LAURIE—Carrying her “abortion binders” wherever she goes, Peggy Bull, member, First Baptist Church, Laurie, has been the definition of a pro-life activist for 39 years.
Abortion on demand became legal in the United States in 1973. Bull, 68, is working to end it. Since 2001, she has also handed out an original creation, an eight-page abortion Bible study that she wrote, with a page on God’s forgiveness for the hurting in our churches.
“My friend and I from a Baptist church in Kansas City wear a sign on our backs—‘Ask for a Free Abortion Bible Study,’” Bull said. “It’s been great. I met a lot of Protestants in it through that way. I think it’s making people realize the seriousness of it and how much time we’ve got left before we’ve got to be judged. God hates the shedding of innocent blood.”
Her pastor, Marc Knapp, is fully supportive of her efforts.
“She really has a heart and a passion for the unborn and for those who have had abortions,” he said.
Bull has been a Baptist for a long time.
“I walked the aisle at Webster Groves (a Missouri Baptist church in St. Louis) at 12,” she said. “I remember crying over my sins.”
She also cried in July of 1969 when she lost her son, Keith, due to complications after surgery. (He died of pneumonia at the age of three months, 18 days.) After she meets Jesus in heaven, her next wish is to hold Keith.
“That’s how I feel,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s really right. That’s the first thing I want, and that doesn’t sound right.”
As a Missouri Southern Baptist, Bull was puzzled by decades of disinterest shown by leaders concerning the topic from the 1970s to the end of the 20th century.
“It was on the back burner,” she said. “It was not important.”
Even now she is troubled by the general lack of activism within the lay ranks of the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC).
“There’s no excuse with the Internet not to know what abortion is,” she said. “You get on Google and you put ‘Abortion Pictures’ or ‘Abortion Photos’ now, and it’s all there. I’m just saying there’s no excuse to be ignorant.”
Bull got involved when she saw people picketing a St. Louis abortion clinic in June 1973. Active as a board member on the local, mid-state, and state levels with Missouri Right to Life, she also became their educational chairman. But her bread and butter down through the years has been her faithful presence at fair booths both in and around the Lake of the Ozarks area.
“When girls tell me their stories, I just start crying,” said Bull, who is the 1996 winner of the Joanne Bick Award through the Vitae Caring Foundation and the 2003 winner of the Hero at Heart Award through the Life Issues Institute. “You just wouldn’t believe the stories I’ve heard.”
One of her Bible constants through the years has been Psalm 106. In verses 37-42, God’s Word details how the Israelites were sacrificing their sons and their daughters unto devils, polluting the land with blood. God became angry, so he gave His people over to the heathen. This created a situation where those that hated God’s people actually ruled over them.
Her abortion binder contains photos of aborted babies from the first and second trimesters. After viewing a couple of pages, a representative of The Pathway asked Bull if other viewers have had physical reactions to the images.
“Usually they’ll get that far and they’ll say, ‘I can’t go any farther,’” she said, noting that more than 700 of her binders are in circulation.
Her Abortion Bible Study is a simple collaboration of God’s Word, strategic questions, and a handful of cited references.
“I was able to buy a Srong’s Concordance for 10 bucks,” she said. “Big thing. I just sat down with words I looked up.”
In looking back on what God has done through her life and the lives of other pro-life pilgrims down through the years, Bull is thankful for 2001. That was when pro-life lawmakers in the Missouri House of Representatives and the Missouri Senate overrode the veto of Gov. Mel Carnahan, a pro-choice Democrat and a Missouri Baptist, on the partial-birth abortion ban. Bull called that a turning point in the fight to save babies.
“Most people did not realize it (abortion) was past three months, and that did it,” she said. “A couple of days before we went up there to override, I was there and I had ordered at least a thousand of (a three-page document) showing that they were selling body parts. They arrived just in time. We took those papers and handed out every one of those with just a couple left. It was just like the loaves and fishes.”
When asked what can be done now to see the victory over abortion, Bull said the focus should be directed toward the Missouri Baptist pulpits.
“My understanding is they just don’t preach on it,” she said. (Those who wish to obtain a free copy of Peggy Bull’s Abortion Bible Study can write to her at 467 Cove Circle, Sunrise Beach, MO, 65079.)