Since the pandemic, the traffic seems to only run one way in California: out. “For Sale” signs dot the lawns up and down the state, as the mass exodus continues. Los Angeles and San Francisco have been hardest hit, racking up top honors as the two cities Americans are fleeing most. For some, it’s the expensive housing and high prices. For others, it’s the crime and dangerous streets. But that violence is about to get a whole lot worse if Proposition 1 passes. Pretty soon, the most unsafe place to be in California could be the womb.
As far as Calvary Chapel Chino Hills Senior Pastor Jack Hibbs is concerned, the vote over this amendment is the state’s “last moment.” “… A lot of people will immediately dismiss any person saying anything coming out of California. And I understand that. But what I’m about to share with you guys is going to come to you if it’s not stopped,” he insisted on a special edition of Family Research Council’s Pray Vote Stand. “Remember, what happens in California comes to you.”
If so, then next week’s election carries significant weight for a lot more than the Golden State. When California and Michigan voters head to the polls, they’ll be voting on the most radical abortion amendments to any state constitution in the country. After the attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom broke down what Prop 1 would mean, what they found was an already “very, very ugly constitutional amendment on the surface [which] has proven to be something absolutely profoundly grotesque and worse after legal scrutiny,” Hibbs explained.
Apart from including men as possible child-bearers (which is insidious), the law would let parents destroy a pregnancy “up to the birth moment — 40 weeks.” Literally, Hibbs said, when a perfectly healthy baby is halfway delivered, “the birth mother can decide [on] extermination.” “We would call it abortion, but technically, it’s no longer an abortion, because this child is [almost born]. That’s a murder.”
Under ADF’s analysis, even the father could declare, “My reproductive rights are being violated. I want the child terminated.” Frankly, Hibbs argued, “There’s nothing like it in the history of America.” So when people say this is the most important election ever, he went on, they aren’t exaggerating. “The reason why every election is the most important election is because America has continued to sink deeper and deeper into darkness. That’s why it’s the most important. But this is a harbinger like none other.”
Governor Gavin Newsom (D), who’s spent a shocking amount of his own capital campaigning for Prop 1, is paying for billboards up and down the coast — and in five nearby states — urging people to “Come to California, Where Abortion Is Still Safe and Legal.”
Inside the state, however, the idea is politically radioactive. According to a Rasmussen poll, most California voters don’t even like the idea of second trimester abortions — let alone birth day abortions. Only 13% of the state sides with Newsom on abortions through all nine months of pregnancy. Thirty-two percent want the procedure outlawed in the first trimester, 19% say it should only be legal the first month of pregnancy, and 14% want it outright banned.
Maybe this is the moment, Hibbs hopes, “where people have had enough — Democrats included.” “Our cities have fallen apart, our property values have plummeted. It’s not safe to go outside anymore. And we’re so excited today [that] we’re only having to pay $5.60 a gallon for gas. It’s not $6.05 anymore.” But this amendment? “This is beyond the pale. And why would Gavin Newsom spend $2 million of his own income — of his own money — to support [it]? Why is it that with all of California’s problems, he has taken the Golden State and is about ready to drench it in blood…?”
It might prove a harder task than Newsom thought. As Hibbs noted, more Christian conservatives are running for office in California than anyone’s seen in 33 years. So as grim as things may seem, there are encouraging signs that the church isn’t letting the state go without a fight.
Even now, Calvary Chapel says they’ve had a “tremendous infusion of help” on the Prop 1 pushback. They’ve blanketed the state with billboards, 60,000 doorhangers, 200,000 personal phone calls from actual volunteers in their new 501(c)(4) headquarters. In their minds, there’s a distinct spiritual side to this fight. It’s one of the reasons, Hibbs believes, that radical activists are working so hard to silence the church.
The only reason they’re trying to hang this Christian nationalism tag over believers’ heads is because they know “that the team [who’s] going to carry this over the finish line for the good is going to be the evangelical community. That’s why they’re trying to minimize and marginalize the Christian vote. They know what happens when Christians have had enough. And the amazing thing in California is even the liberals have had enough.”
Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.