I remember that. Unfortunately, what I don’t see from them is any acknowledgment that they are in fact putting the state and babies in a worse position if they manage to get the law passed.
Why do I say that? Because I have seen no evidence that the states have counted the cost. So it will be another Indiana RFRA debacle. The law will be passed, the first rumblings of a storm will come, and they will scramble all over themselves backing down to a new law that is worse than what they had before they “got tough” and passed the good law. This is why the pro-life organizations opposed the law. Because they aren’t idealistic idiots.
Can you clarify brother? You want states to start nullifying Roe but they’re idealistic idiots if they do? Is it because they’re not communicating/building up the citizens and churches to suffer the consequences enough in the process?
Sure. It’s less about what they have and haven’t done and more about evidence I have (or rather haven’t) seen that any state has counted the cost at any level. There’s a reason these laws get tied up in committee. Everybody wants credit for them from the people who like the idea, but nobody wants to offend those who don’t like the idea. Committee is the perfect place for them to be. They can posture themselves as having done everything they possibly can on the one hand, and on the other hand, since they have done nothing at all, there won’t be the slightest cost to them.
This means that at best it is idealism driving these, and at worst, it is simply grandstanding. And I mean that on the part of the politicians who are playing to their base, while neither pol nor base have any intent of actually paying the price. But I also mean it on the part of the Christians who are trying to build cred for their own brand at the cost of what anybody can see is going to be a disaster for abortion law in the state.
So how can I say we need to pass such laws? What I proposed is very different. What I proposed was plan for what happens after such a law is passed. I called us to count the costs. And Daniel took it even further and applied it to us personally. The moment I see a law proposed that includes a plan for how to survive when the NCAA and the Fed both cut off their money is the moment I get behind the law.
This is different from SD and transgender issues, where I am not opposed to the law at all, because I think that there is still enough public groundswell support to have a hope of carrying it through. But perhaps I was wrong even there. I suspect the person who got elected governor of that state knows the feeling on the ground there and the willingness of the people to suffer the cost better than I do.
One of the good consequences of the criminalization bill that just came up in South Carolina is this: it has moved the Personhood Bill (equal protection of the law for all life starting from conception; leaving criminalization for later in the process; using definitions to put Blackmun’s assertion—that if the personhood of the baby is ever established, the basis of Roe is demolished—to the test) into a new position of not being the most radical bill in the legislature. So, now that they’ve passed heartbeat, the only step left for the incrementalists in the legislature is…personhood. We’ve had a number of legislators tell us this even before the heartbeat bill was passed. But, it’s still politics and who knows.
What snubs me up about the “abolish abortion” crowd is that the last abolition movement we had in this country led directly to the war deaths of approximately 2% of America’s population at the time, some of the finest men and boys this continent has ever produced. I think abortion and slavery are less comparable than many make them out to be, but the “abolition” rhetoric always puts a shiver up my spine at what forces may be unleashed unintentionally. God have mercy.
BTW is it my imagination or is there a culture of conservatism in Indiana that also puts a premium on civil and political competence? (Though it sounds like the religious freedom push was an L)
I’m thinking of men like Mitch Daniels and to a lesser degree Mike Pence.
Amen, brother @danielmeyer. Well thought and we’ll written.
I came to the same conclusion about 20 years ago. I realized the dying West needed something much bigger than political victory or national revival. We needed a Reformation. And whether we reprise the role of Hus, Wycliffe, or Luther we need the sovereign kairos move of God. While we wait we build with a longer view, a two hundred year plan.
I started saying my goal was “to become Patrick Henry’s grandfather.” My sons and daughters, nephews and neices have grown up hearing me explain this phrase. At the time I was a young missionary. This year I actually became a grandfather. There is no shortcut to courage and wisdom.
We must be the men we want our sons to be.
So glorifying to God that our sons want to imitate us.
Their political leaders will sense a different wind.
To me the abolition movement is the Alt Right of the prolife movement. The best way to appropriate their zeal and real contribution to the movement is to think of abolition as a Trumpian big first offer. We declare up front what we really want, which is total abolition. Life begins at conception. Then we negotiate it down. Not low energy but winning, so much winning you get tired of all the winning.
I don’t think this is fair. You may disagree with their strategy, but this seems to paint them in a very poor light. I don’t know that most of them are thinking in compromises anyway, insisting on full bans. As Joseph said before, they should count the cost, but I think a lot of them actually have and are willing to risk death to protect the babies. Perhaps their courage will lead one governor to do so as well. I would certainly applaud that while at the same time wishing for peace. But I don’t want to associate them with Nazis and the KKK.