Abortion Controversy, The

The Sexual Revolution: Insights from History

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Steve Wohlberg (Host)

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Series Code: TAC

Program Code: TAC000009A


00:08 Sex, it is a wonderful gift from God,
00:13 but it can become a terrible curse
00:15 if it's not entered into responsibly.
00:18 That's our topic next on the Abortion Controversy.
00:50 Thank you for tuning in to part 9
00:52 of the 13 part series call the Abortion Controversy.
00:55 I'm Pastor Steve Wohlberg, I've been interviewing
00:57 Dianne Wagner and Antionette Duck.
01:00 They work together for a ministry called Mafgia
01:05 that is focusing on helping women and shedding light
01:08 into the abortion and tragedy.
01:11 We've been dealing with a lot of subjects.
01:13 We've been talking about women, babies, life and death.
01:17 And our focus in this segment is "The Sexual Revolution,
01:21 Insights from History."
01:24 So, ladies, it's your time again to get us started.
01:29 We've talked about this before
01:31 so we got a lot of ground to cover,
01:33 couple of thousands of years.
01:34 That's right.
01:36 So let's get started.
01:37 Well, you know, abortion is certainly
01:39 been a part of history and so what I'll start with,
01:42 I guess it's just a breakdown first of ancient history.
01:45 Okay.
01:47 The first documented evidence
01:49 of abortion is 1550 B.C. in Egypt.
01:53 The Ebers Papyrus talked about types of abortion.
01:57 Now, it was 11th century B.C.
01:59 that the Assyrian Code Assura, yeah, Code of Assura.
02:04 It was the earliest ban on abortion
02:07 and women would be put to death if they had an abortion
02:09 without their husband's permission.
02:11 It was okay if they had their husband's permission.
02:14 Well, you know, I never learned any of this in seminary
02:16 is because we never had a class on abortion in history and so.
02:19 No, well, I can't say I did.
02:21 The ancient Persians, I thought was interesting
02:24 the priest and the doctors condemned it.
02:27 They looked at it as cutting out the roots of life
02:30 and the most important blessing of God.
02:33 That was fascination. Good for the Persians.
02:34 Now the Greeks have the dubious distinction
02:36 of being the first to demand abortion.
02:39 Any women over the age of 40 was required to abort
02:42 and their thinking was,
02:44 it was for the good of the state.
02:45 Now, isn't that similar to China,
02:47 I mean don't they have abortion laws where so many--
02:50 Now they did. Yeah, that--
02:52 A one child rule.
02:53 Right, so if you have more than one child then--
02:56 And women, the women normally
02:58 are targeted very much for abortion.
02:59 The pressure is tremendous to abort.
03:02 But within the Roman Empire initially
03:04 everybody had access to it, the rich, the poor,
03:07 the slave, the free.
03:09 But by the third century, it was abortion became a crime,
03:13 but of course there was no punishment
03:16 as long as the father of the child said it was okay.
03:19 Now, you mentioned China.
03:21 You know, ancient China, there was a controversy
03:24 as far as pro and con but there are confusions
03:28 and the Buddhist and the majority of the people
03:31 opposed it, they actually opposed abortion.
03:34 One of their folklore in, Chinese folklore
03:37 is that 5000 years ago,
03:39 the women would drink warm mercury to abort,
03:42 so we know it was there, it was--
03:45 that just grieved me,
03:46 the thought of drinking warm mercury
03:48 to be that desperate, you know.
03:50 But it's been going on for a long, long time.
03:53 Yes, it has and then our American history,
03:56 if you're interested in that.
03:57 I thought that was fascinating.
03:58 I looked into that and in the early years
04:01 of our American history, it wasn't so much the laws
04:05 as much as the community and the religious community
04:08 and what they would do if a young lady
04:10 found herself pregnant,
04:12 the community would pressure that young man
04:14 either to marry that woman and make it right
04:18 or to provide financially for her.
04:21 But sad to say as American expanded,
04:23 a lot of the support systems
04:25 for these young ladies faded, disappeared.
04:28 And so there were some good things about that,
04:30 the Massachusetts Bay Colony,
04:31 I've been reading about history of Roger Williams
04:34 and the morality and the strictness
04:36 and some of the big mistakes that were made back then
04:39 but it sounds like that was a good, a good role.
04:41 They recognized that. They recognized that.
04:43 Man to own up and marry the woman.
04:45 But as America did expand, you know,
04:48 women did find herself in trouble.
04:51 There wasn't the support system available
04:53 and abortion did get a foothold.
04:57 After that the-- because of that the morality
05:01 of America relaxed and the social pressure
05:03 became less of a deterrent.
05:05 The social pressure, the religious community,
05:08 they were the ones in the very beginning
05:10 that put the pressure on.
05:11 Now, it was interesting to me that it was actually
05:14 legislation that the law started being passed
05:19 to against abortion at that time.
05:22 What time are we talking?
05:23 We're talking early 1800s, early and late 1700s.
05:29 Okay.
05:30 I have heard that in the 1800s
05:32 that the majority of physicians were against abortion.
05:36 Oh, yeah, in fact I get to that.
05:37 You know, it was fascinating because the legislation
05:41 had an impact but the moral relaxation
05:44 had such an impact that people began
05:46 to defend abortion in the public, you know,
05:49 it became an issue that people started accepting.
05:53 That was interesting to me
05:55 because in the mid 1800s two things
05:58 that really made an impact on rise in abortion
06:00 was the explosion of prostitution,
06:05 it became big commercial industry
06:08 and of course the abortion industry went on rise.
06:14 And the other one was the spiritualism.
06:19 You know, in the mid 1800s
06:20 there was a spiritist revolution
06:23 and because of that, yeah, it had an impact on people.
06:26 People would throw off their--
06:27 The Fox Sisters--
06:29 In that period of time, and it had an impact,
06:31 it was-- I look at it
06:33 as a sexual mini revolution then because a lot of people
06:37 threw off restrains and that had an impact
06:39 of course on the abortions in this country.
06:42 And they increased.
06:43 And they increased actually.
06:46 What I found also was that the churches,
06:49 they seem to be crippled, their voices,
06:51 they didn't make a statement at this time
06:54 which I thought was very interesting and sad.
06:56 They had lost their voice.
06:58 I think we're seeing that today too in a lot of ways.
07:01 And we are unfortunately.
07:02 Their voices have been lost. Yeah.
07:04 And then, you know, we had the social pressure
07:06 and the religious pressure and then
07:08 we had the laws and then what I thought
07:10 was very fascinating,
07:11 that's when the American medical associations stood,
07:15 you know, stood, stepped in.
07:17 And they were the ones who pushed
07:19 for very strict antiabortion laws.
07:23 They considered it immoral and dangerous
07:26 which I was very glad to see you know because--
07:28 Dangerous to the life of the mother.
07:30 Yeah, it was a dangerous practice
07:31 but also immoral,
07:33 and I like that that they looked at it that way.
07:37 So as any compromise would have it,
07:41 by 1908 it became apparent that the women in particular,
07:47 they wanted an aggressive, they wanted their abortion,
07:51 they wanted their freedom for abortion.
07:54 And the thinking of the day was the notion of compassion
07:57 shifted from helping people do what was morally right
08:00 to helping people do what seemed right.
08:04 For them. That's exactly right.
08:07 And a perfect example of this is Margaret Sanger.
08:11 Margaret Sanger is known, you know,
08:13 for coining the phrase birth control.
08:16 And she is the one who believed that birth control would be
08:20 the key to a sexual liberation or a sexual revolution.
08:27 And so where we stand now
08:29 is in 1973 in America abortion was legalized,
08:35 it was legalized through Roe v. Wade,
08:37 and there was a companion case
08:39 that went along with the Doe v. Bolton.
08:41 What Roe said is that abortion was going to be legal
08:44 through all nine months of pregnancy.
08:46 In the first trimester no restrictions,
08:48 in the second trimester no undue burdens
08:51 could be placed on the woman to her having an abortion.
08:53 In the third trimester you could restrict abortion
08:56 but you have to include an exception
08:58 for the health of the mother.
09:00 Well, on the same day when Roe is decided,
09:02 Doe v. Bolton, the Supreme Court
09:04 also decided Doe v. Bolton.
09:06 And what Doe said it laid out a definition of health.
09:12 The court decided that health was to encompass,
09:15 mental health, emotional health, socioeconomic health,
09:20 any sort of kind of health
09:23 that could possibly conceive of could be fit
09:26 into that definition, and so what--
09:28 Having a good day is you're healthy
09:31 if you're having a good day.
09:32 Right. Right.
09:34 So any kind of guilt would be contrary to health.
09:37 Right.
09:38 If, if, well, and we see that the effect
09:43 that these two decisions have had have
09:45 open the door to abortion on demand.
09:47 Now tell me, the '73 when Roe v. Wade
09:51 wasn't that really in the wake of specially
09:55 the 60s sexual revolution of the 60s
09:58 when it really mounted and so wasn't there,
10:00 was there some kind of pressure
10:02 that was put on the government to really make this legal
10:06 because now the doors have just been wide open with the 60s,
10:11 and so you have a lot of women that are pregnant
10:14 and they want a way out quickly.
10:17 Right.
10:18 Absolutely and what we see now is that,
10:21 you know, in America we have over a million abortions
10:25 that are performed every year
10:26 which breaks down to roughly maybe 1 every 30 seconds,
10:31 it's absolutely phenomenal the rate of abortion now
10:34 that we see in our own country
10:37 and so it is really fascinating.
10:39 I'm glad you brought that up.
10:41 It'd came on the tail end of the sexual revolution
10:46 because we see where we are and people think,
10:50 oh, abortion is only legal through the first trimester
10:53 or that many aren't actually being performed
10:55 but actually a phenomenal number of abortions
10:58 are taking place in our country
10:59 and it's really quite remarkable to understand
11:02 how we got here, the mindsets that won't play.
11:04 And it's not just in our country too
11:06 like we bread from the stats from how do we say
11:09 the Alan Guttmacher Institute
11:11 which is the research wing of plan parenthood.
11:14 Yes.
11:15 I believe they quote the World Health Organization
11:17 saying that the numbers are getting closer
11:19 to 45 million per year worldwide.
11:22 That's right.
11:23 Right, so we're talking about a big issue
11:25 and I do think it's very significant
11:27 when you just look at history and deal
11:28 with the abortionist today then we look at the 60s
11:32 and the rise of just free sex and then women getting pregnant
11:36 and then that was connected to the 70s
11:39 and the Roe versus Wade decision in '73.
11:42 That's right just as she had said, you know,
11:45 the climax was these laws being passed,
11:49 so how did we get there, you know.
11:51 And as it says insights from history,
11:54 as you understand history, you can see
11:56 why it would develop into the explosion
11:58 of the sexual revolution that we did have in the 60s.
12:02 But earlier in the 1900s and the early 1900s
12:06 many felt like our country was going through a crisis
12:09 because there were huge numbers of immigrants coming here
12:13 and the streets were filling up,
12:14 the buildings were filling up
12:16 and people were very afraid of overpopulation.
12:19 And there were legitimate concerns,
12:22 so there's one lady that was very active
12:25 in the early 1900s Margaret Sanger
12:27 that we referred and actually she was brought up in a family
12:32 where the mother had, had 11 children,
12:34 she had 7 miscarriages,
12:37 exhausted, and Margaret grew up,
12:39 you know, grew up all seeing this, in fact even--
12:42 She saw her mom--
12:44 Yeah, and the consequences
12:45 of just one child after another.
12:47 The difficulty in raising all these kids.
12:48 Exactly.
12:49 In fact even after she left her home,
12:51 her father called her back to help with the children
12:54 because her mother by that time was ill.
12:57 You know, she had worn herself out.
12:58 So that made a huge impact.
13:00 Well, I can imagine and we only have two.
13:02 I can imagine having Margaret's mom has 10.
13:05 That's right.
13:06 She was impacted by that personally
13:08 in her own home but then later in her life
13:11 when she became a nurse
13:12 she worked in the slums of New York
13:15 and she saw a very legitimate concern.
13:19 There were children being born every year or year and half.
13:23 Their mothers were exhausted.
13:25 They weren't being properly taken care of.
13:27 They would end up in the streets, you know,
13:31 she saw...
13:35 She just saw the deterioration of women and children, family.
13:40 She had a real burden for that.
13:42 The thing is, it was her approach on it,
13:46 you know, the best explain
13:48 it would be to read a few of her thoughts.
13:51 You know, I can imagine
13:52 if the family is organized and the father is responsible
13:55 that you know, there are families
13:56 that have a dozen kids.
13:59 And they put all the kids to work, you know,
14:01 under God's blessing and leadership,
14:03 it works out great,
14:05 but in other situations it's very difficult.
14:07 That's good because it's not so much the size of the family,
14:10 it's who is being responsible within that family,
14:13 and that's a big key.
14:15 But these were some of the things she believed.
14:17 She believed that "Marriage laws did away
14:20 with the freedom of women
14:23 by enforcing upon her a continuous sexual slavery
14:27 and a compulsory motherhood.''
14:29 Now, these are the roots
14:31 of a sexual revolution, a storm brewing.
14:34 Yes. This is how she saw it.
14:37 Another quote that I really want to share
14:40 because it helps you understand
14:41 how we got to the point of a sexual revolution.
14:44 "The creators of overpopulation are the women,
14:47 who, producing the multitudes who will bring about
14:51 the next tragedy of civilization."
14:54 She saw this as, you know, huge crisis.
14:58 This one is my last quote.
15:00 "The most merciful thing that a large family does
15:03 to one of its infant members is to kill it."
15:08 That's what Margaret thinks.
15:09 This was her solution to this crisis
15:12 that was brewing in the early 1900s.
15:14 Now, what's fascinating is that her rallying cry
15:17 became no God's, no masters.
15:20 Her, the mindset and the mindset
15:22 that really took root in the sexual revolution
15:24 was that women were looking for a quality,
15:27 they were looking to be equal with men finally.
15:31 But they took on this mindset of no gods,
15:35 no masters, we're our own masters.
15:38 We want free sex.
15:39 We want free love and it would lead them
15:43 to make horrible,
15:46 very regrettable decisions in regard to the unborn.
15:50 And so you have this mindset,
15:53 this thinking and then there was another woman,
15:56 she was older than Margaret Sanger,
15:58 she died in 2015.
16:02 1915.
16:03 Oh, yeah, thank you. Sure.
16:05 I know who you're talking about so.
16:06 1915 and she was Ellen White who is a godly woman
16:11 and she had a lot of godly counsel for young ladies.
16:13 And she is the most prolific woman female writer in history.
16:18 Well, I love her writings so I can see why.
16:21 But she confirmed the same problem,
16:25 she saw it before even Margaret saw it.
16:28 There was a problem of women having children,
16:31 children, children, you know, and women,
16:33 their health not being taking care of.
16:36 She even urges the husbands to take care of your wives.
16:40 You know, and she even talked about the sexual use
16:46 that men would use with no restraint
16:48 of their women and their wives.
16:50 You know, so she really identified,
16:53 she would talk about the children,
16:55 you know, that weren't being properly taken care
16:58 of would become destitute and,
17:01 you know, products that society would have take care of,
17:04 there's someone else would have to take the burden,
17:06 so she really came down hard on the very same problem.
17:10 The thing with her is that she didn't have
17:13 the mindset of Margaret Sanger.
17:15 Her mindset was no master but God.
17:19 Amen.
17:20 So it was to the Lord where she got her strength
17:22 and it was really wonderful her view on,
17:26 viewpoint on womanhood because she wanted the women
17:30 to rise to the level
17:32 that the Lord had intended for them.
17:34 It wasn't the matter of trying to take the man's role.
17:38 Explore and rise to the power
17:41 that the Lord has given you as a women.
17:44 The influence that you can have not just on your family
17:47 but on the community.
17:49 So she was very, very encouraging
17:52 as far as what women can do for themselves
17:54 and become without constantly trying to feel like,
17:59 they got to be a man.
18:00 Right and when you read her writing,
18:02 she very strongly valued not only mothers and fathers
18:06 and children but the prenatal influences
18:09 on the developing child that she is--
18:12 I've read some of those statements
18:13 and they're very, very strong.
18:14 That ties in with, you know, taking care of the women,
18:17 don't have child after child, you know, keep her health
18:20 because of that baby, you know, when you get pregnant
18:23 with that baby, you want to be healthy
18:25 and you want to be able to not have to be
18:27 so burden with so many other children
18:29 that you can't take care of yourself.
18:33 We've talked a little bit about the parallels
18:35 between ancient days what happened
18:37 in Israel in the Old Testament and modern days,
18:40 what's happening when we look at the big picture.
18:43 Let's explore that little bit?
18:45 Do you want to...?
18:47 Sure.
18:48 You know, what's really unfortunate about,
18:51 unfortunate in this comparison is that as a culture,
18:54 as a society, we didn't really embraced
18:56 the view of Ellen White.
18:58 We really didn't embrace the views of Margaret Sanger.
19:00 And we see that as a culture, we have for women
19:07 that freedom is found through sex.
19:11 If you look at our entertainment,
19:13 if you look at what we exalt and what we glorify.
19:16 Freedom has been found through sex, in sexual exploration.
19:21 It hasn't been found as a man would find freedom
19:24 typically in conquering or in overcoming
19:29 or achieving in some way.
19:31 And so for women their identity has been tied very closely
19:35 to sexual expression and sexual "liberation."
19:40 We see that with pornography, the explosion of pornography
19:45 that it truly does degrade women
19:48 because it is so very much about the self.
19:53 The woman is there simply
19:55 for the gratification of the man.
19:57 And what has happened is in claiming my body,
20:03 my choice, I have the right to have sex in this way,
20:07 I have the right to have sex the way man have sex,
20:10 no strains, no responsibility.
20:12 It's literally led to the degradation
20:14 of women as a gender.
20:18 A man can, as we said before, he can have sex with the women,
20:21 she can become pregnant and he can utterly reject her
20:25 and just walk away.
20:26 And what's amazing is that we are calling this freedom.
20:30 It's absolutely phenomenal.
20:33 The second part to this is the idea of equality.
20:36 Woman says, I'm equal to men,
20:38 I can have sex in the same way that men do
20:42 because again with that ability to walk away,
20:46 I was watching a sort of documentary
20:49 recently called irreplaceable,
20:50 and there was a speaker on there
20:54 who made the most incredible point about...
20:58 about the fact that when women decided
21:02 we are equal to men, we need the same right as men
21:05 and for good reasons
21:07 because women were being oppressed.
21:09 They were being mistreated but in trying to grasp
21:14 and attain that equality, they said,
21:18 "We're going to become like men
21:21 and we're going to get rid of what makes us different."
21:24 True equality, it's based on everyone
21:28 being accepted as they are.
21:30 We're all different, we're not carbon copies of each other,
21:33 but we're all equal.
21:35 What women did in the sexual revolution
21:38 is they said we're going to kill off
21:40 what makes us different.
21:41 What made them different? They could become pregnant.
21:45 They could have children and so instead of saying,
21:49 instead of demanding that they were accepted
21:51 despite their differences, they said,
21:54 "We'll get rid of kill off our differences to be equal."
21:58 And now we're at a point where 45 million babies
22:03 around the world are being aborted, I mean it's--
22:08 So this is where we've come to which is just,
22:13 it's terrific and I want to kind of turn
22:15 into the spiritual direction, there is a verse
22:19 that I have in front of me from Revolution Chapter 12,
22:23 lets say verse 12 says, "Therefore rejoice,
22:26 O heavens, and you who dwell in them.
22:28 Woe to the inhabitant of the earth and the sea,
22:31 for the devil has come down to you,
22:33 having great wrath,
22:34 because he knows he has a short time."
22:36 And there is another verse in John
22:38 where Jesus talks about
22:40 what the devil's really all about.
22:42 John 10:10, "The thief does not come except to steal,
22:45 and to kill, and to destroy.
22:47 I have come that they may have life,
22:48 and have it more abundantly."
22:50 And I just can't help
22:51 but think that in the light of you know,
22:54 the big picture, the cosmic controversy
22:56 between God and devil and if you look at the history
22:58 of all of this and now the magnitude
22:59 of what's happening, I just can't help
23:02 but think that from God's perspective,
23:05 you know, Satan is really, he is really,
23:09 he is doing a number on us.
23:10 He is doing a number on humanity.
23:12 He is attacking women. He is attacking men.
23:14 He is attacking the home.
23:15 He is attacking the family and he is attacking the babies,
23:19 you know, little babies that come out
23:21 and the unborn who haven't come out
23:23 yet the whole thing is part of Satan's wrath
23:29 against humanity to destroy.
23:31 And God's goal is to restore to put to make women, women,
23:36 as they are meant to be and to find the joy of that
23:39 and to make men, men, that they are meant to be
23:42 and so the children will grow up in homes
23:46 where they're happy.
23:47 God's plan is being fulfilled.
23:49 And this is all part of the cosmic,
23:51 it's got to be part of the cosmic controversy
23:53 between Jesus Christ and Satan,
23:56 that's what the Bible reveals to us.
23:59 Good and evil.
24:00 Yeah, good and evil.
24:02 That's right and the battle is intense,
24:03 I mean it's so intense and you just look at that
24:06 like you said the sexual revolution,
24:09 you know, and I know that we don't really
24:12 have a lot of time to go into this
24:14 but if you look at the Old Testament,
24:15 one of the things that the devil got
24:18 the Israelites into was even sacrificing their children.
24:22 You know, I have a number of--
24:23 I've just done some reading on this
24:25 and in Deuteronomy 12:31,
24:29 "They were burning their sons and their daughters
24:31 in the fire to their God's."
24:34 In Ezekiel 16:21 God said, "You have slain my children."
24:39 And in Leviticus 20:4 he tells the Israelites
24:43 "Don't hide your eyes from this."
24:45 And you know we certainly don't want to say
24:48 that every women that is in crisis
24:50 that is struggling as you were struggling is therefore,
24:55 you know, consciously offering her child
24:57 as a sacrifice to an Old Testament God.
25:00 We certainly don't want to say that
25:02 because Jesus loves, He loves us all.
25:05 But I just can't help but think that there is a--
25:07 there is a parallel between
25:09 what the devil did in ancient times with Israel
25:13 and then what's happening now all around the world,
25:16 it's just a-- it's such a horrible thing,
25:18 and it also reminds me of a verse in Genesis
25:22 where after Cain killed Abel that God said
25:26 where's your brother to Cain.
25:28 Where's your brother?
25:29 The voice of your brother's blood is crying out to me
25:32 from the ground and God must--
25:34 He just must weep, you know, He weeps over the women,
25:36 He weeps over the men, He weeps over the babies,
25:38 He weeps over all of earth's history
25:40 and I just can't wait until sin is gone
25:44 and all of this is over forever
25:46 and we'll be with Jesus in the happy place forever.
25:50 That's right.
25:51 As you go down the list, everything valuable to God,
25:55 the devil is trying to destroy one way or the other.
25:59 And he is undermining God's original plan.
26:02 That's right.
26:03 The original plan for the nobility of a women
26:07 and the nobility of a man and the happiness
26:10 of having children and it's just, you know,
26:13 the devil is-- I'm looking forward
26:15 to him being gone forever.
26:19 Yes, me too.
26:20 I really am. Me too.
26:22 Well, we're down at the end of this segment.
26:25 I'd like to again read the Bible verse in John 10:10
26:30 where Jesus said that the thief does not come except to steal,
26:34 and to kill, and to destroy.
26:36 I have come that they might have life,
26:39 and that they might have it more abundantly."
26:42 Now, the devil, he is a killer, he is a destroyer
26:44 and Jesus is a life giver and he loves us,
26:47 He has given life to us.
26:49 He gives life to the unborn
26:52 through the miracle of conception
26:54 and then eventually birth
26:56 and God's plan is the best plan.
26:58 And if we strayed away from that plan,
27:00 no matter what we've done, we need to know
27:02 that the devil is the bad guy and that God is the good guy
27:07 if you want to say it that way, and that He loves us,
27:10 and He only wants life for us.
27:13 He wants goodness and internal happiness,
27:15 so may God help us to follow His plan,
27:19 it's for our own good.
27:22 Steve Wohlberg's latest pocket book
27:24 "Hidden Holocaust" is a must read
27:27 for anyone contemplating an abortion
27:29 or who has had one.
27:31 While Steve shares the biblical position
27:33 on this controversial subject,
27:35 he also presents a message of hope and healing.
27:38 To get your free copy of the pocket book,
27:40 "Hidden Holocaust'' just call the toll free number
27:43 on the screen and order your copy today
27:45 or write to White Horse Media,
27:47 PO Box 1139, NewPort, Washington 99156.


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Revised 2015-08-27