The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 349 - What The Alabama Law Actually Says

00:00:00.000 Alabama passes major anti-abortion legislation that all but outlaws the practice. We will 1.00

00:00:06.800 analyze the legal and political fallout and examine the question on everyone's mind.

00:00:11.600 Will we see the overturning of Roe v. Wade in our lifetimes? Then another Democrat announces

00:00:18.180 that he is running for president. This one is number 728, I think. Stanford University deans

00:00:23.920 don't want Andrew Klavan to speak on campus. We will examine the rot on our American universities,

00:00:29.740 I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:38.980 There is so much BS going around about this Alabama law today. I have read the law. I have read the

00:00:46.640 analyses of the law. I have read the history of this law. We will separate fact from fiction.

00:00:52.020 We've talked a lot recently about the ethical and moral questions of abortion, so we're going to

00:00:56.360 focus on the legal and political consequences. This could be one of the most consequential moments

00:01:01.840 in American law in American history. We'll see the likelihood of that. But first, let's talk about

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00:02:50.240 Major, major legislation. I was thinking, you know, we've talked a lot about abortion in the last week,

00:02:54.980 but I think there's a reason that we've done it. This is the pro-life moment. We are at the pro-life

00:03:00.400 moment. And so now we're past the ethical discussion. Now we're talking about the legal

00:03:05.360 and political consequences of these laws. So this law in Alabama, it's called the Human Life

00:03:12.700 Protection Act. The entire purpose of this law is to challenge Roe v. Wade. It's true. It will 0.91

00:03:21.420 restrict abortion in Alabama. It will almost eliminate it. That's good. I actually don't

00:03:25.940 think that's the primary purpose. The primary purpose is to pose a direct challenge to Roe

00:03:31.040 v. Wade, which legalized abortion throughout the United States. Alabama Senator Claude Chambliss

00:03:36.600 opened up the debate on this by asking a series of questions that gets right down to the heart

00:03:42.280 of Roe v. Wade. He asked, when is a person a person? When does a life become a life? I believe

00:03:49.340 if we terminate the life of an unborn child, we are putting ourselves in God's place. Simple

00:03:54.420 is that. When does a person become a person? When does a life become a life? This abortion

00:04:00.760 law is being so misrepresented by the media and on social media. This is a landmark law.

00:04:09.640 That's why. I mean, this does pose a real threat to Roe v. Wade. That's why. Just to begin,

00:04:14.500 what does the law actually say? If you just read social media and the mainstream media, they'll

00:04:19.640 tell you that this law is going to put women in jail for getting abortions. No, it will 1.00

00:04:25.540 not. This law explicitly does not punish women who get abortions. I'll say that again. This

00:04:35.820 law very explicitly does not punish any woman who will get an abortion. Anybody telling you

00:04:43.140 otherwise is lying. Here it is right in the text of the law, section five, quote, no woman 0.70

00:04:49.240 upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted to be performed shall be criminally or civilly

00:04:55.080 liable. Furthermore, no physician confirming the serious health risk to the child's mother

00:05:01.040 shall be criminally or civilly liable for those actions. So even in the case of abortion providers,

00:05:09.560 if there is a legitimate risk to the life of the mother, that doctor will not be held liable.

00:05:18.280 Now that doesn't mean a risk to the mental health of the mother. Doesn't mean a risk to the financial

00:05:23.920 health of the mother. It means a serious risk to the life of the mother. If she has this child,

00:05:30.020 she will die. Or, or even if she has this child, she's so mentally ill that she will kill herself 1.00

00:05:36.420 or kill her or kill the baby or enter pregnancy later on. Then you can get an abortion. The doctor 0.59

00:05:43.900 won't be held liable. And in no case will the woman getting the abortion be held liable. However,

00:05:49.400 in all other cases, according to this law, abortion performed in violation of this act is a class A

00:05:55.520 felony. And an attempted abortion performed in violation of this act is a class C felony. So doctors

00:06:01.680 who perform abortions, not in the very, very rare case of a risk to the life of the mother,

00:06:08.620 all other abortions could receive up to 99 years in prison. Now the example that people are using on

00:06:16.840 the internet now is they're saying, you're telling me that a doctor who performs an abortion will spend

00:06:23.900 more time in prison than the rapist incestuous person who rapes a 12 year old girl and impregnates

00:06:31.860 her. That's, that's the, the meme that's going around. They're using all of those parts. The 0.99

00:06:39.360 doctor goes to prison longer than the incest rapist of a 12 year old girl. First of all, this is a very

00:06:48.220 rich analogy coming from people who just in the last presidential election voted for a woman who 0.68

00:06:55.160 literally defended the rapist of a actual 12 year old girl in litigation, in a, in a, in a case.

00:07:04.940 She, Hillary Clinton defended the rapist of a 12 year old girl, even though she joked about how she

00:07:10.520 knew he was guilty. And we have it on tape that she joked about that she knew he was guilty. So that's

00:07:15.400 okay. You can, you can vote for the rape, the person who defended the rapist of a 12 year old

00:07:20.680 girl, but now you're going to demagogue on that issue to save a million babies per year. First of 0.62

00:07:26.960 all, by the way, on the question of abortion, rape, incest, life of the mother, those, the three that

00:07:34.240 the left always wants to talk about, make up less than 1% of abortions annually. And in the, in the

00:07:40.940 case, the awful case of rape or incest, that's terrible. But, but what about the baby? If the

00:07:48.440 logic of abortion is that the baby is not a baby, as that gentleman that I talked to in Philadelphia

00:07:55.300 the other day said, a baby is not a baby. That's the logic of abortion. The logic of pro-life is a

00:07:59.800 baby is a baby. So if a baby is a baby, then in that, in the awful case of rape or incest, the logic

00:08:08.300 doesn't break down. Now, I mean, I think we should kill the rapist. I think it's perfect. It would be

00:08:14.580 perfectly fine to use capital punishment to kill all the rapists in the country. That's fine by me.

00:08:21.680 It doesn't change the question of the baby. Also, they say that the doctor will be punished more than

00:08:28.020 the rapist. Right. In our legal system, murder is considered a more serious crime than rape.

00:08:33.200 So if, if abortion is morally equivalent to murder, then right, that's what will happen. 0.73

00:08:40.500 That's what the law says. Right. Now, the law goes further. The law in the text of it says, quote,

00:08:48.800 it defines a person for homicide purposes to include an unborn child in utero at any stage of development,

00:08:56.380 regardless of viability. And it was at this point reading through the Alabama law that I realized

00:09:01.100 this is the opposite of the New York abortion law. That New York abortion law that was just passed,

00:09:06.460 the Reproductive Health Act, goes so extreme in the other direction that it says you can kill a baby

00:09:12.620 at any time up until the moment of birth. And it actually changes the penal law to say that if you

00:09:19.740 kill a pregnant woman, it's no longer double murder. Now it's only a single murder.

00:09:23.780 And what this does is it defines a person for homicide purposes as including an unborn child.

00:09:34.620 Now, of course, when the New York law passed, the mainstream media thought it was just fine and

00:09:38.240 dandy. The Empire State Building was lit up pink. The World Trade Center was lit up pink. There were

00:09:43.240 celebrations. Oh, it was perfectly fine. This, of course, not. There's an interesting phenomenon

00:09:48.360 that's going on right now that is even beyond the abortion question, which is that the liberal states

00:09:53.920 are getting more liberal and the conservative states are getting more conservative. And specifically

00:09:59.180 on this question of abortion, the pro-abortion states are becoming radically pro-abortion. Kill a 0.84

00:10:06.760 baby while he's being born. Kill a baby after he's been born if you take the governor of Virginia at his

00:10:12.240 word. That's on the one side. On the other side, babies are babies and you can't kill them.

00:10:18.800 Regardless of the reason that you want to kill them.

00:10:23.740 The irony here is that Roe v. Wade was supposed to stop this.

00:10:29.120 Before Roe v. Wade, the public opinion in the United States was moving in favor of abortion.

00:10:35.840 If you had not had this blanket Roe v. Wade decision that invented a constitutional right to abortion 0.54

00:10:43.060 and legalized abortion throughout the United States, you would have what you had before. 0.99

00:10:48.360 Some states you'd have legal abortion. Some states you wouldn't have legal abortion. And at that time,

00:10:54.160 states were moving in the direction of legalizing abortion. Now, maybe that would have changed over

00:10:59.180 time. This is one of the features of our system of self-government is as circumstances change,

00:11:04.600 as our understanding of the law changes, as our understanding of ourselves change,

00:11:08.400 we can change the laws. Now, Roe v. Wade stopped that. Roe v. Wade halted that entirely. They said,

00:11:15.000 we can't keep having this state-by-state debate over abortion. We need one federal law for everybody. 0.99

00:11:22.300 So they did that. And guess what happened? The debate only got more intense. Guess what happened?

00:11:31.540 Public opinion began to turn in favor of pro-life. This is the case for federalism here.

00:11:40.760 The attempts to quash federalism, the attempts to have a blanket rule for everybody, don't work. We'll

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00:13:25.900 K-N-O-W-L-E-S. So Roe v. Wade was going to stop this debate over abortion. What happened?

00:13:34.060 The abortion debate got even more intense. Now, I think conservatives here basically need to be in

00:13:42.660 favor of federalism. The argument here for the abortion law in Alabama or in Georgia or wherever

00:13:48.740 else, Missouri, wherever else they're going to come is, states need to be able to decide this for

00:13:53.820 themselves. Roe v. Wade is a made-up, it creates a totally fictitious constitutional right. There

00:14:04.040 should not be a blanket permit for abortion throughout the whole country. It doesn't make

00:14:09.120 any sense. We need to support federalism. We need to support states' rights here. In no small part

00:14:17.080 because the attempts to stop federalism, the attempts to stop the states from doing what they want,

00:14:21.700 just don't work. New York is very different from Alabama. And I know that the Supreme Court really

00:14:28.820 wants to make New York exactly like Alabama. They're not. They have different values in many cases.

00:14:34.060 They have different cultures. They have different people. And they want to live differently. And you

00:14:39.020 shouldn't force Alabama to live like New York. You shouldn't force New York to live like Alabama. 0.91

00:14:43.880 And regardless of should or ought to or which side is more right, I'm just telling you as a fact,

00:14:51.760 a historical fact, it doesn't work. It's so ridiculous to try to make New York into Alabama.

00:14:58.760 It's just a fool's errand. It's never going to work. Now, by the way, the last time that we tried to

00:15:06.180 quash federalism here, the last time that we faced a question like this was slavery.

00:15:13.740 This was the last time we faced an intense moral question of the level, should we kill a million

00:15:18.280 babies a year? And it's true. We solved that problem by the top down and by saying, no, 1.00

00:15:25.800 there's going to be a blanket rule now for the entire country. Good thing that we did it.

00:15:29.360 It did cost us five years of war and the deaths of 600,000 Americans. That's the stakes that we're

00:15:36.200 talking about here. If you honestly think that we're going to go into a civil war, rip the country

00:15:45.700 apart and kill now much more than 600,000 Americans, okay, but that's the stakes. Otherwise, federalism

00:15:52.840 does provide another option here on this question, at least for now. The bill then goes on.

00:15:59.360 So it talks about, look, we're not going to punish women for getting abortions. We are going to

00:16:03.740 punish doctors except in this one case. Then the bill invokes explicit moral language. So the bill

00:16:09.980 then invokes the Declaration of Independence, the Holocaust, the communist gulags, and genocides

00:16:18.460 throughout history. This is very serious stuff. This is a bill that is meant to be read by the

00:16:28.460 Supreme Court to challenge this question. They write, quote,

00:16:31.020 In the United States Declaration of Independence, the principle of natural law that all men are

00:16:36.860 created equal was articulated. The self-evident truth found in natural law that all human beings

00:16:42.780 are equal from creation was at least one of the bases for the anti-slavery movement,

00:16:47.640 the women's suffrage movement, the Nuremberg war crimes trials, and the American civil rights movement.

00:16:52.900 If those movements had not been able to appeal to the truth of universal human equality,

00:16:58.680 they could not have been successful. It is estimated that six million Jewish people were

00:17:02.860 murdered in German concentration camps during World War II. Three million people were executed

00:17:07.580 by Joseph Stalin's regime in Soviet gulags. Two and a half million people were murdered during the

00:17:13.660 Chinese Great Leap Forward in 1958. One and a half million to three million people were murdered by the

00:17:18.600 Khmer Rouge in Cambodia during the 1970s. And approximately one million people were murdered

00:17:23.680 during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. All of these are widely acknowledged to have been crimes against

00:17:29.040 humanity. By comparison, by comparison, more than 50 million babies have been aborted in the United

00:17:37.140 States since the Roe decision in 1973. More than three times the number who were killed in German death

00:17:43.660 camps, Chinese purges, Stalin's gulags, Cambodian killing fields, and the Rwandan genocide combined.

00:17:54.840 This is not just a dry matter of the law for these Alabama legislators. They are putting this issue

00:18:03.140 into stark relief. We talk about awful genocides throughout history. The numbers are unfathomable.

00:18:11.500 Six million, three million, one and a half million, all these numbers.

00:18:16.420 50 to 60 million babies since Roe v. Wade. 50 to 60 million people who would be alive,

00:18:24.160 who would have lived, who would have been born, who are not born. Just think about that. We're a

00:18:28.640 country of 330 million people about. Imagine an extra 50 or 60 million of them. By the way, this is just

00:18:36.580 since 1973. Virtually all of them would still be alive. Imagine how many more people we'd have.

00:18:45.940 That's what this law is making explicitly clear. And that's what the law actually says. You can read

00:18:51.320 it yourself. It's not a very long law. Fortunately, the Alabama legislators have some common sense on

00:18:57.200 them, and they don't need to write 300-page laws like some of our federal legislators do in Washington. 0.98

00:19:03.140 So you can read it. I encourage you to go read it, because you can tell on Twitter which pundits

00:19:08.540 have read the law and which haven't read the law. You can tell very clearly, because the law is

00:19:12.960 explicit. And if someone is telling you it's going to punish women or something, it just is not true.

00:19:19.320 Now, the left largely has not read the law, so they're losing their mind on this. Here is the

00:19:23.760 Democrat representative from Alabama, Bobby Singleton, who's trying to stop this bill before it's

00:19:30.960 passed.

00:19:32.960 What do you think about, baby, Serena? You just kick through in the stomach, and you're 0.99

00:19:36.360 aborted on yourself. You just aborted the state of Alabama, which I'm running with this bill.

00:19:41.860 You just aborted the state of Alabama, and you're saying that all of you should be put in jail,

00:19:46.780 but it's unfortunate that you just stayed on the state of Alabama. You just aborted and you

00:19:51.960 rape the state of Alabama. You just rape every little baby. You just rape every little girl. You just rape every 1.00

00:19:58.960 break every little girl. You just rape every little girl. You just rape every little girl. You just 0.99

00:20:04.960 aborted the state. You just rape every little baby. You just aborted her. 1.00

00:20:12.240 So I don't think that Bobby Singleton has his metaphors quite right, because he said you aborted

00:20:17.900 the state of Alabama. And then he says Alabama was pregnant with this bill, and you aborted her. 0.77

00:20:24.940 But if it was the abortion, it would be that someone else was pregnant with the state of Alabama, 0.98

00:20:31.740 right? Or if they rejected the bill, they would have aborted the bill. But they didn't abort the

00:20:37.420 state of Alabama. Look, this is obviously not the brightest bulb in the pack, but something worth

00:20:43.840 noting here is this guy's entire diatribe is, you've aborted the state of Alabama. You've committed an

00:20:48.780 abortion on the state of Alabama. What he's implying here is that abortion is a very bad thing,

00:20:56.520 right? He's actually, in his rhetoric, he's undercutting his entire argument. Because what

00:21:04.100 he's trying to say is that abortion is really good, and we should protect abortion. And the way he's doing

00:21:08.880 that is saying, you guys have just done something so bad, so indefensibly bad, that you've committed

00:21:16.200 an abortion by outlawing abortion. Okay, maybe he should have thought that one through or given it

00:21:23.820 to a staffer or somebody to read beforehand. Other people, media figures, are up in arms about this.

00:21:29.220 John Fugel Sang, who is a left-wing comedian and radio host, he tweeted out, quote,

00:21:34.520 Alabama rapists thank the state GOP for finally giving every one of them the option to pick the

00:21:41.240 mother of their next child. Okay, again, the case of rape accounts for virtually no abortions per year, 1.00

00:21:51.040 far less than 1% per year in the case of rape. And also, I mean, just what he's saying is not true.

00:21:58.160 There are 36 couples for every one baby who is given up for adoption, who want to adopt that baby.

00:22:06.360 So, no, the rapist does not get to pick the mother of his next child because that baby can be given up

00:22:11.920 for adoption. And there are many, many, many people in this country who want to adopt that baby.

00:22:17.240 Amnesty International, sort of ironically named organization, just tweeted out, quote,

00:22:22.180 abortion bans like the one passed in Alabama are a violation of human rights.

00:22:26.380 These bans will be deadly. They will endanger pregnant people's lives. We must not go back. 0.99

00:22:35.300 So, abortion bans are a violation of human rights. Killing a million babies a year,

00:22:41.640 not a violation of human rights. Abortion bans, violation of human rights. The bans will be deadly.

00:22:48.520 So, this law that they just passed, not deadly, or the law is deadly. Killing a million babies a year,

00:22:55.320 not deadly. It will endanger people's lives. Well, it actually says it will endanger pregnant 1.00

00:23:01.560 people's lives. There's just no justification for that at all. This is based on a lie that came out

00:23:06.580 of the pro-abortion movement. They said that before Roe v. Wade, 5,000 to 10,000 women per year

00:23:12.060 were killed from illegal abortions. That is completely made up. The guy who invented that number,

00:23:18.780 Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who was one of the founders of NARAL, the pro-abortion organization,

00:23:23.640 he has admitted in later years, after he became a pro-life advocate, that the number was plucked out

00:23:28.760 of thin air to just be useful propaganda. We actually know how many women were killed the year

00:23:35.640 before Roe v. Wade from illegal abortions. It's not 10,000. It's not 5,000. It's 39 people.

00:23:43.060 39 people killed from illegal abortions that year. 24 women killed from legal abortions that year.

00:23:51.060 And then even more, when you factor in how many states abortion was legal in and how many states

00:23:56.720 it was illegal in, you find out that the likelihood of dying from an illegal abortion that year was

00:24:02.700 exactly the same as the likelihood of dying from a legal abortion. There was no difference whatsoever.

00:24:08.900 And virtually no women, a very, very small number of women actually died from either of them.

00:24:14.540 So it won't endanger pregnant people's lives at all. That's just a total lie. The only thing 1.00

00:24:19.780 endangering people's lives is abortion, which again, kills a million babies a year. So what does

00:24:24.860 this mean for Roe? What does this law mean for the landmark decision? I don't think that this law is

00:24:35.560 going to lead to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. I don't, I don't think, I really wish it would.

00:24:41.040 I do not think that the Supreme Court is going to overturn Roe v. Wade. I will tell you why in a

00:24:47.840 second, but first we got to go to dailywire.com and so much more to get to. And we have this new

00:24:53.300 Democrat in the race and he launched his campaign, unfortunately, with one of the most cringe-inducing

00:24:59.620 videos of the entire race, which is really saying something. Then poor Andrew Clavin, our buddy, is

00:25:04.940 being accosted by the administration of Stanford University. We'll get to the heart of what's

00:25:10.640 going on there. And also, did you hear that? Did you hear, it sounds like bells chiming or birds

00:25:17.180 singing. And that's because it's almost time for our next episode of The Conversation featuring

00:25:21.460 little old me. I will give you pearls of wisdom tomorrow at 7 p.m. Eastern, 4 p.m. Pacific. I will be

00:25:27.160 taking all of your questions, every query that has burned in your hearts. I will answer them live

00:25:33.160 on the air. Plus, Elisha Krauss will also be there. So, you know, that'll be nice. As always, this

00:25:37.720 episode will be free for everyone to watch on Facebook and YouTube, but only subscribers can

00:25:42.440 ask the questions. Once again, subscribe to get your questions answered by me tomorrow, 7 p.m. Eastern,

00:25:47.440 4 p.m. Pacific, and join The Conversation. Dailywire.com. You know you get everything. Most importantly,

00:25:54.540 you get the leftist tears tumbler. You're going to need that because of this abortion law, because 0.74

00:25:58.420 we're not going to keep killing all those babies every year in Alabama. Drink up. The left is furious.

00:26:03.480 We'll see you in a few seconds.

00:26:14.580 I wish that this law would eventually lead to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. I don't think it's going

00:26:19.800 to. Why? So Roe v. Wade, for those of you who don't know, is the landmark Supreme Court decision

00:26:27.940 in the 1970s, which legalized abortions throughout the country. How did it do it? It justified this 1.00

00:26:34.160 abortion right in the Constitution under the general right to privacy. So this is what the court found

00:26:40.620 from Roe v. Wade. Quote, this right to privacy, whether it be founded in the 14th Amendment's concept

00:26:46.060 of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or in the Ninth Amendment's

00:26:51.000 reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether 0.83

00:26:55.060 or not to terminate her pregnancy. We need not resolve the difficult issue of when life begins.

00:27:00.060 When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to

00:27:04.920 arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, in this point in the development of man's knowledge,

00:27:09.440 is not in a position to speculate as to the answer. This is really rich coming from this

00:27:14.060 Supreme Court. Because on the one hand, they're saying, we're going to invent a new constitutional

00:27:18.740 right. And where is it? I mean, we can't really find it, but I don't know. It's in the 14th Amendment

00:27:23.220 or the Ninth Amendment. It's in one of those amendments, right? Somewhere. So they say that on

00:27:26.680 the one hand. And then they say, when does life begin? Gosh, we could never, we could never know that.

00:27:32.740 We would never presume to tell you when life begins. Well, you just presume to invent a completely

00:27:38.440 new right in the Constitution. So I don't know. I figured you could answer the simplest

00:27:43.140 question ever. Let me give you a little biology lesson, Supreme Court. When mommy and daddy love

00:27:48.540 each other very much, and then the sperm and an egg meet, and the sperm fertilizes the egg,

00:27:53.520 that's when life begins. Meets every scientific definition of life. And it's obviously the case.

00:28:01.260 No, they won't answer that one. So they say that there's this right, you know, in the 14th or the

00:28:06.620 9th or whatever. Let's say that there is that right. Certainly the right to privacy is trumped

00:28:16.140 by the right to life, right? Now the court knew that. That's why the court had to include that

00:28:20.840 extra language. But we don't know when life begins. Yes, we do. We do know when life begins.

00:28:26.560 But the court wanted to invent a national right to abortion. So they invented it. Now there was a

00:28:32.780 great dissent from Justice Byron White here. Byron White was not mincing words. He wrote,

00:28:37.180 quote, I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the court's judgment.

00:28:43.060 The court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant women, 1.00

00:28:47.720 and with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient

00:28:53.300 substance to override most existing state abortion statutes. Now, Justice William Rehnquist also

00:29:01.600 dissented here. And Justice William Rehnquist, who went on and becomes the chief justice of the court,

00:29:08.000 he pointed out what Justice White was implying. If the 14th Amendment protects abortion, as the court

00:29:17.380 starts to say, this was apparently unknown to the people who wrote the 14th Amendment and also to the

00:29:23.680 people who enacted the 14th Amendment, who ratified it. The first state law dealing directly with abortion

00:29:30.820 came in 1821. It was enacted by the state of Connecticut. The 14th Amendment was adopted 47

00:29:37.060 years later. At the time that the 14th Amendment was adopted, at least 36 laws by states or territories

00:29:45.420 limited abortion. And 21 of those laws were still on the books at the time of Roe v. Wade. So there's

00:29:51.980 just no argument at all for the 14th Amendment argument or for Roe v. Wade. And that's why there are 20

00:29:58.280 cases right now on their way to the court that challenge Roe v. Wade. In Indiana, there was a

00:30:04.420 bill signed into law by then Governor Mike Pence. This required an ultrasound and an 18-hour waiting

00:30:11.040 period before you could get an abortion. There's a case before the Court of Appeals for the D.C. 0.81

00:30:16.020 Circuit that invokes a, it involves a challenge to the Health and Human Services policy that prevents

00:30:21.920 illegal aliens in U.S. custody from getting abortions. Alabama previously had included a personhood clause

00:30:28.200 in their state constitution to recognize the rights of babies who haven't been born yet.

00:30:33.020 West Virginia stripped abortion rights protections from its state constitution.

00:30:37.100 And in Iowa, the governor, Kim Reynolds, signed a heartbeat bill into law. You heard that name right,

00:30:44.180 Kim Reynolds. This is another funny aspect of the abortion debate here, is you hear the left talking

00:30:49.500 about how awful this abort Alabama law is. It's going to destroy women. It's anti-woman. It's meant 1.00

00:30:55.020 to punish women. I can't wait for those left-wingers to find out that the governor of Alabama is a woman. 1.00

00:31:02.920 They don't, nobody seems to know this. The governor of Alabama is a woman. The woman who is going to sign 0.83

00:31:08.140 this law into effect is, in fact, a woman. Now, don't get too excited because everyone's thinking,

00:31:16.660 now's the time. The pro-life movement has momentum. We can do it. We've got rallies. We've got laws.

00:31:21.400 We've got state legislators. We've got, we've got everything, right? Trump is in office. We've got

00:31:26.520 a bunch of good judges. We have two new judges on the Supreme Court. We have a conservative court,

00:31:32.580 right? Doesn't matter. I don't think we're going to overturn Roe v. Wade. Republican appointees on the

00:31:38.900 court disappoint their parties and their presidents all the time. And specifically on this issue,

00:31:45.080 we've already seen this happen before. We saw this happen in 1992 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

00:31:51.480 This was a case regarding the constitutionality of Pennsylvania restrictions on abortion. And

00:31:58.040 remember, 1992, we're coming just out of the Bush era. We're coming before that, just out of the

00:32:03.420 Reagan era, the Reagan revolution. We're at the height of conservatism at that time. Years of Reagan and

00:32:09.860 Bush appointees on the courts. And what happened? The court upheld, quote, matters involving the most

00:32:18.660 intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime. Choices central to personal dignity and

00:32:23.880 autonomy are central to the liberty protected by the 14th amendment. The court upheld the right to an

00:32:31.580 abortion. It permitted some exceptions and restrictions, gave time periods when you could have restrictions

00:32:38.240 for some reason. I don't know. I don't think the drafters of the 14th amendment said you can only

00:32:43.160 have abortions before 25 weeks or something. But they just invented that. Because if you start with a 1.00

00:32:50.080 bad decision, then the only way to uphold it is to write more bad decisions. If you start with a mess,

00:32:55.880 you're going to keep the mess going. And so they upheld this right to an abortion in here. And it wasn't 0.99

00:33:02.660 just liberals. It was Anthony Kennedy appointed by Ronald Reagan. It was David Souter appointed by

00:33:10.020 George Bush. It was Sandra Day O'Connor appointed by Ronald Reagan. Three GOP court appointees voted to

00:33:17.240 uphold Roe v. Wade and the right to an abortion. And I think we're in for this again. I think Roberts is a

00:33:25.040 total squish. I think Kavanaugh has intimated that he's something of a squish. And let's not forget the 0.87

00:33:31.540 court follows election returns. We like to pretend that the court is this totally removed body,

00:33:37.520 totally dignified. I wish that were the case, but it's not true. The court follows the election returns

00:33:42.940 and especially Justice Roberts wants to maintain the integrity of the court, which ironically means

00:33:50.680 not having any integrity on the court and just going with popular opinion. That's what he did on

00:33:55.280 the Obamacare decision. There's no real argument to uphold Obamacare. He just kind of, he said,

00:34:00.940 oh, well, it's a mandate for this purpose and a tax for this purpose. And basically I just don't

00:34:06.460 want to be really unpopular and people to hate me. Well, we're headed for it again. According to the

00:34:11.380 Kaiser Family Foundation, 67% of Americans do not want the court to overturn Roe v. Wade. That's not

00:34:18.500 a simple majority. That's two thirds of Americans. Even among Republicans, only 53% of Republicans

00:34:25.840 support overturning Roe v. Wade. 43% oppose overturning Roe v. Wade. So what's the likely

00:34:33.020 legal and political outcome? Probably they'll whittle away at Roe v. Wade. They'll come up with

00:34:38.860 some new restrictions that are permitted for some reason in the 14th Amendment or whatever.

00:34:43.620 I think this is a mistake. I think that we should return this issue entirely to the states.

00:34:50.540 The Constitution doesn't weigh in one way or the other. There is no prohibition of abortion in the

00:34:58.000 Constitution. There is no right to abortion in the Constitution. It's just not there. 0.97

00:35:07.700 Antonin Scalia used to say, not everything hateful or odious is covered by some provision of the

00:35:11.980 Constitution. There are plenty of things that are SBC, stupid but constitutional, such as the 1.00

00:35:19.460 ability of states to make their own abortion laws. Sure. But it's just not in the Constitution. So we

00:35:26.380 have to return this to the states. Probably it's most prudent not to pass a federal ban on abortion 1.00

00:35:33.580 either. I'd like a federal ban on abortion. If I were the king, I would have a federal ban on abortion,

00:35:39.200 but I'm not the king. And if you have a federal ban, you basically keep this issue in the exact same

00:35:46.380 state of flux, don't you? It's just the opposite of Roe v. Wade. So if the court found abortion is

00:35:53.440 prohibited by some provision of the Constitution, you'd have the same thing in the other direction.

00:35:58.700 Or even one step further, let's say that the court finds what is correct, which is that abortion is 0.99

00:36:04.360 not covered by the Constitution. Should we then enact a constitutional amendment? I suppose I would be

00:36:10.280 in favor of one. But you are risking that the same issue that we've had with abortion for the last 50,

00:36:18.000 60 years, which is if you return it to the states, if you return it to the laboratories of democracy,

00:36:24.420 I do have faith in the people that they will come to the correct conclusion eventually. I'm a little wary

00:36:31.280 of a constitutional amendment to prohibit all abortions. Because I do have faith in the people,

00:36:36.900 and I have faith in science. And as scientific advancements progress, we're realizing earlier

00:36:43.580 and earlier, oh, a baby really is a baby. People are realizing this. Public opinion now,

00:36:48.460 unlike at the time of Roe v. Wade, is all in favor of the pro-life side. If we just trust in our

00:36:56.020 foundational institutions, our system of government, our people, I think momentum is moving in our

00:37:03.360 direction. But I'm not too excited. I'm not that hopeful. I think we're going to get more squishes 0.99

00:37:10.320 on the court. I think very likely we're going to see a repeat of 1992 and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

00:37:18.120 We're just going to have to wait and see. Alabama is doing exactly what they should be doing. The 0.99

00:37:22.080 pro-life movement is doing exactly what they should be doing. And let's hope and let's put a little

00:37:25.840 pressure on our Supreme Court justices to do what they should be doing as well. This is related to

00:37:32.860 another story today. I mean, this is a pretty simple story. The U.S. has hit the lowest birth rate

00:37:39.160 in 32 years. This is part of a decades-long trend. We are now down, in the year 2018, down in births

00:37:47.180 2% from the year before that. It's a pretty big drop. We now have only 1.73 births per 1,000 women 0.94

00:37:54.140 of childbearing age. I only bring up this story to point out, if you overturned Roe, if you got rid

00:38:00.340 of abortion, that problem would be over. Countries require about a 2 or 2.1 birth rate. We're now at a

00:38:09.700 1.73 birth rate. If you get rid of Roe, that problem is fixed. There were 3,788,000 live

00:38:18.800 births in 2018. We killed a million babies that same year. You could have had 4,788,000 births.

00:38:29.760 Think about that year over year after year. You'd also have a lot more black people, by the way,

00:38:33.740 just as a side note. This is one reason why a lot of white supremacist types actually support

00:38:38.660 abortion is because black babies are aborted between three and four times as frequently

00:38:44.620 as white babies. If the left wants to end white supremacy, which does not exist in this country, 0.84

00:38:50.660 but let's say that it did, if the left wanted to end that, you'd think that they would want

00:38:55.440 to overturn Roe versus Wade. They don't. It's just words, words, words. The other thing that would

00:39:03.180 happen if you overturned Roe versus Wade and you stopped killing a million babies a year, you'd solve

00:39:07.820 the immigration problem. The reason why neither political party actually wants to solve the

00:39:12.840 immigration problem is that economically we need the immigrants. Our population is dying. We have 1.00

00:39:19.740 1.7 birth rate. We're not replacing ourselves. The only way that we keep this economy growing

00:39:25.140 is by bringing people in from the third world or from wherever. Republicans acknowledge this too.

00:39:32.240 The Chamber of Commerce knows this. I mean, the Wall Street Journal Republican types,

00:39:35.440 they all know that. But if you stopped killing a million babies a year, that need, that economic

00:39:43.040 need would go away. It would be vastly diminished. It just reminds us abortion is not just a social

00:39:49.340 issue. That's how some people want to portray it. It's an economic issue. It's a demographic issue.

00:39:54.480 And it's a legal issue as well. Completely changing topics from the Alabama abortion law,

00:40:01.700 which is basically the only news of the day. But we have to cover this guy. He's not in the news and he's

00:40:08.060 probably never going to make it into the news, but I hope he does. He's the newest Democrat in the 2020

00:40:12.560 primary race. His name is Steve Bullock and he is the governor of Montana and he's not ever going to be

00:40:19.740 president. But the reason, I hope he makes it to the debate stage. I'm considering donating money

00:40:25.060 to him because I want him on the debate stage. He was asked on C-SPAN after being governor for seven

00:40:32.780 years, almost seven years, what he was most proud of. Here's what he said.

00:40:39.420 Yes, ma'am. What have you been proudest to achieve as governor?

00:40:51.740 I am happy that hopefully my kids still know my most important job is being their dad.

00:41:02.740 I think the things where, you know, as governor, it's not like attorney general when you know you

00:41:07.640 won or lost a kid. It's so awkward. What are you proudest of?

00:41:13.460 Humana, humana, humana. Well, let me, well, I, I'm a, I'm a dad. I guess we are back to the

00:41:23.160 Roe v. Wade question. I guess everything leads back to abortion this week. That's what you're

00:41:28.580 proudest of? No, she said, what are you, you've been governor for seven years or whatever. What are

00:41:32.720 you proudest of? Uh, uh, I don't know. That's a softball governor that you're supposed to know

00:41:38.160 the answer to that one. She's not grilling you here. It's so brutal. The guy, the guy can't name

00:41:46.860 one thing that he's proud of doing is governor. So he's going to run for president. What this shows

00:41:54.100 you is, uh, that this presidential nomination for Democrats is any man's race. What this shows you

00:42:01.640 is there's no actual obvious nominee. It shows you that the field is pretty weak.

00:42:09.320 If guys like this are getting into the race, if you've got now what, 22 people in the race,

00:42:14.560 it shows you this field is really, really weak. And I assume he's going nowhere, but it, it, you know,

00:42:22.760 people are talking about Joe Biden a lot. Now the president is talking about Joe Biden because

00:42:26.540 he's, he's leading over the other candidates. He's weak. If he were the obvious nominee,

00:42:31.260 all these guys wouldn't be getting into it. Uh, hopefully he can come up with an answer to,

00:42:35.960 uh, what are you proud of accomplishing before he gets onto the debate stage? Another one governor,

00:42:41.220 just a little bit of advice. Uh, people are going to ask you what you want to do as president.

00:42:45.540 You should, you should also probably have an answer for that. Presumably if you don't have an

00:42:49.100 answer for what you've done, you probably won't have an answer for what you want to do.

00:42:52.080 Uh, but you've got a little bit of time before the debates. Also got to point out here,

00:42:56.880 our pal Andrew Klavan, that vicious Islamophobic bigoted monster is, uh, not very welcome at

00:43:07.220 Stanford university right now. One of the nation's leading universities. He has caused chaos and mayhem

00:43:13.140 on campus. He was invited to give a talk on, uh, America's Judeo-Christian values, pretty basic

00:43:20.960 stuff. And he's facing staunch opposition, not from the students, by the way, from the administrators.

00:43:27.760 Uh, the administrators, their Susie Brubaker Cole, who's the vice provost of the university and

00:43:33.860 Tiffany Steinwert, Dean for religious life wrote a letter strongly opposing him. They wrote quote,

00:43:41.780 while our university welcomes discussion of all aspects of America's religious diversity,

00:43:46.740 we're deeply troubled by views. Klavan has expressed in the past in relation to Islam.

00:43:52.340 We believe it is possible to affirm one's own faith traditions without denigrating or distorting

00:43:58.300 those of others. What has Drew said about Islam? What, what do they not like? They obviously don't give 1.00

00:44:04.260 any specific examples because they can't because, I mean, Drew's talked about Islam. He's talked about

00:44:10.320 a whole number of issues, but they can't give the specifics. They just say he's Islamophobic,

00:44:14.920 which is completely made up word that means nothing. And then he says, it's possible to affirm

00:44:18.820 one's faith traditions without denigrating or distorting others. First of all, Drew hasn't distorted

00:44:22.960 Islam ever. Show me an example of one, but what they're saying is you can say some nice things 1.00

00:44:30.200 about Christianity, but you can't discuss other religions. Because if, if I'm going to extol the

00:44:35.960 virtues of Christianity, then I am necessarily contrasting the views of Christianity with other

00:44:42.460 religious systems. Just to use a simple example, the God of Christianity is pure logic. He is the logos,

00:44:51.800 is the divine logic of the universe. The God of Islam, Allah, is pure will. So the, the,

00:44:59.880 the great Muslim theologian Ibn Hazm writes that the, the God of Islam, Allah is so purely will

00:45:08.620 that he is not bound by any sort of logic. If, if Allah tells you to worship an idol,

00:45:16.100 you would be bound to do that. Those are, those are different views of God. Those are very different

00:45:22.820 views. And one of them is correct. And one of them is incorrect. So if I say God is the God of logic,

00:45:28.040 that necessarily means that the God of Islam is, is not really God, that the Islamic view of,

00:45:35.100 of God is not true. You, you can, you actually cannot affirm your own faith traditions without

00:45:42.400 necessarily claiming that the others are false. But then, then they go on, they, they get even more

00:45:48.580 intense about this. They say, we understand it can be frustrating and painful, deeply frustrating and

00:45:52.780 painful to see speakers invited to campus whose ideologies disparage members of our community.

00:45:58.940 Again, show me an example. Drew's never disparaged any member of the community.

00:46:02.840 Acknowledging this pain, we nonetheless encourage you to look beyond the sensationalism of speakers

00:46:07.680 whose currency is controversy to the examples of people joining together across difference and

00:46:13.060 standing in solidarity in the face of hatred and slander. Hatred and slander, you're the only one

00:46:18.780 promoting hatred and slander. Also people whose currency is controversy. Andrew, I hate to say nice

00:46:24.160 things about Drew. Andrew Klavan is a bestselling novelist who's written about a zillion books.

00:46:28.640 He's an award-winning writer of fiction. He's written a lot of very big Hollywood movies.

00:46:33.780 What have these women ever done? Susie Brubaker and Tiffany Steinwort? The only thing I know about them 1.00

00:46:40.300 is they try to stir up controversy from their completely useless positions in the bloated administration

00:46:46.100 of Stanford. What they're accusing Drew of is what they are doing themselves. And then this is pretty

00:46:52.660 troubling. They say, well, they accuse Drew of violence. They say violence has shattered many

00:46:57.240 communities, but nonetheless, we stand together. They imply that he's being violent. And then they

00:47:01.180 say, as you decide how to respond to this speaker and others who may follow, we encourage you to have

00:47:05.580 hope in the communities of solidarity. As you decide how to respond. They sound like mobsters.

00:47:10.660 Listen, sure would be a shame if somebody came up and responded to your speech, huh?

00:47:16.200 Yeah, sure would be a dirty, rotten shame. As you, the way to respond to a speaker at a university

00:47:21.980 that you disagree with is that you listen to what he has to say and then you express your opinion.

00:47:28.960 There's one way to respond. The idea that she's pushing, that there are multiple ways to respond

00:47:35.660 implies that students could shout him down. Students could drown him out. Students could

00:47:42.160 get violent as has happened to me and other people at universities. That's the implication here. And

00:47:46.480 it's obviously the implication that the reason I bring this up, not just to defend Drew, he's a big

00:47:50.600 boy. He can defend himself. The administrators of the problem, you know, there are those kind of

00:47:56.640 childish idiots like the girl at Yale who was shouting, you know, this is, this is a safe space.

00:48:02.180 It's, you're screaming the F word at her professor who hired you, all this kind of stuff.

00:48:07.960 This is not an intellectual community, she shouted. It's easy to vilify the students and the students

00:48:13.400 are complete idiots. That's true. And that girl in the Yale video is a privileged bratty little child.

00:48:20.300 Students are ignorant and uneducated and badly behaved by definition. That's what a student is.

00:48:25.860 The issue is the administration. The issue is Susie Brubaker-Cole and Tiffany Steinwert at Stanford.

00:48:32.820 The issue at Missouri is that jerk chancellor, Molly Agrawal, who, after I was physically assaulted, 0.91

00:48:40.400 smeared me as a bigot and defended the heckler's veto. That's the issue.

00:48:45.540 There are the, there are the problem because they should know better and they don't.

00:48:49.320 So what we should do is defund these universities that tolerate this stuff at a public level.

00:48:55.320 We should stop donating as alumni at the private level. And the demand should be clear. Fire the

00:49:00.320 administrators. Stop the bloat. I get why they kowtow to the students. The students are paying

00:49:05.160 70, 80 grand a year to go to these universities. Stop the bloat. That will reduce the cost of tuition.

00:49:11.220 Stop the federal guarantees. That will reduce the cost of admission. Stop donating all of your money.

00:49:15.880 That will reduce the cost of admission. That will stop this bloat that's going on at these

00:49:20.420 universities. It will make them respond to you because the problem, don't blame the Marxist

00:49:27.260 professor. Professors are Marxists. This happens almost all the time. Don't blame the students.

00:49:31.960 Blame the administrators and call for their jobs to be surrendered. Call for them to be fired.

00:49:39.500 Call for them to be defunded. All right. We got a lot more to get to, but it's a big day and we

00:49:42.880 have that big Alabama law. So we, we will have much more to talk about tomorrow. Don't forget,

00:49:47.800 get your mailbag questions in for Thursday. In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles. This is

00:49:50.880 The Michael Knowles Show. See you tomorrow.

00:49:57.260 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Rebecca Dobkowitz and directed by Mike Joyner,

00:50:02.460 executive producer, Jeremy Boring, senior producer, Jonathan Hay. Our supervising producer is Mathis

00:50:08.140 Glover and our technical producer is Austin Stevens. Edited by Danny D'Amico. Audio is mixed

00:50:13.280 by Dylan Case. Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera. And our production assistant is Nick Sheehan. The

00:50:18.820 Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2019. Hey guys, over on the

00:50:24.060 Matt Wall Show today, a law in Alabama would outlaw abortion in almost every case, making no exceptions

00:50:29.260 for rape. The left, of course, to put it mildly, is not happy about this. I sense that maybe the tide

00:50:35.740 is turning in America in favor of the pro-life cause. Am I being too optimistic? Well, that would 0.95

00:50:41.200 certainly be a first, but we'll talk about it. Also, someone emails, someone emailed me and asked

00:50:45.460 whether conservatives are putting their heads in the sand when it comes to gun violence.

00:50:50.680 Is that true? Are we? Well, I'll address that question today over on the Matt Wall Show.

The Michael Knowles Show - May 15, 2019

Ep. 349 - What The Alabama Law Actually Says

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