This is a very controversial and difficult subject. Currently, Love Life does not have an official policy on this issue, but our heart is definitely to provide refuge and help for women who have had abortions, or who are considering abortions. Our desire is to promote a culture of love and life, and end the abortion and orphan crisis, preventing abortion, protecting the unborn, and providing resources and help to families affected by abortion.
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, there has been increased attention to this very contentious question. Very few, if anyone, is suggesting that people who have had abortions in the past should be prosecuted. It would be impossible anyway, given the huge number of women and men who have chosen abortion.
However, what about prosecuting women who choose to abort with the new and changing laws? Some states such as North Carolina have passed a bill that would allow the prosecution of the abortionists if they disregard any aspect of the abortion law; but this falls far short of what those in the abolitionist camp are calling for. They insist that unless the woman is held accountable, abortion will never end.
Common Premises
In general, pro-life advocates, both immediatists and incrementalists agree that life begins at conception and that newly formed human life is valued, loved, and created by God in His holy image. This is what gives that tiny human life value, no matter the size or this specifics of his or her conception.
The intentional taking of innocent human life is murder.
Therefore abortion being an intentional act ending an innocent human being’s life is murder. Both camps would agree on this point, as well.
All human beings deserve equal protection under the law.
The unborn baby is a human being with all the human DNA he or she will ever have at the moment of conception. Therefore the unborn child deserves equal protection under the law as all human beings. In theory, both camps agree, but in practice, the incrementalist is willing to compromise to save some lives based on what they believe is the reality of the justice system.
The inconsistency in most abortion-restricting laws.
While legislators usually give lip service to the value of the unborn child as an Innocent human being, the laws do not reflect that belief. The law allows an arbitrary line to be drawn at which point that human being is protected or not. The law says that the circumstances of conception such as rape can alter the right to life of that human being.
Murder is a capital offense and for any born human being involves either life imprisonment or capital punishment, in most cases. It is considered the most serious sin or transgression of the law. And yet, abortion is usually not defined as murder, and the unborn child is rarely, if ever, given the same protection as a born child.
The Dilemma
So what is the answer? Politicians tell us no abortion bill will ever be passed if prosecution of the mother is a part of the bill. Immediatists argue that for decades abortion has continued, and even expanded, becoming more and more normalized in our society. They argue, and I believe rightly so, that until abortion is correctly defined as murder and the laws that apply to any murder be applied to those involved in abortion, this culture of death will never change.
Biblical Guidance?
There are many examples of murderers in the Bible. They fall into two groups. While all of the murderers listed below claimed to love God, not all truly repented of their transgression.
The following excerpt is from Peter DeHahn: https://www.peterdehaan.com/christianity/biblical-murderers/?amp=1
Cain Kills Abel
We’re only four chapters into the Bible when the first murder occurs. Cain kills his brother Abel. The account in the Bible suggests that Cain premeditated his actions. First degree murder.
But let’s not view Cain as all evil. Like his brother, Cain worships God and brings an offering to him. (We do this too.) Yet God finds Cain’s offering lacking. As a result, Cain is angry with God. (Are we ever angry at God?) Out of jealousy (another common human trait), Cain kills his brother (Genesis 4).
Although we haven’t likely killed someone, we have more in common with Cain then we want to admit.
Moses Kills an Egyptian
Another well-known and esteemed person in the Bible is Moses. Yet Moses is another one of our biblical murderers. Moses witnesses an Egyptian overlord beating a Hebrew man, one of Moses his own kind. Seeing no one else watching, Moses kills the Egyptian and hides the evidence (Exodus 2:11-14).
Again, we see another instance of premeditated murder. Though we might sympathize with Moses’s actions or even say it was a just killing, the reality is that it’s still murder. But despite Moses killing another man, God still uses Moses to free his people. God later has an intimate relationship with Moses, one that we’d all like to have.
David Kills Uriah
The third of biblical murderers is David. David spends many years of his life leading an army and slaying his enemies. But we don’t call him a murderer for his military exploits. We call him a murderer for planning and ordering the death of his lover’s husband.
Not only is David a murderer, he’s also an adulterer (2 Samuel 11).
Yet the Bible later calls David a man after God’s own heart. Yes, David suffers for what he did, but God restores David into a right relationship with him.
Paul Kills Stephen
Paul, a key figure in the early church and the New Testament’s most prolific writer, is another of our biblical murderers. Paul, a righteous and devout Jew, a godly person, is zealous in his opposition to the followers of Jesus. Paul does this for God and in the name of religion.
History is full of people who kill for their faith, but that doesn’t justify their actions.
Though Paul kills many for his religion, the Bible only gives us details of one: Stephen (Acts 7:57-8:1). Yet despite Paul’s violent opposition to team Jesus, Jesus later calls Paul to follow him and grows him into a most effective missionary.
Judas Kills Jesus
Let’s not forget that Judas is another on the list of biblical murderers. Though he doesn’t physically kill another person as did Cain and Moses, and he doesn’t orchestrate a death like David, Judas is the catalyst for another death, Jesus.
Jesus—the most significant death to occur in the Bible, for humanity, and throughout all time. Though Jesus’s death is necessary to save us, that doesn’t forgive Judas for his part in making it happen.
Like Cain, we must realize that Judas isn’t all bad. He is a follower of Jesus, after all, a disciple. Yet he is also greedy, and in his greed he sells out Jesus (Luke 22:47-53).
Though Judas might have received forgiveness from Jesus—just as Jesus forgave and restored Peter into a right relationship with him—we’ll never know. Judas commits suicide out of remorse over what he did to Jesus.
Who Do We Kill?
Jesus teaches us what the Old Testament commands: killing is wrong. Yet he goes beyond the physical act of murder to tell us that even being angry at another person is a sin. Implicitly it’s murder. As a result of anger, we are no less innocent than someone who murders another.
But there’s more. Much more. Though we blame Judas for Jesus’ death, we are part of it, too. Because of our sins, Jesus had to die to reconcile us with Father God. Our sins made it necessary for Jesus to die. As painful as it is to say, we helped murder Jesus.
Biblical Murderers
All five of these biblical murderers had a relationship with God. And at the time of the murders they committed, orchestrated, or approved, they weren’t in a good place with God on their faith journey. But it’s what happens afterward that counts.
Are we willing to put the past behind us — regardless of how horrific or benign it might be —and move forward to serve Jesus and advance the kingdom of God? We can do much like Moses, David and Paul … or we can falter like Cain and Judas. The choice is ours.
Immediatists vs. Incrementalist’s Arguments
The following excerpt is from Gospel Coalition:
“Immediatists almost always believe abortion is a sin and a crime, and that women should be charged with murder for having an abortion. Incrementalists almost always believe abortion is a sin and a crime, but that women should not be charged with murder for having an abortion. The disagreement is connected to the primary question that separates the groups: In the absence of absolute justice, should we seek proximate justice and save what babies we can? Incrementalists say yes, while immediatists say no.
In the absence of absolute justice, should we seek proximate justice and save what babies we can? Incrementalists say yes, while immediatists say no.
No argument is going to persuade immediatists that we shouldn’t charge mothers who abort their children with murder. But some incrementalists are also unsure of why refraining from prosecuting such women is the most justice-promoting action we can take. There are two arguments pro-lifers make in defending this position.
The first is the “two victims” principle. Prior to the Roe v. Wade decision, when abortion was mostly illegal, women who had abortions were not treated as criminals, but as victims. The only two exceptions are from Pennsylvania in 1911 and Texas in 1922. Some states also considered women as “accomplices,” but such laws were never applied or enforced. As Clarke Forsythe, one of the premier legal scholars on abortion laws in the United States, explains,
Abortion laws targeted those who performed abortion, not women. In fact, the states expressly treated women as the second “victim” of abortion; state courts expressly called the woman a second “victim.” Abortionists were the exclusive target of the law.
Even if we reject the view that the woman who chooses an abortion can also be a victim, there’s a compelling reason to avoid holding her legally culpable: we want to prosecute abortionists. The purpose of forgoing prosecution of the mother is not to let them evade the moral consequences of their actions, but to help ensure the principal criminal—the abortionist—would be identified, prosecuted, and brought to justice.
As Joseph Dellapenna, professor of law at Villanova University School of Law, explains, “if the woman were a criminal co-conspirator with the abortionist, in the common law tradition the abortionist could not be convicted on the basis of the woman’s uncorroborated testimony—and all too often there were no other witnesses and no other evidence.” Without the woman’s testimony, almost any abortionist clever enough not to have witnesses (e.g., an attending nurse) could evade conviction for his or her crimes.
Pro-life incrementalists recognize that sometimes in our fallen world the most we can hope for is proximate justice—an imperfect form of justice that recognizes that some justice is better than no justice at all. As Bethany Jenkins has said, “We pursue proximate justice in this age even as we recognize that true justice—the kind of justice that brings the dead back to life—will ultimately come in the age to come. Our longings for justice will only finally be fulfilled in the new heaven and the new earth.”
Currently, the prudent strategy for pursuing proximate justice is to forgo the punishment of the women who have an abortion so that we can punish the abortionist. But in the near future that moral calculus may change as access to chemical abortifacients increasingly makes it possible for the mother and the abortionist to be the same person.”
Summary
The question of prosecution of women who abort their children is obviously a difficult one to answer. Our goal in presenting both sides of the argument is to help us prayerfully consider how we, as a society, should proceed. In all things, may God guide and lead us and may our choices glorify Him.
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