On Tuesday, October 7, the University of Alabama chapter of Turning Point USA, TPUSA, is set to host an anti-abortion speaking event featuring “abortion abolitionists” Bradley Pierce and Jeff Durbin. The event will be the first public gathering hosted by the organization at the university since the assassination of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk in September.
Entitled “All Human Life Is Valuable,” the event will feature a conversation between Pierce, a constitutional attorney and president of the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, and Durbin, a pastor and president of End Abortion Now. According to a post made on the Foundation to Abolish Abortion’s X account, the speakers will specifically discuss “how all human life is valuable and worthy of equal protection.”
As “abortion abolitionists,” Pierce and Durbin both believe that abortion should be illegal in all instances and that individuals who receive or provide abortions should face criminal punishment–up to and including the death penalty.
The Foundation to Abolish Abortion website ties its advocacy directly to the Christian Bible, using the religious text to argue that life begins at conception. The website also has a section describing its “abolitionist vision” of a future where law enforcement officers raid abortion clinics, where “women who find out they are mothers no longer think of abortion as a legitimate option,” where counselors describe abortion as “the sin of murder for which there is forgiveness in Christ to those who repent,” and where individuals are arrested for having abortions while some “are given immunity in return for their testimony against abortionists.”
Also included in the organization’s vision are restrictions on in vitro fertilization, IVF, whereby doctors would be limited to fertilizing and implanting one egg at a time, reducing the procedure’s efficacy.
As president of the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, Pierce himself has authored several pieces of legislation in multiple states to classify abortion as homicide and was involved in the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court case which overturned Roe v. Wade, submitting a brief entitled “Unconditional Submission: ‘Roe,’ the Court, the Constitution, and God.”
Meanwhile, Durbin has leveraged Apologia Studios–the YouTube channel for End Abortion Now–to livestream protests and sermons where he decries the “Woke church” and attacks LGBTQ+ people and the Black Lives Matter movement. Similarly to the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, Durbin and End Abortion Now are also involved in several bills to criminalize abortion in states across the country.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, SPLC, the “abolitionist” movement headed by figures like Pierce and Durbin is tied to some of the most militant anti-abortion activism in the United States.
“Abolitionists, whose chosen moniker seeks to compare themselves to those who fought to abolish slavery before the Civil War, are among the most extreme anti-abortion activists,” states a 2024 SPLC report. “They believe that the procedure should be outlawed in all cases and that women should be criminally punished for having an abortion.”
The abolitionist movement has even been tied to individuals like Rusty Thomas and Matthew Trewhella, who have both endorsed the use of violence against abortion providers.
Pierce released a statement ahead of Tuesday’s event in which he referred to abortion as “child sacrifice” while also saying that he looks forward to “reasoning with University of Alabama students of all perspectives on the importance of loving our preborn neighbors as ourselves.”
“All Human Life Is Valuable” will take place at 6 p.m. in Gallalee Hall at the University of Alabama on Tuesday. Those interested in attending must register for the event ahead of time.
