“We have dealt a huge blow to the enemy and to this industry,” said the man, Jeff Durbin. But, he explained, “our work has really just begun.” “Even states that have enabling laws,” which prohibit abortion at conception without exceptions for rape or incest, have not gone far enough, said Mr. Durbin, a pastor in the greater Phoenix area. “They don’t think the woman should ever be punished.” The resistance to the question of “whether or not people who kill their children in the womb are guilty,” he said, “should be something we have to overcome, because women are still killing their children in the womb. .” Even as those in the anti-abortion movement celebrate their nation-changing Supreme Court victory, there are divisions over where to go next. The most extreme, like Mr Durbin, want to pursue what they call “abortion abolition”, a move to criminalize abortion from conception as murder and hold women who have the procedure responsible – a position that in some states would could make these women eligible for the death penalty. This position contrasts with the anti-abortion mainstream, which opposes the criminalization of women and focuses on the prosecution of providers. Many people who oppose abortion believe that life begins at conception and that abortion is murder. Abolitionists follow that thought to what they believe is the logical and irreconcilable conclusion: From the moment of conception, abolitionists want to give the fetus equal protection as a person under the 14th Amendment. Abolitionists have long represented a radical fringe, dwarfed by prominent national groups focused on pushing for gradual restrictions on abortion. However, the reach of repeal candidates has grown over the past year, primarily through online activism and targeted efforts in some state legislatures and churches. Mr. Durbin’s group, End Abortion Now, which began in 2017, filed an amicus brief in the recent Supreme Court case that overturned Roe along with the Foundation to Abolish Abortion and 21 other like-minded groups from states including Idaho and Pennsylvania. His Apologia Studios YouTube channel has more than 300,000 subscribers and he leads the Apologia Church, a congregation of about 700 people. They see the overturning of Roe as a major boost to their cause and an opening to advance their goals and seize the future of the broader movement. Abolition views have drawn support from the ultraconservative wing of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. “We’ve been listening to and following the wrong leaders,” Tom Ascol, a prominent ultraconservative Southern Baptist pastor, said a week after the Supreme Court decision. Mr. Askol came second in the recent election for the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention. “The future of the anti-abortion movement will be led by those who adhere to a consistent and genuine ‘pro-life’ ethic, meaning that since life begins at conception and fertilization, the full personhood of an unborn life must entail equal protection under the law afforded to all other persons in the U.S. Constitution,” he said.
From Opinion: The End of Roe v. Wade
Comment by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s decision to terminate the constitutional right to abortion.
Michelle Goldberg: “The End of Roe v. Wade was predicted, but in large parts of the country, it has still created sad and potentially tragic uncertainties.” Spencer Bokat-Lindell: “What exactly does it mean for the Supreme Court to be experiencing a legitimacy crisis and is it really in one?” Bonnie Kristian, reporter: “For many supporters of former President Donald Trump, Friday’s Supreme Court decision was a long-awaited vindication.” It may also mark the end of his political career. Erika Bachiochi, legal scholar: “It is precisely the unborn child’s state of existential dependence on its mother, not its autonomy, that makes it particularly entitled to care, upbringing and legal protection.”
“All mothers who abort their children are culpable on some level, although not necessarily equally responsible for homicide,” he said. Some states have already banned abortions without exceptions for rape or incest. State legislatures can no longer use Roe as an excuse to avoid repeal proposals, Mr. Durbin said on his live stream. He urged churches to join his group and expand their protests from abortion clinics to places like Target and CVS where women could access medical abortion. Mr. Durbin, guided by his set of Christian beliefs, and others in the abolitionist coalition recently passed a bill in Louisiana that would have designated abortion as murder and allowed prosecutors to bring criminal cases against women who terminate a pregnancy . The measure failed, but it went further than any of the other “equal protection” bills that abolitionists worked to introduce in about a dozen states over the past two years. The bill drew significant opposition from other anti-abortion groups. In an open letter, about 70 anti-abortion groups urged all state lawmakers to reject such initiatives. “As national and state pro-life organizations, representing tens of millions of pro-life men, women and children across the country, let us be clear: We state unequivocally that any measure that seeks to criminalize or punish women is not pro-life and we strongly oppose such efforts,” the letter said. It was signed by groups including National Right to Life, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Americans United for Life. Other groups, such as Students for Life, say they want to “abolish abortion” and make it “unthinkable and unavailable,” but oppose criminalizing women. Privately, some leaders of mainstream groups worry about how quickly abolitionists have gained ground. In Texas, the Abortion Foundation opposed the state’s six-week ban because it “discriminates against someone who doesn’t have a detectable heartbeat,” said Bradley Pierce, the group’s president. A group called Free the States is pushing repeal campaigns from Oklahoma. About one in three American adults believe that if abortion is illegal, women who have the procedure should serve prison time or pay a fine or do community service, according to a March Pew Research Center study. Men, white evangelicals and Republicans are among the most likely to think a woman should be punished, the study found. They reflect an undercurrent of the anti-abortion movement raised by Donald J. Trump in 2016, when he said women who have abortions should face “some form of punishment” if the procedure were banned in the United States, before he was pushed by bipartisan outrage. to renounce. After all, abolitionists believe they are fighting a sacred Christian mission, accountable to the God they worship. In their amicus brief, they wrote: “The court is bound not only by the text of the Constitution, but also by the God-revealed limits of human political power.”
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To dissuade a woman from walking into an abortion clinic, you have about 15 seconds to change her mind, Mr. Durbin said, casually holding a yellow can of Yerba in his office in Tempe, Ariz., recently, and showing a stack of signs His team goes to clinics that say, “Babies are murdered here.” Mr. Durbin works to achieve abolition goals with a multi-pronged approach: online evangelism and preaching at his church. Educating churches on how to prevent women from going to an abortion clinic. and trips to state legislatures to push bills that would make abortion murder. He works in a studio office behind a door with a sign showing the name of a butcher shop and crossed knives. The sign is a security decoy, he said, to throw off opponents. The interior is dark, industrial and metallic, with movie posters for movies like Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. Tubs of 4Patriot Emergency Food Survival Kits of water, protein powders and chia seeds were stacked nearby. Mr. Durbin, 44, has five children, as well as three grandchildren and five black belts. Before becoming a pastor and online activist, he was a national karate champion who played Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat: The Live Tour. He married his wife when he was 20 and she was 18 and pregnant with their first child, and he dedicated his life to Jesus after nearly overdosing on ecstasy, he said. He often tells the story of how they adopted their youngest son after the boy’s mother sought an abortion when doctors wrongly expected him to be born with spina bifida. He is motivated by the belief that he is obeying God. “It is God’s command to save those who are being led to the slaughter,” he said. “This is not a request or a proposal. It is, save them.” It is no coincidence that “abolition” is the word the movement chose for itself. Mr. Durbin and his fellow activists portray their mission as comparable to the push to abolish slavery in the United States before the Civil War. And abortion advocates—like many in the broader anti-abortion movement—equate abortion rights advocates with defenders of slavery. “There were people who argued against repealers at the time,” he said. “They were saying, ‘Well, sure, it’s wrong. But if you don’t want a slave, don’t get one.” You know, so it was all kind of, “This is their plantation, their choice.” He takes issue with news articles that say he wants to see women who have abortions executed. But he wants the women who have the procedure to be prosecuted for homicide in their state…
