The Great Escape, a movie about crashing out of a German prison camp, is 60 years old this year. The pro-life movement after 50 years has crashed out of an American prison. Hurrah, but what’s next?
In the movie, 250 prisoners hope to escape and 73 do, but only three avoid recapture. In pro-life reality, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision is allowing some unborn children to escape, but with blue-state abortion refuges and widely available abortion pills, the judicial change by itself is probably saving only a small percentage.
Here’s one other Great Escape analogy. The prisoners hoping to escape dig three tunnels: Tom, Dick, and Harry. The idea is that if the guards discover one, the prisoners double their efforts on the second. Good idea, because the Germans discover Tom. The 73 escape from the second tunnel. The third is available for future use.
Pro-lifers dug not three but four tunnels. And it may be the fourth tunnel that proves most effective in the end.
First 3 Tunnels
Tunnel number one was direct action: Operation Rescue and other movements believed in physically stopping abortions from occurring. That tunnel had a cave-in in the early 1990s. Influential media characterized rescuers as bullies and the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act created stiff federal penalties for obstruction.
Pro-lifers dug four escape tunnels. And it may be the fourth tunnel that proves most effective in the end.
The second tunnel was judicial. After many disappointments, it finally worked with the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022, but we can’t expect the Supreme Court to do more than it’s already done.
The third is political, and those state-level battles continue, but travel and pills limit their effectiveness.
Final Tunnel
A fourth tunnel is individual, with crisis pregnancy and pregnancy resource centers offering compassionate counseling and material help in the form of cribs, diapers, and other essentials.
That tunnel over the decades has been an escape route for hundreds of thousands.
The tunnel of crisis pregnancy centers has been an escape route for hundreds of thousands.
It’s effective because it addresses what surveys and counselor experience say are the two main reasons for abortion: a catastrophic loss of relationships and a crushing fear of poverty and career derailment, immediate and future.
Relational and financial concerns have been important ever since the first recorded American abortions occurred almost four centuries ago, but cultural and societal changes mean pro-life Christians today have unique opportunities to meet those needs and usher children to safety.
Relationships
Previously, mothers with unwanted pregnancies often had social networks to rely on throughout pregnancy and after giving birth. Before most people lived in big urban areas, small communities had social and legal ways to help unmarried mothers in need. Friends and relatives provided continuing support. Men commonly married women they impregnated. Friends and relatives became a community backup.
Today, it’s easy for men to disappear into big crowds and avoid responsibility. No government program can reknit threads broken and sliced, so the creation of new community support, often church-related, is crucial. Christians must be people who see pregnant women in crisis and offer not only supplies but friendship.
Finances
The financial concerns are easier to address, but we need a vigorous debate on what the nation can afford, how we can pay for help when the national debt soars higher, and how to help in ways that encourage a strong work ethic. Two proposals—child tax credits and no-cost birth—need careful analysis.
Child tax credits, the concept of monthly per-child cash payments to parents, is a big proposal with significant support but clear disadvantages. Many worry that distributing federal money without work requirements creates parents who aren’t committed to providing for their children with their labor. That concern may be overblown, and caring for young children is certainly work, but I doubt whether monthly payments will fly politically. Besides, an estimated $2 trillion cost over the next decade is scary without the compensating tax increases that the GOP won’t endorse.
Another idea, put forward by Americans United for Life (AUL), impresses me. (Disclosure: an AUL grant in 1990 made possible my first book on the history of abortion.) Their nine-page proposal, “Make Birth Free,” notes that “the average cost of childbirth in the United States is nearly $19,000, and even privately insured mothers will likely pay more than $3,000 out-of-pocket simply for delivery.”
We hear a lot about structural racism in our society but little about what I’d call “structural abortionism.” “Make Birth Free” points out that insurance plans consistent with the Affordable Care Act make contraception totally free and sometimes cover abortion, but not out-of-pocket costs for giving birth. If a baby needs treatment in a neonatal intensive care unit, that out-of-pocket cost often soars beyond $10,000.
Insurance plans consistent with the Affordable Care Act make contraception totally free and sometimes cover abortion, but not out-of-pocket costs for giving birth.
“Make Birth Free” makes financial sense not only for parents but for the federal government: the overall cost depends on how plans are structured, but it’s always a small fraction of a $2 trillion child tax credit. “Make Birth Free” is also a readily graspable idea. Just as even skeptical Americans can understand pro-life arguments about partial-birth abortion, heartbeat bills, and unborn babies feeling pain, they can recognize the logic of free childbirth for everyone. The downside is it’s a temporary fix for new parents and might not move the needle much in alleviating financial fears. It’d also be most effective in connection with relational support.
Last month, I asked about “Make Birth Free” during a discussion with people in a mainline suburban church, a swing demographic that finds fault with the pro-life movement. Conservatives in the congregation asked about costs and work incentives; liberals asked about a guaranteed income and Medicare for all. At least they were thinking about practical solutions to forestall millions of “ordinary” killings and not focusing on only a small number of exceptionally hard cases.
So I’m open to this proposal and others. Some of the 73 escapees in The Great Escape prematurely celebrated. Some pro-lifers did the same after Dobbs. But we’re not home, not by a long shot, and we need creative ideas.