Why Abortion Stands Out among a Host of Worthy Election Concerns

Abortion is not the only issue at stake, and the path to ending abortion rests on providing women in unplanned pregnancies the resources and friendships that they need. However, we should not vote for a team that intends to expand the ongoing slaughter.

I have avoided making or replying to partisan social media posts so far, but recently a relative shared a post from Jennifer Abel (https://www.facebook.com/JennAbel.Writer/posts/105668824598211), and this has drawn me out.

Ms. Abel expresses “heartbreak” that some Christians “use the Bible and Jesus” to support Mr. Trump almost exclusively because he opposes abortion, ignoring his other policy choices, character flaws, and his general disregard for life. She also asserts that abortions have declined during Democratic presidencies. Her argument carries similar themes to a recent article by David French. He adds his assessment that Presidents historically haven’t had much influence on abortion policy, including via their judicial nominees, and therefore the abortion issue should not outweigh failures in Mr. Trump’s character or policies. I commend the reader to both articles for context and dialogue.

In reply, I respectfully offer this summary for those who skim:

• “What is the unborn?” is the question on which all this depends. Science shows the child is fully human. Therefore, we should accord her/him human rights, and not kill her/him for any reason.
• Correlation ≠ causation. The 50% decline in abortions over the last 20 years, including across Democratic presidencies, is due to the rise of ultrasound-equipped, medically-certified, pro bono pro-life pregnancy health centers, and not Democratic Party policies or positions.
• Abortion neither alleviates poverty nor rescues dreams. Preserving it as an option is not compassionate. We don’t make life better by killing those in hard circumstances or health.
• Neither candidate merits admiration, nor do their parties. They all fail on a host of social and human policy issues, including economics and immigration. While I am also concerned about these issues and others, abortion is a worthy distinction between the two main party tickets.
• We need not defend Mr. Trump nor anyone else “using the Bible and Jesus.” The Bible does not condone Mr. Trump’s behavior, nor that of Mr. Biden. It does condemn the shedding of innocent blood, and commands we defend it. Voting against challengers committed to expanding the killing does not mean incumbents get a “pass” on policy choices or their behavior writ large.
• This election will not decide the ultimate legality of abortion. The path to ending abortion involves providing women in unplanned pregnancies the resources and friendships that they need for parenting before and after giving birth. In the meantime, however, we should not vote for a team that intends to expand the ongoing slaughter.
• The Biden-Harris team explicitly denies the humanity of preborn children and has committed to promoting policies that expand the butchery of these children, fully funded by taxpayers. I will vote against them.

Please consider these points in greater detail:

1. Abortion dehumanizes its victims, just like slavery of the 19th century. Abortion only makes sense in any circumstance if you deny the personhood of the child in the womb. Science shows the child is fully human: living (cells replicating); distinct (in DNA and associated features); and whole (has all that is/he needs to live and grow except sustenance, for which s/he depends on his/her mother — no different in dependency than a two-year old. Any denial of the child’s humanity — on which the entire pro-choice argument depends — is arbitrary and anti-science.

2. Correlation ≠ causation. The 50% decline in abortions over the last 20 years, including across Democratic presidencies, is due primarily to the rise of ultrasound-equipped, medically-certified pro-life pregnancy health centers; it has nothing to do with Democratic policies. About 75% of women who seek an abortion change their minds after seeing an ultrasound of their baby. This service, provided pro bono, has defeated any for-profit abortion business model wherever they are adequately supported. Abortion still thrives in the major cities where pro-life, pro bono services have not penetrated.

a) Pro-life, pro bono services with ultrasound cut into enough of abortion clinic business margins that they can’t stay afloat financially. This reduction in business and revenue also affects the industry’s donations to Democratic Party candidates, which is why several blue-led states have in recent years been trying to suppress pro-life pregnancy health centers.

b) What could reverse the ongoing decline in abortions? Several things, but chief among them:

• Funding abortions overtly from taxpayer dollars by repealing the Hyde Amendment (on top of the funding the US govt provides that essentially pays for abortion industry marketing).
• Outlawing freedom of conscience provisions for health care providers that want nothing to do with the butchery of children. Removal of these protections will drive those with conviction from the profession.

** Both of these initiatives (repeal the Hyde Amendment, remove freedom of conscience protections) are part of the Biden-Harris platform.**

3. Poverty does not reduce the humanity or personhood of the poor. If children are orphaned and permanently disabled in a car wreck, we do not kill them to alleviate their suffering or heartache or loneliness. Abortion doesn’t solve the poverty of a single mother; it kills her child and traumatizes her. If her income is the problem, let’s fix that! Nor should unplanned pregnancy wreck a young woman’s dreams; telling her she can’t continue her career or education because of the baby is dis-empowering, and frankly a lie.

4. Mr. Trump is no pro-life hero, and neither is the GOP. Yes, he eliminated $60M/year in Planned Parenthood funding from Title 10, but he has also signed at least two bipartisan omnibus spending bills that continue funding PP to $500M+/year. While it is true that “he has done more than any other President for the pro-life movement,” he should receive that in humility as more an indictment on his predecessors than a feather in his cap. I do welcome his unprecedented vocal support of the pro-life movement, and will encourage it publicly. But much more could be done in substance.

• Let us consider, however, the alternative that Democratic leadership has provided: full taxpayer funding of all abortions, and persecution of those who conscientiously object. Senator Harris is the one who prosecuted David Daleiden (in collusion with a judge with conflicted interest) for exposing PP sale of baby parts for profit. NO. I am NOT voting for more of such policies or behaviors.

5. It is unfortunate that I am not able to admire the character of either candidate running for the highest office of the land; nor can I fully back either of the two parties willing to put them up to it. The incumbent is a narcissist serial adulterer who declares himself the only potential savior of the free world; appears unable or unwilling to speak to the full body of constituents in unifying terms; and acts impulsively in foreign policy. The challenger sniffs women in public; consistently speaks in outright racist terms (“don’t want my kids in a racial jungle,” “Latinos have more diversity than African Americans,” “are you a junkie,” etc., etc.); and cusses out any citizens (not subjects) that dare question him in public. Some may call these “gaffes”; I call them the overflow of his heart, “from which the mouth speaks.”

• So, it’s nearly a dead heat on character. Similarly, on at least two major policy issues:

a) Neither candidate nor their parties have a meaningful plank of fiscal responsibility. The incumbent has, with bipartisan support, used quantitative easing and federal investment in the private sector to prop up the economy. The challenger has recently adopted energy and economic policy positions that, if enacted, will impoverish all but the rich, powerful, and politically connected.

b) Neither party has an effective approach to immigration reform. We fluctuate wildly between leaving open borders to violent criminal incursion and turning away those who seek a better life, expecting our Border Patrol agents to “figure it out” across a sine wave of myopic polices.

My point from all this: while I am deeply concerned about these and other human-social issues, neither party has exhibited commitment to their resolution. Besides the moral imperative of preserving children from butchery, I find the abortion debate a worthy distinction between the two tickets. The incumbent provides token but highly visible advocacy for the right of preborn children to live. (YES, I will settle for this in 2020.) The challenger advocates expanding the butchery of these children, his running mate even more so. (NO. I will NOT support that.)

6. Finally, regarding “using the Bible and Jesus to defend Trump”: It is true, as Ms. Abel asserts, that the Bible spends much time condemning pride as a state of fundamental rebellion against God, and a source of most all other evils. It’s indefensible in both candidates, and we as Christians should not give either a pass. The Bible is also well-stocked and crystal clear on what God thinks about the shedding of innocent blood. “They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin” (Jeremiah 32:35, ESV). “They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood” (Psalm 106:37–38).

• I have no need to use the Bible or Jesus to defend Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden or excuse any dumb or evil thing either of them says.
• I do have a mandate to use the Bible and invoke Jesus’ help to defend the blood of the innocent: “Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not He who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not He who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will He not repay man according to his work?” (Proverbs 24:11–12, ESV)

Therefore, to the extent that anyone (including a candidate) aligns her/his words and actions with this mandate, I will encourage her/him. To the extent someone ignores this (or any other Biblical mandate), I will admonish, correct, or oppose him/her within the reach of my influence.

• Bottom line: Defending innocent blood is a big deal to God.

Ultimately, all this comes down to one question: “What is the unborn?” Science shows that the child in the womb is human. We should therefore accord her/him human rights, and not snuff out her/his life to alleviate hardship or inconvenience. We should instead, as the pro-life pregnancy help movement has done for decades, empower women in unplanned pregnancies with resources and friendships in their times of need.

This election will not decide the ultimate legality of abortion. Abortions will become illegal when enough people in the United States recognize the humanity of children in the womb, support the women who carry them, and demand legislation to protect both of the humans involved in every pregnancy. In the meantime, however, we should not vote for a team that expands the ongoing slaughter. The Biden-Harris team ignores the humanity of in-utero babies, and offers no paths to empowering pregnant women apart from killing their children. I will vote against that ticket without hesitation or apology.

Quinn Skinner is a retired naval officer who chairs a board for a small non-profit in the international pro-life pregnancy help movement. His views are his own and do not represent the positions of any past or present organizations with which he is or has been associated.