I applaud and appreciate Senator Doug Mastriano’s desire to end abortion, but his criticism of Nche Zama’s approach to ending abortion is mistaken.
In recent public appearances related to their campaign for Pennsylvania Governor, both Mastriano and Zama have addressed the abortion issue. While both men want abortion to end, they have significant differences in their philosophy.
Mastriano supports heartbeat bills; Zama is opposed to them.
Heartbeat bills, if passed, make abortions illegal under certain circumstances while allowing it in others. Often the legislation stipulates that once a baby’s heartbeat can be detected, murder via abortion is no longer legal. These bills are seeking to limit the number of abortions that take place. However, the bills are in effect legislating that abortion is allowed under other circumstances.
At the Pennsylvania Family Gubernatorial Forum on March 24, Zama criticized heartbeat bills. “Life begins at conception…Therefore why do we compromise as Republicans and talk about heartbeat?” he said. “We’re contributing to the demise of a baby.” Zama said he would never sign a bill that allows abortion “at any point in that spectrum of life, from conception to birth.”
Zama’s critique of heartbeat bills is correct. Heartbeat legislation allows abortion up to a certain point; it encodes into law the legality of abortion and contributes to the murder of babies whose heartbeats are not able to be detected by manmade devices.
“Those babies in the womb need our protection,” Zama said. “We can’t equivocate and start talking about ultrasounds. Who are we to determine when there is a heartbeat? No abortion. A million babies killed each year. Murdered. And yet we’re trying to make allowances. Are we conservative or not?”
At a recent event, Mastriano had some comments about criticism of his proposed heartbeat bill. “I heard…some of my colleagues bashing the heartbeat bill,” he said. He went on to explain that the position of his colleagues amounts to an all-or-nothing approach that says if we cannot save all babies, we should not save any.
He referred to Oskar Schindler and his attempts to save Jews during World War II, stating that if the same logic were applied to Schindler, he should not have saved any Jews because he was not saving all Jews.
However, this fundamentally misses the problem with heartbeat bills.
The problem with heartbeat bills is that they legislate murder via abortion. A proper analogy to Nazi Germany would be to say that a heartbeat bill is like a law that only allowed young Jews to be murdered, while outlawing the murder of Jews over the age of ten. Such legislation would be an abomination to God. And yet, legislation that allows for the murder of babies under a certain age is just as wicked and abominable.
The argument made by Mastriano is that heartbeat bills will at least save some babies. However, there are a lot of different ways to save babies that do not involve crafting legislation that allows for the murder of other babies. In other words, there are righteous ways to save babies. In our effort to end murder we should not resort to crafting wicked laws which allow murder.
Heartbeat bills have another fatal flaw. If Roe v. Wade is ever overturned, abortion advocates will be able to point to heartbeat legislation on the state level and rightly argue that abortion is still legal according to state law, as set forth in legislation that allows abortion up to a certain point in the pregnancy.
Mastriano is correct in saying that life is one of the most important issues in our nation. He is correct in saying that life begins at conception. He is correct in his plan to pull all funding from Planned Parenthood and abortion providers in Pennsylvania. I appreciate all that. However, he is wrong in his approach to end abortion. Compromise is not the solution.
Curiously, Mastriano said that the Republican “all-or-nothing” approach has failed. But the all-or-nothing approach has not been the prevailing strategy of mainstream Republicans. In fact, some of the most strenuous opposition to bills that would outlaw all abortion have come from “pro-life” Republicans. And though it is true that Democrats have done the most to advance abortion, it was a Republican-appointed majority in the Supreme Court that ruled in Roe v. Wade.
I appreciate Mastriano’s appeal to Scripture in the issue of abortion, but my plea to him is to consistently apply the Bible. Because all life begins at conception—not when a heartbeat can be detected—it is wrong to support legislation that allows babies to be murdered if their heartbeats are undetectable.
There is no question in my mind that Mastriano would like to see all abortion ended. However, by adopting an unrighteous approach, he undermines his position.
As Christians, the question we need to ask ourselves about any proposed legislation is this: Is it righteous legislation? Legislation that allows some babies to be murdered is partial and wicked.
“We want all murder to stop—murder by abortion and from conception—that’s the biblical position,” Zachary Conover, Director of Communication for End Abortion Now said during a recent Apologia Radio podcast. “It doesn’t get any more biblical than that. The question becomes which efforts do we support? Are they the ones that God explicitly says that he hates in his Word? Or are they ones that he approves of?”
God hates the shedding of innocent blood (Proverbs 6:17) and he abhors unequal weights and measures (Proverbs 20:23). Heartbeat bills allow for the shedding of innocent blood and are unequal and unjust measures as they protect the life of some innocent babies while allowing the murder of others. Mastriano said, “My objective is to save life at conception and not play games.” I do not question his sincerity and desire, but heartbeat bills are worse than a game—they are unjust and evil. It might be a good thing for Pennsylvania if Mastriano is our next governor, but my prayer is that he will reconsider his position on heartbeat bills.
Chris Hume is the host of The Lancaster Patriot Podcast and the author of several books, including Seven Statist Sins. He can be reached at info@thelancasterpatriot.com.
