A Response to Twitter Thread on Capital Punishment for Abortions

It started, as these things often do, with a simple question. A seemingly nice lady on Twitter—yet a representative of the typical emotionally-charged illogical reasoning of the mainstream pro-life movement—wanted to know how I think my church should handle a woman in our congregation who had an abortion.

Honestly, the question was framed with all the subtlety of a courtroom drama where the goal isn’t truth, but a cheap gotcha moment. She wanted to know, in no uncertain terms, whether I, in my dark, unfeeling soul, would be comfortable looking at a woman who had an abortion, a repentant sister in Christ, and telling her, point-blank, that she “should be dead.”

And there it was—the emotional grenade lobbed into what should be a rational discussion about justice.

This is the playbook of the so-called “pro-life” moderates, the ones who wring their hands at the idea of actual justice, the ones who want to pretend abortion is tragic but not quite a crime, the ones who refuse to call murder what it is.

And so, true to form, the conversation shifted into sentimentality. Would I dare say that a woman who repents should still face the death penalty under the law? To which I explained as plainly as possible that civil law and church discipline serve two different purposes.

Justice is not determined by the tearful confessions of the guilty but by the gravity of the crime committed. As I also argued during the conversation, it is widely believed that the serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, truly repented and came to Christ before facing punishment. He was born again, saved by the infinite blood of Christ, and became part of the Church. If you can’t stand the thought of seeing Jeffrey Dahmer in Heaven some day, I would seriously question your salvation and understanding of grace.

And yet, I still supported the death penalty for his crimes. Why? Because true justice demands it. Strong justice for such heinous acts is a deterrent for such acts and a failure to follow through with it renders the deterrent worthless.

This, of course, was too much for her to accept. She recoiled at the comparison—as though Dahmer’s depraved cannibalism and a mother’s premeditated decision to pay a hit man to dismember her child were fundamentally different species of sin.

But murder is murder. The means of execution don’t determine the moral weight of the crime. Yet, in the eyes of the modern, feminized pro-life movement, a mother is always the victim, even when she is the perpetrator.

She pressed on. Did I, in my supposed bloodlust, truly want the women in my church “carted off and executed”? Again, the predictable emotional theatrics. My answer remained consistent. I do not support retroactive justice where the death penalty was not a statutory punishment at the time of the crime. But I absolutely support changing the law to ensure that abortion is punished as murder going forward. That is justice. That is consistency. That is biblical.