Special: Has It Been Overturned? What You Need to Know
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We are joined by Bradley Pierce a Constitutional Attorney. Is it overturned? Here are the details that you need to know and what we need to do moving forward.
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- 00:00
- What's up, guys? This is Zach Conover, the Communications Director with End Abortion Now. Thank you for joining us on this exclusive and very special broadcast here.
- 00:11
- We're going to be talking for a couple minutes about the bombshell that was dropped yesterday online with the announcement of everything that's going on with Roe vs.
- 00:20
- Wade and the SCOTUS decision and the draft that apparently was leaked ahead of the decision.
- 00:28
- So we want to talk with our good friend, Bradley Pierce, who is a constitutional attorney and the president of the
- 00:35
- Foundation to Abolish Abortion, about what happened, what that means for us, what are the implications, and how it ultimately should motivate our work and our fight, especially moving forward with these developments that are taking place.
- 00:49
- So, Brad, thank you so much for joining us last minute to hopefully shed some more light on what's going on, what we need to know, especially in light of where we are and moving forward, what the action needs to be, especially given where you are now, what we're doing on the ground level.
- 01:08
- So welcome, brother. Thanks for joining us last minute. Zach, good to be with you. Alright, so the internet blew up yesterday in a few ways.
- 01:18
- So can you bring us into what happened exactly? What do we need to know about the current status of the
- 01:27
- Dobbs case, Mississippi, that is before the Supreme Court right now? What's going on?
- 01:32
- What happened yesterday that caused such a stir and is causing such a stir right now?
- 01:39
- Yeah, well, first of all, I'm transmitting from an airport here as I'm traveling to Louisiana, actually to testify for an abolition bill we can talk about in a few moments.
- 01:47
- But what happened yesterday was that a leak was made from the
- 01:54
- United States Supreme Court of a first draft of a opinion on the
- 02:00
- Dobbs case out of Mississippi, which could decide the fate of Roe versus Wade, whether it's upheld or not.
- 02:07
- And the draft that was released shows that a majority of justices support completely overturning
- 02:13
- Roe versus Wade. And so that's what the opinion does. And this is really unprecedented. I've never seen an opinion draft leaked from the
- 02:22
- United States Supreme Court. I'm not sure that ever has happened. Certainly no one I've heard has ever heard of that.
- 02:28
- And so it's extremely unusual, but it gives us a little insight into at least as of February, which is when the draft was dated, that there were a majority of justices supporting completely overturning
- 02:40
- Roe versus Wade. Yeah. And like you said, an unprecedented move to be sure.
- 02:45
- And we can speculate on the reasons as to why and under what circumstances this has come down the pipe now, why it was released.
- 02:53
- You know, some people are saying that it was, you know, the conservative justices that released it for a particular reason.
- 02:59
- But as you indicated already earlier today, that the most likely explanation may have been to put pressure upon certain justices in which we have the majority right now, as it would appear.
- 03:15
- And so the leak, it's very possible that it was leaked in order to create that pressure upon these men and women to change course.
- 03:26
- Right. It seems, again, I mean, it could have been one of the pro -life or Republican appointed justices could be trial balloon or trying to lock in one of their fellow justices.
- 03:37
- But I think the most likely explanation is that it was a Democrat appointee, that this was really an act of desperation, kind of a last ditch effort.
- 03:45
- I mean, whoever did this is definitely sacrificing their respect among their colleagues or if they were a clerk, which
- 03:55
- I would really be surprised by that, their legal career. Yeah. Quite a risk. An act of desperation.
- 04:01
- Yeah. Huge risk to the rest of their life in the legal community. But one that if they think that they can get some pressure on the other justices and get them to flip their vote, one that they're willing to fall on their sword, basically, to make in order to preserve their right to an abortion.
- 04:21
- Yeah. It would seem like quite the move of desperation at this point in the writing. The proverbial writing could be on the wall, so to speak, for this.
- 04:30
- Now, you actually helped to file an amicus brief. I know you have a copy of it there if you want to hold it up for people to see.
- 04:38
- We were involved in this. End Abortion Now has their name on it and a part of it, along with other great organizations that are doing the work of abolition all across the country,
- 04:47
- Abolish Abortion Texas, Operation Save America, all of these entities involved with this.
- 04:54
- But the amicus brief, it essentially means a friend of the court, if I'm not mistaken. And the purpose of it is to essentially present the case for abolition before the
- 05:05
- Supreme Court and call upon the court to do its duty before God and repent, essentially, and repent for the decision of Roe versus Wade, what was given to us.
- 05:19
- Now, we don't need that. We never needed it at the state level to end abortion and to abolish abortion.
- 05:25
- That's something that states have had the right to do and the moral duty to do since the very beginning.
- 05:30
- But, Bradley, the amicus brief, why is it important? Why was it important to present to the court, especially given what we see in the verbiage surrounding this leaked draft?
- 05:44
- It seems like the case that some of the justices are presenting, what they're articulating, falls right in line with a lot of the language in the amicus itself.
- 05:53
- Things about Roe not being the law of the land. That's a common trope that we have to deal with all the time.
- 06:00
- So why is the amicus important in all of this? Yeah, so the amicus brief was 21 organizations and 20 state legislators that made our argument to the
- 06:11
- United States Supreme Court that we filed in this case that this opinion has been leaked on.
- 06:17
- And we've really made three main arguments. Number one, the court has a duty before God and the
- 06:23
- Constitution to overturn Roe versus Wade. Number two, even if they don't, states should treat
- 06:30
- Roe as it's not the law of the land anyway because it's not. It's unconstitutional. And number three, the 14th
- 06:37
- Amendment requires states to provide equal protection of the laws. So what we've seen yesterday, released, leaked from the court, is following exactly what we were arguing for in our very first point, which is that they would overturn
- 06:52
- Roe versus Wade to do the duty before God and to follow the Constitution because it was an abuse of their authority, which is the exact language that Justice Leo uses, that it was an abuse of authority in Roe versus Wade, and that it was a raw exercise of judicial power.
- 07:11
- That's the language that he uses. So that's exactly what we were saying in our brief. And we weren't alone in that.
- 07:17
- There were lots of other briefs as well that were arguing for that. Our brief was the only one arguing that even if the
- 07:22
- Supreme Court doesn't overturn Roe, we should ignore them and do it anyways because Roe is not the law of the land.
- 07:29
- And ours was one of only a couple that were arguing for equal protection under the law.
- 07:35
- Right. Okay. So on that note, that brings us right to where we need to be in terms of what you're doing, where you're headed right now, all that we have going on at the state level right now.
- 07:45
- So we've had bills of abolition, bills of equal protection go in in numerous states this year, obviously flowing out of last year.
- 07:53
- We've been all around this year thus far in South Carolina, Colorado, and most recently now in Louisiana.
- 08:01
- So there currently right now is a bill of equal protection, HB 813, in the state of Louisiana that is going before the committee tomorrow, the
- 08:12
- Committee for Criminal Justice if I'm not mistaken, to get a hearing in the morning. And where are you headed right now?
- 08:21
- That's where I'm headed, to Baton Rouge right now to go and to testify on behalf of the Foundation to Abolish Abortion in support of House Bill 813, which is called the
- 08:30
- Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act of 2022. There's a hearing tomorrow morning.
- 08:37
- Representative Danny McCormick has filed that bill and is pushing that bill. And there's going to be abolitionists showing up from all over the country,
- 08:44
- I believe, certainly I'm going to be there and many others to argue in favor of this bill and tell the committee that, hey, it was already their duty before God to pass this before yesterday.
- 08:58
- And yesterday doesn't change that. But it should be easier now than it ever has been.
- 09:05
- We already have a strong indication about where the Supreme Court is going to rule, how they're going to rule.
- 09:12
- And so let's do it. It's time. It's time not just to talk about abolishing it, but there are no excuses.
- 09:20
- We need to completely abolish abortion by providing the equal protection of the laws, which means that the same laws that protect you and me as born people need to be the same laws that protect people before they're born.
- 09:32
- And that's what we're going to be arguing to the committee tomorrow. Amen, brother. So listen, if you're following our ministry, if you have followed this ministry, brothers and sisters, and this all -important work,
- 09:43
- I don't believe we can stress too strongly the importance of the cultural moment that we're in, the importance of the developments with Roe, the case, the leak.
- 09:53
- The timing of all of this is unbelievable. Given when the hearing for Louisiana is tomorrow, the strength of the bill, the strength of the men that we have on the ground in Louisiana right now, the endorsement of the bill by virtually the entire conservative caucus in the state of Louisiana as of right now, the support that's come from groups like Louisiana Family Forum.
- 10:19
- They're not standing against this. It's approved right on their website that they're going to stand for this. But we can't impress upon you the importance of not letting off the gas pedal at this moment in time.
- 10:33
- The war surrounding this is just getting started. As we said, it was never the case that we needed to wait on Roe v.
- 10:41
- Wade to be overturned. This is something that we ought to have been doing from the very beginning, and that is the work that we're involved in right now.
- 10:48
- So you must, we implore you, if you are in Louisiana, if you are near Louisiana, if you are in the surrounding states, please show up tomorrow and bring an army to that committee to testify in favor of HB 813.
- 11:05
- Call upon the legislators to do their duty before God to protect pre -born children in Louisiana by providing equal protection, no exceptions, no compromise when it comes to this.
- 11:17
- And maybe you can hammer this home a little bit more for us, Brad. The importance of, at this point, I think a lot of people are coming to a place, a lot of those on the pro -life side are claiming a victory of some kind.
- 11:28
- There seems to be a habitual nature to claiming the easy victories in the pro -life movement.
- 11:35
- And I know you've seen this in your experience with Abolish Abortion Texas, right? Just claiming that, yes, that's a victory, when in reality it fails to take the necessary steps to establish justice, what
- 11:46
- God requires. Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly before your God. Why is it important now more than ever to not let up and to keep our foot on the gas pedal when it comes to pressuring legislators at the state level to protect all of their citizens?
- 12:04
- Right. Well, first of all, this is just a draft opinion that we're seeing from the
- 12:09
- U .S. Supreme Court. Nothing's final. It's not over till it's over. They can change their votes up until they release the final opinion, which is expected sometime in June.
- 12:18
- So it's certainly not over. This is a first draft. Everything is still game.
- 12:25
- It is encouraging what we're seeing from the court, but it's not over. And because of this release, you know, again, why was this release,
- 12:32
- I believe, you know, likely released by a Democrat appointed justice in order that they,
- 12:39
- I think they released it to put pressure on those who are voting to overturn Roe. And there's going to be a lot of pressure.
- 12:45
- And there needs to be pressure from our side, too. Now, I think pressure from their side may look like violence.
- 12:50
- We're certainly not in favor of that. We don't support that. We don't call for that. But we do believe in bringing political pressure.
- 12:57
- We believe in prayer, being prayer warriors right now and letting
- 13:02
- God bring the right kind of pressure upon them and letting us be his instruments in bringing the kind of political pressure that we need.
- 13:10
- And one of the ways that we bring pressure is by the bills that are being filed in all these states, like Louisiana, by Louisiana hopefully passing this bill, because another thing that could happen is the
- 13:21
- Supreme Court could overturn Roe. And then guess what? Who holds the presidency and who holds both branches of Congress right now, at least until after the midterm elections?
- 13:30
- The Democrat Party. And if Supreme Court overturns Roe, what are they going to want to do? They're going to want to simply replace, you know, a federal opinion with a federal statute.
- 13:41
- And that's what they're going to be trying to cram down everybody's throat. They're going to try to blow through the filibuster in the
- 13:46
- Senate in order to cram that through. And so we've got to be on our toes. Right.
- 13:52
- And it's just as important. That would be just as unconstitutional as Roe versus Wade. And it would be just as important for states to ignore that as it would be to ignore
- 14:01
- Roe versus Wade itself. So no matter what, states need to be pushing right now to pass bills of abolition, not bills of faux abolition, fake abolition, but bills that actually provide real equal protection, meaning that, you know, we don't have to create new laws.
- 14:18
- There's already homicide laws on the books. There's already laws that prohibit murder. We simply need for those laws that protect you and me from murder, that protect all born people from murder, to take away the abortion exception so that they now will protect people from murder from the moment of fertilization.
- 14:33
- So that's what we need. That's what we need to keep pushing for across the country in every single state. Yeah. And really what we're talking about here is simply the application of basic commandments of Scripture to the legal realm as it pertains to pre -born children.
- 14:47
- So we're talking about love your neighbor as you love yourself. Not a very complicated command given by Jesus.
- 14:55
- However, when applying it equally to all people, not showing personal favoritism, not showing partiality to some neighbors at the expense of others, we have failed to establish justice for these children all over our nation.
- 15:14
- And so, Lord willing, the tide is turning. And as more of these bills go forward to do what
- 15:20
- Bradley's talking about, which is to put the kind of pressure on legislatures that we need to have to force this conversation.
- 15:28
- Because really, now it's like, okay, the conversation's happening. Now it's like, okay, everyone's saying, well,
- 15:34
- I guess we can do this now. I guess things are headed in this direction. Meanwhile, we're over here saying, well, we could do this all along, but we're thankful that at least now we're starting to talk about and we're starting to get serious about, okay, you need to get behind this.
- 15:48
- This is the consistent way to do this. We need to reject anything less. And you mentioned something earlier in your video.
- 15:56
- This is about the gospel. This is about repentance, first and foremost. This is about national repentance.
- 16:02
- We need to repent before God, and we need to continue preaching the gospel. Preaching the gospel at the mills, preaching the gospel everywhere that we can.
- 16:11
- Preaching the gospel before the legislature as it pertains to this particular application of what we need to be doing right now.
- 16:16
- We need to be preaching the gospel. We need to be calling on our legislators to do what God commands them to do, because this is the time.
- 16:25
- We have these bills going forward now. You guys know if you've been following our ministry, you understand we were just there rallying last week in favor of HB 813,
- 16:36
- House Bill 344 with Pastor Brian Gunter, Representative Danny McCormick. There was a great turnout there for support.
- 16:43
- So we need you again. Bradley's on his way there right now. We have other men joining suit to testify.
- 16:50
- For specific instructions about this, I wanted to leave you with some practical tips about tomorrow.
- 16:56
- I know you're headed there right now, Bradley. But essentially, the bill will be heard in committee.
- 17:02
- We're looking at most likely around 9 a .m. That might be subject to change depending on the lineup, depending on how long things take.
- 17:11
- But you should arrive at least by 830. Parking, in terms of practical application to this, along the
- 17:19
- Mississippi River on North River Road. You're going to park and go through security.
- 17:24
- Go to House Room No. 6. Once in the committee room, all supporters need to fill out a green card and give it to the sergeant -at -arms so that their presence to support the bill will be recorded in the official record.
- 17:37
- If you arrive early, you will have an opportunity to speak to legislators before the meeting and ask their support.
- 17:43
- Those are some practical things to keep in mind for tomorrow. Again, if you're in Louisiana, we need you, brothers and sisters.
- 17:51
- Do not wait for God to raise up another hero after you when it comes to testifying to this.
- 17:59
- Don't say to yourself, someone else will go in my place. God will get people there.
- 18:05
- You be that person. You go there, you testify, you put it on record that you were there, that you did the right thing before God, and that you stood with your brothers and sisters to actually end abortion in the state of Louisiana.
- 18:19
- Bradley, anything you want to add to this? Again, I don't want to go on too long here, but anything you want to add in addition to this before we cut off?
- 18:29
- I think what you said is fantastic. It's for such a time as this that we're all here.
- 18:34
- We're all part of this moment. These things are colliding. I was already traveling to this hearing.
- 18:41
- This is already a super busy week. We have multiple traveling engagements, which I normally don't do a ton of, but they're all colliding at once.
- 18:48
- Just to add to that, this comes out yesterday. It's not an accident. God knows what He's doing.
- 18:54
- He's at work. We need to just submit ourselves to Him for how He would use us here.
- 19:01
- If you can make it, if you can come and be there in person, then please, this is the time.
- 19:06
- We need to be there. We need to speak up, speak for those who can't speak for themselves, be a voice for the voiceless, rescue those who are stumbling to the slaughter, and be the church.
- 19:16
- By boldly proclaiming the gospel and His love for children of all ages, people of all ages, and that abortion's a sin, but we serve a
- 19:28
- God who saves sinners. That's what we're here to preach, whether it's to women considering abortion or tomorrow to legislators who have a duty before God to kiss the sun, as Psalm 2 says.
- 19:43
- That's what we're here to do, to be His instruments. So I would call everybody, do what you can.
- 19:49
- Amen. Well, thank you, brother, for that. Please pray, brothers and sisters. Pray, pray, pray.
- 19:55
- Pray for us. Pray that justice would be done in our nation, particularly at the state level, as you follow all that we're doing here.
- 20:03
- Pray for this hearing tomorrow. Pray for the end of abortion. Pray that God moves upon the hearts of His people, upon the hearts of those in His church, to wake them up, to get them involved in this, to press harder as never before, for the hearts of the legislators to be resolute.
- 20:21
- Pray for their families and pray that they stay strong and courageous, because the only thing that's going to push this through and ultimately lead to the end of abortion is just that courage.
- 20:31
- Courageous love that lays down its life for the other, for neighbor. And so that's what we aim to do for the glory of God and for His kingdom.
- 20:40
- So thank you for tuning in to this broadcast to talk about the SCOTUS leak. Once again,
- 20:46
- House Bill 813 in Louisiana being heard tomorrow.
- 20:52
- Be there. We need you. Stay tuned for more developments as we release them.
- 20:57
- But thank you guys very much for tuning in. Bradley, thanks for your time, brother. Really appreciate you, and God bless. Thanks.