Yesterday’s elections were bad news for preborn children in America. Kentucky reelected pro-choice Gov. Andy Beshear, indicating that abortion rights advocacy will be a positive issue for Democrats in next year’s national elections. Ohio voters adopted a ballot measure to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution. And Virginia voters rebuffed Republican candidates in favor of those who support abortion rights.

Abortion rights have won in every election since Roe v. Wade was overturned and abortions have risen nationally, even though several states have restricted or outlawed the procedure. Yesterday’s results are significant politically because Donald Trump won Kentucky by a 25.9 percent margin in 2020 and Ohio by an 8 percent margin. While Joe Biden won Virginia, Republican Glenn Youngkin won the governor’s race the next year.

Virginia’s elections are especially relevant to this issue since Gov. Youngkin has advocated an approach that many hoped would forge a cultural consensus on abortion.

Is a 15-week ban the solution?

Youngkin has been supporting a fifteen-week abortion ban with exceptions for rape, incest, and protecting the life of the mother. US Catholic bishops have endorsed a similar Senate plan sponsored by Senator Lindsey Graham (R.–SC) that would allow states to restrict abortion earlier in pregnancy but no later than fifteen weeks.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America also endorses a national ban on abortions after fifteen weeks of pregnancy and promises to oppose any presidential candidate who refuses to embrace this standard at a minimum.

Here’s the political reasoning behind such proposals: according to Gallup, 69 percent of Americans say abortion should be legal in the first trimester (conception to twelve weeks), while support drops to 37 percent for the second trimester (thirteen to twenty-seven weeks) and 22 percent for the third (twenty-eight to forty weeks). Majorities oppose abortion being legal in the second (55 percent) and third (70 percent) trimester.

In other words, a majority of Americans would theoretically support an abortion ban at fifteen weeks. However, since only 13 percent oppose abortion in all circumstances, it would seem that a large majority also want exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the mother’s life.

The challenges we face

Some pro-life supporters believe that since life begins at conception, permitting abortion politically at any stage is wrong. Just as we would not debate whether to legalize the killing of a newborn baby versus one who is fifteen weeks old, we should not legalize the aborting of a preborn baby at any stage in its life.

However, since only 13 percent of Americans agree, forging a political strategy to eliminate all abortions will be challenging.

This is why many pro-life advocates view a fifteen-week ban as the way to reverse pro-abortion gains after Roe was overturned. They believe this to be a way for pro-life politicians to win the political power necessary to protect as many lives as possible. But yesterday’s results in Virginia call into question the political viability of this strategy as well.

Pro-life advocates clearly must not abandon our political efforts to protect preborn children. But yesterday’s results illustrate the challenges we face and remind us that, in a post-Roe world, supporting life also requires non-political strategies that are highly commended by Scripture.

Where ministry begins in a post-Christian culture

Research indicates that women who chose abortion did so for these reasons:

• Not financially prepared: 40 percent
• Not a good time: 36 percent
• Issues with partner: 31 percent
• Need to focus on other children: 29 percent
• Interferes with future plans: 20 percent
• Not emotionally or mentally prepared: 19 percent
• Health issue: 12 percent
• Not independent or mature enough: 7 percent
• Influence from family or friends: 5 percent
• Don’t want children: 3 percent

Only 12 percent considered the preborn child, citing “unable to provide a ‘good’ life.”

Those who choose abortion obviously prioritize their personal issues over the life of their preborn child. If we are to help women considering abortion choose life instead, clearly we need to help them with these practical issues. We can provide financial assistance, health care, and counseling and resources for managing their other relationships. We can support pro-life ministries that provide such services. We can encourage adoption for those who do not think they are prepared to have another child and we can consider adopting personally.

In these ways, we can meet mothers of preborn children at the point of their personal needs, following the example of our Lord as he healed bodies to heal souls. His first followers did the same as they ministered to a man born lame (Acts 3) and “the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits” (Acts 5:16).

In their pre-Christian culture, ministry began with personal compassion. In our post-Christian culture, the same is true today.

As a result, whenever we see this issue in the news, let’s pray for mothers considering abortion to choose life for their preborn child, then let’s look for practical ways to answer our prayers.

Would you join me in doing so right now?

Denison Forum

A month ago today, Hamas launched a barbaric attack on civilians in Israel. When the news broke, who would have guessed that such horrific atrocities would provoke rising animosity, not against the perpetrators but against the people they seek to eradicate? So why is antisemitism rising?

Cornell University canceled all classes recently after a student was arrested for allegedly threatening violent attacks against Jewish students at the college. There has been an increasing police presence on campus since the threats were made.

After Harvard alumnus and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman met with students and faculty last week, he described antisemitism on campus as “much worse” than he realized and said, “Jewish students are being bullied, physically intimidated, spat on, and in several widely-disseminated videos of one such incident, physically assaulted.” He called on Harvard’s president to take immediate steps to reduce antisemitism on campus.

The Anti-Defamation League has documented a nearly 400 percent rise in antisemitic incidents across the US since October 7. As part of this escalation, it reports fifty-four antisemitic incidents at American universities.

What explains this surge in antisemitism on our college campuses?

Two crucial factors

Protests against Israel at America’s universities are nothing new. For example, a movement to “boycott, divest from, and sanction” Israel has been popular on college campuses since it was launched in 2005. Opposition to Israel escalated after Hamas’s invasion on October 7 even before Israel began a military response. In the weeks since, such opposition has become deafening.

In response, I wrote a website white paper yesterday explaining in detail two factors involved in this complex issue.

First, I responded to the claim that Israel is an “occupying colonizer” who stole its land from its rightful Palestinian owners. I noted:

• The original owners of the land were Canaanites from whom Jews conquered the region under Joshua. Their descendants now live in Lebanon and bear no genealogical relationship to the Palestinians.
• Present-day Palestinians are descendants of the Arabs who first conquered the land in AD 640, not the Philistines for whom the region is named. These Arab Muslims took the land from the Jews and Christians who lived there prior to their conquest.
• Since the time of Joshua, there has always been a Jewish presence in the land; Jews repopulated it alongside Arab Palestinians in recent centuries.
• An autonomous nation called Palestine would have been created by the United Nations in 1947, but Arab leaders rejected it.

Thus, Israel did not steal the land from its rightful Palestinian owners. If anything, the Palestinians’ ancestors stole it from the Jews who were there prior to AD 640.

Second, I addressed the claim on college campuses that Israel is oppressing the Palestinian people with its military response to Hamas.

I noted that Hamas is using the Palestinian population as human shields, hiding its soldiers and weapons in tunnels beneath hospitals, schools, and mosques. Just one such tunnel requires enough construction supplies to build eighty-six homes, seven mosques, six schools, or nineteen medical clinics. In addition, Hamas continues to steal fuel, medical supplies, and provisions intended for the civilian population.

Israel must respond to Hamas’s atrocities in order for its citizens to be able to live in their own land. However, the cease-fire being demanded on college campuses would only enable Hamas to strengthen its position in Gaza. As the Wall Street Journal noted, “No other country on earth would agree to the terms of defensive engagement that much of the world wants to impose on Israel.”

“His dominion is an everlasting dominion”

As you can see, two simple but erroneous concepts—that Israel is an occupying colonizer and oppressor of the Palestinians—are inflaming opposition to Jews on college campuses and across America today. They illustrate the fact that ideas, whether right or wrong, change the world.

I have visited Cuba ten times over the years and grieve for the suffering of its people under the tragic ideology of Communism. I have visited Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum in Jerusalem, many times over the years and grieve each time as it explains Hitler’s claim that the Jews were to blame for Germany’s decline and must be eradicated.

I also grieve for our nation as the intellectual cancer of moral relativism continues to metastasize across our culture. C. S. Lewis warned in his 1943 work, Abolition of Man, that abandoning objective values based on unchanging principles would lead to our decline and “abolition” as humans. We are watching his prophecy come to pass more and more each day.

This is why God’s admonition is so urgent: “These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace” (Zechariah 8:16). Said differently, we are to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

The best way you and I can do this is to know Christ and make him known. When Jesus returns, he will be “given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him” (Daniel 7:14a). This is because “his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed” (v. 14b).

Accordingly, let’s make these words from the Book of Common Prayer our intercession today:

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within reach of your saving embrace. So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you, for the honor of your Name.

Amen.

Denison Forum