To the Church in Montana, 

In the aftermath of the fall of Jerusalem, God explained a reason for bringing decisive judgment upon the holy city: “I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one. Thus I have poured out My indignation on them” (Eze 22:30–31a). Regrettably, there was no one to be found who was willing to stand up for the cause of righteousness and restrain evil. Similarly, today there is a great need for God’s people to stand in the gap before God for the sake of righteousness and the lives of countless babies.

Church, we need your help. We know that God hates the shedding of innocent blood (Prov 6:17). Constitutional amendment CI – 128 threatens the lives of thousands of innocent children. Abortion is already an evil that is legally tolerated in our state. We need you to understand, if passed, what this proposed amendment to our state constitution would do. Therefore, as pastors across our great state of Montana, we aim to bring light to this issue and your attention to the ultimate destructiveness of these proposed changes.

CI-128 is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. This initiative will amend Montana’s Constitution, making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to remove once passed. This policy package, which has been carefully crafted by national pro-abortion special interests, will enshrine painful, late-term abortion as the law of the land in Montana. Purposeful deception has been a primary method of attracting support for this initiative and primarily relies upon vague language to confuse our people. We believe we must shine a light on this darkness.

While proponents of CI-128 claim the initiative will not allow for late-term abortions and is only up to the point of “fetal viability”, we know that in reality there is a broad health exception included in the language of the initiative which will allow for abortion up to the day of birth of the child. The Supreme Court in Doe v. Bolton has defined “health” in abortion laws as “all factors physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the women’s age relevant to the wellbeing of the patient. All these factors may relate to” health.” Under this broad health exception, if a pregnancy is affecting a woman's “emotional well -being” for whatever reason, she can have a late-term abortion post-viability. By allowing this exception into Montana law, we are endorsing abortion-on-demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy. This is unthinkable and, we are told, rare, yet according to the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), most abortions are done for social reasons and 95 percent of all abortions are for elective or unspecified reasons.

Secondly, CI-128 bans parental consent for their minor daughter seeking an abortion. Montanans know the importance of protecting parental rights, and that was made abundantly clear when they overwhelmingly (over 70%) passed LR-120 which affirmed parental notification for their daughter up to 16 years of age. CI-128 entirely undermines this and puts vulnerable children at the mercy of abortion providers who seek to gain up to $2,000 per abortion, according to Planned Parenthood’s own information, not to mention the additional millions in tax-payer funding received each year.

The last critical point is the fact that CI-128 does not require an actual medical doctor to determine if an abortion is necessary to protect the mother’s health or if the baby is viable.  Instead, it empowers any “health care professional” to make those decisions, without defining what that term means and who it includes. This language emboldens those seeking to advocate for abortion regardless of their credentials and is a great threat to the safety of our women and children across Montana.

Sadly, the evil of abortion already exists in our State. Constitutional Initiative CI-128 is an expansion of this evil. If this ballot initiative passes in November, more children made in the image of God will be killed in the womb, and the sanctity and dignity of human life will be increasingly diminished. Finally, God’s design for the family, which is already under attack, will only be further degraded. 

As a group of pastors across Montana, uniting to uphold the sanctity of human life we declare:

“As Pastors of Christ’s Church in the State of Montana, we personally stand against CI-128 and solemnly commit to prepare our congregations to vote against this ballot initiative through corporate instruction, public prayers, or other means with the goal of seeing this effort to subvert righteousness in our state voted down in November.” 

Please stand in the gap with us by committing to vote no on CI-128 this November. 

James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.