I’ve worked on collecting signatures for various Right to Life petitions for years. The last few years, many who have worked on these campaigns have noticed how difficult it has been to engage our own prolife churches in this cause. Some pastors feel they don’t want to hurt those who have had abortions in the past, others don’t want to become politically involved or fear losing their tax-exempt status if they do.

The most dramatic rejection I’ve experienced was when we were collecting signatures to end dismemberment abortions in 2019. Most Protestant churches refused to let us in their doors to collect signatures. I am a Protestant. I can’t speak for Catholic Churches. The refusal of access to a large percentage of prolife voters, I believe, resulted in the first time we didn’t have enough signatures to put our proposal on the ballot. We lost that opportunity to appeal to voters, and dismemberment abortions continued.

There should not have been any objection to ending a second-trimester procedure that kills a baby in the womb by barbarically ripping her apart limb by limb.

Now, churches again are confronted with another moral issue in the political arena. As various groups fight to be deemed a “protected class,” children in the womb are still not recognized as having human rights.

Our churches are falling when they are commanded to stand (Ephesians 6:10-20). We can only surmise that the church has forgotten who she is. She is the light of the world (Matthew 5:14).

How many churches even mention sin by name anymore? If they think they will only offend if they do, for whom, then, is redemption if not for sinners (I Timothy 1:15)?

Even people sitting in the pews have forgotten or refuse to acknowledge that it is a sin to kill an innocent child. It is a sin to abandon a girlfriend or a wife who selflessly chooses life for her baby. It is a sin to coerce another person into having an abortion. It is a sin to justify purposely ending a child’s life.

The point isn’t to participate in false “virtue signaling” to condemn others, but rather to share the good news that we don’t have to live in sin but can be redeemed from it and given a life of power over it (Romans 8:1-2).

The true church knows that we are all under condemnation since the fall and that we need redemption (Romans 3:23-24). It’s time to stop hiding and share the good news. If we don’t name what sin is, it doesn’t go away, it only increases.

By standing up for life, we can show the Bride of Christ in her full regalia!

By protecting the vulnerable, we can share in the gifts of hope and joy that we ourselves have received!

Amen and Amen.