Slaying Abortion’s Goliath (7 January, 1997)
Posted 27 June, 2017 in remembrance of Paul Hill 20 years after his execution.
The essay by Paul Hill (7 January, 1997), “Slaying Abortion’s Goliath” is transcribed with abridgments below. Here is my introduction:
On 29 July, 1994, Paul Hill terminated Abortionist John Britton, 69, and his collaborator, one James H. Barrett, a 74-year-old retired Air Force lieutenant. In another era, Barrett might be called a “co-conspirator,” but in that time, a mere two decades into the holocaust, it was legal (by SCOTUS ukase) – as it is still – to slaughter innocent children; accordingly, both murderers, Britton and Barrett, were regarded as innocent murder victims.
Three years into his imprisonment and six years before his execution on 4 September, 2003, he wrote the following under the title, “Slaying Abortion’s Goliath” on 7 January, 1997. It is here transcribed and posted for the record by Michael Bray, his friend and colleague.
It is unedited. However, I have clarified his message with abridgment, insertion of paragraph indentation, and the addition of headings. Paul is not here to argue against my posting an abridged version of his essay. As the case is with decedents, we who remain do what seems best with what others have left us. And I am an archivist, second; an activist, first.
I well remember carrying signs and inveighing with Paul outside a Florida business location, where the abortionist, against whom we protested, would later be shot by him. I remember him in earnest indignation and I remember him at a point, in countenance, resolved.
I put forth here what I believe to be the salient points of his essay, his plea to his contemporaries. I want his plea, his passion, his admonition, accessible. But his contemporaries are not his only audience, now. His words are here for their children as well and I hope , as presented here, they will help guide them in the way of the Truth: loving and obeying it.
His words convey my general sentiments; however, I would note a distinction. While I affirm his arguments for the ethical grounds for defending the unborn on the basis of the full humanity of the womb child, I offer an alternate perspective, especially in light of our continued national persistence in apostasy – 44 years into a holocaust. We are a nation of false churches and of true churches; churches which are true to the truth recognize the simple fact that the sacrificing of children is that which apostates and heathen do; it is the fare of false churches to play the truth falsely.
The prophets, when they addressed God’s people in the mist of such heathen, did not enjoin them with a duty to rescue the children which were being sacrificed by their Babylonian and Assyrian neighbors; such horrendous degradation was a judgment upon them. Neither were they indicted by the prophets for failing to rescue those heathen children. Part of the judgment upon the idol worshipers was their being “given over” to the practice of idolatrous infanticide.
This I take as grounds for refraining from enjoining all hearers to abjure themselves to deliver the innocents with effective force. I maintain such a course to be an ethical option. But I affirm for each one the ethical liberty on this matter of “rescue” by lethal force or otherwise and therefore assign it to the matters of individual conscience and divine leading.
For more information on Paul Hill, you may visit https://www.armyofgod.com/.
Slaying Abortion’s Goliath
In April of 1996, President Clinton, joined by three aborted women, vetoed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. We know the position of that President and the women, but what of the disinclined fathers?
Suppose one of them had been present the day their child’s body hung from the mother with the child’s head still engaged. Suppose he could not have tolerated the sight and decided to save this struggling child. If he had threatened or laid hand on the doctor would it have been a criminal act? Is it only moral to defend a child whose head has cleared the cervix? If a mother’s duty to defend her child begins at conception when does the father’s duty begin? Is the undefending father the pro-life model? If not, what is his duty?
The answer to these questions and the central idea of this address is that the unborn must be defended with force.
Truth Proclamation: Murder Exposed!
A simple reason the unborn must be defended with force is to clarify the proclamation of the truth. By defending him from an abortion, we display the truth by exposing abortion as murder.
The first concern of the murderer is to hide his bloody deeds. The word he hates most is the one that exposes his crime, murder! And abortion is murder. The question in many people’s minds is whether abortion is still murder if it receives government sanction. Did the murder of abortion stop the day the Supreme Court passed Roe v. Wade? What does God’s word say?
Christ, like the unborn, was killed under color of law; yet Stephen the martyr, inspired by the Holy Spirit, declared Christ’s legalized execution to be murder before the Jewish Council in Acts 7: “Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One of whom you now have become betrayers and murderers.”
The Jewish leaders would not have 0bjected if Stephen had used a euphemistic term such as “kill” to refer to Christ’s death. But the word “murder” burst in their midst like a flare in a darkened room, exposing the magnitude of their blood-guilt and inciting their fury against Stephen and the whole church. If only Stephen and the apostles had avoided the word murder they could have avoided the conviction which drove people to Christ in faith and repentance and transformed the world.
Those who similarly seek the conviction and revival of the world need look no further for it’s key. This word is not only a most powerful weapon in the pro-life arsenal, it is also the most powerfully convicting truth any herald of the gospel could use; if only he had the courage to use it effectively.
God declares legalized murder to be murder and must we. God used the apostles to fight where the battle raged by exposing the slaughter of the innocent with the strongest word possible: murder. Therefore, to counteract the moral confusion resulting from the state sanctioning the murder of the innocent, we must charge into the fray, wielding the sword of God’s word, which exposes abortion as murder.
But, the objection immediately comes to mind: If we boldly insist that abortion is murder, won’t it open a Pandora’s box of enormous consequences? Obviously, if abortion is murder, it necessarily follows that the legalization of abortion is the legalization of mass murder on an enormous scale. And if our government has sanctioned mass murder in a way that, in principle, is analogous to the Nazis sanctioning mass murder, wouldn’t civil war and popular resistance not only be justifiable but also a dire necessity? In short, if we boldly declare abortion to be murder, won’t there be catastrophic personal and national consequences?
The answer is yes. Just as there were enormous consequences for those who proclaimed that the Jews and Romans had sanctioned the murder of Christ, so there are enormous consequences for those who proclaim that our nation has sanctioned the murder of the unborn. And just as the apostles and disciples would have been terribly guilty if they had, in an effort to avoid the consequences, toned down their proclamation that the Christ was murdered in an effort to avoid the consequences, so we will be terribly guilty if we don’t boldly proclaim that the unborn are being murdered and willingly bear the consequences of this assertion.
Because the good consequences of proclaiming the truth so far out-weighed the bad consequences, the apostles didn’t even consider toning it down; neither should we. The horrible persecution they encountered could not be compared to the repentance and saving faith their proclamation brought to millions. Our suffering of a similar sort for the proclamation of this truth will not only save millions of souls but also millions upon millions of bodies as well. Abortion is murder just as surely as Christ’s death was murder, and we should expect the good consequences of proclaiming this truth to far outweigh the difficulties.
Benefit of Obedience: Affirmation of Truth and the Persuasion of Others
Let us consider the difficulties involved in proclaiming this truth. The first duty incumbent on those who proclaim abortion to be murder is for them to act upon it. People only believe you are serious when you act seriously.
And if even a small minority suffered for proclaiming and acting on this truth the impact, as with the apostles, would be incalculable. The favorable consequences of standing for this truth would far outweigh the sacrifices. If even a small minority were to act as though abortion is murder, aside from the deep conviction such action would bring, it would rivet the world’s attention and force people to decide whether force should be used to defend abortionists or the children they murder. If it became clear to our representatives that a significant minority were going to support armed resistance to the death, what would they do? If people refuse to surrender their inalienable right to defend their children, it would force their representatives to either recognize this right and make abortion illegal, or the matter would be decided on the battlefield. But the worst were to occur and millions died in armed conflict, wouldn’t that be far better than passive submission to mass murder? The difficulties of dying for the unborn are not worthy to be compared to the temporal and eternal reward for defending the unborn with force because it exposes abortion as murder. . .
It is virtually undisputed that when the government sanctions the murder of its people that the people have a moral obligation to defend not only themselves, but also the minority selected for slaughter . . . Consequently, when considering the use of defensive force on behalf of the unborn, the question is not whether the unborn should be protected legally . . . The question is whether the people’s moral duty to resist the murder of born people also applies to unborn people.
From a pro-life perspective, to honestly ask this question is to have it answered. The entire pro-life movement is built upon this foundation: since human life is an unbroken continuum beginning at conception, not “viability” or birth. Thus, nothing is more essential than asserting that the moral duty to defend the child from birth also exists prior to birth . . .
The greatest strength of the pro-life movement has always been its possession of truth . . . Yet . . . the most noticeable thing about the pro-life movement’s response to “illegally” defending the unborn is that . . . [it] argues against the truth! Much heat but little light, strong denunciations and weak arguments . . . The best they seem to be able to do is to cloud the issues. . .
Duty To Defend the Innocent Reiterated
Consider the unborn as someone who has been entrusted to your care. Like a neighbor, or even your own child.
In the parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus teaches that the command to love your neighbor as yourself extends to all men, especially the helpless and oppressed . . . Jesus was gentle and kind with the oppressed, but His righteous anger was poured out on their oppressors. The Golden Rule teaches us to put ourselves in the place of the oppressed so as to experience their oppression and then to act to deliver them from their oppressors.
If your limbs were about to be torn from your body would you defend yourself? If you couldn’t, would you want someone else to defend you? If so, Christ teaches that you must resist an attack on the unborn as vigorously as you would an attach on yourself. You show love to a child by feeding him when he is hungry, clothing him when he is naked, and defending him when he is attacked as vigorously as you would defend yourself.
Most people think the government isn’t forcing them to sin since it isn’t forcing them to have an abortion. But since God’s law requires us to protect our children, and since the government is forbidding us to defend our children from a bloody death, we are forced to choose between obeying God (by defending our children) or obeying men by allowing their slaughter. We must obey God rather than men.
In order to grasp the enormity of the sin the government has forced upon us it must be understood that a consequence of legalized abortion might be best understood when viewed from the eyes of a father who is about to lose his child. As it is, if a professional is hired to kill his unborn child, he cannot lift a finger to stop it but must passively submit as his own flesh and blood is torn limb from limb.
The consequent use of police force to protect notorious murderers and to restrain people from resisting them is a gross violation of the basic of all human responsibilities – the protection of one’s child. A government that legalizes murder then shackles every citizen into passive submission slaughter, robbing us of our right to defend out children from a bloody death.
There are many who believe that since the government has sanctioned the murder of their children, limits have necessarily been imposed upon their efforts to save their children: education and legislative remedies. Huh?
The appropriate response to an immediate threat to one’s child is not to merely pursue possible educational and legislative remedies . . . Just as surely as a child has an inalienable Right to Life, a child’s parents have an inalienable duty to defend that child’s life regardless of the government’s acknowledgment of that right . . .
A parent’s inalienable duty to defend his child is prior to and gives rise to the government’s duty to aid in the child’s defense . . . A child’s right to life and our right to defend him exists whether the government recognizes it or not. Therefore, contrary to popular opinion, passive submission to mass murder is a service neither to the child nor the state that sanctions that murder . . .
The Government as an Obstacle
[p. 16] When a government sanctions the murder of its people, it promotes the very thing it exists to prevent. . . The government has been appointed by God through the people to use lethal force against murderers, not those who defend helpless children . . . You should no more submit to a government that forbids you to defend your child than you should to a government that forbids you to feed or cloth him. [p. 17]
A situation in which a machine gunner is taking aim on bound peasants, huddled before a mass grave, is one what demands immediate action. So, the abortionist’s knife, pressed to that of the throat of the unborn should serve as a driving force impelling us to cast off the shackles of government restraint, that we may resist force with force.
Duty Revisited: The Second Commandment and Your Daughter
We all know, with good reason, that mass murder is such an enormous atrocity as to render its resistance a necessity. Nevertheless, many inconsistent arguments have been offered in opposition to this truth. But, as previously seen, each and every argument against defending someone’s unborn child appears in its truth light if applied to your born child . . . If you deny this defense duty . . . you . . .deny the second great commandment: to love your neighbor as yourself.
Which argument would you offer for restraint if your six-year-old daughter were about to be injected with a saline solution similar to the one used to kill the pre-born? How many men would be need to restrain you from defending her? Could you live knowing you had stood by as your daughter died an agonizing death? If you would die for a child that all would rush to defend, how much more you should fight to save those who are universally despised and abandoned.
Don’t be deceived. The unborn children are your children. Christ has committed them to your care. Spread your blanket over them, open your heart to them, and own them as your own. These are Christ’s little ones. Their parents don’t love them; they have been rejected by them; you must take them up.
Look and see how beautifully and wonderfully they are made. They are dependant, totally dependant on you. Will you also reject them? Surely there is room in your heart for them.
Will you suffer when they suffer? Will you recoil as they recoil from the salt that burns their flesh like fire? Will you stand by as they are slowly tortured to death or will you fight and kick for their lives as they do for their own? . . .
Will you refuse a comfortable jail cell to save them from a salt-filled womb?
Will you die that they might live?
Are there already so many rushing forward that you are not needed at the front? Unlike most, you can see them; you can hear their cries for help. What more will it take to move you to action? If not you, who? If not now, when? The unborn must be defended with force because they have been entrusted to your care.
On July 29, 1995, Dr. Ronald Graeser, the county medical examiner in Fremont, Michigan, heard, with the rest of the nation, of the shooting of an abortionist and his escort in Pensacola, Florida. Later that day and in the days that followed, as others scrambled to save their reputations and ministries by denouncing the shootings, Dr. Graeser determined to sacrifice his reputation and possibly his livelihood by standing for the truth. He was not independently wealthy; he had college age children and a public position as a medical examiner. Some might say that Dr. Graeser threw it all away by signing a statement justifying the shootings.
Soon, the media frenzy began. Camera and press interviews hit the news. As all looked on, Dr. Graeser fixed his eyes straight ahead and boldly told the truth.
And what became of this testimony? Eventually, a new and better job. His children’s respect. And joy unspeakable. We don’t know how his stand effected everyone, but we do know how it impacted one expectant mother planning to abort her child; she changed her mind. So, Dr. Dr. Graeser risked it all for the truth, and in so doing found it.
No one else was in a position to do as he did. Nor is anyone else in a position to do as you can. But everyone with a reputation, job, or family as been given that life that he might lose it.
Will you lose your life for Christ’s sake? If so, on that day you will hear Him say, “Come, you who are blessed of my Father . . . Truly, I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to me.”
Not everyone should take up arms, but no one may deny that the unborn must be defended with force.
What is a Repentant Church in a Holocaust? (1989) No Taxation without Cessation
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