Jeff Durbin, 38, believes abortion is ‘worse than the Holocaust’. (Picture: Barcroft TV)

He looks like your average modern-day American hipster.

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But Jeff Durbin’s views are resolutely old school – to the point where he thinks women should be executed if they have an abortion.

Yes, you heard us.

The 38-year-old, who is a pastor at Apologia Church, in Arizona, believes abortion is ‘worse than the Holocaust’.


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He regularly pickets Planned Parenthood clinic armed with signs reading ‘Babies are murdered here’.

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Based in Tempe, Red Door Ministry, run by the Apologia Church, is a pro-life group campaigning to overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that gave women a constitutional right to an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy.



Durbin said: ‘We might look different than people without hair and suits and ties, but our beliefs are pretty ancient.’

Controversially, the young pastor even draws a parallel between abortion and the Nazi genocide, but says the comparison is unfair – to Hitler.

Durbin, from Arizona, regularly pickets Planned Parenthood clinic armed with signs reading ‘Babies are murdered here (Picture: Barcroft TV)

Durbin said: ‘We consider abortion to be the modern day Holocaust, although I believe it is a bit of an insult to Hitler to compare what he did in Nazi Germany to what we have before us.

‘If you take a body count of Hitler’s Germany to what we’ve had since Roe v Wade, we beat him by the metric tonne.’

For the first time in the US’s history, the number of people who regard themselves as pro-choice outnumbers those who are pro-life, according to a 2015 Gallup poll.

But with new US President Donald Trump installed in the White House, abortion rights are once again back on the political agenda.

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He wants abortion to be treated as murder (Picture: Barcroft TV)

Durbin also believes that women who intentionally abort their foetus should ultimately face the same punishment.

He said: ‘Whether it’s a mother who kills her child in the womb or a mother who kills her five-year-old twins by drowning them in the bathtub, we would want it to be treated as a murder charge, and for that to be applied consistently under the law.

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‘I believe that a just answer to murder is the death penalty. Historically that’s the standard we held to for a long time, and ultimately when God has spoken to the issue of justice for murder, he says it’s a life for a life.’

However, despite the strength of his current devotion, Durbin was raised in a non-religious home.

As a young man the pastor fell into a the wrong crowd who would often indulge in heavy drinking and drug use.

He argues that rape is a violation of another person’s body which is what is taking place in abortion (Picture: Barcroft TV)

‘There were areas in my life that I had not turned over to Christ and I ended up falling into drugs and alcohol addiction’, he said.

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As well as picketing abortion clinics, the Red Door Ministry also makes full use of a slick social media operation and modern technology to spread their anti-abortion message.



The pastor argues that abortion is never acceptable, even in case of rape or incest, and that the times when an abortion is medically necessary to save the life of the mother are ‘almost infinitesimal’.

He added: ‘Rape is the violation of another person’s body, but that’s what’s taking place in abortion.’

And while some may criticise the church’s choice to enlist such young children in their protests, the Red Door Ministry is adamant that what they are doing is no different to any other parent.

He said: ‘We teach our children very very young to do justice. Some people might say ‘You’re indoctrinating your children’. I’d said ‘Right, and so are you’.

‘Everybody goes about the business of indoctrination, it means teaching.’

The church’s critics accuse Durbin and co. of intimidating women seeking an abortion, but with president Donald Trump pursuing an aggressively pro-life agenda, pro-choice campaigners worry that the right to a legal abortion in the US may be under threat.