Equal Protection: Underlying Logic, Truth, and Definition

You will hear me and other abolitionists use the term “equal protection” a lot. It is important to define because it can be misunderstood, and sometimes it is misused. Equal protection under the law for the preborn means that the same laws that protect you and me (born people) should also protect the preborn. If you or I get murdered, the perpetrator can, and should be charged with murder. If a mother murders her newborn baby she will be charged with murder. But if a mother murders her preborn baby in any state in the United States she will not be charged with murder. As a matter of fact, she won’t be charged with anything at all. In essence we believe that murdering anyone should be illegal for everyone. 

How do we get there? 

The Imago Dei Doctrine stems from Genesis 1:27. Adam and Eve were made in the Image of God, and all humans since are made in God’s image. Therefore, all humans have infinite value. Genesis 9:6 builds upon this truth: 

“Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.”

The prohibition to murder is a law for all peoples and nations at all times, and when God issued said law he tied it directly to the Imago Dei. Neither the value of humans, nor the inherent prohibition of their unjust destruction is tied to anything other than their inherent value of being humans made in God’s Image. 

So when does life start? At what point is a human a human?

This is a point on which pro-lifers and abolitionists already agree, but it’s still worth establishing: Human life begins at the moment of fertilization (also known as conception, but not to be confused with implantation). From the point of fertilization and onward, each person has their own, unique, human DNA, separate and distinct from their respective mother and father. 

The Bible affirms the legitimacy of human life starting at fertilization in a number of notable passages like Jeremiah 1:5, and Psalm 139:13-16 but I will highlight two others. In Luke 1:39-45 when then-pregnant Mary visits her cousin, Elizabeth (who is also pregnant), the preborn baby John the Baptist leaps in Elizabeth’s womb, and the word (βρέφος/brephos) is the same word that is used for a born baby elsewhere in the New Testament, indeed in the same book (Luke 2:12). Furthermore, Elizabeth and baby John recognize the presence of their Savior already, and Elizabeth refers to Mary as “the mother of my Lord” already. 

The next passage speaks not only to the humanity of the preborn, but also the equal legal footing thereof. 

Exodus 21:22-25 says,

“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

In this passage you can see that the same kind of penalty for harming or murder of a born person was also expected to be imposed for the harm or murder (or negligent manslaughter in this case) of a preborn baby. 

Some pro aborts have twisted the language in this passage to mean quite the opposite, but read in the most plane, direct manner it clearly commands legal protections for the preborn. 

As if all of that were not enough in the category for why “equal protection” is the appropriate policy for protection of the preborn, the Bible also states that God is not partial, and expects us to not be partial either (Romans 2:11, Deuteronomy 1:17/10:17/16:19, Proverbs 20:10/28:21, James 2:9)

Proverbs 17:15 paints a really clear picture:

“He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous
    are both alike an abomination to the Lord.”

And the fact of the matter is, those laws that provide less than equal protection are showing partiality. They show partiality against the preborn and for the born, especially mothers. 

Abortion Abolition vs. Pro Life

The movement to Abolish Abortion started in 2010 when a small group of people began to realize that the pro-life movement was not seeking equal protection for the preborn, but was instead seeking to regulate abortion through increasingly strict restrictions without ever supporting policy that would treat abortion like murder. 

The above statement is a lot to swallow and is initially hard for many people to believe. But I tell you, it’s true. The pro life movement is not simply passive in the face of abolition. They actively oppose it. While there are many examples, I will share one of the most egregious. 

In May 2022 the Louisiana State House of Representatives was poised to vote on a bill of equal protection for the preborn. This was already a historic moment, as no bill of equal protection had yet made it so far in any state legislature, but that’s not all. It was expect to pass. 

Then disaster struck. A group of pro life groups penned an open letter to state lawmakers urging them not to support the Louisiana bill or other legislation that would provide equal protection to the preborn. It was signed by 76 pro life groups and their respective representatives including, notably, National Right to Life, Americans United for Life, the Susan B. Anthony List, March for Life Action, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), and Pro-Life Action League. You can read the letter in its entirety and see the complete list of signers here: https://www.nrlc.org/uploads/communications/051222coalitionlettertostates.pdf 

Here is a half-hour documentary on exactly what happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k33epqzJIlM 

Even in Texas I have been in the same room as pro lifers who worked against our efforts to pass bills of equal protection. 

Why the Opposition 

It’s worth addressing why the pro lifers oppose abolition, or at least my understanding of it. Equal protection means that intentionally killing a preborn baby will result in murder charges…. even for the mother. This is a red line for the pro life groups. For years they have adopted the “second victim narrative,” which paints the mother as the second victim of abortion, rather than the primary actor. “The bloodthirsty abortion lobby preys on innocent mothers who are lied to, and simply don’t know what they’re doing.” So the argument goes. 

But women do know what they’re doing. Yes, the bloodthirsty abortionists are more-than-happy to be the paid hitmen for these women to murder their preborn children, but mothers pay the hitmen. As someone who has personally stood outside of abortion facilities for countless hours, I can tell you that of the hundreds of women to whom I said, “Your baby is alive” or “You’re carrying a living baby” etc. not one ever responded with surprise. The most common answer I got back was “I know.” 

They know. They are not ignorant, and they are not (generally speaking) naive, unwilling parties. They are active, willing participants, who take specific, intentional steps to murder their own children in the womb. 

In addition to wholesale adoption of the “Second Victim Narrative,” pro lifers will sometimes also say, “If we go for full abolition, it’s going to set us back years.” They’re scared of hurting all the so-called gains that have already been made. 

But with over 1 million abortions per year in the US today, even two years after the overturn of Roe, I don’t see a lot of gains to celebrate. The deadliest war in US History was the American Civil War, and it involved Americans killing each other, and it resulted in around 616,222 dead. In a four-year period, shooting at each other with rifles and cannons in open war, Americans could not manage to kill even 2/3 as many of ourselves as we do through abortion in just one year. 

I would go as far as saying that from a macro perspective we have nothing to celebrate on the abortion front. We are smack-dab-in-the-middle of the bloodiest genocide in history, and it’s not slowing down. 

Immediatism, Incrementalism, and Smashmouth Incrementalism 

Most pro lifers fall into the camp of opposing equal protection, and then there are some more who will say they want equal protection eventually but when pressed they will actually admit that they would never support laws that would result in prosecuting women. Set those aside for a moment, and let’s discuss the groups that remain: Immediatists, incrementalists, and smashmouth incrementalists. 

Immediatism – This is the “orthodox” abortion abolitionists position. It means that we want to see equal protection under the law for the preborn NOW, and we oppose legislation that would continue to establish unequal justice for the preborn. 

Incrementalism – An incrementalist who genuinely wants to see equal protection would say that they want to see equal protection eventually, but we need to incrementally pass laws that bring us closer to that end in steps, and that ultimately we will get there eventually as society catches up with our legislative efforts. 

Smashmouth Incrementalism – These folks would say they are all for immediate abolition, but they are willing to “run all the plays” whether it be incremental or abolitionists. 

As you may have gathered, I am an immediatist. All the abortion abolition groups are immediatist. They folks that adopt either of the latter two positions are still in the pro life camp, but with one foot out-the-door possibly. 

If they are genuine and remain engaged on the issue, many of them will eventually become immediatists (as has happened countless times with other present abolitionists). Eventually you realize that God’s law is absolute, and that to establish justice does not allow or require incremental steps. God is a God of mercy, and he wants mercy for his children now. Justice delayed is injustice. 

IVF

It’s also worth noting that a consistent ethic that values human life from the moment of fertilization is absolutely opposed to IVF, which results in both the intentional and negligent destruction of many more embryos than babies born. Additionally, many embryos are frozen indefinitely. Furthermore, while IVF sometimes occurs within the confines of a married couple, it is incredibly common to mix and match from outside donors, in a way that is ethically questionable at best and sinful at worst. 

Numbers and Pragmatism

Some people will say, “Ok, I agree, but if there is a law that would save X number of babies, shouldn’t we still pass it? Isn’t that better than nothing?” 

Besides the fact that such a law is unequal justice, and a compromise with evil (another great verse on that topic is Proverbs 26:26), there are actually good pragmatic arguments against it as well. 

First, as long as options that are “less than equal protection” are on the table for lawmakers, they will typically choose to do the lesser option. Every law of unequal justice delays equal protection. 

That might not sound so bad if you’re under the impression that these laws result in many saved lives, but here’s the kicker: They don’t. 

There are countless examples from various states, but I’ll talk about Texas as an example. We have had bills of equal protection filed in every Regular Legislative Session (which occurs once every two years) since 2016. None has passed, but plenty of pro-life laws have passed since then. 

Do you know how many abortions there were amongst Texas women in 2016? Obviously, sources may vary on this a bit, but it was around 54,000. Notably, one of the bills passed was the Texas Heartbeat Act, which went into effect in September 2021, and another was the Texas Abortion Trigger Ban, which went into effect after Roe was overturned in June 2022 by the Dobbs decision. 

While abortions amongst Texas women in abortion facilities in Texas have plummeted to virtually zero since then, the number of abortions amongst Texas women have not decreased at all. Between the use of mail-order abortion pills and women traveling out-of-state there were as many, if not more abortions amongst Texas women in 2023 than in 2016 or 2020 for that matter. (See attached report). 

Justice has been delayed, and for the promise of decreased abortions, but there hasn’t been a decrease in abortions, not in Texas, and not anywhere else. 

I’m originally from Arkansas, and I’ve begun to get involved with their efforts to abolish abortion, and part of that was that I wrote up a similar report about their abortion numbers, and guess what, same story. There were more abortions amongst Arkansas women in 2023 than in any other year in the last decade. (See attached report). 

Pro life groups and people are celebrating because of Dobbs, but we have nothing to celebrate. To quote Nehemiah, our walls have been destroyed, and our gates are burned by fire. We must repent, and we must reform, and we have got to take this seriously and not put it on the backburner and hope that someone else deals with it. 

It’s us. We are the ones. 

Conclusion

Sometimes people who don’t really know the history of abortion in our nation will stand aghast that Roe v. Wade ever came about, as if it popped out of nowhere, willed into place by a few errant Supreme Court Justices who operated in some kind of societal vacuum.

But the truth is, they were a product of our culture. Abortion has never been treated as murder in the United States, not in any state. Women have not typically been charged for abortions in any state. In fact, our nation has never held a consistent life-ethic that provides anything like equal protection for the preborn.

This inconsistency is part of the reason we got Roe in the first place. The attorney representing Texas in the Roe case was trying to defend the personhood of individuals in the womb, yet was unable to do so since a woman would never be charged with killing her own baby in the womb.

If we want to end abortion, we need to be consistent. After all, the law is a tutor. Will we continue to teach people, with our laws, that abortion is less than murder, or will we treat it as murder and therefore teach people that they ought not to murder their preborn offspring?