How Pro-Life leaders opposed equal protection in North Dakota (2024)
This might be hard to believe
Leaders of the largest Pro-Life organizations in America do not believe that babies’ lives should be protected with the same laws protecting theirs.
Don’t believe me?
Let me show you.
Let’s start with the idea that preborn babies are created in the image of God just like you and me. Human beings, young or old, black or white, boys or girls, born or unborn, have equal value according to God. So they deserve equal protection under the law.
It seems simple, doesn’t it?
If we really believe that life begins at conception, we should want the same laws that protect our lives to protect them too.
But today those laws don’t protect them. Not in any state. And the sad thing is, many Pro-Life leaders are working hard to ensure that those laws will NEVER protect them.
Maybe that’s hard to believe.
Let me show you what recently happened in North Dakota.
For context, North Dakota is one of the least populated states. Gallup rated it the second most conservative in the country.[1]
In April 2023, North Dakota passed what many considered to be a total ban on abortion.[2] Clinics and doctors could no longer legally provide abortions in North Dakota. News outlets published headlines saying that abortion had effectively ended there. But it’s not true.
In fact, the same North Dakota law that banned clinics and doctors from performing abortions also gave complete legal immunity to mothers who performed their own abortions.
Because of this huge loophole allowing for what are called self-induced abortions, grassroots Republicans in North Dakota started to advocate within their party for equal protection of the laws for preborn children.
In the spring of 2024, they proposed a state Republican party platform resolution.
The “Resolution In Support of Establishing Equal Protection for the Unborn,”[3] was proposed to the North Dakota GOP Resolutions Committee for the 2024 Republican party state convention.
It said,
“Be it resolved: That the North Dakota Republican Party supports efforts to abolish abortion in the state of North Dakota by establishing equal protection under the law for the unborn in accordance with the 14th Amendment.”
The resolution was simply affirming the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which says, “No state shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Put simply: since we believe babies are persons, they are entitled equal protection too.
Amber Vibeto, Executive Director of North Dakota CAN, one of the voices behind this resolution, remarked in an interview, “This is my attempt to unify Republicans under the principles that we say that we believe.”
In a statement prior to the North Dakota GOP resolution committee vote on this amendment, North Dakota CAN said:
“Despite claims to the contrary, abortion remains legal for women in North Dakota because pro-life legislators have carved out that right for them specifically within our Century Code. … … Unborn babies whose mothers are considering abortion remain vulnerable in North Dakota. The Equal Protection Resolution is an attempt to pave the way for legislation that establishes true justice and bans abortion completely.”[4]
The party committee approved it by a 7 to 1 vote and sent it on to the full party delegation, recommending it be passed.
Opposition to Equal Protection in North Dakota
But as soon as it started making progress, this resolution that simply affirmed the constitution was immediately opposed.
But the opposition didn’t come from Planned Parenthood, the pro-abortion lobby, or Democrat politicians.
No. The opposition came from the leaders of some of the most powerful Pro-Life groups in the country.
Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Carol Tobias of National Right to Life, Jeanne Mancini of March for Life Action, Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America, and many others signed a letter demanding that the state Republican delegates reject Resolution 6, the “Resolution in Support of Establishing Equal Protection for the Unborn."[5]
In their statement, the Pro-Life leaders affirmed the now-infamous 2022 “Open Letter” from over 70 state and national pro-life organizations condemning any legislation that would give equal protection to unborn children.[6]
Just two years earlier, that 2022 letter had helped kill Equal Protection legislation which had made it all the way to the House floor in Louisiana.
If you haven’t heard how the first equal protection bill in the country to make it through committee and to the House floor for a vote was killed by Pro-Life leaders, check out episode 4 of our docuseries “Abortion Free.”
Why are they doing this?
So the question you probably have at this point is, “Why are Pro-Life leaders opposing equal protection for babies?”
On Coercion
The main reasoning behind their letter opposing the North Dakota equal protection resolution is the assertion that the majority of women who have abortions do so because of coercion.
To make this case, the Pro-Life leaders cite a study by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research and education arm institute of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which claims that “...over 60% of women who obtained an abortion reported experiencing coercion or pressure.”[7]
This study is often used by Pro-Life leaders. But how it’s used is often deceptive.
Here’s what I mean.
Coercion in law is a legal category of threat or intimidation.
The Pro-Life leaders’ letter even says that North Dakota passed a bill in 2023 criminalizing pressuring a woman into having an abortion by coercion.
The law they reference says “coerce” means “committing, attempting to commit, or threatening to commit physical harm to a woman, the unborn child, or another individual intended to compel the woman to have an abortion performed against her will.”
But that’s not how the term coerce is used when they cite the study.
The study itself references that “62 percent reported that they experienced at least ‘modest’ interpersonal pressure…”
Threatening a woman with physical harm is one thing, but her experiencing “...modest interpersonal pressure…” is quite another.
Since when does “...modest interpersonal pressure…” justify murdering your own child?
It doesn’t. Or at least, it shouldn’t.
More Fallacious Reasoning
The letter concludes that “...turning those women [who have abortions] into criminals is not the way to protect the unborn.” This statement has several problems.
If constitutional legislation like this is passed, no women would automatically be criminalized.
First, it wouldn’t apply to anyone who had an abortion in the past. It would apply only AFTER passed.
But it wouldn’t turn women into criminals, it would apply to ALL parties involved in an abortion, and everyone would be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Second, anyone who knowingly and willfully breaks the law by killing their unborn children would be criminalizing THEMSELVES through their unlawful actions.
Yet, the Pro-Life movement suggests that no woman, even if guilty of deliberately killing her child without ANY external pressure, should ever face legal consequences.
Furthermore, if equal protection for the unborn isn’t the answer, what is? Allowing total immunity and legal permission to abort, as this letter suggests, certainly isn’t!
Wrong Priorities
After this letter was sent to North Dakota Republicans, the resolution was supported by a majority of Republican delegates, but failed to achieve the 60% votes required.
After its defeat, SBA Pro-Life America went on social media saying “Pro-Life Groups Celebrate the Defeat of a State Party Resolution Criminalizing Women”
They said:
“We thank North Dakota GOP delegates for representing the pro-life movement in voting down this harmful resolution. Together, we will oppose any effort to criminalize women – even non-binding resolutions. We celebrate that in the very few states where this kind of legislation has been filed not a single bill punishing women has advanced.”[8]
To be clear, equal protection legislation has been filed in 19 states.
Here, these Pro-Life leaders not only celebrate killing this North Dakota resolution, but they also celebrate how they have helped kill all the other equal protection bills in those 19 states, leaving abortion legal for women there.
Surely, given all the ballot initiatives and other fights the Pro-Life movement has to deal with right now, working to fight against ideas of equal protection would be the farthest thing imaginable from a priority.
And yet, these basic principles of justice are what the pro-life establishment repeatedly puts so much effort into defeating. They didn’t enter the state of North Dakota to lobby for protecting unborn children. Instead, they used their political weight to come into one of the least populated, most conservative states in the country to shut down grassroots republicans who were trying to call for legislators to love their preborn neighbors as themselves.
This continues to confirm what abolitionists have been saying for years about the repeated pattern of not only counterproductive, but also unconstitutional and unbiblical behavior by the Pro-Life Establishment.
From supporting regulatory measures that act as substitutes to abolishing abortion, to killing bills of abolition and now even party resolutions, it’s time for Christians to stop supporting these organizations.
And it’s time to become abolitionists.
If you were challenged by the ideas in this video, you might want to watch our “Abortion-Free” docuseries on our YouTube channel to learn the rest of the truth about what’s really happening in post-Roe America. See the trailer below.
NOTES:
Frank Newport, "Wyoming, North Dakota and Mississippi Most Conservative States," Gallup News, February 3, 2017, https://news.gallup.com/poll/203204/wyoming-north-dakota-mississippi-conservative.aspx, perma.cc/VT4S-Q47Q.
N.D. Cent. Code, § 12.1-19.1-02
Resolution in Support of Establishing Equal Protection for the Unborn. North Dakota Republican Party Resolutions, North Dakota Monitor, April 2024, https://northdakotamonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/NDGOP-Resolutions.pdf#page=7, perma.cc/KR6A-FAT3.
"Equal Protection for the Unborn," North Dakota Conservative Advocates, accessed February 27, 2025, https://ndcan.org/blog/equal-protection-for-the-unborn, https://perma.cc/K8DX-C2U6.
Open Letter to the Chairwoman of the North Dakota Republican Party, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, April 2024, https://sbaprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/North-Dakota-Letter.pdf, perma.cc/8JSH-VRXQ.
Coalition Letter to State Legislators, National Right to Life, May 12, 2022, https://www.nrlc.org/uploads/communications/051222coalitionlettertostates.pdf, perma.cc/BXV6-XYBZ.
Reardon D C, Longbons T (January 31, 2023) Effects of Pressure to Abort on Women’s Emotional Responses and Mental Health. Cureus 15(1): e34456. doi:10.7759/cureus.34456, https://perma.cc/B8KR-7UJJ.
"Pro-Life Groups Celebrate the Defeat of a State Party Resolution Criminalizing Women," Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, April 22, 2024, https://sbaprolife.org/newsroom/press-releases/pro-life-groups-celebrate-the-defeat-of-a-state-party-resolution-criminalizing-women, perma.cc/KDQ7-PLNZ.