Overestimating The Depravity Of Abortion

Abortion is an atrocity by Biblical standards, but it is not the ultimate atrocity that evangelicals almost universally treat it as.  Pro-life stances are sometimes the only thing taken into serious consideration when evangelicals promote a given politician over another, as if nothing else could possibly matter as much or more than the murder of the unborn.  Biblically speaking, murder is a grave offense, and it is one that merits capital punishment (Exodus 21:12-14), for only select scenarios call for or justify the killing of a human being.  There are simply acts that exceed murder in brutality, cruelty, and degradation, as distant from the average evangelical's life as they may be.

If stopping harm that the Bible deems unjust was the goal of evangelicals, eliminating abortion would not be their uttermost top priority.  Someone who suffers through a year of prison rape and other forms of prison violence has endured something far worse than abortion, and the same is true of someone who lives through a year in a physically abusive marriage relationship.  Abortion is talked about more openly than prison rape and certain other manifestations of sexual abuse; this is true.  However, it is not as important of an issue in itself because murder is not the worst treatment of other people.

The unjust extinguishing of a human life is not the most malicious or degrading treatment possible.  Both reasoning prior to experience and direct encounters with more intense forms of violence can reveal that killing, no matter how callous or gleeful, is actually quite tame compared to certain other acts, unless the killing is preceded by immense torture or some other kind of abuse.  Evangelicalism thrives on elevating abortion above practically all other moral and political issues, however, so it would be inconsistent for a conservative Christian to admit that a rationalistic understanding of Biblical ethics does not lead to the idea that abortion must be stopped at the expense of even mentioning other depravities.

It is not that abortion is trivial, but that mere murder is easily not the worst offense that is humanly possible, even when it is committed against unborn children in the name of unapologetic selfishness.  Indeed, a total innocence of the victim does not make particular other acts less vile simply because they are not or cannot be carried out against the unborn.  Treating abortion as the ultimate sin against one's fellow humans is therefore asinine, trivializing the more unjust and more oppressive acts that humans can inflict on each other.  One can reject abortion while also realizing that there are more injurious ways to disregard human life than even casual murder.