WHY DO CHRISTIAN’S EXPECT THE STATE TO LEGISLATE AGAINST ABORTION BUT NOT FOR THE POOR?

QUESTION:
Conservative Christians seem to expect it’s OK for the State to legislate on behalf of one Christian interest (limiting abortion) but they never seem to advocate for the State to legislate for another hugely important Christian interest: (the poor). The Bible talks about the poor literally 100’s of times! Why the disparity in rhetoric, and voting priorities? It makes concerns about abortion seem hollow, if you don’t also advocate for the poor. (Especially since babies saved from abortion will probably be poor!)

ANSWER:
First, I agree that both of these are important Christian moral concerns. More than any other worldview before it, Christian brought to the fore the value of human life. And that is why, in the Roman world, Christians were known (and often mocked) for being so radically pro human life in ALL its forms. The early Christians forbade abortion (see the Didache) and infanticide, rescued abandoned infants and practiced radical generosity toward the poor and inclusion of people across the socio-economic and ethnic spectrums.

NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RIGHTS
But there is a good reason why many Christians believe some of our moral imperatives are under State purview while others are not. This reason is not merely arbitrary based in party biases or self-interest. The reason is found in the Scriptural role for the State and expressed in the United States government’s historic role in protecting NEGATIVE rights, not granting POSITIVE rights.

What are these?

Examples:

One set of rights (NEGATIVE) says to my neighbor, “don’t take away what I already have.” The other set of rights (POSITIVE) says to my neighbor, “give me what I don’t currently have.” 

LIMITING THE USE OF FORCE
If you look at Scripture, it outlines a general purview (field or scope of concern) for government (Romans 13:1-9; 1 Peter 2:14-17). This role does not include the enforcement of positive rights. The US Constitution also does not include positive rights in its charter of rights. (Though FDR did lobby to expand it to include such rights.)

Why not? They knew that a gov’t that enforces positive rights significantly reduces liberty and increases its use of force. A gov’t that only enforces negative rights, severely limits its use of force by only opposing people who seek to impose force on others by limiting their passive rights, to speech, to the free exercise of their religion, etc.

Major difference!

The key issue: FORCE.

Negative rights impose no force on the population except when people use force to interfere with those rights. Positive rights impose force on the whole population, regardless. Thus, negative rights are easier to apply equally.

ABORTION AND POVERTY
So, returning to your fundamental issue: Christians advocate for abortion limits in the public square because abortion is about a negative right: “the right to life” – the most fundamental right of all. Humans just get that right and all my neighbor must do to give it to me, is not actively take it away! 

The government tasked by God to “punish those who do what is wrong” rightly intervenes when citizens interfere with someone else’s “passive /negative rights”.

What about advocating in law for public food distribution to the poor? Well, the right to food is a positive right. It is therefore properly left out of the core functions of government in the Constitution, because positive rights force proactive obligations on others (whereas negative rights put only passive obligations on others). This is in keeping with the experiment in limited gov’t at the heart of the American revolution.

CHRISTIAN OBLIGATION TO THE POOR
Now, does this distinction in rights mean Christians have no obligation to the poor? I quote Paul in a different matter from Romans 6:2: “by no means!”

We Christians are, of course, obligated to the poor (Matthew 25:37-40). But we are personally obligated. If you notice a corporate obligation in Scripture to the poor, it is the Church’s obligation. So from that first generation, the Church has been commanded to pool its resources to alleviate the suffering of the poor (1 Tim 5:3-16). 

This obligation has two net effects:

Both of these effects are undermined by legislating positive rights through the force of the State:

WORSE FOR THE RECEIVER
One, it undermines real poverty alleviation. This might be oversimplifying the situation but one stat is glaring: Since LBJ’s Great Society movement, the % of federal spending for the poor went from 38% to 61%! Depending on who you ask, that represents between $16 and $25 trillion transferred to the poor in 50 years. 

Question: did this shrink the ranks of the poor? No, it’s held steady at around 15% of the population over that same time. Add the following common outcomes, increasing (often generational) welfare dependency, one size fits all approaches, red tape, and lack of accountability, and the situation becomes clear: while helping the poor is uncontroversial morally speaking, Christians seeing the State as the main means of that help is controversial practically speaking. As in, does this actually work?

Paul’s injunction to the Church was to have systems and standards in place to serve the poor (both the poor inside and outside the Church). His wisdom (see 1 Tim 5:11) permits the Church to say yes to certain requests and no to others. It allows the Church to reject one size fits all approaches. Not all poverty is created equal; therefore not all poverty is alleviated the same way.

WORSE FOR THE GIVER
Two, it undermines spiritual development with Christians themselves. Subcontracting out charity to the gov’t is spiritually corrosive for both giver and receiver. The receiver, because their help is framed as a “right,” feels entitled. And if the help is not of the type they wanted, resentful. The giver, because their help was extracted by force of gov’t mandate, also resents the exchange because it wasn’t free. 

On top of that, the giver (the taxpayer) may develop an “out of sight out of mind” approach that limits their concern for the poor to that one “delightful” day every spring when they file their 1040. And if you’re in a certain tax bracket, there’s enough tax deductions available that a sizable portion of Christians will not pay any taxes toward the poor at all! So, if gov’t was their only way to care for the poor, they simply don't care.  All the while congratulating themselves for vicarious generosity by nodding their approval of the progressive tax code. 

In contrast, if I connect with the poor personally, I see the good I’m doing, and I become a cheerful giver – something God loves (2 Cor 9:7). And thus, I become developed into a giver like God is, as I develop his heart towards my needy neighbor, in whose eyes I must learn to see the eyes of Jesus himself (Matt 25:40).

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED?
Finally, ignoring everything I’ve said so far, your perception of Christians having lopsided public interests/voting priorities may be moot on pragmatic grounds alone. How so? 

Since 1970, abortions have skyrocketed while poverty relief through government has also skyrocketed. A Christian may view the gov’t as the proper vehicle for enforcing both the positive right of poverty relief and the negative right to life. And yet, of the first they may conclude, “mission accomplished” (I mean, how much more than 61% of public receipts to poverty relief is reasonable to advocate for?) but of the second, they may equally reason. “mission definitely not accomplished.”

So the difference could simply be one of Christians focusing on the work left to do, not which work should matter more.