The Fallacy of the Football Analogy and the Reality of Gladiatorial Abortion

Incrementalism’s Shifting Faces

Incrementalism has worn many masks over the years. Roman Catholics promoted it in their pursuit of small restrictions. Evangelicals adopted it through “pro-life” politics that sought regulations rather than abolition. And now, in recent years, some Protestants have championed a new version under the banner of “Smash Mouth Incrementalism.”

At first glance, this may seem like a new, tougher, more uncompromising approach. The name itself carries the sound of grit and determination. Yet behind the rhetoric lies the same old compromise: accept abortion as a permanent reality, regulate it at the edges, and call it progress.

The Football Analogy

The guiding metaphor of this “smash mouth” approach is football. The argument runs like this: abortion abolition is like moving the football down the field. Sometimes you make a big play, sometimes you only gain a yard or two. But if you keep pressing forward, yard by yard, you will eventually score the touchdown of total victory.

It sounds pragmatic. It sounds strategic. It borrows from a sport celebrated for its toughness and endurance. But the analogy is deeply deceptive.

Why the Football Analogy Fails

The problem is simple: football is a game. It is an entertainment within boundaries agreed upon by the players. The whole point is sport, not life and death. When you lose yardage, nobody dies. When you punt, nobody is sacrificed for the sake of the team’s long-term gain.

Abortion is not a game. It is the legal slaughter of human beings created in the image of God. To compare it to football trivializes the evil and misleads Christians into believing that partial victories are somehow acceptable when thousands are still butchered.

The Reality: Abortion as the New Gladiatorial Arena

If we must use an analogy, abortion is not football. It is the gladiatorial games of ancient Rome. In those arenas, men fought to the death while the crowd cheered. Sometimes, the emperor or mob granted mercy to a few, but the system itself remained intact. Lives were bartered and spectacles were normalized, and society accepted this as inevitable.

Incrementalism works the same way. It does not demand that the slaughter end. Instead, it bargains to save a few while leaving the rest to die. It tells us that so long as some are spared, the continuation of mass murder is tolerable. That is not progress. That is perpetuation.

The Witness of the Early Christians

History bears witness against incrementalism. The early Christians did not call for “humane reforms” to the gladiatorial games. They did not seek shorter contests, safer weapons, or occasional pardons. They condemned the entire system.

Tertullian, one of the early Church Fathers, wrote: “The blood of gladiators is not pleasing to God.” Cyprian and other leaders warned believers never to attend, much less endorse, the games. Their consistent testimony was that such spectacles of murder were incompatible with the gospel of Christ.

And what happened? By the early 5th century, with the cultural influence of Christianity ascendant, gladiatorial combat was abolished altogether. Tradition even holds that a Christian monk, Telemachus, leapt into the Colosseum to stop a fight and was killed for it, sparking outrage that hastened the end of the games. The lesson is clear: the games did not end by regulation. They ended by abolition.

The Biblical Mandate

The Word of God gives no room for compromise with bloodshed. “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them” (Ephesians 5:11). “Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute” (Proverbs 31:8).

God never authorized His people to regulate murder. He commands us to end it. He does not call His church to accept partial obedience or to celebrate halfway measures. He calls us to stand, like the prophets of old, and declare His truth without flinching: all abortion is murder, and it must be abolished.

The Perpetuation of Evil

This is why incrementalism, in whatever form it takes, is not merely inadequate — it is harmful. It deceives Christians into thinking they are making progress while in reality they are conceding the battlefield. Every law that says, “You may kill children under these circumstances but not under others” does not restrain evil — it legitimizes it.

By baptizing compromise as “strategy,” incrementalism perpetuates the system it claims to oppose. And in doing so, it dulls the conscience of the church, making it content to save a few while the rest are slaughtered.

The Call to Abolition

Just as the Christians of the early centuries bore faithful witness against the gladiatorial games, so we must bear witness against abortion today. Not to regulate it. Not to manage it. Not to turn a blind eye to its continuation under the guise of “practical politics.” But to demand its total and immediate end.

Abortion is not football. It is not a game of inches. It is the Colosseum of our age — an arena of blood where children are torn apart under the sanction of law. And just as the Christians of Rome did not settle for regulating the games, neither must we settle for regulating abortion.

Incrementalism, in whatever form it takes, does not end the killing — it perpetuates it. The call of Christ is not regulation. It is abolition.