The Christian Case For Terrorism

Do you believe that abortion is murder? Why are you complicit?

Do you believe that abortion is murder? Then why aren’t you acting to stop it? It has always struck me as bizarre that Christians so universally condemn taking justice into their own hands and preventing abortion as murder. Surely you would consider it commendable to stop a human sacrifice in progress – why not, then, the murder of the unborn? There are two counterarguments, practical and theological, which I will deal with in turn.

First, the practical. Would it reduce abortion rates? And would it reduce abortion rates after second order effects are taken into account? We must obviously state that unsanctioned violence against abortion providers is relatively more attractive when there is no prospect of abortion being banned, or when hearts have been hardened and there is nothing more to be lost. Two economists, Jacobson and Royer, looked at the effects of violence of all kinds on abortion provision. Using a difference-in-differences approach, they found that a terrorist attack led births in an area to increase by 1%, and caused a much larger decrease in abortions provided in that area. Yes, people traveled, which mitigated some of the effect. Increasing frictions reduces abortions nevertheless. Andersen, Bryan, and Slusky (2021) look at the effect of Covid-era restrictions on abortion clinics, and finds that they did increase the birth rate and reduce the abortion rate. The literature is consistently in favor of this, and really no serious theory would find that raising the price of an abortion increases abortion. This is not the minimum wage – there is no monopsony model of abortion.

The primary concern for terrorism is that it will alienate voters, and prevent a legislative ban. The main era of violence was in the 80s and 90s, which were Republican dominated eras, but we can’t assume that that was the only thing going on. I do strongly believe that the backlash to abortion terrorism would be much smaller than to abortion restrictionism by the government. One of them is your party’s actual platform; the other are some radicals who have nothing whatsoever to do with the party. For the connections must be denied; as he said, “Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites … But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you”. (Matthew 6:5-6) As was said elsewhere, “The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one”.

I think the theological arguments against are not sound. Jesus commanded us to turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:38). But this does not command us to not resist evil. It is a proscription of revenge, as Romans 12:17 makes clear. Other verses are clearly in support of using violence to prevent evil actions. Did Jesus not take up the whip to drive the money changers out of the Temple? Does the Old Testament not redound with examples of just violence meted out in self-defense? If a thief is killed, does it not incur no bloodguilt? (Exodus 22:3)? Did Jesus not command his followers to acquire swords to defend themselves when the future became more inhospitable? (Luke 22:36) No interpreter of the bible insists upon total passivity in the face of evil.

Nor can you evade it by citing Jesus’s answer to the hypocritical questioners, by saying that one should render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. You may obey lawful authority, but the state is not Caesar. It is not a far away empire or a king, a thing to be obeyed rather than controlled. The government is us. We determine what policies it has, and when we vote to ban an action we are committing an act of violence as surely as when we are its hired agents, or a vigilante. Jesus said, “You would have no power over me were it not given from above. Therefore it is he who bears the guilt.” (John 19:11) Who bears the guilt when we direct it? And once we allow for us controlling the government, then it makes no sense for war to be just only when the sovereign directs it, as with Romans 13. It is not even war – it is self-defense.

It should be clear that I regard abortion as murder, but I am not a Christian. I do not have an unconditional repulsion to violence – I am against it only insofar as restricting it would make us better off. Therefore, I support abortions, up to and beyond birth.

I think we should think about what sort of abortion policy would make us best off. For example, where should the limits of abortion be? When one dies, one feels pain, but then nothing more – upon someone’s death, they cease to be of any moral concern. What matters is what they think and feel before death. If someone knows that they might be killed, it causes fear. If someone is too young to feel fear or know anything, then there can surely be no harm in them being killed – no more than there was harm in them being killed in utero. We should have far more kindness for those mothers who drown their infants.

At the same time, a parent killing their child damages others. Beyond the positive economic externalities of additional children, it takes two to create a child, and all of the parties may be in agreement. What people should do is enter into a contract before they have sex over what should be done if a child results. If two people willingly conceive a child, and the contract stipulates that the child cannot be aborted without permission, then the child must be brought to term, or else the mother pay an indemnity for breach of contract. In the case where there is no contract, the welfare of the father should enter into whether an abortion is permissible. If it is late in the term, and so the cost to the mother is lower, at some point the best outcome is for the mother to bear the child to completion and hand it over to the one who wishes to take care of it. And obviously, with infanticide there is no case in which the father should not have some say in it.

So I would not advocate for terrorism. But I don’t think some people have fully thought through why they don’t.