Evangelist Franklin Graham has praised NFL star Benjamin Watson for calling out Planned Parenthood's targeting of minority women and their babies for abortions and lamented that culture is "blind and deaf" to the plight of the unborn.
In a recent interview with Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center in San Diego, the Baltimore Ravens discussed how the abortion industry was created by Margaret Sanger, who believed in selective breeding to better the human race by preventing the reproduction of the "unfit".
"... abortion saddens me period, but it seems to be something that is really pushed on minorities and provided to minorities especially as something that they should do," Watson said.
The father-of-five added, "We sit here and talk about advancing the black agenda, whatever that means, we talk about our interests, and what's important to us - like having political power and advancement and all those things - and then we are turning around and we are killing our children. And we are buying the lie that it's our personal decision to make."
The Christian athlete went on to urge men to step up and support women faced with an unplanned pregnancy and take responsibility for their role in the process.
"He need to be there to support her through the physical changes of the pregnancy, and help and provide emotional strength, and do it together," Watson continued. "As much as he has a role in making the baby in the first place, it needs to take both of them the whole way through."
While Watson has received a good amount of criticism for his honesty, Franklin Graham, the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse, issued high praise for the NFL star.
"Ben was exactly right when he said, '...we are killing our children. And we are buying the lie that it's our personal decision to make,'" the evangelist wrote in a recent Facebook post. "Abortion is horrific-and it is murder, no question. It shouldn't have been legalized. In a culture so obsessed with discrimination and micro-aggression, why are we blind and deaf to the unborn who have no voice?"
He continued: "God, is our Creator and the giver of life. His Word says, 'Your hands shaped me and made me... Did You not clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life' (Job 10:8-12). He commands: 'Do not shed innocent blood.' -Jeremiah 7:6."
During a recent interview with Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center, Watson further shared how he defines "pro-life" as encompassing all aspects of life.
"Pro-life is: being for people who are in sex-trafficking, or people who are in danger from persecution, or being for people who are stricken with poverty or illnesses, or whatever it may be," he told the organization.
"To me being pro-life means that you hold all life very dear and you understand that all life was created by God and that because of that, life has internal, intrinsic value, whether it's capable of living on its own at that point or whether it is capable of living on its own at the end of its life," the athlete continued. "All the way through the spectrum, I believe life has value because it's created in the image of God."
