Life on the Line: Why We Must Fight for the Unborn

Hey, welcome to That's a Good Question, the podcast where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. We are a podcast of Resound Media, a place you can trust to find great resources for the Christian life and church leadership. You can always submit questions that we answer on this show to resoundmedia.cc. If you find this resource helpful, please rate and review the podcast so more people can encounter the life-changing truth of God's Word. Also if you know somebody who can benefit from today's topic or has questions like the ones that we're answering, please share this episode with them. My name's John, I'm here today with Mitch. Yeah, I'm really excited. Before we jump into this episode though, I wanna highlight something that we're giving away for free during this month as we prepare for Sanctity of Life Sunday. John, you and I, we got to work on a video, I think a really great video that we've made for churches, for Christians, to play in church services that highlight the value of human life for the unborn. And we're giving it away for free. We can't stress it enough. It's free. Emphasis on free.

Yes.

Yeah. So if you're a church leader, a pastor, an elder, a worship leader, anybody, and you're looking towards that Sanctity of Life Sunday service and looking for a way to try to help people understand the value of life, understand the cause, get inspired to take action as Christians. I think that is just a great way to be able to do that. You can find it on YouTube, you can download the copy that is ready-made for a service, or if you're not a church leader, then please watch and please share with friends. We think it's a great resource. Hopefully, it's super helpful. Again, totally for free. We just want to get this out there to the world, to the church, to God's church, to try to support this important cause.

Yeah, or share it with your pastor.

Yeah, totally, totally.

On that topic, we are going to be talking about the sanctity of life today in our episode. It can be confusing, the sanctity of life. As a Christian, I think culture, secular culture, is pretty clear that they're pro-abortion, there isn't a value for the life of the unborn. They would say that life doesn't start until birth. But it can be confusing as a Christian because increasingly we're seeing more Christians, more theologians, more pastors say similar things. So let's talk about some of the reasons that they would use to maybe defend their position. They emphasize the idea of the breath of life, the idea from Genesis 2-7 where God breathes into Adam. They use this to say that life starts at birth. This helps us understand a little bit more of the context that they're coming from, but what does the Bible say? What does God say about when life starts, John. Yeah, so you're saying like in early Genesis, they're saying when Adam took his first breath, they're saying that's a reason to think that that's when life starts.

Yes.

Yeah, and yeah, I wanna read a few different passages that would make the opposite argument of that. And I think one thing to just remember, that's the creation of the very first human being. And God didn't obviously make Adam in the womb, he made him as an adult man, an adult male, as the father of the human race and then of course Eve comes as the mother of the human race. I'll read you a couple passages that I think say the opposite and point to the fact that life begins much earlier, begins at conception and that human beings are human beings made in God's image living in the womb. So here's Psalm 139, it says, For you formed my inward parts, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Jump down a little bit. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret. Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me. Okay, so the psalmist is talking about man, God's love and relationship and intimate involvement in the making of a human being in the womb?

Yeah.

Yeah, go ahead.

I've heard people refute that, and so I want to just play devil's advocate here for a second. So some people, when they hear that, they'll say, well, that's emphasizing God being sovereign over how he creates, but not necessarily saying that that's evidence of someone being a person in the womb.

What would you say to that?

Yeah, I think that's, so it's true that it is saying that God is sovereign over creation, but that doesn't mean that it's not also saying the other thing. So it can be saying both of those things at the same time. Yeah, the psalmist is praising God for his amazing sovereignty in creation, and it tells us something about human life that God is creating. So it can do both of those things at the same time. So here's another passage, Jeremiah chapter one, I'll start reading in verse five. "'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 nation.'" So God's talking about his intimate relationship with Jeremiah, his plans for him, his design for him. Just one more, and this one comes from an Old Testament law. This is in Exodus 21 and it's God through Moses giving laws for the Old Testament people. And I think this just tells us something about God's value for unborn human life. So here's the law. It says, 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. Then here's other situation if the children do get harmed, next verse, but if there is harm then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, and it goes on. Okay so this this very law tells us that you got to pay life for life. So saying you know if if a pregnant woman is hurt as a result of two guys fighting or for whatever reason then that that's a life and you took a life and there will be a consequence in line with that. So I think that law also, so all of those passages, they point to the fact again, that life begins at conception, that life is life in the womb, that that's a human being made in God's image,

special, valuable, sacred. Yeah.

Another one that I think of is in Luke when John the Baptist is in Elizabeth's stomach, is in the womb, and Elizabeth and Mary for the first time when she's pregnant with Jesus, and he flips.

John jumps, yeah.

Yeah, he's the first person to recognize the Messiah. He's the first person. There's some clear language about personhood in that passage. All right, let's move on to another question. What does it mean to be fearfully and wonderfully made? And how should this shape our view of the unborn? Yeah, so fearfully, wonderfully made, also I think of just what we're calling this, we call it sanctity of life, that's how Christians tend to talk about this topic. We don't just talk about for or against abortion, we're talking about the sanctity or the sacredness, the value, the specialness of human life. And yeah, I think all throughout scripture, Psalm 139 says it beautifully, you know, I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, but I think all throughout scripture, we see just the value of human beings that we're separate from the rest of creation. Genesis one and two says that we're made in God's image. Unlike the animals, unlike anything else in creation, we reflect God. We reflect his character. We reflect some of his attributes, we reflect his rule over the earth and the creation. We're stewards, we're supposed to take care of the world, we reflect him in that way. I even think about, one thing we didn't talk about is actually scientifically even thinking about the argument for life beginning at conception. You could read some stuff, we actually got a great article on Rezound, resoundmedia.cc that we wrote about abortion and talked about. Even scientifically, scientists will tell you that something very special happens when a sperm and an egg meet each other, when they come together, some have called it the spark of life. You know, there's a change, a new set of DNA is created at that very moment. You know, all the design needed for human life comes to be right then and there. You know, not later, it just right then and there, you got a new set of DNA that's unlike anybody else on the planet. That's all just amazing.

It is.

I even think about like just simple biology of, like I remember like being in elementary school and learning about like the different classifications of animals, right? That there are some beings that do like lay eggs and then there are some that have live births, right? Like, you know, humans have live birth. Like that means that whatever is inside is already living. I mean, I think sometimes we complicate this and it's, you know, you could ask a second grader, like, is that baby alive? Yeah. Was it alive before it was getting a birth? Like, yes, it's a live birth. It was already alive.

Right.

But yeah.

Yeah.

Let me ask this question, John.

What role should the church play in shaping societal views on abortion? Hmm. Yeah. So as the church, you know, we are, we are ruled by God's word and we are supposed to teach and spread God's word. Right. So our role is to be faithful to the Lord and his word and to share it. So even before we talk about the church's role in sharing the truth with society, it starts with us sharing it amongst ourselves, right? So we've got to, you know, as Christians, we've got to share first in the home, you know, with our kids. I think of what Deuteronomy 6 says about, you know, parents always, you know, whether you're sitting or standing or walking or whatever you're doing, you need to be sharing the word with your kids. So it starts in the home. It happens in the church. You know, we as pastors, we gotta talk about what the Bible says about this topic, this issue. We can't run away from it. And then of course, we also do have to advocate for it in the world because the unborn are the least able people in all society to be able to advocate for themselves. Yeah. Right? They literally, they have no way to advocate for themselves. So we as Christians have to step in and speak what is true. We have God's word, which is the message from the creator, right? So we've got to share that. Yeah. So if you're a mother or father, a clear takeaway is to have a conversation about this, an age-appropriate conversation about this with your children. What would you say maybe to an elder or pastor who struggles to bring this up as you're talking about shepherding

within the church.

Yeah, I mean, as somebody who's preached several sermons on this topic, I can tell you, yeah, every time you get up to, no matter how strongly convicted you feel about this topic, because I do, you still get up and you still feel a little bit of that sense of fear of like, oh man, I know there's people sitting in the room that aren't gonna wanna hear this, they're gonna say, this is too political, or they're gonna say, or they just plain disagree. There's opponents to us preaching on this topic, but you've gotta know this is God's truth, this is what's true, and I've been called to disciple God's people to follow it. So let me just bring in, I mean, so just to frame the conversation about why this is so important to talk about in the church, because I can imagine people listening might be from all kinds of different backgrounds. Some are probably from a background where it's not talked about, but some are maybe like, oh man, we talk about this all the time and, and you know, why even bother talking about it more? Yeah. But, but listen to this. This is from the Pew Research Center. Uh, they did a study not too long ago. They said that only 63% of American evangelicals believe that abortion should be illegal. Okay. So American evangelicals, so evangelical is like a category of, of more conservative Christians. So this isn't even like all people who call themselves Christians. There's people who are quote unquote more conservative Christians in the United States. Only 63% of them are what we would classify as pro-life. Some of these are 35% plus that are in favor, or at least open to, probably in favor of abortion. Okay, so as pastors and elders, we've got to hear that and say, okay, there's discipleship to be done right here in my own church. We've got to share the truth, teach the truth, so that believers, followers of Jesus here understand what's true and and want to live that way. Yeah. All right, I've got two follow-up questions on that. The first is, so talking about that, I totally understand that bringing this topic up can be a little bit, not make you fearful, but it can kind of make you maybe hesitate as you're walking up to the pulpit. This is a big topic. What would you say to the pastor who knows that there's a woman or a couple in the congregation who have had an abortion? And maybe as a pastor feeling like, maybe I shouldn't bring this up because I know that this is gonna be,

not just touch a nerve,

but this can be something that,

yeah, brings up something hard.

Yeah, that definitely makes it hard as well. So every time that I preach, I can look out and I can see the tears rolling down some faces. And I know that for some of them, that's for exactly that reason. That they either are a woman who has had an abortion in their past or a man who funded or encouraged or played some kind of role in that. And it's heartbreaking for them to listen to that, but also I've gotten to have the conversation with a few of those people that have been able to come up and say, that's really, every time we talk about this topic, it's really hard for me to hear, but I'm so glad we talk about it because I live with all kinds of regret because I was a part of that. And they just know that's why we have to talk about it. So yeah, what you want to preach to that person is the truth, that abortion is the killing of a human life. And you want to preach the gospel of Jesus, that abortion is not the unforgivable sin. When they turn to Jesus, when they repent of their sin, when they put their faith in Him, they can have forgiveness. They can have salvation. They can have freedom from the guilt and the shame that they might feel related to that.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, the second question is, you know, talking about, you know, that large population of evangelical Christians who would probably consider themselves pro-choice. How big a deal is that? Would the elders of a church have, just based on that alone, have just reasoning to prohibit someone from taking the Lord's table? Sure, yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think that's – so you're asking, is it a serious enough issue that a leadership team of a church, the elders, would confront a church member and say, hey, you're, you're living in sin by, by promoting or supporting abortion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's that big of a deal. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So let me, let me, I'm going to even add, add to kind of that thought about what an issue this is within our churches. So if you watch the, the sanctity of life video that we, that we produced the at resoundmedia.cc slash life. Um, one of the interviews we did was with Jim Sprague, who's the director of the Pregnancy Resource Center here in Grand Rapids, where we're at. And he shared a great stat, I think this is actually in the extended interviews beyond the first video. But he shared that 40 to 60% of the revenue for abortion clinics in our country come from Christians. 40 to 60% of the revenue for abortion clinics are coming from Christians, church attending Christians. That is, that's astounding. That's a huge amount. So, you know, like somewhere around half. I mean, if you just think about that, you know, if we want to make a difference in the world for the cause of life, what if we could cut off half of the revenue going to abortion clinics? You know, before we talk about legislation or, you know, policies or all that kind of stuff. Just, man, if we could instill the truth to our own so that our own people weren't taking part in abortions, man, half, if we could shut off half the revenue to those places, what a difference that would make.

Yeah, I mean, if you're a business owner and you think about that, losing 40% of your business overnight, right, that would be crippling, right?

To any organization, that would be something that would... That's going to change what you do.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's a great thought. That's a great way to think about this too. That one of the best ways we can fight this is to say, we're a little bit in control of their revenue by sending 40%.

Right. Yeah. Right.

So one of the things also Jim shared in that interview was about a statement that they use at the PRC called the the refuge They were it's a statement by the House of Refuge And they talk about the statement talks about how churches need to be a house of refuge for people who are facing this Or considering this option so you know It's another thing we can do as the church right as we can think about if you've got a young lady in your church Who's maybe having an unplanned pregnancy as maybe you know had sex outside of marriage and is now pregnant and is afraid to tell somebody, maybe she's even afraid to tell her parents, or maybe her parents are afraid that the rest of the church would find out, well, that's gonna make them think of them, all those things. We wanna be churches that the guilt and the shame does not lead to you making that choice for abortion. Instead, the guilt and the shame leads to, I wanna confess this, and I wanna receive the grace of Jesus and the grace of my church. You know, we need to be churches that lead with grace and just say, hey, you know what, that is sin, and we're sad about that, but we love you so much, and we're gonna love this child, and we don't want you to live with the guilt and the shame, we want you to have freedom from that, and we're gonna embrace you and your family, and let's do this together. Yeah, maybe you just walk me through that. If there's a church out there who, you know, tomorrow they find out that there's a young woman who is pregnant, not married, how should they approach that? What would be the right way to walk alongside? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, so I think you wanna be able to have that talk that involves, yes, admitting that this was sin, right? That we lived outside of God's design. So we've got to be able to admit that and acknowledge that and not try to, you know, get away from that fact. But then immediately, you know, as soon as we recognize this is sin and I'm repentant, I'm so sad that this happened. Now let's talk about the forgiveness and grace that comes through Jesus. Let's talk about the gospel, that having sex outside of marriage or even having an abortion, those things are not the unforgivable sin. That if you come to Jesus, you receive forgiveness. And that we as a church are not a community of perfect people or self-righteous people. We are a community of broken people who have been saved by God's grace. And so here we are, we wanna help you, we wanna encourage you, love you, support you. Don't try to hide that you're pregnant. Let's not be a church that's all about gossip or passing blame or all that kind of stuff. Let's just embrace you and your family and what do you need? Can we help you get to the doctor's office? Can we provide diapers, formula, whatever you need? How can we help you? Yeah, so would you say that person would still be able to serve in a volunteer role after something like this if they're repenting, they've confessed? Yeah, I think that's one of those things, church leaders, you're gonna have to talk about exactly where and how that works, but yeah, we're a community of grace, right? Once you've repented and received forgiveness, then we wanna embrace you and help you be a full participating member of the church. Yeah, I think there can be a stigma around it, but the reality is in most churches, there are couples who aren't married who are having sex. Just oftentimes, they don't have to, you know, the girlfriend, the female in that relationship doesn't have to live with the consequence of it. And sometimes I think when we see a pregnant woman in our church who isn't married, it's almost somehow worse because she's gotten pregnant. But the truth is there are, unfortunately, there are too many couples who are sleeping together who just kind of get away with it because there's no evidence of it, if that makes sense. Sure. So you're saying, yeah, when you get pregnant is when people find out. Yeah. So you're saying there are people living in sin that we just don't find out. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, sure.

What would be a way not to go about this if you're a church? Or what would be maybe a really unhelpful way to walk alongside a woman, maybe that you've heard of churches doing or... Well, I think what unfortunately happens is people feel so much guilt and shame is that they then start considering the option of abortion because they want to make that go away. Yeah. Right? Whether that's the young woman, whether that's her boyfriend, whether that's mom or dad, who is maybe even a prominent figure in the church and doesn't want that on their name, they feel that pressure. So I think that's the wrong way to approach this, is to let whatever you want to call that guilt, shame, peer pressure, whatever, desire to protect your reputation, pride maybe, you know, to let those things get in the way I think is the wrong way to handle it. As a church, you know, another wrong way to handle it would be to just not talk about the issue, right? Instead, I think you want to just be open as a church about all of these things. That this is where we stand on the value of human life. And if you're here and you're in this situation, we love you. We're not perfect. We wanna embrace you. So saying those things out loud, letting them be true, not just with the pastor, but also even beyond into the families of the church. Those are the things you wanna have. Yeah, I think one of the things you said earlier too was not trying to hide it. I think I've heard of stories of churches where they kind of say, well, we don't want you to come until the baby's born, or we want you to, once you start showing, you can't do X, Y, or Z. And I think that can just add more shame and guilt on something that is already gonna be incredibly hard. So yeah, if you're a church. No, I think the Bible is full of examples of, yeah, hiding sin is not gonna help anything.

Yeah.

Confessing, repenting, putting your faith in Jesus. That's what the Bible calls us to. Yeah, I mean, the truth is all of our churches are filled with people every single Sunday who are serving, who are attending, who are sinners, who have repented from their sin, right? I mean, we're Reformed. We believe each and every day we need the gospel, that each and every day we're full of sin. And so for us to say, you know, so-and-so can't come because their sin is a little bit more, there's proof of their sin.

Sure, yeah.

I think is maybe a little bit silly even, you know, I'm a sinner. If that disqualifies her from coming, then man, I can't come either.

Sure. Our next question is, how can churches or Christians offer better support

for women who are facing these, an unplanned pregnancy?

Yeah.

So one of the accusations I think we hear sometimes is that you are, somebody might accuse, somebody who's pro-choice might accuse a pro-life person of saying, well, you're not actually pro-life, you're just pro-birth.

Yeah.

You don't care about people once they've been born. You don't care about women. You don't care about people who have been born. And unfortunately, I think there are probably, I'm sure that there are pro-life people who probably live up to that complaint. They probably behave in that way. But I don't think that's true for the majority. I know that's not true for the church that we get to serve in. I know that's not true for many pro-life people. We do, we care about the unborn baby. We also care about the mother. We care about the whole family. We wanna see health for all of those people. So I think of, you know, so we partner with ministries like the Pregnancy Resource Center that provide care not just for unborn babies, but for pregnant women. They provide care even for post-abortive women, women who've had abortions. It is an invasive procedure. I know it's downplayed often by the pro-choice side, that it's not a big deal, it's an easy solution, all those kinds of things, but it's actually a hugely traumatic experience on your body to have an abortion. Yeah, it takes recovery time, usually days. I mean, it's a big deal. So they do a great job providing care for people in all of those situations, women who are currently pregnant, women who have had an abortion, women who have had a birth, who have had their child. So we wanna, yeah, as pro-life people, we wanna provide support for all of those things and try to support the cause of life, try to support women in a way that they don't feel tempted to make that choice for abortion. Yeah, we wanna support them in all those ways. Yeah, so if you're a church having a good relationship with a resource center like the PRC or another one that's local in your area is a good first step, financially supporting them. I know that they're always, always in need of more and more funding, just it's, you know, there's never enough for that. But even as a church, you know, your deacons or whoever it is that handles, you know, your, what we would call benevolent giving or support for people who need it, having them equipped and ready to jump in when somebody's facing an unplanned pregnancy. Jump in and say, how can we help you? How can we support you? We want to care for you. And then after the birth as well, you know, what do you need? You know, you weren't planning on this. You're probably not financially prepared for this. So What kind of resources can we give you? Yeah, so there there are some good places if you're Trying to help a woman who's going through this war here would be some places that you would say we cannot direct Women to go to get care in a situation like this Like what are some institutions? I think it's it's good to even just name some of those right now to plan parenthood. Okay. Right, so the biggest provider of abortion in our country, that is not a place we wanna send somebody. Their name sounds kind of enticing, you know, that's not by accident, right? So that's actually not a place you wanna send people. They're not gonna give you advice on how to process through this and give you, you know. Right, they're gonna talk about one option. That's what they do, is they provide one kind of option. I think the beauty of places like the PRC and other similar ministries is that they talk about all of the options because there are many, you know, there's having the birth and having the child in your own family. There's giving the child up for adoption. There's lots of different, you know, there's a few different options that you have and much better options.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So just, I think it's good to just think about that as we're trying to help women make that decision, clearly saying, hey, here, you know, find a local place that is pro-life, that is gonna help a woman make a good choice, a biblical choice, and even saying, you know, there are places that you really shouldn't go because they're not gonna help you

make a good choice in this.

Yeah, you don't want somebody who's, they're all invested in one option, right? You wanna be able to talk about each of the options, and talk about the pros and cons, and make the choice that is healthiest. Yeah, one of the conversations that's being had, I think, culturally right now, is this idea of women's rights and even women's health. So John, do people who are pro-life care about women's health, women's rights? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, it's so the, yeah, the conversation gets framed as though pro-life people are anti-woman that we want to see in women not have choices, things like that. That's not the case. We love, we love the woman who is having an unplanned pregnancy. We hurt for her that she's in a situation that she wasn't planning on. And that's an enormous challenge. I can only imagine. Yeah, I can't imagine how scary that is.

Life altering, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So we do want to provide her with help, support, and also we know that there's a life inside of her, a human being living inside of her, who does have rights, who can't speak for themselves. You know, that's one of the things I think people who wanna accuse pro-life people of only being pro-birth and not pro the rest of life. We've already talked about how hopefully that's not true and how we try to make sure that's not true. But we do get loud about the rights of the unborn, about protecting the unborn, because they can't speak for themselves.

Yeah.

They can't.

Yeah.

So we do get especially vocal for them because we have to.

Yeah.

Right?

The Bible is really clear about injustice and God has a certain affinity for people who can't stand up for themselves. And that's something that's clear throughout both the Old and New Testament. The widows and the orphans, constant refrain in the Old Testament that God calls us people that that's part of justice is that we want to be a people who supports the widow and the orphan. Well, in our world, similar to them is people who can't speak for themselves, the unborn.

Yeah, yeah.

I think that's probably why you hear about it more in churches because it is such a, it's the most vulnerable population there is because, you know, about half of the population doesn't see them as people. A conversation that is had, it can be a really difficult one, is this question, should there be exceptions for abortions in some situations? Yeah, so unfortunately some unplanned pregnancies are the result of terrible and tragic things like rape or incest, the ones that are usually brought up, right? And that's awful. I can't imagine being in that situation that's so sad and my heart breaks for someone who finds themself in that situation. What I would want to say is that an additional wrong isn't going to fix that earlier wrong. Even though it wasn't your choice, even though it wasn't your desire, even though it came about through an awful and tragic situation, that is a human life inside of that woman who has undergone that terrible thing. And so no, I would say that there shouldn't be exceptions for those things. And you know my hope and my prayer, what I want to do is come alongside of that young woman and talk about that even though you weren't planning on it, even though it came out in a horror boy, this is a life from God. This is a blessing from God. This is this child. This child is not the situation that it came from, but the child is. Yeah. And I think even in these incredibly, incredibly hard situations, having that mindset, having that framework of what this is, saying that this is an unborn child, I think that even helps people have the right next step after that, saying that even though this came through an unbelievably horrendous situation, that this still is a human being that deserves to live. And there are many stories of adults who have grown up, who are the product of rape. And just hearing those testimonies of a mom who was brave enough to make a really good decision after something horrendous had happened is just a testament to the power of what God does in the womb, that it's a miracle. It's a miracle of life, and that God's the life giver, you know, He's the Zohe and that He's the one who ultimately gets to decide who, He's the one who gets to take and create it. So we know Christians care about this cause, what are some actions that they can take in response to this? Yeah, I think the first and most important action that all of us can take is to pray. We know that God responds to prayer. We know that God is in control of all things and so we must go before the throne and pray that God would protect human lives, that God would be with women who are experiencing unplanned pregnancies, and that he would give them courage, that he would give them, provide for them, that he would help them to make the choice that is the choice of life so we can pray. We can also do whatever we can to ourselves, try to care for and provide for those women in those situations, unplanned pregnancies, whether that be financially, whether that be providing of goods, whether that be providing just love and care and support. Handing down clothes. Handing down clothes and just reiterating the gospel to them, whatever situation brought them here. There is forgiveness in Jesus, there is courage and strength that comes through Jesus. So all those things. And then if we were to talk about legislation, things like that, that's going to kind of come down to what state you're in. So under Roe v. Wade, we had a federal, a nationwide situation that all of us were in, but now after 2022, after the Dobbs decision, now it's back to the states. So the states have a decision. So it depends on where you live. You know, some states are in a better situation than others policy-wise. Here in Michigan, unfortunately, we're actually in a worse situation than we were under Roe v. Wade, Proposal 3 back in 2022, led to where we actually, an abortion now is enshrined in our state constitution. And so that's going to be incredibly difficult to overcome. And so I think the real, actually, who you vote for matters. Every time you go to the polls, you have a chance to influence the policies and the outcomes in our country. And so that absolutely matters. And what I wanna say is probably for us, and if you're in a state like Michigan, probably some of the best things you can do is gonna be at the individual, at the family, at the church level. Of just trying to provide care for people to try to make that option of abortion way less interesting. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think, and this I think was always the case that we should be investing in the most powerful institutions first. So, family, church, then you look at the government, if you're not doing this at home, if you're not doing this in your local church, but all you're doing is voting, you're missing some two things. Don't not vote, do vote. But there are some key, key things that we should be investing in. There's incredible power in discipling your children. There's incredible power in the local church,

in the Bride of Christ.

Yeah.

Well, again, resoundmedia.cc slash life. We'd love for you to have that free resource. Watch it, share it with your friends. If you're a church leader, please share it with your congregation. It's a free resource. We just want to be able to support the cause of life. Thanks everybody for listening. Thanks for the conversation. You can like and subscribe on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram. Have an awesome weekend, buddy. Have an awesome weekend, buddy.

Bye!