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[MUSIC]
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This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
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Let's get into it.
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All right, guys, today we've got a special guest on the podcast.
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Her name is Leah Savas.
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And so she is a reporter for World, and she's also the co-author of a new book with Marvin
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Alasky called The Story of Abortion in America, a street-level history 1652 to 2022.
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And so if I go back to whenever I was pitched to this book, because I get pitched a lot
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of books.
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I mean, this year, I've literally said no to probably 20 interview chances for every
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one that I take on that's just kind of how this year has, you know, worked out.
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But whenever I got this one, it was like, okay, I've read books about abortion.
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I read books about how abortion is wrong based on the Bible and Christianity.
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I've read, you know, books about how you can argue against abortion, but not a book that
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would detail the history of abortion.
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And when I read the description, I was like, okay, street-level view.
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So these are going to be actual stories of things that have happened to people, you know,
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I guess, whether they wanted it to happen to them or not.
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And basically what people's opinions were on the ground floor of this issue.
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And so I was very excited to dig into this book.
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I mean, it's a big book.
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It's about 500 pages.
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But when I started digging into this book, Marvin Alasky did like the first four sections
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and then Leah did the last section, which was basically covering 1995 through present
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day.
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But guys, even if you were well informed on the issue of abortion, which I thought I
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was, you start reading about things that were happening in the 1600s around the globe.
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And it's just like, wow, like we, we think things, you know, turn around like crazy because,
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you know, America's not even recognizable from what it was even a decade ago, but hundreds
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and hundreds of years ago, hundreds of years, you know, before America was even a thing.
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Here's what was basically happening on this landmass that we currently reside on or on
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other land masses around the globe.
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And it was a very, very interesting book.
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So I was, you know, very, very happy to have Leah on here today.
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And so in this, we talk about where the idea came from on the book and, you know, kind
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of what her connection to Marvin is and how all those things go.
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But then on her section, we, I wanted to talk to her about the rise of pro-life pregnancy
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centers and how ultrasounds basically changed the game for a lot of people.
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Basically how the men have a tremendous impact on whether or not their women keep their babies
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and keep their kids and those types of things.
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We dug in a lot there, but then we dug into also how most pastors on the planet won't
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even go near abortion and how egregiously wrong that is.
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And we tie that into some stuff from her section, but also from Marvin's section.
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Then we go into the, the complicity of the mainstream media and Hollywood in terms of
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how people view abortion, kind of trying to change the narrative to a more pro-choice
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side of things, how the democratic party went from the early 2000s being just kind of mildly
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pro-choice to being like, no, shout your abortion, abortion for any reason, no consequences.
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Let's have the taxpayers pay for it.
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We talk about the shout your abortion movement and where that started.
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We talk about the incremental approach to pro-life legislation versus, you know, the radical approach
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or the complete criminalization approach.
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And then we wrapped up talking about the opposite decision, right?
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You know, June 24th, 2022, one of the greatest days in the history of this country where
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the Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
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We talk about all those details.
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Guys, it was a very informative conversation.
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But again, I can't say it enough.
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The story of abortion in America is a book that you have to read.
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If you're a pro-lifer, there's so much information in here.
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There are so many citations that if someone says something stupid, oh, well, you know,
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back in the 1600s, this is what they believed, or oh, you know, back in the early 90s, this
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is kind of what they did.
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No, you're going to basically remove all of those arguments from people.
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So it's a very, very important tool for you guys to have in your tool bag.
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And so I'm just so excited to share this interview with you.
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So without further ado, let's get into it.
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Leah Savis, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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Okay.
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I'm really glad to ask you off air how to say your last name because I was going to say
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it's a boss, like I was supposed to be holding, you know, a glass of wine while I said it.
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But you gave me the best phonetic help that you possibly could have with your last name.
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You're like, yeah, it's kind of like savage, but savas or savas or something like I was
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like, okay, I can be down with that.
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So does that reflect how you write and how you do your normal everyday living?
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Are you pretty savage and how you do things?
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Honestly, no, I'm not.
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I probably would have guessed that, but that's okay.
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I hope that things come across strong and, you know, committed to the truth.
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So yeah, I guess in some ways, you know, that that is a hope that I can do that, but I am
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I tend to be more of a softy.
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Okay.
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Well, I can say that I picked up a little bit of that in your personality as well before
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we hit record, but we're going to see how that is reflected in the work that you've done
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because you are a reporter for world, but also the co-author of the book that's going
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to be the main center point of what we talk about today.
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The story of abortion in America, a street level history.
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And that's going to be 1652 to 2022.
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And then obviously we're going to talk about what goes on beyond that, but let's just start
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small.
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Let's start simple before we dig into the new book.
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What drew you to journalism and to writing?
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Because that's not something that draws in everybody, but it drew you in.
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Yeah.
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So I actually was an English major in college, but did not have anything to do with reporting
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with journalism.
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I did more essay writing.
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I submitted a poem to a poetry publication on campus, but I never was involved with the
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campus newspaper.
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So it wasn't until actually my first job after college that I realized I didn't really
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like what I was doing.
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I was doing marketing for a small business.
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I didn't really like it.
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And I had been listening to world's daily news podcasts at that time and really liked
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the sort of reporting that they did on the podcast.
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And kind of through that and through just past connections with world news group, I decided
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to apply for their training program, World Journalism Institute.
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And that's where I really learned how to do journalism and what that looked like.
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So yeah, so that's kind of the way I got into reporting was through the World Journalism
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Institute and my love for the kind of stuff they were doing on their podcast.
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Okay, well, let's talk a little bit more about that, because most people, I won't say most
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people, a lot of people are probably not familiar with world, like, okay, is it a website?
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Is it a magazine?
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Is it a whatever?
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Like it's not, you know, in that upper tier of what would you say, like New York Times
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or Washington Post, Fox News or CNN.
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So what is kind of the focus of world?
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Why is it different?
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What does it bring to the marketplace?
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Yeah.
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So world at world, we're all about biblical objective journalism.
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So the idea there, it's, you know, sometimes we'll say, oh, we're a Christian publication,
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but when we say Christian publication, we don't mean, oh, we only write about church
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news or news related to Christians, but rather we try to report the news from a biblical
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perspective.
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So instead of trying to claim that we're being completely objective, we don't come at stories
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with some sort of worldview, no, we're biblically objective, we come at stories with the view
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of scripture being the ultimate source of truth.
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And we kind of try to report with that guide, that kind of framework.
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That's how our stories kind of come about.
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Okay.
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Excellent.
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I appreciate you going into that.
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Well, let's go and dig into the story of abortion in America.
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So when I was pitched this book, it had abortion in the title, so I was automatically interested,
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but there are a lot of books I guess you could say that are in this, this vein that are just
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not very good.
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There's some where it's like, okay, these, these don't give me anything unique in terms
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of the arguments.
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And I typically am reading books that will help equip me to be able to push back the arguments
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from the pro abortion lobby, but a history book about abortion, I had never come across
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before.
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And then I was also intrigued by the title, a street level history from 1652 to 2022.
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So let's go to the very beginning of the project.
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Where did the idea for this book come from?
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And then how did you become a co-author of it?
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Because you're co-authoring this with Marvin Olasky, who writes the first four sections
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of the book, and then you write the last section, the fifth section.
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So just kind of take me through that because it's kind of a joint process, but he's focusing
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on a huge chunk and you're focusing on a smaller, but perhaps more important chunk because it's
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modern.
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Just take me through all of it.
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Yeah.
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So the idea for this book was Marvin Olasky, my co-author.
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He's written about abortion in the past.
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He's been a part of the pro-life movement for decades.
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His wife helped start a pregnancy center in Austin, Texas, where they live.
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He wrote a book in the 1990s called Abortion Rights.
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And some of the material in that book actually does appear in this book.
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So there's some of it that overlaps.
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But how the idea for this book came about was Marvin wanted to do an update of abortion
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rights, kind of add to it what has happened since the 90s, and kind of publish it again
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to kind of bring that material before readers.
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But as he was kind of doing his background research, he realized there's a lot more information
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available and a lot more readily available than it was in the 90s.
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So there's all these online databases that you can search easily and find information
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about past abortion cases, the history of abortion in the country, court cases related
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to abortion, newspaper clippings, there's all this stuff available online.
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And so when he saw that, he was like, oh, you know, I can't just do an update.
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I have to basically write a new book.
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So he asked me to help him with the last section, which is the update part, like from the 90s
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until present day.
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And yeah, I had just started writing for world and was reporting on abortion at the time.
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So it was kind of fitting well with my beat at world.
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And a lot of the stuff that I write in this last section came from some of my original
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reporting during those last couple of years that I've been on this beat.
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So that's kind of how that came about.
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Okay.
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So just as an edifying point here from the beginning, I'm an incredibly critical person.
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That's just my personality.
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And I love to nitpick.
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I don't always nitpick publicly, but whether it's someone's book or someone's presentation.
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The thing about this book is it was the sheer number of citations that both of you gave
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throughout the book.
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It's like whenever you're reading a Thomas soul book, it's like you can't just read his
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narrative.
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You have to reckon with the citations as well.
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And there was just so many things about this book that was so interesting, but you could
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definitely tell that obviously it was easier to kind of get some of the narratives, you
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know, from history that we see.
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But let's talk about Marvin's sections, his four sections that he wrote, because you didn't
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write those.
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So I'm not going to ask you like specific things because there's like individualized, contextualized
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stories from his section.
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And you know, it'd be impossible for you to be ready for all those questions.
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But if you had to give us a 30,000 foot view of what he describes in his sections, how would
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you encapsulate it?
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Yeah, so I would say that his sections of the book are some of the most interesting because
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he digs into some history that I was personally, I was not familiar with until reading his
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drafts.
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And actually, it mean like I mentioned, some of the material is also in his earlier book
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Abortion Rights, so in reading that too, I became familiar with some of the material.
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But kind of the idea is we're looking back at the history and tradition of America.
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What did the history and tradition of early America have to say about the view of abortion
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that people and communities shared?
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How did they see abortion?
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Was it acceptable?
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Was it not acceptable?
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Did they see it as murder, did they see it as just another procedure?
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And so I guess a 30,000 foot view of these early chapters would be we can see in these
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early chapters that early America did not see abortion as acceptable.
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It was tried as murder in the 1600s, men who forced abortive patients on women, who they
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impregnated, went on trial for murder.
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They didn't get convicted of murder because of a lack of evidence, but the communities
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around them obviously saw that as an unacceptable practice.
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And these early Americans also really linked someone's view of abortion and their act of
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participating in abortion with their understanding of scripture, so we can see how an understanding
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of scripture really fuels or does not fuel someone's pro-life perspective.
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We can also see that doctors, even as early as the 1800s, understood that life begins
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at conception at fertilization.
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So that takes a stab at the Roe v. Wade decision in which the justices wrote that there's
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no consensus about when life begins.
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I mean, sure, there maybe wasn't a consensus among historians or legal scholars, but doctors
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in the 1800s were saying in lectures that life begins at conception that there's a distinct
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individual from the moment of fertilization.
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So, you know, so those are some of the things that we get at in these chapters, but we also
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talk about how there was just a lack of knowledge among the everyday person about what's going
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on when someone is pregnant, what the development of an unborn baby is like.
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So when you have these moments of, say, like at the World's Fair in the 1930s, there was
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a sculpture of several sculptures of an unborn baby at different stages of development.
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And you know, people are lining up to see this.
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It's fascinating to them because they're not familiar with this.
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They don't see that, they don't have ultrasound images at this time.
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So they're finally able to see in moments like that what doctors have known for a long
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time, which is this is a human.
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So when they get to see that actually in sculptures or when a baby dies and they can
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see the dead baby that has come out of its mother, they are also fascinated by, oh wow,
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look, that's a human.
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So we see some of those moments of people, like everyday people kind of recognizing that,
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recognizing the humanity of the unborn and it backing up the more scriptural view that
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we see really taking priority in early America that loses priority as time goes on, as communities
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break apart, as people move to big cities without the accountability of parents and
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relatives and a community members.
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So yeah, so that's kind of, I know that it's hard to summarize so much.
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Yeah, you're summarizing like 400 pages worth of stuff, but what's great, Leah, is you brought
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up a bunch of stuff that I was going to ask you about.
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And so because a lot of your work taking on the modern side of this attaches to the stuff
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that Marvin was talking about because here's the thing is I fancy myself an informed person
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on the subject matter in every page I turn scrolled, sorry, it's 2023.
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So every page that I scrolled, you know, reading it on my iPad, I was like, didn't know that,
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didn't know that either, had no idea that was going on at that time.
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And so that's why for anyone in my audience has pro life, this is a must read book because
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RC scrolls book called abortion.
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That's a must read book.
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But so is this one.
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This one is something that's going to equip you when someone says anything ignorant, like,
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Oh, well, back in the 1700s, this is what they thought it's like, no, they didn't.
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No, they didn't.
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And Marvin gave me about 4700 references to make sure that I could win this argument.
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So Marvin covered 1652 through about 1994.
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And then you pick up from there, you go from 1995 to 2022.
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Now you do go back and talk about different things that happened in other years, but that's
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really the chunk of time that you focus on.
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Now before we dig into even more specific detail on your section, I wanted to read a quote
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from the introduction to your section.
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The spread of ultrasound technology opened a window to the womb and made visible the
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developing baby, a boon to the compassion wing of the pro life movement, abortion advocates
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countered by celebrating abortion as a spiritual act.
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Meanwhile, advocates on both sides of the issue pushed new legislation either to enshrine
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row at the state level or to challenge its status as settled law.
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And both sides avidly watched the Supreme Court.
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Would you say that's a good encapsulation or 30,000 foot view of everything that you
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wrote in your section?
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Because like I read it, I just finished it yesterday.
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I don't think I could write a sentence or two that could encapsulate it that way.
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Yeah, I think I wrote that that summary, I mean, it's been a while, but I'm pretty sure
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I wrote that it is hard to encapsulate everything that's happened in the last couple decades
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and a half, but yeah, it's hard, but I think that is kind of a good summary of everything
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that's happened in the last few years.
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Okay.
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Well, good.
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Well, let's dig into some of the detail because in your section of the book, you detail the
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rise of pro life pregnancy centers that used ultrasounds to show moms and dads, their children
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in the womb, which may not sound like a lot because here we are in modernity.
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And we're so arrogant that we think history started the year we were born, right?
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And we just forget that no, go back 10 years before you were born, 50 years before you
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were born.
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The entire world was different, like, you know, people like to do this, this mind exercise
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of, you know, what, what era in the world would you like to go back and live?
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And I'm like, no era before this one, like I don't want to get dental surgery in the
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1800s.
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Are you out of your mind?
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Maybe I want to go back to yesterday because I wouldn't have eaten as much ice cream.
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So I would woke up feeling better.
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But aside from that, like people just don't give any real consideration to history.
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So let's specifically talk about the direct impacts that pregnancy, pro life pregnancy
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centers that used ultrasounds and what that had on the pro life movement.
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Yeah.
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So it was in the 90s that a lot of pregnancy centers started introducing ultrasound technology
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at their centers.
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Now even in the 80s, there were some pregnancy centers that had already introduced this technology.
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And immediately they start to see how using this technology helps women see what's going
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on inside of them.
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So like what I was talking about, about the sculptures at the world's fair, like how
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people would line up to look at these sculptures and see the development of the unborn baby.
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In this case, it's a women coming to pregnancy centers looking for help when they're unexpectedly
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pregnant and when they're there, they're able to see their own baby, not just a sculpture
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of some baby, some baby that perhaps not even a real actual baby that someone actually saw,
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but just someone's memory of what it looks like.
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But when they can see their own baby, they see that humanity.
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And that's been a real invaluable tool for the pro life movement.
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And it was cool too.
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I got to speak with the doctor who was the director of the first center that actually
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offered these ultrasounds to women.
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And her name is Gita Swami Das.
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She told me all about some of her memories of showing women their own unborn children,
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one woman who had had, I think it was 11 abortions.
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And she had not in all that time and all of those abortions, she had not actually seen
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one of her unborn children.
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So when she finally saw this other child that she was pregnant with, it really hit her in
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a different way.
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She actually still ended up getting an abortion, but really regretted it after the fact when
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she got pregnant again, she kept that baby.
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And also, you know, Gita told me about how she was able to use the ultrasound image in
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conjunction with just reminders of what God's word says to encourage women to not get an
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abortion.
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So like, for instance, this one woman came from a local church.
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She was a young, young woman.
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She was a leader in her youth group, like an adult, young adult leader.
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And she had become pregnant.
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And she wanted Gita to give her a reason why she could get an abortion biblically.
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She was like, please, you know, is there any biblical reason why I could get an abortion?
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I just made one mistake, you know, just one mistake.
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How can I get over this?
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I don't want to, I don't want all the youth in this group to know what I did.
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And Gita's like, you know what, you know, she shows her the ultrasound image of her
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child.
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The woman starts to cry seeing this and Gita reminds her it's a sin to get an abortion
21:56
in no matter the circumstances of how your baby was conceived.
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So it would be an even, you know, obviously having sex outside of marriage was one big
22:07
sin, but to try to cover it up with another sin, you know, that Gita was able to tell
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her, no, that's not okay.
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And she had kind of this evidence of the ultrasound image to back that up.
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So hearing her stories is really incredible and encouraging to me to hear her turning back
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to scripture, turning back to what God has to say, because I think it's easy for the
22:31
pro-life movement to think, oh, well, let's focus on the science.
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Let's focus on the ultrasound images.
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But in reality, as Marvin's chapters show, it is that understanding of scripture and
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understanding of the gospel that really motivates a culture's valuing of unborn children and
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their position on abortion.
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Yeah, I would absolutely echo that.
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And I'm glad you said that woman's last name because I had no idea how to say it.
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I went in the book, but yeah, it's a tremendously unique name, but I'll even say just for my
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wife and I, you know, ultrasounds were a nervous thing for us because we had lost two children
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before, you know, we had a baby that we actually got to meet our first born James.
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And that first ultrasound, you're holding your breath because you don't know if there's
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going to be a heartbeat and that is a absolutely destructive thing for a lot of women whenever
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they go in with the excitement and anticipation.
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And there is no heartbeat.
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There are just countless stories of that type of thing.
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And so when you can humanize the amago day and image bearer of God and be like, no, they're
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moving around.
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And if you try to destroy that, baby, they're going to recoil from the pain of that abortion.
23:38
Like that's a big deal, like, and we're look, we're not mistakeers that that young lady in
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the youth group, she wasn't a mistake or she was a sinner.
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And the thing that's different about her mistake, quote, unquote, is that she was going to multiply
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that mistake by an infinite degree by destroying an image bearer of Christ, unless somebody
23:57
gave her a different alternative and we're going to get way, way, way more into that.
24:02
But we got to hold back a little bit here.
24:03
We got to keep a few, a few bullets in the barrel here.
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But you have a quote from the book from Donna is Zell, and she's from the Arkansas Pregnancy
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Resource Center.
24:13
And I want to read this quote from Donna, I witnessed daily women who are amazed at just
24:19
how developed their unborn baby is at six weeks, eight weeks and 10 weeks.
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So when I read a quote like that, well done, I already know that, but there are people out
24:28
there and I don't mean this to be funny or tongue in cheek at all.
24:32
They think what's going on inside the woman's stomach is like human like soup, like it's
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just kind of this soupy mixture and then like right before it comes shooting out of the vaginal
24:41
canal.
24:42
It's just into a baby.
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It just becomes a baby, right?
24:45
It's fully formed.
24:46
But I see this Leah as a tremendous downfall and opportunity for the pro life movement and
24:53
for Christian schools in particular to be like from the earliest stages of your education
24:59
as a human in this country, we should be telling you about what's going on during that process.
25:04
Because I know a lot of people are worried about sex ed and for good reason in public
25:07
schools because here we are asking third graders what gender they feel like today and exposing
25:12
them to a pornographic content and all that.
25:14
But can you imagine if a Christian school were to talk about the development processes
25:18
of an unborn baby so that when that person is 16, 17, 35, 50 years old, they have those
25:26
pictures in mind.
25:27
Again, I just feel like this is a tremendous opportunity that frankly the pro life groups
25:31
and Christian schools have just really sucked at.
25:34
Yeah.
25:35
Yeah.
25:36
And it's interesting that you mentioned her story specifically because Donna actually
25:41
had an abortion when she was younger and didn't know until she was walking in to the abortion
25:48
facility how developed her baby was.
25:50
And she, Leah, Leah, that is very common of women that work at these pro life abortion
25:55
facilities.
25:56
Now, a lot of them have that story.
25:58
They, when they were younger, they sinned and conceived and did all those different things.
26:03
And then they killed their children and they had no idea which leads to, you know, them
26:07
understanding their depravity, which leads them to a better understanding of why they
26:10
need to save her.
26:11
But that is not uncommon for these, for these women that work, work there.
26:15
But go ahead.
26:16
Yeah.
26:17
Yeah.
26:18
Well, with Donna, it was someone actually on the sidewalk, a pro lifer who called out
26:21
something about her baby having fingers and toes and Donna stopped and was like, Oh, like
26:29
she had just not thought about it.
26:32
And she kind of sees similar things from the women that she works with today.
26:37
Um, obviously there are women who know exactly what, what they're doing, you know, when they
26:42
get an abortion, they know what's going on inside of them.
26:45
Um, like for instance, I was outside of an abortion facility near where I live a couple
26:51
of weeks ago, um, and you know, they're pro lifers outside of the facility.
26:56
We're calling out to women like, please don't kill your child.
27:00
And one of the women said, I already have four.
27:02
I don't need another one, you know, so like she already, she's already a mother.
27:06
She, she must have some knowledge of this.
27:09
And yet her heart is still hard towards her child.
27:11
So it's not that knowledge that necessarily changes things, um, but it can in some cases
27:17
it can be the thing that kind of, um, just wakes someone up to what, to what's really
27:23
going on.
27:24
So yeah, obviously that, that knowledge is really important and educating people about
27:28
that is important.
27:29
But like I said before, um, it has to come with an understanding of, well, so if that
27:34
is a human, then why, why would we protect that human?
27:38
What does make that human valuable?
27:40
Um, and the answers come from scripture in that case.
27:43
Well, and Leah, I would say as well, uh, if your schools aren't going to be teaching
27:47
things in this way, parents listening to this right now, that means it's your responsibility.
27:51
It's not the school, the, the Christian school or otherwise it's not their job to catacize
27:55
your children and your family.
27:57
It's your job to do that, especially the dads listening to this, but to talk about it, uh,
28:01
in a different way, regardless of how you view the world.
28:05
So whether you think that we are created in the image of God, by an all powerful, all
28:09
seeing God, or whether you think we're highly evolved chimps that, you know, wear pants
28:14
and talk to one another, you can argue for protecting that life regardless, right?
28:19
Now lean on scripture and lean on the truth because that is a, you know, something that
28:23
you could lean on where you're going to have your feet planted firmly on the ground.
28:27
But even on the chimp side of things, just say like, well, you think that the only way
28:31
that we're here today is because at some point along the line, we, we've decided that killing
28:36
rival chimps wasn't a good idea for the propagation of the species.
28:40
And so with that in mind, why would we destroy chimps that are inside the womb and then just
28:46
sit there and stare at them and wait for them to come up with an argument?
28:49
And, and again, in most of these cases, they won't come up with anything that's even vaguely
28:53
cogent.
28:54
But in the book as well, Leah, you describe an internal report from CareNet about the
28:59
effect that ultrasounds had on women's, you know, decisions to abort or not.
29:04
So this is a quote from your section for women, quote, actively pursuing an abortion, unquote,
29:09
however, the percentage that chose not to abort increased from 26% to 45% after they had seen
29:16
the ultrasound images.
29:18
And this is, seems like a byline here, but this is very, very important.
29:22
And to 55% when they had the father with them during the ultrasound.
29:27
So the ultrasound in and of itself, when the woman was alone from 26% to not abort to 45%
29:33
to not abort.
29:34
But when the man was there, it jumped another 10% to 55% okay.
29:37
Now, I want to, you know, attach that to a quote from Marvin's section here.
29:42
Community pressure on young men meant that pregnant unmarried women could generally count
29:47
on marriage before going into labor.
29:49
If young men hesitated, older men intervened, they rarely needed shotguns, but every father
29:55
had one to be married under shotgun pressure, carried no disgrace.
29:59
And most marriages were by at least informal parental arrangement anyway.
30:05
The reason why I bring this up is because I've sat in the Hope Pregnancy Center here
30:09
in Edmund, Oklahoma.
30:11
And we support them financially.
30:12
We've done some things to help them with what they're doing.
30:14
They talk about the importance of not only ministering to mama, but ministering to the
30:18
dad.
30:19
And they've got a call sheet of men that when a woman comes in with her boyfriend or husband
30:23
or just some, you know, Rando, baby daddy, that they have a man that is ministering to
30:27
him as well.
30:29
But men on all sides of this issue, pro anti whatever, they have completely neglected to
30:37
understand their impact on this particular situation.
30:40
I always get a little bit upset whenever I, whenever I describe this, but the person
30:43
that leads that facility here in my town.
30:47
She describes watching these young women who are pregnant and didn't want to be pregnant,
30:53
but they know innately that they don't need to get an abortion, but they are looking
30:58
to their man, right?
31:00
Again, baby daddy, boyfriend, husband, whatever, they're looking to them with this desperation
31:05
in their eyes.
31:06
Like save me, please save our child.
31:09
I just need you to put your arm around me to hold my hand and tell me it's going to
31:13
be okay and that we're going to do what it takes, but men won't do it.
31:18
They're cowards, they're oblivious to their understanding of their role and that relationship,
31:24
but they're also just, they will take hook line and sinker.
31:27
The lines we get from culture and from Hollywood and we'll get into more and more of that later
31:32
to be like, oh, well, all shucks.
31:34
This is her decision.
31:35
And no matter what she does, I'm going to support her, which is not what a man says.
31:39
That's what a boy says.
31:41
That's what a boy that can shave says, so to save me from blowing out a gasket here,
31:45
hop in because the role of men in this fight is incredibly important, but we don't see
31:50
it that way.
31:51
Yeah.
31:52
And actually when you're talking about this, what comes to my mind is one other story from
31:56
my section about this young woman named Hannah Renowski.
32:01
And so she, I think it's the second to last chapter in the section in the book.
32:08
I tell her story and how she, she got pregnant right before the Texas heartbeat law went into
32:16
effect in 2021.
32:18
So that was September 21 when that law went into effect and she found out she was pregnant
32:23
at the end of August.
32:25
So when she found out she was pregnant, she thought that the state law was already in
32:29
effect and that she wouldn't be able to get an abortion.
32:33
She wasn't married, but she already had two other kids, one of them with her current boyfriend.
32:40
And she, she actually described to me feeling a bit of relief thinking that, well, abortion
32:46
isn't an option for me.
32:47
So, you know, so I'm going to have this baby, but then when she found out from the people
32:53
at the birth control clinic that she was at, where she found out she was pregnant, when
32:57
she found out that the law was not yet in effect, they also recommended to her an abortion
33:02
facility to go to.
33:05
She was like, whoa, you know, it just added a whole new layer of complexity to my decision
33:12
because before it seemed like abortion wasn't an option for her.
33:16
So then obviously talking with her boyfriend, she felt a lot of pressure from him and it
33:22
was just subtle though.
33:23
It wasn't like she, he was going to, you know, move out if she didn't get an abortion.
33:28
It was more of like, oh, well, I think you should, I think you should just schedule this
33:33
abortion just in case, you know, just schedule it, see what happens.
33:39
So it's just subtle things like that and his subtle concerns even about finances and how
33:44
they're going to support a third child, all those little, little pressures.
33:51
She ended up starting a chemical abortion, but then regretted it and was able to access
33:57
abortion pill reversal treatment through a pregnancy center in the area.
34:03
But yeah, it really was that civil pressure from her boyfriend and then just the offer
34:09
of help from the pregnancy center that was able to get her out of that.
34:15
I contacted her a few months after I had that initial interview with her and I was able
34:22
to hear about when the baby was actually born and I asked her, you know, how is your
34:27
boyfriend doing?
34:28
And she was like, you know, well, it took him a little while to adjust.
34:33
But now he loves her.
34:35
He loves his daughter and it's not like he's angry at her for not getting the abortion,
34:41
which unfortunately would not always be the case in some situations.
34:46
But still her story was, was very meaningful to me in reminding me of what the protection,
34:55
what a protection the law can be to women say in her situation.
34:59
If it had been illegal, could her husband have pressured her to do something illegal?
35:05
You know, so not only is it obviously wrong for the men to pressure women in these situations,
35:12
but it's also wrong for states to be allowing abortion.
35:16
It's just not something that someone should have to decide whether or not they want to
35:21
kill their child and having that as an availability sometimes leads them to doing things that
35:27
they don't want to do.
35:28
Although some people really do want to get an abortion, people shout their abortion.
35:32
So we have people on all, you know, the whole range of kind of motivations coming at this
35:38
whole abortion issue.
35:40
Don't worry.
35:41
We'll get there as well.
35:42
We're certainly going to address that.
35:43
But just to put a bow on the shame point, I say all the time that shame is a tremendous
35:49
motivator.
35:50
When I was growing up, I was significantly overweight.
35:53
And then I made changes and I'm, you know, in really, really good shape today.
35:57
And I remember the shame of taking off my shirt, being a little kid and getting made
36:02
fun of at the community pool.
36:04
And some people go, kids can be so cruel.
36:06
I'm like, no, I use that as fuel and that fuel is going to, you know, assuming that
36:09
I don't get attacked by a rabid, you know, pack of dogs whenever I'm walking out to go
36:12
get the mail, it's going to help me to live longer and be healthier and to honor the only
36:16
body that God gave me.
36:18
But we live in the society where no one can ever feel uncomfortable.
36:21
We don't do neighborhood parenting anymore.
36:22
You know, like when you were riding your bike as a kid and you're on the other side of
36:25
the neighborhood and you're acting like a knucklehead.
36:27
And then one of the other moms in the neighborhood gave you a weapon for doing that.
36:31
Like that is one of the things from an old time that I wish we could bring back because
36:36
shame is a tremendous motivator.
36:37
But we, we have this, uh, man, just, you know, do you, bro, and, you know, let, you know,
36:42
let go and let God, we have this idea that no matter what God is just going to bless
36:46
all our decisions and shame is just not the motivator that it should be.
36:50
Now this next question is going to take a little bit to set up, but I think it's very,
36:54
very important.
36:55
I think it's a hinge point really for the impact of this book, in my opinion, but in
37:00
the book, you detail, you know, a major shift that happened within Christiandom around the
37:04
subject of abortion.
37:06
So, uh, you know, add this to the list of things I didn't know before I read it, but
37:09
amongst other things, you described how the Southern Baptist Convention, the SBC went from
37:13
really defending the road decision in the early seventies to a complete biblical defense
37:18
of human life, beginning at conception by the early eighties.
37:21
So it took about a decade, which is about a decade too long, but if you look back at what
37:25
they were saying in the early seventies versus the eighties versus today, completely different.
37:29
But then here's a quote from, uh, one of the quotes from Marvin section, and then we'll
37:33
get into a couple more from here to understand why abortion was so rare in early America.
37:38
We need to spend less time debating obscure common law cases and more time entering the
37:43
stream of church going colonists walking to common worship on a Sunday morning with the
37:48
father carrying the family Bible.
37:50
That was, uh, the one book in most homes in an era of frequent Bible reading, few missed
37:55
God's creative involvement in human life from its beginning.
37:59
Colonists read in Psalms, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Luke, Galatians, and other books, not only
38:04
that we were made in God's image, but that he knitted me together in my mother's womb,
38:09
formed me in the womb and formed you in the womb.
38:13
There's another quote from Marvin section.
38:15
This one is from a pastor of old South first Presbyterian church in Newbury, Port, Massachusetts,
38:21
all the way back in 1891.
38:23
And it was American pastors who dodged the abortion issue, constitute, quote, the church
38:29
asleep, unquote.
38:31
And then here's a quote actually from your section, Leah Christians throughout history
38:34
have said the developing baby in the womb is also made in the image of God, but some
38:39
pastors have been reluctant to say so.
38:41
For years, theologian R.C. Sproul produced pro life materials for pastors to use with
38:46
their congregations, but often received a discouraging response.
38:50
He said in 2014, quote, it was like a broken record.
38:54
Pastor said, I can't use this material.
38:56
It'll split our church, unquote that year, a survey of 40 pastors from denominations in
39:01
the national association of evangelicals found all agreed that life begins a conception and
39:06
that pastor should preach against abortion, but five had never preached that and almost
39:11
half hadn't broced the subject in the past year.
39:15
So all that set up to get to this, I constantly call out preachers for their cowardice and
39:21
for their fear of their congregations.
39:23
Oh, I don't want to talk about, you know, transgenderism, because that's just going to, you know,
39:27
it's a really hot button issue.
39:29
And I'm just going to, you know, teach about this obscure passage from judges and oh, you
39:32
know, I don't want to talk about homosexuality because I don't want anyone to to feel a judge
39:36
and, you know, if they do talk about it, their sermon, as Vodie Bakam said, dies to the death
39:40
of a thousand qualifications before they get to the point.
39:43
Oh, I just love gay people.
39:44
I have gay people that are my friends and I would never want to judge a gay person.
39:48
And so everything they say after that, the sting has completely left it.
39:51
But on the abortion issue, it is egregious what churches and what pastors are doing because
39:57
this is not some obscure issue.
40:00
This isn't like, oh, is the earth billions of years old or is it 6,000 years old?
40:04
This isn't like, hey, we're looking at a word in the Greek to see if it means this or that.
40:09
This is babies dying, image bearers of God dying.
40:14
And here we are just wearing our press shirts and, you know, going to the parking lot, we're
40:18
going in and getting our warm coffee.
40:20
We're here in the rock show.
40:21
We're here in our TED talk and then we bounce.
40:23
So talk to me a little bit about that because I find it to be absolutely reprehensible, especially
40:29
since these men know that they're going to have to give an account to God one day for
40:33
how they shepherded their flock.
40:34
And on this issue, they've been completely absent.
40:37
Yeah.
40:38
Well, I think the reason why it's so important, I think there are multiple reasons why it's
40:43
so important for like gospel preaching, Bible believing pastors to talk about abortion is
40:49
because there are pastors, quote unquote, pastors who are not gospel believing, not Bible preaching
40:56
pastors who promote abortion as being a good thing, as being something that even the Bible
41:03
champions.
41:04
Yeah.
41:05
That's loving somehow.
41:06
Yeah.
41:07
Well, and they're also misuse those obscure passages, like there's a passage in numbers
41:11
that describes, you know, how are we going to test to see if a woman was adulterous?
41:19
Like is she was she unfaithful to her husband and the process involves like mixing some dust
41:26
from the tabernacle into a drink and making her drink it.
41:30
And then some translations of scripture say that if she was adulterous, her womb will
41:35
miscarry.
41:37
But you know, that's not, that's not actually a literal translation of the original Hebrew.
41:43
And a more literal translation would be her thigh will fall.
41:47
So, but people, so, you know, what does her thigh will fall mean?
41:52
Um, but some people will use that, that translation of miscarriage to argue will see like even
41:59
God uses abortion, like he uses abortion in numbers.
42:03
I mean, okay.
42:04
So God is, is God, he's not a human.
42:08
So I think that's one very important thing to mention.
42:12
But also that's not a literal translation of the Hebrew.
42:16
So we can't base our whole theology on those sorts of weird interpretations of those passages.
42:26
But rather let's look to how God talks about unborn life.
42:30
Let's look to Psalm 139, you know, he knitted us together in our mother's wombs.
42:36
We praise him because we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
42:39
You know, he knew all of our days before we were even born.
42:43
They were written in his book.
42:46
And I think, I think preaching that would, would provide so much clarity to a congregation
42:52
that's probably hearing these confusing things about other passages of scripture.
42:57
Um, even for women who have had abortions, I think avoiding the topic of abortion actually
43:03
hurts them more than helps them.
43:05
I know that's often a reason like, oh, I don't want to hurt women who have had abortions.
43:10
But if you're avoiding the topic of abortion, think about all the lack of clarity and, um,
43:17
an application of God's word to the issue of abortion and the application of the gospel,
43:22
to abortion.
43:23
Now this wasn't in the book, but a couple of years ago, I interviewed a woman who, um,
43:28
had had an abortion years and years ago before becoming a Christian, felt okay with it.
43:35
Then she became a Christian and realized what God had to say about unborn life and murder
43:40
and recognized what she did was wrong.
43:44
But for years and years, even going through a bunch of Bible studies, she thought for
43:49
some reason that Christ sacrificed, although it had paid for her other sins, could not
43:54
pay for the sin of abortion.
43:56
She saw it as its own category, um, like, like an unforgivable sin, but it wasn't until
44:03
going through a post-Abortive Bible study that she realized, oh, no, this applies.
44:08
Like the gospel applies to my abortion as well.
44:12
So I think kind of putting abortion in its own category of like an untouchable topic
44:16
can lead to that kind of attitude and that kind of confusion that, that some women face
44:23
when they're thinking through like, you know, I sinned and doing this, you know, how does
44:27
Christ's sacrifice on the cross apply to this particular thing that I did?
44:33
Um, so all the more reason to be really clear about the gospel and where God stands on abortion
44:40
and also, um, the solution that he offers to anyone, not just people who have had abortions,
44:45
but anyone.
44:46
Even an actual like, uh, like a serial killer, someone who, you know, you'd think of as being
44:52
the actual murderer in kind of the everyday, um, images.
44:57
Um, no, Christ's sacrifice is sufficient to pay for all of those.
45:03
Um, and, and I think that can, that can be a big motivator for pastors who maybe are hesitant
45:09
to bring up the topic because they're thinking about those women.
45:12
I would urge them to think about those women, you know, encourage them by showing how the
45:18
gospel applies.
45:19
Uh, I think there's so much good stuff there.
45:21
One thing that you talk about, like with serial killers and all that, I've mentioned this
45:23
a lot of my show recently, but earlier this year I was invited to come speak at a maximum
45:27
security prison and, you know, I was speaking to and interacting with people that had killed
45:32
people and, you know, one guy that I know for sure that I shook hands with and talked
45:36
with, he had killed four people before, four image bearers of God, but one thing about
45:40
my sermon that I delivered to these men is you guys cross the laws of man.
45:44
That's why you're here.
45:45
And that's why I get to leave because I haven't, but all of us have crossed the lines of God
45:49
and in that way we are brothers.
45:51
And so you need Christ just as much as I do and I've never shed in a set blood.
45:56
But the other thing about what you said that I think is Kielia is clarity to the congregation,
46:00
clarity, because a lot of people in their flock are confused.
46:05
They don't, they certainly don't know how to argue against pro abortion topics because
46:09
their pastor doesn't talk about it.
46:10
I've been critical of even my own pastor who's a great expository preacher, but in the five
46:15
six years I've gone to his church, he's spent about five minutes total on the abortion topic.
46:20
And if you weren't there that weekend, you just flat out missed out and you might, you
46:23
know, take some of the things he says and extrapolate it out to, well, it may actually be loving
46:28
that women get an abortion in certain circumstances.
46:30
You'll kind of do the mental gymnastics.
46:32
But I talked to a Canadian pastor named Jacob Reum and he talked about every time that he
46:36
addresses abortion at his church, he is unequivocal, unequivocal that you have killed your child.
46:41
You are a murderer.
46:42
But then he echoes the same sentiment I do whenever I speak in front of churches.
46:47
The very first words out of my mouth is there is now therefore no condemnation to those who
46:52
are in Christ Jesus.
46:53
And then I pause.
46:54
I let that sit in the room and I say, if you were in this room and you've killed your
46:58
baby, or you paid for your baby to be killed, or if you drove someone to and from a facility
47:05
where a family member of yours ended up being killed or a friend, friend's baby was killed,
47:10
you were complicit in murder, but Christ died for that too.
47:14
He died for your white lies and he also died for you shedding innocent blood.
47:19
So can we all just put on our big boy and big girl pants now and start digging into this
47:23
topic and why it's so important?
47:25
And for me, I've had women who have had multiple abortions come up to me afterwards and say,
47:31
thank you so much for speaking so clearly on this issue because I don't feel condemned,
47:38
but I feel like the gospel is so much sweeter because I understand the level of my depravity.
47:44
But again, we just skip past that because apparently the 11th commandment is don't ever
47:48
make somebody feel uncomfortable for any reason whatsoever.
47:51
So taking a little bit of a left turn here, but also into another important topic that
47:55
you cover in the book.
47:57
You talk about the complicity of the mainstream media in Hollywood in the normalization of
48:04
the practice of abortion because again, the idea that you were killing an unborn human
48:08
being that was just old hats.
48:10
Like, well, of course, of course, that's a human in there, but now to mention mental
48:13
gymnastics again, the mainstream media and Hollywood are like, Oh, no, there's all these
48:17
other different topics and all these other different non contextualized issues that either,
48:21
you know, inaccurately portray the facts or they just ignore the facts of what's happening
48:27
in order to fit a pro abortion agenda.
48:29
Can you talk to us a little bit about how the complicity of the mainstream media and Hollywood
48:33
is so nefarious to this topic?
48:36
Yeah.
48:37
Well, one interesting thing that I learned just in the last few years as I've been reporting
48:41
on abortion is that Planned Parenthood actually has someone on staff who's there specifically
48:48
to form relationships with people in Hollywood, to have an influence, I guess, have a finger
48:56
in the pie of a lot of films that come out of Hollywood.
49:00
So specifically, there's one movie she was involved in called Obvious Child as a comedy
49:07
about an abortion, a woman who got an abortion.
49:10
And she saw that as a huge victory for her role after years of trying to make relationships
49:15
with people in Hollywood, she's like, finally, we have the kind of movie that I've been working
49:20
towards and it's a movie where this woman gets an abortion and has no regrets and it's
49:25
a comedy, you know?
49:26
So just all of those things, it's like, Oh, you know, that's not, I mean, you can tell
49:34
that they're pushing for a specific agenda in that film.
49:38
So it'll, she'll mention things about like in Washington, I think it was a Washington
49:45
Post article, she would talk about how she would advise people who are making films
49:51
on like, Oh, well, normally at Planned Parenthood, we would have a nice picture on the wall,
49:58
you know, to make the patient feel calm or, Oh, you know, a Planned Parenthood staff member
50:03
would never use words like that, would never use language like that.
50:07
So kind of sugar coating, putting a nice face on the abortion industry in these films.
50:14
And that really does affect how the culture sees this.
50:18
So for instance, someone who's never been in an abortion facility or never had an abortion,
50:23
if these movies are all they're seeing about an abortion, that does change how you think
50:27
about it.
50:29
And they're actually some studies that track the use of abortion in films, and this is
50:38
from a pro-abortion university, they'll kind of track how abortion comes up in films and
50:46
rate how well, quote unquote, well, that reference turned out.
50:52
And they'll critique films that make abortion look like a bad thing or that show abortions
50:58
being dangerous.
51:01
And in one of those reports, they mentioned the influence of film and media in changing
51:09
public perception on gay marriage or transgenderism.
51:13
And they said, you know, if they could do it with the LGBTQ issue, we can do it with
51:19
abortion too.
51:20
So that is their goal is to change how people think about abortion using the images that
51:25
they present in films and movies.
51:30
And also the mainstream media in general, when you read about abortion, it's very rare
51:36
that you'll actually get the image of an unborn child, an aborted child.
51:41
And I'm not saying like a picture, but like a description or like any mention of this
51:46
person who's being killed in an abortion who is also a character in whatever story they're
51:52
writing.
51:54
And so that's one thing we tried to do in this book specifically was draw out the unborn
51:59
child as being a distinct character in our story and mentioning, mentioning even gruesome
52:08
images of what an abortion looks like, what someone saw when they saw an abortion.
52:14
So, but you, yeah, you definitely don't get that in mainstream media.
52:17
When it does come up, it's very, it's actually kind of exciting for me when I see an article
52:22
that mentions how someone reacted to an abortion or what someone saw.
52:28
It's like, wow, they actually went there.
52:30
They said the quiet part out loud.
52:32
I can't believe it.
52:33
But that's not the sort of thing that the abortion industry will celebrate.
52:38
For instance, when it comes up in a movie, of course, not in their very overt about it,
52:43
Leah.
52:44
I mean, they're not really hiding the ball, but that reminds me of the work that live
52:47
action and other people do is they'll ask people the question, which is, Hey, are you
52:51
pro choice or pro life?
52:52
And typically people say pro choice and then they ask them, Hey, would you mind watching
52:55
a video?
52:56
It's a cartoon rendering of what actually happens during abortion.
52:58
Have you ever seen something like that for?
52:59
Oh, no.
53:00
Then they have them watch the video and then afterwards they're like, Oh my gosh, I had
53:03
no idea, which should help everyone understand that guys, when you see polls come out, especially
53:08
headlines of polls, which are basically all lies anyway, when a poll of Americans come
53:13
out on the question of pro life versus pro choice, essentially it's bogus because people
53:17
are so ignorant about what's actually going on in the womb that their opinion is worthless
53:23
because they've been sold a bill of goods from the media, Hollywood, and Democrats.
53:27
And that's that'll be kind of the next thing I want to talk to you about because in the
53:30
early 2000s, the Democratic Party, if we can remember all the way back to the early 2000s,
53:36
the Democratic Party in America was certainly pro choice.
53:40
But I guess you could say, Leah, maybe you would be fair to call their their approach
53:43
to be tempered like it wasn't like crazy, it was tempered, definitely pro baby murder,
53:48
but tempered.
53:49
But now by 2023, their official party platform is abortion for any reason at any point of
53:57
the pregnancy with no consequences to mother or anyone else and paid for by taxpayer dollars.
54:03
And I've said it and I'll defend it to the death, but the Democratic Party is the party
54:08
of death.
54:09
They're the party of baby murder, now they're expanding out their macabre title.
54:14
They're the party of child mutilation.
54:16
They're the party of defending eugenics.
54:18
They're the party of those things that we know to not just be a biblical, but just evil
54:23
and satanic.
54:24
But talk to me a little bit about that transition because we live in a world where we can't recognize
54:29
what the world looked like six months ago, much less going back a quarter of a century
54:33
to be like, I wonder what these people thought at that time.
54:37
Yeah, well, I think a lot of people remember the tagline on safe legal and rare, that's
54:43
kind of how the Democratic Party approached the abortion issue a couple decades ago.
54:48
Yeah, that was basically the clean that's what the Clinton said, safe legal and rare,
54:52
which begs the question, if it's morally neutral, why does it need to be safe legal and rare?
54:57
If I need shoulder surgery and someone said, yeah, shoulder surgery should be safe legal
55:01
and rare.
55:02
It's like, no, I want as many people to get their shoulders fixed as possible.
55:04
What do you mean safe legal and rare?
55:06
Well, go ahead.
55:07
Yeah.
55:08
Well, and it was interesting.
55:09
I was reading a mainstream news report recently about this big abortion pill case that's
55:15
going on.
55:17
And someone, I think it was an op-ed, someone described, either that or as a quote from
55:21
someone in the abortion industry who basically said that they think the abortion pill should
55:26
be safe, legal and accessible.
55:29
And I was like, oh, you know, they changed it.
55:33
You know, yeah, there goes the rare part.
55:37
But yeah, it is really interesting how the language has shifted.
55:44
I know at one point the Democratic Party was actually talking to Democrats for life, talking
55:51
with them about their party platform, and they tried to temper their language a little
55:56
bit, kind of back up from that really brazen support for abortion, but I don't know.
56:03
I think it's just seeing both sides, both parties kind of shift in the opposite direction
56:08
from each other.
56:09
It's almost like when one goes one way, the other one goes the other way, it's just like
56:12
this widening gap, and it's a real prioritization of abortion as a solution for a lot of legitimate
56:23
issues that we face in our society.
56:25
It's almost just a quick fix.
56:28
You know, if abortion's not legal, then are you going to be willing to support all these
56:31
children?
56:32
And what are we going to do for the moms?
56:35
There are all these questions that come up, and it's almost like abortion is just the
56:39
thing that you have to have.
56:41
It's necessary in order to have equality for women and men, and you know, the list to
56:49
go on.
56:50
Well, Leah, we're worshiping at the altar of pragmatism.
56:53
I remember back in the day when Freakonomics was like, you know, the biggest book that
56:56
everyone had to read in order to pretend like they were smart, and it talked about in that
57:00
book about how abortion was basically necessary to a thriving economy.
57:04
And then Chelsea Clinton, you know, who's basically a walking slogan machine, she was
57:09
basically echoing those sentiments anytime someone would put a microphone in her face.
57:14
And it's that type of idea to where it's like, Oh, it just seems very pragmatic.
57:16
And if you don't know anything about what's happening in that procedure, you would go
57:20
along with that.
57:21
So you mentioned the abortion pill, so that's my first stone or are you 486, but the invention
57:26
of that and the FDA approval of that in America is one of the least talked about, but most
57:33
nefarious things in the fight for life, because what we're going to see as we move forward
57:39
into the future, because typically what happens during one of these, you know, a pill based
57:44
abortions is they will get the first pill, my first stone, and then they will get a second
57:49
pill that will, you know, without getting super technical will expel the baby violently after
57:54
they die.
57:55
Right.
57:56
Basically after they fried a death inside, and then they are violently expelled from
57:59
the womb.
58:00
So it's two pills.
58:01
You can be guaranteed that doctors are working on and scientists are working on a slow release
58:06
one pill solution where you go into the doctor's office or, you know, we call it a doctor's
58:10
office, but it's, you know, basically abortion mill, a murder mill, you get one pill, which
58:15
will release the my first stone and then later on will release the second chemical that
58:18
expels the killed baby from your womb.
58:21
But this is going to turn into Amazon.
58:24
This is going to turn into, hey, we can, we can get around the abortion laws and these
58:28
backwards red states, because all we have to do is make sure there's at least one company
58:31
in the world, not just America, that will ship the single pill or this two pill regiment
58:36
to our front door and our little problem can just go away.
58:40
Talk to me a little bit more about the invention of RU 486 and how that basically changed the
58:44
game of abortion.
58:45
Yeah, well, I mean, what you're saying about how this is going to turn into abortion pills
58:50
being available on Amazon or whatever, I'm sad to say, though, that is already the case.
58:54
Like there are websites where women can already order abortion pills straight to their homes
59:00
from other countries.
59:01
With free shipping.
59:02
It will be there by Friday.
59:03
Yeah.
59:04
And without regulation by the FDA and even in states where abortion is, we're basically,
59:11
it's a legal to male abortion pills because these overseas companies are not regulated
59:16
by US laws or state laws in the United States.
59:21
So it'll be interesting to see where that goes.
59:24
I know that under Biden administration, FDA is not going to be interested in enforcing,
59:30
you know, they're, you know, trying to stop that kind of black market, but there are also
59:35
companies that are operating with the stamp of approval from the FDA that send abortion
59:41
pills to women.
59:43
Just after a short online consultation or filling out a form online, you know, they're
59:48
very available.
59:49
And I think this has been the goal all along for the abortion industry.
59:52
They want the abortion pill to just be something that women have in their medicine cabinets
59:57
that they can pull out when they find out they're pregnant.
1:00:01
And you know, it, they see it as that's the goal.
1:00:06
They want that just like plan B is available over the counter.
1:00:09
They want the abortion pill to be over available over the counter and the Biden administration
1:00:14
has certainly moved in that direction with removing requirements for in person distribution
1:00:20
of Miffer-Pristone, which used to be the case.
1:00:23
But now we have pharmacy companies like Walgreens and CVS that are working towards getting
1:00:30
approval to fill prescriptions for the abortion pill.
1:00:34
In the past, an abortionist would have to give the pill to the woman in person.
1:00:41
And, you know, there's so much history to the abortion pill.
1:00:45
There's so much like that's behind this.
1:00:47
That's why you got to read the book.
1:00:48
That's why you got to read the book.
1:00:49
It's in the show notes.
1:00:50
Pick it up.
1:00:51
Go ahead.
1:00:52
Yeah.
1:00:53
But with the original approval of Miffer-Pristone in 2000, all the tests that they did leading
1:00:59
up to the approval of the abortion pill involved giving women ultrasounds just to ensure that
1:01:08
there was not an ectopic pregnancy, that the abortion pill effects would mask just to make
1:01:15
sure she wasn't too far along in her pregnancy.
1:01:17
Now, obviously, the abortion pill is always dangerous for the child and that's terrible.
1:01:24
But to also approve the abortion pill without a requirement for ultrasound, which is what
1:01:29
they use in the testing beforehand, that is a real, I don't know, how can you do that?
1:01:37
You know, how can you discount the very means that you used in testing when you're actually
1:01:44
giving these pills to women who are taking them at home?
1:01:48
Yeah, they're not going to be having the same level of supervision or the same safety precautions
1:01:56
that the women in the testing stage of the approval did have.
1:02:01
So yeah, and since then, we've just continued to see a removal of the safety requirements
1:02:07
as the abortion industry is pushing for the pill to be available, like I said, over the
1:02:12
counter or just available in your medicine cabinet.
1:02:15
Yeah, it's, it's pragmatism and money.
1:02:19
That's the reasons why they would do things like this because they can get to the dollars
1:02:21
even quicker.
1:02:22
And let's be honest about Plan B, Mitch Plan B, that's the abortion pill too.
1:02:26
It's just of a different kind.
1:02:27
The only difference is is it's more like Russian roulette to where it's like you don't even
1:02:30
know if you're pregnant.
1:02:31
But just in case there's a new human life that is budding inside of you, it basically
1:02:35
stamps out that brand new life.
1:02:38
But I want to go ahead and read this quote from the book as well because this gets into
1:02:40
something that we talked about a little bit earlier and that's where does shout your abortion
1:02:44
come from.
1:02:45
In 2015, 30 year old Amelia Bonnell, I don't care where her last name is, 150.
1:02:51
She wrote a 153, 153 word post about her own positive abortion experience and it went viral
1:02:57
on social media.
1:02:58
And here's her post quote, plenty of people still believe that on some level, if you are
1:03:03
a good woman, abortion is a choice which should be accompanied by some level of sadness, shame
1:03:08
and regret.
1:03:09
But you know what, I have a good heart and having an abortion made me happy in a totally
1:03:14
unqualified way.
1:03:15
Why would I, wouldn't I be happy that I was not forced to become a mother unquote that
1:03:21
spawned a quote or hashtag shout your abortion hashtag that appeared on social media more
1:03:27
than a quarter million times in less than two months as many used it to celebrate their
1:03:31
own abortions.
1:03:32
Now, setting aside the fact that this woman's statements were just ridiculous because it's
1:03:38
like being forced to become a mother, you already were a mother just because you didn't
1:03:43
meet the baby, you were already a mother in that moment.
1:03:46
But it's so macabre, Leah, that we get to a point where, you know, abortion was unthinkable.
1:03:52
And then it was shameful.
1:03:53
And then it was like, no, no, no, have you had your abortion yet?
1:03:56
That's like a question you would ask to your feminist, just like in baseball.
1:04:00
It's like, Hey, have you had your Tommy John surgery yet?
1:04:02
If you're a pitcher used to it was a career ender, then it was a crazy surgery.
1:04:06
Now it's just something you get done whenever you play professional baseball as a pitcher
1:04:10
of some kind.
1:04:12
But it just reminds me of the Sodom and Gomorrah type of a mindset as it comes to the consideration
1:04:19
for unborn human life.
1:04:21
And I even had a buddy the other day who's not really tin foil haddy, but he made something
1:04:25
that sounded somewhat right.
1:04:27
It's like, look, God's going to give us over to our enemies, whether that's China invading
1:04:31
us or something like that and taking over our country.
1:04:33
But God's will is going to be done because you know where the church is growing more than
1:04:36
just about anywhere on the planet, China, where it's illegal to be a Christian, not here
1:04:40
where it's the easiest, you know, country on the planet to be a Christian.
1:04:44
But just talk to me a little bit about that, that quick transition from safe, legal and
1:04:49
rare to no, shout your abortion.
1:04:50
This is not only a good thing, but it's a, it's a wonderful thing that every woman should
1:04:54
experience.
1:04:55
Yeah.
1:04:56
Well, just looking at the book as a whole, I think that's a good, that, that, that story
1:05:02
about Amelia is a good, um, end point, I guess you could say for the, the line that we're
1:05:08
the thread that we're chasing throughout the book of, um, what is the culture's understanding
1:05:15
of what God has to say?
1:05:17
What is the culture's understanding of sin of scripture?
1:05:21
Um, you know, in the first, the very first story that we, or not the very first, but the
1:05:26
first abortion that we talk about in the book in chapter two, um, it's this woman who is
1:05:34
forcibly given an abortifacient unoppoked egg and the man that forces this abortion
1:05:41
on her, he goes on trial for murder.
1:05:44
She recognizes the weight of what happened.
1:05:48
She called it a sin to get an abortion, although it was, it was him that was forcing it on
1:05:53
her.
1:05:54
Um, but there you see the community around them, recognizing what scripture has to say
1:06:01
about unborn life, valuing unborn life based on scripture.
1:06:06
And now you, you know, we, we fast forward to Amelia Bono and just her, her outright
1:06:12
support for abortion, she partners with this one woman who started a thank God for abortion
1:06:19
kind of brand where she'll sell t-shirts that say thank God for abortion and she'll
1:06:23
talk about abortion as being a spiritual experience and being all about God's love and, you know,
1:06:29
so just a real twist, a twisting of scripture and a twisting of, um, what God actually has
1:06:36
to say about unborn life.
1:06:39
Um, but yeah.
1:06:40
So I think, I think that shift largely comes from that, um, minimization of scripture and
1:06:48
of Christianity in mainstream culture, um, and the elevation of me, you know, like my
1:06:57
opinions, what I think is best for me, my dreams, um, and we can even see this in the
1:07:03
spiritism movement, which is, we, Marvin talks about this in his chapters, but we see even
1:07:09
way earlier, you know, these examples of people who turned to spiritism, um, which is just
1:07:16
a high value of yourself and what you want and kind of following your heart in a sense.
1:07:22
Um, and in that movement, there was a large support for abortion because it was a way to
1:07:27
kind of assert your autonomy and be your own individual.
1:07:31
So that's just continued, you know, it's the same thing that we're seeing today with the
1:07:36
shot, your abortion movement.
1:07:38
And it does come with a rejection of, of scripture and of, um, just the fundamental rules that
1:07:46
God has built into the world, um, just the instincts of motherhood, you know, wanting
1:07:51
to care for someone other than yourself, wanting to be a shepherd to, to someone who needs
1:07:58
your help, to someone who's dependent on you.
1:08:02
Um, so yeah, it's, it's quite a sad, a sad transition to see, but it is definitely the
1:08:09
case that we're seeing more and more of these people who are shouting their abortions and
1:08:14
um, are proud of what they did or don't care about what they did because they don't care
1:08:18
about anyone besides themselves.
1:08:21
They don't love their neighbor as themselves.
1:08:23
They don't love their unborn neighbors.
1:08:25
It's an unordering of things.
1:08:27
It's not a reordering.
1:08:28
It's an unordering for sure.
1:08:30
One thing I'm going to talk about now is what you spent all of chapter 46 talking about,
1:08:34
which is the incremental approach to the pro life cause and then the radical approach to
1:08:39
the pro life cause.
1:08:40
And so you go into a lot of detail on to in that section, but how that fight has come
1:08:44
to kind of been extrapolated out to people and in that kind of do what I do.
1:08:48
Or to my audience is the quote unquote radical approach is note, we're going to go for full
1:08:53
criminalization laws.
1:08:54
We don't want any incremental laws.
1:08:56
We want to completely criminalize the entirety of the abortion procedure.
1:08:59
And that's what God would want.
1:09:01
And he has sphere sovereignty.
1:09:02
So that's what we're going to do.
1:09:04
Whereas the incremental approach is we're going to get through the legislature or through
1:09:07
the whatever legal body, whatever that we can get through that's going to help save lives.
1:09:13
And what I've asked to people that are on the quote unquote radical side, the full criminalization
1:09:17
full stop.
1:09:18
Don't want to talk about anything else is if that weren't on the books, but it was either
1:09:23
no legislation or this legislation that would automatically delete a percentage of babies
1:09:28
that were being born or being not born, being killed in the womb.
1:09:32
Would you take that deal?
1:09:33
And they never say yes, they either obfuscate or they straight up say no, it's all about
1:09:38
sphere sovereignty.
1:09:39
It's all about this approach.
1:09:41
But then when I read your book, you have these people that were in the pro-life fight, Leah,
1:09:46
for decades.
1:09:47
And they fought for the incremental stuff, but then they saw how easily these incremental
1:09:51
laws were just turned on their heads.
1:09:53
I mean, just recently the state of Wisconsin, they had $50 million poured into a Supreme
1:09:58
Court race there.
1:10:00
And it basically flipped the court liberal.
1:10:02
And now any pro-life legislation in the state of Wisconsin is basically going to be crumbled
1:10:06
up and thrown away by the activist Supreme Court that they now have in the state of
1:10:11
Wisconsin.
1:10:12
And so now people are like, you know what, effort, we're burning the ships and we're
1:10:15
just going to go for full criminalization, right for the jump.
1:10:19
No more of this incremental crap, but it's kind of vacillated back and forth.
1:10:22
So talk to me a little bit about incrementalism versus radicalism.
1:10:26
Yeah.
1:10:27
Well, so sorry I tell in the book is about Janet Forger Porter.
1:10:33
She used to be a part of mainstream pro-life groups in Ohio making those incremental gains.
1:10:43
And I want to say she's on the full criminalization side, at least not at the time of the story
1:10:48
that I tell in the book, but she moved to wanting to pass a heartbeat bill in Ohio.
1:10:55
And that's when everyone that was used to be, her teammates kind of turns around and
1:11:02
is like, no, we're not pushing for a heartbeat bill now, though it's not the right political
1:11:06
climate.
1:11:07
You know, it's not the right time, it's going to cause these other issues down the road.
1:11:11
So, and that wasn't even full criminalization, it was just a heartbeat bill, which are now
1:11:15
pretty common.
1:11:16
But at the time, the people in the kind of mainstream like right to life groups in Ohio
1:11:23
just were opposing her over this.
1:11:25
So it was interesting kind of seeing her story.
1:11:28
She wrote a book about her experience and seeing her story of how things really shifted
1:11:33
once she tried to push for something that was a little, you know, less incremental, more
1:11:38
on the radical end, just the pushback she received.
1:11:42
But later those right to life groups in the state adopted the pro-life or adopted the
1:11:48
heartbeat legislation as their next goal, because they saw that, you know, the political
1:11:53
atmosphere seemed to be more favorable to that.
1:11:58
So yeah, it's really interesting kind of seeing how some people who are, you know, all about
1:12:02
the incremental stuff, eventually sometimes recognizing like, oh man, I, you know, this
1:12:08
just isn't working and getting frustrated and moving on to a different solution.
1:12:13
And I think we'll probably keep seeing that we've been seeing that for a long time, and
1:12:16
there's always been kind of a disagreement among pro-lifers as to what the approach should
1:12:21
be.
1:12:22
I think that disagreement, unfortunately, will continue, but I mean, who's to say what's
1:12:28
going to happen?
1:12:29
I think one thing that's been on my mind is just the number of state constitutional amendments
1:12:37
that went pro-abortion in the last election.
1:12:40
So Montana, Kentucky, Michigan, Vermont, and California, they all had abortion-related
1:12:47
amendments on the ballot in November.
1:12:50
About one of them turned out with a pro-life victory.
1:12:54
So in three states, one of them being Michigan where I live, three states, Michigan, California,
1:12:59
and Vermont, passed amendments, voters, voters, you know, supported amendments to add a right
1:13:07
to abortion to their state constitutions.
1:13:10
And in Kentucky and Montana, pro-life measures failed to pass.
1:13:16
And you're thinking that's Kentucky, like, how could that be possible?
1:13:20
But I think we're seeing a lot of fear from the just everyday voters, like, uncertainty
1:13:26
about what it will look like for a state to get rid of abortion, to pass anti-abortion
1:13:34
legislation.
1:13:35
There's just a lot of confusion.
1:13:36
And I think some of that comes from the disagreements between, you know, among people who oppose
1:13:42
abortion, among the people who have these different legislative strategies.
1:13:47
But I think if people actually sat down and listened to what these people who oppose abortion
1:13:54
want, I think there would, you know, mainstream culture would maybe understand better what
1:14:00
the goal is.
1:14:01
It's not like they want women to die.
1:14:02
I think that's the, that's kind of the image that everyday voters have of pro-lifers is,
1:14:08
"Oh, they hate women," because that's the image that the pro-abortion industry is pushing
1:14:12
and they have a lot of money to push that image.
1:14:15
And so let's talk about that, because that confusion you're talking about, it's not just
1:14:20
accidental confusion.
1:14:21
This is done on purpose.
1:14:23
And so I remember Kansas basically had the first thing before the midterms, and it was
1:14:27
pro-life legislation, red state, and this legislation failed and failed by like a two
1:14:32
to one margin.
1:14:33
And people were shocked.
1:14:34
And I was like, I wasn't because Planned Parenthood and other organizations spent tens
1:14:39
of millions of dollars to lie to the people in Kansas basically saying, "Yep, if a woman
1:14:46
has an ectopic pregnancy in Kansas, she's going to be sentenced to death."
1:14:49
That's basically all there is to it.
1:14:51
All of these lies, they had no bearing in reality, but guess what?
1:14:55
It doesn't matter which true or not.
1:14:56
It matters what people believe.
1:14:58
Like think about, you know, hear people talk about January 6 with Donald Trump.
1:15:01
It's like, it doesn't matter what you believe about January 6.
1:15:04
It matters what the electorate believes about January 6.
1:15:07
Truth doesn't really come into play here.
1:15:10
It matters the people's perception of that truth.
1:15:13
But really, I feel like the incremental versus radical approach hinges really hinges for
1:15:17
me at least on one thing, and that is women being held criminally liable for the murder
1:15:23
of their children.
1:15:24
Now, for me, and I know this is an extreme position, I guess you could say even in the
1:15:28
pro-life side of things, I do think that women should be held criminally liable for ending
1:15:32
that life.
1:15:33
And the reason is, is because of just a basic scenario.
1:15:36
Let's say my wife just hated her brother, okay?
1:15:39
But she didn't want to shed her own brother's hand by her blood by her hand.
1:15:44
So she hired somebody who had a staff of people that were going to go and kill their brother.
1:15:49
So she pays them to do it, and all the assassins get together.
1:15:53
One of them's just the driver.
1:15:54
One of the guys just made sure the gun was loaded, and then one guy got to her brother's
1:15:57
house and pulled the trigger and actually killed him.
1:15:59
Well, guess what?
1:16:01
If they find those guys after the murder, they're going to make sure that all of them
1:16:04
are charged with the same kind, and if they find out that they were paid to do that by
1:16:09
somebody, guess what?
1:16:10
My wife would get the exact same charges to a certain degree as the men that were actually
1:16:16
involved in the actual killing of her brother.
1:16:18
But even pro-lifers, we just, all of a sudden, pretend as if these women have no earthly
1:16:24
idea what they're doing and that they have no agency in that decision.
1:16:28
It's the only place where these justice-minded people supposedly are saying, well, yeah,
1:16:33
well, her ignorance of what's actually going on is why we shouldn't make her liable.
1:16:37
No, I don't think it's extreme at all to say that everyone involved in the taking of that
1:16:42
human life should have to pay for the taking of that human life.
1:16:46
What do you say?
1:16:47
Yeah.
1:16:48
Well, I think that when it comes to the gospel specifically, too, if women don't think that
1:16:52
they have any agency in the decisions they're making, then in that specific case, do they
1:16:59
not need the gospel?
1:17:01
You know, does the gospel not apply to the abortion?
1:17:04
I think sometimes it's that kind of confusion, too, that thought of like, well, I'm a victim
1:17:11
of this abortion industry, so I didn't do anything wrong in the abortion.
1:17:16
But in reality, no matter what the pressures are that you receive, there is still something
1:17:22
deep down in your heart that is prioritizing maybe what your boyfriend says over what God
1:17:28
says, so that whole idea of like, you know, being a victim because of pressure, sure,
1:17:35
maybe there's an element of pressure, but you can't, you know, just because I felt pressured
1:17:41
to steal something, say, doesn't mean I'm innocent of stealing it.
1:17:46
So, I think right there, I think we have to think about that, biblically and think about
1:17:52
what the implications are for the gospel issue if we kind of give everyone a free pass.
1:17:59
I think it also, like what I was talking about earlier, it also puts abortion in a different
1:18:04
category where, you know, maybe you like that woman I mentioned earlier, maybe that's why
1:18:08
she thought it was not a sin that Christ's death paid for.
1:18:14
So yeah, I think I'd be really careful about that.
1:18:17
And in talking with people at pregnancy centers, I really appreciated the ones, like the staff
1:18:23
who have told me about how they're able to share the gospel with women and not say,
1:18:28
oh, you know, you're a good person, like you, you're not doing anything wrong, but rather,
1:18:34
you know, force them to look at themselves, look at their heart motivations and ask who
1:18:40
am I prioritizing in making this decision?
1:18:42
Am I prioritizing myself, am I prioritizing my boyfriend, or am I looking to what God
1:18:51
wants me to do?
1:18:53
And I think a lot of women, even I've spoken to, would tell you that if it had been murder
1:19:00
for them to kill their child, they wouldn't have done it.
1:19:02
So, so there are some really, there are going to be some hard questions that the pro-life
1:19:07
movement has to wrestle through with this issue because there are a lot of people who
1:19:11
are pushing for, well, a lot, I guess I would say there are, they're louder today than what
1:19:18
I remember hearing just a couple of years ago, but people who are saying we need to
1:19:22
classify this just as murder and not put it in its own category of killing, that's murdering
1:19:28
me to, you know, press charges accordingly.
1:19:33
So yeah, definitely the pro-life movement and then these other groups that are pushing
1:19:37
for full criminalization, they're going to have to talk these things out, you know, they're
1:19:42
going to have to figure out how they're going to approach these hard questions.
1:19:47
But I think it is important to keep in mind that in all of this, we shouldn't be giving
1:19:51
someone a free pass, but rather, but rather giving them a reason to look back to the gospel
1:19:58
instead of just assuming that they're good on their own.
1:20:01
No, we're all sinners.
1:20:02
We all have fallen short of God's glory.
1:20:05
And in some cases, one of the kind of illustrations of that is that you've gotten an abortion.
1:20:12
It doesn't put you in a different class of human being that you have an abortion.
1:20:16
You're just a sinner like everyone else, but just like every other sin, that sin needs
1:20:20
to be laid at the foot of the cross and Christ's death will cover that sin if, you know, if
1:20:28
you will lay it at his feet.
1:20:30
Well, and I think it is definitely a category issue, a categorization issue, because people
1:20:36
are going to talk about that in the same terms as like, well, would you criminalize a woman
1:20:41
that stills a loaf of bread to feed her starving family?
1:20:45
Would you criminalize someone that lied to the Gestapo when they were hiding Jews under
1:20:49
their floorboards?
1:20:50
It's like these are not even vaguely the same thing because I think I think there's not
1:20:56
a pastor in the world that would say, no, that woman should hurt should, you know, allow
1:21:00
the image bearers of God to die as opposed to stealing.
1:21:04
Oh, no, I think that they should have allowed those Jews to be frog marched out into the
1:21:08
middle of the street and shot right there in front of this person's house.
1:21:12
Like again, I think it's a major category error for people that are looking these things
1:21:16
and they're pretending like it's a hard thing to think through, but it's really, really
1:21:20
not.
1:21:21
Now here we are well over an hour into this interview.
1:21:24
Let's go ahead and talk about the Dobbs decision.
1:21:25
I feel like we've been leaning all the way to this position.
1:21:28
But as all of us saw in May, the second of 2022, Politico actually leaked a 98 page draft
1:21:34
opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito.
1:21:36
And it was, you know, the majority opinion in the Dobbs versus Jackson women's health
1:21:40
organization case, which would overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
1:21:46
And then just a couple months later, June the 24th of 2022, one of the greatest days
1:21:49
in the history of this country, the Supreme Court of the United States released a full
1:21:52
opinion. And indeed, those two decisions were overturned.
1:21:56
It was just as Thomas Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, or Comey Barrett that joined Alito.
1:22:03
Roberts didn't join them because he's a slimy yellow belly coward.
1:22:06
But there were a lot of reactions to this there.
1:22:09
Obviously this was the dominant news story of all the dominant news stories for 2022,
1:22:13
at least for my money.
1:22:15
But that, as you mentioned earlier, there are a lot of dominoes that started to fall
1:22:19
after that. There were every, there was everything that happened in the midterms.
1:22:23
There was the lies that were being propagated by Planned Parenthood by the Democratic Party.
1:22:28
But I repeat myself by the mainstream media, but I repeat myself all going towards this
1:22:32
pro-abortion type of attitude.
1:22:35
So we've seen a lot of fallout and we're going to continue to see fallout.
1:22:39
But I guess for you, what was your reaction?
1:22:42
Not only to the league, but to the actual overturning because it's the only show that
1:22:45
I did not in a black v-neck because I was on a lawn mower and someone texted me and said,
1:22:50
"Hey, it was overturned."
1:22:51
So I literally run up to my studio and just record my reaction like it's legitimately
1:22:55
one of the greatest things I've ever been able to experience.
1:22:58
But now here we are.
1:22:59
I was telling pro-lifers for years before that, guys, even if it's overturned, the fight is
1:23:04
just beginning.
1:23:06
So let's talk about your reaction and then let's talk about what the fight is going to look
1:23:09
like into the future.
1:23:10
Yeah, well, so when the league happened in May, I think both Marvin and I were pretty
1:23:17
surprised.
1:23:18
We're like, "Oh, wow, that's a really strong overturn of Roe.
1:23:24
We thought it would be more of a upholding Mississippi's 15-week law, which was the
1:23:30
law behind the case.
1:23:32
We thought it would be upholding that, allowing states to pass 15-week bans and maybe push
1:23:37
for six-week heartbeat laws.
1:23:41
But then when we saw this league draft, it was like, "Oh, well, that was farther than
1:23:46
we expected."
1:23:48
We were obviously cautiously optimistic.
1:23:50
That was the two words of those couple months whenever I would talk to people in the pro-like
1:23:55
movement.
1:23:56
They're like, "Oh, well, I'm cautiously optimistic that we will see something similar in the
1:24:00
final opinion."
1:24:01
So then when we actually did get that in the final opinion, I mean, I cried.
1:24:08
I knew what would be coming, basically, no, I didn't know what would be coming, but I
1:24:13
knew that it's not the end of the fight.
1:24:17
But I think it was just like after having talked with pro-lifers who have been in this
1:24:23
for decades, it was just an encouragement to see this finally happen.
1:24:29
I was thinking about like, "Wow, they must be so excited to see the overturn of Roe."
1:24:35
But at the same time, I knew that this is not what a lot of people were shooting for
1:24:39
originally back in the 1970s.
1:24:42
They wanted not only states to be allowed to legislate on abortion, but rather they wanted
1:24:49
abortion to be illegal.
1:24:51
They just wanted abortion to be not an option for the country, but that's not what we got.
1:25:00
In this opinion, we got an opinion that basically returns to the states the power and the ability
1:25:07
to legislate on the abortion issue, which is why now New York, Illinois, California, states
1:25:12
like that have set themselves up to be abortion destinations in the country, while other states
1:25:17
are moving towards shutting down abortion facilities, passing pro-life laws.
1:25:26
I think we'll continue to see that.
1:25:28
One thing that I've seen happen a lot, and we really did see this last November, like
1:25:34
I mentioned with those constitutional amendments, I think we'll continue to see those pro-abortion
1:25:39
amendments on ballots.
1:25:41
It will be interesting to see how voters react.
1:25:45
I think that the pro-life movement has a lot of educating to do, but a lot of also Christians
1:25:53
in general just have a lot of sharing the gospel to do because I think it ultimately
1:25:59
comes down to the heart, and we can't leave the gospel out of this, we can't leave God
1:26:04
out of this.
1:26:07
If we're going to affect the culture, we can't leave behind our greatest weapon, which is
1:26:12
the word of God.
1:26:15
Yeah, so moving forward, I think just keep an eye on those amendments, see what states
1:26:20
push for basically state level versions of Roe v. Wade, or even worse actual state level
1:26:27
constitutional amendments that will add a right to abortion to the state, and also look
1:26:32
to those pro-life states, and how are they dealing with this?
1:26:36
Are they pushing for heartbeat bills?
1:26:41
Are they going beyond that?
1:26:43
What sorts of supports are they offering to women?
1:26:47
How are they supporting pregnancy centers in the state legislatures?
1:26:53
So yeah, this is in my mind somewhat of a big question mark to see how things go down,
1:26:59
but I'm thankful to know that the Lord of Sovereign over all of it, and he will accomplish
1:27:03
his purposes.
1:27:04
When I think you're a spot on that this is a gospel issue, whenever I talk about mass
1:27:09
shootings or school shootings or something like that, you know, everyone loves to run
1:27:13
to their side of, oh, it's the gun's fault, or it's a problem with no security at the
1:27:17
school.
1:27:18
It's a problem with soft targets.
1:27:19
And there's truth to at least some of those arguments.
1:27:21
But ultimately, this is a gospel issue because if we're known by our fruit, I'm assuming fruit
1:27:25
is not grabbing multiple weapons and going into a school and killing innocent children.
1:27:29
I don't think that that is fruit of a Christian life or a deep and actual belief in the gospel.
1:27:35
But we have covered a lot of ground in this discussion today.
1:27:38
Again, guys, the name of the book is the story of abortion in America, a street level history
1:27:43
from 1652 to 2022.
1:27:45
I can't recommend this book anymore highly.
1:27:48
It is just an absolute tremendous book.
1:27:50
I'm so glad that you were a part of it and that you were able to come and talk to our
1:27:52
audience about it today.
1:27:54
But that's all for me.
1:27:55
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
1:27:56
No, but thank you so much for having me.
1:27:58
I'm glad we got to talk about the book.
1:28:00
And I hope people can read it because I think it has a lot of really valuable stories in
1:28:05
there that I think will be helpful as people approach culture and trying to have these conversations
1:28:11
about abortion.
1:28:13
I absolutely agree.
1:28:14
It is in the show notes, guys.
1:28:15
Go and pick it up yourself.
1:28:17
Leah Savas.
1:28:18
Thank you for coming on on Dontalife.
1:28:19
A man's podcast.
1:28:20
Thanks so much for having me.
1:28:21
There you go, guys.
1:28:22
I hope you enjoyed my time with Leah Savas.
1:28:23
But before I let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
1:28:26
Add on Dontalife.
1:28:27
Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual
1:28:30
mental and physical resilience.
1:28:32
So here are the links I've got for you today.
1:28:33
I've got an Amazon link to where you can go and buy your own copy of the story of abortion
1:28:36
in America.
1:28:37
A link to Leah's Twitter page and a link to world's website.
1:28:40
Thank you guys for listening to this episode.
1:28:42
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1:28:46
If you want to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, you shoot me an email
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1:28:51
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1:28:53
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1:29:02
And as always, we want to thank the band, August Burns Red, for allowing us to use their music
1:29:05
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1:29:06
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1:29:10
re-recording of their album Leveler.
1:29:12
The links are in the description.
1:29:14
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:29:16
Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.
1:29:22
Keep seeking the Lion of Judah.
1:29:40
You'll be revived.