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Mark Houck’s victory is a triumph for all of us
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March 2, 2023My discovery of the first news reports concerning pro-life speaker and father of seven Mark Houck of Pennsylvania, and his shocking apprehension by a U.S. federal S.W.A.T. team that stormed onto his lawn early one morning last September, brought on an instant wave of nausea.
While I can only imagine how truly terrifying it must have been for Houck and his family to experience this moment, and what followed, after more than a decade of standing vigil near our area’s abortion facilities, I find it a scene that sadly seems all too possible in today’s world.
Immediately, my mind tried to extrapolate what might have provoked this turn of events. From initial accounts, the raid seemed severely excessive. Was there more to the story? Was Houck really deserving of such treatment?
The human mind naturally drifts to filling in the missing pieces. Sometimes, we have to use our gut instincts, based on the little we know and our own related experiences, to form at least a partial conclusion.
Learning of the source of the eventual raid, I came to understand how Houck’s 12-year-old son, who’d joined his father that day to peacefully pray for an end to abortion, had been persistently bothered by the older escort before Houck finally intervened. To force the escort to back off, Houck pushed the 72-year-old man away from his child.
How many times had my friends and I been in the middle of such provocations ourselves? In tight quarters, when the spiritual battle is at its height and the earthly implications palpable, emotions careen quickly toward the edges.
No matter how calm a posture one might arrive with, when someone adversarial gets in your face and begins hurling verbal insults, it takes gargantuan strength to remain steady. Naturally, men and women differ in general in our responses to such incites. While some women have a St. Joan of Arc fighting spirit, we also tend toward a more maternal protectiveness. Men, however, have a constitution that can easily lead to a stronger defensive position to shield the innocent.
I could easily imagine Houck, a father trying to teach his son about the realities of abortion, but also, who would naturally want to protect him from harm, moving in to defend and protect his child in such a scenario. In fact, I would expect it.
In its last year of operation, just prior to the reversal of Roe vs. Wade, which sent the local abortion facility across the river, the former Red River Women’s Clinic in Downtown Fargo and surrounding space had grown to be an especially volatile area on Wednesdays, the days abortions were performed. Verbal insults and insinuations from abortion escorts, along with the occasional elbow, knee shove, or umbrella “tap,” frequently roused normal defense mechanisms.
I’ve written here about how I was assaulted, punched in the head, by a potential abortion client after offering her help, and have other stories from friends of threatening physical contact. With these experiences in hand, despite not knowing every details of Houck’s story, I surmised that this was likely a case of a father rightfully coming to the aid of his young son as any good father would in such a moment.
Using logic, I also knew that, between the two—a pro-life father who has spent his life defending life, and a pro-abortion escort doing the opposite—the dad likely had been the one at the short end of the justice stick. Though showing much restraint, he finally had to act.
So, when the verdict came out recently that Houck had been acquitted on all charges, I praised our good God, who made heaven and earth. This court case was only visibly made of earthly participants and actions. Beyond that veil, another court was in session; a heavenly one. And it intervened in what was clearly an evil plot to take down a good man and his family. Yes, Mark Houck is a sinner, like all of us, but not deserving of the fate the Evil One had plotted.
The case reminds us that God can always bring good from evil. The family has suffered deep mental anguish because of what the federal government unjustly set in motion here. He was facing 11 years in prison. Now, Houck is being afforded an even bigger platform to share about his mission for life. The Devil’s tricks are not sustainable. He forgets that he didn’t create this good world; God, his Master and Lord, did.
Let us exhale with the Houck family, offering prayers of thanksgiving for them, the pro-life movement, and each of us. The victory for Mark Houck is a victory for all humankind.
May we never grow weary, for God is truly on our side.
