Thursday, August 15, 2024

Part I

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In Some Sense, Abortion is on the Ballot in Every State in the 2024 Election, But Some States Will Vote Abortion Directly — Let’s Look at the Landscape

Well, just about everyone in the world knows that the United States is facing a presidential election in November, but it’s also really important as preeminent as the presidential election is on our political landscape. It is really important that Christians keep in mind there are other big questions on the ballot as well. First of all, in, well, roughly half the states, you’ve got gubernatorial elections, and you have the entire House of Representatives, and you have about a third of the United States Senate. Of course, you have state by state legislative elections and other issues on the ballot.

Today, I want to talk about one particular issue on the ballot, and that is abortion. It might not be directly on the ballot in your state, but it is going to be on the ballot directly in several states. Now, here’s where before we even get to the state by state analysis, we need to understand, first of all, what we’re facing here, and second, what recent experience has taught us. What we are facing is the fact that the abortion rights movement is really refocusing its energies state by state. Now, that’s not to say that they are giving up in any way on legislating pro-abortion laws in terms of Congress. It is to say that they’re waiting for the presidential election, and they’re waiting for the next Congress to be elected before they put much effort into that.

Meanwhile, the full court press is at the level of the states. Now, just recall that this is really now an urgent issue precisely because in 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed the Roe V. Wade decision in the decision known as Dobbs. In that decision, what was most important is that the Supreme Court struck down Roe V. Wade. That’s an enormous gain for the pro-life movement in the United States. But even as the court struck down Roe V. Wade, the fact is that abortion is now state by state, in one sense, always on the ballot. That’s true because of the composition of the state legislature, who sits in the governor’s office, but there have been seven statewide ballot issues on abortion since the Dobbs decision was handed down, and the pro-life side has lost all seven of them.

Seven out of seven, we have lost. Now, the wake-up call there is that evidently the United States, voters in the United States were not as pro-life as they had indicated for a matter of decades. That’s one of the realities of politics in a fallen world. You sometimes find out what people actually believe when the conditions change and their vote indicates what they’re thinking right now. It may be that a good number of those Americans, millions of them, were superficially pro-life, but it turns out that when the culture turns, they turned also. So, even as Roe V. Wade was reversed, quite frankly, it teaches us that the law is an instructor. It reminds us of the fact that the law had changed American morality.

There is an effect of the law on human hearts in a way that went beyond what pollsters were telling us. The American people became more comfortable with abortion when we didn’t even know it. But the second thing is understanding that even as the question is now returned to the states, you’re really looking at two very different kinds of developments. The first has to do with states that have pretty strong pro-life legislation, pretty strong restrictions on abortion. Some of them placed there before the Dobbs decision handed down, and the Dobbs reversal of Roe just made it possible for those laws to go into effect. Others have been passed by state legislatures after the Dobbs decision was handed down.

But the other very strange thing, and it’s maybe not as strange as we might think at first, another thing is that you have very pro-abortion states that are seeking to put abortion rights in their state constitutions, as they say, just in the event it might become necessary because of some intervention on the part of the federal government. So, we really are looking at a very interesting situation, but there are pro-abortion states that just want to make themselves more officially pro-abortion, and you have some states in which you have a lot of pro-life sentiment. The problem is we don’t know how much of that is authentic. We’re about to find out.

Let’s look at this state by state. Number one, first, Missouri, Missouri is a very red state, but the question of abortion is now going to go before the voters. It was just this week that the Missouri Secretary of State certified that an initial petition had received the sufficient number of signatures to qualify the question for the general election. A majority of voters will decide this question. If a majority of voters in November in Missouri are in favor of this pro-abortion move, then it will go into effect. The next state to be added to the roster’s, the state of Arizona, the voters in Arizona are going to be asked whether they want to amend the Arizona State Constitution to add a right to abortion up to 24 weeks into pregnancy.

So, it’s also interesting to note that in Missouri, the ballot measure would create, according to this language, a woman’s right to an abortion up until the time that the fetus would be viable on its own outside the womb. That’s now estimated. We talked yesterday about the problem with this estimation, but at least for the political purposes there in Missouri legal purposes right now, it’s estimated at 23 to 24 weeks. Mentioned Arizona, that’s 24 weeks, but I want to look at the actual text. So, let’s go back to Missouri for a moment. The report by the Associated Press says, “The ballot measure would allow abortions after fetal viability if a healthcare professional determines it’s necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant woman.”

Big alarm bells should be going off. Now, of course, the first alarm bells are just because this is a pro-abortion legislation, but the second alarm bell comes back to the fact that even when it says up till the moment of fetal viability, which is assumed at this point to be something near 24 weeks for this purpose, the reality is that abortions will continue because all that is necessary for a later term abortion is for a healthcare professional, let’s understand how wide that language is, to “determine it’s necessary.” The abortion would be necessary to protect the life or the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman.

So, you need to understand that that language, the last language there is the giant loophole through which all these exceptions became normalized, because you can almost always find a healthcare professional who will say that someone’s mental health, a woman’s mental health depends upon getting this abortion, even if it’s a late term abortion, which means the restriction on late term abortions is largely dishonest and artificial. But, there we were talking about Missouri, then Arizona, add Colorado to the list. Back in May, the Secretary of State there in Colorado indicated that a sufficient number of signatures had been received to put the question of abortion on the Colorado fall election ballot.

There, this is about a constitutional amendment. This would amend the Colorado Constitution to put abortion rights in the Constitution. Now, notice abortion is already legal right now at all stages of pregnancy in Colorado. So right now, there are basically no meaningful restrictions on abortion. So, this is language that is politically seen as advantageous to put a right to abortion in the Colorado constitution. I’ll just repeat myself. It’s not necessary, but to amend the constitution requires 55% of the votes in Colorado. Most people on the ground think that that’s not an impossible barrier given the fact that Colorado has been moving more and more into this kind of territory in recent election cycles.

But on the other side of the political ledger in one sense is the state of Florida, and the month before the Colorado measure was qualified for the ballot, this question was qualified in the state of Florida. Florida has been, in recent election cycles, a very red state. It has a very clear Republican tilt. Is that going to continue? Well, no one actually knows, but on the question of abortion, voters in Florida are going to be considering a measure that would legalize abortion, again, up until the moment of viability, the point of viability. You know that’s going to change, and you know that there will be some kind of exceptions. You also have the concern from the Attorney General of Florida, Ashley Moody, that some of the terms are not properly defined, so there may be some legal contests to this.

Right now in Florida, abortions are illegal after the sixth week of pregnancy, and so that’s a pretty strong pro-life legislation when it comes to physician assisted abortions. Yet, you’re looking at the fact that also in Florida, this kind of measure requires 60% to pass, so 60%. Remember, it was 55% in Colorado, 60% in Florida. 60% is a significant rise in the threshold that is necessary. Will that be enough to doom the measure? No, it’s going to require some pretty strong pro-life conviction in Florida as well. Abortion is already legal in Maryland, again, legally they say until viability, but the voters in Maryland are going to be asking in November whether they want to put a right to abortion in the state’s constitution.

So again, that’s raising it from the level of something that is currently addressed by legislation to something that would be defined as a constitutional right. You can see the dark logic here. In the state of Nevada, another ballot question. This one would raise the question of protecting abortion rights in the state constitution. It’s going to have to go before voters twice in Colorado, so if it passes in 2024, it’s going to come back on the ballot in 2026. Another state, the final one is South Dakota. The issue of abortion is going to be on the ballot for voters in South Dakota in terms of a ban on restrictions on abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. So, this legislation would say that the legislature there in South Dakota, can’t restrict abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy.

It’s going to be interesting to see again just how all these go. But the point I want to make is number one, look at the determination of the abortion rights movement. It is not going to be satisfied until abortion is legal without any restrictions everywhere paid for by the taxpayer covered by medical insurance, go down the list, everywhere. The radicalism of the Pro-abortion Movement, the death embracing logic of the abortion rights movement is very much here on display. But the other thing we have to note is that state by state, so many of these, indeed all recent of these statewide votes, have gone in a pro-abortion direction rather than a pro-life direction. Once again, this has been a shock to many in the pro-life movement, simply because so many Americans said they were with us on the issue, and even had voted in many election cycles for candidates who were clearly pro-life.

But when the moment of decision and clarification comes on so many of these votes, they’ve gone in a different direction. Now, this is where Christians do understand that the teaching power of the law kicks in here. We’ll be back here in just a few minutes on another issue, but the teaching power of the law means that Roe V. Wade really did affect the American conscience, and that should come as an alarm to us.

It should come as a wake-up call to us as well.

Part II

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The Deadly Logic of the Reproductive Movement Falls Back Onto Itself: Democrats in New York are Upset That ‘Abortion’ is Not in Proposed Amendment to Constitution

I want to look at the state of New York because here, things get even more complicated. In the state of New York, more liberal forces wanted to bring about a constitutional amendment process, and they wanted to amend the Constitution in terms of going after the nondiscrimination language in the New York constitution.

So for years, New York’s constitution has said that, “No person shall be subjected to discrimination based on race, color, creed, or religion.” The proposed language that would amend the New York Constitution adds to that list, “ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” I hope you’re shocked by that, because what you have here is a brazen attempt to bring about a constitutional amendment in the state of New York that would basically put LGBTQ issues, identities, behaviors, expressions including gender expressions and gender identities on par with an issue, for instance, of skin color or of gender as if it’s just as given.

Now, we understand that that’s absolutely false, but attempting to put this in the constitutional language of a state, much less the state of New York, this is massive in terms of its consequences, because as we were thinking about the teaching power of the law, it’s really important to understand the teaching power of a constitution. Thus, you’d have law students and all students in the public schools there in New York taught the state civics lessons. They’re going to be taught, “This is what the New York State Constitution says about human identity.” But you also notice it’s not just about the LGBTQ Revolution, it is also about, It’s about gender issues related to pregnancy and, yes, abortion, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.

We know that’s about abortion. We know that’s about abortion, but here’s what’s absolutely fascinating. In the state of New York, there are pro-abortion forces who are very frustrated with this language, because it doesn’t use the word abortion. At least a part of their logic is that people would understand the word abortion, and they would vote for the proposed constitutional language, if the word abortion was there and recognizable that this is where the logic of the pro-abortion movement, it really falls back on itself. They’re the ones who’ve been using this woman’s reproductive health language as a smoke screen, and they’re pretty much admitting it is exactly that. It is a smoke screen.

They’re the ones who came up with the language, and now they’re complaining the language isn’t clear enough. We’ll be watching all of these issues state by state, but I want to return to the fact that you may be living in a state where the issue of abortion is going to be directly on the ballot. I just want to make sure that those who are listening to The Briefing understand how important this issue is, and how important the stewardship of your vote is in those states. If your state wasn’t mentioned, it may well be next time.

Part III

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The Teaching Power of the Law: How Roe and Obergefell Have Driven Immorality into the American Conscience

But all right, we’ve been talking about the teaching power of the law and hauntingly the teaching power of the law when it comes to Roe V. Wade as, again, not legislation, but a Supreme Court decision that became the legal reality in the United States for almost half a century.

So, we had decades in which people were born into citizenship in the United States, and a woman’s so-called right to abortion was at that point considered a matter of constitutional law. Now illegitimately, but nonetheless, that’s exactly what the Supreme Court ruled in the Roe V. Wade decision in 1973. So, you have the teaching power of the law. This is something that’s a deeply biblical insight. Christians need to watch this. The law not only says this is legal. By saying this is legal, it is in effect saying this is right. If it says this is a legally protected right, it is in effect saying this is a human good.

So, when you think about LGBTQ legislation or especially the trans legislation about gender expression, gender identity, sexual orientation, and all the rest, you add to that, of course, the language having to do with abortion, and you understand this is what we’re facing, the teaching power of the law. If it teaches something that is false or untrue, then something that is morally false, something that is morally untrue, something that’s morally evil gets driven into the conscience of a culture. One of the things we are witnessing right now is that even when you have a Supreme Court reversal, it turns out that, well, the effect of Roe V. Wade is continuing long beyond the decision itself, hauntingly enough. But if that’s true in the question of abortion, we need to recognize it may be true in a faster sense when it comes to the question of same-sex marriage.

So, you look at the Obergefell decision that legalized same-sex marriage in the United States. Well, that was fairly recent American history, but the advent of legalized same-sex marriage has brought about a moral shift in the American people. That’s just really important for us to note. The teaching power of the law or the teaching power falsely and wrongly of a Supreme Court decision like the Obergefell decision, it does basically have an effect upon the American conscience, and this is a very troubling reality, but Christians, we better understand this. Christian parents, you had better understand this. Your children are now being born into and raised into a culture where the cultural authorities say, “A man ought to be able to marry a man, and a woman ought to be able to marry a woman.”

That means even though that’s categorically wrong, it’s morally wrong. It’s biblically impossible. You’re going to have to press back upon an entire social system that is saying that out loud every way it possibly can, an entertainment culture, a legal culture, a judicial culture, an administrative state, a campus culture when it comes certainly to public colleges and universities, but also to a frightening number of private colleges and universities, and to a shocking number of those who would call themselves Christian colleges and universities.

It’s caught the attention of supporters of same-sex marriage, and so many in the mainstream media and others are asking the question, “How could this moral change come this quickly?” Zachary B. Wolf at CNN reports about the fact that, “The U.S. did a complete 180 on same-sex marriage, a complete 180.” That’s exactly what’s taken place. Interestingly, I want to give you some numbers because these are going to be really easy to remember, 70 and 30, 30 and 70. You can remember that. So, you go back 15 years ago in the United States, and arguably, it could be as recently as 10 years ago. 70% of Americans said they opposed same-sex marriage. 30% said they were for it. You fast-forward to just a couple of years after the Obergefell decision, 70% of Americans say they’re for same-sex marriage, and 30% against. Now, the obvious fact is a lot of those are people who were alive when the question was asked the first time.

That doesn’t mean they’re the same people, not the way polling works, but neither side in this contentious question is really questioning those numbers. They feel just about accurate to both sides. That should tell you something. So, I have to come back to something. You say, “Well, what was the deciding factor here? Was it Hollywood?” Well, Hollywood had a big role in this, big voice in this, big influence in this. Was it school administrators and university presidents and faculties far on the left? Yes, it was that, no question, but it’s a lot more than that. Was it legislators? Yes. In some cases though, it was not just legislators. It wasn’t just judges. It was citizen initiatives in some states.

You had a slew of states that, for instance, in the year 2004, had constitutional amendments preventing or forbidding same-sex marriage. That was one of the reasons why George W. Bush, it was explained, won reelection to the presidency. He won his second term largely because a lot of voters in strategic states came out to vote for the integrity of marriage. Just a few years later, everything appears to be turned on its head. Just a few years later, it appears that George W. Bush, at least to a considerable extent, endorses same-sex marriage. It turns out that you’re looking at the fact that some of the voters in these same states evidently changed their mind on the question.

Obergefell stands as the central issue here, the supreme Court’s categorical decision in 2015 in which they just invented a right to same-sex marriage, and declared it. Okay, here’s the point. I think when we’re trying to understand this, how could it happen? How could the U.S. do a complete 180 on same-sex marriage?

Part IV

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How a Moral Revolution Takes Place: What was Celebrated is Condemned, What was Condemned is Celebrated, and Those Who Won’t Celebrate are Condemned

I want you to think about this. A British theologian by the name of Theo Hobson argues that for a moral revolution to take place, three things have to happen. Number one, that which was condemned must be celebrated. That’s the first thing. The second stage is that which is celebrated must be condemned, and the third is those who will not celebrate are condemned. So, think about it. I think that’s a brilliant insight.

Number one, what was condemned to celebrated. People said, “Overwhelmingly, that’s wrong.” Now they say, “Now, it’s right. We’re all for it now.” The second stage is for a moral revolution to be complete, what was celebrated has to be condemned. So, what was celebrated before was protecting marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Okay, that’s now homophobic. That’s now culturally out of bounds. You’re not going to say that or believe that and get elected to the faculty at this university. Then the third thing is those that will not celebrate are eventually condemned. That’s where we are right now. It’s a mop-up operation. So far as the proponents of the moral revolution see it, it’s a mop-up operation to force Americans into compliance in such a way they’re saying, “Not only must you support same-sex marriage. You must be happy about it.”

That’s exactly the culture of most American college and university campuses. That is exactly what is going on. As you think about so many sectors of our society, including corporations and big business that simply say, “You better not only support this. You better be happy about it if you want to continue with this company or if you want advancement in your career.” If you want your job to be safe, you better not only say it. You better say it with a smile.

But finally, as we think about this vast moral revolution that is reshaping the entire cultural landscape in the United States, we need to understand perhaps in a way that many Christians don’t stop to think about how the entire civilization, the entire culture begins to organize around a new thing.

So, you say that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. That’s what humanity basically said for millennia for good reason. They were right. As you look at that, the entire culture defined marriage in such a way that you didn’t have to say that marriage means this. Everyone knew it meant this. It could only mean this. It was a social recognition. It was a legal certification. It was a moral understanding that was shared in the entire culture, and so you didn’t have to say, “By the way, this married couple includes a husband and a wife.” There wasn’t a married couple that didn’t include a husband and a wife, and so that was the moral reality. But on the other side of a moral revolution, like’s happened on same-sex marriage, now, you read an article about some figure who is a woman, and the next thing you know, the person’s identified as being married to a woman.

Then you look at that, and you go, “Well, how would someone from, say, 50 years ago reading this even understand what’s going on?” You’ve taken civilization, cultures. You’ve taken creation’s most fundamental social unit, and you have redefined it. Guess what? The rest of the culture is going to have to move along, come along, and redefine the family as well. So, you see how all this is happening, laws, regulations, policies, policies in the campground. You just name it, bathroom signs. Everything becomes re-aligned. Now, every time marriage is addressed in the culture, it has to be in alignment with this new definition of marriage, thanks to the Supreme Court of the United States, and then the willing compliance of the American people, the moral surrender of the American people.

Now, when you say marriage, well, Christians have to say, “Look, when we’re talking about marriage, we mean this even if no one else means this.” That was never necessary before. But the other thing we need to note there is that that, as one final thought, makes the issue of same-sex marriage a bit different than abortion in the way it works out in this moral revolution. It’s all part of one great rebellion against God’s law, one great rebellion against human dignity, actually one great rebellion against an understanding necessary to western civilization, to human civilization for millennia. It’s not only that. It is also something that works in another way, and that comes down to this.

Year by year, there are more same-sex couples declared wrongly but legally right now in the United States to be legally married who are added to the roster. There are more and more children, one way or another, associated with those relationships that are now called marriage. You have more policies on the campus, more policies in corporations. You have more changes to statutory language. You have redefinitions of insurance policies and all the rest, which means that this moral revolution is now being supported not only by a shift in moral sentiment and moral judgment, it is also now being buttressed by an incalculable number of policy changes, of language changes, of contract changes, of adjustments to this and adjustments to that. Because after all, if you’re adjusting marriage, you’re going to have to adjust just about everything else.

Now, on the cultural left, that’s what they’re counting on. They’re counting on the fact that every level, every dimension, every feature of society will just eventually get in line. Of course, it’s important as we conclude in understanding they’re not only expecting it. Let’s face it, they’re demanding it.