Pro-Lifer's Powerful Courtroom Speech

Dennis Green, a pro-life rescuer and Christian father of 13, posted the following testimony to his Facebook page. Green, who ultimately escaped jail time, was looking at a maximum of 10.5 years in prison and six-figure fines after being convicted in January of violating the FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) Act. He was given three years of supervised release, including six months of confinement at home.

Your Honor,

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. As I begin, I feel compelled to make a correction to something said during my fellow defendant’s sentencing yesterday and earlier today. It was stated that the belief the defendants hold that life begins at conception is based upon their religious beliefs. This is not so. This is not a belief based on religion but rather basic biology. Every high school and college textbook states the same. This is established science.

What does differ between our beliefs and those of a secularist is that, in our view, the life conceived has intrinsic value and is worthy of our nurture and protection.

I know you said you don’t want us to be preachy and you don’t want to hear a sermon so I will do my best. It’s just that the Scriptures are central to our lives and guide what we do.

We find ourselves in a nation that has lost its way. A nation that defends and protects the murder of its own children by wicked laws.

We live in a nation that seeks to lock away its citizens who won’t stand by and let innocent children be dismembered. We have become a people repulsive in the sight of God. A people who shake their puny fists in the face of a holy and righteous God while imagining that they have any degree of moral authority to do so.

The One True God has specifically in the Scriptures given His people the command to rescue innocent people who are being taken to the slaughter.

As Christians, we are compelled to obey God.

Throughout history, there have been times when a nation loses its way and turns its back on the weak and vulnerable.

Christians have always been at the forefront of rescuing those in danger of unjust persecution and death even when the laws of their day allowed for such oppression and slaughter.

Examples throughout history include…

  • Rescuing abandoned babies in first century Rome
  • Rescuing Jews during the Holocaust
  • Rescuing fugitive slaves

We could cite example after example.

Those who opposed the persecution of the weak and vulnerable are today applauded as heroes.

I acted to save the lives of innocent babies who were scheduled to be butchered. I use that word very deliberately. This best describes what is happening to these babies. My conscience would not allow me to do otherwise on that day.

We pray that our nation will once again return to sanity and protect the least of these most innocent image bearers of God by law.

We committed the crime of treating innocent children as if they had value.

We are prosecuted because we are politically incorrect but Biblically correct.

Over the years, legal opinions change, but our founding documents remain the same.

The Declaration of Independence states:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

These self-evident truths which are aligned with our Creator’s revealed law are no longer the basis of law in our nation’s federal courts.

This is not the same country our founders envisioned or created. Politics have taken the place of justice.

The Declaration speaks of the unalienable right to life as being one of these self-evident truths.

If someone has a heartbeat, they are obviously alive. This is self-evident.

We refuse to prop up the charade that killing one’s child is a civil or human right.

The masses can loudly proclaim the obvious lie that the preborn are not persons, but there will always be those who won’t play along with the deadly charade. We will act upon the self-evident truth that every child’s life is valuable and worthy of protection whether they reside in or out of the womb. Location doesn’t determine value, God’s Word does.

Men are appointed by God to be protectors of the innocent and vulnerable. A government that sanctions the murder of the weakest and most vulnerable of its members is a government that has abdicated its responsibility to protect its people. And this nation will answer to God for this neglect.

When I chose to reject the plea offer, it was because truth is important to me. My heart’s desire is to go home to my family, to provide and care for them, including my wife and special needs son who very much needs and depends upon me. To be a man of integrity, however, I must show that my first allegiance is to my God.

I honestly have prayed for you often, Judge Trauger, and will continue to.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.