Good Faith Abortion Debate Part 2 - JUNETEETH SPECIAL!

All right, I just had a great idea. You can steal this idea, because I don't have the skills to accomplish such a thing, but I just got a product idea.

If anyone knows how to do jewelry, or work with metal, precious metals, things like that,

I've got a great idea. You can sell this. You know those grills that the rappers wear? I think that's what they're called. Grill?

Is it a grill? An ice grill? Yeah, those grills. You can do a Juneteenth -themed grill, and call it

Juneteeth. And everybody will be like, hey, you got your Juneteeth? I got my

Juneteeth. And then you sell the grills, it'll be awesome. All you gotta do is get one rapper on board.

It's just gonna spread like wildfire. Anyway, if you make a million dollars on that, give me a couple bucks.

Throw a couple bucks my way, you know, for the idea. Anyway, so we're gonna jump right back into this abortion pro -life debate.

If you remember last time, we had Karen Pryor, who I didn't find a whole lot to disagree with her presentation, although, if you remember,

I was very suspicious that eventually she's gonna be springing the trap. She didn't really define what womb -to -tomb pro -life meant.

I know what it means to progressives and liberals, and it's a bunch of nonsense. You don't have to be pro -socialism to be truly pro -life.

That's insane, of course. And so, yeah, that's kind of where we left off with Karen Pryor.

Today, we're gonna be hearing from Scott Klusendorf, who is kind of a typical sort of run -of -the -mill pro -lifer, you know.

He's against abortion, so long as the laws against it don't have any teeth. Like, I don't think he's for abortion abolition, which is insane.

I mean, any Christian needs to know that murder ought to be illegal. It ought to be punishable by the state because it's a crime that the

Lord, in his scripture, gives us the just punishment for it. If you're for justice, then you must be for the death penalty for those who do abortions.

It's just, it's a very simple thing. There's no reason to be ashamed of it. There's no reason to nuance it to death.

Anyone who tries to get around that is simply caving to the spirit of the age, right? They don't really believe that abortion is really murder, or they don't really believe that God has anything to say about justice, except in a kind of ishy, squishy way that you can kind of team up with the pagans and say, oh, we're for justice.

They're for justice, just as long as it's not God's justice. That's kind of my impression of Clusendorf. He wants to kind of nibble around the edges.

Oh, you know, heartbeat bills are okay, and parental consent is okay, and stuff like that.

But the minute you say, no, no, we should actually abolish abortion, punish it the way the laws on the books are written.

It's murder, it's murder, that's what it is. We need to enforce that law. You can't kill babies just because they're in the womb.

You can't do it. And if you do, you get charged with murder. If you're found guilty, you get punished as a murderer.

It's just that simple. In any case, let's hear Scott Clusendorf out.

Clusendorf. I'm serious, man, Juneteeth. Someone's gotta do that, Juneteeth.

Joe found the young girl unconscious in her upstairs closet. By the time he arrived, the structure was a raging inferno.

No one else dared go inside. Scooping up the girl, he took his only exit out a second story window into the thorn bushes below.

The girl lived, but Joe sustained two broken ankles and a lot of scratches and an avalanche of questions from those who didn't lift a finger to save the girl.

The media wanted to know how he planned to pay for the girl's food, clothing, healthcare now that he had rescued her.

A pastor asked if what he was doing to fight the inner city poverty was reflected in the way he saved the girl.

The social justice coordinator at a local parish insisted that if Joe truly cared about saving lives, he'd care about all life, including refugees, immigrants, the poor, those that were disadvantaged.

And finally, a local congressman wanted to know if Joe really cared about saving lives, would he support tax increases aimed at fire prevention?

Joe. Scott Klusendorf, very sneaky, very, very sneaky.

At first, I was like, where is he going with this? This is a weird analogy. You know, from what I understand,

Klusendorf is kind of known for his weird analogies. Like, I like this one, this is interesting.

It's like, you know, the womb to tomb stuff is just so dumb. The womb to tomb stuff is so dumb.

Let's just face that, and I'm glad that Scott Klusendorf is showing how dumb it actually is.

But from what I understand, Klusendorf is known for these kind of strange analogies. At first, I wasn't sure where you were going with that one,

Scott. Doctor, is it Dr. Klusendorf? I wanna be respectful. Dr. Klusendorf, let's find out.

Dr. Klusendorf, they just call him Klusendorf, so I'm just gonna call him

Klusendorf. Very sneaky, Klusendorf, I didn't even quite know where you were going, but very good.

Just kept looking at the girl. I wanna talk about this topic.

What does it mean to be pro -life? And I'll tell you why this is significant, men and women.

So, okay, but here's the thing, though, right? Because even that analogy is, it just, it kind of softens what's happening here, because in the one situation, you know, you've got a baby who's exactly where they're supposed to be, they're safe and sound.

In the womb, they've not done anything, you know, nothing's really happening, nothing out of the ordinary is happening.

And then you've got a woman who's like, nah, nah, nah, I wanna off that child, and I'm gonna hire someone to do it.

And so, they're gonna stick little things in there to kill it, or they're gonna suck them out, you know, to kill it, or they're gonna burn it to death, or they're gonna, whatever it is.

You know, that's pretty horrific, right? And the fire, you know, it's like a passive thing.

You know, maybe the kid started the fire, or maybe, you know, just a random occurrence, or something like that.

I mean, it's, you know, it's different, it's different. It's actually worse than Klusendorf's even example is, which maybe that's his point,

I don't know. But, you know, one criticism I've seen of Klusendorf is often he'll make these analogies when, like, the real thing actually is sufficient, right?

It's actually, it's a better way to make your point than these weird analogies. You know, whatever,

I mean, listen, some people don't like analogies, you know, some people don't like certain analogies, whatever.

I thought it was effective, so good for you, Klusendorf. He's about to give us the definition of pro -life.

Let's see where this goes. The definition of what it means to be pro -life has been twisted.

Historically, pro -life has meant you were pro -life for the life of the unborn. Pro -choice meant you were pro -choice on the question of abortion.

What has happened is the term pro -life has now been changed from pro -life in the womb to quality of life outside the womb.

In fact, some of our own leaders have adopted this language. We are told, for example, that in order to be truly pro -life, we need to switch from, quote, pro -life, unquote, to whole life.

As one pro -life leader put it, it is troubling that we are more concerned about the unborn and not equally concerned for genocide in Danfur, not equally concerned about refugees, immigrants, and sex trafficking.

We need to be, as she put it, as passionate, as engaged on those issues as we are life in the womb.

And if we aren't, we are betraying our fundamental pro -life principles.

So this is a very common thing that people say when they are kind of low -key for abortion and they don't want you talking about it.

And in those examples, it's very easy. Sex trafficking, genocide, what was the other one?

I forget. But those things are already illegal, right? It's illegal to do sex trafficking, right?

If you're caught and you're a trafficker, there's a crime associated with that. Now, in my opinion, the penalty should be much steeper for those that are caught doing sex trafficking, right?

There should be death penalties for people that kidnap people for the purposes of sex or any other purpose for that matter.

It should be a death penalty offense. That's what the scripture says. You see, God's law is actually quite helpful in these areas.

If you're caught kidnapping people, then you're actually, that's a death penalty offense if you're convicted.

Genocide, killing people already is illegal, right? And with abortion, it's not illegal. And so it's like, we actually have to make it illegal first.

Well, it actually is illegal when you think about it, but we have to actually abolish abortion and then we're on equal footing.

But until we do that, we're not on equal footing. At this point, it's celebrated and legal and promoted and tax dollars are spent on it and stuff like that.

That's a totally different animal. We have to actually abolish abortion. I'm interested to see where Scott Klusendorf goes with this because I'm not so sure he actually believes that.

Keep in mind something here. This is not an attack on individual pro -lifers where we say to pro -lifers, you're not doing enough as much as it is an attack on pro -life organizations saying that your operational objectives must now reflect a whole life perspective.

And if it doesn't, you aren't really pro -life in your organizational operational objectives.

Now - It's actually both though. I mean, people are argued against as individuals in this way and also the organizations as well.

So I don't really understand the distinction there, but you know, whatever. Say up front, as Christians, our ethic should be broad and inclusive.

As a Christian, I should care about sex trafficking. I should care about refugees.

I should care about immigrants. And if I'm not, there's something wrong in my

Christian worldview. James is very clear that godliness entails caring for the widow, caring for those who are in need, but it does not follow from this men and women that the operational objectives of the pro -life movement must be broad and inclusive as well.

And the point I wanna argue today is simply this, that pro -life organizations should resist, indeed, must resist any attempt by those who label themselves whole life to rewrite the operational objectives of the pro -life movement.

And I wanna go over five reasons why. Number one. All right, so before he gets into his five reasons why we shouldn't do the womb to tomb thing in our organizations, let me just say this.

It's like, there's a difference though that goes beyond the fact that sex trafficking is already illegal and genocide's already illegal and abortion isn't.

That's a big difference, of course, but there's another difference as well. And I'm trying to think of the way to say this.

I haven't really thought these things through quite as much as a lot of other things, but there's a difference between on the ground tactics and then the justice issues as well.

The justice issues are one category and then there's what the citizens do on the ground to help people out.

Because the thing is, the reality is all of us are not judicial authorities. Now we can all engage in that process and so we can petition our leaders to support abortion abolition and stuff like that and we can vote for the right candidates or whatever it is, we can participate in the civic sort of civil governing authority issue.

And that's important, especially with abortion because abortion is legal. So there's a massive injustice in our justice system that keeps abortion, killing babies legal and we need to address that and fix that, right?

So there's that, but then there's also the kind of on the ground tactics that you do to sort of save babies in the meantime, right?

So, and this is the same thing with sex trafficking, right? So sex trafficking is already illegal, right?

And so we don't have the civil sort of, well, side issue, I mean, it's not as robust as it needs to be, but we don't have the same civil governing authority issue with sex trafficking as we do with abortion, right?

One's legal, one's not. But people are still sex trafficked, right? So we gotta figure out, as Christians, how to save those people as well, right?

And so we can't just focus on the on the ground sort of tactics, you know, how do we set up sting operations?

How do we speak to these women that are being trafficked? How do we rescue them from the slaughter and stuff like that?

That's like the on the ground tactics, that's one side. Yes, we need to do that, but we can't like say, but you don't do the civil governing authorities.

Like nobody would buy it if we said, you don't actually care about women because you're too busy being focused on making it illegal to sex traffic instead of saving women.

We're over here saving women, so you're stupid. Like no one would ever buy that, right? But for pro -life for some reason, we've got gaggles and legions of fake

Christians who are like, oh, no, no, I believe in pro -choice, but we should try to limit abortions and try to save babies, even though it should be legal, totally safe and legal to kill your baby, we're still trying to save babies over here.

That's dumb. You're brain dead. I think Lecrae's like that. There's a few other guys that are big names that are like that.

You're brain dead, if that's what you think. But there's two sides of this here.

And the thing is, so many people that are involved in abortion abolition, they wanna address the civil governing authority, the injustice that we have in our nation, that we tolerate, that we support in our nation.

It's legal to kill babies, but then they're also doing the tactics to save babies before they're killed, right?

They're going to these abortion clinics and they're preaching there. They're begging the women to not kill their babies.

They're offering to adopt the kids. There's just so many things. You know, the crisis pregnancy centers, those are good too, because there's some tactics there where it's like we're trying to save babies.

So long as those crisis pregnancy centers aren't opposing abortion abolition, as they so often do, it's completely ridiculous.

It's like, oh, it's not a civil governing authority issue. It's about when women need to feel loved and they need money.

They do need money. They do need to feel loved, but also they should be punished as murderers if they decide to kill their baby anyway.

But those are two separate things. It's like pedophiles, right? Pedophilia is illegal and that's a good thing, right?

You know, we shouldn't have men out there raping children. Of course, that should be illegal. It should be a death penalty offense, but also you need to protect kids in real time.

You have to actually do stuff, because the thing is people will kill babies even when it's illegal.

People say, oh, you're just gonna make abortions unsafe. People are gonna kill their babies anyway.

You're like, yeah, you're right. They are gonna kill their babies anyway, but I want it to be unsafe and I want you, if you get caught,

I want the punishment available for you. That's what I want. That's what I want. In the meantime, we'll save babies, but also

I want you to be in danger if you decide to kill your baby anyway.

You go against the law. I'm not upset when murderers or thieves are put in danger because of their crimes, right?

Like, yeah, it's dangerous to go kill people. It's dangerous to go rob people. It should be. It should be dangerous. That's what it should be.

It should be dangerous to kill your baby. Right now it's safe and legal and celebrated. That ought not to be.

The civil governing authority ought to be there and to make it as dangerous as possible for you. But in the meantime, since it's not illegal, we can't just take matters into our own hands.

We obviously can't do that. That's not something that citizens can do, right? But what we can do is we can try to save babies in the meantime, right?

We can try to beg you and ask you and preach and show you, look, look, you can't do this.

You can't do this. We'll protect the baby. We'll offer you support. We'll do whatever it is that we need to do.

We can do all that stuff in the meantime. It's like, I got distracted, but the pedophilia example, right?

That's already illegal. But then there's people that set up sting operations to catch pedophiles before they kill or before they harm a real kid.

And they pretend to be a kid and they groom them and they do all this stuff. And then they expose them.

They send the information to the police department, stuff like that. And you can do that too. We can do both of those things.

We can make pedophilia illegal and we can also do the things to save the kids in the meantime, right?

Two separate issues. I find that when people don't make that distinction,

I find that so annoying. Let's listen to Klusendorf. One, that attempt to rewrite unfairly puts demands on battle -weary pro -life advocates.

Number two, it appeals to a false sense of moral equivalency. Number three, it fails to distinguish

Christian ethics from operational objectives. Fourth, it's not going to convert our opponents.

They're not going to come to our side because we do all that they demand. And finally, it ignores the fact that pro -lifers do care for children outside the womb.

First thing, unfair demands. Here's the - This is all fine. This is a very interesting kind of weird debate.

I mean, I'm okay with everything he just said there. It's like, it's people always say, like, you know, people will always message me and be like, when are you going to finally talk about this topic?

And so whatever their favorite topic is, you know, you need to talk about this topic and, you know, move away from the stuff that you're comfortable with.

And I'm like, the channel's about social justice and Big Eva. That's all my channel's about. Like, and maybe some fishing.

But no, I don't have to actually focus on everything you want me to focus on. I don't have to do it. I mean, I'm not saying it's not important.

You know, some people will say, when are you going to finally stop protecting these people that are doing this? Because you're ignoring it.

And I'm like, what are you talking about? My channel is a narrow focus, right? That's my objective.

I don't do everything on this channel. It's like, you know, the demand makes no sense anyway, just from the start of it.

Question all of us need to ask. Everyone's got to be for the current thing. You better put that Ukrainian flag in your profile.

How does it follow that because pro -life advocates oppose the intentional killing of an innocent human being in the womb, they have to take responsibility operationally, organizationally for everything else that's wrong in society.

Imagine if your church opened a daycare center. It's because he's kind of missing the point, right?

Like he's trying to defend these organizations, these institutions, which from what

I understand is another thing that Klusendorf does all the time, even the ones that are complete failures and don't advocate for abolition and stuff like that.

But it's more than just against the organizations. It's actually about Christians in general.

People always will say the individual Christians just don't care about life after the womb because they're not socialists, because they're not this, because they're not that.

And that's the problem. It's like, no, I do care. And it's exactly because I do care that I'm not going with your socialist welfare schemes.

You don't care. You just pretend to care. Stop pretending to care and actually care by being against welfare as well.

We got to go on the attack here. Down in Philadelphia, and you cared about violence to children and your church in response to that said, you know, we're going to open up.

The idea is that we're hypocrites, right? It's like, we're hypocrites because we didn't vote for Barack Obama because he wanted to help the black community and stuff like that.

It's like, no, we're not hypocrites because we are against that too, because the scripture is against that too. Because singling out the black community to take money from other people to give it to the black community, that's stealing.

It's also partiality, right? So we're against that. We're against stealing and we're against partiality. We're against stealing for whatever demographic group it is, whether it's poor people or rich people, because the

Bible says, you shall not be partial to a poor person or a rich person. And so whether it's a corporation getting welfare or if it's

Kenny down the street getting welfare, I'm against it because that's not your money. It's just that simple.

It's, this is a weird, why did he focus on the organizations like to protect these institutions?

Like whatever, if you want to defend the institutions, that's fine, but let's not pretend that that's not what this, that's all that this debate is about.

This debate is just, it's off. It's like, it's a distraction. It's like a sideshow.

This is not the debate. It's just the same thing with the last one. It's like, we're talking about trannies and stuff like that, not really the race stuff on the woke church.

And it's like, this is a side, I think that's the point of these debates. This is a sideshow to distract you from the real issue, which is the fact that abortion needs to be abolished in our country.

Only on school days, three hours a week for kids that are under the age of 12 so that moms can come home in the inner city and just have a little time to get squared away, catch their wits before the kids come home.

Imagine your church at great expense opens that daycare center and a critic knocked on your door and said, you know, you don't really love kids because if you did, you would treat all kids.

You wouldn't just be open for elementary age kids. You would care for all kids. And by the way, high school kids have problems too, you know.

Oh, and not only that, what are you doing about gun violence in the inner city? What are you doing about the fact that there's too many criminals running around doing gang -like activity?

And what are you doing to relieve the poverty that is underneath all this violence to begin with?

You don't care about kids. You just care about one group of kids. But it's about the politics though.

It's not about the organization. I just, I don't get why he did this. I think I do get it because that's the point, to distract you from the real issues.

It's not about these organizations. Nobody expects, you know, UNICEF, or not UNICEF, PETA, to focus on non -animals because that's what they do.

They're an animal organization, right? A terrible one, but they're one, right? So nobody expects them to start donating to people, but that's not really what this is about.

And I'm sure some people make that case, but that's not what this is about. This is about who you're voting for and your politics.

So how could you support someone who doesn't, who wants to give less money to the poor? You're a hypocrite.

You don't care about children. You only care about children in the womb because you didn't vote for welfare. That's what this is about.

That's what it's about. Why is this? Man, I hate this Good Faith series. Anybody that said that to your pastor

It's awful. is out of his mind. And yet that is precisely what pro -life advocates hear day after day after day.

That was spicy, Cluesendorf. He called them out of his mind. I like that. Good job, Cluesendorf. And we shouldn't stand for it.

It is an unfair job description that's being placed on us. Secondly, it's false moral equivalency.

In terms of the evil done, can we just be honest for a moment here? What possible issue is there in American culture today that comes close to 62 million human beings being intentionally killed?

I mean, that's a mic drop moment. Again, that's exactly right. These psychopaths that are like, well,

I voted for Joe Biden because he's gonna help the black community. And it's like, like, dude, how selfish can you be?

Honestly, how selfish can you be? Like, he's allegedly gonna help the black community, which of course he's not gonna do that.

He's just gonna give you some cash and make you more of a slave, but whatever. So allegedly, and so you're saying, okay,

I'll trade some lives. I know he wants to expand abortion, increase it, all that stuff.

He thinks it's great. But you know, a few bucks, a few stacks my way, that's a good trade.

That's a good trade. Like, it's like, what issue could possibly be in existence right now that's actually trumping the fact that we're killing babies at record numbers?

What's the silver lining of the Democratic Party? That's the question we're asking here.

Where is the, what's the plank in the Democratic Party that overrides their promotion of more baby killing as much as possible, as free as possible, and all that kind of stuff?

And I'm not saying the Republicans are good at this. The Republicans stink at this, right? But at least they've got some aspects of their, at least they claim to be pro -life.

That's number one. They at least claim, at least. And they have some redeeming qualities of what they support.

Sometimes, not even all the time, just sometimes, no Democrat has any redeeming qualities.

None, none, because of this issue. And this issue trumps it all. And it's not like they're good on other issues.

They're actually terrible on those other issues. But even if they were good on those other issues, it still doesn't trump this.

Since Roe v. Wade. Let me give that number a reference point for you.

That's the Holocaust times 10. That's Yankee Stadium filled 1 ,143 times over.

What possible evil is equivalent to that, to where, as one pro -life leader mentioned a moment ago, we should be as passionate about those other issues as we are that 62 million.

Abortionist Warren Hearn describes it well. He says, let's be honest about what abortion is.

There is no longer a way to deny what's going on. The sensations of dismemberment flow through the forceps like an electric current.

What possible issue is more important than that one?

Of course there are other issues. Just like beating Hitler in 1944 was not the only issue.

Just like opposing slavery wasn't the only issue in 1860. But both were the dominant issues of their time.

And Christians were right to give greater weight to those issues. Thirdly, the whole life approach overlooks the distinction between Christian ethics and operational objectives.

The leader of a major pro -life organization that oversees pregnancy centers says that the pro -life movement as a whole, not just pregnancy centers, as a whole, must shift from being pro -life to quote pro -abundant life, that saving babies is not enough.

He says, and I quote him here, we must programmatically devote operational resources to, and here's the things he lists, build strong families, promote healthy marriages, secure religious liberty, encourage responsible fatherhood, help families thrive spiritually.

You know what just happened to pro -life organizations? They were just given a backbreaking job description that even

Superman can't fulfill. And what does this look like in the real world? When I go speak on abortion, do

I get to spend five minutes on abortion? And then I got to spend five minutes on fatherhood. Then I got to spend five minutes on helping families thrive spiritually.

I mean, this all sounds really good until you try to work it out in the real world.

I do have a way forward though. As pro -life advocates, we ought to link rhetorically to other issues.

We should use issues like the civil rights issue, like the treatment of Emmett Till, the 14 -year -old

African -American boy that was lynched by racists in the 1950s. We should use parallel issues to demonstrate that the treatment of human beings made in the image of God, that treatment when it's a

Holocaust, when it's mistreatment should not be tolerated. But we can't link organizationally.

It will bankrupt pro -life organizations. Last two points. It's not going to convert our critics.

Suppose the pro -life movement does everything our critics are asking of us.

We take on all those other issues. Will they become pro -life? Not in a billion years.

I've been speaking pro -life professionally for 32 years. And never once when I've called the bluff of a critic who said, you don't really care about life, when

I called their bluff and said, okay, for the sake of argument, I'll do everything you want. Not once will they then agree to become pro -life because in reality, what they believe is -

I find it hard to believe that he's never found one smart aleck that said, yeah,

I'll become pro -life. There's always one in every crowd. Abortion is a fundamental right.

If that's their true belief, they should defend that, not change the subject. And by the way, it's not pro -lifers who don't care for kids after they're born.

It's pro -abortionists. They're the ones who won't even protect kids after they're born who survive abortion procedures.

The Senate in New York wouldn't do it. The US Senate here wouldn't do it. They're the ones who don't care about kids after they're born, not pro -lifers.

Pro -lifers actually do care. Pregnancy centers outnumber abortion clinics nearly three to one in America today.

They are paid for by people like you, like me, who give sacrificially with no funding from the government at all.

My colleague, Mark Newman, puts it well. He says individuals and organizations that make it their exclusive mission to save these children from a culture hell -bent on butchering them have nothing to apologize for.

They don't need additional causes. They need additional support.

All right, well, we got through it. You know, again, I don't find a whole lot to disagree with what he said.

I mean, you know, he's right about a lot of the stuff he said. But again,

I honestly think that, and I'm not blaming Scott for this. I think it's probably how they set up the debate.

By focusing on these pro -life organizations, which, you know, many of them stink, let's just face it, he's kind of avoided the actual real issues here, the real issues of Christians being called hypocrites because they're not supporting the socialist agenda, right?

They're not supporting all this stuff, and you don't care, you just don't care about poor people and stuff like that.

And it's like, he did get into that a little bit for the organizations, but it's but more than the organization.

It's about politics, about who you vote for. That's where this comes into play. And you see it in the church all over the place, and quite frankly,

I'm hoping, I'm hoping that Karen Pryor will try to kind of spring this trap a little bit so we can get into the meat of this.

Because so far, you know, it's fine. This debate is fine, but it's just, it's not really the main issue, and it just kind of seems like a sideshow to me.

It seems like a sideshow, so. And also kind of knowing that Klusendorf is against the abolitionists and abortion abolition in that way, that kind of makes it sour as well, but he hasn't really said anything about that, so I can't go too into it.