Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 497 ｜ Surprise： The 'Women's Health Protection Act' Doesn't Protect Health ｜ Guest： Alexandra DeSanctis

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

00:00:14.620 a wonderful week so far. Today, we are talking about this abortion bill that has passed the

00:00:20.760 House. It's on its way to the Senate, the so-called Women's Health Protection Act. We're

00:00:24.920 going to talk to National Review journalist Alexandra DeSanctis. She is going to tell us

00:00:30.340 what exactly is in this bill, the likelihood of it passing the Senate. And then after that short

00:00:36.600 interview, we're going to talk about this subject. We're going to talk about this bill and why, guys,

00:00:42.500 this is so important. As much as we talk about abortion, I don't think that we can ever talk

00:00:46.640 about it enough and remind ourselves what it is and why it is so important for us to push back

00:00:52.940 against. So without further ado, here is our friend, Alexandra DeSanctis.

00:01:03.800 Alexandra, thank you so much for joining us. So right off the bat, can you just tell us

00:01:08.740 what is the Women's Health Protection Act? Is it really about protecting the health of women? 0.98

00:01:15.360 Believe it or not, it has nothing to do with women's health care. Of course, this has to do with 0.68

00:01:19.860 abortion, as it always does when Democrats talk about women's health. What the bill does is

00:01:25.160 essentially eradicate or get rid of any state law, pretty much any state law that regulates abortion.

00:01:31.840 And so when you hear Democrats talking about codifying Roe v. Wade, something they all talked

00:01:36.080 about during the presidential primary a couple of years back, what they meant was the Women's Health

00:01:40.620 Protection Act. And this bill, in fact, goes further than Roe. Not only does it codify Roe or turn it

00:01:46.440 into a statute, but it goes further than that by preventing states from passing basically any law

00:01:52.040 limiting abortion. This could be informed consent laws, ultrasound requirements, even kind of

00:01:57.320 gestational age restrictions on abortion after viability. So this essentially allows for abortion

00:02:05.140 or stop states from prohibiting abortion through nine months. Now, is it for any reason? I did read

00:02:12.640 that there are some prohibitions or there are some stipulations that include, you know, it has to be

00:02:19.980 for the health, mental health or physical health of the mother. Can you break that down? Tell us why that

00:02:28.120 doesn't actually, that wouldn't actually prohibit any abortions from being performed in the second and

00:02:34.240 third trimester? Sure. So the bill would basically make it such that states cannot prohibit abortion after

00:02:41.360 fetal viability unless they have what's called a maternal health exception. But they define health,

00:02:47.020 Democrats define health the same way that the Supreme Court did very expansively. So this can

00:02:51.000 include anything such as psychological health, financial health, familial health, just this whole

00:02:56.300 laundry list of things. And that's from Doe v. Bolton. That's right. They could account for kind of

00:03:01.300 maternal health. It's not just these kind of health care emergencies that the Democrats try to pretend it is.

00:03:06.320 There's all this whole host of factors that are considered. Plus, the bill would make it such that

00:03:11.320 states would have to have to allow only one doctor to certify that a woman's health required this. 0.98

00:03:17.880 So you could have just the abortionist who has this immense financial motivation to perform the

00:03:23.160 abortion. It could be the only one certifying that a woman's health required the procedure. 0.98

00:03:27.780 Right. And the response to that is from Democrats. Well, that hardly ever happens. That's so rare. Why do we

00:03:34.480 have to put restrictions on it anyway? As if that's even an argument for something. But it's not

00:03:40.420 necessarily rare, right? No, late term abortion is not rare at all. And it's very hard to get

00:03:46.040 data on this sort of thing. But according to the best estimates we have, which come from the

00:03:50.240 pro-choice Gettmacher Institute, there's somewhere around 12,000 abortions past the point of viability.

00:03:55.760 And it's hard to find out what the reasons for those are. From what I've looked at, the best

00:03:59.640 information we can find, typically they're for the same reasons as early abortions. They're very rarely

00:04:04.760 these kinds of health care emergencies we hear about, and in fact, are basically never something

00:04:09.440 that would be medically necessary. There's more late term abortions than there are gun homicides 0.99

00:04:15.080 in the United States. And yet we're told that these are rare and only in emergencies.

00:04:19.720 Right. And we're talking about second, third trimester. Obviously, we believe that life begins

00:04:26.240 at conception. That's what science tells us. But second and third trimester, we're talking about a

00:04:31.120 viable baby. That means a baby who can live outside of the womb with or without help. We're

00:04:37.660 talking about a moving, squirming, sucking, hearing, seeing, feeling baby. 12,000 times a year,

00:04:47.060 that baby is terminated inside the womb in very violent ways, which we'll talk about a little bit

00:04:52.060 after this interview. And people say, you know, as you alluded to, that, well, no one actually wants

00:04:59.680 that. It's only for emergencies. But as many OBGYNs will tell you, that actually doesn't make a lot

00:05:07.720 of logical sense. If the mom's health, if the mom's actual physical health is at risk and the way to

00:05:14.840 help her is to get the baby out of the womb, then you deliver that baby. The baby has to come out 0.73

00:05:21.100 either way. There's no reason for as the baby has to be delivered to kill that baby. It just doesn't

00:05:27.920 make a whole lot of logical sense. And yet, I don't know, we're just told this propaganda over

00:05:33.740 and over again that this really is about women's health care. Yeah, this is the most common argument 0.83

00:05:39.340 that you hear from Democrats justifying late term abortion, that somehow these always happen in cases

00:05:44.240 of medical emergency. And yet there's never any data to back this up. And in fact, when Republicans

00:05:49.320 or pro-life lawmakers push for some kind of, at the very least, better abortion reporting mechanism,

00:05:54.820 so we know why women are getting abortions at this point, what the circumstances are, if there are

00:06:00.200 these medical emergencies, those types of policies are always opposed by the Planned Parenthoods of the

00:06:05.280 world, the NARAL, pro-choice Americas of the world, because they don't want us to find out what's going

00:06:10.440 on. And so maybe they all are medical emergencies. But from the data we do have, that very much does not

00:06:16.420 seem to be the case. And when we try to get better data, Democrats oppose that. And you'd think that if

00:06:21.320 they were out to protect women's health, they would want to be documenting that kind of information.

00:06:25.820 Yes. And again, even if it were an emergency, you get the baby out, there's no reason to kill the

00:06:30.840 baby. In the meantime, that just doesn't make any logical sense. Either way, you're going to deliver

00:06:35.340 the baby. It's just a dead baby versus a baby that's alive. Your colleague, John McCormick,

00:06:42.060 National Review, wrote about Susan Collins. And that is the moderate Republican,

00:06:47.880 you know, moderate in some ways, maybe even center left in other ways from Maine. She said this,

00:06:54.320 I support codifying Roe. Unfortunately, the bill, this Women's Health Protection Act goes way beyond 0.96

00:07:00.660 that. It would severely weaken the conscience exceptions that are in the current law, Collins

00:07:05.960 said, adding that she found parts of the bill's language extreme. Collins said the bill would weaken 0.52

00:07:11.180 the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which protects a person's ability to exercise their religion.

00:07:16.320 She cited the past support for the act by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Biden when he

00:07:22.740 was in the Senate. So can you break this down for us? Of course, I think we probably both disagree

00:07:27.940 with Susan Collins and the desire to codify Wade. But when she says that this actually weakens

00:07:33.640 conscience exceptions and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, what does she mean by that?

00:07:39.480 Sure. So she's talking about basically the way in which Democrats now not only want abortion

00:07:44.580 to be legal throughout pregnancy, not only to be federally funded by the U.S. taxpayer,

00:07:49.840 but also performed by any doctor whenever a woman demands it. Right. And so what this means is if you're

00:07:55.120 a nurse, if you're a health care professional of any kind, if you're a doctor, you could be

00:07:59.220 conscripted into performing abortion. And the health care or the conscience exceptions, rather,

00:08:04.680 that have always been supported on a bipartisan basis are suddenly now something that are becoming a

00:08:09.600 partisan issue. Democrats don't want to support this anymore because the line has shifted from,

00:08:14.060 you know, abortion as safe, legal and rare, this kind of necessary evil, perhaps, to abortion as a 0.89

00:08:19.380 social good. And so the logic that follows from that is if you're a religious person or you have a

00:08:23.980 moral objection to abortion, that's too bad. You better leave the medical profession or this might

00:08:28.640 be something you end up having to participate in. And this seems this particular part actually seems

00:08:40.020 like something that they are that Democrats are very insistent upon including in their bills because

00:08:46.500 there was similar language in the Equality Act, which also seeks to eliminate conscience rights for

00:08:52.520 doctors who would be made, not all doctors, but doctors in that field could be made to perform

00:08:59.140 abortions, even if their, you know, conscience bids them otherwise. And so it seems like just as much

00:09:07.160 an attack on life inside the womb as it is, or just as much of an attack on religious liberty as it is

00:09:14.680 life inside the womb. They don't want any exceptions, any exemptions for people who might believe

00:09:20.860 differently. And yet we're hearing constantly from them that they're right or the authoritarians.

00:09:25.860 I mean, we were hearing constantly that the Texas law is authoritarian, that it's so bad.

00:09:30.960 And yet here they are saying, look, not only do you have to do this or be OK with this,

00:09:35.720 you have to do it if you're a doctor. And also, you got to pay for it if you're a taxpayer, right?

00:09:42.620 Yeah. And Democrats are always arguing, you know, pro-lifers are these theocrats. They're just

00:09:46.580 trying to force their religion on everybody. You know, never mind that you can absolutely 0.99

00:09:50.340 oppose abortion without being religious, right? This is killing an innocent human being. This is 0.81

00:09:54.380 bad for women. You don't have to believe in God at all to think that that is wrong. But they're 1.00

00:09:59.180 always arguing this is just some kind of religious imposition on the rest of the country if you want

00:10:03.480 to regulate or make abortion illegal. But in fact, they're the ones imposing this very obviously not

00:10:09.600 morally neutral view on others, right? The idea that it's pregnancy discrimination of some kind not

00:10:15.700 to perform an abortion if you're a doctor, that's obviously not true. And they're imposing this

00:10:19.860 worldview on everybody or attempting to make it such that you can't even operate in the medical

00:10:24.420 profession at all if you have some kind of conscience objection to these procedures.

00:10:29.400 Yeah. And, you know, I feel like I used to say that a lot, too, that you don't have to be

00:10:34.080 religious in order to be pro-life. And it's true. Like, I definitely know agnostics, atheists who are

00:10:38.740 pro-life. They recognize what this is. Even there are people who identify as Democrats and,

00:10:44.380 you know, leftists who recognize, okay, there's really no moral justification for it. But, you

00:10:50.660 know, I was challenged on that once. And it really made me think, what is the reason to protect any

00:10:56.060 vulnerable life unless you believe that life has some kind of inherent worth? And where does inherent

00:11:01.180 worth come from if we are not created? If we really are just all clumps of cells, just all clumps of

00:11:06.620 matter, then why does abortion matter? Why does genocide matter? Why does anything matter? And so

00:11:10.900 I almost appreciate the honesty and the recognition from the pro-abortion crowd that this does come

00:11:19.660 down to, essentially, you can accept it even if you're an atheist. It does come down to the belief

00:11:24.760 that life is valuable, that there is innate worth to human beings, vulnerable human beings,

00:11:34.060 life inside the womb because they are made in the image of God. So in one sense, it is kind of a

00:11:39.860 religious argument. But all morality is, you know, all laws come from some kind of worldview.

00:11:46.400 Really, the question is not whether who's neutral and who's not, but who's right and who's not. I

00:11:51.480 don't know what you think about that. No, I agree. I think the case against abortion is obviously much 0.74

00:11:56.280 stronger and easier to make if you believe in God and if you believe that all human life is created

00:12:01.320 in his image and likeness. And that's where our ultimate value and our worth comes from. I think

00:12:06.620 there are ways in which non-believers can participate in that argument in some way through

00:12:10.400 natural law, natural rights, that sort of argument. And I'm, you know, I'm more than willing to accept

00:12:14.940 them to the cause. But I do think it's a stronger argument from a religious perspective. And it really

00:12:20.220 is, at the end of the day, as you say, kind of the culture of life versus the culture of death. Do we

00:12:24.840 believe that all human beings are valuable for some reason and should be protected or that some

00:12:29.840 can be discarded based on some rationale, you know, because the powerful are able to do so

00:12:35.060 and they're too weak. Right, right. That's such a good point. Now, is there any way that this bill

00:12:41.280 passes the Senate? I don't think that it will, no, given how close the split is. And Senator Manchin

00:12:48.520 has typically been a pretty good vote on most pro-life issues. So I'd be surprised if he backed this.

00:12:54.000 And if it did, somehow, either now or in the future, is this something that could be challenged

00:13:00.020 in court? Do you see it being upheld? I don't think that it would be upheld. I mean, I am very

00:13:06.160 bad at reading the Supreme Court tea leaves. That's always a difficult thing to do. But I think what's

00:13:10.380 so troubling about the law is it's not even really a federal statute legalizing this or that, right?

00:13:15.980 It's a statute trying to make it such that states cannot legislate on this issue. It's just ripping

00:13:21.140 the issue of abortion entirely, even more so than Roe v. Wade did, out of the hands of the American

00:13:25.940 people. And I suppose it's, you know, you can respond to Congress as a voter more than you can

00:13:30.580 respond to the Supreme Court. But the idea that Congress should be dictating the abortion laws

00:13:35.380 in every country, I don't think is something that will fly. Yeah. Gosh, talk about authoritarian.

00:13:40.980 You wrote recently that Americans don't really understand Roe v. Wade. There was a poll that you

00:13:47.940 referenced that said the majority of respondents said that, yes, we should uphold Roe. We don't

00:13:53.620 think that it should be overturned. But then when the question was asked, well, do you think abortion

00:13:59.060 should be legal? Do you think abortion should be illegal? It was split, like pretty much 50-50.

00:14:04.800 So can you break that down for us? Like, where do you think this cognitive dissonance is coming from?

00:14:10.560 Yeah, I always find these polls so fascinating. And this is something you hear a lot from abortion 0.99

00:14:14.820 rights groups like Planned Parenthood and NARAL. They're always saying, oh, the American people

00:14:18.400 love Roe v. Wade. You know, this is popular. Seven out of 10 Americans want to keep Roe.

00:14:23.260 And on the one hand, you just want to say to them, OK, well, if that's true, then certainly you won't

00:14:27.320 mind if we overturn Roe, because the majority of Americans will ensure that you get the abortion 0.99

00:14:31.420 policy that you want. Right. But what they also... Wait, can you break that down for us? What do you

00:14:35.440 mean by if we overturn Roe, what would happen then? Because I'm not sure everyone knows.

00:14:42.800 Right. Well, this goes to your first question as well, right? If Roe v. Wade were overturned,

00:14:47.620 the issue, most likely the Supreme Court would decide the issue in a way where every state would

00:14:51.680 then get to set its own abortion policy. And abortion rights groups profit from this lie,

00:14:57.060 frankly, that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, abortion would immediately become illegal everywhere,

00:15:01.640 which explains how you could have a poll where, you know, 65 percent of people say they support Roe,

00:15:06.660 but the poll is perfectly split down the middle in terms of whether voters want abortion to be

00:15:11.440 legal or illegal. They don't know that Roe v. Wade makes it impossible for abortion to be

00:15:15.820 illegal anywhere, even at the state level. And they don't know that overturning Roe would make

00:15:19.920 it such that states could set their own abortion policy and people could vote, which is why it's

00:15:23.440 ironic when Planned Parenthood says, well, most people support Roe, but don't overturn it because

00:15:27.880 then the American people won't get what they want.

00:15:30.260 Yeah. Wow. It really is so much misinformation. I saw a tweet by NARAL the other day

00:15:35.420 saying, you know, why do anti-choice extremists, which whatever, that's fine. You're right. I am

00:15:42.120 against the choice of killing a child, but why do they rely on misinformation? Why do they lie

00:15:48.900 on misleading language? And of course, the exact opposite is true. All pro-lifers have to do

00:15:55.060 is tell the truth. Tell the truth about what abortion is. Tell the truth about what Roe v. Wade does.

00:16:01.780 It's not an easy position always to defend because of the onslaught of misinformation

00:16:06.100 that we're fighting against, but it is a very simple truth to defend, right?

00:16:11.660 No, it absolutely is. And I think the hard part, you know, the reason why we get a poll like that

00:16:15.800 is that so much of the media is complicit in lying to Americans about what Roe v. Wade is. Where is

00:16:20.720 the piece explaining what Roe v. Wade did to abortion policy in our country? You know, where is the piece

00:16:25.780 explaining from a mainstream outlet explaining to people what would actually happen if Roe

00:16:30.740 was overturned? It's all this kind of fear mongering and propaganda, repeating Planned

00:16:34.680 Parenthood talking points. And you kind of can't blame people for not knowing all the information

00:16:38.460 that is kind of true. They don't know what reality is.

00:16:42.680 Right. And even, you know, it's filled with euphemisms, even supposedly non-biased outlets

00:16:48.720 and, you know, sources on social media who say that they're just kind of telling the fact

00:16:55.880 about, for example, Texas's abortion law, you can see where they stand, not just by what

00:17:01.000 they say, but also by what they don't say when they say terminating a pregnancy, when

00:17:06.580 they refuse to say baby, when they refuse to say human being, when they refuse to say what

00:17:11.580 happens in an abortion. Anytime that you are on the side that has to choose euphemisms in

00:17:19.300 order to make your argument palatable, I think that's typically a good reason to double-check

00:17:25.100 if you are on the right side. Well, thank you. Thank you for being so clear and for always

00:17:31.560 reporting on this with so much courage and so much consistency. Where can people follow

00:17:37.060 you and support you?

00:17:38.860 So my work can be found at National Review Online, and you can also find me on Twitter

00:17:42.980 at Zan underscore DeSanctus.

00:17:45.260 Awesome. Thank you so much, Alexandra.

00:17:46.860 Thank you.

00:17:55.100 Okay, let's talk a little bit more about this bill, some of just the absolute radicalism and

00:18:03.620 craziness that's in this bill, and then just a reminder of the subject that we're talking

00:18:08.820 about, the grotesqueness of the subject that we're talking about. I think it's so important

00:18:13.480 for us to remember that we're not just talking about this kind of nebulous policy issue that

00:18:19.240 doesn't affect anyone. We are talking about life and death. We are talking about the killing

00:18:23.360 of babies. Literally, sometimes the reality of what we are talking about when we're talking

00:18:27.820 about the subject of abortion keeps me awake at night. Or I literally, I wake up in the

00:18:32.300 middle of the night and I think, oh my gosh, I can't believe we're actually having a debate

00:18:36.280 about this. And I especially cannot believe that people who profess the name of Christ can't

00:18:41.420 get on board with trying to make this illegal. We'll talk more about that in a second.

00:18:44.640 But I want to talk about this bill, because progressivism is constantly tripping over itself

00:18:52.100 to try to keep up with where this moral and sexual and gender revolution is going. They

00:19:00.480 are constantly trying to keep up with just how radical progressivism has become. And of

00:19:07.920 course, that's the nature of progressivism. There's never like an end goal of progressivism.

00:19:12.840 Of course, I believe it's very morally regressive, but it is constantly moving in a direction without

00:19:19.100 any kind of understanding of what goal it's trying to reach or what it's trying to build.

00:19:24.780 Its means is always destruction. And its end is some kind of mysterious utopia that never actually

00:19:33.360 works out. Like throughout the history of the world, these kinds of revolutions, this breakdown

00:19:39.200 of the family, this breakdown of morality and the understanding of right and wrong and human

00:19:45.200 dignity and all of these things, it never actually ends up in the utopia that progressives think that

00:19:51.580 it's going to, where people are just all happy and they're not owning any property. There's no

00:19:56.760 hierarchies. There's no family unit. There's no religion. They just think John Lennon's imagined

00:20:01.200 is going to manifest itself. It never actually happens. Like history shows us this, especially

00:20:06.220 the 20th century. And this bill, this so-called Women's Health Protection Act is a really good

00:20:11.900 example of all of that. Now, I was surprised by this title, Women's Health Protection Act, because

00:20:18.160 Democrats have been pushing, especially over the past year, to remove gendered language from policy.

00:20:25.340 So I would assume that they would use the word pregnant person instead of women. And just a note

00:20:30.940 on that, like to deny the biological dichotomy of male and female, the reality of male and female is to

00:20:39.520 deny what it means to be human. From a Christian perspective, it's to deny what it means to be 0.77

00:20:44.740 made in God's image. There is no biblical category for gender identity that is separate and opposed to

00:20:51.600 sex. And so this idea that we are going to do away with those categories and somehow we're going to be

00:20:58.080 able to effectively obscure reality, it's not going to happen. It can't happen. Human nature, as I like to

00:21:03.620 say on this podcast, is like a beach ball. You can try to push it underwater as much as you want to

00:21:10.220 with all of your might. You can get the whole world to try to push that beach ball down. It's going to

00:21:16.380 keep popping back up. That's what it does. And so we can try through policy, through legislation,

00:21:21.840 through manipulation of language, through bullying, through censorship, to try to deny the reality of

00:21:29.760 male and female. We will never be able to do it. And I do think the attempt at doing that through 0.50

00:21:36.220 legislation is extremely harmful. It always leads to the erasure, never of men, but of women, which

00:21:43.620 isn't a coincidence. Of course, I believe that Satan has a special hatred for women that we have seen

00:21:52.240 from the Garden of Eden and continues to manifest itself now. And in this bill, that even though it's

00:21:59.520 titled Women's Health Protection Act, they make clear that, hey, we're not trying to be bigoted by

00:22:07.360 using this antiquated term, women. The bill says this. I'm going to include, of course, a link to the 0.86

00:22:12.860 whole text of the bill in the description to this episode, because I want you to be able to read it for

00:22:16.900 yourself. I never want you to just take my word for it. But here's one paragraph from the bill.

00:22:22.740 The terms woman and women are used in this bill to reflect the identity of the majority of people 0.53

00:22:27.480 targeted and affected by restrictions on abortion services and to address squarely the targeted

00:22:32.480 restrictions on abortion, which are rooted in misogyny. However, access to abortion services

00:22:38.100 is critical to the health of every person capable of becoming pregnant. Did you know that there are

00:22:43.140 people that are not women who are capable of becoming pregnant? Isn't that amazing? Cisgender women, 0.99

00:22:48.800 transgender men, non-binary individuals, those who identify with the different gender,

00:22:53.900 and others who are unjustly harmed by restrictions on abortion. So these people have the audacity to

00:22:59.240 say that restrictions on abortion, which save the lives of unborn girls, by the way, is rooted in

00:23:05.860 misogyny. And then they go on to say, well, it's not actually just a women's issue. This is affecting 0.99

00:23:13.640 men, transgender men, which is a woman who identifies as a man. It's nonsense. It's nonsense. Like, 1.00

00:23:20.700 remember, God is not a God of confusion. Like, He did not mean for us to be burdened with this kind

00:23:26.720 of chaos. In His grace, in His creativity, He made us male and female. It's very simple. That doesn't

00:23:34.580 mean that there are not genetic anomalies. That doesn't mean that intersex people don't exist,

00:23:39.660 but that's a disorder. That's an exception that does not rewrite the rule. In the same way that we

00:23:45.560 call human beings bipeds, even though there are some people that are born with one leg, the exception,

00:23:51.700 the exemption, or not really the exemption, but the exception does not change the rule. And yet,

00:23:58.060 people have given in to this kind of confusion, thinking erroneously that this creates order. It

00:24:05.360 doesn't. It creates destruction. It creates confusion. The bill goes on to say, reproductive justice 0.99

00:24:12.640 seeks to address restrictions on reproductive health, including abortion. Again, abortion isn't

00:24:19.100 reproductive health because reproduction has already happened when there is a baby inside the womb. So it 0.97

00:24:24.600 really doesn't have anything to do with reproduction except for the products of reproduction, which is

00:24:28.180 a human being. So restrictions on reproductive health, including abortion, the bill says, that

00:24:32.820 perpetuate systems of oppression. Like, they just can't even get over themselves enough to be able to say

00:24:39.040 what the bill is actually about. Lack of bodily autonomy. Again, abortion has nothing to do with 0.99

00:24:44.080 bodily autonomy. I mean, the human being is a human being that has DNA that is independent of the

00:24:51.940 mother, white supremacy, and anti-black racism. This violent legacy has manifested in policies,

00:24:59.180 including enslavement, rape. Okay, so anti-abortion policies, it's on par with enslavement. 0.86

00:25:05.280 Now, let's think about that for a second. Slavery. Black people were dehumanized. They were made to 0.83

00:25:14.680 feel and they were subjected as less than human, as subhuman, as property. Babies inside the womb

00:25:24.480 are called clumps of cells by the anti-abortion crowd. We're told that they don't have rights,

00:25:30.680 that they don't have innate dignity, that they don't have innate worth. And they are also objectified,

00:25:36.960 abused, and demonized in the same way that slaves were. And so they're saying the opposite, though,

00:25:44.780 that anti-abortion restrictions are on par with slavery, when really it's abortion that's on par

00:25:51.220 with slavery. And for some reason, that's controversial to say. But the reality is, is that

00:25:57.420 we have all kinds of instances throughout human history of people being dehumanized, and the

00:26:02.680 dehumanization leads to their marginalization, it leads to their victimization, it leads to their

00:26:09.740 death. That's just true. And yet all this kind of doublespeak, all this kind of doublethink, all this

00:26:15.260 kind of newspeak, this Orwellian nonsense is trying to flip everything that is true on its head.

00:26:22.020 That's, of course, what Satan does. These people who write this legislation, they can't help but

00:26:28.360 breathe out lies because they serve the father of lies. That's who, that's their nature. That's what

00:26:35.420 they do. And so they go on to say in this bill, experimentation on black women for sterilizations,

00:26:41.700 of course, I'm against that. Medical experimentation on low-income women's reproductive systems, 0.98

00:26:47.860 the forcible removal of indigenous children, of course, I'm against all of those terrible

00:26:51.620 things. But they are saying that that's the same thing somehow as anti-abortion legislation.

00:26:57.940 Access to equitable reproductive health care, including abortion services, has always been

00:27:02.180 deficient in the United States for black indigenous and other people of color and their families.

00:27:06.820 Hang on. Hang on. The violent legacy of white supremacy is ending abortion? Let's look at some

00:27:13.000 numbers. According to the CDC, the abortion rate among black Americans is wildly disproportionate to

00:27:18.800 their population size. In several years, including in 2017, according to the CDC, there were more

00:27:25.960 abortions among black women than among white women, despite black women only making up about 8% of the

00:27:32.920 American population. Since 1965, 18.7 million abortions of black babies have been performed.

00:27:39.580 That's an estimated 42% of the current population of black Americans, compared with only 14% of the

00:27:46.480 white population that's been aborted in that time frame, 15% of the current Hispanic population that's

00:27:51.980 been aborted since 1965, and 15% of non-Hispanic other as described in this report. So it seems to me

00:27:59.640 that Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers are actually carrying out the eugenicist legacy of the

00:28:05.700 Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Singer, who said in a letter that she did not want the word to

00:28:10.060 get out, that they wanted to do away with the black population. It seems like these abortion providers 1.00

00:28:15.760 are succeeding in carrying out that mission still today. And the authors of this legislation

00:28:21.180 have the audacity to say that the people who are standing against that killing, against that mass

00:28:31.740 murder, that they're the white supremacists, it's projection. It's evil. It is the darkest,

00:28:37.640 most wicked thing that you can think of. Late-term abortion, we hear, is rare. We alluded to that with

00:28:44.700 Alexandra. It's rare. It's rare. So it's fine that this bill wants to do away with any restrictions on

00:28:49.680 abortion in the last trimester. It's rare. First of all, that's a bad argument. Just because something

00:28:55.040 is rare, it means that there shouldn't be any restrictions on it. According to the Guttmacher

00:29:00.020 Institute, which is the research arm of Planned Parenthood, rare is more than 10,000 times a

00:29:05.880 year. More than 10,000 times a year. Babies who are developed enough to be able to live outside of

00:29:13.280 the womb. And again, that doesn't mean that babies who aren't able to live outside of the womb

00:29:16.720 independently are less valuable. But just to speak to this talking point that late-term abortion is rare,

00:29:23.900 more than 10,000 times a year. That would be the leading cause of death for children in the United States

00:29:29.800 10,000 times a year. Babies in the second and third trimester after 25 weeks, so that's after

00:29:36.680 viability, are aborted. Now let's talk about, and this is explicit, we know this, but let's talk about

00:29:43.100 how that happens. What goes on in those kinds of abortions that are happening thousands of times

00:29:50.520 a year in the United States that Democrats refuse to prohibit. And not only refuse to prohibit,

00:29:55.840 but they refuse to allow states to prohibit, that is actually being celebrated by a number of

00:30:02.340 organizations. That's another false talking point that no one is pro-abortion. That's not true. That is

00:30:07.380 not true. It is something that is celebrated now among mainstream Democrats. You can be in denial all

00:30:13.440 you want to. That's reality. That's reality. Go check out Shout Your Abortion. Go check out a dozen other 0.96

00:30:19.000 organizations on Instagram that talk about how abortion is great. Read the New York Magazine article

00:30:23.880 from a couple of years ago that says abortion is actually a moral good. Why don't you ask someone

00:30:28.880 that works at Planned Parenthood or NARAL? Why don't you ask Nancy Pelosi, the devout Catholic, 0.92

00:30:35.560 or even Joe Biden, the devout Catholic, whether or not abortion is morally good. They probably would 0.83

00:30:40.840 have a hard time actually saying it's bad, even though they say they're personally pro-life,

00:30:45.640 as if that's possible to be personally pro-life, and yet still against the legal right of babies to live.

00:30:51.540 Okay, I'm going to talk about what a late-term abortion is from the words of an abortionist.

00:30:57.980 It's going to be graphic, but I think it's really important. It's so important, pro-life or whether

00:31:03.740 you're still trying to decide, it's really important for us to know exactly what we're talking about.

00:31:08.720 Okay, so I'm going to read you some of a testimony from Leroy Carhartt, and he is an abortionist.

00:31:22.740 He is still performing late-term abortions to this day, and he had to give, he had to testify in court

00:31:30.540 in 1997, and he was asked a series of questions about what he does for a living. So the questioner

00:31:39.700 said, are there times when you don't remove the fetus intact? Carhartt says, yes, sir. Can you tell

00:31:45.360 me about that, when that occurs? So again, we're talking about second and third trimesters. Leroy

00:31:50.460 Carhartt says, that occurs when the tissue fragments, or frequently when you rupture the membranes,

00:31:55.240 an arm will spontaneously prolapse through the cervix. And of course, if you are not entirely

00:32:00.660 sure about what happens in a birth, the baby has to come through the birth canal, the cervix. And so

00:32:06.580 that's what he is talking about. Rupturing the membranes means like breaking the water. And so

00:32:11.280 he is having to deliver this baby that he is supposed to have already killed through abortion. He's

00:32:17.820 talking about an arm popping out. So the questioner says, what do you mean? Carhartt says,

00:32:22.140 my normal course would be to dismember that extremity and then go back and try to make the

00:32:27.380 fetus out. I might start crying. Take the fetus out, either foot or skull first, whatever end I can 0.92

00:32:33.640 get to first. Questioner, how do you go about dismembering that extremity? We're talking about

00:32:37.980 a baby here. Carhartt, just traction and rotation. This is really hard to listen to, but I think it's,

00:32:44.100 I think it's necessary. Just traction and rotation, grasping the portion that you can get a hold of,

00:32:49.220 which would usually be somewhere up the shaft of the exposed portion of the fetus, pulling down on

00:32:54.420 it. And then you use counter traction and rotating to dismember the shoulder or the hip or whatever it

00:32:59.760 would be. Sometimes you will get one leg and you can't get the other out. Questioner, in that

00:33:04.400 situation, are you, when you pull on the arm and remove it, is the fetus still alive? Carhartt, yes.

00:33:12.300 Questioner, do you consider an arm, for example, to be substantial portion of the fetus? Carhartt says,

00:33:17.580 yes. Questioner, and then what happens if you remove the arm? Then you try to remove the rest

00:33:21.680 of the fetus. Carhartt, then I would go back and attempt to either bring the feet down or bring the

00:33:26.200 skull down. And some, or even sometimes you bring the other arm down and remove that also and get

00:33:31.660 the feet down. Questioner, at what point is the fetus, uh, does the fetus die during that process?

00:33:38.040 Carhartt, I don't really know. I know that the fetus is alive during the process most of the time

00:33:45.860 because I can see the fetal heartbeat on the ultrasound. The court, counsel for what it's

00:33:52.200 worth. It is unclear to me with regards to the intact DNA when fetal demise occurs. Questioner,

00:33:57.660 okay, I will clarify that. Um, this is dilation and extraction. And the procedure of an intact DNA

00:34:03.960 where you would start foot first with the situation where the fetus is presented feet first,

00:34:09.300 tell me how you're able to get the feet out first. Carhartt, under ultrasound, you can see the

00:34:16.460 extremities. Sorry, this is so hard to read. So Carhartt says, you know what is what?

00:34:29.160 You know what the foot is. You know what the arm is. You know what the skull is by grabbing the feet

00:34:33.500 and pulling down on it or by grabbing a knee and pulling down on it. Usually you can get one leg

00:34:39.560 out, get the other leg out and bring the fetus out. I don't know all, all the controversy about

00:34:44.760 rotating the fetus comes from. I don't attempt to do that. Just attempting to bring out whatever is

00:34:50.900 the proximal portion of the fetus. At the time you bring out the feet in this example, is the fetus

00:34:55.820 alive? Carhartt says, yes. And then he goes on to explain what happens. Um, he says that he has to

00:35:06.120 try to cut the cord. And then the questioner says, let's take the situation where you haven't divided

00:35:12.160 the cord because you couldn't, and you have begun to remove a living fetus feet first. What happens

00:35:17.480 next after you've gotten the feet removed? Um, he says you have to bring the shoulders down,

00:35:22.540 but you can get enough of them outside. You can do this with your finger inside the uterus. 1.00

00:35:27.560 And then at that point, the fetal, the base of the fetal skull is usually in the cervical canal.

00:35:32.760 What do you do next? Carhartt. And you can reach that. And that's where you would rupture the fetal

00:35:37.240 skull to some extent and aspirate the contents out. We're talking about a brain of a baby,

00:35:44.580 living baby. Okay. At what point in that process does fetal demise occur between, uh, between initial

00:35:52.080 removal of the feet or legs and the crushing of the skull, or I'm sorry, the decompressing of the

00:35:57.360 skull. Um, Carhartt says this is 1997. So this has been going on a long time. This is where I'm not

00:36:05.360 sure what fetal demise is. Carhartt says, I mean, I honestly have to share your concern. You can remove

00:36:11.680 the cranial content and the fetus will still have a heartbeat for several seconds or several minutes.

00:36:16.020 So is the fetus alive? I would have to say probably, although I don't think it has any brain function.

00:36:20.980 So it's brain dead at that point. So the brain death might occur when you begin suctioning out

00:36:27.200 of the cranium. And then Carhartt says, you know, that he believes so. That's what happens, um, in some

00:36:36.660 D and E abortions. Now there are abortions that are supposed to, um, occur in the way that you

00:36:45.100 ensure fetal demise is what it's called before, uh, the, the baby is extracted. Um, and live action

00:36:55.080 went undercover in 2013 to talk to Leroy Carhartt and to see what that entails. Um, again, second and

00:37:02.960 third trimester abortion. So I'm going to play you a little clip of that. So you don't see a lot

00:37:07.740 of women like me. Well, it's all four this week. Okay. So at 26 weeks. Wow. All right. So I'm not

00:37:15.700 unusual. No, not at all. Okay. And the baby will come through. They'll compress down to come through

00:37:21.200 that because it's not alive. And so when you say compress down, just it's gets soft, like mushy.

00:37:27.720 Oh, so you put, you push it through. So what makes the baby mushy? The fact that it's not alive for

00:37:34.480 two or three days. Oh, so I'll have a dead baby in me for three days. Will it start to decay or

00:37:40.040 something? Oh, it's like putting meat in a crock pot. Okay. It doesn't get, it doesn't get broke,

00:37:46.460 but it gets, gets softer. It doesn't get infected. Okay. So the dead baby in me is like meat in a crock

00:37:53.340 pot. Pretty much. Yeah, kind of much. All right. All right. And what was it that killed it?

00:37:58.740 The injection. The first one? The second one. Oh, the second one. I mean, I've done some when the

00:38:04.120 women can't have that shot if they're alive. I mean, it just, you know, I'm sure the baby feels a

00:38:09.800 needle stick if the baby feels anything. And I truly don't believe that it does at 26 weeks.

00:38:15.020 For some reason, I'm not able to deliver what you'll be able to get it out in pieces.

00:38:19.780 All right. So now we know what happens in a second and third trimester abortion

00:38:29.740 over 10,000 times a year. Now, of course, you'll hear from pro-abortioners as if this makes this

00:38:36.840 better, that they're supposed to ensure fetal demise before they extract the baby. But as we heard

00:38:42.100 in that 1997 testimony, that is not, that's not always, that's not always the case. And just a

00:38:49.240 reminder, that combination of chemicals that's used in the needle that goes through a woman's 1.00

00:38:54.780 abdomen into the heart of the baby in her womb is the same chemical combination that's used in

00:38:59.840 lethal injections for convicted murderers on death row. And so I never understood the people

00:39:05.240 who are against the death penalty for convicted murderers, but for the death penalty for babies

00:39:11.820 inside the womb. I'm sorry, you're not going to tell me that you've got a monopoly on

00:39:16.260 empathy and compassion if you're on that team. According to the Center for Medical Progress,

00:39:21.460 publicly available information demonstrates that the University of Pittsburgh hosts some of the

00:39:25.680 most barbaric experiments carried out on aborted human infants, including scalping five-month-old

00:39:30.960 aborted fetuses to stitch onto lab rats, exporting fetal kidneys across the country, and killing infants

00:39:37.140 delivered alive for liver harvesting funded by U.S. taxpayers via the National Institutes of Health,

00:39:42.520 and in particular, Dr. Anthony Fauci's NIAID office. Local Planned Parenthood of Western

00:39:48.520 Pennsylvania, abortion providers supply the aborted fetuses, while Pitt sponsors the local

00:39:54.280 Planned Parenthood's operations in what looks like an illegal quid pro quo for fetal body parts

00:39:58.360 forbidden by 42 U.S. Code 289G2 and 18 Pennsylvania Statutes 3216. Pennsylvania law also makes it a felony

00:40:07.140 to experiment on a living fetus or to fail to provide immediate medical care to an infant born

00:40:13.020 alive. Now, we already know that Planned Parenthood has been trafficking the parts of unborn babies.

00:40:18.060 David Daleiden uncovered that and was punished for it by Kamala Harris when she was Attorney General of

00:40:23.320 California. Now, this is the same woman who a senator refused to vote yes on a bill that would simply 1.00

00:40:28.580 provide doctors or it would make doctors provide care to infants outside of the womb who survived

00:40:37.780 abortion. And you actually, it's just amazing. Like, you actually had Christian celebrate when she became

00:40:43.940 vice president. Oh, because she's a woman of color. Like, that is going to save her when she stands before 1.00

00:40:48.660 the judgment throne of God? I mean, what a horrifying, depraved, corrupt wench. I mean, same goes for every 1.00

00:40:54.620 single person who supports the legal killing of children. You heard what I just described to you. There is no

00:41:00.640 nuance here. Like, yes, of course. Yes and amen. There is grace for everyone who has had an abortion. I have

00:41:07.220 talked to so many of you who are pro-life and you are some of the most passionate pro-life advocates out there.

00:41:14.040 Nothing makes anyone too far off for God's rescuing power and love and grace. But once we know better, once we know

00:41:22.560 what abortion is, we cannot pretend that it's possible to call yourself pro-life or holistically

00:41:28.680 pro-life and vote for the party that exclusively advocates for the legalized killing of babies

00:41:33.140 through nine months. Yes, we can talk about different policies and practices that we can do to help

00:41:39.700 moms. I, you know, posted a link the other day. There are several pregnancy centers, pro-life pregnancy

00:41:48.460 centers throughout the country, but especially in the state of Texas that are overwhelmed right now

00:41:52.420 since Texas's law was enforced. Praise God, who are now choosing life. And I posted a link for a few

00:42:01.000 minutes of a pregnancy center that said, hey, we're desperate and we're in desperate need of baby

00:42:04.940 supplies and help for moms. Can you post our Amazon link? Posted it on Twitter, posted it on Instagram.

00:42:12.120 Tens of thousands of items were sent to the center. I mean, that's going to clothe babies. That's going 0.94

00:42:18.860 to help moms who chose life. Praise God. This idea that pro-lifers aren't for ways to help moms and 0.99

00:42:26.800 babies. Babies after they're born is a lie. It is a lie. And we do not have to talk about policies or

00:42:33.540 talk about strategies to support families in crisis instead of making abortion illegal. Like there's only

00:42:40.380 one side, only one party that is talking about picking one or the other. The right doesn't talk

00:42:46.040 about that. We say yes and amen. Let's talk about how we can create an entire culture of life. But

00:42:50.920 yes and amen. Let's, let's make this atrocity illegal. If you believe that, that babies in the

00:42:57.980 womb are human beings, which is not a belief, it's fact. So if you accept that fact, then there is no

00:43:02.600 logical reason why that human being shouldn't have legal human rights, the most basic of which is the

00:43:08.220 right to life. So if you're someone who says, you know, I'm against abortion, but let's keep it 1.00

00:43:12.340 legal. You are saying that you don't believe that baby has the same right to life as people outside

00:43:17.500 of the womb. And you need to be able to answer why. You're drawing the same illogical distinctions

00:43:22.500 that the pro-abortion side does. If babies in the womb are human, they're made in God's image and

00:43:28.040 therefore they have dignity. They have a worth. And beautifully in the West, we are supposed to

00:43:33.120 believe that that worth means your physical life is worthy of protection. That's the very least that

00:43:39.480 a government can do. And honestly, like, that's why I have a hard time with some organizations like,

00:43:45.000 like the AND campaign, because even though, you know, I think that their, their mission is sincere

00:43:50.520 and their faith is sincere. I've talked to Justin Giboney on this podcast. So I feel like I can talk

00:43:55.240 about this without it just seeming like I'm not allowing them to defend themselves. At the end of the

00:44:00.100 day, they vote Democrat. Like at the end of the day, they are voting for the representatives,

00:44:05.540 for the, for the legislators that's crafting the kind of policy that is enabling the kind of

00:44:11.900 grotesque procedures that we just described. And I have a really hard time understanding how

00:44:18.500 you can call yourself holistically pro-life and still consistently be voting for the party that not

00:44:24.900 just enables it, but celebrates it. I'm sorry. I just, I don't see it. Like making abortion illegal, 0.64

00:44:33.180 legally protecting the fundamental right of babies to not be murdered is the baseline for being able to

00:44:39.780 call yourself pro-life. Again, we can talk about all the things that we can do to create an entire

00:44:44.860 holistic culture of life, but let's start with just the basic legal rights to live, to not be murdered

00:44:53.960 in the womb. You know, how we used to talk about abortion, it was, it was different. Like, I don't

00:45:00.920 know what made me think of this the other day. But I thought of, you know, the Tim McGraw song,

00:45:07.460 Red Ragtop, a red, red rag top. I think, yeah, I think that's what it's called. I used to listen to

00:45:13.260 that probably not even knowing what it was talking about. Like when I was in high school, because there

00:45:17.160 was a day when, when kids were in high school, they really weren't thinking about politics and a bunch

00:45:21.940 of different issues. But I listened to it the other day and I was like, wow, this makes me sad. It's a

00:45:26.640 super sad song. And he talks about, you know, committing a sin. He talks about how it kind of

00:45:32.920 ruined their life and ruined their relationship or hurt their life at least. And that there was

00:45:36.840 regret. And that was obviously a mainstream song sung by a mainstream singer. And then I remembered

00:45:43.280 another song that was about abortion, Ben Folds. I used to be a huge Ben Folds fan, went to his concert

00:45:49.700 and all of that, even though, you know, he definitely is not producing content that is

00:45:54.840 God glorifying. But this song, Brick, I've heard it described as like the, the happiest sounding song

00:46:01.900 with the saddest lyrics. Like it's got a very happy melody, but it's a very sad and heavy song.

00:46:06.280 And it talks about him and his girlfriend going to get an abortion and how she ended up, you know,

00:46:11.340 they said that they were going to be fine, but she ended up not being okay. She ended up,

00:46:16.140 um, we don't know the details, but she wasn't all right. And they had to confess the fact that

00:46:21.400 they had lied and they had covered this up. And, you know, this was in the nineties when these songs

00:46:27.680 were coming out and I can just see how culture has shifted so much to saying, okay, you know,

00:46:32.980 abortion should be safe, legal and rare, which I'm not saying I agree with that, but it was understood 0.99

00:46:37.280 that this was a moral travesty that, okay, no one, no one wants this to now where we are,

00:46:42.420 it being so celebrated at least by, um, the, the radicals in the democratic party. I don't think

00:46:49.740 that that callousness describes the majority of people who identify as Democrats. I really don't.

00:46:56.700 I don't think that that callousness and that celebration, um, characterizes most of the country.

00:47:02.680 I think it's probably a very small percentage. And yet there is an entire political party that

00:47:07.380 supports it. I mean, when anti-shame is like our first priority, when we are so afraid of, um,

00:47:16.840 people feeling bad for their choices, when we're so afraid of stigma and we say that, oh, nothing

00:47:22.080 should be shameful. Nothing should be stigmatized. Every choice, every immoral choice has to be

00:47:28.740 celebrated. Um, then we create this very morally confusing and honestly devastating and lost

00:47:37.120 society. I'm not saying that we should drown people in shame who have had abortions. No,

00:47:42.260 far from that, but we should be very clear in what is right. What is wrong? What is good? What is evil?

00:47:47.940 Abortion is evil. The abortion industry is evil. We should be doing whatever we can to make sure

00:47:54.700 that it is as illegal as possible. We want better for babies. We want better for women. We want better

00:48:01.120 for society. And yes, we come alongside these vulnerable people and we help them absolutely

00:48:06.800 however we can, but let's start in the womb. Let's start with that basic right to life. I,

00:48:13.720 I can't even, I can't even imagine that we're living in a country where someone like Leroy Carhartt

00:48:21.080 is not only, um, allowed to be a free person and not go to jail. Um, but it's actually celebrated,

00:48:28.740 unfortunately in his industry. I want to change that. I want to do whatever we can to fight for

00:48:34.380 those babies, to fight for those potential victims and to fight for moms who, like I said,

00:48:39.340 they deserve so much better. All right. Um, tomorrow we are finally going to talk about this subject that

00:48:45.840 you guys have been asking me to talk about for a long time. We're going to talk, uh, with the head of

00:48:50.360 an organization Exodus cry, who is doing so much good work. Um, they are helping victims of sex

00:48:56.200 trafficking. They are raising awareness about exploitation. So we're going to talk about the

00:49:00.240 problem of porn and the access that unfortunately kids have to that. It's going to be a really good

00:49:05.540 conversation. And I think you're going to feel inspired to not just know about that subject,

00:49:10.320 but also to do something about it. So I'm excited about that. Remember Tuesday, next Tuesday,

00:49:17.180 it's going to be a really awesome, fun episode. It is going to be our 500th episode. We're going to

00:49:22.860 be doing a lot of different things. One thing that we're going to be doing though, is taking

00:49:25.960 voicemails from you guys. And you're going to, um, if you want to leave a voicemail saying what

00:49:32.400 relatable has meant to you, if there have been, um, if your mind has changed at all on anything,

00:49:37.680 I definitely want to hear about that. And the voicemail number, the Skype number for you guys to call,

00:49:45.480 to leave a voicemail at 682-503-1369. So call us, tell us why relatable has meant something to you.

00:49:52.380 Tell us if anything has changed your mind and we will be excited to, um, hear about that and play

00:49:58.980 some of those on Tuesday. I'm super excited. All right. I'll see you guys back here tomorrow.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - September 29, 2021

Ep 497 ｜ Surprise： The 'Women's Health Protection Act' Doesn't Protect Health ｜ Guest： Alexandra DeSanctis

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript