In the past three years since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, pro-life organizations have been searching for a new national priority. They appear to have found one in the form of permanently defunding Planned Parenthood.

This objective, of course, is far from an original idea. Any conservative voter will know all too well that Republicans have been promising it for decades.

We should end the abortion holocaust without exception or compromise.

This year saw the first time national Republicans actually did defund Planned Parenthood. But it was only for one year — a lackluster achievement given that Republicans control both Congress and the White House.

A coalition of pro-life groups such as Live Action, Students for Life, and National Right to Life has now set “a permanent taxpayer defund of all organizations that commit abortion” as their new national priority.

The intention, according to Live Action, is to make sure Planned Parenthood is “permanently defunded” by July 4 of next year.

Certainly, stopping the flow of taxpayer dollars to organizations like Planned Parenthood is a worthy action, and we hope it is successful. But setting that as a central priority of the anti-abortion agenda is underwhelming at best, and doing so will end up distracting from what should be the ultimate goal — passing laws to abolish abortion.

Defunding is not enough

We live in the midst of a holocaust. Beyond the more than 65 million pre-born babies murdered under Roe, abortion numbers have continued to increase over the past three years since it was overturned, now surpassing 1 million pre-born babies per year.

This trend even extends to red states with restrictions claiming to ban abortion.

The removal of taxpayer dollars from the abortion holocaust is not wrong. But it is far from an action that will move us toward a decisive end to the bloodshed. Moreover, setting the mere defunding of baby murder as a central priority diminishes the gravity of this atrocity.

The main problem with abortion is not that we are forced to help pay for it. The main problem is that people are murdering babies.

We should not merely defund specific facilitators of the abortion holocaust. We should end the abortion holocaust without exception or compromise. The best way to defund Planned Parenthood is to criminalize abortion as murder.

For every year we let something else overshadow that objective, we allow another million babies made in the image of God to be murdered.

False victory

As we have seen before, many leading pro-life groups have shown a pattern of overstating their wins. Some will undoubtedly do that if Planned Parenthood is defunded. Such inflated rhetoric misleads anti-abortion Christians and conservatives to think substantial victories have been won, decreasing their zeal to remain engaged and win the actual battle.

When leaders at Planned Parenthood Michigan closed four locations earlier this year, Students for Life insisted that “the death industry is collapsing under its own weight” and proclaimed that “fewer Planned Parenthoods” means there are now “fewer babies killed.”

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But just a few months after that proclamation of victory, Planned Parenthood Michigan announced that it would expand virtual appointments to “seven days a week, including weekends, morning, and evening appointments.” The organization also reported “growing demand” for the virtual appointments, leading it to “expand the program even further.”

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America has also called the defunding of Planned Parenthood this year the “biggest national pro-life victory” since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. The organization has repeatedly highlighted the closure of individual abortion clinics as evidence that “the lives of moms and babies are being protected.”

In its public statements about the move, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America insisted that Planned Parenthood closures are evidence that “life is winning.” The organization failed to include the context that abortion rates across the nation are still on the rise.

In other words, the closure of physical abortion clinics does not necessarily mean fewer babies murdered. But pro-life groups celebrating as if that were the case are sorrowfully leading anti-abortion people to think otherwise.

Exaggerated impact

Planned Parenthood facilitates about one-third of all abortions in America. But even if it lost access to taxpayer dollars, the same number of abortions in our nation would almost certainly continue.

If the federal government were to cut off all funds to Planned Parenthood, the organization would find money elsewhere — from blue-state legislatures, from private billionaire donors, and most of all from the men and women who themselves fund Planned Parenthood by paying to murder their own pre-born babies.

Also, taxpayer money does not cause the abortion holocaust in our nation, but it subsidizes an already existing marketplace that will continue even if Planned Parenthood disappears tomorrow.

In other words, as long as there is abortion demand, there will be some form of abortion supply. We must address both the supply and demand for abortions, or else the murder of pre-born babies will continue.

The real priority

By prioritizing a weak objective of defunding Planned Parenthood, pro-life groups might achieve exactly that goal, but they will not get more than that goal any time soon. In order even to substantially decrease abortion in America, let alone actually abolish abortion, a much more ambitious goal must be set.

That is why every anti-abortion leader and organization should support legislation enacting equal protection of the laws for pre-born babies, which would not only break the power of abortion providers, but truly abolish abortion itself.

Christian conservatives rightly affirm that pre-born babies are made in the image of God and should be protected from the moment of fertilization. By calling for equal protection bills at the state and federal levels, anti-abortion groups would be setting the expectation that the exact same laws protecting born people from murder should protect pre-born people as well.

The focus should remain on establishing equal protection. This is the only policy that would criminalize abortion as murder for all parties involved, obey God, and dramatically reduce the number of murders of pre-born babies in America.

If such an expectation is set, then state and federal lawmakers may still defund Planned Parenthood — probably even faster than they otherwise would have. But setting a lower expectation than equal protection, such as defunding Planned Parenthood, decreases the likelihood of strong anti-abortion policies advancing.

The pro-life organizations searching for a new priority after the overturn of Roe should not set their sights too low, and they most certainly should not exaggerate their victories.

If they truly desire to protect pre-born babies and move America toward the abolition of abortion, merely defunding Planned Parenthood will not suffice. They must remember that we are in a holocaust that has continued for far too long — and act with the appropriate urgency and priority.