PRO LIFE vs. PRO CHOICE debate | opposing views with Lila Rose & Brenda Davies

if you already have children which is the majority of people who seek out abortions and you're worried about poverty which is valid and you're seeing your children not be able to eat and you're seeing all these systemic problems your kids are getting shot in school these are not just fears these are valid concerns that cause people to say you know what i don't want to bring a baby into this inhospitable place where i might die and that's why i got so frustrated and i still feel that frustration inside of me on what i'm calling the mouse wheel because our aligning and deciding we agree when life begins will not also change my stance on what needs to happen and that abortion needs to be accessible until we can make sure those freaking women aren't dying out there i think we have to get into that conversation about how we help women who are being coerced and support women who are in low-income situations or abusive relationships giving them the help that they need connecting them to the resources that they deserve that's all very crucial but i do think it's essential to establish a starting point here you don't want to define when that a child in the womb is a person except unless they're 21 weeks old is that correct so they they don't get legal protection and a moral status until they are 21 weeks and that sounds very arbitrary to me it sounds it doesn't sound scientific it doesn't sound fair it doesn't sound just and you know my understanding of your position is you're about nuance and the gray area but you're drawing a very black and white line in an arbitrary place and saying because of that line a child at 19 weeks can be live dismembered in an abortion and you don't consider that violence and you don't consider that 19 week old baby even a person and my physician is saying i don't think that's loving or just the science is conclusive when human life begins and a unique individual human life begins at the moment of fertilization [Music] that was lila rose and brenda davies two advocates with very opposing views on the topic of abortion the debate around a woman's right to choose to end a pregnancy bodily autonomy and babies in the womb deserving basic human rights and protection is a heated one but so important and what a fire conversation we just had brenda is a writer podcaster and left-leaning pro-choice christian living in los angeles hi beautiful people my name is brenda davies i'm the creator of god is gray today we're talking about abortion on why i am a christian who votes pro-choice cares as much about babies at the border as i do about babies in the womb i believe in god and global warming the main reason i'm pro-choice is because abortions will happen whether they're legal or not we are going to clarify all of that and i want you to read up on 1973's roe vs wade the supreme court decision made abortion legal until the fetus is viable everyone's gonna say god it's not great black and white and i was i was like i'm gonna have to argue this for the rest of my life it's like to protect yourself not fully identifying as something that is marginalized and shamed and all of that exactly we are living in the gray space [Music] i am so sick of the cliche that pro-choice people love abortion and don't care if the numbers increase when an absolute provable fact our party does more to prevent abortion than the pro-life party ever has [Music] her youtube channel god is gray has over 10 million views and her work attracts a growing audience of 250 000 people in 44 countries her debut novel on her knees memoir of a prayerful jezebel received rave reviews and has maintained amazon's number one position in gender and sexuality brenda believes that forced birth is immoral and that abortion can be better prevented by making this nation a more hospitable place for new and existing life with left-leaning policies like gun reform taking climate change seriously on behalf of our children raising wages and taxing the one percent more and solving our nation's maternal death problem she's passionate about educating people on what she considers the dangers of purity culture and she's lgbtq affirming lila a writer speaker and pro-life activist is the founder and president of live action a human rights non-profit with the largest digital footprint on the globe for the pro-life movement this is an abortion industry dream come true kyla rose the president of live action don't you feel that your positions your extreme positions are just forcing women toward these more dangerous options i think that sally we should dare to have a better view for america and our women by saying we shouldn't believe and have to think that women need abortion and that we have to kill our children to achieve the dreams and the careers and families that we want i think we can do better than that as a society i think women deserve better it calls itself planned parenthood and the deception begins right there when people learn the facts of human development in the womb when they learn the facts of the brutality of the abortion procedure they change what that is sad yeah i do i do i do change my mind i think we should fight at the community level for programs that are positive that help women if they're single mothers we should improve the foster care system we should improve the adoption system so that we can welcome children to this country instead of seeing them as a threat and killing them by the thousands each day [Music] live action exists to defend the rights of the unborn and make abortion unthinkable with over 5.6 million social media followers and 1.4 billion video views live action reaches up to 100 million people per month lila's investigative reporting on the abortion industry has been featured in most major news outlets including the los angeles times the washington post the atlantic cbs and abc nightline she's the author of fighting for life becoming a force for change in a wounded world she's been named among national journals 25 most influential washington women under 35 and she often speaks internationally on family and cultural issues not many issues are more polarizing and hated than the topic of abortion a huge problem in this world today when navigating opposing views on any topic but especially one like this is how often one side labels the other as having poor or even evil intentions but the reality is that most people have pure intentions for what they think is the most kind and helpful and progressive and in this case what they consider more progressive towards equality of human rights they're just thinking with a different lens pro-life advocates believe in the inherent value and human rights of the unborn pro-choice advocates believe women should have the right to choose whether to continue a pregnancy or not and that banning abortion takes away bodily autonomy both have pure intentions that's one reason why conversations like this are so important to understand why the other thinks the way that they do the other reason conversations like this are so integral is to get to the heart of the issue it's easy to listen to one side you gravitate towards and the lean on euphemisms that sound good but is the side you listen to really speaking the truth and do you really have all the facts if you aren't hearing both sides rather than go into this conversation determined not to change your mind what if instead you went into the conversation determined to understand the way the other side thinks it's likely you've already established some opinions about this topic but how much time have you listened to the other side and the reasons they think the way that they do if you listen with an open heart you are much more likely to at least understand how and why the opposing view got to their viewpoint and understanding brings people together understanding creates empathy and openness and more common ground than what is normally found and with authentic curiosity you may even learn something you hadn't considered before or even change your mind these types of conversations are so important yet becoming increasingly rare i value diversity of thought and truly opposing views are my favorite type of conversation i personally have an opinion about this topic but i'm going into this discussion as the moderator my hope is that by the end of the conversation you can't tell which side of the issue i land on letting you the audience hear two really well-spoken women on both sides of the issue speak to their heart of the pro-life versus pro-choice perspectives i've gotten the pleasure to get to know both women personally before this conversation and i can tell you without a doubt that both women are lovely strong and passionate women and i respect and appreciate their friendships please be respectful in the comments i want to do more opposing views episodes in the future but it's going to be a lot harder to organize them and get people on board for a public discussion if the comments are riddled with nastiness if you are tempted to become a keyboard warrior and say things like anti-abortionists are anti-women's rights and just want to control women's bodies or pro-choices just want more babies to die then it's clear you are misunderstanding what the majority of people on both sides of the issue are thinking i urge you to strengthen the muscle of understanding why someone thinks the way that they do thank you so much to lila and brenda for coming on the show it requires a lot of bravery and vulnerability to have such an honest discussion openly and publicly i'm thankful for you both without further ado my favorite episode so far let's get into the episode all right welcome to the podcast everyone and especially welcome brenda and lila thank you so much for being here i cannot express enough gratitude because i am just so looking forward to this conversation and it's so rare to be able to have conversations like this especially publicly where other people can listen and engage and really hear each other go back and forth with like opposing views so thank you for being here thanks for having me thank you and for those listening and watching we're going to basically be doing a format where each person is going to get to respond to each question but i'll be directing a lot of the questions to a specific person but they're gonna get to go back and forth and we're gonna just get started okay so my first question is in two minutes or less explain your position and why you are pro-choice or pro-life so brenda why don't you go first okay i'm gonna reference something i wrote down because i think the language is important but i am pro-reproductive rights and reproductive justice meaning the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy equal access to safe abortion affordable contraceptions and comprehensive sex education the freedom from sexual violence and as defined by sister song the right to parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities so in lieu of the inhumane removal of a person's god-given autonomy i am someone who focused on the efforts of making the u.s a more habitable place for all while focusing on pregnancy prevention so i wouldn't call myself pro-choice i would say all of that yes longer drawn out yeah what about you well i'm 100 pro-life because i think all human life is precious and deserves protection whether you're an unborn child or you're an adult or you're an elder an elder you deserve protection legally and you deserve to be embraced by society and i also think that the bonds of love that connect us are some of the most precious things in the world and the bond of love between a mother and her child should be protected and supported and never never pushed towards violence especially against that unborn child and i also believe that abortion is not the solution to any problem that a woman faces i mean i believe in a bodily autonomy i think that's very important and you mentioned reproductive rights brenda and i i agree we have reproductive rights as human beings but when there's a child that's already been reproduced reproduction has already taken place now it's a question of human rights for that child as well as human rights for the mother so i think we have to chase after both legally and in our society the upholding of everyone's human rights and never pit a mother against her child or family members against each other but instead acknowledge that every human being has the same human rights and those need to be protected and the first human right is life the right to live okay i think that really is a great way to start where you show like your foundational principles so the next like basic question how would you answer the question what is abortion in one sentence lila you go first abortion is the direct and intentional killing of an innocent child brenda abortion is a procedure that ends a pregnancy okay great so now we're going to get into some foundational questions that may take a little bit for you guys to go back and forth on because it really is the foundation of why you guys believe the way that you do so my first question to you brenda is do you believe that it is always wrong to commit intentional violence on an innocent human person this is such a loaded question especially the way it's worded i don't think anyone should be perpetuating any violence against anyone and the disclaimer of innocence doesn't bear weight to me i think everyone should be allowed to live without violence um also i mean that question is implying that the abortion procedure is a violent act against a life which is not necessarily something i believe i think for me the moral stance or the complication on when life starts is where we really get in the mud and the mire of things where like as opposed to really looking at the issues and the systemic problems that lead to an abortion um so i'm getting lost on the question for a second yeah so i can just repeat again yeah do you believe i know it's it's worded toughly yeah like this is a really hard one yeah because the for anyone listening or watching too like my intention is to word questions in a way that like a pro-choice person would would ask a pro-life person and a pro-life person would ask a pro-choice person so that that has been my intention so so this one is do you believe that it's always wrong to commit intentional violence on an innocent human person yeah so i don't know it's a really impossible question i think for me to answer because i just think fundamentally it doesn't actually present the issue with abortion or how we're going to figure it out or how we're going to solve it like it's kind of where i'm getting in the mire of trying to like not get in these circular mouse wheel kind of arguments with people about when does life begin and when is it not okay to do this anymore versus really focusing on the harm that is being done systematically all throughout our society that causes a woman or a person who's pregnant to feel that this is their only choice okay could could i follow up yes okay i'm like not sure that is here so um thank you for sharing that when you say that um i think you were you're saying i'm not sure how to answer that question originally you said you think it is violence against innocent persons or any persons is wrong but then you're saying you're not sure abortion is violence um how do you define violence well it's the the personhood it's like such a complicated question because there's so many words that you could pull out of there and realize how complicated each one is because a personhood for me begins at viability that's my personal belief and some pro-reproductive right people wouldn't necessarily agree with me on that same i'm sorry yeah no go ahead so just to understand so you're saying you can't commit violence against a child in the womb before 20 weeks because you don't consider them a person so in the case of you know an abusive boyfriend or husband who tries to force a miscarriage for a woman who's pregnant in the first trimester you wouldn't consider that an act of violence against her first trimester baby because it's not a person yet i mean yeah i would i think what people really don't understand is that i'm sitting at this table because abortion is something that i find very tragic and it's something that i want more than anything else to help be preventable in the society i think from top to bottom the whole situation can cause a lot of pain and does cause a lot of pain and i do think that it is a moral conundrum all of these these questions however i believe what i do and i champion the right to a person's bodily autonomy and their right to choose an abortion because i look at a society and a place and a system and a foster care system and a prison industrial complex and poverty that makes this world less habitable for those people that we would want to s that you would want to see like end up in society i'm like tripping over words because the personhood yeah makes it complicated but this is going to be my hardest question because the definitions are just really convoluted and to me no matter how i answer this question it doesn't really get to the root of why i'm sitting at this table and what i think needs to happen to prevent abortion from occurring it's it's more of a personal thing and i think my personal stance on it isn't as valid as a lot of the points i'll make later in the conversation but to understand you better here and i agree that there's a whole world of discussion around making life better for humans and i want to have that i mean that's an incredibly important discussion how do we make society better have healthier relationships but we are living in a society right now where there are around 800 000 children in utero who are killed every day or by illegal by legal abortion legal abortion and so it's the leading cause of death for children it's the leading cause of death for people in the united states it's a leading cause of death that beats out cancer it beats out any other cause of death is abortion so that's why i'm here that's why children is gun violence i mean that again goes into like personhood and language you're it's the leading cause of death for i mean abortion is just abortion to me it's like a completely separate thing if we're talking about the leading causes of death in society for children it's gone up and gun violence right now so gun violence is a tremendous problem and there's about seven thousand children six to seven killed every year because of guns in this country there's eight hundred thousand children killed every year because of abortions there's 400 000 kids in foster care so it all deserves our attention but yeah i think what you're saying is you're saying my understanding of what you're saying please correct me if i'm wrong is that you don't want to define when that a child in the womb is a person except unless they're 21 weeks old is that correct so they they don't get legal protection and a moral status until they are 21 weeks and that sounds very arbitrary to me it sounds it doesn't sound scientific it doesn't sound fair it doesn't sound just and you know my understanding of your position is you're about nuance and the gray area but you're drawing a very black and white line in an arbitrary place and saying because of that line a child at 19 weeks can be live dismembered in an abortion and you don't consider that violence and you don't consider that 19 week old baby even a person and my physician is saying i don't think that's loving or just it's not an arbitrary number it's the the place of viability and why why is viability though because it's when a baby can live outside of the womb the uterus without the mother's aid and it matters because forcing birth on people children as young as 10 years old a child bearing age and perhaps also rape and incest victims which we can get into that too because there's even um women who have been raped or have experienced incest that we're happy to have their children so there's like nuance in all of these and no one wants to be used as the example of why we should be making these really hard decisions as a society it's just the black and white that i feel you are trying to bring me into is this personhood thing which is it is not right based on when or how i decide when a personhood is applicable to the fetus whereas sorry i keep getting lost no it's all good yeah it's just it's the hardest question to start with i think maybe because you care so much about these okay like really the way that i would frame this is by saying that this moment right here to me is a waste of time and i don't mean to say that in any degrading way to anyone sitting at this table or anyone who believes in the importance of the validity of trying to figure out when life begins or when we're honoring that but for me it becomes almost irrelevant because of all of the other issues that are piled on top of this where i see so many people in the anti-abortion camp voting against it acting against things that would make this place more viable for life so if we talk about okay i believe that life begins a conception which biblically life begins at first breath according to like at least four bible verses that is something and god also orders an abortion the bible but even that i would not want to hang my hat on the bible to even inform this conversation because these are all like moralistic moralistic ideas they're not actual actually provable they cannot be concrete it's a matter of your own personal morality and your opinion so with all of that being said if you believe that life begins at conception then i want to see what you are doing to make sure that no one has to have an abortion that they didn't want to have because of poverty because of all these other issues that are happening and that personal moral stance in that case is not as valid to me because it doesn't actually answer any of the questions that are going to help us decrease abortion numbers or even eradicate it if that's your dream so i think we have to keep going i think we have to get into that conversation about how we help women who are being coerced and support women who are in low income situations or abusive relationships to make sure that they are not coerced into abortion i think abortion and coercion go hand in hand and a lot of the work of the pro-life movement i'm not sure how familiar with it but is supporting women who are in difficult situations so that they are empowered to not turn to violence and not have to have an abortion but choose life and protect their children provide them financial material care you know thousands of pregnancy resource centers providing that financial material care supporting women giving them the help that they need connecting them to the resources that they deserve that's all very crucial but i do think it's essential to establish a starting point here because the reality is we're living in a society where abortion is legal where there are 800 000 children killed by abortion i know you don't like calling them children but they're human beings like you and me and they are just younger and totally defenseless so it's this ultimate ageism or might makes right that the more powerful the born people are deciding the fate of these pre-born people and so you don't like calling them persons i i know as well as from what you've said so i do think i would like to understand your position when you're saying personhood only starts at 21 weeks because of viability if if i understand you're saying my position is that you cannot you can take a personhood label and put it on a human or take it off and the history of human rights abuses have been when human beings have been called less than human they've been called you're not a person you're a non-person because you're jewish you're a non-person because you're a person of color you're a non-person because you're you have a disability that's the history of human rights abusers and so i say if you're a human you are a person there's not a question of separating the two to be human is enough and the science is conclusive it's not a matter of my religious belief or faith or some other personal preference i have or you might have the science is conclusive when human life begins and a unique individual human life begins at the moment of fertilization well people don't actually agree on the language of when life begins like even the language is also complicated as well i'm gonna let you wrap this up and i'm gonna move on to the next question for lila so go ahead and wrap up your response to her if you have anything to say i mean yeah and i think i've already pretty much said it which is that like i i know people want to harp in this one thing but all i see is like people running on mouse wheels with it because you can convince anyone that life begins a conception but if you look even at the numbers of christian people or people that have a religious affiliation who also get abortions it's clear that just having that belief inside of yourself doesn't necessarily equate to the prevention of abortion or choosing not to have an abortion because of all of the myriad of issues that we're going to get into okay great all right so the next question this one's going to be directed to lyla is it immoral to force teens and women to give birth against their will what about bodily autonomy i'm completely in support of bodily autonomy the idea and i think it's a truth that we need we have a the right to our bodies in the sense that the possession of them and nobody has the right to harm us or hurt us and we have the responsibility along with that right to not harm or hurt somebody else and so in the case of a woman who is pregnant or a very young woman who is pregnant she's pregnant with another is that another human life is that another small little human being in there and it is the science is very clear this is not something we can kind of create nuance where there's not it's crystal clear when there's an abortion it's being done to destroy it's designed to destroy that embryo or that developing child because if it doesn't do that the pregnancy will continue and the child may be carried to terms so the abortion is designed to end a life that's what abortionists do they they end a heartbeat that's how they know the abortion has been completed they have to take the body parts this is graphic but take the body parts after the abortion procedure to confirm that they have all the body parts removed of that developing baby and then they know it's done or if the body parts aren't there maybe it's not done and there are actually missed abortions where sometimes a woman can go in for an abortion and they don't complete the abortion and she still has a heartbeat afterwards that baby is still alive so she has to go back to get the abortion completed the job of the abortionist is to kill so back to the question that you ask ellen reproduction has already taken place in a pregnancy there are two people and both deserve care and support and that is the pro-life position okay brenda we're brought to you today by buffy i can say without a doubt that buffy enhances my sleep and every time a friend or guest lays down in these sheets and comforter because i also have them set up in arahana they are blown away how soft and cozy it is buffy is dedicated to making a positive impact on not only our sleep but also the environment using only renewable and recycled materials which makes them as soft on the planet as they are on your bed the cloud comforter is covered in ultra breathable eucalyptus fabric which uses 10 times less water than cotton to grow and its fiber is produced using recyclable earth-friendly solvents eucalyptus also naturally soothes the skin for an incredible relaxing night's sleep the best part for me though is that the average down comforter harms 12 geese but buffy's comforter is cruelty free using 100 recycled water bottles that are transformed and given a second life as super fluffy fiber it feels even softer than down while keeping approximately 50 bottles out of landfills and oceans this comforter has over 18 thousand five star reviews and keeps you at the perfect temperature so you feel cozy without overheating it's hypoallergenic and machine washable thanks to an innovative stitching pattern that keeps its fluffy fill in place so use my code ellen for twenty dollars off orders over eighty dollars you can try a comforter in your own bed for free if you don't love it return it at no cost i disagree that providers who provide abortion are there to kill i believe they are there to provide a service that will afford the pregnant person the bodily god-given autonomy that they have i am always really off put and i feel that it is almost egregious or maybe my side just doesn't go to the same behavior and that's what i don't like seeing all of these violent images and the violent descriptors of how it goes down are purposely used to incite people into fear and into sadness and sorrow and heartbreak depression whatever those images will elicit in you i have not seen anyone showing photos of all of the children that are killed to gun violence like i was listening to an npr episode the other day with a interview with doctors that are in surgery after these mass shootings and describing the difference between the bullets in a young person's body with a 22 caliber versus an assault rifle and how impossible it is to save them and one of the surgeons said if we would just release these photos this whole discussion would end so in a way i'm like well what a powerful thing to show you're showing the violence of it but there is so much additional violence because when we look at all of these stories from not so long ago in the 70s and they're still happening all over the world today in el salvador for example suicide is the number one cause of death for pregnant teenagers and throughout the 70s and throughout all of time in the u.s when people were having difficulty getting legal abortions they were committing violent acts against their own bodies to make that happen coat hangers drinking substances that would like poison them they made their their themselves uninfertile in those cases they bled out in hotel rooms there is so much violence around this debate that is not only the fetuses and this is the thing that really rubs me the wrong way these are the issues and like i wish this wasn't political but it is because there are people on the republican side their values of saving life and protecting life and preserving it when we have all the statistics and all the information to show how to make this place hospitable to life how to prevent abortions they don't go for that they're constantly legislating against comprehensive sex ed they're constantly fighting to keep assault rifles in people's hands and no one on my camp is talking or showing displays or holding posters of the atrocious violence that women endure pregnant people endure when they are giving themselves an unsafe abortion okay go ahead and wrap it up and i'll okay i'll respond so all of that said like i want you to consider what kind of desperation would drive a teenager to commit suicide in lieu of having a baby what sort of desperation would cause someone to drink poison to risk their own life and coercion usually brenda which is why which is again violence to solve violence only continues a circle of violence abusive situations abusive parents abusive voices really the only reason women get abortions i was well you're into an abortion but it was still an autonomous choice that i made it really was so that's not the only way people have abortions or reason for it so i want to respond to a number of things that you said because there's there's a lot in there and i think we have to i think take one piece at a time to really find can we you know present resolve one piece at a time and so one of the things that you said was that showing images of children killed by abortion because i was describing how abortions actually take place and you're saying showing images of abortion is violence and if i understood you correctly and i was showing those violent images yeah so it's very hard to understand how you can say that the image is violent but the act is not violent how you can say that it's worse for someone to have to grapple with the fact that abortion is violence and that the child had to endure that violence because that is a child that was torn apart that should have had the chance to live and that's why that's why i'm pro-life that's why i'm here and so we can spend a lot of time circling the wagons and say well what about you know poor poor me i'm an adult to survive birth i'm i'm living i'm in this world and i have to put up with learning about how babies are killed in abortion not poor us we have a responsibility then to do something to to lower the abortion right to help those children and to help their mothers so that's one thing and then you know there are a lot of other things in there you started talking about comprehensive sex education you said well why can't we i think that your comment was um we should be talking more about that or talking about solutions and i agree we those are all things to be discussing but as long as we are actively as a society not just legalizing abortionists to go out there and profit from killing children dismembering them suctioning them to death having them poisoned to death and as long as it's even being paid for by the state in many cases like here in california that's that's the bloodshed that's the biggest human rights abuse in our society today so we need more voices on that we need more people fighting that and until we can agree to finally stop that violence it's going to be hard to make the progress we need to make on the other issues we are making that progress i mean live action is for child tax credit and working to support pregnancy resource centers get them more of the support that they need so that they can help more families but there's bloodshed happening today in our cities and we need to come together to stop that so brenda i want you to reply to that and then after that can you address a little bit more clearly if it is morally conflicting to have this view that you said that you're talking about with you know babies and their inherent human rights but then also if there's anything morally conflicting about forcing women to give birth against her well but go ahead and answer her first and then maybe you can address that a little bit more i just feel like you just skirted so much which is frustrating and also what did i expect i'm sorry if it was misperceived but i am not saying poor me i don't want to be assaulted by those images i'm saying well you're saying that we shouldn't show those images because it's not going to say that okay i was saying that your camp is always putting out those images do you think that's wrong to share the truth about what abortion does to that baby i feel neutral about it to be honest i i i think because it didn't seem neutral just a few moments ago well the point that i'm trying to make is that those images are accessible and they're one of the main tools being used to scare people out of abortion there's also a lot of inciting description in language that is not always based in fact and reality what's an example the idea that doctors are going in and dismembering the body that's how a second trimester abortion takes place they are it's like disconnected with uh not in many cases now planned parenthood doesn't use dejoction in most of their abortions i mean i had a planned parenthood abortion so i would you have a second trimester of planned parenthood planned parenthood in their second trimester abortions typically does not use digoxin they do not do an injection first so whether they use suction they'll use a suction instrument to help with the process of the dismemberment process of the baby and you know we actually have a series out that's narrated by former abortionists so that they've actually done these procedures they're experts and they describe what happens in a dna second trimester abortion well this is where you and i would find common ground i mean not really because you'll be anti-abortion exclusively but for me i am not i think the position being taken that there's some like evil nefarious group of people that just like loves killing babies and they're being dismembered in these violent ways so these ideas that there's just like that that would be evil honestly and the way that we can like agree or like get on the same page is to say that if these procedures are being done they do need to be done with absolute care and to make sure that it's causing the least amount of pain as possible i don't i don't want to see abortions be violent in that way and i don't know enough about that i'm also not like i favor planned parenthood because they're one of the only nations or the only not options in our nation for women to get the care that they need in a lot of cases especially when you don't have health care and all that all that stuff so i am just saying that when you are showing these images that fine we can agree they're violent i can agree with you that these procedures are not being done well in some cases like if you give me that information i read it and i see it and i talk to people i'm always receptive to that so i don't think that's right so just to understand you're okay with an abortion like in a live dismemberment abortion you would be okay to dismember that baby provided it was injected into the heart with a substance that is actually used for lethal lethal injections and execution state executions you would be okay with injecting that piercing that baby's soft body tissue into the heart with a with a substance that stops it his or her heart and then after the heart hopefully has stopped beating then it's okay to start the dismemberment process that's okay with you but it's not okay if the injection hasn't been done first is that what you're saying yeah i think that sounds like the more humane way so are you opposed to the death penalty yes for them how can you be how can you support that when how can you support giving a lethal injection to a developing baby when you're opposed to giving it to even a a you know a prisoner who's been tried in a court of law for heinous crimes because this goes back to the question that i felt was skirted which is that the violent images that aren't being shown are babies riddled with assault rifle bullets or i'm opposed to that brenda i don't know if you already think of my position but i think that it's horrific the violence against school children and children in our country and what guns are used for i think it is horrific it's mind-numbingly horrific so we agree on that i'm talking about the baby that you just said you are okay with being killed in the second trimester as long as its body is pierced with a needle and its heart is injected with a substance that gives us a heart attack and then it's okay to dismember that baby and remove the baby from the mother i'm trying to understand i'm trying to understand how you're okay with that because of the circumstances because of humanity because of my care and love for the people that are in that circumstance but you're against it for um you would be against that for a convicted murderer of let's say dozens of school children let's say it's a school shooter who's on death row and you would say save his life because it's clear that violence against him is wrong but because you're saying there's all this complexity now for this baby who's developing and don't save their life well this brings us back to square one the question that i found so complicated because it's true we see we see the beginning of life differently i believe spirit at conception i believe life at birth and i believe that it is humane to have a certain cap at how long you can go which is when a baby is viable around 20 20 21 22 weeks i believe abortion should be easily accessible so that pregnant people can make that decision as early as possible not have to travel hundreds of miles fly through planes jump through hoops to get the care that they need and that that would help that process move along more quickly and also again what's being skirted is are you morally okay with forcing the birth of children from children or people who have had atrocious acts committed to their own bodies europe you've been pregnant i've been pregnant i am more vehemently pro-reproductive rights than i ever have been after having an abortion and having a child it hasn't made me more on the other side and the reason is because i implicitly understand and have experience the toll that that takes on your body emotionally relationally everything that is required for you to take excellent care of that child from beginning to end and when people are not capable of that are not willing to do it for whatever reason are in a society that is not hospitable to new life like ours then it becomes a matter of why are those women dying in the hotel rooms you really quickly went to oh they're all being abused i think that's really minimizing pregnant people are very capable of making their own autonomous choices and they don't have to be abused into it that is not the only instance in which somebody if it's your but i'm i'm trying to follow your argument here because you're saying if it's a 10 year old or a 12 year old you're you're saying you're accusing me of forcing children to have children and i want to respond to that but now you're saying you're not talking about abuse but in that situation there was clearly abuse because any 12 year old who's pregnant or 10 year old there's abuse there that child was sexually abused that's why they're pregnant yeah so so but i i want to very much respond to your points brenda i'm trying to track you know track this i know we're all doing this together um ellen but uh there are two key things that you said that i want to respond to the last thing you said about forcing children to have children and then you said something else about um before that we were talking about the lethal injections for the child and you were saying that um uh they're not persons so we just define life differently said i believe life you believe life begins at a different time than i believe and what i'm trying to say what i'm saying is it's not a question of our belief when human life begins that's a scientific fact it begins at fertilization you can open any biology textbook and it will tell you when a unique individual human life begins now you're adding an additional layer of qualification personhood you're saying well that's a philosophy i think is what you're saying you're saying well that's a philosophical question so the science might be clear when your human life begins but it's not clear philosophically when personhood begins and so you're saying it might be a human human life but it's not a person yet is that am i representing you correctly because it's clear when you're pregnant you're pregnant with something what are you pregnant with yeah a spirit um so now it's a spirit well these are again like i really but are you okay with killing a spirit then i believe that energy moves i don't think you can kill a spirit when you're pregnant what are you pregnant with biologically speaking i am going to honestly veto this question and not because i don't want to give you the respect or dignity of answering this is foundational to the entire conversation we're having point that i'm making is that to me it is not foundational and i know that sounds like a counter to everything that everyone says but that is why i'm so impassioned about getting my voice into this this muck and mire of the abortion debate because i am sitting here at this table with you because i i hate abortion personally why do you hate it because i think it happens very unnecessarily in many cases because of poverty because of a lack of education because but why is it bad that it happens in those cases because everyone should have a right to live the life that makes them most happy and putting the child in the womb or you're who are you referring to when you say no i would i mean if you want a really concise clear answer i will say yes i prioritize the life and autonomy of the pregnant person over the in any case for any reason up until a certain point of violence and your point is and and your choice for viability which i think it comes back to so you say you won't say when human life begins although science is clear on that but you're saying that it's any abortion for any reason is okay up until what exact marker i guess 21 weeks or so okay and i would love for that but at 20 down but 20 weeks it doesn't matter how the baby's killed it doesn't matter what happens that baby at 20 weeks is not i already told you i it has to be done in a humane why why if it's not if it's not a person if it's not a human life even as you say why does it matter because we're all human beings whereas but you just said it's not a human being okay so i'm trying to understand but you know what i do want to say the next question is actually more related to the specific thing but before we move on can you dress my first question which you did kind of address but brenda felt like you kind of skirted and it would be nice to just answer a little bit more clearly about like is it morally conflicting though to have that you know to have this view of like personhood and the value of baby of a baby in a womb but what about like her example of like a 12 year old child who is pregnant like does that feel more like conflicting to like force that that child to give birth i think that in that case there's seriously likely abuse or incest sexual abuse certainly if not incest in that situation and the solution to rape or incest is not to add homicide it's not to add violence against another innocent third party which is the child as you say of that child they're both children so to kill one child who's innocent is not the solution it's not just it's not loving and it's adding the trauma of abortion to that girl i mean you you speak about birth as if it's this really horrible hard thing it can be very hard i mean it can be excruciating right it is excruciating um you speak about it as a you know in this negative way abortion is the first is the forced birth of a dead child that's what an abortion is you're forcing early delivery of a child that's been killed and so you know when we're talking about what's best for women abortion is never best for women including a survivor of sexual trauma because it's adding trauma it's adding a wrong on top of the first wrong that she endured and i think it's a it's a reflection on the poverty of our society's care for those that are survivors of sexual violence to send them off to abortion clinics as a solution to the pain the first pain and the first injustice that they endured i would say that i have noticed that there are some abortion providers who do too quickly push people into like just reiterating like you're here to make this choice you've already made it let's go i was actually treated with a lot of tender loving care when i had an abortion at planned parenthood it took like nine hours and i was asked many many times and brought into many different rooms if i was abused if i was coerced all of these things but i um i keep losing my train of thought on the things you just said um gosh i'm so sorry no it's all good um [Music] there was a certain can you remind me of some of the last things we were just talking about um abortion as in cases of rape and incest and i'm very sorry about for your abortion i know you mentioned earlier it was connected to coercion as well for you it's a double double plan and i'm i'm sorry for loss of your baby and i'm sorry for what you endured in that relationship and it's okay because it was a very expansive experience and it taught me a lot about abortion and pregnancy and life like having had both those experiences this has elevated my compassion and my ability to empathize and understand what other people are going through so i'm like kind of feeling embarrassed that i'm flubbing so many of my words but a lot of it is because the terminology in so many ways has been so disagreeable and is intentionally inflammatory or intentionally bolstered up not in my on my side i'm not intention but i'd ask you if you disagree with terminology that i'm using i would encourage you to tell me what you disagree with and we can discuss whether or not that's appropriate terminology because for example if you have some outlier examples of babies that are dismembered before they that's not have a suction birth that's not an outlier brenda that's how second trimester abortions are done in this country i mean i'm not educated enough on it in that case but like i said i do agree and and in fact in suction first trimester abortions often the baby is dismembered during that process because of the power of the suction so it happens in many first trimester abortions as well sometimes the cannula which is the suction machine that's used the insert on the suction machine the baby is small enough to fit entirely through the cannula so it's ripped from the mother's womb whole but sometimes it's a little too developed and will be torn apart in the process which is why they usually put a sharp edge on the corner of the cannula in the process of destroying that first trimester baby again i know it's no i'm just saying again yes yes i agree it's like no matter what language i feel comfortable using or not and a lot of it is me policing some of my own language because i don't want to disappoint people who have worked really hard in the um the justice of reproductive health to really choose carefully the words and the language that best serve what we're trying to say and i admittedly have not educated myself on that enough because i come from an era where just like pro-life pro-choice this is what it means so this is all new for me and all i have is my lived experience and what i have learned from talking to other people and the thing that is really upsetting to me that i just cannot ever get over drives me crazy bang my head against a wall is that i still feel you and i are going in a circle and not getting anywhere when we're talking about this because i asked you but what about the violence of what women and pregnant people have done to them they've been failed by the people around them they need support and love if they're facing a mental health breakdown the solution is not to go commit violence against the unborn child we're also brought to you today by anema mundi herbals an apothecary shop specializing in high potency elixirs medicinal mushrooms and collagen boosters owned and operated by a master herbalist from costa rica their project educates and supports true fair trade practices beyond organic farming education and small farmers to create remedies that benefit people from all walks of life i'm obsessed with their happiness powder which is an energizing and mood boosting herbal coffee that is caffeine free and adaptogenic i like it served warm with plant milk and maple syrup and it contains key herbal allies that we like to call happy herbs other immunity boosters in their shop include black elderberry syrup mushroom mocha milk and spirulina an organic protein rich mineralizer that tastes delicious in banana mango smoothies but my favorite items in their shop tend to my feminine and pregnant body halogen booster face oil womb tea which is perfect for pregnancy and a rose body oil which is just divine anema mundi uses eco-friendly packaging in recyclable glass or biodegradable bags i got an awesome discount code for you guys too so you can enjoy this wonderful brand use my code ellen15 for fifteen percent off anything at anemamoodyherbals.com that's a n i m a m u n d i h e r b a l s dot com the solution is to solve the mental health crisis that the woman is facing also really really really minimizing the trauma of sexual assault i've also been sexually assaulted it is minimizing in my opinion and a lot of people's opinion to just say from a place of like by perceiving i don't know affluence or just privilege it is a privileged position though to sit here and be like you know if someone if someone sexually assaults you it's your responsibility whoever you are no matter what age you are to make sure that you don't do wrong now i mean to be fair she didn't say that yeah i i i would appreciate you not taking you know misquoting me here in this conversation and i also think it's important to not um ascribe you know make assumptions about the other person's experiences and background totally i don't think that's fair no i would also say you know if you are willing to talk with sexual abuse survivors who felt they were forced into abortion i've interviewed them if you're willing to talk with sexual abuse survivors who have chosen to not have an abortion and are so grateful that they weren't coerced into it that they didn't think that they chose it and it was a good thing for them i encourage i've talked with them i encourage you to talk with them so you know in the world of lived experience and stories there are endless stories and there are important stories but what is also important is right and wrong what's also important is human rights and so and that's what i bring this back to is does the is the life in the womb of life yes are they human yes do all humans have human rights yes and if we start to arrange our social solutions to all of the great complexities of life around fundamentally respecting human life and human rights we're going to be a healthier happier society society period okay so let's wrap this up you can respond something and then i'm going to ask you your next question which is pretty similar to what we're talking about but a little more detail so go ahead um i do apologize i definitely do not want to make any presumptions but i will say that i have noticed a great deal of people from positions of privilege simply the privilege of not having been raped and not having that as your experience to have a strong opinion about it i truly believe that a person who is a victim of sexual assault is the one and only person that should be making a decision on whether or not they are going to carry and have a baby i think it is morally reprehensible honestly to not live in that experience and make a decision and a moral decision on that it's it's not in our right i believe and with that said you're mentioning all of these experiences about people who are grateful that they didn't have an abortion and i completely affirmed that that is absolutely true i have talked to a gamut of people but what you are not identifying in this particular moment is people who say the opposite i am grateful that i had an abortion i had an abortion with an abuser again the justice system that would have made it so i would have probably had to fight my butt off to not have to share custody with that child the power that he could have asserted over me if we had a child together the fear and concern about whether or not my child would be safe in his care all loomed on me because what we're both agreeing on is this society is not built in a way that people are going to be able to bring forth life with complete confidence and also like on that on your side of things people so often talk about but adoption or all of these other things like if a rape victim doesn't want to have a baby just put them up for adoption i don't think they take just i think there's i mean adoption is a tremendously impactful life-changing decision for everyone so i i don't i would just push back against a lot of the characterizations that i think you're making right my my like yeah exaggeration or my tone um is really meant to just like enliven things and i don't want to do that because i do want to be specific about everything but i i have heard though people say at that willy-nilly like come on just you know make a tick tock or something just choose adoption choosing adoption though means that you are thrusting that child into a system that is not working there are always 400 000 kids in the foster care system every single day so i'm really excited to talk about that and we're going to get into that but let's wrap up these like foundational questions i have a question for you last one i asked was for you so this one is basically a lot of what we were talking about and your answer has been you know like in the gray because you're you know god is great to be in the garage yeah but um the question is there is black and white my understanding of your position just to make because we're doing foundations your position is that abortion for any reason is permissible up until 21 weeks unless medical technology develops and the baby can get more help before that to survive is my understanding but up until 21 weeks whatever goes is your position so this is gonna be my my question which is basically what is the time or moment of distinction when a person deserves basic human rights and so this question like is it purely based on age gestational age when a human can feel pain is it brain waves a heartbeat is it autonomy or a certain level of cognition that matters or is it the moment a person takes their first breath like you kind of mentioned but then you also have mentioned that viability because viability has gotten earlier and earlier and earlier over decades as you know um our medical technology has advanced so does that mean that it will continue to get earlier and earlier or can the question of when human life begins be a personal question i think that i think that there are like really great cases for some like um i think that i'm just really like thinking about how if we made everything more accessible and it was easy to make that choice sooner i would feel really comfortable diminishing that number to something even lower you know like 18 weeks or something but really for me this is a really interesting challenge to be like taken to task on exactly how i'm defining life and where it begins and then we'll get into all and if i can comment on that too i mean it's because our laws do and it's because the society's view of human life will determine our treatment of human life and so that's why i know you say well it's you know it's gray i don't want to get into these foundational questions but it is the question it is the question and uh and once we have that if we can resolve that um great i mean there's so many many more things we can go to but you can't you can't leave it unresolved because currently the the pro-choice or pro-abortion side if you want to say it is in support of abortion not being limited at any point in pregnancy is in support of taxpayer funding for that abortion and is in support of it across the country and even the world so they've they've staked out a claim and we're saying well who's they there's there's so much nuance on on both sides well what i'm saying is the law the law is and the the lobbyist behind the law but just just speaking strictly of the law the law in seven states in our country permitting abortion through nine months in california permitting it up until about 24 25 weeks and even after that as long as the abortionist signs off on it and they have some reason listed it can happen until term in california so i mean that's the reality we're living in that is the reality we're living and so the question is are you okay with that or not do we think that these are human lives or not because if they're not human lives and you can persuade me of that i'm i will we i'm i'm done you know it's like i've devoted my life to this because this is a human rights issue for our most vulnerable members of our human family but me challenging and decidability or when it's like i i get the impression if i'm not mistaken that i'm not going to be able to make any headway with that because you are convinced that life begins a concept well i think because you're running into facts you're running into scientific facts that you can't you can't talk away and the scientific fact is that we don't choose or believe when human life begins it begins biologically at the moment of fertilization that's what in an in vitro fertilization clinic they're looking when they say oh we created you seven embryos it's that moment of sperm egg fusion when you have a single cell zygote come into existence and then the in vitro you know specialists can tell the parents that would be parents oh we've got you seven viable embryos or whatever they say you know do you want to implant these it's because these are individual children of those parents and they can decide if they're going to carry them to term right that's the whole ivf industry in our country it's it's not it's not it's not even it should not be a debate but i think it becomes sort of political in a strange way and even like a religious thing if it's saying well it's a debate the science the science is clear yeah but the science is also clear that pregnancy or uh sex can result in pregnancy exactly but we cannot mandate that our entire nation wait until they have a partner that's going to support them they practice abstinence like you cannot mandate that sexual activity this world is too complex our nation is too complex the problems we have are too complex so are you opposed to are you opposed to child abuse of course would you say that the circumstances in which children are abused or not even abused neglected which is a form of abuse but in the circumstances around child neglect are complex no well i mean yeah the circumstances that get people there mental health all of that and some neglectful parents are victims themselves of their own addictions or their own childhood abuse cycles or other intergenerational trauma right yeah so but that child who's still a victim of neglect still deserves to be cared for right and and even intervened in that situation of the neglect that they're in if it's severe neglect to protect that child's life right even though there's complexity all around the parents and the mother and everything else yes but you're saying that because i agree with you on friend i agree with you in complexity we are we're in agreement there but but what is black and white is life or death yeah but you are making something black and white that not everyone agrees with not everyone believes that life begins a conception and you can have science that you perceive backs that up i do not think it's as cut and dry i think in our nation and in our world we have a very strange avoidance of death and what it means and i'm a really spiritual person like i said so i believe in the spirituality of it i believe you can't kill like a spirit or an energy that energy just moves so there's a lot of complexity on what i feel happens when i'm housing an embryo or a fetus inside of myself i having that experience too i felt it i felt the presence of something when i had an abortion i felt the absence of something i am not going to sit here and deny that at all however i am so frustrated with the muck and mire that we're in right now because i just don't see what good it's going to do like i well in texas when they passed the heartbeat bill it cut the abortion rate in half so abortion going to other states they're fleeing to other places where they're having children that they don't want adding to the foster care system that is already overrun and not working so you're saying it's better for a foster care child to not exist to be it's better for them to be killed well i am a pro reproductive rights activist so yes so you you're saying that a child in foster care it's better for them to be dead not after they're already alive in order to abort someone they have to be alive otherwise you need to abort them do you i i think but i i mean there was there was one thing i'm trying to track here i don't know if you want to keep going on this route ellen but there was one other um thing that you said i want to make sure we we connected on oh you said everybody you said if everybody agrees um you know everybody i think you were saying everybody has uh different views on this uh something to that effect and therefore we can't resolve it we keep going in circles right is that kind of what you were saying well yeah but i'm talking specifically about life beginning at conception i actually do believe that if we could sit down and have a more nuanced balanced conversation about when life begins and what people morally believe is right or wrong with abortion that we could actually come to terms that would be so beneficial because if you and i could come to terms somehow some way and be like you know what 12 weeks is a good amount of time we both feel comfortable with that then we can i'm never i'll tell you right now i'll never be comfortable with killing an innocent human period that's the thing it's never it's there's no there's no argument that will justify killing an innocent i get it but with all due respect i truly feel and just because society supports it i mean i think there's i think that was the direction of your comment earlier it's like well it's so great because so many people support this there have been times in human history when people have supported the enslavement of women and children and men they have supported the sexual exploitation publicly as part of almost a state operation of children there have been empires that have rose and fall that have committed atrocities but just because the prevailing notion might be something that's wrong doesn't mean it doesn't make it right and i think that's and and the other thing is people are changing on this i mean people are changing on abortion we see it every day so laws change behavior and save lives and then public opinion has changed when people are educated when they learn about the abortion procedure when they see this through the lens of human rights when they understand the resources that are available for women especially low-income women or women in difficult situations people change and they don't want the violence of abortion and that that's what i i think is exciting and that's what we can focus on i have a question could she be right that with the texas abortion ban that people are just fleeing into other states and so cutting abortion in half could maybe not be accurate well i think there will absolutely always be some people no matter the law that you pass that will break that law or try to break the law but there's no evidence that says that the 50 of children who have been uh not aborted in texas because of their abortion ban in in the state are going out of state like 50 of all those women are leaving the state there's no evidence of that whatsoever so i think we have to look at at the at the statistics yeah i um i'm just i'm really frustrated because i'm i'm really trying to articulate something and i don't know how to get it through but what i'm wanting to say is that this idea of you believe that life begins a concern i don't believe it brenda it's not my personal belief i think that's a no it's not i learned it and okay but then sixth grade biology look at us this is mouse wheels it's mouse wheels because i i don't know why it is why you're not i mean i think you're not willing to acknowledge the scientific reality because it would mean that abortion would end an end of human life and you don't want to admit it but i would encourage you to stop believing the side of the conversation i'm happy to say abortion ends a life okay like well i don't think you should say anything you don't believe i think you need to believe it it's it's not that i don't believe what i just said it's that i literally honestly honest to god see no purpose in this line of conversation this to me is the biggest factor i agree if you're this to me is the biggest frustration when i come to the table because i am telling you for the umpteenth time i am here to prevent abortion because i don't like abortion and i would like for those numbers to decrease or in some magical land be completely eradicated not every person believes the same way that i do some people in my camp would think that's a little extreme and they want me to feel less moralistic or less emotional about it but i do and i feel comfortable sitting in that gray and saying i don't feel comfortable with this so what does that do that propels me into an obsession an absolute obsession with figuring out how we make this place hospitable to new life you and i deciding or arguing about biology class it gets us nowhere i don't see this going anywhere all it's going to do is have viewers be like lila said all the right facts and brenda stumbled around because it doesn't know the proper words and we've solved nothing except make both camps feel like nice and tidy that they're on the right side of things okay you finish up i wanna i have a perfect question for you after what you just said because i do think that you speak to what a lot of pro-choice people feel um most choice people when you ask them why they're pro-choice they say i wouldn't personally get an abortion because like you said i think you're right that a lot of people who are pro-choice aren't like championing it championing it championing it um but they say but i personally i wouldn't want to force or restrict someone else from ending a pregnant keeping a pregnancy that they didn't want why is that not good enough for you that seems to be a lot of people's stance and i want to respond to what brenda just said too so i'll start with what you just said ellen um i would say i mean i say is you can have a personal opposition to something you know let's say i'm personally opposed to child abuse but it would be wrong for you to say okay but i'm not going to tell somebody else how to treat their child some things a lot of some things well i i think it is a fair comparison if you acknowledge the science of when life begins and you acknowledge that we're talking about a human life and i think human lives are precious and they have rights and so you know i think our personal belief around something um does matter but we also have to acknowledge things that are outside of our personal beliefs which are both science and moral law around human rights you have thoughts i also want to respond to apprentices okay but i don't know if you want to know go for it um and then to your other point brenda which i think you were you were sharing about how you want to have an obsession on making life better for people which i think is beautiful i the the starting point in my book and the reason that i'm working to educate every day about what abortion actually is connect women to the resources that are out there is that we cannot have a culture of life really people flourish if we literally in our communities have centers set up where people are killing pre-born children and and that's that that is a culture of death by definition and so other cultures of death in our society though i agree there's a necessity for people i agree with you there's a lot of other i agree with you i'm gonna push back a little on the necessity word because i think women are a lot more uh capable than we give them credit for a lot of the time and there's a lot more resources that do exist i think fear is a big part of a lot of abortions fear of the future um fear of the repercussions and so i think part of it is legitimate i i i'm not if your child is going into an abusive foster care system like that fear is legitimate it's based on a reality it's based on a fact if you are a black woman in louisiana being forced to give birth and one of they have the number one highest maternal death rate in our nation and you think abortion is helping when more women give birth health healthfully i mean that makes sense i think that if you are hypothetically a black i mean abortion doesn't improve maternal mortality rates for for black women yes but i'm talking about in this sphere like you can't minimize or say that i'm not just in fear i know you're i'm not trying to imply you're minimizing anything but i'm saying to just say well people are resilient and they can actually do better when i have a society around me a nation and a party that claims to be pro-life but does so many things that actually result in the opposite like these are not just fears these are valid valid concerns that are happening every single day the highest maternal death rates in this country happen to be in states that are wanting to force birth louisiana texas there's many others jersey they're not all even just pro-life so-called states and we're not even focusing on a maternal death rate problem or the maternal death rate of black women so it's not that abortion has to be a necessity and i can understand why you push back on that however if you already have children which is the majority of people who seek out abortions and you're worried about poverty which is valid and you're seeing your children not be able to eat and you're seeing all these systemic problems your kids are getting shot in school these are not just fears these are valid concerns that cause people to say you know what i don't want to bring a baby into this inhospitable place where i might die there it's going to take our entire nation our unity um to solve that and that's why i got so frustrated and i still feel that frustration inside of me on what i'm calling the mouse wheel because our aligning and deciding we agree when life begins will not also change my stance on what needs to happen and that abortion needs to be accessible until we can make sure those freaking women aren't dying out there and i i think we're in agreement that there is a death culture in our country a culture that is often very inhabitable to human flourishing and it's all hands on deck it's in how we treat each other it's in how we treat our own families that we're given or we're born into our chosen families it's in you know the communities we're part of and how we're helping our neighbors there's a lot there to unpack but how i i can't it is um i think impossible to achieve i think the society you're dreaming of and i agree i i'm united with you in a society that's open to human life flourishing human beings can flourish while permitting the violent act of abortion against our youngest and most vulnerable members and that's why i'm here i'm here to say i can't give you that point to say oh it's okay to just kill them in the room as long as they're 20 weeks not 21 weeks and then we're going to go out and make life better for everybody else i we can't those two things can't hold together we need to say all life is precious and set the tone right from the beginning and then act on that go in reverse because until this place is hospitable like every place that so you prioritizes its citizens prioritizes comprehensive sex ed from five years old prioritizes access to birth control prioritizes not killing its citizens through gunfire the myriad of things prioritizes maternal health and making sure women don't die in birth the nations that do that have lower rates of abortion than we do in this country because i why why wouldn't you then like then you would actually have to have another reason then you would jump to another thing like to me the true tragedy is that many people go into those abortion clinics and they are there out of a necessity that is not just perceived it is valid and real and we are not focusing on how to make it hospitable for them like i agree with we'll do that is the abortion clinic making it hospitable for them i think i i think this is where i agree but we also disagree profoundly and that i am all and most of the work of the public movement i don't know how familiar you are with the pro-life movement i know there's a lot of stereotypes especially among you know the the pro-choice abortion side that likes to think of the perfect movement in a certain way but the pro-life movement that i'm a part of is day in and day out supporting women and young families and children in communities through helping getting involved in the foster care system to make it better i have many friends active in fostering organizations active and fostering to support healthier outcomes for those kids make life better for them helping women who are unexpectedly pregnant help them with the material resources that they need helping make adoption as positive as possible because it is a beautiful thing it can be very challenging but it can also be really beautiful there's a lot there that's beautiful that i'd love to explore with you but i still cannot see it and we cannot accept killing a child as somehow the foundation of this beautiful culture of life that we want to build together maybe the question is like i i again do you hate that it's political because i don't like to be divided and that becomes black and white as well democrat republican but i am curious if i could ask a political affiliation or if there is anything any relevance in that to you because it's not like a misconception that pro-lifers so-called tend to be in the republican camp like donald trump was a pro-lifer so-called all of that stuff so i'm used to seeing these people legislating for the removal of bodily autonomy the removal of reproductive rights also simultaneously vehemently against comprehensive sex ed and going on channels and instigating all of this fear and fear mongering around they're gonna teach your kid anal sex at five years old and all of this stuff to make people afraid i also know a lot of these states that are trying to legislate forced birth are also trying to get rid of birth control and get rid of access to women's health in general and again not even looking or taking care of their maternal death problems so i think it is important to get into that because i can respect you very much so if you tell me look i'm here on the ground i have this personal belief system that i believe is fact that i don't believe is fact but you know you have your own belief and you have built your entire life around that and in doing so the work that you're doing may be beautiful and you may be instigating a lot of beautiful change in society in the small pockets of people that you have access to even if it's a lot of people the larger question for me then becomes but what do we do as a larger society because we're talking about legislation we're talking about the supreme court and roe v versus wade so this isn't just about like community we don't even have infrastructure of good community like my dad taught in inner city philly to exclusively black and brown students while i sat in my middle class class that was exclusively white and the disparities between the way we have redlined and treated some communities and put them on the outskirts which i'm sure you are incredibly familiar with with the work that you do has again made such a level of inhabitability for people and such a level of egregious poverty and pain that i just don't see how we can address this issue without addressing the fact that these values that people espouse or seem to have don't align with making policies that will statistically provably decrease abortion rates and help mediate this problem so before you reply do you this is like exactly a question i was going to ask you do you think that the way we talk about this debate pro-life and pro-choice is accurate and descriptive to how people who hold those views truly think and act it sounds like you don't think so because you feel you kind of label like pro-life as republicans and pro-choice are democrats and so therefore they don't you know republican republicans don't care democrats do care what do you think yeah and i'm sure you could already intuit my resistance to that i don't again being in the gray i don't ever look at someone and be like oh you're a republican this means x y z you're pro level for choice and that means x y and z and i also think that that does a great disservice as well because i think attention grabbing headlines do a lot of work that can be so counterproductive because in getting someone's attention in a society that has like an attention deficit and will only read a headline and they won't get into the mire of like but wait did this really help prevent abortion is this really doing a good service to the community and the people involved like and then also having these these ideas about one side being evil we're baby killers you are you know you don't care about life outside of the womb we all have these stereotypes of each other and then when you talk to people on the ground which you and i both do you find that is not true that people run the gamut on the reasons they have abortion the reasons they don't or wouldn't the reasons they vote the way that they do but there's so much fallacy so many misnomers i mean not only with the abortion debate but also just in like women's health in general like me having what is it called when you're old ass pregnancy over 35 you are a i don't know geriatric pregnancy oh there's a lot of misnomers in the medical field that i think we have to work through and i try my best to honor all of that said with all of that complication i am not at all seeing an alignment between values and legislation and i am not at all seeing an alignment between being quote pro-life but really like really to the truest sense of the word pro-life overturning roe v wade is not pro-life because it's going to cause so much more death it's going to cause so much more heartbreak because these same legislators won't legislate things that actually improve the society and make it again hospitable for life okay lyla i mean i i disagree i think there's a lot that you just said so to try to boil down some of it um if there are centers in our communities where there are doctors who are killing human beings for profit which is what they do for money and we don't have health care we have to pay for it well then the taxpayers will be paying for but regardless um that that's a culture of death so that's that's that's violence against the most vulnerable members of our population so i know you've said so it's like what about everything else but i i want to address that but i think there's a fundamental there is obviously a fundamental disagreement you're not acknowledging them as human beings they're just sort of maybe you mentioned spirits or i don't know what's so important for you to get me there because i think this is a conversation about human rights and there is a whole there is a whole apparatus that legally that has succeeded in removing the human rights of a whole group of people simply because they're not born yet and that's one of the reasons i agreed to come here today because i'm advocating for their right to just exist their right to be born born into what and and let's we can talk about the world but you guys the first right is to be is to is to live that's the first right okay so what about all the other stuff that she said so and all the other things i think we'd probably agree on a lot i don't know what you know i think so too because that's the point i'm always trying to but i but we can agree on a lot like i could sit down with someone and sit down with you and we can agree a lot about you know women deserve health care i mean pregnant mothers deserve the best care that they can we can provide as a society like are you a champion of universal health care i mean i think there's a lot of disagreements about how we can get there i think we have to really focus i'm a big believer of if you want to talk about the theory here subsidiarity so making the community as responsible for each other as possible so the kind of top down you know at the federal level push for how communities individual communities should behave usually gets into a lot of trouble and issues but i would say yes we need to ensure in our communities that women have health care i think there's right now a starting place is making sure that taxpayer dollars are being rerouted away from abortion to provide actual prenatal care for mothers but what about i think that's a that's a first step but what what fun and i've advocated for that that um publicly many times i don't know abortion provided by our society though you have to pay for it that's not completely accurate in many states abortion is paid for by the state for low-income women and planned parenthood is the recipient of over half a billion dollars in uh federal tax dollars every single year so as an immediate public policy solution i'd say reroute that money to provide free and comprehensive prenatal care to amend another no because killing a human being is not healthcare and we can keep going in circles but no because killing a human being is not healthcare so but caring for that human being and their mother is healthcare and i would absolutely advocate for that well let's talk about healthcare for a second because again my experience is that i had a job i was paying 365 dollars a month for my health care when i got pregnant i was going to lose my job because i was modeling so can't maintain the normal body that would be required and my insurance company quoted me six thousand to one hundred and twenty thousand dollars for the entire process of prenatal care post all of that which would i wish i had been in touch with you because i could have connected you to a doctor who would have done it for you for free and that's where was that accessible to like everybody if if you're if you're struggling to pay your bills and you're a pregnant woman i will connect you and please if someone's listening to this and this is a if someone's listening to this and they are considering abortion because they're struggling to pay medical bills please contact us we will connect you with direct payment for your medical bills so that you do not have to have an abortion on your shoulders like so you just said we should take these problems on your shoulders though no i mean i feel like i wish our society took care of us i wish america was what i believed that it was going to be when i was little i think the difference is that like one side you don't want to push it to like both camps extremes like that but there's differences of opinion on whether it's the most helpful for the government to delegate all the tax dollars and all that all the ways to help people or if we should have more of a focus and an emphasis towards valuing helping us i think it's a myth i think it's a mix and i think that we can't make it all or or one i think there's um it's complex and different communities are different but it is a mix and i think that we have some social safety nets but i would passionately support and i do and live action does the networks of support that exist and are growing for young families especially low-income families and young mothers so is that sufficient families because middle class people have the those two those two brenda those two i mean would that it would that be a sufficient way to move forward instead of focusing on like tax dollars doing something like that because some people disagree that like tax that tax dollars are spent very efficiently or wisely and so would something like a non-profit like this trying to help women who are suffering as an example there's something there's opioid medical clinics i've served on their advisory board and we've worked closely with them in the past and they have been working over the years aggressively to try to create a national brand so it's recognizable it's easy for women to know they exist because i think what you just said i didn't know like you didn't know that there was someone who could have helped maybe pay those bills if you knew who to email or who to you know what hotline to call and that's tragedy you know because those resources do exist and so you know one one example of this is oprah medical clinics which are pro-life clinics providing prenatal care care for health care for women providing also resources when you've had your baby financial support even parenting classes i mean a whole gamut of support for a woman who might be in a situation of need or for young men families it can be for both and what's so tragic is they've had a struggle to even get taxpayer dollars some of which are going under the same grant fund to planned parenthood because why they're pro-life so you know we're in a society where you're saying well the government needs to do more the government right now is blinded our especially our current administration as by lethal killing of children as a solution to problems and so a lot of the the air in the room and the funding is going that direction as opposed to going towards pro-life solutions i mean this makes me sad because why do we just have to funnel in one direction or the other like right it could be both yeah like i it should be both in my opinion it should absolutely be both we shouldn't have to be like taking this little slice of pie and being like please give it to us no please give it to us it's just like women's healthcare pregnant people's healthcare should be top top top tier priority again we are not addressing the maternal death well i think what she's saying when i said it could be both i think just to be clear so we're on the same page we're talking that it could be tax dollars and it also could be private organizations helping right are you for that well for the record i would like to say this kind of conversational attitude gets me going yes i'm like oh now we're going somewhere like this is meaningful to me because what it shows is like this is what i want to talk about well we protect women who are pregnant how do we protect people in these circumstances how do we let them know what funds are available to them what's the best governmental program to help make sure that we are taking care of these people if we were arguing about that like what's the best way to save black women from dying in childbirth i would scream all day with someone about that if we were talking about legislation and solution like this is meaningful to me this to me is where we will intersect and actually start solving these issues okay lila to kind of address she brought up a great point about all these specific issues and you and live action are doing a lot to help like you're explaining your specific instances where you're helping individuals and communities um but since there was literally there's a lot of like issues that she brought up you can't take on the burden of all of it and like what she's bringing up you know there was over 600 000 abortions last year it sounds like you want to ban all abortions from happening so that would be 600 000 more kids a lot of them in poverty and in tough situations so i the question is what is your plan to deal with that but that's not fair because like what you said is like that can't all be on your shoulders this is whatever your whole life is based on well no i wanna start by just saying and to anyone listening right now you can be against and proudly be against lethal violence against a developing child in the womb and not feel like you have to go out at the same time and magically on your own solve every social ill that we face because we face many you can be proudly against lethal violence against children and not feel like you can't be against it unless you go out and solve every social ill in the world that said um the social ills deserve attention the greatest of which is abortion because it's the killing of over 800 000 children a year our other social ills deserve attention i don't know if you can follow what i say online but i i occasionally speak out against other social ills that i perceive and i'm concerned about live action certainly is involved again in connecting women to support and resources our primary focus is education because i have found that sometimes it is simply education having awareness of your own um the the development of your own pregnancy the development of that child the facts about the abortion procedure that can mean life or death for that child and the lifestyle education and the lifelong so just finish and the lifelong regret of abortion that many women experience that simply education on abortion procedures its risks and the development of the child can mean life or death for the child and mean avoiding a lifetime of pain and regret for a mother so i think that that is a fear i think that's my opinion so you're saying women don't regret abortions because i can just introduce you i'm just saying hundreds of educating people on a certain lived experience that not everybody shares and presenting it as the thing that happens and also so you can get to the most extreme cases like showing aborted fetuses that are later in term to like just it's bringing attention to me to like inciting things inciting fear inciting emotion versus to me education is educating people on their body their personhood their consent how to have sexual integrity how to not rape how to heal from sexual trauma so that they don't perpetuate that sexual trauma unto other people sex education basic fundamental ideas of how you're getting pregnant these same states that are trying to enforce birth also have the highest rates of teen pregnancy and std because they refuse to educate their kids on how you get freaking pregnant and that leads to so many abortions so i i would just talk about multiple things that you just said um i think there's some inaccuracies there but just on the last thing that you said which is you started talking about sexual um sex education before going to that which is another topic we can discuss um you started off you know you were responding just by saying to tell a woman about the abortion procedure you said is somehow i think this is what you're saying correct me if i'm wrong i somehow fear you know instilling fear in them and i it's baffling to me quite frankly because i think informed consent even if you're an abortionist you know and you should at least your patient deserves to know what that abortion procedure is so much emotionality you're like and this so i would i would direct you to the resource we use because the the primary resource that we use are medical professionals former abortionists explaining the abortion procedure and medically accurate depictions of the abortion procedures and those are the primary vehicle that we used along with you know story is a figurehead so this is the kind of information so you're saying i can't so i'm trying to understand so you're saying that it's wrong to be passionate against violent act against children because that would instill fear in someone no i think it's wrong and misleading to say that there's only one experience that people have of abortion and there's i didn't say that brenda well okay so i think it's wrong to present one idea that it's sad that it's tragic that it causes it is that a child is it doesn't have a life in front of in front of him or her but there is a there's like a medical way to do it in which you present the facts and people can there's a medical way to kill someone nationality about it i mean not everybody feels the same way yeah we're not good we're going to keep going in circus because you're saying well if it's done in a medical setting and if it's not done not 21 weeks but at 19 or 15. i mean if you were getting cancer treatments the doctor came in like flailing his arms and was really emotional about it that's not the way you give people facts and information about i don't know anyone flailing their own life so i i'm not saying you as the figurehead that's the kind of information education you're giving people by ex expressing it in that way i think it's not everyone's shared experience i think you're misrepresenting our how we educate okay so i'm gonna move forward to the next question um you have this is for you brenda you have said that you're pro-choice because of your faith what faith is that and lila please respond with your thoughts after you share really do believe fundamentally that we have a god-given right to our own autonomy and obviously i understand the complication because a pregnant person is then carrying something that could become a life in this world but when i look out in the world and i see things through the lens of my christian faith and when i see things through the lens of the way jesus behaved and walked through this world i see so many egregious tragedies that can be prevented all around me i think it is exciting that so many people are waking up to all of these things that they had no idea about before like for me i understood poverty and racial disparity and racism growing up just because i had a front row to segregation by means of watching my dad go to a school that he would never permit me or my brother to go to because it was dangerous he had like four or five kids die throughout every summer and he would come and sit down with us september 8th and be like teary-eyed and be like we lost so-and-so so and so so and so to gun violence and and hunger and different things that were happening only in this community 15 minutes away from where we lived so i knew all of that and it really wasn't until we had all of these social upsets when we were sitting at home in our houses really marinating on everything that happened george floyd was killed i personally had so many more awakenings to what injustices are happening what kind of white supremacy this nation is built on how all of these things burgeoned and became the issues that they are today and there are solves to it like when you looked in the camera and said this isn't your responsibility that might not be a quote but it's not your responsibility i think you said to to take on the burden of every social issue no i said you i don't know the exact quote it's important to get the question that's fine you anyone listening can be proud of being against lethal violence against children without feeling that they have to solve all of our social ills before being against lethal violence against okay yeah so i agree with that but at the same time i worry that complacency trust me the pro-life movement that i am involved with the thousands of activists i work with are anything but complacent i mean obviously yes but i mean complacency as far as the other thing yeah they're looking at all i invite you to spend some time with some of us because day in and day out there's work on the sidewalks of abortion clinics many of them to connect and accompany those women to the life-changing positive resources and support that they need and deserve and it can be life-changing and transformative and i think that's beautiful i think an individual going out and doing what they they can in their own community is great but i bring up the segregation point too because there are communities that are in dire need that are not getting any of the resources that we have and the onus being put on each community to take care of themselves and hold each other's hands and like walk through these systems or have to build non-profits around places just to fix these issues that i can see easily addressed by changing our tax laws by changing who is getting what funds and what's important to us in the society our legislators our higher-ups the supreme court etc are not properly prioritizing to me the things that would be aligned with preventing abortion there are statistical facts on what prevents abortion like mother effing sex education and to watch people continually again and again rally against that like that's what i worry about because when i don't know what you're referring to there okay i'm talking about again looking at the camera moment because it's my projection of what i can imagine people how i can imagine people reacting to it and that doesn't come from nothing just being on social media i have learned how people respond to things how they receive information and with something like that i think a lot of people feel very comfortable being like i'm a republican because i'm a christian and because i believe in the right to life and they'll celebrate what's happening in louisiana or texas with abortion thinking great it's going to get solved and that is the complacency that i met not your complacency or the complacency of your organization but the complacency of being like great like we have made it illegal now it's going to be better there's so much statistical fact to show that that is not going to get better that women still do seek abortion even if it's illegal they've done it in dire circumstance because there is not just fear around this again like i said earlier they are valid concerns that i still haven't seen addressed in the party that deems itself pro-life and again i don't know what like political organ or affiliation you have but like can you recognize the disparity in that can you recognize that in a state like louisiana if they are against comprehensive sex ed and they're doing abstinence-only education that that is counterproductive to the work that you're attempting to do i think we can get into a discussion on what you mean by comprehensive sex ed and i think that absolutely women and girls deserve to be educated on their fertility on their bodies i think that and men should too i agree with that i agree with you um i think that when it comes to sex education a lot of it centers around the bio biological act of sex which i think is important but i think what's most important is relationship education for healthy relationships that's where sex happens healthy or unhealthy relationships and that needs to be the large focus and fortunately a lot of the comprehensive sex education that you mentioned that i've looked at especially coming from groups like planned parenthood does not do that um it's actually toxic and promotes uh sexual behaviors and activities that are harmful that lead to increased pregnancy that lead to psychological emotional problems so we could get into a conversation on that planned parenthood prevents so much pregnancy by giving access to birth control that i otherwise couldn't afford if i because because we have you no universal health care and also that is not true i'm a i'm a comprehensive sex educator myself and comprehensive sex ed is about consent it is about learning about the body it is about understanding inappropriate touch it's age appropriate throughout the ages it also is beautiful because it will help people not instigate sexual violence against one another i think again you want me to be really careful about the way i perceive and speak about your movement please do me the same honor comprehensive sex ed is mother effing beautiful and it statistically delays sex by two years in countries that actually do this service to their children and teens because when we have a fear-based fear-centered education around sex that is abstinence-only just weight and doesn't give kids any information that they actually need to prevent pregnancy stds it is exacerbating the problem that you are trying to solve and this again is another thing like now i feel like we're off the mouse wheel can we get off the mouse wheel and be like can we agree that comprehensive sex education that is age-appropriate that does include relationship and honoring of one another is something that we should have nationwide so that the problem that you're trying to address isn't as enormous as you're dealing with right now so you mentioned planned parenthood's comprehensive sex education just you know i'm not hanging my hat on planned parenthood like you didn't love them you said earlier i think you love them so i'm i'm trying to understand what you mean i appreciate what they've done for me because they were the only access to women's health that i had when i needed it when i was living in poverty myself they have been the only option and that is why i support them but i have conflicts about them so just for the record like i have no interest in getting into like a planned parenthood specific discussion because they're one of the leading they're one of the leading educators um of or promoters of a certain kind of comprehensive sex education and they actually have a um dangerous sexual activity i i can speak to that if you'd like what planned parenthood's comprehensive sex education as they say it it's very harmful about it so some of it encourages sexual exploration you could say among very young children even sexual exploration among um first grade second grade exploring your genitals you have your own body um well most girls towards pleasure towards pleasure to try to encourage basically the mass masturbation of young children i mean it encourages your vape no matter what it encourages i started masturbating when i was three years old these are you think it's appropriate to for a teacher to tell a little six-year-old how to masturbate you think that's appropriate they're not teaching anyone how to masturbate comprehensively what are they like that added space is helping people understand we educate each other on everything school is all about educating people on different subjects and the one thing that we're not giving kids any education on is their own body their own sexuality what's fundamentally important to us as a society so then it leaves the onus on parents to do that education which they don't even have the tools for and the average age that a child discovers pornography is eight years old it's horrific and a lot of the way to skirt that is to educate this is these are fear and lies around other comprehensive sex side like again what is a fear and a lie that the teachers are showing you like this is how you touch your voice there are actual curriculum that there's actual curriculum that shows images of young children and encourages them to masturbate and i can you know we can do an addendum and i can send you the link and you put it in the description yeah i mean i'd be curious to see that that's not my education i have i'm glad to hear that but i can continue to speak to planned parenthood's comprehensive sex education as you call it if you'd like to talk about the issues that i have let's go into a little bit um and and and as the proactive i'm a big fan of something called fertility awareness education which is really essential to what it means to be to have your sexual development happen i mean what's happening in your body what what does that mean for as a woman how do you be a healthier and happier and then on top of that relationship education which it sounds like you're also in agreement with but that can go a lot of different ways because planned parenthood says to young teens that you alone know when you're ready to have sex that it's not there's not some moral um uh universe around it that you get to decide 100 and your decisions are valid as long as you know you're not being a victim of sexual violence basically basically consent is their only moral value that they place on it and i think that's incredibly harmful to teenagers you as a parent and also well but it's not up to me as a parent if planned parenthood is in my school promoting that kind of garbage to my young children i don't think it's garbage i think everyone again i'm a big believer in personal autonomy and i believe that teenagers and even pre-teens are much more advanced than we give them credit for it i agree with that minimizing a person's ability to make wise decisions for themselves by giving them full access to all of the information that they need about their body and their sexuality promotes healthy decision-making naturally and then when they go home and they can have additional conversations with their parents you could add addendums to that that would include your religion and your religious values that might not be taught at school it's not anti-religion it's not pro having sex young quite the opposite it's about giving kids all the information they need to make wise informed decisions about their body i i think this conversation might not go as far as we would hope it would because you're using this term comprehensive sex education i'm giving concrete examples of what is included in planned parenthood's version of course i don't have a problem with either of those though i have a problem but the way you're framing it you're framing it in a moralistic way which is i'm telling you so if you don't think there are moral uh there's morality around sex i think that everyone's morality around it can be completely different you as a catholic are going to have different morality so you don't do this you don't think that there are any foundations for morality around sex anything that the comprehensive sex said what does that mean let's let's talk it's consent so so consent is the morality that is sufficient for you when it comes to sex as long as the person says that they agree to it it's sufficient no it's incredibly complicated which is why usually in other countries and like norway and sweden they begin at five years old and do an age-appropriate conversation throughout their entire education because it's an evolving conversation but you just have their understanding of all but you just said brenda that everybody gets to decide for themselves absolutely including children and i'm trying i didn't say including children i think we were talking about children we're talking about sex education for children i don't have any problem with either the two points you just made the way they're being framed is like more inciting than i think is necessary how it how is it how is it being framed that's not i guess what's called a well let's figure out what's a chil what's a child like what do we because because i guess when we were talking about you know like a a child who was pregnant at 10 or 12 like that's considered a child like you'll use that word child but right now it sounds like you don't want to use the word child if it comes to comprehensive sex ed at 10 or 12. or do you think that's a child so what age is no longer a child not it but what age what like because because i think that's why i think that's where we're getting hung up or where you two are getting hung out yeah i wasn't i'm not hung up on that language i'm very comfortable and confident saying there are children there are pre-teens they're yeah okay there's like yes i'm i'm i'm an expert so when you make a comment that they get to decide completely what's right for them there's they shouldn't have some morality or some sort of compass for their behavior imposed on them i just find that incredible to believe because certainly you think that there are certain uh you know rules of engagement you could say when it comes to sex and then you mention there is one there's consent and then i asked you is was consent the only one is that the only kind of okay there's no what's another one it's well for me i mean i have my own personal definition but for comprehension sex education because you're saying i'm a comprehensive sex educator you're saying planned parenthood does it but you don't necessarily agree with planned parenthood and then you're saying that it involves this very nuanced complex process and i'm saying yes children should be educated on their bodies and that they should be given relationship education age-appropriate but i think what we think that looks like or should look like is very different so i'm trying to tease out the differences right now i think what i hear implied by people that are afraid of comprehensive sex ed i'm not i don't know who's afraid here i didn't say well a lot of people in a lot of but but what do you mean by comprehensive sex education because i guarantee you yeah i'll maybe do this one first because these are the options that i see that you uh women a lot of girls will explore their body and start masturbating and orgasming at three years old we start really young i actually started three maybe even earlier i don't remember and that is very common boys will start later but again boys are discovering porn at the age of eight years old are you okay are you against that absolutely why why if you're saying it's okay and kids should be kind of supportive and masturbating why do you have a problem with porn no one because because well i mean are you against masturbation i guess is a good question i think that it is completely inappropriate for teachers or for parents not not teachers or for parents if uh how to masturbate i think that is child sexual abuse no one means to learn how to masturbate you have it intuitively inside of yourself what they are saying is that it is okay to explore your body and your body is for yourself you can't be touched in certain places what you're doing is educating children so i think you're sexualizing children no because a child who's touching their their body parts to say that that child is masturbating and that the parent should somehow encourage or come around that child to allow that child to or not even allow but teach that child well this is masturbation why are you saying teach that child so what would you say what's the appropriate i have a question though i have a question for you because could it be possible that it's helpful to not shame or put down like like she's saying when children are not like touching themselves and then affirm hold on i think she might be i think she might be saying more like affirming that it's like look if that's something you want to do in the privacy of your home something you might i don't want to miss call you but yeah there's a lot of um in between where it's like it's encouraging masturbating or not like this is kind of going off of the discussion but it's kind of important too because this is something you really consider helps prevent abortion in what you call comprehensive sex adversity what you call comprehensive sex ed is different so let's just finish this up go ahead and answer a little quick answer and then i have another question to move on to um i don't think that in any way children should be shamed about their bodies right and i think that they should be given age-appropriate guidance for their bodies like if their child says like what's this and you make up some weird term for you know that's your vagina that's your penis i think that's actually really important to use okay but what i think is completely inappropriate yeah and actually abusive is to take an innocent three-year-old who might be exploring their body or just like oh what's you know what's this and say oh that's masturbation you can go in your room and feel around there and then you might experience something called an orgasm i think that's completely inappropriate and abusive and it's sexualizing a three-year-old okay i don't know why you're saying it's sexualizing a three-year-old because then i was sexualizing myself i think [ __ ] i think there might be what you're saying is like encouraging in a way of like it's called graphic type of yeah versus absolutely not so that's okay so that's a fundamental difference here this to me is like really devastating that you won't come to the table with me on this particular issue because if you if your organization would do me the great honor and pleasure of actually championing comprehensive sex ed that you and i still haven't defined it brenda you can't use you can't use that you're using because you are saying things that i completely disagree with but you just said no one agreed with planned parenthood doing it that kind of education so i'm not i'm confused is not talking about teaching like you're not guiding kids in masturbation some of these books are some of their when they're eight years old and you've taught them abstinence only and haven't taught them anything about their body and they discover porn then they're gonna know i i'm not advocating for that so i agree on making sure the children are safe and protected and not sexualized the fact of the matter is a lot of children in this country are sexually abused and they will be discovering it way before that they even should have so you know what comprehensive sex ed can do is tell you you know when you discover this it's pleasureful right that is only for you that is for you is that if anyone else is i think you can you can avoid um teaching or uh encouraging in some way a child to explore masturbation and still teach them boundaries with adults and protect them protective mechanisms with it with adults so to conflate the two i think is incorrect well no i'm not conflating them like to say your private parts are for yourself you're not to if someone is trying to touch you there that's inappropriate you say no you want you might you can do you can do appropriate protection training for little children who might be victims of sexual assault you're showing us it's not working a lot i don't know that it's not working as much if it's not some of it's not working and some of it's just not being done but planned parenthood is not the solution because they are sexualizing children and a lot of their their practices are horrible and we've done exposes on them we've done reports on them and i can direct people to that i mentioned two examples earlier i mean saying a child is being sexualized because they are being told to not have shame when they're exploring their body in private i didn't say that i i i think that's yeah you're saying things that are like really over the top that are not happening well i don't know if they're not happening but i do think this is a really fascinating conversation on what comprehensive sex ed is what's optimal can i say one other quick thing because i do have a curriculum that i think is fantastic and that is done by a group called fem um and they have some amazing um they're connected to some amazing curriculum that they're offering that is age-appropriate um really focusing not just on your biology there's some biology to it but when you're very young it's mostly about your relationships and your sense of self in the world so there is and if anyone's listening as an educator and wants to know is there a great alternative to say what planned parenthood is doing uh what do you mean by absence only like that it encourages to save sex for marriage as like the only option i think that what i would encourage and what the curriculum later on encourages when it gets into that is when you have sex to understand that this should be in a relationship that is uh committed that is um and usually these are the qualities of a marriage right religious bias i i don't i don't know how that's a religious bias marriage marriage is not a real so i want to move on because we have other things i do want to talk about but i do think based on your sex can create new human life when you're uh post puberty so what i what i wish we were gonna come to terms with though is that if we had however you want to define it if we had education in this nation to help children or help people not get pregnant and have informed information about their bodies throughout their entire life so they were completely comfortable and assured about the making of the body the making of a baby then you wouldn't have the big problem on your hands that you do well i think there's a fundamental i think there's a fundamental disagreement on what the best comprehensive sex ed is and whether it should be up to the parents to teach their child versus public education it's a fascinating topic in and of itself could be an entire episode but i do want to move on i'm glad we got to talk a little bit about it though um so let's talk about some challenging circumstances which is a lot of the for like uh the conversation around abortion right like back to that right even though this is so important i know that the comprehensive sex said for sure i know that this is a big part of like the conversation that's formed around what helps prevent unwanted pregnancies and all that but lila what is your position on i know you kind of talked about it but let's like elaborate a little more and then i have a tough question for um a circumstance for you for us like a hard circumstance for you as well my first question to you delilah is what is your position on abortion when it comes to the horrific instances of rape or incest or when there's an extreme health risk to the mother so often a lot of times when people talk about abortion it is and like approach being pro-choice is like well how could you limit that for women who have extreme health risks how do you respond to that rape and ancestor horrific and a survivor of sexual violence deserves all the support and care counseling support of people around her we need to be much more aggressive about prosecuting and holding abusers accountable because there's a lot of abuse running rampant in our society and abusers are not held accountable if a baby is conceived there's an innocent third party now there's another human life there and so the solution to sexual violence can never be a homicide can never be taking out the penalty for the crime um onto the child i mean that's this myth of uh generational sin that your appear the myth of general generational sin in the terms of consequence that because your father was a rapist then you should bear his penalty or you should bear a penalty and be killed for it you don't deserve to live you're you're less than human so i think that in that situation they deserve the care and support they deserve women deserve survivors deserves care and support but the solution can never be to kill that child and what about the extreme health risk of the mother um for extreme health risk of the mother i mean there's a common misconception in the abortion debate promoted by the pro-abortion side that abortions aren't medically necessary that you need to intentionally end the life of that child in order to somehow provide medical care for the mother and i work with thousands of medical professionals who say adamantly no we can care for them both and we should and if we want to improve maternity uh maternal mortality rates if we want to improve um the condition of pregnant women in this country we will not turn to knee-jerk having an abortion in the pregnancy kill the baby anytime there's a health issue or crisis we need to work on addressing what are the underlying conditions that that woman might have that is making her pregnancy more difficult how do we accompany her and have the right checkups and routines in place to ensure that we're catching something in time there's a lot you can do in the medical process that doctors do do pro-life doctors to care for both patients and that's what i would advocate for okay brenda response i mean i agree abortions in later pregnancy are not i mean they cause so much pain and strife and heartache and i've heard those stories and i've talked to those women and it's it's truly a horrific thing so yes i mean i agree our healthcare system and the way we take care of women and the babies should be top priority and i'm sure that it is in many instances i i think again there's not like a nefarious group of people that are just like super excited about killing babies there are some people that go to that more too quickly there are other people who do absolutely everything they can to do exactly what you said i think it runs the gamut humanity runs the gamut but ultimately i of course agree with everything you just said so do you agree then well not with the rape stuff okay yep so then you can talk about that go ahead oh just to respond you've mentioned this a couple times this nefarious group of people yeah that doesn't exist that you know are maybe enjoy or you know are profiting from the violence of abortion and i can tell you that they're i don't know about the term exactly nefarious but they're certainly um very ideologically driven violent uh practitioners of abortion one of them who's in behind bars right now kermit gosnell because he wasn't he's not behind bars for killing the child right before birth but he's behind bars because some of these babies would be born and this happens in in late term abortion a child can survive the abortion attempt because labor has been induced and before the abortion has had a chance to complete the abortion the baby can be born and kermit gosnell is behind bars because he not only killed one of the women and of his patients but he killed multiple children after birth so there are abortionists i've been undercover with some of them our team has been undercover with some of them who are practicing in this country legally um who are laughing about how they dismember the child who are talking about how they use their tool kit to dismember that child talking about how the child it's like getting the child run over by a mack truck during the abortion i mean really gruesome graphic things this is not some shock language from a pro-lifer this is from the words of abortionists themselves and i encourage people to look at live actions in human investigation which is exposing the actual abortionists themselves in their own words talking about their abortion procedures that they're committing i mean there's no doubt in my mind that there's a lot of pardon my french [ __ ] up people in the world and i really think that's atrocious obviously but the issue is that that's not the majority of abortions in this country and that's not ten thousand ten thousand it's not nothing later i'm never saying that it's not nothing more than children that died from guns and guns as you said is a leading cause of death but ten thousand children just well but you consider these two but hold on you're being a little bit you're being contradictory here because you said that uh after 21 weeks you consider them human lives persons that should have legal protection and 10 000 abortions annually happen after 21 weeks in this country so that you know again children killed by guns horrific those children are being dismembered some of them live dismemberment some of them lethal injection abortions but i've i've yet i mean i've instigated uh conversations on my channel can't you be against both well the thing is that i am against so later later what is it abortions later in pregnancy for no reason i guess what i'm trying to say is those abortions you know you mentioned how we need to care about the leading cause of death for children right and so i'm just sharing that that's ten thousand abortions and that's according to planned parenthood's research on themselves group macro and the cdc that the latest statistics i've seen i think from 2021 was about 7 000 children killed by guns also horrific so the leading cause of death even by your definition is abortion for children no because i wouldn't define it that way and again it's getting into the irrelevance for me because it's not that it's irrelevant you can like deeply hold that yourself but what i am saying and i've been saying and i will continue to say is that until this place is welcoming to new life and makes the yes to have a baby an easy yes and doesn't have all these obstacles of going into debt for health care of maybe dying when you're there because two out of three maternal deaths could have been stopped that is egregious to me it's egregious to me that people get in such dire circumstances of poverty or abuse or of sexual abuse that they do perform abortions on themselves if they're not accessible legally so so would you support banning abortions i'm i'm confused about your position because at one point you said they're children and now they're not children again would you support banning abortions after 21 weeks i'm just laughing not laughing and laughing to myself because i'm i'm admittedly telling you that i have not thought a lot about that terminology and that lingo and what i know forget the terminology for a minute do you support you know you clearly support um doing whatever we can in public policy to stop gun deaths of children right do you support using law to protect children at 21 and up weeks from lethal injections and dismemberment well i think for me it has to be necessary and a medical necessity i what medic what do you mean by that i mean there's a lot of cases i also i've like talked to a lot of people i'm going to also say that i'm not completely informed about all of the nuance about what happens beyond 21 weeks but the people that i have talked to are in great great pain about it it's not something because it's done because they know it's a child and it's extreme and it might actually appreciating for the conscience and so it's so wrong of us to say go for it no it's not the conscious i mean something the conscience of the person who's having the abortion it's excruciating for for many for many women i think they wanted to keep the baby but it was medically necessary and if they were told it was medically necessary and that is what makes me um so uh but we were worried about read on that i already told you i agree on that so you do agree that it's that it's not medically necessary that there isn't an instance on that because that is something that a lot of people i think are very very confusing let's put it this way let's put it this way in a late term abortion um just to keep it very simple here in a late term abortion the child you know you're talking about a viable baby that you're saying you support protecting their life i think that's what you're saying descriptive of how they die because i already know i mean i'm going to share that you can deliver that child via c-section or a vaginal delivery and abortion the difference between that and abortion deliver that child alive and give that child a fighting chance and abortion is designed to first kill that child and then deliver the child so what i'm trying to say and from the medical i mean back to the question of medically necessary in the late term and it's for the early term too and we can talk about that more if you'd like but um you can let that child live because in any procedure used to deliver that child if it's an abortion you're killing the child first just let them live let them be born alive it's there's no there's no medical necessity to kill the child first where we see eye to eye is that if there is not a necessity to do it i don't want it to be legal i don't want anyone to just go in and be like i want this late term abortion it costs twenty thousand dollars anyway so i don't know who well the state of california the state of california will pay for it um well that's because right now whatever framework we're in if there's a dispute on whether or not it's necessary that again is another really good conversation we could have that would actually propel some forward motion between our movements that i think would be beneficial because if we do decide together as a team that there are circumstances in which it is egregious and it is not necessary then we could champion that together and i could agree with you that that wouldn't be right whatever that circumstance may be but the current knowledge that i have is that it is considered a medical necessity in all different kinds if your source is planned parenthood yes you will i don't only have one source okay well if your source is abortion advocates yes they will probably experienced what medically necessary what is medically necessary i admittedly don't know enough about it to tell you all i do know is that i have not once spoken to anyone who is like willy nilly did this because i decided to it is an incredibly traumatic difficult decision for people to make and it is a decision that they feel and their doctor and their care provider felt was out of medical necessity did you know i mean i have a question two things one so do you think that doctors are lying to their patients that they need another mission many are misleading okay and then two can you guys get on the same page then based on the way you're explaining it based on what it sounds like you might be saying i'm not totally sure that you both agree that later at least late term abortion is never medically necessary that instead you can induce the baby it's absolutely not try to take care of that baby or do you agree that that medicine is agreeing with that i'm saying i don't have enough information on it but the current information i have on it is not i would get on the same page with you and say well then there needs to be more information and people need to understand that there is more choice than one but if there is more choice than one and if it isn't medically necessary then you know either way these people are going through an excruciating decision the abortion is very excruciating for the child as well i mean a doctor should never be misleading anyone into anything so i agree with you on that but i don't i don't know enough about late term abortion or abortion later in pregnancy to actually get into the mire of what that looks like okay what about um abortion being considered medically necessary in the beginning of a pregnancy because i've you know i've seen stories where women are saying i got pregnant i wanted to have this baby but i had to have an abortion because of specific medical issues medical not saying necessarily just you know the child had a fetal abnormality or anything like that but maybe health risk of the mother can you explain your position on that and let's see how you feel about that there's any common ground as just an example um dr anthony lovatino who's one of the uh professionals medical professionals that we work with he was one of the ones who was behind our first abortion procedure series you know explaining what happens during the abortion procedure he worked at a high-risk facility in upper new york uh for many years uh treating tens of thousands of patients and he said in his entire time treating high-risk pregnancy so he was a specialty doctor to go to my clinic to do that he never had to use abortion to resolve the medical emergency or or you know make them the pregnancy or the mother healthier in some way so what is the difference then because like let's say there was something are you saying because it's the way that you do it like if you uh induce the baby even if they're before viability you know that child won't survive that that's not abortion is that what you're explaining well i mean you're talking about the distinction between care for a pregnant mother in a risk high-risk pregnancy situation in the late later terms in the earlier terms like if we can acknowledge and agree like you're saying you're not so sure um but if you ca if you come to the if you came to the conclusion that okay yeah late-term uh pregnancy that if they were told that you know you we have to abort your baby because of xyz medically necessary you're saying instead a deuce the baby which induce the baby and give that child a fighting chance which is what i've seen other doctors i think they can defer the beginning of pregnancy if someone is like if there's a certain situation where there's something very extreme health risk of the mother and the baby are you saying that instead of you know dismembering the child in the way that you depict what abortion is instead if you induce the baby that that's not not abortion because i think people are really confused at what the what the difference is what i think is what you're saying i think i see what you're saying and i think often times the very high-risk stake situations with pregnancy happen later on in the pregnancy and so that's typically where this conversation is landing about these later term situations in some very rare cases there might be in like an emergency situation there might be the need extremely rare cases and so rare that even this doctor never saw this case in his clinic right so we're talking less than one percent less than probably 0.001 extremely rare cases where um labor might need to be induced before viability and these are extreme cases and even some doctors probably doctors you'll talk to say like well if you just give him a couple more weeks you manage the pregnancy she's in the hospital watched her vitals we can make it for both lives we can still make it for both lives so you would get pushback from some doctors on this but in that situation if it's a game time decision and that's you know that's not possible for some reason i think there could be some um you know if the goal is not to kill that child you're not going in there dismembering that child but you're inducing an early delivery and hoping that you can provide care for that child to live that's not an abortion okay so that's your question do you agree with that yeah i mean no it's really interesting like i need more education but that's not what's happening i mean what's happening is they're going in there and they're killing the child i mean so that's that's how abortion is the reason why i think this topic is so important and brenda you go ahead and reply is that this is a really common reason why people are pro-choice because they say for one what about rare extreme circumstances horrific instances of rape and incest for two and then the other example is you know extreme circumstances of the health risk of the mother or non-viability actually the most prevalent one is not even those two because like for example state of florida um they have research on how many um of the abortions are in the cases of rape or incest it's point two percent oh no i meant the reasons why people say why they are pro-choice well not saying the reasons why abortions happen i think we're all in agreement of that but just saying this is why i'm pro-choice because of what about these circumstances well a lot of the times it's i think there's even another dimension to it which is that um especially those on the pro-abortion side are saying we need and then they use like it's a medically necessary abortion that language is sometimes used they're actually not even talking about a health condition the mom has they're talking about a fetal abnormality a disability that the baby might have and they'll say this this abortion was medically necessary because my baby they might not use the word baby but because the fetus or something has some sort of um disability okay what are your thoughts on that yeah i mean but it's wrong to kill the baby i mean in that situation i would say the same thing it's wrong to kill the baby this it would be like if you're the doctor that you're talking about before who saw no instances of abortion and later term it was high-risk pregnancy in general so it's it's largely the later term is when it becomes higher most high risk so yeah i mean pregnancy is a risk and it is it's it's a lot but if he has had that experience and he has that information and that education and and he knows how to provide a place that those babies can come out and be viable i think everyone would be overjoyed to hear that and we would want that information more accessible everywhere i don't think there should ever be an abortion care provider misleading someone not doing their due diligence to make sure that every everything is up to bar and they aren't pushing someone in a certain direction like it should be completely unbiased and based on reality in fact you said earlier that late term abortions can be up to twenty thousand dollars and that's true um what's the incentive for an abortionist who's doing like term abortions to say don't come and have my abortion you don't need it i mean the basic ethics of being a human being and doing right by people i've talked to some of these people these providers and they truly believe they are doing an important service and you think they're encouraging the parents in those situations believe the same thing because if there is information that shows that these are not medically necessary then there would be a lot of families that would be overjoyed to hear this like this to me is one of the biggest like most common misconceptions that's in this argument that makes people on my side look so evil to the other side like oh we're just allowing this to happen or we're feeling willy-nilly about this when in fact if this is one of the most traumatic events in a person's life and if there's another option those parents are there seeking that option they didn't come in there being like i'm in the eighth month and i don't want to do this anymore they're coming in because they feel there's a reason and to your point about like anomalies or things that are um what i'm what am i looking for disabilities or anything like that's also a shame i truly believe that because there's so little education and i think the us is getting better at that even something as sweet as tik tok has been helping people get more accustomed to the idea that there are people in our society that have disabilities and they're not able bodied but they're living full and beautiful lives that to me is like the power of a story the power of understanding that that life is valuable that is something that actually is really important to me and then again goes back into the idea of okay then are we putting them into a society and into a place where they can thrive in that body and that really is the question to me but we agree here on these little points okay i i would just have one more question sure and then i have a question for you i mean can you acknowledge then the um the impact that legal not just legal abortion but kind of culturally accepted abortion like your autonomy you make the decision it's you know it's your body your choice that whole mantra ideology uh the impact that that has on um disabled babies getting killed or the impact that has on a woman who's being told by a doctor oh you have to have this abortion when maybe she didn't maybe she could have had medical management of the pregnancy to help her and the baby be carried to term what about it do you see that the impact that when there's legal abortion when it's being accepted as this is a good you know good for women or this is you know can be a great thing for women now when you get pregnant you do a genetic test you find out your baby and this is a friend of mine or not even a genetic test you do the 20-week scan the baby is missing his or her arm and termination is offered right right then and there right yes that's that's i mean that sounds that's not just that's not just what they offer that's that's seen as their job i definitely have friends who have been um told that their baby might have down syndrome so you should probably abort but that's one of those but that's legal abortion for you that's the culture of death for you where we see abortion killing as solution and so if the baby's sick if there's any issue with the pregnancy if there's any sort of problem the woman's facing in her personal life and that she feels again fear that's directing her towards the abortion clinic then that is what she's affirmed and that's that's that's the way to go yeah i i completely agree with you on that i think again that there needs to be structural things implemented resources easily accessible if you have these resources people should absolutely know who they are nationwide and doctors should not have any bias lean towards wanting to perform abortion or to especially if someone is coming in or well maybe exclusively actually if someone is coming in and saying i don't necessarily want this my partner is abusive i'm living in poverty i don't know how i'm going to pay for this i would love to live in a world where that did not lead to an abortion because there was that support there which is why i do appreciate this work that you're doing but as far as choice i still think that there are so many cases that don't fall under that category i had an abortion that was autonomous i am not in pain about it it's not carrying through my life like a trauma that's my own experience i've internalized it in a very personal way that's meaningful that's spiritual and you and everyone i think has to grant the fact that people are going to have a myriad of different feelings about this and there's just not one thing and again come to these agreements where we find them and see what we can do about them you and i both agree that doctors should not be pushing this as the only option but i also would add to that we also need to make it so our society is a place where that option is accessible where we don't have to experience that fear because that fear is no longer valid oh my my kid does have child care like i'm a single mother who's working i have five years to try to figure out how the hell to make money i would love to get another job to supplement my income so i'm not struggling as much as i am right now and i can't so things like that have made my life so much harder and put an undue burden on me as a single mother and we do that in so many different instances so again how can we make this world better to invite that to invite that yes okay so i'd like to ask another specific like challenging circumstance on your opinion on um the topic of sex selective abortion where for example the parent chooses to abort the baby girl because they're specifically wanting a boy what are your thoughts on that i mean i think that's insane yeah i would think yeah no offense but you're crazy but i think i'm sorry i'm not trying to make a joke of everything i just like that's that's but it does happen really yeah who well 100 million girls have been killed um globally because and there are rates of sex selective abortion in parts of the united states that are as high as in mainland china because certain communities in the united states are doing practicing sex selective abortion i mean that's devastating that's just misogyny and patriarchy at work that's that's really devastating but did you know that planned parenthood has advocated against bans on sex selective abortion well i believe that would be because they agree that abortion should be performed no matter what the reason that you cannot determine what a reason is it just but it sounds like you it's your choice disagree with that well i i do disagree with that and i believe that there's obviously roots and so why do you continue why have you said multiple times you support planned parenthood and i think that's hard for me to understand that you think it's completely insane to have a sex selective abortion or support a sex selective abortion because that's like a that's like a headline versus what is actually happening it's a reality for some reason the headline would be planned parenthood allows for sex selective abortion that is a captivating headline it's like oh [ __ ] this is crazy it's not no listen i know it's happening but the real story i believe behind it from my understanding education is that it's not sex selective abortion that they're advocating for they are simply advocating that you can have an abortion up to a certain point for any reason that the the provider providing that service is not to ask or make a moral determination on why you're there if you are there because you want it they're there to give it to you with the addition of all of the system they have in place when they brought me room to room to check in to see what was happening why i was there like i said i was there for nine hours i have a short question for you to answer and then a short question for you and then we need to get into something really important which is the foster care and adoption system okay but short question for you then if you are adamantly against sex something like sex selective abortion meaning there are certain circumstances where you feel absolutely that should be like do you agree that should be illegal then to get a sex selection of abortion or do you think it's more just about education and hoping our society doesn't go in that direction or is that something that you think should be illegal short answer though because i have a question for you no i don't think it can be made illegal because then that all of a sudden puts like moral judgment on all the specifics when in fact it should just be the person's choice and and then i find it tragic i wish that wasn't the case okay so lila would making abortion illegal actually reduce abortions weren't there a lot of abortions happening before abortion was illegal where people call back alley abortions which are more dangerous to the women getting them some people actually say that if abortion was made illegal abortions wouldn't actually go down women who die would just go up that's incorrect um when roe v wade became you know when judicial not you know seven men on the supreme court decided abortion for the whole country abortion the abortion rate skyrocketed so absolutely there are there are there will be abortions that happen even when it's criminalized uh that's where societal education has to come into play because they were illegal so you wouldn't have known how many abortions were happening there were a lot of estimates being done on how many abortions were happening illegally because there are doctors who were i mean it makes sense because the service suddenly becomes available that people but there have been studies that have been done and you know texas is the most obvious example right now in the most recent that when you ban abortions and this makes sense just for human nature when you um you know 30 years ago when we had seat belts were not uh required by law most people didn't use them then with education and legal changes behavioral changes happened and that's the reality for eagles you wouldn't actually know how many abortions are occurring because now that we have the pill as well people can be getting abortions in texas without them knowing it and frankly they wouldn't be able like if it's illegal and you're going to get prosecuted or your provider is going to get prosecuted they're going to be hidden like that i don't think there's any way to statistically show that that's true i mean even the guttmacher institute planned parenthood's research arm has said that the abortion uh fewer women get abortions when they're more expensive as just an example so when you create a higher barrier to get an abortion because they're not legal there's not an abortion clinic on your street corner selling abortions right or on your in the middle of your town selling abortions more women will not have abortion more children will be have their have their life which leads great into the next question that's what i would bring up like so wtf do we do with this excess of children that have been born to people that did not want to have them they were forced to have well that's the question that we're going to talk about the foster care system so the foster care system plays a role in these questions for sure lila one of the arguments against ending abortion is that the foster care system is already overwhelmed and that forcing women who are pregnant into motherhood who don't want to be parents will create more broken homes and overwhelm the foster care system even more what are your thoughts on that i think life is worth fighting for and that has to be our starting point when it comes to a conversation in foster care so with that as the starting point and that includes the life of a foster care kid and that includes the life of a child who's in the worst situation of abuse i wouldn't say oh it's better that you were not born i would say let's get you out of that abuse and let's work to work for healing and work for a better life for you and i think this is where societies have to really kick into action you know there's whole um pro-life organizations were a big part and we refer for this um we are not doing this but this is an example of love life and their whole focus is let's wrap our arms around this community where not only we're going to shut down this abortion clinic but we're going to be everyone in our this is a church thing everyone in our church is going to be fostering or adopting and we're going to be taking responsibility for every foster care child in our community and i think that's the model that's the way is we take responsibility in our communities for those that are suffering in our communities and um i think we also need to have a honest conversation about adoption um i think adoption is not just saying oh adopt no big deal adoption is a huge deal that's my next question to her so once you answer that quickly and then i have a question but one thing on one thing on a one more thing on adoption there are right now um some estimates up to two million couples because infertility is a raging crisis and just a lot of people want to adopt who want to adopt that are not able to adopt right now they would hope to invite a newborn into their home and they're not able to i know so that's ridiculous yeah it's ridiculous and and what are we doing we're killing children instead in abortion clinics bringing the 400 000 kid in foster care away from those parents well they're not all available for adoption the purpose of the foster care system is family reunification primarily if at all possible so the solution to foster carers and just that will adopt all those children out um sometimes because you know the parents in rehab or there was like a death in the family and they're trying to find out what family member can care for for those parents so it's very complex but a lot of them wind up their their entire adolescence and teenage years and 50 of foster kids end up homeless by the time they're 18. 50 and numerically you're saying that you would like a world that were inviting a surplus of 600 000 kids that were not initially wanted by the pregnant person which would be 1.2 million within two years well you're assuming they're i'm not following the argument because i'm saying what are you gonna do what what do we do with the six hundred thousand because you're talking about one church taking in all of these kids and doing what they can how we promote taxpayer dollars that from the government into organizations like obreo clinics like love life like embrace grace that are doing work to care for both moms who want to parent and moms who want to prepare for adoption and we we we're there on the ground supporting them and supporting them the numbers don't add up like i really genuinely want to understand if 50 of foster kids end up homeless currently today fifty percent and they don't have any infrastructure to support them a lot of them end up on the streets or you mean after they are presented when they've graduated out of the foster care system there's no safety net for them they're 18 years old yes and 50 of them lined up and that's where that's where we should be as communities joining and financially supporting the organizations that are intervening in those children's lives to help them have better lives okay so my question for you brenda then is about how adoption is and that's what many pro-life organizations are doing okay the numbers okay but but here's my question with with enough of us working together life is worth fighting for you won't do education with me sex education so hi no no no no no we're not going bad but we have to have some really important questions decrease the numbers listen to me okay so adoption also forms this conversation brenda infertility like she said is on the rise and for every baby given up for adoption at birth there are dozens of families wanting to adopt that baby why is adoption not a sufficient option for those with unplanned pregnancies or unwanted pregnancies why can't abortion be banned and create a more flourishing adoption system where babies can go to families desiring to adopt a child because a lot of people conflate and get confused with the foster care system and the outright adoption system because the foster system is like she said you know meant for reunification parents who wanted to keep their babies and um ended up losing their child due to like drug use or whatever different circumstance whereas outright adoption for women who find themselves pregnant when they aren't ready to be parents and don't want to be a parent yet or at all um can give their baby up for adoption at birth and there will be dozens of families wanting to adopt that baby so how is that not or is that a sufficient option like could that be the solution or do you absolutely feel that even just the pregnancy should be a choice again the numbers are just too they're too high to provide a really good life or even just like a sufficiently okay life where someone is fed every day has a as a roof over their head for six hundred thousand extra people when we already have 400 000. i mean right now our population is on the brink of not even replacing itself so it's not like we have too many people in the united states and yeah but it's too many people that would be unwanted by their caregivers someone wants them there are there are groups and organizations that are growing every day with volunteers and financial dollars and i wish our government would kick in and support these organizations too that want to help and are ready to take on the challenge well yeah i agree with you there but i also again wish that we would do our due diligence and prevent pregnancy and educate from a young age because then those numbers would be more manageable i simply i i think that's a beautiful thought but i think six hundred thousand surplus of people every year is an unmanageable thing when we are not even remotely managing the people that are already here living in poverty etcetera yeah so sorry i know i feel like we keep going no that's okay do you have an answer to that question or do you want me to be well no i do i do think it's insufficient i think the foster and uh adoption systems have to be amended and that everyone who wants a child should absolutely have immediate access to one or very quick access to one because we do have this issue and that i think if that was amended more people would feel comfortable giving birth because i can completely understand i myself like when i was pregnant my dad was like well just give it up for adoption and i was like to what my my dad's own um first wife was in the foster care system and she was viciously sexually and physically abused her whole life so i'm just like what am i giving my child over to i'm not to do that to me it was an act of love but you don't achieve your child i mean i think there's a misunderstanding that's pretty profound that needs to be addressed which is that if you're a pregnant woman and you're considering adoption it's not that you give your child to the foster care system you can actually place your child with a private couple of your choosing on your terms and there are organizations that will connect you they'll literally give you menus of couples that you can pick from and i wish someone had talked with you and counseled you and given you that opportunity to understand that as your option i mean that's that's beautiful and that's how it should be and i love to hear that i would love if that was more prevalent but instead you went to planned parenthood and they didn't give you those menus of of those options because they are an abortion clinic and that's what again breaks my heart about our current system that we have abortion clinics that women are walking into they're not given their all their options they're not given access to the resources that exist for them both to carry determined parent or or to choose an adoptive couple you didn't you weren't offered that brenda and you deserved that but this is why a conversation like this is so important and this is why again earlier i said get off the mouse wheel because this again is where actual change can occur and where we agree like i do think it is egregious that people aren't given the list of options easily accessible to them yeah on the other hand i would also say being realistic people do know where to get those options i i would have been able to navigate and figure out how to give my child up for adoption that is a choice i didn't want to make because one thing that i haven't given proper weight to yet is pregnancy pregnancy can absolutely be beautiful i hated the i hated it i know you have a different feeling i love pregnancy no she's like i love being pregnant just running around adorable um i didn't have that feeling but still it was beautiful and i love my child obviously etc but my bladder and uterus fell out because i didn't have pelvic floor therapy which is standard in places like france where women are given aftercare when i had my baby i lost my insurance a week after i had him and i couldn't get my postnatal checkup because all of a sudden i was in a different demographic and couldn't i was no longer as valuable now that he wasn't in my body so i have been witness to these flaws in our system that again make pregnancy not this like lying on a lily pad having a great time experience that it frankly should and could be if we actually took care of pregnant people which the fact is we don't all of the things that i have illuminated throughout this conversation show that and then there's also the additional toll on the body forcing someone to carry a child for 10 months because we all know you're pregnant for 10 not not not my months is a huge toll on your spirit your mind your body all of it to enforce that upon people who truly don't want it who are truly saying this goes against my free will this is something i do not want also i is something that i believe causes pain and hardship to the baby we do so many lessons where it's like you play classical music and you eat the right food and you make sure you're nourishing that body mind body and soul as you can and if someone doesn't want that and you're forcing that they're not going to get the same tlc in utero and so we should kill the baby instead well i think everyone absolutely should have a right to that autonomy because yes it is it is no small feat to carry a child into florida i would encourage you brenda it sounds like the organizations that you work closely with or the people that you're close with don't seem to uh have the care needed you know the community around the care that is necessary for pregnant states of america well i i'm i work closely with you know the pro-life movement and i would invite you to join some of our organizations are working because like us but be part of the solution join one of our organizations instead of planned parenthood which is not offering prenatal care in the planned parenthood they're just the only organization i had access to i'm not well but there was but i guess what i'm trying to what i'm saying is planned parenthood is a national brand that has received over time billions in taxpayer dollars they're not they're filling in a gap that is absolutely they are committing abortion no one else's but brenda they're not providing um in the vast majority of their clinics prenatal care they're not providing parenting support they're not providing financial support for young mothers they're not providing uh you know birthing classes they're not controlled can you respond that they're not a birthing center but that's my that's my point my point is they're pretty healthcare but that's not just abortion they prevent pregnancy in enormous numbers 50 of planned parenthood's patients come into their facility having been using birth control and the month that they got pregnant so the birth control that they're giving out is failing and women are coming to their facility to then buy their abortion because they're pregnant and what i'm trying to say is they're let's do an alternate model for women's health that is not the kill your baby model but it's the model of let's provide holistic care so that you're not worrying about the six thousand dollar bill once you deliver that goal but that's what i'm that's what that's what i work with right now brenda that's what the prologue movement is doing learn you know google obria medical center or look at heartbeat international care net is affiliations of centers that are providing care and connecting women to free prenatal care and free resources or learn about let them live which is literally paying medical bills for women there's a whole universe of care out there but they're not getting the attention and they're not getting the federal tax dollars because who's getting it planned parenthood who in the name of women's health they're claiming to be for women's health is actually for abortion well i think we need a system that is all that holistic care but we're not going to have it as long as planned parenthood is the boss because they are not friends of you know providing all of the options to women and making sure that they have all their bills paid that's not the right thing to provide all the options either not personally because i'm one person but i can work with the networking i mean that you want if i'm not mistaken wouldn't provide all women's health care no they do oprah okay okay because abortion's not healthy the difference i think is the whether the government should be doing this or whether we should be making small organizations non-profits and doing it and that can be done i think there can be a can be a okay it can involve yes so i have like five more questions to quickly get to short answers guys okay so can you address what she was talking about women who truly find it traumatic to go through pregnancy don't want to go through pregnancy and even this is a very specific question i wasn't even going to ask about women who are really suffering mentally and would struggle immensely to go through pregnancy like someone with depression who's on medication that could affect the baby's development do you have sympathy for women who feel like they just mentally cannot handle it what's your thoughts they need better mental health care we need better mental health care and they need to be connected to mental health resources that resources that do exist killing the child is not going to give you better mental health it actually will deteriorate your mental health and studies that have been done have proved that in the year after a woman has an abortion versus if she had chosen to have give birth and let that baby live she's 150 more likely to commit suicide so if you want to talk about women's mental health abortion is only going to deteriorate her health thoughts and then i'm going to go to the next question to you i mean i absolutely agree mental health care is an egregious abortion it's not mental health care it deteriorates mental health as well as kills a child i yeah i don't think abortion should be a solve for any mental health issue but again because that infrastructure doesn't exist and we are not providing that on a nationwide scale i think it is too pie in the sky to put into action before it actually exists because if we're forcing birth as early as june or july if roe v wade is overturned it probably will be we don't have any infrastructure in place for anything that i described in this conversation to support that influx of children to support the people who are suffering through mental okay so do women need to rely on abortion to succeed in society and if they do is that a good thing oh good thing um again because i am a single working mother i am struggling financially because there is no child care for my son until he's five or there's no school until he's five that's provided so absolutely it holds me back in my career and it i could get much more accomplished he would also benefit so much from the socialization and the ability to be around other kids that's something that i cannot financially provide for him right now because again there's no structure in place to help me with that so that's just my experience and i know i am a very very privileged person and that's a privileged experience still because there are many women who are literally working multiple jobs for a minimum wage that doesn't amount to anything to support their existing children and they are not able to pull them you can't pull your bootstraps out of that situation there's not enough support quick answer on the thoughts on the question i just asked her about like do women need to rely on abortion and then i have another question for you i think that we need to double down on the existing support systems shore them up improve them a lot of that's what the day in day at work besides educational work and lobbying work which is what live action does in other groups there are a thousand work is like just just for the prevention of abortion not to lobby to have all of these things that you believe in in place like well we're for child tax credits for families and i'm asking curious as an as an example as far as other public policy options paid family leave child tax credits for so you're lobbying for these things yes we've probably yeah yeah that's what there's great something we found common ground on oh my gosh but i think they're you know what's heartbreaking because i don't see that a lot in that party what's har well i don't i i mean you're talking about parties it's uh there's a lot of progressives and democrats who are pro-life so i think it's you can find them in both parties but um i think it what is heartbreaking to me is that we have women who are not being connected right now to the resources that do exist in communities and one of the primary reasons for that is because of planned parenthood because they are staking ground as the place to go and saying we are there for you and they're getting the taxpayer dollars for it and they're getting the marketing dollars for it and they're getting the you know celebrity support for it and they're even getting corporate support for it and they're actually not providing options for women they're getting all of that privilege and support to what then go saying here's a here's an abortion for you instead of here's the prenatal care has so that's what i would advocate is for shut that whole lethal business down and replace all that societal cachet all that financial support and put them into the organizations that are actually solving problems for women and providing care for their for their children is that something you could get on board with possibly well somewhat i just i think money should be really reallocated in so many ways we spend but planned parenthood doesn't want pro-life centers to get in fact there are pro-abortion activists right now that are literally throwing molotov cocktails into pregnancy resource centers and planned parenthood happening in the reverse forever too i mean there's egregious behavior on both sides but i'm not seeing it decried by planned parenthood right now i mean they're kind of the lead and i'm not surprised because they're for abortion i can totally understand your rub with planned parenthood my issue is that again an organization like that sprouted out of a need that wasn't being met and the need it was sprouted from a myriad of other needs that lead to that so i yeah okay next question sorry what about overpopulation lila is having more people around bad for the planet well first of all overpopulation can if it exists could never be solved by killing part of the population so you know abortion's never the answer you don't kill off your youngest members most vulnerable members to solve population issues but we're actually facing a population crisis under population right now in much of the western world so in most of europe they're not replacing their own populations their populations are shrinking and the population demographic is increasingly elderly and less young and so that imbalance is creating huge economic and social problems there aren't enough people to care for an aging population as an example and that's happening in the united states as well and part of it is because of the fearful rhetoric around birth motherhood and children where we are saying it's so hard it's so bad it's so negative you should have the abortion or we're saying you can't have a career without having an abortion or all of that negativity around life is a huge driver of the population crisis and you know the solution to that again i can go back to what i was saying before it's education it's connecting people to the resources that they need it's a mindset shift about we're here to support each other and a child is not a threat it's not an enemy it's part of the family now we're going to fight for each other have a fighting spirit about it that needs to be the um the focus for for the underpopulation crisis not not just to solve under popular population i mean life is worth fighting for it's up for in and of itself but it certainly would help prevent some of the looming economic issues because of that crisis thoughts or well bringing up economics is is so complicated and and nuanced as well because we created a population that's like working class that's living in capitalism and it's not working for everyone and it hasn't worked for everyone for a long time and we're seeing that disparity more and more all the time so the term like population crisis is really conflicting to me because i don't think there's any crisis in people choosing to not have a child let's just say by means of condoms and birth control like just actively being like i'm in a family plan i'm going to do this when i want to there's a lot of women who are as an example delaying pregnancy for many years for many different reasons that later on regret it i mean there is a you have to admit there's a societal push it's not like just everyone makes their own decision and there's no pressures on them i think there is definitely a societal push today to say that you should delay having kids or having children is going to hold you back i mean there's a lot of negativity not around absolutely and there are a lot of challenges around it too those challenges are that's the thing there there is fear-mongering around it i don't even like when people are like saying like it's hard i hate it like i don't like all of that rhetoric either that's just my personal opinion because i love being a mom and i see so much beauty in it so again it's not so black and white of like this movement is saying that it's bad i think the distinction is that my side of the aisle is saying that it is so hard there is so much undue burden because of everything that i have talked about like if we had not had to deal with undue burden or if i had access to get my son into school tomorrow or yesterday it would be a different story for me in my career and what i was able to do and capable of and under capitalism and the way the economy works now which really doesn't work for the majority of us that creates something that feels like an economic crisis because it doesn't work for everybody and it's not instigating people to want to bring new life into this place okay so i think we covered so much i i'm gonna have to skip the last few questions because i know we're on like a timeline we've been going for such a long time and it pains me to not ask these last few questions but maybe we'll do a part two or something but the last question just to round it out um i'll start with you lila and then i'll let you finish the news is packed to the brim about updates on roe v wade which is the decision that declared there was a right to choose abortion as a federal law in the constitution as of the time of this recording the supreme court looks like they might overturn it do you think the court will overturn roe and what will that mean for our national conversation about abortion you answer then you answer and then we're done thank you ellen thank you for hosting thank you brenda for the conversation uh roe v wade i think will fall i think that at least the court will do damage to it it was unjust it was illogical um it's created huge devastation over 63 million children have been killed since uh roe v wade became the law of the land in 1973. it's just the beginning though because what would happen if this court chooses to overrule roe is they will likely as they say have the states decide abortion and that's not the ultimate solution i mean it's not up for state legislatures to decide who lives and dies within their state those children deserve all of them legal protection whether they're um in a blue state or a red state or no matter that no matter the state that they're in so i think that we have to get better get to work our movement is just getting started both to provide legal protection in the states that we can if roe v wade is overturned um to continue to advocate for the national right to life that all of us possess i think it's a constitutional right under the 14th amendment the 14th amendment says that we have um we deserve equal protection under the law and that no state has the right to deprive someone of their life without due process and that's certainly what's happening to children in a state that permits abortion so we should continue to argue for that constitutional right to life that all states should abide by and then we got to work day in and day out abolish abortion where we can provide the support and the care for women expand these organizations i've been talking about get them to continue to grow and continue to educate educate people about the abortion procedure and about human development about the options that exist okay brenda you i also think it'll fall and i am devastated and i like cried my eyes out when i really realize the gravity of that and what it would mean for me and for so many i just love people and i care deeply about this issue and about who it's going to affect negatively which is going to be a lot of people and to me i truly believe that is inhumane unjust and immoral to force birth and in doing so we are taking away the autonomy in humanity we are dehumanizing people in a vulnerable state and removing that choice from them is going to cause an exacerbated amount of problems for mental health spiritual health physical health all of it i truly wish to see a world i actually am fine i know i want to say fine i don't want to misspeak but roe v wade has flaws that i would like to see amended i would like to see a new something in place where lila and i and the things that we agree on are addressed in a way that is humanizing and full of love and really promotes a culture of life which is what i want and to me removing this like letting roe v wade fall and forcing people to give birth it just it really hits it hits uh me hard and i am just really sad to see it because the more humane way the path that i think is real and true and like honoring of what i believe spiritually would be to foster an environment where we look at everything on the table that causes abortion and we amend all of those issues one by one i think letting roe v wade is an easy way would you ban abortion then you're saying if you did all that would you then ban abortion if you somehow i don't think abortion should ever be banned i think it's inhumane to force someone to give birth i think that we can create a society together if we all align and get on the same page about what's truly important and fix those issues one at a time which would take so damn long and so much work you're doing a lot of that work now but that would be the humane thing to do and then if someone is choosing an abortion it would be truly a rare case if we could amend the reasons that people are getting abortions in the first place the misinformation they're receiving in the clinic all of the things that you brought up if both of our concerns were amended and changed but people still had the preservation of their autonomy and right that would be the world that i want to live in and that's what i'm going to strive for wow this is amazing this was so good thank you guys so much i think we're going to wrap it up i truly appreciate you both coming on here and like being so brave to come out and it is it's quite brave and vulnerable not many people are willing to do it so i really appreciate the conversation and we're going to end it here thank you everybody for tuning in [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The Ellen Fisher Podcast

Views: 744,640

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Id: ornP0w4FxrY

Length: 175min 47sec (10547 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 21 2022