The fight for life in North Dakota
North Dakota Family Alliance was recently served a subpoena initiated by the Red River Women's Clinic. The subpoena was part of their lawsuit opposing the ND trigger law and last session’s revisions to the Abortion Control Act portion of our Century Code. Two of our allies, the North Dakota Catholic Conference and North Dakota Right to Life also received similar subpoenas. Essentially, the subpoenas demanded access to all our confidential communications and documents related to our pro-life work since 2021, all social media posts since 2022, and all documents related to any events hosted by NDFA or even attended by NDFA since 2022. These last two categories asked for everything, even if the documents didn’t relate to the life issue.
This was obviously not a welcome development. However, looking at it slightly differently, it meant that they saw NDFA as a threat to their abortion agenda. As we've heard it said, the more of an impact you make, the more those in opposition will try to silence you.
We joined together with the North Dakota Catholic Conference and North Dakota Right to Life to fight these subpoenas. By the grace of God, and with some tireless work by our attorneys, Red River Women’s Clinic backed down and withdrew all the subpoenas. This was a tremendous victory, and reaffirmed that God is blessing NDFA’s commitment to protecting life! We ask that you continue to pray for us and our allies as we remain in the fight for life here in North Dakota.
Click here to read the statement of the North Dakota Catholic Conference which provides more detail on the situation.
Courage
It was 8:30 a.m. last week Wednesday and I was sitting in a radio studio with a microphone in my face. I was on the air with Brad Bales, general manager of KNDR (104.7 FM), an excellent Christian radio station based out of Mandan. We’ve worked with them in the past to announce upcoming events, and this was no exception. We discussed the National Day of Prayer event at the State Capitol on May 2, as well as our upcoming gala scheduled for May 28 with guest speaker Tony Perkins. We were chatting and suddenly I saw a twinkle in Brad’s eye and he said, "This is one of these on-the-spot questions, but how can our listeners pray for North Dakota Family Alliance?" It was a tremendous opportunity for his listeners to lift up our ministry in prayer and I didn’t want to "waste it."
I paused as dozens of different things raced through my head; more donations was an obvious first answer, since our existence depends entirely on generous donors. But that somehow didn’t seem correct. Perhaps asking for winning more bills next legislative session? Maybe that God sends the right person to us for help with our abundance of administrative work? For some reason, I felt that those didn’t fit either. What I finally said was, "courage."
Over the past few months, NDFA has experienced intentional attacks on who we are and what we do. From being drawn into a lawsuit defending pro-life laws (more on that in a future email), to even more threats from those opposed to us, and challenges being thrown in front of us as we launch our new Legislative Academy and Church Ambassador Network. Our staff and their families have also been under attack personally on the health front. We are used to being in the fight – it’s par for the course in our work – but the intensity of the evil we are experiencing has definitely increased.
By the same token, we’ve been very blessed in many ways over the past few weeks. We’ve had a donor step up and offer meeting space (we currently work from our homes, to keep our costs low). Others have sacrificially given toward our work. Trust me, we know that your giving comes from your heart and belief in our mission, and we truly thank you for that. There are many other things that I can’t list right now, but I can say that it’s been amazing to see God work in this way on behalf of NDFA.
Clearly, dramatic things have happened in our ministry of late, both positive and negative. However, the defining characteristic of all these is the magnitude – something I’ve never seen in the eight years I’ve been in this role. God is doing something different; the winds are changing.
I mentioned this situation to my wife and her response was, "God is preparing you for a large battle." Not the answer I was looking for. A day later I was describing our situation to a colleague at SBA Pro-life and she said, "You know what’s happening, don’t you? You are being equipped to serve the Lord in an unexpected and much larger way than you’ve ever had to before." I didn’t particularly like that answer any more than my wife’s. Over the next few days, I received basically the same message from various other people. While I’m incredibly honored that God would choose to use NDFA to serve Him in an even greater capacity, I’ll be honest and admit that there’s a part of me that’s a bit apprehensive.
If God is preparing us with this magnitude of change, I don’t know what lies ahead, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not going to be easy. Then again, NDFA has not been around for decades to tackle easy things, but to address the hard things in public policy from a biblical foundation. It is truly an honor to fight for your deeply held beliefs in the political world, and we will keep doing that, no matter what.
In the end, that’s why I asked those radio listeners to pray for courage. Courage for NDFA to stand strong, and courage for those of us who are directly involved in its ministry. I have no doubt that God will fight for us in what lies ahead. However, that does not mean we won’t have to sail through rough seas. Your continued prayers are greatly appreciated, and we truly thank you for lifting up NDFA and its ministry to the Lord, whatever lies on the horizon.
My First National Day of Prayer
by Jacob Thomsen
Last year contained a lot of firsts for me. My first professional job, my first legislative session, my first time planning various events, and many other firsts. The legislative session was hectic and filled with plenty of bills to work on. We worked nearly 24/7 for four months and on April 30th, 2023 at some crazy hour in the morning, the legislative session finally adjourned for good. Four days later, we had a gathering at the Capitol for National Day of Prayer.
This was another first for me and I was excited to see what it was all about. I was amazed at seeing Memorial Hall filled with people from many different faith backgrounds all gathered together to worship and pray. It was quite a stark contrast from the hustle and bustle that normally filled Memorial Hall just a week prior.
It was a beautiful experience where, after all the work that went into the legislative session, I was granted peace beyond understanding through God’s presence. It was a beautiful thing to see hundreds of people gathered in the name of the Lord to pray and worship, and there is one thing I’m certain of; that God was with us in the Capitol building (Matthew 18:19-20).
National Day of Prayer is coming up again on May 2nd this year. There are gatherings across the state, and I certainly encourage you to attend one of those if you’re not in Bismarck. You can check out a list of other gatherings across the state here. The one in Bismarck is in Memorial Hall at the State Capitol Building at noon, and I have the great honor of being the MC this year. I’m incredibly excited to see how God moves on National Day of Prayer, and certainly hope to see you in Memorial Hall on May 2nd!
Statement on Criminalization of Women Who Have Abortions
Recent public policy discussions in North Dakota have focused on the criminalization of women who have abortions. This is a difficult issue, with principled opinions on both sides of the topic. However, North Dakota Family Alliance does not support measures that seek to criminalize or punish these women, and we oppose including such penalties in legislation.
As a Christian organization, NDFA believes in protecting life at all stages. We also believe that the mother is often the abortion’s second victim. Similar to women who are victims of human trafficking, we believe the focus should be on punishing the source of the criminal activity, in this case the abortionists who profit from killing innocent children by providing abortion drugs, and
not the women who suffer because of it.
From a biblical standpoint, the issue is about balancing justice with mercy. Numerous biblical texts clearly point to situations when it is more important to side with mercy over justice (Zechariah 7:9, Matthew 7:2, James 2:8, John 8:3-11). As Christians in America, we seek to be salt and light in a fallen world. It is not mother against child, but Christian values against our country’s abortion complex.
We know that abortion has deep and lasting negative effects on a woman's physical, psychological, and spiritual health. A frightened, pregnant woman needs help, not the threat of criminal prosecution, and as Christians, we can help. In a study published by BioMed Central, over 70% of post-abortive women said they had an abortion because of financial or partner-related reasons. To help, we propose considering ways to continue supporting women with additional adoption incentives, more daycare options, additional assistance for women in abusive situations, and similar constructive solutions.
From a political perspective, this type of legislation would be fraught with significant public policy and enforcement problems. It does not account for coercion of the mother, nor does it differentiate between chemical abortifacients and spontaneous miscarriages. There are critical HIPAA concerns, statute of limitations questions, and the burden of proving intent for the mother and “co-conspirators”. We would be putting law enforcement into an untenable situation and would end up funding the inevitable court cases arising from such short-sighted legislation.
As we’ve seen over the past 50 years, the fight for human life in our country is a marathon, not a sprint. The solution is not short-term public policy that provides additional ammunition for the other side to continue falsely asserting that Christians hate women who have abortions. Instead, the pro-life movement should be committed to saving the life of the child and showing the love of Christ to these women needing our grace and mercy.
God's Timing
by Jacob Thomsen
There is a life verse I’ve mentioned before because it has played a very significant role in how I was saved. Proverbs 16:9 says, “A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.” That verse means so much to me, because it reached me when I needed it most.
There is a young man from a small town in North Dakota who has amazing talent and went to play football at one of our state’s public universities, that has an incredible story and testimony. He is a great Christian man and I admire him very much. We’ve never met, yet God has allowed his story to impact me in a significant way.
He had a skiing accident which caused a major injury, and the community rallied around him. I could not imagine going through something like this. In an instant, he lost the ability to play the sport he loved, but more significantly, his ability to walk. In spite of that, every update I saw about him contained that he had an incredibly positive attitude, because of the light he had from Christ and the trust he had in God.
As an aside, one of the good things that came from this skiing accident was the spread of support from North Dakotans across the state. Someone once told me that North Dakota is just one big, very spread out, small town. I certainly don’t think that’s a bad thing. It shows that we truly care about each other, and this story emphasizes that point.
As one of the ways to fundraise for him, there were wristbands with his hashtag on them, and on the other side was a Bible verse, Proverbs 16:9. My mom bought some and sent them my way. At the time, I was not yet saved, and I was seriously struggling with what I was supposed to do with my life. I read that verse and gained a whole new perspective.
The timing of all of this was absolutely remarkable to me. It was at a time when I had about two or three other things going on in my life that were beckoning me to Christ. I was taking one of the religion classes that are required at the University of Mary and had a tremendous teacher. I had also been told by my mom about a church I should check out.
I certainly do not believe in coincidences. God reached out to me, and I heard Him. He used many different ways to reach me, including that situation with a horrible skiing accident. “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose,” Romans 8:28.
This is a testament to the fact that when bad things happen in this world, God can use them for good. It can be easy to get discouraged when trials and tribulations come upon us, but we ought to remember that there is hope in Christ Jesus and that He is with us every step of the way, even before we recognize it.