Being Pro-life in the 21st Century

1. Being Pro-life in the 21st Century

2. Personhood in the early church 95 AD - The Didache A compilation of Apostolic moral teachings that appeared at the end of the first century, which asserted an unwavering reverence for the sanctity of life: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between these two ways. Therefore, do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant.”

3. 125 AD - The Epistle of Barnabas“You shall love your neighbor more than your own life. You shall not slay a child by abortion. You shall not kill that which has already been generated.” 150 AD - Christian apologist Athenagoras, in a letter to Emperor Marcus Aurelius ‘…The fetus in the womb is a living being and therefore the object of God’s care.’

4. 230 AD - Tertullian “Our faith declares life out of death. Therefore, murder is forbidden once and for all. We may not destroy even the fetus in the womb. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man killing. Thus it does not matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. In both instances, destruction is murder.”

5. 385 A.D. Basil of Caesarea Basil opened the very first non-ambulatory hospital. It was his involvement with the poor and his work in the hospital that ultimately led Basil into a confrontation with still another series of societal woes: abortion, infanticide, exposure, and abandonment. The bodies of the children were then harvested and sold to cosmetologists in Egypt, who used the collagen for the manufacture of various beauty creams.

6. When Basil approached several city officials about the horrors that the Sagae (ancient abortionists) were perpetrating on the women and children of the community, he was shocked to discover that the awful trade was perfectly legal-and always had been. • Immediately, he sprang into action: • He preached a series of sermons on the sanctity of human life; • he mobilized the members of his church to help care for families and women who were facing crisis pregnancies;

7. he began to exercise the full weight of his family influence as well as his own considerable powers of persuasion to change the laws; • he began an education program throughout the entire city so that people could fully understand the issues; • he took imprecatory ecclesiastical action against the Sagae, declaring them to be anathema; • and he even staged public protests against the Egyptian traders that helped to support the grisly trade with their mercantile ingenuity.

8. Basil knew God’s Word For You have formed my inward parts; You have covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your Book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. (Psalm 139:13-16, NKJV) 8 weeks Over 50 Pro-life Passages in Scripture 18 weeks

9. The list of Christian pro-life heroes is very nearly endless: • 430 AD – Augustine • 450 AD - Jerome • Gregory the Great (d. 604), • Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (d. 687) • Giles Aegidius (d. 796), • Clement Slovensky (d.916), • Edburga of Winchester (d. 960), • Dunstan of Canterbury (d. 988) • Edward the Confessor (d. 1066) • Sava of Trnova (d. 1235) • Louis of France ( d. 1270) • Elizabeth of Portugal (d. 1336) • By their faith and by their actions, these Christians brought about a revolution in human history. For the first time there was a consensus that life was sacred, that it ought to be protected, and that God would bless any culture that did protect life.

10. “The Sanctity of Life” OUR MISSION: Georgia Right to Life’s purpose is to restore respect and effective legal protection to all innocent human life from its earliest biological beginning to natural death.

11. “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness . . . And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Gen 1:26-27

12. Personhood: Protecting the image of God Personhood was endowed by God at the very moment of creation. We are Persons from our earliest biological beginning… Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I made you in your mother’s womb, I chose you.” Isaiah 49:5 NLT “And now the Lord speaks—the one who formed me in my mother’s womb to be his servant”

13. Over 50 Pro-life Passages in Scripture Rape or Incest and Abortion Genesis 19:36-38 Deuteronomy 24:16 Romans 8:28 Genesis 38:13-26 Ruth 4:18-22 Ephesians 5:20 Genesis 50:20 Matthew 1:3 • Prolife Passages in the Bible • God Is the Creator of Life • Genesis 1:27, 2:7 Job 12:10 Psalm 139:13-16 • 1 Samuel 2:6 Job 31:15 Isaiah 64:8 • Nehemiah 9:6 Job 33:4 Acts 17:24-25 • Job 10:8-12 Psalm 100:3 Colossians 1:16 • Children Are a Gift from God • Genesis 18:10-14 Genesis 48:9 Proverbs 17:6 • Genesis 25:21 1 Samuel 1:19-20 Isaiah 8:18 • Genesis 29:31-35 Psalm 113:9 Hosea 9:11 • Genesis 30:1-2, 22-23 Psalm 127:3-5 • Genesis 33:5 Psalm 128:3 • Personhood Begins at Conception • Job 10:8-12 Jeremiah 20:17a Luke 1:35-38 • Psalm 51:5 Matthew 1:18-20 • Personhood Exists in the Womb • Genesis 16:11a Psalm 71:5-6 Isaiah 49:1, 5a • Genesis 25:22-24 Psalm 139:13-16 Jeremiah 1:5 • Job 3:11, 16 Ecclesiastes 5:15a Hosea 12:3a • Job 31:15 Isaiah 7:14 Luke 1:13-15 • Psalm 22:9-10 Isaiah 44:2, 24 Luke 1:39-44 • Psalm 58:3, 8b Isaiah 46:3 Galatians 1:15a God’s View of Abortion Exodus 20:13 Deuteronomy 30:19 Matthew 19:18b Exodus 23:7 Proverbs 6:16-19 Romans 13:9a, 10a Sacrifice of Children Forbidden Exodus 1:15-17 Deuteronomy 18:10a, 12 Psalm 106:31-38 Leviticus 18:21, 24, 30 2 Kings 16:3 Jeremiah 32:35 Leviticus 20:1-5 2 Kings 17:17 Ezekiel 16:20-21 Deuteronomy 12:31 2 Kings 21:6 Punishment for Causing an Abortion Exodus 21:22-25 Proverbs 28:17a Amos 1:13 Deuteronomy 27:25a

14. A few of the Pro-life Passages in Scripture • In Isaiah 44:2, God says He formed Isaiah "in the womb." • In Jeremiah 1:5, God tells Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you". • In Psalm 51:5 David says  that he was a sinner from the time his mother conceived him. • Job 10:8-12 described the way God created him before he was born in detail. • Dr. Luke says John the Baptist was ending his second trimester in Elisabeth's womb when he leaped for joy at Mary's greeting (Luke 1:41,44). • Even the angel Gabriel told Mary that she would be "with child and give birth to a son" (Luke 1:31).

15. Christ Jesus took on human flesh and dwelt among us that He might redeem fallen mankind.

16. History in the 18th Century: “Self-evident” or natural rights The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, states "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Our rights do not originate from our government, so they cannot be taken by a governmental decision.

17. Slavery Grievance – Jefferson [King George III]  has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither….

18. Slavery Grievance – Jefferson The founding fathers loathed slavery and made plans to end it in the Constitution in 1808, but the next generation lost their zeal.

19. In 1857, in the Dred Scott decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declared blacks to be “a subordinate and inferior class of beings.” This decision was never “overturned” but was amended after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This called the people of American to free the slaves. Personhood was restored to another people group.

20. Nazi Germany declared that Jews were “subjects” of the Reich but not “citizens” under the newly enacted Nuremberg Laws on Citizenship and Race. Article 4 (1) stated, “A Jew cannot be a citizen of the Reich. He cannot exercise the right to vote; he cannot hold public office.”

21. After the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, a number of additional Nazi decrees were issued that eventually outlawed the Jews completely, depriving them of their rights as human beings.

23. 1) The preborn can be a different gender from the mother. • 2) The preborn develops a separate brain and central nervous system. • 3) The preborn can have a different blood type. • 4) The preborn has her own unique DNA fingerprint.

24. Let’s imagine that we wake up tomorrow and Roe is overturned Elderly - “Futile Care” Baby Boomers? Post-Persons Human Embryos - 500K Pre-Persons Severely Disabled - Anencephalic Infant Non-Person Human Animal Hybrids - UK Chimeras Un-Person Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis, Eugenics Good-Birth Assisted Suicide – Euthanasia Good-Death . . . is the Pro-life movement finished?

25. EUGENICS: A social philosophy, which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention by the State. The State would “purify” the world of those traits or people that are considered undesirable.

26. Eugenic Advocates KKK Adolph Hitler Margaret Sanger

30. Roe v. Wade Decision . . . the personhood of the preborn child is the single point on which the entire debate turns. “In the Roe v. Wade decision, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote that, ‘(If the) suggestion of personhood [of the preborn] is established, the [abortion rights] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.’”

31. ". . . always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. . .“ 1 Peter 3:15 ESV Mars Hill, Athens Acts 17 Jeremiah 22:16 NASB “He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy; Then it was well. Is not that what it means to know Me?” Declares the Lord.

32. Why should You get involved? Pr 31:8-9 NLT  ”Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves;  ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice. Isaiah 1:16 Proverbs 24:11-12 Jeremiah 1:12 Jeremiah 22:3 Amos5:15 Zechariah 7:9 Hosea 12:6 Zechariah 8:16 Amos 5:24 Proverbs 21:3Micah 6:8 Jeremiah 22:16

33. Hebrews 12 says, “24 You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness instead of crying out for vengeance like the blood of Abel. 25 Be careful that you do not refuse to listen to the One who is speaking. For if the people of Israel did not escape when they refused to listen to Moses, the earthly messenger, we will certainly not escape if we reject the One who speaks to us from heaven….. Hebrews 13: “Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters…. Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies.”

34. “Each year when I share with our congregation about the sanctity of human life I am faced with a dilemma. Statistically 50% of those listening have been hurt by the pain that abortion causes. They do not want to hear the word abortion or a sermon about it because it can surface painful memories. So every year I must resolve that the risk of causing pain and being rejected is worth the probability that people will be healed by God. I’ve come to realize that saying nothing is not loving and doing nothing is not loving. We all need to do something when it comes to the life and rights of the unborn. So this year when the opportunity arises to do something about the Personhood Amendment, I humbly ask you to publicly support it among those entrusted to you by God.” Pastor Jeff Steffel, Grace Family, Torino Circle in Port Saint Lucie, FL