A government reveals its moral compas by what it protects most strongly. When a state seeks to place abortion beyond ordinary democratic debate by calling it a constitutional guarantee, it does more than settle a policy dispute. It announces which lives count, which duties matter, and which limits government is willing to ignore after proclaiming its ethical priorities and standards.
For historical and ethical reasons, Virginia Governor Spanberger’s "abortion guarantee" should be opposed on moral, constitutional, and civic grounds. The issue is not only whether abortion should be legal in some cases. The deeper question is whether Virginia should elevate abortion into a protected constitutional good, treating the intentional ending of unborn life as something government must secure.
That move rejects the ethical principles at the root of the American founding. It also runs against the biblical standard that rulers must act with and confirm to the biblical understanding of justice, protect the innocent, and govern under God rather than above Him through humanistic ideologies that reject God's authority as the creator of Earth, humanity, truth, and rightfulness.
This is a moral and civic argument, not legal advice. It addresses public principles that citizens, lawmakers, pastors, parents, and voters should weigh carefully.
A constitutional guarantee changes the moral meaning of abortion
Ordinary laws can be amended, narrowed, repealed, or debated through elections. A constitutional guarantee is different. It places a policy preference among a government’s highest commitments.
That matters because abortion is not a minor regulatory question. It involves the life of an unborn child, the health and dignity of the mother, the duties of fathers, the conscience of medical workers, and the responsibility of civil society. What Spanberger fails to understand is that to constitutionalize abortion is to treat it as a right that government must protect, not as a grave act that demands restraint.
That shift does three seriously egregious things.
It moves abortion from tolerance to endorsement. A government may tolerate some evils because of legal limits, social complexity, or competing harms. But when government calls abortion a constitutional guarantee, it gives abortion a privileged moral status without prioritizing character and integrity in the abortion decision as well as the preceding decision of whether it is proper and appropriate to engage in sexual behavior when one's life situation is not suitable to be responsible for the creation of the unborn new life.
It weakens the claim of the unborn child. A constitutional guarantee of abortion can make the unborn child appear legally invisible, even though science plainly recognizes a distinct developing human life in the womb.
It limits future democratic correction. Citizens who believe unborn life deserves stronger protection may find their ability to act through ordinary law sharply reduced. Additionally, a state constitution should protect basic rights rooted in human dignity. It should not protect the destruction of those whose dignity is most easily denied.
The Founders tied rights to human dignity, not personal power
The founding principles of the Founding Fathers were and remain a historically fundamental foundation to America's civic, political, cultural, legal, and government standards. The Declaration of Independence grounded human equality in a truth higher than government, stating that people are “created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” That claim did not mean rights came from the state. It meant the state had a duty to recognize and protect rights it did not create but were ordained by God the creator. Romans 13:1-2 captures the essence of this understanding that explicitly defines God's authority as acknowledged and embraced by our Founders.
(1)Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. (2)Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
That is the ethical foundation abortion rights language tends to invert and violate.
If rights are gifts from the Creator, then government must ask who bears the image of God and who deserves protection. It cannot simply define inconvenient human beings outside the circle of concern. The Founders’ best principles press government toward a wider recognition of human dignity, not a narrower one.
American history shows this tension again and again. The country has too often denied dignity first, then corrected itself later through moral struggle. The abolitionist cause, the civil rights movement, and the long fight for equal protection all drew strength from the idea that law must answer to a higher moral truth.
A constitutional abortion guarantee moves in the opposite direction. It tells the law to secure the power to end unborn life, rather than requiring the powerful to answer for the vulnerable.
Liberty without moral limits becomes license
The strongest argument for abortion as a constitutional right is usually framed in terms of liberty, privacy, and autonomy. Those words matter. A free society should not treat people as property of the state. Families should not be micromanaged by government. Women facing pregnancy deserve real care, not slogans.
But liberty in the American tradition was never meant to mean unlimited self-rule. The Founders warned often, in different ways, that freedom requires moral discipline. A people unable to govern their appetites, passions, and choices would eventually face either chaos or coercion.
In my May 17, 2026 blog titled "Restoring the Integrity of the Republic Through Rededication to America's Christian Foundation: Welcome to Rededicate 250, May 17, 2026", I referenced Troy Lacey's excellent article, "Christian Foundation of America"
Troy Lacey's historical masterpiece Christian Foundations of America at the Answers in Genesis website is an intelligent historical analysis of America's Christian origins that inspired the U.S. Constitution, various state constitutions, the Bill of Rights and other formal documents that were foundational to America as the centerpiece for religious liberty internationally. One of Lacey's stellar comments is as follows and can be used to reject the misguided attempt by liberals hostile to historical truths and the importance of Christian values and principles to public integrity and the National Interest.
These early Pilgrims and American colonists plainly stated that Christianity was good for ordering the civic structure, maintaining equitable law, preserving civil and religious liberties, and beneficial (indeed foundational) for public morality. Far from compartmentalizing society into secular duties and religious responsibilities, the Pilgrims and other early colonists recognized that for a government of any kind (colony, state, or federal) to function properly and flourish, there needed to be a Christian moral backbone to the laws which regulated society. These colonial founders recognized that it was the Christian morality behind the laws, not the laws themselves, which would order and preserve society.
Liberty is not the right to do whatever one wills to another human being. It is the ordered freedom to do what is right within a moral framework that Lacey empasized in his statement about the colonial founders and Christian morality as the basis for a well ordered society that was not exclusively committed to man-made laws.
This distinction is crucial. The unborn child is not an aggressor. The child is dependent, hidden, and voiceless. Pregnancy can involve fear, hardship, pressure, poverty, betrayal, or medical concern. Those realities demand compassion. They do not erase the child’s human worth.
A just state should respond to crisis pregnancies with support that is created and inherently valued by the Creator:
Medical care that protects both mother and child
Material aid for families under pressure
Strong adoption pathways
Accountability for fathers
Protection from coercion and abuse
Community help through churches, nonprofits, and local agencies
Those ideals strengthen liberty because they help people choose life under difficult conditions. A constitutional guarantee of abortion does something very differeint. It treats the ending of unborn life as the protected solution, which has a very harmful impact on cultural values, especially regarding the unborn.
God’s standard for government begins with justice for the innocent
The biblical view of government is not that rulers may invent morality by majority vote or executive ambition. Instead, Scripture presents governing authority as accountable to God. Civic leaders are called to punish wrongdoing, commend what is good, and judge without partiality.
To put the biblical standard of governance in its proper perspective, the few verses below highlight the nexus betweeen governement, citizens, and the supreme authority and sovergignty of God.
Romans 13:1-7 ESV
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. ...
1 Peter 2:13-17 ESV
Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
“You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
1 Peter 2:14 ESV
Or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.
At the heart of that vision is a repeated command: protect the innocent and do justice for the weak.
The unborn child fits that category with painful clarity. No class of human beings is more dependent. No group is less able to speak in court, lobby a legislature, or plead its own case. If government exists in part to defend the defenseless, then abortion cannot be treated as a neutral private act.
The Bible also speaks of life in the womb with reverence. Passages such as Psalm 139 describe God’s intimate knowledge of a person before birth. Jeremiah 1 speaks of God knowing Jeremiah before he was born. Luke’s Gospel records John the Baptist leaping in Elizabeth’s womb. Christians may debate policy details, but they cannot easily dismiss the unborn as morally irrelevant that is deermined by secular ideology and not biblical truths.
Focus on the Familty's website provides very theologically substantive articles about the ungodliness of abortion, and how the Bible explicitly condemns this act as biblically indefensible and in violation of God's standards when it comes to the uncompromising value of life as defined by God for all of humanity to understand and embrace.
The Focus onthe Family article, What Does the Bible Say About Abortion? promotes the Pro-Life perspective and the Christian Worldview that the Virginia Governor cannot refute or justify with her secularized politics that undermines Scripture and God's authority as The Creator:
Does the Bible Say Anything About Abortion?
Abortion is not the word used in the Bible. However, God is clear about who gives and takes away life. Dr. David Platt helps us see God as the creator and what that means. “God is the Creator. He alone has the power and authority to give life.” Job 33:4 says, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
Job 12:10 also says, “In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” Again, Job confesses, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away” (Job 1:21). God himself declares, “I put to death, and I bring to life” (Deuteronomy 32:39.) Dr. Platt concludes, “It is God’s prerogative alone, as Creator, to give and take innocent life. Abortion, like murder or suicide, asserts human beings as the ones who control life and death. But God the Creator alone has the right to determine when someone lives and dies, and abortion flies directly in the face of His authority.”
God’s integrity standards for government require truth, justice, and the protection of innocent life. A government that calls abortion a constitutional guarantee fails that test. It gives legal shelter to an act that ends the life of a child who has committed no wrong.
The counterargument deserves a serious answer
Supporters of abortion guarantees often raise concerns about issues such as socioeconomic impacts, political barriers they deem as systemic injustice, female victims of sexual trauma, and other socialpolitical factors. Some fear women will be denied care during dangerous pregnancies. Some worry that poor women will suffer most under strict abortion laws. Some point to rape, incest, fetal anomalies, or severe medical complications. Others believe that without constitutional protection, politicians will make reckless laws.
These concerns require thoughtful analysis and consideration. A pro-life ethic will value and show compassion for both themother and the unborn child. Laws must be written carefully enough to protect legitimate medical treatment, miscarriage care, and emergency intervention. A proper pro-life response will treat women in crisis with compassion grounded in biblicalvalues and truths that will not result in the abandonment or public shaming of women in crisis.
That said, hard cases do not justify turning abortion into a broad constitutional guarantee causing negative social outcomes for the unborn and specific demographics that abortion historically has impacted disproportionately, as is the case historically for the AfricanAmerican Commnity going all the way back to the 1920's and 1030's. The Center for Urban Renewal and education (CURE) presented a report to Congress in 2015 titled, THE EFFECTS OF ABORTION ON THE BLACK Community. This report provides very detailed and compelling analysis and compilation of data and facts to demonstrate that abortion has had a genocidal effect on the African American Community for many decades.
Of course the left has disputed and attacked this report, but the history of Margaret Sanger and abortin is irrefutable. Abortion’s Devastating Impact Upon Black Americans by Artur Goldberg in 2018, Jewish Institute for Global Awareness, Co-Director, reinforces the genocidal history and impact of abortion on the Black Community as reported by CURE. Lastly, Ohio Senator Michele Reynolds, made similar compelling presentation on October 18, 2023 titled, Abortion is Killing the Black Community:This is not healthcare - this is extermination. She convincingly argued that Margaret Sanger's agenda has resulted in a decimating impact on Black life and the Black community In America that she labelled as "extermination".
The abortion industry has nefarious roots in hatred and racism. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a eugenicist who systematically targeted “inferior races” for decades. She opened her first clinic in a black neighborhood in Brooklyn.
The black community accounts for just over 13% of Ohio’s population, yet according to the Ohio Department of Health in 2022, 48.4% of abortions performed in Ohio were on black women.
Black babies in Ohio are 6 times more likely to be aborted than white babies.
The abortion machine guarantees that racial and ethnic minorities remain perpetual minorities.
This is not healthcare – this is extermination.
A government can address medical emergencies without declaring abortion a fundamental state-protected right. It can write clear exceptions, improve maternal care, fund prenatal support, and strengthen safety nets. It can punish abuse and coercion. It can protect mothers without denying that unborn children are human lives.
The abortion guarantee approach takes the most extreme route. It does not merely ask for compassion in tragic cases. It seeks to place abortion behind constitutional walls, making future protections for unborn children harder to enact.
That is why the debate must stay focused. The question is not whether every pregnancy is simple. Many are not. The question is whether the state should enshrine the power to end unborn life as a constitutional good.
The answer should be no.
Virginia’s public duty is higher than political slogans
Virginia has a deep place in the American story. It gave the nation figures who wrote about liberty, debated the limits of power, and shaped early constitutional thought. That history does not make Virginia morally superior. It gives Virginia a special responsibility to handle rights language with care.
Calling abortion a constitutional guarantee borrows the language of civil rights while denying the most basic right of all to the unborn. That is a dangerous use of constitutional power.
Rights language should protect the weak from the strong. It should not protect the strong from the claims of the weak.
A just Virginia policy would begin with several convictions:
The unborn child is a human life deserving legal concern.
The mother deserves compassion, care, and protection.
Medical professionals need clear conscience and emergency-care rules.
Fathers should not be allowed to disappear from responsibility.
Churches, charities, and local communities have a duty to help.
The law should move society toward life, not normalize death.
This kind of policy would not satisfy every faction. But it would be more faithful to the moral seriousness of the issue than a sweeping abortion guarantee.
Law teaches, even when it claims not to
Every law has a teaching function. It tells citizens what the community honors, tolerates, discourages, or condemns. A constitution teaches even more forcefully because it expresses the deepest commitments of a political community. If Virginia places abortion in that category, it will train citizens to think of unborn life as secondary to adult preference. It will tell doctors, courts, schools, and future lawmakers that abortion is part of the state’s protected moral order.
That message will not stay confined to clinics or courtrooms. It will shape how people think about responsibility, sexuality, parenthood, disability, poverty, and family. It will also shape how young people understand the value of life when life is inconvenient, dependent, or costly.
A culture that protects life must do more than pass laws. It must build habits and attitudes of care and reinforce the importance of cultural integrity, character, virtue, and human dignity as the foundation for law and legally responsible behavior. Yes, law still matters, because It draws public lines for accountability. It can restrain violence, defend conscience, and help citizens see what justice requires. However, when law treats unborn life as disposable, it does moral harm even when it uses the language of freedom.
Citizens should resist with truth and compassion
Opposing Governor Spanberger’s abortion guarantee should not mean speaking with cruelty. The pro-life case is strongest when it tells the truth with moral courage and human tenderness.
Many women who have had abortions carry grief, confusion, or pain. Some felt pressured. Some were afraid. Some believed they had no other choice. They should hear a message of mercy, not contempt. Churches and pro-life communities should be places of repentance, healing, practical aid, and restoration.
At the same time, compassion cannot require silence. Citizens should resist efforts to constitutionalize abortion because the stakes are too high, and the moral cost is too great.
That resistance can take several forms:
Speak clearly about unborn human life.
Ask lawmakers precise questions about limits and conscience protections.
Support pregnancy centers and local aid ministries.
Help single mothers and struggling families in practical ways.
Defend adoption and foster care reform.
Pray for leaders to act with humility and justice.
Vote with the unborn, mothers, and families in mind.
The aim is not political victory for its own sake. The aim is a more just commonwealth.
Virginia should choose protection over permission
Virginia Governor Spanberger’s abortion guarantee rejects the Founders’ ethics and God’s standards because it treats abortion as a constitutional prize rather than a moral tragedy. It uses the language of rights while excluding the smallest and most vulnerable human beings from protection. It asks government to guard a power that should instead be restrained by justice that reflects the biblical understanding and not exclusively defined by secularism.
A better path is possible. Virginia can protect mothers without abandoning children. It can honor liberty without turning it into license. It can remember that rights do not come from government, and that government has no authority to erase the dignity God gives.
The test of a just society is not how loudly it praises freedom. The test is whether it protects those who cannot protect themselves. On that test, a constitutional guarantee of abortion fails.
