Evangelical Fetus Fatigue

Justin Taylor links today to what I believe to be a powerful and prophetic call from philosopher Douglas Groothuis regarding what he calls "fetus fatigue" among younger evangelicals. Specifically Groothuis speaks of those evangelicals who wish to "broaden the tent of evangelical concern."

I agree with broadening the tent, and am concerned about poverty, the environment, racial justice, and other issues, and am frustrated by the apathy with which some conservative Protestant churches have approached such things. Still, one should be as shocked as Groothuis is at evangelicals who are willing to embrace political leaders who embrace abortion rights, often dismissing the unborn as "one issue among many."

Groothuis writes:

"It appears that millions of evangelicals, especially younger ones, are experiencing fetus fatigue. They are tired of the abortion issue taking center stage; it is time to move on to newer, hipper things--the sort of issues that excite Bono: aid to Africa, the environment, and cool tattoos. Abortion has been legal since they were born; it is the old guard that gets exercised about millions of abortions over the years. So, let's not worry that Barak Obama and Hillary are pro-choice. That is a secondary issue. After all, neither could do that much damage regarding this issue.

"Evangelicals (if that word has any meaning), for God's sake, please wake up and remember the acres of tiny corpses you cannot see. Yes, the Christian social vision is holistic. We should endeavor to restore shalom to this beleaguered planet. That includes helping Africa, preserving the environment, and much more. However, the leading domestic moral issue remains the value of helpless human life. Since Roe v. Wade, approximately 50 million unborn humans have been killed through abortion. Stalin said, "One death is a tragedy. A million dead is a statistic." Too many are now Stalinists on abortion. The numbers mean nothing, apparently. The vast majority of these abortions were not done to save the life of the mother, a provision I take to be justified. Things have reached the point where bumper stickers say, 'Don't like abortion, don't have one.' It is simply a matter of private, subjective taste. But how about this: "Don't like slavery, don't own slaves'? Two human beings are involved in this matter, inescapably. . . .

"Evangelicals, for God's sake, please wake up. Remember the least, the last, and the lost: the millions of unborn human beings who hang in the balance (Matthew 25:31-46). No, this is not the only issue, but it is a titanic issue that cannot be ignored. Rouse yourself to recover from fetus fatigue. God is watching."

Read the article. Pray for the "fetuses." And for the "evangelicals" too.

Comments

[Fr. J.]

How about Evangelical fatigue?

Having watched evangelicalism for the past 25 years, it is apparent that the movement is addicted to trends, hype, the latest in Christian music, bracelets, worship styles, church growth ploys, etc. etc. Why should political issues be any different?

One has to remember that the abortion issue was grafted onto Evangelicalism which does not have a systematic theology or moral teaching beyond "find it in the bible." I know that is harsh, but it becomes clear in comparison to Catholicism.

The abortion issue is not something tacked on to Catholicism but inherent in its theology, morality and even liturgical worship. The teaching against abortion goes back to the Didache or about 90 A.D. and has been consistently taught since then. Canon law gives the highest penalty to abortion, automatic excommunication, and has done so since time immemorial. Catholics celebrate conceptions, both the conception of Jesus (the Annunication) and that of Mary (the Immaculate Conception). We regard human life as sacred and ordained by God. Period.

Evangelicals only came on to the prolife scene around 1980 when Jerry Falwell made a deal with Ronald Reagan to split the Catholic vote and guarantee the evangelical vote for the Republican party. That's right. From the late 60's until the 1980's the Catholic Church stood alone against abortion. Even the Southern Baptist Convention was not pro-life in the 1970's!!

So, yeah, they are bored with the issue. But Evangelicals are always looking for something new to stimulate them. This is one of the fundamental differences between Evangelicals and Catholics. For Catholics are bound to the eternal verities.

[Bill R]

Leaving to one side the triumphalism in Fr. J's post, I can only hope that what he says is true, that is, that SOME Christians at least will not be "fatigued" if the world isn't changed in a generation. But the point of Doug Groothuis's article (for which I bless him, despite disagreements we've had here with him on feminist issues) is that it is principally younger evangelicals who are "fatigued." And I think that "fatigue" extends beyond just evangelicals--it's a generational dysfunction, a belief that if something isn't cured in a television season, well then, you "move on."

[Kathy Hanneman]

It's not just young evangelicals that are compromising on abortion. I was ashamed when I read this in a World Magazine blog posting:

This is becoming a not-uncommon position in the Christian community. In a recent column, pro-life author Frank Schaeffer, son of evangelical heavyweight Francis Schaeffer...wrote at The Huffington Post that Obama “is actually pro-life” because he has a “world view that actually nurtures life. Obama is trying to lead this country to a place where the intrinsic worth of each individual is celebrated.”

"The intrinsic worth of each individual"? Is that why Obama, as an Illinois State legislator, refused to vote in favor of saving babies born alive through botched abortions. I was just relieved that they didn't mention that Schaeffer is a member of an Orthodox Church.

[Bill R]

Frank Schaeffer, hunh? Gosh, what a surprise....

[Kamilla]

And one must wonder how long World will stand, or will they also succumb to fetus fatigue?

They've already succumbed on feminism in hiring a feminist as an editor of their webzine.

Kamilla

[David Gray]

>So, yeah, they are bored with the issue. But Evangelicals are always looking for something new to stimulate them. This is one of the fundamental differences between Evangelicals and Catholics. For Catholics are bound to the eternal verities.

How's that glass house looking?

[labrialumn]

What I believe has happened includes several elements:

The word 'evangelical' has been hijacked by existentialists and the neo-orthodox.

Many formerly evangelical colleges are now teaching the old liberalism of the 'mainstream'

The pastors have decided to avoid trouble and controversy in order to not lose numbers, which costs them their careers.

The students went to government schools and had the PC belief system hammered into them day after day, in every class and course, and have now come to believe much of it.

Fr. J, your post is not just 'harsh' it is overwhelmingly contrary to fact easy to find. And how many everyday American Catholics do you actually know? What would such a survey of -them- show?

[maggie]

I suppose I may be out of sync with the greater scope of the movement, but, based on my experience in the pro-life movement since I was old enough to hold an "Abortion Kills Babies" sign (@ 3 years old . . .), I don't think we should despair just yet.

I think young people like myself are perhaps simply tired of the tactics of conservative, pro-life politics, not the message itself. We want to be able to connect our pro-life principles with a holistic, community-based concern for life everywhere. So, instead of holding ugly signage or getting into political shouting matches, you find us elbow-deep in donated clothes at the local pregnancy resource center, or finding other compassionate, creative ways to reach our generation with Hope (I recommend the stuff done over at www.standfortruth.org). We want to care about aborted babies here at home, homeless orphans in Africa, and sex-slaves in Cambodia. Our voices have changed. Our hearts haven't.

[JPSmith]

Here's Frank Schaeffer gushing over Obama:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/why-this-former-right-win_b_84709.html

[Christopher Hathaway]

Right next to my non-Calvinist belief in Total Depravity (by which I hold that all men are inclined in all ways toward sin and corruption) is my similar belief in Total Stupidity (by which I hold that even the wise incline toward idiocy and that wisdom requires as much persistent self discipline as righteousness). People like Frank Schaeffer merely illustrates the doctrine.

I have to say that the first step toward this kind of foolishness is any attempt to liken the issue of abortion with other ussues in which the moral nature is decidedly less clear. There is no clear moral solution to poverty, the environment (there isn't really a moral position on what the environment is) or racial justice akin to the moral solution of abortion. Abortion isn't a condition that somehow just happens. It is a deliberate action permitted, facilitated and even advocated by our society and our political structure. The moral position is clear: Stp doing it and stop allowing it to be done.

Most all other issues are less clear due to their dependence upon the various analyses of causes of the condition and the effects of various solutions to it.

[Steve]

You know Maggie, we old people have been through all this before. Last time around, it was the "seamless garment." Same deal, "yes, abortion is bad, but so is blah blah blah - we must fight all equally." The problem then, as now, is that it was never a zero sum game to begin with, and strident anti-abortion activism never prevented people from caring about, and doing things about, other social problems. That was a canard invented by pro-choice circles, that anti-abortion activists didn't care about other problems, or didn't care about the lives of people once they were born (I've heard that so many times beyond counting). And sure enough, the seamless garment became a code word for tolerance of "choice" and a club for pro-abortion people in the church to beat on pro-life people. All the seamless garment idea did was provide a dodge for people in the church to avoid dealing with the issue.

So tell me how your desire to care for aborted babies saves any of them, if you will not confront the ugly reality of the practice and those who legislate it and carry it out? The signage is ugly because it is an ugly subject; there is no refining it, it is the murder of children. All you do when you shirk the confrontations and the straight talk is provide a cover for murder, to make it easier for people to delude themselves, to ignore and forget what is really going on.

Abortion isn't something that just happens, like Christopher said. It is premeditated, deliberate. It is disappointing to see that those who support and carry out abortions get a pass from you, but those who protest seem ugly and you are tired of them.

[Steve Nicoloso]

The word 'evangelical' has been hijacked by existentialists and the neo-orthodox.

The noun evangelical was appropriated by fundamentalists who were embarrassed by what they perceived to be their parents' intellectual and social deficiencies. Fundamentalism, though ostensibly a reaction to much of modernity (a pretty much laudable goal that), is itself a thoroughly modern (and ultimately modernistic, i.e., largely deracinating, abstract, ideological, often utopian) manifestation. It's degeneration into evangelicalism, which may be broadly described as "fundamentalism sans aversion to modernity", was therefore predictable from the start. It was itself the first few steps on the path that mainline Protestant churches and their faithful began to take a generation (or at most 2) earlier. Evangelicalism's further degeneration into... well, what can fairly be described as late mainline Protestant liberalism (or existentialism and neo-orthodoxy if you prefer)... is the perfectly natural course for those bound by no creed, but rather by merely voluntary association, not by ontology or heredity, but instead by social contract. It was a foundation upon sand to begin with; a beautiful, carefully constructed, well-intentioned foundation, but placed squarely on sand.

Now Fr. J may not know the rules of the game here: Pronounce at least as strong a pox on one's own house before lobbing one on another's, but that bit about Catholics standing alone in the 70s was more or less true. I'd like to see the Criswells of the world at least wear a hairshirt or something for it. And the point scores for today's question: Perhaps there is a fickleness, a lack of rootedness, an adolescent boredom, a desire to be cool that inheres to evangelical circles, all of which makes this "news" about evangelicals getting "squishy" on abortion rather unsurprising. I myself began to get a strong whiff of this back in about 2003-4 or so... which was for me, upon connecting the dots with divorce, remarriage, and contraception, the beginning of the end.

[Bill R]

"Perhaps there is a fickleness, a lack of rootedness, an adolescent boredom, a desire to be cool that inheres to evangelical circles, all of which makes this "news" about evangelicals getting "squishy" on abortion rather unsurprising."

You might have a point, Steve, were it not for the fact that Catholics (like Evangelicals) have abortion rates not much different than the unchurched.

[labrialumn]

That is a seriously truncated history of evangelicalism.

Regarding the very words of God as a foundation built upon sand turns Jesus' words upside down.

Turning to heredity as an antidote is to make the mistake of the Sadducees.

I'll take the Uncreated over the created any day of the week as my ultimate concern, integration point, and foundation.

"but we are children of Abraham!" "God can raise up sons of Abraham from the stones of the ground!"

[David Gray]

>Pronounce at least as strong a pox on one's own house before lobbing one on another's, but that bit about Catholics standing alone in the 70s was more or less true.

Actually I've heard a great many Protestant ministers talk about the shame of how we reacted to Roe vs Wade initially.

[DGP]

>>Now Fr. J may not know the rules of the game here: Pronounce at least as strong a pox on one's own house before lobbing one on another's,

I took it for granted that folks recognized Fr. J's indelicacy, but perhaps I should have interjected here: As a matter of courtesy, if not "the rules," it is seems better for members of the same communion to take responsibility for disciplining their own. But Bill R had already identified it as triumphalism, so I passed. Now let it be noted: Leaders of the RCC did (and do) much to promote moral equivocations such as those derived from the "seamless garment" phrase described above. This is the *disadvantage* of the thoughtful, integrated theological architecture for which the RCC rightly takes credit: It provides lots of camouflage for rationalizations.

[V-Dawg]

"So tell me how your desire to care for aborted babies saves any of them"--Steve
Maggie was referring to working at crisis pregnancy centers. Such work is of course for the purpose of preventing abortions by changing minds. It has worked. Repeatedly. I do not claim (nor do I think Maggie does) that the old pro-lifers didn't care about the actual mothers and children. They were the ones who started crisis pregnancy centers, after all. What I do know is that I and others close to my age have tired of political battles that seem to make little difference, and have tired of politicians who market to Christians until election day, then ignore them. I do not say we should abandon political activism, and perhaps I and others underestimate its importance, but there is weariness coming to my generation, I think.
Going back to the original question, I do think some young evangelicals have paid too little attention to abortion, and it is right to rebuke them for it. But do not mistake changes in methods for changes in commitment.

[Steve]

V-dawg:

Fair enough.

[maggie]

V-dawg, thank you. You said what I meant to say with much less pride ;-)

Steve, I'm sorry if my post came off as condescending and did not clearly communicate what I was trying to say (the danger of being young and opinionated). Forgive me.

I don't think the "ugly signs" are necessarily a bad tactic. All I know is that in my own life, standing on sidewalks holding signs has only aided my own prediliction for a prideful/angry kind of "martyr-complex," whereas volunteering at CPCs has enabled me to take a more humbling and loving approach to the movement . . . Those who are better spiritually equipped than I are perhaps better at the whole sign thing.

[labrialumn]

With the access 'law' and the RICO suits against pro-lifers who both participated in protests, -and- worked at pregnancy centers, the way the pro-life movement went about things had to change.

That does not mean that Calvin didn't write the Institutes of Religion, that there is no Book of Concord, that there are no Dispensationalist systematics. It means that the Adversary had illegal laws, illegaly enacted to cut down on the awareness before the public of our position.

[Major Wootton]

I think a lot of the fatigue is really fatigue with the Republican Party. I have voted Republican for over 30 years because it was supposedly the relatively pro-life party. Are we any better off than in 1976, the first presidential election in which I could vote? I am tired of being suckered for my vote. Apparently there is no chance of rolling back abortion through politics, so we might as well look at other issues. We are at least allowed to talk about them, since abortion is a totally lost cause as far as the two party system is concerned. They've had Repub majorities in Congress and the Oval Office, but they couldn't even get up much enthusiasm for the Constitutional definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman... Since we are stuck with these two lousy parties, we can at least consider other issues we care about where maybe the two-party system isn't so hopeless.

[DGP]

>>Are we any better off than in 1976, the first presidential election in which I could vote?

Yes, we are. One of the most important ways in which we are better off is that legalized abortion has *not* become a settled issue over the past thirty years. An entire generation has elapsed, under tremendous pressure to accept the abortion license as an inevitable feature of American life, but here we are, still enjoying the privilege of griping about how our politicians haven't made enough legal progress. (BTW, whose fault is that, besides ours?)

Consider the trajectory of parallel issues -- i.e., those related to sexual liberties. Hardly anyone even *remembers* that in the 1960s the Supreme Court mandated the availability of contraception, and then a few years later the legal equivalence of marital and extramarital sexual activity. People reconsidering our catastrophic divorce regime are themselves considered little better than kooks. From Bowers v Hardwick to Lawrence v. Texas, homosexuality is on the fast track to becoming a "fundamental human right," and resistance is relatively feeble compared to that offered by the pro-life movement.

Am I content? No. Are we better off, thanks to the pro-life movement? Yes. Empatically, yes.

[Major Wootton]

DGP, your comment isn't quite to the point. I wasn't denying that the pro-life movement has kept the "issue" as a topic for discussion. I was saying that, despite this, little if anything has changed in the realm of politics and law. Therefore I can understand why, when they are asked about political priorities, some Christians would refer to issues where they may feel there is still some hope of positive changes coming about politically. I don't expect to vote for a Democrat, which as far as I know I never have done. But if I continue to vote for Republicans, it will not be because I have much respect for the party's work for life or against homosexual "rights," etc. Thanks to those issues the Republicans have drawn votes for a generation that they do not deserve, and they deserve to lose big this year because of that (and some other issues, too). Up till now the Republicans basically could have counted on my vote because I would not vote for those pro-abortion Democrats. I've cast a lot of votes that the party didn't deserve. I regard myself as no longer bound in conscience to vote against the Democrats, since the alternative is really not so different, on this issue. I will have to think harder now than I used to about who to vote for. Or whether to vote at all. Part of me is hoping that people who would have voted Republican will stay away in droves and thus compel the party to consider not exploiting, but actually honoring, the ethical convictions of Christians who cast Republican votes.

[Major Wootton]

PS I am neither young nor an evangelical, so perhaps I am out of line in commenting. I'm a 52-year-old conservative Lutheran.

[DGP]

>>DGP, your comment isn't quite to the point. I wasn't denying that the pro-life movement has kept the "issue" as a topic for discussion. I was saying that, despite this, little if anything has changed in the realm of politics and law.

On the contrary, I think I was on point. You draw what I believe is an artificial distinction between two categories of benefit. I say to you: Your supposedly futile votes based purely on pro-life promises (which you say are unmet, yet another arguable point) are *precisely* what has kept the issue alive. This is a cultural accomplishment of inestimable value, even if it hasn't brought about the jurisprudential changes you'd like.

Stubborn voters for whom this single issue is decisive have frustrated the Enemy: They keep the issue in political platforms, keep people debating, keep provoking enemies to sometimes self-defeating tactics, keep otherwise reckless politicians cautious, prevent cautious politicians from selling out, provide political cover for the occasional truly pro-life politician, and so forth. Do not compare the present situation with a snapshot of 1976, but rather with the extrapolation from 1976 to the present of where we'd be *without* citizens such as yourself.

[Major Wootton]

So, DGP, what do you suggest? That, dismayed as we are by "nation-building" militarism abroad, use of torture, a stance that "the American way of life is not negotiable" (i.e. oil-based consumerism), etc., we should still vote Republican because it is a little more pro-life than the Democrats are?

[Judy K. Warner]

Pro-life activity may have met with little success in the political and legal arenas (though there has been some slight incremental progress in both, with the passage and eventual upholding of the ban on partial-birth abortion), but this ongoing activity has changed the culture enough that the number of abortions has dropped and young people are increasingly pro-life. That is much more than keeping the issue as a topic for discussion. It is actual lives saved. And as DGP indicated, this happened during the same period that homosexuality has become acceptable among almost all young people.

[DGP]

>>So, DGP, what do you suggest? That, dismayed as we are by "nation-building" militarism abroad, use of torture, a stance that "the American way of life is not negotiable" (i.e. oil-based consumerism), etc., we should still vote Republican because it is a little more pro-life than the Democrats are?

Now who's off point? I'm not sure what you mean by "we." I claim only that voting pro-life has accomplished much, even if not an end to legalized abortion. It is not to be scorned. Meanwhile, this year and in future years, let every man form his conscience well and vote as his prudence directs.

[labrialumn]

"People reconsidering our catastrophic divorce regime are themselves considered little better than kooks."

And that -within- the church :-(

Major Wootton, that means you are an Evangelical.

But to vote for pro-aborts when a non-pro-abort can be voted for (and there are more than two parties) is 'material assistance to a grave sin' in Catholic thinking. In Lutheran teaching, you would probably have to avail yourself of the office of the keys if you were to receive the Sacrament of the Altar again, without endangering yourself.

You might want to read Luther's discussion on the 10 Commandments in the Larger Catechism.

[Francesca]

>>But to vote for pro-aborts when a non-pro-abort can be voted for (and there are more than two parties) is 'material assistance to a grave sin' in Catholic thinking. <<

However, voting for those who would criminalize abortion has proven to be an exercise in futility. Even when political candidates are sincere on the issue (which I don't believe is very often,) it's vitually impossible to enforce anti-abortion laws in the countries where they do exist (meaning those countries continue to have high rates of illegal but unsafe abortions,) and the national concensus is such that abortion is not going to be criminalized anyway. Not only that, but the putative "anti-abortion" candidates have, over the past generation, typically supported morally abhorrent positions regarding war, torture, health care, and the environment, so that one's prolife vote is so often not only useless in itself, but it is effective in enabling unrelated immorality. In the absence of a viable, prolife third party and a cultural sea change regarding abortion, one's best hope is to vote for candidates that support policies that statistically correlate with steep reductions in abortion, viz. universal health care, support for single mothers, rigorous sex education, and readily available and effective contraception.

[Judy K. Warner]

What a coincidence that Francesca's prescriptions to lower abortion coincide with the liberal agenda! I think these policies statistically correlate with northern European countries which are prosperous, are relatively educated, until recently have been homogeneous, and retain the vestiges of their Protestant or Catholic culture.

[Francesca]

>>What a coincidence that Francesca's prescriptions to lower abortion coincide with the liberal agenda! <<

The "conservative agenda" has failed. Maybe it's time to accept reality and look at some hard data, however counter-intuitive the conclusions may seem. For example:

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/06/4/gr060407.html

[Bill R]

"guttmacher.org"

Ah, Planned Parenthood! What an excellent source of pro-life data!! Guttmacher, of course, was President of Planned Parenthood. Sort of like looking to Screwtape as one's spiritual advisor....

[Francesca]

>>Ah, Planned Parenthood!<<

Shooting the messenger is not going to make reality conveniently disappear. The Guttmacher Institute is one source of many. The Lancet recently published similar conclusions based on WHO statistics.

We need to start taking an honest look at what countries like The Netherlands, with an abortion rate about a third of our own, are getting right.

[DGP]

>>In the absence of a viable, prolife third party and a cultural sea change regarding abortion, one's best hope is to vote for candidates that support policies that statistically correlate with steep reductions in abortion, viz. universal health care, support for single mothers, rigorous sex education, and readily available and effective contraception.

There is one, and only one, factor that is powerfully and universally correlated with the frequency of abortion: Legality. Unfortunately, in the United States, voting for pro-life candidates can be at best only tangentially effective, as the legalization of abortion was not (in most places) established by elected officials, but by the judiciary.

Elected officials cannot accomplish what Major Wootton, et al., seem to expect. For major progress, we need pro-life (that is to say, philosophically competent) judges. Yes, voting for pro-life Senators and Presidents can help, but only when the number of pro-life Senators exceeds 50, and preferably 60. This has not happened, not even under Republican majorities, unless you count all Republicans as pro-life -- which, of course, you can't, not even as a matter of principle, still less of voting habits.

I suspect that many who scorn the achievements of the pro-life movement seem to me to be setting the bar impossibly high, precisely so that they can then throw up their hands in frustration, and absolve themselves of future obligations.

[Francesca]

>>I suspect that many who scorn the achievements of the pro-life movement seem to me to be setting the bar impossibly high, precisely so that they can then throw up their hands in frustration, and absolve themselves of future obligations.<<

As you acknowledge, voting "pro-life" has proven to be "at best only tangentially effective." Being part of the pro-life movement means seeking effective solutions within a realistic framework.

[DGP]

>>As you acknowledge, voting "pro-life" has proven to be "at best only tangentially effective."

"Tangential" does not mean "marginal." Voting is less *directly* effective only with respect to ending legalized abortion. There are lots of other ways in which it's very effective.

[Nick]

Maybe I'm confused, but from a (c/C)atholic perspective, when, exactly, is an abortion of any sort "safe" as opposed to Francesca's "unsafe".

Not to mention political will in the abortion movement is failing in the US. I can actually talk about it at work without being stoned. Things have already changed.

Then Francesca rips out her link about contraceptives, which, of course, is why she's a flag carrying "thinking" Catholic. This isn't about abortions (and I'm far more liberal than the RC position on things like condoms that aren't potential abortificants) its about RC sexual mores. That being said the chart in question borders on silly. Are you really going to compare the non-equal socio-economic groups like Brazil and the Netherlands and claim that the abortion reduction is solely based on access to contraceptives? Really? Might there be a question of how indigenous people were counted in the case of Brazil (with its huge populations of such)? How about the non-equal comparison of dates (all "contraceptive adverse" countries have earlier dates)?

Try harder next time.

[c matt]

What to do? It's a no-brainer that you can't vote for Democrats (sorry, Francesca, try as you might to convince, claims that they are trying to "reduce" abortion while wholeheartedly supporting the slaughter just rings a bit hollow).

But perhaps it is time for the Republicans to spend some time in the political wilderness before reaching the White House promised land again. Maybe next time in, they will be more responsive to pro-life supporters.

[Francesca]

>>What to do? It's a no-brainer that you can't vote for Democrats (sorry, Francesca, try as you might to convince, claims that they are trying to "reduce" abortion while wholeheartedly supporting the slaughter just rings a bit hollow).<<

I don't know that they have the conscious goal of reducing abortion, but their policies certainly have the serendipitous effect of doing so. The Republicans aren't going to criminalize abortion (doing so would neutralize their one-issue voters, there's no consensus, and outlawing abortion can't be effectively enforced,) so I'm looking at what I can do within a realistic framework.