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Abolitionist Testimony in Opposition to LB512

 

 

Truth and reason pierce through a cloud of inequality and contradictions

 

The testimonies below were given at a public hearing on LB512 (“Adopt the Chemical Abortion Safety Protocol Act”) before the Health and Human Services Committee on February 13th, 2025. They followed an hour each of pro-life and pro-abortion testimony. The former argued that this bill would make chemical abortions safer (for women), while the latter made the case that such abortions are already safe.

 

 

Testimony by Teresa Fondren for Abolish Abortion Nebraska

 

Good afternoon, Vice Chair Fredrickson and members of the committee. My name is Teresa Fondren, and I am speaking on behalf of myself and Abolish Abortion Nebraska.

 

Opponents of LB512 oppose it because they are pro-abortion.

 

Proponents of LB512 are for it because they are pro-life.

 

As an abolitionist, I know abortion is murder — yet neither group treats it as such.

 

Therefore I find myself in the “neutral” category.

 

But I am against the bill. I am against it because God is against it. Be assured, God is not neutral in what he says about this kind of legislation.

 

God says: “You shall not be partial in judgment” (Deuteronomy 1:17).

 

This bill is partial in favor of mothers who kill their preborn children, and prejudiced against the human beings in their wombs. It allows women to commit murder via abortion with total impunity.

 

God says in James 2:9: “If you show partiality, you are committing sin.”

 

This bill explicitly shows partiality, and thus to support it is to commit sin, both against God and against fellow human beings.

 

God says in Proverbs 17:15: “Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent — the Lord detests them both.”

 

This bill acquits every mother who kills her preborn child with chemicals. And it condemns to death the innocent children murdered via abortion without mercy and without trial. This bill acquits the guilty and condemns the innocent. The Lord detests this.

 

God says, “Woe to those who … deprive the innocent of his right!” in Isaiah 5.

 

This bill, rather than supporting “Equality Before the Law,” which is our state motto, continues to deprive innocent preborn children of their right to life. Woe to those who do this!

 

God says: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5).

 

Proponents of this bill say it is good because it will make abortions safer. But abortion is not safe for the innocent human beings which it kills. This bill plainly treats abortion like healthcare, which can be regulated, rather than murder, which must be abolished.

 

God says in Romans 14:4 that the role of the governing authority is as “the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”

 

This bill allows murder of innocents to take place without penalty for those committing the act. To support this bill, as a civil magistrate, would be to abdicate one’s God-given duty to punish wrongdoers.

 

The holy Word of God shows very clearly that this bill is something that God hates. I urge you not to pass it out of committee.

 

Instead, I implore you to heed the biblical counsel given to you by over 130 pastors in Nebraska on January 23rd, both to draft a law which immediately abolishes abortion as murder without exception or compromise, and to proclaim a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer for Nebraska, because much innocent blood has been spilled in our land.

 

 

 

Testimony by Jeff Spahr for Abolish Abortion Nebraska

 

Thank you for this opportunity to come before this committee. My name is Jeff Spahr. I am representing Abolish Abortion Nebraska and myself. I have already emailed members of this committee why I’m testifying in neutral to LB512.

 

Let me ask the committee this: Looking back on the slave trade, I think we would all agree that it was unjust?

 

So, let’s go back to 1788 when Britain enacted the Slave Trade Regulation Act with the provision of limiting the number of enslaved people on slave ships. This act was to establish better health care for those enslaved. As such, this act regulated slavery.

 

Abolitionists such as William Wilberforce feared that the act would establish the idea that the slave trade was not fundamentally unjust, but merely an activity that needed further regulation.

 

So now let’s go to LB512. Sections 3–5 and 7 set forth the regulation of chemical abortion. My concern is in the portion of Section 2 — and this is just a portion of that: “with the specific intent of terminating the life of her preborn child.”

 

Take that in. Terminating life.

 

I thought our constitution stated, “No person shall be deprived of life”!

 

Our state statute, Homicide of the Unborn Child Act, calls an act that causes the death (termination of life) of a preborn child at any stage of development to be murder. LB512 treats abortion as an activity that needs further regulation, and not an activity that is unjust, like slavery and murder.

 

Further, LB512 Section 6 and state statute 28-390 [in the Homicide of the Unborn Child Act just mentioned] give legal permission and protection for the mother to engage in termination of life. This sounds just like what Senator Cavanaugh’s LB53 pro-choice bill is asking to do!

 

Is it not unjust to give permission for one specific group of people to murder another specific group of people without penalty? If LB512 is supposed to be pro-life legislation, it’s a very unjust measure.

 

When Nebraska became a state, to solidify its stance for the legal equality for blacks, enacted our state motto, “Equality Before the Law”. It is time to do something similar and stop treating abortion of the preborn as something to be regulated, as it has been for the past 50 years. Instead, it is time to abolish abortion by granting the preborn equality before the law.

 

I conclude with a quote from William Wilberforce, edited to fit this situation:

 

“I confess to you, committee, so enormous, so dreadful, so incurable did abortion’s wickedness appear, that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. A practice founded in iniquity, and carried on as this was, must be abolished. Let the policy be what it might, let the consequences be what they are, I from this time determined that I will never rest till I had effected abortion’s abolition.”

 

 

 

Testimony by Jarrod Ridge for End Abortion Nebraska

 

Chair Hardin and the rest of the committee, thank you for giving this opportunity to speak. My name is Jarrod Ridge, and I come to you today representing End Abortion Nebraska.

 

And just as my previous two colleagues brought to you, we’re offering a unique perspective, a critical perspective rooted in God’s Word. Each of you have received a copy of a Biblical document that we gave three weeks ago that was referenced earlier, that is signed by 130 pastors here in Nebraska.

 

It outlines a clear and God-honoring path to ending abortion.

 

This morning you heard Pastor Randall Klynsma offer the prayer in the session. He is one of our signers. He opened that prayer in the Lord’s Prayer, a section of which was: “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” He continued on and he said, “Grant that we and all men renounce our own will, and without disputing obey Your will, which alone is good; so that everyone may fulfill their office and calling as willingly and faithfully as the angels do in heaven.”

 

This bill does not align with God’s will and directly contradicts the instructions of our Lord Jesus. Regulating abortion is unjust; and this bill, along with other incremental “pro-life” measures, are iniquitous. Abortion is murder, as life begins at conception. To deny that is to reject both God’s Word and to deny scientific fact. Abortion involves the deliberate taking of an innocent life with malice aforethought. This bill describes and permits a premeditated act: seeking out a pill to kill a preborn baby.

 

This bill perpetuates that evil practice by continuing to regulate murder and by prescribing conditions under which preborn children can be killed. Senators, I would ask you: Would you ever allow a mother to give her one-day-old baby a pill to end their life if certain conditions were met? If not, why then do we treat the preborn children differently? Are they not equally human?

 

As Chair Hardin mentioned earlier today, there is one person in this mix that is completely “lost 100 percent of the time,” and that is the child.

 

Our motto, as was stated, is “Equality Before the Law.” That declares justice for all, including the preborn. This bill treats preborn babies unequally and denies them justice.

 

God has provided clear guidance on how you, His ministers with delegated authority, should govern. Isaiah 10 speaks directly to this kind of legislation as iniquitous, by depriving preborn children of justice and making them prey. There is a “woe” pronounced in Isaiah 10:1, and it is directed to magistrates who write and approve bills like this. If you vote for this bill and pass this bill on, you bear responsibility for these unjust laws against the preborn, and their blood is on your hands. And that concerns me for you.

 

We have all allowed this holocaust to continue for over 50 years. The blood of thousands of babies cries out from the ground, just as Abel’s blood cried out after Cain committed the very first murder in Genesis 4:10.

 

I urge you today: fear God rather than men. Repent with me and do not advance this bill, but instead bring forth righteous legislation that provides equal protection for the preborn persons as any born person — you and I — in the state of Nebraska would have. 21 other states have already done this. So I urge you to do the same. Thank you.

 

 

Add your voice

 

Would you like to add your voice to those above?

 

We are planning more in-person testimony for this Thursday, March 6th (on LB53 and LB669). We’d love to have you join us!

 

But if you’re unable to come in person, you can still help by submitting online comments and emailing the senators from the committee hearing the bills.

 

Read this article for more information on ways you can help.

 

And please contact us if you can come in person, or have any questions.