A Covenantal Critique of the Pro-Life Movement

This article intends to offer a spiritual critique of the Pro-Life Movement (PLM) that has fought (not without examples of valor and courage) to bring about an overturning of the Roe v. Wade ruling ever since its inception. Though some of what follows may initially sound harsh, it is not my intention to bring a railing accusation but to help with the process of sharpening iron. I am mindful of the fact that my own rejection of pro-life-ism as a political strategy was not all that long ago. As an abolitionist, I also want to stress that I really am thankful for any and every instance in which some words or actions from pro-life people actually wound up saving a baby from slaughter. That is precisely the work we need to be better at, and this critique is offered in the hope of pointing a way forward.

I also understand that, just as there are differences between camps of abortion abolitionists, so there is no one, monolithic pro-life mold that everyone in that movement fits. My intention is to stay fairly general and critique strategies and attitudes that have dominated prlife-ism from the beginning.

To organize this critique, the 5-point covenant model found in Ray Sutton’s book, That You May Proper: Dominion by Covenant, and popularized in many places (for example) since then by Dr. Gary North, will be used as an outline.

Point One (Transcendence)

The PLM is guilty of compromising the issue of the transcendence of God and His law-word, from the very beginning of its activities. Though it has been common for those in the PLM to refer to abortion as Molech worship (sacrifice made to the king/state) which is actually a helpful observation, their inconsistency has hampered their efforts from the beginning.

It is fundamentally inconsistent to complain about sacrifices to Molech but then agree with Molech that his law is the supreme law of the land. This has happened from the beginning of the PLM, as the strategy was famously adopted, to seek to change the system by working within it. That is, of course, to agree that the government sets the rules, and arranges the pieces on the game-board, and thus restricts what moves can actually be made.

Deitrich Bonhoeffer’s analogy here is illuminating:

You are not making progress [not even of the incremental variety – GR] toward the North by boarding a Southbound train and then walking toward the caboose.

As R. J. Rushdoony famously taught, when you find the supreme law in a society, you will also find that which society thinks is the supreme law-giver. You have found its god. By agreeing from the outset that abortion should be fought from within Molech’s system, and not by referring to a greater God than pitiful Molech, the PLM admitted right out of the gate that its own professed God was not really the one we need to appeal to. Follow Molech’s rules. They are good rules, in the main. Good enough, at least, for us to eventually accomplish real righteousness if we follow them skillfully enough.

At the risk of getting far into the weeds, this is due at least in part to the heavy influence of Roman Catholics in the formative years of the PLM. Their philosophical division between things sacred and things secular is strongly typified in the PLM. The Bible may be an authority within the church, for sacred things, but things outside (like, down at the clinic) are to be ruled in a secular manner by natural law. So, follow the Bible on Sunday, but work within the (secular) system starting on Monday.

No better expose’ of the Catholic church’s influence on and recruitment use of the Pro-Life Movement exists than the book More Than These: A History of How the Pro-Life Movement has Advanced the Cause of the Roman Catholic Church, by Ralph Ovadal. If you care about how we got to where we are in the anti-abortion struggle, do yourself a favor and read this book.

By admitting from Jump Street (as the cool kids say) that the government remains a legitimate authority even after violating the law of God in the infanticide of abortion, we coincidentally admit that our God’s laws are not really the highest.

Point Two (Hierarchy)

As every pagan temple features grotesquely asexual priests in flowing robes, whose job is to maintain a mysterious air of importance, so we have the US Supreme Court. Only the pagans themselves think their priests are the mediators of a higher power, the representatives of a god.

But for the American Pro-Life Movement, the Supreme Court has always been the one, controlling voice. When this group of sterile, robed ones speaks, no more can be said. (Wouldn’t it be nice if Christians believed in a Judge who was higher?)

That’s too harsh, you say. But what else explains an entire generation of anti-abortion people who repeatedly are forced to throw up their hands and say, “Well, we thought we had a good, pro-life law there, but the Supreme Court has shut it down. The only recourse for us now is to go raise more money and start the process over again. Gotta work the system, after all?”

Or, hey, one or two more Republican appointees on the Court and y’know what? We might actually have as big a majority as the Republican majority that conjured Roe v.Wade in the first place! Won’t that be something!

Even Christian ministers have bought into the whole scheme. They’ve acquiesced to the idea that it’s fine for them to be privately pro-life, but they are trespassing on territory not their own if they publicly call abortion what it is. Even worse, if they should mention how the Bible deals with premeditated murder. We pay the Supreme Court ninnies, after all, to instruct us in these matters of public righteousness. Theirs is the authoritative voice of the law-giver.

The isolated and scattered “victories” of the PLM are historically laws which nibble at the edges of abortion, and have somehow managed to survive Molech’s judicial overview. The defeats, though, are legion; and now it is common for the movers and shakers within the PLM to decide their next actions and strategies based entirely on what they think has a chance to survive the Supreme Court.

Because, you know, SCOTUS is the only voice that really matters.

Point Three (Ethics)

Though it might be helpful at some point for some really smart people to sit down and figure out all the strategic missteps of the PLM over the last several decades, I’m more concerned here to point out a couple of glaring failures that are moral, and not merely strategic.

They are, first, a practical denial of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and second, a pernicious violation of the 9th Commandment.

The PLM has denied the Gospel, at least practically. This has been done, maybe unwittingly, even by those who confess Christ and believe the true Gospel. They have denied the Gospel by deciding at the outset to attack abortion as if it was not a Gospel “issue.” This is a political issue, after all, and we’re dealing with a secular state. To make any incremental progress, we’re going to have to make political and secular arguments. (And thus we get things like the popular, pro-life SLED argument.) Gotta work the system.

This was a conscious decision. I’m old enough to have heard Christian leaders espouse it. Back in 1989, for instance, we saw the birth of the Christian Coalition, a political action group that was certainly very pro-life. I remember watching the founding spokesman, a Mr. Reed, on television, explaining in an interview what the Coalition’s purpose was. He was harmless as a dove, no doubt part of the strategy, as he explained that the group existed, not to be a threat of any kind, but simply to give politically active Christians “a seat at the table.” That was the goal — a seat at the table. We’re willing to play by the rules of the table, to earn our seat there. I remember watching and thinking, “So…doesn’t our God own the table? Who owns the table?”

How can the slaughter of innocents not be a Gospel issue, and therefore not call incessantly for Gospel preaching to deal with it? Maybe the issue is too important for us to risk offending those who might stop it, by preaching? That’s not a mocking question. I honestly don’t understand the thinking, especially by those who confess things about “the power of God unto salvation,” etc.

The other big, ethical faceplant of the PLM has been the studied unwillingness to publicly name abortion what it is: Murder. Coincidentally, you’d think we should be at least as logically consistent as then-candidate Trump was when he concluded that those who perform and procure abortions are guilty of murder. Don’t worry, though. He doesn’t say embarrassingly logical stuff like that anymore. He’s close with too many pro-lifers.

The failure to name the crime what it clearly is represents an appalling breach of the command to avoid bearing false witness. You are not bravely standing for the least of these by soft-pedaling their predicament, nor by granting murderous moms victim status.

Point Four (Sanctions)

This point of the covenant deals with rewards. Keep the covenant, and you will be blessed. Break it, and buckle up, Buttercup.

This is where we talk about the results of our actions — consequences of our faithfulness, or lack thereof. The classic location to see this done explicitly in the Bible is Deuteronomy 28. Check out the long list of curses found there, and the smaller list of blessings (God knew which way Israel would go) and see how the curses look like everything reported daily on Fox News.

A full generation after Roe v. Wade and the PLM has failed to slow down the blood-letting. Opinion polls in America about abortion remain virtually unchanged since the day my wife and I signed up to join the statewide Idaho Right to Life group back in the early ’90s. No one with two brain cells to rub together thinks we’re any closer to overturning the laws or reversing the tide.

And, to top it all off, bills in several state legislatures that really would have abolished abortion altogether, by ignoring Roe v. Wade in those states, have been opposed not just by the pink-hat crowd, but by pro-life leaders and ministries, and by supposedly 100% pro-life voting congressmen. Why? See points 1 and 2. We have to work the system!

Point Five (This outfit’s future)

I’ve been purposely pointed at times here. I’m happy to end on a note of hope. My for-what-it’s-worth opinion, as a small-church elder in an armpit sort of place, is that the movement toward a more faithful, Gospel-centered, truth-telling abolitionism has already started changing how the PLM plays the game. At the grass-roots level, at least, I think I see this. Pro-life people can be found all over the ‘net talking about abortion as murder and offering the grace of Christ to repentant murderers. They can be found arguing that abortion is wrong because “Thou shalt not kill.” They can be found saying outrageous things like the SCOTUS is maybe not the final word on issues of morality. Maybe SCOTUS should be ignored if it can’t get its head on straight.

They say these things, and an abolitionist will try to point out that those are not traditionally pro-life positions.

And they respond with things like, “Well, I’m pro-life and they’re my positions!” To which I say, thank you, Jesus. Okay, sure, it’s a fist-sized cloud on the horizon. But could it represent a coming cloud-burst? I know a God who does stuff like that.

If He doesn’t though, and no fountain of repentance is opened up here in our land, we’ll be drowned in another sort of flow, and that will be perfectly just.