Incrementalists and Abolitionists Together?

A thousand Liberty University students joined over a hundred thousand at the 53rd March for Life. They marched in the cold. They prayed. They proclaimed the sanctity of life. They also marched for a movement facing its greatest crisis—not from external enemies, but internal fault lines.

Now that it has been years after Dobbs in 2022 overturned Roe, we should be capitalizing on the greatest legal victory in the pro-life movement’s history. Instead, we’re hemorrhaging ground at the state level, watching chemical abortion surge to record highs, and tearing ourselves apart in a politically impotent movement overseen by RINO conservatives and Republican-style feminists.

Make no mistake, this conflict threatens to paralyze the very movement meant to save lives. There are so-called incrementalists who hold political cards with no intention of ending abortion, alongside honest incrementalists desperate to do so expediently. Then there are abolitionists who stand on biblical conviction, demanding total, immediate abolition without exception, compromise, or a viable strategy to achieve it.

The truth? There’s no way to end abortion without political means. It requires a sizeable coalition, compelling messaging, and winning at the local, state, and federal levels. You cannot achieve equal protection under the law—the idea that the mother and the baby in her womb are both legally-protected entities—through political rallies, conferences, debates, podcasts, or strongly worded letters alone. These are important to the goal of winning, but ultimately, abolition will come by political means. Abolitionists have convictional clarity and prophetic urgency. Incrementalists have national organization, platform, and political standing. We desperately need both working together.

Bottom line up front: the goal is total abolition of abortion as expediently as possible, but that goal will never be achieved practically outside incremental victories taken over time. Opposing any progress toward equal protection bills makes you a fraud, and opposing any de facto increments towards abolition also makes you naïve.

The Post-Dobbs Stalemate: A Movement Divided and Unprepared

Dobbs should have been our turning point. For fifty years, we organized with a singular focus to overturn Roe. When victory came on June 24, 2022, many assumed the battle was won. It had only just begun.

While we celebrated, abortion activists executed their decades-old contingency plan. They were prepared, well-organized and positioned to advance and not retreat. Now they’re winning the post-Dobbs battles that we failed to prepare for.

The numbers are devastating. In November 2022, Kansas voters rejected an anti-abortion amendment 59-41%.^[1] This was Kansas a state that Trump carried by 15 points in 2020. Kentucky rejected a constitutional amendment 52-48%.^[2] Montana rejected born-alive protections 53-47%.

The 2023 elections brought even more defeats. Ohio, which Trump won by 8 points in 2020, approved Issue 1 enshrining abortion rights by 57-43%.^[3] This was a landslide defeat in a very red state.

The 2024 cycle completed the rout. Abortion was on the ballot in ten states. Pro-life advocates prevailed in only three: Florida failed to reach the 60% threshold, along with Nebraska, and South Dakota. Abortion amendments passed in Arizona (61.7%), Colorado (61.4%), Maryland (74.3%), Missouri (51.6%), Montana (57.6%), Nevada (63.3%), and New York.^[4]

Since Dobbs, thirteen states passed constitutional amendments protecting or expanding abortion. Only three rejected such measures. We’re not just losing. We’re being routed.

Abortion itself has changed in America; it no longer requires brick-and-mortar clinics. According to Guttmacher, a pro-abortion think tank, chemical abortion accounted for 63% of all abortions in 2023, up from 53% in 2020 and 39% in 2017.^[5] The Food and Drug Administration’s removal of in-person dispensing requirements allows abortion pills prescribed via telehealth and mailed directly all fifty states. Shield laws in Democratic states now protect providers mailing pills to women in banned states. Chemical abortion has decentralized the industry, operating beyond clinic-focused regulations that defined our strategy for decades. A Texas woman can obtain pills mailed from California with zero consequences for the woman or the abortion pill provider.

Even where pro-life laws remain, results are mixed. Total U.S. abortions have actually increased. Texas has more abortions today than before its heartbeat law and after the Dobbs decision.^[6] Guttmacher reports abortions are up nationally since Dobbs, thanks to chemical abortion by mail.^[7]

While we won the legal battle of ending Roe, we are losing the war on the womb. We overturned Roe without changing the moral framework that made Roe possible in America. We fundamentally lack a cohesive strategy for real political change, a prophetic urgency to change hearts and minds, and the political savvy to press our movement forward effectively.

The Incrementalist Problem: When Strategy Becomes Hypocrisy

Not all incrementalism deserves that name. True incrementalism recognizes political realities sometimes require gradual progress toward complete victory. William Wilberforce understood this. His fight against slavery took decades of incremental legislative battles before achieving total abolition. Yet he never wavered in his conviction that slavery was an absolute moral evil requiring complete eradication. His incrementalism was strategic, not moral compromise.

What passes for incrementalism in much of the modern pro-life movement bears little resemblance to Wilberforce. Instead of strategic patience serving uncompromising conviction, we see moral compromise masquerading as political wisdom. The evidence is alarming and damning.

Consider Louisiana’s HB 813, introduced in 2022 right before the Dobbs decision.^[8] The bill would have criminalized abortion from fertilization, treating it as homicide and affording the unborn equal protection under the law. This was precisely what abolitionists demanded, full legal recognition that abortion is murder. Yes, this includes holding mothers and fathers responsible for abortion as murder, something that our legal code already recognizes for homicide with six statutory classifications for murder in varying degrees. We can appropriately adjudicate a mother’s culpability in abortion just as we already do in every murder trial across the country.

8. Louisiana State Legislature, HB 813, 2022 Regular Session.

Many national right-to-life organizations worked behind the scenes to kill the Louisiana bill. Their justification was that it was outside the mainstream, that it wouldn’t be legally durable, and that we fundamentally cannot punish mothers. They consistently argue that mothers are always the victim of abortion. The problem? In the era of chemical abortion, if there’s no effort to hold mothers responsible in any degree, there’s really no law safeguarding unborn life. In the ultimate sense, the issue will always go back to a mother’s fundamental right to choose.

Louisiana was not unique. In 2021, Indiana introduced HB 1539, prohibiting abortion from conception and defining the unborn as “human beings” entitled to equal protection.^[9] Another right-to-life organization opposed it, backing a more limited 20-week ban instead.^[10] The equal protection bill died in committee.

In 2022, South Carolina introduced the Prenatal Equal Protection Act extending homicide laws to the unborn. Another pro-life organization remained neutral before opposing it as constitutionally problematic.^[11] The bill failed. South Carolina instead passed a six-week heartbeat law carving out abortion as distinct from homicide.^[12]

The pattern is unmistakable. Well-funded national organizations systematically oppose legislation affording the unborn equal protection. This isn’t incrementalism. This is regressive strategy signaling to the abortion movement that there are limits to what measures we’re willing to enact to end abortion. Many so-called pro-life organizations actively prevent real progress being made.

Even more revealing was the historical opposition to overturning Roe itself. In 2019, one former pro-life national leader told the New York Times: “We’re not out to try to get Roe overturned.”^[13] In 2022, the same organization sent an Amicus Brief to SCOTUS on Dobbs hoping to remand it back to Mississippi instead of overturning Roe.^[14] They recommended an entirely different process that would have set us back decades. These actions highlight the serious moral, philosophical, and political dissonance in the pro-life camp by so-called reformers who have either no clue or no care as to how to we will permanently end abortion.

Many of these national organizations are well-funded with powerful lobbying operations and direct lines to Republican lawmakers who are seeking to do nothing more than gerrymander the vote while maintaining detente positions on abortion legislatively. This half-hearted commitment stems from believing truth cannot win politically, elections are too important to lose on abortion, and that modern feminism’s death grip exists on both the right and left of the political aisle.

This brings us to the movement’s deepest failing which is its categorical refusal to hold mothers or even fathers accountable. This isn’t a tactical disagreement. It’s fundamental capitulation to feminist ideology that is corrupting conservative politics.

Most national pro-life organizations maintain women can never be held responsible, insisting on women as second victims of abortion in every instance.^[15] But that’s simply not true. That view reflects the same philosophy of the left which insists certain victim groups exist permanently and can never truly face legal consequences for their decision to break the law. The resulting effect is that it infantilizes women as perpetual victims incapable of moral agency. It refuses to grapple with reality. Most abortions do not occur from coercion, desperation, or lack of information. They don’t happen as a result of rape or incest. Most abortions are a matter of convenience and personal preference. In each situation, mothers, along with expectant fathers, can be held accountable for their decision.

15. National Right to Life Committee, “An Open Letter to State Lawmakers from America’s Leading Pro-Life Organizations,” May 12, 2022.

Feminism’s perverting effects within conservatism have been nowhere more destructive than pro-life advocacy. Republican-style feminism championing women’s autonomy while opposing abortion creates a morally incoherent legal position that refuses to ask difficult questions about parental responsibility for abortion. It recoils from any suggestion that women choosing abortion should face legal consequences. That’s not at all conservative nor is it conserving.

This feminist compromise has real consequences. In 2022, when a Texas grand jury indicted Lizelle Herrera for “criminal homicide” after allegedly performing self-induced abortion, every major pro-life organization condemned it as “completely inconsistent with the pro-life position.”^[16] Charges were subsequently dropped against Herrera, and Herrera turned around and sued the Texas District Attorney.

While Texas law makes abortion illegal, it doesn’t hold mothers responsible for self-induced abortion. That isn’t incremental strategy. This is total moral capitulation to modern feminism. We fight to restrict providers but refuse to hold actual decision-makers accountable. We seek to treat the unborn as human beings worthy of legal protection but refuse to see perpetrators as morally culpable. In most cases, this is legally incoherent. Now a post-abortive feminist is seeking more than one million in damages after she had an abortion in a state where it is illegal but the state refuses to hold mothers accountable for breaking the law. The Texas District Attorney that pursued charges is being punished instead.

16. National Right to Life et al., “Open Letter to State Legislators.”

We need incrementalists who understand achieving equal protection requires building public support, changing cultural attitudes, winning political battles one at a time, and not aiding and abetting abortion minded women in their pursuit of abortion. We also need patience recognizing ending abortion will take wisdom, persistence, and time. Something that most carnivore conservatives cannot stomach.

We need honest, rock-ribbed incrementalists desperate to end abortion completely, understanding full abolition won’t come until we have equal protection and until we hold both mothers and fathers accountable. We need incrementalists whose long game leads to total victory, not a permanently managed stalemate or retreat.

The Abolitionist Problem: When Conviction Becomes Perfection

True abolitionism combines uncompromising moral clarity and prophetic urgency with actual effectiveness. It refuses to accept any abortion as morally permissible while pursuing every avenue to change hearts, minds, and save lives. But what often passes for contemporary abolitionism bears marks of ideological purity and self-righteous theater divorced from earnest attempts at real political change.

Just like incrementalists, not all abolitionists are worthy of the name either. While reaching for biblical foundations showing no partiality in the eyes of God or the law, some abolitionists are blinded by their hubris and moral platitudes. Humility requires a more careful appraisal.

One of the more perverse cases of abolition was Paul Jennings Hill, a graduate of Reformed Theological Seminary, influenced by the Christian Reconstructionist movement, and an ordained minister of the PCA and OPC church. Hill was defrocked and excommunicated after a televised debate on Phil Donahue where he said that the abortion doctor David Gunn deserved to be killed by the anti-abortionist Michael Griffin, and that the Bible sanctioned the use of deadly force in the defense of life.

Hill was later inspired to murder circuit abortionist, Dr. John Britton, outside of the Ladies Center in Pensacola, FL, along with his bodyguard, Lt. Col. James Barrett. Hill was sentenced to death by lethal injection. His death warrant was signed by Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Even on death row and up until his death in 2003, Hill maintained that he acted out of necessity, that his actions were righteous, necessary and unavoidable, and that God had called him to obey His revealed will.

Since the 1970s there have been over eleven murders, forty-two bombings, more than 200 arsons, and over 500 assaults documented outside of abortion clinics, many of which have been prosecuted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrance (FACE) Act.

None of these are views and actions that are endorsed by today’s abolitionists, but they were actions committed by people perversely believing they were fully justified, and even biblically inspired to do so.

Today, some very honest and well-meaning abolitionists fall under the false presupposition that they’re the only arbiters of biblical justice or the only ones consistently appealing to true biblical standards. And that standard only requires abolitionists to stand faithfully at the correctly appointed position on life, but without ever requiring the wisdom for achieving those ends strategically.

Many abolitionists seem far less concerned about winning politically to end abortion than being right morally and philosophically on abortion. In their frustration, some abolitionists reserve their worst criticism not for the abortion industrial complex, but for their pro-life counterparts who are sincerely trying to achieve abolition by a different strategy. They call pro-life leaders “child sacrifice apologists” or they call incremental legislation “bills to regulate child murder.”^[17]

17. National Right to Life et al., “Open Letter to State Legislators.”

Groups that have sincerely fought abortion for decades through consistent advocacy, not resorting to FACE violations, have ultimately made Roe‘s overturn possible. They aren’t moral compromisers because they failed a perfectionist standard. Some have been at this fight much longer and have gained strategic wisdom along the way.

Some abolitionists seem more interested in dividing the tent, criticizing from the sidelines, or reserving their worst criticism for pro-life allies. This is short-sighted and misses the mark completely. Creating a movement within a stalled and retreating movement might produce small tactical victories but it will not advance abolition towards the ultimate goal of ending abortion.

The classic western military strategist, Von Clausewitz, instructed us that tactical, operational, and strategic military goals should all aim to achieve the ultimate victory of winning the war. A tactical goal alone can be narrow and immediate but may not necessarily be strategic or meaningful to the total war. In short, we won’t win without winning politically. Yes, we must seek it by prayer, preaching, and proselytizing, but it won’t ever be achieved nationally without political means.

According to a 2023 Charlotte Lozier Institute survey, only 8% of self-identified pro-life Americans support criminal penalties for women obtaining abortions. Yes, that number should be higher. Yes, many national organizations are to blame for inconsistency and hypocrisy. But proceeding without real strategy for moving people incrementally by changing hearts and minds while making political gains is naïve.

The abolitionist movement also lacks a coherent strategy for advancing abolition in hostile territory. There’s virtually no federal play for equal protection bills, and at the state level abortionists are running the table and winning. Being proven right is far less important than developing a real political strategy to end abortion. Abolitionists need to grapple seriously with how total abolition will be achieved in a nation where the majority of states actively resist it, where public opinion remains overwhelmingly in favor of abortion protections, and where there are almost no uniform standards on abortion at the federal level.

Do not mistake my meaning; demanding equal protection legislation is absolutely necessary to end abortion. But explaining how to actually achieve it legally in the current political landscape is equally necessary. Too often, abolitionists demand the former without any practical considerations or advice for the latter. In the end it only amounts to self-righteous theater.

Yes, the Bible demands we stand for life. No, the Bible isn’t agnostic about methods and tactics for achieving strategic goals. There are numerous Old and New Testament examples where perfection was not achieved, but obedience toward God’s ultimate mission and completion was. Lest we forget, there are still Christian lawmakers who live in Massachusetts, California, New York, Minnesota, and Virginia, and not just in Texas, Florida, and Louisiana. We’d do well to consider that in our rhetorical debate of what the biblical standard requires from all of us, not just those living in red state majorities, but also blue state minorities where defeat is the perennial norm.

None of this denies the good that abolitionism brings to the pro-life cause. We desperately need prophetic urgency refusing to be satisfied with managing abortion’s end. We need youthful zeal and passion demanding complete victory, unwilling to settle for permanent compromise. We need voices calling the movement back to its foundational conviction that every abortion ends a human life made in God’s image. We must end abortion.

The abolitionist movement’s rise is a welcomed blessing. This generation refuses satisfaction with the kind of incremental progress that never reaches its stated goal. They see through the hypocrisy of organizations opposing the very legislation necessary to end abortion and defend life. Abolitionists reject the feminist charade that shields mothers from ultimate accountability.

We need abolitionists combining conviction with wisdom to recognize that ending abortion requires winning politically. Not just being right but being effective. Not just prophetic urgency, but strategic action. Not just dividing the pro-life camp, but building and multiplying allies toward the strategic goal of ending abortion.

What we don’t need is grandstanding and self-righteous theater that values ideological purity over saving lives, treating tactical disagreements as fundamental betrayals, or spending more energy attacking allies than winning opponents to the cause.

What Both Sides Bring: The Case for Unity

William Wilberforce’s fight against chattel slavery combined incremental strategy and abolitionist conviction in ways that can instruct both camps today.

Wilberforce entered Parliament in 1780 and began anti-slavery campaigning in 1787. He wouldn’t see complete abolition until 1833, three days before his death, 46 years after beginning his crusade. During those decades, he supported numerous incremental measures: slave ship condition regulations (1788), restrictions on British participation in foreign colony slave trade (1806), complete British slave trade abolition (1807), colonial slave registration systems (1815), and strengthened enforcement (1824). Each was incremental. No single step was total abolition.

Yet throughout those decades, Wilberforce never wavered in his conviction that slavery was an absolute moral evil requiring complete eradication. In his 1823 “Appeal to the Religion, Justice and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire on Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies,” he wrote: “The state of slavery is . . . utterly repugnant to every principle of religion and morality.”^[18] While slavery abolition differs from abortion abolition, we can learn object lessons about employing strategy, building broader coalitions, resisting compromise, and not getting distracted by the nonstrategic aim of perfectionism. This is precisely what the pro-life movement needs in the combination of abolitionist conviction and incremental wisdom which characterized Wilberforce’s campaign.

18. Eleanor Klibanoff and Sneha Dey, “A Texas Woman Has Been Charged with Murder over a Self-Induced Abortion,” Texas Tribune, April 9, 2022.

Abolitionists bring prophetic clarity. They refuse to let the movement forget abortion isn’t policy preference but moral atrocity. When so-called pro-life organizations oppose equal protection legislation, abolitionists are right to call this hypocrisy. When organizations categorically protect mothers from accountability, abolitionists rightly identify feminist compromise. When incrementalists speak as if their long-term strategy involves permanent abortion management rather than complete abolition, abolitionists are right to call it out.

But many incrementalists still bring political wisdom and experience which provide the only track record of success at the national and state levels. They understand legislative processes, political messaging, public persuasion, coalition building, and that politics is about the art of the possible. Incrementalists recognize moving from current reality to total abolition requires winning many strategic political battles without retreating. They understand in a democratic system, you cannot simply impose correct moral positions without the majority votes. You cannot get constitutional judges affirming correct legal standards without the majority of votes.

Post-Dobbs ballot defeats prove this reality. In every state where abortion’s been put to direct popular vote since Dobbs, pro-life positions consistently lost except where supermajority requirements prevented passage despite majority support.^[19] This doesn’t mean pro-life advocates should retreat. It means we must build public support for these positions before enshrining them in law or risking immediate reversal through statewide ballot initiatives.

19. See Kaiser Family Foundation, “Ballot Tracker: Abortion-Related State Constitutional Amendment Measures Confirmed for the 2024 Election in 10 States,” KFF, November 6, 2024; Ballotpedia, “Results for Abortion-Related Ballot Measures, 2024,” accessed January 29, 2026; Guttmacher Institute, “Abortion Rights Ballot Measures Win in 7 out of 10 US States,” November 6, 2024.

Honest, de facto incrementalists provide the strategic patience necessary for long-term victory. We need legislative victories at the state level to maintain pro-life protections while working toward even stronger and more permanent measures at the federal level. Not all incrementalism is a lost cause, and humble abolitionists should recognize this. There are bills that both camps can and should support without compromise that would be incrementally preventative without (in the abolitionist’s view) choosing arbitrarily who lives or dies at six, fifteen, or twenty weeks.

Protecting the Hyde Amendment prevents federal taxpayer funding of abortion. Defunding Planned Parenthood strips the nation’s largest abortion provider of government subsidies. Parental consent and notification laws protect minors from coercion and ensure parents can fulfill their God-given responsibility. Born-alive abortion survivor protections like the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act demand medical care for infants who survive abortion attempts. Informed consent laws requiring ultrasounds give mothers critical information before making irreversible decisions. Conscience protection measures like the Weldon Amendment shield healthcare workers from being forced to participate in abortions against their beliefs. The Ending Chemical Abortions Act would ban the mailing of abortion drugs altogether based on the dangerously high complication rate from taking abortion pills.

These aren’t compromises on the personhood of the unborn. They’re strategic barriers that save lives immediately while building the cultural and political foundation necessary for total abolition. Wisdom must prevail if we hope to mount any defense against abortion. Both incrementalists and abolitionists can champion these measures without sacrificing core convictions.

Conclusion

We need a unified movement of de facto incrementalists and humble abolitionists. We won’t win without winning politically. That means both groups are necessary. That requires the strategic incrementalism that Wilberforce practiced, but also the prophetic, uncompromising conviction Wilberforce maintained.

We need honest incrementalists desperate to end abortion completely. We need humble abolitionists who combine conviction with strategy. We don’t need incremental hypocrites systematically opposing measures necessary for abolition. We don’t need abolitionist performers treating brother wars as more important than building coalitions and ending abortion politically.

The unborn made in God’s image deserve better than a petty civil war. They deserve a movement combining conviction and wisdom at a political scale so massive it’s undeniable in political effectiveness and legal consequence. This movement needs unity. No one can win politically alone. For the sake of the unborn, incrementalist and abolitionists must work together.