Angie Thomas, J.D. answers several questions for The Abortion Museum and this is the raw footage of our interview. This footage will assist us in creating a series of museum exhibits on the truth/history surrounding abortion.
Transcript
The transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.
Welcome to the Pro-Life Team podcast. My name is Jacob Barr, and in this episode, we’re sharing footage captured for the Abortion Museum. Oh, and the papers. All right, so Angie, please tell us about yourself, your story, and how you got started in this work fighting abortion. Sure, sure. So my story started really going to law school. I really wanted to learn more about abortion, and I just thought of it as just an awful thing, and how could this be legal in our country?
And so I went to law school with a very justice-minded worldview, and while I was in law school, I encountered the local pregnancy center, and I started volunteering there. I served on the board, and I then spent the next 20 years working in a pregnancy center, and with that, I really experienced mercy. So I came at it with justice, and then I experienced just the mercy side of it. And so I feel like those things together have really helped me to understand kind of the path of the abortion-minded woman, and then also the path socially, and the path legally to legalized abortion, and hopefully now on our way to illegal abortion. Awesome. All right. And let’s see, so your notes on row one, just in case you want to see them.
So this one’s going to be the question about, what are rights, whether civil rights, human rights, or some other kind of right, and does abortion qualify as one or more of these rights? Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay. Are you going to repeat the question? Sure. So what are rights, whether civil rights, human rights, or some other kind of right, and does abortion qualify as one or more of these rights?
So I think of a right as a moral, or a legal, or a natural entitlement. And so, no, I would not qualify abortion as a moral right, or as certainly not a natural right. In our country, for 50 years, it was a legal right, and it is still a legal right in certain states. But certainly, the way I think of a right is that our rights end when another person’s rights begin. And so abortion is, to me, a very clear example of, we can’t have a moral or a natural right to abortion, because that infringes on the unborn person’s rights to life. Awesome. All right.
Is that succinct enough? Yes, perfect. That’s very perfect.
Does legal equal moral? In other words, does legality entirely define morality? Mm-hmm. I wish I could read my own handwriting.
Moral code of… Oh, right versus wrong. Okay. And I can read it again when you’re ready. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Does legal… Sorry. Does legal equal moral?
In other words, does legality entirely define morality? So I don’t think legality entirely defines morality. But I certainly think that legal terms, the law can certainly include a moral dimension. When I think about criminal law, I think that all of criminal law includes a moral dimension. The law against homicide, or kidnapping, or rape, all of these have moral implications to them. They are enacted in order to protect others from moral wrongs. Awesome. So number three, the Dobbs decision, what is it, and why does it matter? Okay. So the Dobbs decision came down last summer, and really was a pivotal moment in our nation’s history, because the Roe v.
Wade decision from 1973 really created a stronghold, essentially. All of the states of this country were required to allow abortion, regardless of what their laws were before that case. What Dobbs did is Dobbs… The decision of Dobbs put it back to the states. And so they removed that Supreme Court stronghold over all of the states. And now, if a state chooses to make abortion illegal, they are allowed to do that. Awesome. All right.
So number four is, what was Roe v. Wade, and in your legal opinion, was it a legally sound decision, constitutional, evidentially strong, responsible, jurisprudence, et cetera? Okay. Okay. I can ask it one more time. So what was Roe v. Wade, and in your legal opinion, was it a legally sound decision?
I do not believe that Roe v. Wade was a legally sound decision. In fact, in my research, even people who say that they are pro-choice have often criticized that opinion. My understanding through research is that there was not a strong record going into this case. So there weren’t a lot of facts. So when you read the actual legal case of Roe v. Wade, it reads more almost like a philosophical paper than a legal case.
I remember one quote from the case. It said something like, we need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. That does not sound to me like a Supreme Court justice interpreting law. That sounds like an opinion or just some sort of other comment on this very controversial thing in our country.
So yes, Roe v. Wade, I think it should be criticized. When you read it, it’s so interesting to me that you read all about potential life and how society needs life, right? And then at the end, it’s like, so abortion is legal. And it is not only legal in this case, it’s legal in all cases. And we’ll talk a little bit more about that when we talk about the other cases that came down with Roe. Awesome. Thank you.
I’m trying so hard to be succinct. No, you’re doing great. Yeah. If you need to say more, that’s fine. But yeah, succinct helps for us to bring it together. So question number five.
Up until recently, the Roe v. Wade decision basically got all the attention. When people talked about federal abortion policy and Supreme Court rulings, Roe was the reference point. Obviously, the Dobbs decision changed the conversation. But are they going to change the conversation?
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.
Again, the Supreme Court ruling changes the conversation. So actually, Roe v. Wade was the reference point. Obviously, the Dobbs decision changed the conversation. But are there other landmark abortion cases that people should know about? Yeah. Yeah. When I studied the history of abortion law in America, I thought it was so interesting that it almost carved out a whole new area of law, and I’ve called it the abortion distortion.
And there were a lot of cases that led to this, this abortion distortion. First and foremost, I would say Doe v. Bolton was a very important case. It came down. It was a companion case with Roe v. Wade, and Roe said abortion is legal if the woman’s life or health is in danger. And so life, okay, I understand what that is, but what is the definition of health?
So Doe, the companion case to Roe v. Wade, was the one that defined health, and it defined it in such a broad way. It defined it as the woman’s financial, familial health, all of the things that you would think of with health. But in addition to that, things like the woman’s age is relevant. All of those things can apply to the definition of health. So ultimately, what Doe v. Bolton did is it expanded abortion to be essentially for any reason or no reason.
Abortion was legal through all nine months of pregnancy, and I think most people in America did not realize that those two cases, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, expanded that definition of abortion in that way. I probably want to add a little bit. Oh, no, that was good. There’s some kind of high.
Yeah, you hear that? I don’t know what it is. It’s not a truck. I haven’t seen it. Super prevalent. It’s coming right in the audio. I’m not sure what that is.
No, no, no, keep it going, keep it going. Like a generator or something?
Oh, it’s a diesel truck. It’s… Something to go down there. It’s not turning around? No, no, it’s like… Unloading? It’s like a big water tank.
It’s that big water tank truck out there. It’s just running its diesel. I mean, I can definitely… I can probably edit it out, but… Yeah, we probably can edit it out, but especially since it’s a solid hum, we should get some room noise. If we get 45 seconds of that noise by itself, we can isolate it. Y’all are so smart.
All right, everybody quiet. All right. 45 seconds. That’s what Bill actually does, is he gets the AC on, and then it gets the room noise, and then fingerprints it, and then removes it.
I just turn the AC off. Wow. So, I saw all this happening, so I just stopped there, but I mean, I have a few other cases that I can talk about.
No, I’ll do it. We’ll definitely do it. Is it getting louder? It’s like…
This is not on airplane mode. You know what?
I’m going to… Are we going to record the audio of the 45 seconds right now?
Yeah, let’s get 45 seconds. Everybody sign up, please. All right.
Three, two, one. We’re good. All right. Okay. We’re good. Okay. Okay, so we can remove that with that bit.
You’re still recording? Mm-hmm. We’re going. Okay. And you’re still recording? Recording. Okay. We’ll be able to work on removing that.
I’m going to add a little more, so let’s give her some time. Okay. I think it’d be really awesome. Perfect. Yeah, please continue. Yeah. So, Roe v.
Wade was handed down along with Doe v. Bolton in 1973. Not much happened between then and 1992 when the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision came down. In that case, the courts were looking at a number of different regulations on abortion. So, for example, reporting requirements, or parental consent, or husband notification. They were looking at all of these things, and fundamentally, they were looking at, was Roe v.
Wade good law, or should it be overturned? And so, a lot of people who have been in the pro-life movement for a long time were very hopeful that Roe v. Wade would be overturned in 1992. Ultimately, it was not overturned. It was reaffirmed, but it was perhaps considered a victory in some ways, because in that case, the courts said, you know, a state can restrict abortion in a certain way. So, before then, women were not given informed consent for their abortions, and there were no reporting requirements, parental consent laws. So many things were not regulated about abortion.
I often talk about how veterinary clinics were more regulated than abortion clinics. That’s what my research revealed. It’s just so sad to think about how many women were treated so poorly during that time. But with Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a lot of the states who were more pro-life were able to start passing laws that restricted abortion. So then you started to see women’s right-to-know laws come out related to informed consent. You started to see waiting periods, parental consent laws.
And so, we were able to at least get some restrictions around that, which I think is so interesting when you see pro-choice, pro-abortion people talking about this, you know, oh, we want abortion to be safe and legal and rare. Well, then why didn’t we, why were y’all fighting against informed consent laws or parental consent laws or reporting requirements? So really looking to the motivation behind some of those things is really important. Awesome. Good insights. Did anybody talk about the partial birth abortion case?
No, not yet. Okay. So I’ll say a little something about that.
Yeah, that’d be great. Marty, you got a pause? Or are you good?
No, no, no. All right. Please continue whenever you’re ready. Okay. So going from Planned Parenthood versus Casey in 1992, we kind of move on to the early 2000s where we started to see some movement with what was called partial birth abortion. So not something that people really want to think about, but remember Roe v.
Wade coupled with Doe v. Bolton’s definition of health allowed abortion in all nine months of pregnancy for any reason or no reason. So this resulted in at least some abortions happening in the very latest moment of pregnancy. So there was a method that was used where parts of the child were delivered and that was when they completed the abortion. And so the images of this type of method are just so difficult to look at. And if you read the Carhartt case, which I believe was in 2007, that’s where the court wrestled with this question of, is this method of abortion legal? And so you see in this case the justices, the tension of, is this something that should be lawful in our land?
And ultimately the courts decided that we were not going to allow what is called partial birth abortion in our country. So that was in the 2000s. And then we had a lot of movement with incremental legislation that were constantly efforts to try to get abortion restricted in whatever way possible. There was the whole women’s health case in Texas. There was June Medical in Louisiana where we were looking at, can abortion laws that pro-life states passed be challenged by abortion providers, the very people who will be making money off of these decisions? So that is a legal concept called standing. And in the June Medical case, the Supreme Court really wrestled with that issue of standing.
So ultimately we had some victories and some losses, but in a couple years after that was the Dobbs decision where we were able to have the victory, the true victory of overturning Roe v. Wade. Awesome. I think that covers most of it. That’s great.
Let’s see, next question, number six. Some say that abortion was legal in the U.S. until religious activists started getting involved through the American Medical Association around 1860. That they say is when states started banning abortion. In other words, abortion choice wasn’t controversial before about 1860.
Is that even correct? Was abortion legally and morally uncontroversial before that time? Yeah. May I ask it one more time, or whenever you’re ready. So abortion, I think, was always seen as a controversial act. The earliest research, the earliest abortions that I found in my research were in 1550 BCE in Egyptian papyrus. It was very long ago that we started to see the act of abortion.
I would say what is new is this desire to make it socially acceptable. So yes, the murder has been around since the beginning of time, and so has rape and other things. This movement of certain groups in our society to make it socially acceptable, that’s what’s new. And so when I studied the origins of abortion in America, I learned all about Dr. Bernard Nathanson and Larry Lader and all of the major players trying to get abortion legalized in America. And it was so interesting to me because they knew that one of the first things that they had to do was to get women to believe that abortion was good for them. It is not a natural thing for a woman to want to end the life of her child.
I’ve worked with so many post-abortive women and so many women in the throes of this decision, and it is not an easy thing. It is a very difficult thing. But when our society puts abortion out there as the answer to her problems, then she is duped by that, right? And so that has been the real movement of trying to make it socially acceptable and make it to be an answer to the problems of poverty or domestic violence or addiction or any of the myriad of things that women come to the doors of a pregnancy center with. Thank you for sharing on that. In the 1970s and 80s, oh, did you want to skip on this one? Is that one you want to skip or is that one you want to answer?
I don’t really have much to say about that, yeah. I’m sure Anne and Tom probably handled that one. Sounds good. I mean, yeah. The personhood amendment? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so number eight.
Democrats seem to be united in the pro-choice camp and Republicans in the pro-life camp. Is that correct? And how have the party’s views on abortion evolved over the years, say from 1972 forward? Well, I think I have a really unique view on this because I’m from the state of Louisiana and in the state of Louisiana, we have pro-life Democrats and some of the most meaningful legislation has come from our pro-life Democrats who have fought for the laws in Louisiana that are very pro-life. So I have seen a legislature that can work together, Republicans and Democrats can work together for life. And what that shows me is that it should not be this bright party line where one party accepts abortion and one party rejects abortion. That has really, to me, tainted our political system and has made it much more difficult.
I mean, abortion is, in my opinion, a morally evil thing. And so why are we putting that up there with approaches to financial things and other ways that our government governs? I just feel like it has truly tainted the way our entire political system works. And so I wish it was not such a clear line like in Louisiana where there is a blurred line between Democrats and Republicans on a life issue. So I’m sure nobody else will answer that way. That was good.
Question number nine. Okay. So you have a note here, I’ll read the question, but you were probably to pro-women to pro- Oh, pro-baby. Yeah. Oh, pro-baby to pro-women to pro- Science. Oh, science. Yeah. I can barely read my own hand.
So the question is, number nine, how has the wider abortion debate in America evolved or changed in the last 50 years or so, or in the last five to 10 years? So I think, you know, from my understanding of the pro-life movement, I can remember when I was a little girl and learning more about abortion, everything that I heard was all about the baby. What about the baby? What about the baby? We need to protect the baby, which is a good and noble thing. I think maybe in the 90s, late 90s to early 2000s, there was a real shift to this concept of love them both. Being pro-life is being pro-woman because it’s not a natural thing for a woman to desire to do that.
And how can we truly walk with her? How can we truly help the woman, the mother, who’s already a mother to this child? So I would say from pro-baby to pro-woman, not forgetting about the baby, but both, to really what I’ve seen a trend most recently on is this bringing science to the forefront and understanding there is no question about whether it’s a baby or not.
Science is there. Science and technology fundamentally changed this from the Roe v. Wade decision of we don’t really know when life begins. So it’s more of just understanding that the facts are there. This is a human being. Science can keep children alive earlier in pregnancy than ever before. I believe the earliest child to survive was at 21 weeks and a few days.
So the viability line is moving earlier and earlier in pregnancy. And so I think putting science at the forefront of this is going to also be helpful. So it’s all three, focusing on the child, the mother, and science. Awesome. To the best of your knowledge, is the anti-abortion pro-life lobby outmatched in terms of financing, influence, popularity, compared to the abortion choice, pro-choice lobby? And you got a note for that one. Oh, yeah.
All right, so whenever you’re ready. So I think that the answer to this question really depends a lot on where you live. So I live in the Deep South where we actually have a lot of resources available for pro-life efforts. And in fact, I was very involved with a constitutional amendment in our state where our pro-life side was able to raise just as much funds, if not more, as the pro-choice side. And that constitutional amendment passed in our state by a greater margin than any other vote in the history of our state, any ballot initiative, any candidate. The constitutional amendment that said that abortion is not a right in our state constitution. So that showed me that it’s, at least in our state at that time, which was only a couple of years ago, back in 2020, that we aren’t outmatched, we aren’t outnumbered, but we have to have our voices be heard.
And what I really experienced through that was that we are unstoppable when the church comes together, when we have a unified front and we can all come together for this one effort of supporting life. I know that’s my phone. I thought I had it on air. Okay. Can you say unified front one more time and start from there? Was that when the phone went off? No, no, when she tapped her chest.
Oh, I’m sorry. Just unified front moving forward. Or do you want to do the whole question again? It might be easier just to do it with a question. Yeah, let’s just, so to the best of your knowledge, is the anti-abortion pro-life lobby outmatched in terms of financing influence and popularity compared to the abortion choice, pro-choice lobby? And if you can make sure we name the state that you’re referring to, that’d be helpful too. So I think that the answer to that question really depends on where you live.
I live in the state of Louisiana, which happens to be a very pro-life state. And, you know, concretely, I experienced our state putting it out there to the general public, a constitutional amendment back in 2020. And we asked the state, does our state constitution include a right to abortion and a right to funding of abortion? And the state completely came together and we had, the pro-life side has had just as much funding going into this campaign as the pro-choice side. And a lot of it was inside of our state. A lot of that money came from inside of our state, whereas the pro-choice side came from outside of the state. And we were able to have this unified front with the churches all coming together, the pregnancy centers, all the different arms of the pro-life movement.
And that ballot initiative passed by a greater margin than any other ballot initiative or any candidate in the history of the state of Louisiana. So I give that example to you of just a moment where we can have this unified front that, you know, what matters is that we hold to the truth and we stand up for the truth and we educate people on it. Awesome. You want to reset it now? Okay. All right. We’re going to go ahead and stop recording.
We’re going to clap. Okay. Number 11, what are some of the most effective legal arguments for abortion? And then the same thing against, what are some of the most effective legal arguments against abortion? And you wrote autonomy and personhood. Yeah. So, I mean, it’s hard for me to really accept an effective legal argument for abortion just because I think it is such an immoral act.
But what has won in certain instances is this concept of bodily autonomy that they have fought for, you know, a woman’s autonomy over her body. Again, that goes back to where one person’s rights end is where another person’s begins. And so that leads me to I think the most effective legal argument for, I mean, against abortion is that it’s a human being. It’s a person. And that person has rights. And that the mother’s rights, you know, should not be pitted against her own child’s rights, first of all, but that they are, that those rights of the woman end when another human being’s rights begin. Good. Question 12, explain the abortion choice argument, my body, my choice.
Is this bodily autonomy, bodily sovereignty, and is it a sound argument? And in your notes were PC when women. Yeah, got it. Okay. Just to clarify, I think it wasn’t coming across bodily autonomy is not the same as bodily sovereignty. Oh, okay. The second one isn’t defining it.
Autonomy would be I have general authority over my body. Sovereignty would, you know, like a sovereign. Recording. And we need a clap. Question 12, explain the abortion choice argument, my body, my choice. Is this bodily autonomy, bodily sovereignty, and is it a sound argument? You know, when I hear my body, my choice, I immediately go back to all of the encounters that I’ve had with women who are in the throes of an unplanned pregnancy and how often I would hear a woman tell me, well, my boyfriend said it’s my body, it’s my choice.
And I would often ask them, well, what does that mean to you? How do you feel about that? And after, you know, thinking about it and reflecting, most often the women would say I hear that he’s not going to help me, that he’s not going to be there for me. Because if he’s okay with me killing my baby, then he’s likely not going to be there to support me. And so when I, it’s my body, my choice, just, especially when a man says that to a woman, it is just saying I don’t really care that much. That’s powerful. Really powerful. Question 13.
Some argue that pro-choice policy is an extension of the First Amendment, separating church and state. In other words, they say churches and their religious laws have no business telling women what they can or can’t do with their bodies. Is this a correct application of the First Amendment? And you wrote down criminal law. Yeah. So, no, I don’t think that that’s the correct understanding of the First Amendment. Again, I mean, when I look at abortion, I look at it as an immoral act against a human being.
So I’m looking at it as homicide. I’m thinking about that in terms of criminal laws, not in terms of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Can you repeat that one more time? Sure. Repeat it. Yeah. Thank you.
So if you want to look at the question one more time, we’ll do that one more time whenever you’re ready. Wait, did you not understand what I was saying?
Do I need to elaborate? No, the pacing got a little, the pace of the answer was a little quick. Oh. I had to slow it down. Okay. Whenever you’re ready.
Thank you so much. Okay. So when I look at abortion, I don’t see abortion as a bunch of religious people telling people how to act. I see abortion as an immoral and evil act against another human being. So I’m thinking of it more in terms of criminal law, not looking at it in terms of the First Amendment and freedom of speech and freedom of religion. I’m looking at it in terms of, again, your rights and where another person’s rights begin. Perfect. Number 14, some argue that abortion choice policy, actually let’s let you, you can just read it, it’s a long question and get your note there. Yeah. Whenever you’re ready. Okay. So yes, I have often heard the analogy of abortion to slavery.
And I think there is certainly truth to that, that when slavery was legal in our country, it was because an entire group of people were defined as something other than a human being or other than that group that got rights. So, you know, the slavery, you know, looked at humans, a certain group of humans as not being a person. The same is true with abortion law, that we’re looking at an entire group of people as not legally defined as persons. So in that essence, it can be very helpful to make that analogy. Where I wouldn’t use that analogy is maybe with the post-abortive woman and man who is, you know, grieving and is seeking healing. That that would not be a helpful thing to talk about with them, but that just to invite them to understand that they made that act at a certain moment in their lives where they felt that that was all that they could do. Sorry, I got off on a bit of a tangent with that one, so I just stopped myself.
No, that was fine. All right, so number 15, pivoting to another number 15. Yeah, can we just skip that one?
Oh, skip 15? Yeah. Sure. I mean, do you have enough material on the ERA? I don’t really, I can say a word or two on it. Sure, if you’re trying to say something brief, that’s fine. Uh-huh. Ready? Yeah, sure.
So I think the Equal Rights Amendment is a good example of something being hijacked by the abortion movement. There are a lot of really good and noble things we can do to help women in our society, right? I am a woman. I am a working woman. I am a mother. I am a spouse. I know that I deserve certain rights, but the fact that that entire body of law was hijacked by abortion is frustrating to me, because as a woman, as a working woman, as a mother, I don’t want abortion to be a part of that.
And then with the Equal Rights Amendment, my understanding is that they were able to get some states to ratify it, but not all of them, and then it expired at a certain point, and so they would have to start completely over. That’s good. Thank you. There are laws in the books against death profiteering. In your view, would abortion qualify as death profiteering, and would that connection qualify as a viable federal law banning for-profit abortions? There is no question in my mind that abortion is a business in this country. I have worked with many abortion clinic workers who have left that industry and have shared very disturbing things with me about certain quotas that they had to meet, and the way that they were to interact with women, and how fast they were to do the procedure.
And so there’s no question that the industry, whether it’s Planned Parenthood and their worldwide empire, or freestanding, independent abortion clinics who have their own quota and their own bottom line to look for. So there’s no question that this is a money-making business. I think it’s a very novel idea to really look at how this could be applied to law, and to make that industry, if it really is about women’s rights, if it really is about this noble thing that they are passionate about, then why are they getting paid to do it? Those of us who have worked in the pro-life movement for many years have done so quite sacrificially. I’m going to repeat that. Those of us who have worked in the pro-life movement have done so quite sacrificially, and we believe in what we are doing. We believe that we are helping women, children, families, and the larger society by what we are doing.
And we don’t make money off of a woman’s outcome of her pregnancy. The abortion clinic, on the other hand, does make money on that outcome. And in fact, even in states like my own, where we had a lot of incremental legislation that was there to make sure that women weren’t being treated poorly in those abortion clinics, they still were. Because it was the abortion doctor who was making that decision of whether her health was affected, or whether her life was affected. And so they were either going to get paid by that woman, or not. So what do you think their answer would be? It would be to give them the abortion, so that they can get paid.
I love that answer. That was powerful. So good. Good. Well, his explanation helped me. That’s good. See, John, we need you.
We do need you, John. I am useful for something.
All right, number 17. Does abortion qualify as a crime against humanity? Maybe I need a little bit more on that one. Like, as a term of art? Crime against humanity as a term of art. It would be within larger, like, United Nations categories. Genocide. Genocide. Categories of white apartheid would qualify.
The Armenian Genocide. Rwandan Genocide. The Rape of Nanking.
Obviously, the Holocaust. But basically, the term genocide was coined in the post-World War II era, because they didn’t have a term to describe this kind of atrocity, where they were trying to exterminate a whole population. Now, technically, abortion isn’t a genocide, because you’re not trying to destroy an entire people group. But you do have a kind of prejudicial kind of killing on a scale that we don’t have many words to describe it. Crime against humanity does have about eight or ten criteria that you have to meet, but it can include forced exile, forcing individuals out of a place that they live. Prejudicial treatment. Systemic discrimination.
So, that would be like apartheid. Abuse, harassment. It doesn’t have to technically be killing, but killing is some of the clearest examples. I did a couple of presentations on it, and wrote a piece arguing that if this doesn’t qualify as a crime against humanity, then the category is broken, because it meets all the criteria. Because you’ve got individuals that are forced out of their natural habitat, natural environment. You are killing them in the process. It has to be of a significant scale.
And technically, abortion, if there was a universal global flood back in the days of Noah, that would have been maybe a half billion people killed at most on the planet Earth. And we’ve got over one billion abortions just since 1980. So this would literally be the deadliest event, or deadliest institutional act in world history, and it’s ongoing under our noses. Yeah, gosh. That’s helpful. So you should answer that one.
I’ll get to it. I might say a word about just maybe like the demographic winter, like that it’s a crime against an entire group of people, and populations are suffering because of it. Could that make maybe the connection there? Yeah, like elementary schools are going to have to start closing down, because that would be good, yeah. Okay. Yes, whenever you’re ready. Does abortion qualify as a crime against humanity?
Yeah, I would say that abortion certainly qualifies as a crime against humanity. It’s certainly a crime against human beings, and a lot of them, right? It’s a crime against an entire group as defined, right, as the unborn, that we have as a nation, and, you know, as many nations, have said it’s okay to kill those people. This has had such a major impact on the world. When we start to think about the numbers of unique human beings that are not in this world because of the acceptance of abortion, it is staggering. And to look at some of the countries that are suffering because of these laws, abortion being so socially acceptable, that there’s a demographic winter in many countries in Europe where they’re not populating enough to keep their ethnicity going. And so this is a worldwide problem that really needs to be addressed. Awesome. Thank you for sharing on that.
Number 18, is abortion law and policy for sale to the highest bidder, irrespective of what’s right, good, or true? And you wrote Republican v. Democrat. Oh, yeah. So we kind of already addressed that, but do you want me to say a little bit more? Sure. Do you want to look at it for a moment and think about it for a moment? Yeah. Okay. So is abortion policy for sale?
I think this is such a fascinating question because I shared earlier about how I live in a very unique state where there are pro-life Democrats. But by and large, they have shared with me that the national platform, the national party is not going to let them get much farther in their political career precisely because of their views on life. And so there is a very powerful entity in this country that is pushing for abortion. And there are many donors that are giving to this agenda. And so sometimes it can feel like the mindset of a few elite is affecting the entire country and the way that we view morality, essentially. So despite the fact that the facts are there, right, that that is a human life, the unborn are humans, that it is an immoral thing to end the life of a unique human being, that we have been lied to with all of the rhetoric surrounding this issue, and that we have been bombarded with messaging about this because of how much money the other side has. Makes sense.
So question 19. Let’s skip that one. I think I already covered that one. Oh, yeah, I like this abortion, abolitionism. Okay. I feel very strongly about this. Oh, good. Yeah. So if you want to go longer, that would be fine.
There is a debate in the anti-abortion camp between abolitionism and incrementalism. Would you explain these two positions and what difference it makes? So my understanding of abolitionism is not just a total prohibition on abortion, but an understanding that women should be criminalized for the act of abortion. So I think all people who believe in the dignity of life would agree that abortion should not be allowed, okay? But when you start talking about criminalizing women for their abortions, that gets much more complicated. So if you ask me this question again in 20 years, I may have a very different view. The country is not ready for women to be criminalized for abortion, and I would, in fact, agree that we shouldn’t look to criminalize the woman right now, and I’ll explain why.
Having worked with so many women in unplanned pregnancies, I see that it is not an isolated decision that they’re making in a vacuum. They have grown up in a culture that has said abortion is easy and it’s quick and it’s the right thing to do and it’ll make your life easier. And maybe their family, they come from generations that have had abortion as the answer to an unplanned pregnancy. And so when I am seeing these women who have grown up like that, and then in our state, we have a pro-life state now, overnight abortion became illegal. And so women who have grown up in that way are now being told abortion is illegal, which I’m extremely happy that it is illegal now. But to go from them thinking that it’s okay and everyone in their family has done it to, now I’m going to go to jail because of it, is a really difficult thing for society right now. So I think seeing the implications of this on a very close level, in my state there was a bill that someone authored that was an abolitionist bill, and I saw the international waves that it caused of the people in the pro-choice and pro-abortion camps saying, see, this is what they wanted all along.
They wanted women to go to jail. And that’s not true of the pro-life movement. We can’t fall into that. We have to make sure that we can walk this line of understanding that abortion is, in fact, an evil act and that it is not the answer for women who are in an unplanned pregnancy, but to have enough compassion for that woman to understand that it was like gnawing off their arm, the bear trap analogy, and that we need to have greater compassion for them and build up support around them. That’s the real answer. And to understand that it’s the medical doctors who are making this act of abortion available that we need to go after at this moment in our history. That was a really good answer.
Maybe more than what you’ll bargain for. No, that was perfect. Question number 20. No, that wasn’t number 20. Oh, 21. What would you like to say about legal history and the legal world surrounding abortion that you were not asked about? I really can’t think of anything right now.
What’s it like working at NIFLA and working in this legal space? What’s it like working in this legal space? My legal work is primarily to support, equip, and educate pregnancy centers. Regardless of the legal history of abortion, the pregnancy center movement, which is an arm of the pro-life movement, has been needed and will always be needed because there will be unplanned pregnancies regardless of whether abortion is legal or illegal. And so it is a great honor to be able to walk alongside pregnancy centers and educate and equip them and protect them in any way that we can so that they can continue to support women in unplanned pregnancies. Perfect. Awesome. I think that’s a wrap. Yay. You’re welcome. Thanks. Bye-bye. Bye.