The Pro Life Position Explained and Defended

The Biblical Case for the Sanctity of Life

All right, so we're going to go through three things tonight. The biblical case for the sanctity of life, then we're going to defend the pro-life position, and then we're going to go over 10 common objections to the pro-life position.

So the sanctity of life reflects the belief that because all people are made in God's image, human life has inherently sacred attribute, a divine value, that should be protected and respected at all times.

Our value comes from God. He's our creator. It doesn't come from another human being. If our value and our rights come from another human being, we've got big problems, right? Because the same way they give you the right, they can also take it away.

They can change it, and no human being has that right over another human being. So we're special as the pinnacle of God's creation because God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. So we're created in the image and likeness of God, the imago dei, they call it, right?

So God is the author of life. He breathed into us. He sets us apart from all of the life forms, and this is what differentiates us from everything else on planet Earth, from the animals, from plants. We're different than a bug, a bird, a bonsai tree, or bacteria, right?

A baby is different because we're human beings. Baby is a human being. Genesis 2 .7, then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

So our life, our soul, our spirit comes directly from God. We are the pinnacle of God's creation and set apart from all other creation such that we have value, a different value, an inherent value because we're in God's image over anything else that's around us.

God gave humanity the authority to kill and eat other forms of life. Genesis 9 .3, every moving thing that lives shall be food for you, and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. So not only are we the image of God, we have authority.

We have dominion over the Earth. We can eat animals and plants, right? When we eat an animal, it's called an entree. When, why are you laughing? When an animal eats one of us, it's called an emergency, right?

It's not good, right? There's a difference, right? So man's different than other creatures. There's a penalty for killing another man. That comes out of Genesis 9 .6. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image, okay?

Why should we value life? I'm gonna give you a couple of scriptures. Psalm 100, know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who made us. We are his. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Everything that God makes belongs to him, right?

So we should value life because he created every single human being. You know, I think Pastor used the illustration one time. If you like a particular artist, when you go to an art gallery and you see his painting, you recognize the paintings.

And even if there's one that looks a little bit different, you're like, I know the artist. I like it because I know the artist. When you look at it, humanity, God is the artist. So I mean, we may not like certain people or we may dislike certain people, but we know the artist.

So it causes us to love them as image bearers of God. Isaiah 44, thus says the Lord, your redeemer, who formed you from the womb. I am the Lord who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself.

That's a powerful God. He spread out the earth and everything by himself, the heavens, and he made us. Isaiah 64, eight, but now, O Lord, you are our father and we are the clay and you are our powder.

We are all the work of your hand. So over and over and over, scripture tells us that God is the creator of us. He owns us. He's the one who created everything and us as human beings. Why are we valuable?

Why should we value life? Because we're all created by God. There's not one person that's not created by God, who is the creator of the unborn. Psalm 139, for you, God, form my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, yet as there was none of them. So here we see God specifically knitting people together in their mother's wombs.

The womb is a sacred place. That's what that means. If God is knitting us together in our mother's wombs, God's doing the work there. So we start our humanity inside the womb. I've been told embryos are parasites on Facebook, right?

So when you think about, I was going back and forth, well, Shane's not here, but he knows the guy. So, because the parasite lives off the host. So that's what he was trying to portray. Here we know it was God who created us in our mother's wombs.

Jeremiah 1 .5, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?

Who's the creator of the unborn? God is the creator of the unborn. Is God concerned about the unborn, right? So Exodus 21, 22 through 25. When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judge determines.

But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, and stripe for stripe. So if you kill a child in its mother's womb, what do you get?

Death, right? It's a death sentence. Galatians 1 .15, but when he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace, God sets apart the unborn even before they're formed. God has a purpose and a plan for every single human being on earth.

Are the unborn human beings? John the Baptist thinks so. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy, right?

So the unborn are in the womb leaping for joy.

They are human beings.

You're a human being at the moment of conception. Jesus was a human being, and while they were there, the time came for her to give birth, and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them at the end, right?

Jesus was a baby. This is where his incarnation begins. He was birth through Mary. Jesus himself began his incarnation as an embryo, growing into a fetus, an infant, a child, a teenager, and then an adult.

And what we need to remember, because people bring up those, oh, it's just a fetus, right? A fetus is a stage of development of a human being. So embryo, fetus, infant, child, teenager, adult, those are all stages of development for a human being.

So don't get thrown off when I say, well, it's just a fetus. Okay, first of all, fetus means baby, right? And second of all, what kind of fetus is it? Is it a canine fetus, a feline fetus, or a human fetus?

If it's a human fetus, you can't kill it. How should we view the unborn? Psalm 127, behold, children are a gift of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward, right? What a precious scripture to recognize that when you bring forth, when women bring forth children, this is a gift from God.

That's the fruit of a womb that God has blessed. All right, so real quick, and then we're gonna get into a defense for the unborn. First, we're created in God's image, which sets us apart from every other created thing on the planet.

Our value and rights come from God. He's the creator. He's the one who gives us our rights. We are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. Despite whatever the woman on MSNBC says, we do not get our rights from other people.

Thank God that we don't. Our rights come from God. Third, God created the unborn. God cares for the unborn. The unborn are human beings, and the unborn are a gift from God. So, based on that, that doesn't say we can't kill an embryo, right?

Actually, Exodus 20, 13 says thou shall not murder. If it's a human being and you take its life, that's murder. What is the definition of murder? The taking of an innocent life without just cause, right?

So, if somebody is breaking into your house and has a gun aimed at you, are you allowed to kill him? Yes, because you have good cause, because if you don't stop him, he's gonna stop you. The unborn is defenseless, right?

They're innocent, humanly speaking, right? We are not allowed to go into a mother's womb and rip them out limb by limb, okay. Now, if someone's listening to this video or watching it online and you had an abortion,.

There is hope.

In him, we have redemption, Jesus. Through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace. So, many, many, many women who have had abortions struggle with this mentally and spiritually for the rest of their lives sometimes.

So, if that is you and you're listening to this, there is a savior. There is a savior for your sins. Isaiah 43 says, "'I, even I am the one who wipes out your transgressions "'for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.'".

So, when we look at the Old Testament saints like we were talking about on Sunday, like David had his army commander murdered, slept with his wife, had a child. I mean, the sins that were committed in the Old Covenant were horrific.

We're JV compared to those guys. I'm not saying our sin doesn't matter. It does, but when we look at them, I'm encouraged because if God can work through guys like that, he can work through a guy like me.

And for someone who struggles, who has had an abortion, there is a God powerful enough to save you from whatever sin it is that you've committed. So, people need to know that. Okay, so, let's talk about the unborn.

So, let's say I'm at my kitchen sink and I'm washing some dishes and my son, who, let's say when he was five years old, he comes up behind me, daddy, daddy, can I kill this? What's the next question out of my mouth?

What is it, right? If it's a spider, yeah, kill it. If it's your neighbor in a headlock, no, you can't kill it. So, the question we need to know is what is it? What is the unborn? Because if you don't know what the unborn is,.

You can't kill it, right?

If it's a spider or something that we can kill, fine. But if it's your neighbor's daughter, no, you cannot kill it. Okay, so, let's say I was a contractor, right? And I was called in to demo this building and I sent my guy in and he goes, it's a 20-story building, he comes back, I said, all the floors clear?

He said, yeah, but floors 16 and 17, the doors were locked. I wasn't able to check those floors. Can we detonate the building? Why not? There might be somebody in there. So, he goes up again, he breaks into the 16th floor, good, gets into the 17th floor, but halfway through, there's other doors that are locked, he couldn't come in, he comes down.

I got him all, except for the half of the 17th floor. Can you detonate the building?

Why?

Because there could be somebody in there, right? And if there could be somebody in there and I detonate it and the person dies, well, then I killed a human being. In the same way, I need to know what's in the womb.

I cannot detonate the womb until I know that there is no person in there. If there is a human being in there, then I cannot invade the womb and hurt the child. And this is what happens, ba-boom. So, we can't detonate until we know.

So, you might get an objection. The unborn might be human, but it's not a person. It's just a clump of cells. It's just a piece of tissue. It's a parasite, like I was told. So, what do you wanna do in a situation like this?

Ask a question. What's the question gonna be? That's a possibility. What was your question? What kind of cells? How about this one? What's the difference between a human and a person? Could ask that one, too.

Usually, the conversation goes silent because they never thought about this yet. How, you can't kill it. What's the difference between a human and a person? They're not gonna be able to tell you because there is no difference between a human person.

If you're a human, you're not gonna be able to tell them. If you're a human being, you are a person. So, the way we're gonna defend the unborn tonight is called the SLED test. You might have heard this.

So, S stands for size. L stands for level of development. E stands for environment. D stands for degree of dependency. We're gonna go through each one of these. This is a real easy way to recognize the difference between someone who's born and the unborn.

So, you're gonna get, well, it's just a tiny cell. You know, it's really small. It's not a person yet. A four-year-old is smaller than a 14-year-old. Can we kill her because she's not as big as a teenager?

Right, does the size of the cell or the size of the person make a difference in whether they're a human being or not? No, because a human being's value is not based on their size.

Who's worth more?

Shaq, because he's bigger, right? Right, no, how big you are doesn't determine what you are or how valuable you are. So, the size of the person doesn't matter. If we can't kill the four-year-old because she's smaller, then we can't kill the unborn because she or he's smaller either.

Just because the unborn in the womb is smaller than anything outside the womb doesn't mean that you have the right to kill it. It's still a human being. You're not allowed to discriminate based on size.

Next is the alpha level of development. Well, the fetus isn't fully developed. How would you respond to that? Yeah, just pick a human being at another stage of development and ask the question, is that child fully developed?

All right, a four-year-old girl can't bear children because her reproductive system isn't fully developed. Does that mean she's not a person? No, she's still a person. She's not a fully developed woman at this point.

It's a stage of development of a woman and a stage of development of a man, right? When you look at this mom and her baby, does this baby not have personhood? Are we allowed to kill the baby because she's not as developed as her mother at this point?

No, absolutely not. That doesn't disqualify somebody from being a person. She's still equally as valuable as a child. So you're valuable as a zygote. You're valuable as an embryo. You're valuable as a fetus.

You're valuable as an infant. You're valuable as a toddler. These are all stages of development of a human being. No one stage is worth more or less than the other. So isn't the fetus fully developed?

No.

Can you kill a fetus because it's not fully developed? No, because a human being's value is not based on its level of development. If we can't kill the four-year-old because she's not fully developed, then we can't kill the unborn because it's not fully developed either.

So that's the L, level of development. Next is the E, environment. The fetus hasn't been born yet. It's still in the womb. And does your location change your value? Does where you are determine how much you're worth?

Is this guy worth less because he's on the moon or is he worth more because he's on the moon? No, right? You don't discriminate based on location. It doesn't matter where you are. If you're a human being, you're a human being.

You could be in Florida, you could be on the moon, you could be wherever you are. Doesn't change your value. How does an eight-inch journey down the birth canal magically transform a human of no value into a human being of value?

Right? Just because the unborn is inside the womb, where it is doesn't determine that it's not a human being. A human being's value is not based on its location. Where you are has no bearing on what you are.

You're a human being regardless. If we can't kill a person because of where they're located, then we can't kill the unborn because of where they're located either. Finally is the D, degree of dependency.

The fetus is completely dependent on its mother to live. What would you say to that? Yes? Right, an infant is dependent on its mother to live. There's some 29-year-old men still dependent on their mothers to live because they live in the house.

So if that was the criteria, we could go around killing all these kids stuck in their basement, playing video games, you know, getting food from their mom. Does being dependent change your value?

No.

This little child is dependent on its mother to learn how to walk. That's fine.

Why?

Because he or she is still a human being. It doesn't change what you are.

So what?

So we're dependent on someone else. Every single person in this room is dependent on someone else, right? First of all, first and foremost, we're dependent on God for our very life, right? We're dependent on God and his unchangeable nature so that gravity doesn't change two minutes from now and we fly off the earth, right?

We're all dependent on someone. So that's not a good reason. That doesn't disqualify the unborn from life. So do we kill somebody based on the degree of dependency? No, because a human being's value is not based on its degree of dependency.

If we can't kill a person because it's dependent upon another person, then we can't kill the unborn because they're dependent too. Okay, so that's the sled. Who wants to tell me what the S stands for?

Size.

What's the L stand for?

E. D.

Do it again, I'm only kidding, all right. Size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency. This is like a real popular thing. I heard this on Focus on the Family 25 years ago. So this acronym has been around for a long time.

It's a good idea to get it in your head so that when you're talking to somebody, it'll just come out without effort. You'll remember the sled test it's called. So none of these things disqualify a fetus from personhood, and we have to ask the question, what is the unborn?

A Case Study of a Woman Choosing Life

Okay, now I want to give you a little case study.

Julia.

So I had a Bible study in my house about 15, 20 years ago, and it was all younger, teenage, 20-something kind of people, and they were all part of NA, which is Narcotics Anonymous, and we're not anonymous anymore, right?

And they would come, and they were growing. Everybody was really enjoying the study, and some people were floating it out, and one of the steady women who came to the study didn't come one week, and I thought it was odd, so I asked everybody, where's so-and-so?

They're like, oh, you know, we don't know.

I'm like, okay.

Next week, doesn't show up. So now I'm looking around, I'm like, what's going on? So they all kind of like head sunk down. They said, well, she's pregnant. I'm like, okay. Yeah, she's gonna abort the child.

I'm like, not okay. I'm not gonna do that. So I immediately called a good friend of mine who I went to church with, who actually was tragically killed, hit by a car and a bike, and she was staunchly pro-life.

She had an abortion a long time ago, recognized that it was wrong. Her and her husband became Christians, and they went out and were outspoken about the sanctity of life. So she immediately called this young girl because she knew, and we met with her, and we ended up convincing her to keep her child, and this is the fruit of that.

So when you see these pictures, just know that they were gonna, not just them, lots of people, were gonna snuff out this life of this beautiful little baby, right? And I still know her husband, well, the father of the child, I should say, he comes to church, he's a Christian, he floats out, he actually comes in here every once in a while.

So don't think being pro-life and knowing these arguments is not gonna help.

When you're a Christian,.

You're commanded to stand up for life, to preach the truth, to love those people into the kingdom and save these children. Okay, so that's how to defend the unborn and that's the fruit of it. Common objections, no one knows when life begins.

Does anybody have any questions at this point?

We're good, okay.

Common Objections to the Pro-Life Position

No one knows when life begins. Really, if you don't know when life begins, then you can't kill it. Second, we don't know when life, we do know when life begins. Actually, we do. Dead things do not grow, metabolize, metabolize or react to stimuli.

You don't get an abortion because something is dead inside of you.

You're getting an abortion.

Because something is alive inside of you. So it's growing and it's alive. All you have to do is ask the question, what is it? Canine, feline or human? It's a human being, you can't kill it. The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view, a simple and straightforward matter.

The beginning is at conception. Dr. Watson Bowers, University of Colorado Med School. All scientists, all doctors say life begins at conception. Objection number two, the unborn is a potential human being.

What would you say? According to who?

What else? Calista?

Good question, good question, right? Response, unborn is a potential human being, wrong. At the moment of conception, the zygote has the necessary and distinct DNA that qualify it as a human being already.

It's already a human being. When we're talking to women who are going into the abortion mill, we tell them you're a mother already. You're already a mom. You're either gonna be the mother of a living child or the mother of a dead child.

When sometimes we have to be blunt like that to get them to understand that what they're doing is murder, right? So the woman is a mom already. The husband, the man, is a father already because this is a baby already at the moment of conception.

Humans always give birth to other humans, right? Because they'll say, well, it may not be a human.

Really?

What could it be? You have any counter examples? Do you ever know a woman who was pregnant gave birth to a monkey, an alligator, something? Like, no, you don't. You know why? We're gonna reproduce after our own kind, God told us.

Scott Klusendorf, just to let you know, Scott Klusendorf is probably the premier guy when it comes to the pro-life position, debating people and teaching other people how to defend the unborn. Look him up.

He's got excellent information. In fact, there's a slide at the end that'll tell you how to get in touch with him. Scott Klusendorf sums it up this way. You didn't come from an embryo. You once were an embryo.

At no point in your prenatal development did you undergo a substantial change or change of nature. You began as a human being and you will remain so until death. Sure, you lacked the maturity at that early stage of your life, as does an infant, but you were a human nonetheless.

You're a human being at the moment of conception. You may not recognize it, but you are. Objection number three, a woman can do whatever she wants with her own body. True, false, what do you think? False, it's not her body, right?

What if she wasn't pregnant? Could she still do whatever she wants with her own body? No, why?

Give me an example.

Well, she can't, but to her own body. Women or men can't do whatever they want with their bodies. You can't drink and drive, right? You can't do drugs, right? Drugs are illegal. You'll hurt yourself, right?

There's so many things that you can't do with your own body. You're not allowed to based on the law. Second, laws always restrict what we can do with our own bodies when what we are doing brings harm to another human being or an individual.

There's gun laws, driving laws, or abortion laws in the case of the unborn. Third, this objection begs the question, in assuming there is only one body involved, it should be obvious that there are two bodies involved, the mothers and the unborn.

So if she says, no, no, it's just one body. Say, do you have four feet, four hands, four eyes, four ears? No, that's another body inside of you. It's not your body. If it was just your body, at the end of the abortion, you'd be dead.

But you're not.

Another child, another person is dead. While the mother's body is certainly involved, it is not the mother's body that is being aborted. After all, the woman survives the abortion while the unborn doesn't.

Objection number four, abortion is legal. Roe versus Wade is the law. Actually, not now anymore. First, just because something is legal, doesn't make it moral. Slavery was morally wrong, even though it was legal.

How do you feel about that one? Just because abortion is allowed doesn't follow that it ought to be. So if you're against slavery, you can say just what the, or if you're for slavery, you could just say what the mother says.

Don't want an abortion, don't have one. If you don't like slavery, don't get one. Like, that doesn't work. Objection number five, abortion is a woman's issue. Men should stay out of it.

I like that face.

What would you say about that? Go ahead.

What's a woman? That's a really good question these days.

You're gonna stump people.

What am I, a biologist? Are you crazy? First, gender is absolutely irrelevant to whether the pro-life position or any argument is correct, right? It's the ad hominem fallacy. You're attacking the person for the answer that they're gonna give because of their gender.

Gender has nothing to do with logic, right? Your gender doesn't mean that you can or can't logic reason correctly. Second, if men cannot speak on abortion, then we should overturn Roe v. Wade since the case was decided by nine male Supreme Court justices.

When Roe v. Wade was legal, you'd like, you bring that argument. Well, if it was, if men don't have a say, well, then we should overthrow Roe v. Wade because all the judges were men, right? All of a sudden, no, we don't, we shouldn't do that.

Oh, okay. Third, all male lawyers who work for Planned Parenthood or the ACLU on abortion-related issues should be fired or let go, right? If men can't say anything with regards to the issue, well, that works against you as well, right?

And again, gender has nothing to do with argumentation. Objection number six, you can't legislate morality. Yes? How would that affect the baby? Exactly. When women say, well, he's not gonna support the baby, he's not gonna this, he's not gonna that, well, what if he wants to?

What if he wants to support? What if he wants to keep the child? Does he have a right, a say in the matter?

He should, right?

The way women think now, no. And any of the pro-killing women do. They won't, they'll say, no, he doesn't have a shot. It's not his body. So, good point. So you can't legislate morality. What would you say to that?

Sure you can.

First, every law legislates a moral point of view, right? It's not, are we legislating morality? It's whose morality are we legislating, right? Always, someone's morality is always being legislated. There's always someone pushing a point of view.

Second, pro-abortion advocates have legislated their beliefs on 50 million babies since Roe v. Wade that has resulted in their deaths. They're imposing their morality on those babies, on those people, human beings.

Third, there's nothing more radical than legislating your morality on the weakest, most defenseless people in society, unborn babies, right? The womb has become, which should be the safest place for a baby to be, has become the most dangerous place for a baby to be.

You're actually allowed to kill a child in the womb. Objection seven, there's no consensus on the abortion issue. First, absence of consensus doesn't mean absence of truth. Not agreeing does not mean there isn't a morally correct position, right?

Just because you say, oh, there's two groups of fighting, we don't know, it's not settled yet, well, that doesn't mean that there's a right and a wrong position, right? Think about somebody whose relative is on life support and they don't know if they should take them off or not and they struggle with that.

That's a really good argument for absolute morality. If there's no such thing as absolute morality, why are you struggling? Do whatever you want. You're struggling because you know there's actually a right answer to this equation, right?

You wouldn't struggle otherwise, right? So that points to objective morality, which points to the existence of God. You can't have objective morality apart from the existence of God. Everything would be subjective.

You like Rocky Road, he likes butter pecan, I like vanilla. Who cares, doesn't matter. Okay, no consensus on the abortion issue. Second, this law discriminates based on size, development, environment, and degree of dependency.

So you are discriminating against someone with regards to this. Third, if there's no consensus, error on the side of life. Since there is no consensus, I win, right? So you can't just arbitrarily kill it if there is no consensus, because it's still a human being, right?

Eight, stop dictating your beliefs on me. Don't like abortion, don't have one. We talked about this, all right. If it's wrong to dictate your beliefs, why are you dictating your beliefs on me, right? You don't want me to push my views on you, yet you're okay to push your views on us.

That's not how this works. Everybody's got an equal say on this issue. And if it's taking the life of a unborn human being without proper cause, it's murder. We're talking about the worst crime you can commit towards another human being.

What's the worst thing you can call another human being? Dead, that's the worst, right? You can't get worse than dead. So when we read through the scriptures and it says you're dead in your sins and transgressions, that's like the worst thing you can call somebody.

They're not spiritually alive, right? And then ultimately they're gonna die. You can't get worse than death. Second, subjectivist fallacy, treating objective truth as if it were a subjective preference.

Don't like slavery, don't own one. Third, ironically, all 50 states restricted elective abortion, yet by judicial fiat, nine unelected judges dictated a belief overturning the will of the people, right?

So if we're not allowed to dictate our beliefs, these nine judges voted that it was okay and now that's enforced on every other state that said it was illegal. So that would work against their position.

Objection number nine, abortion should be permissible in the case of rape or incest. What would you say about that? Baby shouldn't be punished for the crimes of the father. Yes, anything else? Okay, response.

This accounts for less than 1 of all abortions, right? Because this is, in fact, this is what my cousin did to me last week.

Well, what about rape?

It's like, okay, that's less than 1 of all abortions and usually what I say, for sake of argument, just for sake of argument, I say it's okay to kill a baby in a rape. Are you okay with outlawing abortion for the other 99 of the time?

Well, it's like, wait a second. Rape was your big, you know, your big defeater for me and now when I take rape off the table, you're still okay with it. So we're okay to abort for convenience. There's a red herring.

If I concede that abortion should be allowed after a rape, will you concede that it shouldn't be allowed for convenience? It's an appeal to emotion to make their case and yes, what we're doing, well, not we, what they're doing in this instance is killing the child for the sins of the father.

How about we bring the death penalty back for the rapist? And I had some people actually, you're for the death penalty? Yes, for the guilty, not the innocent. You're for the death penalty for innocent people.