Whether they have sinned, or whether a man has sinned against them, many pregnant young women understandably feel terrified.
Only the influence of Satan, however, acting upon them directly or through the misguided fervor of outspoken abortion advocates, could delude those women into believing that salvation from terror lies in ending an unborn child’s life.
At the state capitol in Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday, Pastor Jeff Durbin showed the power of humility and mercy when he led a prayer on behalf of unborn children and continued praying despite the futile efforts of one woman to disrupt the solemn gathering.
Inside the capitol, Arizona Democrats planned another legislative challenge to the state’s near-total abortion ban, according to NBC. Earlier this month, the state Supreme Court upheld the ban, which technically dates to 1901 — 11 years before Arizona’s statehood.
An 1864 ban on abortion except where necessary to save the mother’s life formed the basis of that 1901 law, which the Arizona legislature then recodified in 1913, according to the Arizona Mirror.
Democratic state legislators have tried and failed to repeal the 1864 ban, including most recently on April 17.
Durbin, a teaching elder at Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona, and the head of the End Abortion Now organization, prayed Wednesday in a gathering outside the capitol for the children and for those charged with protecting them.
First, he read a timely passage from Proverbs 24:10-12.
Then, he asked God to intercede on behalf of the innocents.
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“Father in Heaven, we pray, God, for your mercy. We pray for your mercy and for your truth to fall on this capitol here in the state of Arizona,” Durbin’s prayer began.
The pastor continued for nearly two and a half minutes, albeit with periodic attempted interruptions.
On multiple occasions, for instance, a lone female abortion advocate yelled what sounded like “second-class American girls” and something about “slavery”
Later, during the prayer, she paraded behind Durbin, holding up a sign and repeating her slogans.
But the pastor did not flinch. He prayed for “equal protection to every image bearer of God from the moment of fertilization.”
“Give the legislators the courage to do what is right in your eyes and to obey you,” the pastor prayed.
End Abortion Now posted a clip of the prayer to the social media platform X. Readers may view it below.
Pastor Jeff’s Prayer at the Capital pic.twitter.com/JTkOwmpply
— End Abortion Now (@EndAllAbortion) April 24, 2024
There is, of course, tremendous irony in the loud abortion advocate’s repeated references to “slavery.” After all, the 19th-century contest over slavery has strong parallels with the modern abortion debate.
In both cases, for instance, advocates have conflated human beings with objects covered under property rights or bodily autonomy.
Likewise, while 19th-century abolitionists found a home in the Republican Party, the ardent Christians at the center of the abolitionist movement often expressed frustration with Republican President Abraham Lincoln, who, for strategic reasons, did not always act against slavery in the way that abolitionists demanded. Former President Donald Trump has caused similar frustration for perceived strategic concessions on abortion during an election year.
No doubt such parallels would be lost on the woman who shouted slogans to interrupt a prayer.
Durbin, however, did not rebuke her. And he had at least two good reasons for not doing so.
For one thing, God still offers her a chance to repent. In fact, at one point, Durbin himself needed repentance perhaps as much or more than she does now.
According to a profile of Durbin that appeared on the End Abortion Now website, the pastor once struggled with alcohol and drug abuse. Eventually, a “personal financial collapse brought on by his sinful lifestyle led him to the point of utter brokenness. With no way out, Christ was faithful to offer Jeff a place to turn.”
Secondly, he knows — as all Christians do — that God offers an answer to the terror of unexpected or unwanted pregnancy.
Satan, of course, has told the mother to put herself first, to spare herself the inconvenience and to make decisions about life and death — in other words, to set herself up as God. The great deceiver has filled her head with fine-sounding slogans and convinced her that slavery to self constitutes true freedom.
But it is all an illusion.
Indeed, as the Israelites learned in the wilderness, only by looking at a bronze serpent on a pole — by confronting their fears through an act of faith in God — could they overcome those fears and survive the serpent’s bite. (Numbers 21:4-9)
Christians have this hope to share with those terrified young mothers. And not even the loudest shrieks of an abortion advocate can drown out the truth of it.
