Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1015 ｜ Abortion Colonialism： How the West Blackmails the Third World ｜ Guest： Dr. Calum Miller

00:00:00.820 Dr. Callum Miller is a pro-life advocate. He graduated from the University of Oxford Medical

00:00:06.800 School in 2015. He has published over 30 academic papers in medicine, law, philosophy, and ethics.

00:00:13.940 He is here today to talk about why he has taken this stance, why he is so passionate about the

00:00:20.240 pro-life cause. And he is also sounding the alarm about something called abortion colonialism,

00:00:25.940 where rich Western countries like the United States go to other countries and basically

00:00:31.460 blackmail the poor governments and the poor individuals there into supporting abortion.

00:00:38.860 He is going to highlight that atrocity for us today and equip us with the tools to push back.

00:00:44.520 This is an amazing conversation. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:00:49.180 Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use code ALI at checkout. That's GoodRanchers.com, code ALI.

00:00:55.940 Dr. Miller, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. If you could tell everyone who you are

00:01:09.020 and what you do. Yes, I'm a medical doctor. I graduated about 10 years ago now from Oxford,

00:01:14.920 and I also teach philosophy there and do research on abortion policy there. So a lot of my work now

00:01:20.120 is speaking around the world and doing interviews and debates and things like that. But my sort of

00:01:25.000 original work was really in medicine and academic research on the topic of abortion.

00:01:29.740 How many anti-abortion people are you surrounded by there?

00:01:33.440 In England? Yeah. There are not many.

00:01:35.780 Or just even just where you are in your particular field of study.

00:01:38.860 Yeah. Well, so my country is about 6% pro-life if you look at surveys. So we're really a very

00:01:44.800 small minority. I grew up pro-choice and I changed my mind at medical school. And so for me,

00:01:50.620 I mean, that's an unusual direction to go in the UK. And so particularly, you know, you see people

00:01:56.100 in academia and in the medical field tend to be more pro-choice than average still. So it's a very

00:02:02.020 small number. But, you know, we have to use our voice where we can. And fortunately, we're still in

00:02:09.680 a moment where it's still relatively liberal. Like I haven't, you know, people try to get me in

00:02:14.480 trouble. It hasn't worked yet. And so at least at the moment, we're in a relatively liberal space

00:02:20.160 kind of thing. Yeah. And 6% pro-life, what's the definition of that, of that kind of pro-life?

00:02:27.000 So that would be, I think, trying to remember the survey, but I think it was a woman should be able 0.60

00:02:32.280 to get an abortion, something like that. And so 6% said no. Okay. Gotcha. And so you said that you

00:02:39.060 grew up being pro-choice, changed your mind in medical school. That's not the typical trajectory.

00:02:44.320 Most people get even more radicalized in the direction of abortion or just progressivism in

00:02:50.400 medical school. So tell us about that. Tell us first like why you were pro-choice, what your thinking

00:02:55.500 was about that, and then what changed your mind? Yeah. So I kind of grew up just with the average view

00:03:00.240 in the UK, which is that it should be a woman's choice. In the early stage of pregnancy, it's not 0.95

00:03:05.740 really anything significant. And so at the same time, later in pregnancy, I thought, no, that's too

00:03:12.560 late. Like you shouldn't allow abortion late in pregnancy. So it wasn't- Just kind of intuitively

00:03:15.980 you felt that? I think so. It wasn't kind of, you know, it wasn't the whole like absolute bodily

00:03:20.600 autonomy abortion up to birth for any reason, which you get a lot more in the US. In the UK, pretty much

00:03:25.360 everyone thinks there should be limits on abortion. So here in the US, about a third of the population

00:03:30.700 say abortion for any reason up to birth. And in Europe, that's pretty much unheard of. Like almost

00:03:35.940 no one supports that. And that's really because we think in the early stage of pregnancy, it's not

00:03:40.380 really a human. In the late stage of pregnancy, it is, and therefore it has to be protected.

00:03:44.880 And so I just had that average European view. And fortunately at university, and I know this is 0.99

00:03:52.100 increasingly rare at university, I had the chance to interact with different opinions. And it was a

00:03:56.420 time where I could challenge my opinions. I saw in first year that this was a human being, that life

00:04:02.260 began at conception. That was just a biological fact. It wasn't anything religious. And then it was

00:04:07.880 really over time, I saw the impact on a woman's mental health. I saw what abortion actually involved.

00:04:13.180 And because I had the knowledge to separate truth from falsehood, you know, I could see when

00:04:19.080 groups like Planned Parenthood were just making stuff up or lying because I knew that, you know,

00:04:24.000 the reality, it gave me a much more honest look at the conversation. And I remember this one time I

00:04:30.700 was already pro-life by this point, but something that really solidified it for me was I was doing,

00:04:35.940 I was involved in a cesarean section and I was on placement in obstetrics. We were doing a cesarean

00:04:41.980 section and it was twin babies. And so it's a very surreal thing to do. You would think it's more

00:04:48.100 technical than it actually is, but you do just kind of grab the babies and pull them out.

00:04:52.580 Yeah. I've had two C-sections. And yeah, you do, you feel, even though you're supposed to be

00:04:58.320 numbed, you feel the moment they literally just like, all this pressure is like relieved from

00:05:03.120 your body as they just pull this little baby out of you. It's crazy.

00:05:05.980 Right. Well, unsurprisingly, I don't have that experience, but I did do the pulling. And,

00:05:11.260 you know, because it was twins, there was a point where there was one twin baby outside of the womb

00:05:16.100 and their twin brother or sister was still inside. And what that meant in the country I was in,

00:05:21.880 I was in New Zealand at the time, was that that baby outside of the womb was a full human being

00:05:26.700 with the full set of human rights, just as equal to anyone else that we have to do everything to

00:05:31.720 protect. And if their life was in jeopardy, we would do everything possible to protect them.

00:05:37.440 And yet their identical brother or sister inside, who's the same in every way,

00:05:42.500 just a different location, didn't have those rights at all and was seen as something completely

00:05:47.760 different, not a human being, something that the woman should have choice over and that sort of 1.00

00:05:52.160 thing. And so that just reinforced to me how crazy it is that we see birth as this moment that changes

00:05:58.680 everything in terms of the baby itself, because I could see them. I could see both babies. They look

00:06:03.960 the same. They were pretty much the same. And for me, it became even more clear that, you know,

00:06:09.480 both of these were human beings that needed to be protected.

00:06:13.060 And you said that you were already pro-life at that point. Was there a turning point for you

00:06:18.800 and the light switch turning on in which you went from pro-choice to pro-life? Or was it just kind of

00:06:25.460 a gathering of facts and beliefs over time that led you to saying, you know what, I don't think

00:06:30.480 access to abortion is the answer?

00:06:33.040 I think it was quite gradual. And I think this is the trajectory we see for most people. And it's

00:06:37.480 something to be aware of as pro-lifers that we shouldn't necessarily just expect people to shift

00:06:42.020 in one go, that most people shift step by step over time. And that was my experience. A lot of it

00:06:48.640 was, you know, seeing the reality of abortion, seeing when life began, etc. But then I had to

00:06:54.380 wrestle with a lot of complicated philosophical debates. And it was actually some of my American

00:06:59.300 friends who were over in Oxford studying philosophy who were much more passionate about this, felt very

00:07:04.880 strongly about this and engaged me on these things. And, you know, I had to deal with these worries

00:07:11.060 about, you know, if it's not conscious yet, is it still morally, you know, important and that kind of

00:07:15.720 thing. And I wrestled with that for quite a long time before I really just became convinced of the

00:07:20.220 pro-life perspective.

00:07:21.480 And were you raised religious at all?

00:07:26.200 Not very. So we went to church, but it was an extremely liberal church. It would be like

00:07:31.420 the equivalent of the liberal Presbyterians in the U.S. who don't really believe much that's in

00:07:36.600 the Bible or anything else. And so we would never speak about it at home. Like my parents are just

00:07:43.160 not engaged at all when it comes to speaking to us about it. So, yeah, we certainly weren't a fiercely

00:07:50.440 religious kind of family. And at church, you know, you would never hear about anything like this at

00:07:56.260 all. And if you did, it would probably be pro-choice. So, yeah.

00:07:59.760 And has that changed in your adult life?

00:08:02.680 Yeah. So I go to a sort of conservative Church of England church, which there is such a thing.

00:08:07.980 The Church of England is extremely diverse. So telling someone you're in it doesn't really

00:08:12.540 tell you anything. You could be basically an atheist and some of the priests are atheist in

00:08:17.040 the Church of England. 0.83

00:08:17.920 Insane. I don't understand. I don't understand that at all.

00:08:20.840 I mean, yeah, it's not even like they just openly say. So it's very strange.

00:08:25.360 But then you do get sort of conservative evangelicals there as well. And so, especially

00:08:30.680 for me, I grew up as a teenager being, you know, very, I sort of believed in the basics

00:08:37.180 of Christianity, but also some heresies and believed kind of anything I wanted to that

00:08:43.680 was convenient. To the point where all the stuff I was reading was that if you're intellectual,

00:08:49.140 if you're academic, if you're a smart person, you become a liberal, either an atheist or a 1.00

00:08:53.740 liberal Christian, because evangelicals are dumb, they're mean, they're ignorant, they're 1.00

00:08:57.060 uneducated. And all the stuff I was reading said that, especially Americans, I'm sorry 1.00

00:09:01.000 to say. And then I just at university again at Oxford, I met some evangelicals. They were

00:09:07.100 very good people, intelligent, well-educated, could have a real conversation. And we had

00:09:12.820 actually set up an alternative Christian union in our university. We were like, we don't want 1.00

00:09:17.400 to be part of the evangelical one. We're going to set up a liberal Christian union. So I was

00:09:21.400 the leader of them, the founder of them. And it was really seeing the sort of emptiness

00:09:27.880 and the vacuity of their arguments as I was leading it that made me think, as an intellectual

00:09:35.140 academic kind of person, this doesn't really sit well with me. I want to know the truth.

00:09:39.540 And then I met these evangelicals who were really good, educated, thoughtful people.

00:09:43.600 Were they American?

00:09:44.700 They were English. It was only later that I met Americans who were also good, intelligent,

00:09:49.940 educated people. And so it completely upended my expectations and the stereotypes that I'd

00:09:57.700 been taught. And so this is something we still see in England, that especially American evangelicals 0.86

00:10:02.980 are just portrayed as thoughtless and totally disengaged with anything sort of intellectual

00:10:08.300 or credible. And thanks to God, over the last five or 10 years, I've seen the opposite, that

00:10:14.880 there's a great wealth of, you know, intellectual vibrance and, and also so much good that is

00:10:22.500 just arising from people that are dedicated to doing the right thing because of their faith.

00:10:26.340 Do you remember any particular conversations or subjects on which you said, oh, wow, I've

00:10:45.940 never thought about it like that, that really kind of served as an impetus for your theological

00:10:51.560 change?

00:10:54.840 Not that I, I mean, abortion is probably the best example. I, yeah, that was, that was 0.99

00:11:00.340 something I'd never really thought of. And I, I was probably in the middle of kind of converting

00:11:07.100 to evangelicalism by the time I became pro-life. I can't really remember the details, but it

00:11:11.360 definitely didn't kind of go together. It wasn't like I became an evangelical, I switched

00:11:15.720 on abortion. They were both totally separate intellectual processes. And so, you know, I'm going to be

00:11:21.320 like, you know, as I've gone on being an evangelical, and I know that word is like a nasty word in

00:11:28.260 America.

00:11:29.040 Yeah. Well, it could mean something different. It certainly has political undertones, at least

00:11:35.220 to it here in America, because it's like a political subset of American life.

00:11:39.160 When this is the sad thing, you know, it's, it now signals to people in many parts of the

00:11:44.220 world that like, I have a particular political perspective. I'm like, absolutely MAGA kind of

00:11:49.440 thing. And, you know, I would vote for Trump. I've always been very open about that. I think

00:11:54.020 he's an awful candidate, but I think he's the best we've got. And so that's my position. I'm

00:11:58.300 very open. I think he's terrible, but he's the lesser of the two evils. And I'm ready to criticize

00:12:05.080 him when he needs to be criticized, ready to criticize any Republican or whoever, when they

00:12:10.320 need to be criticized, because as Christians, we stand for truth and integrity more than any

00:12:14.540 politics. And I think it's sad to see some of my evangelical friends run away from the

00:12:20.220 label because they think, I don't want people to think I'm, you know, a Trump supporter or

00:12:25.680 Republican or mean or whatever it is. And the reality is, what it really means is that you're,

00:12:31.560 you know, you're committed to Jesus, who's the best person who's ever lived. And you follow

00:12:37.040 him and you believe what he taught about himself. And that's, you know, however much trouble it

00:12:42.040 might get me in or whatever stereotypes people might make about me because of the label I use.

00:12:47.440 I think we should still use that label because it's still true that I follow Jesus, that I think

00:12:51.420 he's the best person ever. And that what he said about himself was true. And so I'm happy to pin my

00:12:57.140 badge to his, yeah. Right. Yeah. I agree with you. I understand that the left really controls

00:13:04.660 much of the means of information and controls. Even we were just talking about how, like when Trump

00:13:14.280 was convicted of all of these felonies, the Encyclopedia Britannica tweeted, like, we've

00:13:20.280 already updated his bio. And I just say that as an example of how really progressivism dominates

00:13:28.140 these once neutral institutions that are in charge of a lot of our information and a lot of our

00:13:33.480 language. And if we continue to allow them to take over all of the definitions of all of the terms

00:13:40.240 and all of the language that we use, then we're going to be left with nothing. And so at some point

00:13:44.640 you have to just kind of counterclaim it and just say, no, evangelical means what it means. And we don't

00:13:51.740 have to give in to the left's redefining of things. So I agree with you there. One thing that she said

00:13:59.140 that was interesting and I want to go back to is the difference in abortion perspective in America

00:14:04.040 and there is that it's a lot more extreme here in the United States. I mean, it's really hard to find

00:14:09.980 anyone in the Democratic Party who will say publicly, here's what the limit on abortion should be.

00:14:15.740 Instead, they say things like, we just need to trust women and their doctors, which is just kind of a

00:14:21.780 euphemism for abortion through all nine months for any reason without apology and subsidized by the

00:14:29.260 taxpayer. You said that's really hard to find in Europe. Why is that?

00:14:35.240 I guess I should clarify. It's not hard to find among the activist class and among, you know, the

00:14:39.760 radicals, but they're a tiny proportion of the population and even they shy away from it. So on 1.00

00:14:45.660 television, you know, what they will push for is basically abortion for any reason up to birth,

00:14:50.560 but they will say, you know, this won't change the limit that, you know, the proposal they're

00:14:55.920 putting forward. They'll say the 12 week limit or the 24 week limit will stay in place because they

00:15:00.580 know that most people disagree with them even as they push for this. And so to be honest, I don't

00:15:05.960 know why it's Europe is like that. And the main guess I would have is that it's really a reaction

00:15:12.620 to the other side. So in Europe, you don't really have a religious right. You don't really have strong

00:15:18.340 conservative movements or religious movements in politics. And you certainly don't have the sort of

00:15:25.060 toxicity sort of reaction to growing up in a sort of super religious household and then sort of

00:15:33.880 rebelling from that. So, you know, this whole deconstruction movement that's big in the US and

00:15:38.120 running away from, you know, religious trauma or abuse in the church and things like that.

00:15:42.620 Of course, we've had that in Europe, but nothing to the same level. So most people in Europe still

00:15:48.580 see themselves as religious in some way. And they don't see, you know, this big, bad sort of

00:15:56.000 MAGA Christian enemy that kind of needs to be defeated. They just see this sort of relatively 0.93

00:16:01.740 benign church that maybe is a bit antiquated and quirky, but it's not threatening. Whereas in America,

00:16:08.780 it's threatening. And so you sort of go to the opposite extreme and you say abortion for any

00:16:13.220 reason up to birth, it's a good thing. It's health care. We should all be paying for it.

00:16:17.120 Whereas in Europe, because basically conservatism has collapsed and religion has collapsed,

00:16:23.660 they haven't had the sort of scapegoat necessary to go to that extreme. And so most people have just

00:16:29.300 become kind of comfortable with this middle ground view of abortion, usually up to 12 weeks.

00:16:35.520 Most countries in Europe stop abortion at 12 weeks. The UK is 24 weeks. And a couple of

00:16:41.820 others are also quite late. But yeah, the average is, you know, a good example, Mississippi, the case 0.99

00:16:46.760 that overturned Roe v. Wade. This was a bill to ban abortion after 15 weeks. And everyone was talking

00:16:53.720 like the house was falling down, that this was like the Taliban taking over. And you look at Europe,

00:16:58.900 if Mississippi enacted that bill, which I guess maybe they did in the end, they would still be

00:17:04.040 one of the most liberal pro-abortion countries in Europe. And yet it was, you know, people were

00:17:09.600 talking as if this was going to be Afghanistan or somewhere else like that. So it really highlights

00:17:14.660 just how I think extreme the debate here has become.

00:17:18.060 Right. I think that the US is right in line with some human rights exemplars like North Korea 0.97

00:17:25.120 and China and some other countries that obviously are riddled with all kinds of atrocities. People

00:17:31.860 don't realize that not just when it comes to abortion, but when it comes to all kinds of

00:17:36.800 reproductive technology, that America really is the Wild West, that we're really the outlier when it

00:17:42.520 comes to how we treat pre-born life, how we treat embryos through IVF, how we treat babies via

00:17:49.300 surrogacy, and how we treat babies in abortion, is that we really are very liberal, very extreme

00:17:56.420 compared to the rest of the world. And you're right. We hear a lot that, oh, you're no, you

00:18:00.820 Christian, right? You're no different than the Taliban. You're Christian nationalist and fascist 1.00

00:18:05.340 because we believe in abortion limitations. So yeah, there is a big difference. It makes conversation 0.93

00:18:11.060 in the United States really hard, but I imagine it's also really difficult where you are too,

00:18:16.360 where so many people have just accepted, no, we're always going to have the 12 or 24 a week limit.

00:18:21.920 What's the point in changing it?

00:18:24.220 Yeah, it is difficult. And I think it actually has got more difficult since Dobbs v. Jackson,

00:18:29.660 which overturned Roe v. Wade, because to be honest, I get a lot of American interviewers or people who say,

00:18:38.520 you know, what's the impact of Dobbs around the world sort of expecting me to say, oh, it was great.

00:18:43.780 It's caused a whole kind of sea change towards pro-life in the rest of the world. And I'd love

00:18:48.540 if that were true. And certainly there are signs of hope in the rest of the world. But the reality

00:18:52.840 is in Europe, at least, it has mostly just mobilized the opposition. And so whereas we

00:18:58.540 once had this sort of stable equilibrium of 12 weeks or whatever, you now get all of the pro-abortion

00:19:05.080 groups in Europe massively mobilizing, saying, look at that, this can never happen here. We have to

00:19:10.340 really clamp down on speech and things like this. So, I mean, France is a good example. In France,

00:19:16.220 not only did they put it in the constitution, which I know is big news here, but they have a law that

00:19:20.780 means you cannot dissuade someone from an abortion. And what that means is when it's actually interpreted

00:19:26.760 by the judges more liberally than it was even written, it comes close to just banning pro-life

00:19:33.180 speech. And once you get to that situation, there's very little you can do. And so we have a task,

00:19:39.020 I think, in Europe of holding our ground when it comes to basic civil liberties on some of these

00:19:44.580 issues. But at the same time, I think there is a, there is an increasing movement even among young

00:19:51.820 people that is growing dissatisfied with the sort of crazy progressives in Europe. And so when you look

00:19:58.520 at polls in the UK, the young age group, 18 to 24, seems to be the most pro-life. It's not by much,

00:20:05.760 they're still only like 9% pro-life, but still significantly more than older age groups. And so,

00:20:11.140 you know, we never know how history is going to shift. If you were in the 1980s in the Soviet Union

00:20:17.920 or in Eastern Europe, you probably thought, you know, communism's doing just as well as it always

00:20:22.620 has, it's never going to end. And then suddenly, pretty much overnight, it collapsed. And my perspective

00:20:28.160 is, we have no idea from a purely historical perspective what's going to happen. From a theological

00:20:33.540 perspective, we have no idea what societal changes are going to happen. And our job is to stay

00:20:38.660 obedient. And so those seeds of hope, so that in 10 years, when that sort of major event does happen,

00:20:46.320 we're ready. And I think the US is in that position as well that, you know, you've had some very big

00:20:51.300 defeats in these ballot initiatives. But if you don't keep sowing the seeds and keep fighting, when you do get

00:20:58.660 at the moment in 10 years, you're not going to be ready. Whereas what's encouraged me is the people

00:21:02.840 who just keep going, keep going, keep going, we're not going to stop fighting. And then I think when

00:21:07.720 you do get that shift in 10 years, when people begin to question again, you'll be in a great position.

00:21:12.300 Sometimes I do get discouraged because I think, wow, we've got the technology that shows us exactly

00:21:30.380 what's going on in the womb. The science is all there. We can see it. We know or should know exactly 0.86

00:21:36.820 what happens in an abortion. If you can read through some of the euphemistic terminology on the

00:21:41.800 Planned Parenthood site, they basically tell you, this is how we quote unquote, terminate a pregnancy.

00:21:46.340 And I'm like, what else could we possibly need if people are not swayed by what they can see?

00:21:52.900 And like you said, see the cognitive dissonance of, okay, yes, I believe this baby outside of the

00:21:59.480 womb for two seconds is a full human being and shouldn't be murdered. But the twin baby just in

00:22:04.760 a different location should be murdered. And it's bodily autonomy, termination of the pregnancy. I'm like, 0.94

00:22:10.000 it's got to be some kind of spiritual awakening. It's not going to be the introduction of new

00:22:15.020 information. Do you agree with that?

00:22:17.840 To a large degree. I think you're absolutely right that there is this massive cognitive dissonance. And

00:22:23.620 one of the ways we've seen this most is with miscarriages. You know, one of our main abortion

00:22:27.580 providers in the UK actually confidently posts things like happy, or not happy, but sorry,

00:22:33.600 but like, um, we'll post something on Instagram, like about baby loss awareness month.

00:22:39.640 You're right.

00:22:40.300 And they call it a baby. It's to do with miscarriage. The abortion provider is even

00:22:44.700 supporting this terminology and using this terminology. And they feel confident that that's

00:22:49.800 not going to undermine their core business or their core movements. And that's because,

00:22:53.960 as you say, people are just very good at having this, this contradictory perspective.

00:22:58.820 And I think something that has been very insightful, um, that was shared with me was

00:23:04.780 thinking about how people really think through this decision, how women make this decision.

00:23:12.020 There's actually pretty good evidence that a large percentage, I can't remember if it's the

00:23:15.760 majority, but a large percentage of women know that this is a life and they know that they're ending 1.00

00:23:20.040 a life. And so we can't just assume if we just show the scientific reality, people will change

00:23:25.500 because it's, it's true in some cases, but not every case. And the best way I've heard it explained

00:23:30.960 is that if a woman is considering an abortion, it's usually out of fear and specifically fear that

00:23:39.140 she will lose her life as she knows it. And so it's not just done on a whim. It's not done for

00:23:45.340 medical reasons. Usually it's not usually done because of some extreme situation like rape or

00:23:50.380 disability or whatever. It's usually a social or economic reason, but it's a reason that the woman 1.00

00:23:56.760 thinks threatens her life as she knows it. I'm not going to be able to go out with my friends when I

00:24:01.640 want. I'm not going to be able to get the job I want or the promotion I want. My education will be

00:24:05.760 disrupted. I can't just go even just to the shops or the, you know, the park when I want to.

00:24:11.280 Some of my friends might alienate me. I might have trouble with relationships in future.

00:24:16.640 And so everything that's valuable in her life is threatened by that. And although she doesn't

00:24:21.220 literally feel I'm going to, I'm going to die if I have this baby, she feels like my sense of

00:24:26.800 identity and my life as I know it is going to die. And therefore it's not just a case of choosing

00:24:31.540 to kill or to save a life. It's not a choice between life and death. It's a choice between two

00:24:36.860 different lives and you can only save one of them. And so rather than her saying, I'm going to kill 0.99

00:24:42.640 my baby because I just want to, it's her saying one of us has to die and I have to choose myself 0.99

00:24:50.640 because I'm the person I know. I'm sort of the most important to me. This is something that's maybe

00:24:56.560 a life in its beginning or not fully a life yet. It's not a life that I can see. It's not a life that

00:25:02.240 has relationships and so on. And so that has to be the one, if I have to choose, that has to go.

00:25:08.660 And when you think about it that way, it makes so much more sense that you can tell her all day long,

00:25:14.680 this is a life that you're taking. And in many cases she will know and she say, yes, but the

00:25:19.320 alternative is I lose my own life. And I think that's a big part of the reason why abortion is 0.73

00:25:24.580 still so persistent, even when we have the science on our side.

00:25:27.180 And it's even though it's a physical life versus kind of a figurative life because she's not really

00:25:32.700 losing her life. She might be losing portions of what she expected her life to be, which weren't

00:25:37.940 even guaranteed in the first place, or what she perceives her future holding versus the real

00:25:44.360 physical life of a human being, which is why I think so many euphemisms are used, like terminating

00:25:51.000 a pregnancy, ending your pregnancy. Planned Parenthood says pregnancy tissue.

00:25:57.180 And because I think that she does understand that even if she's choosing a life for a life,

00:26:03.700 even if she realizes that's the choice, she knows that there's a difference between murdering

00:26:08.640 a human being and missing out on some things that you wanted to have or expected to have,

00:26:13.460 which is why I think the abortion lobby works so hard at obscuring the reality of what abortion

00:26:20.740 is. And I actually do find that a lot of the pro-choice people that I talk to, they don't know

00:26:26.280 what happens in an abortion. Or I'll explain what happens in an abortion and they'll just say that

00:26:31.060 I'm lying. And I'll say, okay, well, what do you think happens? And they don't want to say. And so

00:26:37.620 it is almost a choice of saying, well, I don't want to confront that reality because I do think

00:26:43.580 intuitively most people are very repelled by what an abortion is. And you can't really make someone

00:26:52.020 listen to you or see the truth if they've chosen not to out of convenience or comfort or guilt or

00:27:00.240 whatever it is.

00:27:01.400 I think that's right. Yeah. And I think, you know, euphemism is clearly a huge part of this. I

00:27:05.860 remember, you know, when I used to spend more time on the internet, I would say, I would just

00:27:10.480 quote an abortion procedure from an abortion like manual. And I would get people saying,

00:27:17.020 there's no way that that's true. If that was really how abortion happened, no one would be

00:27:21.600 pro-choice. And it really is incredible just the amount of misinformation that has to go. And this

00:27:28.920 is the other disheartening thing is, you know, we can give very objective information about what

00:27:34.000 happens, about the impact of abortion on women, the impact of abortion on society. And because the 0.97

00:27:40.160 institutions and academia has been so captured, and because people are so unwilling to believe it,

00:27:45.820 there are many times where you just cannot convince people, even when you have all the

00:27:50.080 facts on your side. And so it is frustrating. So I think part of the answer has to be working on the

00:27:56.260 institutions and opening a genuine debate, finding people with real credibility on the pro-life side

00:28:02.480 who cannot be just dismissed as, you know, a priest or whatever, but people who no one could deny

00:28:09.760 their credentials or their neutrality. I think that's important. But I guess coming back to what I was

00:28:14.820 saying before, I don't think we're going to solve this until we also show that motherhood can be a

00:28:21.000 path to success. So people feel like abortion is necessary. And when you read, you know, the people

00:28:28.500 in Casey versus Planned Parenthood, the Supreme Court justices, they say our society is founded now on

00:28:34.780 abortion. It's like something that's so fundamental to the structure of our society that to get rid of it

00:28:40.400 would completely upend and tear apart our societal fabric. And that's true. And it's because people

00:28:46.880 have been told that you have to choose between your life and your baby. And for some reason,

00:28:54.960 we feel like that's an okay choice to force women into. We feel like it's fine that women just have 1.00

00:29:00.760 to choose between the life of their child and then everything else in their life. Like that's a choice

00:29:05.620 they should be happy with. And, you know, it's okay for them to have only those two options.

00:29:10.420 And that's a terrible position for us to have put women in as a society. 1.00

00:29:15.120 But is it true? Is that a true choice that they really have? Or is that what they perceive the

00:29:20.820 choice to be?

00:29:22.180 I think, I honestly think it's a mix. I think, I think there are ways in which we've made motherhood

00:29:27.500 needlessly difficult. And part of that is by encouraging a society and a culture that puts it

00:29:32.740 all on the woman that says, this is a woman's issue. It's a woman's choice. It's a woman's 0.69

00:29:36.280 responsibility. Because by legalizing abortion, the man can suddenly say, this is your choice,

00:29:42.340 your body, and it's your problem, and I'm going to walk away. And so that has caused structural

00:29:46.820 issues that leave women in poverty and single motherhood and has gotten rid of the key support 0.57

00:29:51.980 system that the woman would have had in earlier times. There are other things, you know,

00:29:56.780 the maternity leave in this country is very limited compared to most other Western countries.

00:30:05.520 It's very difficult to be a parent, particularly in America in many cases, but all across the West,

00:30:12.760 because society has not made things good for parents. It's disincentivized parenting. And so

00:30:19.680 part of it is that there is a sort of choice that you have to make because of the bad decisions and bad

00:30:25.460 structures that we have put in place. But I also think this is overstated. So, you know, when you

00:30:30.840 look at the evidence, people will say, if you deny a woman abortion, she'll have huge mental health

00:30:35.440 problems, she'll have financial problems, she'll have problems with her employment and so on. And 1.00

00:30:40.420 this is where the evidence is actually very different. What we see is that if a woman has an abortion,

00:30:46.860 she's more likely to have mental health problems like anxiety and suicide. She's more likely to die

00:30:52.380 within a year than if she has a baby. And also, even when you look at employment and poverty,

00:30:57.820 you know, we were told that if you legalize abortion, you'll get rid of single motherhood,

00:31:01.360 you'll get rid of women in poverty, because they can just decide about what they want to do and do 1.00

00:31:05.840 what's best for them. The reality is, and this was shown by some very pro-choice economists,

00:31:12.320 when abortion was legalized in the US, women in poverty actually increased because all the men ran away,

00:31:19.700 because they thought this is a woman's issue now. And even on an individual level, 0.99

00:31:24.520 you read the stories of women, particularly in the lowest socioeconomic classes, 0.84

00:31:30.360 and having a baby changes their life in ways that people in middle-class backgrounds struggle to

00:31:36.820 understand. You know, we read that abortion bans are particularly bad for poor women and women of

00:31:42.520 colour and so on. The reality is actually the opposite, that it is usually the wealthiest people

00:31:48.700 who benefit most from abortion, because they have their lives put together already, everything's very

00:31:53.660 neat, they have many other things they want to do with their life, and therefore abortion lets them 0.64

00:31:58.480 carry on with that. What we see when we actually listen to women who are most vulnerable in society

00:32:03.860 is that these are women who might be on drugs, they might be drink-driving other weekends, 0.99

00:32:09.120 they might be doing all sorts of things, they might be unemployed, no incentive or motivation

00:32:14.080 to get educated or to find a job. And there are some incredible books and papers that show

00:32:20.120 it's this group of women which is most positively affected by having a child in many cases.

00:32:26.140 There are countless testimonies of women who say, 1.00

00:32:28.600 my life was an absolute mess before I had my baby, but my baby has given me a reason to get an

00:32:34.880 education, it's given me motivation to get a job, it's given me motivation to stop drinking,

00:32:40.580 to stop smoking, to stop doing drugs, to get out of an abusive relationship. My baby literally saved

00:32:46.240 my life. And as I say, this is not just anecdotes. There are whole studies and books on this topic

00:32:52.960 just looking at the phenomenon of motherhood among the poorest people in society, and the overwhelming 0.99

00:32:59.600 trend among these women, maybe not every case, but the overwhelming trend is having a baby saved my

00:33:06.360 life. It didn't ruin it, it saved my life. And that's something that I think we really need to

00:33:10.760 think about seriously. How do we support women in those situations? And for any woman, how do we make

00:33:16.740 motherhood that path to success? 0.95

00:33:30.200 And so it really is, it's, I mean, it's a lie when women believe that they are going to, in their entire 1.00

00:33:38.360 lives, are going to die when they have a child. But at the same time, it is true that there will be

00:33:44.320 sacrifices demanded of them that were not before. And that is true when it comes to any addition of

00:33:50.840 responsibility, but especially this kind of paramount responsibility of raising a child.

00:33:55.600 It is true that, to use Christian language, there will be a dying to self that happens. There will

00:34:00.840 be a lose yourself to find yourself situation going on. In parenthood, things will be deferred,

00:34:06.540 they will be delayed, in some ways they will be complicated. And I'm not saying there's no

00:34:11.180 policy solution for any of that. Like you mentioned, maternal leave. I don't know how much of that is

00:34:18.380 really connected to the reason why a woman has an abortion. But also, I think, so it's not a matter

00:34:26.960 of telling a woman, no, your life isn't going to change at all, but that it's worth it, that it can

00:34:34.140 actually be better with this addition of difficulty and sacrifice that will be demanded of you. Yes,

00:34:41.120 that is true. But it is worth it. Now, I'm not saying that that's easy, because I agree with you,

00:34:48.060 it would be a lot easier if the father stuck around. I see that as like a huge factor in why women get 1.00

00:34:53.420 abortions, it seems. If she had a familial support system, if she had a community surrounding her, 0.84

00:34:59.820 I think it would be a lot easier. But at the same time, even that impoverished, lonely woman 1.00

00:35:05.340 needs to hear that the sacrifices that you will make for this child are worth it. It's better to

00:35:11.120 sacrifice on behalf of the life of a child than ask that child to sacrifice its life on behalf of us.

00:35:17.820 Absolutely. And yeah, I mean, and this is true, empirically, when they study the same women who

00:35:23.800 were denied abortions. There's a big study called the Turnaway Study, where women went to get an abortion,

00:35:27.760 and then they were denied. And then they, in most cases, went to have the baby, showing that the law

00:35:32.120 does make an impact and that it does save lives. They followed those women up five years later.

00:35:37.660 And they asked the women who had the baby and kept the baby, do you wish you could still have an

00:35:41.780 abortion? And 98% said no. 98%. Overwhelmingly, they said, I'm glad I have my baby. I'm glad I

00:35:48.780 wasn't given the abortion, even though I wanted one. And so that testimony speaks for itself,

00:35:54.860 that they felt that this was worth it. I'm sure it wasn't easy. But I think you're right. We can

00:36:00.720 make, we can have policies and societies and structures which minimize the level of sacrifice

00:36:07.620 and make sacrifice easier and, you know, do make it, don't make it unnecessarily difficult to make

00:36:15.620 those sacrifices. But parenthood will always involve sacrifice. And so I think we need two things there.

00:36:20.840 One is to teach the importance of that. And that actually sacrifice doesn't mean that you're less

00:36:26.280 of a person. It means that you're more of a person, that you're a hero. And that's what life is all

00:36:30.680 about. And secondly, I think the issue is that by portraying this as a women's issue, and this is

00:36:36.580 something that I think both pro-choice and pro-life groups do, by portraying it as a women's issue, 0.84

00:36:41.000 we are saying, yes, motherhood is a sacrifice, but it's worth it. And then what that gets people to

00:36:50.540 hear is, so why is motherhood a sacrifice, but fatherhood isn't? How come we have to choose and

00:36:55.880 we have to sacrifice, but men don't? And I think that's what's really missing. Because in the pro-life

00:37:01.280 side, we respond by saying, motherhood is the best thing. Motherhood involves sacrifice, but it's worth

00:37:06.100 it. Motherhood is what we need to support. When actually, the men need to hear just as much.

00:37:12.060 Your family is more important than your career as well. It's not like the family is more important

00:37:16.460 than the wife or the woman's career, because she's a woman. It's that family is always more 0.65

00:37:20.920 important than career, whether you're a man or a woman. And that, I think, is a message maybe we

00:37:25.000 haven't shared with men as much as we need to. Yeah, that's a really good point. And obviously,

00:37:29.980 it goes back even further than, you know, seeing the two lines on the pregnancy test. I mean, the

00:37:36.340 choice obviously came before that. And that's a whole other conversation about extramarital sex

00:37:42.620 or premarital sex. And there's a whole saying, at least here in the United States, I don't know if

00:37:47.320 this is popular in the UK, consent to sex is not the same thing as consent to pregnancy, which of course

00:37:52.540 it is. Of course it is. But there is kind of a separation there that goes back decades to the sexual

00:38:00.200 revolution that's been here for a long time that separates sex from pregnancy and separates sex and

00:38:07.180 pregnancy from marriage. And when you have like the most stable and the most protective institution

00:38:14.280 fall apart, which is marriage and the family, a husband and a wife together making a baby, then everyone

00:38:20.620 becomes vulnerable because everyone has the option to leave. Children are harmed, women are harmed.

00:38:27.360 And so it starts there. But is it asking too much for us for like the pro-life movement to say,

00:38:34.720 okay, instead of only talking about the choice of abortion, can we also talk about the choice of

00:38:41.920 like of sex outside of marriage? It almost seems like we don't want to touch that because that's

00:38:46.840 really archaic to go all the way there. But it seems kind of silly to not at least talk about

00:38:53.500 what's causing these unwanted pregnancies.

00:38:56.420 Yeah. And well, I think there's a couple of things to say there. One is that

00:39:00.280 there is beginning to be a sort of new sexual revolution or counter revolution. And there are

00:39:06.580 not just religious people, but secular people who are questioning what happened in the 70s

00:39:11.520 and seeing the impact on pornography use and the way that that causes violence against women and

00:39:17.240 things like this. The fact that the fruit of the sexual revolution looks much more like 0.56

00:39:23.860 men's preferences than women's preferences when you line them up. People are beginning to question

00:39:29.300 this and saying, are women actually better off? And they look at objective happiness levels among 0.82

00:39:33.280 women and see that they've been declining since then. And so, yeah, I think that's an important part of

00:39:39.180 it. But I think this is maybe an area where, again, kind of coming from a pretty left wing

00:39:45.540 background and still being kind of left wing in some areas, I think the marriage issue is something

00:39:50.400 that really got me thinking in that I saw an article the other day that was titled marriage is a social

00:40:00.140 justice issue. And it basically pointed out that marriage is the ultimate form of privilege. If you want

00:40:06.680 to use that terminology, maybe you don't, but let's just use it for the sake of it. It is the ultimate

00:40:10.880 form of privilege. If you have married parents or if you're married yourself, you're way more likely

00:40:15.360 to have better mental health, to have better education, to have much more stable financial

00:40:20.200 situation, to have successful relationships in future for your children and so on. Less drugs,

00:40:27.440 less crime, everything. It enhances your life in every way to have that stable family background,

00:40:32.520 much more than your race, much more than your even economic background, much more than your gender.

00:40:39.760 Having a stable family to grow up is the ultimate form of privilege. And therefore, one of the things

00:40:46.660 that people who are poor are most missing, and I'm not saying this because they're poor, but objectively,

00:40:53.320 marriage has particularly fallen apart among the lowest socioeconomic classes in the West.

00:40:58.940 It's just an objective trend. And when you think about it this way, what are we doing when we're

00:41:06.660 trying to substitute instead of the family that a child should have? We're just trying to give them

00:41:14.680 money. We're trying to give them handouts. We're trying to give them food, whatever it is. All that

00:41:18.760 stuff is good. I support it. I'm pretty pro-welfare in many different ways. But you're never going to

00:41:24.240 substitute for a missing father or a missing parent. And they're always going to feel the cost

00:41:29.820 of that, and they're always going to be disadvantaged relative to others. And so as someone who's very

00:41:34.940 committed to equality and cares a lot about equality, about the poor, about social justice, if you want

00:41:40.480 to put it that way, marriage is one of the most important things missing from the social justice

00:41:46.000 conversation, because it is one of the most fundamental foundations for the weakest in society.

00:41:55.080 People who are rich have many things to fall back on. They can fall back on their money.

00:41:58.580 They can fall back on their friends. They can fall back on all sorts of things. If you don't have much,

00:42:03.780 the only thing that you have is your family. And if even that is taken away from you, then you have

00:42:09.860 nothing left. And so the collapse of family and the collapse of marriage among the poorest people in

00:42:15.380 society is something that the left and the right should be able to join forces on, should be able

00:42:20.660 to say is an outrage and something we need to fix. And unfortunately, many people are just not

00:42:25.980 willing to have that conversation. Yeah.

00:42:39.480 What is abortion colonialism? 0.99

00:42:41.460 This is so this is another issue where, again, you sort of get left and right switching sides.

00:42:49.980 Yeah, this has been going on for a long time. And it was originally the Republicans and the Democrats

00:42:54.800 kind of together who did this. Basically, it's the idea that this is a new form of ideological

00:43:00.760 colonialism, the way that Western countries go to non Western countries. And they say, you have to

00:43:07.600 promote abortion, you have to legalize abortion, you have to put it in your schools or whatever 1.00

00:43:11.080 it is, or we're going to withhold something from you. We're going to withhold our, you know,

00:43:16.740 USAID money or whatever it is. And so they're basically going into these countries and saying,

00:43:21.840 your culture, your values don't matter, we know better, and you have to change them,

00:43:26.120 or we're not going to support you. And one of the most sinister examples of this was hearing about

00:43:30.660 the Pacific Islands, where these are very, very small countries that, again, you know,

00:43:36.120 whether you believe in climate change or not, the people there generally do.

00:43:40.180 And they are terrified that if the sea levels rise, their countries will disappear. It's a genuine

00:43:46.240 existential threat to these countries. And what we've heard stories from at the United Nations is

00:43:52.360 rich countries going to them and saying, we are going to vote for these pro environmental policies

00:43:58.140 that will save your countries, but only if you support abortion. So you get these sort of 0.81

00:44:05.660 green people and pro environment people who are so cynical that care so little about the actual

00:44:11.220 environment and climate change, that they're willing to base their support for climate change

00:44:16.620 policies or not, based on whether the Pacific Islands want to kill their babies. And so they're

00:44:22.660 threatening, basically blackmailing these countries with extinction, unless they support abortion. And so 0.75

00:44:27.460 that's just a vivid illustration of what this actually looks like. It's basically rich white people

00:44:34.060 in the West going to other people around the world and saying, you're wrong, we're right, you have to fix it.

00:44:39.900 Yeah. And it's the same thing for the LGBTQ issue. Of course, administrations here,

00:44:45.180 democratic administrations have said to countries like Uganda, if you don't repeal your laws against

00:44:50.580 homosexuality, whatever you think about those laws, that's the laws that were passed in that country.

00:44:55.440 But the United States saying we're going to withhold our aid or XYZ unless you conform to our ideological 0.66

00:45:02.860 positions. And as you said, it's kind of the left and right switching because the left here says that

00:45:08.180 they want to decolonize the world, that they're anti-imperialism. Progressivism is extremely

00:45:14.420 imperialistic, not just here in the United States. They will literally colonize every single institution in

00:45:19.420 every state. But like you said, also abroad. So what do we do about something like that? It can feel

00:45:26.540 like we're kind of powerless against that kind of action. Yeah, I think what you see in the

00:45:32.840 decolonization movement is it's really just a power play. It's not that they don't want a global

00:45:37.740 ideology enforced all over the world. Of course, that's exactly what they want. It's that they don't

00:45:42.060 want, you know, a conservative or a Christian or a pro-life ideology around the world. And so it's really

00:45:47.820 about just making sure that they decolonize everywhere of one ideology so that they can replace it with 0.98

00:45:53.860 another. And so I think one of the things I'd say is a lot of the conversation in the US has been about

00:46:02.240 fighting that by, you know, things like the Mexico City policy, where they say we're not going to fund any

00:46:08.480 organizations under Republican governments. We're not going to fund any international organizations that support or

00:46:14.620 promote or provide abortions. And that's a great first step. And it causes a huge difference. It cuts 0.54

00:46:20.460 millions of dollars from going to Planned Parenthood International or Marie Stopes International that are

00:46:25.900 just pushing abortion all over the world. And Trump supported that, of course, the Biden administration

00:46:30.500 reversed that. Exactly. And but but I think what I would say, especially to to Americans listening is

00:46:37.060 that is only the first step in order to really stop this and to preserve those other cultures around the

00:46:44.220 world, it's not enough to cut Planned Parenthood International's budget from 100 million to 50

00:46:49.520 million dollars, because they're still going to have 50 million dollars and our side is still going to

00:46:53.540 have almost nothing. If we want to preserve these countries and protect their cultural values and give

00:46:59.860 them the tools and resources to do that, we have to be proactive in reaching out to these countries,

00:47:05.720 providing them support, sending pro-life missionaries, giving them resources, giving them political

00:47:11.200 support, giving them education, whatever it is, we have to be actively on their side rather than just

00:47:18.500 saying we're going to just cut funding. Because the reality is that even if the US government's money

00:47:25.600 stopped going to all of these countries around the world, you would still have millions from the Gates

00:47:29.880 Foundation, from Soros, from Packard and a bunch of others. And it would still massively outweigh

00:47:35.920 anything that pro-lifers have. And so I guess the key thing I would say is, let's be proactive. Let's think

00:47:42.060 about how we can really utilize our church networks in other countries, utilize the enormous wealth that we

00:47:48.740 have in the West, and that we could share some of that with pro-life countries and help them to do this,

00:47:55.180 because they still have time. At the end of the century, half the world's population is going to be in

00:48:01.760 Africa. Nigeria is going to have 800 million people. That's crazy. If those countries in that 1.00

00:48:07.360 continent stays pro-life, then the pro-life side is winning globally for the next hundred years.

00:48:13.140 But they are not going to stay pro-life in the next 10 years, unless pro-lifers really begin to

00:48:18.720 support those countries. And so that would be my argument and my plea to people listening is that

00:48:23.020 they get really serious about how we can preserve those countries and be proactive in shaping and

00:48:29.140 developing their pro-life movements. Where can someone get started if they want to know exactly

00:48:33.660 how to do that themselves? There are a number of ways. There are some great organizations around

00:48:38.700 doing this kind of stuff. There are groups like Human Life International, World Youth Alliance,

00:48:43.280 ADF International do a great amount of work on the pro-life side internationally,

00:48:46.760 and a bunch of others that I haven't said. Institute for Women's Health is another great one. So get

00:48:52.640 involved with an organization like that, or Pro-Life Global, which is for students and young people.

00:48:56.980 So speak to me. We're thinking a lot about how we can support those countries and how we can equip

00:49:02.740 those countries to be safe. And we've realized that there's a massive impact that can be had.

00:49:07.440 You can really save millions of lives if we're strategic about this. And so, yeah, I'd love to

00:49:13.200 hear from people that are interested in doing that.

00:49:15.200 And how can they reach out to you?

00:49:17.080 They can go to my website. So I have a couple of websites. One is calamilla.org.

00:49:21.460 And I'll correct that afterwards if it's wrong.

00:49:25.000 No, we can put the correct link, whatever it is, in the description today. Yeah.

00:49:29.260 So calamilla.org for speaking requests and for writing to me and finding out more information,

00:49:34.460 or calamusblog.com is where I have a complete comprehensive Q&A on abortion. So from my academic

00:49:41.700 background, I went through over 100 of the most common questions people ask me on abortion.

00:49:46.240 I found all the references and all the arguments and all the scientific evidence to respond to those

00:49:52.000 and then put them all on the website for free. So that's a hopefully helpful resource as well.

00:49:56.140 That is so helpful. Okay. We're going to put both of those links in the description of this episode.

00:50:00.720 I'm sure that's going to help so many people. Thank you so much, Dr. Miller. I really,

00:50:05.300 really appreciate it. And thanks for the work that you do. I know that it's

00:50:08.640 probably difficult feeling like you're swimming upstream, especially where you are.

00:50:12.280 Um, but I appreciate you standing strong. I really do. It makes a big difference. So thank you so much.

00:50:17.840 Thank you. I appreciate it.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 06, 2024

Ep 1015 ｜ Abortion Colonialism： How the West Blackmails the Third World ｜ Guest： Dr. Calum Miller

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript