Immediatism: Noble but naive solution to ending abortion2 min read

It certainly would be nice if we just decided abortion would end the entire country would follow suit. That’s immediatism. The concept that the only solution to abortion is a complete and immediate ban on the practice. In an ideal world, that would happen. We’d wake up tomorrow and all of America would decide, “Hey, maybe killing babies by the millions is bad and disgusting.” That sure would be nice! But realistically, will that happen?

The problem with immediatism isn’t the desire for an immediate end to abortion. That’s a noble, righteous desire. Any pro-life advocate can agree, we don’t want any dead babies.

The wrong type of extreme

But immediatism, like many other -ism’s, is a radical take on the idea to a complete and immediate abolition of abortion. You see, the Immediatists believe anything short of a complete and immediate ban on abortion is morally and effectively as bad as abortion itself. The Immediatist ignores the current state of society and politics. Certainly, we recognize the middle is defined by the extremes. This is why we push for nothing short of groundbreaking legislation which will turn abortion on its head — even if the current state of politics isn’t favorable.

All of our strategies push towards an end game of banning abortion. There are such things as BAD pro-life legislation. There are fights which are a waste of energy and resources for too small of a victory. We believe effective and meaningful legislation is our goal, but we will not vilify the well-meaning efforts of other pro-lifers for shooting less than the stars. We certainly don’t believe they are as bad as those wanting to kill babies!

We have limited resources, time, money, and people. We must pick our fights carefully and thoughfully. Some pro-life legislation lauded by other pro-life groups is actually harmful to accomplishing more (blog article on this very topic forthcoming). But our admonishment of bad pro-life legislation is a result of calculated strategy, not radical fanaticism and cold judgement.

Spiritual state of America

We recognize that America is under God’s wrath. The rapid secularization and unraveling of our moral framework is a natural result of rejecting Him and His righteous decrees. Abortion is a byproduct of man’s sinful nature — placing self above God and all others. Only an act of God can change the hearts and minds of our society (though we believe God often uses us as means to that end.

Hard work ahead

With this in mind, we realize the immediate end of abortion is unlikely. That doesn’t mean we won’t fight tooth and nail to enact legislation which can progressively end abortion in every single state. We will continue to evaluate legislation and focus strategically on meaningful legislation which holds politicians accountable and can save the greatest number of children.

But we do this in the context of realizing abortion won’t end tomorrow, all of a sudden, because we decided it would. It will end because of our tireless efforts and wise use of resources.