Pro-Lifers, Don’t Let Critics Rewrite Your Job Description

Hello friends. I’m sitting here today with a deep sense of urgency, waiting for something I know is about to erupt across the op-ed pages of our nation. It is a concerted, intentional effort by forces both external and, sadly, internal to our ranks, aimed at nothing less than gutting, bankrupting, and driving the pro-life movement off message and off principle. We cannot, and we must not, allow this to happen.

Welcome to this vital discussion on the true nature of the pro-life mission and the insidious threats seeking to redefine it. The very core of our work – the defense of the unborn – is under assault, not just from the obvious adversaries like Planned Parenthood or political parties that champion abortion, but from those who seek to broaden our mandate beyond recognition.

The Battle to Redefine “Pro-Life”

You’ve heard the headlines, or you will soon: “You can’t be pro-life if you don’t support protesting immigrants,” or “You can’t be pro-life if you want the border closed”. These are not isolated incidents. I’ve seen countless articles online claiming that pro-lifers are inconsistent. They say you cannot be pro-life if you don’t support government programs for immigrants—meaning illegal immigrants—or if you oppose government assistance for families with children. The claims extend further: you’re supposedly not pro-life if you support gun ownership, or if you opposed COVID policies that aimed at shutting down the economy. The argument here is that “lives are more important than economic value,” and therefore, true pro-lifers would support locking down the economy. Even more recently, as riots have unfolded in cities like Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, and Austin, we are being lectured that if we support sending in the National Guard or Marines to keep order, we are somehow not pro-life. The logic presented is that if you were “really pro-life, you would want all humans to flourish because Jesus cared about all people who were marginalized, not just those in the womb”. Thus, to be “consistently pro-life,” we are told, one must support open borders and allow rioters to have their way.

It is critical to note that many of these articles are written by Christians who claim a biblical worldview, yet they are lecturing us on what it means to be pro-life. This push to “retool what it means to be pro-life” seeks to shift our focus away from protecting children in the womb and ensuring their right to life, towards being more concerned with the quality of life for people already outside the womb.

This leads to what I call a “stew of moral equivalency”. You’ll hear pro-life leaders, even some Christians, argue that we need to show equal devotion not only to the unborn, but to immigrant families, the poor, the needy, women not paid a living wage, and oppressed peoples all over the world. The insidious implication is that if we are not devoting equal concern and equal resources to addressing all these other problems, we are not truly Christian or pro-life; we are merely selective in our respect for human life.

The Unfair Demand and the Dangerous Premise

As Christians, yes, we care about a multitude of issues. But it is fundamentally incorrect to assert that because pro-lifers oppose the intentional killing of innocent human beings in the womb, we are therefore responsible for fixing everything wrong with society. This is an unfair demand, and it is one that no other group faces. Does anyone go to an anti-poverty organization and demand to know what they are doing about disease or sex trafficking? No, they don’t. The only advocates who hear this kind of impossible ultimatum are pro-life advocates. And I am deeply concerned that many within our own movement are buying into this premise from our critics.

This dangerous trend reminds me of a critical moment in American history, right after the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. President Abraham Lincoln urged General George Gordon Meade to pursue and destroy the Confederate army, to drive the enemy into the Potomac. But Meade’s disheartening reply suggested that driving the Confederates from Union soil should be enough. Lincoln’s powerful response was, “When will my generals understand that the whole country is our soil?”. Meade had unwittingly adopted the premise of the Confederacy—that there were two legitimate governments, Northern and Southern—and believed that clearing them from “our” soil was sufficient.

Similarly, many pro-life leaders today have adopted the premise of our critics: “If you are really pro-life, you care about all life and every life issue is yours to solve”. Instead of pushing back against this flawed premise, our side has begun to think, “Well, maybe they’re right. If we’re not discipling people, if we’re not caring for their needs after they’re born, if we’re not making sure humans flourish at all stages of life, then who are we to call ourselves pro-life?”. This is absolute nonsense.

Consider this practical reality for a moment: how many pro-life groups have the abundant resources to fight every issue under the sun? The answer is none. All pro-life groups I know, even those doing tremendous work, are flat broke. We struggle monthly to make ends meet. If we were to take on every other issue that other, better-funded groups with more activists are better suited to address, we would bankrupt ourselves and spread our resources so thin that we would be effective nowhere. As Frederick the Great wisely said, “He who fights everywhere fights nowhere”. Yet, this is precisely what our critics, and disturbingly, many within Christian circles, are advocating.

This insistence that pro-life means involvement in “all extensions of human life,” not just care for the unborn, is the most dangerous threat to the attempt to save unborn lives that I have witnessed in my lifetime. We absolutely must resist it.

A striking example of this insidious redefinition is the concept of “pro-abundant life” being pushed by the leader of a major pregnancy resource center organization. While I applaud their wonderful work ministering to women in need and helping them care for their children, this leader suggests that the entire pro-life movement must shift from being “merely pro-life” to “pro-abundant life”. This means pro-life groups must programmatically use their scarce resources to address issues such as fighting for religious liberty, strengthening families, ensuring fathers do their job, discipling believers, and helping Christians flourish in their church environments.

While these are all undeniably good issues, and as Christians, we individually care about them, it is ridiculous to demand that pro-life groups use their limited resources to invest programmatically in these other causes. Imagine the absurdity: spending Monday fighting abortion, Tuesday on discipleship, Wednesday on strong families, Thursday on fathers’ roles, and Friday on religious liberty. This is an absurd, back-breaking job description that not even Superman could fulfill.

Calling Their Bluff and Reclaiming Our Mission

It is high time we look our critics in the eye and say, “No, we are not going to do what you are asking”. We must ask them two critical questions:

1. For the secular critic not concerned with saving unborn lives: “How does it follow that because I oppose the intentional killing of an innocent human being, I must fix everything else wrong with society?”.
2. And the follow-up: “Tell me, if I do everything you imagine me doing—taking on poverty, helping immigrants (even illegal ones), caring for refugees, supporting women’s higher pay, addressing every item on your laundry list—will you now join me in opposing abortion?“.

I can tell you, 100% of the time, the answer will be an emphatic “no”. Their comeback will be, “Women have a fundamental right to an abortion, and I will never back off that right”. If their true position is that there should be no restriction on abortion whatsoever—because a fundamental right cannot be infringed upon—then they should argue for that instead of bringing up a myriad of other issues that have nothing to do with their actual stance. We must call their bluff.

To my fellow Christians who genuinely desire to care for other issues beyond the unborn’s right to life, I appreciate your good heart and applaud your virtue. However, you are not in a position to tell the pro-life movement, which already operates with scarce resources, that it must take on all these additional causes. As my good colleague Mark Newman rightly points out, pro-life groups striving to save children from a culture intent on butchering them do not need additional causes; they need additional support. I hope you are supporting your local pregnancy center and local and national pro-life efforts, for these groups are budget-strapped and desperately need your vital help.

We have seen this pressure before. A few years ago, in the wake of the George Floyd incident and the COVID outbreak, there was immense pressure on pro-life groups to “prove their credentials” by endorsing movements like Black Lives Matter, an organization that, as we now know, operates from a Marxist worldview fundamentally inconsistent with a biblical view of human flourishing. We were told that if we didn’t call out racism or embrace critical theory—which imputes guilt based solely on skin color—we were somehow not truly Christian and pro-life. While much of that particular nonsense has largely abated, I remain concerned about those within our own movement who seek to push us off task and off mission.

So, what then, should pro-lifers be doing? Our focus must remain razor-sharp. I propose four essential actions:

• Work to limit the evil of abortion politically. This means supporting bills that reduce abortion and protect as many unborn humans as possible. If the intentional butchering of a million unborn humans a year doesn’t compel us to political action as Christians, I don’t know what will. Imagine being a slave in 1860, praying for your fellow Christians to politically advocate for your freedom. Why should we think it’s any different for the unborn? We must advocate for them.
• Support our pregnancy care centers. We must back these centers with our time and money, protect them legally from hostile states, and ensure they have the resources needed to minister to women facing unplanned pregnancies.
• Present a compelling case for life. We must articulate a straightforward argument: it is wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings; abortion does that; therefore, abortion is wrong. This case must then be defended with both science and philosophy. Scientifically, we argue that from the earliest stages of development, the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. Philosophically, we assert that there is no essential difference between an embryo and an adult that justifies killing a human being at an earlier stage of development. This is a case we can communicate effectively in a minute or less. If you wish to master this, our Prolife 101 course, available through Life Training Institute, can equip you in just seven days to make and defend this case persuasively, even with non-Christians.
• Engage our churches on this issue. We must show our churches their responsibility to minister to those wounded by abortion. Our congregations are filled with men and women who have been party to abortions, carrying guilt, and they need to find resolution through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Leveraging Cognitive Dissonance: Fetal Homicide Laws

To further sharpen our arguments, I strongly commend the use of cognitive dissonance. This is a powerful tool to expose the absurdity of the pro-choice position and reawaken people’s moral intuitions. The strongest example of this lies in fetal homicide laws.

In most states across this country, if you kill a fetus before birth, you are charged with homicide. The only exception, of course, is abortion. Consider this: if you drive intoxicated and hit a pregnant woman’s car, killing her and her fetus, you are typically charged with vehicular manslaughter on two counts—for both the mother and her child. Many will recall how Scott Peterson was charged with two counts of murder, not just one, for the deaths of his wife, Laci, and their unborn child, Connor, even in a liberal state like California.

Now, let me make it even more peculiar. Imagine a woman driving to an abortion clinic. En route, she is involved in an accident with the very doctor who is going to perform the abortion, because he ran a red light and plowed into her car, killing her fetus. In a majority of states, that doctor would be charged with vehicular manslaughter. Yet, if that same woman had made it to the abortion clinic just minutes later, unharmed, that doctor could have killed her child with no penalty at all.

This situation makes no sense. How does the nature of the child change simply because the doctor was going to intentionally kill it versus it being accidentally harmed on the way there? It doesn’t. The child is a human being in both cases. Yet, people bifurcate their minds, saying it’s terrible if an unwanted child is accidentally harmed, even to the point of imprisonment, but “no big deal” if a wanted child is aborted. As if somehow, your desire for the child transforms its essential nature.

Imagine two pregnant women, both 24 weeks along. Woman A does not want her child, viewing it as a hindrance, even a “disease,” and is seeking an abortion. Woman B wants her child, has even picked out a name. Does it logically follow that Woman A’s child is not a human being, while Woman B’s is? This is the very absurdity that cognitive dissonance effectively highlights. Why was it not okay for Scott Peterson to kill his unborn child, but it would have been perfectly fine, even legally permitted and taxpayer-funded in many states, if Laci had wanted to kill their child through abortion, even without his consent?.

We must continually point out these absurd conclusions that the public, who often claims to dislike abortion but wants it to remain legal, is forced to embrace. Using cognitive dissonance bypasses people’s normal excuse filters and forces them to look at the issue at a more basic level.

In closing, my friends, while the recent violence in our cities and other social issues are important, my central message today is this: You must be very alert to people trying to rewrite your pro-life job description. The abortion debate always, always, always begins with one fundamental question: What is the unborn? Can we kill the unborn?. The answer is yes, if the unborn are not human. But our critics bear the burden of presenting an argument to show they are not human, not merely assuming or asserting it without evidence.

We must keep the main thing the main thing. Our primary mission is to protect the unborn, and we must resist any attempt to distract us, dilute our resources, or redefine our sacred cause. Your support for this singular, critical mission is vitally needed now more than ever.

Thank you for joining us today.