With a prelude to his statement that is said to be coming out tomorrow on Abortion and Abortion Rights Donald Trump released a video highlighting points of his position. He started his video with IVF by saying, “I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby. What could be more beautiful or better than that?” He also said, “The Republican Party should always be on the side of the miracle of life and the side of mothers and fathers, [and] their beautiful babies.” There are a number of things wrong with his position.

• 1) Abortion is embedded in the very process of IVF. So he is basically saying that he is strongly in support of couples to kill children in the process of getting one to survive. That one precious baby is at the expense of all the other discarded babies that were just part of the process. IVF is an unjust and wicked practice that too many people pass by, because, how could we keep people from having a child if they want one? This goes to the next problem.
• 2) Trump equates IVF with the miracle of life. IVF is no miracle. IVF is humanity trying to play God by creating human life through a laboratory process and doing so according to their own parameters. God is the one who gives life through the physical joining of a man and a woman as they become one where life begins at fertilization (Genesis 4:1). In that God is the one who is providentially sovereign over the womb of the woman (Psalm 127:3; Genesis 29:31-32, 30:22-23). Trying to create life in any other way, like in IVF, is not of God and is not a miracle.
• 3) This teaches men and women, through law, that we can create life and know and determine good and evil like God. The law is a tutor that teaches. Laws that legislate the immorality of IVF are man-made, unjust, and against God by nature. Trump continued on to say, “Many people have asked me what my position is on abortion and abortion rights, especially since I was proudly the person responsible for the ending of something that all legal scholars both sides wanted and in fact demanded be ended, Roe v Wade.” Also, “Now it is up to the states to do the right thing.” “At the end of the day it is all about the will of the people.” Further, “Like Ronald Reagan I am strongly in favor of exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. You must follow your heart in this issue, but remember you must also win elections to restore our culture and in fact to save our country, which is currently and sadly a nation in decline.”

Again, there are a number of things wrong with his position.

To use the very term “Abortion rights” shows a compromise, a surrender of terms, that displays a posture of bowing down or conceding ground to the narrative of the pro-choice movement. No Christian should support someone who uses that label in a positive or “neutral” way as Trump has done. There should be no compromise over this. This is not semantics. This is not nuance. This is not a strategy that can be allowed, because it may be effective. Words matter.

This shows yet again the partiality of the pro-life position that varies with all kinds of exceptions. The nature of this approach is humanistic in determining when the life of an image-bearer of God can be taken from them. We play the judge and life-giver by saying when, in age or circumstance, some should live and when some are allowed to die. This is an abomination to God (Proverbs 20:10) and it should be to us, with no compromise. Plus, what many Christians don’t think about is violating the golden rule in this exception pragmatism (Matthew 7:12). If you were 5 weeks and there was a 6 week pro-life law how would you feel? Also, we ought to think about selflessly loving someone and teaching them what love is and what love should be in this life in light of the selfless servant Jesus Christ.

The pride of Trump is just sad. This comes from an unregenerate heart that has not been humbled before the Lord. He says he was “proudly the person responsible for the ending” Roe v Wade. That’s really not something to be proud of when that sparked a rise in murder by pill and created a deception in “bans” that were touted as abortion being ended or abolished in states when it clearly was not.

In his boasting he comes to the states now doing the right thing and it’s all about the will of the people, the will of the people, the will of the people. This is a narrative that we are seeing come out more from conservatives where they will do what their people want them to do. He adds, “It’s the will of the people whatever that is according to your heart, religion, faith” and he implies an etcetera. The voice of the people is the voice of God being pure democracy is humanism. How these Republican conservative officials are coming across more and more is rebellious against God in their responsibility as a governing authority. When the will of the people is the standard of law, morality, truth, and justice then it is a recipe for disaster. And disaster is what we have with statements like this.

• Lastly, Trump said over and over again that people should, “Always go by your heart.” The Christian church should be calling Donald Trump to repent. This is grievous in general, but even more so when it comes from a leader that many people look up to. They will listen to his “wisdom” and be counseled by his influence. In turn they will think of themselves as a good person by nature. As that grows the more the former of Habakkuk’s statement will be hardened toward the latter, “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4). This is gospel 101. We sinners are in need of a new heart, because our natural heart that we are born with is one that is dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1-10).

Donald Trump, and many Christians, need a lesson from Matthew 5:20 and John 2:23-3:15, especially when you think of the fact that Trump is nowhere near the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. And none of us are by nature, as well. We need the Spirit of God through the gospel to confront us of our sin and unrighteousness, give us a new heart, and cover us with the righteousness of Jesus Christ as we look to Him by God’s gift of faith in His finished work that began in being conceived in the virgin’s womb by the Holy Spirit and then continued on in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension as our Substitute, so that we can then, in walking in the newness of life, seek first His kingdom and His righteousness here in this life.