Why Samuel Sey Should Be An Abortion Abolitionist
I've written many things on abolitionism, so I run the risk of repeating myself. However, as new voices enter into the conversation, sometimes it's worth addressing them even if it's entirely old, tired, and long-ago-refuted points.
This leads me to Samuel Sey's article, published at his website slowtowrite.com, on why he's not an abolitionist.
First, I want to say that many abolitionists can be more graceful and winsome to our prolife brothers and sisters. Even this website which I'm a founder and editor, for example, includes some contributors who are prolifers and who I consider good friends. There could be a lot of good done by developing strategic (though always Gospel-centered) friendships while being clear that there are differences. There's a fine line between failing to speak truthfully about the ethical compromise of incrementalism and being sinfully divisive concerning incrementalism. We must walk that line, and frankly, I've failed in this regard many times. However, we still must speak truthfully about the theological, historical, and practical failings of the prolife view of incrementalism. We should do this as brothers and sisters seeking to sharpen and correct one another instead of viewing one another as enemies and adversaries. Still, we should also have the maturity to realize that sharpening and correcting can look like hatred and divisiveness to some. And, yes, sometimes being hateful and divisive can be labeled as simply sharpening and correcting. It takes wisdom to discern the difference.
Inconsistent abolitionists
Sam spends roughly half his article leveling vague complaints about abolitionism and trying to define abolitionism. He also claims that abolitionists misrepresent prolifers. Though he doesn't do a terrible job defining abolitionism initially, pulling from rescuethose.com mostly, it's in the back half of his article where he demonstrates that he should have been slower to write.
As Sey prepares to address why he's not an abolitionist, he leads with this statement.
Abolitionists claim pro-life people are complicit in abortion and guilty of compromise and injustice because of our incrementalist approach to fighting abortion. However, they are profoundly incorrect theologically and politically.
If incrementalism is sinful, every abolitionist who votes for the Republicans is a hypocrite. If incrementalism is sinful, every abolitionist who voted for Donald Trump is guilty of unrepentant sin. Candidly, abolitionists are the anti-abortion version of Never-Trumpers.
At this point, he begins to show that he doesn't understand what we mean by incrementalism.
To be clear, I'm a "Never-Trumper," and one reason I'm a Never-Trumper is that I refuse to vote for candidates who are wishy-washy or, in the case of Trump, entirely inconsistent on the subject of abortion. However, I also sympathize with fellow abolitionists and other believers who choose to vote for various types of compromised candidates.
Though I stand by my convictions on elections, I also understand that there are other reasonable stances on elections. Different believers believe different things regarding the ethics and philosophy of elections. Though I'll readily and strongly criticize Christians cheerleading for men like Trump, Romney, etc., I can understand how a believer could reluctantly vote for men like this.
So, on this point, Sey is correct. Trump voting and prolifer voting abolitionists are being inconsistent.
However, Sey seems unfamiliar with the long history of abolitionist leaders criticizing and condemning the voting for prolifers. I was one of them.
Ten years ago, I joined together with several early abortion abolitionists, mostly from my home state of Oklahoma, standing against compromising our vote. As an admin, writer, and speaker for the Abolitionist Society of Norman and the "abolish human abortion" community, I wrote, edited, and published various statements and arguments against voting for one compromised Republican after another. I witnessed many more statements and arguments from other leaders much more influential than myself. Check out some of these old but excellent videos on the topic. I'll also attach a few screenshots.
This has been the position of the modern abortion abolitionist movement from the beginning. However, to be fair to Sey, as the movement has grown over the years, this has opened the door to other groups, ministries, and leaders who may be more "mainstream" than the rag-tag group from Norman who jump-started the emergence of abortion abolish ideology. Though there's now internal disagreement on this point, it should be noted that the men who first penned the five tenets of abolitionism that Sey references (primarily T. Russell Hunter of Free the States) are also the men who have consistently stood against voting for these highly compromised prolifers. This stance is especially true for cult-member and adulterous prolifers such as the last few candidates.
Because of these newer internal disagreements, I can truly understand the confusion on this point. I can't understand why Samuel thinks that abolitionists being inconsistent means that incrementalism is the correct view. I don't want to speculate too much. Still, we must consider the distinct possibility that Sey wrote this article while entirely ignorant of the long-established abolitionist position on voting for prolifers. After all, he seems to think that all abolitionists are inconsistent on this point when that could not be further from the truth.
However, from my conversations with some abolitionists—many of them haven't considered this inconsistency and hypocrisy. The truth is, we are all incrementalists. Some of us just refuse to admit it.
No, Samuel, we're not all incrementalists. Not even close. Even if we all were, secretly, compromised incrementalists, that does not affect the righteousness of immediatism. Just as an inconsistent Christian does not reflect poorly on Christ, an inconsistent immediatist does not reflect poorly on immediatism.
The Pragmatic Argument
Samuel moves on to say that,
Every genuine pro-life person would like to immediately and completely ban all abortions. Pro-life Christians like me are not pragmatists by preference, we are pragmatists by necessity. Indeed, we want to abolish abortion. However, we are unashamedly committed to saving as many babies as possible until we have the power to save all babies.
Unlike abolitionists, we do not believe it is right to allow all babies to get murdered if we are unable to save all of them.
First, it's simply not true that all prolifers want to ban all abortions completely. Samuel may want to, but Samuel isn't writing the laws, and he's not the major prolife lobbying groups. We see this more clearly as we are getting, perhaps, closer and closer to abolishing Roe. v Wade. For years the excuse has been the so-called necessity to comply with the SCOTUS, but now the plans of some influential prolife groups are still to regulate abortion incrementally. Their longtime excuse for incrementalism, SCOTUS decisions, is being removed, but the regulations they're seeking are still as toothless and ineffective as they ever were. This isn't the case with every organization and every law, but it's certainly the case for some.
We will see more examples of this shortly if Roe. v Wade is overturned.
Second, and more importantly, Sey severely misrepresents and twists the abolitionist position of immediatism. As discussed elsewhere, the abolitionist position does not "allow" for the death of all. Instead, we clearly say that no deaths should be allowed, and then we act according to what we say.
It is firstly a theological position. We do not choose evil so that good may come. We do not strive to support laws that could logically end with "and then you can kill the baby." We do not call for and advocate for partial repentance in the hopes of someday getting complete repentance. This principle connects to another tenet of abolitionism: relying on the providence of God. Many men will say that they aren't being pragmatic but will then immediately argue for a position simply because they believe it's effective. Friends, by definition, that's what it means to give into pragmatism.
However, it's fair to address effectiveness.
The prolife, incremental, and regulationist movement has passed, quite literally, hundreds of regulations against abortion. However, national statistics on abortion have stayed relatively constant, with rates dropping steadily and slowly as pregnancy rates also drop (most likely due to the unprecedented increase in the availability of abortifacient drugs). Public opinion on abortion has only gotten worse, with even “prolife” identifying Americans supporting a vast array of exceptions. There’s a growing crosssection of pro-lifers and prochoicers who identify differently but who support the same or very similar policies. We are nearing forty years of abortions, with over 63 million lives lost (almost certainly much more). That is the legacy of the prolife movement, not the abolitionist movement.
The prolife mindset would have us look at one legislative season at a time and consider how many thousands of lives could be saved. They do not consider how many millions could be saved if we united under abolitionism. Yes, abortion rates will decrease in states with firmer abortion regulations, and that's a good thing. Still, we are not considering the millions lost along the way because Christians have not even attempted to defy the SCOTUS and establish justice on behalf of the preborn. That is the blood-soaked effectiveness of incrementalism.
Wilberforce & Assuming motives
Samuel also repeats the old line that William Wilberforce was as incrementalist as if Wilberforce would be supporting heartbeat bills and rape exceptions today. The Liberator Podcast does a great job of refuting this idea, so I'll let them take this one at length. Regardless, no one is saying that Wilberforce was consistent, including Wilberforce. Wilberforce did not only write that immediate abolition was preferable to gradual, but he also wrote that he regretted some of his incremental approaches.
Right before he closes, Samuel suggests that abolitionists are "bitter," and that's why they are abolitionists. He expresses concern that he has friends who aren't abolitionists because of a sincere conviction of ideas, but rather just because they're bitter against the prolife industry. He also earlier wrote that "Abolitionists make false accusations about our real motives…." I do not know Samuel's motives, though I assume they're genuine and reasonable. I would recommend, however, that he does not display the same uncharitable and divisive spirit that he has accused abolitionists of. Instead of assuming bad motivations for why some of his friends have become abolitionists, assume the best of them and their motivations.
Lastly, Samuel closes by saying,
From my experience, many people will promptly accuse me of compromise, unfaithfulness, complicity in abortion, and cowardice. But I suppose they would also have to make the same accusations about William Wilberforce.
Respectfully, as demonstrated by The Liberator, I wouldn't be writing this response if you held the same convictions as Wilberforce.
Recap & An Appeal
To review, though Samuel Sey writes that “they are profoundly incorrect theologically and politically” he only focuses on three points.
Abolitionists are inconsistent so they’re actually really incrementalists
A pragmatic appeal to the perceived effectiveness of incrementalism
William Wilberforce was an incrementalist
His arguments are far from sufficient to show any “profound” theological or political error. Moreover, Sey does not even make a theological argument.
Why should you be an abolitionist, Samuel? Because it's Biblical. Put aside any bad encounters you may have had with abolitionists. Put aside the pragmatism. Put aside all of that.
Abolitionism, at its core, is simple. It's the Biblical Doctrine of repentance applied to national sin. Abolitionism seeks to answer the question of how the Bride of Christ should address and combat great evil in society. Abolitionism is built on the idea that abortion is a national sin first and then a political matter second.
We would not call on a friend to partially repent of adultery. We would not call on a brother to cut down on beating his wife to twice a week rather than every day. Sam, would you support a bill defining marriage as between two adults, regardless of gender, if it became commonplace for marriages to be between three or more parties and sometimes even include minors? I would hope not.
How we fight for justice is not morally neutral. How we advocate for life should be aligned with our goals. We should not advocate for "and then you can kill the baby" laws if we do not believe the baby should be killed at all.
In the plainest terms possible, the abolitionist position calls on Christians to act in accordance with what we say. Instead of saying one thing and supporting another thing, we call on believers to support what they say they support.