Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Silent Crisis: Why the Fight for Life Is Far From Over
22 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, Dan Sanchez, Ridley Barron, Kyle Hess, and Jon Ballard dive into the complex and emotional topic of abortion, exploring its societal, political, and spiritual dimensions. They reflect on the progress made since the overturning of Roe v. Wade and discuss the limited decrease in abortion rates despite legislative changes. The conversation centers on the role of Christians in addressing abortion beyond political advocacy, emphasizing the need for education, fostering alternatives, and engaging in compassionate, life-affirming outreach. The hosts also touch on the broader cultural challenges, such as the devaluation of life at both ends of the spectrum, and offer practical ways the church and individuals can make a difference.
Timestamps:
00:01 – Introduction and framing the conversation on abortion.
02:12 – Reflecting on the aftermath of Roe v. Wade’s overturning.
03:59 – The need for proactive, faith-driven engagement.
07:27 – Viewing the fight against abortion as spiritual warfare.
10:04 – Educating youth and equipping Christians for meaningful action.
15:29 – Adoption, fostering, and legislative changes as solutions.
19:58 – Addressing common pro-choice arguments with a biblical perspective.
27:11 – Offering grace and redemption for those affected by abortion.
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:01
Dan Sanchez
Welcome back to the Grove Hill Church podcast. I'm Dan Sanchez and I'm joined today by Ridley, Kyle, and John. And we're going to be having a good conversation about a topic we just visited recently in September. But I felt like it was time to bring back up because there was more to talk about, a lot more to talk about, I found out.
00:00:20
Dan Sanchez
around the topic of abortion. I don't know, heavy topic, almost did it last week, decided it probably wasn't the best thing to do, right, as people were settling in for Thanksgiving. It's like, well, right last minute I changed it. But we do wanna talk about it today because I find that this is becoming, I don't know, maybe the Lord is just stirring it up in my heart and I feel like it's a topic we're talking about. Weirdly, you've mentioned it a few times from stage about a topic that needs to be addressed by Christians. so And the reason why I want to talk about it today, gentlemen, is because there's been a lot of movement in this topic over the last couple of years, right?
00:00:57
Dan Sanchez
Starting with Roe versus Wade falling, which was like a huge, like celebratory moment for the pro life movement.
00:01:04
Ridley
Uh-huh.
00:01:04
Dan Sanchez
And I know I've been I've done, I've done some pro life stuff, you know, like the classic like wearing the red tape and standing out front of abortion clinics and prayer, like prayer days, I've done some prayer events just for this topic.
00:01:16
Dan Sanchez
So this is a topic that's near and dear to Amy and I's heart. And when that happened, we like we we were celebrating that the Lord had moved in that way. But still, I discovered recently that since that day, they have the see CDC has done the numbers and abortions have only gone down by 2%.
00:01:37
Dan Sanchez
That's it. As many states have outlawed abortion or drastically limited it, there's still a whole lot of abortions happening every single year. So in that end, it looks like ah when it comes to abortion, there seems to be haziness to me as far as to like what's next on that docket, what's next for pro-life.
00:02:01
Ridley
Yeah.
00:02:02
Dan Sanchez
So I'd like to kick it over to you guys. Like, where do you feel like things currently are with the pro life movement?
00:02:09
Ridley
I personally feel like they haven't moved very far because I think many people who are in the, what we call the pro-life camp, saw such a great victory that day, which it was. I don't want to diminish that. They almost felt like we had crossed the finish line and that's not the case at all. that really did was open the door for us to take it the next part of the journey, which is trying to get it eliminated entirely, or at least reduced back to what what we would consider to be very, very, very restrictive. Uh, I mean, I don't know. I mean, God can do anything, but I don't know that this country will ever see abortion banned again, uh, even on the state levels. but I do think that we can get it back to a place where it is. The term they used to use, you know, rare and infrequent and all that kind of stuff. I think the reason the numbers haven't dropped is because people who live in states like Tennessee are just driving to other states to get their abortions. So.
00:03:07
Kyle
um I'm following along with Ridley as far as we rely too much on the government to solve the problems. And so we think that our only method of input is a vote. And so we vote, we vote, and then we get an outcome and we're like, cool, we did it, right? When our our main goal should be being on the streets talking to these people who are who are going to get abortions or informing the youth in our church what abortion is and making sure that they're aware, and being more proactive a personal level rather than waiting on some type of politician to try to save us from something that's proven time and time again that's that's not going to happen.
00:03:32
Dan Sanchez
Kyle?
00:03:50
Kyle
And so I think our duty is more so boots on the ground. Yes, vote for sure. Absolutely. But that doesn't negate our obligation to to be active in our faith and active in our approach to making awareness.
00:04:09
Dan Sanchez
I got that stat and I started having a conversation with some friends about it, some very, very like strong strong men of faith. I have like this group text chat where I'm like constantly like chatting with them. And i'm like the la I'm the one layman in the group. They're all like in full-time ministry, got their MDivs. And when introduced to this topic, it was an interesting sentiment across them where they were talking about, like well, the Overton windows changed.
00:04:39
Dan Sanchez
Like there's, we don't even have like a majority vote, like view on pro-life anymore. It's so widely abortion driven now. and i was And that was just kind of their response to it. I was like, of course they're anti-abortion, but I was like, well,
00:04:52
Dan Sanchez
But still, like, okay, yes, we need to go preach the gospel to these people. Like, but do we do we do nothing on the other side? Should we not be rallying around the fact that babies are being murdered every year? Like to the tune of like someone like 600 plus thousand babies? I'm like,
00:05:09
Dan Sanchez
kind of makes me want to go shout in the streets and wave some flags or do something. Like, it's it's kind of a big deal.
00:05:15
Dan Sanchez
Like, if we were in slavery today, I think we'd all like to be like, think we were willing and well before us like standing in Congress shouting and making cases and having banner signed and all all this stuff.
00:05:26
Dan Sanchez
Right. But I feel like the momentum has kind of been lost. Like, we we hit the victory and all of a sudden it's kind of like, yeah, but like, I'm not even sure if that's halftime.
00:05:38
Dan Sanchez
I'm not sure.
00:05:41
Dan Sanchez
Now a question to you guys is where where where do you fall in that land? Is it something it's like, yes, we should deal with it on the political spectrum or we need to go upstream to the source and deal with it there and then just, it'll fix itself. Whereas in a bull fan situation.
00:05:57
Ridley
I think it's definitely an all of the above kind of situation. This is warfare. Abortion in the modern form and what it does today is straight out evil. There's no other way around that description of it. It is mostly not done for health reasons. It's mostly done for convenience or inconvenience or whatever phrase people want to use.
00:06:16
Ridley
And so when you enter into that kind of warfare, you pull out the Army, the Navy, the Marines, and you go at them with everything you got. You don't just pick one particular way to try to fight this battle. So I do think that we need to continue to lobby and to push for codes to be changed and those kinds of things, continue to vote for people who stand for life. i also to to the guy's point right here, man, we we've got to pray for the hearts of people.
00:06:40
Ridley
heart That's the level where this will fundamentally be changed forever is when people begin to have a tenderness and compassion for life again. think it goes down to to teaching our kids that evolution is not a reality, that creation, we were created uniquely, fundamentally by God for a purpose, which means that every life has value. We're not an accident. So there's there's all these different levels and different areas where I feel like the church has got to do a better job.
00:07:08
Ridley
and ah to be kind of really true and harsh. I think it's time churches started getting rid of pastors who were afraid to talk about this. If you're not willing to stand up and speak for the life of an unborn child, then you probably don't have a man enough to talk to people about other things that are important.
00:07:24
Kyle
I think getting the information out there is important, kind of reminding people, ah ah because if if you're not directly involved with it, you kind of lose sight of it. I remember being in high school and hearing in my first, some ah youth pastor talked about abortion, what it was. Man, over the next couple months, I was... marching in front of capitals. I was standing outside of abortion clinics. My friends and I were going and praying around abortion clinics in the morning. there was like a passion and a desire because the information was there. And then kind of get go on with life and you kind of lose sight and then you revisit it. And it was interesting because when I spoke to the youth group about it,
00:08:03
Kyle
it brought awareness to it. And at least five students came up to me afterwards and said, what's a practical way we can get involved? Since then, some of them have been to a pregnancy resource banquets. Some of them have been to work days at pregnancy resource center. Some of them told me directly, hey, before this, if my friend was going to have an abortion, I would say, you know what, that's kind of their choice. And I would stay out of it.
00:08:28
Kyle
And she was like, but now knowing this information, I have a desire to inform that person of what's living inside there in their tummy. Right. And so I think just the, the awareness factor alone, uh, puts it in a position where we want to be more active in, bringing up, bringing, uh, information to people so they actually know what's going on.
00:08:53
Dan Sanchez
Something I've been wondering lately is the pro-life movement. There just hasn't been a lot of movement on the pro-life movement. Like I hardly hear no news about it. And I used to get these things all the time because I have a lot of friends that were different parts of different parts of the movement. I used to just hear news about this going on and this going on. I feel like it's been quiet. Part of me wonders I'm like, this is going off a tangent, but it's like,
00:09:14
Dan Sanchez
Has the government like literally been silencing a ton of people and like quieting like the leaders of all the different pro-life? There's like life news. There's a bunch of different websites that have been banging the drums on this for a long time. I'm like, I don't hear from those guys anymore. Those websites, you're still up. I Googled them, but like they're not doing anything substantial like they used to.
00:09:33
Dan Sanchez
I know i've I've certainly heard the news of what they did to the poor poor guy, and like the pro-life guy and a just down in Nashville, right? Like they surrounded his home with FBI agents and like took him hostage.
00:09:46
Dan Sanchez
I'm like, what the heck? You know, so there's stuff like that going on. I'm wondering if it's happening more. We just don't, we don't hear about the news if they're actually like a political.
00:09:51
Ridley
Yeah, there's nothing more deadly than a pro-life advocate.
00:09:54
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:09:58
Dan Sanchez
Part of me wonders that's going on. and We need to start praying for people that are standing up.
00:10:01
Ridley
Yeah, I think Dan probably what's happened is because I think both camps have kind of
00:10:08
Ridley
been distracted by other louder news, ah ah for lack of a better term these days, the the the selection of Trump's cabinet, what's going on in Israel and Ukraine. Seems like those things have been elevated in the news recently because of the presidency. And and yes, it was a part of a campaign issue, but it wasn't the primary issue this go around. And so I feel like Well, I feel like the liberals probably more than anybody were trying to push it to the forefront because that was their main argument was that they were going to lose their right to kill babies. But I feel like the other things had just kind of risen up and and made it seem like it's been pushed to the backstage area.
00:10:49
Ridley
you know
00:10:51
Dan Sanchez
Part of me wondered if like it needs to be refocused now that Roe versus Wade is toned down. I'm like, it seems like it needs to be refocused, regrouped and have a new goal to go after, right?
00:11:01
Ridley
And I think education's really important.
00:11:01
Dan Sanchez
I almost registered and now I'm going to I was like, dude, I think I'm like, how would that happen?
00:11:06
Ridley
yeah I think education's really important because I don't think people realize that Roe v. Wade did not end abortion. the the decision The Dobbs decision did not change that.
00:11:15
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:11:19
Ridley
You still go most places and get abortions in this country. Just some limitations in some states are a little bit more stricter than others. So I feel like the liberals did such a great job lying about this subject that People don't know where where the current thing stands, the current issue stand with the subject.
00:11:37
Dan Sanchez
Bye.
00:11:41
Ridley
Yeah.
00:11:42
Dan Sanchez
What would you think needs to happen next in order to make, like what do you think needs to happen in order to like take the next step towards ending this thing or at least decreasing it as much as possible?
00:11:56
Kyle
Christians getting serious about their faith. myself included. If we've got extra rooms in our house, and we need to be fostering, adopting, give choices, give give ah ah alternatives to what someone might think is their only option is abortion, awareness, putting our feet to the ground. and We can't rely on our politicians. We can't rely on the law. We can't rely on anything of that area to protect the babies. think if
00:12:26
Kyle
Nationwide if all Christians were doing what they're supposed to be doing I think your percentage of abortions would drop tremendously
00:12:35
Ridley
I do think that Kyle's 100% right what he said. I mean, we can't talk about being pro-life if we're not willing to do our part to to look out for those lives, those innocent lives. I think financially churches and individuals need to get behind the work of pregnancy resource centers across the country where they are doing the job of educating and teaching and demonstrating what can be done and opening avenues for other other options for ladies who feel like they don't have options.
00:13:00
Ridley
I do feel like that's important that we push for legislation changes, not just with the abortion law itself, but legislation changes that would help speed up and ease the process of adoption in our country.
00:13:13
Ridley
Our government's made it harder to adopt domestic babies than it is to adopt a child from China and bring them home.
00:13:19
Ridley
And if we could open up the door and even find funding to help those families that are willing to take them in instead of supporting immigrants that don't belong in our country, then we could find a way to you know to really resource some families to pick up the ball and and say hey I could take in two kids. I could take in a group of kids or whatever you know or foster those kinds of things.
00:13:42
Ridley
Uh-huh.
00:13:44
Ridley
Yep.
00:13:46
Dan Sanchez
I'm just now realizing the Pregnancy Resource Center of Grove Hill doesn't have a website. I'm like, how do you donate to this?
00:13:52
Ridley
It doesn't. Hmm.
00:13:54
Dan Sanchez
I'm like, I guess I know where I can go volunteer some time.
00:13:55
Ridley
Does it have a Facebook page?
00:14:00
Dan Sanchez
There's probably a lot of different ways we can get involved at that Pregnancy Resource Center. I know they're short staffed, like extremely short staffed. Like I've talked to the board members and they're like, it's not a lot of help around here.
00:14:10
Ridley
I think one of the other things that we got to do too is that we've got to give our people the information and resources it takes to have intelligent conversations with people about this.
00:14:20
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:14:21
Ridley
I do think there are some people out there in the mainstream who are legitimately asking questions who would be open to being persuaded a ah different way if we had good answers instead of just, you know,
00:14:36
Ridley
I'm pro-life, don't kill the babies, which which is at the core is what it's about, but why do we feel that way? Well, you know, inevitably when you're in a conversation with somebody from the opposing side, they're going to bring up rape and mother's life being in danger, those kinds of things.
00:14:52
Ridley
What are the pro-life answers to those kinds of challenges to things? So how do we how do we respond to those? I think if we do a better job in the churches educating people, then we put
00:15:00
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:05
Ridley
ambassadors out on the streets who are able to have those intelligent conversations in a peaceful manner.
00:15:11
Dan Sanchez
I almost feel like it needs to be redefined. And that's like one of the biggest biggest things that like it was a shift for me in our last conversation. I was like, oh, crap, I don't really understand. the exceptions as well as I thought.
00:15:22
Dan Sanchez
There is no exceptions. And in the one tiny little case of ah talk ah this is conversation I've had with other people since then of ectopic pregnancies, it's not abortion.
00:15:32
Dan Sanchez
Because there's a lot of reasons we can dive into the medical around that.
00:15:33
Ridley
right
00:15:35
Dan Sanchez
But it's like it's been looped into it from the other side, trying to bundle abortion into healthcare and trying to essentially obscure what it actually is.
00:15:38
Ridley
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
00:15:44
Ridley
And in fact, I think I've adopted a new phrase that I like better instead of calling it pro-life. I like to refer to it, and this is an original of me, but being a steward of life.
00:15:57
Ridley
A steward of life. Well, what does that mean? Well, if somebody were to walk in these offices where nine people were here today having heaven work conversations in a staff meeting and they came in with ill intent and wanted to harm somebody.
00:16:10
Ridley
That life is valuable, but it's an easy choice as to whether or not we put down that one life to save the other nine, right? That doesn't mean we don't love them and it's not considered murder.
00:16:21
Ridley
If if an ectoptic, which most of those are tubal pregnancies, and that's much easier to say than ectoptic.
00:16:24
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:16:26
Ridley
But if one of those pregnancies happens and the mother's life in danger, you're not killing a baby, you're being a steward of life to protect someone who's there and you know the answer to the solution to that.
00:16:34
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:16:38
Ridley
It's not it's not murdering a baby.
00:16:38
Dan Sanchez
Yep.
00:16:40
Ridley
It's it's a medical procedure.
00:16:44
Dan Sanchez
is it too Is it too harsh to call yourself anti-murder?
00:16:49
Dan Sanchez
I'm like, that's the one I want to put on a t-shirt, just wear all day.
00:16:51
Ridley
Yeah. ah Yeah, let's have that conversation.
00:16:53
Dan Sanchez
just to make people be like, wait, what?
00:17:00
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:17:04
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:17:05
Kyle
And in those in that very small percent, the mothers who chose not to abort when those children grow up and give testimony. 100% of the time I've heard those people say, I'm glad my parents didn't abort me in that situation.
00:17:21
Kyle
Even, even someone who's grown up in like the worst setting, they have life and they're, I've never heard one of them say, I wish I never existed, right?
00:17:22
Dan Sanchez
Would it? Yeah.
00:17:25
Ridley
Mm hmm. Yep.
00:17:32
Kyle
It's always a, I'm glad I didn't get aborted. so testimonies, right? I mean, if, if you just listened to what the living person says, they want to live.
00:17:45
Dan Sanchez
on the, this is a and ah kind of a side side topic, but I find is like very much almost in the same vein of this conversation is the youth in Asia happening on the other end of life.
00:17:59
Dan Sanchez
i I've only already heard reports of Canada, like ending life way premature, like like before people are even old and struggling with something, they're like 58, majorly depressed.
00:18:10
Dan Sanchez
They're like, well, we can help you with that. And it's literally like assisted suicide is what they're talking about.
00:18:14
Ridley
Right.
00:18:15
Dan Sanchez
like this is becoming like it's becoming exponential the amount of numbers this is happening again to the width which i'm like man there's just a devaluing of life on both ends and this is getting worse and worse on both ends makes me a little scared but at the same time it puts kind of a a
00:18:25
Ridley
And they're very, very close to approving the same law in England right now. So, yeah, it'll it'll be pushed here before too long.
00:18:43
Dan Sanchez
What do you call that? Like a a righteous anger in my heart that wants to go and take action and go do some stuff.
00:18:49
Ridley
Yeah, yeah.
00:18:53
Ridley
I have to be real honest, I still, and this is obviously way off the subject, I still have a lot of bitterness in my heart towards the way the government handled COVID shutdowns for nursing homes during the whole COVID thing because I have no doubt in my mind that it expediated my mother's death.
00:19:06
Ridley
She had dementia. She was left alone in a room with nobody to tell her what's going on and why her kids weren't coming to see her and why she couldn't visit with her daughter and all that kind of stuff. And I mean, it was a night and day difference in the first seven days after they shut that place down as to her behavior and her her health and and how quickly she declined. So I'm not a big fan of science and and medicine sometimes when they they operate without using logic and compassion.
00:19:34
Ridley
and taking into consideration that every life is valuable. And I know there are many in the healthcare care industry who are amazing people. We got a lot of great ones in our church. I'm not talking about the people as much as I am talking about the industry itself now because it's become money-driven.
00:19:49
Dan Sanchez
I mean, it's it's a battle of worldviews out there, and it's essentially a Christian worldview. At least in America, it's mostly a Christian worldview versus a worldview that loves death and chaos and elevates the state above all things.
00:19:59
Ridley
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
00:20:05
Dan Sanchez
That'd be an interesting conversation about why for another time, but I...
00:20:08
Ridley
Yeah.
00:20:13
Dan Sanchez
do find that this abortion topic probably needs to become, I don't know, re needs to refind its footing because, again, the problem hasn't gone away and is only slightly behind where it was before. And we'll probably pick back up with time as people get creative on how to supply abortions across states that have about how a lot had already.
00:20:34
Ridley
I would say to any of our people, our Groveville people, they're sitting out there saying, hey, where do ah ah where do I start personally? I would say pick up the phone and call John or Kyle and Lori and say, what do I do to teach my kids about how beautiful and amazing and incredibly they have been created and how much God loves them so that they can then in turn go and show that same kind of love and compassion to their friends, their classmates, their teammates, and help them understand Man, there's nothing about me that's an accident. My God is an amazing God, and He's done something really special and put me together, and everybody else deserves that same kind of love and respect.
00:21:08
Kyle
Hey, if you're looking for it right now, there's two verses, Jeremiah 1.5 and Exodus 20.13, I believe it is. And one defines who you are even before you're even conceived and during your conception and through the development of pregnancy. And the other one says, don't murder. And so if you start with those two right there, there's plenty of other, hundreds of other verses in the Bible that show you your value, your worth, even from just a conceived little baby in the womb.
00:21:35
Kyle
As we talk about this topic, I am always, always, always diligent to let people know that there's so much grace and forgiveness that Jesus offers if you've been a part of this situation.
00:21:47
Kyle
Sometimes it may have been BC before Christ.
00:21:48
Ridley
Yeah.
00:21:50
Kyle
Other times you you were put in a bad spot and you weren't really given a choice. and so This doesn't define you. Once you're in Christ, our sin doesn't define us.
00:22:00
Kyle
That goes with any sin. And so there's forgiveness, there's redemption. And one day you'll see that baby face to face. And so your love, don't let this define you.
00:22:11
Kyle
Turn to Jesus for your identity.
00:22:11
Ridley
Mm hmm. Amen.
00:22:15
Dan Sanchez
And with that, I think we'll close out this topic. Thank you gentlemen for joining me this week.