At a Glance
For the first time in 50 years in the United States, we find ourselves free from the deadly grip of Roe v Wade. Now with the decision to legalize abortion left up to the individual states, we find ourselves as a pro-life movement with a new set of questions. Chief among those is where do we go from here, now that our unifying mission has been accomplished? Today’s guest, Josiah Friedman, the founder and CEO of Voices for the Voiceless, offers us a vision for creating a God-honoring culture of life.
What You'll Hear
- Introduction to Josiah (1:08)
- What is Voices for the Voiceless? (13:27)Â
- How to create a future of flourishing for both mother and the child? (19:25)Â
- Who should we focus on serving in this post-Roe world? (27:41)
- Current news and legislation surrounding abortion. (36:31)Â
- What is the new goal of the pro-life movement? (42:44)Â
- Final thoughts (1:02:04)
Special Guest Josiah Friedman is the founder and CEO of Voices for the Voiceless, a movement creating a world where no one faces unplanned pregnancy alone. Every day, he works to equip partners, friends, parents, schools, medical professionals, and employers to support the people in their lives facing unplanned pregnancies.
Using the link above, you can read the transcript, listen along, and adjust the speed of the podcast while you listen.
And whether you're pro-life or pro-choice, you could agree that no one should feel like they have no choice but abortion, right? That's not ideal for everyone!
Josiah Friedman (14:09)
Go Deeper
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Both male and female are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:28). In this short video, Darrow Miller reflects on how a mother’s heart transcendently reflects God’s nature. Reflect more on these concepts in the Grand Design course, linked above.
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- And whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, you could come around and agree that no one should feel like they have no choice but abortion, right? That’s not ideal for everyone! And so we want to tackle really specific ways we see that happening in the world. Josiah 14:09
- Imagine Satan getting in between the most precious relationship God created between mother and child and creating a scenario in which only one of them can win. That is the scenario that too many people walk in, in the United States, in the developed world, and in nations all around the world today. Josiah 20:09
- The movement, as far as I’m concerned, at least in a post-Roe world has to be incredibly focused, not on necessarily just what an abortion is, philosophically, but how we come around people and offer support so that they can walk through unexpected pregnancy and thrive. Josiah 23:22
- And our movement then is really a movement to figure out–how do we love so many people, so that they can make a courageous decision and go into motherhood. Josiah 25:53
- But we’ve got a lot of people in our church space, including a lot of young people who really haven’t reacted to this well, and they don’t know where to stand on this. So they’re just following the voice of the culture where it is, because in our church communities, we haven’t painted the picture of what God’s vision for this actually is. Right? You know, in the world of Roe, we were able to focus on what we oppose, and what’s wrong constantly. We never were able to focus on, what is the heart of Jesus on this issue–the heart of Jesus on this issue, is mother and child flourishing in relationship together, supported by their village, and their community of people. Josiah 47:28
- And one of the things that’s so hard about the pro-choice position that I think no one realizes, and it never gets called out–is that at its heart, the pro-choice position is a defeatist position. It is a settling position, it’s saying, our society needs abortion. Without it, there is no pathway to actual equality and support and human flourishing. Is that good enough for any of us? Josiah 51:13
- You cannot solve a dark situation for people with a solution that promotes isolation and darkness and disconnection. That’s no pathway to solve our problems, we need to have a much different vision for the way forward. Josiah 52:00
- The point of this whole effort is we have to build a culture of life where human beings are valued. And we can never leave that behind. The challenge is how do you do that? Josiah 56:18
- But the root of why people I think sit in that pro-choice position and feel like there’s no other way is not because they don’t see the humanity of the unborn, but because they empathize with what they would describe as the impossibility of her situation. And they see no path forward. And because abortion is an easy solution, and here’s where they’ve fallen into a trap. They don’t bother to create the way forward, that’s going to have to come from those of us who have a deep conviction about the sanctity of life. Josiah 57:45
- I think there will be a win that happens when being pro-choice feels like an irrelevant, artless, defeatist position. Irrelevant because there is a path to flourishing; heartless, because when there’s a path to flourishing it, it’s not worth this magnificent cost. And I think that’s the place that we need to get to as a movement. So I want to build toward that. And I think that’s the nuance of how we bring along a culture that has not been with us for so long–that I believe most of them know what is in the womb. Josiah 59:00
- When God finished with this creation, and said, “It’s very good.” And it goes back to, can we let the world know that God’s plan is very, very good, and can we trust it, and can we walk it out? Even in a fallen world? It can be very good. Dwight 1:02:20
Brothers, it sounded to me like you as well as Josiah were looking for direction as pro-lifers, trying to find it amongst yourselves, but I think a clearer answer can be found looking at leaders in the pro-life movement. Not only should we strive to make abortion illegal and unthinkable, but we are called to save babies from abortion in the meantime. That can be in helping pregnancy resource centers (Certainly we should make it known to mothers in difficult pregnancies that there is hope, and pregnancy resource centers have already done so in a very broad way), in sidewalk counseling, in prayer, in conversation and public outreach, and in policy. Outreach in the public square and on front porches requires training in apologetics, which I highly recommend to each of the DNA team (you know the syllogiam, right?). I don’t have any other knowledge about you, so you may already be doing so, but as good as it is to talk about this, doing something specific such as what I mentioned is quite necessary. The podcast had plenty of nice sentiment,
but not many concrete calls to action. Check out Created Equal for examples. Praised be Jesus Christ!
Jeremy, thank you for your helpful comment. The pro-life movement must be driven by both an understanding at the level of the worldview of the ideas behind this debate and absolutely by the daily boots-on-the-ground work that Created Equal, Voices for the Voiceless, and many others are faithfully conducting. In three weeks, we will have one of the leaders from LiveAction join us on the podcast, and we’ll make sure to represent both the root ideas and the daily work we can all be doing as best as we can. That episode will be out on February 27th.