Progressive outlet Mother Jones examined the supposed “splintering” of the pro-life movement in a recent article, prompted in part by an online spat between pro-life leader Kristan Hawkins and some abortion opponents who call themselves “abolitionists.”
The article paints a misleading picture, insinuating that views decidedly outside the mainstream hold significant sway in the pro-life movement. There is no dispute among pro-lifers, for instance, about whether women should face the death penalty for having an abortion. The pro-life movement has long argued that it would be wrong to punish post-abortive women at all, given that abortion has long been permitted and held out as morally acceptable.
But at the root of the article is a question that should engage those who are pro-life: What do we mean when we say we want to abolish abortion?
In contrast to how Mother Jones frames the issue, “abortion abolitionism” isn’t confined to fringe extremists, though extremists are more likely to call themselves “abolitionists.” Virtually everyone in the pro-life movement hopes to abolish abortion. Rather than providing clarity and helping allies work toward shared goals, buzzwords such as “abolitionism” tend to promote holier-than-thou bickering.
Pro-lifers aren’t divided over whether we want to eliminate abortion; we disagree about what means we ought to use. The tension, in other words, isn’t between “abolitionism” and the rest of pro-lifers but rather between those who advocate an incremental strategy and those who claim incrementalism is ineffective or morally inadequate.
We might more accurately call the “abolitionist” position the “no compromise” position. For those in this camp, incremental steps toward eliminating abortion are at best useless and at worst cowardly. They argue, for instance, that anti-abortion laws must never include any exceptions, such as to allow abortion if a woman was raped. They often oppose policies such as those protecting unborn children after, say, 15 weeks of pregnancy because they believe pro-lifers should instead push for laws banning all abortions.
Given political and cultural realities, we will struggle to eliminate any abortions if we insist on this sort of misguided purism. According to recent data, 35% of Americans say abortion should be “legal under any circumstances,” while another 50% say it should be “legal under certain circumstances.” A full 85% of people, in other words, believe abortion should remain legal.
In these conditions, working only to ban all abortions with no exceptions is foolhardy, to put it mildly. We should never cede ground to the pro-abortion mindset, consistently affirming the intrinsic dignity and value of every human life from conception. But political prudence requires a more sophisticated plan than immediately advancing the most protective pro-life policies we can imagine. We can’t ignore that abortion remains legal in many states after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that most Americans support legal abortion, and that women continue to have abortions at high rates — and we must be willing to explore the many reasons why this is true.
Rather than pushing for maximally restrictive laws no matter the circumstance, pro-life policymakers ought to advance laws protecting as many unborn children as possible in each particular political context. After Dobbs, lawmakers in many states have been able to protect nearly all unborn children because the conditions in their states allow for it. But in other states, doing so is impossible, and lawmakers in those places would be foolish to refuse incremental gains if they can make them.
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Meanwhile, pro-lifers have known for decades that building a culture welcoming to children and supportive of families — in other words, a culture where abortion is far less desirable and where more people are willing to support pro-life laws — doesn’t come about by clamoring to punish women. Rather, it requires the hard work of encountering abortion-minded women and helping them choose life. Some of this work happens at the policy level; some of it happens at the community level, such as through pregnancy-resource centers and maternity homes.
An increasing amount of this work needs to happen at an even more fundamental level, seeking to address the cultural conditions that make abortion appealing. This will require pro-lifers to become more willing to grapple with issues such as the breakdown of families, societywide acceptance of sex outside of marriage, and the failure of fathers to support women and children, all of which contribute to making abortion appear like a solution.
Alexandra DeSanctis is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a contributor to National Review.
