Christian Media Sides With Kristan Hawkins

Over the last week, one of the pro-life industry’s largest figures attacked various Christians for their belief that abortion is murder. This escalated whereby she claimed that these Christian abolitionists were the biggest threat to her safety. In a brazen attempt to bully Christian ministries, Hawkins sent a cease and desist letter to Protestia over a meme that articulated her position that she would rather abortion be legal than punish women.

In the meantime, Christian media is readying to take sides in favor of the Students For Life gravy train of Kristan Hawkins. A Southern Baptist writer, Margo Ramirez, for the Christian Post wrote “The brewing pro-life civil war: Abolitionists vs. incrementalists” firmly placing the neocon outlet on the side of the pro-life industry against the biblical position.

While Students for Life boldly states on its website that it seeks to “abolish abortion,” Hawkins and SFLA have acknowledged that although it’s not ideal, an incrementalist approach can move the ball forward. In 2022, when Sen. Lindsey Graham proposed a 15-week abortion ban, she said that while the 15-week ban was not a “goal,” it would be a step toward achieving a more pro-life society. However, a year ago this month she opposed the idea of a federal 16-week abortion ban, suggesting it was “lousy” because it would still allow up to 94% of abortions to be committed annually.

Amid the debate over abortion abolitionism versus incrementalism, it was Root’s public rebuke of Hawkins’ recognition that mothers are also victims of abortion that raised my ire, just as I was enraged last year when Meghan Basham criticized Karen Swallow Prior’s opposition to the abortion abolitionist view that women must be punished, even imprisoned. The opinion that women who have abortions should face “some form of criminal sanction” was championed by Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, on his podcast, “The Briefing.” He argued that pro-lifers who don’t seek to punish mothers are exposing “an embarrassing shortfall” in their thinking, which fails to hold women to “moral accountability” for their actions.

Mohler offered similar commentary at the Southern Baptist Convention’s Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California, in 2022, when a couple of male messengers who seemed to harbor a disturbing hatred of women and an insatiable desire to see them suffer asked if he believed women who have abortions should be prosecuted, to which he indicated there should be some sort of punishment.

The Christian Post is arguing here that the belief that women should be held accountable for the sin of abortion is tantamount to hatred of women, a woke tactic of attributing standards and accountability to hatred. Arguing that the murderer is also a victim of murder is self-evidently retarded, but that is the influence of feminist leadership in the pro-life movement. The irrational stance of Ramirez has an explanation, in that, she murdered her own child once whilst claiming Christ and being staunchly pro-life.

In 2015, Lifeway Research released the results of a study that found 7 in 10 women who had an abortion identified as Christian — that is a shocking and alarming statistic.

If abortion abolitionists had their way, these women would be in prison instead of freely available to be trad wives cooking their meals and ironing their shirts. I say this in jest, but it exposes the reality that abortion abolitionists fail to see that the very women they’re seeking to punish might be their friends, mothers, sisters, girlfriend or maybe even their wife — forced to grieve in silence rather than be free to confess her sin to her husband or Christian community, as James 5:16 tells us to do: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”

Like many of you, I was raised in a Christian home by loving parents who were active participants in my life and ensured I was at church on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings, and back again for Sunday night Bible study. Unlike many of my friends in high school, I was staunchly pro-life. It was inconceivable to me how any woman could allow her baby to suffer a torturous death by having an abortion.

When I was in college, I often found myself immersed in heated abortion debates with roommates or anyone else who wanted to challenge me on the issue in our dorm room, which was often packed with opinionated friends who enjoyed discussing hot topics after a night out.

I never imagined that I, the girl who was staunchly pro-life — and still is — would later identify with the 7 in 10 Christian women who have had an abortion.

In failing to understand statistics, Ramirez argues that 7 in 10 Christian women committed murder at the conclusion of an argument that accountability would reduce the pool of marriageable women in the church.

Unlike how Root defined it in his X post, I was not “unrepentant,” and I would not say I had the abortion “willingly.” However, I also do not deny that, ultimately, it was my responsibility to protect my child, regardless of the circumstances I was in. My actions in my 20s mirrored that of many of the Christian friends I grew up with — all living in different cities and involved in sexual dating relationships. Yet I, again, the one who was the most vocally pro-life, was the one who became pregnant out of wedlock.

A Christian upbringing was undone by hoeing up in college, a phenomenon that needs more attention in the church. Despite the experience, Ramirez, hypocritically, views the abortion as against her will because it was not a five star experience. The gravity of committing murder is lost in lieu of generic pro-life platitudes that mean nothing when tested. So her views on abortion, which failed to stop her from committing a capital offense, should be adopted by the church. Such a bad argument, but this is what happens when we separate Christianity from fighting abortion.