In this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show, host, speaker, and conservative media commentator, Charlie Kirk, sits down with conservative political commentator Dan Bongiorno, founder of the pro-life organization, "Turning Point USA" and "Preborn Action," to discuss abortion, abortion rights, and pro-choice.
00:00:56.000The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.
00:01:09.000Well, with no further ado, we'll have an opportunity now to introduce our special guest speaker, who I would characterize as a forerunner in the Gen Z and millennial nation.
00:03:26.000But I'm uniquely positioned to be able to tell you about the cultural, philosophical, and religious landscape of where the pro-life movement is.
00:03:35.000What pre-born is doing is so important to intercept people that think that they want to terminate their child.
00:03:43.000But if we're honest about ending abortion in America, of course there's a political dynamic, but it's about getting the country to be pro-life in their own personal capacity to make sure that our churches are actually pro-life, which I'm going to talk about.
00:03:55.000And how is it that we have lost in America this stance and this premise of life?
00:04:01.000And let's just first acknowledge the importance of all of us being here tonight.
00:04:04.000It should not be lost on anyone here that if you don't believe in God, there is no chance you would be spending your Saturday night paying money to go save babies.
00:04:17.000If you don't believe in God, there's no way you would donate the money that you're donating to go save a baby you would never meet, that you would never come in contact with, because they don't believe they're image bearers.
00:04:28.000You see, the downfall of the belief of God in the West is directly correlated.
00:04:32.000It's a one-to-one correlation with the rise of pagan child sacrifice, child butchery, whatever phrase you want to use.
00:04:40.000It's as we have become more secular, it's harder and harder for us to make the pro-life case.
00:06:00.000And looking back at the footage and kind of recapping my time there, and then I went to Oxford, same thing, the next day in Oxford.
00:06:06.000They were a little bit more polite at Oxford than in Cambridge, just a little bit.
00:06:10.000And I recognize these are the top institutions of the West where Isaac Newton himself was educated, where they split the atom, where even though they have all of the sophistication imaginable, their IQs are higher than most people ever meet.
00:06:24.000But they're lacking the most fundamental thing that is just destroying the West from within, a suicidal impulse, which is that they don't believe there is a God, and they believe that they are God if there was to be a God.
00:06:36.000And those two things are just gnawing at the basis of the West.
00:06:39.000So I look at the landscape of how are we going to save more babies?
00:06:42.000Because make no mistake, your support of pre-born, Jesus cares and will care when we meet him what you did to save babies.
00:06:51.000Jesus cares what you are doing, whether or not to save those lives that cannot defend themselves.
00:06:57.000And it's so, when you dive deeper into the examination of the pro-abortion psychology, and again, I'm very uniquely positioned because not only do I hear every argument imaginable, I challenge you to find anyone who's done 100 hours of debates on these topics in one semester.
00:07:15.000So that is about, I've done about 250 hours, so literally days of these debates on these topics in just the last calendar, three total semesters, right?
00:07:23.000And it almost always comes down to this.
00:07:26.000Well, but I matter more than somebody else.
00:07:41.000But then all of a sudden we hit up to a moral stopping point, a critical one.
00:07:45.000They say, well, but I'm in charge, and my sovereignty matters more than somebody else.
00:07:50.000So of course I should be able to eliminate it.
00:07:52.000And we have this idea that bodily autonomy matters more than the will of God because they don't acknowledge God.
00:08:00.000And when I dive, the most shocking and depressing thing that I then hear from them is the callous, cold nature of their opinion of the discarding of human life.
00:08:13.000Now, I have some very, very good heuristics to be able to get them to think about this stuff.
00:08:17.000I have a new one that I just can't wait to use in the fall.
00:08:20.000It came to me when I was going on one of my late-night walks, which is like, okay, let's find out.
00:09:06.000I can't wait to use one this semester.
00:09:08.000I was like, why didn't I have that at Cambridge?
00:09:12.000So I could spend all night, or the 12 minutes I have before QA, bashing on these colleges.
00:09:18.000But let's be honest, there's something deeper that's happening here, and it's time for some introspection in our own community as to why this is happening.
00:09:38.000Always acknowledging God, always understanding that we are here for his purposes and his wishes.
00:09:44.000And so I was saying this to Dan earlier, which is, look, it's easy to say, well, you know, President Trump is not as pro-life as I would like him.
00:10:12.000Because I am not going to hold a president or a politician to a higher standard than my local pastor when it comes to abortion.
00:10:21.000And why is it that we have allowed our pastors to remain silent on this issue and our churches to remain silent on this issue, but we're very critical of our politicians, which matter more, actually, because the politicians are just reading a script that is provided to them by voters.
00:10:41.000We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries.
00:10:44.000And today, I want to point you to their podcast.
00:10:46.000It's called Culture in Christianity, the Allen Jackson Podcast.
00:10:50.000What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.
00:10:53.000He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues we're facing today, gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Doge, Trump in the White House, issues in the church.
00:12:19.000You know, we're a pro-life church, but I know this might make you uncomfortable.
00:12:22.000And, you know, we just want to make sure that everyone here is heard and healed and blah, That should have been the greatest day of rejoicing and fasting.
00:12:30.000We as a church should have been fasting for a week saying, thank you, God, for giving us the reversal of Roe versus Wade.
00:12:36.000So it's tempting to say, hey, President Trump is not as pro-life as I get it.
00:12:45.000But are you also going to your local pastor or the big mega church and calling out that heretic for not being pro-life?
00:12:52.000Or are you only disagreeable from afar, but you're not disagreeable up close and personal?
00:12:57.000You know, the vast majority of pastors in this country will never ever speak out about the crisis of abortion, ever.
00:13:04.000And we wonder why there is this kind of moral and cultural decay and downfall, because the only way we win the fight for life, the only way we win is if the American church rises up.
00:13:19.000Instead, it's going to be the very promise of the Bible because it comes down to the very fundamental question.
00:13:23.000When I go on the college campus and the girl kind of shrugs her shoulders and she says, well, I don't really care, you know, if that, you know, baby or whatever, eventually I can get them to say the word baby, which, you know, they do everything they can not to use the word baby, right?
00:13:35.000Dehumanizing language is the staple of a pro-abortion individual.
00:13:40.000It's a fetus, it's a clump of cells, it's a parasite, it's an invader.
00:13:44.000As soon as they use humanizing language, all of a sudden that must invite then human morality.
00:13:57.000They think it's an accident of millions of years of evolution.
00:14:01.000The divide in the West is those of us that believe that our existence is a miracle, that you are designed with intentionality, with purpose, with a soul, and we believe everything that we do matters up against a whole other cohort in this country that says, oh, it's just a roll of the dice.
00:14:31.000This is mass Malthusian population control that we like to think as if our society is so advanced and so elevated and so educated, but be very careful at the tyranny of hyper-educated non-religious elites.
00:14:46.000The tyranny of hyper-educated non-religious elites is a cancer to Western society.
00:14:53.000And so we're in the middle of a struggle for what is called Western civilization.
00:14:57.000But do you know a better term of what Western civilization really is that nobody wants to say?
00:15:09.000This nation was started as a Christian project.
00:15:11.000When the pilgrims came here from the Mayflower, they specifically said they were going to come here to spread the gospel and to turn this continent into a Christian continent.
00:16:35.000We went from an affirmation, went to an affirmational model when instead we need a hot gospel that says, almost every hour of the day, you are sinning.
00:16:46.000And only by the grace of God that you did not earn, that you do not deserve, is this free gift of salvation that can redeem you.
00:16:52.000And only through there do you get the promise of heaven via Jesus Christ.
00:16:57.000That is the hot gospel, but it requires confronting a culture and not conforming via this social gospel that we have seen over the last 30 years.
00:17:09.000You want to know why the church has become less pro-life?
00:17:12.000Because it doesn't preach the gospel like it used to.
00:17:14.000It doesn't preach the entirety of the word of God.
00:17:18.000Some pastors I meet can't even spell Leviticus.
00:17:24.000The founding fathers, not only did they like Leviticus, they put Leviticus on the liberty bill, proclaim liberty throughout the land of which you are in.
00:17:30.000It's the entirety of the word of God that is necessary for us to be able to have a healthy and robust church.
00:17:37.000And the problem is the modern church, they say, but we want more converts.
00:17:44.000They say, well, Jesus said to create disciples of all nations.
00:17:49.000Conversion is the first step towards discipleship, but if you are just doing popcorn and ice cream spiritually every single Sunday, people are going to leave because they want to go deeper.
00:17:58.000They don't just want to have the superficial thing.
00:18:00.000They want to go deep into the details of the promises of what it means to be a Christian and the struggles.
00:18:05.000And then finally, the other struggle, the other issue that we have is worldview.
00:18:11.000I finally had this breakthrough like two years ago, which is we as Christians have been led to believe there's something called a neutral public square.
00:18:20.000And number two, that people can look at things through just fairly and equally in a kind of unbiased way.
00:18:28.000Every single person you meet, every child, every pastor, every politician, every school board member, every CEO, looks through the world through a predetermined prism or a worldview.
00:18:38.000The question is, whose do you want to win?
00:18:41.000And we as Christians have kind of been like, oh, we don't care.
00:18:44.000Come to my church, but I'm not going to go equip you with a biblical worldview because I don't want to offend you.
00:18:49.000Instead, what a pastor should be doing is every day, installing a biblical worldview, when you read the news and you listen to the radio and you watch the TV, you distill everything and you process it through a biblical worldview.
00:19:01.000Does that glorify God or does that make us further away from God?
00:19:16.000It is not political to go through the entirety of the scriptures.
00:19:20.000And what I find is that so often students, professors, whoever, I'll debate anybody, they come up to the microphone and they'll say, well, I just want everyone to live and let live.
00:19:31.000I want everyone to kind of live as if they want to live.
00:19:34.000I say, by what moral standard do you think that's right?
00:19:38.000They say, well, it's just the kind of way I feel, but you're appealing to something when you say that.
00:19:45.000And we, as Christians, have kind of retreated into our own corner, being like, well, I don't want to promote the Bible too heavily because it might be, you know, it might be off-putting.
00:19:56.000And if we want to win people for Jesus, we can't turn people off.
00:20:00.000And what we're seeing is the opposite.
00:20:03.000The churches that are weak and woke and that are afraid to talk about the entirety of the scripture, scriptures, they're turning their churches over to hotel developers.
00:20:14.000Pastors that actually go into the toughest issues of the day, people are flocking to them by the thousands, by the thousands.
00:20:22.000Right now, many of you people maybe know young men right now are gravitating to the Catholic Church in record numbers.
00:20:30.000By the way, better the Catholic Church than to mosques, okay?
00:21:06.000They want to go to somewhere that doesn't change.
00:21:09.000They want to go somewhere that tells them the truth that is uncompromising in a culture that's not going to be like a Cirque du-Sole act every single Sunday.
00:21:16.000You can say whatever you want about the Catholic Church, and I have huge disagreements with them, fundamental theological disagreements.
00:21:39.000The whole world is just falling apart.
00:21:41.000But when I enter into a Catholic church, at least there's some constancy and there is some order.
00:21:48.000And we as Protestants and evangelicals could learn a lot from that trend right now.
00:21:54.000We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries.
00:21:56.000And today, I want to point you to their podcast.
00:21:59.000It's called Culture in Christianity, the Allen Jackson Podcast.
00:22:03.000What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.
00:22:06.000He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues we're facing today: gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Doge, Trump in the White House, issues in the church.
00:23:07.000Yet they're the ones that are actually experiencing the growth curve because you know why?
00:23:10.000Young people right now want crisply delivered truths, not watered down half-truths, because they're afraid that one person in the back of the room might send an angry email.
00:23:23.000Every pastor should go up on a pulpit and say, Lord, help me, help me, please preach this church down to a manageable size.
00:23:37.000And if it grows, then it's not you, it's him.
00:23:41.000Because the intent should be, I should be saying things that are so offensive to the world that the demons scatter and that the culture wants nothing to do with it.
00:24:19.000We are like the last pro-life cohort on the planet that actually talks about these things and that is trying to get people to save their baby.
00:24:27.000The rest of the world, the Muslim world is its own thing, but the rest of the basically developed world has no issue with just eliminating babies.
00:24:36.000We're like the last gasp that has the kind of moral courage.
00:24:40.000And I get in a lot of trouble when I say this, but I believe that there are a lot of parallels towards the abolition of slavery and the abolition of abortion.
00:24:49.000People say, how dare you compare the two?
00:28:44.000But no, just to recap, though, the Catholic Church teaches Mary was sinless like Jesus and also that she assumed into heaven, both of which are.
00:29:18.000So I disagree with you starting to say no, because I just moved to Florida from Canada, and French Canada is extremely atheist, extremely pro-abortion.
00:29:32.000I've had tons of patients and friends, almost proud of their abortion.
00:30:04.000I don't know if I'm allowed in Canada, but when I went to England, I tried my best to get arrested and I failed.
00:30:14.000So look, I'm very, very, despite my visit to UK and Cambridge and Oxford, I'm very America-focused in what I'm doing.
00:30:22.000But look, Canada has some major problems.
00:30:24.000You know, the biggest problem, this is actually a very interesting point.
00:30:28.000First of all, Canada has a non-religious problem because they're nowhere near as religious as America.
00:30:33.000Canada is only the population of California.
00:30:35.000Understand, it's a major landmass with only the population of California.
00:30:40.000In about 25 years ago, California, Canadian conservatives said that the abortion issue is too controversial and we want to just be indecipherable from the liberals on abortion.
00:30:52.000That's a lot of people in the Republican Party are going to try to do the same thing, everybody.
00:30:56.000And what happened to California conservatives?
00:31:34.000My question is when I have debates with family members who maybe aren't Christians and I proclaim my pro-life views, what do you feel is the clearest way to explain it specifically in ectopic pregnancy kind of situation?
00:32:03.000Honestly, that question should go to Dan.
00:32:04.000He can answer it a lot better than I would, or that I could.
00:32:08.000I believe, number one, that far too many times, especially post-22 weeks, especially post-22 weeks, far too many women are not given the option of a cesarean section and they're only given the option of an abortion, where the C-section very well could be a medical procedure that could save potentially both the baby and the mother's life.
00:32:29.000More specifically, though, the issue that I find where a lot of the kind of fear-mongers on this issue push forward is they think abortion is a harmless, victimless procedure.
00:32:47.000And so that is one of the more important elements here.
00:32:50.000If there is a dead baby within the womb, the extraction of a dead baby is not an abortion.
00:32:57.000That is a very important thing to mention.
00:33:00.000And so, and also, I get this on campus.
00:33:03.000They say, well, isn't a removal of a cyst an abortion?
00:33:06.000No, that's an ablation, I believe it's called, an ablation.
00:33:10.000The misinformation around it persists, but I'll let Dan answer that probably more, you know, in more depth than I could.
00:34:42.000All of that said, a majority of my friends are still very liberal talking, and some of my friends don't talk to me anymore because of my views.
00:34:49.000My question for you is, how do I approach this conversation about this specific topic in the most loving and productive way possible to where it's not where, you know, they're bashing me for being some type of Christian nationalist?
00:35:25.000Aristotle talked about the different levels of friendship, and real friends are people that have a transcendent third involved, meaning they're both looking at something above them that they can both understand and appreciate.
00:35:35.000Doesn't mean they have to agree with it, but they're both looking at that same thing.
00:35:40.000The nastiness of the left is one of the least reported cultural stories that's happening of friendships and families and friends and sons and daughters, people that no longer talk to each other because of political differences.
00:35:53.000We as Christians should not seek to do that.
00:35:56.000We should try to find common ground and try to remedy that.
00:35:59.000But boy, I could tell you, I've lost family members, neighbors in just the most venomous ways imaginable because unfortunately, they will group in political identity with moral worth.
00:36:11.000They'll think you're a bad person because they don't share their views.
00:36:16.000And so then just keep on asking questions and then live the testimony through your actions.
00:36:21.000Be someone that they want to be with, they want to be friends with.
00:36:25.000And the best thing that has ever happened to us as conservatives is that the left has become so unenjoyable to be around.
00:37:01.000You mentioned that over the last 30 years, evangelicalism has watered down the gospel for the sake of gaining membership.
00:37:08.000But then you also gave hope that that's perhaps changing from your platform and vantage point.
00:37:13.000What hopeful changes do you see on the horizon and what do you see is coming next?
00:37:18.000I think that there is a new generation of young pastors that are preaching through the Bible correctly.
00:37:24.000And honestly, it's been very disappointing to watch.
00:37:27.000COVID was a very revealing moment for the American church.
00:37:31.000And we saw pastors that would shut down their entire church unnecessarily for a year and a half, two years on end, all the while they were promoting racial justice and all that complete nonsense.
00:37:45.000And so I think that the biggest hopeful thing that I have is that the rank and file and those of you that attend churches are demanding more out of your pastor.
00:37:55.000And that you're no longer just going to have your pastor sit down and roll over and do the same sort of, well, you know, we're not going to get into the controversial issues here.
00:38:04.000No, we want the entire Bible to be taught in this church.
00:38:08.000And then finally, in a digital social media era, the best ideas are going to win.
00:39:15.000I'm doing it because anytime Dan asks me to pitch in with my time or my voice, it is so important that we have a counter to Planned Parenthood.
00:39:25.000By the way, if you want to say something in prayer, say something in prayer the next couple of days and the next week, please pray for intercession, that the defunding of Planned Parenthood stays in the big beautiful bill.
00:40:03.000What pre-born is doing every single day, in my opinion, is the most effective, precise, and measurable organization that is countering the butchery and the slaughter that Planned Parenthood has wrought.