Epic: Christians Testify at Hearing For Abolition

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Committee on Health and Insurance, come back to order. All right,

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Representative Williams, we have 1079 in front of us. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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Members of the committee, I present to you House Bill 22 -1079, abolishing abortion in Colorado.

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But before I tell you why I'm presenting this bill, it's important that I first apologize not only to you, the members of the committee, but also to every other colleague in the

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House and Senate. Representative Neville and I kind of came to a similar conclusion separately about why we're doing this bill and why it's important that we present these tough discussions to everyone.

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The reason I'm running this bill is because of my faith. And my faith in God Almighty is something that is interwoven within who

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I am and what I do. But I haven't really shown that side of myself to most of you, and that's a mistake

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I've made and for which I'm sorry. All of you are not only my colleagues, but you're also neighbors of mine.

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In scripture, specifically in Matthew 22, 36 through 40, we are told to love the

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Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. If I truly believe in what

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I claim, then it isn't right for me to not share with all of you the most important aspect of my life and what also happens to be a motivating factor for the bill that I'm presenting to all of you today.

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With that said, I'm presenting this bill because I believe in objective truth, truth that I know can only be found within the

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Holy Scripture. We are told to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and if we can't do that, then we certainly can't claim to be in alignment with God or His will,

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His will being that we stop the taking of innocent life in and outside the womb. Why is this important?

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It's important because the alternative is bleak otherwise. Think about it. If truth is relative, then what we do here doesn't matter.

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When this world comes to an end, we will cease to exist, and anything done in the past will be lost, forever forgotten.

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I refuse to live in a world or a system that subscribes to that type of worldview.

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The main point here is that there is a standard by which we all should live by, and I firmly believe that we all will have to give an account in the next life.

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At some point, all of us will meet our Maker, and we will be asked how we behaved and how we treated one another.

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In my bill, it declares that we are made in the image of God. Scripture tells us that in Psalms 139, 13 -14, "...for

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you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

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Jeremiah 1 -5 says, "...before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born,

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I set you apart." The problem with many pro -life bills, and the mainstream pro -life movement generally, is that there is a deliberate decoupling of the issue of life and the gospel of Christ.

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Most of the time when we discuss this issue, we dance around it, and we focus on what scientists may say about when life starts, or we talk about viability.

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And these are important elements to discuss for sure, but it shouldn't be the main focus. The focus should be protecting life from conception to natural death, because that's the objective truth and moral standard given to us by God, and one we ought to live by.

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Everyone here was created with a purpose. I don't believe in coincidences. I really don't. All of us were brought here together at this very moment to discuss this very issue.

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And regardless of the outcome of this bill, there will be ripple effects from our activity tonight that will occur, but that we probably will never see.

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But I do believe that the sovereign Lord of the universe, in His infinite grace, will make all things work to good for His glory.

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Deuteronomy 30 -19 says, "...I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.

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Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying

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His voice, and holding fast to Him. For He is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the

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Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them." John 10 -10 -11 completes this notion.

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Jesus Christ says, "...the thief comes only to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

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I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for His sheep."

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Members, you have an opportunity to uphold this objective standard that was established by the

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Creator of us all. Life starts at conception, and the taking of innocent life, whether it's in the womb or outside of it, is morally wrong.

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And it's our God -ordained duty to stop it. So members, with that,

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I'm happy to take any questions that you may have, but I wanted to at least set the tone, lay the foundation of why

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I'm doing this. I'm happy to discuss specific aspects of the bill if you'd like, but at the very basis of all this, it comes down to, is this right or is it wrong?

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And abortion is objectively and morally wrong. And that is why I am putting forward this bill.

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So with that, I'm happy to take any questions that you may have. Committee, are there any questions for Representative Sirota?

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Thank you, Madam Chair. Representative Williams, I failed to ask Representative Neville this on the last bill, but you've got the same components here on page 4 when you talk about how any federal statute, regulation, treaty, executive order, or court ruling that would supersede this would be void.

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Can you explain your thinking and your reasoning here for including something that you wouldn't uphold the

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Constitution, which you did swear an oath to do? Thank you,

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Madam Chair. Thank you for the question, Representative. This comes down to,

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I think, a good debate that isn't had often, especially when we discuss the role of government and the interplay between the federal government and the state government.

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If you actually recall from the United States Constitution, there is no mechanism in the

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Constitution that allows, one, for judicial review from the Supreme Court, and then, two, it doesn't delegate to the

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Supreme Court a lawmaking ability. Nine unelected judges do not get to legislate from the bench, and this is merely an opinion that was handed down by those justices, one that I think was wrong, but it's kind of a moot point.

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Our country is comprised of sovereign states that have certain rights that are outlined within the

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Constitution itself, and the federal government doesn't get to do things that are not exclusively enumerated within that Constitution.

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Abortion is certainly not a right in the Constitution, one, because it's not talked about, but two, it's also something that the states have a moral obligation to prevent from happening, because at the end of the day, that life, that unborn life, has every single right to be protected by us, and regardless of what other governing body may say, it's our duty to withstand any sort of immoral rulings or opinions or mandates coming from any other governing body.

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Representative Sorority, did you have a follow -up? No, I'm not—we'll have to agree to disagree there, but appreciate the insight.

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Representative Froelich. Thank you, and thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you,

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Representative Williams. Are you concerned that, as written, the bill criminalizes miscarriage?

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Thank you, Madam Chair. We're going to have to agree to disagree on that one,

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I don't read that in the bill, so that's just not something

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I think is in the bill, so I would have to say that it doesn't criminalize miscarriages.

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Representative Froelich. Okay, we'll hear your testimony. Thank you. Okay. Are there any further questions?

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Okay, seeing none—oh, Representative Luck. Thank you, Madam Chair.

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Thank you, Representative Williams. I'm just wondering, do you think that it's a fair analysis, just plain reading of the

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Constitution and the amendments to it, both the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments speak of how no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law, and under your characterization the unborn is a person, so would you say it's fair that the

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Constitution does explicitly tell us that we have a responsibility to protect that life? Representative Williams.

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Absolutely, but I think the question that this committee is going to struggle with is what is life?

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Who is a person? You've heard testimony all throughout the day about how the opponents of this bill,

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Representative Neville's bill, they don't seek to acknowledge that unborn life is in fact life worth protecting.

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I mean, I even heard responses, you know, during testimony that it's, you know, sometimes it can be a very, you know, tough decision to abort a human life, but I also heard that sometimes it's not, and that grieves me because these are human beings, and there are animals that are afforded more opportunities to be protected than that which is, than those children that are within the womb.

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The Constitution is very clear that life should be protected, especially as outlined in those amendments, but I think the problem we're facing here is when does life start and when should we start protecting it?

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I think it's clear based off of the objective standards and moral truths that underpin pretty much all of society, and unfortunately there are people who disagree and want to justify the taking of that innocent life.

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Representative, excuse me, Ortiz. Thank you, Madam Chair. Representative Williams, I'm confused about how you can state that there's no basis in the

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Constitution for the Supreme Court. I mean, I'm sitting here reading Article 3, Section 2, and it specifically states when and how it's supposed to function, and that it does have jurisdiction here.

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So I really, I'm not going to say disagree to disagree because it's written in black and white right there.

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Representative Williams. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Representative, for the question. As I read that particular article,

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I see nowhere in there where it vests power for the Supreme Court to actually legislate or make laws.

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That function is for the legislature, which is the Congress on the federal level, but when we talk about the states, it would be, of course, the

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General Assembly or the state legislatures. And then the other role for that lawmaking process is the executive coming in, whether it be the president or the governor of the respective state, to actually sign that past law or the bill into law or otherwise veto it.

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But at no point does the judicial branch, or excuse me, the Supreme Court, especially within that article, they have no ability to legislate.

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And that makes perfect sense because they're unelected. They are not direct representatives to the people, and it would be inappropriate for them to be legislating or making laws that would affect millions of people, especially when there is no representation.

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That wasn't the intent of the founders. Representative Ortiz. I mean, again, it says in black and white, controversy between two or more states.

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It's about interpreting the law and interpreting the constitutionality of the law. They're not legislating here. They're making decisions through cases that were brought up by one or more states and determining the constitutionality of it.

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So again, I'm not going to defer and say agree to disagree. It's very clear. It's not about making laws.

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It's about making judgment on cases that are brought forward about laws. And so I think it's very clearly enumerated in the constitution that that is their role.

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Are there any other questions for the sponsor from the committee?

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Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Jeremy Uberoff, and I am a pastor of Emmaus Road Reformed Baptist Church in Colorado Springs, and also as an ambassador and minister of the gospel of the kingdom of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. I'm compelled and honored to be here in this committee hearing really to share a pertinent testimony supporting this crucial legislation to our representatives here in the

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People's House of Colorado today. This committee must answer a few critical questions in considering the contents of Bill 1079.

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Why should we be concerned about the unborn receiving equal protection under the law? That's kind of the argument today, right?

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As Christians, we believe that we all have the responsibility to the biblical God, our creator, as been shared earlier and all throughout today, to uphold righteousness, justice and equity for all people, a standard alone founded upon the authority of God's holy law word.

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It is our wisdom to do so. This means that as God's creatures, we don't have the prerogative to define personhood on our own terms.

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We're not given the freedom to legislate what is right, if you will, in our own eyes. Quite the contrary.

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And so such legislation will only, if taken to its logical conclusion, encourage anarchy, chaos and a destruction of a society, a pattern of lawlessness rendering

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God's ultimate judgment. So we firmly believe that to experience the abundant life in a peaceful society, we must first turn from such lawless mindsets and believe the gospel, the good news of the kingdom of God, that Jesus Christ, our king, died and bore the wrath of God for our lawlessness.

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The very thing that he was put on the cross for was this sort of lawlessness. And he was raised again to life, conquering death.

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And by God's empowering grace, we can live in newness of life, obedient to Jesus Christ, understands God and understanding

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God's holy law word, which prescribes life live rightly in God's created order. Therefore, it is the church, the body of Christ's responsibility to prophetically hold you, the legislative authority of our state, accountable to uphold laws that define personhood rightly and to value and cherish the unborn as a creator does.

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So as was shared earlier, Genesis 126 clearly states that God gave value to persons by making them in his image.

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We are all made that way. It was also shared that he formed us in the womb and that children are to be cherished as a heritage from the

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Lord, a reward. So then what kind of responsibility do you have as legislators to uphold those laws?

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Well, as an appointed legislator of the people, you're accountable to God for the way you govern. And so we implore you to advance

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Bill 1079, which we believe genuinely upholds righteousness, justice, and equity for all, including the unborn.

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So to courageously resolve to be a terror to evildoers who slaughter innocent children developing in the womb and to resolve to remove those from offices and benches who unjustly stand in the way.

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So our creator, God, demands that of us to do justice and not to support the very lawlessness that Jesus Christ came to destroy.

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And so we are prayerfully pleading with you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to repent. That just means to turn from supporting abortion, which we call the

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American Holocaust, and help uphold life with us. Thank you,

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Mr. Durbin. We don't have you signed up. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr.

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Ebroth. That's okay. Okay. All right. Next. My name is

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Greg Dix. I'm a deacon at Emmaus Road Reformed Baptist Church here as an ambassador of Jesus Christ.

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Provide testimony. Tonight, we listened to a lot of the testimonies that came from other people in regards to Bill.

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A lot of emotionally charged testimonies, people's experiences.

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At the end of the day, we have to come to the conclusion and say when it comes to dealing with morality and ethics, it's by what standard do we come to these conclusions?

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Right? And as an ambassador of Jesus Christ, we are coming here, and that standard we want to share with you is

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God's law word from Scripture. Okay? We're at a very important time in history, too.

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I look at this, I mean, why am I here at midnight and not snuggled up my beautiful wife in bed?

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You know, why'd I take off work today? Why? Because this is an important time in history. I view this much like the abolitionists that were trying to stop slavery.

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I know in your minds you think, there's no way I would have been, you know, pro -slavery back in those days, but let me tell you, it's a very important time in history, and it is the

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American Holocaust. Millions and millions of babies are being ripped from mothers' wombs, and it's sick.

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And we need to do something about that. We can't sit here and, yeah, I don't feel compelled to be laying on my bed right now.

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Nazi Germany, very similar time, right? They believed that Jews were not humans.

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So what'd they do? They killed them. Yeah, slaves, black people, we're not human beings.

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We're gonna kill them. Babies, fetuses in a womb are not human beings, so it's okay to kill them.

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This is wicked. We need to turn from our ways. Proverbs 24, verses 11 through 12 says,

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Deliver those who are being taken away to death, and to those who are staggering to the slaughter. But hold them back if you say, see, we did not know this.

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Does he not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does he not know it who keeps your soul?

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And will he not render to man according to his work? None of us can say, oh, we didn't know what was going on.

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The science is clear. God's word is clear. Standards are clear. So I urge you, as those representing the people, we are coming to you, and we ask that you would do the right thing.

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What is right? Where does right come from? God says what's right. Life starts at conception.

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The Bible says that God is the Lord of life, and he is the Lord of death. So whether somebody has a child that's going to die in the womb, and that's their decision for not having this child and abort the child and murder the child in the womb, it's wrong, it's evil, it's wicked.

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God hates that. And we need to be on the right side of history and on God's side. Thank you.

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Okay. You, sir. I'm Jeff Durbin. Okay. So you need to sign up. This is the real

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Jeff Durbin. Okay. We don't have you signed up, but Mr. Beck can help you with that.

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Okay. Do it afterwards? That's fine. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Madam Chair and members,

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I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of the Bill of Equal Protection for all human beings in your state. I want to thank you all for staying up so late.

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You guys are out of your minds. My name is Reverend Jeff Durbin. I'm the pastor of Apologia Church and the head of End Abortion Now.

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We've raised up about 900 local churches across the country that go to abortion mills to preach the gospel, to offer help and hope and love to mothers and fathers going in, and to even adopt the children if they'll let us.

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And we've saved thousands upon thousands upon thousands of children from death, and you can prevent that here.

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I'm speaking on behalf of over 60 million pre -born human beings murdered since the tyranny of Roe and the thousands killed daily, upwards of 3 ,000 killed per day in this nation.

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It's an incontrovertible and irrefutable biological and biblical fact that all human beings, all life begins at conception.

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It's one of the things that's incontrovertible and hasn't been able to be disputed by the members this evening is that the word of God isn't the only standard that says it's the image of God and worthy of our value and love and protection, but science is on our side.

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We know it's a fact irrefutable, and the heads of Planned Parenthood and other organizations admit, yeah, it's fully human at conception, but we still have the right to kill children in the womb.

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That is something that's incontrovertible and needs to be contended with. It's a moral question, not a biological one.

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What's in the womb is fully human from conception. The only difference is the difference of degree, size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependence.

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We don't kill other human beings because they're small. My wife would be in huge trouble if that were the case.

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We don't kill other human beings because of their level of development. I have a toddler who's two years old that I adopted who was going to be killed because he had spina bifida as a diagnosis.

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His mother had two abortion appointments. His name is Augustine. He is two right now.

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He's not fully developed, and he is fully dependent on us, as I'm sure some of you guys know who have children running around.

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And we don't kill other human beings because of simply where they're located. So what is in the womb is fully human, and what's being killed in our nation is about 3 ,000 per day.

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I have so much written here, but I thought I'm going to change the direction just quickly, refute the arguments against the bill because they're poor arguments and fallacious, and I want to humbly encourage you to think about them.

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This issue is first and foremost an issue of sin. It's an issue of morality. It is also a crime, yes, but it is a sin, and there is hope and forgiveness and peace only in Christ.

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But sin will not only corrupt us morally, but it corrupts even our reasoning processes, and I want to show you some of that now.

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One of the things you keep hearing is bodily autonomy arguments. Let me please just ask you humbly, please, I know it's late, to listen to this one thing because every time you hear it, it's self -refuting.

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All arguments from humans that we have bodily autonomy are pro -life arguments because what's in the womb is human.

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If your argument is humans have bodily autonomy, then the humans in the womb have bodily autonomy.

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So every time you hear it, it's self -refuting every single time. Mr. Durbin, your time is up.

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If you could just wrap it up real quick. The issue of slavery in the

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Holocaust, they were called beasts and parasites. I'm glad that's behind us now. But this issue here of the

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Supreme Court, I'll just say quickly, Supreme Court, the decision of Roe v.

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Wade is not law. Congress legislates in our nation. Congress creates law, not the Supreme Court. When I wrapped it up,

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I meant like one sentence. Yeah, and Dred Scott and your marijuana laws show that states resist the federal government.

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You do it every day in Colorado. You resist the federal government for marijuana, but you won't do it for children.

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That's a sin. It's a crime. I call you to turn to Christ and do what's right and establish justice. Okay, thank you.

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You might want to pull the microphone a little closer to you. You can move it. It might stop working.

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All right, there we go. All right, well, thank you for having me. Not much for these types of settings.

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I'm Jonathan Goodman. I serve with these two guys over here at Emmaus Road Reformed Baptist Church in Colorado Springs.

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And what I'm presenting today is by no means exhaustive, but I'm coming from the standpoint of a pastor who serves alongside primarily

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Jeremy because he runs our sort of Planned Parenthood gig at Emmaus Road.

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And we typically gather there every Saturday with our signs, and we call out to people. We tell them to repent.

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We tell them to not kill their babies. We try to offer them whatever hope or option we can through the gospel and through loving our neighbors, whether those neighbors are women or whether they are unborn children.

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And so the point of view I would like to offer tonight is sort of the point of view of the man on the street and some of the arguments that have come my way quite frequently, and I try to narrow it down to the most frequent ones and just sort of respond to them in a way that supports this bill, this

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Bill 1079. One is this. I find it really interesting, but there's an assumption made, and I would say to my own face several times, that standing at Planned Parenthood and protesting against what

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I see as really wholesale infanticide is seen as some kind of upholding of a thuggish patriarchy hellbent on controlling women in their lives, keeping them from being successful, keeping them from being all that they can be, keeping them from being able to advance in life somehow as if murdering their child is of immense benefit to them.

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And that seems to be end of discussion. There's no real desire to discuss that issue. And I would just put this rather briefly as a response to take into consideration that rather than trying to oppress women, we actually do love the unborn and desire to see them come to full term, desire them to enjoy the right of life that they have.

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Secondly, of course, happens to do with this issue of not being able to tell people what to do with their bodies, and I find that that is a very slippery slope.

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I mean, taken to its logical conclusion, you could use this kind of thinking to justify any evil.

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Taken to its logical conclusion, if we could all just do whatever we wanted, society really could collapse and descend into anarchy.

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And it's an inconsistent argument. We tell people every law is predicated on telling someone what they can and cannot do with their body.

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I cannot use my hands to steal. I can't use my hands to kill. Right. So I see an inconsistency here.

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Every law has to do with telling someone what they can do with their bodies. And this kind of unfortunate ambiguity becomes dogma.

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Furthermore, by what standard is it moral or desirable to destroy the body inside your body?

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Because that seems to be the argument here is that it all comes down to bodily autonomy, especially dealing with the body that is growing inside the woman's body.

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And I believe that Bill 1079 recognizes this distinction between a mother's body and the body of her child and upholds the dignity of that child.

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I'll close with this. The assumption that this is based on religious convictions or from a bunch of superstitious goat herders and that we should keep religion out of politics.

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The question is asked, and I'll be brief here, why is your religion forced upon us? I would submit, and I think this can be expanded upon eventually, is that everyone in here is religious because whether we believe in some kind of monotheistic super being or not, everyone appeals to an ultimate.

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Everyone lives life by convictions in accordance to what they worship. Thank you. I am done.

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Thank you. Thank you. OK. Representative Molica, you have a question?

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Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have several questions, and I think that there's a lot.

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I mean, that was a lot of testimony. That was just a lot of testimony.

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So my first question, and I mean, I probably know the answer, but I still want to ask it is, do any of you, can you relate or know what it's like to carry a child or carry a child that may not be able to come to term?

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We heard testimony earlier tonight about carrying a child that their organs weren't fully developing.

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Do any of you know what that's like to carry a child or have to deal with that? And Mr.

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Durbin, thank you. I'm sorry. We're supposed to recognize speakers. I'm so sorry,

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Madam Chair. I apologize. And that's the whole point, because we do have people listening online. They just want to know who's talking.

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Please go ahead and ask. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, I thank you for the question, sir. The obvious question to whether I know what it's like to carry a child is, no,

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I'm biologically a male, and I can't create life. However, I have five children, and my wife carried them all.

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And I know when we talk about the emotional impact of a child who is in the womb who has some sort of genetic abnormality, that is a heavily emotional situation because of the value and dignity of human life.

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We recognize it with both the mother and the child. It's an impactful thing to consider.

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For example, my son was in the womb with the worst stage of spina bifida, and his mother had two appointments to take him to kill him.

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And his name is Augustine. He's 2 years old, and he's the greatest gift of my entire life. All of life is precious.

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We live in a fallen world. There is sickness, disease, and decay. These are things that hurt all of us. You feel the weight of it, sir, and so do

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I. But what we don't do is then say, well, these are painful circumstances, so now let's allow people to kill their children.

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I want to just point out one fact. Less than 2 % of all abortions, almost 3 ,000 a day, less than 2 % are because of rape, incest, life of the mother.

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The other 98 % are at will because of convenience. And so when you're talking about a situation like genetic abnormality, like my son was diagnosed with, you're talking about a heavily emotional issue that doesn't allow us to then say, okay, let's kill all the babies at will.

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Go ahead, sir. Can I speak to that, Madam Chair? Sure. Just briefly. And Mr. Eberoth.

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Eberoth. Yeah. It's okay. It's a hard name to pronounce. It's easy to forget. Fine. I'd also speak to that.

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When you asked about carrying a child, so, again, I'm a biological male. That's impossible for me to fully understand.

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But I have a sister who's Down syndrome. And so during the stages of development, when they had discovered early on that my sister was going to be born with Down syndrome, that would have also fallen under the current laws given now under the category of she would have been developmentally had development issues that would have been allowed for an abortion even early on in the early phases of the legislation here in Colorado.

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It would have been legal for her to be killed in the womb. And it was highly encouraged because for a number of reasons.

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One, to my parents, they said things like, it's going to be difficult for her. She's going to have a hard life just having

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Down syndrome. But then they also later discovered that she had two holes in her heart. And so as things progressed, they said, well, there's a high possibility that she may not even make it to full term.

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And then they got to the place where they said she might not even make it to delivery, right, through delivery, because it's very stressful on the little one as they get delivered.

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And, again, may I stress here, she was born with two holes in her heart, literally pumping, bleeding to death as she's being delivered.

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With that said, she immediately was rushed into open heart surgery. And may I add, my parents decided not to take her life and to keep her.

33:58

She was immediately rushed into open heart surgery. And they said, well, you know, there's a high probability she's going to die at a very early age, which was part of the motivational factor to abort her.

34:11

And may I say this today? My sister is 35 years old and has lived a wonderful life as an advocate for Down syndrome children.

34:20

And she has spoken multiple times in California at their capital in Sacramento on behalf of special needs children.

34:29

So I would say we need to be very careful in distinguishing, yes, they might be born without organs, but it's really not in terms of intrinsic values and based on what kind of organs they don't have, right, the lack thereof or the quality of life they might experience or even the quality of life of the parent.

34:44

We need to do what's in the best interest of the child and do our best to preserve life at all costs.

34:51

Representative Mullica, and then we do have other questions from other members. Yeah, just thank you, Madam Chair.

34:58

I think something I'm interested in, too, and it was referenced, you know, and I don't know where those statistics came from, but I'd be curious to know your thoughts on abortion in the case of rape incest or the health of the mother, that if you agree with that or if you disagree with that question.

35:18

Madam Chair. Go ahead, Mr. Durbin.

35:24

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Representative, for the question. I think it's an important one. The statistic of less than 2 % for rape incest, life of the mother is a commonly known statistic in the industry itself, so it's regularly acknowledged.

35:39

Very important because when we talk about those issues, they are all issues that impact us because we recognize that rape is such a horrendous abomination.

35:49

It's such a tremendous evil that even in the Bible, God's law, and that went through English common law and author history, it's such a tremendous evil that it was something that was worthy of capital punishment.

36:00

So according to a biblical worldview and then English common law moving through history, what was handed down to us was that kind of value put on a woman's life that you cannot do to someone's body whatever you please.

36:12

Somebody cannot, by their own will and force, do something to another person's body against their will.

36:18

So if you're against rape, you should be pro -life and an abolitionist on our side because what's happening in abortion is primarily the issue that makes rape such an abomination.

36:29

I am doing to another person's body something against their will. But also, I do not believe that in the instance of rape that we should punish the child for the sin of the father.

36:39

We should not give children capital punishment because their fathers are criminals. There are so many living, amazing, thriving, beautiful human beings today that are alive that would come right here,

36:49

Representative, and testify to you. They are products of rape, and they're grateful to God that they weren't killed.

36:55

Next is, I actually had friends I grew up with that were products of incest. I don't think we should kill them. And when it comes to the issue of the life of the mother, it's such a...

37:03

For me as a pastor, I wanted to say this. In the last month, I've dealt with three miscarriages. One baby delivered at the hospital, six months in the womb.

37:11

It's such a dramatically painful situation for a mother when you talk about an instance where the life of the mother is at risk.

37:17

However, and you guys can check this later, check me on this statistic, the number of instances today because of medical technology where the mother's life is truly in danger is so infinitesimally small.

37:30

But what we do with that, Representative, is we actually go in a situation like that, and it is a life -saving operation.

37:37

The doctors at a hospital are concerned with the preservation of life in both cases, the mother and the preborn child.

37:44

When you go to a hospital, they're trying to actually perform a life -saving operation. It's a dramatically emotional situation.

37:52

And so when we talk about the issue of the life of the mother, I think we're once again back to the question of who says that a human life is valuable.

38:00

Is it valuable in this instance but not in this instance? Because that's exactly what was going on, and the things we all agree with are evils behind us, the issue of slavery and the issue of the

38:09

Holocaust, same issue. Representative Ortiz. And I would ask you all to please stick to answering the specific question being asked.

38:19

So the specific question here is, did the Supreme Court legislate, that's option

38:25

A, or did they interpret the constitutionality of existing state law that was refuted in Roe v.

38:32

Wade? I don't need, like, the 10 -minute explanation. I just want the concise, quick answer.

38:37

Mr. Durbin. Yeah, well, our president, Joe Biden, and the White House press secretary do not agree with the idea that Roe v.

38:46

Wade is law. He's not answering the question. I'm specifically addressing your question,

38:52

Representative. They've said, and you can check this yourself, a number of times that they want to codify

38:57

Roe as law, and I understand that there are representatives in Colorado here that want to codify Roe as law because it's not.

39:03

The answer was it refuted a Texas state law. Representative Ortiz, I do need to recognize you and your question.

39:11

You may not like his answer. He's just going to process it. And we only have 30 seconds, so if you want to spend 30 seconds and explain that.

39:21

I will, and I am answering the representative's questions. I'm sorry he's bothered by it, but it is not law.

39:27

Congress creates law in our nation. You can look that up in the constitution. It is not the Supreme Court. Colorado understands the need to protect their citizens because Colorado defies federal law and the courts every day in Colorado by resisting federal law and court opinions on marijuana.

39:44

It is against the law federally and by the courts to smoke marijuana in the state, but Colorado says our citizens and their rights are more important, and so we resist the federal courts, and I'm thankful that we have that history even in the case of Dred Scott.