Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - May 02, 2018


Ep 8 ｜ ＂Clumps of Cells＂ to ＂Dying with Dignity：＂ The Lunacy of the Left on Life


Episode Stats

Length

54 minutes

Words per Minute

169.62367

Word Count

9,261

Sentence Count

563


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable, where I, your host, Allie Beth Stuckey, give my Christian
00:00:06.000 conservative take on politics and culture one topic at a time. If you like this podcast,
00:00:11.220 you should definitely go over to crtv.com slash Allie, where I have weekly videos of all kinds
00:00:17.440 that give shareable commentary on relevant political, cultural, and theological issues.
00:00:22.160 If you hate this podcast, you should definitely not go over to crtv.com slash Allie because you
00:00:27.720 will probably hate all of my videos. But if you do, you can also follow me on Twitter or Instagram
00:00:34.260 if you so choose. Again, if you don't like me, you probably won't like following me on social media,
00:00:39.560 so you might just want to avoid your misery. You can usually find me on social media by typing my
00:00:45.840 name into the search bar or typing The Conservative Millennial into Facebook, and there I will be.
00:00:50.900 Okay, there is a ton that I want to talk about today. So I'm going to try to fit multiple topics
00:00:57.560 or really multiple points under one umbrella. Last week, we talked about the contradictions
00:01:03.140 between being a Bible-believing Christian and being a political progressive. I got a few really
00:01:09.360 good emails that offered some pushback and some feedback against that topic, and I really enjoyed
00:01:15.600 the dialogue that that created between me and people who disagreed with me. And I just really
00:01:20.280 appreciate people who listen to this podcast knowing going in that they're going to disagree with me
00:01:25.700 and then take the time to send me a thoughtful email asking questions and offering counterpoints
00:01:31.160 and counterarguments. Even though I always try to approach my opinions from a very well-reasoned and
00:01:36.980 well-researched standpoint, obviously, I am very aware that I am a fallible human being,
00:01:44.180 and there probably are holes in my arguments. And I always appreciate people pointing that out or
00:01:50.400 just offering me a new and different perspective. So if that's ever you, if you want to offer me,
00:01:55.700 constructive criticism, or have any questions or feel like I missed something or purposely misled
00:02:01.420 something, then please email me. It's Allie at the conservativemillennialblog.com. It sometimes
00:02:07.480 takes me a little bit to respond to all of my emails, but I always try to send a response that
00:02:13.580 is just as thoughtful as the question that I received. So feel free to do that. So last week,
00:02:20.420 I explained how progressivism advocates for more government control and where government power
00:02:25.760 expands. So does godlessness. If you are interested in a thorough explanation of that conclusion,
00:02:32.020 then you can check out last week's episode. But one of the particular and perhaps the most
00:02:38.520 evil symptoms of the consequential godlessness of government control is the eventual degradation
00:02:44.140 of human dignity. I am talking about abortion. I am talking about infanticide. I am talking about
00:02:50.200 government sanctioned murder. I am talking about assisted suicide, where the power of the central
00:02:55.940 government is allowed to grow without restraint, the value of human life decreases. At no time
00:03:02.180 throughout history has a central figure or governing body having all the power turned out well for the
00:03:08.620 people being governed. Not in ancient history, not in medieval history, not in modern history,
00:03:14.160 not in the West, not in the East. Never has it turned out peachy for us plebeians. In no communist or
00:03:21.340 socialist or fascist society have people thrived. Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, communist China,
00:03:27.740 North Korea, Venezuela today. Every place where a central government has been able to enjoy unfettered growth,
00:03:34.300 pain, suffering, and death of the people they are governing has ensued.
00:03:38.620 You've heard the quote, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts, absolutely. That has been and always
00:03:44.380 will be true, no matter who is in power. That is the nature of power. It doesn't matter what the people
00:03:50.220 in power promise they can do for you. The more power you give them, the closer they get to absolute
00:03:56.440 corruption. Let's think about the most obvious example, Nazi Germany. Nazi stands for National Socialist.
00:04:04.080 Think about what Hitler was able to get away with, with all of his power in the name of
00:04:09.480 common good. He swore he was doing what was best for Germany by exterminating not just Jews, but all
00:04:16.240 the people that he saw as less than black people, gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled. There were people
00:04:22.340 who at the time, I'm sure, thought Hitler was doing a service to humanity. They justified his cruelty
00:04:28.380 because it was advancing and protecting the Aryan race, which Hitler deemed a worthy cause.
00:04:34.520 They viewed the people being sent to concentration camps as subhuman, which I am positive helped
00:04:40.720 assuage any kind of guilt they would have felt about treating their fellow countrymen as chattel.
00:04:46.920 We know the horrific human suffering that that kind of thinking caused. Now, before I go any further,
00:04:55.720 we need to be honest. America, the country that I love more than, well, I don't want to say more
00:05:02.840 than anything. I was just being hyperbolic. The country that I love very, very much, the freest and
00:05:07.800 the best country in the world has also caused pain and suffering. We have also dehumanized and mistreated
00:05:14.240 people via slavery. We had Japanese internment camps after Pearl Harbor for crying out loud.
00:05:19.700 We certainly don't have a crystal clear record on human rights. So you can't say that it is always
00:05:26.240 in only totalitarian governments that treat its citizens unfairly. In the case of slavery,
00:05:31.340 we actually had to have the federal government step in and say, no, you can't do that. Injustice can
00:05:37.800 definitely happen anywhere. The point is not that republics or democracies are completely immune
00:05:44.020 to civil rights abuses. Sin happens no matter what, even systemic sin can happen no matter what.
00:05:50.020 The truth is this, not all human rights violations happen in totalitarian governments,
00:05:55.380 but all totalitarian governments violate human rights. So the principle is still true.
00:06:01.600 Greater government leads to godlessness and human suffering, but greater government is not the
00:06:06.060 only cause of godlessness and human suffering. And I will get more into that soon.
00:06:10.240 Uh, the lesson is that when we give the government more power, usually power in the form of taking
00:06:17.220 care of us, human dignity tends to die. That is certainly what is happening in the UK right now.
00:06:23.960 You have probably heard at this point about little Alfie Evans, the 23 month old who was diagnosed with
00:06:31.400 some kind of apparently incurable brain disease. He was on life support and the hospital wanted to
00:06:37.880 take him off of it. His parents didn't want this. They pushed hard against this,
00:06:42.460 but the British courts ruled in the hospital's favor. So the hospital took him off life support
00:06:48.260 against his parents' wishes. The doctor said that he would die right away. He didn't. He lived for,
00:06:54.440 I think, three days after being taken off life support while his parents were forced to watch him die.
00:06:59.860 Now, that's not even the worst part about this. The UK operates under socialized government-run
00:07:06.100 health care. So because of that, it is somewhat understandable, though definitely an evil of a
00:07:12.240 socialist health care system that the judge ruled in favor of the hospital because, hey, we pay for
00:07:18.160 your health care. We get to determine what that health care looks like, which again is an awful
00:07:22.760 consequence of having the government take over your health care. But what is worse than that is that
00:07:28.600 just like with little Charlie Gard, the courts refused to allow the parents to take their son elsewhere to
00:07:34.460 seek further treatment. The couple was Catholic, his parents. So the Pope offered to cover the cost of
00:07:40.560 getting this kid to Italy where they granted him automatic citizenship so he could receive experimental
00:07:46.640 care there. Why wouldn't the UK allow this to happen? Why should the courts or the hospital via the
00:07:53.700 courts get to make that choice? What cost is it to them? That is the scariest part of this. Not that the
00:08:00.460 courts said, no, sorry, the hospital has done what they can and we're not treating him anymore. But
00:08:04.920 that they said, not only are we not going to treat him anymore, no one else can treat him either.
00:08:11.720 There is an act called the Children Act of 1989 in the UK, a very sweet sounding name, which the UK
00:08:18.540 courts interpreted to mean that a child who is living with a severe disability and dependency doesn't have
00:08:24.200 the same right to life and preservation that you and I do. This is a quote from the act. It is no longer
00:08:29.780 in the child's best interest to continue living. In those cases where the severity of the child's
00:08:35.860 condition is such that it is difficult or impossible for them to derive benefit from continued life.
00:08:41.940 Therefore, because of this act, it is not just recommended to end all efforts to keep the child
00:08:48.480 alive. It is actually illegal. So that is where the UK stands on people, especially children with
00:08:54.380 degenerative diseases and severe special needs that lead to absolute dependence.
00:08:58.120 And if that does not boil your blood, I mean, this, I just, I can't even wrap my mind around it.
00:09:06.300 Not just because of the absolute deterioration of the family this represents by totally taking away
00:09:11.740 the parents right to their child, though that's horrible in and of itself, but because of the
00:09:17.320 demeaning of those with disabilities and dependency. I have spent a lot of time with people with severe
00:09:23.060 special needs. My brother is highly functioning, but autistic. I have spent a lot of time volunteering
00:09:31.100 with people who are much further on the spectrum, a lot more severely autistic than he is. I have spent
00:09:37.960 time with people who are basically non-responsive, who have special needs that basically disable all of their
00:09:49.000 physical and almost all of their mental capabilities. A lot of people would probably determine that
00:09:56.000 because of that, these people are a burden to society. They will never contribute the way you or I can
00:10:02.680 to science and culture. They are, in a lot of ways, vegetables. They can't talk or move on their own.
00:10:10.720 They can't do anything without the help of an able-bodied person. But I am telling you that if,
00:10:16.520 as a Christian, you can look at one of those people and say that their life is worth less than
00:10:23.460 yours or anyone else's in an effort to justify what the UK court has ruled, which there are Christians
00:10:29.300 trying to do that, then you and I worship two very different gods. Oh, and by the way, yours is not the
00:10:36.560 God of the Bible. Oh, and by the way, that means that your God doesn't exist. For the Christian,
00:10:42.220 this is an absolutely irrefutable truth. Humans, and only humans, are made in the image of God,
00:10:49.320 which means that a human being who is, for example, mentally retarded, severely autistic, paraplegic,
00:10:55.400 can't walk, can't talk, is more valuable in God's eyes than the strongest, fastest, most majestic,
00:11:01.960 winningest animal in existence. And that's scandalous to say these days.
00:11:06.300 But it doesn't make it any less true. There is no room for the Christian to agree with the UK on
00:11:12.860 this or with the general principle that the government should dictate what innocent humans
00:11:16.600 deserve to live or die. The government in the UK, made up of fallible human beings, just like all
00:11:24.040 governments and courts, is taking on the role of God by determining which people's lives are worth
00:11:30.220 protecting and which ones aren't based on how much they can contribute to society, which is a
00:11:35.580 completely made up arbitrary standard. And once you set a subjective arbitrary standard for the
00:11:41.960 worthiness of human life, you open up the door to allowing the government to determine that anyone
00:11:48.260 based on anything is not valuable. Who's to say it won't one day be dyslexic people or people with
00:11:55.920 cerebral palsy, people with red hair, Christians? You might think, okay, that sounds hyperbolic.
00:12:01.520 That sounds crazy. That sounds like a slippery slope fallacy. But I have no logical reason to
00:12:07.180 believe that we won't go in that direction. I have no reason to believe humanity has its limits
00:12:14.040 to evil based on the atrocities that we've seen in just the last century. Dehumanizing one class of
00:12:20.540 people always makes way for dehumanizing multiple classes of people depending on who is in power.
00:12:26.060 That is what happens when the government becomes God. And this is not just the UK. This is not just
00:12:33.100 an isolated instance. This is always what happens when people allow the government to take the place
00:12:39.480 of a higher supreme being. The government gets to determine who lives and who dies based on who they
00:12:46.320 think is valuable and who isn't. And this is the undeniable path of progressivism. There's no way around
00:12:54.480 it. Like I said last week, so many Christians are falling into the trap of thinking leftism,
00:13:00.760 socialism is more compassionate because it offers free health care and help for the poor.
00:13:06.200 Well, here is what that looks like. Ultimately, the poor and the needy have what they need for a
00:13:11.380 little while at the expense of everyone else while the government grows in power. And then devastation
00:13:17.020 always ensues. Because guess what, guys? The government is not a merciful God. The government
00:13:25.000 is not a merciful God. And the more power we give the government, the more we ask the government to
00:13:31.800 care for the people that we, you and I, Christ followers are supposed to be caring for, the closer
00:13:37.300 the government comes to fully eclipsing the roles of God, the church, and parents in our society.
00:13:42.520 And as the cases of Alfie Evans and Charlie Gard can attest, that does not end well.
00:13:50.760 A government that becomes the caretaker of the populace is not actually concerned with taking
00:13:55.980 care of the populace. They're concerned with staying in power. They know if they can get people
00:14:01.260 to depend on them enough, then they will always have enough power. Like I've said, it's not like we
00:14:07.380 haven't seen this before. The nature of totalitarianism, of socialism and communism
00:14:12.520 has not changed since the beginning of time. It has always dehumanized its populace as tools of the
00:14:19.400 state, just like in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Cambodia, et cetera, et cetera. But this is not
00:14:25.900 strictly a political problem. It is also a cultural one. As you've probably heard before, politics is
00:14:32.020 downstream from culture. Yes, the Alfie Evans case is a consequence of what happens when you
00:14:37.700 give the government too much power. But as I mentioned earlier and said that I would get further
00:14:42.060 into, dehumanization of citizens is not exclusive to socialist societies as we've seen in our own
00:14:48.640 history and as we see today in our country in the normalization and even glorification of abortion.
00:14:55.240 We have not yet become a socialist society and yet we too have classified an entire group of people
00:15:02.400 as subhuman and have legalized discarding them like garbage. We have not yet gotten to the point
00:15:09.360 where we routinely force parents to watch their child die at a hospital. But with enough satanic force
00:15:16.780 coupled with the growth of the government, I can bet you we will get there. But just because we are not
00:15:22.780 to that point politically doesn't mean we don't have a problem festering culturally, a problem of
00:15:29.200 devaluing human life manifesting itself right now in abortion, a problem that will grow, that will
00:15:35.560 manifest itself in other disturbing ways. Since I have talked about this publicly in detail before and
00:15:42.900 because I spent a lot of time writing a particular speech about this and so I probably couldn't reiterate
00:15:48.600 it any better than I did then. I am going to play you a few minutes of a speech that I gave at CPAC this
00:15:54.860 year where I sat on a panel discussing human dignity. I talk about where this devaluing of human life takes
00:16:02.680 us. First of all, I think it's such an honor to get to talk about this subject that, like you said, is
00:16:07.940 increasingly pressing and is always hanging in the balance in our politics, is always being threatened to be
00:16:14.300 kind of disregarded as this hushed conversation that we can only have behind this veil of euphemisms
00:16:20.440 like bodily autonomy. So the fact that we're having this open conversation right now means that there
00:16:25.480 is still hope, like you noted. So let me just kind of give some perspective about where I think we are
00:16:31.480 and why it's so important, not just for millennials like myself, but for everyone to care about this
00:16:36.620 subject. So first, track with me for a second because it's going to seem like I'm not talking about
00:16:41.500 abortion, but I am. So I just saw The Second Godfather for the first time this past week. And there's this
00:16:47.640 conversation, if you haven't seen it, you should, but there's this conversation that two main characters
00:16:52.640 are having, Kay and Michael. And Kay compares her abortion, or compares her marriage to an abortion. She
00:16:59.900 calls it evil and unholy. And that just struck me because how far have we come in 45 years, not just since
00:17:07.420 the movie was made, but since Roe v. Wade, from calling an abortion evil and unholy, to calling it reproductive
00:17:14.500 freedom, to calling it women's rights, to calling it privacy. But what you and I know, what you and I know is that
00:17:26.640 no amount of political correctness, no amount of manipulation can hide the fact that just one abortion provider
00:17:33.420 is murdering over a thousand children every single day in this country. Abortion, the principle of
00:17:42.760 abortion, is literally why we look at, or we look in disgust at Hitler's Germany, for example. It's the
00:17:51.840 same exact principle of having a subjective standard of human worthiness and exterminating anyone who doesn't
00:17:59.460 meet that standard. That has literally been the mark of every dictatorial and depraved regime and nation
00:18:06.520 since the beginning of time. And we look back at history in shame on those crimes against humanity,
00:18:15.600 but why today do we not look in shame at where we are right now in 2018 in the United States of America,
00:18:24.200 America, not just allowing it, but normalizing it, glorifying it, and calling it choice.
00:18:31.440 And if you think that our absolute apathy and disregard for human dignity stops with life inside
00:18:40.920 the womb, unfortunately you are wrong. There is an abortion advocate. He's also a bioethicist. He's a
00:18:47.820 professor at Princeton and really the leading intellectual and academic voice for abortion. His name is
00:18:53.720 Peter Singer. I also say that he is one of the only honest abortion advocates as well. So his argument
00:19:00.160 for the moral acceptance of abortion is that the baby inside the womb, he acknowledges that it is
00:19:06.960 scientifically a human being, but it does not meet the standards of personhood. And that is rationality,
00:19:13.700 autonomy, and the ability to be self-conscious. So he says because of that, because they don't meet the
00:19:20.600 standard of that personhood, then life inside the womb doesn't really have any rights. But, and here's
00:19:26.640 where the honesty comes in, because most pro-choicers would probably agree with that, but here's his
00:19:30.620 honesty. He says, if that is our standard of human worthiness to live, then logically we have to apply
00:19:36.560 that to everyone, to life inside the womb and outside the womb. So he is an open advocate for
00:19:42.760 infanticide. He is an open advocate for terminating people with severe special needs and severe mental
00:19:48.920 illness because they don't meet that subjective standard of personhood. Now, you're probably
00:19:54.840 thinking, okay, well, he's radical. That's a radical pro-choice stance, but it's actually not. It's
00:20:01.740 becoming mainstream. Last year in January, the House passed the Born Alive Survivors Protection Act,
00:20:09.240 which says a doctor who is performing abortion has to save the life of the child who survived that
00:20:14.860 abortion. So outside the womb, all, all but six Democrats, all but six Democrats in the House voted
00:20:22.980 no to saving the infant. To show you where we've come back in 2002, a very similar, if not stricter bill
00:20:31.200 passed the House in both chambers by just a voice vote. So that's, that's where we've come now. And I'm
00:20:38.600 wrapping up because I know I don't have that much time. But I want to create a segue. Now, most pro-choicers
00:20:45.300 prefer that life is terminated inside the womb because the PR strategy for Planned Parenthood to be
00:20:50.540 openly pro-infanticide is a little bit tricky. So they prefer that life be terminated inside the womb,
00:20:56.380 which is why they're completely fine with places like Iceland having a 99.9% rate of terminating babies
00:21:04.420 inside the womb with Down syndrome. That's why they're okay with it happening here at a 60% rate.
00:21:11.300 And if you don't think that that's going to eventually extend to people with autism or different
00:21:16.180 kinds of special needs, then you're absolutely blind. And here's, here's why this matters. Here's why
00:21:21.840 human dignity matters. Here's why it's important that we don't set some subjective arbitrary standard
00:21:27.400 of human worthiness that people don't meet. One, because we've already joined the ranks of North Korea
00:21:32.500 and China and being one of only seven countries to allow abortion after 20 weeks when a baby is
00:21:37.440 known to flinch from the abortion needle, but also because without life, not a single one of our
00:21:43.580 rights granted to us by God and guaranteed to us in the Constitution is secure. Every single one of them
00:21:49.000 is at stake. And the founders knew this. That is exactly why in the Declaration, life is listed before
00:21:56.420 liberty or the pursuit of happiness. Because without life, without the protection of life, the
00:22:01.840 understanding and agreement that human dignity starts in the womb, neither liberty nor the
00:22:07.480 pursuit of happiness exists. How did we get here, guys? How did we get to the point in our country,
00:22:13.800 the freest and best country in the world, a country for the people, by the people, get to the point where
00:22:19.460 dismembering a living, feeling, defenseless baby inside the womb is called women's health? How did we get
00:22:25.520 here? How did we get to the point where murdering a baby is called choice? How do we get to the point
00:22:31.820 where it's not just seen as a necessary evil like it used to be by pro-choice advocates, but something
00:22:37.560 disgusting human beings like Michelle Wolf make jokes about and people laugh at? The answer is,
00:22:45.160 at the most basic level we Christians know, is sin. It is sin. It is the trajectory of man without God.
00:22:53.640 It's nothing new, though. It is the same thing that perpetuated and glorified slavery as
00:22:59.320 states' rights. We fought a war over that, though, and we ended it. You think that's going to happen
00:23:04.800 with abortion? No, I don't. We've got a Republican Congress and White House, and we are still giving
00:23:11.400 $500 million of our tax money to the largest abortion provider in the country. Maybe I'm being
00:23:18.300 pessimistic, but I don't think the government is going to deliver us on this one, guys.
00:23:22.760 I just don't. I don't think that that means, though, that there's no hope. There is hope.
00:23:27.920 I think the real counterwork against abortion is done by the church, by clinics who don't provide
00:23:33.320 abortions, by pro-life organizations, true women's health organizations, not by the government.
00:23:39.700 Now, that doesn't mean we shouldn't push for legislation. I obviously do, and I talk about it a
00:23:44.060 lot, and I will, I hope, I will gladly embrace being wrong about this. But that doesn't change the fact
00:23:51.100 that it is our job, primarily as the body of Christ, to do everything we can to end the cycle
00:23:56.360 of abortion. That means helping mothers every way we can and providing them with options other than
00:24:02.760 abortion, and giving our time, our energy, our money to clinics and centers that do so much more than
00:24:08.880 health care, that they provide women shelter, they help women get jobs, go to school, they help them
00:24:14.740 with the adoption process, help them even with the citizenship process. Hope 139 House is in
00:24:21.780 Watkinsville, Georgia. I think you can go to hope139.com. They're an amazing organization like
00:24:27.420 this. You should also check to see if one of the centers are in your area or a clinic like this is
00:24:33.820 in your area. We have a lot of pro-life clinics that offer these kinds of totally free services
00:24:38.620 to women with unwanted pregnancies. And they're really great. So you can Google it and hopefully
00:24:43.480 find it if Google doesn't censor your search. But the weird thing is the left in America doesn't
00:24:48.900 want you to think this way in this life affirming way. It hampers their narrative that abortion is
00:24:55.320 health care. It diminishes a key part of their platform. And quite frankly, if we truly take Planned
00:25:00.980 Parenthood out of business, which would just be amazing, then the Democrats lose millions of dollars
00:25:07.100 in campaign funding. Planned Parenthood Votes is a part of Planned Parenthood that has just joined
00:25:12.900 a coalition that is dishing out $30 million in campaign funding for the 2018 midterms.
00:25:20.360 Abortion itself is a huge part of the Democratic platform. Tom Perez, the head of the DNC, said,
00:25:26.220 in fact, you don't even have a place in the Democratic Party if you are anti-abortion.
00:25:31.380 Also, just parenthetically, as a side note here, I like how pro-choicers think that it's
00:25:36.940 somehow a pejorative to say anti-abortion instead of calling us pro-life. They won't call us pro-life.
00:25:42.740 So they call us anti-abortion or anti-choice. And I'm like, OK, I love it. Thank you so much. I love
00:25:48.360 being called anti-abortion or anti-choice. Put it on a freaking bumper sticker. I'll buy it. I'll put
00:25:53.400 it in my bio. Anti-choice, anti-abortion alley. I love it. If that was if we still had AOL instant
00:26:00.380 messenger, I would make that my screen name. So anyway, nice try and offending me. It doesn't.
00:26:05.720 I really like it. But anyway, isn't that funny? The left's absolute refusal to acknowledge that
00:26:12.440 killing an unborn child is evil and that maybe just maybe we should all be taking steps towards
00:26:19.440 ending it. I mean, that is something I could settle for if they could just go back to acknowledging
00:26:24.740 that it is evil and sad and gruesome and that it's something that should be avoided at all costs.
00:26:30.660 If pro-choicers just saw abortion as a last resort for women in dire situations,
00:26:36.560 then maybe we could work together. Now, I still wouldn't agree with their reasoning on that because
00:26:43.460 murder is murder. But at least we could work toward a common cause of trying to make the need
00:26:48.140 for abortion obsolete. But they are not interested in that. They're not interested. Women's marches have
00:26:55.000 signs in t-shirts that say, I heart abortion. Gosh, I mean, it's crazy. I can't even say it.
00:27:01.720 They make jokes about abortion. They call it women's health care, women's rights.
00:27:07.580 They say abortion, the killing, the taking, the life of a child inside the womb is synonymous with
00:27:15.500 privacy and liberty. That is bodily autonomy. It's reproductive freedom. What?
00:27:21.420 First of all, you have bodily autonomy over your own body, but not someone else's body.
00:27:27.760 Where's their bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom? Reproductive freedom is the freedom
00:27:33.080 to use a condom or not have sex, not to murder a baby. So instead, we are expected to pretend
00:27:41.760 like abortion has anything to do with agency or independence or empowerment. It doesn't.
00:27:48.520 This is why I say you can't be pro-choice and anti-abortion, as many of my followers have tried
00:27:55.360 to argue before. You don't believe in killing a child, but you want someone to have the choice to
00:28:03.060 do so? In what scenario do you think it's moral for you to advocate for the freedom of someone to
00:28:11.440 kill an innocent, defenseless human being? It's the same thing as saying, I would never murder someone,
00:28:17.800 but I want someone to have the freedom to murder someone. Uh, that means that you're probably not
00:28:24.220 really against murder. You are either against murder or you're not. Would you say, I'm against
00:28:31.300 rape, but I think someone should be free to rape, you know, their body, their choice. What? Then you're
00:28:37.540 probably not really against rape. Trying to be in both camps on both sides of the fence or just ride the
00:28:44.720 fence means that you're really just too afraid of making a moral stance. And quite frankly, there
00:28:50.060 isn't any logic to that wishy-washy position. And there's really not any room for it in honest
00:28:54.460 political and moral dialogue. Being pro-choice is being pro-murder. It is. I mean, there's,
00:29:01.580 there's really no way around that. And the only thing worse than being pro-murder is to pretend that
00:29:06.480 it is not murder to normalize it, to glorify it and to call it healthcare. It's really amazing.
00:29:14.200 It's amazing in a sad way how the pro-abortion side has manipulated people with their completely
00:29:19.980 deceptive rhetoric. I mean, have you ever tried arguing with a pro-abortion person? It's literally
00:29:26.420 the most maddening thing in the entire world. I've probably lost 15 years off of my life arguing with
00:29:33.380 pro-choice people because they won't actually address abortion. They only have straw men to
00:29:40.020 defend their position. Really, the only question that matters should be, are you killing a defenseless
00:29:46.520 human being or not? But they really don't like to answer that because it's really hard to justify it
00:29:53.300 if that's the case. If you admit that, yes, you're killing a baby, you have to be ready to defend that.
00:29:59.140 Most people aren't. So here are the ways that they try to avoid that question. Here are their
00:30:06.840 straw men. You're not pro-life, you're pro-birth. The world is overpopulated. There are too many kids
00:30:14.400 in foster care. What about rape or incest? An unwanted child would have a bad life. And they also do the
00:30:22.800 whole bodily autonomy, her body, her choice, freedom thing. These are all illegitimate arguments
00:30:29.900 because they don't address the only question that matters. Are you killing a human life or not?
00:30:35.740 And that is why Peter Singer is one of the only honest advocates of abortion out there. Because
00:30:41.820 the only intellectually honest start to an abortion conversation is one where both sides acknowledge
00:30:47.040 that you are killing a human being. Then the pro-choice side has to defend it. But they won't
00:30:52.780 ever go there or they will hardly ever go there because it is so evil and difficult to justify.
00:30:59.500 And I think they know deep down, just like Peter Singer has articulated, the implications of killing a
00:31:05.700 human being in the womb will soon extend to babies outside the womb. That is simply the logical next step.
00:31:11.640 And once that happens, once we deem life outside the womb disposable based on its disability or
00:31:17.640 dependence, the way that the UK has, what's stopping us from disposing of all people who are
00:31:24.240 disabled or dependent? The sick, the elderly, even the homeless. And it's that kind of thing that is
00:31:30.420 already happening. That's what this whole stupid, evil, dying with dignity movement that you've heard
00:31:36.160 about is, which is prevalent in Europe, but not quite yet in the United States. Dying with dignity
00:31:42.080 is assisted suicide, which isn't actually dignified at all. Sadly, the main reasons that people choose
00:31:49.380 assisted suicide, the reasons that have been cited, they're not because of pain or sickness like the
00:31:56.300 dying with dignity movement wants us to think, but because of loneliness and discontent. The same
00:32:02.280 reasons that commit, people commit regular suicide. But again, this is the natural trajectory of
00:32:09.300 devaluing human life. And here in America, most people aren't willing to say that they want to go
00:32:15.680 that far yet. They don't want to admit that that is where abortion takes us. So instead, when you really
00:32:23.280 press them on whether or not abortion murders an innocent human being, they go with the whole idiotic
00:32:28.320 clump of cells thing. And honestly, that one's getting pretty old. Because any even pro-choice
00:32:35.440 embryologist will tell you that that's not true. Life starts at conception. If it doesn't start at
00:32:40.160 conception, you need to ask, when does it start? Like, we should probably be able to answer that
00:32:45.760 question if we're going to suck people out of the womb and kill them, right? You get a whole bunch of
00:32:51.560 answers when you ask that question, which shows that unless you say that life starts at conception,
00:32:56.900 conception, the whole beginning of life thing is completely arbitrary and subjective. And when
00:33:01.340 you're talking about killing someone, don't you think we should probably play it safe and be pretty
00:33:06.660 exact? Don't you think just to be sure we should just start at conception? Plus, people who use the
00:33:13.020 whole clump of cells argument still advocate for abortion after the heart starts beating, which is
00:33:19.100 at eight weeks, even after the child can feel pain, they advocate for it. Even after the child is fully
00:33:25.340 formed moving around in the womb, when the unborn child has visibly taken the form of a baby, these
00:33:31.700 people are still okay with abortion when it's quite obvious that it's not a clump of cells. So the
00:33:37.160 clump of cells thing is stupid. And any honest, smart pro-choicer doesn't revert to that kind of
00:33:42.320 lunacy. Our mainstream lefts and our government is probably going to continue down this path of
00:33:49.580 extremism toward abortion, demanding it all the time without restriction for free. The government
00:33:54.920 will probably continue to support it. I hope not, but I'm not holding out too much hope. And we will
00:34:01.180 see to the normalization, legalization and popularization of assisted suicide, of infanticide
00:34:08.040 and euthanasia for the severely disabled for or or the dependent. Because as I say, once you give the
00:34:16.560 government the power to say that one class of people doesn't have rights simply because we don't want
00:34:21.280 them to have rights, then you open the door to allowing them to do so to any class of people they
00:34:26.220 arbitrarily deem less worthy of life. This is what happens when society decides that they have no use
00:34:35.180 for God. They take on a naturalist point of view in which the only thing that really exists and
00:34:40.380 therefore the only thing that matters is what we can see and feel. And in that kind of world,
00:34:45.660 when tangibility is the sole qualification for reality and importance, people stop subscribing
00:34:51.320 to rules and laws they can't see. Because without God or a higher power, there really is no good
00:34:56.820 argument for a transcendent moral law. Now, you don't have to believe in God to be pro-life. You can look
00:35:02.600 at the direction abortion leads us in and realize, hey, that's probably not great for society. You can do
00:35:08.360 that without believing in God. But the absence of a supreme law giver and therefore a supreme law makes
00:35:13.540 all morality relative and subjective, really, including the moral of defending innocent human
00:35:18.900 life. That is why, Christians, it is our job to stand up for the least of these, including the
00:35:25.900 unborn, to fight for their rights, to advocate for their sanctity. We have a responsibility to push back
00:35:32.240 darkness with the power of the gospel. That includes fighting against the culture of death that seems to
00:35:37.440 be consuming our world, knowing, though, that ultimately darkness will consume the world until
00:35:43.360 Jesus comes back. That doesn't mean, though, that we don't fight. We save lives. And more importantly,
00:35:50.200 we save souls. We don't save souls, but we introduce people to the truth of Christ and Him crucified,
00:35:57.040 and He saves their soul, which is far more important than any physical work that we do.
00:36:01.180 Now, there are a couple things that I want to mention that I didn't really find room for in
00:36:07.680 the main chunk of this, but there are two pieces of the life conversation that need to be touched on.
00:36:13.840 One is the idea that animals and humans have the same value. Believe it or not, this seems to be
00:36:20.820 a prevalent idea, even in Christian circles these days, which is just sad. The Bible, from Genesis to
00:36:28.300 Revelation, makes very clear that humans alone are made in the image of God and therefore have
00:36:32.960 supreme worth to any other creature and should be regarded as such. I can see why atheists might
00:36:38.840 disagree, I guess. If you don't believe people are made in the image of God, maybe you think that
00:36:43.600 animals and people are the same. I don't know, though. I don't know. That still doesn't make very
00:36:48.060 much sense to me. There's a reason why humans have created art, culture, science, governments,
00:36:52.940 and no animal has or ever will. An animal will never have a podcast. An animal will never contribute
00:36:59.820 to any type of cultural, technological, or political advancement except if they are used
00:37:05.840 by humans to do so. They don't have agency. They don't have morality beyond feelings of sadness
00:37:12.860 sometimes because they disappointed the people that feed them. That's true only for dogs, by the way,
00:37:18.940 not for cats. Cats are like, you are welcome for getting to feed me and clean my litter box.
00:37:24.020 But beyond that, whether you believe in God or not, there's an undeniable spark in human beings that
00:37:30.080 no other creature has. This is true of every human being, no matter their mental capacities or physical
00:37:35.980 capabilities. No animal will ever do anything of cultural and political and real meaning apart from
00:37:41.600 the existence of humans, whereas human beings as a whole are independently both valuable and influential.
00:37:47.320 That to say, animals are valuable. We should treat them with respect and love. I have three pets. I'm
00:37:54.160 obsessed with them. I cry anytime I hear a story about animal cruelty. I think people that inflict
00:38:01.080 violence on animals should be punished as severely as the law allows. I hate it. And I also think it's
00:38:07.000 typically a prequel to human violence. So it's pretty serious, but they are not. Animals are not.
00:38:13.140 Never have been. Never should be equal in worth to people. That's not how it works.
00:38:16.840 Trying to elevate animals to the level of humans will end in actually lowering humans to the level
00:38:21.520 of animals because animals don't have the capacity to operate on the same level that we do.
00:38:26.140 So they couldn't possibly enjoy and exercise the same rights that we have.
00:38:30.880 Also, people trying to say that those who are pro-life are hypocrites if they eat meat. No,
00:38:39.820 nothing against veganism, honestly. But being vegan isn't any more moral and certainly not more
00:38:45.400 biblical than eating meat. There are some animals that were literally made for eating and some animals
00:38:52.200 need to be eaten to control their population or they at least need to be hunted. That's why hunting
00:38:57.580 is actually good for the environment. No one talks about that. Now, I am against cruel treatment of
00:39:03.280 animals, like I said, including cruel treatment of animals that we eat for food. I have watched PETA
00:39:08.560 videos, okay? Probably shouldn't have, but I have and it makes me really sad. That's bad. Shining light on that
00:39:13.820 and trying to get your meat from places that treat their animals decently, I think is great. That's
00:39:19.380 a great thing to do. I also think that being a vegetarian or being a vegan is totally fine and
00:39:26.140 great. There's nothing wrong with that. But vegetarians and vegans who have no place to judge
00:39:33.900 people who do choose to eat meat, especially from a biblical perspective. And being pro-life and a
00:39:39.200 carnivore is not hypocritical because again, human life is distinct and superior in worth to animal
00:39:44.820 life, period. Another thing that I hear a lot is that pro-lifers are hypocritical because many of us
00:39:51.380 are conservatives. And so people assume that we are okay with war and the death penalty, which is
00:39:56.500 probably true of a lot of conservatives and conservative pro-lifers. Well, first on war, I don't
00:40:02.600 think any of us like war. We don't prefer it. I certainly don't, especially not libertarians. But
00:40:09.740 yes, we do believe or I believe in peace through strength. We see war as a necessary tool. It was a
00:40:16.600 necessary tool at times in the Bible. And unfortunately, it's still a necessary tool now. Not all wars are
00:40:23.420 good. Not all wars are necessary, but some war is. The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the World Wars.
00:40:29.260 While sad and while really imperfect in a lot of ways, they ended up accomplishing, for the most
00:40:35.480 part, what we set out to accomplish. And the world would not be where it is now with that war. We
00:40:41.400 wouldn't have America with that war. And I think we would all agree that we and the entire world is
00:40:47.060 better off having America as the only existing beacon of liberty and hope. I don't believe in killing
00:40:52.540 civilians. Obviously, that's horrific. I don't believe in excessive or undue or cruel force. But yes,
00:40:59.140 I do believe that military action is acceptable and not at all seen as a sin, but is rather a,
00:41:06.920 like I said, a necessary tool in our fallen and broken world. The Bible seems to agree. Also,
00:41:12.980 engaging in voluntary violence in which both sides are armed is a little bit different than a doctor
00:41:18.480 pulling a defenseless baby's head off with forceps. Okay. On the death penalty. Do I like it? No,
00:41:25.940 I really, really don't. Do I worry that there have been people on death row and there are people on
00:41:31.600 death row that have been wrongfully convicted? Yes, I do. That, I mean, it breaks my heart. I have a pit
00:41:37.120 in my stomach thinking about that. I really hate the idea of killing someone who is unable to defend
00:41:42.380 themselves. I really do. And I know that they're criminals, but it makes me sad. I hate it. But we do
00:41:48.900 see the death penalty in the Old Testament for things like murder, which goes to show just how
00:41:53.940 much God cares about the sanctity of human life, that taking someone else's life is punishable by
00:41:58.860 death. Genesis 9, 6 says, whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed for God made man
00:42:06.520 in his own image. That just shows how much it breaks God's heart and how murder was not part of
00:42:13.540 his plan. Now, the other side of that is that Christ, as we know, fulfilled the Old Testament
00:42:19.220 law in the New Testament. We Christians are not bound to everything the ancient Israelites were
00:42:24.260 bound to. Jesus offered a new picture of grace and mercy and reconciliation in the New Testament
00:42:29.240 that is also an example of the grace and mercy we should extend to others. So some people take that
00:42:34.780 to me that Jesus' new covenant means that the death penalty is out the door, that it made obsolete the
00:42:44.980 need for bloodshed to make up for your sins. But I'm not really sure that that alone means we should
00:42:52.000 no longer have the death penalty. Because by that logic, we could also say that we should extend grace
00:42:58.460 to all criminals and punish no one. Sometimes extending grace doesn't mean that you relieve people of their
00:43:04.600 earthly consequences. I just don't think it's feasible to do that either, or good for society,
00:43:10.720 or necessarily matches our God-given desire and need for justice. In my research on this,
00:43:16.920 I came across something that I agree with, that biblical punishment should have five characteristics.
00:43:23.140 One, proportionality, which you can find in Exodus 21. Wow, I put that reference in really weird. So now I
00:43:30.780 don't know what the reference is. I'm trying to read it. I said Exodus 21, 23, 25, but I'm not really
00:43:38.360 sure what's the verse and what's the chapter on that. So I'll get back to you. Number two, it should
00:43:42.920 have certainty of guilt, which you can find in Deuteronomy 17, 6. It should have intent. You can
00:43:49.260 find that in Numbers 35, 22 through 24. We should expect and want due process, Numbers 35 and Deuteronomy 17.
00:43:57.560 And also for Christians, there should be a reluctance to execute. We should not rejoice in
00:44:03.680 execution. In Ezekiel 33, 11, God says, as sure as I live, I take no pleasure in the death of the
00:44:11.340 wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. That doesn't mean execution isn't a
00:44:17.720 consequence or necessarily that it shouldn't be, but that we should mourn the death of evil people.
00:44:23.000 And I'll tell you, that is not always my attitude towards terrorists or people who murder and
00:44:28.400 torture children or murder and torture anyone who is defenseless and vulnerable. I want them to pay for
00:44:35.800 it, which is partly natural. Yes. Like I said, we all have a desire for justice, but also because I,
00:44:43.220 to God, am really no different without Jesus than these murders, I should see them with the same mercy
00:44:50.000 that God through Christ has chosen to see me. So this to say, I understand where Christians are coming
00:44:55.440 from who are against the death penalty, but I personally don't find any solid biblical evidence to
00:45:01.920 be unequivocally against it. So I don't think that people who are for it are condemned by God by any
00:45:08.660 means. And again, believing and punishing by death a murderer is not the same thing as killing a
00:45:14.460 defenseless baby. That does not somehow negate your pro-lifeness. There's also something very,
00:45:22.500 very important that I want to say. Anyone who has had an abortion, there is grace for her. There is
00:45:29.740 grace for you. There is no condemnation in Christ. There is no shame to be had in Christ. There is full
00:45:39.500 1000% forgiveness for that. If Jesus could make Paul who used to murder Christians into the greatest
00:45:50.520 missionary that has ever lived, know that there is forgiveness for all of us. And God doesn't see you
00:45:57.520 as any worse or any less than any of the rest of us because of that. Just know that his grace and his
00:46:06.180 love and his compassion is just as available to you as anyone else. And all you have to do is turn
00:46:12.680 around and he comes running. That is the God that we serve. And so even though I talk in very clear
00:46:19.740 terms about abortion, because I do have strong feelings about it, the women who have had abortion,
00:46:25.560 I have the utmost compassion and sympathy for. And I want you to know, and I want them to know,
00:46:36.180 that God loves them immeasurably, amazingly, and that there is no fear in going to him with that pain
00:46:46.760 and with that sin because he is there and ready to forgive it and to reconcile. So I just wanted to
00:46:54.320 make sure that I mentioned that. Okay, now, I am going to answer a couple questions that I have
00:47:01.140 gotten and I want to answer. So thank you to you all for sending them. One question, Allie, what is your
00:47:09.480 favorite passage of scripture? Well, Genesis is probably my favorite book of the Bible, Genesis and
00:47:15.940 Ephesians. I love Genesis because I love being introduced to the character and the nature of God
00:47:21.700 through the stories that we read in Genesis. They are genuinely entertaining. Like I have laughed reading
00:47:27.880 Genesis. You probably can't say that about much of the Bible. And they're fascinating. They tell us so
00:47:33.360 much about who God is, what he cares about. Wow. I'm just going to leave that in there. I'm not even
00:47:40.220 going to edit it out. What he cares about and how he loves us. I love, in particular, Genesis 32,
00:47:47.300 when Jacob wrestles with God and God renames him Israel. Before God makes Jacob Israel the namesake of
00:47:55.880 his chosen people, God wrestles with him and breaks his hips so that Jacob or Israel walked with a limp
00:48:01.400 for the rest of his life. Jacob calls the place pineal or pineal, meaning face of God, because he knew
00:48:08.000 he had seen God face to face yet survived. And I think that this wrestling between God and Jacob is a
00:48:15.040 really interesting metaphor for God's relationship with Israel, his willingness to be up close and personal,
00:48:19.980 even intimate, his willingness to break them, wrestle with them in order to build them into the people that
00:48:25.240 he wanted them to be. And I think that's often true of the nature of God's relationship with us,
00:48:29.920 his personal engaging with us, his breaking of us in order to restore us into something better,
00:48:35.920 something of his design, even renaming us in the way that he did Jacob. And ultimately,
00:48:41.420 everything in the Bible is a reflection of Christ. And so I think also the wrestling story is an
00:48:46.880 interesting story of the brokenness that often leads to redemption. Another question,
00:48:53.580 how do churches like Joel Osteen's keep the numbers coming in? So for those of you who don't know,
00:49:01.260 Joel Osteen is a false teacher who preaches something called the prosperity gospel,
00:49:06.300 which I have made many videos about at CRTV.com slash Allie. These are also known as word of faith
00:49:13.760 preachers, which means that they teach that if you speak something or believe something or pray
00:49:18.640 something hard enough, uh, and faithfully enough, it will happen. That God wants you to have the
00:49:27.380 promotion that God wants you to be happy and fulfilled in this life. Sorry, fam. That's not the
00:49:34.000 gospel. God wants you to be holy and happy in him. When he says, I will give you the desires of your
00:49:40.360 heart. And Psalm 37, when he says in John 14, you may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it.
00:49:47.280 He is talking about things and only things that align with his will, which may or may not be a
00:49:54.180 promotion, material success or healing from sickness. Psalm 37, four, let's look at these
00:49:59.800 verses in context. Psalm 37, four says, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires
00:50:05.140 of your heart. That does not mean he will give you what you want, but when you are delighted in the
00:50:11.800 Lord, the desires of your heart will align with his. And when your will aligns with his, then yes,
00:50:16.320 he will carry it out because it is his will. And then the context of John 14, 14 is whatever you
00:50:22.520 ask in my name, this I will do that the father may be glorified in the son. If you ask me anything
00:50:27.800 in my name, I will do it. Asking something in Jesus's name doesn't just mean saying his name.
00:50:33.620 It means asking something consistent with his will and his character to his glory, not ours.
00:50:38.880 God does not promise to make us healthy and wealthy. He doesn't. I mean, we probably all know
00:50:44.280 Christians, wonderful Christians, Christ followers who love God, who have died from cancer or who have
00:50:50.440 had something horrible happen in their lives. I mean, think about Job, for example. And Jesus tells us
00:50:55.600 this in John 16, 33, in this world, you will have tribulation, but take heart. I have overcome the
00:51:00.760 world. That's a promise. That's a guarantee that our hope shouldn't be in this world, but in Jesus
00:51:05.640 who has overcome the world. Luke 9, 23, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up
00:51:12.160 his cross daily and follow me. That doesn't sound too much like an easy life. This doesn't mean though
00:51:19.720 that God wants us to be melancholy or to look for ways to make our life hard. He's just saying that if
00:51:26.300 you follow him, you're not getting a guarantee of a life of ease, but of ultimate fulfillment in Christ
00:51:32.040 and eternal life, which means far more than any earthly gain to believe that God will or has to answer
00:51:38.980 all of our prayers for comfort and wealth is to reduce God to a genie. And as Galatians 6, 7 says, do not
00:51:46.560 be deceived. God will not be mocked. Yikes. The Bible has a lot to say about false teachers and why
00:51:56.300 and why people follow them. Here are a couple examples of that. Galatians 1, 8. I am astonished
00:52:03.380 that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a
00:52:07.660 different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort
00:52:12.980 the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary
00:52:18.540 to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. Second Timothy 4, 3 through 5 says, for the time
00:52:25.240 is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will
00:52:30.120 accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the
00:52:35.780 truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober minded, endure suffering, do the work of an
00:52:42.820 evangelist fulfill your ministry. Second Peter 2, 1 through 3. But false prophets also arose among the
00:52:50.340 people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies,
00:52:57.060 even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will
00:53:03.860 follow their sensuality. And because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed,
00:53:10.040 they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle,
00:53:15.560 and their destruction is not asleep. Sheesh. So I think the answer is that a lot of people have
00:53:23.740 itching ears. I think a lot of people are looking for comfort and ease. Don't get me wrong, God is our
00:53:31.580 comforter and our strength. But he's not there to make us feel better about ourselves. Joel Osteen is a
00:53:38.560 great communicator. His messages are easy to listen to. I've listened to many of them. And he's probably
00:53:43.740 a great motivational speaker. And maybe some of the things that he says, probably a lot of the things
00:53:48.060 that he says are true. But they're not the whole truth. Not for a preacher of the gospel. From what
00:53:54.340 I've heard, he doesn't preach the true gospel. And unfortunately, he is not the only one. He's far
00:54:00.600 from the only one. Okay, guys, longest podcast ever yet again. It's getting like a little bit
00:54:05.760 longer every week. I know I had a lot more questions that you guys sent me, but that's all
00:54:10.060 I have time for for today. If you like this podcast, please leave me a good review. If you have feedback,
00:54:16.100 constructive criticism, please email me at Allie at the conservative millennial blog.com.
00:54:20.900 If you want more of my content, like my weekly videos that I produce, go to CRTV.com slash Allie.
00:54:26.240 You can also find them on my Facebook page, the conservative millennial. Follow me on Instagram,
00:54:31.360 Allie B. Stuckey and Twitter, conserve millenn if you want to. Okay, bye. Have a great week.