Kansas Pro-Life Groups Propose Trojan-Horse Legislation to Thwart Abolitionists, Backed by SBC

Kansans For Life has actively threatened to run incrementalist candidates to primary any abolitionist political candidates who oppose the “Value Them Both” amendment.

Paul Brown

Following a 2019 Kansas Supreme Court Decision that derived a constitutional right to abortion out of thin air, pro-life incrementalists in Kansas proposed a constitutional “Value Them Both” amendment, that would clarify that there is no constitutional right to an abortion, while also proposing a constitutional right to continually regulate abortion through legislation. Abolitionists in the state, led by AIM KS (Abortion is Murder, KS) are warning that the upcoming vote on the amendment is actually a trojan horse that is intended to perpetuate the incrementalist cause, regulating abortion rather than abolishing the murder of pre-born babies.

Abolitionists and pro-life incrementalists agree that the decision by the Kansas Supreme Court requires a constitutional amendment to declare that there is no constitutional right to an abortion, but the incrementalist proposal puts Kansas on the same path as Oklahoma and Louisiana, who saw abolitionist bills that would totally ban abortion replaced by weak incrementalist bills that merely sought to regulate the murder of children. In Kansas the “Value Them Both” incrementalist amendment replaced an abolitionist amendment that conferred personhood on all pre-born children, effectively rendering all abortion murder.

Kansans For Life has actively threatened to run incrementalist candidates to primary any abolitionist political candidates who oppose the “Value Them Both” amendment. The amendment has been marketed as a bi-partisan bill, because it doesn’t actually ban abortion, a point that is proudly declared by the Value Them Both organization.

Liberal elements in the judiciary will likely rule that the amendment’s “laws that accounts for circumstances” clause actually enshrines so-called “life of the mother” exceptions that can be broadly interpreted to allow for abortion in cases where the birth of a child is deemed emotionally or psychologically harmful for the woman, a low bar that can easily crossed by an abortion clinic that works in conjunction with a pro-choice psychologist.

Creators of “Value Them Both” deceptively labeled the amendment as pro-woman and pro-baby, because the bill will allow for future legislation that regulates some abortion, all the while preventing an abolitionist declaration of pre-born personhood that would effectively declare a woman who aborts her baby to be a murderer.

Incrementalists make arguments similar to Denny Burk, who claims that women who have abortions may not fully understand that they are killing a baby. Culpability for murder of a pre-born baby should fall on both the abortionist and the mother. When an individual hires a hitman, both are responsible for murder. When parents give their children over to sex traffickers, both the parents and the traffickers are responsible for the crime of sex trafficking. The incrementalist position departs from logical consistency and the standard of scripture, when it comes to holding women accountable for murdering their children.

Following in the incrementalist steps of the ERLC of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Kansas Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists has endorsed “Value Them Both”, which isn’t surprising considering that the convention has recently taken a wild turn to the left on social issues. There will come a day when believers will answer for the compromise of incrementalism.

Unfortunately, many conservative Christians continue to unwittingly fall for the false advertising of the pro-life industry.