Saving Lives or Changing Laws?

This transcript was generated from the episode’s YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability: filler words and the mid-show announcements have been removed. It may still contain transcription errors.

Do passing laws against abortion actually stop abortion and reduce it? A lot of evangelical leaders say no and a lot of pro-abortionists say no. Today we’re going to talk about why they are wrong. Hello everyone. Welcome to The Case for Life show. I’m your host, Scott Klusendorf, and I came across an article this morning that caused me to reshape what I was going to talk about today because I think it’s a timely piece of news that fits a narrative that’s out there or addresses a narrative that’s out there rather that goes like this.

We really shouldn’t worry about passing laws against abortion because after all, women are still going to get abortions no matter what the law says. All that’ll happen is they’ll get dangerous illegal abortions. And we all know, so the narrative goes, that you can’t change hearts by passing laws. The behavior will still go on and we should focus instead on reaching and meeting the needs of individual women rather than trying to restrict abortion. And I have heard evangelical leaders from Eugene show and others say that this is just not the way to go.

That passing laws is not the way for Christians to oppose abortion. Rather just ministering to individual women. Now here’s the part they get right. Should pro-lifers take interest in ministering to individual women who are facing untimely pregnancies? The answer of course is yes. And that’s why we have pregnancy centers that now outnumber abortion clinics over two to one nationwide. It’s why large numbers of Christians donate money every month to help these centers meet the needs of women who are struggling to work through a pregnancy they didn’t see coming.

Okay, look, I get that and that’s a good thing. But when people then turn around and say that’s the only way we can work to save the lives of the unborn, they’re mistaken. And so rather than have you take my word for it, I want to point out to you an article that I saw today in the De Moines Register. Now, this is from Iowa, a state that has a six-w week heartbeat bill that essentially bans abortion after 6 weeks. And here’s what the takeaways are from the article.

There are three and all of them deserve some commentary. The first is that the law has contributed to a sharp decline in abortions in that state. And that’s across the board. That’s statewide. In other words, when the state passed a law restricting abortion, it caused the abortion rate in that state to drop. Now, what we’re hearing all over the place, and it’s just a lie, is that since DOS overturned Roie Wade, that the abortion rates have actually gone up. Here’s the part they’re not telling you.

Abortion rates have indeed gone up in states that promote abortion wholesale that have made it almost their sole business to sell abortion tourism. In other words, they’re advertising to women in states that have restricted abortion. Hey, come to our state. We’ll even buy your air ticket. We’ll put you up in a hotel. We’ll pay for your abortion and then we’ll pay for you to return home. When you market that kind of service, or if you want to call it a service to people, they’re going to take advantage of it.

But here’s the point that nobody’s talking about. The question is not will women go to other states where abortion is legal. The real question is this. In states that restrict abortion, what does the data indicate in those states? And state by state, here’s what you see. The abortion rate plummets when you pass laws restricting abortion. That makes sense for a couple of reasons. Number one, people by and large are inclined to follow the law. And number two, the law is sort of a moral teacher when things become illegal.

And this goes all the way back to arisatilian thought. When the law proc ought not do, people tend to look at that and draw moral conclusions from it. So for example, think about smoking in this country. 30 years ago, if you walked into a restaurant or got in an airplane, you were asked, “Do you want to be seated in smoking section or non-smoking se section?” And those of you that have long memories may remember the days of being on an airplane where the only seat available was a middle seat in smoking section.

I remember once flying from London to Los Angeles, a 10-hour flight, and I had to sit in a middle seat in smoking section because that’s all that was available. And you may remember the smell of that and how it was rather off-putting if you were a non-smoker as I was. So the question then becomes what changed to where now people frown at people smoking in areas where there are other people around. And what changed is the law? The law started saying you can’t smoke in these establishments.

And then laws got even more restrictive. They started saying things like you cannot smoke in public areas outdoors or indoors where people tend to congregate. And now that’s frowned upon. If you light up a cigar or a cigarette in a crowded area or even a heavily traffked sidewalk, people are going to frown at you. Why? They didn’t frown 30 years ago, but they do now. And I say that’s partly due to the law teaching lessons about public behavior. And we see that happening here in Iowa and other states that have restricted abortion.

Yes, women will travel to other states that have less restrictive laws, but it doesn’t follow from that that the law in the states that restricted abortion failed. No, it didn’t fail. It just means people are finding a workaround in other states. Now, imagine if the country as a whole protected all unborn humans from conception. Let’s say there were a national law that said no abortions anymore. We’re done. We’re not doing any abortions. Of course, we will have exceptions for ending pregnancies that are life-threatening to the mother, but those aren’t abortions technically because they don’t involve the intentional killing of an innocent human being.

So, if you look at it this way, if the nation had a law that banned all abortions, the abortion rate nationally would drop just like it’s dropping in states that restrict it now. Would some women find a workaround? Yeah, there might be some that say, you know what, fine. I’m going to fly to Canada and have an abortion or I’m going to travel to Europe and get one. Yeah, there will be people who do that. But the national abortion rate would drop.

Why? Because the law restricted it. So, this idea that the law cannot restrict behavior is crazy. I mean, on the face of it’s a dumb argument. Anyway, if we legalize spousal abuse, would spousal abuse go up or down? I think we know the answer to that. The same would be true with theft or rape or any other violent crime. If you legalize the bad behavior, it’s going to go up, not down in terms of its occurrence. And the same would be true here with abortion.

Now, there’s another point that come out that came out in this study that the De Moines register is pointing out, and here it is. The law allows for there to be exceptions for ending a pregnancy that involve threats to the mother’s life. Now, this is important to note because pro-abortionists and a lot of Christians who ought to know better are out spreading propaganda that pro-life laws are forcing women to die because they can’t get surgery for ectopic pregnancy or if they have a miscarriage, they’re going to get prosecuted.

This is all nonsense. And here in the De Moines Register, which is not a conservative paper, says that these laws all allow for medical emergencies. In other words, if the woman is pregnant and faces a medical emergency due to an ectopic pregnancy where the embryo implants in the inner wall, the fallopian tube instead of the uterine cavity wall, the law allows the pregnancy to end to be terminated. And again, pro-lifers don’t look at this as an abortion. And let me explain why.

I’ll take a minute here to explain why. With abortion, we intend the death of the innocent unborn. The physician performing the procedure not only foresees the death of the unborn, he intends the death of the unborn. That’s the whole point of the abortion. That’s why in our pro-life syllogism, the way we formally state our argument, we say that it’s wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. Abortion does that. Therefore, it’s wrong. In other words, we’re defining abortion as the intentional killing of an innocent human being.

And in previous episodes of this show, I have quoted people on the other side of this debate, people who support abortion, who make it very clear that abortion does involve the violent destruction of a human fetus. Okay? It’s not just proifers who say that. It’s pro-abortionists who say that, including people like Dr. Warren Hearn, arguably America’s leading abortion doctor, who quite candidly says that we got to stop denying what goes on in abortion. It involves the dismemberment of a fetus. And he talks about the sensations of dismemberment flowing through the forceps like an electric current.

Okay, this isn’t a pro-life advocate saying this. This is a doctor who has made a practice of performing abortions and who indeed has written the textbook on how to do abortions. So this isn’t pro-life rhetoric. This is pro-abortionists agreeing with pro-lifers that abortion does involve the intentional destruction of a human fetus. Okay. So what we are saying here is that when there’s an ectopic pregnancy, the physician is not intending the death of the embryo or fetus in this case. Rather his intent, which by the way is a morally sufficient reason to end the pregnancy, he intends to save the one life he can because you can’t save the embryo in this case.

We don’t have technology for transporting that embryo to a more suitable environment that doesn’t involve him being in a pathological place where he will die. In this case, the embryo dies if we remove him. He dies if we don’t remove him and the mother ends up dying from this condition as well. In the case of ectopic pregnancy, if you do nothing, in many cases, you will lose both the mother and the human developing inside her fallopian tube. So the physician is forced to ask him ask him his or herself this question.

Do I do nothing and let two humans perish? Or do I act in such a way that I’m able to save one life even though the unintended but foreseen result is the death of the embryo? And in this case, the physician who has a moral compass will do the greatest moral good he can given the hand he’s been dealt. He’s going to save the life of the mother because that’s the one life he can save in this situation. True, he foresees the death of the human developing in the womb there, but he doesn’t intend that death.

He’s acting to save the one life he can. If he had a way to remove the embryo from the fallopian tube, he would do it. But he doesn’t have that technology. And of course, we could also argue that in removing the embryo, you have not made him worse off. He will die in his pathological location inside the fallopian tube and he will die if you remove him. So by removing him and saving the mother, you’ve not made the embryo worse off.

So there are good moral reasons for saying that something like ectopic pregnancy does not constitute an intentional abortion where your aim is not only to foresee the death of the unborn but actually produce the death of the unborn. That’s the intent you are after. You want the child dead. So the laws in these states that are protecting the unborn all make allowance for medical emergencies that involve saving the life of the mother. And there’s been a big fear campaign, a big smear campaign put on out there saying that these laws leave women unprotected.

And I’ve seen Christians say things like, “Well, if we’re truly loving, we would not subject women to dangerous surgical procedures where they have to go somewhere illegally to get an ectopic pregnancy dealt with.” That’s just false. All of these laws in states that are restricting abortion allow for surgeries for things like ectopic pregnancy, and they do not prosecute women for having miscarriages. That is another false thing that’s being said. So, this idea that women are going to die, even the De Moines Register says that these pro-life laws allow for medical emergencies.

Now, there’s a third thing these laws say, and I think this is interesting as well. Planned Parenthood has performed fewer abortions in the state and they are closing clinics. And you look at states like Texas that recently closed a mega Planned Parenthood center near Houston, one that was notoriously bad for a high volume of abortions performed. That’s a state Texas that has laws restricting a lot of abortions. And as a result, you see clinics closing. So, not only does the abortion rate go down, clinics are closing.

They’re going to go make their money in states that will promote abortion wholesale. Blue states run by Democrats. So, what you have here is a case where we see the evidence pointing to the laws actually working. They do exactly what they’re supposed to do. Reduce the numbers of abortion. Now, we’re going to take a break, but when we come back, I want to address a parallel issue here. And that is some Christians who are saying, “Wouldn’t it be better if we just left the law alone and simply worked to reduce abortion?” I’m going to explain why that is not a good approach and why it’s morally unsound.

I’ll look forward to seeing you on the other side of the break.

Welcome back everybody. Hey, before we go any further, I want to remind you of something you absolutely will want to take a look at. We have a course up called Prolife 101. Why do we call it Prolife 101? Because it gives you the foundation you need to persuasively defend your pro-life views in the public square in conversations with friends at work or maybe on campus or even at church. You need to know how to defend what you believe because we are all pro-life apologists.

Now, the job of defending the lives of the unborn does not merely fall to me and other pro-lifers who work full-time at this. All of us need to be able to step up and make a defense for what we believe. Visit our websites. We’ve got that course there you can look at. And in one week, you will master the moral logic of the pro-life view. For those of you that might want to dig even deeper, you might want to take a look at this book, the second edition of my book, The Case for Life.

We go into exhaustive treatment of many of the subjects we talk about on this show and that book too will equip you. So I encourage you to take a look at both the book and the course. Now we were talking about before the break how the data is showing that laws that restrict abortion actually work in the states where they’re passed. So if Texas or Iowa passes a bill restricting abortion, the abortion rates go down in those states, not up. The media wants you to believe they’re going up.

They’re going up in states that are promoting wholesale abortion. So yeah, states like Illinois, California, Vermont, Colorado, and others. These are states that are specifically going out of their way to market abortion services to women in other states where the practice is restricted. So yes, in those states the abortion numbers are going up because there will always be some women who will try to get around the law anyway. But that’s not most women. What the data is showing is here in Iowa, for example, the abortion rate has seen a sharp decline.

Number one. Number two, the laws that restrict abortion all make allowance for a medical emergency. So women are not dying from these laws. And thirdly, Planned Parenthood services have plummeted. And in fact, their clinics are being closed in red states like Texas, Iowa, and elsewhere. So this idea that the law doesn’t do any good is just pure nonsense. Now, there’s a related argument here that we need to address. And I’ve heard evangelical leaders and some Catholic leaders say this. They’ll say, “Well, maybe the better move here is not to work on changing the law.

We don’t want to make abortion illegal. We want to make it unthinkable.” Okay? I also want to make it unthinkable, but I also want to make it illegal. Imagine me saying, “I don’t want to make spousal abuse illegal. I want to make it unthinkable.” The flaw in that is this. There are some people who will respond to moral arguments against a bad evil behavior. That’s true. But there will always be some who are heartless individuals. And the purpose of the law is to curb their behavior.

It’s what Martin Luther King said in the 1960s. The law can’t make the white man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and that matters. And we’re saying the same thing here. The law can’t make everyone love fetuses. We wish it would, but it can’t. But it can sure stop a lot of fetuses from being butchered and thrown in the dumpster. So, the purpose of the law is to restrain evil acts from heartless individuals. And that may or may not in particular cases involve a change of heart.

But even if it doesn’t, at least the heartless evil behavior is being restrained. So we need the law. But there’s a second problem here. Imagine me saying to a minority suffering discrimination. You know what? We don’t want to make it illegal to segregate against you. We don’t want to make it illegal for people to practice racism against you. Rather, what we want to do is simply reduce the amount of racism in the country. But we’re still going to leave it legal for people to own you as slaves, to segregate against you, and treat you horribly.

A society that reduced slavery, but still left it legal to treat humans as property would be a deeply immoral society, even if it reduced the actual numbers of slavery. So when pro-life Christians who ought to know better run around saying, “Look, we don’t want to make abortion illegal. We just want to make it unthinkable, we want to make a reduction in the number of abortions, and that’s good enough.” No, it’s not. It should not only be unthinkable to kill the unborn, it must also be illegal to intentionally kill the unborn.

Justice requires that. And I think what happens is this is where a lot of Christian leaders need to grow a spine, if I can put it that way. They are so afraid of the culture critiquing them as being mean that they buy the premise of the culture that being nice means you let everybody do what they want. You affirm whatever they want, whether it be they want to be in a same-sex relationship, they want to marry their canary, or they want to have an abortion.

We’re not going to judge them. We’re not going to critique them because that would not be nice. And so what we end up with is kind of this nice guy pro-life apologetic that says, “You know what? We’re just going to run around and do what we can to show people we’re likable.” The culture is never going to like you if you oppose what the culture loves. And this culture loves treating children as sacrificial instruments that they can kill at a whim.

They love it. They revel in butchering babies. The blood is flowing and that’s because the culture wants it to be flowing. The culture is looking at abortion and loving it and wants us to affirm their love for what is evil. We cannot do that as Christians. We’ve got to both love the women who are having abortions and we have to in the name of love call out what they’re doing as evil. This is important not only for the lives of the unborn but for the women themselves.

It’s important that women who have abortions understand that their behavior is immoral. Now, there are tactical ways to do that that where there are some methods better than others. I’m not convinced standing in front of an abortion clinic and screaming murderer at women going in is going to help save the lives of their children or confront them in a compelling way with the evil they’re about to perpetrate. A much better approach at that final stage at the clinic door would be a message that says, “We will help you.” And later, you can work with the woman once you’ve saved her child and convinced her that she doesn’t have to have the abortion in order to save her life from falling apart.

Then you can talk to her about the moral choices she’s been making and how the only solution to her moral evil is the gospel found in Jesus Christ. I completely agree. We need to be sharing the gospel. But when I see pro-lifers screaming at women in front of clinics, what tends to happen, and I’ve had a lot of them talk to me about this, they just shut down immediately. And instead of stopping them from killing their children, it becomes the last permission slip they needed because now they look at those people and say, “What a bunch of nutcases telling me this is wrong.

Of course, what I’m doing is right for me.” And I can prove that by looking at the idiots and the nutcases who are opposing me. I have watched videos from so-called pro-life groups where they show I mean, I don’t know why they put these videos up. They’re supposed to show us that their methods are effective. And you see people telling these women, “You’re a murderer, ma’am. You’re going in there to murder your baby.” And the woman walks right past them and goes in the clinic.

And then these people applaud themselves for the great gospel and life-saving work they’re doing. How did you save a life? The woman went into the clinic anyway. Or she came out and you didn’t persuade her, you just alienated her. So, we can be truthful in tactical ways and we should be truthful about the fact that abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being and that’s why it is wrong. So, don’t hear me saying we shouldn’t tell the truth, but there are tactical considerations that are involved here.

And I’m fine with saying, you know, we’re going to be tactical about how we approach women who are abortion-minded. We’re going to be truthful, but we’re going to think tactically about the best way to reach them at the heart level so they make the right decision. That’s good. But let’s never go the way that some people are going right now. And some of our own evangelical and Catholic leaders who say things like, “Well, let’s not even talk about abortion being illegal.

Let’s just talk about meeting the needs of women and reducing abortion’s occurrence in the culture.” Reducing abortion is not a moral good if you’re leaving it legal to intentionally kill unborn humans. So the law is vital here. And we now have proof empirically that these laws are effective. They are working in the states where these laws are passed. Don’t let anybody tell you differently. And don’t let anybody tell you that women are going to die because they will no longer be protected if they face a medical emergency.

That the law is going to make them die because the law now says you can’t have an abortion. A surgery for an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion. Why? Because the death of the unborn is not intended. It may be foreseen, but it’s not intended. And we have a morally sufficient reason to move forward. Saving the life of the mother. It’s very important, men and women, that we stay focused on the facts, that we stay focused on good moral reasoning, and that’s what we aim to do here on the Case for Life Show.

Thank you for joining us today. Again, I just want to remind you if you have not yet taken a look at our Prolife 101 basic pro-life apologetics course, I encourage you to do that. You can visit our websites to see that course. It will equip you to make a difference and put you in a position to save lives or persuade hearts. Both are vitally important. Thank you for joining us today. I look forward to seeing you on our next show.