The Exodus Moment for the Pro-life Movement

The pro-life movement is in an Exodus moment.

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Highlights

By Pro-life Leader Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life
12/14/2023 (4 months ago)

Published in Marriage & Family

Keywords: Frank Pavone, Pro-Life, abortion, Exodus

You will recall from the first 13 chapters of Exodus that, through the faithful obedience of Moses and God's infliction of multiple plagues on their oppressors, the People of God were delivered from their long slavery in Egypt. 

It was a miraculous, dramatic, and long-awaited moment of deliverance. It was a day to be remembered forever through the sacred ritual of Passover.

The unborn, and we who defend them, similarly experienced a long period of slavery under the regime of Roe vs. Wade. It was a false dogma, a destructive taskmaster, which despite the growing evidence of the humanity of the unborn and the harmfulness of abortion, held the unborn captive to its violence, and prevented the born and their lawmakers from protecting them.

But then we were freed. 

The Dobbs decision on June 24, 2022, completely obliterated the tyrannical yoke of Roe and its progeny from the judicial landscape of America. Once again, the people and their elected representatives were free to protect their youngest brothers and sisters.

But we read in Exodus 14 that no sooner had God's people been set free by this great victory than "God hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued the people of Israel while the people of Israel were going out defiantly" (Ex. 14:8).

Good and triumphant defiance were met with angry and bitter defiance. And when the people saw the Egyptians pursuing them again, ‽they feared greatly" and even resented Moses for bringing them out, for they feared they would die in the desert.

And Moses cried out to God. After all, he had given him the mission to free the people -- and it had worked! So now Moses wondered what God expected of him, presiding over the people who had the Red Sea on one side and the army of Pharaoh pursuing them on the other.

So it is in the pro-life movement. We stand between the victory of Dobbs and the pursuit of a hard-hearted pro-abortion movement who want to enslave us and the unborn again through extreme, oppressive state constitutional amendments that take away our right to protect the babies.

It is like going back to Egypt.

But the instructions God gave at that moment to Moses are exactly the instructions he gives to pro-life leaders and activists today. They are instructions that are as striking in their simplicity as they are stirring in their audacity: "Tell the people of Israel to go forward" (Ex.14:15).

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I can just hear Moses saying, "Oh. Go forward. Of course; I should have thought of that myself!"

We go forward, following the rest of the command, "Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today" (Ex.14:13).Just as Moses stretched out his staff and parted the waters of the sea, we are called to lift up the same pro-life truth we have been proclaiming for decades.

We are to show the faces of our unborn brothers and sisters, we are to proclaim their dignity, based on the Word of God. 

We are to show forth, in word and action, the compassion we have for these children, and for their mothers, fathers, grandparents and siblings.We are to shout from the rooftops the testimonies of those harmed by abortion, and the love and mercy of Christ which we extend to those who repent of abortion.

We are to speak boldly to those who hold power in politics, media and academia, that the rights of the unborn are not to be infringed.The Lord opened the sea, not because Moses was stronger than Pharaoh's army, but because he trusted and obeyed, doing something that to human eyes seemed foolish. But he did it because he believed in the God who commanded it.

We are in the same position. And we will see the same victory. The extreme, oppressive measures that the other side pursues now around the country will not stand. They are rooted in the same lies in which Roe was rooted.And we are rooted in the same truths by which Roe was defeated. Let us not for a moment lose confidence. Let us redouble our efforts as well as our hope.

Tell the pro-life movement to go forward!