ The amount of Planned Parenthood projection in that tweet is something to behold. However, the surprising barrage of friendly fire seems to have stunted pro-life momentum.  If only for a moment.  It can be confusing when emotional arguments seek to sway the hearts of people, and many that were supposed proponents of overturning Roe and the abolition of abortion seem to have volleyed attacks on those of us who have been fighting for the unborn for decades. I have compiled six, plus a bonus, arguments in that regard and have dedicated the following to debunking them.

Roe Being Overturned is Authoritarian and Racist

As often happens with these attacks the exact opposite is true in both cases. As I mentioned in a previous article on the topic the decision to overturn Roe is in consonance with democracy and federalism in particular. Even Ruth Bader Ginsberg thought Roe’s decision was unstable and poorly reasoned. Finding some sort of right to privacy in the 14

^th

amendment that allows a person to prematurely end a pregnancy was authoritarian by definition.  The Supreme Court is not supposed to invent rights or write legislation, yet it did in Roe. The overturning of Roe then, is actually the

undoing

of authoritarianism. Many speak as if rights are granted by the constitution, this is untrue, rights are merely recognized by the constitution and protected by the government.  They are granted by God. The founders understood this. Thus, it is up to the Supreme Court not to find rights but to recognize and protect God-given rights. The murder of a preborn baby for convenience is clearly not a God-given right. From the majority decision itself:

The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.

The dissent in Roe calls out the overreach of the judicial branch as inventing rights and legislating from the bench:

I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court's judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers <410 u.s. 179, 222>

and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes.

In other words, all the overturning of Roe did was make abortion a legislative issue again.  Which is the exact opposite of authoritarianism and exactly what the Supreme Court is designed to do according to Article III of the Constitution. Nestled in this attack from a Christian perspective is the insidious and euphemistic claim that Christians should be pro-choice because the gospel itself is pro-choice.  This argument is incoherent and fails upon even the slightest examination.  On the one hand, yes, God is pro-choice, but on the other hand God is also pro-justice amid those choices.  You are free to choose to rebel against God, but you must deal with the consequences of that choice, namely, death. Of course, a woman has the choice to end the life of her child, born or preborn, but having the option to do something does not inherently convey the moral right to that decision. Murder is still murder and thus, whether the preborn baby is a person truly matters regardless of what John Pavlovitz or anyone else says. This type of moral relativism espoused by liberal theologians spits in the face of the gospel of Truth. No, God is not pro-choice in the sense that individuals get to define what is “right” and “true” for themselves.  God is only pro-choice in that he allows individuals to choose for themselves whether they will choose to follow his design, and if they do not, he casts them out (Matthew 16:23, John 3:18, John 18, Revelation 20:15 etc.). The last cog to this objection is the charge of racism.  It is racist to oppose abortion because minorities are disproportionately affected. Once again, the exact opposite is true.  The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger once said, “

We do not want word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population

.” Abortion, and Planned Parenthood in particular, have always focused on providing “reproductive health” (another form of euphemistic language to encourage murder) for minority communities.  In general, minorities, particularly black Americans, make up nearly 50% of all abortions in the United States. It takes a twisted sort of reasoning to conclude that racists would like

more

black babies to be born. However, the argument, like it often does, ignores the baby, and focuses on the mother. The thought behind the statement is that a dead baby is better for the black mother’s future.  She can climb out of poverty and up the corporate ladder without the inconvenience of a child. After all, the single motherhood rate in the black community is a stunning 72%.  Wouldn’t a lack of abortion access mean more single mothers and less opportunity for the mother to climb out of poverty? This argument fails on multiple levels. The first, is that many women have admittedly used the possibility of abortion as an excuse to engage in promiscuous sex, but when facing an actual pregnancy, at least some of those women choose to keep the baby.  A fact underlined by a recent

Business Insider

article indicating that many young people are rethinking hook-up culture in the wake of the Roe decision. Also, the denigration of the black family started only

after

Roe was adopted in the 1970s.  Correlation does not equal causation, but the fact that many women are admittedly coerced into abortion by significant others suggests that an increase in limiting sexual promiscuity will likely start to slow the rates of single parenthood in a post-Roe world. Young women, particularly minorities, will start to be more selective in their sexual partners by necessity. Less sexual promiscuity is not the enemy. Finally, people who make this claim ignore adoption as a real and substantial alternative.  There is currently a waiting list of about 2 million people to adopt infants:

While it is difficult to find an exact, accurate number to answer this question, 

Some sources

 estimate that there are about 2 million couples currently waiting to adopt in the United States — which means there are as many as 36 waiting families for every one child who is placed for adoption.

This argument also fails on a basic moral level.  Murdering another living human so that I do not experience financial hardship is morally abhorrent. I have three children and I would most definitely be more financially well off without them, but my life would not be better, and killing them to make my life better would make me a monster. It is an inhumane argument to say that financial stress is reason enough to murder a baby of any race. I have more respect for women and their abilities than to assume motherhood would cripple them from advancing in society altogether.

Women Will Die

(from back-alley abortions, ectopic pregnancies, and miscarriages)

This argument says that ending Roe would not mean fewer abortions but would mean more dangerous abortions. Women will get the hangers out, throw themselves down stairs and pay black market money for abortions behind the clinic on a Friday night. https://twitter.com/TomiLahren/status/1540393246962188292?s=20&t=0-3E1TrVGd_8xeqx2darLg Laying aside the fact that abortion is never safe for the baby (a near 100% mortality rate for the living human being in the womb). This method of reasoning relies on faulty statistics and the lies of Planned Parenthood about pre-Roe abortion death rates. There were 35 total deaths due to illegal abortions in 1972 a number that would surely not be reached in a post-Roe world in 2022 with the ease of travel and access to medical care. The dangerous lie that ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages that need medical care to remove the lifeless child from the mother are considered abortions is insidious. There is not a single medical doctor or state with pro-life laws that views either procedure in the same light as an elective abortion.  It is a lie, and a dangerous one at that. https://twitter.com/conservmillen/status/1542880029104906240?s=20&t=czs1kEMeD3hcR0jkUdkTzg

It’s a Shame that Guns have more Rights than Women

Already having covered the Supreme Court's legal standing in a previous point I will not spend much time on this one.  However, the first thing to point out here is that guns do not have rights, people do.  The right to bear arms in the second amendment is a right to self-defense and to defense from a tyrannical government.  And yes, you could own a cannon. The right to abortion though, is found nowhere in the constitution. If anything, babies now have

more

rights than they have had since 1973. One could argue (and dare I say SHOULD) that the 14

^th

amendment ought to make abortion federally illegal:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any

person

of

life

, liberty, or property, without due process of law…

If the preborn person is, in fact, a person, then the court

would

be within its right to nationalize a ban on abortion.  However, they have indicated that they would not do this for any legislation from either party. Finally, often, in this argument the euphemism of “reproductive rights” is used to indicate the overreach of the government in the bedroom.  Reproductive rights do not exist, and, if they do exist, are covered under contraception

not

abortion. The pregnancy itself indicates reproduction as already occurred and, thus, moves the argument from the reproductive act (sex) to the personhood of the infant in the womb. Guns are easier to obtain than abortions because A)

Legal

gun use protects one from murder B) legal abortion actively participates in murder. C) The right to own firearms is explicitly listed in the constitution.

You’re not REALLY pro-life unless…

This tired trope has been levied against pro-life advocates for decades, but it is incoherent and ahistorical. Generally speaking, the argument inserts a “whole-life” or “womb to tomb” approach to caring for the individual.  Often this line of thinking assumes that it is only the government that can take care of individuals from “womb to tomb” and thus, any socialized movement that a pro-lifer may be against means that he/she is not actually pro-life but only pro-birth. This is asinine on several levels. First, the logic is extremely unsound.  If I save a person from being murdered, am I suddenly on the hook for their education, job prospects, and financial stability in the future? Most honest people would balk at the idea, yet that is the intimation here. Second, it is simply not true.  Pregnancy Resource Centers across the country offer care well beyond birth. https://twitter.com/PatriciaHeaton/status/1542157413679337472?s=20&t=m0U_BmLrIBiyZwi4eitM4Q But beyond that, the Christian movement has long been pro-life on a multitude of levels. Christians are twice as likely to adopt as secularists and Texas (as well as other states) has committed over $100,000,000 to post-birth care as a state recently. Though, when pro-life institutions use public funding to help families post birth, pro-abortion media often seeks to destroy them. Historically, the Christian church invented the hospital and caring for the infirmed. In fact, as early as 165AD we find the establishment of actual hospitals caring for the sick during deadly plagues. When secular health care officials would flee Christians would stay behind to care for the sick and dying. In towns and cities across the nation food pantries, half-way houses, charity centers, homeless shelters and the like are run mostly by faith-based pro-life organizations.  My current church helped provide Afghani refugees with materials to live upon entering the States and has a Care Center dedicated to serving children in the foster care system. Not only that, but real Christians and good churches care not only for the lives of the least of these (which is why we are pro-life) but also for human dignity and eternity.  The gospel is as pro-life as one can get.  After all, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his soul? However, all of that does not matter to those that levy this complaint. Their goal is socialized care, which conservative pro-life Christians are against. That must mean we don’t care! But it is precisely because we

do

care that we are against such programs. Margaret Thatcher once said:

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.

This is the precise reason charity, not compulsory giving through taxation, is the only moral way to encourage people to give to the needy and lift others out of poverty and hopelessness. Spending someone else’s money is both ineffective and immoral and it is not the job of the government, biblically speaking. In fact, the more religious a person is, the more likely he/she is to give to some form of charity.  Not only is it immoral to use other people’s money via the government to help ease the burden of life for individuals, it is also demonstrably less effective. According to at least one study, private charity dominantly outperforms government entities in comparison. There’s a reason for this.  Private charity cares more deeply than public bureaucratic agencies.  So, one could argue, what is more philanthropic and pro-life than the spreading of the gospel and the elevation of religious dedication in a person’s life? A far less nuanced and ineffective attack in this same vein says, “

you’re for the death penalty, that doesn’t sound pro-life

.” The difference is obvious, except for those in echo chambers, the criminal did something (rape, murder etc.) to forfeit his life, the baby obviously did not.  He or she has yet to even be born.  Is conception now a death penalty offense? Finally, one of the most interesting and laughable sentiments coming from the pro-choice or liberal pro-life side of the aisle is the assertion that we might as well “go all the way” in protecting life through mandating child support at conception. https://twitter.com/ChrisCuomo/status/1433145774381191181?s=20&t=f7viFD6uD6MxpY5LE-xBuQ The answer to every single one of these questions is a resounding

yes

from pro-lifers.  Encouraging more abstinence, more marriage, more responsibility among men, and more sexual selectivity among women has been a core value among conservative Christians for millennia. The idea that pro-lifers are only pro-birth is absurd, offensive, and completely devoid of historical evidence. It is an emotional attack meant to cajole conservatives into accepting Marxist and socialistic premises.

If our goal is less abortions this won’t work!

I already addressed a few pieces of this argument in the other points but there is one left to be addressed. The goal of the pro-life movement is

not

simply less abortions.  That is the desired outcome, but it is not the driving force.  The driving force of the pro-life movement is based on governmental ethics and human rights.  Just as the goal of a law against murder is not simply to stop murders (clearly it doesn’t) but because murders are objectively wrong. This is something people such as Phil Vischer and David French often get wrong in the analysis of the issue. We fully understand that laws against abortion won’t eliminate abortions (though it will most definitely limit them, just look at this story from Texas.) but if murder is objectively evil it must be illegal no matter the age of the human being.  This is the role of the government in total.

My Body My Choice

No, it is not. This is not the same as having your gallbladder removed or needing and appendectomy. At the moment of conception, the preborn baby has completely different DNA than its mother. This argument also assumes that all pregnancies are foisted upon the mother.  Less than 1% of abortions are because of rape or incest so over 99% of other abortions are due to elective reasons. Using a cursory glance at a prenatal chart it is more than obvious that the baby is completely different individual from the mother.  It is not part of her body. It is not some organ that is leaching resources to the detriment of the mother.  The mother’s body was built for this. The infant is not some unwelcomed parasite, it is a biologically reproduced offspring and we must treat it as such!

Plus 1 – Don’t Celebrate Roe because People are Hurting

This sounds Christian, and right and good. No one wants to make the gospel less attractive than it makes itself (1 Corinthians 1:18) and we also know that we want to have a good reputation with outsiders (1 Timothy 3:7) and conduct ourselves with winsomeness. So, a reaction intent solely upon denigrating people at the expense of the gospel is clearly not desirable. However, celebrating the saving of a life

is

both winsome and necessary as a Christian. We

must

celebrate, and if during that celebration some are brought to conviction or made to

feel bad

then they must be called to repentance. Imagine, for a moment, that you were an abolitionist in Texas on June 19

^th

, 1865.  You

finally

get word that all of your efforts have paid off and slavery is finally illegal.  Would you not celebrate?  But what about the farmer down the street that will now have to pay workers to work the field?  This decision may financially ruin him!  Celebration and spiking the ball on abolition is not winsome for him!  He is hurting, confused, and desperate to figure out how to make ends meet. Of course, you should celebrate! Not because you hate him, but because you love him. His livelihood was tainted by the immorality of owning other human beings and whatever his life looks like after this, he can find grace and peace if he repents and moves forward in business and life with justice. This is the exact same reaction we should have concerning the overturning of Roe.  We do not celebrate so that the other side feels awful.  We celebrate because it gives people an opportunity to recognize their error and repent

and

more babies will live. The hand wringing and writhing of the pro-abortion camp is not just about abortion.  It is about a cultural shift they thought they had won since the sexual revolution in the 1960s. Their biggest fear is that men and women realize that sexual deviancy and promiscuity is empty and that women realize the miracle and fulfillment that comes from bearing a child and starting a family.  Their biggest fear is not that women won’t be able to get abortions. Their biggest fear is that people might find out they were wrong in the first place and that family life, and in particular, motherhood, is not a burden but a blessing. We must, as Christians, celebrate the overthrow of abject evil, and that is precisely what murder of a preborn infant recognized as a federal right was. So do not be bashful, celebrate, because at least for a moment evil has been thwarted.

NOTES

https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/do-pro-lifers-who-reject-trump-have https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvWD7ykNjCc https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/abortion/ten-legal-reasons-to-reject-roe https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/compassion-over-culture-war/ https://freethinkingministries.com/moloch-bruised-but-not-defeated/ https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf http://landmarkcases.c-span.org/pdf/Roe_White_Dissent.pdf https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-3/#:~:text=Article%20III%20Judicial%20Branch&text=The%20judicial%20Power%20of%20the,to%20time%20ordain%20and%20establish. https://johnpavlovitz.com/2020/10/15/god-is-pro-choice/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=johnpavlovitz https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/24/women-of-color-end-of-roe/ https://www.frc.org/op-eds/margaret-sanger-racist-eugenicist-extraordinaire https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/01/28/franks-high-abortion-rate-strikes-blow-at-black-community/ https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna39993685 https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/swearing-off-men-and-avoiding-intimacy-gen-z-reconsiders-sex-in-the-wake-of-a-possible-post-roe-world/articleshow/92422705.cms https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/jul/01/ew-jackson/ew-jackson-says-20-percent-black-children-are-bein/ https://www.heartbeatinternational.org/forced-abortions-in-america https://www.americanadoptions.com/pregnant/waiting_adoptive_families#:~:text=While%20it%20is%20difficult%20to,who%20is%20placed%20for%20adoption. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/29/planned-parenthoods-false-stat-thousands-women-died-every-year-before-roe/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/24/what-the-data-says-about-abortion-in-the-u-s-2/ https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/ectopic-pregnancy/symptoms-causes/syc-20372088#:~:text=An%20ectopic%20pregnancy%20occurs%20when,is%20called%20a%20tubal%20pregnancy. https://lozierinstitute.org/fact-check-dobbs-will-not-impact-life-saving-medical-care-for-high-risk-or-ectopic-pregnancies/ https://www.ammoland.com/2021/06/actually-mr-president-you-can-own-a-cannon/#axzz7XlHtHeNb https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-14/#:~:text=No%20State%20shall%20make%20or,equal%20protection%20of%20the%20laws. https://www.barna.com/research/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-adoption/ https://dailycitizen.focusonthefamily.com/texas-to-spend-100-million-to-support-alternatives-to-abortion/ https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/crisis-pregnancy-centers-facing-backlash-over-high-taxpayer-costs-medical-misinformation-142952005649 https://www.healthline.com/health/womens-health/can-abortion-cause-infertility https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/nhhc/nurses-institutions-caring/history-of-hospitals/ https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christianity/Property-poverty-and-the-poor https://www.biola.edu/blogs/good-book-blog/2020/how-did-early-christians-respond-to-plagues https://biblehub.com/mark/8-36.htm https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/138248-the-problem-with-socialism-is-that-you-eventually-run-out https://www.philanthropy.com/article/religious-americans-give-more-new-study-finds/#:~:text=The%20more%20important%20religion%20is,65%20percent%20give%20to%20charity. https://fee.org/articles/how-does-government-welfare-stack-up-against-private-charity-it-s-no-contest/#:~:text=In%2056%20out%20of%2071,ethical%20and%20far%20more%20effective. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/20/texas-abortion-law-teen-mom/ Romans 13 https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002398.htm https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/24/rape-and-incest-account-few-abortions-so-why-all-attention/1211175001/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/quick-saves--1092334084592694374/ https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/be-winsome-and-persuasive/ https://wng.org/opinions/when-roe-was-overturned-1656588129