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The Harvester Podcast is brought to you by the Florida School of Preaching. Listen weekly to take a dive into biblical topics and thoughtful studies on things that matter to our eternal souls.
Welcome to the harvester podcast we're in season 2 and we're going to do episode 9 and
We've been talking here.
Well, let me just introduce myself.
I am Brian and with me are
Steven Ford
Forest Antemesaris
And we're here to bring the podcast and this season we are talking about cultural issues,
things that are facing our culture.
And we've talked about some good things so far.
And for this episode, we want to discuss abortion.
We want to discuss abortion.
And uh when we think about abortion, I always like to point out that all abortions are not
the same.
The actual medical definition, guess, quasi medical definition, I'll add.
ah Is the expelling of the fetus from the uterus that's an abortion there are spontaneous
abortions which are sometimes called miscarriages we see some of those in the Bible as
well But the ones we're talking about here today are induced abortions for the purpose of
Terminating a pregnancy and so when we think about the issue is real in our day and age
Since Roe v.
Wade in 1973, several abortions have taken place.
Millions and millions of babies have been aborted.
So just how far spread do think the issue still is today?
It's quite an issue.
It's one of the more upfront hot button issues of the day.
mean, you find it on the political stage, just about every recent election cycle is part
of the arguments that they make.
So you can tell if it's at the forefront of political argumentation, every election cycle,
then it's on the minds of the people.
yeah and i've uh...
there's about four four five years ago at south florida have new you know i'm in charge of
the messages on the marquee and we've had a lot about homosexuality a lot about this one
about that but i don't think we've had a whole lot about abortion and so once in the
morning we had some protesters hanging around our sign down there by the by the driveway
there are some important we came out and they were saying that we didn't speak out against
it enough and that's why they were protesting us uh...
so it's pretty interesting
You're making both sides mad.
yeah, yeah.
I think from the statistics I've seen from the CDC and the Gutmacher Institute, abortion
is less popular than it was in the 90s.
But I think it's a fiery issue where even if a woman doesn't get an abortion, I know many
people just in my own life who will still fight tooth and nail to defend a woman's right
to get an abortion, right?
So even if they don't, haven't gotten one, won't get one, it's still one of those issues
where it transcends whether or not
you personally are gonna get one, it's one of those things where like, you believe a woman
can?
Right?
And if you don't believe a woman can, you're on the wrong side.
And the person arguing with you might not ever get an abortion, but they feel like it's a
right that a woman has in a modern society to be able to get an abortion.
And if you disagree, you're regressive and you're wrong and backwards and all those
different kinds of stuff.
And I even know members of the church that would argue that I'm not going to have an
abortion, but it's okay for a woman to have one.
And then most of these, I'm afraid, just side with one political party who's really for
that.
And they can't see past that.
And I've actually been defriended by good friends that weren't just Facebook friends,
simply because I questioned why they were sharing all this stuff that, that was, you know,
one political party's view of, this was in 2008.
But anyway, so when we discuss abortion,
We just want to point out, and many of our listeners already know this, but just to
refresh our memories that, you know, God does not distinguish between the personhood or
the humanness of the life inside the womb versus the life outside the womb.
And of course, human life is the key.
uh If the baby inside, or if the fetus, to use their language, if it is human, then of
course it's wrong to kill it.
right and and to be human involves body flesh earth or flesh soul and spirit first sessile
in five twenty three but there are some passages for example in song one thirty nine verse
thirteen and i i won't read all these but one thirty nine thirteen through sixteen this
were david says i'm fearfully and wonderfully made and then notice it was david who was in
the womb not just in yet not just a blob of cells
ecclesiastes eleven five is down no less not what is the way of the spirit nor have the
bones to grow in the womb of her that is with child even so you do not know the works of
God who makes all and so here the child's a child that's in the womb not just a massive
sales job three eleven to sixteen again this is where uh...
and job is cursing the day of his birth wishing that day was never on the calendar that he
had not been born
and uh...
verse sixteen talks about a hidden untimely birth which would be a miscarriage calendar
leach in their commentary they refer to those in verse sixteen and even have the word
commentary as abortions and the stillborn and their commentary on that uh...
but the point is the person inside the womb again is a person it's a it's a human
individual and then jeremiah one five of course uh...
before I formed uses God to jeremiah before I formed you in the belly and knew you before
you came out the womb i sanctified you are dainty to be a prophet to the nation's and so
again is to use jeremiah that was in in the womb and so uh...
but especially in luke chapter one is the new testament passage now we'll take a look at
luke chapter one verse forty one and
The text says it happened when Elizabeth, that is the mother of John the Baptist, heard
the greeting of Mary, the mother of Jesus, that the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth
was filled with the Holy Spirit.
But the babe, and that word babe is from the Greek word brephos, and it's in the womb.
The babe in the womb leaped.
and then if you look at verse forty four for indeed as soon as the voice of your greeting
sounded in my ears the babe breath us leaped in my womb for joy and so while it's in the
womb it's called a breath of sir babe as is translated here and then we go to chapter two
of luke inverse twelve and this will be the sign to you this is after jesus was born and
here he's talking
In the context here, he's talking to the shepherds.
There actually is the wise men, the shepherds.
But anyway, he says in verse 12, and this will be a sign to you, you will find a babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger.
And there the word babe is that same brefa, since referring to Jesus outside the womb.
Then also in verse 16 of Luke chapter 2, and they came with haste and found Mary and
Joseph and the babe lying in a manger.
And so again, breath loss, whether the child is in the womb or whether it's outside of the
womb, that same word is used.
And so what does that imply about the humanness of a baby in the womb?
It's as much a human sitting there in swaddling cloths as it is in the womb.
Yes.
You know, and I think that when you look at, even like from like a scientific perspective,
but the Bible backs this up as, you know, true science is confirmed by God's word.
You know, when you look at a baby in the womb, you see that it's not part of the woman's
body, though it's connected to the woman's body.
it's genetically different, right?
If you take even as a, even like a, like as soon as, I mean, as soon as conception
happens, there's a different genetic makeup from between the fetus and the woman, right?
So it's not part of her body.
You know that it's human because it's human DNA, it's human genetics, right?
Once again, and you know that it's alive, right?
With, you know, it only takes, you know, a handful of weeks and it's already got a
heartbeat before too long.
brain activity, right?
Otherwise you wouldn't have to terminate the pregnancy, right?
If it wasn't alive.
So you know it's alive, you know it's a human being, you know it's separate from the mom.
And I think with those three things in place and then the Bible showing us, confirming us,
hey, person's a person in the womb, outside of the womb.
I think you have a really hard case to make to say it's moral to end that life.
You know, we know that it's alive.
We know it's not just a part of the mom's body.
We know.
that it's, you know, that it is a human.
And I think the game that people try to play is, yeah, it's human, but it's not a person.
And as soon as you start to draw the line for which humans aren't persons, you're in
really, really, really difficult territory.
And pretty much every moral atrocity that's ever occurred, that's how it occurs.
People say, you know, they'll say, um,
you whether it's not you germany days you know jews the other humans but not persons or
whether it's chattel slavery days you yet is africans are human beings but they're not
persons whatever it is where you say hey this person is yet we admit it's a human but it's
not human like we are you know i mean i guess on a lower level and then now whatever
crimes we commit against them are justified because we've kind of knocked them down i
think we see that happen to the unborn
where because they can't contribute to society because they're not walking on their own,
breathing on their own because they're not fully developed, you're going to say, well,
they are not worthy of the same protection and care and rights that every other human
being is worth has.
And whatever line you draw is just arbitrary.
Right?
If a fetus is not a human, whenever you say it becomes a human or if a fetus isn't a
person, wherever you say it becomes a person.
is arbitrary and I think you can't consistently hold that.
I know I kind of went off in left field there, but all those things come to my mind when
we start talking about the Bible so clear in the womb, and it's confirmed by science, in
the womb, a person is a person is a person.
and that there is a logic that law of excluded middle so it's either a person or it's not
a person it's either human or it's not human there is no in between right and if you just
let nature take its course you know it's a human for sure and so and but even with the
insights we have into the womb now scientifically and the technology we can see that human
i mean so far as the fingers and all that and the argument you know this is part of
woman's body as for said just doesn't hold true cuz you know
a finger has the same DNA as the mama.
A hangnail, I suppose, would too.
uh But that child in there has got a whole different DNA.
Distinct DNA from the father and the mother together.
All right.
So it's human, no doubt about it.
The life inside the womb is human.
Now there's been, over the years, attempts to try to justify abortion.
We'll just mention these briefly, but one attempt would be the socio, what's called the
socio-economic argument.
That is, if in the opinion of the mother, a birth would work economic hardship or
difficulties in the family or individual social pattern, then aborting the baby is
acceptable.
And of course, I would say what pregnancy does not inconvenience, ah economy or whatever.
But anyway, that's one argument.
Another argument is what's called the eugenic argument.
Uh, and you as good genic sound offspring argument, the basic argument states
abortion is justified when there is the likelihood that the baby might be mentally or
physically defective.
I hear in predices nowadays, in fact, I don't know, Forrest just had a, his wife just had
a baby.
And did they offer you a genetic screening ahead of time?
And it's not covered by insurance no the first time we did it just because you can see um
If it's a your girl or boy ahead of time But it was like a thousand bucks or something
like that, you know But they also tested for all these other things, you know Down
syndrome certain genetic etc, etc, you know um But I've heard stories of people where I
know people personally
where doctors told them, your baby's gonna have this, that, the other, you should go ahead
and have an abortion.
And then they said, no, we're not doing that.
And then the baby's born perfectly healthy and like without any kind of, know, I don't
know how often that is, but I know two people personally who were told by their doctor,
hey, your baby's gonna have this syndrome, this disorder, et cetera, go ahead and get an
abortion.
And they sucked at their guns and were like, no, absolutely not.
And then the baby was, there was no, you know, disorder or syndrome.
So like even that, think is kinda, you know, you don't, there's, yeah, like there's, you
do the screening, but how many of those babies were aborted because the doctor said, Hey,
it's going to have this or that.
And didn't, you know, not that it's justifiable to begin with, but still.
still.
Both of those first two arguments, they open up a door as Forrest was kind of leading the
conversation, seems, at least my thinking was going there.
That the argument could be made that if a person, you know, weighs on you socially or
economically, if a person has mental, emotional hardships, then we can abort them, if
that's the argument.
But those same things could apply for an old person at some point.
And so where do you go from there?
So if now I'm old, I'm causing economic hardship, I'm old, my emotional, or excuse me, my
mental faculties are diminished, so what makes me different then, logically, with the
argument is made, what makes me different from the baby in the womb?
I am not a productive person who's able to think, function on my own, I'm a drain on
society financially and otherwise, so what would be the difference in saying, well, let's
kill the,
six month baby in the womb and let's kill the 90 year old man.
The arguments are identical.
This was location and developmental level.
That's the only difference.
Tax history or something like that, know, other than that there's no difference in terms
of what the person the condition of their
Or even not even an old person, know, God forbid somebody gets in a horrific accident or
something You know and their brain level or their intelligence level is that of somebody
with you know, some some disorder syndrome could be Right exactly and say, you know, well
now is it you know uh we can't Now he's dependent on other people we can't you know, and I
think that first one you mentioned the socioeconomic in my experience that's kind of the
biggest and
I was even looking at some statistics and I think, and it was like 2004, they did surveys
of women who had abortions and that was the number one reason.
Wow.
With socioeconomic and one of the verses, one of my favorite verses to go to when we talk
about abortion is Psalm 127, three and following where it says, behold children are a
heritage from the Lord.
The fruit of the womb is a reward like arrows in the hand of a warrior.
So are the children of one's youth.
Happy is the man who has this quiver full of them.
They shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate." So I think
part of the thing is just how we as a culture view children.
And they're a drain, they're training our resources.
We can't afford them.
They're difficult.
And you're gonna be wrong.
think there's women who, single mothers who are teenagers who are thinking, how is this
gonna happen?
But that baby is...
going to be loved and can be taken care of and there are people who can help you and the
solution isn't to end that baby's life you know and I think that if if we kind of had a
more of a biblical view of children as opposed to a worldly view I think that would help I
think that would help us generally speaking you know
It's also kind of backward because if you look at cultures, most cultures that are
economically at the bottom end have more children than people who are at the very, very
top end of economics.
So if you say, it's going to be a hardship.
Those are people who have all the kids.
if you were to look at it like that, it's just, well, you just don't want to have to deal
with anything.
It's not that having a kid creates this difficulty where you won't survive.
people who are in lower economic brackets have children far more than people who are
higher.
And so it's not a thing where you can't do it.
are resources out there, there are social programs out there.
You can make things work.
ah So that argument to me is just kind of a selfish, I just don't want to have to
sacrifice.
I want to be able do what I want to do.
Yeah.
Yeah, and even in America, families had a lot of children back in the day, you a hundred
years ago or so.
uh
years ago.
My grandpa was one of like eight, you know, and they were the small family on their block,
know, like that's just a different story back then.
Anyway, another argument is pregnancy resulting from incest or rape.
And I hear a lot of conservative people, quote unquote conservative people, sometimes I've
been known to listen to some conservative radio talk shows, and some of those hosts will
be against abortion except when it comes to rape and incest.
But rape and incest does not make the child any less human.
or unless of a person beyond then it would otherwise and so is to me the same arguments
would would refuse that as well now again it's it's a terrible situation rain one action i
think about rape and incest i really know that incest are being clued in that she just be
raped because of this writing whether it's uh
to Racia?
incest probably is rape.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, I don't know that much incest is consensual, but anyway, but but again the
the means that the how of the pregnancy Does not do away with the who is inside the womb
and I know it must be a tragic thing I can never speak for that, but it must be a very
tragic thing But again, does that justify?
the taking of another life
I Mike Eldridge used to say, and I don't know if he invented this, but he's the first
person I ever heard say it, know, scenario, person A rapes person B, person B is now
pregnant with person C.
The solution, kill person C.
Right, and I know people don't like the word kill in there, but that's what happens, you
know?
So how does ending the life of person C in any way?
justified because of what person a did to person b, you know, and I know there was a I
remember there was a big I I just saw the clip, you know, Joe Rogan's podcast is like the
biggest podcast in the world and he had a guy on there.
I think he worked for the Babylon B and they're talking about abortion and Joe Rogan was
disagreeing with him.
You know, the guy was like pro-life and Joe Rogan was like no and he's example of his
daughter being raped.
And he's like, you can't, you can't force my daughter to have that baby.
Like you're not looking out for my daughter, you know, got really heated.
And my thing is like, okay, what about your grandchild though?
Like you're so focused on your daughter.
Think about your grandchild.
We're ending your grandchild's life.
Nobody thinks about it in those terms.
People just always think, you're to make my daughter have that baby.
What about letting your grandchild live?
Like that's another way to phrase what we're arguing for, you know?
And, um,
I was just looking at some statistics on the, the Charlotte Loser Institute.
And I think this is statistics from the gut marker Institute, but they said, um, as of
2024, 0.4 % of all abortions were because of rape and incest.
For yeah.
0.4 % were from rape and incest zero point.
Yeah.
And 0.3 % were risk to the woman's life.
So I mean,
0.7 %
combined our risks for women's life and rape and incest and the rest is other physical
concerns, 2.2%, 1.2 % abnormality in the unborn baby.
Talking about the genetic screening and then 95.9 % is elective.
So I mean, if you think about that, mean, really majority, majority by a long shot is, is
elective abortion.
Yeah.
This probably wouldn't even be a social issue if the elective, I mean if you had like 1 %
of all the people in the country who were having abortion, it wouldn't even be on the
radar for people that have, that wouldn't make it right or wrong, but it wouldn't even be
on the radar, which is kind of a crazy thought that that number, 95 % of the millions of
abortions take place are just people just saying, nah, I'm good.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
The other thing I was just thinking about, you mentioned, I thought about that Joe Rogan
interview before we got started.
Yeah.
Because he got like intense.
Like it was going to be like one of those things we're going to tip over the table.
Right.
As I was watching, I could feel the tension.
Yeah.
And he was making this argument that most people will make in those situations.
It's an emotional rationalization.
Right.
And you hear this argument of emotion.
Are you going to tell me that this dirty raper and you're going to make your baby go to
those doctor's appointments?
And it's this, and I
I would never argue that there's gonna be no emotional scarring.
There's going to be emotional scarring, but life has emotional scarring.
I you know, I've got some emotional scarring from my upbringing.
It has nothing to do with rape or incest or any of sorts of things, but the idea is you
can't justify, like you use that simple analogy, A, B, and C.
Killing the person C doesn't fix it.
I do understand that it might make a person feel like,
Now we got something back, or now I don't have to be reminded of that event that took
place.
But it doesn't justify murder of a baby, no matter what you do.
I could say, this person hit me with their car, let's murder them because of whatever.
And that might make me feel good in the moment, but that doesn't justify taking the life
of a person, no matter what's the scenario.
Yeah, that's a point.
I heard a quote one time where the person said, if a fetus is a living human being, then
there's no justification for ending its life.
Other than, you know, the mother's life being at stake.
then, but the flip side of that is if it's not a living human being, then no justification
is required.
And that's kind of the tricky part where people will say it's not a human being, but here
are my reasons.
Why do you need a reason?
if it's like removing a tumor or like removing a, you know what I mean?
Like why do you even have, and now some women, some people out there don't even have
reasons.
They don't care, but that's why they started using.
Yeah, exactly.
maybe to fetus, because then that was a little bit cleaner, and now clump of cells.
Because now there's a complete humanistic disassociation where it's not, like you were
saying, it's not a person yet.
It's just this.
of cells.
dehumanizing, dehumanizing.
a clump of cells.
I'm a clump of cells.
Like one of the cells.
what?
That's that's those human cells.
You know what mean?
But that just shows kind of the futility of that argument.
You can't, you just like, can't get around it.
And even if it were, I think Psalm, I don't know if you mentioned this one earlier,
Brother Brian, Psalm 139, verses 15 and 16, about being incomplete, basically.
You're still a person.
You're still you, even though you're unfinished, not fully developed in the embryonic
state.
And as we were talking about the rape argument, it's like a lot of it falls back into that
socioeconomic, only maybe it's more of uh the shock, the unwanted, the unexpected
pregnancy we're trying to do, the shock of it.
And as Stephen had mentioned, sometimes it's the shock of it, the emotional no way.
But given what Forrest said, how about thinking of the grandchild part of that?
The grandchild part of that and the future life.
that could be could be the next einstein or whoever alright and then of course the
viability argument we've kind of talked about that but abortion is allowable as long as
the unborn life is not yet viable and that means able to live outside the womb or whatever
but humans take what about four or five years for kids
Okay, no, I've heard that before like, you know, the fetus is dependent upon the mother
the newborns dependent upon the mother Absolutely, you know, so if that's our argument for
being able to end its life.
I mean you you could have post-birth abortions
You can have, again, the 50 year old, the five year old abortion for somebody who's
incapacitated.
all right and so we think about abortion and this look at some some things about you know
human life the treatment of human life you know what makes abortion sinful well number one
of course you know the value of human life and as we were just talking about you know if
it's not human and we don't need a reason right and you think about we can do all kinds of
experiments on animals and things like that for medical research and all that
uh...
but because they're animals we don't have to worry about and we will mistreat animals but
for the sake of bettering human humanity i think would fall under the category of uh...
you know having dominion or the fish uh...
at the scene found so forth and we can use that we can do all kinds of artificial
insemination on animals and and that kind of thing uh...
without being wrong but when it comes to human just a little bit different this human life
is made in the image and likeness of God.
So there's something special, sanctified about human life.
And I think that that's why you have to, the pro, you know, the pro abortion advocates
have to use that language, clump of cells, parasite, things like that.
Because if you actually call it what it is, what you're advocating for is unconscionable.
Cause we're about the ending of a human life in utero, right?
This morning I walked out of my garage and a roach ran and I stomped on it and killed it.
And I didn't feel bad about it at all.
No.
Right.
Because that's not a human being.
ah It's totally different.
It's a totally different thing.
not you felt bad about it is irrelevant.
It's the fact that wasn't because you could have fell on the ground and cried.
Right.
But that still doesn't make that relative human.
Yeah.
And the fact that you were cavalier about it doesn't make it anything.
It is what it is.
which is a pretty good, pretty good observation there because there w there would be
people that would cry and say you did sin because you squashed roach because in their
mind, animals have the same, same standing animal life as the same standing of human life.
that's just not true.
Just not true.
Can I throw in this part too?
I would like to say that we are not saying that there is no scenario in which human life
can or should be taken, because God has given license in certain areas.
And so there would be some who would try to posit that we're saying, so you're saying that
you can't do anything.
So, you know, no, God has given license.
And that also demonstrates the importance of life, because God had to give regulation.
They can't just be taken.
kind of really nilly as you would say, Jinx, can't talk for you.
But the fact that he had to say, hey, here's the only occasion that this can happen, and
here's the method by which this, I mean, even in the Old Testament, there's, if you
accidentally kill someone, you go to the city of refuge so it could be investigated.
You couldn't just run in there and just murder the guy for doing something, because what
if it was an accident, what if it wasn't really him?
So there was all these regulations to protect human life, which shows that God has always
had
uh life in mind to continue, but also that there are times in which a person licensed by
God's authority can take a human life.
But it's murder that's the sin that we're talking about, the unsanctioned or unauthorized
taking of human life.
a preacher that uh the church building was right next to an abortion clinic in another
city in Florida and this is before online and all that kind of stuff but on the one side
of the church marquee the preacher put um intentionally taking innocent human life is
murder and then on the other side he said abortion or actually the first first side said
abortion is intentionally
or murder is intentionally taking innocent human life.
Then the other side said abortion is intentionally taking innocent human life.
Right.
And he had a news media over there and everything interviewing him and all that.
And when I taught ethics here at, at floor school of preaching, uh, when I went over
murder and stuff, they had to have those two I words in that definition, intentionally
taking innocent human life.
There is some intentional taking of life that is authorized capital.
fans, Capra
And then there is accidentally taking innocent human life.
But the intentional taking of innocent human life is murder, and that's exactly what goes
on in abortion.
I think that's the travesty where you have a large swath of people who are deluded into
thinking that it's not a human life.
And I think that really is kind of where the debate's at.
But I think there's no way to escape that fact, unfortunately, uh for pro-abortion
advocates.
I think that...
Another aspect of this is just, like you were saying, being made in the image and likeness
of God.
That's where it all comes down to, you know?
And when God first ah gives the idea of the death penalty in Genesis 9, He does it based
on the fact that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God.
So if you destroy that, you're destroying the image and likeness of God, and there's
consequences for that, you know?
That's not moral.
And I think that if you have to ask the question,
you know, another way to phrase it, because there are Christians who are, you know,
pro-abortion and things, know, even pro-elective abortion.
You are putting yourself in the position of deciding which human beings do and do not bear
the image and likeness of God.
And that to me is just like a place I don't want to be in, right?
We have to, we have to, we have to say all human beings bear his image.
And that's what makes them, regardless of
their economic drain, regardless of how they can't impact society, regardless of how
dependent they are on other people.
You're a human being, you're made in the image of God, and therefore have some sanctity.
Innocent human being, and you can't take his life.
That's why many of the people who would say that they're both a Christian and
pro-abortion, or pro-choice, I think it's called, they buy into this Kool-Aid of the...
renaming it so it's no longer a baby.
And so now they start to use that same terminology.
I know an individual who's a member of the church that uh put some things out on Facebook
a while back about uh abortion and I noticed the exact same language.
And they have to use that language because that's what gives them license to be able to
say that this is okay.
Because if they say this is a human baby and it's okay to do it, well now they're
defeating their own.
know, promotion of Christianity.
However, if they say, well, it's not yet a baby because it's not born and all these sorts
of things, ah then they can give themselves a little bit more license.
They have to rob the scriptures away from what they say.
sure.
And I always think about, you know, if we know that Jesus became a man, if Jesus was ever
or God became, you know, God took on flesh, became a man in Jesus Christ, if you ever in
the incarnation, if you're at a stage of development that Jesus was at, you're a human
being and he can't be killed.
Like, I think that's like the, like Jesus, you know, all of us, we were never a sperm.
We were never an egg.
But all of us were the thing right after that, zygote.
Every single one of us, right?
Even like Jesus Christ, God incarnate, was a zygote at one point, you know?
So if we're at a level where Jesus was that, then you can't, it's off, you can't end its
life.