Has Pope Francis lost his mind? A lot of Catholics and Protestants think so when it comes to the issue of abortion. I’ll explain why in just a minute. Welcome to the Case for Life podcast. It’s a delight to have you with us. We aim to help you think clearly on pro-life issues, and we’ll do our best to do that in today’s session as well. Well, last week, Pope Francis dropped a bombshell. He appeared to be attacking both presidential candidates, but in reality, I’m going to argue he was really, in the practical way, only attacking one, Donald Trump. And here’s why. What the Pope said was this. Both candidates, he said, were equally anti-life. Donald Trump was anti-life because he wants to shut the U.S. border and say no to illegal immigration. And Kamala Harris is anti-life because she supports abortion. Now, some people might hear that and go, well, he’s being equal. He’s being fair. That’s being even-handed. That’s being thoughtful, statesmanlike. Actually, it’s not. Here’s the mistake the Pope made. He lumped illegal immigration and abortion together in one stew of moral equivalency, when in fact these issues are not morally equivalent. And you don’t have to take it from a Protestant like myself to see the problem here. Catholic tradition itself makes a very helpful distinction the Pope should have paid attention to. In Catholic moral theology, there is a distinction made between intrinsic evils and what we call prudential ones or contingent ones. And here’s the difference between the 2. An intrinsic evil is something that is wrong on the face of it, and it must never be justified or never permitted. Things like rape, murder, spousal abuse, torturing toddlers for fun would be examples of intrinsic evils. They’re wrong on the face of it. Contingent evils, on the other hand, are those things that might be wrong, but not necessarily so. We have to look at the context. There’s a contingency that’s in play. For example, take the issue of war. War can be wrong if it’s unjust, if we’re doing it to get property or we’re doing it to get resources from another nation. But it can be right if we’re defending our own nation against a tyrant or defending innocent people against those that want to kill them. Like Hitler wanting to kill Jews or Hitler trying to bomb central London during the Blitz, it was right for us to wage war to oppose him. So war is not an intrinsic evil, it’s a contingent evil. But something like abortion that involves the intentional killing of an innocent human being does not involve a contingent evil. It involves an intrinsic evil. And the Pope failed to make that distinction. So what that does practically is it leaves his followers confused as to how they ought to vote. And that’s exactly what happened, because after he got done equating illegal immigration with abortion, he concluded by saying, well, here’s the solution. Vote your conscience. Well, what does that mean? He just confused the 2 issues. People aren’t going to know what the right thing to do is. The right thing to do is to recognize that an intrinsic evil is in a separate category from a contingent one. You can’t put them together. And this has caused a lot of confusion in voting, especially among Democrats who happen to be Catholic, because what they tend to do is they listen to what the Pope said and they think to themselves, all right, what does it mean to be pro-life? The Republicans are pro-life on one issue, abortion. The Democrats are pro-life, however, on 5 issues. They’re against war, more or less. They’re against capital punishment. They want social programs for the poor. They want to keep our borders open. They want to help refugees more than Republicans do. That’s debatable, but that’s the view. And so they look at it and say, well, we’ve got a five to one scoreboard here. The Democrats are good on 5 pro-life issues. They’re only bad on one abortion. Therefore, I’ll vote for the guys that are leading. They have 5 issues in their favor and I’ll vote against the people who have only one. The problem, of course, as we’ve just stated, is those issues are not all morally equivalent. And this is a problem that has gone back in Catholic circles, really to the late-nineties, when a cardinal by the name of Joseph Bernadine came along and said, look, to be truly pro-life, we have to have a seamless garment. There must be pro-life principles applied equally across a majority of issues, not just abortion, but war, capital punishment, how we spend our tax dollars on social programs, yada, yada, yada, and the list goes on and on. And he said to be truly pro-life, you have to be pro-life on all of those issues. He morally equated all of those issues together, ignoring his own faith tradition’s helpful distinction between contingent and intrinsic evils. And that’s the mistake the Pope made here, and it’s the mistake you hear every election cycle. I hear evangelicals do the same thing. They’ll say, well, you know, to really be pro-life, we need to be in favor of taxation that will increase spending on social programs so the poor are helped. And you can’t be pro-life if you oppose that. This is the kind of thinking we sometimes get out of Christianity today, get out of people like Russell Moore and others who want to say that pro-life must mean whole life. And this is the mistake of equating these issues all together when in fact they are separate categories. You can’t just lump all these issues together into one stew and think, okay, I know how to settle the issue here. It doesn’t work that way. So the Pope blundered badly on that. Now, lest you think I’m just picking on Catholics in this particular podcast, I want to draw your attention to a response we got to some ads we’re running in Florida against Amendment 4 down there. Amendment 4 is an amendment that if approved by the voters, and they need a sixty percent approval threshold to get this passed, But if it is passed by the voters, it will strike down all pro-life laws in Florida and write abortion rights into the state constitution where it will be immune from the state legislature. In other words, it will become a state constitutional right to have an abortion. Parental consent laws will be struck down. Informed consent laws will be struck down. 6week bans will be struck down. In other words, any laws currently in place protecting the unborn will be done away with in favor of a state constitutional right to abort. Well, we’ve posted our videos on our websites about how we’re opposing this and why we oppose them. And by the way, we have come up with a number of videos you can go view. If you go to apologetics.org backslash pro-life, you can actually view these. And we’ll put that link in the show notes for you. But what I want you to know is this. This pastor, who’s an evangelical, responded to one of our videos. And I want to read you what he said because it’s instructive and indicative of where a lot of our Christian leaders are today. He writes the following. He says, I agree with that, by the way, that we should help these women. He goes on to say It’s not by passing laws, but by getting involved in the lives of women in crisis pregnancies. I’m sure there is a center near you that helps women and you should get involved with them.” I agree with that, by the way, that we should help these women. He goes on to say, There are schools you can get involved in. If only more believers were actively doing something in their communities with teens and women that need their help, then we would see the rate of abortion drop. Passing laws is not the solution. Loving women is the solution. I hope you all already know this and are already doing something about it. Please don’t read me wrong. I am pro-life. I am opposed to the legalization of abortion. But you must know that your vote is not going to solve the problem. We must love women. That was the essence of his argument. Now, let’s look at this, and I just want to say a few things about it. first of all, notice he sets up a false dichotomy, as if we only have the choice of loving women or passing laws protecting the unborn. Why can’t we do both? We should do both. And by the way, pro-lifers are doing both. Pro-life pregnancy centers outnumber abortion clinics well over 2 to one nationwide, and they do in the state of Florida as well. So this pastor hasn’t done his research. But there’s another problem with what he’s arguing. It’s not only that he sets up a false dichotomy, he gets the goal of the pro-life movement wrong. Our primary objective is not merely to reduce abortion, though we certainly rejoice whenever that happens. The primary objective of the pro-life movement is legal protection for unborn humans. Until that is achieved, we have not won the day. I mean, imagine this. Suppose there’s a society out there that reduces the lynching of African-Americans, but still leaves it legal for you to lynch them. Would that be a good society? No, it would be a deeply immoral society. And this pastor doesn’t seem to grasp that. The issue here is not merely reducing evil, it’s making it illegal so the people that are being unjustly treated are protected in law, that they’re treated more justly. He overlooks that completely and thinks that, well, if we just love people, that’s enough, that’ll reduce the rate. But it’s not enough. We want to do both. We want to love women and we want to protect the unborn in law. And there’s no reason pro-lifers should think they have to choose one over the other. Now, if that weren’t bad enough, we had another Protestant pastor weigh in on one of our ads. And here’s what he had to say. He said, after looking into what the Bible says on the issue of abortion, I am still pro-life, but I don’t regard abortion as the number one issue of how I vote because I don’t think it’s number one for God. Okay, this is really interesting. He’s claiming here that his view is more biblical. Is it? Well, let’s go right to the Scripture instead of guessing here. If you look at Scripture, what you’re going to find right away is that the shedding of innocent blood represents a preeminent moral crisis in the Bible. It is not one issue among many. It is, in fact, a particularly egregious moral wrong. I’ll give you some examples here. In Psalm one Oh 6, 37 to 41, we read, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. They poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. And the land was polluted with blood. Thus they became unclean by their acts and they played the whore with their deeds. Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people and he abhorred his heritage. catch that word, abhorred them for what they were doing. He gave them into the hand of other nations so that those who hated them ruled over them. In Isaiah chapter one, verses 15 to 16, we read this. God says to his people, when you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Boy, that’s pretty strong. In the 59th chapter of Isaiah, verse 7, we read this. The Lord again says, the evil of your deeds from before my eyes, cease to do evil.” In the 59th chapter of Isaiah, verse 7, we read this, the Lord again says, Their feet run to do evil. And they are swift to shed innocent blood. By the way, what do you call these amendments that are going up in states where it’s a constitutional right for parents to intentionally kill their own offspring? And some of these states are funding women to come from other states to get free abortion. States like California will fly you to the state, pay for your abortion, put you up in a hotel and fly you home. No cost. If that’s not feet rushing to do evil, please tell me what is. That’s pretty clear, I think. The verse goes on. The Lord says, Now that raises only one question I want to put to this pastor. blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, desolation, and destruction are in their highways. Now, that raises only one question I want to put to this pastor. is abortion the shedding of innocent blood? And that question comes down to this, are the unborn members of the human family? Because if they are, these scriptures against shedding innocent blood that we just looked at apply to the intentional killing of the unborn and as they would every other image maker out there, regardless of their size of development. And we already know from things we’ve covered on this podcast that from the earliest stages of development, the science of embryology is clear that the unborn are not mere parts of another human being. Rather, they are distinct, living, and whole beings. members of the human family. Sure, they have yet to grow and mature, but what they are is a human being from the earliest stages of development. We know this, and we’ve got ample evidence to prove this. In fact, most secular critics now have abandoned trying to argue that the unborn are not human because they realize that’s just a dead-end street. They’re now trying to argue for personhood. They’ll say, well, the unborn are biologically human, but they’re not persons. But what they never do, and I’ve looked through their literature, they never tell us why whatever trait they pick out as being decisive for being a person is value giving in the first place. They’ll assert things like, well, the unborn are human, but they’re not persons and only persons have a right to life. And to be a person, you have to have self-awareness. You have to value your existence over time or you have to be able to feel pain or whatever other trait they arbitrarily pick out. But they don’t tell us why that trait is decisive in the first place. They’ve got to argue for that. They never do. Now, it’s certainly true that there are differences between you, the embryo, and you, the adult. But those differences are not good reasons for saying we could kill you then, but not now. For example, I think this pastor would agree that body size should not determine value. True, as an embryo or fetus, you were smaller than you are today as a youth or an adult. However, since when does body size, as a matter of principle, determine value? We don’t think a seven foot 2 basketball star is more human and valuable than those of us that are a foot shorter. Body size cannot bestow value. What about your level of development? Yes, you were less developed as an embryo. But since when does that matter? I mean, 2yearold girls are less developed than 21yearold young women. 2yearold girls do not have a developed reproductive system yet. Are they less human and valuable than those who do? Oh, by the way, development doesn’t end at birth. We keep on developing well into our midlife years. So to say that development is what gives us our value is going to result in savage inequality because there will always be people with more of a given trait than others have. And if we’re going to argue that that trait that they pick out as being decisive is what gives us our right to life, then it’s going to follow that those with more of that trait have a greater right to life than those with less. Well, that just results in savage inequality. That’s barbarian. What about your environment, where you’re located? You were in the womb, now you’re out. But how does where you are determine what you are? I mean, if you stop to think about it, When you got up this morning and grabbed a cup of coffee in the kitchen, you probably journeyed about 70 feet from your bedroom to the coffee pot. Did that change in location change the essential you? Well, of course not. If you weren’t already human and valuable, walking 70 steps to the kitchen isn’t going to fix that. What about your degree of dependency? Sure, you depended on your mother for survival, but since when does that matter? Always ask the question, why do these traits matter in the first place? Make your critics answer that question. How does my dependency on another human being mean that I can be intentionally killed? Think about conjoined twins like the Henschel twins. These are 2 young women who are now in their early thirties and the press has followed them since infancy. And you look at a picture of these 2 young women, you see one set of legs and then from the waist up, 2 body trunks, 2 shoulders, 2 heads. They share vital organs. They share a circulatory system. You cannot separate them without killing both of them. They depend on each other. But if it’s true that dependency on another human being means we can intentionally kill you, Neither one of those girls has a right to life, and both can be killed. You can remember these differences by using the acronym we’ve talked about before. SLED. Size, Level of Development, Environment, Degree of Dependency. Well, now that we know that the unborn are human from the science of embryology, and we know that there’s no essential difference between you, the embryo, and you, the adult, that would justify killing you, let’s apply what this pastor is saying directly to what we know from Scripture. Well, here’s what we know from Scripture. All humans have value because they bear the image of God. Genesis one teaches this in the old covenant. James 3 teaches it in the new. Because humans bear the image of God, the shedding of innocent blood is strictly forbidden. And we just read scriptures that pointed that out. But here’s a few more. Proverbs 6, 16 to 19 says this. Exodus 23, 7 says this. Matthew 5 teaches this in the new covenant. So both old and new covenants, again, testify that we are not to shed innocent blood. That leaves us with one question. Are the unborn human? Yes, they are. We already know that from science and from the fact there’s no essential difference between you, the embryo and you, the adult that would justify either changing what you are or justify killing you. So from that, we know that Scripture forbids abortion because it forbids shedding innocent blood of any image bearer. And if the unborn are human, they too are image bearers and they too should not be killed. Now, the question I would put to this pastor is this. If abortion isn’t the number one issue that concerns God, what is? I mean, what would it be? What issue is worse than a million human beings in our nation each year being intentionally butchered with state sanction? Now, he might reply, well, racism’s bad. I agree it is. But our state doesn’t legalize and sanction it. And it doesn’t promote it overseas with tax dollars the way it does with abortion. They might say, well, you know, sex trafficking is bad. I agree. It’s awful. It’s an assault on image bearers, and Christians should be concerned about that. However, again, our state does not legalize it. It prohibits it, and it certainly doesn’t promote it with tax dollars. Every airport you walk through in the country today has very helpful announcements going about every 3 minutes that say, if you see anything suspicious, Let the authorities know because our airport is committed to doing what it can to stop trafficking. And that’s a good thing. I’m glad those announcements are there. That’s a very helpful thing. But again, it points to the fact that our culture doesn’t legalize trafficking the way it does abortion. Our culture is rushing to promote the evil of abortion, and I’d like this pastor to explain to me what issue could possibly be worse than the state-sanctioned intentional killing of over a million innocent human beings a year. It seems to me he needs to answer that, and he hasn’t done that at all. So this is something that Christians get confused on whether it’s Pope Francis’ claim that all issues are morally equivalent, or this pastor’s claim that abortion isn’t that big a deal. I beg to differ. It is a big deal. It’s a very big deal. And yes, as the other pastor pointed out, we should love women. But it’s not either or. We can love women and care for them and work to legally protect unborn humans at the same time. How about this? Let’s do both. Is it loving our unborn neighbor to stand by idly while he’s legally butchered? I don’t think so. And I don’t think scripture says so. Let’s do our best to love women and and love their unborn offspring at the same time. And the best way to love their unborn offspring is to protect them in law. Thanks for joining us today. If you haven’t already visited our social media sites, please do so. I want to remind you that we are offering my book, The Case for Life, second edition, that covers all of these things we just talked about today in great detail. If you want even more training, you can sign up for our Pro-Life Apologetics training course that we have available at scottklusendorf.com. Both the book and the training course will help you sharpen your pro-life thinking skills. I hope you’ll take advantage of both. Until next time, thanks for joining us.