Defending the Right to Life

[0:00] All right, everyone. This morning, we're going to talk. I can't remember what I titled this. What does it say in the bulletin? Defending the right to life? Is that what it says? Okay. So, you know, a couple weeks, I think it's been a couple weeks now, was Sanctity of Life Sunday, and that's just something that many churches practice.

[0:21] Why would you have a Sanctity of Life Sunday in January? Well, it was because of the Roe v. Wade decision back in 1973. That's when that decision came down, when it was decided, published, whatever you call it.

[0:38] And so, since that time, back in 1973, churches, and I don't know if it happened in the very beginning, but eventually established this idea of a Sanctity of Life Sunday in which churches would talk at some degree about the life issue.

[0:55] Not necessarily doing a whole message about it, though that's what we're doing today. What else was I going to say about that? Oh, and then the March for Life, right, is something, they just had that in the last couple weeks here in D.C., and that's been going on for many, many years.

[1:13] It continues to go on, even though, right, what happened a couple years ago? Roe v. Wade was overturned. You know, I was kind of hoping that after the overturning, because the Dobbs decision that overturned it was in June, I think, or sometime in the summer, more than summertime, and that's a much better time to do a March for Life because it's warm outside.

[1:38] But we're still doing it, or the organizers, anyway, are still doing it in January, which is fine. But why spend the time doing a whole message on this topic?

[1:55] You know, when it comes to the issue of abortion, I think that this is the moral issue that really kind of defines our culture in America, but really across the world.

[2:10] And I think there has really been a failure in the church, among church leaders, pastors, to really address this issue with the kind of clarity and seriousness that it needs.

[2:27] You know, for some churches or for some leaders, they just think, you know, it's a political issue, it's too controversial, people in my congregation have different, like, political beliefs, all that, so I'm not going to get into it.

[2:43] And that is tragic, right? We should always, as Christians, and especially as Christian leaders, speak to the issues that the Bible speaks to, regardless of what's going on in Washington, or at the Statehouse in Ohio.

[2:57] So, those kinds of things should not drive what's going on in the world and the pressures of the world. And the antagonism of the world certainly shouldn't define or in any way influence the issues that we address.

[3:15] And it's especially important, right, when it's something that the world is so hard against, this right to life. Also, even those churches or leaders that will address the issue, a lot of times do it in just very generic terms.

[3:37] Just talking about, like, standing for life, or promoting a culture of life. And there's nothing wrong with those phrases, you know, in and of themselves.

[3:48] Those are fine to say. We put up yard signs, you know, letting people know kind of where we stand, bumper stickers, things like that. That's all fine. But I think it is especially important, in a setting like this, to be abundantly clear by what we mean by that.

[4:07] Also, there can be a tendency to be somewhat apologetic when talking about this issue. Because it impacts so many people. And I didn't write down or pull up in any of the statistics on abortion.

[4:25] But it is a very, very common thing in our culture. And it pervades even people in the Christian church. And so, in any given church, the likelihood of having somebody who has had an abortion in that church is very, very high.

[4:40] And so, it's easy to just kind of tiptoe around the topic and just speak very briefly on it in very generic terms. Because there are people in a church that have had abortions.

[4:57] And to focus primarily on forgiveness. The forgiveness, excuse me, that God provides. And while that is abundantly true, we can't allow that, right, to keep us from speaking with clarity on an issue of such vital importance.

[5:17] And, by the way, you know, we really diminish God's forgiveness when we diminish the sins that he forgives, don't we? God is willing to forgive the most grotesque sins.

[5:32] And we see it in the Bible. And we see it, many of us, in our own lives. God has forgiven us for some vile things that we have done. And if we try to diminish those things and the sins that we have even been involved in, we diminish God's forgiveness.

[5:48] But God's forgiveness is so great and abundant. It's because our sins, many times, are so great. As Christians, we need to be anchored in a strong sense and knowledge and wisdom regarding right and wrong.

[6:08] We need to be morally anchored. And our children, especially we as parents, we need to anchor our children in an understanding of right and wrong.

[6:18] And that's what this issue is about. It's an issue of right and wrong. You know, some people ask you, why are Christians so uptight about abortion? And, by the way, it is mostly Christians that are known for standing up for the right to life of unborn children and against abortion.

[6:38] It's very few other groups. We're called anti-choice. But why? Is that just because Christians find the abortion issue to be just kind of icky?

[6:51] You know, we don't like abortion just like we don't like rap music or something like that? Is that what it's about? No, Christians oppose the practice of abortion because it is an act of brutality and violence.

[7:06] It is the murder of the innocent. It's a denial of the most fundamental human right that exists. The right to life. Something, by the way, that God gave us.

[7:20] We'll get into that in just a moment. So just to define our terms, what is abortion? The dictionary says this, actually. It says this. Abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy.

[7:33] The deliberate termination of a human pregnancy. You know, that is flatly wrong. That is a complete lie. That is not what an abortion is.

[7:44] If an abortion is the termination, the end of a pregnancy, then that's what we would call birth. Right? Whether it's through natural means or a C-section, that ends a pregnancy, doesn't it?

[7:56] But that is not an abortion. And by the way, there are many definitions in your dictionary that are flatly wrong.

[8:08] Things that have intentionally been changed. Words that have been intentionally redefined in order to promote an agenda. The true definition of abortion is the intentional killing of an unborn human being.

[8:22] That's what an abortion is. The intentional killing of an unborn human being. Well, Christians say that that's wrong. Why do we say that? You know, some people say, well, you know, this is, it's a complex issue.

[8:38] There's a lot of things going on, a lot of things to consider. And you know what, that's a lie as well. It is not a complex issue. It's actually very simple.

[8:51] Like most moral issues are. You know, G.K. Chesterton had this to say about complex moral issues. He said this, Moral issues are always terribly complex for someone without principles.

[9:08] And isn't that true? It's easy to turn something simple into something complicated when you don't really like this moral principle.

[9:21] There are two points to consider, or two truths, when it comes to abortion. We combine these two truths, and we get that what comes out is that abortion is wrong.

[9:34] And the two truths are this. One is, the unborn child is a human being. The unborn child is a human being. Is that true?

[9:46] Yeah. Is that something that scientists have looked into, and they've tried to discover? Maybe that's not true.

[9:57] Maybe the unborn child doesn't become a human until after birth. It's really easy to look into, and you can actually open up any college textbook, and they'll tell you exactly when a human life begins.

[10:12] Right at that moment of what? Fertilization. Conception. Which, by the way, you look up conception in the dictionary, and they lie about what that means as well. So, a lot of times we have to use the word fertilization because they've redefined conception to mean something else.

[10:30] Usually, implantation is what they say. So, number one, an unborn child is a human being. Number two, it's always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being.

[10:46] Is that true? Yeah. Is that a difficult moral dilemma? Or is it a pretty straightforward and simple one? Yeah, it's pretty simple.

[10:57] That's just what most people in the world, Christian or not, would agree with that. But then, people throw in complexity to try to make, turn something that is very black and white into something that is gray.

[11:13] What does the Bible say? Does the Bible speak to this at all? For us as Christians, we look to the Bible as our authority and how we ought to live our lives.

[11:24] What would God say to us? You know, there are liberal Christians that I've talked to in the past who have tried to make an appeal for abortion being okay, the pro-choice, pro-choice argument.

[11:40] And they'll say this. They'll say, well, you know, the Bible doesn't really say when life begins. And I think that there's a case to be made that life begins when a baby takes his or her first breath.

[11:57] And that the ensoulment of that little body doesn't happen until the first breath is taken. Anybody else heard that before? Or it's actually something that was even taught by Christian leaders back in many, many, many centuries ago.

[12:17] But is that what the Bible teaches? Can you find any kind of evidence in the Bible for something like that? Is the Bible just silent on this matter? Or does it have anything to say?

[12:29] Well, let's open up our Bibles this morning. Genesis 25, 22. Genesis 25, 22. This is a description about some babies being born.

[12:47] Not just one, but two. This is Isaac. Isaac was the son of Abraham. Abraham. He was given Rebecca as his wife.

[12:59] And they got pregnant. And guess what? Twins. And here in this verse, there is a reference to her conception and her pregnancy.

[13:14] And it says this, Genesis 25, 22. Rebecca, his wife conceived, and the children, there were two of them, talking about Jacob and Esau, struggled together within her.

[13:27] There's a description of these children. Now notice what it doesn't say. The Bible doesn't call them blobs of tissue. Is that what the Bible says?

[13:38] Or clumps of cells. This is the kind of language that the pro-abortionists, the pro-choicers will use to dehumanize tiny little human beings.

[13:55] The Bible doesn't call this, these two boys, Jacob and Esau, products of conception. Anybody heard that? What does it call them? The Bible calls them children.

[14:06] The children inside her womb, they struggled. They struggled. They struggled. Turn to Jeremiah, chapter 1. Jeremiah, chapter 1. This is Jeremiah.

[14:23] It's actually a description of Jeremiah being called into his role as a prophet. And God says something to him about his plan for him.

[14:34] That his plan for him actually didn't originate right now as he's being called. But he wanted to let Jeremiah know that he's actually been planning for a while now to use him as a prophet.

[14:49] And he says this to Jeremiah. Jeremiah, chapter 1, verse 5. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. I knew you, Jeremiah.

[15:00] Even before you finished forming in the womb. As you were being knit together as the psalmist describes it, in the womb. I knew you even then.

[15:14] Does God build relationships with clumps of cells? No. He builds relationships with people. And God knew Jeremiah even at the very beginning of his conception.

[15:27] Before you were born, I sanctified you, he says. And I ordained you a prophet to the nations. So he says, I knew you and I called you to be something for me even while you were still yet in the womb.

[15:43] Next, let's go to Luke. Luke chapter 1. We're going to look at a man named John the Baptist. John the Baptist was called, even really, before he was born, an angel came and visited his father.

[16:01] Or I guess maybe this was, maybe while he was still in the womb. But, and told him, hey, your son is going to be a special prophet on my behalf. And there were some interesting things that were described.

[16:16] And some interesting things that happened. That show us that even John the Baptist, when he was in his mother's womb, was very much a human person. Luke chapter 1, verse 15.

[16:28] Describing John the Baptist says this. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb.

[16:42] Be filled with the Holy Spirit. Does the Holy Spirit fill inanimate objects? No.

[16:53] The Holy Spirit fills people. He's inside each one of us as Christians. And we see that throughout the history of the Bible. The Holy Spirit filling people.

[17:04] Go a few verses later. Verse 44. This is later on when John the Baptist's mom and Jesus' mom meet after being apart for a while.

[17:18] And they meet again and something amazing happens. Mary describes it. And she says this. For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

[17:34] Sorry, that wasn't Mary that's describing that. I forget. What's John's wife's name? Elizabeth. Thank you. Elizabeth is describing this. John the Baptist's mom. Elizabeth is saying, Hey, when I came to greet you, the baby on the inside of me jumped for joy.

[17:52] Is that something that a clump of cells does? No. It's something that a little tiny person does. What about the law?

[18:05] Should there be laws protecting little baby boys and girls while they're still in the womb? Well, let's just look at God's law in general. So back after the flood, God actually started instituting human laws.

[18:20] Some people call it the dispensation of human government started right after the flood. Because right after the flood, I almost said Moses. Noah got out of the ark with his family. They built an altar.

[18:31] And God had a few instructions for them. And part of that, one of the things that he instructed them was on a change in their diet. He said, now you can actually start eating meat.

[18:42] That was actually not something that was a thing before the flood. But then he says this. This is, sorry, Genesis chapter 9, verse 6. You don't have to turn there. I'm just going to read this.

[18:55] But it says this. This is what God said to Noah. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God he made man.

[19:07] This is an upholding of the right to life. This is an establishing that God has made man special, different from the animals. And because of that, we need to consider people's lives to be sacred.

[19:24] And it is not okay to take someone's life who is innocent. Now, the matter changes if somebody's guilty. In fact, he says right here. What happens if you are guilty of taking an innocent life?

[19:36] Well, your life is forfeit. The death penalty is at play here. This is the first time this whole subject comes into play. Of a punishment. Of a human punishment.

[19:48] Part of a human government. That those who shed the blood of the innocent, their blood should be shed. The penalty for murder is death. Death. Well, then later comes Moses.

[19:59] And what is Moses known for? Well, Moses is the one who brought the Ten Commandments, right, down from the mountain. And also, the rest of the law. Well, what does the law say?

[20:12] Does it address these matters? Well, we know in the Ten Commandments, and now I should have written this down. But there's the Sixth Commandment, the Seventh.

[20:23] I think it's the Sixth. Am I getting that right? You shall not murder. Who can fact check me on that? Which one is it? Anybody know the number? We're going to have to memorize the Ten Commandments next, huh? It's the Sixth.

[20:35] Okay. The Sixth Commandment. You shall not murder. By the way, it doesn't just end there, right? That's all that there is right there in those Ten Commandments.

[20:48] But he actually continues on with specifics in the next chapter. The Ten Commandments is in, or the first time anyway, is in Exodus 20. And then in Exodus 21, he starts to elaborate, I should say, on those initial ten.

[21:06] So if you look in Exodus, go ahead and turn to your Bibles there, because we're going to look at a couple of these. Exodus chapter 21. Exodus chapter 21. We'll start in verse 12.

[21:17] Exodus 21, 12 says this. He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.

[21:32] You know, as we read through the laws of the Old Testament, of the law of Moses, what we find is, it's not like our laws today, where there's just so much minutia.

[21:45] I can't remember what it is, but if you look, especially the federal laws, and then you look at local laws, and it's just as bad. But if they were to print out all the laws, you'd have a book that goes up like ten stories tall.

[21:59] We just have minutia after minutia after minutia. In the Old Testament, the way that God addressed right and wrong, when it comes to legal things, is by offering what we call today case law.

[22:13] You give some examples of a situation, and then you say what the outcome or the punishment or whatever of that should be.

[22:24] And that will actually inform a broader principle, but it's based on just one or two specific examples. And that's what we find throughout the Old Testament law.

[22:37] And so, this is saying, hey, if a man hits another man, and that man dies, well, you are responsible for his death, and your life is forfeit.

[22:48] Well, what if it's a woman that hits him? Right? Or what if they shoot him? Or run over with a car? Does that mean that this is null and void, that this doesn't apply? No, not at all.

[22:59] Right? This is just a case law. It's one example to share a principle. But here, this is talking about adult human beings.

[23:11] Right? I mean, the Bible doesn't really speak to the murder of unborn children, does it? Well, let's go down a few verses. What about verse 22?

[23:23] Let's read that. Exodus 21, 22. Let's read. If men fight and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished according as the woman's husband imposes on him.

[23:41] And he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, and stripe for stripe.

[24:00] The idea here is that if there's some kind of, somebody is committing a crime, there's some kind of assault happening, violence between two men, and a woman who's pregnant somehow gets involved in the kerfuffle.

[24:11] And because of that, she gives birth prematurely. Has this ever happened before? Sure. I've heard of women giving premature birth just because of a scare.

[24:24] You know, somebody came into their house in the middle of the night, and it caused them to go into premature labor. But if, because of your crime, a woman goes into premature labor. Now, if the baby's okay, then the judge just needs to decide some kind of fine or something like that, right, because there might, you know, there might be doctor's bills or whatever it might be.

[24:46] But then, what the law here says, if something happened to that baby, because he was born prematurely, because of what you did, then your life is on the line.

[24:57] If that baby dies, your life is forfeit. If that baby is maybe injured in some kind of way, then you know what, we're going to injure you. And this is a principle in the Old Testament law.

[25:08] If you are involved in some kind of act of violence and you injure somebody, you damage their hand, their arm, whatever, then that is your punishment. It's a hand for hand, a foot for foot, stripe for stripe, wound for wound.

[25:23] And that is justice. But let me just repeat this.

[25:35] The Mosaic law here, we see, we have two different examples, treats unborn children with the same kind of equal value and protection as people who are born.

[25:49] That's what we see here in the book of Exodus chapter 21. So the Bible is telling us that God commands, God expects that we would have the same protections and provide the same value to unborn people just as we do to born people.

[26:09] That's what God expects. So, with that being established, I want to go on to a couple different things.

[26:19] One is, well, you know, we know the truth. The Bible tells us how we should protect unborn children, how we should respect the lives of unborn children, that we ought to defend them.

[26:37] The law should, right? We should in any way that we have the opportunity. But what can we do? It's difficult, right? I mean, this is such a huge thing in our culture. Abortion on demand.

[26:47] Many people expect this. In fact, they consider it their right. So what can we do? Well, one thing we cannot do is to just shut up and remain silent.

[26:59] We can't do that. Now, many people would love if Christians would just shut up because they're annoyed at all the Christians constantly talking about this.

[27:12] But that's one thing that we cannot do. We can't be silent and we can't do nothing. But here's some things we can do. One is just speak up. Use our voice to speak up on behalf of unborn children, on behalf of the defenseless.

[27:31] You know, sometimes we feel ill-equipped, unprepared, whether it's in a situation, maybe an online chat or maybe in some other social situation to speak up because we're not sure what to say.

[27:43] And, well, they have some arguments and I'm not sure how to oppose those arguments. And so we can take the time to be equipped. I have a book here that we have available.

[27:55] And it's out here on the table. By the way, there's some resources out there. I'm going to share a few of them. It's called Why Pro-Life. Randy Alcorn wrote this many, many years ago. There's actually some other good books.

[28:05] This is the one that we have on hand here at the church. But we'll maybe see if we can make some more available. You can take this for a donation. You can take this just for free. I'm not sure how many we have.

[28:16] We might just have four or five. But equip yourself to understand how to give a proper defense, whether from the Bible or from, you know, science and just using people's good judgment, right?

[28:34] People already know certain things are true. And a lot of times, people, because there is so much marketing for abortion today, it causes a lot of confusion in some people who would otherwise not be confused.

[28:47] And they just need somebody to walk them through. Now, some people, they don't care what arguments you give them because they're not interested in what's true. They're just interested in what's convenient. And what can you do there?

[28:59] But here's a book you can check out. So get equipped so that you can speak graciously but also with some authority on the issue.

[29:12] Another one is pregnancy centers. And that's something that has been a popular thing for many, many years, ever since Roe Wade, where there are clinics that pop up that will provide resources, ultrasounds, prenatal care to women, especially looking to try to target those women who are at risk to have an abortion.

[29:32] And there are many stories. We have the one here, the PRC here in Springfield. And there are stories of women who were abortion-minded and they were convinced to keep their baby because of the love and support of usually, usually Christians.

[29:51] And by the way, they're always looking for volunteers. Is that true, Joyce? Always looking for volunteers. They're not overwhelmed with volunteers, believe me. They're always looking for more, both men and women, by the way.

[30:02] In fact, they've put together in the last couple of years here now an amazing men's program to be able to speak into the lives of these young dads. Not all of them are abortion-minded.

[30:14] Some of them are just there because they're looking for help and they want to have their baby. But hey, what a great opportunity to help people who are looking for it, right? Another thing that people can do is there are places in our community that actually perform abortions.

[30:32] That's where people go to pay money, 300, 400 bucks, to get rid of the problem that is in their life, that is a baby. They shouldn't think that way, but that's how they think.

[30:46] And Christians can show up at that, what we call abortion mill, abortion center. I don't like to call it a clinic. It gives it too much, I don't know, prestige or credibility.

[30:58] We call it an abortion mill. But you can show up and you can just be there. You can pray. You can pray for those women going in, for the dads who are there.

[31:09] You can engage with them and say, hey, we're here to help. What can we do to help you? We call that sidewalk counseling. And some people are trained in that. And some people will train others in how to effectively do that.

[31:21] It's something that I've done over the years, both in Columbus when we live there, up in Michigan, and even here. And by the way, the closest place where women get abortions to us here is in Kettering, right on Stroop Road.

[31:38] There's an abortionist, his name's Martin Haskell, who's been there for years and years, since the 70s. He finally retired a couple years ago. Sold his practice to Planned Parenthood. Now they run it. He retired, I think he's almost 90.

[31:52] So he did this for a long, long time. But even just being a presence, I don't know how many testimonies I've heard of women who drove, they weren't sure what to do, they knew this was a moral dilemma, they knew there was something wrong with this, and they showed up, and there were Christians there, and just their presence.

[32:14] Maybe they just saw them praying, and that's all they saw. And that's all that was needed for them to say, you know what, this is wrong. I cannot do this. It can be effective.

[32:26] And then the last thing I want to point out is, what we can do is fight for legal protection, right?

[32:39] Wouldn't that be the most impactful thing? If we could change the laws to actually protect little baby boys and girls, just like we protect everyone else.

[32:50] that would be the most impactful. But that itself is fraught with difficulty.

[33:01] And I want to focus the rest of this message on that. I know this is a shocker, but there are a few, maybe more than a few politicians out there, who are weasels, hypocrites, liars.

[33:20] And they will tell you one thing in public or during their campaign, and they will do something completely different while they are in office. Right? I know that's a shocker to many of us, but that's the world in which we live in.

[33:36] It's not unique to America. It's not unique to our day and age. This has been the way of the world since the very beginning. And so there are people who will even call themselves pro-life, but will not do, they will not engage in trying to provide legal protection for unborn children.

[33:59] Also, there are politicians out there who have the right heart, but they don't have the wisdom to do what they ought to do.

[34:13] They've been brainwashed a lot of times by a spirit and their culture of political expediency and compromise. And so regardless of whichever one we're talking about, I think we have an opportunity to educate but also hold politicians' feet to the fire in telling them that their job, as lawmakers especially, is to protect the lives of every human being, both born and unborn.

[34:45] And we, you know, this is kind of a fool's errand, right, when it comes to people who are like part of the left-wing death cult, right, which is a huge number of politicians out there.

[34:57] But one of the things I think about, here in the state of Ohio, we have what's called a supermajority of Republicans. These are people who call themselves conservative. Almost all of them, I think, would label themselves pro-life.

[35:08] Not all. Some of them would consider themselves, you know, pro-choice Republicans or whatever. But I think probably, if I were to guess, at least 90, maybe 95%. And there is this supermajority.

[35:19] And so if they would just all get together and pass a bill protecting the life of an unborn child, it would be done here in the state of Ohio.

[35:31] But there are many roadblocks put up even by conservatives, Republicans even, and even Christians, people who are Christian politicians.

[35:48] And I want to talk about a few of those. One is this concept of exceptions. Exceptions. You know, many people will say, well, I'm pro-life. Well, except I have a few exceptions.

[36:01] Anybody ever heard that? That's very common. And usually those exceptions are, well, rape, incest, and the life of the mother. In those cases, I think abortion should be illegal.

[36:13] Those are pretty standard talking points in politics today. And, you know, it makes somebody look much more reasonable. You know, you don't want to be a complete extremist when it comes to the right to life, right?

[36:26] When it comes to defending the innocent, you don't want to be a fanatic. You need to have a few exceptions. So let's talk about these.

[36:37] Rape and incest. Now, this is something we're talking about typically a crime committed against a woman. And you know what an exception to murder does when it comes to somebody committing a crime like that?

[36:55] It allows the criminal to cover up his tracks. To get rid of the evidence. That's what the rape exception does. It emboldens criminals to commit a crime that they're pretty sure they can probably get away with if they need to.

[37:17] And, by the way, should children be punished for the crime of their father? Is that justice in anybody's book? No. The sins of your father does not make your life any less valuable or worth protecting.

[37:35] It's the guilty that should be punished. In fact, we go back to the law of Moses. What does the Bible say you do to rapists? Do you help them cover their tracks? No. They should be put to death is what the Bible says.

[37:46] So, from a Christian perspective, when you have a situation like that, we put to death the rapist and we love and care for the mom and her baby.

[37:57] That's what we do as Christians. Well, what about the life of the mother? That one's a little bit more challenging. And, by the way, we have, I don't know if I brought it down here. It's out on the table.

[38:08] But, there is a little pamphlet about the difficult cases when it comes to abortion and how we should think through them. So, you can check that out. But, this life of the mother, you know, this one's not a crime.

[38:19] This doesn't involve a crime, but it's a tragedy, right? You have sometimes a pregnancy where there's a dangerous situation. The most common I can think of is ectopic pregnancy. The baby, there's the conception, there's the fertilization.

[38:29] The little tiny baby travels up the fallopian tube and doesn't quite make it and gets stuck there in the fallopian tube. And, as that baby grows, there's not enough room. And, it can cause death, not only of the baby, but of the mom.

[38:43] And, so, what do you do? Well, do we need to have abortion? Well, what is abortion? Remember, abortion is the intentional killing of an unborn child. Is that what we need to do? No.

[38:53] Now, it's a difficult situation, right? You have two people. Both of their lives are at risk. And, so, we need to do something. We ought to do something. We can't not do anything. That wouldn't be wise. But, what we do is we try to save them both.

[39:07] We do everything that we can. We do surgery. Maybe we can move that baby just a little bit to get where he needs to be. But, you know what? We don't really have the technology today to do that. So, sometimes we just need to deliver that baby.

[39:20] And, unfortunately, we can't save that little baby. But, you know what? In the future, we may be able to. Maybe in the very near future. But, we do not legalize abortion because there are difficult challenges like this, right?

[39:34] There are simple solutions. It does not involve the intentional killing of a human being. Listen to me. Exceptions, what they end up doing, is undermining the right to life.

[39:48] And, when we do that, we undermine the battle that we're in. God did not say, you shall not murder unless there's this specific situation.

[40:03] He says, you shall not murder, period. Full stop. And, I don't think we should give politicians a free pass. Well, at least they're mostly pro-life.

[40:17] They just have a few exceptions. You know what? Exceptions are where the rubber meets the road. Exceptions are where things really matter. Let me give an example.

[40:30] You have a husband. And, he is a faithful husband. He is totally against adultery. Except, well, there's this cute girl at the gym that he goes to.

[40:42] And, he was thinking maybe he'll make one exception. He's totally against adultery. But, he has one exception. Not three, not five, just one.

[40:55] And, so what do we call that man? Do we call him a faithful husband? No. We call him an adulterer. You are an adulterer. Because of the one exceptions.

[41:07] And, I think we ought to say the same for those who say that I am pro-life, but with exceptions. Instead, we should say, you know what? You are pro-choice. You are pro-abortion with exceptions.

[41:18] That's what you are. Exceptions undermine the right to life. Another thing is states' rights.

[41:34] That's been a common thing that I've heard over the years. Well, we can't do anything because we want to make sure that the states, they have their rights too. So, we don't want to criminalize abortion at, you know, the federal level.

[41:48] Well, because, you know, states' rights is a thing. We want to make sure that the states can have their freedom. You know, when we look at the law to Israel, does the Bible say, well, you shall not murder Israel?

[42:00] Because it was given to Israel, right? A nation, which, by the way, was made up of 10 or 12 tribes, right? Think of them as states. Did God say, well, I suggest you don't murder, but I'm just, why don't you just go ahead and let each tribe decide for themselves?

[42:13] Is that what we read? No. You know what? No subdivision of government, whether you call it a state or a province or a county or a city or whatever, no subdivision of government has the right under God to take away someone else's right to life.

[42:30] And by the way, in America, we have this little thing, I don't know if you've heard of it, called the Bill of Rights, where we had this debate where early on during the founding, they created this constitution, and some people say, hey, you know what?

[42:42] I think we need to make sure that every state provides certain fundamental rights to everybody, regardless what state they live in. And they debated, and they finally decided, okay, we're going to do these 10 amendments, we're going to call them the Bill of Rights, or that's what they ended up being called.

[42:55] Because we want to make sure that these rights are enforced across our entire nation. And so there's one, it's this little tiny amendment called the Fifth Amendment, where it says this, that a person shall not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

[43:12] They have a right to life, everybody in every single state. And because of the whole slavery issue, this whole thing got muddled, and so we actually created another amendment called the Fourteenth Amendment, that made it even especially clear.

[43:25] It says this, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Explicitly, no state is allowed to take away or deprive somebody of their right to life.

[43:38] We have an obligation, whatever, at whatever level, as king, president, whatever, all the way down to the lowest jurisdiction, has an obligation to defend the right to life.

[44:01] Another one is, well, we don't want to criminalize women. Anybody ever heard of that? You know, if we ban abortion or give legal protection to unborn children, that might turn women into criminals.

[44:15] Women who volunteer to get an abortion, they become criminals. Well, of course. But you know what? Protecting the life of a two-year-old does the same thing.

[44:26] Are we going to take away the right to life of a two-year-old because his or her mom might harm him? No, of course not.

[44:38] Because his life is valuable. And by the way, doesn't that infantilize women anyway? Kind of takes away their agency as if they are not morally capable of making decisions.

[44:52] But I want you to know, this is a huge issue. Here in the state of Ohio, we have our state organization called Ohio Right to Life.

[45:05] And they have specifically said that they will never support any law that would criminalize abortion. Did you know that? The Right to Life group here in the state of Ohio said they will never, ever support any law that would criminalize an abortion.

[45:18] Because of this, we oppose criminalizing women. And so we are not going to support equal protection for little baby boys and girls.

[45:31] It's a misplaced compassion. The corruption of human empathy. And by the way, is it compassionate to look the other way or to enable someone to become a murderer?

[45:43] Is that compassionate? No. No. No. The other thing that we see in the whole legal landscape is that politicians will promise to fight for life.

[45:58] And then what they end up doing, sometimes, usually they do nothing. And then sometimes, they will help to pass a regulation here and there. We're going to make it a little bit more annoying to get an abortion.

[46:10] So, for example, you have laws where you have to read a pamphlet first. Or, sometimes, you have to get your mom and dad's permission. Is that justice?

[46:23] Well, you can't murder somebody unless you get your parents' permission. Is that justice? No. Or waiting periods. Well, you've got to wait at least a week.

[46:34] All of these regulations implicitly end their law with, and then you can go ahead and kill the baby.

[46:45] That's what they implicitly state. And so, those kinds of regulations actually also undermine the right to life. It's like if somebody came up with a law, and they said, you know what, let's have a law because, well, you know, a lot of people don't like the Jews.

[47:04] And so, let's just have a law where you can only kill your Jewish neighbor if you read a pamphlet first. We would be shocked. That would be horrific if anybody proposed something like that.

[47:21] So, what kind of law should we pass? Well, I'm glad you asked. Because my representative, actually, in Greene County, where we live, is sponsoring a law called the Ohio Prenatal Equal Protection Act.

[47:39] And it's called House Bill 370. It's still in the committee phase. But there's a group called End Abortion Ohio who is kind of spearheading this.

[47:52] And Levi Dean, who is my representative, has signed on to help sponsor this and try to bring this to the legislature here in Ohio.

[48:04] You know, 10 or 15 years ago, I was part of an effort called the Personhood Initiative. We tried, spent a lot of time and hours getting petitions to get an amendment on the ballot.

[48:23] So, you're familiar with the ballot initiatives, you know, like the gambling houses, you know, got gambling legalized here in Ohio through a voting initiative, all kinds of things. Drugs, right?

[48:33] We now have legalized marijuana because of these voter initiatives. And all you got to do is you got to pay, if you have millions of dollars, you just pay people to collect signatures. And then it goes on the ballot and then you get enough people to vote for it and it passes.

[48:45] And now it's amended to the state constitution. Well, we don't have millions of dollars, so we just tried to get a ragtag crew and we failed. We had to get like 400,000 signatures and we got like 200,000.

[48:59] Which is a lot, but it wasn't even close. Well, we now have a new opportunity here where this is something that will go before the lawmakers, for them to do something.

[49:13] But here's the idea, and I forgot, I was going to grab the language. I don't know, could somebody, maybe one of my kids go grab a sheet off of that table?

[49:25] It's got the language of the bill on it. But it's a very short, now most bills are super long, right? This one's super short.

[49:36] It's like less than a page, or it's about a page long. And most of it is just like legal jargon. But at the core of it, it just says that a little baby boy and girl in the womb should have this same legal protection as everybody else.

[49:53] That's basically it. That's it. Did you know that a bill like that has never, ever even been attempted in the state of Ohio? Never. Since, you know, Roe v. Wade anyway.

[50:06] And you might ask the question, well, we already passed a constitutional amendment to support abortion here like two years ago, right?

[50:16] So what about that? Well, remember that pesky thing called the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, where it says that no state is allowed to deprive somebody of their right to life?

[50:32] Well, that's what this addresses. It looks to the higher law. It says, no, the state of Ohio is not allowed to amend their constitution this way.

[50:43] And that's, they have legal grounds. And so, I've got a table out there with information you can read about the bill.

[51:00] There's different ways that you can get involved, by the way, legally. You could call up Levi Dean and say, thank you for supporting this. You can call your own representative and say, hey, have you heard about this?

[51:10] I did this for our district here in Springfield and got some pretty positive feedback. He'd never even heard of it. And I'm going to tell you, just getting this out of committee in a Republican majority is going to be a huge battle, just to even get it to be voted on, because this is kind of the state of things, not just in the state of Ohio, but everywhere.

[51:35] Nobody wants to risk their office or whatever to do something that would actually uphold the right to life of an unborn child.

[51:47] There's so few people, even the ones with R's at the end of their name, who are willing to do that. But maybe if we put enough pressure, hold their feet to the fire and say, hey, listen, you say you're pro-life, let's see you act on it.

[52:02] And so, there's materials out there. You can find out more. You can look at their website. Send letters. Make phone calls. And then tell other people, your friends, family, what's going on, and that they can support it too.

[52:15] I know I'm way over my time, but I hope this was helpful to everyone. We need abundant clarity on this issue of abortion.

[52:25] It's so important. God loves every single human being, and especially, right, especially the most innocent. In Proverbs, there's a mom who's speaking to her son who is a king, and she says this to him, open your mouth for the speechless.

[52:42] In the cause of all who are appointed to die, open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy. You know, is there anyone weaker or needy, more needy than a little baby boy or a girl?

[52:57] There is not. And so, let's do what we can. Let's ask the Lord right now to help us in that. Father, this is a big issue in our day, and it should be.

[53:08] It should be something that we spend a lot of time and attention on. You love little baby boys and girls more than even we do. We ask that you would give us the courage, the wisdom, the insight to fight this battle in a sustainable way, to speak up for the voiceless, to lend our time and energy where we can, to fight for what is right and what is good and what is just.

[53:35] In this state and in any other place where we have the opportunity to do so. Work in us, Father. Give us the courage that we need. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thanks, everybody. Like I said, there's that table out there.

[53:47] Check out. By the way, there's tracks out there that you can pass out that are related to this pro-life issue.