It’s a rules-based morality. The rules say, punish those who get abortions. The rules don’t say, provide public assistance for health care.

There’s a massive disconnect between people with rules-based morality and people with outcome-based morality. I often see people arguing against abortion bans by saying that they don’t actually cut down on the number of abortions, they just make them more dangerous. Which is entirely missing the point.

They don’t want any particular outcome. They don’t want to save babies, nor do they want replacement slaves. They want the state to punish abortions. That’s the goal in and of itself, it’s not the means to an end.

I don’t endorse any of this. But I think it’s important to understand how people actually think. If you imagine your understanding of morality in someone with a completely different approach, and try to reverse engineer their thinking from their actions on that basis, you’ll end up with something completely wrong.