The Michael Knowles Show - Choosing Life： Arguments for Life from a Progressive, Pro-Life Atheist - Terrisa Bukovinac

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00:00:40.880 When I'm looking at the landscape of the abortion issue in the United States,

00:00:45.680 I recognize that the primary pillar of power for big abortion lies in their relationship with the Democratic Party.

00:00:53.620 That's how they maintain power and control.

00:00:56.980 But we know that at least 21 million registered Democratic voters today consider themselves pro-life.

00:01:05.260 That's a third of voting Democrats.

00:01:08.200 But what I find also is significant is that the vast majority of Democrats across the spectrum

00:01:17.120 reject late-term elective abortion.

00:01:21.100 And yet the party maintains such an extremist point of view, one that does not represent even

00:01:29.200 the vast majority of Democrats.

00:01:32.020 All of the leadership for the Democratic Party is radically pro-abortion, as well as the Democratic

00:01:39.320 Party platform.

00:01:40.700 It's a lie.

00:01:41.460 When most people think of the pro-life movement, they think of conservative Christians.

00:01:48.540 And generally speaking, they're right.

00:01:51.480 But that isn't the whole story.

00:01:53.900 In fact, some of the most important work being done today to expose the grisly reality of abortion 0.93

00:01:59.580 is coming from people who never step foot inside a church or right-wing think tank.

00:02:05.220 People such as Teresa Bukovinak, a progressive atheist who has devoted herself to the pro-life

00:02:11.540 cause because, she argues, it is the only way to consistently advocate on behalf of the oppressed

00:02:19.240 and marginalized.

00:02:41.480 Right now, I would strongly recommend you go to hallo.com slash choose life.

00:02:47.280 Because today's world is a scary one.

00:02:50.400 Too many people don't seem to care about the truth.

00:02:53.340 And I would suggest that that's all rooted in people becoming less, or really, just anti-religious.

00:03:00.500 That's why it's more important than ever to keep our relationship with God strong.

00:03:05.660 Hallow is the number one Christian prayer app in the United States.

00:03:08.900 It's like Calm or Headspace, but rooted in Catholic faith.

00:03:12.660 It is the perfect resource to deepen your relationship with God

00:03:16.000 and find peace through audio-guided prayer and meditation.

00:03:19.840 Several of Hallow's meditations encourage you to choose life

00:03:22.580 and to pray for others to choose life,

00:03:24.680 such as their Litany for Life with Lila Rose.

00:03:27.460 Hallow is free to download.

00:03:29.460 It will help you find peace and calm throughout your day.

00:03:32.600 So do it. Do it right now.

00:03:34.160 Download the app for free at hallo.com slash choose life.

00:03:39.360 That is hallo.com slash choose life.

00:03:43.480 Here's Teresa.

00:03:44.280 My name is Teresa Bakovinak.

00:03:52.220 I am a full-time pro-life activist.

00:03:55.340 I've been active online in the movement since 2011,

00:03:59.020 and I joined the leadership for Secular Pro-Life in 2014.

00:04:05.300 I founded Pro-Life San Francisco in 2016,

00:04:08.820 and in 2021, I founded POW, the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising.

00:04:16.120 Beautiful.

00:04:17.120 Tell me just a little bit about Secular Pro-Life until, 0.75

00:04:19.780 and then we'll jump to POW.

00:04:21.960 Secular Pro-Life is an organization that exists to create a space

00:04:26.480 for non-traditional pro-life people,

00:04:29.480 particularly atheists and agnostics.

00:04:31.700 But we are also creating a community of pro-life Muslims, pro-life Wiccans,

00:04:37.860 and anyone who feels like they don't necessarily fit into the mainstream pro-life movement or narrative.

00:04:44.460 But we also exist to help the pro-life movement as a whole use more secular arguments

00:04:50.440 when defending the pro-life position.

00:04:53.560 And why is that important to you, secular arguments?

00:04:57.760 Well, like we mentioned previously, Bernard Nathanson listed the lie of painting the pro-life movement

00:05:07.060 as primarily religious as a way to keep most people from engaging with the issue.

00:05:12.140 The reality is even most pro-choice people are Christian, 0.99

00:05:15.800 but they've been led to believe that this is a religious issue for them

00:05:20.400 and that they're expected to keep their religious opinion about abortion out of politics.

00:05:26.980 But we think it's really critical that the movement is able to effectively demonstrate

00:05:32.760 that this isn't a religious issue.

00:05:35.580 And it's really hard to do that unless you have secular arguments

00:05:39.440 and visibly secular people active in the movement.

00:05:43.980 So tell me a little bit about POW. What is POW?

00:05:46.260 The Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising is an organization that I founded

00:05:51.600 to mobilize rapidly grassroots pro-life activists for action.

00:05:56.720 We are looking at the abortion issue primarily through an anti-capitalist lens,

00:06:01.820 and we are committed to the values of equality, nonviolence, and non-discrimination,

00:06:07.740 and are committed to engaging in non-violent direct action to dismantle the abortion industrial complex.

00:06:17.420 That's awesome.

00:06:18.140 And something that, you know, immediately came to mind when you were describing POW

00:06:22.360 is, you know, one of the big arguments that the pro-choice lobby uses

00:06:26.540 against the pro-life movement is,

00:06:30.340 oh, you know, pro-lifers just care about life when it's in the womb.

00:06:33.860 They don't care about life after the baby's born.

00:06:36.800 You know, the pro-life lobby, they say, is, you know,

00:06:40.460 just concerned about controlling women's bodies, just controlling women's choices. 0.99

00:06:44.200 But once the baby's born, like, good luck and see ya,

00:06:46.780 is kind of the argument that the pro-choice movement uses.

00:06:49.800 Can you respond to that? And is that true?

00:06:52.800 Well, I don't think it's true for the pro-life movement,

00:06:54.940 but I can certainly see why leftists like myself, who aren't anti-abortion,

00:07:02.200 could see it as a hypocrisy.

00:07:05.440 And I think it's important to show that regardless of your political standpoint,

00:07:10.400 that this is a violation of fundamental human rights.

00:07:14.340 As leftists, certainly, we recognize that there are problems with capitalism,

00:07:21.280 that there is a potential for exploitation, and that exploitation is happening.

00:07:28.280 But I think it's important to understand that we are a single-issue organization.

00:07:33.340 And while many left-leaning pro-life organizations do adhere to a consistent life ethic,

00:07:39.400 and me personally, I do consider myself consistent life ethic,

00:07:43.840 POW is focused on the issue of abortion alone.

00:07:46.780 And I think that, you know, we really have to move past this idea on the left

00:07:51.940 that simply because Republicans might be hypocritical about certain things,

00:07:56.880 that that makes it okay to dismember a baby.

00:08:01.060 Very often, the pro-choice movement will accuse pro-lifers of only caring about babies

00:08:07.680 until they're born and then not caring afterwards.

00:08:11.920 Obviously, as left-leaning activists, that challenges that narrative a bit,

00:08:17.960 because clearly, we do care about government aid.

00:08:22.080 We care about providing for people and limiting the amount of exploitation that is happening

00:08:29.160 due to the reality that we live in a capitalist world.

00:08:33.580 But I think that ultimately, the fact that leftists are looking for this hypocrisy in the pro-life movement

00:08:40.520 doesn't in any way justify killing unborn children.

00:08:46.840 So let's go back in time a little bit.

00:08:48.620 Can you tell us a little bit about your story and what was your journey to becoming pro-life?

00:08:53.780 My story?

00:08:54.680 Well, I was raised religious, but we didn't talk about abortion growing up.

00:09:00.720 So we were basically pro-choice.

00:09:03.500 We just never talked about it as a family or in the context of the church I grew up in.

00:09:09.340 And I have always had a sensitivity to animals and have been interested in the evolving conversation

00:09:18.120 around animal rights.

00:09:20.000 And I had someone challenge me on those views and said,

00:09:26.140 how can you care about the dolphins if you don't care about unborn children being killed in the womb? 0.97

00:09:31.540 I was religious at the time, Christian.

00:09:34.600 I was going to a Lutheran church.

00:09:36.500 I was on the board of evangelicals and believed deeply in the faith.

00:09:41.360 But the church I went to was pretty pro-choice.

00:09:44.780 And I grew up in a Christian home that was also nominally neutral on the issue,

00:09:51.360 which ultimately is pro-choice.

00:09:53.500 But when I was challenged by this individual, I was shown pictures and images of an abortion

00:10:02.000 procedure and unborn children in utero.

00:10:07.060 And I was shocked.

00:10:08.140 I realized that there was likely something bad happening in an abortion.

00:10:12.900 But I thought, you know, babies go to heaven when they die.

00:10:16.920 And in the end, God is going to right all the wrongs.

00:10:19.560 And there are so many horrible things happening in the world.

00:10:22.720 And I'm not getting involved in any of those things.

00:10:24.880 And I just thought I'm going to pray about it.

00:10:27.540 And that's how I felt about it for years until I eventually lost my faith altogether over a period

00:10:36.760 of time.

00:10:37.320 And it caused me to rethink my entire moral compass, what is right and wrong and why.

00:10:44.080 And I no longer believed in a life after death.

00:10:48.540 And I felt strongly that all creatures that are able to achieve a type of consciousness in this

00:10:55.400 universe have a very rare and remarkable experience.

00:10:59.920 And I started thinking about what would it take to justify taking that away from someone.

00:11:07.420 And I thought about abortion.

00:11:08.820 And I continued to think, maybe there's something wrong here.

00:11:13.180 But I had trouble finding my voice in that because I thought, I'm atheist now and I am liberal,

00:11:24.160 but I'm having pro-life thoughts.

00:11:26.860 This can't be normal.

00:11:27.900 So I just kind of kept it to myself for a while.

00:11:32.180 But I knew that I had a discomfort with it.

00:11:34.580 But I was not willing to call myself pro-life because I definitely wasn't one of those people,

00:11:41.460 or so I thought.

00:11:43.960 But I had a relationship with a co-worker of mine.

00:11:51.360 And then we stopped working together and were friends on Facebook for many years.

00:11:55.800 And she posted on a page one day called Secular Pro-Life.

00:12:02.020 And you know, on Facebook, you can see what your friends are posting on and commenting on.

00:12:07.020 And immediately I thought, Secular Pro-Life?

00:12:11.200 There are Secular Pro-Lifers out there?

00:12:13.420 That's me.

00:12:14.080 That describes what I'm experiencing.

00:12:17.660 And I did dive into the website and I discovered Christopher Hitchens, who was an atheist thinker

00:12:26.440 and someone who had a big influence on my beliefs or my non-belief as an atheist.

00:12:36.900 I found out that he actually considered himself to be pro-life also.

00:12:41.680 And that really helped me to come to terms with where I was at.

00:12:47.640 But I still was just, you know, getting into the thick of it.

00:12:54.140 And finding Secular Pro-Life changed everything for me. 0.69

00:12:58.120 I realized there were other people like me out there.

00:13:00.180 And that emboldened me to be pro-life publicly, to say it out loud,

00:13:05.860 to talk about it on Facebook and in other online forums.

00:13:10.360 And the more I explored the topic, the more I became convinced that abortion was a human rights

00:13:17.780 violation in most cases.

00:13:21.460 But I still didn't know any pro-life people in real life until I got started working with

00:13:28.380 Secular Pro-Life, going to pro-life events.

00:13:31.720 And eventually in 2016, when Trump was running for president, he was platforming off of the

00:13:39.120 pro-life issue.

00:13:40.220 And I thought, there is no way someone like Donald Trump is going to reach the community

00:13:46.980 I live in.

00:13:47.880 I was living in San Francisco at the time, again, secular, liberal.

00:13:53.000 And I felt like we needed another messenger.

00:13:56.800 And I realized there wasn't really anyone else that I could count on.

00:14:00.780 So I was going to have to get involved.

00:14:03.240 And I was going to have to be that voice for the unborn in my community.

00:14:07.640 And so I started Pro-Life San Francisco.

00:14:10.920 And almost immediately after, we began doing direct actions and emulating kind of the tactics

00:14:19.300 used by the animal rights movement to bring visibility to my cause in my community.

00:14:24.940 I think it's also noteworthy that I was somewhat radicalized by the videos released by the Center

00:14:32.920 for Medical Progress in 2015.

00:14:34.740 I was working in the private sector in fashion at the time, volunteering with Secular Pro-Life.

00:14:41.580 But after viewing those videos, I definitely knew that my life was not going to be the same

00:14:48.440 after that.

00:14:49.020 I realized how severe and time-sensitive the issue was.

00:14:55.540 And I recognized how much of what was going on in terms of how powerful the abortion lobby

00:15:03.200 was, was rooted in communities in California.

00:15:07.480 And what were the videos that you saw?

00:15:09.140 The Center for Medical Progress videos.

00:15:11.580 Can you describe what was in those videos?

00:15:13.560 In 2015, David Daleiden with the Center for Medical Progress released footage from a two-year

00:15:23.780 undercover project within the abortion industry exposing the fetal organ harvesting practices

00:15:31.900 and trafficking happening within Planned Parenthood, within the National Abortion Federation and various other institutions,

00:15:42.120 including third-party entities doing business with abortion facilities in order to traffic fetal organs.

00:15:49.500 It was especially shocking because the video footage was of abortion providers.

00:15:56.720 High-level, high-ranking Planned Parenthood abortion providers haggling over the prices of dead babies and their body parts.

00:16:06.700 And many of these babies were very late-term and the circumstances under the circumstances that are required in order to harvest fetal tissue are really shocking and grotesque and gruesome and really weren't known before that particular project.

00:16:30.800 And that project gave rise to the hashtag from our opponents, hashtag stand with PP.

00:16:37.840 And it, the hashtag PP sells baby parts became popularized from those videos.

00:16:48.040 So would you say that that's the, is that, you know, what, if you could boil it down to a single reason, what was the main catalyst for you joining the pro-life movement?

00:16:57.820 People always are looking for this, like, compelling story from me about, like, maybe an abortion that I had or almost had.

00:17:04.860 And I did have pregnancy scares and, and do have, you know, personal experience with people close to me having abortions.

00:17:12.800 And all of those things definitely affected my view over time.

00:17:16.660 And it was really just taking small baby steps, getting involved online, getting, you know, helping out with a few events with secular pro-life, feeling like my work was necessary.

00:17:31.140 I think the thing that emboldened me the most was finding other pro-lifers like me.

00:17:35.360 I don't think that I would have gotten involved had I not seen other people like me doing it.

00:17:40.200 But what continues to drive me in the pro-life movement and to radicalize me is the need for help and, and recognizing that the abortion industrial complex can be weakened.

00:17:53.460 That we can topple this dictator, that there are clear sources of power for this industry that can be dismantled.

00:18:02.500 And it's that knowledge and the reality that there are only a handful of people like me who are leaders in this movement who are openly secular, openly left-leaning.

00:18:15.700 And it is my point of view that we cannot dismantle the abortion industrial complex unless we are able to break the relationship between the Democratic Party and the abortion industrial complex and big abortion.

00:18:32.120 And there just isn't anyone else to do it right now.

00:18:35.460 I would love to retire, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

00:18:39.820 So that's what keeps me working.

00:18:42.140 So you're an atheist and a progressive and, you know, like the pro-choice crowd argues, you know, day in and day out.

00:18:51.540 Well, pro-lifers are religious zealots.

00:18:54.720 How, you know, that's not the case for you.

00:18:57.600 So tell me, tell me about that.

00:19:00.520 Pro-choicers often will categorize all pro-life people as right-wing religious zealots.

00:19:07.600 That is something that we hear constantly.

00:19:09.980 And it's often reflected in their insults towards me.

00:19:15.700 They'll say that I'm not really progressive or that I'm not really an atheist, which is weird because I'd be a terrible Christian if I just went around denying Christ all the time.

00:19:26.520 But pro-choicers have claimed for decades that you, if you're pro-life, you're a right-wing religious zealot.

00:19:35.020 And there are actually 12 million non-religious pro-lifers in America today, according to Gallup and Pew polling.

00:19:44.980 That's not nothing.

00:19:46.020 And there are over 21 million pro-life Democrats out there.

00:19:50.680 And that's not just moderate Democrats.

00:19:52.840 That includes progressives like me.

00:19:55.420 We launched POW just in October, and today we have more than 30 ground organizers who are progressive, who are politically left-leaning, ready for nonviolent direct action on behalf of the unborn.

00:20:12.000 It's a lie.

00:20:13.100 It's not true.

00:20:14.060 There are a lot of religious right-wingers in the pro-life movement, but they don't define the pro-life movement.

00:20:23.240 The pro-life movement began as a left-leaning movement.

00:20:27.700 The relationship between the abortion industrial complex and the Democratic Party is roughly new.

00:20:36.280 And the relationship between the pro-life movement and the conservative right is also fairly new.

00:20:44.340 That is not how things were laid out prior to Roe v. Wade.

00:20:47.720 And there's a lot of reasons for that.

00:20:49.440 But the argument that in order to be pro-life, you must be a religious right-wing zealot is just not true.

00:20:59.440 So on the secular pro-life website, you guys laid out basically a logical syllogism for your pro-life stance.

00:21:07.160 Can you explain that syllogism?

00:21:09.360 The four premises of the secular pro-life position, which I think is pretty consistent with the pro-life position in general, is first that a fetus, an embryo, a zygote, is a human being.

00:21:25.340 We're not making a moral claim at this point.

00:21:28.840 We're just saying on a basic biological level, a fetus, embryo, zygote is a member of the human species.

00:21:38.520 The second premise is that there is no objective distinction between human being and person.

00:21:48.200 And we recognize that the very concept of personhood is one that has been used exclusively to deny rights, often lethally, to entire groups of people.

00:22:02.800 The third premise of the pro-life position is that it is generally wrong to kill human beings.

00:22:09.900 This is consistent with basically every culture on earth, regardless if they are secular, religious, or what religion they are.

00:22:17.700 The fourth premise of the secular pro-life position is that bodily rights is not enough to justify most abortions.

00:22:26.040 Great. Now, can you kind of break that last argument down?

00:22:33.120 Because I think that last argument is where a lot of people might be like, well, wait, wait, wait, how do you get there?

00:22:39.640 So, you know, why is bodily autonomy or bodily rights not enough to justify elective abortions?

00:22:45.600 And that's the problem in the pro-life movement is that there isn't a quick soundbite to explain to people why bodily autonomy doesn't justify killing.

00:22:57.560 There are so many complicated court cases and complicated thought scenarios that help us to understand whether we're being consistent in certain circumstances.

00:23:09.440 And that even divides pro-lifers because, you know, 59% of pro-lifers think abortion in cases of rape should be allowed and the others don't.

00:23:19.520 So it's, um, and I think often, you know, the pro-life movement will just say, well, it's not your body.

00:23:26.020 It's there's two bodies involved and that's not really a bodily rights argument.

00:23:29.680 That is a personhood argument.

00:23:32.080 Bodily rights is argue is saying for the sake of the argument, even if this other, this fetus is a person that no one has the right to use your body against your will.

00:23:44.040 Um, and I think that, you know, there's, that's a complicated question because in jurisprudence up until this point, you know, we have decades of jurisprudence showing us that in certain circumstances, the right to have control over your own body does trump the right of others to live in certain circumstances.

00:24:05.920 I think the, one of the primary things that sets bodily rights, um, in the case of pregnancy, apart from other bodily rights circumstances is that in the case of abortion, one of the major distinctions, um, between that and other bodily rights cases is that in an abortion, in almost every type of abortion,

00:24:32.360 someone would be required to commit an act of direct violence against another human being in order to make that abortion successful.

00:24:43.880 It's not simply a result of someone looking to, um, rectify lost bodily rights.

00:24:51.540 It's a, it's a direct act of violence.

00:24:54.120 And that is the primary distinction.

00:24:56.360 So what would you say, you know, if there was, if there was like one strongest argument against, uh, the bodily autonomy pro-choice argument, how would you summarize that strongest argument?

00:25:09.440 Well, to me, the strongest argument, it revolves around consent and that's not going to be popular with your viewers or for this.

00:25:15.660 And please don't make everyone hate me.

00:25:17.660 Um, and it's a problem.

00:25:21.860 I'm only going to explain it to you so they understand.

00:25:24.100 It's a problem because most pro-lifers are religious and believe like the womb is a place where the baby is meant to be, that the baby has a right to the womb regardless.

00:25:36.680 Um, but secular people don't necessarily see something as meant for something.

00:25:41.860 Like it, yes, it, it houses the baby, but we wouldn't say that it was made for the baby.

00:25:48.020 Um, and you know, and I'm not saying an all secular people would agree with me either that consent is the one that is the most compelling, but I just think it's like consistent with the violinist scenario.

00:26:01.240 So, so when you say consent, are you saying that for you, the strongest argument against the bodily autonomy is that the woman and the man basically consented to this happening?

00:26:13.580 Consenting to the risk involved.

00:26:15.000 Yeah.

00:26:15.300 How can I say that?

00:26:16.140 I think one of the more compelling arguments that bodily autonomy should not be a justification for directly killing, especially in the case of abortion,

00:26:24.980 is that the parties involved in the pregnancy entered into this situation of their own volition with known risks and that consent to engage in certain types of behavior is consent to the, the outcomes.

00:26:46.400 That's how the law treats almost any other circumstance that there is responsibility involved.

00:26:52.960 It doesn't make sense to use bodily autonomy to justify killing in the case of abortion when you had autonomy when making the decision of whether or not to take certain risks.

00:27:08.940 Your autonomy has not been violated and it would be unjust to deny an unborn child their right to not be unjustly killed when bodily autonomy has not been authentically breached.

00:27:23.820 Are there compelling arguments against the pro-choice argument that the woman's bodily autonomy outweighs the life of the, of the unborn child?

00:27:31.220 Yes.

00:27:32.220 I think one of the more compelling arguments is that when two people have sex of their own volition, that they have already exercised their bodily autonomy, that bodily autonomy has not been breached and that they had full autonomy when making the decision to engage in sex.

00:27:54.240 Is abortion a simple victimless procedure?

00:27:56.220 Abortion is not a simple victimless procedure.

00:28:01.660 It is inhumane.

00:28:03.900 It is the dismemberment usually by suction or forceps or other methods to tear apart a human being, often fully alive and sometimes pain capable.

00:28:17.420 So a lot of times I think people, especially who aren't familiar with the current debate and where the science has kind of evolved to since Roe v. Wade, I think a lot of people, myself included until just honestly relatively recently, think that there is a, a big raging debate between the two sides about when life begins and that that's like a really important question still in the debate.

00:28:45.620 Uh, is that even a question with current science in current medicine?

00:28:51.140 We know through modern science that life scientifically in a biological sense begins at conception.

00:28:59.340 That's not a debate, uh, the debate is much more around when the concept of personhood begins and when human rights begin and when does life begin in the metaphysical sense.

00:29:16.380 I think the debate is more about, um, um, when does life begin in a moral sense?

00:29:23.340 When do the unborn begin to have rights? 1.00

00:29:27.180 Um, I think that the science is absolutely clear and we know that the science is clear that human life begins biologically at the moment of conception.

00:29:37.820 So is, is, is there any compelling argument for a pro-choice stance based on the, the argument for when rights begin?

00:29:49.460 There's not one single argument coming from the pro-choice side that summarizes when pro-choice people believe that life begins.

00:29:59.160 There is, I would say an ongoing debate amongst pro-choice people about when, um, life begins in the moral sense.

00:30:08.040 When should we care about human life?

00:30:11.120 Um, some pro-choicers will say after viability, some will say after birth, some will say several days after birth.

00:30:20.020 Um, so there's a variety of views, which is interesting because pro-lifers are the ones being accused of applying religion to the issue, yet it's pro-choicers who are saying, oh, well, we're going to ignore the science.

00:30:34.880 Life begins whenever you think it does.

00:30:40.400 We have more from our conversation with Teresa coming up in just a second.

00:30:43.780 First, though, be sure to text pro-life to 47581, because as the country grapples with the aftermath of overturning Roe v. Wade, the pro-life movement has come under fire from far-left pro-abortion extremists.

00:30:58.460 Not only have leftists firebombed and vandalized pro-life clinics in multiple states, but online pro-life groups have experienced mass censorship by Google, Facebook, TikTok, you name it.

00:31:10.880 That's why Live Action has been working tirelessly to find ways to spread the truth about abortion and share resources with those who need it most without relying on biased big tech.

00:31:21.760 If you want to join Live Action's Fight for Life, text pro-life to 47581 and opt in to receive updates from Live Action about their ongoing work to end abortion.

00:31:32.740 Texting pro-life to 47581 means you won't be at the mercy of the big tech censors in the ongoing fight for life.

00:31:48.180 So, tell me a little bit about Planned Parenthood.

00:31:51.020 What is Planned Parenthood, and how is it involved in the history of abortion?

00:31:55.740 Planned Parenthood is the most powerful arm of the abortion industrial complex.

00:32:01.400 Planned Parenthood commits more abortions in America every day than any other single institution.

00:32:09.760 How was Planned Parenthood involved in the history of abortion?

00:32:13.900 Planned Parenthood is responsible for a third of all the abortions in the United States, and they are one of the most politically involved institutions in our nation.

00:32:26.400 What do Planned Parenthood's financials maybe show about their incentives?

00:32:29.920 And 40% of Planned Parenthood's bottom line comes from their abortion business.

00:32:38.560 They are a $1.8 billion industry.

00:32:43.120 So, what do you think Planned Parenthood's incentives are?

00:32:46.560 What's driving Planned Parenthood?

00:32:48.420 Planned Parenthood was originally conceptualized by several avowed white supremacists who were committed to the idea of eugenics.

00:32:58.760 One of their founders, Lothrop Stoddard, spent many years writing on racist topics and actually was a consultant for the Nazis, traveled to Germany in order to consult on which people should be forcibly sterilized.

00:33:18.120 He co-founded Planned Parenthood with another avowed racist, Margaret Sanger, well-known for her Negro project and for speaking at a KKK rally.

00:33:31.800 And these two, together with various other eugenicists of their time, were looking for a way to control undesirable, as they called them, populations, targeting specifically Black and brown communities to limit the number of children that they were having.

00:33:50.820 This originally started out with birth control, but eventually, throughout the history of the organization, they transitioned to doing abortions as a way to kill people in minority communities.

00:34:09.340 Do I know what their motivations are today?

00:34:11.660 I don't know for sure, but I can tell you that they are benefiting financially from the abortions they're committing.

00:34:22.220 They are obtaining an incredible amount of political and cultural power.

00:34:28.300 And they are ultimately doing the work that Margaret Sanger and Lothrop Stoddard envisioned, which is positioning themselves as helping underprivileged communities of color in times of financial hardship, when ultimately they're just killing poor and Black and brown people. 0.95

00:34:56.620 So, you know, we can't speak to Planned Parenthood's motives.

00:35:02.600 No one, you know, knows for sure why they're doing what they're doing.

00:35:07.500 But the organization has tried to paint the pro-life movement as being racists and has tried to separate itself from its racist origins.

00:35:23.340 Can you kind of weave for audiences that weird juxtaposition and, you know, is that a fair tactic or what do you think about that tactic?

00:35:33.320 I find it really interesting that so many left-leaning pro-choice people are willing to acknowledge and shout from the rooftops how there is systemic racism in literally every institution in America.

00:35:50.360 And I think often we hear about the racism in healthcare in particular and how Black women in particular are impacted by racism in healthcare.

00:36:04.420 That's a reality.

00:36:05.340 And then I also find it interesting that they are so unwilling to acknowledge not just the reality that there's racism in healthcare, which would, of course, include abortion by their definition of healthcare.

00:36:21.620 They're so unwilling to recognize that the root of this entire industry is not just systemic racism, but overt eugenics.

00:36:36.020 Are you shocked or discouraged or what's your emotional response to the fact that the vast majority of progressives just kind of knee-jerk say that they're pro-choice?

00:36:51.880 I think most progressives will automatically consider themselves pro-choice because they're not religious conservatives.

00:37:00.300 And they've been told over and over that if you're pro-life, that's what you are.

00:37:05.700 And so it's about identity.

00:37:08.520 We know from studies that people do not choose their political party based on their ideology, that they actually form their ideology based on their political party and their identity.

00:37:21.540 And it stems from the reason that I remained quiet about it so long.

00:37:27.620 If you don't see other people like you doing it, you stay quiet about it.

00:37:31.600 You conform.

00:37:32.820 The pressure to conform is so strong.

00:37:37.840 And that's not, it's not just something that's true pro-choice people.

00:37:42.500 It's true for all of us.

00:37:43.760 We are all products of our own confirmation bias.

00:37:49.240 And that's why it's so important to give visibility to people like me who challenge that confirmation bias in a way that forces them to acknowledge that you can hold progressive values.

00:38:03.900 Because even the Marxist principle to each according to their need, from each according to their ability, fits into a pro-life worldview.

00:38:13.860 There's nothing inherently right wing about protecting the marginalized from exploitation and murder.

00:38:21.940 So Planned Parenthood often says that without legal abortion, women would be forced into alleyways and, you know, committing, you know, coat hanger abortions or, you know, taking medications or chemicals to try to, you know, have abortions illegally.

00:38:42.520 Is that a valid argument?

00:38:44.440 And big abortion tells us all the time that if abortion is outlawed, if it is made illegal, that there will be back alley coat hanger abortions everywhere, that it's going to create some kind of a medical emergency.

00:39:00.860 But I wonder, in a world where abortion isn't even regulated, where we can't even have abortion facilities held to the same standards as other surgical facilities, what is the difference between a back alley abortion and a legal abortion when there are no regulations?

00:39:24.020 And that's the reality that we're living in.

00:39:27.000 What about the argument that they would say, oh, well, a woman would be forced to, you know, do it without a medical professional or, you know, women, you know, they point to, they point to some statistic saying like, oh, like X number of women would, uh, X number of women would die or there'd be an increase in, you know, deaths because, you know, if abortion was outlawed, how do you respond to that?

00:39:53.980 I think the concern that a lot of pro-choice people have about the safety of those seeking abortion and the possibility that people would illegally procure abortions to their own detriment is concerning.

00:40:10.020 That is a concern of the pro-life movement.

00:40:12.340 And that should be a concern of all of us.

00:40:14.400 I think it's also important to understand the truth of the situation, as made clear by Dr. Bernard Nathanson in his writings about his work in the early pro-choice movement, that there, the number of maternal deaths that occurred prior to Roe v. Wade was similar to the number of deaths that occur in legal abortion to this day.

00:40:41.300 To this day, people die procuring legal abortion.

00:40:46.080 That hasn't changed.

00:40:48.280 It's something that we need to deal with as a movement, as a society.

00:40:53.140 It's something that we want to limit, but it doesn't justify killing unborn children.

00:41:00.440 That was great.

00:41:01.540 And I love the fact that you brought in Dr. Nathanson.

00:41:04.000 Do you mind touching on that?

00:41:07.300 Or I guess there's this question, like, if this idea that legal abortions reduce maternal mortality, if that whole idea was fabricated by pro-choice advocates from the beginning, does that cast suspicion on whether that claim has really any validity?

00:41:25.860 I think that Dr. Bernard Nathanson's writings really does cast doubt on the validity of the claim by pro-choice people that this, by making abortion illegal, it will create a massive medical emergency.

00:41:43.440 And another thing that I think is interesting is there's this Washington Post article where they actually, Washington Post fact checkers looked into, are you familiar with that article?

00:41:54.060 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:41:54.820 How does one respond to the argument?

00:41:57.580 And maybe you can kind of weave, you know, look at the suspect from the beginning with Dr. Nathanson, you know, confirming that they basically made that up to convince people.

00:42:06.040 And then Washington Post fact checkers just kind of like weave it all together into a single answer.

00:42:10.360 I think it's very problematic that big abortion continues to tout numbers that are inaccurate as it relates to maternal mortality rates prior to Roe and the reasons associated with that.

00:42:25.620 We have seen top level Planned Parenthood executives make the claim, the false claim, that thousands of women died trying to procure illegal abortions prior to Roe v. Wade.

00:42:38.280 Even the Washington Post is very clear that that claim, that thousands of women died attempting to procure illegal abortion prior to Roe is false.

00:42:52.060 In comparison to this claim, even if you grant their claim, that thousands of women died, you know, every year from illegal abortions, can you compare that number to the number of women who've been killed as unborn, you know, babies?

00:43:10.820 And just kind of like give audiences a juxtaposition of like, look, even if you grant that argument, you know, that over, you know, a decade, you know, what, 10,000 women maybe would die from illegal abortion versus the number of women's lives who would be saved if abortion wasn't legal?

00:43:28.820 So when I'm weighing the hard edges of this debate, I recognize that a hard edge of our side is that we need to be concerned about the repercussions for women and those who can become pregnant in a scenario where they're not able to procure illegal abortion.

00:43:46.320 But I also recognize that the hard edge of our side is mass genocide.

00:43:54.320 We're talking about more than 60 million babies killed by abortion.

00:44:01.160 And we know that many of them, thousands and probably millions, were past the age of viability and that some have been born alive and become victims of infanticide.

00:44:16.580 That is the hard edge of the pro-choice side.

00:44:20.400 And so when I'm weighing those two issues, accidental deaths that we are purposefully trying to prevent versus actively allowing people to dismember children and possibly allowing instances of infanticide, well, one just weighs a little bit heavier for me.

00:44:41.620 And I can't explain it much further than that.

00:44:44.120 Is the pro-life movement, I mean, we've already touched on this, but I think it's worth it, like just asking one head-on version of this question.

00:44:53.900 Why does the pro-choice crowd so frequently depict the pro-life crowd as religious zealots?

00:45:02.980 Every generation has an obligation to nonviolence and non-discrimination.

00:45:08.620 And if progressives are upset that the majority of pro-life people happen to be religious and happen to hold conservative values, well, that is just a – the problem with it is that portraying pro-life people as religious and right-wing doesn't justify their position in any way.

00:45:35.480 It just doesn't help them.

00:45:36.740 It's just pointing out that none of them or very few or a few – it's just highlighting the reality that so few left-leaning and secular people are willing to speak publicly on behalf of the rights of the unborn.

00:45:56.300 And that doesn't seem like something they should be proud of.

00:45:59.620 I think that left-wing people who've adopted a pro-choice position are adopting a pro-capitalist, pro-authoritarian, pro-exploitation position that's not really consistent with their values.

00:46:17.440 And I don't think that they are in a position morally to judge conservatives when they think killing babies is okay.

00:46:27.640 The reality is all people need to be pro-life.

00:46:31.300 It doesn't matter what your political affiliation is.

00:46:33.820 It doesn't matter what your religion is.

00:46:35.560 We all recognize culturally across the globe that ending someone's life without adequate justification is a moral wrong, and it's something that we legislate against in literally everywhere.

00:46:51.240 It's something – being pro-life is for everyone.

00:46:55.800 I think conservatives often fail to recognize the capitalistic exploitation involved in abortion.

00:47:08.180 I think often conservatives overlook the very real situation that people of color and other marginalized groups experience in this country.

00:47:18.600 There is a perception by me that there is a lack of protection for these groups, and that it is ultimately feeding a cycle of poverty and violence against the unborn.

00:47:34.320 Are all people who are pro-life right-wing?

00:47:38.220 No.

00:47:38.560 But even my most liberal, left-leaning, progressive, pro-choice friends still think it's okay to kill unborn children as a way of achieving equality.

00:47:54.800 And so it still puts conservatives who are pro-life head and shoulders above them.

00:47:59.800 So the pro-choice lobby says that pro-lifers are anti-woman, especially considering how they used Norma McCorvey, for instance, to push through Roe v. Wade when she ended up not even deciding to have any abortions and kind of just used her as like a face.

00:48:18.140 Can you just give us a brief thought on, you know, is that a valid argument for the pro-choice lobby to make to say that pro-lifers are anti-woman?

00:48:33.400 The pro-choice movement has worked tirelessly to erase pro-life women from the conversation. 0.73

00:48:41.360 And yet we still remain half of the U.S. population, half of women, roughly speaking, and for decades have been pro-life.

00:48:53.160 I think it's also incredibly unfair to expect women and people who can become pregnant to shoulder the burden of abortion when, statistically speaking, in every poll that we've ever seen,

00:49:08.720 the primary reason for seeking abortion is a lack of financial resources, not the desire for an abortion. 0.98

00:49:17.660 And being pro-woman means protecting women from exploitation in their most vulnerable circumstances.

00:49:26.320 Women are not getting abortions because they think it's fun or they want one. 1.00

00:49:30.520 It's because of a lack of financial resources.

00:49:33.160 If the abortion industry was truly pro-woman, they would be giving resources to these women and people seeking abortions.

00:49:43.840 They would not be exploiting their circumstances for their own political and financial gain.

00:49:50.660 So does abortion violate the values that our culture says it wants?

00:49:55.100 Ideas like inclusion, equality, and, you know, being there for the marginalized or people without a voice?

00:50:03.160 Abortion is a direct violation of the values of equality, nonviolence, and non-discrimination.

00:50:09.220 It is completely incompatible with those values that we claim as a society, as a whole, to uphold.

00:50:18.620 So by correlation, is the pro-life stance really a stance that progressives should be, like, more in favor of than anybody?

00:50:28.700 Being pro-life is progressive.

00:50:33.000 It is recognizing exploitation.

00:50:36.120 It is helping those who are being marginalized and lethally killed for profit.

00:50:43.440 Being progressive means sticking up for the marginalized.

00:50:48.100 It means listening to low-income people and trusting them to know their own needs.

00:50:54.100 And low-income people reject abortion by way larger margins than the rest of society.

00:51:03.800 They recognize the exploitation involved.

00:51:07.300 And to be progressive, we have to listen to that.

00:51:10.460 And to be progressive, we have to dismantle industries that are exploiting people for profit.

00:51:18.200 And that means standing up to the abortion industrial complex.

00:51:22.440 You cannot be a progressive unless you are standing up for the unborn. 1.00

00:51:29.740 What do you say to the pro-choice argument that it's just, you know, old white men who want to control women's bodies and that's the reason why they're pro-life? 0.66

00:51:39.980 Because I think that's a really popular, like, little, like, slogan to say, like, it's just, like, white men who want to control women's bodies and tell women what to do.

00:51:47.260 Yeah, I think it's noteworthy that the feminist foremothers were all anti-abortion, that the people who originally passed sweeping abortion rights were Republicans and men and were white men.

00:52:04.740 And it was literal Nazi eugenicists who created Planned Parenthood.

00:52:11.500 I think it's interesting that the pro-choice side uses the narrative that the pro-life movement is all old white men when their entire movement was established by not just old white men,

00:52:27.580 but old white Nazi eugenicist men and a Supreme Court of all men, while the pro-life movement continues to be led primarily by women and half of the women in this country remain pro-life.

00:52:47.000 We also notice in polling that young people are much more likely to be passionate about their pro-life views than pro-choice people who are also young.

00:53:00.680 So there is an intensity gap.

00:53:03.160 The narrative that the pro-life movement is just old white men is simply untrue.

00:53:09.760 How is it the case, or how did it become the case, that the progressive movement and that Democrats in general, or in particular, became the movement and the party of pro-choice, kind of pro-abortion policies when it didn't start out that way?

00:53:31.780 Before Roe v. Wade, it was unclear which political party was ultimately going to align with the abortion industry.

00:53:40.820 There were high-profile Republican leaders like Rockefeller in New York passing sweeping abortion rights laws, while Democrats like Joe Biden at the time were openly pro-life.

00:53:54.780 And there wasn't necessarily this political divide that we see today.

00:54:00.500 In the 1980s, evangelicals became more pro-life.

00:54:04.880 Prior to that, it was Catholics and a lot of secular people, actually.

00:54:09.800 But it wasn't until the 1980s that evangelicals as a whole became invested in politics and also became pro-life.

00:54:20.860 And I believe that that secured the relationship between the religious movement and right-wing politics.

00:54:29.620 And that, at the time, included abortion.

00:54:33.020 You know, what's your vision for progressives?

00:54:36.260 You know, can you kind of give us a summary of, you know, what's the objective?

00:54:41.300 What are you fighting for?

00:54:42.640 Yes, yes, yes.

00:54:43.060 And, you know, what's the future look like?

00:54:44.860 When I'm looking at the landscape of the abortion issue in the United States, I recognize that the primary pillar of power for big abortion lies in their relationship with the Democratic Party.

00:54:58.040 That's how they maintain power and control.

00:55:00.920 But we know that at least 21 million registered Democratic voters today consider themselves pro-life.

00:55:09.520 That's a third of voting Democrats.

00:55:11.700 But what I find also is significant is that the vast majority of Democrats across the spectrum reject late-term elective abortion.

00:55:26.160 And yet the party maintains such an extremist point of view, one that does not represent even the vast majority of Democrats.

00:55:35.660 All of the leadership for the Democratic Party is radically pro-abortion, as well as the Democratic Party platform.

00:55:45.000 It's a lie.

00:55:46.280 There have been social justice movements that have come and won in this country and around the globe when the odds were completely against them.

00:55:54.780 But the odds are actually completely in our favor.

00:55:59.320 And I believe that what it's going to take is for these left-leaning people, especially progressives, because progressives have the most influence over the Democratic Party, not establishment Democrats, progressives.

00:56:11.580 If progressives are able to put enough pressure on the party, if they see other people like them doing pro-life work, standing up for the unborn, they're more likely to stand up too, to stand up from within the party rather than leaving it and to force change.

00:56:29.680 And that's when I believe we will see big abortion fall.

00:56:34.580 And I think that it's not going to happen unless we mobilize progressives for action.

00:56:41.660 This isn't just about getting progressives to recognize that they're pro-life.

00:56:45.720 There are already progressive pro-lifers out there and definitely enough to get the job done.

00:56:52.800 But what we need to do is bring them out of the shadows.

00:56:55.760 And I'm creating a space for them to get directly involved, to put their bodies in between the oppressors and the oppressed, and to ultimately change history.

00:57:08.220 What can conservatives do?

00:57:09.920 What can kind of the pro-life movement do to bring pro-life progressives out of the shadows?

00:57:17.160 I think the most critical thing that the pro-life movement as a whole can do to help draw out more pro-life progressives is to give pro-life progressives leadership roles within the movement, to train them, to give them visibility, to give us a platform so that we can be seen and heard.

00:57:37.800 The pro-life movement isn't a monolith.

00:57:40.740 We are beautifully diverse.

00:57:42.620 We are one of the most diverse social justice movements in the history of the world.

00:57:48.980 It is our diversity that is going to bring us to victory.

00:57:53.460 Beautiful.

00:57:54.640 Do you think the future is pro-life?

00:57:57.060 The future is pro-life.

00:57:59.160 The future of California is pro-life.

00:58:01.060 The future of America is pro-life.

00:58:03.580 The arc of the universe bends towards justice.

00:58:07.820 The lies of the abortion industrial complex cannot stand forever. 0.53

00:58:11.820 However, they will be exposed.

00:58:14.220 And we will win.

00:58:23.720 The abortion industry uses women for their own profit. 0.99

00:58:28.060 These lies are pervasive.

00:58:31.180 They're not difficult to refute.

00:58:33.140 But it can be difficult to penetrate that culture of lies to get the truth out there.

00:58:39.540 We have to do it.

00:58:42.260 We have to do it because it's right.

00:58:44.840 We have to do it for the victims of abortion.

00:58:47.520 We have to do it for the women who are taken in by this industry, who are used for dollars, even to their own detriment. 1.00

00:58:55.940 If you enjoyed this conversation with Teresa Bukovanak, you'll want to check out our Daily Wire original documentary, Choosing Death, The Legacy of Roe.

00:59:07.120 In it, we take a wrecking ball to the four fallacies keeping the abortion industry alive. 0.94

00:59:11.740 To watch it right now, go to dailywireplus.com.

00:59:17.200 Today, if you join, you will see not only this full movie, Choosing Death, The Legacy of Roe,

00:59:22.740 but you will have access to The Daily Wire's entire catalog of content,

00:59:27.020 which we can only produce and distribute because of you, with your support.

00:59:33.260 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:59:34.640 This is the Choosing Life podcast.

00:59:37.340 We'll see you next time.

00:59:38.420 The Choosing Life podcast is a Daily Wire production, produced in association with Outer Limits.

00:59:47.400 Our technical and support team includes Ian Reed, Jesse Eastman, Ryan Moore, Mariah Cormier, and Jim Wirt.

00:59:54.600 Copyright Daily Wire 2022.

00:59:57.180 Thanks for listening.

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The Michael Knowles Show - August 20, 2022

Choosing Life： Arguments for Life from a Progressive, Pro-Life Atheist - Terrisa Bukovinac

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