The John-Henry Westen Show - June 13, 2022


Pro-life activist fighting cancer says assisted suicide should never be an option


Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

137.65596

Word count

2,111

Sentence count

148

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Jennifer Bowen is a leader in the pro-life movement in Iowa fighting for abortion and against assisted suicide and euthanasia. She is also a survivor of breast cancer and shares her story of how she fought for her life.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.060 You know, in the pro-life fight, very often the hardest cases are trotted out.
00:00:05.920 Just watch right now while we're going through the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade.
00:00:10.220 What are we hearing about?
00:00:11.180 We're hearing about children conceived in rape and incest and how horrible that is
00:00:15.120 and you're going to force people into a pregnancy under those circumstances. 0.95
00:00:18.160 Horrible, horrible.
00:00:19.260 Believe it or not, on the other side of life, on the fight for life against euthanasia,
00:00:24.860 assisted suicide, it's the same tactic.
00:00:27.220 The hard cases are trotted out and, oh my gosh, look at this.
00:00:31.280 They're going to suffer and so much and you're denying this person the possibility of dying in peace, etc., etc.
00:00:38.280 Well, the great heroes in the pro-life movement fighting against abortion are often those mums themselves 0.62
00:00:44.360 who have experienced rape and incest and have had their child and it's been healing for them
00:00:49.200 the testimonies of children conceived in rape, like Rebecca Kiesling.
00:00:52.800 On that other end, on the euthanasia battle, we've got someone with us today who has suffered greatly
00:01:01.400 and yet is one of the great campaigners against euthanasia and assisted suicide.
00:01:07.960 Stay tuned to the John Henry Weston Show to talk with Jennifer Bowen.
00:01:12.480 Jennifer, welcome to the program.
00:01:34.700 Thank you very much.
00:01:35.860 Let's begin as we always do at the side of the cross.
00:01:39.500 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
00:01:46.320 So, Jennifer, it's great you've spoken out to defend life, to stand against legislation on euthanasia, assisted suicide.
00:01:57.580 Why don't you tell us, first of all, what you were doing?
00:01:59.340 Well, for about 16 years, I worked with an organization called Iowa Rate to Life.
00:02:09.160 And I went from being a volunteer until I got to the point of being their CEO.
00:02:14.560 So, I kind of ran the gamut with what I did there.
00:02:17.200 And what I was most involved with at the end was advocacy across the state, as well as working up at the legislature, fighting the battle for pro-life legislation.
00:02:31.600 And it's hard to believe it, but at the time I was doing it, Iowa had, at one point, 29 Planned Parenthoods.
00:02:40.460 And most of them were doing abortions. 0.99
00:02:43.680 And through pro-life advocacy, through legislation, we are now down to nine Planned Parenthoods in the state, which is still a tremendous number.
00:02:54.520 But we were able to see many, many closed and so many lives saved.
00:03:00.680 Beautiful.
00:03:01.280 And it's funny because you, as an activist fighting on the front lines for life, have sort of been put back into the battle.
00:03:13.200 I'd say put back in by our Lord in an interesting way as a powerful witness of your own still fighting for life, but in a totally new way.
00:03:22.800 Yes, it was a totally new and unexpected way.
00:03:25.780 I never expected for my life to turn upside down the way that it has.
00:03:31.280 Mm-hmm.
00:03:32.960 So tell us, what happened?
00:03:35.240 Well, what happened was I went to the doctor in March of 2019 for a swollen arm.
00:03:45.460 And what came out of that was the next couple of weeks, a lot of testing and biopsies and all sorts of things.
00:03:52.240 And at the end of the day, what they determined was I was stage four metastatic breast cancer.
00:04:00.300 And it had already permeated throughout my body.
00:04:05.640 And I have to read it because I often forget where it is.
00:04:09.140 By the time they found it, it was in my brain, my neck, my throat, my spine, both humerus bones, both femurs, my pelvic region, and most recently a lung.
00:04:21.280 So by the time they found the cancer, we were in pretty dire straits when I met with the oncologist and the radiologist at the beginning.
00:04:33.040 What was your progress then?
00:04:37.060 How did you deal with that?
00:04:38.680 How did you fight it?
00:04:39.420 What ended up happening was we immediately went to battle against cancer.
00:04:44.420 I trusted God to find the right doctors for me.
00:04:47.920 I didn't know one from another.
00:04:50.000 He led me to the right ones at the Catholic Hospital here in Des Moines, Iowa.
00:04:53.460 And they just began an aggressive battle, both with chemotherapy and radiation.
00:04:59.660 At the same time, I was hospitalized for about a month that first couple of months.
00:05:06.240 It was really a severe battle that we were in.
00:05:10.480 And I was blessed to have a radiologist and an oncologist.
00:05:14.620 And the oncologist, I know for sure, now is a believer.
00:05:18.980 And they just battled for my life.
00:05:21.980 And they never gave me a sense of this is dire.
00:05:25.740 I mean, I guess they gave me that sense.
00:05:27.960 But they never gave me the sense that I was terminal.
00:05:30.880 They were optimistic that they were going to battle this cancer.
00:05:34.820 And we wouldn't necessarily see it go away, unfortunately, by the time it's stage four.
00:05:40.360 Typically, you see treatable, manageable symptoms, but never the release of cancer, short of a miracle, which I still believe could happen.
00:05:55.540 And so they just aggressively began to put me through all sorts of things.
00:05:59.940 And my body responded, for the most part, well to it.
00:06:04.480 And we've been doing that for over three years now.
00:06:08.320 And now I'm on a chemotherapy at home.
00:06:13.460 So I don't need to go in and do traditional chemotherapy.
00:06:16.920 And radiation is complete at this point.
00:06:21.160 And so right now, every time I've gone in for scans in the last year or so, I've been considered stable, which is the best scenario that I have in front of me.
00:06:34.720 Okay.
00:06:35.360 So your case is severe, and you made this very powerful presentation.
00:06:43.120 Where was the presentation?
00:06:44.440 What laws exactly were you confronting?
00:06:46.660 There was some laws that were coming forward in the state of Minnesota, where I submitted my testimony to a couple of laws related to assisted suicide.
00:06:57.820 I know that Minnesota is one state where the testimony has gone forward.
00:07:03.520 I'm not sure other states yet.
00:07:06.760 The organization I'm working with is open to using it beyond Minnesota, and I'm open to that as well.
00:07:13.780 What were the arguments that you used in terms of telling them why this pro-euthanasia or assisted suicide legislation is harmful?
00:07:24.980 For me, it boiled down to three.
00:07:28.460 The first was, you know, at any point in my journey, I was literally six months from being considered terminal at any point in this battle.
00:07:38.860 And to be in a battle where sometimes depression does come into play, I think that's probably just a natural part of being human.
00:07:48.920 You know, thinking about things that you might lose, that sort of thing.
00:07:54.000 But at any point, if assisted suicide is legal, I could ask for drugs to end my life, and that would be supported.
00:08:03.920 I wouldn't have the support of, we're going to fight for your life.
00:08:07.720 I would have the support of, certainly, here's your medication.
00:08:10.800 So that was one of my arguments.
00:08:13.760 Another was that you're stripping tools away from the doctors.
00:08:18.160 When you say assisted suicide is an option, you kind of handcuff the physicians to doing their life-saving treatment.
00:08:28.320 And then the third was, comes down to monetary, monetary reasons, which is, if insurance companies know that assisted suicide is legal, and we've seen this at least in Oregon,
00:08:43.340 if it's legal, it's easier for the insurance company to say, you know, here are your medications to end your life.
00:08:51.520 It's, we're not going to cover your care, but we will cover your end of life, your hospice, and all of that.
00:09:00.240 We will cover that.
00:09:01.620 And if we allow insurance companies to be making those decisions, I don't stand a chance in that world, because I'm a very costly consumer.
00:09:12.740 I had great insurance the first two years and was very blessed that way.
00:09:16.580 But if they had an opportunity to end my life in that way, I would hate for them to be the ones to make that decision.
00:09:26.540 And those were the three arguments that I used.
00:09:32.240 So one of the things that we rarely hear about is another aspect of this whole battle, and it involves a Christian concept of suffering.
00:09:43.560 In the scriptures, we hear a lot about embracing your suffering for Christ or with Christ or offering it in union with Christ.
00:09:50.760 The scriptures describe St. Paul with others having suffered at the hands of the Jews after they go to them and are judged.
00:09:58.700 They're told, actually, they won't kill them.
00:10:00.220 They just tell them you shouldn't do that anymore.
00:10:02.200 And they scourge them, which is a horrible suffering.
00:10:04.880 But nonetheless, as they leave, they're rejoicing, say the scriptures, for having been worthy to suffer for the name.
00:10:12.040 In the scriptures, we also read that Jesus was perfected in suffering.
00:10:17.400 He tells us, embrace your cross or take up your cross and follow me. 0.93
00:10:22.600 The way of the cross, the way of suffering is an ordinary part of our lives.
00:10:29.620 But the people who are called to suffer in a particular way are in a particular way more closely united to the sufferings of Christ because the sufferings of Christ were so extreme.
00:10:43.760 I would love to hear your take on that.
00:10:46.660 I think that it's been very eye-opening for me in this journey because I never really had thought about that a whole lot.
00:10:58.500 My life was lived out in complete pro-life advocacy.
00:11:04.080 I knew I was serving the Lord.
00:11:05.460 I knew that I was doing my best to honor him with my actions.
00:11:11.140 And it was easy for me to understand that God would bless that because I was being obedient.
00:11:20.000 This journey has been harder.
00:11:22.360 I immediately had to stop working and was considered disabled immediately.
00:11:27.820 And that, to somebody who's worked all of their life, was a very hard thing to adjust to.
00:11:36.400 It still is very difficult.
00:11:39.480 But I didn't understand that my life would be consumed by this cancer.
00:11:45.520 In the beginning, the first couple of years, it was medical appointments many times a week.
00:11:51.180 My whole life became devoted to fighting cancer and fighting to stay alive.
00:11:58.660 And I didn't, I had a hard time understanding in the beginning, especially, that my vocation had just changed.
00:12:10.600 He was calling me to something different.
00:12:13.880 I would still be serving him.
00:12:15.640 I would still be looking to bless him every way I could.
00:12:21.180 But it was going to look different.
00:12:23.380 And it was going to be more painful than anything that I'd ever experienced.
00:12:30.240 I mean, bone cancer is no joke.
00:12:33.240 And so it would be something beyond what I ever would have considered my journey.
00:12:42.060 And so I've never really known any moments of, and I praise God for this, I've never really known any moments of whiny, how could this happen?
00:12:57.380 And, you know, I've been, you know, I've been sad, and I've been worried about the future, about if I'll see my nieces and nephews grow up, those sorts of things.
00:13:07.880 But it's brought me closer to him, because I've had only him, everything else has been stripped away.
00:13:16.600 I have to rely on him, as we all do.
00:13:19.800 But I have to rely on him in new and unique ways for my life.
00:13:24.140 Because without him, you know, I'm up against a battle of a monster.
00:13:31.540 And it's just brought me closer to him, instead of further apart.
00:13:38.540 And I'm so grateful that he has been ever present in the dark moments, in the middle of the night when I can't sleep.
00:13:49.260 You know, the songs that you learned as a child, scripture verses that you learned as a child and as an adult, those come back to you as mercies.
00:13:58.860 And without him, I don't know how you would go through stage four metastatic breast cancer without him.
00:14:06.560 I just don't.
00:14:08.540 And he's kept you a warrior in the pro-life fight, nonetheless.
00:14:13.580 And I guess many would say probably more powerful than you ever were before.
00:14:18.080 That is something that I rejoice when I have opportunities.
00:14:22.160 And even if it's just sharing something on social media, when I have the opportunities to do something like this, it just blesses me immensely.
00:14:32.480 Because I feel like, yes, this is what I was created to do.
00:14:36.320 And no weapon formed against me will prosper.
00:14:40.100 Amen.
00:14:43.140 Jennifer, thank you so much for your witness.
00:14:45.980 Thank you.
00:14:47.620 May God bless you.
00:14:49.080 God bless you.
00:14:51.440 And God bless all of you.
00:14:53.420 We'll see you next time.
00:14:54.360 God bless you.
00:15:00.520 God bless you.
00:15:09.060 God bless you.
00:15:13.420 God bless you.
00:15:15.560 God bless you too.
00:15:17.180 God bless you.
00:15:19.380 Amen.