Imagine taking the CRA at the height of their membership implosion, making them a single-issue group, and then mashing-up the result with Randall Terry’s Operation Rescue. Then hire Hammer Films to be their public relations arm and you might get the Abolitionist movement as found on Facebook.
Folks, you might think I’m being harsh on these guys but hear me out.
Yes, I know picking on the CRA is old hat on this blog, but they earned it. I gave many years of my life to the CRA and watched it spiral ever further downward. You can either describe my time with them as dedication, stubbornness, or simply that I’m a slow learner.
Anyway, I picked CRA and Operation Rescue because they were both built around a core of Evangelical Christians. Evangelical Christians have an incredibly short timeframe for any activism and an equally shallow dedication to anything due to their view of theology. This statement is true of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and other similar groups.
Barbara Alby’s CRA
The Barbara Alby led takeover of CRA was the result of Evangelicals wanting to change things politically in the wake of Pat Robertson’s failed 1988 run for United States President. Alby and company found a way to infiltrate the California Republican Party via a hostile takeover of the CRA and County Republican Committee elections. Alby never had any long-term use for CRA, it was just a means to take over the California Republican Party. Once CRA got their hooks in the CRP, they abandoned CRA.
Barbara’s recruitment tactics were effective but totally false and dishonest. Furthermore, they were very unchristian. She cast the struggle to take over CRA as a Frank Peretti style spiritual battle between God’s people and Satan’s minions. She vilified and dehumanized her opponents. As she described it, we were not battling with folks that needed Jesus but people that had chosen darkness and were beyond redemption. We were told that we cannot work to persuade those other people but must vanquish them.
I remember in particular her vilification of Carl Burton. Burton was a liberal (or moderate) Republican and a known homosexual. Alby portrayed Burton as the spawn of evil; a man needing to be defeated and exiled from the Party. Burton ended up working with CRA after Alby & company kicked CRA to the curb. Frankly, Burton was more “christian” than many that went to church each Sunday. Burton wanted to advance the Republican cause and would work with any group that felt the same. CRA, and Alby specifically, owed Burton a huge apology that I’m sure he never received.
Well, Barbara was successful. CRA went from 100,000 members to about 15,000 in a few years. It was a mix of die-hard people and true believers. But CRA was not done employing the circular firing squad. The search for even more purity in the ranks of CRA led to more purges and witch-hunts. When I finally left CRA for good, it was down to about 1,200 members.
Operation Rescue
I mention Operation Rescue because they were a militant prolife group that often made an appeal to the legal doctrine of “necessity”. Necessity is a legal doctrine derived from English Common Law. Their favorite example of necessity was based on the idea of running past a no trespassing sign in order to get people out of a burning building. Human life had more value and thus ignoring the no trespassing sign was justified because a greater good was being served.
Operation Rescue was built from people in Evangelical Churches. What many did not know, at least in the case of the Sacramento California group, the leadership changed in Operation Rescue about every six months. The last man standing in leadership was Reb Bradley.
Post Operation Rescue, Bradley and his wife went every week to an abortion clinic in the Roseville, CA area and held a sign, “We will adopt your baby.” It took about a year, but they finally adopted a newborn as a result. It was a witness that few Christians are willing to display. I have great respect for Bradley. Whenever I think about him it is with warmth and great respect.
Operation Rescue folks would occasionally go to an abortion clinic and split into two groups. One group would block the doors of an abortion clinic while the other, larger, group would peacefully picket on a public sidewalk. The Rescuers would typically be arrested for not disbursing and trespassing on private property (remember they were arguing about the necessity of trespassing to save a life). Part of their gambit was hoping to go to trial to get a judge to rule that the necessity defense was saving a life. Alternately, they were hoping that a judge would rule that abortion was the killing of a baby. In virtually every case that was litigated, the necessity defense was never allowed to be heard by a jury.
Operation Rescue found by experience that the number of folks willing to go to jail to end abortion was a rather short list.
Abolitionists—a Litmus Test No One Can Pass
The Abolitionists, as stated previously, are a mash-up of CRA and Operation Rescue. Like CRA, and many sects and cults, the other guys that claim to be on their side are not pure enough. If you don’t agree 100 percent with the Abolitionists, then they will diss you and very publicly too.
Abolitionists hate every other prolife group that you have ever heard of from National Right to Life to Life Site. Abolitionists have employed the circular firing squad to eliminate the following groups that failed the purity test:
- National Right to Life
- Susan B. Anthony List
- U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — Committee on Pro-Life Activities
- Americans United for Life
- March for Life Action
- Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission — Southern Baptist Convention
- Secular Pro-Life
- Democrats for Life of America
- Rehumanize International
- Louisiana Right to Life
- Indiana Right to Life
- Kentucky Right to Life
- Right to Life of Michigan
- Ohio Right to Life
- South Dakota Right to Life
- Tennessee Right to Life
- Wisconsin Right to Life
- And dozens more state Right to Life organizations.
Abolitionists want all abortions to be prosecuted as first degree murder, period.
Like Wow.
Oh, also they hate President Trump because he promotes In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).
Folk, this is why I call them a mash-up of CRA and Operation Rescue. Oh, and shout-out to their public relations group, Hammer Films.
Hammer Films because most of the political blood shed in their battles is that of fellow prolifers and not their actual enemies.
Abolitionists Use the Sword of the State not God’s Word
Oh, Abolitionists don’t want to persuade churches to stop abortion or help “problem pregnancies” or work with churches to educate folks, they are going for salvation via legislation. They want all 50 states to adopt a full ban on abortion and implement capital punishment for abortion. They want to execute not only abortion providers but also all women seeking abortion.
Folks, the Bible doesn’t even hold this out as a standard.
Abolitionists don’t want your local state legislature to pass a bill to ban abortion pills via mail or stop surgical abortion or regulate IVF clinics. Nope, for them these are all incremental half-measures that should be opposed. They want all or nothing legislation.
They also want all or nothing candidates. Locally, they are dissing a guy that is prolife because he doesn’t want to execute women seeking abortion. Instead, they call the prolife guy “Judas” and would rather re-elect a guy that supports Planned Parenthood.
Oh, they also want women to voluntarily be implanted with someone else’s frozen embryos so that said embryos won’t be killed. Please note that they don’t want IVF ended first, they want to create a new revenue stream for IVF clinics and then have the clinics closed at some future date. At the very least, this is economic illiteracy.
Scorched Earth Tactics
There are several problems with their scorched earth position. Let’s talk about a few.
First, justice is to be impartial and applied equally. This sounds simple enough but in such an environment who decided how to enforce this rule? The Bible requires two or three witnesses. In the case of abortion, how do you check that box?
Can you prove a woman is pregnant?
Look, I know the people in the Abolitionist movement think they are smarter than everyone else, but I ask this as a serious question.
Back in the day, Carol Everett used to run a chain of abortion clinics in Texas. I think she was based in the DFW area. She said that it was not unusual for them to do a D&C on women that were not pregnant just so they could bill the procedure—likely to the state.
I promise you that these mail order abortion pill places will sell to anyone. They don’t know and don’t care if someone is really pregnant. They are only interested in selling a product and calling it a service.
The IVF clinic doesn’t care. Oh, crap the freeze got unplugged. Or they mixed-up the samples, or whatever.
Except in cases of late-term surgical abortion, I don’t see how you can prove the pregnancy existed or the subsequent abortion action actually ended a life.
If the abortion is proved to have ended a child’s life, then you have to litigate it.
How do you accumulate enough evidence to deprive someone of their life via a court trial?
What if the judge or a jury finds the law unconstitutional? Does this then create a constitutional right to abortion? Isn’t this just a reply of Roe v Wade? Do you really want to risk a court declaration of an absolute right to abortion? Do you want a court declaration that seeking abortion cannot have consequences?
Other Questions
If your abolitionist law can be voted in, then can’t it just be voted out?
Why is the guy totally off the hook on this deal?
Aren’t Abolitionists just baptizing Sharia Law or something remarkably like it?
Hey Abolitionists, what does the Bible say?
Sorry but shouting Exodus 20:13 does not end debate. Yes, this passage says, “Thou shalt not kill” or in more modern English, “You shall not commit murder” but is that the end of the discussion. If you use the magic Evangelical prophecy scissors then maybe, but for the rest of us, I think there is more to discuss.
Folks, there is only one case law in the Old Testament that touches on abortion. Oh, and no, the account about Judah’s son spilling his seamen on the ground is not it.
If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
Exodus 21:22.
Please note in this instance that causing a pregnant woman to lose her child (or children) is not murder or manslaughter. It is a fine to be paid with said amount determined by a judge.
Killing children after they are born was common in ancient Israel. If they offered children to the god Molech, this was punishable by death.
2 Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. 3 And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name. 4 And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not: 5 Then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people.
Leviticus 20:2–5.
This child sacrifice is not the same as abortion, so I think citing this passage to prove death for women seeking abortion is not applicable.
The New Testament has much more to say about abortion.
To find abortion in ancient times you must first understand that surgical abortion did not exist in biblical times. Instead, abortion was via chemical concoctions purchased from a witch or sorcerer. Think local medicine man (or woman). This language is found in the text of the Hippocratic Oath.
Nor shall any man’s entreaty prevail upon me to administer poison to anyone; neither will I counsel any man to do so. Moreover, I will give no sort of medicine to any pregnant woman, with a view to destroy the child.
Thus, when you see a New Testament list of people that will not inherit the Kingdom of God, a polite way of saying they are bound for Hell, it often includes sorcery, witchcraft, or similar wording.
19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, tfornication, tuncleanness, vlasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, avariance, aemulations, wrath, bstrife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Galatians 5:19–21.
14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. 15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
Revelation 22:14–15.
In addition, early Christians made it a practice to go outside the city walls and collect children that had been abandoned by their parents to die. The abandoned children were saved from certain death by Christians with a high view of human life.
Abolitionists argue that in a godly society, women that get abortions should be executed; however, I don’t know of any Christian society that has even practiced or enforced such a law. Ditto for Sabbath breaking.
Conclusion
Abolitionists are just another group of rebels without a clue. They presuppose an answer and then look in Scripture to find it. When they would rather elect supporters of Planned Parenthood than fellow believers that aren’t pure enough to pass their litmus test, then they are off the rails. The fact that they seek salvation via the State and not the pew, tells you that their fidelity is not really to God. The Church is created by God and the only institution that will last into eternity. If they really want to change the world, then change the Church. I think it’s too hard to persuade fellow Christians, so they want to compel them by the power of the Sword. Then if they balk at the coercion, unchurch the infidels.
Abolitionists summarily reject incremental change and want legislative revolution. Dr. Gary North is known for the saying, “You can’t change just one thing”. This single-issue group will only find a way to make real change more difficult in the future.
Barbara Alby’s real legacy is that California is now a single party state, and has been for the last two decades. She and her minions in CRA, not only destroyed the Republican Party but caused Republicans to forever lockout the grassroots people from ever having input into the Party in the future. The legacy of Abolitionists will be similar.
It looks to me that Abolitionists are just another group of Statists dressed up in Christian camouflage. Their willingness to employ the circular firing squad is a huge red flag. If they think you can just get someone to pass a law and then everybody can go back home, they are sorely mistaken.
Lastly, if you try to look up stuff by Abolitionists, please know that they have their own jargon, buzzwords, and phrases which they employ but rarely define. Like CRA of old, they are God’s people and everyone else is an enemy that must be destroyed as soon as they fall short.