Choosing Life For Those Without a Choice

We have to understand as Christians that we don't have the luxury of staying silent about something that is the human injustice of our day, and that we are going to be held responsible because it's no longer going to be that we don't know these things. That's Bethany Baumberger addressing the human injustice of our day.

It's the tragedy of abortion specifically. She's our guest, and her husband Ryan as well, on today's episode of Focus on the Family. They'll be sharing truth and encouragement along with your host, Focus President and author Jim Daly. Thanks for joining us.

I'm John Fuller. John, it's sad to say this, but the United States has one of the most extreme abortion policies in the world, similar to communist China and North Korea. Think of that company that we're keeping. In many states, abortion is allowed in the third trimester, even up to the point of birth, and there's a disproportionate impact on the black community especially. Yet in a 2019 survey released by YouGov, in partnership with Americans United for Life, they found that 80% of Americans reject abortion the day before a child is born, and two-thirds of pro-choice Americans oppose abortion in the third trimester. You can sense the momentum in the pro-life movement right now, and I've said many times that abortion is a moral issue.

It's not political. It's about life and death, and we're talking about the lives of literally millions of preborn babies and the health and well-being of their mothers, and today's conversation with the Bomburgers will be eye-opening and encouraging for many of our listeners, so please stay with us. Yeah, and Ryan and Bethany co-founded the Radiance Foundation. It's a life-affirming nonprofit. Ryan is an Emmy Award-winning creative professional, and together, the Bomburgers Homeschool, their four children, two of whom they've adopted, Ryan has a book called Not Equal, Civil Rights Gone Wrong. It's a really fascinating collection of thoughts, essays, and graphic design.

You can get that when you call 1-800, the letter A in the word family, or stop by our website. And Jim, here's how you began the conversation. Ryan and Bethany, welcome to Focus on the Family. Thanks. It's great to be here. It is. It's an honor.

It's so fun. Yeah, and it's so good, and I can't wait to have a discussion with you on a variety of topics. Ryan, your story begins out of some very difficult circumstances. Tell us about your birth mom and how your journey and passion for life began. Well, it began with violence, actually. My birth mom experienced the horror and the violence of rape, and yet she was courageous enough to not only give me the incredible gift of life, but gave me the gift of adoption. So when people ask, why are you so passionate about this? And I'm thinking, where did your story begin? I think, well, it began when I began. And the fact that she made that singular decision that literally will have reverberations for generations just continues to impact. I grew up in a tiny little family.

I have 15 in my family, six brothers and six sisters. That's a big van, man. Yeah, it was. It was a maxi van with cracked vinyl seats.

I'll never forget it. And no air conditioning. And they may have gotten that fixed. That would have been helpful.

But that's great. And they adopted how many kids? Your mom and dad, your adoptive mom and dad.

Yes, 10. That was the first one. So it obviously went well. So every year, you know, there's a new person, a new flavor added to the family.

Trailblazer you are. That's something. Let me I mean, we're laughing at that. But what you said was very serious about how you came into the world. Because this probably is, you know, the most difficult thing for all of us pro life pro choice to talk about. The tragic thing is that we think even Christians think that the natural follow up to something so horrific and violent is the violence of abortion. But abortion doesn't doesn't heal anyone who's actually been raped, and it doesn't ever punish the rapist.

And it punishes the child. And I find that the common thread through those who chose to parent those who chose adoption and those who are post abortive, is that they believe and they've expressed to us in many different events, that the only redemptive part of that act is the child. You know, the circumstances of our conception never change the condition of our worth. But that's so true of abortion generally, right?

I mean, you think about it. That's one of the things I mean, we advocate, we get it, it's a tough decision. We understand that. And even the country, the law says you can make this decision. But I'm telling you, the better decision is life, period.

Everything will flow better for you emotionally, spiritually, I think even physically, if you make that right decision, and hopefully that'll be overturned at some point, but it will never go away. Those sides will still fight through courts, etc. But that's where I've always felt we've got to make Roe v. Wade irrelevant.

And what I mean by that is that a woman would not want to choose that for her baby, make it unacceptable to say I want to kill my child. Right. Exactly. I mean, this is what we're working toward through the organization that we found at the Radiance Foundation, we want to make it unthinkable.

And we emphasize the beauty that rises out of tragic circumstances. God specializes in that all the time. Yeah. And it's, you know, again, I'm just you're speaking from a different point of conviction. Yeah. I mean, you easily could not have been here.

Because both I'm sad to say this, but even within the church, and outside the church, definitely. You're unfortunately the one that most of us would say, well, it was a rape. Right?

Right. How does it make you feel? Well, I mean, you're in that 1% category, 1% of abortions are from rape and incest, right? On the 1% that's used 100% of the time to justify abortion. But I can tell you, there are a lot of people who are very happy that I'm alive.

True story. I'm pretty sure she is. But you're right, it's a tangible example of what we're told and what we've begun as a Christian body to think that it's okay in certain instances. But I think that many many Christians even don't understand that 1% still leaves 99%. And even if we gave over the 1%, which we're not going to do, that would still leave 99% of abortions that aren't from incest and rape.

And we're saying that 100% of the time, there's a better answer. Bethany, let's turn toward you. I didn't mean to ignore you, of course. But what's your story? What's your story? Well, I was one of those girls that grew up in church. I loved the Lord from a really young age. Through my teen years, things got a little bit rough as they do with many people. But I really stayed close to the Lord when I was in my 20s.

I had my degrees and I was teaching and I had a master's degree. And there were some situations that came into my life that were, I like to say them, they were disappointments. I was really disappointed and went through a number of years where really I was emotionally numb. Things that I thought were going to come to fruition hadn't.

Lord, where are you? Those kind of years. And during that time, I was in a relationship with somebody who was emotionally abusive and wasn't planning to be with him forever, but found that I was pregnant. I was 28. I was old enough to know, but in a place where this is just where my decisions had led me.

I was teaching in public school. All my colleagues were like, just abort. We won't tell anybody. Nobody will know.

The kids won't know. The biological father is like, I want nothing to do with you. I'll give you the money to abort. And I was like, Lord, I don't even know what to do with all of this. But I went and scheduled an ultrasound and I was just a few weeks, about eight weeks pregnant. And there I saw this ultrasound and I saw this beating heart, which looked more like a piece of rice that was blinking. But I had a moment, a defining moment with the Lord. And I just felt his presence just embrace me in that room. And I just felt his heart just wrapped my heart in this baby's heart. And I went home that night and I said, father, forgive me for just being selfish.

I want this child to be somebody that she's proud of her mama. And I opened this old journal and in the margin of this old journal was this verse of Psalm 34 five. And it said, I sought the Lord. He delivered me from all my fears. Those that look to him will be radiant and their faces will never be covered with shame. Wow. Didn't even know that I was carrying my oldest daughter, but I named her baby radiance and everybody thought I was crazy, but I said, you know what? Her story is going to be this great exchange that the Lord never gets tired of.

He's going to take the shame of any part of this testimony and exchange it for his radiant glory. Well, we, you know, we have run down the line here. I want to come back to how you guys met. That was actually the second question I had.

I mean, yeah. How'd you guys meet? Well, interestingly enough, it was over the whole issue of abortion, right? It's, it's funny how, so I, I went to, we both had gone to region, he had graduated and I was back there getting my master's degree. And, um, I was on this committee that was helping to plan concerts for youth in the area. And he won't say this, but he was the lead singer, this big band at the time called surreal.

Thank goodness they weren't signed because we wouldn't have ended up together. But in the process of this, one of the, one of these events that I was working on helping to coordinate was a benefit concert for a crisis pregnancy center. So it's actually kind of funny because me and my roommates were on the marketing committee. So we have like these posters and these Sharpie markers and we're waiting, we're sitting in this big room waiting for surreal to show up and some of the marketing material they were going to bring. Well, Ryan was a creative director and shows up with these beautiful, you know, marketing material and all this branding. I told my roommate, I said, girl, don't show anybody our poster under the chair, stuff them under the mattress.

But who's that guy? Just my heart left. And so I always say I fell in love with them the first time I saw him. It was love at first sight for both of us. Boy, when it was a long journey to get to that point of marriage, however, but it was a love at first sight was a few, a number of years where it didn't, it didn't work out. So when I share about leaving and being like, Lord, I thought you spoke things.

That was one of the things. So we went our own separate ways for a number of years and the Lord worked on my heart. The Lord worked on his heart. I was a hot mess and I needed healing from just some depression that I believe is actually possibly in utero.

Get into it. Let's, what was going on for you? Well, this is part of the thing that we underestimate what happens in the womb to that child, what happens emotionally and psychologically.

I believe that a child feels rejection in the womb because there was this rejection that I felt throughout my life, even though I was loved like crazy by my parents, there was this, and it was probably my drive toward perfection because I never wanted to be rejected. And so unfortunately there was this self loathing that just kept increasing, increasing. And by the time, you know, I got my master's degree, it started to overtake me. And when you're depressed, you surround yourself with darkness, darkness, loves more darkness. And I started realizing that I was surrounding myself with, with darkness. And so I was intentional course about reading and I put these verses up around my room and there was a song by an artist called Cindy Morgan and it was a song called I will be free. And I would just read the lyrics to that chorus and just think, I want to be in that place.

And there was a drive home from work and there's probably about 30, 35 minute drive home from work. And probably for the 200th time I had listened to that song just for the last few weeks and something broke, literally broke inside of me as I drove across that bridge. And I'm just, I mean, I'm crying like crazy, could barely see. And I felt like something broke. So when I sang the lyrics that time, I will be free.

I'll be free to run the mountains. I will be free, free to drink from the living fountain. The lyrics became real. And by the time I got home, there was something so different. There was, I knew something had broken inside of me. So I go in the backyard and I'm jumping on the trampoline. I mean, literally the joy was manifesting itself.

I just could not, I couldn't help but just jump. And I called my sister right away and it was, there was a freeing. And of course, Satan's always trying to lie to you. And so he said, you know, you're going to wake up next morning. You're going to be depressed. I never experienced that depression one second of my life thereafter.

And as a creative individual, I mean, we internalize a lot of things. There was a breaking, there was a deliverance, there was a freedom. And I know that this does not happen for everyone, but it was a Holy Spirit deliverance on that drive home from work. No, that's, that's awesome.

Yes. So it wasn't long after that, that we ended up back in touch with each other. And here I have a one year old daughter, but my heart for that one year had just been turned back to Lord like crazy.

And God's working on Ryan where he is. And so we get back together and within a few months we're engaged and then we're married. And with just, I feel like the Lord allowed us to hit the ground running together and you know, we could have gone through our healing together, but he didn't, that's not how it worked out. And I'm just so grateful that, you know, we both realize there's a transformational God who loves us. And when we talk about our marriage, we talk about our family. And now we talk about the ministry that we do together.

The foundation is a God who never gets tired of redeeming. You're listening to Focus on the Family. And this is a conversation with Ryan and Bethany Baumberger. And Ryan's book is called Not Equal. We'll encourage you to get a copy of that from us here at Focus to better equip yourself on pro-life matters.

Call 1-800, the letter A in the word family, 1-800-232-6459, or you'll find that book and other resources at focusonthefamily.com slash broadcast. Let's continue with more from Ryan and Bethany Baumberger. Let's turn the corner and you know, we've talked about this. I think we've given people a great insight into how you guys married and the way the Lord brought you along. I know, you covered a lot of ground.

No, this is good. But then, you know, culture, you guys speak a lot about culture, especially the issue of abortion, but a wide variety of things. Planned Parenthood, the whole enigma there, I've often said, you know, from my perspective, just as an observer, anybody that has skin in the game, you should first ask the question, what motivates them to do and say what they do, right? So applying that to Planned Parenthood, on average, they're making like $600, $700 in abortion. And then they go right to the wall promoting abortion through public schools. The government gives them money to promote abortion, but they are profiting off of abortion. I mean, to me, it's like, look the other way.

Don't look here. But we've got to recognize the simple fact that they make money off of ending the life of a child. They make a lot of money. I mean, they bring in $1.7 billion a year. They have $2.3 billion in assets. And they get, you know, last year $618 million from taxpayers. I mean, why does a $2.3 billion corporation, which is what they are, there are 501 c three nonprofit people confuse that they think they don't profit, but they do.

Yeah, they their profit last year, and their last report a year was $70 million. But they profit actually, primarily from fear. And they promote fear. So when you have women facing the unplanned come in, what do they project, they project fear onto the very demographic that they're always saying, women are the future women are strong, but not when they face the unplanned.

And that's the shame of it all. People don't understand the exploitation that happens in addition to the destruction of the unborn child. But they're exploiting mothers, they're exploiting fathers. They are a big business.

That's the right word exploitation. And it's like the whole media culture, everybody looks the other way. We're not pointing out the biggest glaring conflict of interest that they have, they have the nerve to call them health care. And every, you know, they don't own not even one mammogram machine. And all of their other services that they've ever even offered to women are plummeting, because they know that they don't profit from them the way they do abortion. And you're right there. They have the backing of mainstream media. And of all of these corporations. Let me let me ask you, you're biracial.

I think a Caucasian mother and African American father through the tragedy of rape. Is that accurate? That's, that's correct. Yeah. In that context, when you look I was, you know, we were in New York, and we did in 2019, we did something called a live from New York.

Yes, that was my that was my marketing background. But I remember our general counsel said they could sue you. I said, Well, what will they do first? Well, they'll send you a letter. I said, Okay, let's wait for the letter.

If comedians don't get this. Anyway, so we did this event alive from New York. And it was to do a live ultrasound. I just felt the Lord lay on my heart. Show them the baby. Yes, that's really all you got to do back to your experience is 60% of abortion minded women roughly, when they come in and get counseling and see the ultrasound of their baby, they'll choose life.

Yes, that's the data. And so I thought, Okay, let's go to New York, go to Times Square, we'll do it. And we did. And what was so amazing in that moment was hearing the heartbeat right from the stage.

There's a model, a pregnant woman, it actually was Abby Johnson. And so they were back there and doing it. And the heartbeat you heard, and I'm on the stage just looking at everybody, the bypassers, and you know, the people participating, everybody stopped.

And then the monitor came up and the sonographer was saying, you know, that baby's waking up from nap, the baby's yawning, you can see the baby yawn in the 4d ultrasound. And yeah, it was breathtaking. I mean, and the whole place went silent. It was like the Lord declaring, this is life, right there in the heart of the Big Apple.

And it was awesome. So it was either Benjamin Watson or one of the speakers we had from an African American background, obviously. And he said more babies were killed, boarded and born alive than were born alive in New York City. Yeah, to be exact in Manhattan, which is where Planned Parenthood is based for every 1000 black babies born alive 1226 were boarded in the last reported year from the New York Department of Health and think of that, everybody. And that's the highest demographic.

Right? The other white babies are 200 or 300 out of 1000. Yes, and Hispanic. I mean, the Hispanic, it's the black demographic is the only demographic where they're more induced deaths and births. Hispanics have about half of that rate.

Yeah. It's the only demographic like that. You have to look at the historical aspect. And you look at the present targeting that happens.

And so it's undeniable when you actually present people with the data and with the information and these powerful stories, but mainstream media isn't carrying these stories in that regard. I mean, here's the thing. And we've done newsletters about this Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood was about eugenics. Her idea was you get rid of the unfit, correct, you know, those that aren't worthy for life because they're drain on the social purse. I mean, that was kind of the language she used. In other words, let's get rid of minority babies, because they cost the state too much to take care of.

Yeah, that that was the thought. And then now you see in New York City, her vision is being achieved. And nobody is looking at it except the Christian community saying, what are we doing, killing our minority children at a far higher rate than Caucasian kids? And nobody has a problem with that. And it's all wrong, regardless of hue of skin, the killing of the unborn of the most marginalized is wrong. But I mean, you look at it's interesting, people say, well, you know, during Margaret Sanger's days, Planned Parenthood was far worse. No, actually, it's far worse today because they actually abort over 345,000 human beings of every hue. But like we said, the demographic that is hardest hit in city after city across the country, are those black lives. I mean, we talked about things being systemic. That is an example of systemic racism, because you have the history of the disproportionate targeting. And you have the present disproportionate targeting that have evidence that they're fulfilling their vision, right? It was Margaret Sanger, who birthed the Negro project, which that was her goal to really rid, you know, poor blacks from the scene. And so we talk about the Negro project 2.0, because it's exactly what you're saying. This is all by design.

Yeah, this is happening on purpose. And she did that through birth control. They were disproportionate targeting poor black communities through birth control. Well, today is now and sterilized forced sterilizations, which people don't want to talk about Margaret Sanger earlier on actually supported forced sterilizations. But and here we are present day abortion on demand without restrictions, without accountability. Yeah, it's something. Let's talk a little bit about the group that did the videotaping in the clinics.

And you can fill me in on some of these things, because I know a bit I don't, I'm not as knowledgeable, perhaps as you two are. But a group went in, I think it was Veritas, that did some filming, kind of undercover journalism is the way they did it. And talk to Planned Parenthood representatives who are willing to sell body parts, aborted baby body parts, which is illegal. But obviously, they find a way to do it. Describe that and what's taken place with the young man who led that project.

Yeah, David Lydon Center for Medical Progress was the name of the organization. And they went undercover, they went to these conventions. People don't realize this. They don't understand the gravity of the big business that is abortion.

Yes. I mean, these supposedly unwanted babies. They are wanted for their, you know, their wanted body.

Think of that. And he exposed that. And you know, the first thing that Planned Parenthood did when these these videos started coming out, and of course, they were edited. I love how mainstream media says, well, they're highly edited. Like you are highly, highly edited your mainstream media, you edit your news all the time. But later, yeah, but yeah, well, the Center for Medical Progress also provided the raw footage.

So people want to watch all the footage and come to their own conclusions they could, and nothing was distorted. But Planned Parenthood's initial response to being exposed was they pretended that their websites were hacked. And so when you went to Planned Parenthood's website, it said, our sites have been hacked by extremists. I mean, this is what a two billion. No, when you're when your website is hacked, you really can't write a message on it.

It's typically like the website, right? Like, anyway, it's just such a farce and and they really were, like scurrying, like, how are we going to respond to this? Because, you know, what what these folks would David and these folks did is they, yeah, they swung open this door wide open.

See, we live in a time where we can no longer say we never knew, right? We can no longer say we were blind to the fact that not only are they coercing women, but they are profiting off of the baby parts. And when you watch it, some of the I promise you, I could not even get through the footage.

I couldn't. It was so I mean, they're counting hands and fingers and they're they're explaining that they have to keep them intact because they will receive more money if they are intact. We have to understand as Christians that we don't have the luxury of staying silent about something that is the human injustice of our day and that we are going to be held responsible because it's no longer going to be that we don't know these things. The doors are swinging wide open and we're seeing into what's happening and we cannot remain silent. We're going to be held responsible for what we know and what we've decided to do with it.

Right. And that's part of what we do through the Raydens Foundation is equip people to know how to engage in conversations. A large part of Christians holding back and not engaging in these vital conversations is they don't know how to start the conversation. They don't know what to say.

They don't know how to frame the culture shaping issue. And that's part of what we do. That's our heart to equip people to know here's how we can talk about these things. Well, Jim, that was an energizing, really terrific conversation that you had with Ryan and Bethany Baumberger. And I do hope for our listeners, this has motivated you to do something to come alongside mothers and their preborn babies.

Absolutely, John. You know, there are several ways you can directly be involved in saving a baby and helping a mom right now. Donate to focus on the family's option ultrasound program, which has saved almost a half a million babies from abortion by providing 3D and 4D ultrasound technology and training to pregnancy resource centers across the country. Free ultrasounds help women to choose life after seeing their baby.

And $60 is what it costs to save that baby's life through option ultrasound. And right now, some wonderful friends of Focus on the Family are offering to match your gift dollar for dollar. So when you give your $60 donation, it will be doubled and two babies will be saved. And with that generous gift or gift of any amount, we'd like to send you a copy of Ryan's great informative book to help you in the pro-life cause.

It's called Not Equal. Make a donation today and request your book when you call 800 the letter A in the word family 800-232-6459 or click the link in the episode notes. And then you can learn all about SeeLife 2022 when you visit the website. And tomorrow we're going to be hosting a live event. It's called SeeLife 2022 Livestream Experience.

It's going to be right here on the Focus campus at 7 p.m. Mountain Time. We'll feature some really great pro-life champions like Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, Gini Mancini, and others. This is a call for you to see pro-life care and advocacy in a new light as a desire to follow God's heart on the issue and to become equipped to live out your pro-life values.

All the details about SeeLife 2022 are in the episode notes. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. Plan to be with us tomorrow as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ. I was convinced that nothing could change what was going on in our marriage and I didn't want to try anymore. But my commitment to God helped me try one more time. We went to a Hope Restored marriage intensive and it was life-changing. The counselors created the safest environment we could imagine, so that let us really talk. We're on a much different course now and I believe we received a miracle that week. Give your free consultation at HopeRestored.com.