Killing children is naturally a topic people have strong feelings about. At large in our culture, this debate plays out between two diametric opposites. On the one side, those who advocate killing children in order to preserve a more pleasurable lifestyle, for whom abortion is essentially a child sacrifice to self and to ideology. People instinctively recognize that killing the child in the womb is a significant act, but this side of the culture sees it as a significant rite of their worldview. On the other side, in the most general terms, are those who finds child murder intolerable (at least to some extent). Yet within that second coalition we find a great variety and, for those who stick their noses in, a constant, vituperous debate.

The Positions

The mainstream ‘pro-life’ industry is a thoroughly mixed bag. Leaving aside the industry-elements who are there purely for the clout and the cash, the core position, sincerely held by many, is that abortion is bad, women are victims, and our method needs to be a progressive elimination of various types of abortion. This industry, in conjunction with the mass of pro-life Catholicism (which is heavily entwined with the industry and forms a significant part of it), represents the most liberal of the positions I’m dealing with today.

This group forms a part of the ‘incrementalist’ camp. Each camp, of course, has its general phenotype and its multitudinous variations. Classification is by methodology. Incrementalism holds that our best strategy is working up the line, making incremental gains. Partially due to its mainstream status, incrementalism is also associated with a belief that the mothers should not be punished for killing their children, another mainstream position.

Abolitionism stands directly opposite to its counterpart in both these circumstances. Abolitionists say that we should go straight for a full ban, with full penalties; abolitionists say that the mothers should, when responsible, be held responsible for their murder, criminally. Now, that second part isn’t everybody, but it is the standard issue.

The third position, where I found myself standing upon learning of the controversy, is termed by Doug Wilson ‘smashmouth incrementalism.’ (I’m pretty sure that’s a cultural reference I’m missing context for.) This position agrees with abolitionists on the goal and even wants to do it all in one go. The difference lies in its response to the imperfect.

See, abolitionists are famous for several things: being passionate about saving babies, being cantankerous online (but so’s everybody else), and actively fighting against imperfect solutions. Precisely how imperfect they need to be to trigger this refusal probably varies, but the rule is as follows: if you can’t get a full ban, you should refuse even a partial ban. Smashmouth incrementalism rejects this; it holds that we should swing for the fences every time, but if we only make it to first base, we stay on first base instead of walking back to the dug-out.

The Goal

As far as the goal goes, abolitionism beats incrementalism every day, hands tied behind its back, blindfolded, while drunk. The foundational commend for civil government is that, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image” (Gen. 9:5-6). Numbers 35:16-18 makes it clear by triple repetition: “The murderer shall be put to death.” In that same passage, the criteria for murder are given: death caused by an act of foreseeable or intended lethality. The mother who pays or colludes in the payment of an assassin against her own child, she thoroughly fulfils that definition; she is a murderer.

But…

Abolitionism’s refusal to take the imperfect is foolish and wrongheaded. Now, we must here leave aside the potent rhetoric available to each side, at least until we show its truth. The incrementalist says, ‘You are willing to let thousands of babies be murdered in order to salve your principles;’ the abolitionist says, ‘I cannot give up righteousness, even if many deaths result.’ Both positions have their cant and their slogans. The question is: which one does God agree with?

Compromise is a bad goal. God does not permit us to alloy our righteousness with unrighteousness (Deut. 32:4; Is. 1:25; Eph. 5:1). No Christian can in good conscience seek a result which is less than the full application of His law. Here, that means seeking the abolitionist goal of no abortion and no lenity for murderers. Any incrementalist who is content with the compromise should repent of that complacency. Such men lie in bed with damnation (Is. 57:8).

Further, the Christian may not put his weight behind a bill which in any way increases the unrighteousness of the government. A bill to ban all pre-birth abortions and legalize all post-birth abortions is an unjust and unacceptable law. Support for such a bill is support for murder; we are not utilitarians, to pretend we have the right of balancing life and death in a scale (Prov. 16:11). Here, the abolitionist is right: any bill which makes the law worse in any way is a bill Christians must vote against and work against.

This leaves, however, a big question on the table, one you’ve already seen my answer to: ‘Can Christians righteously support a bill or action which reduces the number of child murders but which does not fully ban or does not properly punish it?’ Abolition says, ‘No.’

I say: ‘Yes.’

Some argue that abolitionism’s solution will still be necessarily partial because any abolitionist bill will still have a restricted jurisdiction. Abortion may be banned and criminalized in-state, but neighboring states…. I include this more pro forma than in argument, however, as it ignores that civil governments are partitioned by nature. The argument is valid, I think, but it’s not persuasive, as it deals with a topic too imprecise and non-quantitative for it to be decisive. Civil government partition isn’t an answer, I think, but arguing that point is less worthwhile than moving on to other, less escapable arguments.

(Incidentally, one partial fix to this jurisdictional probelm is to criminalize conspiracy to commit abortion (as a sub-species of murder). Tennessee could, if our government ever did anything worthwhile, criminalize any participation by its citizens in a conspiracy to kill an unborn child.)

The problem of the abolitionist position is that it assesses each law is if it issued into a vacuum. A law which says ‘Keep A-injustice and add B-justice’ appears to the abolitionist to mandate the implementation of A-injustice. Yet the truth is far different: the law merely omits to get rid of that injustice, often by omitting to address it. The law’s effect, therefore, the thing by which we judge it, the substance of it, is to add B-justice. As such, this is a good law- just not as good as it could be.

The glaring problem in the abolitionist position is that their premises ultimately require a complete refusal to legislate, and certainly a refusal to actually fix any particular problem. The abolitionist position, you see, says, ‘Oppose any imperfect solution to the problem.’ Unfortunately, all solutions on this earth are imperfect- if only by incompleteness.

Consider a law against murder. It incarnates Numbers 35:16-18 perfectly; it applies to all instances; it excepts no demographics. The difficulty is, well, it doesn’t ban theft. Or adultery. Or kidnapping. Or extortion. Or bribery. Or obscenity. Or pornography. Or fraud. It is an imperfect law; it preserves all the injustice which is in the current code on those topics. Worse, it doesn’t fix the rottenness in our justice system which will be actually applying the law against murder, vitiating even its local perfection.

Should we therefore oppose this law?

The only perfect legislation, the only complete legislation, is Scripture. In other words, the only bill that is perfect would be one that replaces the total substantial (non-procedural) law with a copy of the Bible, properly translated. Such a bill, whatever its doability, would be an odd law indeed, and as much as I’d like that, it would require a common law to develop in order to practically apply it; there’s a reason polities develop laws, common and statutory. And that common law would inevitably be flawed….

(Perhaps another time I’ll consider the viability of a Bible-only legal code. And, 2 months after writing this article but released prior to it…. Short version: a legal code containing essentially Scripture plus procedure and records is probably ideal, though difficult to achieve. For now, legislation is not an immoral tool.) 

If a perfect abortion bill comes up, shall we refuse it because it doesn’t address euthanasia/ medical murder? If it adds that, shall we oppose it because it doesn’t make sure the courts are rigorously Biblical? If it adds that, shall we oppose it because it fails to deal with immigration (with its mass importation of murderers)?

But the abolitionist says: ‘God’s law demands it of me; I have no example to the contrary.’

In answer, I allege Nehemiah. Nehemiah governed Judah as the deputy of Persia- whose legal code, however admirable relative to Assyria, was undoubtedly somewhat flawed. Such is the way of pagan kings. Yet Nehemiah did not let this deter him; he continues to lead Israel in part-by-part reformation (Neh. 13:10-11). The principle of his governmental work is clearly to do as close to God’s law as he can get- but he does not demand that Persia hand over all of Israel’s allotted inheritance or give it independence. Nehemiah adopts the smashmouth incrementalist approach to society: go as far as you can, every time, and then try again to go the whole way.

If completely reforming the legal code and procedures of Israel had been within Nehemiah’s power, he doubtless would have done it. In a sense, in the sense abolitionists can appeal to, such victory was within Nehemiah’s grasp- if God willed it. His decree, after all, brooks no obstacle, not of man or probability. Yet he did not exercise that power; he used what opportunity God gave him in order to reform the law, part by part. The principle holds even when we have less power than Nehemiah, so much less power that our improvements are partial even in the area they directly address, rather than partial in relation to the wider code.

Conclusion 

We don’t have the right to hold out against small improvements. God gave those possibilities to us, and we must take them, not malinger of theoretical total victories. Perhaps those small steps are steps directly leading to that victory, and perhaps they’re part of a different battle; that’s God’s problem. For us: we have but to serve the Lord with what we are given (Josh. 24:15), not disdaining to save ten babies because we couldn’t save a hundred.

Postscript on Practicality

Settling short of the maximum is a sin. If I can ban the murder of twenty-five babies, I sin to settle for twenty-four. The foremost directive of this tactic is to go for gold every time, to strain every nerve in pursuit of holiness. Now, wisdom is relevant here, as politics is more complicated than ‘abortion, yes/no.’ Civil government deals with a vast array of issues, some in their own way as important as abortion. Some men are called to deal with abortion as their primary issue. Some are called to turn in other directions. A statesman therefore may find it the course of wisdom to use and direct his political capital or opportunities in another direction than abortion, regarding it, by God’s grace, as the more fruitful path at this time. Such is within righteousness, so long as it is truly a turning towards (another sector of) holiness, not flinching from the fight.

Beyond this, the smashmouth incrementalist must live with two directives: 1) so long as room appears for action, he must push to the maximum and 2) if, when the crunch comes, his work amounts to only a small gain, he must not spurn it (though if it is at all a regression, he must be its bitterest foe). The practical outworking of these, in nearly all circumstances, will be a continual struggle up to the point of the vote on the congressional floor- and the willingness to vote ‘aye’ for an imperfect bill.

Crucially, these incremental steps must never be viewed or framed as final victory. They are merely battles and skirmishes. The politician must take them only as ground gained, upon which he may spring towards that great victory of full justice; the citizen must see in these mitigated victories a foretaste of what he now re-doubles his efforts towards. By the grace of God, each step taken will be taken forward, not back, and the fruit in the end will be an approach to justice only excelled by the righteousness of the completed New Jerusalem (Rev. 21-22), the first steps of which we walk upon (Is. 65:27-25).