Pro Life or Abolitionist? A Discussion with Pro Life Man & Free the States

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Hey, welcome back everyone. There it is. Wait for it. Yeah, another episode of Dead Men Walking Podcast.

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We're the only will we're concerned about is the will of Christ and the only rock that we like is the Rock of Ages. I'm gonna try to keep it light here on the podcast because we have a heavy subject today and a good one.

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We are live streaming right now but this will also be released if you're listening to this it'll be released on April 13th.

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So if you're joining us on live stream and you go hey I can't catch the entire hour I have to go to work

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I have the kids to attend to whatever it is you can always catch this on April 13th it'll go live wherever you get podcasts or you can visit dmwpodcast .com

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you can check out our website a little bit about me and Jason or Jason and I if you want to be grammatically correct

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I don't and even visit the merch shop and support the show so we appreciate it.

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So live with us today we have two groups we have Andrew Griffith who's the president of Pro -Life

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Man Thomas White who's the vice president of Pro -Life Man and we have T. Russell Hunter who's the founder of Free the

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States and James Silverson I want to make sure I say that the right way Silberman who's the communication director and we wanted to have a discussion today

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I've noticed that there has been tension or that there are sometimes differences within the pro -life community and when in within the abolitionist community some of you might be going

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I'm not too familiar with either one of those or one of the other and that's part of what we want to do today is one define those see what those differences and tensions are if any and then maybe make a biblical point of why we do believe what we believe now this isn't a debate

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I'm not a debate moderator we are gonna try to keep things moving but we are gonna try to have some type of structure to it just so that way we are not all over the place and you're listening to five people talk at one time that just wouldn't make for a very good show so up first I do want

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Pro -Life Man to introduce themselves Andrew Thomas tell us a little bit about yourselves what the

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Pro -Life Man organization is all about yeah first of all thanks so much

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Greg for hosting this debate thank you dead men walking thank you to James and Russell for being willing to be a part of this

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I think this is going to be awesome no matter where people find themselves on the side of this debate and if they you know at the end of this they find themselves more entrenched on their side or somewhere in the middle or switching sides or whatever

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I don't really care I just think this is super informative for everyone that's watching this and participating in this so thank you

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I mean that sincerely so my name is Andy Griffith and just to get that out of the way first yes that's really my name okay you know just want to get distractions out of the way no my mom doesn't hate me okay it wasn't you don't come from Mayberry I don't

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I don't I'm gonna leave that and not comment but so I founded

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Pro -Life Man in 2018 early on in 2018 I felt really convicted that I wasn't doing enough for preborn children and you know

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I've always been told by different people whether it's a pro -life movement or just personal people in my life that you know oh write your senator you know and we're in Michigan with two very very pro -abortion senators and so writing my senators isn't doing any good you know they probably won't even read my letter and so I wanted to do more than just write my senator and so I started looking online for things to get involved in and you know the pro -life movement is largely feminine and geared towards women and I just wasn't connecting with a lot of stuff that I was finding and so I wanted to find a men's pro -life group and you know

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I couldn't find anything I did have awareness of Knights of Columbus and that you know they do some pro -life work and provide ultrasounds for pregnancy centers and stuff like that but I'm personally not

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Catholic and therefore I didn't think Knights of Columbus was a good fit for me and so I'm literally googling pro -life men's groups for hours and not finding anything and so then

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I thought okay well I know what's happened here Google is suppressing these search results and so I need to start just typing domain names straight into the domain field and see if I can find something and so my first website that I typed in was pro -life man calm and pro -life man org thinking that something would be there it just made sense to me that something would already be there in existence and there was nothing and so I kept searching other domain names and found nothing it was a complete dead end

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I end up circling back to pro -life man calm and you know I was like oh maybe my internet wasn't working the first time there's got to be something there and there wasn't anything there and I'm just completely shocked and I see this little ad in the lower right -hand corner of the site that says you know buy this domain for 17 bucks for the year and I was like okay

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I'm gonna buy this domain and I didn't know what I was gonna do with it why I was buying it

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I remember coming home telling my wife hey bought a website today you know and she's like what'd you do that for I don't know she's like okay what are you gonna do with it no clue

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I just felt led to buy it and so as I was mulling over over the next few weeks of what what am

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I gonna do with this website what can I do with it you know I was reflecting on my own personal story about how

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I'd pretty much my entire life been pro -life even before I became a Christian even when I was an atheist I was pro -life but I was convinced by the common pro abortion talking points of you know no uterus no opinion you're it's a woman's choice it's her body her choice and so I was personally pro -life but not outwardly pro -life right and I I wouldn't kill a baby

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I wouldn't want that but I don't want to force my manly opinion on a woman you know I don't want to oppress any women and I just recently came out of that and decided that I'm gonna be no longer silent and so that's what

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I realized I could do is I could at least start an online presence trying to encourage other men to also be no longer silent that's why you see the sign here behind us that's our tagline no longer silent and so yeah so started that in 2018 by the end of 2018

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I realized I needed to get legal with the feds and the state registered with all those and January 2019 formed a board and had our first ever board meeting a few months later we got 501c3 nonprofit status from the federal government and so pro -life man is two missions number one to encourage men to be a voice for pre -born sons and daughters and number two provide help and healing for men grieving abortion we you purposely use that language of pre -born sons and daughters because we feel that it rehumanizes children in the womb and you know they're not just a clump of cells they're not just above a tissue they're a son or a daughter and that's a biological fact from the moment of conception

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I also feel like that language kind of subconsciously if nothing else puts in the back of your mind that there's also a man involved it's not just a woman that's involved with this pre -born son or daughter there was also a man involved that created that so reinserting men into the picture and into the debate yeah that's my pitch awesome thank you so much

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Russell James you guys want to give us a little intro of free the states and what you guys are all about yeah actually it's a listening to brother

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Andrews testimony it's incredibly similar to my own maybe I'm a little older but so back in in it was like 2010 a similar thing happened to me where I basically just things that the

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Lord was doing in my life I started reflecting on kind of like whether or not I was loving my neighbors as myself or really practicing the golden rule rule in my community and it happened to be at the same time in a doctoral program and reading a bunch of stuff on the abolitionists of slavery and through a bunch of detail that I've said elsewhere

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I felt really kind of rebuked by God because I was kind of a very ivory tower

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Christian both at church and at this school and wasn't really living for other people

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I wasn't really laying down my life for my neighbors and I really wasn't really standing up considerably or boldly for the gospel in our culture and and one of the things you know

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I was studying the abolition of slavery and I just kind of started thinking what is the kind of mass evil of our time that's sort of going on under protection of law everyone's just sort of being silent about it sort of tolerating it what is that evil and am

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I complicit and it was just very abortion you know I was I was pro -life

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I was in a pro -life church there was a sanctity of life Sunday I was even giving like $100 a month to a crisis pregnancy center but I kind of knew that I was not myself really doing for them what

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I would want done for me and and like Andrew I I you know went to the internet I was gonna look around for groups and started you know searching all the different groups all the different things that different people do you know whether it's showing images on campuses going to clinics legislative political legal stuff and it took a very

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I don't know kind of at that time academic approach to all these websites and and I was looking for one that was sort of like boldly outwardly

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Christian unashamedly sort of biblical in their arguments apologetically

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I'd kind of become convinced of a presuppositional approach to apologetics and just sort of declaring the

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Word of God as true and believing that men just suppress the truth and unrighteousness it's always looking for a lot of those things in pro -life groups and I didn't seem to come across anything that I thought was what

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I wanted to do so in Norman Oklahoma just at our at our church me and some other guys pretty much my age and a little younger

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I was a grad student and there were some undergrad guys that I started with we decided well we'll kind of we'll figure this out as we go we'll start an abolitionist society and we'll we'll try to make fighting abortion a regular part of our lives we'll try to approach the abortion issue as sort of a love your neighbor issue and look at the

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Word of God and say okay what does it look like to be a Christian in a culture that practices like unmitigated legally protected child sacrifice what should we do what is the

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Word of God say and so we started meeting and trying to figure out that and you know started an abolition society but that was 2010 did that did a lot of stuff you know all that AHA stuff and just different mainly cultural focused kind of evangelicalism and abortion on college campuses high schools clinics city streets for a good six or seven straight years and then after that kind of had bubbled up enough to where some legislators and people in politics began to say hey

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I'll file a bill that treats abortion as murder will you guys support it and that kind of brought a lot of the the abolitionist sentiments and stuff that I was doing into the legal political realm and that gave birth to sort of like gubernatorial candidate

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Dan Fisher running for governor abolition bills being filed and then out of that free the states was founded free the states is a it's a legislative lobbying organization we really do we do exist kind of to try to help people understand which bills that are being put forward for them to to support or not support treat abortion as murder actually would be the kind of in our language the kind of the kind of laws that would establish justice the kind of bills that God would support that God would say write these kind of laws because the the

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Word of God is pretty clear like on what kind of laws he likes and what kind of laws he doesn't like and so free the states kind of came on the scene to say well in a state like Oklahoma where you've got 15 to 20 pro -life bills and they're just all said hey these are pro -life support them are any of these bills bills that we shouldn't support and do people understand why so free the states was founded to sort of be able to point this is abortion as murder it should be abolished this is abortion as health care it should be regulated support this bill not that bill and that was back in 2019 and so we've gotten very legislative focused through that but our heart still is you know on kind of waking up the church by the church

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I just mean the people of God believers and followers of Jesus Christ to see abortion as not a special calling issue for some people but to see abortion and its abolition as as as a work that the church needs to be doing because the church has the gospel and the gospel being the answer to sin for individuals and for communities cultures countries that needs to be at the forefront of our weaponry against the culture of death so we spend most of our time trying to get pastors and churches educated involved doing everything from going to abortion mills to the state capitol to support bill so abolish abortion so that's a rambly introduction oh that's good thank you so much so a lot of people who might be listening up to this point go well these guys sound pretty darn similar so could maybe we jump back over to you

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Andrew and Thomas and just go okay I want it for the people define abortion define your stance on it and define what your view as it within the pro -life community and then maybe we can do the same with what abolition is what your stance on abortion is and what you defined it is within the abolition community so just a quick introduction

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I'm Thomas white I'm vice president pro -life man I'm also an EMT we have five board members pro -life man they're all medical personnel to EMTs three nurses so this is kind of the background that we're coming from I'm gonna just read to you verbatim our pro -life man values pro -life man recognizes human life at conception and that abortion is the intentional killing of that human life at all stages within the womb science verifies that human life begins in the womb science also verifies that abortion ends that human life we believe abortion is not only wrong but evil regardless the circumstances including instances of rape incest deformity and to save the mother's life specifically in cases of the life of the mother we agree with doctors including former abortionists that intentionally killing a baby is never needed to save the life of the mother because there are other life -saving procedures to save the mother and give the baby the best chances of survival pro -life man emphasizes that men are essential to protecting the life of the preborn abortion is not merely a women's rights issue abortion is the nation's greatest human rights violation abortion kills humans both male and female all created by a man the father and the woman the mother men are often excluded in the abortion debate and more importantly the decision regarding their preborn sons or daughters life pro -life man encourages men to speak out against abortion and defend human life in the womb so that's that's pro -life man but but taking taking the camera back to to the pro -life movement in general

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I can't speak for all the pro -life movement but I think we we speak for the majority is that the end goal of the pro -life movement is the complete cessation of abortion and there's multiple strategies to get there

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I don't think that there's a unified strategy but legally there there are strategies legally with like free the states you know they choose to ignore row that's that's a legal a legal strategy but pro -lifers we set up legislation that would challenge row in order to get it overturned and then one of the other strategies that I don't think has been explored yet but a

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Convention of the States is creating a personhood amendment that establishes the right to life for for all humans awesome guys at free the states can you kind of give us the same where you're coming from your stance on abortion and how you see it within the abolitionist movement yeah so as Russell said in the introduction you know we we think abortion is murder and that's the point where I think there's probably an agreement between us and you guys you know abortions murder and then the kind of the divergence is on probably a couple different things that is part of the divergence maybe not with you guys in particular but most of the pro -life movement like we would be very gospel centered and we would be kind of open and kind of lead with that and I think a lot of pro -life groups kind of don't that's kind of another discussion

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I'm gonna focus mostly on kind of immediatism versus incrementalism and why we think we need to reject the incremental strategy and so as Russell said it's murder it's not health care and so when we write laws about abortion we should write laws that are consistent with the truth and there are a lot of reasons why we should do that both pragmatically and principally and so I'm gonna go through six quick reasons as quickly as I can here why we think we should write laws that immediately abolish abortion instead of kind of incrementally try to get closer and closer by regulating abortion more and more over time so reason number one we believe that incrementally regulating abortion is not biblical and I could not do this justice in just just a minute or two here and so there's a couple of videos on YouTube I would recommend

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I would recommend episode 4 of the liberator the biblical arguments for abolitionism and then smashing Doug Wilson's smashmouth incrementalism presentation

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Russell gave but as quickly as I can essentially scripture says establish justice for the fatherless scripture says woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees and so if you look at a bill like let's take the dismemberment abortion ban for instance you've got a bill that says you may not dismember a pre -born child through D &E abortion but you may dismember a child through D &C abortion right so you can't perform abortion this way you can perform abortion in this way and so I think when you look at that I think you would have to say you'd have to admit yes that is iniquitous to write a law that you can murder a child tear them limb from limb in this way that that's iniquitous and I think the incremental argument would be well it saves some lives and so we're still doing some good but we would say that that's trying to say that the end justifies the means in this case the means being an unjust law and so we would say that biblically speaking that we're not at liberty to do that even if we think we're achieving some good end and so again that's not doing the issue justice but that's as quickly as I can why we don't think it's biblical to to regulate abortion reason two it's unconstitutional so we look at the

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Constitution we see an unalienable right to life we see an unalienable right to the equal protection of the law and so when we put forward a 20 -week ban or a heartbeat bill we're putting forward a bill that is unconstitutional now it's not unconstitutional for the reasons that the

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Supreme Court has said that the judges argue that it's unconstitutional but it is unconstitutional it's denying the rights to life and equal protection to pre -born children and so with these laws we're giving up our ultimate foundation

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God's Word we're not writing a just law and then we're giving up our secondary foundation the Constitution and so we've laid down our two main weapons in the fight against abortion and we don't believe that's practical we don't believe it's it's it's it's principled and so yeah we can't we can't violate our foundations reason three incremental bills dehumanize pre -born children and so I discovered this very early on when

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I became an abolitionist I met with my my state senator in Ohio and I told his aide you know here's what an abolition bill is here's why we need one in Ohio and her response was you know this is very interesting and you know

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I like what you had to say but it's Senator Brenner's personal religious conviction that life begins at a heartbeat right now where does someone learn something like that right they don't learn from God's Word they don't learn it from science class they learn that from championing the heartbeat bill

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Andrew Brenner was a champion of the heartbeat bill for six years he was a pro -life hero right champions his heartbeat bill he fights for on the floor he fights for it out in the culture he rallies churches to come support the heartbeat bill and eventually he internalizes the lessons taught by the heartbeat bill because the law is a tutor and so he's learning through promoting the heartbeat bill that life begins at the moment that heartbeat can be detected right because the law is a tutor

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Russell discovered this at an abortion bill here and here in Norman back in 2016 or 17 when a woman said it's okay it's okay

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I'm pro -life but my baby isn't gonna feel any pain so it's okay right well where does she learn that from the pain capable unborn child

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Protection Act my other colleagues Sam Riley he was at a college campus doing outreach and a young woman comes up to him and she says you know what do you guys say about abortion in the case of rape and he says that's never okay right humans are creating the image of God that's true in the case of rape we cannot murder children conceived in rape and she breaks down in tears weeping and she says thank you for saying that when

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I talked to pro -lifers who make this exception or they they write laws you know allowing children to be murdered in the case of rape it makes me feel like my life isn't as valuable because I was conceived in rape right and so with these bills with with with rape exceptions with allowing for murder up to heartbeat murder up to 20 weeks we're dehumanizing those people not necessarily intentionally

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I'm not saying that the authors of those bills are intentionally trying to do that but that is the effect because the law is a tutor so reason three why do opposing criminalism it dehumanizes pre -born children reason number four it cements judicial supremacy you know you guys touched on this earlier how we think ignoring row is the correct strategy and when we write laws that that treat row as the law of the land that's only cementing the

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Supreme Court's kind of the the fiction that they foisted on us that they are the law of the land right row is unconstitutional and even like like far -left legal scholars will admit that it's unconstitutional it had no basis in the text of the

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Constitution and so we shouldn't be cementing that with laws that bow down to them and so one of the things that I like to point out a lot is that ignoring row is the right thing to do right from Exodus 1 from Daniel 3 from Acts 5 we see examples of defying tyrants being a biblical thing to do but it's also more likely to make the court actually overturned if we want row to be overturned the right way to do it is to put pressure on them to expose them as the paper tiger they are say no this is not constitutional and here in Oklahoma here in Texas Indiana Idaho Missouri Kansas wherever we're not going to abide by it and when we when we bow up in that way the court is going to respond to that because people like John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh this is all they do when they make court decisions right they're they're weather vanes that just show wherever the cultural winds are blowing and so we need to blow in the direction of abolition and and that's what will get them to eventually that that fear that political pressure is what is more likely to get them to overturn row and so that's reason number four that we shouldn't cement judicial supremacy number five pro -life laws kind of the main argument that's made in favor of them is that that they save lives and if that is to whatever degree that's true praise the

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Lord for any any humans who are alive today because of that but when you look at the stats abortions are going down across the board in New York and in Texas right in Illinois and in in a lot of pro -life states now here in Oklahoma actually we passed nine pro -life bills last year we've got pro -life bills every session and abortion rates had actually gone up went up 16 % from 2016 to 19 despite pro -life bills being passed every year so I don't think pro -life bills are very effective in doing that but in any case even if pro -life bills are going down in certain states they're also going down in in pro -abortion states and so we don't see a significant effect that these pro -life regulations are having and so yeah that'll be reason number five reason number six and this is the one that we stress a lot here legislatively incremental bills are a substitute for abolition and so the

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Texas heartbeat bill I know we're gonna get to that we're gonna get that way later on here in more detail but when we look at that people are saying well it's saving 50 lives a day or 100 lives a day 150 lives a day however many lives what it's actually doing is it provides political cover for the people who kept abortion legal in Texas now let me explain that there was a bill to completely abolish abortion in Texas completely treat as murder and it would no longer be legal and if you do it you would you would be charged with murder in some degree and so you had that bill and you had some co -authors on that bill but then you had the

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Republican establishment in Texas who said nope we're not going with that bill but we are gonna pass this heartbeat bill and this other pro -life bill about basically how you can send abortion pills through the mail and so now they're pro -life heroes right these

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Texas Republicans they're the best pro -life heroes we've ever had you know since Roe v. Wade but they're also the people who kept abortion legal they spiked the bill that would have abolished abortion in Texas and that is the strategy of the

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Republican establishment in Oklahoma in Texas in all these states they see an abolition bill come up they say nope we're not gonna go with this but to save our own careers we need to pass pro -life bills so that we can campaign as pro -life heroes to get reelected and that's what we're seeing in state after state after state after state so Jeff Leach the man who killed the bill to abolish abortion in Texas he put forward the

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Born Alive Infant Protection Act in 2019 so he kills the bill to abolish it he puts forward a bill that does absolutely nothing it passes

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Texas Alliance for Life gives him the pro -life hero of the year award so he's the pro -life hero of the year he's up on stage at Texas March for Life all this stuff and he's literally the chairman of the committee where the abolition bill was and he did not allow it to be voted on and so we have the people who are keeping abortion legal being rewarded because they're putting forward these substitutes in the place of abolition and so that is reason number six why we would say incremental bills should not be supported and so again just to recap we agree with you guys and I think the majority of the pro -life movement abortion is murder but then there's the divergence on should we support incremental bills and we would say no we should not we should keep focused keep the main thing the main thing treat abortion as murder don't treat it as health care hold hold the hold a hold a hard standard and say

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Republican politicians if you want our vote you must abolish abortion we're not gonna be satisfied with anything less than that yeah that's okay thank you yeah that that's a lot to take in so I'm gonna throw this back over to you guys pro -life man because there was a lot of points there

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James kind of skipped ahead on some of it so we'll just go with it so just for the listeners it sounds like our foundation is the same life begins at conception abortion is murder from there it's sounding like the tension is on how we accomplish that whether it's through legislative acts or politically and I've seen

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I've seen from both sides I've seen you two at free the states post some stuff about pro -lifers and go hey they're difficult to work with because all they want is incremental ism and then

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I also have seen posts from the pro -life guys pro -life man guys that go hey you can't work with an abolitionist because it's all or nothing and what about all those lives that are kind of you know lost so pro life man could you guys kind of maybe respond to that and say where you are on that charge of incremental ism or where you are on like bills in Texas to where I think in Texas I think it's still abortion up to six weeks essentially so so my question would also be there just tag that you maybe can both answer this after pro -life man answers but do we support that can you biblically support a bill that still allows abortion up to a certain point and if so why or why not yeah thanks for very clearly laying out your position

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I appreciate that there was a lot there and so forgive me while my brain wraps around a lot of these and tries to respond to these eloquently you're a very good speaker

28:33

James so first of all before getting it too much into the disagreement I do want to say that we we will find ourselves agreeing on a lot especially when it comes to frustrations with the pro -life movement you know being pro -life man and a newer and very tiny pro -life organization you know we've experienced pro -life elitism if that's what you want to call it where you know you're not welcome to the club you're not welcome to the party because you're not a part of this elite you know kind of closed club where everyone decides you know what to go after next what what's a parade what to be silent about and stuff like that and and that's very very frustrating to us we call some of that out for instance we just recently went to the first ever pro -life men's conference down in Texas put on by Care Net and all the major pro -life organizations that at least weekly or at least once every couple weeks they they post about we need more men in the pro -life movement and yet here's this first ever pro -life men's conference and they were all silent about it and it's just like I'm left here wondering why are you guys silent about this

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I thought you want more men in the pro -life movement or is that just a popular talking point that gets you clicks and likes and whatever else you know or do you only want the men to join your pro -life organization and not actually join the pro -life movement broadly but just just for you you want to hoard them all or whatever so it's it's really annoying there are also we've experienced pro -life laws strange pro -life laws that effectively do nothing

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I was familiar with a dismemberment ban bill that was going through a state and I unlike just everyone else of just listening to the talking points and listening to the email and everything

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I actually read the bill and the bill said you can't dismember a live baby in the womb if it's dead you can dismember it and I'm just like what are we doing then okay the abortionist now has to insert poison or saline or whatever to kill the baby first and then dismemberment okay

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I don't I don't see a baby saved in that situation it's changed maybe their procedure but that's it you know and so it's just like what what are we doing why did we spend three years parading this and working on this and fundraising for this when what has it actually done and in my opinion nothing so we definitely got to find some some points of agreement there and I think that all people on either side of this debate need to actually read bills that are being put forth and not just go along with whatever the leader is saying to go along with and then when when you actually read it and there's something stupid in there like challenge the pro life leaders challenge the other people that are supporting this you know put pressure on them the other thing that I think we can agree upon that is a major concern for us is

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Christian and especially pastor apathy on this topic you know I think Christians have been you know just desensitized to this and and as a result they're dehumanizing the unborn by just like going on and living everyday life and not carrying that down the block you know there's 100 babies killed a day or dozens killed a day or whatever whatever the number is you know

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I think we're just Christians are desensitized to this and we call them to to stand up and to be a voice and to be no longer silent so I just wanted to get where we agree on things first or where I think that we agree on things first now as far as your question

31:48

Greg forgive me I'm gonna reword your question so and this this was kind of kind of come down to the fundamental disagreement between us so you said is it biblically and morally acceptable to support bills that support abortions after conception

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I would respond is it biblically and morally acceptable to support bills that currently decrease the current abortion rate yes it is okay and so what what

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I think we disagree is the reality of the current situation so when you say you know you're pro -lifers right iniquitous decrees because it says we're allowing abortion at this level our response is no the the current abortion rate

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I'm figuring out my camera here is you know here it's this giant monsoon 900 ,000 plus and we all know

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California doesn't report abortion numbers so I'm sure it's way higher than 900 ,000 so this is the current level it's way up here and we're introducing something or we're supporting something pro -life man has never introduced anything but we're supporting something that then takes this 900 ,000 probably fictional number let's say down to 800 ,000

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I don't know you know finding out true percentages and true rates and what affects what is really hard science that no one's been able to figure out but if I believe this bill is going to save some from the current monsoon of 900 ,000

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I am at yes absolutely going to support that bill and with the Texas bill in particular and I'll wrap this up and let you guys respond is you know it's been tremendously successful it was brilliantly written given the the past and the history with the courts and with the

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Supreme Court and then wanting this bill to survive the court challenges and especially a Supreme Court challenge they wrote it where it's not the the state that's imposing this and going after people but it's the private citizenry citizenry suing people and as a result of that just to give you some evidence of potential babies saved is you know

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Texas 75 % of the abortion clinics have shut down Houston alone Planned Parenthood had four abortion clinics and three out of four abortion clinics shut down and are still closed to this day and so that to me at least is prime evidence of this bill being effective instead of four mils running non -stop there's now one and I just like to add that we don't camp at our incremental bills we will keep fighting until this is completely resolved until abortion is completely ended in the

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United States of America we will not camp at SB 8 we are coming for the rest of our babies so very quickly before we throw it back over to free the states could

34:38

I just ask a follow -up question a pro -life man then what would your response be to James's kind of position that by supporting incremental bills you're kind of in bolstering the fact that Roe v.

34:51

Wade is a legal and right maybe not a right but but a legal ruling by the Supreme Court that's the law of the land when you would have some constitutional experts say no it isn't it's it's an interpretation of a law where do you guys land on that so the

35:08

Supreme Court has interpreted the 14th

35:14

Amendment to include the right to an abortion now you and I we you know we all see that that's not true that's not accurate but this is how our system is run we we appeal through the legal system and our goal is to get that overturned it was a wrong decision we all we all agree on that but you know obviously we have differences in our strategy but pro -lifers our goal is to get that overturned and so that personhood could be established through the 14th

35:50

Amendment all born and unborn persons have the right to life okay so James Russell it sounds like what

35:58

I'm hearing is you're saying you know the ends don't justify the means maybe the pro -life men guys are saying the you know the ends do justify the means if we're goal is the same to abolish this then why don't we save some babies along the way what do you guys say to that well

36:13

I want to say something on we actually agree that the the system as it is is bad like judicial supremacy is bad you know

36:21

I think where there's disagreement is that we want to change that system so challenge it full -on we don't want to do anything that sort of works and says it's okay so like there's no there's no way of changing judicial supremacy by adopting judicial supremacy so when if you write a bill and you're constructing the bill and you're saying how can

36:49

I write this in such a way that it will be approved by the Supreme Court and you're you're letting the

36:54

Supreme Court continue to be the top dog you're not really challenging that system so we do agree that the system's bad that the constitutional interpretations bad that they're unjust decrees it all needs to be changed our method of changing it is to to seriously challenge it when we say nor road that doesn't mean we're saying you know just don't don't deal with the realities as it is it's saying challenge the central holding of Roe v.

37:23

Wade that there's a right to abort your babies in the Constitution we need to write laws that do not recognize that like the the the pro -life law that Andrew was talking about they're trying to like write a law and get it to pass and the only way they can pass it is to allow people to continue to abort babies and I did this back in 2015

37:44

I read like 200 straight pro -life laws and and thing that was common to all of them is they were working within the parameters set by them they were saying you you guys do set what is and is not going to happen so we are going to try to come up with something clever within the system that isn't a way of changing the system that's a way of almost awarding the system so like Senate Bill 8 which

38:13

I know probably James wants to get more into this but Senate Bill 8 it you might be able to make it's a little too early on the evidence because there's there's also counter evidence about how many people are aborting their babies through mail -in abortion where abortion spiking in Oklahoma and all the surrounding

38:29

Texas areas people in Texas aren't being told abortions murder you can't do it they're being told abortion isn't murder if you do it quickly and so on so forth so it's adjusting the numbers are moving them around so I don't want to argue with it from an event evidential basis right now while it's still there but the bill itself basically has a number of things in it that just on the word of God alone you really can't support like it literally says governing authorities in the state of Texas cannot bear the sword of justice against evildoers the governing authorities can't but civilians can where a pro -life would be like that's clever and abolitionists to be like that is never going to change the

39:12

Holocaust they're just gonna come up with a clever way of dealing with that it's not it's not going at it head -on

39:19

SBA it also it has the heartbeat thing but it also has like language which is impartiality towards you know certain people are partiality towards certain people or others it also has language acquitting the guilty it says that no mother is going to be punished for pursuing an abortion so a mother could pursue an abortion after the heartbeat and she's protected by law like we should not write laws that protect murderers or or tell people you you're not gonna get in trouble if you murder your pre -born child all of that stuff whether it saves some babies for a period or not and and whether you can argue for it pragmatically which

40:01

James already mentioned that they passed SB 8 instead of abolition so if you're gonna argue that it decreased abortions a certain amount you have to actually argue that it allowed abortions for a amount because every vote for the

40:13

Senate bill 8 could have been a vote for the abolition bill so just put the pragmatic numbers argument to the side but what we do know is that all the people young men women everyone in Texas is being a form informed that the governing authorities in the state of Texas will not treat abortion as murder will not punish abortion as murder and will protect you that law in and of itself is an unjust immoral law and Christians shouldn't support it now someone comes along and says no no

40:44

I don't care about what is and is not Christian I don't care about what is and is not biblical I'm just trying to save lives and they sort of embrace the pragmatism the the problem is is abortion continues to go on for 50 years with people embracing the pragmatism out of claims that it's going to probably save some babies and maybe it does maybe it maybe abortion numbers go down a little bit but it keeps it legal and it establishes judicial supremacy it's establishes dehumanization it establishes all and it tutors the culture and so it doesn't actually go to the root of the issue and so we would oppose it and someone say well but what about all those lives are you opposing all those lives well we think that if we do it

41:32

God's way honor him in accordance with the scripture that really will save more lives

41:38

I think it was a more lives immediately like if they passed a total and immediate abolition of abortion in Texas act and enforced it that would save more lives immediately but it also saved more lives in the long run because it's going to challenge

41:53

Roe v. Wade it's going to set it up to where state after state can become free of the abortion

41:58

Holocaust and so even on a pragmatic level it's it's really hard to argue with pro -lifers who now in the 50th year are saying the same thing we're doing this to save as many babies as we can and we got 70 million murdered children under 350 pro life laws but I I do want to stress the point of if we are all in agreement with changing the system we need to stop sort of bowing down and working within it if it is in error and the bigger point we need to do things that God gets behind I don't think just from his word

42:39

God doesn't like God he says woe to those who make iniquitous decrees and he actually like hates people who acquit the guilty so just go to Bible hub and put put in a quit the guilty if a law says that the guilty party is acquitted from charges

42:56

God hates that law so God wouldn't write or support Senate bill 8 just according to Scripture so he's not going to get behind it so I don't believe that it's going to ultimately do what it purports to do

43:10

I do believe that it's going to delay abolition and it'll be one more thing to do before we ultimately get around to what we all need to be unifying together and that is just in biblical laws that God will support because I think we do need

43:23

God's help and not to put God in a box but I don't think he likes using things like unjust wicked decrees which he tells us not to do

43:33

I don't think he rewards us whenever we do that I think that we sometimes do these because we and I'm not trying to be too harsh here but I think sometimes we lack faith that standing on God's Word and doing what he says is going to save lives so we try to do something else and that something else is what ultimately causes us not to save lives because we don't have the backing of Almighty God real quick on that is kind of pointing in on the system and kind of what what system we have and what to do about it you know you mentioned kind of working within the system that has been set up and when we look at that system we don't see a judiciary that has unconditional power to tell the states and to tell you know

44:17

Congress and the president to do what to do unconditionally like that they can't be challenged but we have a system of checks and balances where each branch has a way of checking the other if if a certain branch goes tyrannical and so the ways to check the judiciary we've got two of them you can you can impeach a judge or justice or you can ignore their decision you can practice nullification and those are the only two checks and balances available if the judiciary becomes tyrannical and so I think we would agree is the judiciary is being tyrannical right for the the

44:48

Supreme Court to say Oklahoma Michigan you know all the states you must allow child sacrifice in your state that that is that is that's tyranny right it's wrong and so what we would say is we don't have a system where a branch can say whatever they want and everyone else has to bow down we have a system of checks and balances and so when one goes way outside of its constitutional bounds in this case they have right they've gone as far as it is possible to go outside of their bounds they said you must allow genocide right we don't think we have to bow down to that we say no we're gonna uphold the

45:21

Constitution we're gonna obey Christ and we're gonna abolish abortion now the question is whether or not that's that's possible if it is possible

45:27

I hope there be agreement that that is what what we should do because obviously that is yeah that would result in the immediate abolition of abortion and I don't know

45:36

I can't speak for you guys necessarily but I think most of the pro -life movement their biggest objection to abolition bills has been well it's not possible right we can't go against the

45:43

Supreme Court the Supreme Court has said and we have to work within what the Supreme Court has told us but we're like no the

45:49

Supreme Court has to work within what the Constitution has told to them and we should obey the higher law which is first above the

45:56

Supreme Court there's the Constitution is higher than the Supreme Court and then above the Constitution there's there's there's God's Word and so we're going to instead of upholding a rogue opinion of the

46:06

Supreme Court on on one side we're gonna obey God's Word in Constitution over on this side. And so those are kind of two sides.

46:12

Are we going to uphold Roe v. Wade or are we going to uphold God's word of the Constitution? And we would say uphold God's word in the

46:18

Constitution. And we think that is both the right thing to do, and we think it's within the system that we actually have already.

46:24

Yeah. And in the state of Oklahoma, we have the population numbers, the Senate majority, the

46:30

House majority, the governor, like literally the pro -choicers, pro -abortion people are not keeping abortion legal.

46:37

If all the pro -lifers theoretically adopted an abolitionist strategy in the state of Oklahoma, you'd pass a bill, you'd enforce it, and you'd tell the

46:45

Supreme Court to send their army to make us murder babies. And they don't.

46:51

So it's not like it's not possible when pro -lifers say this isn't possible. They need to say this isn't possible because we, the pro -life majority, aren't for it.

47:02

The reason it's not possible is because pro -lifers don't support it. And we now have about five years of hardcore evidence that the reason abortion isn't abolished in Oklahoma is because they're pro -lifers.

47:17

They don't adopt our strategy. Why don't you think they support it, if I may?

47:26

Yeah. Well, I mean, I can't speak to all of their motives or anything like that, but I think they really do buy the difference.

47:35

I think they really do believe that after 40, 50 years of kind of indoctrination in the view, they really do think that what the

47:44

Supreme Court says goes, and the only way to deal with abortion is to elect pro -life presidents who appoint pro -life justices who then try

47:53

Roe v. Wade and then send it back to the states or federally criminalize it. They believe that is the only way to do it.

48:00

And they've been doing that for decades. Yeah. And just a quote in proof of that.

48:06

So Texas Alliance for Life, opposing the abolition bill in Texas, what Joe Poiman, the director of that organization, said is, we could no sooner ignore

48:14

SCOTUS than we could ignore the force of gravity. And so, again, that doesn't necessarily apply to every single pro -life individual, but that is most of the pro -life politicians and the leaders of the big groups.

48:24

That is their position. We can't go against the Supreme Court. And so that is the primary objection that we face.

48:30

There are some other smaller ones, but that is the main one. And I think that they're thinking we can't do this sometimes out of fear, but sometimes they may think they just really can't.

48:41

Now, of course, we try to tell them they can. People do this for marijuana. People do this for all sorts of funding and budget issues.

48:49

Nullifying Supreme Court decisions is like American. I mean, the

48:54

Supreme Court said, you can't help run away slaves. And Wisconsin says, I get you, but we're going to anyways.

49:00

And this does, this challenge gives birth to the Republican Party, the impulse to try to right the wrongs of slavery in the

49:08

United States of America. But this nullification, like standing up against the court, it does take a lot of courage, a lot of faith.

49:15

It will be costly if you have a desire to move up in the political world, say you're a state representative, but you want to someday be

49:23

Washington, D .C. Congressman. You may not want to challenge the Fed, but this has happened time and time again in the

49:30

United States of America where the Supreme Court has changed their rulings on segregation, on gay marriage, good things and bad things.

49:39

Here in the state of Oklahoma, we have more weed shops than we do churches. I don't know if that's true, but we have a lot of weed churches, weed shops.

49:47

We have a lot of weed shops, and every one of those weed shops is in direct violation of federal law and the

49:53

Supreme Court ruling and Gonzalez v. Raich. They ignore Raich. And we're saying the whole idea that you can't do this is false.

50:03

You do do this. You just don't do it for pre -born human beings. And so that's, you know, so I don't want to say where they're lacking faith, but it seems to be a big issue there.

50:16

So yeah, that's a lot to take in. So Andrew Thomas, did you guys have anything in kind of response to that or something you heard that you said, no, that I might see that a little bit differently?

50:26

Yeah, well, there's a few things. One, you know, I feel like you're acting like pro -lifers have never challenged.

50:32

You just laid out in the most recent party argument of like, oh, there's all these challenges to the Supreme Court. We would say many of the heartbeat bills or sorry, pro -life bills, including heartbeat bills, challenge

50:42

Roe v. Wade, the 15 week abortion ban that's currently before the Supreme Court that will have a decision in the next few months that obviously challenge

50:49

Roe v. Wade. We're not timid, shy, afraid, challenge Roe v. Wade. That's actually our strategy. That's actually what we're doing.

50:56

And the Supreme Court is the chief of, you read our founding, you read the founding documents, read the

51:02

Declaration of Independence, the Supreme Court is the chief law body in the land that it also dictates what lower courts must follow.

51:11

Now, of course, some lower courts will go against those rulings, but by and large, they must follow what the upper court says.

51:18

And these things where they've ignored other rulings, they're not apples to apples comparison.

51:24

So let's take marijuana, for instance. This isn't a case where the Supreme Court says, you have a right to smoke marijuana.

51:32

And then the state said, no, you don't. And we're outlawing marijuana in our states. No, it's actually the opposite.

51:38

The Supreme Court, the federal government has said, we are making this illegal. And the states have said, oh, well, we're making it legal.

51:44

That's way, way, way different than a Supreme Court establishing a right, which again,

51:50

I would disagree with this establishment of this right, but they have said abortion is a right due to the right to privacy.

51:58

The government treats rights much, much differently than it does prohibiting things, right?

52:05

And so they're going to fiercely defend that right much differently than they're going to say, hey, don't smoke weed.

52:10

And the states say, up yours, we're going to let people smoke weed anyways. They're not apples to apples in any way, shape or form.

52:16

And you often say on your website, on your podcast, that Supreme Court has no army. Well, actually, if the executive branch agrees with the

52:25

Supreme Court, the executive branch does have an army. And we've seen it before with the end of segregation.

52:32

And what was it? Georgia didn't want to follow along. And the president, the executive branch sent in the army, the

52:38

National Guard to, so therefore the Supreme Court's army, because the executive branch went along with it to enforce this

52:48

Supreme Court ruling of desegregation. That's my initial thoughts, Tom. Yeah, I just want to just emphasize that, especially with a president like Joe Biden, let's say you effectively abolish abortion in one state.

53:06

And let's say it's Oklahoma. There's going to be immediate challenges to that.

53:12

And courts are going to, you know, let's just say theoretically, it gets struck down. And it goes all the way to Supreme Court, and it says, no, you can't do this.

53:22

And then what next? You know, if you continue to ignore Roe by not bowing down to the

53:30

Supreme Court, the president could send in the National Guard. We are defying them.

53:36

What's that? We are for that.

53:43

We are for challenging and defying and standing our ground. When Russell says challenging, just going back to your point real quick.

53:50

So when we say challenge Roe, we're saying yes, like a Harvey Bill in some sense challenges

53:56

Roe. But when we say challenge, we mean challenge their authority to force us to allow murder. Like we're saying, that's what we mean by challenge.

54:02

Like you don't have the authority to actually force us to do this. Not just that we think you're wrong, and you should change your opinion, but you actually don't have the authority to legalize murder.

54:11

That's not within your purview. Because the positive right to life, that's why it's not apples and oranges.

54:17

There is a right to life and equal protection under the laws. I agree with you, but they've also established this right to abortion.

54:25

They have. We don't have to agree with that. We don't have to like it. But that's where it's not marijuana.

54:30

We need to challenge the right. I agree. So one way of challenging it is to actually challenge it.

54:37

And the other way is to sort of try to work within the parameters that they set. So like the 15 week thing is attempting to try to get them.

54:46

It's not saying we're challenging the central doctrine of Roe, the right to abortion and the right to privacy. It's saying that we're challenged the viability standard, moving it down to 15 weeks, but we are not going to put an undue burden.

54:58

So like a lot of, after KCV Planned Parenthood, a lot of pro -life laws are written and whether they pass or don't pass or they're upheld or not upheld is that question of will this put an undue burden on women seeking abortion?

55:12

And they try to write it so that it doesn't. They'll actually go on the news or they'll write in their own blogs and stuff.

55:19

This isn't putting an undue burden. It's just saying that we're going to protect babies a little earlier.

55:26

And so we're saying, no, no, no, this whole thing is wrong. Like we all agree that abortion is murder and it should be criminalized.

55:34

I guess, I mean, all of us may agree with that, but like, I don't think it's just to call it challenging that if our way of challenging that is to sort of submit to it.

55:48

Like, and that wasn't like with the desegregation stuff, with the

55:54

Federal Fugitive Slave Act nullification stuff, it wasn't people saying, hey, you ruled in this earlier thing.

56:03

We're going to try to modify that. They're saying you ruled in this earlier thing, but here in our state, black kids and white kids are going to have school together or the opposite.

56:15

Like, well, we're not going to follow that. Yes, the army could be sent in. Yes, there could be sort of economic, like say

56:23

Joe Biden doesn't send an army into Oklahoma to force abortion clinics to remain open, but he says, well,

56:28

I'm not going to send you money or we're not going to fight the roads or whatever. Like on this issue, we need to say, okay, we'll count the cost.

56:40

We'll figure out how to pave our own roads, but we'll protect babies. And so like the threat of they may send, it may be difficult.

56:48

That's not really an argument against us because here we are in the 50th year of the Holocaust. And we say, no, no, no.

56:54

Even if this costs us our very lives, we need to stand up. And it's that spirit, that mentality that I think is actually going to change things.

57:02

A spirit of working within the parameters and trying to sort of nibble at it, which

57:08

I would say has been the dominant spirit for the past five decades. I don't think that it actually changes the court because I don't think it really challenges the court.

57:20

It kind of says accepting you guys as, I think you said that the, your understanding was that the

57:28

Supreme Court was the, you may have misspoke, said it was like the highest law. It's the highest legal, highest legal institution.

57:35

Yeah. It's the highest. So, so they're, they are the people who are supposed to sit in judgment and interpret what is and is not constitutional.

57:42

And that has been there from the very beginning. But the question there is when they're wrong, when you do that, like, and when they're wrong, is also something that was highly debated by the federalists, the anti -federalists, and you know, all that stuff back at the founding.

57:57

Like, we must have an ability to challenge them when they're wrong. And to quote

58:03

Thomas Jefferson, it's a state's right to nullify. They say it's natural. Every state has a natural right to nullify.

58:09

Because I think when we're talking about something as evil as Roe v. Wade, it's like, I'm glad that there is a 10th amendment that it does limit the federal government and that there is kind of all these kind of legal arguments that were made by the founders for defying tyrants.

58:22

But even more so than any argument made by the founders for defying tyrants, there's a natural right, always immutable for all men at all times, to go against something that is blatantly evil.

58:34

And that's what we have. And so like, even like, we'll make constitutional arguments for ignoring Roe and abolishing abortion.

58:39

But ultimately, we don't even need the constitutional arguments, we have a natural right to go against evil.

58:44

And that's what we have. Now, will it be difficult? And this goes back to one of the points that you made, Andrew, you were talking about how it's not the same as marijuana, because in this case, we're trying to ban something that they've legalized, instead of legalizing something that they banned.

58:58

And I would say, yes, that does make it a bit more tricky. It's harder to ban something that they legalized. So it's more difficult.

59:04

But it doesn't make it impossible or mean we shouldn't do it. It just means it's going to be a little bit more difficult in this case.

59:11

And so I would concede it's different. It's not quite apples to apples, apples and oranges, but they're both fruit.

59:17

Yes, apples and oranges, but they're both. It both requires. Okay, so it seems like we're getting up here in the clouds to in constitutionality and things like that.

59:29

I would just press maybe both you guys one more time at this point, then we'll get to our last point here. I think we're almost already an hour in.

59:36

So, you know, for the free states, guys, I would say, you know, I've heard arguments from constitutionalists, conservative and liberal that say, hey, look at slavery wasn't overturned in a in a single day.

59:51

There was incrementalism there just because you can see it in the writings of Madison and some of the founding fathers.

59:56

They said, look, we can't afford the economic issue that's going to happen if we totally abolish slavery.

01:00:02

But we're going to write we're going to write a declaration that says all are created equal. And there's been some that have made that argument that even like a

01:00:10

Jefferson who owned slaves saw off and later some argue became an abolitionist.

01:00:15

James Monroe, which my county is named after, same thing early in his life and then abolitionists and slavery that they kind of saw off and said, look at this thing isn't going to happen overnight, but we're going to lay the foundation for something that might happen in the future.

01:00:29

Could you take that same argument into incremental bills as well? And two, I would say, what if you have someone that comes up to and goes, oh, yeah, you guys believe that that bill shouldn't have been passed.

01:00:38

My life was saved because of that. I'm a person walking around right now, a live human being, because they banded up to a certain amount.

01:00:46

My mother was not able. Thank God she isn't. We're all grateful that I'm alive and that she didn't abort.

01:00:51

I would say that those might be some emotional arguments to it, but it also could be some constitutional arguments to it that not not everything happens in one bill or one overturning that sometimes it does take steps to get there.

01:01:05

I would say maybe quickly respond to that. And then pro -life man, I was hoping we could get your response to that as well, since the free the states guys have been taking up some time here.

01:01:16

That's OK. I think they should go first. OK, so so so yeah,

01:01:22

I don't want to press down too much longer on the incrementalism, but that's kind of where I see this difference in these two camps.

01:01:27

One says, hey, don't don't embolster, don't don't, you know, ignore Roe the challenge it.

01:01:33

And the other one says, look, we have to do something. And sometimes these bills do save lives.

01:01:38

They do a lot of times. And we're going to keep working towards that goal incrementally. What's your response to that pro -life man?

01:01:46

So Paul expresses in, you know, the apostle Paul expresses his great lengths that he will go through to save some people in first Corinthians nine.

01:01:58

And I'm just going to paraphrase this to make it quicker. I have made myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible to the

01:02:07

Jews. I became like a Jew to win the Jews to those under the law. I became like under like one under the law.

01:02:14

So as to win those under the law to the week, I became weak to win the week. I become all things to all people so that by all possible means

01:02:24

I might save some. And then just a quick theological background of history that the history of sin,

01:02:36

Adam and Eve in the garden were given dominion, that dominion was taken away through deception.

01:02:43

So Satan has dominion. That dominion was taken by Jesus at the cross and through the resurrection.

01:02:54

But there's this conflict right now in the age that we're in of, you know, the dominion of Christ versus the dominion of Satan.

01:03:05

And so we as his followers are taking back this land that Satan has.

01:03:12

And these incremental bills, that's what these do with the

01:03:18

SBA. That heartbeat at six weeks versus viability at 24 weeks, that is three -fourths of lives saved right there.

01:03:38

Theoretically, you know, we can get into debate about how much it actually saves, but 24 weeks versus six weeks.

01:03:48

And we're not saying that abortion up to six weeks is good or acceptable, but we are pushing that back and we are restraining and we are restricting with the intent to abolish.

01:04:04

So we're doing what we can now to save some lives. And I feel like, you know, these incremental bills, you know, obviously that there are some bad bills.

01:04:16

There are. But, you know, I just want to say to the pro -lifers, like, knock it off.

01:04:23

Like, with the exceptions, we need to knock it off. There are people like Rebecca Kiesling, who's a phenomenal lawyer, who's fought for the unborn in the cases of rape.

01:04:39

And so we don't have to get into all that, but just knock it off.

01:04:44

We need to unify together. And these incremental bills push back the powers and principalities of darkness.

01:04:53

So Thomas, really quickly, I would just like to follow up question before you guys jump in. So you said, hey, look at bills that are up to six weeks.

01:05:02

We don't accept them or support them and they're bad. But and then you said, you know, we would support a bill that says at a certain time up to a certain amount of weeks because it saves three fourths or whatever that number is of life.

01:05:14

So by supporting a bill that might say up to six weeks or up to 12 weeks or whatever that is, aren't you then saying you're accepting?

01:05:20

Yeah, it's abortion is OK up to that amount. No, because abortion is already legal at that point.

01:05:28

We're not saying it's OK to abort up to six weeks. That's not what we're saying.

01:05:34

We're saying we're pushing back the goalposts and we're going to save as many as we can.

01:05:40

These babies are already dying. This is not new legislation that allows for new abortions to happen.

01:05:47

We are pushing back these abortions and these goalposts. Without kind of strawmanning and saying you guys are for abortion up to six weeks, we should never argue that way.

01:05:58

But I think it's not saying thou shalt not murder by abortion. It's saying if you're going to murder by abortion, you have this time frame to do it legally.

01:06:10

So for instance, you find out you're pregnant, you would have, you know, 20 weeks to decide in the state of Texas.

01:06:21

We're now telling you you have four or six. And so that's what that's what the law is saying.

01:06:27

But like it is just not not what you want, but it is supporting a law that legally protects people from prosecution for aborting their babies in the first six weeks of their lives.

01:06:40

It's how the law tutors the culture, like you said, if you want an abortion, you have to do it in this time period.

01:06:47

And so what you'll have is people just who are more careful to take pregnancy tests more quickly, so that they're able to do it quickly.

01:06:53

Stockpiling of abortion pills is a big problem in Texas right now. Yeah. So two of the quick points I wanted to make one responding to the to the original question about kind of didn't the abolition of slavery kind of happen over time.

01:07:05

And this is something that William Lloyd Garrison, who was kind of the leading like immediate abolitionist, this was something that he actually addressed.

01:07:11

You know, he said, demand immediate abolition as earnestly as we may. Alas, it may be gradual abolition in the end.

01:07:19

And so what he's saying there is, look, what we're our standard is going to be this. We're going to proclaim the truth that no man is the property of another in the sense that the

01:07:27

American law is currently treating them as property. These are image bearers. And we're going to demand that.

01:07:33

And it might happen over. It probably will happen. God could bring immediate repentance to the whole nation.

01:07:38

God is sovereign. He could do that. But how it typically happens in history is it happens slowly, but it happens slowly because there's a group of Christians who are saying, here's the standard.

01:07:48

We're not moving. You guys are going to have to move to us. And so we're not saying it has to happen immediately, but we're saying that our demands have to be in line with God's and that we're going to hold the hard line and make you will move to us.

01:07:59

And mediatism is a kind of a confusing word because we know it's going to take time. OK, yeah.

01:08:07

Yeah. Overnight ism is kind of a way of strongly. It's like calling for the total abolition of abortion immediately.

01:08:14

You know, I've been doing this for 12 years. That doesn't make me an incrementalist. For 12 years, I've been calling for the immediate abolition of abortion.

01:08:22

You know, Wilberforce for 20 years put forward bills to abolish the slave trade and people put forward bills to regulate it and they voted for those instead.

01:08:32

But it took him 20 years. It took British Parliament 20 years to to side with the total abolition act.

01:08:40

But then it took time doesn't mean that he wasn't always calling for abolition.

01:08:45

Right. It took time because they were putting up gradualism in in place and doing that instead.

01:08:51

One of the ways to delay abolition is to put forward other bills. Yeah. So as we as we put bookends on this, it sounds like we have some differences in how we work either within or without of the political system to end abortion.

01:09:07

It's sounding like this. And sometimes I think with free the states that you're saying that the way you treat that also reflects on the way you you're standing biblically as well, whether it's evidentially or presuppositional or is

01:09:21

God's law supreme and all that. Now, I know we're all believers here. So as we end this, I kind of wanted you each to say biblically my standpoint, what is the biblical founding for me as someone who's in pro -life and may believe in incremental bills or may believe in, like Thomas said, pushing back on that standard or like free the state said, we're no

01:09:41

God's law is ultimate and supreme. And for that reason, we believe we can challenge Roe and we don't really concern ourselves with incrementalism.

01:09:50

We concern ourselves with the abolition of it all. Pro -life man, could you guys kind of sum that up as we your biblical standing on your and your pro -life stance as we end the show here?

01:10:08

I believe I did with that scripture that I gave and then like just the theology of the kingdom and dominion.

01:10:20

Ephesians six, put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the devil schemes for our struggles, not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

01:10:40

And so you see this war, this spiritual war going on and we're advancing with these incremental bills.

01:10:49

I'm not saying it's perfect, but our goal is the complete cessation of abortion.

01:10:56

We're not going to stop at the heartbeat. We're going to keep going. So you just see this war going on in the heavenlies and on the earth and we're advancing.

01:11:08

And I would add, you touched on it Russell with about the time and we don't purport that you guys are immediate.

01:11:17

We know that you're abolitionists. But that's another point of where the pro -life movement would disagree.

01:11:24

I took a quote from, I think it was May 6th, 2021 podcast of yours, where I don't want to butcher this or say it wrong.

01:11:33

You said, it's not about how long it takes, abolition. Speaking of abolition, it's not about how long it takes. And that's where pro -lifers would fundamentally disagree.

01:11:42

We're saying, we don't want to do nothing until 20 years from now when it's done. We want to save what we can now in between now and the 20 years.

01:11:51

So our background is EMT. I'm a former firefighter and we would have mass casualty incidents where we would have to do triage.

01:11:59

I was on a volunteer fire department for a while and there were several calls where I was the only guy that showed up and here

01:12:05

I'm going to an emergency scene, a fire, a vehicle crash, whatever, completely by myself.

01:12:11

Now I'm calling neighboring fire departments to assist me, to meet me there and help me. But if I know if dispatch information is,

01:12:18

Oh, there's a 40 car pile up with 30 possible casualties. And I'm like, I'm by myself.

01:12:23

I'm not going to save every single person. I'm not going to refuse to leave the station and go to the scene because I can't save them all because I've realized

01:12:31

I can't save them all. No, I'm going to go and do everything that I can and save every single person that I can.

01:12:37

And knowing that I'm not going to save them all. And some are going to die. That's not me being okay with those others dying.

01:12:43

It's I'm doing everything that I can. And that really in a nutshell is the pro -life approach in my opinion.

01:12:50

Yeah. So I think as it regards to a personal action versus legislation, I would totally agree that if, you know, whether it's a car accident or, you know, a boating accident, if there's people who need to be saved and you save as many as you can, and you're not able to save everyone from death, that's not you affirming those deaths.

01:13:08

But what with laws, we're talking about a different category of things. We're talking about legislators who are putting into law, which human beings count as human beings who get legal protection.

01:13:18

And so in that case, we actually have the ability, like you not being able to save everyone at the accident, you're not showing partiality against those you couldn't save.

01:13:26

It's just personal action dictated that you couldn't save that many. But when we write laws, we're actually discriminating or not discriminating against some human beings.

01:13:35

And so we're saying we shouldn't discriminate against human beings. And then one other point I wanted to make, this was in response to the point about the kind of the two kingdoms colliding.

01:13:44

And I agree that there's a battle going on between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness, and the kingdom of God does progress incrementally.

01:13:54

I would agree 100 % with that. But the question is, how do we fight the kingdom of darkness? And we would say, as we go into that battle, we shouldn't go into that battle, calling for compromises that we don't think are consistent, we think we should progress incrementally against the kingdom of Satan by saying, here is

01:14:11

God's standard. And we're we're going to use this, this is God's Word, you know, you brought up Ephesians six, like we're going to wield the

01:14:17

Word of God, where we're going to proclaim things in our laws and in our messaging, supporting those laws, which are consistent with the with with our sword, we're going to use our sword, we're not going to compromise from what our sword says.

01:14:28

And we're going to cut the enemy with our sword, abortions, murder, it must be abolished. And I think when you say, well, abortion is healthcare, so we're going to regulate it in this way, or it's murder in some cases, but it's not murder and others, even if you're not saying that with your mouth, if that's what your law is proclaiming,

01:14:44

I don't think you're actually wielding your sword against the kingdom of darkness, I think you're wielding your sword, if you say, here's what

01:14:49

God's Word says, and the enemy is not going to be able to combat that. But I think the enemy is actually going to use as Russell alluded to, the enemy can actually use incremental bills to delay abolition, right, as we talked about, as we've seen in Texas, here in Oklahoma, where there's abolition, and there's a bunch of Christians saying abolish abortion, and then the enemy comes in and says, or I guess

01:15:11

I'm not saying this is exactly how it goes. But here's something the enemy could do, if he's very crafty, and we know that he is, he could say, hey, let's, let's, let's, let's kind of quiet and kind of reduce their political influence by saying that we're these pro -life heroes, because we passed all these pro - life laws, and we don't do anything.

01:15:28

I think that's a tactic of the enemy against the kingdom of God. And so we would say, just, just wield the sword, don't fall for the distractions that the enemy may provide, and call for justice, and trust

01:15:38

God with the results. Yeah, and to add a bit to that, just try to make it clear, like with a chess analogy, just look, there's been a chess game going on between life and death, or whatever, in this culture for 50 years.

01:15:50

And yes, over time, maybe, you know, we're saying, you know, checkmate, abolish abortion.

01:15:58

And someone says, well, we can't do that. But this time, we took one more rook or one more bishop. Well, the other side could theoretically allow some pieces to be removed, so long as the main things remain, that he wins the game, the judicial supremacy, the child sacrifice being legal, all that kind of stuff remains true, but maybe the only way for him to keep abortion legal in a culture like ours, with so many

01:16:24

Christians who are standing up, like Oklahoma, where you have ultrasound technology, you have all these claims of believing in human rights, and all this kind of stuff.

01:16:31

How in the world do you keep abortion legal? Well, get all the people who oppose it to support, like, taking some pieces off the board, or saving 10 ,000 babies, instead of 60 ,000.

01:16:42

Like, put these substitutes in there, tempt them, let that compromise win, so they can say, peace, peace, when there really is no peace, or we are winning, when you're really not winning.

01:16:54

And so, so that's like, I think that - In a state like Oklahoma, where it's 80 % of the populace, and more than 80 % of the legislature professes to be pro -life.

01:17:04

And so it's like, there's no way to keep a culture like that, like the state of Oklahoma. Like, how do you keep child sacrifice going?

01:17:10

You convince that 80 % to just do it slowly, slowly over time. And that way, the devil can keep abortion legal for all this time.

01:17:18

Yeah. And there's no need for it. There really is no need for it. And just to get back to the ultimate question, like, biblically speaking,

01:17:24

I think that we do need to take the disposition of sort of like Moses against Pharaoh. When Pharaoh says,

01:17:30

I'll let you go for three days, but your women and children have to stay. Moses says, let my people go.

01:17:36

And he says, well, I'll let you and your women go, but your children, let my people go. Well, I'll let you all go, just leave your animals.

01:17:42

And he's like, not a hoof will remain in Egypt. This pushback, and then like the assistance of God in the faithfulness of that is what we want to see, and what we believe we can see.

01:17:53

But kind of the arguments from pro -lifers are, God's not doing that.

01:17:59

Like God, you know, God is saying it's okay to do, to write laws that he wouldn't support that.

01:18:07

I mean, I'm not trying to be offensive. I think it sounds offensive, but when you write certain laws, like the one that you talked about, like you can't dismember a baby in this way until you kill them first.

01:18:17

And then you go and you celebrate them for three years and you say that you don't like that. Well, that's been pretty much my interpretation of all laws, all pro -life laws.

01:18:26

Like when I read SB8, there's like four or five just clearly unbiblical things in there.

01:18:32

But right now we have Christians who are saying, but it's good. It saves life.

01:18:38

It's clever. And, you know, it does, but ultimately it's not going to win the day.

01:18:44

It's not going to abolish abortion because it is not actually fundamentally challenging abortion.

01:18:50

It's trying to be clever. And so it takes a state like Texas and the millions and millions of Christians there and gives them this other thing to do.

01:19:00

And I just, you know, I don't try to be too charismatic about this, but I just don't think that, that God's behind it.

01:19:06

And I think we, it's just another thing where at the end of the year, it'll be like, look, we didn't abolish abortion, but we shut down one of now there's only one clinic when there used to be four.

01:19:18

And it's kind of like, yeah, but that one clinic is still killing by permission of your laws.

01:19:24

And yes, God hates it whenever babies are murdered, but he hates it when you write laws that he hates. And so let's stop doing things that God hates and let, and let

01:19:34

God, you know, bless the nations as a result. So where, wherever anyone falls on the whole pro -life abolition thing,

01:19:42

I think that it's important, like Andrew said, to read the bills, like to take a bill, like a good, like the pastor of the church that I go to, like he, he was an anti -abolitionist and very vocal and an opponent, but eventually he just took the abolition bill and a pro -life bill and he set them down with the word of God in between.

01:19:59

And he said, which one of these really matches the word of God? I'm going to support that one.

01:20:05

And he found low and behold, contrary to what he had always said and argued strongly that that pro -life bill wasn't just sort of like, it could fit passingly within the word of God.

01:20:16

It was actually contrary to the word of God, which will explain why it hasn't worked because it's not like, we're not just trying to be pious and do, do, do things.

01:20:27

So we're spiritually uppity or something like that. We actually think that doing what God says is best.

01:20:34

If we pursue justice, it will save more babies. I don't believe that we will ever end abortion this side of the second coming, but I do believe that we can abolish it in our laws and that will save more babies than writing laws that tell people when they have to abort, where they have to abort, how they can abort, why they can abort.

01:20:59

All of that is, is, is, is, you know, it's, it's basically passing stuff that I believe that you could make an argument that it's pragmatically saving lives.

01:21:09

But what you really need to in this argument for Christians is the law in and of itself, outside of whether it saves lives, is it good or bad?

01:21:19

Is it something God, does it establish justice? If it doesn't establish justice, but establishes inequality, it in and of itself, outside of whether it proposes to save babies or may save babies, is it bad?

01:21:34

Because God is ultimately concerned with our laws and he does bless nations on, in accordance with whether they, you know, write just laws.

01:21:45

So Andrew Thomas, I'm going to give you last word on this subject and then ask you both, can pro -life members and abolitionists work together on anything?

01:21:53

Andrew, Thomas? Really, I think we've said our piece.

01:21:59

You guys have said your piece. And yeah, I don't think we have any, anything more.

01:22:04

I mean, we could get really deep into stuff and go on for hours, you know, in different things.

01:22:10

I think I'm good. Tom, you good? Look at my notes. I came prepared.

01:22:18

So while you're looking at those notes too, guys, Russell and James, why don't you just throw out for everyone, where people can get in contact with you guys and your organization for us.

01:22:29

Yeah. So our YouTube channel is an important one. That's where we do our, our liberator podcast. So subscribe to Free the

01:22:34

States on YouTube or the liberator podcast on whatever podcast app you like to use. Also follow

01:22:40

Free the States on Facebook and Instagram, and then also go to our website, freethestates .org to sign up for our email list.

01:22:46

We'll keep you updated on abolitionist legislation, abolitionist conferences, rallies, events, all that sort of stuff.

01:22:52

And the email list is an important way that we do that. And Andrew, Thomas, how about you guys?

01:22:57

Where can people find you and what you're all about? Yeah. Quick question. Do we get a closing statement? I just want to verify. Absolutely.

01:23:03

Let's do closing statements and we'll start with you. All right. Yeah. So you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, on YouTube.

01:23:11

We also have a podcast. We're not very active with it because we have full -time jobs outside of this, but it's called the no longer silent podcast.

01:23:18

And then our website pro -life man .org. And like he said, email lists are very important. You can sign up for our email list there.

01:23:24

We know big tech is silencing all of these views, whether you're pro -life or abolitionists. And we really need, all of us really need your emails to help keep in touch and keep everyone informed of what we're doing.

01:23:36

And would you like me to go with my closing statement? Sure. Let's, I'll tell you what, let's start with free the

01:23:42

States. Let's start with free the States and we'll give you guys a pro -life man, the last word. So free the States. Why don't we do a one to two minute closing statement, wrap it all up for everyone.

01:23:50

Okay. So yeah, we would say again, finally, to kind of go back to where we're at, at the beginning, we think on principle, we think that Christians, if we want to not even affect it, but if we want to, if you want to push back the kingdom of darkness with the means that God has prescribed, we think if we're going to take, if we really are going to take the sword and wield it against the enemy, we think we have to use demands that are in line with the sword that we've been provided, which is

01:24:15

God's word, which says, establish justice. And so when we put forward laws, we want them to be just outside of what they do pragmatically, completely leaving pragmatics and how it would play out in the real world.

01:24:27

Aside from that, we should do what's just, but then moving over to, well, how is it going to play out in the real world? And what are the practical nature?

01:24:34

What is the practical nature of the battle that we're fighting? We think what we're doing will work. One, as Russell said,

01:24:39

God's behind it. Two, if we're going to move the Supreme court, if we're going to move the culture, if we're going to move all of these things, the effective way to move culture is to say, here's the hard line.

01:24:50

We're not budging from it. We're going to make you move to it. And proclaiming the truth powerfully is what can do that kind of coming.

01:24:57

And this isn't necessarily, again, I don't know as much about how you guys would address this, but when we look at like national right to life and students for life, a lot of these groups, the way that they kind of fight in the political realm is they say, well, this is just a moderate regulation.

01:25:10

So allow us the 20 week ban or the dismemberment ban, because it's just a moderate regulation and it's common sense.

01:25:16

And everyone should be able to agree on that, right? They're not moving anything. They're not proclaiming the truth. They're intentionally avoiding the truth that abortions murder because they're trying to appeal to the middle.

01:25:24

And so they're watering everything down. They're not proclaiming the truth. And so practically they're not going to move culture.

01:25:30

They're just going to end up in a constant tug of war that moves a little this way and then a little this way, because they're not proclaiming the truth.

01:25:36

If you want to move culture, if you want to move politics, proclaim the truth consistently with it. And you'll see culture move.

01:25:42

You'll see Oklahoma move, Michigan move, the Supreme court in DC, where it will react practically in the real world.

01:25:48

The way this will play out is proclaiming the truth, according to God's word, using the sword biblically will actually be more practical.

01:25:54

So we think it's more principled, it's more practical, and people should be abolitionists. And in direct answer to the pro -lifers and abolitionists working together, we really want pro -lifers to support abolition bills.

01:26:07

Of course, abolitionists are not going to support bills that don't treat abortion as murder, just because of the principle practical power of it.

01:26:16

We're not going to do that. But we do when there are bills of abolition, because pro -lifers make up either half of the country or a majority of the country at different times, we will not be able to abolish abortion unless pro -lifers either convert to our worldview on this or do vote for our bills.

01:26:37

Right now in the 10 states where we've had them, pro -lifers have been the ones who either ignore them or kill them, literally in our state vote against them.

01:26:47

So in the whole, can we work together? I think we must. It doesn't mean that a pro -lifer and an abolitionist have to agree on everything, but what we do need to move beyond,

01:26:59

I think now, as more and more abolition bills are actually going forward, denominations are choosing to embrace abolitionism and so on and so forth, it is something that we don't want to discourage at all.

01:27:14

So for pro -lifers who are looking at the abolition bill and they're thinking, this is different than what

01:27:22

I've always supported, we're not saying, okay, this is ours, not yours.

01:27:29

We are the little brother. We are a small minority. We're growing.

01:27:35

We have bills that are going out there, but there's a thing that sort of developed over the past,

01:27:40

I don't know, 10 years or something, this idea that abolitionists are mean and they don't want pro -lifers to be a part of what we're doing, when it's kind of the opposite.

01:27:50

I think the thing that annoys pro -lifers so much about us is that we're asking them to kind of support legislation that is in line with what they say is their ultimate goal or is in line with their views.

01:28:04

So someone says, I'm a pro -lifer, I think abortion is murder. The word that you've used a couple of times, that it should be, you said it should be totally cessation.

01:28:14

The complete cessation of abortion. Right. So it's like, whatever word you're going to use or whatever like that, the thing that you say that you want is the thing that we write into our bills.

01:28:28

So we're trying to say pro -lifers should actually support, like good pro -lifers, there are some bad pro -lifers out there that may not want abortion abolished, but that's rare.

01:28:37

But like the pro -lifers, the pro -life groups who say, listen, abolitionists,

01:28:42

I'm with you. Ultimately, I want abortion to be abolished. We're saying, well, that's what this bill says.

01:28:49

Support the thing that does what you say you want. And there's no pushback on our part about that.

01:28:59

And of course, I think pro -lifers and abolitionists should go to abortion clinics together, like the ambulance or the firefighter.

01:29:07

We should try in the meantime to save as many lives as possible. And that means lots of exposing of evil abortion, lots of regular engagement.

01:29:16

There's a lot of overlap, pro -lifers and abolitionists. We all want to try to persuade people not to murder their children.

01:29:22

So I think there's a lot of unity there that we need to find and foster. Awesome. Thanks, Andrew. Your closing statement and comments?

01:29:29

Yeah, quick on unity and then our closing statement. I think where you lose pro -lifers is all over your website, podcasts and stuff.

01:29:43

You basically treat pro -lifers as evil and doing things God hates and you lose them there.

01:29:48

And so maybe change your rhetoric there a bit. And maybe you're convicted with that rhetoric and you're not going to change it.

01:29:53

And that's fine. It's an observation of mine. It's usually the idea, not the people.

01:30:00

It's usually a law that says women will not be punished for abortion.

01:30:07

I will say that's an iniquitous decree and an unjust law that shows partiality to born mothers over babies.

01:30:15

We're not saying God hates people. That's evil, but it's not the person who supports its evil. But I think a lot of people see it and we're saying they're evil.

01:30:23

Unjust laws are bad. I'm just making that point. That's perception from the pro -life movement.

01:30:30

It's just an obvious profession. I'm going to keep going. So the other thing is, we didn't even touch this, is charging women with murder, charging the mothers with murder.

01:30:39

That's another big disagreement. I know you guys know this, that that's a big disagreement between the abolitionists and pro -life movement. But where I think you can win in that argument.

01:30:49

So I personally wouldn't want women charged with murder. I have a whole myriad of reasons. It would take a whole nother podcast episode to go through that.

01:30:56

But I personally wouldn't want that. But I think where you could win in that argument is convincing pro -lifers to put the life of the baby before the innocence of the mother.

01:31:05

So maybe that's just something that you can think about. And maybe that can be your. I'm now being hired as the marketing specialist for Free the

01:31:13

States. But because I don't want women charged with murder, but I would personally put the life of the baby ahead of the innocence of the mother in my own personal opinion.

01:31:23

So that's just a thought of mine on unity. And then our closing statements. I wrote this out.

01:31:28

So we are proud of the pro -life movement and pro -life Americans, although not all pro -life leaders are perfect.

01:31:33

And maybe even some pro -life leaders have hidden agendas and intentions. This doesn't take away from the fact that tens of thousands of pro -life

01:31:40

Americans are doing everything that they can do and know how to do to save babies, whether it's standing outside of an abortion clinic to minister to abortion -minded women or handing out free formula at a pro -life blessing closet or helping women heal from post -abortion grief.

01:31:56

Thousands of pro -life Americans, like the Apostle Paul, have become all things to all people that they might save some.

01:32:04

We think that Christians need to repent of their abortion apathy and become more involved in this movement. The babies are worth your time after all.

01:32:12

And pro -life man calls all Christians to be no longer silent on this topic of abortion. What does this mean to be no longer silent?

01:32:18

This means in your everyday life, whether it's at work, at the grocery store, at family gatherings, at church, wherever, be a voice for pre -born sons and daughters.

01:32:28

If we don't speak up for them, who will? Awesome. Thank you so much, guys, for coming on.

01:32:37

And all those that stuck around for what we thought was going to be a quicker podcast or live stream, we went about an hour and a half a little over there.

01:32:45

And I know there could be much more said on the subject. And I'm sure both of your organizations will have follow -up to this.

01:32:53

And it looks like we had a couple hundred comments here. So it looks like you guys got the conversation started. We should do a part two just on that one topic.

01:33:02

I agree. Do a part two. All right. Well, you know, we might be able to get it in the works offline.

01:33:11

But yeah, I do appreciate both of you guys taking the time. All of you, I should say.

01:33:17

I know we're all very busy. This is a very passionate, obviously, subject to both of you and your organization.

01:33:24

So I appreciate you coming on. Guys, I thank you for sticking in there. This will be up on April 13th.

01:33:30

I'm going to have links on the podcast anywhere you get your podcasts to both organizations. You can check them out for yourselves.

01:33:36

Guys, once again, thanks so much. And everyone that was listening, we appreciate you. As always,

01:33:41

God bless. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We've got audio going there. We're still live here, but we're going to end this broadcast.

01:33:47

Guys, thanks so much on the live stream for hanging out. We still got 20 or so people on here, but we're going to end it.

01:33:54

And James, Russell, Andrew, Thomas, you guys are awesome. I appreciate you all. Hey, Thomas is my first name,

01:34:02

Thomas. I was going to ask you what the T stood for. I usually make a joke how it means the, like I'm the.