Table of Contents

PBP310H: Incrementalism in Pro-Life Politics

What is incrementalism? Is it ethical? Is it prudent?

Let's start with a video from We Need a Law, discussing incremental initiatives, such as their International Standards law - a late-term abortion ban.

Incrementalism is a political strategy to reach a goal through achieving success in small, discrete increments, rather than all at once. In this seminar, we'll discuss:

First, we'll look at a debate between incrementalism and immediatism that we can see from a movement of anti-abortion abolitionists, to help more clearly articulate our principles. Then, we'll turn to the Canadian debate over gestational limits and which kinds of incremental measures are acceptable to apply those principles.

Abolitionism: Incrementalism vs. Immediatism

There is a small but vocal movement of abolitionists, in particular in the United States, who argue that immediate abolition is the only moral response to abortion, and gradualism or incrementalism is immoral / a betrayal.

e.g.

Abolitionists use the term "pro-life" as a pejorative, and criticize all three arms of the pro-life movement:

They say:

Today, our focus is specifically on political strategy. (We've addressed why we take a secular role in apologetics and the relationship between pro-life activism and Christian ministry in other webinars.) While this debate exists mostly in an American context, understanding the criticisms of immediatists can help us to clarify our principles on incrementalism.

Scott Klusendorf says the immediatist argument is fundamentally flawed, and summarizes Gregg Cunningham's position:

  1. First, it assumes that pro-lifers have the power to immediately end abortion but simply won’t2)
  2. Second, the immediatist argument assumes no steps are better than any steps
  3. Third, immediatists get their history wrong
As Princeton University professor Robert George points out, “public opinion and other constraints may limit what can be done to advance a just cause”:
Politics is the art of the possible. . . . The pro-life movement has in recent years settled on an incrementalist strategy for protecting nascent human life. So long as incrementalism is not a euphemism for surrender or neglect, it can be entirely honorable. Planting premises in the law whose logic demands, in the end, full respect for all members of the human family can be a valuable thing to do, even where those premises seem modest. Fully just law would protect all innocent human life. Yet sometimes this is not, or not yet, possible in the concrete political circumstances of the moment.


Pro-life advocates are not satisfied with the status quo; they abhor abortion and would stop it immediately if they could. They are not “regulationists” who decide which babies live and which die. They have no such power. Instead, they work to pursue the good and limit the evil insofar as possible given current legal realities. That is not compromise.

So, we must be moral immediatists, but strategic incrementalism. That's how social reform happens.

Gestational Limits

FIXME Gestational limits debate now at PBP411H

FIXME it gets more complicated when you look at other legislative initiatives…

Extra Content

FIXME incrementalist step (age verification) helping shut down pornogrpahy sites https://dailycaller.com/2023/08/08/major-porn-sites-shutting-down-state-age-restrictions/

1)
Caleb VDW: Laws forbid things, what an incremental law forbids is evil, and well worth forbidding, forbidding one thing does not endorse any things not forbidden by that particular law For example, if the law against murdering born persons were up for debate today, with the options of either A) continuing to forbid the murder of born persons, or B) not forbidding any murder whatsoever, the “incrementalist” would be able to argue consistently against scrapping laws against murder, whereas the “immediatist” would have to argue that such a murder law excludes preborn children, and is therefore an evil law. There is also no logical reason why this logic ought to be constrained to the specific injustice known as murder. So once you hold the “immediatist” view, you cannot consistently defend any law except an absolutely perfect omnibus bill that forbids every injustice worth forbidding without exception, since apparently by not forbidding an injustice e we would be condoning it.
2)
Caleb VDW: Incrementalism ad we hold it is often compared to the incrementalism after the American civil war. A major difference there is that the American slavery incrementalism argued that we ought to work in increments while immediately abolishing slavery was well within their reach (as evidenced by the fact that in the end slavery did, in fact, end immediately), whereas our “incrementalism” is instead an argument that we ought to end abortion as immediately as possible while recognizing the unfortunate fact that an immediate end to the whole trade is unachievable at this time. The difference between electing to use increments when immediate solutions are available, and electing to use increments because immediate solutions are not, is very morally relevant, and very frequently ignored by those desperately trying to stay atop their apparent moral high ground.
3)
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/small-steps-toward-justice-a-review-of-clark-forsythes-politics-for-the-gre
4)
Forsythe, Politics for the Greater Good, 13.