A few weeks ago a dear friend of mine messaged me that she wanted to get more involved with the efforts to end abortion. She is an amazing prayer warrior and such a Godly woman so I was thrilled she wanted to know how to get involved, and more importantly, how her church can get involved. We need more churches actively fighting to end abortion. As I heard one woman say, “Christians are the reason abortion still exists.” That is so sad yet so true.

​Christian individuals and Christian churches must take action to abolish abortion. However, too many are absolutely silent on this issue! They may say they are “pro-life” because they support pregnancy centers, but they won’t openly expose the evil truth about abortion. And it takes addressing both sides of this issue for us to abolish abortion and save the lives of the innocent unborn.

I shared with my friend several different ways she can get involved in the fight to end abortion.  

Ultimately what I told my friend though, regardless of what area she ends up serving, she has to come to the sidewalk with me to see what it’s like. Even though the sidewalk ministry may not be where she works to end abortion, she must go in order to witness firsthand the battleground where abortion is happening. In her words, she compared it to going on a mission trip to better understand overseas missions, though you may not be called overseas.

So she did just that.

Last Friday morning we went to the local abortion clinic together. I chose Friday because that is one of the killing days (as opposed to a consult day) so she could see what the clinic workers were like and what it might be like to save a baby. And boy did she get a full experience!

As we parked on a side road and approached the clinic, I pointed out that the facility is just called a “Women’s Clinic." Were it not for the pro-life ministry on the sidewalk, most people in this city would have no idea what is going on here. Whereas if it were a Planned Parenthood, everyone would know they were in the business of killing babies. But this clinic disguises that fact from passers-by (although their website makes it perfectly clear their main service is abortion).

The set up for this particular clinic, I’ve been told, is one of the most hostile to pro-life work in the southeastern region. The building entrance is on the back side, the door farthest from the street. They have recently installed a large speaker on the side of the building blaring music. The “deathscorts,” as we appropriately call them since they are escorting women and their babies in for death, are all holding large umbrellas and a smaller upright speaker blaring music. As soon as a car pulls into the parking lot, the deathscorts rush to surround the car, open those umbrellas, and crank up the volume. All of this serves to shield women from seeing and hearing the pro-life people on the sidewalk.

The deathscorts don’t want any woman to be told by a sidewalk person that they don’t have to kill their baby. Deathscorts don't want the women to hear that we will give them any money they need to help with their prenatal care, or that we will fully stock their nursery for their baby, or that there are families standing there ready and willing to adopt their baby, or that we can provide any other kind of help they may need to keep their baby. No, the deathscorts don’t want the woman to know there are life-giving choices available to her. They want her to only choose one thing – abortion.

Why? Well, as we watched the owner of the clinic drive in with his Escalade, my friend saw for herself why. The abortionist’s Mercedes and the owner’s Cadillac are why they want women to abort. Abortion is a lucrative industry.

Many people ask if there is shouting from the sidewalk? Absolutely. But shouting at people seems so ugly! Aren’t we just being mean to these vulnerable women, like the media portrays? We have to ask why we are shouting. The shouting is so we can be heard over all the efforts of the clinic to silence us. It is to be heard over the umbrellas and the loud speakers and at the back of the parking lot. The shouting is so these women can hear the last cry for help and hope that they will ever get before they kill their babies.

​The deathscorts are doing everything they can to drown out the voices of hope and help. They work to stop these women from the last possibility of choosing life. So we shout in order to be heard. Besides, if it were you inside that womb about to be dismembered alive, wouldn’t you want people shouting in order to save you? 

The woman faced with an unexpected, ​unplanned, unwanted pregnancy is in a vulnerable and difficult situation. She is desperate. She has been deceived by the clinic workers and by culture telling them that her only solution is to kill her child. She is deceived by the lie that her life would be better if she killed her baby. She is possibly* choosing abortion because she thinks there is no other option.

For this woman, we are shouting words of hope and help. “Come talk to us.” “Let us help you.” “You don’t have to do this.” “There are other options.” These are life-giving words to help a desperate woman. For her, we need to be tender and loving, yet that is hard to do when you must shout over the umbrellas and the blaring music in the 10 seconds it takes them to walk across the parking lot.

In the meantime, three of our sidewalk ministers are being handcuffed and put into the police cruisers to be taken downtown. For what? For voicing an opinion. For offering help to woman in a crisis pregnancy. For trying to save a life. For peacefully protesting the murder of the innocent. Isn’t this what our Constitution protects? Aren’t we allowed to stand on a public sidewalk and voice our dissent? I wanted to run to the people inside the building and tell them, “We are willing to get arrested to save the life of your baby. These people want to take your money to kill your baby.” 

could see me around the umbrellas. There were now four clinic workers, including one man, who kept shouting for me to mind my own business and go away. But I was not going to leave the sight of this woman. After I long time, she cracked her window and said something to the clinic workers. I have no idea what she said, but I knew she had chosen life by the reaction of the clinic workers. The deathscorts snapped those umbrellas shut and stormed off from the car. I continued to pray. She backed her car up and pulled out of that wretched parking lot.

As she pulled onto the street, she was crying and waving. She slowed down as she passed me, and we smiled at each other. I waved and told her I loved her. I wish she had stopped so I could give her a big hug. But I knew in that moment as she drove away she had chosen life for her sweet, innocent, defenseless baby.

The more I see headlines about drag queen story hours at public libraries, the more baffled I become with our society. It is especially unnerving when you see several stories like this[1], where the drag queens are also convicted pedophiles. For most of the nation, the reaction is that this is just some new crazy trend in California or New York, but I’ve now seen an ad for a drag queen story hour in my neighboring city in north Alabama – what used to be considered the Bible belt. The ad stated there would be cookies and milk “for the children” complete with a photo of a drag queen holding a young child, who quite honestly looks terrified. I wanted to offer a few things to consider as we watch our nation somehow embrace this awful idea of a drag queen story time.

1. Does anyone remember the purpose of the public library?
I love the public library. Granted I am old enough to remember the library being a necessity for completing high school and college. There was no online encyclopedia, Google, or Wikipedia so we had to physically go to where the books were kept. I spent many Saturdays at the library finishing research papers, scribbling down sources on notecards.

Now, I love the library because I’m able to check out books for my kids without having to buy every book they read, the added bonus being if it’s not a good book, you simply return it without having wasted money on it.

Guys, THAT is the purpose of the library. I know we have the world of books at our fingertips on the internet, but the purpose of the library ultimately is to provide books. The purpose of the library is not to promote someone’s political, religious, or social worldview, especially since public libraries are on the public’s dime. I do not pay my taxes for the library to promote an agenda – regardless of whose agenda it may be and whether I agree with the agenda or not. My tax dollars go to the library for them to provide books.

And this “story time” is not about promoting books. This has nothing to do with reading; it has nothing to do with promoting good children’s literature. It has everything to do with subjecting children to one faction’s particular ideology of sex. I highly doubt that a child is suddenly excited about checking out books because a man dressed as a woman finally read them a bedtime story.

And I get that libraries serve as community centers. It can be a great meeting place for any group in the area who wants to gather with like-minded people, and yet have those meetings open to the public for anyone to join. But this isn’t a support group for drag queens, or even an informational meeting about how to be a better drag queen. This is pitched as a children’s reading event while neglecting both of those things – the reading AND the children.

2. Regardless of your stance on the LGBTQ+ issue, you should find this appalling.
When you see articles like this [2] where a drag queen has allowed children to climb all over him, it should horrify everyone, regardless of your thoughts on drag queens or anything to do with the LGBTQ+ movement. I would be equally appalled if they brought in a heterosexual female prostitute and allowed children to lay on top of her. I would be equally horrified if a grown man, dressed as a man in a three piece suit, allowed children to crawl on top of him. In fact, if we heard of that happening, we would immediately call the police and have him arrested as a sex offender.

I would be horrified for any adult of any gender or sexual persuasion to encourage random children to lay on top of him or her. That is simply inappropriate, regardless of anyone’s sexual orientation. What is so disappointing is that those claiming the LGBTQ+ movement care so little about children and their mental health that they would promote this kind of event. This is honestly abuse for these children – and it has nothing to do with the sexual confusion or orientation of the drag queen. It has to do with inappropriate exposure of children to adult things. Which leads to my next point…

3. Stop sexualizing children.
These programs are just one of many ways our society has decided to sexualize children. California sex-ed programs [3] are “educating” elementary school children by having them put condoms on fruits and vegetables, including a "race" where 10- and 11-year-old girls are required to put condoms on these items in front of male classmates. Another school program [4] is teaching 6-year-olds how to masturbate. A Texas mom is trying to chemically change her elementary-aged son into a daughter. A first-grade classroom in the UK [5] has asked its students to write love letters to an imaginary same-sex partner. Those children don’t even know what a love letter to a heterosexual partner would be, why in the world are we asking them to do this for a homosexual partner?

What happened to this world to think this is acceptable to do to children? Children should be left to be children without having to process through an adult’s gender identification and sexuality issues. Drag queen story hour is no exception. I don’t want my children to see men or women dressed in this way. So again, it quite frankly doesn’t matter to me what the story time reader’s sexuality is, please don’t dress provocatively in front of my children and introduce them to sexual concepts. This should be seen as child abuse, not education.

Besides, a child is just as prone to claim they want to grow up to be a cat and then pretend all day they are an invisible snake as they are to understand what sexual orientation they are. But instead of using age-appropriate events for these children, our society is forcing children to wade through sexual orientation issues at the same age they are trying to figure out how to eat green beans without gagging at the table and how to use a tissue to wipe their own noses.

Drag queen story hour, sex education, and gender reassignment are not age-appropriate things to force on our children. In every other area we recognize that children and adolescents are not capable of making sound decisions on their own. A person is not mature in their decision-making faculties to rent a car until they are 25, to drink until they are 21, to vote or carry a pistol until they are 18. Yet we are forcing 6-year olds to change their gender; we are telling pre-teens their sexual orientation. How about we let our children be children? Why are we intent on stealing their innocence?

What purpose are libraries serving by forcing these issues on young, susceptible children – because we all know it’s not about books and reading. It is about normalizing this behavior to children. One drag queen openly admits [6], “This is going to be the grooming of the next generation. We are trying to groom the next generation.” That is what this is about. It isn’t about the children, it is about the LGBTQ+ movement stealing the minds of the next generation by grooming them to think this is normal, acceptable behavior – for adult and child alike. This is not education, it is abuse.

It is actually dangerous for our children to have them link play-time, dress-up, and pretend with sexual orientation. In one city, the public library has promoted [7] its drag queen story hour as something to “capture the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood.” They mention giving them queer role models who provide makeup tutorials and a safe space for them to express whatever gender they like.

But sexuality and sexual experience should never be mixed with a child’s playtime and imagination. It sets the stage for adult predatory behavior. This article [8] explains that “sex play for kids opens the door to predatory behavior by adults and much confusion for kids. Sexuality is not glitter and rainbows, it’s not about unicorns, puppets, and makeup tutorials. It is serious, and children are too young to understand how serious.” It states that this is far worse than just sexualizing children. This actually grooms children to be sexual objects. Children are drawn to unicorns and glitter, but they have no way of grasping the dangers that lurk around the corner with an all-too-willing adult to “help” them in this game of sexual experience. But this is not a game. This a child’s life – that can be scarred and damaged.

4. Who are these parents taking their children to these things?
Granted, the government, schools, and special interest groups will always be foisting some kind of agenda on us. However, attendance to a drag queen story hour at your local library (or your local brewery as is the case in north Alabama) is voluntary. This is why it leaves me scratching my head that people are attending these things.

If a place wants to host something like this, they are free to do so (as long as they aren’t using my tax dollars to do so), but it doesn’t mean people have to or should attend such a thing. What should happen is a place decides to do a drag queen story hour; people see the promotions and say, “What a horrible idea! I’m not taking my child to that!”; no one shows up; venue decides to not try that again. So I really want to know – who in the world is taking their children to these things? And I ask because of all the things I pointed out above.

Whether you are a lesbian couple with an adopted child, or a single homosexual dad, or a married heterosexual couple with children, why are you taking your children to such a thing as this? The only reason why is so you can “embrace” the LGBTQ+ movement, but instead you are harming your child by unnecessarily exposing them to sexual perversions under the guise of “reading” and “acceptance.” If you want to support and embrace dragu queens, go for it, but leave you children to be children. If you want your child to read a book, just go check out a book for them. They don’t have to watch a grown man dressed in drag in order to appreciate reading.

As parents, our job is not to use our children as a political statement. Our job is to protect our children as well and as long as we can. The world is messy and disturbing enough for an 18-year-old when they walk into it. Why are rushing our elementary age children into it? This is a dangerous and harmful thing for our children and it needs to stop. We may not be able to talk sense into the libraries and private institutions to not host something as atrocious, but we certainly don’t have to attend.

If you have confessed Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, what would your response be if your pastor announced that he was having an extramarital affair? Would you stand up and applaud him for his bravery in announcing that? And then reaffirm his decision, encourage him to continue his work as a pastor while he has a mistress alongside his wife and family? Would you tell him to just do whatever makes him happy? Or what if the children’s minister at your church announced that she is an alcoholic? Would you drink a toast to her for having the courage to come forward with that? Would you cheer her on and say, “You go girl!”? What if your Bible teacher, being single, told you he brought home a different girl every weekend? Would you tell him those desires were just how God made him so he should keep it up? When he posted on social media about his exploits, would you give it a thumbs up and tell him you had never seen him so happy? Or would you say he needs to find a church that approves of what he’s doing so he can still “serve the Lord”?


Would you encourage these individuals in these areas of their lives?


I want you to really think about what your response to each of those scenarios would be, especially where each scenario involves a Christian engaged in a lifestyle of sin. My guess is you would not affirm their decisions to live like that. I bet that you would say it was wrong to do those things, and maybe, just maybe, you would say they needed to stop those activities. But why? Is it just because there is a social norm that says having an affair, being a drunk, or being a womanizer is not good? No, it’s because we know that is not the behavior a professing Christian ought to have. The reason for that is because someone who is committed to following Christ is supposed to “deny themselves, pick up their cross” and follow Jesus. That means we are to deny our desire to have an affair, to drink too much alcohol, and to be sexually immoral. That is not so that we trade in all the “good” stuff here on earth so we can have “better” stuff in heaven. It is because Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep my commands.” And this is how He commanded us to live – because He knows what is best for us. Therefore, to demonstrate your love for Jesus, you are to keep His commands. You are to abide in His word. You are to hear and follow His voice.


Of course that doesn’t mean we don’t mess it up. We do have pastors announcing affairs and ministers living with addictions, just as much as we have Christians in the congregation struggling with those things. The difference should be in how we respond to it. Do we cheer it on? Do we support their sin? Or do we grieve alongside of them for their failings, give them Biblical, Godly counsel, and lead them in a different direction? Maybe we should even carry out that church discipline that Jesus talked about in Matthew 18:15-19. Jesus instructs us how to deal with sin among believers (not outside of the church). He says to go to that person individually to address his or her fault. If he listens then you have won him over, but if not, then take others within the body of believers to address it with the him. If the person still doesn’t listen, then take the person before the church. If he or she still refuses to repent or change, then put the person outside the fellowship of other believers. Jesus says, “Treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” 

Can you imagine if a church actually followed Jesus’ commands like this? What would that even look like? The idea is so foreign to us because instead of calling on one another to walk in obedience, we support one another in our sins. We pat each other on the back and say, “It’s ok. We all fail. I do that too.” What is worse is we even encourage sin with each other! I’ve seen people cheering other people on in their sin. They get “likes” on social media and approval to continue on in what they’re doing. It is true that we all fail and we all sin, but we aren’t supposed to be proud of that! We aren’t supposed to rejoice in wrongdoing. True love as described in 1 Corinthians 13 is that we rejoice in the truth instead of evil and wrongdoing. We are supposed to strive to put away our sinful selves and make ourselves look more like Christ, and encourage others to do the same. And when we do fail, we are to confess, repent, and try again the next day through the power of the Holy Spirit to not continue in that sin. Instead, in our warped culture we brag about our sins on Facebook – and get likes for it! We define ourselves with our sin, laugh about it, and thus make a mockery of the work of Christ on the cross. Jesus took that seriously. That is why He gave instructions for how to deal with sin among the body of believers.


If the concept of church discipline is too foreign for us to understand, we can always look at how Paul exercised church discipline with the church at Corinth. There was a member of the church who was sleeping with his father’s wife, a sin so egregious that Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5 even the pagans would not put up with such things. Rather than addressing this man’s sin, the church at Corinth was not only tolerating it in their midst, but they were boasting about their tolerance! The Corinthian church was not only allowing this man to persist in his sin while remaining in the church, but they were proud of it. Can’t you see their sign outside? “We accept ALL forms of love.” What did Paul tell them to do? He said, “Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch – as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” Yeast in the Bible is a symbol for sin. Paul is saying this sin they are letting persist in their midst without addressing will eventually permeate and affect the entire congregation. So Paul told the church of Corinth that instead of boasting about accepting this man’s sin, they were to be grieved over it. They were to approach him and tell him that his behavior is not bringing glory or honor to God and it needed to change. If he refused to repent, they were to set him outside of the fellowship so that maybe the broken relationship with the church would draw his heart to repent over what he was doing, and through that his soul could be restored. After all, they have accepted the sacrifice of Christ, and Jesus did not die on the cross so that they could continue in their sins.


This describes the appropriate response to sin among the body of believers. We aren’t to go around judging superficially, but we are to judge rightly, and Biblically. And we are to hold one another to the standard that Jesus Himself called us to, not so we can earn our salvation but because this is how we demonstrate our love for Him – obedience. It’s the same way that we can’t say we love our parents and disobey them. Our love for them is what drives us to obey, and our obedience is what establishes our love. Likewise, it is our love for God that calls us to follow His words, heed His commands, and strive for Godly behavior. And it is our obedience to God that proves our love for Him. However, just like with our earthly parents, we will still disobey, but we shouldn’t celebrate our disobedience. We should acknowledge that we all struggle, but then call one another back to repentance and obedience. Yes, it is “ok” that we fail because God loves us still, but we should not be proud of it, celebrate it, or encourage it.


In light of that, what would you do if a fellow believer announced that she is a homosexual and is now officially professing her love for her girlfriend? Or a member of your Bible study has asked you to meet his boyfriend? Is that any different from the scenarios described above? Is it not equally sinful? Then why do we see fellow believers applauding the “courage” of professing Christians in announcing their homosexuality? Why do I see Christians on social media saying, “You look so happy!” to a believer posting pictures with their same-sex partner? Why are other church members giving likes and thumbs up and “you go girl”-comments to a fellow believer announcing they are embracing and acting on their same-sex attraction? Why are Christians encouraging other Christians to embrace their sin choices? We should be grieved by these sins. We should be speaking to them individually about their choices that are leading them far from the commandments of God. We should be counseling them about how to deny their fleshly desires and take up their cross in obedience unto cross – as we all must do. We may not all have to deny the fleshly desire of same-sex attraction, but we all have to deny our fleshly desires. For one, it may be denying the desire to have heterosexual intimacy with someone who is not their spouse. For another it may be to deny their fleshly reaction of outbursts of anger and wrath. For yet another, it may be to deny their fleshly desire to indulge in too much alcohol or to use words that are not kind or loving. Quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. We should never celebrate another believer’s choice to embrace sin – no matter the sin.

In the last two posts, which you can find here and here, I talked about how we are not free to choose everything just because it is a choice and that we cannot allow exceptions to taking innocent human life. But all of this discussion assumes we can sit down and discuss this issue. However, too many times the abortion supporter silences the pro-life position by challenging their right to speak on this issue. When a person voices their opposition to murdering unborn humans, they are asked whether they have ever had an unwanted pregnancy, or if they have ever lived in poverty with children to care for, or if they are even capable of having children at all. Somehow they have managed to silence pro-life people by telling them they don’t get to weigh in on this issue unless they can answer “yes” to one of those questions. They are insisting that a person is not allowed to offer an opinion on abortion because of a demographic – either economic status, age, race, or even gender. This tactic is most often applied to men. The abortion supporter reasons that men can’t birth babies so they are not allowed to take a stance on an issue involving babies (well in all honesty, men are only forbidden from offering their opinion if it is the pro-life position...).

Should our demographic preclude us from speaking out against atrocities?
But do we apply that logic to any other issue we discuss? Are only those who have been enslaved qualified to comment on the evils of slavery? Are only people who have served in combat able to decry wartime atrocities? Is it only black people who are able to speak out against racism? Of course not! It doesn’t matter if you’ve never been a slave yourself, you can still state that slavery if wrong. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never served in combat, you can still identify, be appalled by, and protest war crimes. It doesn’t matter what your race is, you can still speak out against racism. Your demographic does not disqualify you from speaking out on something that is wicked, immoral, and depraved. Likewise, just because you are not an impoverished, unwed, teen facing an unwanted pregnancy does not mean that you do not get to speak out against murdering babies.

Another way abortion supporters use this logic is to vilify Congress and any lawmaker for making laws to end abortion (although lawmakers are not vilified when they pass laws to legalize abortion…). The rally cry is “why should old, white men” be able to legislate abortion. In fact there was an article in 2019 with that very headline: 25 White Republican Men Just Voted to Ban Abortion in Alabama, as if their age, race, or gender has anything to do with wanting to make murdering unborn humans illegal. It also willfully ignores all of the women fighting to ban abortion. The article claims that these old, white men are not faced with the difficult situation of an unwanted pregnancy, so they should not be able to make abortion illegal. In reality, it is precisely because they are not currently in that position that they should weigh in on this. When a person is in a difficult situation, their judgment is often blurred. They can only see the immediate need to “fix” their situation. And because their judgment is blurred, they are not always going to make the moral decision. It takes someone outside of that situation to see more clearly, and make rules and laws that we are supposed to abide by – even when we are in those difficult situations.

Who gets to determine the law - those in the situation or those outside of it?
For example, as a teacher, I would not want the student who did not study for the test to make the rules about cheating. He is in the difficult situation of taking a test for which he is not prepared. He is going to be tempted to cheat because that seems like the easiest way to “fix” his situation. So if the rules of the classroom were up to him, he would say that it is acceptable to use your books, your notes, and your classmate’s answers for the test. But is that the moral decision? Is that the rule we want established for all students? Or do we want to have someone removed from that temptation make the rule that says you must take the test without the assistance of other people? That does make it more difficult for the student, but it is the moral action that must be taken.

Do we want the parent desperate to get her child into an elite college to make the rules about fraud (Ahem, Lori Laughlin)? Do we want the CEO embezzling in his company to make the laws about corporate finances? Those examples may seem petty and insignificant compared to the woman facing an unwanted pregnancy. But the logic is still the same for even bigger moral dilemmas. Do we want the person who has just murdered someone to determine what the punishment for murder should be? Of course not. We have people who stand outside of our personal situations to determine the laws and punishments for our actions. We even make sure the judge and jury have no connection to the defendant or the victim so their judgments are not biased to the situation. The laws in this nation are there in the hopes of preventing us from making tragic decisions that harm ourselves and other people simply because we are in a tough situation, responding emotionally instead of morally. This means that it doesn’t matter what gender, age, race, background, or whatever we have for lawmakers. They are supposed to rule so that we do not harm other people – including those who are inside the womb.

Men can no longer be silent on abortion
So I want to take this moment to encourage any man who may be reading this. NEVER let someone tell you that you are not qualified to speak out against the evils of abortion simply because you cannot get pregnant. It is true that you will never know the overwhelming feeling of being responsible for growing another human being inside of you. You don’t have to experience your body change in ways you never could imagine, the unrelenting nausea, or the swollen feet, or back pain, or sleepless nights, or uncomfortable clothes, or unwelcomed comments on the size of your belly due to pregnancy. But you also don’t get the joy of having a human being grow inside of you, feeling them move, even feeling them hiccup. You don’t get that instant bond with a newborn for whom you provided safe housing and food for nine months. But none of that matters when it comes to your ability to identify the wickedness of destroying that human life by plucking him limb from limb, or by poisoning him so he dissolves inside the womb, or by crushing his head with forceps until his brains ooze out. No matter your gender, age, social status, ethnicity, or religion, you should be appalled at such things.

In reality, the exact opinion we need on this issue is the man’s opinion. Men, we need you to step up and defend all precious innocent life. God made you with strength and courage to defend the defenseless and protect the innocent. Yet too often men are standing idly by while the most defenseless and most innocent lives are being destroyed. We need men to stand up for those precious little lives in the womb, to protect those children who are being slaughtered for daring to exist. We need men to stand up for motherhood by encouraging frightened women facing unwanted pregnancies that they will have your support, and by reminding them that motherhood is a beautiful thing. We need men to stand up for fatherhood by encouraging men to take responsibility for their children – born and unborn. Just think of all the millions of men who have been denied the chance to raise a son or a daughter because of abortion. We need men – especially pastors – to speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves. This is what you were made to do, and we need you now more than ever.

What should our conversation on abortion look like?
The right to speak out against abortion is the same for all people, no matter one’s demographic. But not every conversation about abortion should be the same. In this series of blogs, I have been addressing abortion from an intellectual perspective, looking at the reality and the facts of abortion. These posts have discussed abortion as it should be discussed in the political arena. But this issue so much more than a topic for political debate or for down-selecting candidates at the ballot box. This is a very personal issue, therefore the conversation must be personalized. The topic of abortion deals with people from all different life experiences. That doesn’t change the stance on abortion but it changes how abortion is discussed. The discussion in a political debate about abortion is very different from discussing it with a post-abortive woman. And even that conversation can vary depending on how the woman feels about her abortion. Is she proudly shouting her abortion, as many feminists have done? Then she first needs to come to terms with the gravity and the terrible reality of what she has done. She has not made a “choice” for women’s freedom but she has destroyed an innocent life for her own selfish reasons. Is the post-abortive woman grieving her abortion as a terrible decision made in a moment of crisis or maybe even as a result of pressure from someone else? Then she needs to be reminded that God has forgiven even that through the work of Jesus on the cross, if she will seek after Him for His mercy and forgiveness.
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The conversation would be different still if it is with a woman is currently pregnant. And even that conversation would vary based on where the woman is in facing her pregnancy. Is she walking into a crisis pregnancy center seeking help? Is she your friend standing in front of you asking what she should do? Is she walking into an abortion clinic already determined to end her baby’s life? Each of those situations will require a different conversation, a different tone, and a different approach. But one common thing for each of those situations is to begin the conversation with a celebration of life. So often we approach a woman who is facing an unwanted pregnancy with sadness and disappointment, or maybe even judgment and shame. But that response only adds more pressure for a woman to make a terrible decision to simply avoid that judgment and shame. That negative attitude towards pregnancy is what causes many women to think abortion is the better option, rather than have a baby in this way. We know this pregnancy was not part of her plan, but at this point the circumstances leading up to her pregnancy are in the past. They cannot be changed or undone. What can be changed is how we respond to an unplanned pregnancy. And I think the response should be more like the following, much like I had with a dear friend of mine recently:

"My body, my choice" has become the rally cry for pro-choice people ever since the passing of the abortion ban in the state of Alabama. It has led to conversations mostly centered around that very question - the question of choice. What exactly do we have the freedom to choose? Especially being in the United States, we love to focus on our personal freedoms. We can do what we want, say what we want, go where we want, act how we want, and we declare that we have the "freedom" to do so -- freedom of speech, freedom to express ourselves, freedom to pursue whatever prosperity and lifestyle one may desire. But even in a society so free, we still have limitations and boundaries on those freedoms. You are not free to go steal your neighbor's car. You are not free to physically assault someone else. You are not free to take someone else's life.  You may be free to drink as much alcohol as you want, but you are not free to then go operate a vehicle. Understandably, our freedoms are limited based on their impact to other people. So we are free to do whatever we want with our own bodies - as long as it doesn't harm someone else. 

This becomes the main point of contention between pro-choice and pro-life groups. Pro-choice groups rally behind that cry of "my body, my choice" as if abortion were only the woman choosing to damage her own body by her choice. However, abortion does not only harm the woman. Abortion harms the woman while taking the life of someone else. From the moment of conception, a set of human DNA is formed that is separate and distinct from the woman. By five weeks gestation this separate human being has his or her very own heartbeat, separate from the woman. By eight weeks gestation, this separate human has his or her very own set of fingerprints, major organs, nervous system (so yes, the baby can feel pain!), and reproductive organs, separate from the woman. From the science that we know today, there is no denying that the baby in the womb is in fact a human baby, a separate person from the woman. Therefore this idea of choice is not just for one person to do what they want with their own body -- because this choice affects two bodies: the woman's and the baby's inside of her.

The issue for abortion then is determining under what circumstances should a woman be allowed the "freedom to choose" what happens to another human being. Many pro-choice woman say they are not for abortion only for a woman's right to choose. But respecting someone's right to choose depends on the choice being made. Would we make the same argument if someone decided to choose slavery? Would you say that you wouldn't choose to own a slave for yourself but if someone else chooses that, then that is their choice? Would we respect someone's "choice" to shoot up a kindergarten classroom (meanwhile abortion in this nation has wiped out 357 kindergarten classrooms PER DAY)? Would we respect as a "choice" someone who chooses to physically assault homosexuals? Yet abortion literally rips a baby apart limb from limb while in his mother's womb, what is supposed to be the safest place for him. Would we  respect the "choice" of a woman who chooses to do drugs while she is pregnant? Yet people are fighting for a woman to take drugs that will destroy life as long as it is administered by an abortionist.

This is where we need to stop and take a moment to determine what kind of society we want to be...or really what kind of society we already are. In several discussions with pro-choice women, I've made the comparison of abortion to the Holocaust. I don't know if they are willfully refusing to see the analogy or if they truly are that ignorant to what they are "fighting" for, but abortion is our nation's Holocaust. When Hitler proposed the "final solution," it was a means of disposing of those that he deemed less than human. They weren't people to him anymore. They were unwanted. They were unloved. (Sound familiar? alabama-democrat-on-abortion-kill-them-now-or-kill-them-later/). They were unnecessary and actually a hindrance on the progress of the nation. Hitler devalued those people - Jews, gypsies, disabled, mentally handicapped - and his "choice" was to remove them from the population. 

You can see the same ideology of abortion with the origin of Planned Parenthood. When Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood it was as a means for controlling the black population. She said, "All of our problems are the result of overbreeding among the working class... Knowledge of birth control is essentially moral. Its general, though prudent, practice must lead to a higher individuality and ultimately to a cleaner race.” [1] In 1920 in an article titled "Woman and the New Race," Sanger states, "“Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives… If we are to make racial progress, this development of womanhood must precede motherhood in every individual woman.” And in a letter she wrote in 1939 to Dr. Clarence J. Gamble, Sanger writes, “We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.” Yet Sanger is the role model for the pro-choice movement and champion of the "woman's right to choose." 

Abortion is our Holocaust. It is doing exactly what Hitler dreamed of doing - only we've made it more efficient. Hitler's persecution took the lives of 17 million innocent people simply because he chose to treat those as less than human. To Hitler, they were unwanted and undesirable. We have killed over 60 million babies because our society has deemed certain pregnancies as unwanted and undesirable. For Margaret Sanger it was about controlling and limiting the black population. Now, our society is trying to rationalize and sort out who we think is worthy of existing. That's not our place to decide whether this person or that person is deserving of life. That is exactly what Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, and many others did. They decided your ethnicity made you unfit to live. In some places around the world, they are making that decision based on gender. Our society is deciding whether someone's economic level, someone's desire to be a parent, or someone's potential "quality of life" of life makes an unborn baby a human being deserving of life or not.

But the baby in the womb is a human life, then it has value no matter how it was conceived, no matter how bad we think the circumstances around the birth and the life for the baby may be. We don't get to decide that this life doesn't matter. We don't get to choose that this life is disposable. When we do that, we are no different from the Nazi's "Final Solution." When there is a difficult, unplanned pregnancy, there are lots of things we can blame. We can blame some men for being crappy dads. We can blame some men for taking advantage of women. We can blame much of society for failing to emphasize the importance of the family. We can blame some women for making poor relationship decisions. We can blame the government and some corporations for not supporting motherhood enough. But what we can't blame is that baby. That baby is a human being, innocent and defenseless. It deserves life regardless of the circumstances of its conception. The value of innocent human life doesn't change whether the woman is poor, whether the man is a jerk, whether the woman already has other children, whether the woman is young, whether the woman has a career or school to consider, or whether the woman wants the baby. How we feel about the conception does not change whether the baby is a human or not. And we don't get that choice to destroy another human for our own selfish reasons. 

Abortion is not an issue about choice. It is an issue about the value of life. We don't get to "choose" whose life is worth living or not. When we allow society to pick and choose the value of an innocent life, we are in a dangerous position. So I applaud Alabama, as a life-long resident of this beautiful state, for being in the national headlines on the correct side of valuing human life. Here we have said that it doesn't matter how you were conceived, what kind of parents you have, or where you are going to live. Your life has value and it will be treated as such. Alabama has been bold enough to say that there are all kinds of choices you get to make, but you do not get the choice to destroy an innocent human life.

(More posts to come on this issue...)