Overturning Roe v. Wade is the 'wrong goal' for pro-life movement, Care Net CEO warns

Pro-lifers have their eyes set on the "wrong goal" if they are pinning their movement's success on overturning the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, said the head of a pro-life crisis pregnancy center network of over 1,000 affiliates.

Following the Supreme Court's decision last week not to lift a block on an Indiana law banning abortions on the basis of sex and race, Care Net CEO Roland Warren is calling on churches and Christians nationwide to broaden their visions of what the pro-life movement is all about.

As states across the nation have passed abortion restrictions that many believe are part of a conservative effort to get the Supreme Court to reconsider its 1973 ruling that made abortion a national right, Warren suggested that there are problems with placing the hope of the entire movement on legislative and judicial efforts.

"The point that I am making here is that there is a distinction between a goal and a tactic or strategy," he told The Christian Post in a Wednesday interview.

"So it kind of raises this larger point of what should the goal of the pro-life movement be? The distinction is not what the goals of an individual organization working in the pro-life movement are but what should the goal of the overall pro-life movement be."

Warren said that when many pastors and Christians today are asked to prove that they are pro-life, they will say that they are pro-life because they voted for a certain political candidate or made a donation to a certain organization or crisis pregnancy center.

But if the pro-life movement places all of its hope in trying to gain a legislative or judicial victory to restrict abortion, it ignores the factors at play that are leading to women seeking abortions.

Warren stressed that the end goal of the pro-life movement is not necessarily political or monetary.

The end goal, he said, should really be about churches stepping up to ensure that women and men facing unplanned pregnancies have the support systems they need to take care of their children after they are born.

"The point that I make is that the goal of the overall pro-life movement should not be to overturn Roe v. Wade," he said. "That is a tactic. That is a strategy."

He stressed that pro-life Christians should not only want to ensure that a national right to abortion is erased but to ensure that the conditions that cause women facing unplanned pregnancies to get an abortion are alleviated by providing hope, help and discipleship.

About 86 percent of women who seek an abortion are unmarried, he pointed out. Such a statistic means the abortion issue can't be solved "without strengthening the marriage culture."

"The missing piece here is that Christians, by and large, do not view the life issue as a discipleship issue," he noted. "They view it either from a political lens or through a material support lens."

Continue reading about abortion on The Christian Post.