Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 481 ｜ Thank the Lord： Texas Heartbeat Bill Is Law

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week. If you

00:00:16.980 haven't listened to yesterday's episode, my conversation with Monique Dusan about actual

00:00:22.240 biblical racial unity and reconciliation within the church that is not laden with critical race

00:00:29.640 theory and all kinds of secular theories that unfortunately we've seen infiltrate some

00:00:34.920 Christian conversations about race and racism, you need to go listen to that or watch that on 0.99

00:00:40.480 YouTube. She is wonderful and provides a lot of resources for us who are trying to navigate that

00:00:45.980 space with both sympathy and with truth and with a gospel-centered approach. Today we are going to

00:00:58.140 talk about some COVID stuff and some vaccine passport things and the truth about vaccine

00:01:06.880 efficacy and why some of the arguments being made about Christians being selfish or not loving their

00:01:13.900 neighbor by not getting the vaccine just they just don't hold up very well in light of the facts. But

00:01:19.740 first I want to talk about some good news. So the first half of the episode is going to be talking

00:01:25.860 about this and that good news is a new law that goes into effect today in Texas and that is SB8 or the

00:01:35.000 heartbeat law. So this law bans abortion after the detection of a heartbeat, which is usually at about

00:01:42.740 six weeks gestation. It requires physicians to try to detect a heartbeat of an unborn child in pregnancy.

00:01:51.000 So here's what the law says and I will link the actual law, the text of the law in the description

00:01:57.100 to this episode so you can read the law for it yourself. But here is one part of it.

00:02:06.480 Unless it is a medical emergency, a physician may not knowingly perform or induce an abortion on a

00:02:13.400 pregnant woman unless the physician has determined in accordance with this section whether the woman's

00:02:19.940 unborn child has a detectable fetal heartbeat. So the doctor must also record how he or she detected

00:02:28.200 the heartbeat, record the gestational age, and record the methods used to detect the heartbeat

00:02:33.760 and estimate the gestational age. Also, the law says, except in the case of medical emergency,

00:02:41.660 a physician may not knowingly perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman if the physician

00:02:46.920 detected a fetal heartbeat for the unborn child as required by section 171203 or failed to perform a test

00:02:54.780 to detect a fetal heartbeat. A physician does not violate the section if the physician performed a test

00:03:01.260 for a fetal heartbeat as required by section 171203 and did not detect a fetal heartbeat. So removing a child

00:03:11.080 from the womb who has already been miscarried who has already died inside the womb obviously does not 0.89

00:03:17.540 count as an abortion and obviously is not prohibited by this law. So anyone who tries to tell you that

00:03:24.260 the law is actually explicit that it does not prohibit the procedure of, for example, a DNC in the case of a

00:03:33.240 natural miscarriage. Now here is the catch with this law and I don't mean that in a negative sense.

00:03:39.920 This is the thing that allows this law to pass constitutional muster while we still have

00:03:46.040 Roe v. Wade enforced. This law is entirely enforceable on the civil level. So meaning that

00:03:53.440 the state is not empowered through this law to throw physicians or anyone involved with abortion in jail

00:03:58.760 or to punish people involved with abortion. This law enables anyone in Texas who is not an agent

00:04:04.880 of the state to sue someone who is involved in abortion. So any person, the law says, other than

00:04:14.440 an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in the state may bring a civil action against

00:04:21.740 any person who, one, performs or induces an abortion in violation of this subchapter, two, knowingly engages in

00:04:29.760 conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion, including paying for

00:04:34.960 or reimbursing the cost of an abortion through insurance or otherwise. If the abortion is performed

00:04:39.980 or induced in violation of this subchapter, regardless of whether the person knew or should

00:04:44.720 have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation of this subchapter or three,

00:04:50.640 intends to engage in the conduct described by subdivision one or two in this law.

00:04:57.320 So basically, this law empowers people who want to protect babies to be able to do so through civil

00:05:04.520 litigation. That makes it very costly, very risky for physicians to perform abortions, for traffickers

00:05:11.760 to pay for abortions, for anyone to seek an abortion to kill their child. You can bet that there is going

00:05:19.940 to be a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth from Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the ACLU, and all the celebrity

00:05:26.560 influencers who are going to tell you this is the handmaid's tale. This is sending us back to the

00:05:32.360 1950s, that these male politicians just want to control women's bodies. This is what patriarchal 0.99

00:05:39.120 authoritarianism looks like we'll hear. And here's my response to that. And here's how I want to help you

00:05:47.040 respond to that. You can use all the euphemisms you want. All the fear-mongering, all the hyperbole.

00:05:56.560 You can lament over the loss of so-called bodily autonomy and so-called reproductive justice. All you

00:06:02.760 want to. But nothing you say or do changes the fact that abortion kills a human. You can try to deny 0.52

00:06:11.960 that by using nonsensical anti-science language that it's just a quote potential life or that life

00:06:20.680 inside the womb is not actually life yet. You can say that it's not really a baby. I've even seen this

00:06:28.860 very strange new age method crop up recently in defending abortion that abortion just

00:06:35.220 sends the soul back into the universe to wait for another host for it to occupy. It's nonsense. And

00:06:44.640 yet it is a way to try to make yourself and to make those around you feel better about what abortion

00:06:53.200 is. The fact is that unless we define human life as beginning at conception, we wade into very

00:07:03.240 dangerous territory of deciding based on very subjective feelings-based standards what life is

00:07:11.760 and what life is not. If it's not the moment the egg is fertilized, or at least there's some debate

00:07:19.280 about this among pro-lifers, at least in plantation, when that fertilized egg attaches itself to the

00:07:25.780 uterine wall, then when does human life begin and why? Because in that moment at conception, that child's

00:07:34.580 DNA makeup is present. Their eye color, their sex has all been determined. That is a human being. We don't

00:07:41.320 determine human status by size or by appearance or by age or by ability or by location. You determine

00:07:48.260 human status by what we know about biology. And biology says that every single human starts out as a

00:07:55.680 fertilized egg. And as a fertilized egg has everything that makes us human. He or she simply

00:08:02.000 needs time and nourishment to let these characteristics grow into a fully formed baby ready for

00:08:08.660 birth. When people say that a baby in the womb is not human, that it's just a clump of cells, that is

00:08:15.980 anti-science. If a baby in the womb is a clump of cells, then we are all just a clump of cells. What they

00:08:22.660 actually mean, whether they realize it or not when they say that, is that they don't consider the

00:08:28.080 human in the womb a person. And personhood is considered a more philosophical, subjective debate.

00:08:35.500 There's no debate, no real debate over whether life in the womb at all stages is a human being.

00:08:42.260 Some do debate what makes a human being a person. So with worth and dignity and rights, namely a right

00:08:48.720 not to be murdered and at what stage. But again, I would argue, if we say that some humans do not

00:08:57.180 have personhood, so are not people, which is what you're saying if you say that a human in the womb

00:09:03.840 is not really a person, then we have, again, waded into very dangerous territory, the likes of which

00:09:10.740 have characterized the greatest human rights atrocities throughout history. Acknowledging that

00:09:16.800 someone may be technically human or saying, arguing that someone may be technically, scientifically

00:09:22.360 human, but doesn't deserve the dignity and the rights that come with being a person should probably

00:09:28.720 ring a bell to you when you think about some of the gravest injustices, the greatest forms of

00:09:37.120 oppression, and the worst genocides that you've heard about. The only objective standard then is to say

00:09:45.080 that a human is a person always. No matter the age, no matter the size, no matter the ability,

00:09:52.240 no matter whether that person is rich or poor, wanted or unwanted, an orphan or living with their

00:09:59.140 parents, dependent on someone else for care or independent, only heartless tyrants and barbarians 1.00

00:10:05.900 remove a group's personhood status in order to justify killing them. And it takes a special kind of

00:10:12.140 cruelty to do that for the most vulnerable, voiceless, and helpless group among us, unborn children.

00:10:19.400 Unborn children who, in an abortion, and this part is graphic, I share this from time to time to just

00:10:24.920 remind us really, literally, what we're talking about. Unborn children in an abortion either die by

00:10:31.140 poison or by an induced heart attack that is accomplished by sticking a needle through the

00:10:36.880 abdomen of the mother into the amniotic sac that the baby is in or directly into the chest of the 0.83

00:10:42.120 baby so that the baby squirms, fights for life, and likely in pain at that stage until his or her

00:10:49.640 heart stops beating. The chemical combination used for this procedure is the same chemical combination

00:10:56.440 used for lethal injection for convicted murderers who receive the death penalty.

00:11:00.800 So isn't it interesting that many who are against the death penalty for people who have committed

00:11:07.020 the most heinous crimes against humanity are unabashedly for using the same method of death

00:11:12.840 for babies? After ensuring fetal demise in later first and then second trimester abortions, the baby 0.96

00:11:20.680 is then dismembered using forceps and is removed from the mother's uterus that way. You actually have to 0.77

00:11:26.700 crush the skull of the baby in order to be able to extract the baby from the mother's uterus and birth 0.98

00:11:32.840 canal. And then there are even more grotesque methods of abortion used later in the pregnancy, 0.86

00:11:39.300 which comparatively are rare, but they still happen. We're talking about fully viable, meaning can live

00:11:44.440 outside the womb. So usually after 24 weeks, but sometimes even earlier, which is still the second

00:11:49.600 trimester, by the way, we're talking about those fully viable babies are aborted every single year.

00:11:55.260 And I know people say to that, well, late-term abortion is only chosen by the mom when absolutely

00:12:02.240 necessary to save her life, the mom's life. Well, that's not actually true. If a woman has a medical 0.99

00:12:09.180 condition that requires getting the baby out after 24 weeks gestation and maybe even a little bit

00:12:15.240 before that, the solution is delivery, not abortion. Because either way, in a live delivery or

00:12:22.620 an abortion, a birth happens. It's just either a stillbirth induced by abortion or a live birth.

00:12:30.160 Either way, the baby comes out. So it just, it doesn't even make logical sense to say that abortion

00:12:34.700 is necessary after the week of viability to save the mother's life. And if it's before that, if it's a

00:12:42.080 true medical emergency, this Texas law does allow abortion, although it does require the physician

00:12:49.840 to do everything within her power to save the baby as well as the mother, as it should be. And I'm

00:12:57.420 sorry, but a baby having special needs is not a good justification for killing the baby. That is

00:13:02.440 ableist. It is morally gruesome. There are parents lined up to adopt children. People don't like to talk

00:13:12.320 about that. And it's true that unfortunately our adoption process is complicated. And in some cases,

00:13:19.800 it is overly regulated, although there are a lot of regulations that exist for a good reason. But

00:13:25.520 there are many parents who are waiting to have a child and who are also ready and willing to have

00:13:31.860 the resources to raise a child with special needs. It's not a good reason to kill a child.

00:13:36.560 I am not naive to the dire situations women find themselves in when it comes to unexpected

00:13:42.920 pregnancies. And I know there is no end to this propaganda saying that the GOP and pro-lifers are

00:13:50.500 really just pro-birth, that we don't care about the babies after they're born, or we don't care about

00:13:56.120 the mothers. And that is the biggest lie that you can possibly imagine. Christians, pro-lifers who tend 0.88

00:14:02.720 to also vote Republican, though not always, pour their lives, their energy, their money into helping

00:14:10.340 vulnerable moms, babies, and families. They make up, this group makes up the vast majority of adopters.

00:14:18.180 They're often foster parents. They donate so many of their own resources to help those in need.

00:14:23.580 It's just who they are. It's just what they do. They run the pregnancy clinics that provide free 0.98

00:14:30.280 testing, free sonograms, free parenting classes, free supplies, help with adoption, help with

00:14:36.080 employment, help with Medicaid enrollment, help with refuge from abusive partners, help with education.

00:14:42.920 Most things Planned Parenthood does and will not do. Planned Parenthood preys upon impressionable

00:14:49.160 poor women, tells them that abortion doesn't really kill a baby, and that their life will be better if 0.96

00:14:55.480 they just abort their child, just like their father, the devil. They steal, they kill, they destroy, 0.99

00:15:01.240 they deceive. So you can miss me with the whole, well, I'm holistically pro-life thing, meaning that

00:15:08.040 you're for abortion being legal, but you're also for a bunch of, you know, government social programs

00:15:14.180 and open borders and masks, et cetera. We can debate the effectiveness of those other policies. That's

00:15:20.960 fine. But if you are not against making the murder of babies in the womb illegal, then you don't have

00:15:27.900 the authority to tell everyone else what it means to be, quote, really pro-life. Like that is the

00:15:33.900 baseline. That's the easiest, most obvious, most fundamental thing to advocate for if you really

00:15:40.660 care about protecting the vulnerable and the voiceless, this marginalized, oppressed group of

00:15:46.200 babies in the womb. That's, it's just demanding, trying to make abortion illegal. It's just demanding

00:15:52.080 that this group has the most basic right granted to us in our founding documents, the right to life,

00:15:58.680 and in the most literal sense, the right not to be murdered. If someone asks you to defend why you are

00:16:06.580 anti-abortion, or when you see Christians talking about the so-called nuance of this and being for the

00:16:13.920 legalization of abortion, but against abortion personally, whatever the heck that means,

00:16:19.100 before you defend your position, you ask them why. You ask them why they believe it should be legal to

00:16:25.440 kill an innocent, defenseless human. And if there are other situations in which they believe killing

00:16:31.160 an innocent, defenseless human should be legal, their answer will likely be no. They probably don't 0.84

00:16:36.920 think it should be legal, for example, for a poor, desperate mother or father to kill their five-year-old

00:16:44.400 or to hire someone to kill their five-year-old. They would probably say, the person you're talking

00:16:49.120 to, that those parents are cruel, they should be in jail. Okay? My question is, why does that standard

00:16:55.980 change just because the child is younger, smaller, and in the womb? Again, are age, size, dependency,

00:17:02.160 and location really how we determine whether or not a person should have rights? Those are very

00:17:08.180 arbitrary. And they may say something, the person that you are discussing this with, say something

00:17:13.980 about, you know, coat hangers and back alleys. And again, I would ask a question. Do you use that kind

00:17:21.800 of thinking to fight against the criminalization of other kinds of assault? If your argument is that

00:17:26.880 banning abortion doesn't stop abortion, but just makes it more dangerous for the woman, 1.00

00:17:31.580 do you use the same argument to say that murder or rape or abuse should be legalized so that it's

00:17:36.560 somehow safer for the people involved? And for the love, for the love of all things good,

00:17:44.040 please do not send me that graph that shows abortion declining more when Democrats are president.

00:17:50.340 We have debunked that. Presidents don't make laws. State and federal legislators do. And while

00:17:57.620 Barack Obama was president, where you see what appears to be a steep drop off of abortions while

00:18:03.380 he was president, more so than, for example, when Bush was president, while Obama was president,

00:18:08.860 state legislatures were dominated by Republican majorities, the most since FDR. And for most of

00:18:15.460 his tenure, Congress was dominated by Republicans too. So if you're going to ascribe the reduction of

00:18:20.280 abortion to policies enacted while Barack Obama was president, you're going to have to ascribe that

00:18:25.420 reduction to the people actually making policy during those eight years who were mostly Republicans.

00:18:32.640 Also, we don't just make things illegal to reduce the instances of those things. That's one reason,

00:18:39.660 but not the only reason. We also do it to protect the rights of the victim and of the potential victim.

00:18:45.760 And because it's the right thing to do, making abortion illegal recognizes that that human being

00:18:52.240 in the womb has dignity and rights because he or she is human. So always remember that. I've given you a lot

00:19:00.360 of arguments, a lot of ways to defend this. And if you're on the other side of this, a lot of things to

00:19:04.640 hopefully think about. You're going to hear a lot of compelling arguments or what seem like compelling

00:19:09.240 arguments. I've actually never heard a logically compelling argument for abortion. Never. Not even when I was

00:19:15.680 giving testimony about pro-life legislation when I was in Congress and I heard some of the arguments from

00:19:21.460 Democrats, the people who are supposed to be our, I mean, people in Congress are supposed to be our

00:19:27.960 intellectual leaders. I think that, you know, we all know that that's not true, but actually seeing and

00:19:33.700 hearing their arguments for abortion, I realized that they have no better arguments than the random 0.95

00:19:38.000 trolls online. Like there is no logically good argument for abortion, but you are going to see

00:19:44.360 arguments online. You're going to hear a lot of testimonies. You're going to see a lot of graphics

00:19:48.440 on Instagram, a lot of misinformation about this particular Texas law, a lot of feminist anger over 1.00

00:19:54.040 the next few months, a lot of, you know, pictures of people walking around in like their handmaid's

00:19:58.520 tail, you know, red hoods or whatever. And you're going to see this a lot in the months leading up to

00:20:03.840 the midterms next year. And the thing to always keep in mind, if you can't remember everything we've

00:20:09.280 talked about today, the one thing to always keep in mind and to come back to in every conversation

00:20:15.000 about abortion and abortion law is the humanity, the reality of the baby in the womb, his or her

00:20:20.980 life matters. And the question that you make the other side answer before you say anything about

00:20:26.500 your own position, which is the obvious position that we shouldn't kill babies inside the womb, 0.84

00:20:30.880 before you even try to defend that, you make the other side answer why they believe that taking the

00:20:35.900 life of an innocent human being is justified just because that life can't defend themselves.

00:20:41.440 Do babies in the womb deserve human rights, primarily the basic right to life? And if not,

00:20:48.200 why not? Give me a good answer that doesn't make you sound like a tyrannical lunatic. 0.99

00:20:53.200 And if, if not, why does anyone else have rights? Age, size, dependency, location, all those arguments fall

00:21:02.280 apart. When you realize that if you apply them to people outside the womb, things get pretty ghoulish

00:21:07.440 and genocidal real quick. Biblically, we know Psalm 139 makes clear that God forms us with intention and

00:21:14.400 love and purpose in the womb. We believe all people, no matter how small are made in God's image and are

00:21:19.600 therefore worthy and dignity, worthy of dignity and rights. Biblically and historically, we see that

00:21:24.620 child sacrifice is always the mark of the most depraved societies, the societies that are most

00:21:31.280 deserving of wrath. Historically, we see that children are always the most vulnerable victims

00:21:37.340 of abuse, of manipulation, exploitation. That's true today. There is no nuance that can make your

00:21:43.380 support of this legally or otherwise justifiable and in any sense. And again, you can't come at me

00:21:51.360 with while you conservative voters don't treat them with dignity after they're born. That's not true.

00:21:56.260 What you actually mean is that because we're not delegating our responsibility to care for the

00:22:00.940 least of these to bureaucrats, we must lack compassion. No, I don't believe in giving our

00:22:06.240 God-given call to care for others to the government. I believe in doing that work ourselves. No party is

00:22:12.300 perfect, but voting for the party that funds and openly celebrates the brutal murder of babies

00:22:17.080 could not be me. It just, it could not be me. Voting for the party that seeks to protect those babies.

00:22:23.500 Yeah. Like that's, that's going to be the main thing for me. That's going to be the main thing

00:22:28.640 for me. And I do also just want to note if you're someone who has had an abortion, going back to the

00:22:33.920 biblical portion of this, there is grace for you. There is redemption. There is forgiveness. There is

00:22:40.680 reconciliation to God through Christ. There is nothing that you can do. There's nothing that you've done in

00:22:46.340 your past that makes you too far off from God, that makes you not worth saving or not worth loving.

00:22:56.080 There are only two categories in this world. As we talked about yesterday with Monique,

00:23:01.480 dead in sin or alive in Christ. All of us who are alive in Christ, who have been forgiven by God,

00:23:07.040 who are walking with the Lord are not there because of anything that we have done. But as Ephesians 2

00:23:12.880 also says, verses eight through 10, we were saved by grace through faith. And grace means unmerited

00:23:20.280 favor. So it doesn't matter what you've done in your past. There is nothing that you've done that

00:23:24.340 is too much for God to forgive. There's nothing that you can do that would make you through Christ

00:23:29.900 unworthy of God's love. And so if you haven't already, go to him, go to a counselor about this,

00:23:37.580 go to a pro-life pregnancy center. They often provide post-abortion counseling. Go to a trusted

00:23:46.120 church member about this. And church, if there are people in your community who have had an abortion or

00:23:52.320 you know is struggling with this, it is our obligation to provide refuge for them and to provide

00:23:59.080 love and grace to them. And so I wanted to make sure that I make that clear as well. There is a way

00:24:05.340 that we can speak compassionately and lovingly about people who have gotten abortions and still

00:24:11.020 be so strong and so clear on this abortion issue to try to change as many hearts and minds as possible

00:24:17.820 and to try to save as many lives as possible. By the way, it is possible to change people's minds

00:24:22.620 on this. This is the number one issue that I get an email about from people saying,

00:24:26.880 you changed my mind or really God changed their mind and heart. And thankfully and graciously,

00:24:32.360 he allowed this podcast to be a vessel that he used to help change people's mind. Number one

00:24:38.100 subject that I get emails on, that I get messages on of people saying, you know, I listened to your

00:24:43.560 argument on abortion and I really hated it and I dug my heels in and I didn't agree with it,

00:24:48.220 but I realized that I couldn't justify it. I couldn't find a way to defend it. And so God can also

00:24:56.720 graciously use you, a humble vessel to have conversations with people and to hopefully

00:25:05.400 change their minds on this. It is absolutely possible. And this is just a great example

00:25:10.200 that God is working even when things seem like they are only going a bad direction. This is a really good

00:25:17.300 direction. So just pray, like pray that this, um, pray that this law holds strong and pray for our

00:25:26.140 elected officials that they would continue to legislate with boldness and with a virtue. I want

00:25:32.040 to talk a little bit more about this. That's going to transition us into the COVID stuff.

00:25:36.080 So there are other good laws going into effect in Texas today. Also, a lot of people are talking

00:25:48.820 about this online, which is why we're bringing up Texas, uh, requirement for officers to wear body

00:25:54.180 cameras, the entirety of every investigation, online ballot tracking system for mail-in ballots,

00:25:59.980 banning critical race theory themes in classrooms, expanding access to medical use of marijuana,

00:26:06.080 people whom it may benefit like people with autism and epilepsy. So go Texas legislature. Uh, you

00:26:13.480 are doing a lot of good things. Greg Abbott has signed, um, a lot of good laws this session. I'm sure

00:26:20.440 that, uh, there are, you know, many other States that are doing good things as well. Texas seems to

00:26:26.460 always be in the spotlight because it's seen as this kind of Republican stronghold. And so Democrats and

00:26:32.700 the liberal media, um, um, but I repeat myself, love to shine a spotlight on Texas to show what a,

00:26:39.100 you know, backwards, terrible place it is, but go Texas GOP. You are doing a really good job. Um,

00:26:47.040 so I, I want to transition by reading a couple tweets and a headline that, um, shows some pretty, 0.95

00:26:57.020 a pretty remarkable mindset among our media class. So Dan rather, he tweeted yesterday,

00:27:04.900 it's worth noting that many of the same people attacking the Biden administration for leaving

00:27:10.580 women's rights behind in Afghanistan are eager to control women's bodies and choices in the United 1.00

00:27:15.880 States. Unfortunately, this tweet has like, I think as I'm speaking, it has like almost 90,000 likes,

00:27:21.860 which is insane. An opinion writer, Dean Obadala for MSNBC wrote this stellar, stunning headline last

00:27:31.440 week. Afghan women's rights are threatened, but the GOP isn't their champion. The Taliban aren't the 0.82

00:27:38.100 only ones. Oh my gosh. Just like, if you ever hear yourself saying the Taliban aren't the only ones in 0.97

00:27:44.600 the next part of your sentence is to compare it to anyone in America, just stop, just stop,

00:27:50.240 give yourself the swirly and stop talking. Uh, the Taliban aren't the only ones trying to impose 0.86

00:27:55.560 their will on women's bodies and choices by Dean Obadala. So the argument here, in case it's not

00:28:03.080 clear enough, is that pro-lifers in America are like the Taliban, you know, the Taliban, the roving 0.99

00:28:09.920 group of barbarian terrorists, brutally murdering and raping women and children, boys and girls who, 0.99

00:28:15.320 like other Islamic regimes in the region, are selling children into sex trafficking on a daily 0.99

00:28:20.900 basis, forcing six-year-old girls to get married, preventing women from learning how to read,

00:28:25.720 preventing them from driving, leaving their house without a man accompanying them, or speaking less

00:28:31.040 spoken to. That's what Sharia law says. See, the people in the United States who don't think it's 0.88

00:28:36.340 right to dismember babies are the terrorists, but somehow the people for the death penalty for babies 0.58

00:28:44.120 are the good guys. Interesting. So you'll see again, um, that the argument that pro-lifers make

00:28:52.200 that it's wrong to kill babies is never actually addressed by these people, which shows you how weak,

00:28:58.740 how weak their position actually is. They use every language game in the book to obscure what abortion

00:29:04.480 actually literally is and why, uh, and why we're against it by just using vague terms like women's bodies, 0.97

00:29:12.460 choices. We don't want to police women's bodies. We don't want to limit people's choices unless those 1.00

00:29:20.540 things involve killing a baby. Yeah, then we have something to say about it. Just like all sane people

00:29:27.380 have something to say about all other kinds of assault and murder, we just think that standard also

00:29:32.740 applies to innocent babies in the womb. There is no good argument for abortion. None, none. But there's

00:29:40.760 another tweet that represents, um, a similar wild mindset, uh, on children wearing masks. And it comes

00:29:49.240 to us via Obama's education secretary, Arne Duncan. Yes, Obama's education secretary. So this is not

00:29:55.540 what you will call nut picking, like looking for just like a random Joe Schmo on the other side to try to

00:30:01.560 characterize all of the left with that random nut. Nope. This is Obama's education secretary.

00:30:08.580 He tweeted this and then deleted after understandable backlash quote, have you noticed how strikingly

00:30:15.680 similar both the mindsets and actions are between suicide bombers at Kabul's airport and the anti-mask

00:30:21.880 and anti-vax people here? They both blow themselves up, inflict harm on those around them and are convinced

00:30:28.960 they are fighting for freedom. It's really, you know, sometimes doing the show is really hard for

00:30:34.460 me not to cuss. Like sometimes they're harder than others. Like it's a really, really hard. Holy spirit

00:30:39.960 help me. Oh my goodness. We just had 13 American service members die because of a suicide bomber.

00:30:48.980 And you're trying to say that people who question the efficacy of masks here in the United States are

00:30:54.380 the same as an ISIS case suicide bomber. I have so much that my tongue wants to say right now.

00:31:02.060 So much that I am holding in. I will let your imaginations fill in the blank for me. Have you

00:31:09.580 noticed how quick mainstream high up influential people on the left are to call their political

00:31:18.420 opponents terrorists? And we're talking about Dan Rather, MSNBC secretary or education secretary for

00:31:25.520 Barack Obama. Let me just say that there is a far stronger case for tweets like this inciting violence

00:31:33.400 than there is a case for anything Trump said directly inciting violence. It is so ugly. It's so

00:31:39.640 depraved. There's such calloused, ugly, depraved hearts. It is also, and this is how we're going to 0.99

00:31:45.820 transition into the rest of the show. It's also illogical. It's illogical, this kind of thinking.

00:31:52.440 First of all, we know that people who are vaccinated can get and transmit the virus. The vaccine is pretty

00:31:59.540 effective from what we've seen at preventing severe infection, hospitalization and death, but it does not

00:32:05.120 stop you necessarily from getting infected or spreading the virus. Again, it might, might make it less

00:32:12.360 likely to do those things, but it doesn't stop it completely here, or there's not even necessarily

00:32:19.000 a really high likelihood of it stopping you from transmitting the virus once you are infected with

00:32:25.540 the virus. Here's some news out of Duke University, according to News Observer. Quote, Duke University has

00:32:33.040 set new restrictions to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 as cases are rising on the Durham campus despite its

00:32:39.980 vaccine mandate. So has vaccine mandate. In the first week of classes, 304 undergraduates, 45 graduate

00:32:47.060 students, and 15 employees tested positive for COVID-19. All but eight of these individuals were

00:32:54.440 vaccinated, and the vast majority of them are asymptomatic. A small number have minor cold and

00:33:00.720 flu-like symptoms, and none have been hospitalized, according to the university. Duke administrators

00:33:06.160 announced the new guidelines in an email saying, quote, this surge is placing significant stress on

00:33:11.120 the people, systems, and facilities that are dedicated to protecting our health, safety, and the ability of

00:33:18.200 Duke to fulfill its educational mission, particularly our isolation space for on-campus students who test

00:33:23.540 positive. But as Nate Silver, who created the website FiveThirtyEight, as he notes on Twitter, or he

00:33:32.920 questions, which I think is a good question, how is it placing significant stress on the system if none

00:33:37.200 of the cases are hospitalized, then almost all of them are asymptomatic, and the overall positivity rate

00:33:42.160 is just 1.6%. This is a great example. He argues of the vaccines working, but the logic that they are

00:33:50.520 using here to try to enforce more restrictions, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. And this is

00:33:57.820 also an example, yes, maybe of the vaccines allowing for more asymptomatic cases, although we don't know

00:34:04.780 necessarily, since these are probably mostly young people, if they would have been asymptomatic

00:34:09.460 anyway. We're not really sure. We also don't know what's the deal with those eight people who are

00:34:13.500 unvaccinated. Also, if there was a vaccine mandate, how did that happen? Are they faring any worse than the

00:34:18.100 people who are vaccinated? I think that would just be interesting to know. But it just does show that

00:34:24.580 things can spread and things can spike even when the vast, vast majority of people in a place are

00:34:31.140 vaccinated. They are also, because of this, requiring everyone to wear masks outside, where we know 0.94

00:34:37.620 scientifically, COVID is very, very, very unlikely to spread. So it's just a reflex, it seems like,

00:34:46.600 some of these restrictions. So again, the point is that the virus is spreading even among those who

00:34:52.520 are vaccinated. I know three people personally who have gotten, who have gotten COVID despite at least

00:34:58.420 being partially vaccinated. And again, you don't know my vaccination status. I'm saying, I'd be saying

00:35:04.900 this either, either way, either way I am saying this. I'm not saying, I've never discouraged people

00:35:11.660 from getting it. My concern is logic, the science, following the science, and also freedom. I'm saying

00:35:21.220 it's illogical to blame the spread of COVID on people who have not gotten the vaccine. In Israel,

00:35:28.240 where 60% of the population is fully vaccinated, nearly 70% have had at least one dose of the vaccine,

00:35:36.560 where some of the greatest restrictions have been placed, including fines for not wearing masks

00:35:41.720 and vaccine passports, they're experiencing a surge of cases even bigger than the one that they had in

00:35:48.320 January, when only about 5% of the country was fully vaccinated. And all you have to do to fact check

00:35:55.040 that is to type in Israel vaccination rate on Google and then Israel COVID cases. I don't usually use

00:36:02.060 Google, but they do have the information right at the top really easy when you type this into the

00:36:06.580 search bar. Now, the deaths in Israel right now are lower during this surge than in January. Very,

00:36:14.300 very few deaths in either surge, though, by the way. So you could say that that's due to the vaccine,

00:36:20.660 and that's good, but you can't say that it's really preventing the spread. It should also be noted that

00:36:26.000 Israel lifted its mask mandate on June 15th because of a decline of cases and then reinstated it on June

00:36:31.780 24th and go look at the case numbers and pinpoint that date, June 24th. It didn't help. As we have

00:36:39.820 talked about, as we have gone through the data on this show, mask mandates are really not proven to

00:36:49.840 help stop the spread. I will link the post I put together with all the studies on this, as well as the

00:36:55.020 New York Magazine article that shows that there is no evidence that kids benefit at all from wearing

00:37:00.940 masks, as well as a new study that found that really only one type of mask, only at most a couple type of

00:37:11.920 masks are at all effective. And I will read you a quote from that article in just one second.

00:37:16.780 All right. So the New York Post summarized this study from Waterloo, and it says this, quote,

00:37:30.140 the results show that a standard surgical and three-ply cloth masks filter at apparent efficiencies

00:37:36.340 of only 12.4% and 9.8% respectively, according to the University of Waterloo studies conclusion.

00:37:45.260 And that apparently, probably, I am assuming from what I see here, is that even that efficacy,

00:37:54.000 like even that effectiveness of the masks is dependent on how you are wearing the mask,

00:38:01.060 if the mask is totally clean, whether the mask has gotten wet at all from saliva, how long you have

00:38:08.060 been wearing the mask. And so I would assume this means perfectly fitted, perfectly clean,

00:38:12.740 perfectly dry masks, as soon as you put them on, only have a 12.4% effectiveness if they're the

00:38:21.120 standard surgical mask. So those kind of like blue masks and 9.8% effectiveness if it's a cloth mask.

00:38:28.100 This is according, again, to the University of Waterloo. But KN95 and N95 masks afford, quote,

00:38:36.200 substantially higher apparent filtration efficiency, 60% and 46% for R95 and KN95 masks,

00:38:44.540 respectively, than the more commonly used cloth masks and surgical masks, and therefore are still

00:38:51.060 the recommended choice in mitigating airborne disease transmission indoors. I have personally

00:38:56.080 never worn a KN95 or N95 masks. When I have been required to wear masks, I wear a cloth mask

00:39:03.300 that has gone through the washing machine many times, or I wear a surgical mask. Most people,

00:39:11.160 the vast majority of people are not wearing R95 masks. Most people are wearing cloth masks,

00:39:16.440 and they're wearing them incorrectly. And again, once they become wet, they're totally ineffective,

00:39:22.380 which is one reason why kids wearing them in school doesn't make sense. Like even if you pack

00:39:26.340 several masks for your kids, it just ends up not being effective because of how kids function.

00:39:34.220 And that's exactly why in Scandinavia, in the UK, and even Australia, where there are very heavy

00:39:40.060 COVID restrictions, none of these countries, in addition to other countries, enforce masking among

00:39:46.420 young kids. And in some places, no students of any age are required to wear masks. And the spread

00:39:52.500 in those countries has not been worse than the spread in the United States. The US stands apart

00:39:58.200 in its draconian expectation of two-year-olds to wear masks. It is anti-scientific nonsense. It is

00:40:04.660 really a reflective reaction from both politicians who just want to, you know, CYA, and parents who,

00:40:12.920 I think, sincerely want to protect their kids. And they just don't realize that masking kids is really

00:40:18.960 actually political. And it's not scientific or coming from a place of compassion for the people

00:40:25.100 who are making these policies. So when I say that forcing little kids to wear masks is abusive,

00:40:33.000 I am not calling parents malicious abusers. And I understand in some situations, like,

00:40:39.100 you're forced to, you're forced to, you have to, you're in a district that is actually forcing it,

00:40:43.960 you're going on a plane, you don't have any other choice. I totally understand that. I don't think it

00:40:48.740 is the intent of parents who make their young children wear masks to be abusive. But I do think

00:40:55.400 that the impact of forcing a child to wear something over their face, even if they grow to like it,

00:41:01.180 when there is no physical benefit that's been proven, it may actually be physically harmful.

00:41:05.460 I think it's coercive. I think it's unhealthy. I think it's irresponsible. As we noted a couple

00:41:10.640 weeks ago, I'll link that previous episode in the description as well. Doctors Marty Makari and Dr.

00:41:17.040 Koei Meisner wrote for the Wall Street Journal that masking children not only can negatively impact

00:41:23.240 them developmentally, but may also affect their facial development. And I will link to that specific

00:41:29.640 article. Zach Ringelstein is a child trauma specialist who wrote a piece for Forbes,

00:41:35.060 just the other day, arguing that masks for kids can cause serious trauma for them. And guess what?

00:41:41.440 Forbes actually took the piece down. Insane. Just like the American Academy of Pediatrics took down

00:41:47.980 their years old study discussing why children and babies need to be able to see their caregivers

00:41:52.740 speak and see them smile. The only reason we know the CDC's mask findings show that masks don't do

00:42:00.480 any good in schools is because of that New York magazine journalist who actually dug into the study

00:42:05.620 past what the summary of the study said, which didn't include the findings of the masks. I'm sure the

00:42:11.800 people that are censoring legitimate perspectives, information, and science are doing it all for our safety

00:42:20.600 and all because they love our kids so much. Sure. I'm sure. I am sure. The same person, by the way,

00:42:28.660 who authored the New York magazine article analyzing the CDC's findings also tweeted this graph, which I

00:42:35.340 will, which I'll put up if you are watching on YouTube, which shows that the fully vaccinated adult

00:42:43.380 is actually more likely to die of COVID than the unvaccinated person under the age of 30 and

00:42:50.140 especially children. So like the fully vaccinated adult over, I think it's, let's see, the fully,

00:42:59.180 yeah. So the fully vaccinated, literally the fully vaccinated person that is over the age of 30

00:43:07.220 has the same likelihood of dying from COVID. And in some cases, a greater likelihood of dying from

00:43:15.940 COVID than the person under the age of 30. For example, like if you're 40 years old, if you're 40 0.70

00:43:22.420 years old, your risk of dying from COVID, if you are fully vaccinated is still higher than the risk of a

00:43:30.820 kid dying, who is unvaccinated from, who is unvaccinated, dying from, dying from COVID. And so

00:43:37.880 this hysteria that we're seeing from some parents, parents who insist that their kids can't go back

00:43:45.040 to normal until their kids can get a vaccine or are blaming all of these unvaccinated adults for

00:43:50.720 potentially spreading the virus to their kids are not living in reality, both because the vaccinated can

00:43:56.560 spread it. And because their kids still really are not at risk. I know there are kids that get it.

00:44:03.100 I know kids with underlying conditions can die from it. But also, as we've noted, more kids died

00:44:08.860 from the flu in six months in 2018 and the 2018 flu season than have died from COVID over the past 18

00:44:16.280 plus months. Now back to the vaccine. Israel also released a study last week that shows that immunity

00:44:24.320 to COVID is much stronger in unvaccinated people who have had COVID than vaccinated people who have

00:44:31.400 never had COVID. And I'll read you a little bit of that study in just one second.

00:44:39.620 Okay, so what this study out of Israel found was that those who had been vaccinated were 13 times more

00:44:45.520 likely to be infected by the Delta variant, what's called a breakthrough infection than those with

00:44:51.820 natural immunity. They did find that there may be some extra protection for people who have had COVID

00:44:58.240 and had one shot. But people who have had COVID had far greater immunity and far longer lasting immunity

00:45:04.680 than those who hadn't had COVID and were fully vaccinated. And Singapore recognized this. And so

00:45:12.820 they have decided to give up the goal of COVID zero because they have such a high vaccination rate.

00:45:20.140 And the vaccinated are still spreading. And they realized, okay, if people are gaining immunity

00:45:27.260 from getting COVID, then it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for us to keep on putting these very

00:45:33.800 restrictive measures in place to try to get no COVID whatsoever, because this is still spreading,

00:45:38.740 even though Singapore has an 80% vaccination rate among the adult population. The only country higher

00:45:45.800 than that is Malta's vaccination rate at 82%. And so they're saying basically, look, we're going to

00:45:52.960 probably have to live with the virus, which by the way, people have been saying since the very beginning

00:45:58.120 of all of this, that viruses are going to virus that you can't completely and totally get rid of it.

00:46:04.920 Even the common viruses, the common diseases that we are vaccinated against, they're not totally

00:46:11.240 always, they're not always completely and totally eliminated. And you have to weigh the risks and

00:46:17.380 benefits of the policies that you are putting in place that are taking away people's freedom and

00:46:20.820 livelihoods. Australia apparently has also realized this, they are ending the COVID zero policy, they've

00:46:27.160 realized it's quote, not a sustainable way to live. That's what Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said.

00:46:33.840 And so they are going to ease the restrictions once 80% of adults are vaccinated. Now, this also comes

00:46:40.700 after mass protests in Australia. So good freaking job Australians pushing back against the tyranny that 0.56

00:46:47.460 really just did not make sense. Helen Andrews and the American Conservative, she also makes a really good 0.91

00:46:55.260 case against vaccine passports. Not just because it doesn't it, not just because it doesn't make sense

00:47:04.180 scientifically, because you should be able to show an antibody test as well, if you're going to have vaccine, if

00:47:09.600 you're going to have a vaccine passport. But also, it doesn't make that much sense, because you can still spread if

00:47:16.780 you have the vaccine. But most importantly, it's tyrannical. And it sets up this structure for social

00:47:23.460 surveillance that I promise you, no matter what side of the aisle that you're on, you are not going to

00:47:28.280 like. It infringes upon too much freedom in the name of a very weak, a very flimsy, wobbly promise of

00:47:38.660 potential temporary safety. It's just not worth the exchange. And so I wish, I hope that there is some

00:47:45.340 bipartisan support when it comes to pushing back against vaccine passports. They're unnecessary and 1.00

00:47:52.220 they're tyrannical. All right, that's all we've got time for today. I will see you guys back here

00:47:57.980 tomorrow with an amazing, amazing, amazing conversation. I can't wait for you to hear it

00:48:02.680 and tell me what you think. So make sure that you tune in then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - September 01, 2021

Ep 481 ｜ Thank the Lord： Texas Heartbeat Bill Is Law

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