Gary Humble
Gary Humble is the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Tennessee Stands, an organization working to secure liberty and hold elected officials accountable to the Constitution through legislation, litigation, and education. Follow Gary @garyhumble and visit www.tennesseestands.org.
The pro-life movement and the case to abolish abortion.
Of course, it’s the Christmas season. And while our focus is on celebrating the birth of Christ and sharing memorable moments with our families, I’m sure that the subject on the top of everyone’s mind is not…abortion. But if you’ll indulge me here, the timing is relevant.
The FACE Act and Federal Power
This week, on December 18th, the House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government heard testimony on the Biden DOJ’s weaponization of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE). And our friend Paul Vaughn and his attorney, Steve Crampton, were there to testify. We have had them both on our podcast and you can listen here.
In case you are unfamiliar with Mr. Vaughn’s story, the short of it is that 18 months after praying and singing hymns at an abortion clinic in Mt. Juliet, TN, he found himself staring into the barrel of an automatic weapon held by an FBI agent who had come with four or five other agents to kidnap him from his home in Tennessee in front of his wife and eleven children. He was indicted and convicted under the FACE Act for purportedly blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic (which did not happen) and subsequently sentenced to three years of supervised release.
Aside from the fact that his First Amendment rights have been effectively removed by the FBI and corrupt US courts, it is important to note that Mr. Vaughn broke no laws in Tennessee, was not arrested by any Tennessee law enforcement agency, and is not facing the threat of prosecution in Tennessee. Understand that everything he endured was at the hands of a federal agency that bypassed local law enforcement to remove him from his home, indict him under an unconstitutional federal law, and then convict him in a federal court, all without the state having any say in the matter. To this day, Governor Bill Lee and our Attorney General have turned a blind eye to the matter and have not spoken a word. It is clear where they stand on States’ rights and federal power.
Beyond this constitutional travesty, the real matter at hand is the issue of abortion. Much common sense prevailed in the hearing thanks to Chairman Chip Roy (R-TX), Congressmen Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Congresswoman Harriet Hageman (R-WY). But truly, it was incredible to sit and listen to Democrats Jerry Nadler and the Ranking Member of the committee, Mary Scanlon (D-PA) defend their lust to murder children in the womb. They sat on the committee indignant in doing everything they could to mischaracterize the injustice thrust upon Mr. Vaughn in an effort to protect their offerings to Molech.
Survey says…
But here is where I want to turn the tables for just a moment. We know that Democrats want murder. There was nothing surprising in this committee hearing in terms of the partisanship of these arguments on abortion. We know where the political lines are drawn. So, where does that leave Republicans, and what do we actually believe about the issue of abortion?
Tennessee Stands recently completed the 2025 TN Legislative Survey with over 3,800 responses from Tennessee voters in all 95 counties. Of course, one of the issues we surveyed is the right to life. In that survey, 75% of Republicans say they believe that life begins at conception and deserves constitutional protections. Unfortunately, that premise does not hold water whenever you look at a couple of the other statistics. Stick with me here.
In that same survey, the same respondents then report that 47% of voters support exceptions for abortion in the cases of rape or incest. Now, right away, we have to address a fundamental breakdown in logic. Considering these numbers, we must address that a significant number of pro-life Republicans who believe that life begins at conception also believe that the same life loses its value and its right to life in the case that it was conceived in rape or incest. In that instance, these same Republicans believe that a mother has a right to terminate the life of that child.
Statistically, at least 1-in-4 of everyone reading this commentary will fall into that category. Allow me to speak plainly, but please know that I do so with grace. Like many, my own views on this subject have evolved through the years as I’ve come to understand more about what I really believe and have had the opportunity to think more deeply about this topic.
The Inherent Value of Life
Let’s start at the value of life. Either life has value, or it does not. There really is no in-between on this issue. Additionally, would you agree that if life indeed has intrinsic value, then that value is not dependent on external factors, especially those factors which it cannot control? What I mean is, if a child’s life has value in the womb, then that value must be independent of the matter of how the child was conceived. If a child conceived in rape or incest, therefore, has no value or no right to life, then how do you justify your belief that other children in the womb have value or a right to live? This is a conundrum, indeed.
What I would submit to you is that perhaps you are more pro-choice than you might like to admit. I say that because of your belief that the child’s value in the womb ultimately hinges upon whether or not the mother of the child is willing to assign that value. Can you really say that this is a pro-life belief? There are a multitude of reasons that a mother may choose to abort her child. Rape and incest are certainly within those considerations. And none of these considerations should impact a belief that says life begins at conception or that God is the author of life.
But I want to take this even a step further. In our survey, only 16% of voters support a complete ban on abortion, which would include criminal penalties for a mother who willingly aborts her child. In case you are unfamiliar, this would represent an abolitionist view of abortion versus a traditional pro-life stance.
The data here gets a bit more interesting. When filtering this question for survey respondents who are women, Republican, and ages 25-44, that percentage moves up to 29%. You could say that a Republican woman of child-bearing age is 2 times as likely to support criminal penalties for mothers who have an abortion than all Republican voters. We have seen this same trend now for two surveys (first was done in the Fall of 2022). Younger generations are the more pro-life generation.
Are abortions really banned?
In the state of Tennessee, we say that we have banned abortions. But the more correct thing to say is that we have prohibited providers from performing abortions in our state. State law does not prohibit a mother from aborting her child.
Keep in mind that this is only the data that is “reported.” And the data in Tennessee does not dispute these findings. The fact of the matter is that those who are paying real attention to the issue know that abortions are still happening in dramatic fashion. We’ve just found a new way to accomplish the mission. Sorry to be crude here, but the lady down the street is now just flushing her child down the toilet instead of needing to go through the hassle of visiting Planned Parenthood. And that transition was taking place well before the overturning of Roe v Wade.
We like to go to our Republican rallies here in Tennessee and make the claim that we’ve banned abortion, but we haven’t done that at all. That is not to say that Tennessee has not made great strides in this area. We are certainly leading the pack, respectively. But we need to stop pretending that the work is done. It has just taken on a new form.
Accountability for murder.
Back to our logical analysis. 75% of Republicans say that life begins at conception and is deserving of constitutional protections. However, what about in the case of these chemical abortions at home? The result is a dead baby. The only difference is that the mother did not need a provider this time. She was able to do it herself in the comfort of her own home.
So, if we are unwilling to hold that mother accountable for the death of her child, what does that say about our belief that life begins at conception? Does it? Do we really believe that? If so, how do we determine the value of the lives of these children if we have no legal mechanism in place to punish the taking of their lives? Certainly, their value could not be equal to ours. At least not in the eyes of the law.
The fact is, once again, we are rationalizing our beliefs not based on the life in the womb but based on the emotions and circumstances surrounding the mother. In our current pro-life belief system, the child’s real value hinges on the mother, not the child. If the mother has gone through the horrific trauma of rape or incest, then we consciously choose not to ascribe a certain value to the unborn life. And due to cultural considerations and potential empathy for a mother who might decide to murder her child at home, we consider her emotional state and somehow rationalize that she is not subject to any consequences for her actions, even when those actions result in a dead child.
The law
I learned from a friend some years back that the law is educative. The law teaches. In fact, we see this in scripture. From the Apostle Paul:
The law teaches us as a society what is good and what is bad. We learn from a young age that acts that are against the law are bad and that permissible acts are good, or at least not in the “bad” category. As a society, what are we teaching young men and women about the value of life if dead babies bear no consequence?
Here is the point I am driving at. I am trying to get you to think a bit deeper about what you believe and why you believe it. I can tell that Mr. Paul Vaughn knows what he believes. And he was willing to face eleven years in federal prison for those beliefs.
[1] Diamont, J., Leppert, R., Mohamed, B. (March 25, 2024) What the data says about abortion in the U.S. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/25/what-the-data-says-about-abortion-in-the-us/
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Gary Humble
Gary Humble