Episode 104

In this episode of the Removing Barriers podcast, we continue our discussion on the legal and social perspectives on abortion with Sam and Mike from episode 103. The reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision has galvanized millions to pull out all the stops to see the ruling reversed. What would that mean for the country, however, and what legal and social fallout can we expect from the decision and the reactions to it? As already mentioned, this recording is a continuation of the conversation from episode 103. We engage in conversation exploring the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, then pivot to discussing the impact abortion has had on the black community. Join us as Mike, the Lawyer and Sam, the Engineer share their wisdom and opinions on the Removing Barriers podcast.

Ultimately this battle over abortion and any other rights. It’s really a spiritual battle.

Thank you for tuning in to the Removing Barriers podcast. I’m Jay. And I’m MCG, and we’re attempting to remove barriers so we can all have a clear view of the cross.

This is episode 104 of the Removing Barriers podcasts, and in this episode, we will continue our discussion with Mike and Sam on abortion, the legal and social perspective. Sam, Mike, thank you for joining us. Again, welcome back to the Removing Barriers podcast. MCG thanks for having me. Glad to be here. Wonderful.

We also have a book, Giveaway, that’s going on. So on the Removing Barriers website, we have a running list of books that are sure to be a blessing to anyone who reads them. These are books that seek to remove barriers or at least address them, and they seek to exalt Christ, which is the purpose of every single Christian. One of those books is titled Created for His Glory by Jim Berg, and that’s the book we’ll be giving away. So Jim Bergs, created for His Glory, explores God’s purpose in redeeming our lives, providing both the theological underpinning and the practical application of rejoicing in experiencing and displaying God’s grand reality. What are we here for? What did God save us for? It can be used as a discipline tool or for just your everyday thing to read for spiritual benefit. You could use it, as I said, as a spiritual discipline tool with new believers that are seeking to live out their new found faith. In that book will help you guide them and teach them why and how we are created for his glory. So, how to enter? Well, it’s easy. Just subscribe to any of our social media handles or to our mailing list. If you are already subscribed to one of those, pick another RBP handle to subscribe to. If you aren’t yet subscribed to Removing Barriers in any way, go to removingbarriers.net/contact to find our social media handles, or scroll to the bottom of the page and subscribe to our mailing list. Now, the more handles you’re subscribed to, the greater your chances will be of winning. But you do not have to be subscribed to every single one of the handles and to the mailing list to win. Just pick one or some or all of them to subscribe to, and then you’ll be automatically entered. This book giveaway will run for eight weeks from episode 101 to episode 109, and the winner will be announced on episode 110. We will mail the book to any location where the United States Postal Service will allow, and you must be 18 or older to enter.

Great. We will pick up the conversation where we are talking about whether the Constitution discusses abortion. Here is the remainder of the conversation. I want to go back really quick. You talked about the Constitution and whether it discusses abortion or not, and I don’t have an answer to that. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the constitution does address abortion or a very close topic, and that is infanticide. Because actually, you know what? I can’t recall whether this is in the constitution or it’s probably actually the bill of rights where it talks about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No, that’s the declaration of independence. That’s what I meant to say. Yeah. Part of the constitution. Yes. Declaration of independence. Well, the founding fathers, at the very least were thinking about the right to life when they talk about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I was just kind of curious. So I looked it up and apparently back in the 17 and 18 hundreds, I found that infanticide was a huge issue from the early 1700s all the way until the mid 1018 hundreds. There’s a lot of information on several legal websites. I’m pretty sure these are legal websites like gesture. They talk about the history of infanticide and imperiled newborns. And there are other websites as well. They talked about how infanticide was practiced a lot to eliminate unwanted children, children born to illegitimate relations, if you will, children that were defective in certain ways. So it was a big issue. And in the United States, there were several women even hanged for practicing infanticide. So I was trying to find some more details on that. It was in the 1800 when these ladies were hung. Yes, 79 women were hung. Well, actually, this is actually over a time period of 1735 to 1799. So it was an issue back then, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the founding fathers were thinking about it when they talked about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Obviously, I think they were also talking about older people and dealing with their government trying to deprive them of rights, too. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they were thinking about protecting people from each other and including children in that. One way to think of that is if one is looking at the 14th amendment and the use of the word liberty. If one again is going to have the substantive due process conversation. Not only should one look at the history of whether there was some type of protection for abortions centuries in the past. But also whether there was a history of protections for the unborn or protections against infanticides that you mentioned. And it seems like that history needs to be balanced and pulled together and proper scrutiny’s so that Justice Alito and majority would say there’s not a constitutional right to abortion.

Right. But I wonder if that infanticide was to children that were already born rather than an abortion, which is termination of the unborn fetus. So what’s interesting with that is abortion started out as being a procedure that was only carried out in the womb. Right? And in the past, the argument was that the baby was not yet viable or whatever, stuff like that. Then later on we got into late term abortion which included the baby could be pretty much already out of the mom, but as long as you had part of the baby still in the mom, you could kill it. And now we even have what they call post birth abortion where as long as you had started the abortion or sometimes a lot of times people aren’t watching, if you will. So really it can mean whatever you want it to mean. But technically I think as long as you start the abortion process before the baby was fully born, then even if the baby is born and is living and will continue to live under ordinary circumstances, they can still kill it because they had already started the process of trying to kill it while it was in the womb. And I would argue that that is just I don’t know how you could argue anything other than to say that is infanticide. Sure. Our former governor expressed that he was in favor of so called post or post birth abortion. Literally said oh well, you know, if the baby is born and the mother doesn’t want the child then we’d make the child comfortable while we have a conversation and see all of the options on the table. In other words, he is in favor of killing a child after it’s born. Incredible. And not in a good way. Just can’t even fathom. So glad that he’s out. But anyway sorry Sam, I didn’t mean to cut you off. No, you’re fine.

Yeah, I think they put a thing here though because as I was going to say earlier was that I know Jay mentioned about whether or not as Christians we should want to see abortion done away with in the laws and stuff like that. And I would say it sounds good if we can register straight these things and say hey, no more abortion at all. But I don’t think that’s going to ever going to happen. No, because it’s realistic. Of course. You have been under laws forever that you should not murder someone, but people still murder. You have been on the laws forever that you should not rape and people still rape people. So I guess my thing is that I’m putting the onus back on us as Christians because I think that in order for the country to change for the good and we see changes in the laws and changes in people’s heart it’s through the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I think that Christians sometimes put a lot of focus on the legal access. What can I do legally to prevent people from doing these things? How can I go to the ballot and vote in different people to accomplish the goal or the morals I want to see in this country? I’m simply saying here that none of that in my opinion is going to work. None of it. We can vote in the most conservative and the most traditional president and House and Senate and all nine justices in the shopping court are conservative, quote, unquote. And I don’t believe the country is going to go any better direction in terms of morality. Oh, yeah, it might go on to the table for some things, but I think if Christians obey the last command for Christ, which he said, go ahead in all the world and preach the gospel and we see change to the gospel, that’s when I believe that we see change to the country. But I believe that. And this is a pet peeve of mine, because if you look at conservative political parades and matches and stuff like that, christians will turn up in numbers to do those things and to help the politician win. But when you church have an outreach ministry and they don’t participate, they’re saying, I believe the government and the laws can change this country rather than Jesus Christ salvation through them. And I think that’s where I go. Would I like to see abortion done away with? Sure. But I believe that it should be done to change hearts and change lives, and not through the law. Because if lives and hearts are changed, then the laws will change, but if not, we’re just going to be forcing people onto the table. Yeah. It was John Adams that said, our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. And so getting at the hearts of the people with the gospel is what’s most important here, for sure.

I was just thinking, the ruling in Dubs provides a marvelous opportunity for Christians to pivot so rightfully so. There’s been a fever pitch of disgust for the past 49 years with the courts holding in row. But with the Dodds decision, it’s not that America became a more moral country, it’s only that it became, I would say institutionally became less immoral. And now it’s an opportunity for us as Christians to consider what we can do roads on the way with what can we do to help individuals in need and not just do that in a physical sense, whether it’s a friend or a neighbor who is having to work through parenting in very difficult circumstances, how can we offer physical help? And maybe that’s also discussing governmental considerations, really. What is our government doing? What should it not be doing? What should it be doing? Right. That conversation starts happening and then the consideration is also how can we help spiritually with folks who are in difficult circumstances? How can we help meet their needs?

Do you think that will make a difference, Michael? I’m not questioning whether or not it will. I know it will. But I wonder, how will that work in a country that has literally the drop in morality has been precipitous in the last time? It’s amazing how quickly this has happened in the last five to ten years. We seem to have fallen off a cliff in terms of our morality. What was it even think about a decade ago, maybe two decades ago, we’re now pushing for I mean, we’re talking about teachers grooming children, for crying out loud, not knowing what genders should be in bathrooms and all that sort of thing. So I wonder the issue of abortion has gone from and I like when you said we have gone from immoral to a little less immoral because the issue of abortion used to be on the left. It used to be OK, we know abortion is subprime, we know it’s not the ideal situation, but we want it safe, rare. We went from safe, legal and rare to abortion on demand even after birth. So it just seems like we’ve gone over a cliff. Do you think it’s too late or do you think that when you’re describing Pivoting, what does that look like? What are some ways you think that Christians might be able to exert some type of Godly influence to stem the tide, as it were, to be salt, to kind of push back against us falling over the cliff even further? Yeah, I definitely think we talked about governmental solutions, statutory solution, so we can address the bigger issue, abortion statutory scheme. And that’s a big conversation that Christians should be part of. But then when it comes to individual circumstances, I know for me I’m challenged just to meet needs on a very individual level. So I might not be able to make a substantive change for a large group of individuals. But if me and my wife can be more aware of individual needs, I think little changes here and there, little moments to plant the seed of the gospel or just to help somebody in times of need and also make different decisions, is the opportunity for us. And even when it comes to church ministry. Whether it’s we talk a lot about crisis pregnancies for folks who are perhaps in their 20s or maybe in their late teens. But it all goes back to making a difference even in a young child’s life. So that they’ll make decisions that will be most beneficial for themselves and beneficial for the kingdom of God rather than being part of the tragic abortion discussion.

Do you have any comments on there? I guess the biggest thing for me is yes, as a Christian, I do feel convicted to reach out to people and be as big of a witness and a help to our people. In particular, I’m talking like people in our country, people in my neighborhood. And I think that is important that we reach out to people because ultimately this battle over abortion and any other rights, it’s really a spiritual battle. I guess it ties back into life, but spirits in high places, I’m paraphrasing here. And so, yeah, we do have this fight at the physical level, but there is something much bigger going on and perhaps we can be more effective when we look at it from that perspective and act accordingly. This is just a revelation to me. My pastor loves to say this a lot and hadn’t even thought of it in these terms, but we often like to speak of it. Maybe everybody’s pastor probably says this we like to talk about the idea that we’re in a culture war. And I feel like throughout my life I’ve heard those terms over and over again, especially in Republican and conservative circles. There’s this massive culture war brewing in our colleges and our universities and everywhere you turn. But it’s not a culture war, it’s a spiritual war like you mentioned, Sam, and that’s really what’s taking place. So is it too late for us to go to the Lord in prayer and ask for his help, for us to make a difference and ask for his help in the hearts of individuals throughout our country? Definitely not, because it’s spiritual warfare. God is in control.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. And I can’t help to think that we as Christians at times are attacking the fruits of the culture war with unquote. So we see abortion and we see gay marriage and we see critical race theory and the attacking of our kids, indoctrination of kids in school and stuff like that. And we’re attacking those things. And I’m not saying we should attack those things. I’m not even saying that we shouldn’t vote and voting the right people, but I believe that we need to attack the root because they are attacking the foundations of our belief. But we are attacking the fruits of their belief. We are attacking what we are seeing coming up from the fruit and they’re attacking the word of God, which is the foundation of our belief. They are attacking and say, hey, I heard one lady said I don’t care what the Bible says. So what do you do with someone like that? Because you can’t go to them and say, hey, abortion is murder according to the Bible because they don’t care. So what you have to do there, I believe, is share the gospel. You might say, okay, they don’t believe the Bible, so why share the gospel? Because I believe the Holy Ghost can work through the gospel and maybe convict this person. They have been at fault, who have turned to Christ. Share the gospel. I believe that’s where the changes will come from and that’s where now we’re attacking the foundation of the belief because if the hearts are changed, the minds will too. And if the minds are changed, then all these things can go away. But I believe that we don’t put enough evidence, not evidence, but enough emphasis on sharing the gospel. Rather we put it on how can we attack the fruits of what we are seen in our society, which will be abortion, gay marriage, critical race theory, jack Queen’s indoctrination in our schools and stuff like that. And that’s where I draw the line to kind of say, you know what? Yes, I’m going to go there and vote yes, I’m going to go there and vote for the person who I believe is closest to Scripture or closest for me to continue my liberties, to share the gospel. But I’m not going to put my eggs in that basket. I’m putting my eggs in a basket that I believe when Jesus Christ said that he came to give life and that more abundantly, I’m putting my egg in the fact that, hey, the gospel changes life. I don’t know of any other experience outside of the salvation experience where you see someone change their life a complete 180 on the way they are going. And that’s where I put myself. I think the legal aspect of it is important, the social aspect of it is important, but it’s pale in comparison to the spiritual point, I think, which is what you guys are getting at, that we need to go and share the gospel. This should motivate us as Christians to go and share the gospel. I’m glad that rule was overturned, but this should motivate us because, as we said, it doesn’t get rid of abortion. And you can argue that it probably got rid of maybe safer abortion in the sense that now for folks who want to have abortion, they either go to cross state line or they’re going to do it under the table. And because they might do it under the table, it might not be as safe as it was. Again, not advocating for abortion, but I’m just simply saying while we can rejoice, I think the rejoice should be short because we still have a lot of work to do to change our lives and hearts to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I agree. I agree that we have a much bigger issue, the whole spiritual warfare, and this is just like a small victory. That being said, I do think that at least for me, I can detect in our neighborhood a huge change in attitude after the Supreme Court ruled against the Roe v. Wade precedent. And at least from what I’m picking up, everybody just seems to be happier, especially in the Christian community. They seem to be happier, more motivated. And so while this from a legal standpoint and from an actual standpoint of how many babies will die. I guess legally this will cut our abortions almost in half now. A little less than in half from a legal perspective. Because while this does send it back to the states. I want to say almost half the population is living in states where they have trigger laws or similar things to trigger laws. Where when Roe v. Wade is overturned. Then abortion restrictions will kick in. Several states have almost complete abortion restrictions, which I’m actually pretty excited about. That being said. I feel like. Not only is there like this legal battle that was won. Which may not be as big as some people think it is. But I think from an emotional or an encouragement to Christians and other moral people to continue the fight for children’s lives. I think that this is a big win on an emotional level. If you will. And gives us more energy. And we have to remember not to just celebrate right and dance, but or whatever people do to celebrate, but we need to remember that this is an encouragement, but that the battle is still there, the war is still being fought, if you will. I kind of feel like we were as conservatives, we were, I think, of basketball when it comes to the cultural war or the spiritual war, because you have one team. I used to play basketball in high school and if we were going to win, we had to play the game at a slow pace, if you will. We weren’t the flashy team, but we played against a lot of flashy teams and they would just start slam dunking or whatever, making a lot of points and then we would panic, right? And we would lose because I would see how flashy they were and we would try to mimic their flashiness and we just couldn’t do it like they could do it. But if we were slow and methodical about things, then we had a chance at winning. And I kind of feel like conservatives have kind of been stuck in a similar position where the Democrats not Democrats, liberals, because unfortunately, I don’t see much of a difference between Democrats and Republicans. I find that a lot of them overlap, but I find that a lot of the liberals, they may have one way of going about things, they may argue whatever their methods are, but they’re really good at forcing things that we’re opposed to. And sometimes we’re not as good at going about things the way that they do and maybe we shouldn’t be, but we don’t need to try. We don’t need to be disheartened and say, wow, they’re really fast and they can do this and they can do that. We can win, at least for a time. We know that the world is corrupt so we’re going to see corruption until Christ’s return. But until that time comes, we’re supposed to be salt and light and God didn’t put us here for a mission that’s impossible. So we can win at some level, but we just need to make sure that we’re going about it the right way. And I think this encourages us, this ruling encourages us again that we can have wins and that specifically in this issue, we can save babies from being murdered. And then when it comes to other moral issues, we can have wins there as well. So we just need to seek the Lord and go about it the way he would have us to. All right.

It is interesting, Sam, you mentioned the moral boost that Christians can sense with the decision in jobs. It is interesting how that’s a little bit different from a lot of the other Supreme Court decisions that Christians would agree with. So a lot of litigation that Christians have an interest in is First Amendment base where we have the right to free exercise of religion. We already know that that right exists and we want to see that right vindicated and whether it’s the football player who was praying in the center field and then he loses his job and then he has this free exercise rights vindicated the Supreme Court, we see those types of cases come down from time to time, and that’s encouraging to a certain extent. But it’s interesting to hear what you said, Sam, and that is there’s an added layer of encouragement where it seems like such a painful loss with Roe, a painful loss of life for 49 years. And we almost feel like that issue, in a way, feels like it’s lost, but then we see it certainly changed jobs. So it’s very different. Rather than First Amendment litigation where we have a right being vindicated alaska when it comes to Jobs, we have a shrine of immorality, the killing of the unborn undone. And I think that is emotionally even more encouraged.

Yeah. This is the Removing Barriers podcast, We will be right back.

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All right, gentlemen, let’s pivot a little bit and talk about what impact abortion has had on the black community. Because I think the black community has been the most affected by Roe v. Wade because black women make up what I think is between 35% to 45% of the abortions that take place in this country, whatever the number is. I’ve checked different websites and different stuff and they have different ranges. But for most part, black women make up the majority of abortion in this country. Of course, we know that Planned Parenthood has been accused of starting out of a racial aspect of it where Margaret Sang was actually declared and actually said to be racist. So let’s go there a little bit and talk about the social part of it, where we see at least a certain group of people in this country who have been greatly affected by abortion compared to the others? This question certainly for Sam. I’m sure you’ll have some good insight on this topic. Yeah. Regarding the plurality of abortions being black babies aborted, or at least babies from black mothers, that is a very interesting I don’t even know what to call it coincidence. Although some might argue, and I would argue that it’s not a coincidence that it’s intentional. But yeah, I was looking through the stats as well and like you’re saying, I was finding that at minimum 30% of abortions in 2020 were abortions had by black mothers. That’s pretty high, especially seeing as black people make up about 10%, maybe give or take. We make up about 10% of the US population. So if we adjust it, then it’s extremely disproportionate the number of abortions that are happening with black folks. I’m trying to do the math here. I’m having a hard time, but that’s a huge amount of abortions for only 10% of the population to be responsible for. I want to say that some of the figures I was looking at was, and these are rough figures about every day 1000 black babies are aborted. And I want to say every day, yeah, this would drive with about the 30%, 2000 other children are aborted. So 1000 black babies, 2000 other American babies. And that’s crazy. That’s a lot of babies dying regardless of ethnicity. But also when you look at it from a black perspective, that’s really insane. I was looking at some breakdowns here and one of them is showing how now this is older stats. So if we go back to 2008, it was 50% of abortions were white mothers, 42% were black mothers, and 7.5% were other ethnicities. And so it’s just like, wow. I mean, that’s even crazier than I guess what it was today. So that would mean that back in 2008, not quite half of the abortions were being had by 10% of the population, which would be black Americans. So, yeah, that’s crazy.

Going on to the racist origins or potentially racist origins of Planned Parenthood. I was researching a little bit about Margaret Sanger. And so one of the interesting things is Margaret Sanger was involved with the clan, not if I remember correctly. She had a meeting with the Ku Klux Klan’s women’s organization about how they could promote abortions and contraception in the black community. My understanding is that she kind of found the clans women to be very odd people, but she wanted to work with them because she thought that they would be allies in controlling the black population. So that to me is an interesting piece of information on market Sanger. But perhaps what I find even more interesting and more shocking to me that’s bad enough as it is, but some of the things I find even more shocking about Margaret Singer is that she was associated with the Nazi party in Germany. And I. Know, everybody likes to compare the other side. So conservatives may compare liberals to Nazis. Liberals may compare conservatives to Nazis. I’m not just saying this just to say it. Market singer had a magazine. I’m trying to remember its name. It was something like Birth Control Review or something like that. And I have it in my notes right here, but I’m having a hard time finding it. So you have this German doctor, Nazi doctor, Dr. Ruddin. He published an article in her review called Eugenic Sterilization in Urgent Need. Right. And this was in market. Sangers birth control Review magazine. Yes. Back in April 30, 319 33. And what’s interesting to me is, if we look at Dr. Rutten, you can go to the NIH’s website, national Institute of Health, which is one of our government websites, and they talk about Dr. Ruddin and they say he was responsible for pushing successful passage of the Nazi Eugenics Sterilization Law. The NIH also states that Ruddin was in favor of killing children with mental disorders and killing people that were no, they were in favor of killing children and people with mental disorders. So that’s kind of crazy right there. And then one other thing that I got on this Dr. Ruddin was that he was responsible after the passage of the Eugenic Sterilization law, he was responsible for forcibly sterilizing somewhere between a quarter to a half million Germans with less than desirable genetic traits. So that’s kind of scary. And you see this with Market Singer. She was in huge favor of sterilization. She was in big favor of abortion. She was in favor of contraception, you know, all by itself, the idea of contraception. As long as we’re not talking about killing a baby, I don’t have a legal issue with it, and I don’t have too much of a moral issue with it. Although I guess the question has to be, OK, well, why do we not want to have children? Would be my question. But I can see why somebody doesn’t want to have a thousand kids. It’s hard to take care of I’m stretching it here. A thousand kids. But for people that I don’t want to ever have any children, that kind of makes me a society can’t continue if we don’t have kids. So we have to we have to have children. Some of us do anyway. But, yeah, when we look at Margaret Singer, she doesn’t want people to have children. And it’s specifically certain people, groups in particular that she targeted. And she was very open about that. And it seems like black people in particular were a group that she was not interested in having children, or at least she wants us to have less. And so I find it quite interesting, like you’re saying, most of the abortions, especially ones done by her clinic, maybe not most, but the plurality of those abortions are done to minorities and in particular black women. That’s just very interesting.

Yeah. Another thing that comes to mind here is that you mentioned the black population is 10%. I think it’s more twelve. Between twelve and 14% of the US. Population is black, or at least identify as black, let me put it that way. But if you look at the history of censuses in the US. I think it was the 2020 census was the only census in a number of them that the black population actually increased. And one of the argument about that was that it wasn’t necessarily that the black population increase. It was that more people all of a sudden start identifying as black. So you’re talking about the quote unquote, the mix. People that were once maybe identify as white or at least didn’t identify as either black or white now start identifying as black. And that the black population went up half a percent, I think, in 2020. And that could be because of course we know what happened in 2020. We have George Floyd, brunette Taylor and all the BM stuff and stuff like that. So that’s the argument being that a lot of people know that identify as black because they want to be in with the cause. I guess before that, the black population wasn’t going up. My argument here is maybe it’s all the abortion that we’re having. We’re killing all our babies, so at best we’re replacing ourselves. We’re not growing the population. For me, when I look at Planned Parenthood and all these things and abortion on a whole, I’m like it does seem because if you live in a Florida neighborhood or affluent area city, you have to drive miles to actually a Planned Parenthood in some place where we call code ghetto. But if you go into some of the inner cities, there are two tree Planned Parenthood offices in cities who live mostly in inner the cities. You’re talking about black and Hispanic people that live mostly inner cities. So it seems to me that these things are more prevalent in the inner city, the poor areas of town. That is true also for payday loans and car title loans and stuff like that. You don’t see them in the affluent neighborhoods, but you see them in the poor neighborhood where you see the abortion clinics, the lottery replaces their payday cash loans, car title loan, stuff like that. So it seems to me that either there is a cultural aspect to this where these folks realize we’re not going to make money if we open our office in the inner cities because those rich people in the inner cities or the middle class are not going to use these things. But the poorer folks in the inner cities are going to be using these things because, let’s be honest, business put their business where they put them because they figured they have a greater chance of making a profit. It’s a good point. Yeah.

I’ve just been thinking a lot about some folks will stress that there needs to be greater representation of various minority groups in a whole swath of fields, whether it’s in politics, judgeships or lawyers or positions or you name it, people will think there needs to be greater minority groups in this industry. And it’s just interesting to consider the statistics and the impact that abortion has had on the black community and other minority communities, ethnic minority communities. Just think of what has been lost, what could have been from the millions and millions of lives that were taken. And of course, there are numerous anecdotes of folks who are famous today who came out of impoverished settings and perhaps were considered for abortion themselves by their parents. But for one reason or another, circumstances changed, their life was saved, and their life turns out to be one that we all celebrate. So it’s just interesting to hear of the statistics and what opportunities we lost.

Yes. Let me ask this too. In all of this, are we trying to legislate morality? Because of course the old age goes that you can’t legislate morality. But here we’re saying that abortion probably should be illegal, whatever the case may be. Are we trying to legislate morality? Or as we discussed earlier, they have a deeper issue here. I don’t know if I agree with the idea that you can’t legislate morality. The whole point of the law is to prescribe some form of moral behavior and to enforce it, right? So I guess maybe the idea behind people saying you can’t legislate morality is that while you may enforce certain code on the outside, there are a lot of issues that have to be dealt with inside a person’s own head. But in this case, when I think of what abortion is, at least from our perspective, the argument and I really don’t know how you can argue any other way, but from our perspective, the argument is that abortion is murder. And if that is true, I don’t know how somebody could say, well, you can’t legislate morality. Abortion may be wrong, but we can’t legislate on it. Well, we have laws saying that you can’t murder, right? So you can’t murder people after they’re born. Why aren’t we going to have laws that say you’re not allowed to murder before somebody is born? And again, to me it’s kind of interesting because a lot of our laws are related to the hitman, right? So all we’re saying is when it comes to abortion laws, the hitman can be prosecuted. And often cases we’re just looking at them getting their license suspended, not even going to jail, right? But for me at least, I’m looking at it. This is a murder. So if you have an abortion practitioner who’s practicing abortion now, granted we don’t want to do things ex post facto, right? So we don’t want to pass an abortion laws. Let’s say somebody was operating legally before and then after the laws passed, then it’s illegal well, we can’t get them for things that were legal earlier and put them in jail for a law that just passed or just went into effect. But going forward, the way I’m looking at it, if we pass a law that makes abortions illegal, and I think people should, because I think it’s murder, then they need to be punished as though we’re a murder. And so this whole license thing to me is nonsense, but it’s a good start.

Yeah. Think about it this way. I think Matthew Luther King said once in one of his speech that the law cannot make the white men love me, but it can make him not lynch me. Exactly. I think that’s where the legacy morality goes because let’s step back a little bit. What is murder on a higher level? It’s basically hate, right? Because the Bible tells us that if you look at the brother would hate the same as murder, right. So I think that’s where it comes from when you say category morality. Because at the end of the day, as a man ticketed his heart. So if he so the action is just outflowing of whatever your inner moral code is. And I think that’s what they’re saying. As much as you can say you shouldn’t murder somebody, well, you can still hate them in your heart. And Bible says that’s murder. So at the end of the day, you can try to control actions as much as possible about how successful it would be in changing heart, I guess is the root of this. I didn’t look at it as hate in this case. Right. I was looking at it more of an inconvenience. So it would be like if somebody saw somebody with a gold ring, they don’t hate that person, but they have the gold ring that they want. They’ll kill them and take the gold ring. Or maybe they were in the middle of trying to make a business deal and then this person is getting in the way. Well, I don’t hate you, man, but you’re getting in the way of me making this business deal. You’re about to take the contract that I want it, so bye bye. And I know that sounds like an oversimplification, but I see it the same way we’re saying, you know what? I didn’t want this baby. And first of all, most of these abortions are happening in a consensual context regarding human relations, right? And so to me that’s pretty crazy because you know what having sex does, right? You have the high possibility of having a child and now you’re going to say, oh, well, I did what it takes to make a baby, but now I want to kill it, right? Now, to me, that’s crazy. As a responsible human being, if you’re going to do something that’s going to make a baby, then you need to take care of that baby. I know some people say, well, what about in the case of rape and incest and stuff like that. To me that abortion is still wrong but for the more overarching reason. It’s still a human and we shouldn’t be killing humans, innocent humans. In the case of rape, if anybody should pay the price, it should be the rapist, not the baby. And of course, you have people make the argument, well, this adds to the mother scarring, I would argue, killing a baby in her womb.

Yeah. Talking about whether prohibiting abortion is an initiative of legislating morality. Yeah, I think we’ve kind of echoed on this call or on this podcast that certainly criminal law legislates morality. That’s what it does. But when you look at it from the vantage point of murder, a justifiable legislation of morality, the test from the Dobbs case says that rather than talking about viability preability versus post viability station, now the constitutional test under the due process laws is rational basis. So as long as the legislature and the jurisdiction passes a rational basis test, then it’s permissible under the due process falls of the constitution. And what that test is is that state governments can only ask if they are achieving a legitimate state interest through rational means, which is a pretty simple threshold to clear. But it does bring in the question of what is the state interest that’s being pursued with the legislation that’s being considered. And in some of the Supreme Court’s abortion cases, they talk about different state interests. So the state interest might be affecting the life of the unborn. And of course that’s very significant. The same interest, however, might alternatively be attempting to maybe put it in, quote, legislate morality by trying to diminish engagement in extramarital sexual activity. And I believe there was one of the abortion cases in the Supreme Court that addresses that approach. Is that a legitimate government interest? That’s an interesting question. I’m not sure if the Supreme Court has decided that issue, but what is a legitimate state interest? There might be different ways that abortion restrictions would pursue different government interests and some might border more on being, in quotes, legislating morality, while others indicating the rights of the unborn, protecting the unborn, would certify the Supreme Court holding be a legitimate date interest and probably wouldn’t in, quote, the legislative morality as we would collect it.

Yeah, Jay, I’m going to put you in a spot here. I’m going to give you a big red button and if you press that button, abortion will be illegal in the United States. Would you press it? Let me make sure I understand the question properly. There’s a red button, a big one? A big one. And if I push it, abortion is legal, illegal or illegal in the United States immediately, no question. Yes, absolutely. I am pushing that button. I don’t know how that would go about it because obviously Michael was just mentioning how generally you can’t legislate morality. You can’t make people do what they ought to do. But yes, absolutely, I would push that button. There’s no reason for abortion. Abortion is the killing of a child in the womb, the termination of a pregnancy that results in the killing of a child in the womb. There’s no medical reason for it. And many people would be saying, oh, what about the life of the mother? There is no medical situation where the pregnancy would require an abortion because it threatens the life of the mother. There could be a situation where the mother has a medical condition in which the medical treatment may or will result in the termination of the pregnancy, but there’s no reason to actively go in there to kill the child in order to save the mother. Let’s say, for example, in the topic pregnancy, right? You’re not going in there with the intention of killing the baby. You’re going to say, remove the fallopian tube where the implantation site is, or you’re going to oblate or whatever you have to do, and that results in the death of the fetus in order to save the life of the mother. That’s something completely different. We’re talking about intentionally going in there to kill the baby. Many people say, well, what about mentioned topic pregnancy? And they mentioned a bunch of other things. It can always go back to this. You’re going in there to perform a procedure that saves the life of the mother, and the death of the child is an unintended or unfortunate consequence or result. So if there’s a red button that terminates abortion across the board, yes, I’m probably pushing that button for sure. Are you pushing that button.

Sam? Absolutely, yeah, I agree with that. There’s no reason why abortion is ever necessary. We do have, like she mentioned, the whole tube of pregnancy. And yes, you might have to remove part of the fallopian tube or whatnot. And obviously in a situation like that, the baby is not likely to survive. But again, the whole purpose of that is not to kill the baby, it’s to preserve the life of the mother. So this whole idea of we want to be able to kill a baby and people pushing for the rights to kill a baby, I think that’s utter nonsense and should be if we could make it illegal right now, I would do it.

The lawyer, would you push that button? Yeah, right. On the topic of elective, I think kind of what our consensus here in this conversation is, elective abortion. Well, maybe there’s two ways to look at it, I think. One, the term elective abortion absolutely would push that button. And then two, if we look at it from a medical standpoint, the life of the mother, what I’m hearing is ectopic pregnancy is very different. Such that really sounds like the objective would be to address an eternal concern as opposed to abort the child. But that would be an unfortunate consequence of procedure. To address the condition. So that would be a very different circumstance. But when we’re talking about elective abortion, absolutely.

Great. Well, I won’t answer that question. You can’t give us the red button and you don’t have to face the red button. Well, it has to be a big red one. And maybe if it’s a big red one, then I will push it. But if it’s just a red button, no big red button, then are you pushing it? Definitely. I will definitely push it, but I will push it with the understanding that going back to what I said earlier, that I think the gospel is more important than the big red button. So, yes, I’ll push it, but I’ll push it with an understanding that definitely the gospel should be this.

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Okay, so this is an interesting question here, and I’m going to shoot this one to you, Mike, first, at what time does a baby with a born or unborn gain constitutional right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness? Of course, we know that statement is in the Declaration Independence and not the Constitution, but when does the baby gain constitutional rights? Yeah, and Roberts Wade discusses that topic and addresses the issue of the word person and whether an unborn child is checked under the Due Process Clauses. And ultimately the Justice Blackman writes that the authors of the 14th Amendment would not have seen an unborn child as protected under the Due Process Clause. So Justice Blackman seems to be of the persuasion that there’s something that changes presumably upon birth, and that’s his viewpoint. However, his analysis to reach that conclusion just seems a little bit spotty. And then I think it would probably be a very deep conversation that we could spend hours and hours of pages covering. But he does talk about how there’s just a considerable difference between a child that’s unborn and a child that actually is born and other folks that we would more readily recognize under the word person in the Due Process Clause. And I was just wrestling in my head, what is the difference between a child who is a week old, who can’t change his own diaper, who can’t feed himself in many respects is of a very similar status to the unborn child, except the child is external outside the mother versus inside the mother. So I think there is a conversation for whether an unborn child is protected under the due process falls. Definitely a nuanced conversation.

Yeah. I’m not sure when you’re talking legally when the rights would be applied. I do think about some of our traditions, right? So if we’re just looking at things from a legal perspective and the rights of the unborn child, the legal rights, I could see somebody making an argument like, you get your citizenship upon birth, so until then, you don’t have all of the legal protections that an unborn person would have. But if we’re looking at this from a moral perspective and whether it’s right or it’s wrong, you know, the bible makes it quite clear that an unborn child is still a person. And if we look at it from a scientific perspective, I think you would come to the same conclusion. But when it comes to legal rights in the constitution of an unborn child, I’m not exactly sure. I think that might be an area where we might want to fortify our constitution, to be honest. It’s interesting that the 14th we talk about these three clauses, the privileges or immunity clause, clearly talking about citizens, and that’s the word it uses. And the equal protection clause also pardon me, the due process clause and the protection clause both use the word person. So that is an interesting thinking. Of course, justice blackman in row tries to say that the word person would not cover an unborn child, but it is considerably different than the word citizen. I think that is a good point, mike, because especially if there’s some intention behind saying person versus citizen, I hadn’t considered that, then that would suggest that some of these protections were intended for all people, and unborn babies are people. Well, either that or maybe somebody could say that there are three fifths a human because they’re unborn.

It’s interesting here, though, because you mentioned the duplexes clause in the 14th amendment, but even notice it says all persons born. I’m of the opinion that a baby, an unborn baby, does not have constitutional rights. I don’t see it in the constitution. And I could be wrong. That’s just my layman’s view of looking at it. I just read it and interpreted the way I would interpret it when I read and everything. And the reason for that is because, again, going back, I don’t think the founding fathers were thinking about that, to be honest. No, I’m not saying that because the constitution gives the unborn child any right that it should be okay to abort a baby. I’m just simply saying it seems like the right constitution is given to anybody is a person who has already been born. I could be wrong on that. I tend to be corrected. But constitution seems to be using the term born to link with persons to establish that right. So I’m thinking that I’m not quite sure we can say the unborn baby has constitutional rights.

I guess another question that I have is they may or may not have constitutional rights under the federal constitution. But again, when it comes to matters of life and death, it seems like a lot of these decisions are made at the state level anyway, especially for people that are already born. And so I guess my question is, what is the state? Of course we have 50 states, but what do these state constitutions have to say about the matter of unborn children? I’d be curious. I don’t know. I hadn’t looked into that before. I didn’t look into that neither. I think, again, going back to the word citizen versus person, we would have to assess supreme court jurisprudence on the protections for folks who aren’t citizens or country right that the 14th amendment may afford. So of course, if you or I go to a different country and have a criminal charge pressed against us, really hope that we would receive due process, but maybe we wouldn’t, depending on the country that we might be in. So we have to double check. I believe there’s jurisprudence on the idea a foreigner in America receives due process under the 14th amendment and under the fifth amendment, so it would be interesting to see how that would play out. So, Mike, that’s an interesting question, because for me, for the longest time, I thought it was wrong, honestly, from a legal standpoint, that the supreme court afforded many rights to non citizens. But are you saying that the court is affording these rights on the basis that they’re a person and that the constitution specifies that certain rights are given to persons whether they’re citizens or not? And we have to double check the jurisprudence on the issue, but I think both the due process calls and the protection calls have been used to protect persons regardless of the citizenship status. Interesting. The privileges or immunities clause.

Cool. You learn something every day.
That’s why I call him the smarter brother.
Not a chance.
Sam is pretty smart. I was in class with him, so I know he’s pretty smart. Yes, well, you were the one getting all the As. I got a few, but you got I don’t know about anymore. I don’t know about that. I was just afraid of dr. Howell. That’s why I did so well in his class.

So what should be the bible believing christian view on abortion? In a nutshell. So I think of David and I think of Jesus, right. So David talks about before he was born, god knew him. And then when we look at Jesus, when he was just a few months old, his mother was in the presence when I say a few months old, a few months old in the womb. Right. His mother Mary was visiting with her cousin Elizabeth, and John the baptist was also in his mother’s womb. And John the baptist recognized the presence of Jesus. Right. A baby in the womb, whether we want to admit it or not. These babies, I would argue they’re people god knew. David in the womb. And then you have these two babies, john the baptist, who recognize Jesus in the womb. So this tells us that these babies are at the very least, they’re important, even while they are in the womb. And I think because of that, a lot of Christians have to strongly consider that these babies are people and need to be treated as such. And they’re important. And I think the Bible gives us lots of reasons to feel that way. Also, if we look at just a lot of the old practices in the Bible where people would sacrifice their children, god really didn’t like that. And I would argue that what we see with a lot of the abortion bill today very closely resembles the old Satanic practice of child sacrifice. So as a Christian, there’s no way I can support abortion. I think it’s horrible and I think the Bible makes that clear.

The biblical view on this topic, perhaps we can reclaim a buzz rate that’s been adopted by the left, and that is the word of love. And we can center ourselves on having love for the most vulnerable among us, including the unborn. And Sam, you hit on the different Bible passages that speak of God’s creation of the unborn and their personhood. The verse I was thinking about is Jeremiah, where God said to Jeremiah, before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, and before thou cameest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nation. So sure, there’s probably lots of parsing we can do that Bible verse, but we see God has a purpose for Jeremiah. And there’s many other Bible verses where God speaks of the purpose that he has for the various prophets and God has a purpose for everyone. So for a mother who finds herself in very difficult circumstances, circumstances she didn’t wish upon herself, but it is what it is. It’s an opportunity to return to the Scriptures, have a heart of love towards that little baby that God created and recognize that God has a purpose for that child, just as he had a purpose for Jeremiah. God has a purpose for every person, and that’s the opportunity for that mother, for that father and the circumstances to be able to pursue God’s purpose for their child. And then lastly, I think about the verse in Ephesians that reminds us just about our role as parents. And particularly the Bible says in Ephesians six, four to fathers, the fathers provoke not your children’s wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Again, thinking about a mother in a difficult circumstance, what about the father in the difficult circumstances as well? Your situation is your situation. How can one move forward with it and say, this is God’s creation, I’m going to love that child, I’m going to raise it in the nurture and admission of the Lord, no matter how hard this is. I think that’s the biblical view on the issue.

Okay, john, chapter one. Verse one says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God done in. Verse nine says, that was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. There are many arguments about abortion. When does the life begin? Where does the line between the mother’s right, the right of the child to live? Where is that line made? When do they cross it? And Christians may be tempted to get wrapped up in those arguments, but God has blessed us with increased knowledge. The Bible talks about knowledge multiplying on the earth. If it multiplied twofold every year in, say, 20 years ago, it’s multiplying 50 times every 30 seconds. Now the amount of knowledge that we have and that we were exposed to is astronomical. And by God’s grace, we know exactly when life begins. Now there’s no excuse for us now. And every single person that comes into the world, where previously people might have thought, oh, come into the world means birth, but now we know coming into the world means conception. John one nine says that true light, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, the word of God made flesh, it lights every man that comes into the world. In light of that, we should quake and we should tremble at the thought of harming these little ones, as Jesus called them. When the disciples tried to shoo the children away as a people, we’ve lost our fear of the Lord. And so we simply don’t fear or respect or love each other. And the issue of abortion mars the image of Christ to a degree that I can’t even find words to describe, the Lord Jesus Christ died for every single person that ever came into the world or that will ever come into the world to pay for those sins in order to save them. Why would he do that? He’s benevolent, yes. He’s loving and merciful, yes. But every single created person at the moment of conception bears the image of God. They’re image bearers. And I would plead with believers and non believers alike that when we talk about this atrocity called abortion, it’s a whole lot more than rights of the mother, this, that or the other. We’re talking about souls for which Christ died. And the reason he had to die was because we’re all marred by this sin. I think in recent days, in recent years, we’ve gotten a very scary and frightening look at just how deep our depravity is when we see men and women protesting in the streets and taking the Ru 86 pill I forget what it’s called, but the morning after pill, essentially, in order to just push this abortion on demand idea, my body, my choice, false ideology. Amazingly, the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for those sins as well. Let’s be diligent in reaching them with the gospel, because even though they are evil in what they believe and how they act. They are still very much under the thumb of the devil. They are blind, they are deceived. They’re blind leading the blind. But the Lord Jesus Christ died for them, too. So as we take what Sam has said and Michael and you as well. MCG. Taking all of these ideas about the life of the child and glorifying God and abolishing abortion. Let us also. As Christians. Pursue the hearts and the souls of these lost people who are committing these atrocious acts. Praying to God for the strength and the wisdom and the know how to do it so that they can put their trust and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn from their sin. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ that they too might be saved.

Yeah, definitely. And I’ll just end with Psalms 139, verse 13 to 15. For thou has possessed my reins, thou has covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee. For I am faithfully and wonderfully made marvelous adi works and my soul know it right well. My substance was not hidden from thee when I was made in secret and curiously brought in the lowest part of the earth. Mike, Sam, thank you so much for joining us and the Removing Barriers podcast. MCG it was a pleasure. Thanks so much.

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