Our next interview: Senator Keith Boehm
We are very excited to present to you our second legislator interview. Our purpose in doing legislator interviews is so that you can better get to know the legislators representing you, from both a personal and legislative perspective.*
For our second interview, we decided to visit with Senator Keith Boehm from District 33. This past session held in early 2023 was his first year as a legislator. He served on the Senate Industry and Business, and Energy and Natural Resources Committees. We know you'll enjoy learning more about his faith, his calling to serve, and much more.
Check out the interview here.
Let’s Talk About Sex
Let’s talk about sex – specifically, sex among teens. The CDC regularly puts out National Health Statistics Reports, and the one published in December focuses on teen sexuality. The survey included 3,812 teenagers, ages 15-19, and measured sexual experience, contraceptive use, attitudes toward sex, the likelihood of having a child during teen years, and more. So, what did it say?
The first top-level finding was that 40.5% of female and 38.7% of male teenagers reported having sexual intercourse. Those are pretty discouraging statistics for many parents, but thankfully other findings from the study are more positive. Another result was that “In 2015–2019, the main reason most commonly chosen by female teenagers for not having had sex, among the options provided, was ‘against religion or morals’ (32.5%)”. It was also the second most chosen reason for male teenagers. Interestingly, the report also notes, “Lower percentages of both female (32.3%) and male (33.1%) teenagers were sexually experienced if they lived with both parents at age 14, compared with those who lived with a biological mother and stepfather (60.0% for females and 52.4% for males) or in any other type of parental living arrangement at that age (52.3% for females and 48.9% for males).” In other words, young teens who lived with both biological parents were less sexually active than those in other family structures. Not surprisingly, the study also confirmed that the younger unwanted first sex occurred, the more likely it was to produce unintended pregnancy, a higher incidence of STIs, and intimate partner violence.
What’s the takeaway from all this? Not surprising to those of us with pro-life and pro-family values, the CDC study confirms what we’ve known all along: faith values and a stable “traditional” mother-father parental home environment result in lower teen pregnancy. However, I don’t see our society and government promoting programs focused on stable families and encouraging foundational religious beliefs. Instead, our educational institutions, governmental programs, and the Biden Administration in particular, say that the answers are contraceptives and abortion. Shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted would seem to be a tailor-made idiom. Despite what our society is pushing, many parents realize that there is no substitute for faith and family in our children’s lives.
However, before those of us on the right think we have all the answers, we need to go back to the roughly 40% of teenagers who ARE having sex. Trust me, it includes kids from nice nuclear Christian families too. From a pro-family perspective, that means dealing with the issue in a loving and understanding way. Kids need to understand that, believe it or not, we were all once teenagers with the same crazy hormones they have. That said, they also need to know that we don’t condone sexual intercourse outside the bounds of marriage. What they absolutely need to hear from us is that if their poor judgement results in a pregnancy, then we will be there for them, when they need us most.
Inexpensive Christianity
A couple of weeks ago we held our Pro-Life Conference, which was a great success. At the conference we gave a book to each attendee – the same books that had spent months stacked in boxes in our family room. Aside from a very understanding wife who never complained about our Sears Tower of books in the corner, over those months I noticed something interesting. One of the boxes said, “Everything Christian for Less”.
When you work from home and spend a significant part of your workday writing, an odd thing happens – you notice things in your environment you had not previously paid attention to. When I write a letter to the editor, this type of blog email, or content for a new webpage, I tend to regularly stare off into the distance while composing my thoughts (I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere). As a result, objects in our family room get more daily scrutiny simply because my mind wanders and my eyes follow closely behind. I get fixated on something, and in this case, it was the box slogan.
The phrase “Everything Christian for Less” is actually the catchphrase for Christianbook.com, where we purchased the books. They did a great job with the order, but it still struck me as odd that a company would choose that wording. To some who are new to the faith or who do not understand the basics of a Christian walk of life, it might be interpreted as saying that Christianity can be “purchased” at low cost to the individual. You can put in your order online and get Christianity inexpensively delivered to your door in 3-5 business days.
All joking aside, I know what they mean by this slogan, as I’m sure you do (but I certainly hope nobody got a marketing bonus for it). However, Christianity is just the opposite; it’s expensive. Christ himself stated that the cost of discipleship could mean everything up to and including death. Aside from His own death on the cross for us, just look at his disciples. Every one of them was crucified, stoned, hanged, or made to die in some similar fashion for proclaiming their faith.
In contrast, I think it’s fair to say that as Christians, we often believe that exercising our faith can be quick and easy. We attend church, go to our bible study, and have our devotions. While these are all critical parts of our Christian life, there is another part of our Christian life which was not mentioned. That part is spreading our values through all parts of life, which is incredibly difficult. It can be extremely time consuming (i.e., expensive) and means taking the hits on a regular basis. That’s a major reason NDFA exists.
NDFA represents you and your values in the legislature and across the state. If you were to do this same work yourself, the task would become very expensive in terms of time requirements, fulfilling existing obligations, getting your work done, and so much more. We undertake that work on your behalf, and based on historical evidence, we are able to do it very efficiently and effectively. We love representing your values in North Dakota, but it is expensive for us as well.
Our organization is funded 100% through private donations from folks like you – North Dakotans who want to leave a legacy of biblically-based laws for their children and grandchildren. You can help support us in this work in a special way tomorrow with Giving Hearts Day! You also receive a dollar-for-dollar match on your donation in the process. You can go directly to our GHD webpage and donate, or you can mail a check to the address at the bottom of this email if you feel more comfortable doing that (be sure to put “GHD” on the memo line).
Integrating your values into North Dakota’s public policy world is not easy and can be expensive, but it is definitely worth it to push back against the moral decay underway in our country. NDFA is here to help you do that, and we want to sincerely thank you for your support and faith in us!
Reflecting on my First Pro-Life Conference
by Jacob Thomsen
I attended my first Pro-Life Conference last week. Now, much of my work was working behind the scenes to make sure everything went smoothly, but I still got to hear our tremendous speakers and what they had to say. There were a lot of important things to take away from our conference, the two most important things in my opinion were that 1.) we’ve had some tremendous pro-life successes, but the fight is far from over, and 2.) God is infinitely caring and loving toward each of us individually, despite our histories.
Our keynote speaker, David Bereit, was absolutely remarkable and had some excellent points. The focus of his presentation was that, as long as we still have breath in our lungs, our pro-life fight and mission are not yet over. While we had a huge success in the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the battle on abortion was sent back to the states. In our state, NDFA helped pass pro-life laws this session and we will continue to actively fight the battle against abortion, both in the legislature and in the courts. Never believe that Planned Parenthood has given up. They have attacked several states with ballot measures to enshrine abortion in their state constitutions, and they actually have a campaign directed at North Dakota to legalize abortions here.
In North Dakota, the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo was closed. However, they moved across the border into Moorhead. That is the story for so many other states across our nation. In fact, David mentioned that abortion has gone up 9% nationwide. The fight is far from over. While we certainly want to protect life in all its forms here in ND, there are scores of unborn children still being killed across our nation.
The most important thing David left us with was an action that each of us can take, should we find ourselves with someone who is seriously contemplating abortion. He said that a study was done where 1,000 women who had abortions were asked, “what could have changed the situation?” Approximately 74% of those women said they would not have had an abortion if one person in their life said, “I will help you.” If we truly believe in the fight to eradicate abortion, we must be willing to say those four words and mean them.
That was an incredibly powerful part of his presentation that really resonated with me. I know people who have made the decision to have an abortion. What could have changed if I had said those four words?
Our other speakers, Jor-El Godsey, Jill Chandler, and Attorney General Drew Wrigley all had great presentations as well. They touched on things like mail-order abortion pills, the harm they do, and our tremendous network of pregnancy health clinics across the state. They also talked about the value of life, and how we value life here in North Dakota. They were wonderful speakers, and we are truly blessed to have heard them at our conference.
Our final speaker was a mother who had an abortion. She is an incredible woman with a tragic story that moved from pain and suffering into God’s forgiveness. Out of respect, I won’t go into details about her story, but I will tell you it was heart-wrenching, but so incredibly beautiful. It reminded me that God sees each of us individually and knows our hearts personally. He sees what we are going through and leaves the 99 to save the one. Our God is redeeming, loving, caring, and gracious, and that fact has been reflected beautifully in so many stories around the issue of life. This is so fundamental to the pro-life movement, that we distributed a book to every attendee which relates many stories of how God has transformed these situations for His glory.
This gives me hope that the issue of life is something that can be won for the glory of God. Not only can we save more babies through actively partaking in the pro-life movement, but we can win more souls for Heaven! What a beautiful gift!
I loved the first of many Pro-Life Conferences that I hope to be part of. I heard about the challenges those of us in the pro-life movement face, but also so many inspiring, beautiful stories about how God works in people’s lives to bring justice and healing to situations where He is needed most. If you haven’t been to one of our Pro-Life Conferences before, I hope you’ll join us for our next one. I promise it will educate, inspire, and motivate you to step forward in faith and fight even harder to protect the unborn in our state and across the country!
2024 ND Pro-Life Conference
Tickets are going fast! Get yours now!
Hear more about the Conference from keynote speaker, David Bereit!
Is the sanctity of life important to you and your family? Then we have just the event for you. Following NDFA’s incredibly successful 2022 ND Pro-Life conference, NDFA is excited to announce its 2024 ND Pro-Life Conference to be held on January 22, our state’s new official Right-To-Life Day!
Topics will cover everything from the current status of abortion across the nation and state, to the dramatic increase in chemical abortions, the situation with pro-life legal challenges in ND, and what you can do to stand for life in our state. The one-day conference will be held at the Heritage Center starting at 9 AM, and tickets are available on Eventbrite for $20 per person or half-priced per person for groups of 5 or more.
David Bereit, founder and former CEO of 40 Days for Life, will be our keynote speaker. Other speakers will include:
Jor-el Godsey, President of Heartbeat International
Drew Wrigley, North Dakota Attorney General
Jill Chandler, Executive Director of Relate Care Clinic
Personal testimony from a post-abortive mother
Join us on January 22 to gather, learn, and celebrate the sanctity of human life. You won’t want to miss the premier life conference planned for North Dakota in 2024!