The Dr. Jeff Show Ep. 60 – Natasha Smith

Episode 60: Summary & Transcript

Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Episode Summary

In this episode of the Dr. Jeff Show, host Dr. Jeff interviews Natasha Smith, a Summit Ministries graduate currently studying Old Testament at Denver Seminary and working as church resource manager at Save the Storks. Smith recently authored Unplanned Grace: A Compassionate Conversation on Life and Choice with co-author Brittany Smith. The conversation explores the complex pressures women face regarding abortion decisions, with Smith emphasizing that many women feel they don’t have any other choice due to relational, cultural, and economic pressures.

The discussion highlights how the pro-life movement extends beyond birth, noting that there are over 3000 pregnancy centers across America providing free ultrasounds, pregnancy tests, and up to two years of parenting classes with material resources. Smith addresses the need for churches to provide healing and support, noting that four in ten women were regularly attending church when they chose abortion for the first time, with over half saying no one in the church knows about it.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:01):
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show. The show’s available on Apple, Google, Spotify, Edifi, Liftable, wherever you get your podcast. Would you please go review the show on your favorite platform? That helps it come to the attention of more people, and we want it to come to the attention of more people because this is the show where I interview major thought leaders from many fields of influence to show how our worldview changes everything.

My guest today is a Summit Ministries graduate now studying Old Testament at Denver Seminary and the church resource manager at Save the Storks, which helps women facing the possibility of abortion. She recently wrote a book called Unplanned Grace. The subtitle is A Compassionate Conversation on Life and Choice. We’re going to get into all of the difficult issues. We’re going to talk about what the church can do in this really important time. Please welcome Natasha Smith to the show. Natasha Smith, welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show.

Natasha Smith (01:03):
Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:07):
It is always fun to have conversations with you. We have a lot of things in common. We’re both graduates of Summit Ministries and we both really think that this is the moment for people to learn how to articulate the truth about a biblical worldview when it comes to pro-life issues. And I just loved your book Unplanned Grace that you and Brittany Smith, who is not your sister.

Natasha Smith (01:32):
No relation.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:33):
No relation, but what a wonderful book. And I was thinking of it, Natasha, particularly because as we move into 2022, we are anticipating the Supreme Court making a decision about Roe v. Wade, and it is going to be the most important time maybe in the last 50 years for people who have pro-life convictions to put their convictions into practice and how they talk about the life issue. So I can’t think of a more timely podcast for us to have.

Natasha Smith (02:08):
Yeah, it’s such an important time. And sometimes we get wrapped up in the thought of like, oh, if this law just changes, then we’ll fix the problem. And what we really wanted to do is help people understand the complexity of the issues so that the church can be ready with the solution to care for people who need help because that isn’t going to go away. And this is such an amazing opportunity for the church to step into something and really create hopefully a positive change that will not just change laws, but really change hearts and minds.

Dr. Jeff Myers (02:41):
One of the things I remember from the book, it really stood out to me and I read the book before it was published and was able to offer an endorsement of it. And one thing that really stood out to me was a statistic that you quoted in the book about the percentage of women who have an abortion who wouldn’t have necessarily chosen to do it except they were pressured to do it by somebody else, which I thought was super important. And I hope you don’t mind just talking about that for a moment, unpacking that.

Natasha Smith (03:12):
Yeah, that’s crazy because in our culture we say that we’re so pro-choice, we want women to have choices, but the reality is so many women feel like they don’t have one. And that was a big reason why I wrote this book, was I kept on hearing this line. I don’t have any other choice. I was interviewing these women and having opportunities to hear that story and that refrain just kept on coming. I didn’t have another choice.

And there’s a lot of different pressures, but yeah, you mentioned the one of relational pressures, and I think culture also plays a role in that of culture that says you can’t be successful if you have a child right now. You can’t do this if you hear the tone that’s being spoken over women in unplanned pregnancies. There’s a loud voice that’s limiting them and making them think of themselves in a small way of saying, I can’t actually overcome the circumstances.

(04:05):
And likewise, when the friends or family around you or your partner is saying, I’m not going to support you unless you do this thing. How do you stand up against that? It’s so hard. And so in our book, we cover a lot of different pressures including prenatal diagnosis. That’s a huge one. When a doctor is saying this is what’s best for your life and that child, how do you stand up against it? And likewise, another big reason actually, the number one reason too of women choosing abortion is economics.

And so there’s all these pressures, whether it’s the financial, whether it’s relational, whether it’s the health side, and those are the big, big things that we tackled throughout the book of, how can we be a solution when women really don’t feel like they have another choice? They feel like they’re a victim of their own circumstances.

Dr. Jeff Myers (04:59):
So this is the conversation below the surface. I mean the political conversation is it’s violence against women if you don’t have laws that permit unfettered access to abortion. But what you’re saying is so countercultural that women are being pushed, pressured, not forced, I guess, but they feel a significant amount of tension over this decision to have an abortion and they’re not getting the support from their family, from their partner, from the church, even from their doctors to choose life.

Natasha Smith (05:40):
Yes. Yeah. That’s so real and so sad. And that’s something that I hope that any reader who picks up unplanned grace leaves with is this heart of compassion and empathy of wow, these women are going through the hardest moments of their life and everything around them makes them feel like they’re doing it alone. I mean, put yourself in their shoes for a moment. Could you overcome.

One of my favorite stories in the book is one of an immigrant, Ani, who is in America hoping for a much better life here. She was from Venezuela and everything toppled there, so she had nothing there. Came here and then was trying to navigate the systems here. And of course it’s difficult. She ended up finding herself pregnant, but she couldn’t get a job. She tells her partner and he kicks her out of the house. So now she’s homeless, she’s unemployed, she overstayed her visa, has a tracking anklet facing deportation back to Venezuela where she said, if I had my baby, we would both starve and I can’t watch him starve.

(06:44):
And so you see her mama’s heart there breaking for her child saying, the unknowns are so real, I don’t know how I can do this. And it wasn’t until people stopped and heard her story and she searched for abortion, she ended up finding a mobile medical unit, which Save the Storks builds and pregnancy centers own and operate.

And so that center was able to come to her, provide free ultrasound, pregnancy test and hear her story and all those different factors. The local church there was able to find her a home. That nurse said, oh, I know of a lawyer who would help you. And he heard her story and said, I’ll fight your case pro bono. I’ll do it for free because I believe in you and your life is worth it.

And it’s just such a beautiful story of what can happen when we choose not to let anyone around us become victims of their circumstances, but think in ways that will provide solutions to them. And now Ani is thriving, her son’s three or four now, and she named him Emmanuel because she realized that God was with her through those people who were faithful just to help in whatever way they could. And I think that’s such a tangible example for us. We might not be able to do all the things, but we have something that we could contribute that could make a huge and lasting difference for life.

Dr. Jeff Myers (08:11):
So as a pro-life person, I have to keep this in mind. I need to not just be against abortion. I need to be for people. And you talk a lot about this in the book, and you’re studying at Denver Seminary and you’ve done a study of the Old Testament where we’re presented with this idea that human beings are special because we are made in the image of God. Can you unpack that idea for us a little bit? Because I think we hear that a lot, Imago Dei, people talk about I’m in God’s image, but I’m not sure we really grasp the full significance of that.

Natasha Smith (08:53):
Oh yeah, I probably don’t either. It’s just so big and it’s so beautiful. And that’s really what drew me into the pro-life movement is this idea that every single human being, simply because you exist, you have value. It’s not based on what you contribute to society, which is a really loud narrative right now. It’s not based on your ethnicity or any other external factor. That’s why it’s called intrinsic value. It’s from within, placed there by God.

And simply because he created us with his unique breath and that life is so special, and so that can be applied to everyone. And there’s this limitlessness then to the creativity that we can do the things that we can create in our world as expressions of being made in God’s image. And it gives such validity to our work, to our interactions with other people, but it also provides the foundation for why we care about anything.

(10:00):
Because without that worldview, we don’t care about our neighbor, we don’t care about the homeless person down the street, we don’t care about the unborn or the people who are experiencing tragedy in Ukraine. Why would we care outside of ourselves? But we do that because we’re made in God’s image and every life has value, which is also difficult when we realize that that value that we have what God says about us is true, is also true about those we disagree with, which also means we need to care about those on the other side of the aisle, on those who work in abortion clinics, those who feel like they’re truly helping women, but in a vastly different way.

And that was what we wanted to provide in this book is this example of, we can actually find a middle ground. Everyone in this conversation agrees that women’s life matters.

(10:52):
So let’s start there and say, how can we truly holistically care for women? And then also, we want to care for men and we want to provide open doors for those who believe that abortion is the best thing for women to maybe have a fuller and different picture of what the pro-life world provides because there’s just this holistic approach that you don’t see in other areas, and that’s only made possible because of this understanding of human value is so big. And so we’re going to care about those no matter what the backstories are, no matter what their futures entail, just because they’re made in God’s image they’re worth caring about.

Dr. Jeff Myers (11:32):
Yeah. So we love our neighbor, not because they’re easy to love, but because we are made in God’s image and so are they, and God loved them. So in other words, I’m almost wanting to have God’s heart for other people. I love this person because God loves them.

Natasha Smith (11:54):
Exactly. And at the end of every chapter, throughout the book, we have this section called, reflecting the Father’s heart, where that’s exactly what we’re trying to have. We wrote little prayers so that we could actually have our hearts shaped by the Father. He talks about homelessness. He talks about those who are experiencing abuse. He talks about those who feel a victim to their circumstances and just have no hope outside of the Lord. He talks about those who are orphaned or widowed and those who’ve made choices in their past that they can’t undo and God has something to say about that.

And so we want to be a people who have that heart to meet people no matter where they are in those stories and provide that open door of God’s invitation for healing and for wholeness that is just so beautiful. And the core of the gospel.

Dr. Jeff Myers (12:45):
Well, the book is called Unplanned Grace. I just love the theme of it. I love how practical it is, and I hope that people who have pro-life convictions will pick up a copy and learn how to have the conversations and gain that sense of hope of what God can do, even when our actions have taken us to the place where we wish we could reverse or undo the things that we’ve done.

Could you talk a little bit about this question that I hear all of the time that you, Christians are pro-life only to birth. You only want the babies to be born, but you don’t care about the rest of life. And one of the things you point out in the book is how that just doesn’t reflect what’s happening with crisis pregnancy centers and some of these other great works. Can you talk about those a little bit? Because this may be a great time for people if they haven’t been involved to get involved with organizations in their communities that are doing great work?

Natasha Smith (13:56):
Yes. That’s really what shocked me as I started to learn more about the pro-life movement because I’ve been working in this world for about five years and before that didn’t really know or have access to pregnancy centers or their work. I grew up in a really rural area, so we just didn’t even have that in our county or anything. But what is amazing is the amount of care that pregnancy centers offer.

So pregnancy centers are, there’s over 3000 across America, so there’s more pregnancy centers than there are abortion clinics and they provide free ultrasounds, pregnancy tests, and also typically up to two years of parenting classes that also include material resources. So parents can come learn how to parent, learn how to discipline in a healthy way, learn how to budget for themselves and just learn these skills they really haven’t learned anywhere else and walk alongside people who are going to be mentors to them and help them learn how to parent and be a thriving individual.

(15:01):
And then they also care for them, like I said, up to two years typically with free diapers, wipes, formula, clothing. They’ll even have bigger things like cribs and car seats and whatever people really need, they’re going to provide that. But through the earn while you learn program, parents also have that sense of ownership because they’re earning something. It’s not just a handout.

And so there’s also these relationships that are forming. And pregnancy centers also try to connect those women and men because pregnancy centers also have fatherhood programs, and that’s kind of like a growing side to the pro-life ministry that’s so vital. So whenever I do see pregnancy centers that have that, it’s beautiful because then they connect those individuals to the church that can take discipleship to the next level and a family structure to the next level and actually care for those people for a lot further down the road.

(15:55):
So there is not the sense of just, choose life and then you’re on your own. Honestly, you do see that in abortion. You don’t see care after the fact, but pregnancy centers actually also offer after abortion care. So if there are people who regret that decision and want to seek counseling, pregnancy centers often offer that for free at no cost, or they’ll partner with churches where a church can provide an after abortion healing retreat or a Bible study to actually heal the heart after that fact.

So there’s just so much in every chapter we kind of tackle a big issue of how does homelessness affect abortion, how does domestic abuse affect a woman’s decision because those really do, and we might not think about those abortion as an act of self-defense and it might be for some women. And so we also highlight just one, and there are many within each category, pro-life organization that’s a national one that will be a solution to that particular area.

(17:01):
So if you know someone who doesn’t have a safe home, where could they go? Well, here’s at least one number. You can call and find a solution there, but there’s so much. And so it’s the tip of the iceberg because there is so much in the way of creative problem solving within the pro-life world that’s remarkable. And I hope that it would stimulate more creativity for more individuals who might read that and say like, oh, we could start something like that or merge to, there’s just so much that we can do and it’s amazing to see that kind of work happening in our country and we’ll just need more of it honestly.

Dr. Jeff Myers (17:36):
If people who are pro-life and if churches who support people who are pro-life got involved in these kinds of initiatives, what difference would that make as we’re looking at a time where abortion may be illegal in many states.

Natasha Smith (17:55):
It’s so important, and just to give you a picture, it sometimes seems so big because we talk about 80 800,000 abortions every year, roughly 60 million. We can’t even fathom that number because it’s so big. But there’s 300,000 churches in America. There’s 3000 pregnancy centers. So if every church just partnered with their local pregnancy center, or if there wasn’t one started, we could make a huge ripple effect. And we’ve been seeing that happen.

In fact, in New Jersey, there’s a church that bought a stork bus and now they are going around their community and providing free ultrasound pregnancy centers. They actually have a brick and mortar pregnancy center on their facility so that if they meet someone out in the community, they can bring them into a center for further care. And within one year, their first year of operation, which I think was last year, they saw over 600 choices for life in New Jersey.

Dr. Jeff Myers (18:58):
Wow.

Natasha Smith (18:59):
It’s so remarkable. So just think every church was more vocal about caring for people in their moment of need. That’s huge. But then also if churches were more vocal about talking about healing as well, that will have a huge ripple effect too, because there’s a lot of people in our churches, the stat is four in 10 women were regularly attending church when they chose abortion for the first time, and over half of those women say that no one in the church even knows about it.

So there’s a lot of people with a lot of pain in our churches who need to know that Christ has come for healing and a restoration, and to have that unlocked in their lives, to not keep on living in sin or living in the shame of their choices, but actually realize that crisis comes so that we can have abundant life. And so there’s a lot there that we can be doing that will make a huge ripple effect in our country.

Dr. Jeff Myers (20:05):
This is a powerful thing to realize about how central the church is. This is an issue that the church is involved in, whether it chooses to be or not, because people who are in that church, many of them have made at some point a choice to have an abortion. Simply saying, abortion is murder. This is pro-life. Sunday is not getting to the heart of the issue. There are people in that congregation who are thinking, wow, yes, that’s me.

Natasha Smith (20:43):
And then that isolates them. It hides that even further. I said, this isn’t a safe place to say that I’ve been there because you just called it murder. It’s just so, so hard. But when you share it in a loving and compassionate way, and again shaped by the heart of the father, who knows, we’ve all sin and fallen way short, and we all need God’s healing.

(21:07):
Then there’s just so much hope there. Recently I was at a pastor’s conference and one pastor came up and he said, I’m so glad you’re here. I just preached on this last week and I shared my story and I had had an abortion when I was 20 or contributed to it. And when I was done, a man who was about 70 came up and just cried. He just cried on my shoulder. And no one had ever given him the opportunity to talk about that pain. And he admitted to the fact that he thinks about it every single day.

And just to think that there’s more people like that who have this kind of pain that they’re holding onto, that’s a part of their story every day, man, that should just break our hearts and encourage us to provide a place for healing because that is something that is so deep and God can do so much with that.

(21:57):
And for that pastor to be vulnerable and tell his own story, own story, that unlocked the opportunity for this other guy to actually expose a reality. That’s been so part of his story, but he never could tell anyone. And that’s something we want to see happen. And that’s something that we call the church to at the end of the book, we have a whole chapter of what can we do? What are practical things we can do?

And that’s one that I think is huge because the scripture has just so much to say of healing, and it also has so many stories of people who have a lot of marred pasts, and God still uses them. And I think that’s such a beautiful piece of the gospel is we’re not defined by our past, but God gives us such a beautiful future because of what he can do. And that’s just such a unique thing that only the Christian worldview can offer, which is why we are so, it’s so needed for us to be sharing that truth with the world.

Dr. Jeff Myers (22:57):
I’ve shared my story with you and I’ve shared it at Summit Ministries many times, and I’ve shared it publicly, but I’m one of those. When I was in college, I got my girlfriend pregnant and I will never forget the phone call because at that point we were in different states when we had this phone call when she said, I think I’m pregnant. And I reflect on that so often I remember in the conversation there was this pause where I needed to say something or do something or say, we’re going to make a great couple and we’re going to raise this little baby. And I just let that pause go on.

(23:48):
And then my girlfriend said, well, I think we need to think about an abortion. And I wonder what might’ve been going on in her mind at that moment, maybe thinking, aren’t you at least a little bit happy? I mean, we’ve created a life, but I was too selfish to see what was going on, and we agreed to have an abortion and I paid for half of the fee. But you’re right. I think about that now. I believe the Lord has forgiven me, but there are consequences to that decision.

And I’ll tell you when I share that story at Summit Ministries with our students, it’s absolute silence in the room. And there aren’t very many students who are at Summit Ministries who are of the age where they have had to make a choice regarding abortion, but they’ve made a lot of choices. And many young men will come up and say, your story helps me want to overcome an addiction to pornography or something like that.

Just the openness of telling your story and testifying to God’s grace, but to recognize the pain that goes into these decisions. And for me, I felt like I wasn’t a man. That was probably the thing for the longest time. Why didn’t I stand up at that moment? And I didn’t have fully foreign pro-life convictions at that time, and I was scared and so was my girlfriend. We both thought that having a baby would somehow diminish our future prospects, but to have the opportunity to tell those stories, Natasha is so, so important.

Natasha Smith (25:34):
It is. Thank you for sharing your story because it’s hard. I think that’s why so many don’t, is it’s so vulnerable and it’s so hard to be honest and real with our pasts. And yet that’s why I think the church just has such a beautiful role in this to say, yeah, we all have sinned and fallen short, and yet that didn’t stop Jesus one bit from doing all that he did to rectify all of the things that we have brought into the world in our own selfishness and restore so much things. And he’s invited us to be a part of that restoration and that is just so hopeful.

Dr. Jeff Myers (26:14):
Natasha and this conversation, you’ve mentioned Save the Storks and you’ve mentioned a Stork bus and there might be some people who are thinking, what is a Stork bus? What is Save the Storks? Tell us about this organization that you work with, and I’ve been familiar with it for a long time, but I’d just love for you to tell our viewers and our listeners about what you’re doing as part of that work.

Natasha Smith (26:37):
Yes. So Save the Storks is a national nonprofit that supports pregnancy centers. So how we do that, we have two main ways. The first way, which is how it began, was by building mobile medical units. So these are, think of a FedEx truck or a little bit bigger that can provide, they’re fully decked out inside as a mobile doctor’s office.

Dr. Jeff Myers (26:58):
And they’re beautiful.

Natasha Smith (26:59):
They are.

Dr. Jeff Myers (26:59):
They’re welcoming nice places. There’s a nurse there.

Natasha Smith (27:05):
Yes, there’s often a nurse and a social worker who are there so that they can provide kind, compassionate listening ears to those women who don’t really know what to do or how to navigate. So that social worker is there to listen to her story and find solutions for whatever she is up against in her pregnancy. And then the nurse provides that free ultrasound. There’s a beautiful flat screen TV in the front, and so they can hear surround sound of the heartbeat and see that little baby moving.

And it’s such a beautiful moment when that mother realizes that it’s a life because so many have been lied to. And we’ve heard stories too of women who left abortion clinics and came onto the buses right away and said, they didn’t even let me see the ultrasound or they zoomed into the femur and I didn’t see the form of my child’s face.

(27:56):
And that makes a huge difference for them. And so on this bus, it provides the pregnancy center this opportunity to reach more women out in the community who might not know of what a pregnancy center has to offer. And so some park on college campuses, and that is an amazing bridge to women and men. They do STI testing as well. And that is just a really cool opportunity to reach people before there’s a pregnancy and teach healthy relationships and get them connected to hopefully a healthier lifestyle.

And then they also will park sometimes near abortion clinics or serve rural communities. So it just gives them a lot more flexibility to reach women. And then we also support pregnancy centers in a holistic way of, how can we help this center be a thriving organization? How can we help them with donor development, leadership, all of that sort of all the things that are required for a healthy organization, we help them as well.

So it was founded in 2012 also by a Summit alum, and there’s been many Summit people who’ve come through and worked over the years, and it’s just been really cool to see that legacy that started Scott Clues endorse Talk on life and the value of that and what it inspires in so many people that have gone off and started organizations to make a difference in the world.

Dr. Jeff Myers (29:20):
I’m watching so many of our Summit graduates who are, and Lila Rose is another example of a Summit graduate. I’m watching them take a stand at this time. And why is it that it seems like it’s largely young people who are at the center of this movement. There have been people who’ve been faithful in the pro-life ministry for decades, but I didn’t expect that, I guess for so many in the rising generation to say, I’m going to be one who will stand for life. What do you think is happening?

Natasha Smith (29:53):
That’s a good question. Man, I don’t know if I have a pointed answer to that, but it has been awesome to go to the March for Life for the last few years and see a mass of young people who care. And I think a big piece of it is this desire for justice, of, we want to stand up for those who are vulnerable. And there’s just so many different categories within that. And you see that with a lot of the social issues in our world where it stirs the heart of wanting to care about people being treated well.

And I think that in the past it had been maybe polarized between mom versus baby, and there is a merging together now of like, no, those aren’t in opposition. Mothers are really vulnerable too, and we can care for them. Fathers are really vulnerable too because culture tells them that they don’t have a voice.

(30:47):
So there’s so much that needs to be corrected there, and I think people are getting excited about the fact of, oh, it’s not necessarily either ORs here, but we can be a solution by finding that middle way, that third way of how can we care for mom, baby, and dad in a healthy thriving way? So that might be part of it, but I’m sure that there’s many factors within that and so much more that we can do. Again, if the church is rallying that up.

I know the Catholic church has been very consistent in bringing in their young people to be advocates for life. So what can the Protestant church also do to get that conversation going in the church? And we actually just partnered with a place in Colorado Springs and had a pro-life night with their young children, and it was incredible just speaking about how special life is. So I think that’s a way that the churches could do, just sowing the seed of every life is just so precious and so valuable, and that doesn’t change.

Dr. Jeff Myers (31:48):
As we get ready to wrap up here, I could talk for hours about this with you. I’m so fascinated and I’m so grateful for your approach. Maybe there will be somebody watching or listening to this right now who’s in an unplanned pregnancy and they’re wondering, they’re feeling the pressure maybe from medical professionals, maybe from family members, maybe from their partner. You just need to get an abortion because your life is not going to work out if you’re a parent on top of also trying to go to school and get a job and so forth. Speak to that person for a moment. Yes.

Natasha Smith (32:27):
Yeah, those messages are so fatalistic, they’re just so heavy and they don’t have any belief in who you are. And the reality is every human can do so much more than we think that we’re even capable of when we realize that we’re not alone. And that is the truth. No matter what you might feel, it might feel like a lonely spot right now, but you aren’t alone. And there are people who want to champion you, who believe in you, who want to support you.

And a great place to start and find that tribe is by connecting to your local pregnancy center. So you can search online or go to a local church. You should be able to find one in your local community. Heartbeat International has a nationwide directory that you can also go to for additional help. You can call their number and they will be able to connect you if it’s hard for you to find something locally.

(33:22):
So there are just so many places. Again, that’s Heartbeat International I think.org, that you’ll be able to find a broader amount of support for you. So that’s a great place to start is finding that local pregnancy center. And even if that feels a little too hard, find a friend.

Find someone that you can just talk to and tell your story to because you should never feel alone. You’re not alone, but find a friend who’s going to support you and not add other voices that say, oh, you can’t do this. No, you can. You absolutely can because I’m here, because we’re here because we’re going to get more people around you and support you and then get connected to your local church, and that’s a place that can feel scary.

There’s been a lot of people say that the church is a scary place to approach it, but that should not be the case, and we want to help change that as well, because the church is absolutely the place you should feel safe talking to and say, hey, I need help, and have them help you through that season.

Dr. Jeff Myers (34:30):
Well, so many women have chosen to have their baby, and they’ve learned that being a parent doesn’t stop them from being successful in life. In fact, in many ways it helps them be successful. I mean, I don’t want to communicate the wrong methods here, but I’m a dad. When I had kids, I stepped up. I became a better person because I had children, and that affected every area of my life.

Natasha Smith (35:00):
Oh, yeah. There’s this one woman that is featured in the book, her name’s Brenda, and she said, when I chose my son’s life, I chose not only his life, but I chose a better life for myself.

(35:10):
And that’s the example that I just love in her because she was trapped in so many cycles that would’ve kept on going if she would’ve had an abortion. She was in an abusive home and she was scared and all of that. And then by choosing his life, she got out of that. She’s stabilized. She finished school. She now is an entrepreneur. She started a business. I mean, she just skyrocketed out of that valley that she was in because she decided that she was not going to be a victim to the circumstances and she wasn’t going to listen to those voices that were trying to keep her there.

Dr. Jeff Myers (35:45):
Natasha, one big question I think a lot of people might be asking as we’re looking at Supreme Court decisions, things that are political, the conversation might go like this. Somebody might say to you, this is the biggest tragedy for women in the history of America or something like this, that abortion is now being limited. Can you help guide us through how to have that conversation? It could take place at work, or I remember having this conversation with someone who was the owner of a store that I was shopping in.

Natasha Smith (36:23):
Yeah, I would encourage people to research a little, and I know that there’s videos on YouTube. There’s this new documentary called The Matter of Life that is incredible, and it talks about the whole history of the pro-life and abortion, all those movements. But it also has this segment that I feel like everyone should watch. And it’s just an abortion doctor, former abortionist, who tells about the different procedures.

And if you listen, it is hard, but if you actually are fully informed of what it means, especially later trimester abortions, you should realize it’s actually protecting women because the complications that can increase the later into an abortion, it’s vastly escalated. And we’re not talking about that. America’s only one of seven countries that even allow abortion in the third trimester because most countries realize it is not safe. And so we could start there.

(37:21):
We’re not even bringing God into this conversation yet. We’re just talking about, okay, we want to talk about women’s health. Let’s talk about what truly is going on here because there’s a lot at risk that is very real, and so we should be informed on that. That’s a great place to start. But then we can also say, well, I don’t feel like a woman should ever be a victim of her circumstances.

And so how can we think solutions mindedly about saying, okay, we are not going to tell you that abortion is the best option for you, but how can we create solutions so that you feel supported or if you don’t feel like parenting is the best thing for you, because some people genuinely aren’t in that space, there’s how can we help in the adoption sphere to create a better bridge to women who care about their children and want them to have a thriving life and so many families in America who want to have that child.

(38:18):
So how can we maybe bridge that gap? So there’s just a lot of opportunity for us to think in new ways of how we can bring solutions. There are a lot of systems broken, and many women are afraid of having their children placed in foster care systems because they’ve experienced that and it’s broken, but the church can step up in those spaces and help fix that.

So I would just encourage us to be more informed, do a little more research on, what does this really mean? What are, especially the types of abortions so we can understand the risks because there are, and even the abortion pill, which people claim is so much less invasive and it’s a better option.

It still leaves that woman totally alone and going through something totally isolated. And we just don’t believe that isolation is healthy for anyone. We’ve all experienced that in the last few years. Isolation doesn’t help us. And so when we are encouraging people into isolation, we’re not caring for them well and we want to bring them into community.

Dr. Jeff Myers (39:23):
There’s so many practical things, and just the way you communicate Natasha is so comforting and encouraging. I can see that this is your heart to communicate that every person bears God’s image and that we all have incredible value.

And you mentioned another name in our time together, Scott Klusendorf who speaks at Summit Ministries. Every one of our two weeks Summit Ministries sessions begins with several hours on life bearing God’s image and the importance of life and the importance of standing for life. And Scott Klusendorf from Life Training Institute or one of his staff members will always be the person doing that talk, and I know that affected you.

Natasha Smith (40:08):
They’re amazing. Yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (40:10):
When you were a student at Summit Ministries.

Natasha Smith (40:11):
Yeah, I was a student in 2007, and I never forgot that. In fact, he showed a picture that I went home and I drew and I still have that picture on my phone, and it’s a hard one to look at because it was just part of a person and yet so small. And that stuck with me for a long time. And we love Life Training Institute. In fact, we feature them as one of the organizations in our book that are just doing incredible work informing the church, and they go to schools and will do little seminars of the Pro-life apologetic, which is so helpful.

And we want to be informed of how we can have an intellectual conversation with people, but yet we also acknowledge that in a moment of crisis, that’s not going to change someone’s mind in the moment of crisis, compassion will. And so we need to have that truth.

But like Summit always says, it’s a double helix. We need truth and relationship, and that is what we’re trying to promote through the book. It’s like, okay, here’s the truth. They’re facts. There’s a lot of data, there’s a lot of stats, but there’s also, here’s how we can have relationships with people who are in this place and hopefully bring them in so that they feel comfortable enough to open up and to know that we are on their side and caring for them well.

Dr. Jeff Myers (41:31):
Well, I’m so grateful that you spent this time with our viewers and listeners, Natasha and the book Unplanned Grace. I would encourage everybody to get that book. And not only that, take it to your small group, take it to your friends, take it to your Sunday school class. This could be a moment for the church to rise up in a time of great need to do something that really reflects the heart of Christ, and this book can help give you some of the resources that will make that possible. So thank you for writing it. Thank you for being on the show today.

Natasha Smith (42:04):
You’re welcome. Thank you so much. And yeah, if you want to go and get more information as well, some of the stories that are in the book, we also have the women themselves telling their stories. So if you go to unplannedgracebook.com, again, it’s unplannedgracebook.com. We have a few about five testimonies that are in the book where you can actually watch those mamas tell their true stories and put some names and faces together and just see their eyes change as they talk about their life now with their child is so beautiful.

Dr. Jeff Myers (42:36):
That’s wonderful. Thanks again for being on the show today.

Natasha Smith (42:38):
Thank you so much, Dr. Jeff. God Bless.

Dr. Jeff Myers (42:41):
Thank you to my guest today, Natasha Smith for joining the show. You can find the book, Unplanned Grace, wherever great books are sold, and you can find out more about the organization, Save the Storks, that Natasha mentioned at savethestorks.com. The psalmist tells us that God is the one who formed us in the womb, and that every one of us is fearfully and wonderfully made. Honoring that in ourselves and others is going to be so important as our nation faces difficult decisions in the coming months. Thank you for joining the show today, and we’ll see you next week.

(43:19):
Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Jeff Show. It’s a podcast from Summit Ministries summit.org. Summit is a nonprofit ministry that exists to equip and support the rising generation to embrace God’s truth and champion a biblical worldview.

For nearly 60 years, Summit Ministries has been training students and those who work with students to develop, deepen and defend a biblical worldview through life-changing conferences, thoughtful church homeschool and Christian school curriculum books, free online resources, and more. If you want to live out a biblical worldview in today’s world and you desire to instill a lifelong faith in the rising generation, visit summit.org/thedrjeffshow for more information.

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