The Beauty of Possibility: Part Two

Welcome to Family Policy Matters, an engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, this is John Rustin, president of NC Family, and we're grateful to have you with us for this week's program. It's our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged, and inspired by what you hear on Family Policy Matters, and that you will fulfill your mission. You will be better equipped to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state, and nation. Today we bring you part two of Ryan Baumberger's keynote address at NC Family's 2022 Winston-Salem dinner. Please note that this was a multimedia presentation, and you can view a video of Ryan Baumberger's entire keynote address on our website at ncfamily.org.

That's ncfamily.org. And so I want to show you now a picture of what supposedly unwanted looks like. I don't know what image you may have in your mind when you hear unwanted child, but this is just my family. There is one extended family member in the picture. My grandma is in the middle, but everybody else from our immediate family.

So this is supposedly what unwanted looks like. 64 strong in this picture. So there are 15 more lives added to this through marriage, new births, and adoptions. This is the legacy of love that my father left behind and my mom continues to unleash purpose. This picture is possible because of courageous women who chose to be stronger than their circumstances.

I strongly believe that someone had to have spoken life and hope into those situations, and we all get that opportunity in different ways to be able to speak life and hope, especially to those facing unplanned pregnancies. I've never met my birth mom. I did search for her years and years ago because all I want to do was actually to thank her. I sent a song that I've written called, Meant to Be, and I'd asked the court, can you just please give her a copy of this song? All I want to do is just say thank you. So then I also figured out as a creative, how do I show all the things I've been able to become in my life by the grace of God because of her singular decision?

We often don't think about the ramifications of a singular decisions, especially when we're younger, a singular decision can have reverberations for generations. And so I wrote the lyrics, I sang the lyrics to the song, and I have to credit my birth mom and consider her birth mom strong. And though I may not see her face to face, maybe some way, somehow online, she'll see this. And so this is a tribute from her birth son, thanking her for going through nine months of a traumatic pregnancy. Stronger than your circumstance, you gave my life a chance, touching the future before it began. You're the reason I am here. I know, I know deep down in my soul, my life has purpose. I know, I know deep down in my soul, my life has purpose.

That's my story. I am literally the one percent that's used 100 percent of the time to justify abortion and the circumstances of our conception never changed the condition of our worth. Did anybody in here control the circumstances of their conception? Anybody?

Because that would be weird. None of us have that ability, but some of us pretend that we can be arbiters of human value based on different circumstances. Which brings me to another myth that we have to continually shatter that wantedness equals worth. In fact, one of the leaders in that whole mindset was the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, who was a very reluctant mother. You see one of her books here, Motherhood and Bondage, obviously didn't have a positive take on motherhood.

She was a broken individual. In fact, her slogan was every child a wanted child. Well, every child is a wanted child by someone, but she birthed an organization that does not see through the breakthrough filter of Christ, but through the broken lenses of the world. In fact, her book is called Women in the New Race, chapter 18. She's the mother of the birth control crusade, and this is how she defined birth control. She says, birth control is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or those who will become defective. Sounds like women's empowerment, doesn't it?

Not really. Planned Parenthood, it's interesting. Their whole business model changed over the years. In the late 30s, this is the birth control brochure, and in the middle panel, they're being asked, well, is it an abortion? And it's funny because in the 30s, he actually understood that life began before birth because you can see the question here, is it an abortion? And the answer is abortion kills life after it has begun.

Well, they knew that in 1938, but they don't know that in 2022. It's amazing what happens when your business model changes. And we saw this, especially during COVID, when they were shutting down businesses all across the country.

Only certain things were essential. Well, apparently abortion mills were essential and they kept proclaiming abortion is health care. Violence is not health care. Let me just put it in this context. If abortion is health care, then I guess slavery was job care.

Yep, I said it. Planned Parenthood, their tagline is care no matter what, but it truly is scare no matter what. This is what they have to say about adoption. They say the psychological responses to abortion are far less serious than those experienced by women, bringing their unwanted pregnancy to term and relinquishing the child for adoption. That's why they abort 1,000 human lives for every one single adoption referral. See, adoption doesn't make them money.

And what is so crazy, have you noticed that the world's a little bit upside down? Planned Parenthood calls itself an anti-racist organization now. How are you going to be an anti-racist organization if you're the leading killer of black lives? Police are being accused of killing black lives and it's an epidemic.

228 in one year in 2020, 490 white individuals. 80% of all of those individuals were armed with a deadly weapon, so that puts things in a whole different context. And thank God for our police, our law enforcement officers who protect and serve.

Anytime someone abuses their authority, absolutely they need to be held to account. But there's not an epidemic of police killing individuals, but there is an epidemic of Planned Parenthood killing unarmed lives. In fact, they kill 360 black lives every single day. So, part of what we do through the Radiance Foundation is we've done some billboard campaigns. And so, we first launched our billboard campaigns in Atlanta. That was crazy. I mean, combining race and abortion, two of the easiest topics possible, I guess. That just ignited a media firestorm. New York Times, USA Today, CNN, MSNBC went everywhere. We placed another billboard campaign in... Are you familiar with the conservative San Francisco Bay area?

Nope. We placed 60 billboards that said, black and beautiful, too many aborted dot com. And we were exposing Planned Parenthood.

We were highlighting the pregnancy center resources that are available, calling men to responsibility. And so, we were denounced by the ACLU, which if you're denounced by them, you're obviously doing something right. We were denounced by Planned Parenthood, that's predictable. Denounced by pro-abortion politicians, expected that. Then we were denounced by the NAACP, a group I grew up revering for many reasons, Brown v. Board of Education just being one. I thought, how are they denouncing us? They said that the billboard campaign was horribly racist and that it gave the false impression that Planned Parenthood murders black babies. Those were their words. They kill black babies, white babies, and every human between.

In fact, last year, over 380,000 of them. And so, being the factivist that I am, I decided I was going to write an op-ed about it, calling out the NAACP for their solidarity with Planned Parenthood. And so, I entitled the article, The National Association for the Abortion of Colored People. Yeah, that was their reaction, too.

They didn't like it. They sued me, they sued the Radiance Foundation, which I just find funny. They sued a brown guy for exercising one of my most basic civil rights, free speech. I have friends inside the NAACP, and I encourage them to change it from within their dead wrong on the issue of abortion and school choice and, well, there are many others.

Two years in federal court, and we were represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, and we won. So, thank you, ADF. So many of the things that we never thought we would face, and that's what Satan's always trying to do. He's trying to scare you into a corner, trying to get you to shut up. Because he knows when truth is spoken, that people will be set free. We love just exposing the industry, and we're always compassionate toward the individual.

But there's so much lunacy out there, and sometimes you have to laugh at it. In fact, I have two boys, two girls, and I want my girls to understand what true feminism is, not this modern feminism stuff. So, my youngest daughter, Aaliyah, sings in some of our promos, and so I have her joining in this promo. It just highlights what we call fake feminism. Fake feminism, fake feminism, fake feminism. They don't want you to know. Fake feminism, fake feminism, fake feminism.

All they want is your dough. This is basic healthcare. Thousands of women die before Roe every year. We're not political. Planned Parenthood, we're not partisan. Planned Parenthood, yes! Fake feminism, fake feminism, fake feminism. They don't want you to know. Fake feminism, fake feminism, fake feminism.

All they want is your dough. Yeah, I mean, fake feminism summed up in a little jingle. During COVID, where people exploited all kinds of things and pushed fear, Planned Parenthood committed more abortions than ever in their history. It's funny, because people apparently couldn't get real medical healthcare, because breast exams and pap tests, they plummeted by 200,000, but abortions increased by 30,000. So they couldn't actually provide real healthcare, but they certainly could kill more human beings than ever before. And that leads me to something that we're dealing with in our culture right now, where we're told that pregnancy centers are fake clinics.

Anybody hear that? In fact, here's an expert on that, Senator Elizabeth Warren. In Massachusetts right now, those crisis pregnancy centers that are there to fool people who are looking for pregnancy termination help outnumber true abortion clinics by three to one.

We need to shut them down here in Massachusetts, and we need to shut them down all around the country. You should not be able to torture a pregnant person like that. Okay, first of all, let's unpack some of that. By pregnant person, she means what? Stop erasing women.

The radical left. This is insane. The other part is that she was bemoaning the fact that there are more pregnancy care centers than there are abortion bills. That's a good thing. How about a hand clap for that? So insane. And then the whole torture thing. So this is what she meant by torture. Hold on.

Oh my gosh. Baby boutiques, millions of free items given to mothers and fathers by pregnancy centers across the country, parenting classes. You will never find something like this inside of a Planned Parenthood because they want people to abort. And that's why, if I had to sum up, the difference between the abortion industry and pregnancy centers is this. The abortion industry lures women with their lives. Pregnancy help centers love women with their lives. And I know NC Family stands with pregnancy centers all across the country because we understand the beauty of compassion. Compassion is not saying, oh, you're going to be miserable because of this unplanned pregnancy.

No, it's saying, I'm going to invest in you. I'm going to walk this journey with you. See, with an abortion, there's no walking along a journey. It's just you commit the action, do the transaction, and shove them out the door. It's very different.

This is really crucial. We are stronger than our circumstances. And as Christians, we have to understand that it's not just in our physical strength, but it's based on, you know, Philippians 4.13. It says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. We live in a culture today that says dads are just optional. I don't care what society says.

Dads always matter. Can I get an amen in here? Now I want to show you just some examples of what we call the possibility quotient. Scripture says that we're overcomers. We're not undercomers. And so I'll give you a few examples of those who the world says, well, they should have been aborted. Here's one.

Brilliant. He was adopted and loved. No one ever would have believed that he would become who he became.

When he passed away, I wrote an article about him. Steve Jobs changed the world. Adoption changed his. The founder of Apple was adopted and loved.

How many have been impacted by the genius of Apple? This other individual, this little girl was in the foster care system for years. She was adopted by her grandparents. She became the world's most decorated gymnast.

Her name is Simone Biles. She announced on Instagram that she is pro-abortion. And she says that no child should ever have to suffer in the foster care system. Yes, ideally no child should have to suffer. But the foster care system is a rescue from abuse and neglect.

As broken as the system is, it's still a rescue for a lot of these children. And she's the tangible example of the beauty of possibility. Because she was rescued, because she was loved, she never would have become that.

So that's why a lot of times we speak in college campuses and high schools, we have to shatter this myth that an unplanned pregnancy is not the end of your life. And I know this deeply personally because of my own wife. In fact, her boyfriend at the time, she had walked out of a toxic relationship.

He was abusive. She walked away only to find out that she was pregnant. But when she saw that ultrasound, she felt like God was wrapping his heart around her. And she was wrapping her heart around her baby. In fact, when she went home that night, she went home and she opened up a journal. And in the margin, it was the Psalm 34, 4, and 5.

It said, I sought the Lord and he relieved me of all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant. They are never covered with shame. Well, she named that baby girl Radiance. And she's the reason for the name of our organization. My wife is such an incredible woman. And she thought even if she had to be a single mom the rest of her life, it was going to be okay. Because they were going to be two strong women who loved Jesus, but then came along this great guy.

Okay, it was just me. But this is actually the day that we got married. And I became a husband and a dad on the same day. I was able to adopt her when she turned five. In fact, I adopted her and then we both adopted our youngest son whose name is Justice on the same day in an Atlanta courthouse. And I don't know how many of you men admit that you ugly cry, but I was ugly crying that day.

Because only miracle after miracle made that possible. And so this is my family today. And I talk about those reverberations from my birth mom singular decision. These are the most beautiful ones. This is my family.

They call us the bombs. I mean, none of this would happen without courageous decisions. And so if you don't remember anything else that I've said tonight, hopefully remember this.

That some of the best things in life are unplanned. You've been listening to Family Policy Matters. This has been part two of a two-part show featuring Ryan Baumberger, who was the keynote speaker at NC Family's 2022 Winston-Salem dinner. To hear Ryan's entire keynote address and for more information about NC Family, visit our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family.