Here's a headline from the New York Sun's "Editor's Picks" section:

"Anti-Abortion Activists Gather Enough Signatures To Block Massachusetts Law That Would Allow Abortion Up to Birth."

Read that again. Slowly this time.

Now let me tell you what actually happened.

On August 10th, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey signed Chapter 188 into law - - - a bill that wipes out the state's 24-week limit on abortion and hands the decision over to "the professional judgment of a physician." The old guardrails are gone. A healthy, viable baby in the ninth month is now fair game, so long as a doctor signs off. It was set to take effect November 8th.

So ordinary citizens across Massachusetts got to work. In under eight weeks, they gathered nearly 100,000 signatures - - - roughly double the 49,716 needed to suspend the law and put it before the voters in 2028.

Praise God!

Now here is how I would have written that same exact headline - but from the correct point of view:

"Pro-Children Champions Join Forces To Stop Child-Murdering Law From Going Forward In Massachusetts."

Same story. Same facts. Same signatures. A completely different picture of who the good guys are.

The Words Are Doing the Work

Look closely at what that original headline does.

"Activists." That word conjures up people chaining themselves to fences and screaming through bullhorns. Funny how nobody ever calls the folks who wrote this law "pro-abortion activists." They get to be "advocates." "Lawmakers." Champions of "reproductive equity.” (< - - - I’m gonna be sick!)

"Block." Now the pro-lifers are obstructionists - - - standing in the road of true progress with their arms crossed.

“Law That Would Allow." Permission language. As if this baby-slaughtering edict were handing out freedom instead of a death sentence.

And to be fair… the Sun’s headline is one of the BETTER ones. At least they admitted "up to birth" in plain English. The Boston Globe described the law as one that makes it easier for women to receive an abortion "later in pregnancy." An abortion advocate there called the old 24-week limit "an arbitrary barrier to care."

And the official name of the law the governor signed? "An Act Prioritizing Patient Access to Care."

“Care?” That's the word they chose to represent ending the life of a baby who could otherwise survive in his mother's arms.

When you call murder "care," you have to call the people who stop it something else.

The Oldest Trick in the Book

None of this is new. The very first recorded conversation between the devil and mankind opened with a question: "Yea, hath God said...?" (Genesis 3:1)

The serpent didn't hold a debate. He reframed. He made Eve doubt she'd heard God right - and made the One who drew that holy boundary look like the bad guy for drawing it.

Six thousand years later, the playbook hasn't changed (it hasn't needed to).

Isaiah saw exactly where it ends: "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20) (< - - - I’ve needed to use this verse often lately.)

A society has to flip its language upside down when the truth said plainly is just too ugly to sell. Think about it like this: Nobody in Boston would vote for "An Act To Permit The Killing Of Viable Babies." So they named it "care" - - - and gave the people who objected an awful name - trying to make them ashamed.

The Daily Drip

Guys and gals, let’s face it: This is what the Bible-believing Christian is up against every single day. The New York Times. The Washington Post. CNN. MSNBC. Billboards along the interstate. The social media feed on your phone. The message is relentless, and it's always the same: You're backward. You're hateful. You’re a bigot. You’re against women, against "health care," against common sense.

“You're the bad guy.”

Here's what I've come to believe about all this… They don't really need to win the argument. They just need you to get tired of making it.

They don't have to change your mind about abortion - - - they only have to change your mind about you.

If they can just get you embarrassed enough, and you'll go quiet on your own. A Christian who's ashamed to open their mouth is every bit as useful to them as one who has switched sides.

Jesus told us this would come: "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you." (John 15:18)

Here Is The Sobering Part

The propaganda is working on a lot of us - and not just in the voting booth. It’s also at work in the pew.

How many church members have learned to say, "Well, I'm personally against it, but..."? How many pastors will read Psalm 139 - "I am fearfully and wonderfully made" - and never once connect it to what happens at the clinic down the road? How many of us hear a coworker say "anti-choice" and just... let it slide?

That flinch is the entire point of the relentless pro-death activists. And far too many of us have it.

Let’s look back at a Biblical example for a moment: The Hebrew midwives didn't flinch. Pharaoh had a murderous policy for the baby boys of Israel, but those women "feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them." (Exodus 1:17) Egypt called it policy. God called it murder - and He blessed the women who refused.

Meet the Bad Guys

So let me introduce you to the "bad guys" in Massachusetts. They're nearly 100,000 citizens. They're volunteers who sat down and sorted petitions by hand. They're everyday people who looked at a law permitting the killing of a healthy baby in the ninth month and said, "Not in our state. Not without a fight."

If that's what the bad guys look like, I'm proud to stand with them. Count me in!

As of this writing, Governor Healey still has the power to attach an "emergency preamble" and force the law into effect anyway - overriding nearly 100,000 signatures with the stroke of a pen. Watch what she does. Pray that she doesn't.

But whatever happens in Massachusetts concerning this law, here is the charge for the rest of us: Stop letting a cleverly phrased, but evil headline write your vocabulary.

A baby is a baby. Life is life. Taking an innocent baby's life is what God calls "hands that shed innocent blood." (Proverbs 6:17) And the people standing in the way of it aren't "activists." They're doing exactly what Proverbs 31:8 commands: "Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction."

So open your mouth. Call it what God calls it. And quit apologizing for being on His side.

"Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven." (Matthew 5:11-12)

Signed,

The Bad Guys

(at least according to the headlines)