March 28, 2024

Abortion and the Georgia Runoffs

[This column was posted on various websites initially on January 6, 2021]

It is no exaggeration to say that the future of the nation is in the balance with the vote this week for the two senate seats in Georgia. And abortion is a critical dividing line between the two sets of candidates.

Gary Bauer, former senior policy advisor for President Ronald Reagan, commented (12/29/20) on the importance of the runoffs (mandated by Georgia law because the votes on November 3rd  were so close in both cases): “[I]f Joe Biden is sworn in next month and Democrats win both Georgia seats, then Democrats will have total control of the government…The Senate will be evenly divided, making Vice President Kamala Harris the ultimate decider on everything from higher taxes to abortion funding, open borders and climate change craziness.” [Emphasis added]

As of this writing, apparently Rev. Raphael Warnock (D) has beaten incumbent Senator Kelly Loeffler (R). Although Warnock is a minister, he is totally committed to the pro-abortion rights position. He even twists the Bible to support his view, while receiving not only the endorsement from groups like Planned Parenthood, but campaign money too.

The same could be said for Jon Ossoff (D), who has apparently beaten incumbent Senator David Perdue. Ossoff has a 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood, which also completely supports Warnock. These results do not portend well for America, especially the unborn.

Can you be a Christian and “pro-choice” on the subject of abortion?

We look back in horror at the professing Christians in antebellum South that owned slaves and, worse, used the Bible to justify slavery.

Warnock claims to be a “pro-choice pastor,” and claims he will “always fight for reproductive justice.”

A group of about 50 pro-life African-American ministers in Georgia have written him an open letter challenging that idea.

They declare: “Abortion is fundamentally in conflict with the plain reading of the Bible. The Bible clearly teaches that human life is created by God beginning at conception. As Psalm 139 proclaims: ‘You knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am wonderfully and fearfully made.’ What human being could possibly have the right to blot out an innocent life that God has wonderfully and fearfully made?”

Rev. Dean Nelson, the executive director of Human Coalition Action, is one of the signatories of this open letter. Nelson spoke to me on the radio about the inherent conflict of being a “pro-choice pastor.” He told our listeners: “Our challenge to him was to be a better example. If we can’t trust you as a pastor, why should we vote for you as a senator?”

The Federalist notes (12/28/20) that Warnock is not only proud of his “pro-choice” view, but he creates and destroys a straw man of pro-lifers who supposedly only care about unborn lives until they’re born—but not afterwards.

For example, from the pulpit in 2016, Warnock preached, “Why is that you don’t have anything to say about poverty? How is it that you can say you are pro-life before the baby is born, but you won’t support child health care after the baby is here?”

Apart from critically different approaches to health care and to poverty/wealth—market-based versus government bureaucracy—is that assertion true? Do pro-lifers only care about babies in the womb and not beyond?

A few years ago, I interviewed Dr. Arthur C. Brooks, formerly the president of American Enterprise Institute and now a professor at Harvard Kennedy School. Brooks wrote the book, Who Really Cares. He has researched charitable giving for many years.

He told me, “There is one question that answers [how generous you are] far and away better than anything else. And that question is: ‘How often do you go to church?’ Faith matters. Faith matters more than anything else in determining whether or not we are giving people to others.”

Dr. Brooks added: “Imagine you have two people. One is secular and has a socialistic outlook; they believe that it’s the government’s job to help others. And the other person is a person of faith, who believes also it’s their job, as opposed to the government’s, to help others. You will find that the second person is twice as likely to give as the secular socialist, and will give on average 100 times as much money a year to charity and 50 times as much to explicitly non-religious causes.”

The founders of America generally did not comment on abortion. But they did state that “we the people” includes those yet unborn, i.e., our posterity: “We the People of the United States, in Order to… secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution.”

Abortion is the deliberate taking of the lives of some of “our Posterity.”

This week’s vote in Georgia is indeed a critical one on a host of issues, not the least of which is abortion.