If you ask a typical Christian, conservative, and anti-abortion voter who lives in a deep red state if he believes abortion is illegal in that state, he will likely say yes.
That voter may reason, after all, that the Supreme Court overturned the infamous Roe v. Wade decision three years ago, after which state trigger bills entered into effect, imposing new restrictions on abortionists and forcing most surgical abortion facilities to close their doors.
But just because abortions are not happening in Planned Parenthood does not mean they have stopped altogether.
There are of course the men and women who travel to other nearby blue states like Illinois, Kansas, or Colorado to obtain abortions. Some new abortion facilities have strategically positioned themselves in such states to help parents in red states travel to murder their babies more easily.
There are also massive numbers of women who are self-inducing their abortions through abortion pills and similar methods in those red states.
Those types of abortions are happening to the tune of countless thousands of babies per year.
You heard that correctly. There are thousands of abortions happening every single year in pro-life Republican states that claim to have fully banned abortion.
Abortion is still legal in all 50 states. pic.twitter.com/klkmJHepMO
— Abolitionists Rising 🌳🪓 (@AbolitionRising) February 26, 2023
That is because the laws passed by pro-life establishment organizations in states across the country have provisions that forbid the prosecution of women who willfully have abortions, creating something of a loophole allowing for abortion to continue even in deep red states.
Those pro-life establishment organizations do not try to hide that reality either.
The website for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an affiliate of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, lists 27 states with such laws, commending them for having “explicit carve outs exempting women from criminal or civil liability” if they choose to have an abortion.
The laws in the state of Texas, for instance, explicitly forbid “the imposition of criminal, civil, or administrative liability or penalties on a pregnant female on whom an abortion is performed, induced, or attempted.”
The laws in Tennessee refuse to “subject the pregnant woman upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted to criminal conviction or penalty.”
In other words, a mother in one of those states can act alone and willfully take abortion pills in her bedroom or dorm room to murder her baby, and she cannot be held accountable under the law for that murder.
She could also willfully choose to take abortion pills on the steps of the state Supreme Court building, or in the state attorney general’s office, and she could not be charged with any crime.
Essentially, many mothers cannot go to the abortionist to murder their babies, so they have become their own abortionists, and laws in conservative states enable that conduct.
One would think that the mainstream pro-life movement would want to address those issues. But sorrowfully, as a matter of public record, the opposite has been the case.
When grassroots movements of Christians have tried to patch the loopholes by passing bills to establish equal protection of the laws for preborn babies, essentially applying the same homicide and assault laws that already protect born people to protect preborn people as well, they actually face opposition from the same pro-life groups that wrote those loopholes into the law in the first place.
Take, for example, an equal protection bill proposed in Louisiana back in the spring of 2022.
There were several dozen pro-life establishment organizations, such as National Right to Life, Susan B. Anthony List, March for Life Action, and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, that signed onto an open letter published the morning that the bill was to receive a floor vote, instructing state lawmakers to oppose the legislation.
“Women are victims of abortion and require our compassion and support as well as ready access to counseling and social services,” the letter contended.
“As national and state pro-life organizations,” the document added, “we state unequivocally that we do not support any measure seeking to criminalize or punish women and we stand firmly opposed to include such penalties in legislation.”
The political pressure worked.
The bill, which had soundly passed a committee vote days earlier, was opposed and gutted on the floor of the Louisiana House by the very same Republican lawmakers who had offered their support.
A very similar phenomenon happened earlier this month, this time in North Dakota.
Several state lawmakers backed a bill defining an “unborn child” as a “human being” and amending the state murder and assault codes to equally protect their lives.
Even though 16 Republicans voted on the floor of the North Dakota House in favor of the bill, 77 other lawmakers voted against the proposal, likewise killing the effort.
After the bill failed, advocates pointed to a letter from several major pro-life groups early last year opposing an effort to call for equal protection by amending the North Dakota Republican Party platform.
The letter, signed by the leaders of groups like March for Life Action, Students for Life, National Right to Life, and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, opposed the bill because they disagreed with “criminalizing or otherwise punishing women” who choose to have abortions.
‼️@KristanHawkins and other Pro-Life leaders fought to keep abortion legal in North Dakota.
Full story here ⬇️pic.twitter.com/06x6ZEZkWw
— Foundation to Abolish Abortion (@AbolitionistFAA) February 18, 2025
Is the mainstream pro-life establishment correct?
Is a desire to offer women help and support if they are tempted toward abortion a legitimate reason to keep blanket immunity and impunity for women who have abortions enshrined in our laws?
If we believe abortion is murder, if we affirm preborn babies are truly human, and if we truly want to end abortion, we cannot support such a position.
We would never seek to protect the right of a mother to murder her newborn baby shortly after birth. Why would we protect the right to murder her preborn baby shortly before birth?
The final goal of ending abortion cannot be achieved without equal protection.
Having equal protection of the laws communicates the equal value of all human beings protected by those laws, whether inside or outside the womb and necessitates equal justice and equal penalties for those who willingly take human life, whether inside or outside the womb.
All of this makes perfect logical sense.
All of this aligns with the United States Constitution and the constitutions of the various states, which require equal protection of the laws for all persons under their jurisdictions.
All of this most importantly aligns with the principles of the Bible, which condemn using partiality in judgment, acquitting the guilty, and failing to establish justice for the fatherless.
Christians can certainly offer help and support for women who find themselves in a crisis pregnancy. But when we confound the categories of Christian mercy and civil justice by granting women who willfully have abortions wholesale legal immunity under the law, we perpetuate the injustice of abortion in our society.
Many pro-life organizations have failed to seriously contend with these realities. But if we are ever to stop the mass murder of our own children in the womb, we have no choice.
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