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Today I want to talk about something that is potentially troubling in the news. There is a lot of chatter among GOP elites and others about coming to a compromise deal on abortion where we, as a matter of principle, state that we will accept certain, uh, what’s the best way to phrase this, certain loopholes in abortion law that allow for exceptions as a matter of principle.
I’m not talking here about where you don’t have the votes to pass protection for all unborn humans. I’m talking about people who are plotting that we make it a matter of principle in law that we will only protect some unborn humans. This is very problematic. Now you’ve heard me talk before about why it is okay biblically and morally.
to support legislation aimed at limiting the evil of abortion done when you don’t have the votes to move forward with a total ban that will protect all children. But when you set out a side, ahead of time, when you set out in advance, To place an idea out there that here is the new Republican consensus on abortion, and we’re going to make this our final resting point, you are compromising.
There is no room for saying we’re going to stop at protecting some children, but not all of them. That’s very different than saying I don’t have the votes right now to protect all humans, therefore, therefore I’ll protect as many as I can. That’s a legitimate way to move forward and historically the pro life movement has never accepted as a matter of principle an idea that we will write it into law that will protect some children but not others.
Again, that’s very different than saying you don’t have the votes to protect all so you protect as many as you can. If you look at the history of the pro life movement and I’ve taken the time to do this. It’s interesting how we started out. We never started out, as some people say, as those that only wanted to incrementally limit abortion, but leave it legal so that we could somehow profit politically.
That was never the case. In fact, if you look at the history of the pro life movement from 1973 to 1983, What you see is a full throttled attempt to ban all abortions and protect all unborn humans. There were a series of human life bills and human life amendments that were put forward. I’ve got a summary of all of them here, several pages, and I went through and I highlighted what the language of these amendments say.
And it’s interesting what they say. All of them have three main points. Number one, abortion does not fit within the constitution. There is no constitutional right to an abortion. Secondly, they define person as an unborn child at every stage of development and they go to great length to say that one’s development does not determine one’s status.
They go on to say that the right way to move forward is to protect children at every stage of development. Now, I agree with all of that. When that’s your principle, as it should be as a pro lifer, you’ve got to push for that. But what we’re hearing now are some ideas that the GOP platform, the GOP messaging, ought to say we’re willing to compromise on issues like rape, uh, issues like, uh, health concerns that are defined so broadly you could drive a Mack truck through it, in order to try to build a consensus to win politically.
This is problematic to me, especially with Roe v. Wade being reversed. We ought to move to protect all unborn humans and push for more than we have in the past, and this idea that we can win the public relations debate by stating as a matter of principle that we’re willing to sacrifice some children if we can build a consensus on saving others, That’s problematic.
That is not good moral thinking. And I want to make it clear again, I’m not talking here about politicians committed in principle to protecting all children, but face the real world that they can’t right now do that. That’s very different. What we’re talking about is a strategy being proposed by some political elites who, quite frankly, should know better, who are saying, let’s settle on only protecting some children as a means of building a political consensus to beat Democrats.
This is problematic. We should not be doing this. And no pro lifer who is committed in principle to the foundational ideas of our movement can go along with that kind of thinking. And I hope that cooler heads prevail and we are able to move forward without compromising what our principles really are. I look forward to seeing you next time.
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