Have You Not Read S3E21Abortion Legislation

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture, for the honor of Christ, and the edification of the

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Thank you. My name is Chris Giesler and with me is Michael Durham.

Alright, and we had a question sent in to us. The question is, what are your thoughts on abolitionism?

Should women be punished as murderers who have abortions? I'm guessing this is in relation to Senate Bill 1729.

Dusty Deavers had submitted it. It's a bill in favor of abolitionism. Yes, so this is a recently proposed bill,

Senate Bill 1729, by newly elected State Senator Dusty Deavers, a bill supported by Warren Hamilton, State Senator Warren Hamilton, as well.

It is an abolitionist bill, in other words, trying to get our state, the state of Oklahoma, to acknowledge and uphold full human rights for every human being in the state of Oklahoma, which includes the unborn.

And since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court basically said, we're going to give this decision about abortion to the states.

Now the states can do what they want with this question. And so the question is now to the states.

What will we do now? The lawmakers, overwhelmingly in the state of Oklahoma, claim to be pro -life.

We have a governor who's pro -life. We have an attorney general who's pro -life. But when given the opportunity to be pro -life, they do not abolish abortion.

Given the opportunity to get rid of abortion, to strip away all protections from those who would kill unborn infants and say this is now recognized as murder, they do not take that opportunity.

Pro -life has become known for limiting and legislating abortion. Pro -choice has been known for taking every restraint possible off the act of abortion.

Abolitionists are the only ones who want to cut down this wicked tree at the roots and say an abortion is the murder of an unborn human being and thus it should be treated as murder.

Now that's not a very popular approach because the murder of unborn infants has become such an accepted way of life in our nation that it is more reprehensible to think of murderers being punished than to think of the innocent being killed.

And so as long as there is a prejudice towards those who you can see, a prejudice towards those whom you can walk up and shake their hand, a prejudice towards those with whom you can communicate well, then that's going to remain.

You know, the question is do you think it would be right, should be right for mothers who participate in abortion to be prosecuted or and then punished as murderers?

Well, we can ask a question. If a wife, let's put it in a different way, if a husband considered his wife to be a drain on his life, on his choices, his options, his prosperity, and he decided to hire a doctor to put medicine into his wife's food or give her a shot of something that would kill her, the murder was done by the doctor, but the husband is accomplice who hired.

So he's an accessory to murder, he is just as guilty as the one who did the deed. We all understand that.

Now if the husband in a court case were to say, but she's my property,

I can do with my property what I want, and maybe he could bring up some sort of arcane argument from previous centuries and generations where wives were counted among property and he could say

I have legal background and basis for this. Not only would no one accept this reasoning, but he would be even more vilified for him talking about a human being as his property, as his own to do with whatever he wished, even kill.

And yet the argument for women having abortions and even in our own homicide laws here in the state of Oklahoma, it clearly says the exception to these rules, one of the exceptions to homicide is no act by a woman in the course of having an abortion shall be considered homicide.

They have to actually make the exclusion under the homicide laws to say abortion is not homicide or should not be considered as it.

But when a woman says it's my body, it's my property, it's my own to do with what I want, nobody bats an eye.

So we're okay with some people being treated as property and being disposed of at will, but we're not okay with other people being considered property and being disposed with at will.

So we have an unjust system of jurisprudence where these laws apply for these folks, but we don't have those same laws for these folks over here.

And one of the great outcries about the justice system in previous generations has been, and in our current generation, is when the justice system treats different people differently because of the way they look, or because of what assets they have or don't have.

And what the abolitionist movement is saying is, hey, let's be consistent. Equal rights, equal protection for all, including the unborn.

Let's believe the science, let's trust the science. As soon as you have conception, you have a unique strain of DNA.

It's a human DNA, it's fully human. And a life that grows inside the womb of the mother and can be independent from the mother as early as the early 20s in the weeks of gestation.

So we're looking at a real genuine human being inside of this mother, the human being who can feel pain, who has brainwaves, who has a heartbeat, who has his or her own blood type significantly different from the mother, and at the heart of it their own

DNA. This is a unique human being. So under what kind of system can you use either surgery or medicine to end the life of a unique human being and not be prosecuted as a murderer?

That would be an unjust system. Right. And just to insert here, so we're talking about like, we're using words like kill or murder, but then when we're talking about the justice system in law, you have capital punishment, which is the ending of a human life.

Yes. But it's not the ending of an innocent human life. That's correct. So there would be a distinction to be made there because the way in which that's done is the ending of a human life, but it's because something was done to such the degree that it merits the ending of that life.

Right. So Dusty Deaver's bill, just in case somebody thinks that he's doing something outrageous, he wants to amend the state law to read as follows, homicide is the killing of one human being by another, period.

Now does that sound outrageous to you? Not to me, no. That's not how it reads now, right, because there's exceptions.

It goes on to say, as used in this section, human being includes an unborn child. And how many people live that way and believe that way?

Vast majority, correct? As soon as we hear that a friend of ours, a relative of ours is expecting, we rejoice.

Oh wow, congratulations. Yeah. You know, plan start being made, parties start getting arranged.

Why? To celebrate a human life. Right. And all he's saying is, let's treat unborn babies as humans.

They have their own unique personhood, they should be treated as human beings, and the state is to punish evil, punish wickedness.

And killing human beings is, well, it's wickedness. Murdering them is wickedness. Because as humans they have the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

We're denying them that right to life. Yes. So currently our state law says that homicide shall not include the following.

Our current state law says that homicide shall not include acts which caused the death of an unborn child if these acts were committed during a legal abortion to which the pregnant woman consented, or acts, or under no circumstances shall the mother of the unborn child be prosecuted for causing the death of the unborn child unless the mother has committed a crime that caused the death of the unborn child.

That's so backwards. Yes. So the only way you can kill the unborn child is if you do it legally.

But if you commit a crime in which the unborn child dies, well then you can be prosecuted. So you can kill your child on purpose, but not accidentally.

Correct. If you accidentally do it, you're gonna get punished. Correct. But if you do it on purpose, perfectly fine.

So we call this clown world. Yes. Correct. And it's right here in the great state of Oklahoma which is known for online as a state that has outlawed abortion.

But to be clear, the state of Oklahoma, praise be to God, has outlawed surgical abortion.

And yet now because of that, in relation to that, we are also now number five in all the states for the influx of abortion pills.

So chemical abortion is alive and well and thriving in the state of Oklahoma. And when we think about what murder means, let's think reasonably, shall we?

Let's reason together. How logical would it be, as with the story that we were telling earlier, but the husband saying, my wife's my property and she's dragging me down and I didn't really want her.

She's kind of forced on me and I thought I wanted her but now I don't. So I'm just gonna go ahead and dispose of her. What kind of sense does it make for him to go get a legal wifeicide, okay

I'm making up words, I'm gonna go get a legal wifeicide here and that means

I've got to do it chemically. But if I were to use a pistol then then that would not be legal.

I'm still killing someone. Right. So this is where the church has the role of the pillar and ground of the truth to lift up our arms and point a big ugly finger straight in the face of the magistrate and say, you are doing wickedly.

You are unrighteous, sir. You are unrighteous, ma 'am. You are not doing justice and this needs to stop.

And the church needs to make families aware. The church needs to make folks in the legislature aware, folks in the justice system aware, and say that thus saith the

Lord. Here's what right is, here's what wrong is. Clearly you need to be instructed. Yeah, well and maybe you could speak to to the issue of people that are names that would sound familiar to us and would say we're pro -life.

Because typically you've got the sides, you got pro -life and pro -choice. So pro -life, well

I'm pro -life, that sounds good. And so this politician is pro -life. So they must be doing good because they're pro -life.

That's a great question. I just saw an interview between Justin Peters and Ken Ham. It's a great interview.

And they both talked about how pro -life they were. Now I've not met them personally but I know what they mean.

They mean they're abolitionists. They don't think any babies in the womb should be purposely killed. And there's a display at the,

I think it's the Science Museum or at the ARC. I forget which location it is. But it's, as Ken Ham says, it's the most powerful pro -life display or how you call it.

I forget what the name of it is. But it is a venue where you're going to see a lot of information.

And they had to bring together all their own graphics. They had to bring together all of their own information because nobody else had gone to this detail that they were able to go by using computer modeling and special equipment to show the development of a human life within the womb.

And the point is, this is a human being from conception all the way through birth.

They said we're pro -life. I heard that and I thought, yeah, they haven't heard yet about the controversy.

Or if they had, they don't understand the controversy. And they think that pro -life is a perfectly fine term.

And I understand where they're coming from on that. But when you have politicians, politicians who say they're pro -life, you need to press them on that because that means something different than abolition in the political world.

And so you have to press into that. And I would say when it comes to folks in the church and family members and so on, there's a lot of education that still needs to happen.

But people need to know that pro -life does not mean abolition when it comes to people you vote for.

And so when you hear pro -life, you should think to yourself, somebody who runs three laps out of four but won't finish the race.

Right. Well, the pro -life cause has a lot of money being funneled into it.

Because it's a good cause, you have a lot of people donating. Yes. And you have jobs that have been created for the sake of ending abortion.

But if you end abortion, those jobs go away. And we've seen in the past where there have been people on payrolls, like you said, they're not willing to end the race because this is lucrative to keep it going.

And you hate to say that about people, but there have been people that have said that openly. Yes. So back to the original question.

Right. Do we think that a mother who is involved in abortion should be punished as a murderer? Well, it doesn't really matter what we think.

What does God think? And I don't find any provision in the Scriptures anywhere that has anything to say that would indicate that if a mother decides to murder her child, then she should be seen as a victim herself, and that she should have special dispensation where no magistrate shall ever say that she did anything wrong.

Where in the Scriptures would we ever find that? We don't find it at all. In fact, we find a very carefully delineated position in the

Scriptures that the unborn child is fully human and to be protected as such.

And even instructions in the Old Testament that if a child who is unborn is killed because of some conflict, the one who did the damage would be put to death, life for life.

Mm -hmm. So the Scriptures are incredibly clear about it, and that's what matters most.

Is that we would recognize the value that God puts upon life and say, if by a man a man's blood is shed, by man that person's blood will be shed.

Capital punishment is the biblical prescription for stemming violence, for bringing an end to cycles of violence.

In our world today, in our culture today, we see where there is a total lack, almost a total lack of capital punishment, especially speedy justice in regards to capital punishment.

And people are getting murdered all the time, and folks are going to prison for a handful of years, and then getting out again to do more violence.

And in the case of mothers, they're not prosecuted at all. Yeah, so there's the verse that talks about the state wielding the sword, and that's what that's meant to be.

But it seems like often the sword, they're not willing to yield the sword against injustice, people that have done evil, that need to have justice served.

But they are willing to use the sword in other areas where there's no need for it. There was a bill that came up concerning families with children.

It was House Bill 4130, and this bill talks about parents with children who are looking to move districts, start homeschooling, look for alternative ways of schooling, would have to report this to the state to be put on a list.

And not just that they're doing it, but provide information of everyone in the home to have a background check to prove that you're fit parents in order.

And then the request can be denied, the children in some of the instances could be taken away without there even being any formal paperwork done that the child was taken out of the house.

And so we see they're willing to wield the sword against families where nothing has been done wrong.

What is the relation with, because this other bill was against abortion, we've got magistrates not willing to do it right.

Here we've got magistrates putting forth something that looks evil. What is the Christian's responsibility in relation to laws that are being passed, relation to their civil magistrates and things like that?

Yes, so Christians ought to encourage and support magistrates who seek to do the right thing.

Nobody benefits when the wicked rule. When the wicked rules, the people groan. And there's a lot of groaning in our day because of a lot of wicked people who have power.

So Christians ought to point the finger and say, this is a good upright man who is trying to uphold law in agreement with the scriptures, but this person over here is not.

And it's a remarkable thing that somebody would try to pass legislation that would indicate that they're suspicious of parents.

You know, where's the legislation that they would be passed where they're suspicious of the school systems?

One of the reasons why this is getting proposed to be passed is because so many more people are homeschooling now.

Why is that? Because of the terrible state of the government -funded schools.

Because of the things that they're trying to teach. Because of the sexual abuse going on in the public schools. Because of the sexual indoctrination going on in the public schools.

Because of the lack of actual genuine education going on in the public schools. They're designed like and run like prisons.

And they are not designed for real genuine education.

And parents are saying, we're willing to sacrifice. We're willing to go down to one income if we could just simply educate our children in a way that would be effective and be free from all manner of abuses.

But this is focusing on parents and requiring them to check in with the state as if they're already guilty.

As if all parents need criminal background checks. And this opens up for all manner of abuse and government overreach.

In which, if you have, I know this is a crazy idea, that we would have any kind of public school teacher on a crusade trying to push transgenderism or push

LGBTQI plus ideology. But let's just say that was happening. And they were grooming some child.

And the parents find out what's going on. And they pulled their child out. Because they're trying to rescue them from one of these sex predators working in the schools.

Well this teacher's gonna file a complaint. Oh yeah, you know, they're gonna file a complaint. Well the complaint goes to the state.

And now these parents have to check in with the state to say that they're gonna homeschool. Well, red flag. No you don't.

You don't get to educate your child anymore. That is not far -fetched at all. That's happening all across the nation.

One of the reasons many people are moving to the state of Oklahoma is that we are the freest state in the Union when it comes to homeschooling.

This is exactly one of the reasons why people are fleeing other states. And this representative is wanting to take away liberties that we are enjoying currently.

Right. And it seems that the wording's odd. Because if you look at who put it forward, I can't remember her name.

Representative Swope. Right. It sounds like there's some history there. The wording in it is there's a concern about child abuse.

If these children are being taken out, then the parents must be hiding something. So we need to get in there and see what's happening in the home to make sure that there's no child abuse in the home.

But there's nothing in here about the abuse that is happening in the schools.

None. Which is on the rise. It's rampant within the school systems. One of the parts that was concerning to me, there's a section that talks about what constitutes abuse or won't be abused and those types of things.

And then it says nothing contained in this paragraph shall prevent a court from immediately assuming custody of a child pursuant to the

Oklahoma Children's Code and ordering whatever action may be necessary including medical treatment to protect the child's health or welfare.

What if the child is identifying as the opposite gender and nothing shall prevent the state from assuming custody and providing medical treatment to the child?

So that is originally in, that's in the existing laws right now. And one of the reasons why that's there is because of, you know, a parent or parents who are strung out on meth, authorities walk into a crack house and they find children there who are in danger and they're gonna have to get the medical attention without the parents permission.

Right. Okay. And so that is a provision that has to be there. But what do nefarious actors do with that kind of provision?

Right. Why is this tacked on to a bill about removing children from the home for the sake of educating?

Yeah. Because what we have in the public schools is we have indoctrination in the public schools.

We have a whole agenda of trying to to craft children into the image of a modern

Marxist ideology. Education itself in America has been totally underwritten by a

Marxist ideology and thus now we have this fruit of the queering of the children which we talked with Stephen Black recently about this.

So there's a whole agenda ongoing and so the question is that what happens when parents try to protect their children?

Well then there's the possibility of the state coming in through the agency of the state educators and these state lawmakers of taking children away.

And that's been going on in other states. In Oklahoma they can take your child but they have to file an official complaint about why they did that and they have to do that within a certain amount of days.

I think it's like seven days. The state of Washington can take your kids for two years without a reason. People are fleeing states like that to come to places like Oklahoma and Representative Swope is trying to make

Oklahoma like those places incrementally bit by bit. And this is something that needs to be pointed out by Christians and say no we're not going to do this.

We're not going to take away people's liberties and people's freedoms and assume that parents are bad for children.

Right. So I think as far as the Christians relationship with the state, people talk about the separation of church and state.

We're talking about the separation of roles. Not that one does not speak to the other. And so we have two bills.

There could be you know more bills but the ongoing thing is Christians have a responsibility to speak to their representatives because that is something that has been afforded to us.

I know there's a lot of people asking questions about when does the state not become a valid state?

When has it abdicated its authority? But there's a couple steps between them. If you've never talked to any of your representatives, if you never taken any steps to say look this is what needs to be done and it's your job to do it or it's your job to oppose it, then we haven't done our part as Christians because we know good and evil and it's the church's job to inform the state of good and evil.

Yes. And you say well they don't represent us, the people. Well they've become lax on things that they shouldn't become lax on.

That does seem to represent the general population. We've become very lax in some of the rights that have been afforded to us because of the

Christian development of our country. And so I would encourage any Christian, look into this, find out who your representatives are, talk to them.

Even if it's not about a specific bill, just get to know them, see where they are. Are they a Christian?

Are they not a Christian? Support them and point them in the right direction. Yeah I think that's that's important.

I think so communicating with your representatives is pretty easy. I mean you just go online and search it, who's my representative, and you can very quickly get into contact with your representative email.

I'm on a an email list when certain things come up about certain subjects and certain bills.

Progress of those bills gets emailed to me so I know what's going on. So and you can always call, leave a message, and not a whole lot of people do that.

And so be encouraged that because not a whole lot of people are doing that, you have the your voice will matter because you're gonna be heard well.

And then there's also some other things to do if you are so inclined, if you have a gifting and an interest in this, then look for ways to get involved in your local governance.

You know people talk about you know somebody's got to be the dog catcher so you know run for that or get onto a school board somewhere.

There are people who have organized themselves and taken over whole school boards and flipped it so that now they can control the curriculum and do things that are different.

They're making a difference. I remember one of our one of our heroes around here Ralph Bullard was on a public library board and he was able to have positive influence on the things that were happening there.

So we've got to think about different ways to be involved and at the very least we should be communicating certainly all the time praying about these things and be informed about it.

Not so that we can wring our hands in woe but that we can be active. Right yeah we want to be faithful and then trust

God for the results. And so I think that about wraps it up for those questions.

What about recommendations? I would like to recommend a hymn book by Charles Spurgeon and it's called

Our Own Hymn Book. It's a collection of psalms and hymns for public social and private worship.

It was compiled by C .H. Spurgeon and used at the Metropolitan Tabernacle London England.

And in this hymn book you will not find a single note. There's not one single note throughout this entire hymn book.

There are only lyrics, only words. And at the heading of each one of the hymns there is a little notation to let you know what the meter is.

Long meter, common meter, short meter, sevens, and it's just a this is just about the beats in the poetry.

Well that's important because by the use of maybe two dozen tunes that all have a different rhythm and meter to them you could sing all 1 ,000 hymns in this book.

Wow. Because you only need you know that many tunes to sing this many songs because they all have some similar meter, some common meter that you just you can put a hundred different hymns to the same tune.

Right. So I really enjoy going through here and finding some gems and trying to sing them to tunes that are familiar to me.

That's awesome. What was the name of that one again? It's called Our Own Hymn Book. I would like to recommend a book called

Slaying Leviathan by Glenn Sunshine. I recently plotted through that and it was real good.

He does a I like the way that it's set up in that he goes through a history of the development of different thought throughout

Christian history and interaction with secular thought and Christian thought you know

Protestant resistance theory, Augustine's two kingdom view, the Catholic Church with you've got the church and the state you had the kingship and all of that different stuff and so how that all developed and went through and then at the end he talks about application kind of what does it mean he summarizes it in a very helpful way and I found that very informative just in the sense of okay how did we get here what were different thoughts that people were having in history past but then also tied along it got me thinking about different theological developments like Covenantalism.

You had questions about okay kingship divine right of kings and these covenants is does the government have a covenant with people does the king have a covenant with his people all that different stuff so it was very interesting.

So it's called Slaying Leviathan by Glenn Sunshine. Let's move on to what we are grateful for.

Well I'm thankful for my family, thankful for their support, for their encouragement.

I'm thankful for a home filled with children who they don't always get along but they they do get along and encourage each other and children who are eager to spend time together and with their mom and I so that's it's a happy home and I'm thankful for it always glad to to walk through the doors and it's also really encouraging when my two -year -old you know you know yells out dad dad dad dad comes running for me so that's always that's always nice to be welcomed home like that too.

Yeah that's a great feeling. And we had a great day today with snowball fights and building snowmen so yeah been a good day.

Very good. I'm grateful for the people that serve that I get to serve alongside here at this church.

There's been some things happen recently several people who have to shift their schedules around and so I've taken on some of the responsibilities and I'm grateful to be able to do that and to support them and grateful for all that they do sending out emails and and coming up with order of service and things like that so I'm grateful to Jay and Lisa for all of their hard work and it's just wonderful to have groups of people who are mindful of different things different giftings and to be able to work with them so I'm grateful for that.

And that wraps it up for today we are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Happy Knot Red.