Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Roland Warren: The Alternative To Abortion (Moral, Not Political!)

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Roland Warren: The Alternative To Abortion (Moral, Not Political!) · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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defending biblical Christianity.
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No topic, off limits.
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And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
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Hey friends, family and Christ, thank you so much for tuning in.
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We've got a great book to tell you about on this episode.
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And I'm going to bring in Roland Warren.
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He's an accomplished author.
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He serves as president and CEO of CareNet, which we'll talk about.
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He's written several books, his first two books, Bad Dads of the Bible, and also Raising
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Sons of Promise.
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They've helped fathers and mothers apply biblical principles to the journey of parenting.
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It is latest book, which we'll focus on today.
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It's called The Alternative to Abortion, Why We Must Be Pro Abundant Life.
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That guides Christians on a new way forward for the pro-life movement in the aftermath
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of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
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Roland also writes a column for pathos.com.
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And also is the co-host of CareNet's podcast, CareCast, CareNet on Family, Faith, and
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Life.
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Good to see you, brother.
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Thank you so much for your time today.
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Good to be with you.
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Thanks so much for having me on.
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I appreciate it.
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Well, thank you.
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So, before we dive into the book, there's two things I want to talk about.
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First, CareNet, but also your story with your wifey vet.
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Now, what would you like to tackle first, because both of them relate to the book and
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the work you're doing?
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Yeah.
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I mean, they're both interconnected.
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I mean, let's start with the most important, my wife.
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So yes.
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So my wifey vet, we've been married for 43 years and, in a lot of ways, she and I kind
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of what happened when we were college students really has a big hand in even how I think
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about the life issue at this point and certainly in terms of how we try to address it.
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When we were in college, we're both undergrads at Princeton.
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We faced an unplanned pregnancy from a human perspective, obviously.
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And we had a situation where she went into student health services at Princeton.
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She was a sophomore.
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I was a junior and said, look, give me a test and they gave her the test and came back
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and the test was positive.
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And the nurse without missing a beat said, now, of course, you're going to have an abortion.
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And you've said, well, I don't want to have an abortion.
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I want to have my baby.
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And nurse said, my gosh, how are you going to graduate from Princeton with a baby?
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What are you going to do when you graduate?
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She said, well, I want to become a doctor.
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And nurse says, well, gosh, how are you going to become a doctor with a baby?
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So she really encouraged her to have an abortion.
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And I imagine you that came back to the dorm room and we talked about it.
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And we said, we're going to move forward with the plan and get married.
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So we did.
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We got married to Mother Justice of the Peace in Princeton and had four college students
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there.
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She went on to graduate from Princeton with one baby, but with two, you know, it's Ivy
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League.
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You've got to try to overachieve and went on to become a doctor.
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She's been practicing, I guess, close to 30 years now.
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So I just saw in that experience a lot of the elements that I talk about in terms of
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the distinction between being pro-life and being pro-abundant life and how God sort of used
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that to kind of help me see this issue maybe a little differently than other folks might
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at this point.
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So have you done research or are aware of any kind of statistics?
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I wouldn't, I would imagine it would kind of hard to find the number of nurses, doctors,
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counselors that would force or try to get a woman to abort and give up their child rather
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than to have a baby.
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Are you familiar with with the, that must be so out of whack because I'm sure they do that
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often, especially on the college campus.
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Yeah, I don't know if I have any, like I said, Dadia, we've never done a survey asking
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that specific question, although we did do one where we asked women who was the most
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influential in your decision to abort.
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And who did you talk to about your abortion decision?
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And medical professionals were number two, I think in both of those surveys.
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So they certainly have an important role to play.
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They're the person's vulnerable, like my wife was vulnerable in that moment.
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And so definitely reaching medical professionals and having them have that perspective makes
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a big difference, which is one of the reasons why plan parenthood and the other abortion
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providers really spend a lot of time trying to sway the medical community on the abortion
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issue.
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That's right.
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And they do it sometimes.
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Let's be honest.
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Deceptively, they won't show ultrasounds and they'll just assume that a woman wants to
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do something else in her life other than have a baby and be a mom right away, right?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I mean, I think one of the things I talk about when I look at this issue, I talk about
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the fact that the abortion decision is kind of built on this notion that nothing good
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can come from this, that the baby is a net negative.
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Your life will just, nothing good will come.
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And so when you're in that vulnerable situation, it's easy for you to kind of adopt that narrative
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as the truth.
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When in reality, it's just a perspective that really is not informed by anything else other
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than just a perspective.
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And so I think that that certainly has a role to play and I think that women that are
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in that situation, obviously the men that supported, can be very much susceptible to that
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perspective that nothing good can come from this.
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And I can just tell you from my own life, just looking at our story, playing it forward.
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I mean, I love, I have this one picture of my wife holding in our granddaughter who's
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the daughter of the son that we were supposed to abort and the look on her face is just an
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amazing look.
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And the thing is, when she was a 19 year old in that nurse's office with that pregnancy
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test, she couldn't see that picture, but God did.
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So this notion of nothing good can compliment this, right?
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So she has a son from that process, which is, you know, a joy from her life.
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And she also has a granddaughter from that process, but you couldn't see that in that moment
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of God did.
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And that's one of the reasons why we can't put our faith and our hope and our trust in
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the wisdom of man when it comes to something like a issue related to life.
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And we're God has spoken very clearly about this.
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And I think the other thing to, you know, I'd say just in a biblical context is that no
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in the, the scripture says in the beginning was the word, well, and it's the word logos.
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And when you look at that word, the word logos in the Greek, it has three meanings.
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It means message.
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It means reason.
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And it means a message, reason, and plan, those three things, right?
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So in the beginning, there was a message.
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There's a message that comes to you.
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You have this, this pregnancy test, right, that tells you that you're pregnant.
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But there's also a reason for it and there's also a plan for it.
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And so what the evil one tries to do in that moment of uncertainty is to get you to put
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your reason and your plan to the message that God gave me really, and that's where faith
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comes in because, okay, God gave me this message.
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You gave me this positive present pregnancy test.
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Okay.
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There's a reason for it.
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God knows it even if I don't and there's a plan for it.
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God knows it even if I don't and that's where the faith in God and the trust is here.
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And that's one of the reasons why the work that Karen does across the country with our
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1200 plus pregnancy centers has really what, you know, pregnant, the folks that are
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about client advocates at pregnancy centers are trying to help women do, they're trying
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to help them say, well, hold on a second, you have the message, yes, you have the positive
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pregnancy test.
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But let's trust in God that he has a reason and a plan and a plan and plan for this.
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And of course, what Satan seeks to do is to get you put your own reason, your own plan,
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either from the world or from him or from your own, from our own sinful desires in place
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of what God has, has stored for us.
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And I could just say, you know, it's absolutely a blessing that we made that decision.
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Oh, praise God.
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And I think of, you know, the father of lies, kill, steal and destroy.
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That's his modus operandi.
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But I want to talk to you a little bit by the way, I don't know that I gave the website
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care-net.org.
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It's care-net.org.
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We are going to dive into the book, Roland, but talk to us about church engagement.
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I think that's so hugely important to get churches because even in the church,
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just to be honest, with the declining biblical worldview in America, even among so-called
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or professing Christians, church engagement, trying to get churches and Christians and even
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some pastors to be committed pro-lifers.
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Explain that place, how you work with churches.
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Yeah, no, that's a key part of this.
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I mean, you look at James 127 talks about religion that God, our father finds his pure
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and fault was to care for the orphans and widows and their distress and to keep you
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away from yourself from being polluted by the world.
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Well, when that was written, what was an orphan?
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What was a child or a father?
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And what did it also mean?
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What was a widow?
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It was typically a mother without a husband.
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And the church had a very specific call to that very vulnerable demographic from their
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Old Testament all the way to the New Testament that a measure of righteousness is how we
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step into those situations.
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So someone facing a pregnancy center today, if you think about it, it's essentially
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that husband and father being dead as it was on ancient times when that was written.
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It's that husband and proverbial father, proverbial husband and father, if you will,
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are saying to the mother and the child, you're dead to me.
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And the church is a very specific role to step into that vulnerable situation and there
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to try to revive that proverbarily dead husband and father, but also to care for that orphan
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and widow, which we call single mothers and kids in that context.
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So the church is a very, very important role in this.
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And I found that that's one of the key things that we have to do.
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We have to get the church more involved.
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And that's why this pro-abundant life perspective is actually designed to do just that.
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Well, I want you to expand on that.
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So I was just looking at that on your web, Senator, who we are.
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And I could read it, but I really like what you're doing there.
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What is the difference between pro-life and pro-abundant life?
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Yeah, let's start with the question is what does it mean to be pro-life?
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I mean, you think about pro-life and you take the turn and you say, okay, you've got
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people that say their pro-life and I always ask people, what do you mean by that?
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Because you can have one person that says, I'm pro-life and that's because I believe
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in a model day and I believe that the circumstances of a child's conception and birth should not
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determine its humanity and worth.
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So whether you're conceived in love or lust or plan or unplanned or you have a fetal
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abnormality, it doesn't, it doesn't matter because you're creating in the image of God
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and worthy of protection.
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It's intrinsic that you have value and worth.
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That's one person.
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Then you could say have another person who says, well, I'm pro-life because I'm for a 15-week
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man.
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So I'm going to limit abortion.
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Well, how many abortions happen before 15 weeks?
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Well, 96% of abortions happen before 15 weeks.
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So what about you?
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Well, I'm 24 or 20 week man.
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Well, how many abortions happen before 20 weeks?
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Well, it's 96%.
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I'm, excuse me, 99%.
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So, okay, so you're against 3% and the other person's against 1%, I like, so what you
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see is that the term pro-life is actually on a spectrum.
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It's on a spectrum.
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It's not an absolute because it was given to a political process.
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This is part of what I feel like that God has kind of put on my heart.
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See, we shouldn't be surprised that we have this dilemma because we've taken the issue
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primarily and we've given it to a political process to define what it means for life.
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I mean, that's the reality of it.
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It should be defined in the church, but we've allowed the politics to define it.
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And if you think about the political process, the role of politics is essentially to take
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two people that have convictions of some sort, like your environment, I'm a big lumber,
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whatever it may be, right?
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And we get together and we compromise some of our convictions in order to reach a compromise.
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That's the political process.
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That's the nature of it.
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Now, that's fine if you're talking about taxes or roads or things of that nature that
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can be split.
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But if you have an issue that you can't split, like you can't split the baby and you
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give it to a political process, well, the political process only has one tool and it's
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going to do it.
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And a great illustration I use with folks to really kind of help see that is when Solomon
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had that dilemma where he had two women and one baby.
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And the one woman says, well, you know, this is my baby, the other one says, this is my
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baby.
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Okay.
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And Solomon's sitting in this role.
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He's sitting, frankly, in a political position as a king and he says, oh, easy peasy.
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Where's my sword?
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We'll just split this in half.
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It'll be a beautiful deal.
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So I'll just split it in half.
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You'll get some and she'll get some.
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And what happens?
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The woman who is advocating for life that wants to protect the vulnerable, justice and
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mercy and righteousness, that woman says, no, no, let her have the baby.
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In other words, she's going to sacrifice some of her life, her hopes and her aspirations.
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She's going to sacrifice that in order to protect the vulnerable.
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I call that woman the proabundant life woman and the prochoice woman said, well, I'm fine.
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I'm fine with dead babies, splitted away.
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And what does Solomon do in that moment?
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This is really where the wisdom comes in is that he has other roles that he plays.
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He's an archetype for Christ, if you will.
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So he's got the king, yep, okay, but he's also a prophet and a priest.
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So the wisdom is knowing which one of those roles to use when you adjudicate a situation.
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So when you're adjudicating a situation that requires justice and mercy and righteousness,
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right?
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And if all you have is the sword, then you've got a problem.
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So when we take an issue like the life issue and we give it to the politics, see the other
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sides happy with it being the politics, why, because they're happy with dead babies, right?
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But when you're advocating for justice and mercy and righteousness, then you want to make
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sure, no, no, no, we need, we need to not have just the politics lead on this.
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There's a role for the politics, right?
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But it should not lead.
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And so what I tell people the time, the difference between being pro life and being proabundant
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life is that pro life in terms of how the term is currently kind of administered in the
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public square is to lead you to the polls.
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The proabundant life perspective is to lead you to the cross.
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And you're supposed to go from the cross to the polls, in other words, to take the perspective
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of the cross to the polls and we have it the opposite.
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We have people taking the perspective of the polls like, well, we can split life this
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side and the other.
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We can negotiate and compromise.
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And they're taking that perspective to the church and saying, well, this is what politically
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is possible.
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When the church is supposed to be speaking, the other way, you know, this is what is morally
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right.
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And so we get the politicians to align with that and we haven't done that.
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And I'd say the last things, we, you know, for in a lot of ways we've stopped making the
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moral argument around the life issue in the public square, you tend to make the political
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argument in the public square, not the moral argument.
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Now there's a role for the political argument, but it becomes below the moral.
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So, so if you think about something like the abortion pills recently some research came
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out that said that the abortion pill was hurting, hurting women more than what was what
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they thought it would, for example, was 0.5% of women would have some serious adverse reaction
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to the abortion pill and they looked at some insurance data of like almost over 900,000
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women in terms of their claims and they found that it was 11%, so that's 22 times more
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than what, you know, was prescribed and what people thought.
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Now you have a couple different ways that you can kind of get at that.
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And you can say, well, we want to go to the government and say, look, we, we, the abortion
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pill is hurting, hurting women, so we need to stop it.
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But the biggest problem with the abortion pill is not that it's hurting women.
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It's important.
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The biggest problem with the abortion pill is that it's killing children.
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So if you're advocating and you don't start with a moral argument that it's actually
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killing children, then they could actually give us a better abortion pill that hurts women
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less, but still kills babies just as much as before.
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Yes.
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That's what I was talking about.
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The wisdom there of knowing how to navigate that and to start with the moral argument with
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Jesus always did.
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Amen.
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You didn't start with the public.
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You always start with it.
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Amen.
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Um, Roland, there's a lot of people in our audience watching or listening, shouting amen
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right now that are really, it's really refreshing to hear this perspective because we, I'll
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put myself in that camp, we are tired of the political ping pong when compromise almost
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always means.
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As you said, dead babies just at a maybe less of a percent, but we've got to take a brief
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pause.
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Friends, the book is on Amazon, the alternative to abortion.
16:13
We're speaking with Roland Warren.
16:15
We'll be right back on World View Matters.
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Today's show is brought to you by Harbinger's Daily, world news, biblically understood.
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Stay informed at harbingerstaley.com.
16:35
So, um, Roland, since the abortion pill, that might be the biggest reason that today,
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I don't think a lot of people realize there are more abortions than when Roe v. Wade was
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the so-called law of the land and a lot of people going, well, okay, is there anything
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else other than the abortion pill because that's, that's just evil.
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That's wicket.
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That's, that's the Satan finding new ways to do evil and we're implementing it, right?
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State by state.
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Yeah, no, it is.
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It's the leading cause of abortion today, about 63% of abortions happen via the abortion
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pill.
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And now, by the way, this is why going back to the political narrative just for a second,
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the abortion pill is supposed to be used before 10 weeks.
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So a 15-week ban, which you hear advocacy groups and politicians talking about, well,
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most abortions are happening for 10 weeks.
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So, so 15 weeks, I mean, it really doesn't mean anything.
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So yeah, it's, it's a real issue.
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So I think a lot of, from my perspective, we've got to have more focus, in my view, on,
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on, again, you got to try to focus on stopping the supply, get that.
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But the most successful efforts will be when you stop the demand.
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So you got to ask yourself the question, why do women want to have abortions to begin
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with?
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And then you have to solve that.
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And if you solve that issue, guess what?
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Even if the demand is ubiquitous and available, it'll be unthinkable because you've changed
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the heart of someone who could seek an abortion.
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And that's why even when Roe was the law of the land, people asked me all the time, like,
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when Roe is going to be overturned, and I said, you'll get it.
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Roe gets overturned every single day.
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My wife overturned Roe.
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She was, Roe was perfectly legal, but was unthinkable because of a perspective.
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And really, I, I, now I look at that perspective, and I say it's because of the proabundant
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life perspective.
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So let me just explain that quickly.
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And again, it's some great detail on the book.
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But it's based on John Tintin.
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For Christ said, I came that you might have life and then have that life abundantly, right?
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This is Jesus' wise statement.
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And so when you look at that passage in the Greek, it's clear, he's talking about two types
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of life.
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He's talking about physical life, where we get the word, that we get the biology, like
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the iOS, BIAS, if you will.
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And he's also talking about spiritual life, like a unique type of spiritual life that
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only comes from a relationship with God.
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So he's essentially saying, I came to link your BIAS to my Zoey that you might be heartbeats
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that are heaven bound, heartbeats that are heaven bound.
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Now, if you think about it, you say, well, so Jesus was saying he wasn't pro-life.
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Jesus was saying he was pro-abundant life, right?
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He's solving for abundant life, heartbeats that are heaven bound, right?
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And so when you look at that, you say, well, how do we bring heaven to earth?
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Like, how do you do that?
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And there are ways that Christ, that this happens, if you will, that Christ, articulate, or
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that Christ is a model of, or Christ's experiences, a model of.
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And the first piece of that is God's design for family.
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And what I'm talking about is an activity narrative, like the birth of Christ.
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So here you have Mary facing an unplanned pregnancy from a human perspective.
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She has hopes, dreams, aspirations for her life that do not include a child at that time
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and in that way, Angel comes to her and says, you will bear it, you will concede and bear
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a child, right?
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So you need to birth to a child.
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And Mary is facing all this uncertainty, right?
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Like, well, how am I going to tell Joseph?
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What's my family going to say?
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I'm going to take care of this to all of this uncertainty.
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And what is she doing at that moment?
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She doesn't focus on the uncertainty, but she doesn't know she focuses on the certainty
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of what she does.
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There's the life growing inside of her.
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And it's not a life worth sacrificing, but a life worth sacrificing before.
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And she said, what let it be on to me as you've said.
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And so what does God do?
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So what does God do, right?
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So a lot of people say, well, gosh, I got it.
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So we're supposed to help the proverbial Mary's and save the proverbial Jesus.
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But what did God do?
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I mean, what did God do to make sure that Mary's unplanned pregnancy wasn't the Christ's
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pregnancy?
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It's an angel to Joseph.
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And Joseph faced the same dilemma as any abortion-minded man, holds for his life, dreams for his life,
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did not include a child at this time, and in this way, and he was blown away, put her away
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quietly.
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Because back then, the way you did a cultural abortion, if you will, was you put the woman
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and the baby away.
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So Joseph was faced with the same dilemma as any abortion-minded man today, right?
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And what does the angel do?
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It comes to Joseph and says two things.
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Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, very first thing, right?
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Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.
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That's the first thing that he said.
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So in other words, Joseph was called in that moment to be a husband to marry and then
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a father to the child growing inside of her.
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So what you see in terms of God's response to an unplanned pregnancy from a human perspective,
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what did he do?
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He built a family.
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He built a family.
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He built a family.
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So you see the sanctity of marriage and family and the sanctity of life.
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Now, why is this story so important to me?
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It's the same situation that happened with my wife.
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The way my wife got pregnant, very different from Mary, obviously.
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But the practical circumstance is exactly the same.
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She had to tap into her inner Mary in order to do what she did.
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Well, guess what?
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God called me also to tap into my inner Joseph.
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Now when I looked at what's happening in the pro-life movement, you don't see that.
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You see us working on love them both, help the woman save the baby.
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But that's not the design that you see in the first chapter, the first book of the New
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Testament.
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I'll be creating families.
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And here's why that's really important.
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87% of the women that have abortions are unmarried.
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So explaining to me how you're going to solve the abortion issue without also addressing
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the marriage issue.
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And so what you see in the first chapter of the first book of the New Testament is this
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notion that brings two things together.
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The sanctity of marriage and family is God designed and the sanctity of life.
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So I never talk about the sanctity of life without the sanctity of marriage and family
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because God, He linked those two together.
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And in the birth of Christ, you see those two things coming together.
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And when a woman has a guy who says, I'll be a husband to you and a father to the child
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growing inside of her.
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Guess what?
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She's more likely to do.
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You have that child.
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What?
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Life.
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Be us.
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So that's the first pillar.
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If you will, if the roots of pro-abundant life roof and you need pillars to hold it up,
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that first pillar is God's design for family.
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Boy, our country would look a whole lot different if more people understood God, life,
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marriage, family, and civil government, and everything else.
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But I want to ask you, bring it back to the moral and the church, how can the church
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lead?
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Because the abortion issue, some pastors won't talk about it.
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I know that's part of the solution, just give them a spine.
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But I'm just being honest.
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What are your thoughts?
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Well, again, yes, why won't pastors talk about it?
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Why?
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Because it's been framed as a political issue and it's a political pastor, right?
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It's engaged there.
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Like they have a long, exactly.
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So what's happened is they taken this, and we helped.
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We helped them take a moral issue and make it political.
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So when we take a moral issue and make it political, it sidelines the church.
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And they take a moral issue and make it political.
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That energizes their base.
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So the way that you have to start talking about this issue, in a way that actually focuses
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the church.
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What's the role of the church?
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The role of the church is what?
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To live out the great commandment, to fulfill the great commission.
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That's the role of the church, right?
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So you have to see the life issue.
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If a pastor is going to be engaged, he's got to see the life issue in that.
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And you do.
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If you look at the great commandment, it's about loving your neighbor.
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Well, guess what?
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It's about in the womb.
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It's her neighbor.
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It's her near one.
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And so abortion is a violation of the great commandment.
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And also, we're called to what?
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Make disciples, right?
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Matthew 28, 19.
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Of who are neighbors?
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Well, who's your first discipleship community?
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Your children.
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Killing one of your children is not an active discipleship.
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So when you start talking about the abortion issue in the context of the call of the church,
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which is living out the great commandment to fulfill the great commission, then pastors
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are engaged.
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So it's like the movie The Matrix.
24:33
You've got to unplug and start to see the issue properly.
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I'll give you another quick illustration that makes this point.
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I talked to a group of pastors some years ago, and I asked him a question.
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It said, how many of you became pastors because you wanted to overturn Robeway?
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These pro-life pastors, nobody raised their hand.
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I said, how many of you became pastors because you wanted to end abortion in your lifetime?
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Nobody raised their hand.
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Then I said, how many of you became pastors because you felt called to preach the gospel
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of Jesus Christ and to make disciples for Jesus Christ every hand shot up?
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What does that tell you?
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The pastors don't see the issue primarily as a great commandment, great commission issue.
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It's something that they care about, but it's not interwoven into the fiber of the church.
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That's why I say, when you talk about it from a pro-abundant life perspective, that gets
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you to basically exchange the podium, which is kind of pro-life narrative for the pulpit.
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Because only the pulpit has this notion of why Jesus came, that we might have life
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and have that life abundantly.
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Only the pulpit has the notion of living out the great commandment to fulfill the great commission.
25:38
Only the pulpit has that perspective of seeing water for the thirsty, food for the hungry,
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clothes for the naked, home for the homeless, through the lens of good works that lead to
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discipleship, and then you need to include what compassion for the pregnant, which is
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a good work that leads to discipleship.
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Only the pulpit has God's design for family, only the pulpit.
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Not the podium, but only the pulpit, rather, not the pulpit, but it doesn't have God's design
26:06
for family.
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They're talking about all kinds of families, but the pulpit is talking about a very specific
26:11
kind of family, and that specific kind of family is the kind of family that makes abortion
26:16
as possible, and I'm living proof of that.
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That's how you start to get pastors more engaged.
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You've got to go back to the Word of God.
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First chapter, the first book of the New Testament, the Nativity Narrative of the birth of Christ.
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Last chapter, the first book of the New Testament, what, the great commission.
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Go and make disciples.
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That's the rule of the church.
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That's the call of the church.
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When you frame the life issue in that context, any pastor worth his name, Deb, will be
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engaged.
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I think there are enough of them out there, but we've got to frame it in a way that really
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calls them to what they're called to do, which is to make disciples for Jesus Christ in
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any context that you see a person coming in.
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Amen.
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Brother, that's a great way to wrap this up.
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I saw it.
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It's time, but I want to mention the book is on Amazon, the alternative to abortion.
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Can they also get it at the Carenet website?
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No, it's on Amazon, but they should come to Carenet anyway to learn more about what we
27:10
do.
27:11
So I'd love for them to do that, but yeah, you can just get them on Amazon.
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There's a digital version as well, so yeah, I'd love for folks to engage and transition
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from being pro-life to being pro-abundant life in the context that Jesus talked about
27:26
it in John Tenton.
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I love that pro-abundant life.
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So it's care-net.org, and every chapter of the book, by the way, concludes with practical
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steps that believers in Christ can take to turn their passion into pro-abundant life
27:41
actions.
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So, Roland, Warren, God bless you, brother.
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So great to connect with you.
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Thanks for your time.
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Well, thanks for your interest.
27:47
I appreciate it.
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Well, friends, thank you for watching and sharing.
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God bless you, and as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.