More Than Medicine
More Than Medicine
Grassroots Activism in the Pro-Life Movement with Lisa Van Riper
Ever wondered what fuels a lifelong commitment to the pro-life movement? Listen as Lisa Van Riper opens up about her formative years in Orangeburg County and the profound impact the Roe vs. Wade decision had on her beliefs. With a background in political science and public administration, Lisa offers unique insights into recognizing the unborn as biologically human and the importance of their protection. We also unpack the recent changes to the Republican National Convention’s platform, moving from a detailed document to a streamlined blueprint, and what this means for the pro-life cause and the broader political landscape.
Explore the complexities of abortion regulations in the post-Dobbs era with an emphasis on the dynamic interplay between state and national governance. Lisa addresses concerns from pro-lifers about the weakening of measures against chemical abortions and the tug-of-war over who controls the abortion narrative. We shed light on the stark differences between Democratic and Republican approaches to abortion access and regulation. Reflecting on five decades of the pro-life movement, Lisa stresses the urgency of continued education and activism at the grassroots level to create lasting change. Don’t miss this compelling discussion that blends personal conviction with political insights, offering a comprehensive view on one of today’s most contentious issues.
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Welcome to More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country. Hosted by author and physician, dr Robert Jackson, and his wife Carlotta and daughter Hannah Miller. So listen up, because the doctor is in.
Speaker 2:Welcome to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, dr Robert Jackson, bringing to you biblical insights and stories from the country doctor's rusty, dusty scrapbook. Well, today I'm delighted to have as my guest Lisa Van Ryper. Lisa's been a good friend of mine for many years years. So, lisa, if you would take a minute and introduce yourself to my guest and, more than anything, just tell them how you're connected to the pro-life movement in South Carolina.
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, thank you, dr Jackson, for this opportunity. It is always a pleasure to be part of anything in which you're involved. First of all, I am a Christian and because of that I try to make sure that the decisions I make are from a biblical worldview. I grew up in Orangeburg County in a town called Springfield, and I was reared in a Baptist church there by two wonderful parents, and I drifted up to the upstate to go to Furman University, and it was during that time, when I was at Furman, that Roe versus Wade was actually imposed upon this country. And I was a political science major at Furman and I went on from there to get a master's in public administration from University of South Carolina, and then I had been employed as an instructor in political science at both the University of South Carolina at Spartanburg and also for the last like 30 or 35 years at North Greenville University. And so that's a little bit about myself other than, most importantly, I am the wife of Don Van Ryper for 51 years and we have two children with wonderful in-laws and five objectively cute grandchildren, and we worship at First Presbyterian in Greenville, south Carolina.
Speaker 3:But because of that decision of Roe versus Wade in 1973, and my conviction in the late 1980s during the time, by the way, dr Jackson that I was involved in the feminist movement I became acutely aware of the humanity of the unborn child for the first time in my life even though I had had two children by this time and I realized that there was no controversy that life began at conception.
Speaker 3:I became fully aware that the reasons we have abortion in this country are by far social, economic, birth control reasons, not the so-called hard cases of rape, incest or life of mother.
Speaker 3:And I began to realize that you could get an abortion truly for all nine months of pregnancy, truly for all nine months of pregnancy.
Speaker 3:And I became convicted at this point that Roe v Wade was an evil law that absolutely deprived my unborn sisters and brothers of their very life, and that if it was not enough to have a heartbeat and a brainwave and be able to feel pain and all of those things that that, as you know as a doctor, children in the womb do very early on in gestation, if it's not enough for those things to be recognized as biologically human and gain protection by our government as biologically human and gain protection by our government, that none of our heartbeats would be protected, ultimately, that at some point we would all become too costly to society or inconvenient to a third party.
Speaker 3:And so in 1987, october of 1987, I really felt a call to the pro-life movement to speak for those who could not speak for themselves, and not just for the unborn. Because I realized if you separate legal personhood in other words getting protection from government, being recognized under the law for protection from being biologically human, which begins for all of us at fertilization if that is separated, then all of us eventually can be at risk for destruction by our own government.
Speaker 2:That's right, you're exactly right. You're exactly right, all right. Well, here's the reason I asked you to be on my program today. I guess you're fully aware that the Republican National Convention met this last week not the whole convention, but certain delegates and in their committee meetings this week, they passed some resolutions or either modified the Republican platform and there's been a lot of hoopla this week about some of their modifications to the platform, especially in regards to some of the moral issues, and the moral issue that most concerns me is a watering down, I guess would be the way to say it their statements about pro-life issues, and so I wanted to ask you your perspective about that, and was that a disappointment to you?
Speaker 3:Okay, just for a little bit of context, I think that it is important to understand that this was really more than a modification of the previous platform. Okay, because they went from about, I think, a 60-page document to a 19-page document and, according to the candidate, trump, he wanted everything streamlined and made very simple so people could understand it. So, number one, I see the platform as more of an aspirational document that carries us from. You know, not just for one election cycle, but for many election cycles. It's our big mission statement, it's our goals.
Speaker 3:Okay, this was much more specific and so, while it's called a platform, I think it's very important for people to understand this is really like a blueprint, almost like a contract with America. Now, trump would say it's a platform. Okay, as someone who studied political science for many years and taught it, I see this more as a contract with America for an election cycle language and perhaps tied more directly with the 14th Amendment and the Declaration of Independence and some of those documents. I do, but that is not to say that this is not and I'm going to say a platform in quotes, if you would. This is not a statement that cannot be used by pro-life people and the Republican Party to move the issue of life forward, to protect unborn children and their mothers.
Speaker 2:Okay, I understand what you're saying. Well, now there's been a lot of hoopla this week by pro-lifers that have been you know, I mean almost outraged that the document was diluted and that there were a lot of issues that were not addressed, like chemical abortions and things like that. What would you say to those folks?
Speaker 3:Well, I would say number one. I think that this document recognizes that we are a federal system of government and there have been certain things left to the national government and certain things left to the state. I think there's some debate after the Dodds decision whether a regulation of abortion is totally that through the elected officials of states or whether the national government also has a role to play in that. Now I believe that both the national government and the state government, through the elected officials, has a role to play in the regulation of abortion. When I say regulation of abortion, I mean the protection of the unborn and their mothers. Okay, Because abortion is not good for women either, Dr Jackson, and you know that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we both know that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we both know that.
Speaker 3:So I would like to have seen again.
Speaker 3:I would have liked to have seen this document link it more to the Declaration of Independence, to that we are recognizing the right of the unborn, instead of what it does is.
Speaker 3:It recognizes the 14th Amendment, that in there you must have due process and equal protection for life and liberty, and it said if your state wants to regulate and protect life and liberty, you can do that. So basically, this is a state's rights document that this particular document says basically that at this time in history, the way that the Republican Party is going to deal with the issue of abortion is to recognize that under Dobbs the Supreme Court is leaving this for each state to regulate. Now I think at some point there's going to be a national debate on this and a national discussion, debate on this and a national discussion. But do understand that right now, those who really believe in abortion, that the way to solve social and economic problems is to allow a mother to take the life of her unborn child, I mean that's 90, as you know, 95, 96% of the abortions right there, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3:Okay, now the Democratic Party. They want a national law to not only impose Roe versus Wade standards up to birth, but some will go beyond birth, and you know this, if the child is born alive not to save that child. You know that. And they want no parental consent, no informed consent, and they want that paid for with our tax dollars and they want us to export that ideology worldwide. Right, how do we know? That's what they want, because those are the laws that have been proposed by the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2:And proposed repeatedly.
Speaker 3:And they're doing it. Okay, they're doing it Now, I think. I think that what President Trump has done here is he has recognized that, for whatever reason and this is probably a whole other conversation with you and your audience, but for whatever reason the pro-abortion side has gotten absolutely through the media, absolutely Through the media, through ballot initiatives, etc. They have gotten almost total control of the narrative, okay, nationally. So you have to ask yourself is this the best time to have a national debate when the national media, national organizations have gotten control of the narrative from a pro-abortion perspective? Okay, or is it better to leave this to the states at this point, and let us work this out at the state level, where we know our neighbors, we know our people, we can go to our people and we can get control of the narratives in our community groups, in our churches, etc.
Speaker 2:Now does this platform does it in any way inhibit your ability at South Carolina to protect the life of unborn children and minister to their moms.
Speaker 3:Absolutely not. In fact, it absolutely makes us accountable now in South Carolina that if we want children protected, don't look to the national government to ban this right now in history. You better look to your own state and get busy. Which means I better speak out and make sure that people in my church understand what's going on. I better make sure my grandchildren and my children know what's going on. I better make sure my friends understand what we mean by the term pro-life now.
Speaker 2:And our legislators need to be educated. Sometimes I talk to legislators and they do not have a clue, ms Van Ryper, about the vocabulary of the pro-life movement. They don't really comprehend the issues and they run on a pro-life platform and still don't understand the issues.
Speaker 3:Right, Dr Jackson, that's exactly right. We have had 50 years. We've had 50 years as a people. We've had 50 years as a people. We've had 50 years as a church and I'm saying church universal here. Okay, We've had 50 years as representatives. We've had 50 years as the Republican Party. We've had 50 years for the news media. Okay, to understand a few basic things, to understand a few basic things that what grows inside the mother is a human being. That's right that we are. Yes, Roe v Wade really did allow abortion, virtually on demand, for virtually all nine months of pregnancy and, yes, abortion is being used for basically social, economic birth control reasons. We've had 50 years to get those basic facts right and we've had 50 years to get it in our head. If you can stop the heartbeat in the womb of a child for social and economic reasons, why can't you stop the heartbeat of my mother with dementia in the nursing home, or my grandchild with epilepsy, or my husband with multiple sclerosis, right?
Speaker 2:That's correct. You're exactly right.
Speaker 3:We've had 50 years. Instead, I think what has happened is we have sat on our labels not on our laurels, but on our labels. It was easy to put the pro-life tag on and for some people, pro-life meant well, I don't want Roe v Wade, it's a terrible, it was a terrible decision. Hey, I agree with that. So for some people it was. I just don't like late-term abortions.
Speaker 3:And because all of that was allowed under Roe v Wade, you could be pro-life and be anti-late-term abortions and not think any further than that. Or won't it return to the states and not think any further than that. Or not paid for with taxpayers' funds and not think any further than that. Or be informed consent for women and not think any further than that. Or maybe not think at all. I just know that my church said be pro-life, I'm going to be pro-life. But we don't have, we have not thought through how we articulate now that the burden is not upon the judges anymore. We can't hide behind the robes of the judges anymore, and what the platform says and I put that in quotes platform. But what it says is you're not going to hide behind your congressman and your senator either and say I'm waiting for them to do something.
Speaker 3:No, it's up to us. It's up to us. And now, do I like the way the platform committee? They left off people. Do I like the fact that there was not debate? Do I like the fact that things like the Mexico City policy and paying for abortions and some of those details did not get included? I don't like those things. But if you ask me, can more lives be saved under this platform than under what the Democratic platform stands for? I say you, betcha, and that's what. We've got to keep our eyes on the ball. Right now we cannot get into, I think, an argument among ourselves, and after the election's over, there's plenty of time to then deal with the Republican National Committee. But right now, I think it's just we've got to go straight ahead and say this platform and as imperfect as the process was, as imperfect as the document is, it can save lives and the Democrats will not.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. All right, you're listening to Ms Lisa Van Ryper, good friend, good pro-life warrior for many, many years. Ms Lisa, I appreciate your input, I appreciate your perspective and the many years that you've worked long and hard to protect unborn children in South Carolina. Thank you for coming on More Than Medicine.
Speaker 3:It's been my pleasure and it's mostly been my pleasure to work with people like you and your sweet family for all these years too.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, ma'am. Thank you, and I hope you'll come back another time. Would love to Thank you. Yes, ma'am, you're listening to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, dr Robert Jackson, and we'll be back again next week. May the Lord bless you real good.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this edition of More Than Medicine. For more information about the Jackson Family Ministry, dr Jackson's books, or to schedule a speaking engagement, go to their Facebook page, instagram or their webpage at jacksonfamilyministrycom. This podcast is produced by Bob Sloan Audio Production at bobsloancom.
