Equal Protection for All 

It is impossible to win a battle without first knowing what victory means. 

In the fight for life, the pro-life movement has often used slogans like “make abortion unthinkable” or “create a culture of life.” Those are admirable goals, but they are imprecise.  

Ending abortion does not simply mean making abortion unpopular. It does not mean making abortion “safe, legal, and rare.” True victory means protecting the unborn child in the womb in the same way we protect a newborn child outside the womb.  

It means equal protection under the law. 

After all, if we truly believe that unborn children are human beings, then we must also believe they possess the same inherent right to life as every other human being and deserve the same legal protections.  

For many years, the predominant strategy within the pro-life movement has been to criminally prosecute the abortionist, but never the mother. But the reality of abortion has changed dramatically. Today, the majority of abortions are done with the chemical abortion pill. In a large and growing percentage of cases, the deadly drugs are sent by mail. The mother herself becomes the direct agent of the abortion. 

In most states, abortion remains legal when the mother performs it herself. Even in states commonly described as having “banned abortion,” the law often still explicitly shields the mother from criminal liability. 

Consider the implications of that reality. In a state like Texas, a pregnant woman could go to her local police department and show them her positive pregnancy test. She could then take abortion drugs right in front of the police and face no legal consequences for the intentional murder of her child. The result is the same as every other chemical abortion: a dead baby. 

Recently stories have shown mothers openly celebrating the murder of their children. In one example, a woman had a mock gender reveal party where she pretended to announce the gender of her child but instead pulled out abortion pills and consumed them. The murder was streamed live on Facebook while a crowd of her friends and family celebrated, chanting “kill it, kill it!”  

What that woman did is legal in all 50 states. Not all chemical abortions are conducted with such horrific glee, but again, all still share the same result.  

No one wants to believe that mothers knowingly and intentionally kill their own children. Many women are frightened, pressured, abandoned, or desperate. Those realities deserve compassion and show why abortion would be treated on a case-by-case basis under equal protection laws. But compassion cannot require us to deny what abortion is or who the unborn child is. We cannot excuse the murder of innocent children.  

If unborn children are equal human beings, then the law must ultimately reflect that truth consistently. 

If we categorically refuse laws of equal protection, that means the majority of all abortions will remain legal in perpetuity. A reality that sounds very similar to the pro-abortion mantra of “safe, legal, and rare.”  

Support for equal protection is not reflective of a desire to “criminalize women” as some have said. No one wants women to go to jail. To claim equal protection “criminalizes women” is a dishonest strawman. Equal protection criminalizes the act of abortion (murder) for anyone who does it. Like any other type of criminal law, equal protection penalizes criminal activity, without regard to the identity of the suspect. 

In the same way, laws which establish criminal punishment for anyone who kills a born child are not a result of a desire to criminalize women, but a desire to protect children. Laws which criminalize the murder of unborn children are not designed to target women but designed to protect vulnerable babies. This largely occurs through deterrence, preventing abortions before they happen. 

No one would argue that we should make it legal for a mother to kill her born child, so why would we keep in place laws legalizing mothers killing their unborn children? 

Some will say that abortion is different because there have been years of lies and propaganda, often coming from medical authorities. They may contend that women do not know that their child inside of them is a human being. This claim is becoming harder to believe considering ultrasound machines, the internet, and the study of embryology, though it is possible in some cases. 

With that said, there is a near universal agreement in the pro-life community that doctors who perform abortions should face criminal punishment. It is also agreed that a man who drugs a pregnant woman against her will and forces an abortion should face criminal punishment. Haven’t they also been lied to and told that the unborn baby is nothing more than a clump of cells? If the mother cannot face consequences for killing her child, the same should apply to the boyfriend who thought it was just a “clump of cells.”  

Regardless, that is an objection to the passage of equal protection laws right now. It is not a categorical objection to equal protection laws as our final goal. Some argue that now is not the right time for equal protection legislation. Those arguments can be debated, and some concerns may be valid from a tactical or political standpoint. Cultural and political realities matter, and prudence has a place in public policy.  

But strategy should never redefine the goal itself. 

The finish line must remain clear: laws that recognize unborn children as persons deserving the same protection afforded to every other innocent human life. 

If a mother intentionally kills her born child, society universally recognizes that as a grave crime. If we apply an entirely different standard when the child is still in the womb, then we are implicitly saying the two lives are not truly equal. 

Unborn babies are not second-class human beings. 

If we say that we will never support laws of equal protection under any circumstances or at any time in the future, we send a very confusing message to the culture. How can they take us seriously when we say that abortion kills an innocent human being, yet it should be legal if the mother does it? That is a striking moral inconsistency. 

In fact, it is such an inconsistency that it likely undermines our ability to change hearts and minds. In a debate as hotly contested as the abortion debate, consistency matters. Saying abortion is murder is not enough. We must consistently act like abortion is murder, or we subtly communicate to the culture that we do not truly believe what we claim. And if we do not believe it, why should they?  

This is not to say that we should demand perfection right now and oppose anything short of total abolition, or that incrementalism is inherently bad. That is a separate discussion I addressed in depth in a prior article. 

While support for equal protection is considered controversial to some, it is the most morally clear and consistent application of the pro-life ethic. Because of this, many pro-life leaders I have personally spoken with have recently expressed their support for laws of equal protection.  

Compassion and justice are not mutually exclusive. We can remain loving and compassionate toward women in difficult circumstances while standing firm on the truth that abortion is murder.  

I do not believe abortion will ever truly end unless the unborn are treated as fully human under the law. True victory must mean true equal protection for all, the total abolition of abortion. Our work will not be complete until it is illegal for everyone to murder anyone. 

To those in the pro-life movement who see this topic in a different light, I thank you for your ongoing work to defend life and am excited to continue to work alongside you. We may not always agree on all things, but we all want to protect unborn lives.  

In Defense of Life, 

Victor Nieves 

President, Life Issues Institute