Ep 844 ｜ Is the Pro-Life Movement Fake？ ｜ Guest： Bradley Pierce
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Summary
Abortion abolitionist Bradley Pierce joins me to discuss the difference between being a pro-lifer and an abortion abolitionist and why abortion abolitionists oppose much of the pro-life movement from a biblical and constitutional perspective.
Transcript
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What's the difference in being a pro-lifer and an abortion abolitionist?
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This is a very contentious and controversial debate among those who are anti-abortion.
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And today I am talking with an abolitionist, Bradley Pierce.
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He's the president of Abolish Abortion Texas and the Foundation to Abolish Abortion.
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And he is going to tell me why today abortion abolitionists oppose much of the mainstream
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pro-life movement, specifically from a biblical but also a constitutional perspective.
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This is a really fascinating discussion that you guys have been asking me to have for years
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at this point, and I know that you are going to be educated by it.
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You are hopefully going to be encouraged and challenged by it.
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Bradley Pierce, thanks so much for taking the time to join us.
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Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
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So, I mean, the most important thing about me is I'm a Christian, saved by the grace of
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I'm a husband to my wife, Cindy, father to our, we're expecting number 11 right now.
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So, I've got a little more long, a little longer to wait.
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You are the president of Abolish Abortion Texas.
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Now, most people who listen to this podcast are pro-life.
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We are against abortion and may even call themselves abortion abolitionists.
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But not very many people know exactly what that means.
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So, what distinguishes an abortion abolitionist from maybe your standard pro-lifer?
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Well, I mean, I was always raised pro-life, you know, raised in a Christian home, raised
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And, you know, it was, at some point, though, I started to see a lot of what I would call
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compromises happening in the pro-life movement, compromising principles, not fighting the battle
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against abortion on, I think, Christian, biblical terms.
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And so, for me, what being an abolitionist means in a nutshell is, first and foremost, that
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I'm a Christian, which means that I approach the issue of abortion from Christianity, I
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use God's Word, it's, you know, it's the most powerful words in the universe, certainly
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not to the exclusion of science and reason and things like that, but we shouldn't be afraid
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So, I'm a Christian who believes that murdering anyone should be illegal for everyone, because
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everyone's made in the image of God, and God tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves.
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So, what are the laws protecting my life from someone murdering me right now?
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Well, those should be the same laws that I want to protect someone's life before they're
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And you don't see support for that idea among a lot of mainstream pro-life organizations,
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They would say, Christian pro-lifers, everyone's made in the image of God.
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We should be able to protect the dignity and the right to life of unborn children using
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the law, and yet there are some distinctions between what you believe or what abolitionists
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believe and what the standard pro-life person and organization advocates for.
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So, again, one of those is using the authority of God's Word and being willing to do that.
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A lot of times, I even saw a post today, someone saying, hey, we really shouldn't use Scripture,
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Because the people that we're talking to, they don't submit to the authority of Scripture,
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They're not Christians, so why would we use Scripture with them?
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But God's Word says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
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So, I think that's a big distinction between abolitionists and the pro-life movement.
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And when I say pro-life movement, you know, obviously it's a generalization, there's obviously
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individuals within it that this would be, you know, there would be differences of opinion
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on this, but generally speaking, the pro-life movement, although it's full of many, many
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Christians, when it comes to the arguments, typically it doesn't begin with and end with
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They're trying to make a so-called secular case against abortion.
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Yes, which I've also said something I realized, though, over the past couple of years, I can't
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say that I've always realized this, that there really isn't a secular case against abortion.
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People say it's against science, it's against morality, it's against ethics, but morality
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and ethics don't mean anything if they're not rooted in absolute truth.
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And science can tell us what can be, but not what should be, or what is, but not what must.
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And so, science doesn't really tell us that abortion is wrong.
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So, I agree with you there, that there is an effort.
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No, we're going to make this secular, progressive argument for abortion.
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You can try, but you're, it still starts with the premise that that life inside of the womb
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is valuable, and science can't really, can't really answer whether or not a human is valuable.
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So, that's why we have, you know, because ultimately, even the pro-abortion movement
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today, you know, we think, well, if they can just realize that this is a human being,
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But the kind of the pro-abortion, the intellectuals, the scholars in the pro-abortion movement
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today, many of them have conceded, okay, it's a human being, but mother's rights trump the
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And it's like, again, without an absolute standard of God's word, okay, how do you argue
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Other than to say, that sounds really bad, and that's out of, out of touch with history.
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It's like, yeah, but there's good things that have sounded bad and been out of touch with
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You got to have an absolute standard, and that's what God's word gives us.
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And you would say, or abolitionists would say, in general, again, this is another movement
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that's made up of individuals, so there's going to be some variation there, that while
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pro-lifers would say that they agree that life inside the womb matters, life starts at
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conception, and they would deny this whole bodily autonomy, my body, my choice argument,
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I do hear abolitionists say a lot, though, that this kind of second victim mentality that
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a lot of pro-lifers have, that the woman is also like an equal victim of abortion as the
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child, inhibits most pro-lifers from actually doing justice when it comes to the unborn, because
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they're unwilling to go to the point of legal equal protection.
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So, talk about that distinction between abolitionists and most pro-lifers.
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Well, that kind of goes back to when I say I believe that murdering anyone should be illegal
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Like, the general pro-life movement, certainly the pro-life lobby, as I would put it, the
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people pushing the policy and the legislation around the country, they don't agree with that.
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They believe that, you know, aborting a child should be illegal for everyone except for the
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And you can go look at the bills that are being introduced and passed around the country for
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the last 50 years, and that's exactly what they all say.
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You write the best bills, we would say, ban all clinic abortions, ban all abortionists,
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but then says, but this does not apply to the mother.
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Right, and so then what happens is, you know, you're really doing a couple of things on a
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Both first, biblically, you are doing something that God expressly forbids.
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God says, you shall not show partiality in judgment.
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He says this throughout Scripture, that you should not show partiality in judgment.
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Partiality is, in Hebrew, that word means regarding faces.
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So, in other words, whenever it comes to judge a case, right, people are commonly seeing
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like Lady Justice holding the scales of justice, and Lady Justice is typically blind, and so
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It should be blind to who these parties are, right?
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Are these parties, is one of them rich and one of them poor?
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Is one of them a woman, one of them a man, or one of them this skin color or that skin color?
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Or in this case, is one of them born or one of them not yet born?
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Justice says you don't take those factors into consideration as far as determining the
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It's two elements to murder, causing the death of an individual with criminal intent, right?
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It's not based upon, well, is this individual born yet or not?
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At that point, once you start looking at that, now you're showing partiality, which God expressly
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So just to read the specific scripture, this is something we've talked about a lot, partiality,
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especially when it comes to so-called social and racial justice.
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We talked a lot about this in the summer of 2020.
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You shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you
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So you can't defer to someone or show partiality to someone because you think they're weak or
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you think they're oppressed or you think they're marginalized or because they have a
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certain status of power that you think would be helpful to you or whatever.
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So what you're arguing is that this doesn't just go for the so-called equity progressive
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agenda with black and white, rich and poor, oppressed and oppressor, but it also comes to a woman and
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her child that if we are willing to punish the doctor or punish the other people involved and
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We're showing partiality to the woman, I guess, just because of our sense of pity and compassion,
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which I can really empathize with because a lot of women who have abortions are victims
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They're often victims of abuse, victims of neglect.
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Their victims, very often, I've talked to people who used to work at Planned Parenthood of
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misinformation, they're expressly told this is not a human, this is not a child, this is
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I mean, even the media, we see, oh, look at what this fetus looks like or whatever they
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would call it, pregnancy tissue looks like at nine weeks.
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And they show something that is not scientifically accurate.
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It looks like, you know, wadded up tissue paper.
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Like, how do we pair the compassion that we have for the women who are victims with everything
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Impartial, righteous justice and truly fighting for the full dignity and rights of that baby in the womb.
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You know, first of all, just on the partiality, you know, we just had a ruling from the Supreme
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Court recently on affirmative action where they said, hey, you can't use someone's skin
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color in determining, you know, who you admit to your college or who you don't.
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They said, basically, you can't show partiality in deciding admissions for colleges.
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How much more so when we're talking about protecting a person from murder?
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We certainly shouldn't be showing partiality there.
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You know, as far as women who are victims, there certainly are.
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I mean, there's a sense in which everybody's a victim, right?
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We're all victims of the society that we live in, the misinformation that's fed to us,
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And so there's one sense that, hey, we've all been lied to.
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You know, there's another extent to which how many of us have swallowed it willfully because
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it goes along with, you know, what we already want.
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And then, you know, there certainly are women who are victims against more specifically,
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They've been, you know, lied to by the abortion industry.
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And absolutely, you know, they're victims in that sense as well.
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But there's a difference, you know, between that kind of victimhood and what I would call
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Legally, we have victims under law where someone can say, hey, yes, I technically committed this
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crime or this act, which is a criminal, but I did it in such a way that I'm a victim and
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They were told by their trafficker or pimp, if you don't do this, I'm going to kill you.
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So that person, we call that duress in most states and some states call that coercion.
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And so if someone is basically under threat of life or limb, if they don't go through
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with this thing, well, then yes, we already have that built into our justice system, that
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that person is, you know, immune or excused from liability, you know, for those actions.
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It's like a person who, you know, you're in your car at the local convenience store and
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somebody jumps in, puts a gun to your head and says, hey, you're my getaway driver now.
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Yes, you've technically committed a crime because you're aiding and abetting this person
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who's committing a crime, but you did it under duress.
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So certainly women who were in that situation, absolutely.
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Our law would already say, yes, you are a legal victim and you should not be in any way
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Or we also have in the legal realm, something called mistake of fact.
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And that is someone did something, but they didn't really know what they were doing.
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You've heard of like mistake of the law and everybody has heard, I think, mistake of the
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law is no excuse, but mistake of fact is if you truly did not know what you are doing,
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then yeah, you're not going to be held accountable for that.
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And there's certainly women who fall into that category as well.
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So as an abolitionist, what equal protection means, and that's a constitutional phrase we
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can talk about, but what equal protection means is that, you know, right now the laws are
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written in such a way that mothers, right, the mothers who abort their children have just
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absolute immunity, no matter how not victims they are, right?
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Is there any state legislation that applies any kind of criminal penalties, fines, community
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service, anything to the woman who has an abortion?
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The closest is Oklahoma, but even there, the attorney general has not interpreted that to
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So I would say, no, there's not a single state that in any way has any kind of liability for
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There's a couple of states that you could argue do, but there's enormous loopholes, so
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That's the way the pro-life movement is written, laws, and that's what abolitionists, what we're
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You know, above the Supreme Court, you walk up to the Supreme Court, it says equal justice
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That's not equal protection, as the Constitution says, and it's certainly not impartiality.
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So you're kind of arguing that the pro-lifers, even though they say that they don't, they
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kind of do give in to the same idea that pro-choicers do, pro-abortionists do, that life inside
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Sure, we say that it's a human being, but it's different than, or it should be treated
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differently than a woman who hires a hit man to kill her three-year-old.
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We would advocate, all of us would say, yeah, that woman should be liable.
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She should be held accountable for hiring someone to murder her toddler.
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But we say if she hires someone to murder her baby inside the womb, she shouldn't be held
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And that shows that in our minds, we hold the distinction between the value of a three-year-old
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and the value of the baby inside the womb, even though we would argue all day that we
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don't as pro-lifers, that that's actually one of the arguments that we make to pro-choicers,
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And yet, because we are unwilling to allow women to go through due process, because that's
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It wouldn't be, oh, you heard someone had an abortion, and so immediately she's going
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You would go through due process, and you would figure out, was she coerced?
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Did she really, was she 12 years old and really had no idea?
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Obviously, she would be a victim there too, but she had no idea what was going on.
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You're advocating for her to go through due process, and that that would be real justice
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I mean, again, you talk about the pro-life movement that, yes, has said these things,
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We say the baby in the womb is just as valuable as the person outside the womb, but actions
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And that's where we need to really repent of being discriminatory toward children in
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And we've said, I mean, just imagine that for a born person, right?
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If we were to say, well, you know, we're going to allow this certain class of people to murder
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you and for there to be no consequences for that.
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That's where we've been in the pro-life movement.
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So yes, due process is exactly what we're calling for, right?
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The 14th Amendment of the Constitution says no state shall deny to any person within its
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jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, right?
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So the pro-life movement, we said a fetus is a person.
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Well, then that means that the Constitution is not neutral on the issue of abortion.
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It means it says states shall not deny equal protection to those persons, equal protection
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So that means every time we write a bill that says this doesn't apply to the mother, then
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we are violating the U.S. Constitution, and we're violating God's Word, which says you
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And I think that's why we've gotten where we are.
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And so what we're calling for is, no, the law should be the same.
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And it really doesn't require writing new laws, right?
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We already have laws against homicide in all 50 states, but then they have these exceptions
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And you talk about, you know, a mother who hires an assassin for a three-year-old.
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You know, what's happening with abortion today, even a few years ago, is that it's not the
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Because medication abortion several years ago became, you know, over the majority of abortions.
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And now today, even in states that claim to be abortion-free after the Dobbs case, overturned
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But nevertheless, even in those states, mothers are still ordering abortion pills, getting them
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delivered, and doing their own abortions at home.
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In all 50 states, none of that's illegal for a woman to order Mifepristone and the other
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abortion medication that escapes my mind right now to abort her child.
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So the overturning of Roe v. Wade, obviously we all celebrated that.
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Um, but something I've heard abolitionists say is what you just said, that abortion is
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still legal in all 50 states and that the laws that have been passed that say we're protecting
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unborn life after Roe v. Wade haven't really done that because they failed to meet that equal
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But abolitionist laws have been proposed in most of these states.
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Who's been the biggest opposition to those bills?
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The pro-choicers or the, uh, mainstream kind of pro-life organizations?
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I wish I could say it was the pro-choicers, the pro-abortion organizations, but the bills
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that we've introduced in, you know, 15, 16 states now, um, have been opposed and ultimately
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killed by the pro-life organizations, pro-life lobbying organizations, and pro-life politicians
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We just had one just, uh, a couple of months ago that I went and testified for in Missouri
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that, uh, they, they allowed two people, they only allowed us five minutes for all the
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And, uh, so there were two of us that testified in favor of the bill, and then there was only
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And the two that testified against the bill was the two largest pro-life organizations in
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Missouri, uh, Missouri Right to Life and Campaign Life Missouri.
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And, and that's what we've seen, again, not just in Missouri, but really across the country
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because of, you know, the, the, the mentality of the pro-life lobby that no mothers have
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And what we're saying, what we're calling for is not the opposite of that.
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We're not saying, no, every mother must get, you know, must, must be thrown in jail, period,
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regardless of what the, you know, what the allegations are, what the circumstances are.
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No, all we're saying is, what's the justice system that protects born people?
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We're calling for that same justice system to protect people before they're born.
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Everybody's heard about, you're presumed innocent until proven guilty, right?
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So there is a presumption that everyone is a victim and that everyone is innocent, right?
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And so we do say that, yeah, let's presume that everyone is innocent and that everyone
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is a victim and then let's require the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury
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of their peers who've been indicted by a jury of their peers, uh, before a judge that they
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And there's every opportunity then for them to argue duress, or I didn't know, or what
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And then there's multiple appellate courts that then review all of that, governors or boards
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of paroles or pardons in every state can then review that and even pardon people if they
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So that's the justice system that we already trust and we are, it's not perfect, right?
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And there's plenty of improvements that could be made there, but that's the justice system
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we have protecting our own lives and born people.
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We're just calling that that justice system should be the one that also protects people
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And I think I know what you'll say to this, but I'm trying to anticipate some of the questions
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Do you fear or would there be a legitimate concern that this would put at risk women who
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have had ectopic pregnancies or have had a miscarriage and someone then accuses them of
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Or sometimes you have to take the same medications or go through a D and C after you've naturally
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And if someone accused them of murder, okay, well then you've got the tragedy of losing your
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child via miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, and then you get convicted of murder because
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I don't know if pro-lifers would say, well, that's part of the reason why we want these
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protections from others because there are so many different situations in which it would
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not be helpful for this woman to have to appear in a court of law.
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I think a lot of that is kind of buying into the pro-abortion scare tactics.
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I don't really think that's very likely, right?
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For one thing, you know, to even investigate kind of the process to even get to having someone
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Hey, I suspect that someone has murdered somebody else, which then law enforcement then begins
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investigating, which then, hey, if they want to dig deeper, they have to go to a judge and
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prove that there's probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed, which a judge
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And again, at this point, this person is not, they don't even know that any of this is going
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And then if they believe that there is probable cause, that a crime has been committed, then
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they can go to a grand jury and get an indictment.
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And if the grand jury agrees that there's probable cause, then at that point, the person can be
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So there's a lot of people that have to agree that a crime has been committed before we even
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get to someone having to defend themselves in court.
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But I think the likely, and the bars are pretty high to really get to that.
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So I think it's, it's, I think it's a scare tactic that people use, um, that that's not
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Again, pro-abortion, they're, they're using that today.
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They're saying, oh, your law is banning abortion.
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And it wouldn't happen under an abolition bill.
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And as far as ectopics and those sorts of things, again, our bills, um, you know, make
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provision that, yeah, that's not, that's not murder.
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Everyone's trying to save as many people as they possibly can and doing everything that
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So you would say in states where the death penalty is on the table for murderers, that
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a woman who self-medicates, self-induces an abortion, that the death penalty should be
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It's something for the, for the jury to consider.
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And, you know, you think about, uh, you know, I was at the, our organization, along with
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20 other organizations and 20 state legislators, we submitted a brief in the Dobbs case and
00:26:28.820
we were there on December 1st, 2022, when the case was being argued and they're right
00:26:34.820
There were women out there shouting their abortions, taking abortion pills, killing their children
00:26:40.400
right there in broad daylight in front of everyone, you know, celebrating it.
00:26:45.280
So, right, at some point you've got to say, well, yeah, some people are, they're, they're
00:26:56.360
Um, that's why we have the death penalty, right?
00:26:58.920
Or, or someone, you know, and again, I think the death penalty is biblical.
00:27:03.040
God says when he first institutes civil government, Genesis 9, he says,
00:27:08.420
Whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.
00:27:12.220
And some people may say, well, that's, that's an Old Testament thing.
00:27:15.120
But then in the New Testament, Romans 13, right?
00:27:17.760
The government does not bear the sword in vain, right?
00:27:23.080
Well, the sword is not a tool of chastisement or imprisonment.
00:27:29.800
And so both Old Testament and New Testament, I think God says that the death penalty is
00:27:34.200
the proper response for someone who maliciously takes human life.
00:27:39.660
And so absolutely, I think it should be on the table.
00:27:42.340
And again, that, that just tells us how serious God treats human life and how valuable human
00:27:51.800
And again, he says why right there in Genesis 9, because we're made in his image.
00:27:56.780
And I am against this kind of second victim mentality that I do see from a lot of people
00:28:03.060
that every woman who has had an abortion is a victim.
00:28:07.460
Now, some women who have abortions are victims.
00:28:11.820
But someone is not a victim because she had an abortion.
00:28:15.640
She may be a victim because of other things that have happened to her.
00:28:19.340
But she's not an automatic victim because she chose to have an abortion.
00:28:25.080
We've seen shout your, we hear a lot from the pro-choice side.
00:28:35.680
There was this awful, awful video that I don't even think I've played.
00:28:40.940
Of this man who said that he wanted a uterus transplant just so he could be the first so-called
00:28:50.840
And so there is like a, there is a bloodlust there.
00:28:53.460
And I do think that we have to just be honest about that and say, well, why shouldn't?
00:28:58.920
Like we see someone who is celebrating the murder of a human being, someone who pro-life
00:29:05.100
Why shouldn't that person be held accountable at all?
00:29:09.680
Um, but it's, I mean, it's an uncomfortable thing.
00:29:13.540
It is, it's really uncomfortable because in that category, and I know that people are
00:29:19.960
I'm someone who speaks against like allowing feelings to dictate right and wrong and like
00:29:26.060
But gosh, there are so many women I know who I love, whom God has redeemed to have had
00:29:32.680
And God has used their story, used their testimony.
00:29:35.080
They've gone on to have lots of beautiful children and gosh, God has just used their
00:29:39.900
platform and their testimony so much and so powerfully.
00:29:43.520
It's really hard for me to picture that woman in jail.
00:29:47.120
And it's not, and I understand there's some cognitive dissonance there.
00:29:51.600
I'm just being honest that that's difficult for me, that I love those women so much.
00:29:55.640
And I'm glad that they're out in the world sharing their testimony that what Satan meant
00:30:03.180
And, but at the same time, I totally understand what you're saying.
00:30:07.560
The impartiality that is needed to enact true justice, the truly believing and acting upon
00:30:13.940
the belief that that child is an image bearer of God and that they need the equal protection.
00:30:19.120
Um, so that's just where, I don't know, you know, my, my, my feelings and my logic kind
00:30:26.580
Well, and I think that's, I mean, that's appropriate, right?
00:30:29.200
There's people that you love and you want, you don't want to think of them, wow, that they
00:30:33.160
But the thing is, we're not talking about going backwards, right?
00:30:36.180
We're not talking about going backwards and imprisoning or prosecuting people who've
00:30:39.240
had abortions in the past, you know, before a bill of abolition would be passed, right?
00:30:43.280
No, our, our laws have told people that this is legal.
00:30:46.540
So of course it would be unjust, it would be unconstitutional, it would be wrong for
00:30:50.260
us to go back and try to prosecute anybody, right?
00:30:52.940
But picture the people that you're thinking about or the people that your viewers may be
00:30:57.340
thinking about and think about, would they have had an abortion if it had been illegal,
00:31:03.940
perhaps even up to death penalty, to get to do that abortion?
00:31:09.860
And a lot of the women we talk to that are abolitionists, they say, that have had abortions,
00:31:17.440
I wish it had been considered murder for me to do this to my child, because then I never
00:31:23.860
You know, because these are law-abiding women, like, and if the law made it murder, then they
00:31:31.180
I just got a message this morning from someone saying that, that she said, 19 years later,
00:31:38.100
And, like, she does struggle with the emotions of it, because, of course, she would like to...
00:31:44.640
It's hard for her to picture herself going to prison instead of living the life that she
00:31:50.820
But she said, if it had been illegal, I wouldn't have done it.
00:31:57.980
Number one is to teach people what's right and what's wrong, to reflect God's character
00:32:03.340
and his value, and that's one purpose of making it, okay, then let's make it where it treats
00:32:09.980
this child the same as, you know, me and you, that we're all equally valuable.
00:32:14.960
That's the first purpose of the law, is a tutor, as Scripture calls it.
00:32:18.880
Then secondly, the next purpose of the law is to deter.
00:32:22.060
It's to prevent people or to deter people from committing crimes.
00:32:27.860
You know, someone who, like, okay, they don't...
00:32:29.940
They're not taught by the law, but they can be deterred from committing the crime.
00:32:37.740
And then the third function of the law is, okay, if someone's not taught and not deterred
00:32:41.760
and they still go through with that, then it's to provide justice for the victim.
00:32:47.300
And that's exactly what should happen when it comes to abortion.
00:32:51.000
And again, if an abolition bill passes and provides equal protection, I would expect that many of
00:32:57.140
the people who would have otherwise gotten an abortion, they instead say, I don't want
00:33:01.620
to be subject to, you know, being prosecuted for that.
00:33:11.000
Mercy isn't saying, oh, there should be no penalty whatsoever, because that just then
00:33:18.740
Mercy is saying, it's putting up barriers and making it difficult and saying, no, if you
00:33:24.700
do do this thing, these are the consequences that God has prescribed here, and then they
00:33:29.040
don't go through with it and they have their child, right?
00:33:34.060
And so to those who say, because I've seen this, of course, in the media saying abolitionists
00:33:39.260
are misogynists, very extreme misogynists, like you would say, no, it's actually for
00:33:46.060
the love of women and the love of their children, of course, that we want to put up every
00:33:51.900
obstacle that we possibly can, so that they won't go through this thing that will wreck
00:33:57.640
their life, it will wreck their heart, and it will also wreck the life of their child.
00:34:04.440
So you would say it's motivated by love and mercy, not by some bitterness towards women.
00:34:13.720
You know, I'm grateful for my mom, I'm grateful for my wife and all of our children.
00:34:24.020
And God's created us both equally valuable and equally in His image, and so I'm grateful
00:34:32.680
It's not saying, oh, I'm trying to control your body.
00:34:37.340
That life is just as valuable as your life, and you were once in the womb, right?
00:34:42.060
And I'm saying your life in the womb should be protected.
00:34:45.100
You know, slightly over half of babies in the womb are female, and we want them protected
00:34:54.800
So it's certainly not misogynist in any way, as I would describe misogyny.
00:35:02.060
Men should be standing up and fighting to protect women and children.
00:35:05.360
And I know that sounds sexist to some, but to me, that's our God-given role to do that.
00:35:10.340
So one thing that I have a hard time with is there's a couple things with the abolition
00:35:18.420
And one is the complete opposition to any form of incrementalism.
00:35:26.020
So the opposition to any bill that restricts abortion, because obviously you don't want to
00:35:38.040
And I understand the reasoning for supporting laws, supporting bills that abolish abortion.
00:35:45.760
But you will also oppose any resolution or any legislation that does not fully abolish
00:35:53.920
And you will say, no, I'm not going to cheer for a 20-week ban.
00:35:57.120
I'm not going to cheer for a six-week ban, because this still allows murder in some cases.
00:36:01.720
What do you say to those who say, okay, I'm with you, but this is better than nothing.
00:36:08.940
We're still making it harder for women to have abortions.
00:36:17.000
And while it might be small in the grand scheme of things, there have been fewer abortions
00:36:23.320
since these laws were passed, since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the last year.
00:36:30.080
Like, shouldn't we at least be on board with the legislation that we can get passed?
00:36:41.040
And, you know, we all want to pass whatever we can to protect as many lives as we possibly
00:36:46.940
But there's, you know, the Bible talks about we don't do evil that good may come, right?
00:36:54.900
So we have to ask, okay, you know, we can use practical, you know, some may call pragmatism
00:37:05.460
And, you know, really it's everything is increments in terms of step by step, right?
00:37:15.300
And so everything is chronological step by step.
00:37:18.680
But, you know, that's why, you know, some would call it incrementalism is whenever you
00:37:24.600
are actually compromising principles, but kind of because the ends justify the means.
00:37:31.900
And what I would say is what is the limiting principle to that, right?
00:37:35.520
Where do you cross the threshold to where you say, okay, well, that means at that point
00:37:43.820
What means and methods of abolishing abortion are off limits.
00:37:48.200
And as an abolitionist, I would say means and methods that violate God's word, not just
00:37:54.620
because they fall short of perfect justice, but because God explicitly prohibits them.
00:38:04.420
So those methods of trying to abolish abortion are off limits to us.
00:38:09.300
So when God says, you shall not show partiality, that means, I believe, we shall not and we should
00:38:17.800
not support any bill that writes an exception from others or that says, oh, well, this only
00:38:32.720
I think that's our limiting principle when we say, okay, we can compromise.
00:38:40.100
I'm all for compromising and people, everybody gives a little.
00:38:43.120
But there's a point at which compromise becomes wrong.
00:38:46.680
And that's whenever you're compromising principles.
00:38:48.740
And so whenever we're actually violating God's word, showing partiality and judgment, that's
00:38:59.220
And they also violate the U.S. Constitution, which says no state should deny equal protection
00:39:05.300
Well, does this bill deny equal protection of the laws?
00:39:11.780
And you, as legislators, have sworn an oath to the Constitution, as I have as an attorney.
00:39:19.700
That kind of going that route and that means to try to do something good, yes, the motives
00:39:25.760
may be great, but that method is not open to us.
00:39:29.720
So you think all Christian voters and legislators should oppose any legislation that simply restricts
00:39:39.500
They should not vote yes, for example, on a heartbeat bill.
00:39:43.260
I think if it denies equal protection, if it shows partiality, then they should oppose
00:39:49.540
So if every Republican legislator did that, if, but I can kind of already see the response
00:39:55.700
to what I'm about to say, but I'll let you do it.
00:39:57.640
If every Republican legislator did that, if they said, I'm not going to vote yes on a six
00:40:04.360
week ban or something like that, I guess the argument would be, well, then they would support
00:40:09.700
the abolitionist bill and then that would be a good thing.
00:40:14.120
Or I don't know if a significant number, say a significant number of Republicans across
00:40:19.560
the state legislatures said, I'm not going to support these restrictionist, incrementalist,
00:40:28.760
And they stood in the way of, say, a six week ban getting passed, but they didn't have
00:40:34.380
enough votes to get an abolitionist bill passed.
00:40:37.960
I mean, we would obviously be looking at a lot of states that would restrict abortion
00:40:43.420
We'd probably be looking at a lot more dead babies.
00:40:46.840
And so I understand that that's the pragmatist mentality, but that's just what I keep thinking
00:40:51.820
about, you know, the babies and the babies that are actually protected from these imperfect
00:40:58.020
It's hard for me to say, well, no, I'm not going to protect those babies in any way because
00:41:04.140
this bill isn't exactly, you know, what we want it to be or what we believe it should be.
00:41:10.200
Well, I mean, ultimately we're called to be faithful to what God says and we leave the
00:41:14.960
That said, I think even in the long term, I think far more babies will die because we
00:41:23.340
I think far more babies have died over the last 50 years because we have been compromising
00:41:30.060
Our actions and our words have not been in alignment.
00:41:35.320
And so that's, you know, even today you look at a state that passes a heartbeat bill.
00:41:40.720
There's one major conservative state that passed a heartbeat bill, you know, a couple
00:41:44.620
of years ago and people came out to the governor and said, well, what about mothers, you know,
00:41:49.680
And he says, oh, well, they still have six weeks.
00:41:53.020
A heartbeat bill doesn't protect a single baby from being aborted.
00:41:56.300
It just means that they have to be aborted earlier.
00:41:58.880
And you go stand outside of clinics, you know, like a state in Georgia, I heard the other
00:42:02.420
day, someone was telling me they were outside of clinics there and, you know, people are
00:42:06.640
going in and it's, and they're harder to talk to and to counsel and to, and, and to
00:42:10.660
take time because there's so much rush to get your abortion now.
00:42:14.860
So they're not seeing numbers really going down.
00:42:18.980
So they're really the get your abortion faster, take less time to think about it bills that
00:42:26.400
And even in states that have total bans, right, they all have written in that this doesn't
00:42:32.180
apply to the mothers, which then means, okay, every baby can still be legally aborted
00:42:37.180
in those states, it just means mothers have to order the pills online.
00:42:42.280
And this is the data showing that they are in huge numbers.
00:42:46.660
There's New York Times has said that overall, across the country, it looks like abortion
00:42:51.540
numbers have gone down, reported abortion numbers.
00:42:55.380
But then they said, actually, but there looks like there's over 6,500 self-managed abortions,
00:43:00.980
these pills coming in to these abortion-free states in the country, and they're being aborted
00:43:07.740
that way, which that more than makes up for the drop in, in the reported abortions.
00:43:14.100
So you may have a lot of states that pass the heartbeat bills, pass these, these bans on
00:43:19.560
clinic abortions, but have not actually even seen an actual drop in abortions.
00:43:27.420
You know, Aid Access is one of the largest abortion pill providers, they just, they've
00:43:33.100
been providing telehealth from Europe to women in America, and getting pills shipped from
00:43:40.400
And like I said, they were already saying that that was more than the drop in reported
00:43:46.380
Then they just came out about a week ago and said, actually, we're, we're now sending pills
00:43:51.420
from U.S. states, 3,500 of those from U.S. states to other U.S. states under what are called
00:43:57.420
shield laws, where the, the pro-abortion states are shielding abortion providers that are shipping
00:44:07.380
And so really, we're just seeing, we're seeing that it sounds nice.
00:44:12.440
I want to believe, and I hope that there are babies that are being saved under heartbeat
00:44:22.900
I don't really know that there are a whole lot.
00:44:26.080
You just think it's happening sooner, and it's happening through medication.
00:44:29.240
So even when CNN reports, there's been, I forget if it was 30 or 60,000 that they said
00:44:34.580
fewer abortions in the past year since Roe v. Wade.
00:44:38.080
You don't really see that necessarily as a win.
00:44:40.720
Well, yeah, the last numbers I saw were 25,000 fewer reported abortions, right?
00:44:45.860
So that's clinics, which were required to report abortions, but that doesn't account for all
00:44:51.000
those that are not reported, the abortions that are taking place through pills that you get
00:44:56.780
And so I don't really think the number is very high at all, and I think that pro-lifers are
00:45:03.460
lulled into a false sense of security thinking, oh, abortion, there's only 10 abortions in my
00:45:08.440
We had 10 reported abortions, but we're seeing it's actually maybe in the tens of thousands
00:45:13.500
in that state and across the country, certainly.
00:45:16.860
And obviously, these medications are not good for women either, and trying to self-induce an
00:45:24.720
I've seen a lot of stories of women who have just been left bleeding, and then they're not
00:45:29.080
given any kind of follow-up care or things like that.
00:45:32.180
And so, in your view, in the abolitionist view, these laws also protect women from that
00:45:37.860
kind of fate and that kind of physical and emotional and spiritual trauma.
00:45:43.580
You also oppose the U.S. House Resolution 464, the Recognizing Life Resolution, acknowledging
00:45:50.680
that unborn children are legal and constitutional persons who are entitled to the equal protection
00:45:59.700
It sounds like something that abolitionists would support, but why don't you support it?
00:46:06.440
But one of the pro-life lobby organizations insisted on one clause being added to the bill that really
00:46:17.900
And that one clause says that the Constitution does not permit a mother who aborts her child
00:46:27.980
That's not just saying that the Constitution is neutral, right?
00:46:32.180
We say the Constitution requires equal protection, right?
00:46:36.200
Then a lot of people say, well, no, the Constitution is neutral, right?
00:46:39.000
That's kind of the argument that won the day in the Dobbs case.
00:46:42.640
But what the clause that somebody added into that bill says that, no, no, the Constitution
00:46:54.420
And I think even the people who, a lot of them that were originally behind that bill, I think
00:47:03.100
Because it undermines what it's really all about.
00:47:05.560
That, no, equal protection doesn't mean that there could be no consequences for the mother.
00:47:17.820
The first impression that I got of abolitionists, I didn't know that there was a distinction
00:47:28.360
I thought everyone was kind of on board with whatever pro-life legislation that we could
00:47:39.180
And she is the former Planned Parenthood worker, employee.
00:47:43.300
She's talked a lot about the evils of abortion and fights against it.
00:47:48.640
But man, I got a ton of pushback and a ton of hate and just really mean comments about
00:48:00.680
And I've seen abolitionists protest and picket outside of conservative Baptist churches.
00:48:06.020
And they, very often, and again, this is a movement of a lot of different individuals.
00:48:17.460
There's a lot of meanness and just like degradation towards pro-lifers.
00:48:22.860
And just like, I have to say, it's not the most attractive movement because even like
00:48:29.640
there are pro-life organizations, they get harassed and protested by these abolitionists.
00:48:36.640
And I'm not saying that protesting and being aggressive is all in assertive.
00:48:44.220
But like, I think a lot of people, just to be honest, their impression of the abolitionist
00:48:49.020
movement, it's like, oh my gosh, you guys are exhausting, kind of annoying and mean.
00:48:55.120
And so, and I think that's part of why some people don't want to be associated with it.
00:49:00.740
I'm not saying that that's just, I'm not saying that that's right.
00:49:02.920
I'm not saying that that's a good justification for not listening to the abolitionist argument.
00:49:09.560
I've noticed that kind of just like feralness among a lot of abolitionists.
00:49:17.100
Like I'm talking about just downright nasty in some cases.
00:49:22.380
That's just, I just wanted to represent that because I know that's what a lot of people
00:49:39.760
She agrees with equal protection and that, yeah, mothers should be subject to prosecution.
00:49:43.360
I didn't even realize that that was a shift or that she had believed one thing and shifted
00:49:52.660
So, but that, yeah, as far as the, you know, the actions that you've seen by some abolitionists,
00:50:02.840
again, like you said, there's obviously a broad, it's a broad movement.
00:50:07.240
I'm certainly not going to defend everything everybody has ever done because, you know,
00:50:13.840
That said, I do think that in our country, you know, and I think that generally it's
00:50:20.260
a pro-life movement and, you know, before I was an abolitionist, you know, I mean, we
00:50:34.540
And if we take into account that people are dying, again, it's kind of like our laws.
00:50:43.340
And a lot of the pro-life, you know, the average pro-lifers, our actions don't say people are
00:50:53.700
And so the abolitionists, I think it's like, they do reflect that.
00:50:59.940
And we're seeing a lot of the pro-life movement that's actually defending this and defending
00:51:04.420
basically a woman's right to an unassisted abortion.
00:51:07.960
And so, yeah, there's passion reacting against that and reacting against churches, which,
00:51:14.980
you know, like during the Holocaust, we see, you know, sing a little louder.
00:51:21.040
And God says that, you know, in the Old Testament to his people, when there's not doing justice
00:51:27.440
to the fatherless, when they're allowing bloodshed in their land, God says, I hate your worship
00:51:38.820
You know, honor me with your actions and not just with your words.
00:51:41.900
And so I think abolitionists are wanting to, you know, obey God.
00:51:46.740
They're wanting to respond to the serious thing with what should be the attitude that we all
00:51:57.020
And, you know, I think it probably gets excessive sometimes.
00:52:02.940
But I think that we should all be extremely passionate about this.
00:52:11.180
Let's act like it really is happening because it is.
00:52:14.120
But we can get in, we can be very apathetic and get in our little, you know, worlds.
00:52:27.360
And, you know, I think abolitionists are trying to wake people up.
00:52:41.000
And I think given a lot of people a lot to think about, I think some people have never
00:52:46.980
And I've had a lot of people request over the years, can you please talk about this?
00:52:53.120
You're dealing, obviously, with sensitive issues.
00:52:55.260
You're dealing with a lot of different people, a lot of different scenarios.
00:52:58.420
And I imagine that I'm going to get a lot of interesting comments with a lot of legitimate
00:53:02.880
And so where can people, if they want to talk to you, because you're the expert on
00:53:06.740
this, or they want to talk to your organization or learn more about this, where can they go?
00:53:12.920
They can certainly find me on Twitter, Bradley W. Pierce on Twitter, or they can check out
00:53:17.680
our page, FAA.life for the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, FAA.life.
00:53:28.900
And I just really appreciate your passion and love for unborn children that you and
00:53:35.260
And we both want those lives to be saved and to honor God.
00:53:38.900
And I really appreciate how biblically you approach this.
00:53:42.040
So I hope, I know, everyone will be really edified by this discussion.