The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.On today’s edition of The Briefing, Dr. Mohler discusses the pro-life movement’s fight for life, the Left’s call to defend all abortions up until the moment of birth, the horror of late-term abortions, and the need for pro-lifers to understand the Left’s arguments and goals.Part I (00:14 – 08:25)The Fight for Life is of First Priority: The Pro-Life Movement Cannot Be LethargicPart II (08:25 – 17:05)The Left’s Call to Defend All Abortions: The Growing Momentum on the Left is the Elimination of Any Restriction on Abortions – Yes, Even Until the Moment of BirthWhat Would It Mean to Defend All Abortions? by The Nation (Amy Littlefield)Part III (17:05 – 21:08)‘I Got Emotional Once the Baby Started Moving’: The Horror of the Experience of Late-Term Abortions On DisplayPart IV (21:08 – 26:24)Pro-Lifers Must Understand the Argument From Its Enemies – Christians Must Remind Ourselves What We Believe and We Must Be FaithfulSign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

It's Wednesday, August 20, 2025. I'm Albert Mueller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. The issue of abortion tends to rise and fall in the nation's consciousness having to do usually with some kind of court decision or some kind of major legislative move, some executive order coming from a White House. But one of the things Christians need to recognize is that our moral concern for abortion, the Christian worldview urgency, of abortion. It doesn't wax and weight. It is a constant we need to keep very much on our minds. And as we think about our country, we think about our own context. And frankly, those outside the United States, you're dealing with your own context in terms of the protection of unborn life and the relative vulnerability of unborn life. The fact is that Christians have to watch what's going on in the culture and try to seize every opportunity to make change in a pro-life direction. But the other

big problem, to be honest, is lethargy among those who consider themselves pro-life. And frankly, a kind of guilty ignorance or naivete on the part of a lot of conservatives and a lot of conservative Christians who consider themselves pro-life of what we're actually talking about. And so from time to time, we need to look at developments in the culture and recognize this is a wake-up call about where we stand. Now, the big issue I want us to consider today is the fact that what we have, becoming more and more clear on the abortion question, is that there are two and only two arguments. Now, one of the points I try to make in worldview analysis

is that that's almost always the case. When you're dealing with an issue of grave moral significance, basically there's a right side and a wrong side. There's an argument based in truth, and there's an argument based in a lie. Now, that makes this kind of issue fundamentally different than, say, looking at some of the intricacies of arguing over,

trade policy, or tax policy, some kind of fiscal issue, some kind of argument over the degree to which there should be or should not be regulation over some part of the financial industry. This is a very different thing. We're talking here about life and death. And, you know, for Christians, the understanding of urgency is something that even shows up in the canonical shape of scripture, that is to say, in the shape of Holy Scripture, in God's Word. So, for instance, something that is mentioned in creation order in Genesis 1, by the very fact that it is in

creation order in Genesis 1 indicates the importance, the most foundational fundamental truths. Violating this is far more costly to an individual, to a society than violating something down the line in Christian moral reasoning. It's not to say those other issues are not important. it is to say, the Bible makes clear not all issues are the same. Remember, the law given to Moses began with 10 commandments. There would be hundreds of other instructions and commands that would come, but the fundamental issues reflected in the priority of these 10 words, as the commandments are described in the biblical Hebrew. So when we get to human dignity, the image of God and the sanctity

of human life, we're in Genesis 1 territory. It doesn't get earlier than that. And, that just underlines the fact that it is so fundamental in terms of its importance. Or to put it another way, a society that mess this question up inevitably is going to eventually mess every question up. And Christians need to understand that if you give, so to speak, and surrender on the issue of the sanctity of human life, you've got basically nowhere to go because this is so foundational. It again is in the very beginning of scriptures and the structures of creation itself. Well, what I want to bring to our attention is the fact that in the political moment, in the cultural moment we face, we're seeing that over the course of the last several decades, with different events, different court decisions,

different legislative victories and failures, over the course of the last several years, the arguments on both sides really have become very tight, very focused, and frankly, pretty easy to recognize. What has disappeared is middle ground. Now, one of the arguments among pro-lifers right now is how to shape pro-life policy. Some would identify as abortion abolitionists saying that we can't be satisfied with any legislation that doesn't completely outlaw abortion. Well, I am in total agreement. We cannot be satisfied until every single unborn human life has full legal protection is fully honored. But the fact is that even those who take that policy once in elective office or once faced with,

with legislative realities, understand that almost every major moral victory is a matter of some kind of incremental recovery, incremental correction. And it also gets back to the fact that if we can save some babies, we should. All right? At the same time, we need to be very clear that we're not satisfied with anything less than the protection and honoring of every single human life, including every single unborn life. The discussion on the right is, something that goes back on the pro-life side, is something that goes back the entirety of my adult lifetime. When I got involved in the pro-life movement, I was faced with this kind of debate. How far do we push? Where do we negotiate? How do we decide this kind of issue? What is legislatively possible? You had a

division, even in terms of how arguments were made before the United States Supreme Court. But there was a consensus that eventually led to the kind of legal arguments that eventuated in the Dobbs decision in 2002 reversing the horrifying Supreme Court precedent legalizing abortion and Roe v. Wade. And the question was then returned to the states. And that just means we have 50 battles and the national battle's not gone. If you do have a Democratic president and you have Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, you can count on the fact that they will try to do with abortion, what they haven't done until now, what they haven't been able to accomplish until now, what they did accomplish was same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage

and the United States Congress came back and adopted legislation virtually mirroring that court decision of Bergerfeld in 2015. Hasn't happened yet on abortion. But if you do have a democratic government, a democratic win in the White House and in both chambers of Congress, you're going to see the effort to try to legislate a pro-abortion position nationwide to renationalize the question and in this case in favor of abortion. But what I want to look at today is the fact that the argument on the pro-abortion side is also transforming. And it's transforming in a fundamental way that needs our attention. It is transforming in the sense that there are those who are clearly now saying there's nowhere to go but for broke. We can't be satisfied even with a legislation tantam out to Roe. That's one of the big issues,

by the way. It showed up in the 2024 presidential campaign. It really started because of Joe Biden, and you'll remember that President Biden said he's personally opposed to abortion. He's a Catholic. He's personally opposed to abortion. He stopped saying that, by the way, at some point. But he went on to say he supported Roe. He supported a woman's right to choose. But he was considered too tepid for his own party. And there's one of the reasons why. you had Vice President Kamala Harris under President Biden coming out after the Dobbs decision, running point for the Biden administration, saying what President Biden himself even didn't want to say. But the big thing is now, when you look at the Democratic Party, there's absolutely no chance.

If I'm wrong on this, just to rewind this and remind me, I'm not going to be wrong. There's virtually no chance that the Democratic Party is going to nominate anyone who is aggressively pro-abortion far beyond President. at Biden, far beyond Bill Clinton, far beyond Barack Obama, probably far beyond Kamala Harris. And that is because the logic of the issue has now reached this point. And Democratic elected officials, they've been served notice. I want to point to an article that appeared just a few weeks ago in the nation. Now, the nation is one of the most politically liberal journals in terms of American intellectual life. The nation's been crusading for the left for decades now.

It's very well known. Just a few weeks ago, the nation had as its cover story this, defending all abortions, Amy Littlefield, who is identified as the nation's abortion access correspondent. That tells you a lot. She has the title, abortion access correspondent for the nation. The cover story is defending all abortions. And then the subhead is this. Democrats hate to talk about it.

Republicans love to lie about it, but later abortion care has never been more important. All right? I don't believe for a minute that the Republicans are lying about it. But I know what this particular writer means. This means giving a lot of attention to third trimester abortions and the horror of abortion in general. But the amazing thing about this, the reason I want us to pay attention to this is because the headline really gives it away, the cover story, defending all abortions. Okay. Do you notice what's going on here? Here's where you have the opposite argument gaining traction among the pro-abortion activists, even amidst the Democratic Party. And it is that you have to defend every single abortion. If your categorical moral principle is supposedly a woman's right to choose and to control her own body, and you raise that to the level of an absolute absolute, then you've got nowhere to go other than defending every single abortion under any circumstances for any reason of any.

woman or for no stated reason at all. You can't support any restrictions on abortion. And in particular, this article is addressed at the fact that the left is here calling for an honest embrace of defending every single abortion. And that means even third trimester late abortions. Now, let me just remind is the big issue here is something that pro-lifers need to keep very much in mind. The fact that a baby looks like a baby is not the most morally significant thing. That's why we have to go back to fertilization. We have to go back to when the sperm and the egg come together and God says, let there be life. And we have to defend the sanctity of life from that point onward. And so we have a nine month pro-life argument up until birth. And then after birth,

we have to be very clear that we assert and fully affirm that every single human being is made in the image of God, those who are born and those who are not yet born. But the worldview point I want to make here is that if you deny that, if you deny the biblical basis, if you deny the ontological basis, that is the reality fact, that this is a human being, a human person, which, by the way, many of the early abortionists were willing to concede, many of the early abortion rights activists were ready to concede that. They nonetheless declared that a woman should have the right to abortion. The woman's right trumped the right to life of the unborn child. But what I want us to see is that on the left right now, you have growing traction on this kind of argument that you're not really supporting abortion

unless you support any abortion, all abortions, unconditionally. And the logic of the pro-abortion position is taking them there. All right. I mentioned that the articles by Amy Littlefield identified as abortion access correspondent for the nation, and very tellingly, and I'm not, I'm not sure what the strategy was here, but very tellingly, the article begins with a first-person account. I understand that. It's a young woman named Ayana. And we are told that this is not a situation with this late abortion. It's not a situation in which there is some diagnosis of an issue with the unborn child. And we're told that it's largely an economic issue. And this is a young mother who already has children. And one of those children, when she saw that her mother was pregnant,

said, according to the article, quote, we don't need any more babies. End quote. Well, the fact is the article talks about how this woman was able to receive an abortion through a practice that performs late-term abortions and the third trimester abortions. And so the article is very candid. It points to the fact, and remember, the whole point of this article is to say to the pro-abortion side, if you're consistent, you've got to be for every abortion. The article is trying to shut off the possibility of some who I think the writer this article would say want to be known as pro-abortion or pro-choice, but they're actually squeamish about at least some

abortions and maybe even willing to negotiate on terms that would disallow some late-term abortions. The open argument here is you're not really pro-abortion if you don't defend any abortion, any time for any reason or no reason, period. Amy Littlefield gets right to the discomfort on the part of some who at least claim to be pro-abortion or pro-choice. She says this, quote, even among pro-choice voters, abortions that take place when the fetus looks less like a blob of tissue and more like a baby stir the kind of complex feelings that our political discourse seldom accommodates. As a result, later abortion has never had the widespread support that earlier abortion receives.

End quote. All right. Now, morally, what does this tell us? Well, it tells us that the argument being made here is that persons should support abortion all the way, even until right before birth, when the baby looks recognizably like a baby. baby. It's an attempt to try to close off any kind of compromise from the pro-choice or pro-abortion side. But here's where also I want to speak to pro-lifers. You know, we have to remind ourselves that the baby doesn't become a baby when it looks like a baby. The pro-life argument doesn't

begin when we say, yeah, that looks like a baby. The pro-life argument begins when God says let there be life, when there is fertilization, and when life begins. As a matter of fact, the Christian theological, the biblical theological argument, is that at that point, personhood begins. And so we can't speak of someone who looks like us as being more of a person than someone who does not yet look like us. But notice the dismissive language when the fetus looks less like a blob of tissue and more like a baby. I mean, honestly, it's hard to read it. I think that reveals the logic right there before our eyes. Now, I mentioned the political context, but it's explicit in the article. So this particular article goes at not only the pro-life argument.

It goes after, not just Republicans, it goes after Democrats who aren't pro-abortion enough. And it's interesting that one of the persons called out is former Vice President Kamala Harris, who was the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee. You remember that circus. Okay. So here's the point. Quote, nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion, Kamala Harris shot back.

at Trump. That's the way the report reads during the debate. And quote, okay, now what's the point? The point is that that statement's being criticized because it would indicate that Vice President Harris was insinuating that there could be something more wrong about an abortion that would take place later in pregnancy, perhaps even right up until the moment of birth. And here's what we know. We know that the culture of death rides on this kind of argument. And it is very important to us, when we see this argument straightforwardly, honestly delivered. This is what it looks like. This rather lengthy report in the nation talks about how even among the abortion providers,

this has been a controversial issue, and how over time there have been some who have basically gone into practice kind of specializing in late-term abortions. And when it comes to the woman whose first-person story originated this, again, it wasn't presented as a medical necessity at all. That's the kind of lie you get so often from the pro-abortion side. Here's exactly what later in the article the reporter tells us. In Ionna's case, the barrier she faced was her own ambivalence as she agonized over what a fourth

child would mean for her future and her family. Her case is not especially common. Well, 38% of women in the turnaway study reported that taking the time to decide whether to have an abortion slowed them down, the time needed was often days, not months. Okay. So you have the argument here. this isn't exactly typical, but it's the case she chose to begin the entire article. And she's honest about the fact the issue here was this woman's ambivalence about whether it was right to have this fourth child.

The article goes into detail about how the abortion took place. And I want to read this carefully. I just want you to hear the language. The doctor performing the abortion said to this woman, as the abortion is happening, whatever you need to feel, you feel. Okay, very interesting statement. Very much in the therapeutic category of moral evasion. Whatever you need to feel. You feel. In other words, we'll validate whatever moral impulse is going on here. I guess we should expect that kind of logic in a late trimester abortion clinic.

Okay, then we are told that the doctor confirmed that the baby's heart has stopped. And the doctor says, do you want to talk about any of the emotions that you were having? And the woman responds, quote, I got a little emotional once it started moving. Let that sink in. I got a little emotional once it, meaning the baby, started moving. The doctor's response, understandable. The reporter statement, that is an abortion at 28 weeks. The next line in the article, quote,

For Republicans, it's a coveted talking point. For Democrats, it's a liability. For Ayanna, it's a chance to be the mom she wants to be. end quote. Of course, that means not the mom to this baby. The extremity of this argument also shows up later in the article on the question of viability, because you know an awful lot of the legislation turns on the question of fetal viability. Again, we don't believe that viability is when personhood begins or where human dignity deserves to be protected. We believe that's the entirety of the pregnancy from fertilization onward.

But on the other side, it's really interesting to see how viability is now seen as a liability one person cited in the article said, viability, well, we are told is a slippery target, one that changes depending upon each pregnancy. As the reporter tells us, quote, as Shelley Sella, a retired third trimester abortion doctor writes in her new book Beyond Limits, a pregnancy can become non-viable because a patient doesn't have the resources to support it, end quote. Now, notice, notice horrifyingly enough, what's happened here is that viability has been shifted even from physical. viability, the viability of the unborn life to financial viability. This is almost exactly what we were looking at earlier this week when we talked about how the logic of euthanasia has spread in Canada. Pretty soon you say this reason is allowable and then who are you to say that reason is not

allowable. If you say that viability is the issue, who gets to define viability? Viability doesn't have to mean able to live outside the womb. That's what is clearly being asserted here. It can relate to just how the woman sees her pregnancy, viable or non-viable. The abortion doctor at one point addresses the theological issue. And remember, this is just after an abortion has been completed. And this abortion doctor says, quote, any God I believe in knows your heart and knows you're a good mom. End of quote.

Okay, just notice what's happened here. You're talking about a complete theological upsetting of the universe as well as on the sanctity of human life. The only God this abortion doctor would believe in, and I guess that's believable, is one that says that this woman's a good mom who just aborted her child. Now, as Christians, we understand,

this is a mom in distress. She might very well have a family in need. And this fourth child might indeed be an even greater burden. But we need to understand the logic of the culture of death. It says, well, the way to deal with this is to remove the burden. and then to have the abortion doctor say, any God I believe in knows your heart and knows you're a good mom. The abortion doctor said to the reporter, what's become clear to me is that our own movement is very uncomfortable with later abortion and that we have a lot of work to do before we can claim that we are truly justice-based, end quote. I just felt we had to talk about this because a part of our responsibility is to know what kind of arguments are shaping up on the other side.

And here you see where this argument is shaping up as the culture of death, just in undiluted form. No longer even willing to talk as Roe v. Wade discussed abortion in terms of three trimesters with ascending understanding of the viability of the unborn child and the personhood and the protection of the unborn child. No, that's all gone. That's a part of the embarrassing past to the pro-abortion movement. No, we need the brave new world where all abortion is supported. And not only that, as the article makes clear in this, quote, justice-based argument, that means every abortion legal, every abortion considered right, every woman able to have an abortion at any point. By the way, the use of the word woman, of course, is rather outdated in the world of pregnant people in the transgender revolution. But the other point is that you look at this and you recognize that they will demand the government pay for it as well.

That's their argument. That's what justice requires. This article is by no means singular. It is particularly clear, and it makes the argument an unvarnished form. But the fact is that, again, the Christian worldview logic is understanding that when you're talking about something that's non-negotiable, like the sanctity and dignity of human life, you really don't have a middle ground. And this is where many politicians have tried to carve out some middle ground and to reach some kind of lasting settlement. Bizarrely enough, Justice Harry Blackman, the author of the Roe v. Wade decision, amazingly enough, Justice Harry Blackman, the Supreme Court Justice who wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade, he actually asserted that what he was doing was creating a new national consensus.

Well, thanks be to God, that wasn't a new national consensus. But you need to know what we are facing is a worldview clash and a worldview battle in which what I just shared with you from this article is what the pro-abortion side is demanding must be the new national consensus. It's important for us to recognize, as on the issue of, say, same-sex marriage, we're talking about categoricals. It's either right or it's wrong. It can't be a little right, a little mostly right, no, a little bit wrong. It's either right or wrong. And once again, with same-sex marriage, you're talking about something that's right there rooted and revealed in creation order. I want to remind Christians, we've got nowhere to go with this. We've got nowhere to hide. And remember that that is

exactly what's at stake when this argument says that a justice-based approach would mean that all abortions are legal. Abortions for all reasons or no reasons. And justice would require that American taxpayers pay for it. And that means that you and I, as taxpaying Americans, will be required to pay directly for abortion through the taxes that are confiscated from the American people. And you just look at that and you understand that moral equation was clear enough going all the way back decades ago when Congressman Henry Hyde was the author of the amendment that bore his name. And it passed with support from both parties who simply thought, well, it's wrong to force pro-life Americans to pay for abortions. But you'll notice the argument now in the Democratic

Party, and this went all the way back to the 2020 race, where Joe Biden, who has a U.S. senator at supported the Hyde Amendment had to reverse his position in 24 hours in order to achieve the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. That's how fast this issue is unwinding. Let's just remind ourselves, we have nowhere to go on this. One of the things the pro-abortion movement has been counting on is that abortion will just recede into the background. Or it would just be listed with other contentious cultural, political, and moral issues, that it would just be one more item on a list and perhaps just one more issue to be dismissed quickly. And that's exactly what Christians can't do.

We've got nowhere to go on this. The fight for the sanctity and dignity of human life is what we're called to in the very first chapter of scripture. There are, of course, other issues that we could have discussed today. I spent so much time on this one issue because in time to time, I think we need to be reminded of exactly what is at stake. And honestly, politically, what's his tank is changing. And we need to know it. And we need to remind ourselves of what we believe

and what we've got to do about it. Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information, go to my website at Albertmohler.com. You can follow me on X or Twitter by going to X.com forward slash Albert Moller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbtsbts.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to voicecollege.com.

I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.