Defend the sanctity of life with compassion, conviction

Decline to Sign initiative petition supporting abortion

Struggling to survive in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II, a Jewish mother and her baby sought refuge in the home of Casper ten Boom, who lived with his unmarried daughter’s Corrie and Betsie.

At that time, their home was already the hiding place for a handful of other Jews, and adding a mother and child to the household would only draw unwanted attention from the authorities. They needed to find another safe space for the woman and her baby.

In her classic book, The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom vividly captures the moment when she and her father asked a local pastor if his family would welcome the mother and child into their home:

“On impulse I told the pastor to wait and ran upstairs. … I asked the mother’s permission to borrow the infant: the little thing weighed hardly anything in my arms.

“Back in the dining room, I pulled back the coverlet from the baby’s face.

“There was a long silence. The man bent forward, his hand in spite of himself reaching for the tiny fist curled around the blanket. For a moment I saw compassion and fear struggle in his face. Then he straightened. ‘No. Definitely not. We could lose our lives for that Jewish child!’

“Unseen by either of us, Father had appeared in the doorway. ‘Give the child to me, Corrie,’ he said. Father held the baby close, his white beard brushed its cheek, looking into the little face with eyes as blue and innocent as the baby’s own.

“At last he looked up at the pastor. ‘You say we could lose our lives for this child. I would consider that the greatest honor that could come to my family.’”

Indeed, 80 years ago this month, on March 9, 1944, Casper ten Boom gave up his life for the sake of that child and other innocent men, women and children in need. He and his daughters were arrested by the Nazis for harboring Jews. His daughters were sent to a concentration camp, where one of them (Betsie) died at the end of 1944. At the age of 84, Casper didn’t last so long. After spending nine days in the Scheveningen prison, he died alone and uncared for in the hallway of the Hague Municipal Hospital.

A godly Christian who fed daily on God’s truth in Scripture, Casper ten Boom knew the value of every person created in the image of God, and he was willing to follow the example of his Lord by laying down his life for others. His home poignantly exhibited a culture of life. Sadly, he suffered at the hands of a regime that fomented the culture of death, a regime that devalued human life.

May we follow the Lord Jesus and defend the sanctity of human life with the same humility, compassion and conviction that was displayed through the life and death of Casper ten Boom.

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As Missourians, we’re fortunate to live in a state that currently defends a culture of life, rather than a culture of death. In 2022, Missouri became the first state in the union to ban elective abortions, and (as reported here) both the Missouri House of Representatives and the state’s Attorney General are striving to uphold a culture of life.

But Missourians must remain vigilant in protecting the life of the unborn, since Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups are working hard to bring a culture of death back to our state. Through the initiative petition process, they aim to enshrine abortion in Missouri’s Constitution. Missourians must decline to sign this petition.

Only last week, I was approached by a paid signature gatherer in a Sam’s Club parking lot, who wanted me to sign a petition to support “reproductive health care” – that is, in truth, the murder of unborn children. If you are similarly approached by one of these signature gatherers, decline to sign the petition. Then tell store management about the incident. In my case, the person was gathering signatures without permission from Sam’s Club, and management took action to make sure the person left their property.

To learn more about this initiative petition, visit Missouri Right to Life’s website at missourilife.org. To read about “10 Reasons to Decline to Sign” the initiative petition, read the helpful Missouri Right to Life document at this link: https://missourilife.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/10-Reasons-to-Decline-to-Sign-IP-MRL-11-17-23.pdf.

Finally, pray for the failure of pro-abortion efforts to fuel a culture of death in our state, and pray that Missourians would increasingly come to faith in the one true God who creates and values all human life.