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(LifeSiteNews) —Three “pro-life” articles were recently released offering “guidance” to the pro-life movement on current and future efforts to criminalize the murder of unborn babies.
This is a formal rebuttal and rebuke of those men and their articles: “The Way Forward After Dobbs” by Ryan T. Anderson (First Things, October 2024), “What is Pro-Life Realism” by Ross Douthat (New York Times, 9/13/2024) and “Pro-Life Realism Post-Dobbs” by Michael Brendon Dougherty (National Review, 9/3/2024).
They are a trifecta of folly, a medley of mediocrity, passionless and visionless. And if the advice of these articles is followed, it will guarantee that the pro-life movement is castrated and disemboweled. Or put more tenderly, the cause to criminalize the murder of human beings from conception until birth will be destroyed.
It is my sincere prayer that each of these men recognizes their egregious omissions, and the madness and cancerous fruit their arguments would spawn. I, therefore, call on them to publicly recant their positions.
It is also my prayer that one day I may happily meet with each of them on some field of battle – in person, or in cyber space – in our war to criminalize child-killing. This is a formal invitation to these authors to pick up their cross, to “go outside the city gates with Christ, bearing His reproach,” and join the battle to end the shedding of innocent blood. I invite them to get down in the ditch, like the Good Samaritan, to save the lives of babies. They can do so if they choose, by picking up the phone, calling me, and brainstorming how to help our campaign for babies before the November 5 election.
Radical and incendiary rhetoric
As we begin, I have a brief history lesson for these authors, and for any timid souls out there that recoil at the bluntness of my arguments; the opening words of Patrick Henry from his glorious “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech:
…different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve.
Henry went on to thrash the arguments of those in favor of compromising or treating with England.
Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.
In our God-given duty to end the American holocaust, I hold myself bound to Patrick Henry’s guiding light. If I kept back the truth, I too would be disloyal and treasonous to my Maker, and the children made in His image. I will not put false charity ahead of true clarity.
Like Patrick Henry – and Martin Luther King, Mother Jones, William Lloyd Garrison – and every great leader of social/political revolutions in America, I am deliberately using radical and incendiary rhetoric.
I invite you – the reader – to judge the equity and accuracy of my assertions. And if you reach the end, I trust my shrill tone will turn melodic to the heart and soul that craves justice and valor.
Their first act of treachery was a beautifully worded surrender; a surrender that showed NONE of them are pro-life leaders, warriors, or activists committed o criminalizing child-killing.
Ross Douthat, the New York Times “pro-lifer” states:
…losing big in red-state referendums, losing ground in the public polling, losing some crucial pro-life language in the Republican platform — are forcing the anti-abortion movement toward gradualism and compromise… The end of Roe has forced the movement to confront its manifest political limitations …
This is not the case. The losses we endured are forcing lukewarm pro-life organizations and fundraisers (I can’t bring myself to call them “leaders”) toward accepting the fact that calculated messaging and cowardly battle strategies will not prevail.
Michael Brendon Dougherty opines:
After the repeal of Roe v. Wade by the Dobbs decision, pro-lifers are now finding out what the small-d democratic politics of abortion are like. And they are not favorable… We have to contend with the actual sentiments, and the way of life of our people as it is… Pro-lifers must hold whatever modest ground they can.
Wrong again. Pro-lifers are finding out that contending with “actual sentiments” means that you must make people uncomfortable, ashamed, and appalled with the murder of children. The way to change “sentiments,” is to change the narrative. Showing the victims of murder, and calling the crime against them murder, are the Scriptural starting points for ending the shedding of innocent blood.
Ryan T. Anderson raises the white flag with vigor, offering a “Vichy Government” compromise with the occupying forces, a new “primary task:”
It was easier to affirm the dignity of the child in the womb when the affirmation was abstract and did not imply a threat to anyone’s “choice.” Now all of us, including pro-lifers, have to count the potential cost.
WHAT? Perhaps Anderson accidentally acknowledged the shallowness of his own convictions. Is he saying we have to “count the potential cost” to affirm and declare that abortion is the murder of an innocent child?
No, wait. His cost was much lower. He used the worn-out platitude of affirming “the dignity of the child” as the battlefield on which we must “count the cost.” Please God, don’t let someone like this be responsible for saving my life.
But his crowning folly was this statement:
Our primary task isn’t to persuade people of the humanity of the unborn—anyone who has ever seen an ultrasound knows all about that—but to change how people lead their sexual lives.
Anderson’s advice is like saying: “The movement to save Jews from the Nazis needs to shift to promoting love and anger management” or “The movement to end Jim Crow laws and stop the Ku Klux Klan from lynching blacks needs to shift to promoting patience and prayer. Have patience, dear Negroes.”
And of course, this headline may have caused Anderson to swell with pride, while demons chuckled: “Ethics Expert Ryan T. Anderson Urges Pro-Life Movement to Transform Societal Sexual Ethics in the U.S. to Effectively Reduce Abortion Rates.” I’m not sure what an “ethics expert” is, but I’m sure he failed this test with an “F.”
But as absurd as it is, I hear the rustling of pen and paper in many pro-life groups as fundraising grifters begin to adopt this drivel for their fundraising appeals if we and the cause of the babies get thrashed in the upcoming election. After all, what Christian pro-lifer, or cowardly Catholic bishop, doesn’t want chastity and marriage? And it gives yet another sop and excuse for Christians to “send money now!” to the experts who will do the work…so that you don’t have to!
Sadly, Ryan Anderson’s advice quickly became the stuff of news and headlines. EWTN and National Catholic Registerran this identical headline immediately: “Ryan Anderson: The pro-life movement needs to shift to promoting chastity and marriage.” A story followed that glowed with support for this absurdity.
Yes, we want and should proclaim the Christian ethic for human sexuality. In truth, the greatest prohibitor of child-killing is a wedding band. But to surrender the fight of ending the murder of children – or change the battlefront from the number one crime that cries out to God for vengeance – is a folly on its face.
WATCH: Powerful pro-life ad exposes evil of Kamala Harris’ abortion policies
Fornication and murder are not even close to the same sin. Our Lord’s lineage includes Lot’s daughter, Judah’s daughter-in-law, and Bathsheba’s son. God loves human life and redeems and uses those lives for His Glory – lives conceived in less than holy circumstances. Certainly, promote chastity and marriage. But do not pretend for a second that this is the moral equivalent of, or replacement for, radical rhetoric, incendiary images, aggressive action and serious sacrifice to end the slaughter of the innocents.
We must act like abortion is murder
But perhaps the greatest failure in these three articles is their lack of passion, alarm, or urgency.
I ask you: Is abortion murder? Yes, or no? If “yes,” then we must ACT like it is murder.
This was one of our key battle cries that roused the valor of the tens of thousands of Christians who filled the jails in the 1980s and 1990s on behalf of babies’ lives: “If abortion is murder, act like it’s murder! What is the logical response to murder? Physical intervention on behalf of the victim.”
What would you want someone to DO if you were about to be murdered? What would you want someone to SAY, if your throat was about to be cut? What tone would you want someone to USE if you were about to be slaughtered? Would you want quiet, calm discussion? Or a shrill, frantic cry and physical intervention?
Again, historic examples are in order. Consider the rhetoric and tone of William Lloyd Garrison in his war to end slavery. This heroic, beloved, hated, and feared enemy of slavery gave us another guiding light in our struggle to defeat legalized child-killing:
I am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the rapist; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen,—but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD.
Compare his words about slavery – a sin that cries to God for vengeance – with the words of our three authors. It’s like comparing fire to a firefly.
Child-killing – the shedding of innocent blood – is at the top of the Scriptural list of sins that cry to God for vengeance. Child-killing by abortion is worse than slavery.
In addition to his words, feel the power…the sting…the fight in the of the words of Mother Jones (Mary G. Harris Jones) in her epic – and successful – battle to end child-labor:
The employment of children is doing more to fill prisons, insane asylums, almshouses, reformatories, slums, and gin shops than all the efforts of reformers are doing to improve society… You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes… And who is responsible for this appalling child slavery? Everyone… Some day the workers will take possession of your city hall, and when we do, no child will be sacrificed on the altar of profit! Mother Jones
She was persecuted, prosecuted, imprisoned, and her life was threatened. Her response? She continued to fight, lead “illegal” strikes for safer work conditions and just wages, and use incendiary rhetoric against tyrants. She was beloved by abused, working families, and despised by Corporate Barons who wanted to abuse children as cheap, unprotected labor.
By the way, remember this adage from yours truly: “A Man is known by his Enemies and His Scars.” A man – or woman – who does not have the right enemies, and the telltale scars that come with battle, is not to be respected or trusted as a leader in any great cause.
The best modern example of a creator of righteous social tension, of impatience, and drawing clear battle lines, is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I urge you – with all my heart – to read “The Letter From the Birmingham Jail” as soon as possible. And then compare that great work with the highbrow, mundane words here rebutted. King’s words speak for themselves – and provide pro-lifers with much needed guidance, and for some, much needed rebuke. Just picture Dr. King writing these words to the “pro-life establishment,” and Christian churches at large who claim to be “pro-life,” but have failed to end the slaughter:
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension…Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities…So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent—and often even vocal—sanction of things as they are.
But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.
I started this rebuttal with the intention of quoting line after line of the three articles and rebutting them. But I fear it would only muddy the water and muddle the mind.
Rather, I shall show in conclusion what they did NOT say.
If you were recently exposed to child-killing, and read those three articles, you would not come away traumatized – shuddering in horror – that little babies were being torn piecemeal from their mother’s wombs or being delivered whole in a toilet by a weeping teenager who took the murder pills. Not a word was said in those articles that stoked a passion for justice; not a word called to sacrificial action; not a word that cried, “MURDER!”
I did a line upon line word search for certain words in all three articles. My findings are the total use of these words in all three articles.
Slaughter: 0.
Holocaust: 0.
Ten Commandments: 0.
Crime: 1 (Used by Ryan T. Anderson but having nothing to do with the crime of child-killing.)
Bible/Biblical: 1 (Again by Anderson, again having nothing to do with ending child-killing, but rather asking people with “Biblical ethics” to give money to chastity programs.)
Murder: Here is where the truth is truly tragic. The word MURDER is used one time. Just 1 time.
But not by any of these men. Anderson quoted comedian Bill Mayer’s use of the word: “In April, Bill Maher said the quiet part out loud to a stunned audience: ‘They think it’s murder. And it kind of is. I’m just okay with that.’”
Wow.
None of them had the courage (or integrity? or both?) to say without equivocation, “Abortion is murder,” or “This is a holocaust,” or “The silence of the Catholic Bishops on this demonic evil is treachery against Christ Himself.” (“What you did NOT do for the least of my brothers and sisters, you did NOT do for me.” Jesus Christ)
The authors do not use words that jar; words that cry out for righteousness; words that denounce this slaughter, demand justice, AND denounce those who promote and participate in murder. They have none of “the passion of the prophet” we see in Jeremiah, Ezekial, Isaiah, et al., as they condemned child-killing in ancient Israel.
Moreover, they do not use words that call for sacrifice and courage – the words that produce sacrifice and courage. Instead, they serve up mediocre milquetoast words that produce lukewarm spittle, fit to be spit.
Sacrifice and courage
I’ve been in this heart-wrenching, bloody struggle for babies’ lives for over four decades. I had the divinely ordained privilege of leading the largest peaceful civil disobedience movement in American history. I’ve been on Oprah twice, 60 Minutes twice, been profiled in Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and by the great Matt Labash (who by far did the most honest and human job). I’ve repeatedly been a voice for babies on every major TV network in the Western Hemisphere, and for a good stretch, I was the most frequently covered and quoted pro-life leader in the Western Hemisphere.
But, far more important to the battle to end this slaughter: I’ve had my life threatened repeatedly (the kind of death threat where law enforcement have someone in custody); I have been physically abused by police; I have been run over rough-shod by prosecutors and judges at the local, state, and federal level; I was in grave danger in prison (prison rape is real).
I lost my home and life savings (and frequent flyer miles) to Planned Parenthood and National Organization of Women attorneys; I have been arrested 49 times, and I spent over a year of my life incarcerated in various city and county jails, state and federal prisons, and even house arrest. I was sentenced to federal prison for my part in showing Presidential Candidate Bill Clinton an aborted baby boy – Baby Nathan we named him, murdered at 19 weeks – named thus after the Prophet who rebuked David for murder. Baby Nathan was one foot from Clinton’s evil face – a rebuke to him for his promotion of murder. (That “crime” was worth the “time.”)
And what impact did these “light and momentary afflictions” have? What fruit was born from all the arrests, the images of dead babies, the controversy we created, and us shouting from the housetops, “Abortion is murder”?
The facts speak for themselves. When we launched Operation Rescue in the fall of 1987, child-killing was not in the top ten voters’ issues in America. By Election Day of 1988, after tens of thousands of arrests for peaceful sit-ins (rescues) at abortion mills across the nation, the ABC News exit poll on Election Day showed that child-killing by abortion was the number one issue. “Wisdom is justified by her children.”
After over 75,000 arrests for peaceful civil disobedience by 1994, Clinton signed F.A.C.E., and the back of the rescue movement was broken.
Thankfully, thousands of those militant pro-lifers “went to seed” and threw themselves into politics, resulting quite literally in the overturn of Roe vs. Wade. For those who doubt, read the book Wrath of Angels. Roe would never have fallen without the social tension – the rules and tools of social revolution – embodied in The Rescue Movement and Operation Rescue.
Rules and Tools of Social Revolution
And I can say with 100% certainty as a leader, and as an “insider” who has been “at the table” with the biggest and dullest stars, the pro-life establishment has failed to end child killing because it has refused to use and obey the “five tools and rules” of social revolution. Sadly, many of them have been collaborators with the murderers from the beginning, shown conclusively by their refusal to show murdered babies, and their refusal to call this crime by its proper name: murder.
For those who cringe at me calling the pro-life establishment “collaborators,” I give you this proof. What do you call someone who got into Auschwitz with a camera in 1943, took pictures of Jews being murdered, and the piles of their dead bodies, and then got out to freedom in Canada – with the film intact – and then refused to show the images to the world? You call them a collaborator with the Nazis, because they knowingly hid the truth.
For any brave soul that yearns to be the weapon in the hand of God to end this slaughter of His children, I invite you to watch two short (5 minute) overviews of the victorious social revolutions of the past, and how they apply to the fight for babies’ lives.
Those “Rules and Tools of Social Revolution” are: 1) Incendiary Images; 2) Radical Rhetoric; 3) Aggressive Actions; 4) Serious Sacrifice; and 5) Verifiable Victory.
Number five proves the point: No one can own a slave; all women can vote; no children work and die in textile mills or coal mines; any black person can vote and eat at the lunch counter of their choice.
None of those “verifiable victories” would have been won without the controversy, conflict, and tension produced by incendiary images (tax collectors hung in effigy, black men hung by the KKK, dogs and water cannons, Emmitt Till’s dead body), radical rhetoric (“Tyrants,” “Murderers,” “Slave masters,” “Enemies of Freedom”), aggressive actions (underground railroad, women arrested demanding the right to vote, strikes and sit-ins), and serious sacrifices (loss of reputation, homes, liberty, and loss of life) of each social justice movement.
If we are going to criminalize the murder of unborn babies, we must follow the spirit and example of the heroes of these movements. If we embrace the illusion we can prevail in any other way, we will assuredly lose, and become like England or Germany or France, where there is no political power to end the slaughter of innocents.
If you are in the “pro-life establishment,” and you refuse to embrace the rules and tools that will produce victory for the babies, I have three words for you: Repent or resign. You are reason we have failed. The National Right to Life Committee is the paramount example of this Judas-like treachery and hypocrisy.
Join us in real battle or get out. Stop lying to your donors, who give money for your third-rate battles, and pathetic objectives, simply because you have good copywriters and touch emotionally on “the issue of abortion.” Obey the rules and use the tools that will end this holocaust. If you won’t, you are at best a M.A.S.H unit (such as Crisis Pregnancy Centers) or at worst collaborators with the child-killers (with nice retirement benefits, as National Right to Life advertises).
Inaction is collaboration.
That is why I’m running for President as the Constitution Party Nominee. By being a federal candidate, I can show TV ads – uncensored – on any TV station in America. We are running dozens of ads right now in Florida. Pastor Broden (my VP pick) and I hope to run tens of thousands of TV ads by Election Day in swing states, with the goal of defeating both the arch child-killer Kamala Harris and the “amendments” on the ballot in multiple states. Please, I humbly beg you: help us.
We are The Good Samaritan, in the ditch, covered in blood and mud, fighting to save the babies’ lives who have been left to die.
Will you be a Good Samaritan, and join us? Will you expend the energy and treasure? Will you take the risks demanded of those who want to “love their neighbor as themselves?”
Or will you be like the Priest and the Levite? Will you see the bloodied bodies of babies, hear their cries, see what we are doing, but pass by on the other side?
The Priest and the Levite SINNED by passing by; it was the sin of omission. Maybe they prayed. Maybe they held a fundraiser to “stop ditch beatings.” Maybe they wrote a book or wrote a song. But they sinned by not taking action to save the man’s life.
I invite you to watch our TV ads that are running in multiple states right now. They have run on The View, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert all over Florida. They are running in Missouri and Wisconsin. They will run in every state where we can pay for advertising.
Will you help us, please? Give generously. If your pro-life group wants to help raise money for these ads – even if you are a 501c3 – it is legal. And GOD FORBID you should not fight to save babies lives in an election because you took a “non-profit” bit and bridle in your mouth from a baby killing government.
For the souls that have been strengthened by this message, I close with the words of William Lloyd Garrison and urge you to embrace his strategy as your own:
It is pretended that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by the coarseness of my invective and the precipitancy of my measures. The charge is not true. On this question my influence,—humble as it is,—is felt at this moment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years—not perniciously, but beneficially—not as a curse, but as a blessing; and posterity will bear testimony that I was right.
Amen.
Randall Terry
Candidate for President, 2024
JMJ
READ: US Army admits over 9,000 soldiers were trained with slides calling pro-lifers ‘terrorists’
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