Episode 20: Fighting for Life

The following program is sponsored by evangelical life ministries.

Welcome to engaging truth, the manifestation of God's word and the lives of people around us. Join us each week. As we explore the impact of his message of spiritual renewal from the lesson of forgiveness Fords in the crucible of divorce, to the message of salvation learned by an executioner from a condemned killer to the gift of freedom found in the rescue of victims of human trafficking. This is God's truth in action.

Welcome to engaging truth. I'm your host, Matt Popovits. And with me on the program today is Denise Mount. She's a bestselling author. She's done work with the U N and she's the founder of together for life ministries, offering hope and healing to people affected by abortion and pregnancy loss. And we're so thankful that she's able to be a guest with us here on engaging truth, Denise, welcome to the program.

Great. Thank you so much for having me well,

It's our pleasure to have you, uh, you've written, uh, a handful of books, uh, the most recent entitled the bride, the serpent and the seed. And it's a book that tells your story. Uh, the Lord used your story, um, with, uh, abortion to draw you into this, this life work of really educating people to the aftermath and the effects of, of abortion. Uh, uh, tell us a bit about your story and how God has used that to draw you into this work.

Yes. Well, pastor Matt, I think my story is very typical for a lot of women in our generation. Um, some things happen to me that that sadly and tragically is happening to many women around the world. And, uh, I think my story really starts, and that's how I started in my book is when I was raped at the age of 13. So like so many, my virginity was stolen when I was 13 years old. I never gave it away, but it did damage me in some ways I felt like a piece of garbage. I never told anyone. I was afraid of the repercussions. I, I felt dirty. And, um, I, I began to drink, do drugs. Um, I became promiscuous looking for love in all the wrong places because I thought, no nice guy I'll ever wanna marry me because I'm not a, and, uh, so then I, at the age of 16, I had my first love and, uh, I thought this was it.

And we were intimate. And at the age of 16, I was pregnant with my first child. And so in a nutshell, uh, when I found out that I was, was pregnant, my initial reaction was I'm gonna have this baby. And I thought I'll just work as long as I can work and have this baby. And I knew my parents would be disappointed cuz I was only 16, but I figured, you know, it'd be okay. But when I told my mother that I was pregnant, her advice to me was Denise. Honey, you're only 16. You have your whole life ahead of you. She said, why don't you just come with me and you can have this operation and just forget about it and get on with your life. So I thought, oh, I can get unpregnant. It's okay with my mom. It's okay with the doctors it's okay.

Uh, with the government. So I thought, well, it must be okay. And like many young women, I went to a hospital at that time and they put me to sleep. There was never any information given to me about what abortion really is, what it was doing, how it could affect me. There was nothing, no information at all. Given to me, my mother made the appointment. I went in the hospital, I did contact my boyfriend and tell him, you know, that I was pregnant, that he was the father while he went into denial, typically for many young men and uh, you know, said that he had a prostate problem. I'm thinking what's a prostate, but he was in total denial. He had three children later on in his life. And uh, I said, well, never mind. Um, you know, uh, I said, you know, I'll just, just go ahead and, uh, have this operation and forget about it and get on with my life.

So I had that first abortion at the age of 16, tried to forget about it, get on with my life. However, you know, um, 10 years later at the age of 26 and I'm dream, I'm doing drugs. I'm, I'm a career woman. You know, I had a good job, uh, looking for love again, you know, and being intimate. Uh, I did not grow up in a Christian family or home and I was pregnant the second time. You know, the second time I was pregnant, when I told my boyfriend at that time that I was pregnant, he went in a fit of rage. You better have an abortion. I never wanna see you again. How could you do this to me? And he was very angry that I got pregnant. And uh, so my I, my heart was crushed. I thought he'd loved me. You know?

Um, and so I ended up, uh, telling my mom I was pregnant and she was like, Denise, you know, you better have an abortion. Um, you know, you're not married. Uh, this isn't good timing, whatever. And again, so many young pregnant women are pressure into having an abortion. And I had that second in a Buffalo, New York abortion clinic, cuz I was living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. And um, when the doctor told me I was pregnant at that time, the second time I said, what's there, what's developed. And he took a blank piece of paper and he just put a little Dawn on the page and he said, oh, it's nothing. It's just a tissue. Well, he totally lied to me. I had no idea about the truth of fetal development. I'm thinking, okay, it's just a competition at this point, big deal, you know, go and have a second abortion.

But this time it was in this abortion clinic in Buffalo, wide awake during the whole procedure. And it was so traumatic, it was excruciatingly painful. I felt like my insides were being, uh, just depart. And I felt like I was being raped again. That is how abortion felt to me wide awake in an abortion clinic when they were taking the life of my child. But at the time I had no idea did not realize the humanity of the child, child in the womb. And so the second abortion, very traumatic, I got an infection damaged, cervix, badly scar uterus. I let myself go. I didn't care about myself. I just wanted to die. I went into a deep depression. I isolated myself. I left my jaw. I left everything went, you know, very deep into a pit of despair and just tried to drink and do drugs and you know, and forget about it and just try and kill the pain and like many women, um, you know, it was, it was horrible, dark, dark time.

And then, but not really necessarily connecting the, connecting the dots and most relationships never survive in abortion. So that that relationship ended. And then I just went out on a one night, stand with a girlfriend and went out on a one night stand, got pregnant a third time and tragically about 50% of women who have one abortion will have multiple abortion abortions because we're not really dealing with what an abortion is and what it's really doing. And we just push it down, shove it down, cuz it's legal. So we think it must be okay, it's acceptable in society. You know, nobody's hardly anybody's, there's no protest, there's no protest or anything. When I went for all my abortions, there were no, uh, protestors, nothing. And so, you know, we believed the line. I went and I got pregnant. Third time had an abortion. Uh, but this time I went back to a hospital, so they put me asleep and just tried to forget about it and get on with my life.

And then at the age of 30, the lights came on, I was seeking God. I thought, who is God? Is there a God? Where is God? And you know, I, I, when I came to the Lord, Jesus Christ, that's when I surrendered my life. Cuz I, I was so amazed that out of all the different prophets and gods in the world, that Jesus Christ died in the cross for even the sin of abortion. When I got the revelation, pastor Matt, that abortion took the lives of my children, that these were my babies. I was devastated. I was crushed. I went into major grieving and wailing at the revelation that abortion killed my children, that they were not clumps tissue. Like the abortion people told me these were, these were children created in the image of God and that abortion was murder. And that these abortion doctors, so-called doctors took the lives of my children and I was ignorant and I was never informed about it. And so my passion, uh, is that people need to be informed about what an abortion is, what it does to children in the womb, how it damages, how it damaged me and how it's killing women and children created in the image of God. I

I'd like to talk a bit about that, that impact that abortion has, uh, on the lives of, of women who undergo the procedure. Uh, but before we go there, I, I wanna touch back on this, this transformative experience you had, you said you were seeking, you were looking for God and you found him. And one of the things God made, made you aware of was the fact that, um, that these, these abortions have led to the, the, the death of your children. Yes. Um, but which, which of course is the realization of, of, of, of a deep and grave sin, right. On your part. Yeah. But on the other side of that revelation of sin was it's it's, it sounds very clearly to me, the discovery of grace and mercy and forgiveness us, um, odds are that someone is listening to this, this episode right now and they have, uh, maybe they're, uh, a woman who's had one or more abortions or they're uh, a man who has, um, who's lost a child to abortion. Um, and they're in desperate need of hearing God's word of grace to them, just like you heard it. Yeah. What, what would be that word of grace to them who need to hear it?

Well, my favorite song is amazing grace that God would forgive a retch like I was and you know, it, it really is simple. We just merely need to humble ourselves, confess our fault that, Hey, this was wrong. Abortion was wrong, that it took the life of my child or children. And, and you ask God to forgive you. And, and he does, which is so amazing. But God, you know, he, yes, he wants us to be forgiven and we are forgiven. But the most difficult part I found and many women people find is to forgive yourself, but we must forgive ourselves because if we don't then kind of what we're saying is what Jesus did. Isn't good enough. So we have to forgive ourselves and then ask the Lord, what does he want us to do to be a voice for our children who had no voice Proverbs 31, 8 declares, you know, speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves and the rights of the needy.

And then the Lord showed me revelation 12, that we defeat Satan by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony and did not love our lives even unto death because pastor Matt, I believe God's judgments are coming to the world because have we been the salt and light on this? Abortion is the shedding of innocent blood. It pollutes the land. The Bible says, and God hates the shedding of innocent blood. And Jesus said that if we lose our saltiness, we're no good, but to be trampled on by the foot of man and salt preserves his way, his truth is his, his life and salt was also used as a preservative to stop flesh from rotting. And so this is an abomination to God that we are tolerating this great human rights crime against humanity in our generation, at the tune of million of children being slaughtered every day in their mother's womb, which should be the safest place in the world for an unborn child to be.

There's now over 60 published studies in peer reviewed medical journals, linking breast cancer to abortion. It has to do with the hormones. It has to do with estrogen positive breast cancer, which is most of the breast cancers. China did a huge meta analysis a few years ago, and they found that women, that one abortion increases the risk of breast cancer by a whopping 44%. And yet there's a cover up. Nobody knows about it because the cancer societies, you know, they all say, oh, yes, you know, having your babies under 24 reduces breast cancer, uh, breast feeding reduces breast cancer. The more babies you have, the more it reduces breast cancer. If they deny the abortion link. So most abortions are done when women are under the age of 24, the first abortion is usually the first pregnancy under the age of 24. Of course, you're not gonna breastfeed.

And you may never be able to have children in the aftermath. As many of my girlfriends who also had a abortions could never have children after their so-called safe and legal abortion. And, uh, the second major, uh, complication I find is the, uh, cervical and uterine damage causing premature birth in subsequent wanted children. So you've had your one or two abortions, and then down the road, now you met Mr. Prince charming. You wanna get married, you get married and you wanna get pregnant and have your babies. And either you can't have a child or your cervix is so damaged that you cannot hold the baby. And you have miscarriage after miscarriage, after miscarriage. And I know many women who suffered or you have a premature birth. And, um, there's now over 100 published studies showing, uh, that women who have, uh, an induced abortion have a much higher risk, um, from 34 countries, a hundred over a hundred studies from 34 countries.

Now show an increased risk in cervical damage after induced abortion. And, uh, they found that one abortion increases the risk by 45%, which is a huge number. And the problem with, uh, babies that are born preterm or premature is that it can result in deafness, blindness, cerebral palsy, autism, all kinds of problems for that child. And now over 15 million children a year are born premature. And I, I work with Dr. Um, McCaffrey. Who's an American neonatal surgeon, and he is on top of this evidence. Like there's all these published studies and no one's talking about it. And the third problem that I think is crucial when it comes to legal abortion is how it affects women's spiritual and mental health. Cause one day, pastor Matt, it hits you, oh my gosh, I should have a 10 year old, a five year old, a 25 year old, a 40 year old, whatever it is, and you cannot change it.

And the, the grief, the guilt, the remorse, it hits you because we suppress it for so many years. It can affect your sex life, cuz abortion's connected to sex. It can affect your parenting. If you can have children, this one's alive, those ones aren't and you know, it is so detrimental to women and depression, suicides women who have an abortion are six times more likely to attempt or commit suicide in the aftermath. I know personally two women who committed suicide. I know women who've had breast cancer after abortions. You know, so there's all of these complications and we need to get this education and awareness out there. Big time that abortion is not a safe procedure, that it is not a competition. When I learned pastor Matt, that from the moment of conception, that all the DNA is there even PSM hunt hundred 39 declares that God knit us together in our mother's womb.

I mean, it is so phenomenal that by three to four weeks after conception, we had a beating heart that by seven, eight weeks, all the vital organs are formed by eight, nine weeks. There's little arms and legs, fingers, and toes. You, these are children created in the image of God. God had a purpose and a plan for every single human being. But Satan is the father of lies a murderer from the beginning. And he has so deceived our generation into thinking it's a woman's right to have her baby killed and you can stop me. And by the way, I want you to pay for it and we need to be resisting and, and we need to be actively protesting, uh, the slaughter of children cuz of the science, the evidence is there and we need to be making a difference for such a time as this

What's interesting is that you, you, you often hear today that that people want people will declare that they're, they're, pro-science follow the science, believe the science, except when it comes to the, the reality of abortion. All of a sudden we throw science out the window that tells us that it's a human life that tells us it's detrimental to the emotional, physical, uh, spiritual wellbeing of the, the wood who receive it. And, and the men who are complicit in it, um, that it's detrimental to all these things. The science tells us that, but all this, but because it's a political issue and it's connected to, um, uh, divergent worldviews, all of a sudden that that science kind of goes out the window. Um, but, but you, you make a couple really great, important points that I wanna highlight. Number one, uh, forgiveness is, is for everybody.

Grace is there, grace and mercy is greater than whatever guilt you feel over the things that you've done, be it abortion or anything else. And there is no condemnation, no judgment for those who are in Christ Jesus. And so the number one for those who are listening, if you feel the guilt, the weight, the heaviness, uh, uh, of, of having had an abortion or being party to one in any capacity, know this, that Jesus Christ has lived perfectly for. You died sacrificially for you and risen out of your tomb and the tomb of your unborn children for you. And because of his work, um, there is forgiveness grace and mercy for you and the opportunity to now walk in a new direction as a whole new creation, right? Yeah. Um, and, and the opportunity to walk in that whole new direction as a whole new creation on this important issue of abortion, um, is the opportunity to, to join you perhaps in the fight of, of raising awareness about the reality of abortion. If someone wants to partner Denise with, with you and the work that you do, how, how can they do that?

Well, I would encourage them to, uh, contact me through my website. It's www.togetherforlife.net, E T uh, that's probably the best way to get ahold. Um, you know, I'm happy to get my book and these DVDs out there because, uh, this is, uh, a message you can't argue with. And I just briefly wanna share also a very important thing that happened. Um, when I was a young Christian, uh, and I had surrendered my life to the Lord one night, my little apartment in Toronto, before I met my husband. And, um, I, I, I actually had a vision where Jesus Christ appeared to me with my very own three aborted children, as old as they would've been at that time. And I just started bawling. I just knew their names. Uh, uh, also what I could do is ask each one, Jennifer, Daniel, and Rebecca to forgive me.

They were beautiful, gorgeous looking children, three different fathers and each Onega me. They said, I forgive you, mommy. I forgive you mom. And, uh, and then I was wiping the tears and they disappeared. And so children are with the Lord in the heavenly house up there. And, uh, God wants us to be a voice for our children and to make a difference in our generation to rescue those being unjustly sentenced to death, according to Proverbs 24, 11 and 12. And so to help me would be, I, of course, you know, I, this is my full-time ministry, so I, I don't get a wage or a salary, but God has opened many doors for me to go into the United nations, even into the world health organization for the last eight years into Geneva, Switzerland, and then to New York where he's opened doors to meet with UN ambassadors and delegates. And, uh, so it, it's a huge mission in our generation. And I appreciate this opportunity to share with you and your listeners. And, uh, you know, uh, the big vision is I wanna make a movie because we need to reach the masses with what really happens and how God can take a mess and turn it into a message for his kingdom and his glory,

Denise Mount. I thank you so much for joining us here on engaging truth. Once again, her website is together for life.net. Thanks for being with us, Denise. Thank you. And thank you for listening. Uh, we hope you join us next time. Same time, same station on engaging truth.

Thank you for listening to this broadcast of engaging truth. Be sure to join us each week at this time to help support our ministry, contact evangelical life ministries, post office Fox five six, Cypress, Texas 77, or visit elm.org or us on Facebook evangelical ministries. You.