They Said the Same Thing About Slaves

MichaelHey, bud, what do you think that cross on your neck means? What's that stand for for you? Belief. Belief in what? I'm not trying to argue. I'm asking you because I'm interested. Belief in God. Yeah? Which God?

NateJesus Christ. Yeah, amen. The Lord.

MichaelSo are you a Christian man?

NateI'm from Caledonia. Smaller kind of town. Yeah, pretty much. I'm here pretty much all week. Education, I'm a teacher.

MichaelHistory. I'm big on history. I really like it. That's great. Yeah, we need people that are, we're doomed to repeat it if we don't know it, right?

NateYeah, that's a big thing for me. I want to make sure people know. For sure. Know things that happened, know how to do it again, if it was bad or if it was good.

MichaelSo one of the things that we talk about a lot as abortion abolitionists is the fact that in 150 years ago when slavery was popular, chattel slavery, that people used the same arguments to justify owning other people as slaves and justifying letting it continue as this people use today for abortion. Did you ever think about that parallel? yeah

Nateyeah that crossed my mind before

Michaelwhat do you think about you think it's a fair parallel or

Nateyeah yeah I think I think it is I think it there's some connection there

Michaelyeah it's just the idea is my property I'll do what I want with it right it's my body my choice if you don't like slavery don't own one it's the same as you know if you don't like abortion don't get one you know people People are trying to silence us because Christians have morals that want to protect children, and that comes into conflict with a culture that wants to kill them for convenience or for whatever reason. Yeah. So do you agree abortion's always wrong?

NateYeah, I tend to agree. Now, do I think that, I don't think we're ever going to get to a point where it can be completely eliminated. I wish that that could happen, but

Michaelit's just, there's got to be some sort of compromise, and I hate it. I hate it so much. So you think we have to compromise with laws, you mean?

NateLike for life of the mother and things like that, like if the mother is in danger. Now, I don't agree with that necessarily, but I hate that it has to be that way. But I don't think there's any way that can be completely like that. There's got to be some

Michaelexceptions for people. So what if I told you that you never had to kill a baby In order to save a woman's life. That as a matter of fact, if a woman's pregnancy was legitimately life-threatening, which I question if that's really anywhere near as common as people pretend, but that actually murdering the child is more trauma to the woman than, for example, removing the child or delivering the child would be Thank you. So either he has to reach in and murder the child, or he could just take the child out through C-section or potentially even a regular birth. In both cases, the mother stops being pregnant. In one case, she's actually still pregnant with a dead child and still has to deliver or have it removed, right? So you never have to go and murder the baby.

NateYeah, I understand that, but just some people don't see it that way. I don't think there's any way we can change their minds. I really hope.

MichaelYou might be right. You might be right. We can't change their minds. There's some people that think women are sex objects and we should be allowed to kidnap them when they're 10 years old and sell them. And we're not going to change their minds about that, but we still have laws against it. And we'd still prosecute them if we caught them doing it, right? Yeah, of course. So the purpose of laws isn't to try to compromise with the people that would break them. The purpose of laws is to establish for people what righteousness actually looks like. Does that make sense?

NateYeah, I get it. I just wish that it was completely gone, but I just don't think that the current state of this country is possible to fully get rid of it. I could be completely wrong about that, but that's just the way I see it. I don't agree with it at all, but some people, you just can't change their minds about things. Well,

MichaelI tend to agree with you that there's probably some people whose minds won't change. And my goal isn't to make everybody's mind change. My goal, when I'm thinking about legislation, is to simply establish what justice would look like, and then try to have magistrates that execute right justice, and trust that that law will teach people. So there's people out there who would never do certain acts, even though they maybe lust for that act, because the penalty of the law is too great. And so the law actually does help to preserve a society from people doing the most evil they would want to do. Even better, if everybody got saved, hopefully nobody would want an abortion, right? So there's different thoughts, but I'm talking about just how as a Christian I argue for legislation. And that's what I'm talking about right now. Secondly, we would evangelize people, right? You'd like to hope if you gave someone the gospel and they believed Jesus saved their soul, cleansed them from all unrighteousness, you'd like to believe that person would not get an abortion if they did get pregnant, right? Or not murder one of their children at any time. So I hear you. We live in a tough time. But when you read the Bible, you read about times in Israel's past when things got really bad. And then God revived people and he brought in good leaders and good things happened as a result. And so I'm here to trust God with the results and I'll do the work of the one-on-one conversations like this, for example.

NateWell, you can always try to turn it towards people and get them to start believing it's a good thing. And

MichaelI'd like to find out that you get more active as you go through your college career. I'm sure you think you're busy. Let me tell you a quick hint. You'll never think you're not busy, okay? Yeah. Just to warn you. But I'd like to see you start to think about what can you do to be on the right side of this. So in 30, 40 years, 50 years, your grandchildren look at you and say, what's your name? Nate. They say, Grandpa Nate, where were you when our country finally ended abortion, legally

Nateat least? I mean, we're never going to end it. I get that. And you get to

Michaelsay, well, I just stood on the sidelines because I didn't think it was possible. Or you could say, you know what, I started trying to do at least one thing once a week or two things. And I actually was a part of helping change minds or I helped get a guy elected that helped make the change. Or maybe you end up getting elected. I don't know. Right. Right. So think about how you can be a part of abolishing this evil.

NateYeah. And

Michaelnot because you'll be famous, but think about the guys you read about in history. You read about people that made significant changes, and they weren't always the majority.

NateYeah. I should think about doing more. That's

Michaelthe thing I really should think about. All Christians have the same circumstance. We're called to do more than we can do. That's why you need the Holy Spirit to give you strength to even do stuff that you could never do on your own. And you need God to give you a heart that wants to do all these things for people. Well, here, it looks like you got to go. I'm

NateMichael. I could tell. A lot of people have a test or something. I want to give you one of my gospel cards. You already know the gospel, you said, but on the bottom is a couple websites I

Michaelrun. And on both of them, you can find contact information. So my name's Michael. I'm easy to find. And anything you need, man, you just, like, you could email me tomorrow. Ask me questions. Tell me you thought I was mean. Whatever you want. Like, I just like interacting. Okay. All right, bud? It was nice talking to you, man. Yeah, good to meet you.