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Partiality Enshrined:

Nebraska’s New Unequal Constitution

 

 

Note: Throughout this article, the phrase “pro-life establishment” is used to refer to pro-life organizations who promoted initiative measure 434.

 

The Nebraska pro-life establishment rejoiced. The careful plan was executed, millions of dollars were spent, the incessant advertising completed, the many speaking engagements held, and the desired result was achieved. Hailed as one more in a list of pro-life victories for a pro-life state, well-intentioned Christians throughout the state gave a collective sigh of relief. The diabolical pro-choice initiative measure 439 was defeated, and in its place the state’s constitution was set to be amended to include the “commonsense” pro-life measure 434. “It is a great day for unborn babies in Nebraska,” crowed Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen.

 

But all is not as it seems.

 

Truly, we could say with the prophet of old, that:

 

“Justice is turned back,

and righteousness stands far away;

for truth has stumbled in the public squares,

and uprightness cannot enter” (Isaiah 59:14).

 

 

They Were Both Pro-Abortion

 

Consider this question: If a law that is made concerning a practice permits that practice to take place in nearly every instance that it is likely to be carried out, is the law for that practice or against it?

 

Think about the statutes in Nebraska which regulate the practice of abortion. They allow abortion during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. Besides the fact that abortions in the first trimester already account for 93.5% percent of all abortions nationwide as per the last report available from the CDC, Nebraska laws also permit abortions after that stage in the pregnancy for no less than three reasons.

 

As if that were not bad enough, consider that these laws also condone self-managed abortions, where the mother is her own abortionist. Numbers of these abortions continue to rise rapidly, especially in states with abortion “bans,” and are not counted in the statistic just mentioned because they happen outside of the formal “health care” system. This is significant when the following is also taken into account: 1) the same CDC report above shows that, even within the “health care” system, only 0.9% of all abortions in the country occur at 21 weeks or above, 2) it is very easy for anyone to order abortion pills online, from any state in the union, and 3) such pills (misoprostol and mifepristone) are considered to be medically “safe” (for the mother) through 24 weeks’ gestation, past the time where less than 1% of abortions take place. Putting this together: Nebraska laws allow for nearly all abortions to take place legally, and the number could get up to as high as 99% under current laws, just so long as the correct method is used and the right person is doing it.

 

Reread the question above and ask yourself: Are such laws for abortion or are they against it?

 

Is not the answer readily apparent? We declare plainly that such laws are pro-abortion.

 

Abortion, the murder of children in the womb (or child sacrifice, as the Bible speaks of the practice) is, in the overwhelming majority of cases, considered legal by Nebraska state statutes — laws which the pro-life establishment proudly call their own.

 

And reader, these are the very laws which initiative measure 434 was designed to protect.

 

An amendment intended to protect laws that allow abortion in nearly all cases is decidedly and incontrovertibly a pro-abortion amendment. On the ballot this November were two pro-abortion measures, not one.

 

 

Born Out of Faithlessness

 

“But,” cries the 434 advocate, “measure 439 would have made our situation worse! Passing 434 was the only way to keep this from happening.”

 

We have previously documented many similarities between the two amendments in addition to that noted above. Here we would like to touch on how this kind of thinking demonstrates a problem inherent with the pro-life initiative: faithlessness. It reveals more concern for a particular outcome than it does that God’s words are believed and obeyed, and it illustrates a greater interest that a specific result should be avoided than a fear of God’s righteous judgment for disobedience. (If this seems harsh to the reader, we ask that you please withhold judgment until you have finished reading, Proverbs 18:13.)

 

The eye of faith looks to the precepts and promises of the holy, authoritative Word of God, endeavoring to obey and believe them. It lives on every word that comes from the mouth of God, trusting them to be true despite how circumstances may appear. It delights in the perfect law of God, and hastens without delay to keep his commandments — not as a means of attaining salvation, but in gratitude for grace already received, and out of a commitment to love God with all that one is and has.

 

Thus, when God says over and over again that we must not show partiality (James 2:9), nor pervert justice (Deuteronomy 16:19), nor deprive the righteous of justice (Proverbs 18:5) or the innocent of his right (Isaiah 5:23), nor put children to death for sins of their fathers (Deuteronomy 24:16), it is not our place to look around us and worry that something bad may happen if we follow such commands. What, are we wiser than the omniscient Creator of the universe? Our duty is simply to obey. The result of such obedience belongs to God alone.

 

Otherwise, well may Christ demand, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46).

 

Now, we pause here briefly to say: If you were not aware of the several commands of God mentioned above, yet you have broken them by supporting measure 434 (as it violates each of them), then doing so was out of ignorance. Yet disobedience to God, for any reason, once discovered, should be repented of. We speak more of repentance at the end of this piece, and acknowledge that we too have needed to repent. It is part and parcel of following Christ to confess sin to God and keep close accounts with him.

 

 

Moses, a Man of Faith

 

Moses provides us with an excellent example of obedience without compromise, faith in God’s words, and a fear of God’s judgment for disobedience. Knowing that “whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction” (Romans 15:4), let us consider Moses’ example, which we hope will indeed be instructive.

 

All the people of Israel were enslaved in Egypt. God commanded Moses to go before Pharaoh and declare that the Lord had said, “Let my people go.” After some initial hesitancy, Moses, with Aaron, appeared before Pharaoh and they spoke as God had commanded them.

 

The first thing to note is how they reasoned with Pharaoh: “Please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword” (Exodus 5:3). From this we learn that they feared the judgment of God should he not be obeyed with alacrity. They knew that Pharaoh was ruler over the whole land of Egypt, and could do as he wished with his slaves, yet they were more concerned with what might happen should they not follow God’s commands. As the account unfolds, we see God’s proclamation confirmed, that “this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2).

 

Next, pay attention to what took place as a result of their obedient appearing before Pharaoh: the people’s work under their taskmasters was made much more difficult, yet they were required to produce the same amount as before (Exodus 5:7–8), Pharaoh accused them of idleness (v. 8) and lying (v. 9), the Israelite foremen were beaten (v. 14), and this was expected to be the new state of things (v. 19). What had happened? They had obeyed God, but things got worse. What was the foremen’s report to Moses and Aaron? “The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us” (v. 21). The lesson here is that faith must always filter the results of submission to God’s will through the lens of God’s Word. Have I been carefully obedient to do what God said? Then I have been faithful, even if that obedience brings setback in the near term.

 

Third, what occurred only after the setback? Moses presented God’s own words back to him in prayer (5:23 cp. 3:8), and then “the Lord said to Moses, ‘Now you shall see what I will do.’ ” (6:1). God would bring deliverance by his own power and for his own glory. And shall it be otherwise? Will God give his glory to another? Should we expect to see God deliver us from our desperate condition if we do not trust him when he speaks plainly to us in his Word, but instead spurn his holy laws? Rather, it is those who delight in God’s law whose ways will prosper (Psalm 1).

 

Lastly, notice how unwilling Moses was to compromise on anything God had said. Pharaoh repeatedly tried to get Moses to make concessions: first, Pharaoh said that the people could go and sacrifice to the Lord, but that they must do it from within the land of Egypt rather than leaving (8:25). Then, that they could leave Egypt but should not go far, when Moses asked for a three days’ journey (v. 28). After that, Pharaoh demanded that only the men should be allowed to go (10:11), though Moses had said, “We will go with our young and our old.” (v. 9).

 

Pharaoh’s final offered compromise was that the people could go but their flocks and herds should remain in Egypt (v. 24). Moses’ response to this was emphatic: “Not a hoof shall be left behind” (10:26)!

 

The contrast of this account to the pro-life establishment’s efforts at each point is striking: Initiative 434 shows no fear of disobeying the clear commands of God; it rather is concerned with what might happen if God were obeyed; it has no reason to expect to see God’s power at work, trusting as it does in man’s wisdom rather than God’s own plain words; and it is willing, after fifty years, to continue to leave the vast majority of the oppressed behind, to be treated as property and abused to death by their own mothers and fathers, all with the permission of pro-life legislation, which measure 434 protects. How many thousands of innocent preborn children will be ruthlessly murdered with measure 434’s approval?

 

 

Questions to Ponder

 

In addition to the example provided by the life of Moses, we could also ask the following questions:

 

Should it be considered a victory to compromise with unambiguous, inherent evil, or is that surrender?

 

Which should be the determining factor in how we act: what we think in our creaturely minds may happen in the future, or the voice of the all-knowing Creator God speaking in his inspired and authoritative written Word?

 

Is it a success to continue to educate the public through legislation that almost all abortions are acceptable, or is this a complete moral disaster?

 

Is it really a surprise that almost 49% of persons who voted on measure 439 voted for it, or is this to be expected after five decades of telling people that, legally, preborn lives really matter an awful lot less than born ones?

 

Is it praiseworthy to willfully protect laws that permit nearly all murders by abortion, or is it utterly unconscionable?

 

Should passing a law of partiality that God declares he hates (Proverbs 17:15) be something that is joyfully celebrated, or should it be soundly condemned?

 

Which is more to be feared: passing an evil piece of legislation (“What if 439 had passed?”); or the displeasure of Almighty God, who is a consuming fire, pouring out his judgment upon our state because of the decades of child sacrifice our laws have already sanctioned, our complete disregard for his sovereign commands, and our sheer faithlessness to believe and obey him?

 

 

What We Have Done

 

The stark reality of our collective guilt before Almighty God, of the blood of thousands of murdered innocents crying out to God from the ground, of our unjust, prejudicial, oppressive laws that have condoned such murders for decades, should cause us to humbly plead with God for forgiveness and mercy, and be meticulous in our attention to obeying him, not to look even more to our own plans (which have failed over and over and over again to protect the innocent) while ignoring his straightforward commands that even a child can understand. We are already deserving of the judgment of God for our great wickedness, and shall we make it worse by even more disobedience?

 

This is what we have done by voting to pass measure 434 on November 6, 2024. The result is expected to be certified by the State Canvassing Board on December 2nd, with a proclamation to be made by our governor in the days following, whereupon Nebraska’s constitution will be amended to have measure 434’s text inserted as section 31 of Article I.

 

Where will that put us? Will we be at the same place legislatively as we were before? Will we simply have maintained the status quo?

 

No. Our state constitution says that no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law, nor be deprived equal protection of the laws. But as The Sentinel noted from comments by Bradley Pierce, constitutional attorney and president of the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, the passing of measure 434 “ ‘almost completely destroys’ any argument that the existing equal protection clause in the Nebraska state constitution should be interpreted to protect preborn babies” in the first trimester.

 

This is what we have done. As Nebraska citizens, we have voted to make our constitution more in line with existing pro-abortion (pro-life) laws in the Nebraska Revised Statutes.

 

Before 434, our constitution said every person should be equally protected; it treated all persons alike. Now it will not. This is what a vote for 434 represented: inequality. That is not in any sense a gain. Specifically singling out one category of persons for legal protection (e.g., 2nd and 3rd trimester babies), while both explicitly and implicitly excluding others (e.g., 1st trimester babies and those conceived by sexual assault or incest) is the definition of partiality. This is something God time and time again commands against. Read, e.g., Exodus 23:2–3; Leviticus 19:15; Deuteronomy 1:17; Deuteronomy 16:18–20; Job 13:10; Psalm 82:2–4; Proverbs 18:5; Proverbs 24:23–25; Proverbs 28:21; and James 2:1–9.

 

The final verse in that list sums up the Bible’s stance on the issue: “If you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.” Whatever the intention or end goal in mind may have been for a particular voter, a vote for 434 scripturally represented a vote against God’s plainly revealed will and commands. All such persons have transgressed God’s holy law and have committed sin against him.

 

The pro-life establishment through measure 434 has written, galvanized support for, and helped pass legislation which shows partiality, in direct opposition to God’s commandments.

 

 

Inequality Before the Law: Nebraska’s Pro-Abortion History

 

But this is not new. No, not by any means. The Nebraska pro-life establishment has a long history of passing pro-abortion, prejudicial, unequal laws that God hates. Consider the following laws, each of which the pro-life establishment has been proud of:

 

1991 parental notification law: If you are 17 years old or younger, as long as you notify one of your parents first, then you can murder your preborn child.

 

1993 informed consent law: If you have sought a trained assassin to help you kill your baby, as long as he (should such a one be considered trustworthy?) provides you with some educational information, including any potential risks (to you) with the procedure, then you can murder your preborn child.

 

1997 partial birth abortion ban: As long as you don’t partially deliver the baby first, then you can murder your preborn child.

 

2002 Assault of an Unborn Child Act: Completely irrelevant to mothers, because they are exempted. If your heart desires to do so, then you can murder your preborn child.

 

2004 Homicide of Unborn Child Act: As with the previous act, this is totally irrelevant for mothers. If your heart desires to do so, then you can murder your preborn child.

 

2009 mothers’ right to see ultrasound law: If you have hired a killer to help you murder your baby, as long as he offers to show you an ultrasound picture of your baby — which are easy to fake (see testimony at 29:23 to 37:42 here), and which you don’t have to look at anyway, and even if you do — then you can murder your preborn child.

 

2010 Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act: As long as you act soon enough, and go ahead with a decision to kill your baby before you are more than 20 weeks along, then you can murder your preborn child.

 

2011 ban on webcam abortions: If the provider of your abortion pills is in Nebraska, as long as you are physically present to receive the pills, then you can murder your preborn child.

 

2011 parental consent law: As long as one of your parents approves of your actions, then you can murder your preborn child.

 

2017 Compassionate Care for Medically Challenging Pregnancies Act: If your child has a fetal anomaly and is expected to die before birth, as long as you are provided with information on perinatal hospice care, then you can murder your preborn child.

 

2019 abortion pill reversal information law: If you have chosen to kill your baby by medication and have hired a professional hit man to help you, as long as he gives you information about ways to potentially counteract the medication you are about to take, then you can murder your preborn child. (As with many of these, this law also puts trust in someone who kills babies for a living.)

 

2019 ban on dismemberment abortions: Teaches pregnant mothers that dismembering a child is wrong, but that any other way to kill babies in the womb is fine. So long as you don’t put your baby to death by dismemberment, then you can murder your preborn child.

 

2023 Preborn Child Protection Act: Most women who have abortions do so in the first trimester. This law reminds women not to put off their decision: As long as you move ahead by your twelfth week of pregnancy, then you can murder your preborn child. (And even if you did kill your baby after the twelfth week — e.g., by getting some pills online — this law says you are totally innocent of any crime.)

 

God’s Word pronounces the following strong denunciation on everyone involved in making these laws:

 

“Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees,

and the writers who keep writing oppression,

to turn aside the needy from justice

and to rob the poor of my people of their right,

that widows may be their spoil,

and that they may make the fatherless their prey!” (Isaiah 10:1–2)

 

God says very plainly that he hates those laws: “Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent — the Lord detests them both” (Proverbs 17:15, NIV).

 

It is not complicated. The Lord’s command is clear: “You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality” (Deuteronomy 16:19).

 

“But Roe v. Wade forced their hand!” This is certainly no more true than that the specter of 439 meant that passing 434 was the only option. Our nation’s federal constitution provided all that was needed to say that the supreme Court’s opinion in Roe was null and void:

 

Article VI clause 2: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof… shall be the supreme Law of the Land…” Nowhere is the supreme Court given the power to make law. Roe v. Wade was never the law of the land, but the lie of the land. It is the constitution and laws made to uphold it that are the law of the land.

 

14th amendment, section 1: “No State shall… deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

 

Which public officer in our state had not sworn to uphold these?

 

But they were neither faithful to their oaths of office nor faithful to their Creator God. Instead, they made the supreme Court into their god, and worshiped and bowed down to it. Who was there to say, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29)? How many were there who followed them into this statist idolatry? And did not those officials represent Nebraska’s citizens with their actions? How many Christians supported them and voted for them? Surely in this tragedy there is much blame to go around.

 

Our sovereign Lord tells us what our responsibility is: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). It is the beginning of wisdom to fear the Lord (Proverbs 9:10), and those who fear him keep his commandments (Deuteronomy 6:2).

 

But the pro-life establishment has an extended history of violating God’s direct commandments. This demonstrates that they are neither wise, nor do they fear the Lord. They do not have the Word of God as their foundation, and as such, their work has led to ruin (Luke 6:49): thousands of babies murdered legally every year, a culture catechized to believe that some human beings are far less valuable than others, and a consensus among the otherwise generally morally upright portion of the public that compromise with intrinsic evil is the way forward. The deception extends from the least to the greatest, so that even the governor has been led astray and participated in their disobedience.

 

 

A Long Overdue Reformation

 

It is long past time for a change.

 

Note carefully: Consider where the blame principally lies. How is it that the pro-life establishment has been able to continue their compromise unabated for so long? How is it that truth has stumbled in the public square? Is it not because the voice of truth has been so absent from that sphere? Is it not with the household of God that judgment begins (1 Peter 4:17)?

 

Where are the men of God like Moses to speak before Pharaoh? Where are the men like John the Baptist to tell Herod the king, “It is not lawful” (Matthew 14:4)? Pause, good reader, and praise God that Nebraska is not without such men! Indeed, more than 100 pastors and elders from churches across our state are joining together in a letter that will be presented to our legislature, urging them to establish equal justice for the preborn.

 

Christians needs to be at the front of this battle. No longer should this work be outsourced to organizations which demonstrate neither fear of the Lord nor obedience to him. It is accounted a matter of pure and undefiled religion to give relief to the poor and needy (James 1:27). Who is more needy than a helpless and innocent preborn child about to be murdered by his own parents? Who is poorer than a person deprived of the right even to live, and mercilessly condemned to death by the law without any hope? It is surely then a matter of impure and defiled religion to promote the continuance of laws which, instead of offering relief, persist in oppressing those very poor and needy persons, continuing to deprive them of their most basic rights.

 

Rather, the opposite should be done: legislators should sponsor and pass an equal protection law to abolish abortion — that is, to criminalize abortion as murder from fertilization, with no exceptions, and repeal or supersede any contradictory law. This is no less their duty now than before measure 434 was passed. Followers of Christ should demand this of their senators, do so persistently, and tell others to do the same. Legislators will be more likely to think something is important to do if more people keep calling for the exact same thing.

 

But if they do not listen, they need to be replaced. This is key: Do not support any legislative candidate who will not publicly promise to sponsor such an equal protection law. Will no one in your district run on such a platform? Is there no candidate who would fulfill his basic obligation to punish evildoers and reward those who do good? Why not run for office yourself? Abolitionists can and have made it into office running publicly as such. Representative-elect David Lowe in Texas is a recent example. Abolitionism has advanced in history, it can and will advance, and it is on the advance again. “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).

 

Can abortion be abolished by an equal protection law being passed by the legislature, even with our constitution amended by measure 434? Yes. However, the inequality and partiality of the amended state constitution may be used to challenge it. But this does not change the fact that it is the legislature’s duty to pass an equal protection law. This duty is fundamental to their position. And if there be any higher law that is contrary, they should defy it. This is their duty before God, because when any human authority commands that which God forbids or forbids that which God commands, each of us always has a duty to obey God rather than men. (Read more about this here.)

 

We must return to the Word of God as our standard for everything that we do, whether in personal, in church, or in public life. It is by faith that one sees Jesus Christ in his Word and lays hold upon him as the only means of salvation from the just wrath of God due upon the sinner. This same eye of faith should also look to God for deliverance from this abortion holocaust. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Let us both trust and obey him in all that he has spoken, praying that God would increase our faith daily. The same God who promised to be with Moses (Exodus 3:12) has also promised to be with us (Matthew 28:20). Let us take Moses as our example of bold confidence, knowing that Christ will be with his people.

 

All financial support for any of the pro-life establishment organizations should cease. Not only are they not the solution, but they have only made the problem worse, much worse, as we have described.

 

Do you want to see all persons equally protected under the law and abortion treated as murder, so that killing a preborn human being is completely the same as killing a born human being under the law, without exception and with any attendant penalties for all involved? Do you want due process to be applied equally to all persons? Do you want to see abortion abolished without delay? Then call yourself an abolitionist. (Learn more here.) It would make your stance more plain, and keep people from confusing your interests with a movement that does not have the same foundation, methodology, or goals. (Still unsure about this? Watch The Fatal Flaw: Lies, Laws, & Pro-life Deception.)

 

Desperately needed is repentance. From committing an abortion, to being party to one committed, to compromising with evil and promoting laws of partiality that are pro-abortion, to being apathetic about the plight of our most needy and innocent neighbors, to “softening” a conversation by speaking about abortion as anything other than murder, to not doing one’s part to rescue those being taken away to death in this abortion holocaust we are living through — if you find that you have committed any sin as it pertains to abortion, please repent.

 

Let it be made plain: we confess that we have ourselves previously been part of the problem. We have had to repent of sin in this area. If you need to as well, please repent with us. Sin must be taken seriously.

 

Pray. Whether or not you need to personally repent, pray for repentance and heart change to take place throughout our state. Let us beg God together to pour out his Holy Spirit and bring godly repentance to many. It may be that Nebraskan citizens will not learn righteousness until the judgment of God is poured out upon the land (Isaiah 26:9). Yet though we do not deserve God’s mercy, we pray for it, knowing that God is both just and merciful.

 

Education: Churches, citizens, the culture at large, almost everyone has been negatively influenced by the pro-life establishment to some degree. Education is vital. An excellent resource to help in this respect is the book Post Roe Reformation by Kayla Suderman. If you want to see abortion abolished, you will not regret purchasing this book. Buy it, read it, then give away as many copies as you can.

 

We must be doers of the word, and not hearers only (James 1:22). What will you do to love your preborn neighbor as yourself? The ministry Rescue Those provides plenty of ways you can help.

 

Never compromise with the evil of abortion in any way. Though God will bring about the abolition of abortion in Nebraska in his timing and for his own glory (Isaiah 42:4), our call for it must always be urgent, immediate, and unwavering. We will close with a quotation from an abolitionist of slavery from two centuries ago, Elizabeth Heyrick:

 

“But this GRADUAL ABOLITION, has been the grand marplot of human virtue and happiness; the very masterpiece of satanic policy. By converting the cry for immediate, into gradual emancipation, the prince of slave holders, ‘transformed himself, with astonishing dexterity, into an angel of light,’ and thereby ‘deceived the very elect.’ He saw very clearly, that if public justice and humanity, especially, if Christian justice and humanity, could be brought to demand only a gradual extermination of the enormities of the slave system; if they could be brought to acquiesce, but for one year, or for one month, in the slavery of our African brother, in robbing him of all the rights of humanity, and degrading him to a level with the brutes; that then, they could imperceptibly be brought to acquiesce in all this for an unlimited duration.”