Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - BONUS EP: “What Is A Pro-Lifer’s Role In A Post Roe America?” - Interview with Kristan Hawkins

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

What role does the pro-life movement play now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned? As everyone is asking questions and demanding answers, what is the truth? Where does the post-Roe America blueprint lead us from here? On this special episode of The Spillover, Alex Clark is joined by the president of Students For Life, Kristan Hawkins. Kristan answers all the questions being asked across America during one of the most historic and monumental moments for conservatives and unborn lives ever!Sub...

Well, this has never been done in the history of the spillover, but also this is an unprecedented day for pro-lifers across the country and also just for conservatives everywhere. Today, Roe v. Wade has been overturned. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I have to have one of my favorite people in the pro-life movement on stat, which is Kristen Hawkins, the president of Students for Life. Kristen, I know that you are the busiest woman in America today. Thank you so much for coming on real quick to kind of answer a few questions that pro-lifers are squirms. rambling to figure out, which is what the heck does all of this mean? What does a post-row America look like? And what does this mean for the role that pro-lifers play going forward? Yeah. Well, this is important because a lot of people are stupid and get this wrong.

Unfortunately, reversing row does not mean that abortion is made illegal throughout all of our country. It simply means that states now have the right to decide abortion laws, just like how it was before seven men in 1973 decided they knew better than everybody else and they were going to deny biology and find a quote, quote, right to abortion hidden in the shadow of a penumbra of our constitution. And so now today, as soon as this decision came down, abortion facilities in Kentucky and Texas stopped committing abortions. Babies were literally saved today. Tomorrow, as many as 26 states can quickly act to make abortion unavailable, either all nine months of pregnancy or the majority of the pregnancy. We believe as many as 88 babies will be saved tomorrow in every single subsequent day. This does not make abortion illegal in places like California or New York, unfortunately.

We have a lot of work to do in the pro-life movement. This is why we've always said reversing roversing. Mrs. Wade is like checking the first box. It's the first phase in our mission of making abortion unthinkable and unavailable. We had to get this out of the hands of, you know, the seven men in 1973, back to the states where we can fight state by state to make abortion illegal and unavailable. This is why we have our whole 501c4 sister organization where we've been going to state capitals and lobbying and testify. and passing legislation.

But it also means beyond the politics, because I hate when people say, well, abortion is just a plague with you. It's not. They're saying, you know, the Supreme Court is packed. They're all conservatives. This was a whole political thing.

That's why they're overturning it. They're calling it the Trump court, Kristen, the Trump court. The Trump court. Well, yeah. I mean, elections have consequences, right? And there was a lot of people, I know them in the pro-life movement who didn't really care for Donald Trump.

I know I probably shouldn't say on the spillover. But we're excited. about voting for him because he was very clear in his promises from the very get-go that he would only appoint pro-life Supreme Court justices. This is why, quite frankly, we knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors in 2016 and in 2020 because we know the price of being involved in politics and what it can do. This isn't the be-all-end all, though, I will tell you, making abortion unavailable, making it illegal in certain parts of our country is not going to also make it unthinkable. That is why the other, the flip side of the coin is we have to work community by community to make sure no woman feels alone or stands alone in a postal America.

And that she understands that it has been the pro-life movement since the 1970s that's been starting, supporting, and sustaining more than 3,000 pregnancy resource centers, more than 400 maternity homes, which are vastly outnumbered. the fewer than 600 dirty abortion facilities to operate in our country, that we have been out there serving millions of women and families every single year. And we're going to continue to do that and to be there to be her voice and really say, you have another option. You don't have to go to that predatory dirty abortionist who literally profits off of your despair, who's not going to take away the problem that's led you to their doors, whether it's a life in poverty or an abusive relationship.

But let us walk beside you. And that's what the Pregnancy Resource Center does. And that's what we're going to be doing in the pro-life generation, now the post-road generation. It's going to take some time to get used to that. I know. Okay. It's so exciting and just so crazy.

So one thing, I couldn't remember the statistic, but is it true that there are actually more pro-life centers than plan parenthoods available that provide health care for women? Yes. that's absolutely true. So I worked at the federal government, the federal government, Department of Health and Human Services, don't hate me for a year. And there's a lot of acronyms. And they have something called FQCs, federally qualified health centers.

There's more than 8,000 fairly qualified health centers that already operate in rural or urban underserved communities. They are completely nonprofit. They don't have a C4, a PAC, a whole political operation. These are community health clinics that get money from the government to serve the underserved. FQCs provide way more resources, way more medical care than Planned Parenthood ever can provide. In fact, if you go to an FQHC and you say, I need to see a podiatrist or you need to specialize doctor for your diabetes, they're legally obligated to make sure you get that referral. And if you don't have a ride to secure you a ride to the doctor you need to see,

There's 8,000 of these federally qualified health centers. You can go to find a health center. hrsa.org, put in your zip code and find one. You can also go to standing with you, door. This is the website that students who live put together, where we've actually compiled all the pro-life, nonviolent private resources, maternity homes, adoption agencies, pregnancy help centers, pregnancy medical centers, as well as some public agencies into one website.

You can put your zip code and you can find. all of those support systems. These centers, if every single plan of parenthood would shut down tomorrow in America, which would be amazing, each fairly qualified health center we only have to see two more patients a week. So, okay, what is the blueprint steps?

And I know students for life actually made a whole blueprint for, okay, post-Roe America, what are the steps now that the pro-life movement has to do? What do we need to accomplish? So now what's next on the list? Well, what's next is, you know, There's a lot of maps and charts that I have, certainly on my iPad, where, you know, we know which states we need to go into. I would call them, you know, low-hanging fruit states, states that are pretty red where you have a pro-life governor, a pro-life attorney general, pro-life state legislature.

But they really haven't done their job yet to eliminate abortion in their states, a state like Indiana, which would come to surprise many folks, where we're going to have to move through a special session. to see that that state and those legislators and those political leaders uphold their pro-life promises. And we're going to have to kind of push them to do it. And so we have a lot of work like that where we know, okay, this state abortions will be banned when a child's heart begins to be. Or in this state, abortions will be banned at a moment of conception. Or in this state, they're only going to be banned when a child can feel extraordinary pain in the second and third trimester.

And so we have a lot of work to do in those states. And I think for us, we want to start with the red states, starts with the easier states. There's an amendment in Kansas in August 2nd, the primary, the value them both amendment. This is going to be huge. This is going to be the first state since Rose falling, where abortion is going to be on the ballot. It's an amendment that basically just all it says is that there is no right to abortion in the Constitution. Because a couple years ago, some judges in Kansas, said there was a right to abortion in their constitution, and it wiped out all common sense pro-life laws since the state of Kansas.

So we've got deployments going on where we're knocking on doors in Kansas all summer. Super fun. You can sign up anytime you want students for life action. So, you know, we have the election. We saw today. I mean, an extraordinary move. The President of the United States got on national TV to condemn the third branch of our government for doing their job. and rightly saying abortion is not in the Constitution.

It was not written invisible wing. So there's a lot at stake right now. Yeah. And you know, I thought it was interesting people, celebrities like Dave Portnoy today, Taylor Swift today. They all said, okay, all of this now is a huge step backward for women. We're going back to the Stone Ages. That makes me so mad.

We have a progressive view for the United States of America. This is 2022. This is not 1952. They have a regressive view because their belief is that women aren't strong enough. They're not capable enough to become pregnant and, you know, facing unprone pregnancy and complete their educational goals or achieve their career dreams. That they have to choose one another because we're not smart enough. We're not capable enough. It is the pro-life movement for 50 years that's been saying you can do both.

You can choose both. You are strong enough. Yes, it's going to be hard. I know as a working mom of four, it's not easy working and being a mother and I'm married, right? I can only imagine if I were a single mother. It's hard work, but you can do it. And guess what? The pro-life movement stands with you every single step of the way. This is a progressive view. In Texas, for example, when the heartbeat law was passed and all the left, lost their mom. There was all this fear mongering that there were going to be like piles of dead bodies stacking up in alleys all across Texas, right? Which, by the way, I was in Texas for six weeks this spring, never stumbled upon a dead body. And I was in a lot of back alleys, by the way, because I was trying to park my huge truck.

Don't get me started about those things. But that didn't happen. Women are still getting promoted. They're still graduating college at higher rates than men. And the thing that no one talked about, the same day this heartbeat law was was passed, they also. Institute, the Alternatives to Abortion Fund, and funded it to a tune of $100 million. So women during the pregnancy and three years after the birth of child, remember, you know, it always get claimed we don't care about babies after they're born.

After three years after the birth of the child, they can go get material and financial support. And the taxpayers of Texas are already funded that. That's actually a pretty progressive thing. It is. Yeah. And, you know, I think a lot of people right now are freaking out. just people that are, you know, I don't know. I don't know the right way to say this, but the people that are, they're not working in this like you and I are. And so it is very

overwhelming to them that they're getting text messages from their pro-choice friends. They're seeing people's feeds and tweets, you know, posts on Facebook. And they're like, how do I respond? What should I respond? What's the best way to change my mind? I mean, right now, knowing the state of just the frenzy that pro-choices are in, what are the best talking points today and going forward for people on the pro-life side to be saying to their pro-choice friends and family members that you have seen has effectively scientifically proven to change minds. Yeah, we do a lot of mind-changing. We change about 10% of minds of those people we reach on campus, 18% of those, we reach online.

And there's different ways. I think the first thing you have to do, though, is it's that John Maxwell Edge show people how much you care. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And so I think that's why it's very important to talk about the social safety network that we've constructed and we continue to support in the pro-life movement. I am so sick and tired. I was literally doing an interview for ABC before this who they were asking me like every societal ill, what every societal ill there is and what I was personally doing. And I just said, have you asked Planned Parenthood that? Because they don't do anything.

They don't talk about anything besides giving transgender artificial hormones that sterilized. children who are confused and also abort babies. Like that's it. They only treat 18% of STDs that they find in people. I mean, it's like unbelievable statistics over here. But no one ever chooses Planned Parenthood of not really caring. So, sorry, side issue. But I do think it's very important that we talk to our friends and family members,

especially those who are concerned. I mean, we have to think about, Alex, you and I have never lived in an America where it is not legal to kill your human child because they're an inconvenience to you. So to a lot of young girls, if they fall in, you know, kind of victim to the lies of the abortion industry that I would call it misogynistic lies of the abortion industry, that they're not strong enough, that they can't do it. And so I think we need to say, first of all, there is a social safety network out there. It's right there for the taking.

It's right there for you to be utilized and we're the ones doing. So one, I think that kind of helps the, you know, know, pro-lifers are A-holes type of debate. So one show them how much we actually care. You know, the fact that pregnancy centers in 2019, we believe that just according to estimates that have been done, about $267 million of in-kind service were contributed by the 3,000 pregnancy centers. And these are totally non-profits that are funded by community support.

So I think that's the first thing to do. I also think the second thing we need to constantly be doing is bringing back the main thing. What is it we're talking about when we talk about abortion? They'd like to use a lot of euphonisms like, you know, it's, you know, her body your choice, reproductive rights, her choice to do what? Right. You know, I would turn the question on them. Yeah.

Make them tell you what abortion is because the fact is when someone actually has to tell you that abortion is the intentional ending of a human life, destruction of a life that was living and now it's dead. I mean, an abortionist only knows success in their job if a beating heart stops. If there's still two hearts beating when they leave that operating room, they have literally failed in their job. It is, it is by definition, an act of violence. And so I think it's important to ask those questions or just, I really try to poke holes because, you know, a lot of folks I have found in my personal experience don't really like to admit that they're wrong, like to your face. And so it's like about poking holes in their

argument so that when they're alone, they recap the conversation. The next time they have the conversation about abortion, they remember what you said. I mean, I was debating, you know, lovely. I love when I get to debate the mainstream media. That's what I do for a living now. And this interviewer was asking me about, well, it's her body, her choice. And I said, well, let me ask you something. Do you believe women have unfettered access to do whatever they want with their body, be damned, anything else? Do you think I should be able to, I don't know, smoke cigarettes,

roll up the windows in my car and let my children ingest cigarette smoke, secondhand degree smoke? Do you think you can go into a pulmonary ward in my son's children's hospital and start smoking because it's your body and do what the hell you want with it? No, we place limits because of what? what you do with your body, when it starts to harm another body, we as a society say, wait, hold up for a second. And so I try to kind of poke holes at that, showing the violence of abortion, you know, showing animated or sometimes, you know, full images, telling someone

to Google it sometimes works, but showing them the violence of abortion. And then also asking about, you know, almost the laziness of the abortion industry. I hear this all the time, of, well, I support abortion in cases of rape. I'm like, okay. And it always comes up. And I say, so let's take that aside. Say I agree with you. Let's not even pass a law that bans abortion in cases rape.

Will you agree with me that 99% of all other abortions are bad, that that should be limited? I have never found a pro-abortion person to do that. They always want to trot out the most terrible circumstance, the one, less than 1% to justify 100% of abortions. And honestly, I find it. so insincere and I find it so damn lazy because we're like, oh, yeah, I care about women who are raped. I support abortion.

Huh? Yeah. That's not going to unrape or you're not going to help end the trauma and the pain that she will endure, possibly for the rest of her life simply because you're lazy and say, oh, yeah, you should have an abortion. I'm taking care. Check, I care. No, that's not caring. What about the people that say, okay, well, now we did this, though, Kristen.

It just seems like our work here is done. Like we achieve the big thing. Oh, how I wish. My children wanted to start having a big part. I told them we were going to have a party when I get home. But they were a little bummed to find out that abortion is not going to be over. A mom, it can't retire just yet. No, this, this battle actually becomes more difficult and it's going to get more complicated

because it's 50 states now. Yeah. Now, we're going to be working in Washington, D.C., to pass federal protections. Because quite honestly, I think. the 14th Amendment makes it pretty clear that human beings are equal to each other, regardless of their color, regardless of their size, regardless of their location. And so there will be a federal argument made. But, you know, it depends on the makeup of the Congress. At state houses, this will continue, you know, be a back and forth thing of conservatives. When in control of the legislature,

for example, in, you know, Pennsylvania. And when the governorship, we could actually make real gain. to shut down these predatory abortion facilities like Kermit Gossnell, who operated in Pennsylvania for decades without ever being inspected, who had separate waiting rooms for black and white women who had cat and urine feces on the walls and carpet and had dead babies in the refrigerator where the staff kept their lunches. We could actually make real gain to shut down these people. Yeah, but Kristen, President Biden said today that this now is going to be a lot.

President Biden said today that this now is going to affect poor women. The poor people are who are going to suffer now. Yeah, because poor people should kill their babies. Don't you know that, Alex? That is such a eugenics argument if I've ever heard one. We had a number of years ago, I was pregnant with my first son. So, oh my gosh, 13 years ago, 14 years ago, we came out and we launched a campaign to defund plan parent.

I worked with black pastors in Washington. DC. And we proved that Planned Parenthoods, you know, I mean, they were obviously founded by a racist eugenicist, a woman who literally thought certain stocks and breeds and colors of people, certain people with certain IQs shouldn't be allowed to reproduce. But we proved that Planned Parenthood was living out Margaret Sanger's Eugenic Legacy because, you know, 80% of their Planned Parenthood facilities are located in minority walkable neighborhoods. It was so fascinating to me. We did this whole summer campaign causing, you know, putting pressure on Planned Parenthood. At the end of the summer, Planned Parenthood came out and said, yeah, well, we, you know, we don't target black women. It's just, you know, they have a harder time adhering to contraceptives. Like, they're not so smart. It was like, I was like, did you really just say that? But that's literally what we heard today.

Today with the president, we heard eugenics argument that poor women need abortions. Why, sir? Why is it if you're poor, you need abortion? Because to explain to me, having abortion is going to help. her get her GED or college degree. You're going to take her out of poverty. Well, people, but the pro choicers will say because then she doesn't have a kid to take care of. Sure, but I would ask this question.

Does she have an older child? Statistics tell us she probably does. So shouldn't she just kill that two year old or four year old or six year old? Because if you're going to talk about poverty, you're going to talk about who takes up more resources and costs more money, it's going to be the older child, not the child living right free in the room. The four year old is a person. they've been born.

And there we go back to the main point in abortion of what is it? Is what is inside of a mother a unique whole living human being or is it not? That's what this whole argument comes down. If you could prove to me that it was inside of a mother is not a unique whole living human being, a member of our species who's unrepeatable, who's never existed before, I'll never exist again. I could literally go and like, I don't know, do something else with my life. and see my kids more and probably make a whole bunch more money.

Kristen Hawkins, president of students for life, one of the most freaking incredible women I've ever had the pleasure of meeting one of my favorite people in the pro-life movement, a total boss for coming on today last minute on the freaking day. The Rovi Weight is overturned. Thank you. Tell everybody, okay, but I have 100 other questions. I'm being asked by my pro-choice friends.

I don't know how to answer them. What resources do students for life have so that you can get answers to those pro-choice questions? Yeah, we've got 1300 chapters. who train to 150,000 people, we want you to be a part of us. You can follow my podcast explicitly pro-life, right, and have folks, wonderful folks like Alex on, and we talk about these issues. Go to Students for Life.org, sign up. We have a whole training portal, Students for Life HQ, where you can get trained in all of our apologetics,

what we do on campus, how to get involved. If you live in a state and you're like, I got to do this. I got it and get involved because trust me, we're going to need you. Just email your state name, so I don't know, Minnesota at Studentswight.org. and you'll be instantly connected with our full-time staff members there. Perfect. Kristen, thank you so much.

And also, yay! Yeah. I mean, like, I mean, we didn't talk about this, but,

and I haven't even like mentally processed this, but like I, when the decision came down, our vice president, Tina handed me her phone and it was on her phone and she said, start reading. And I was the one who, you'll see it in like news of clips,

who starts reading the decision. And then the whole place erupts. No one knows as me because I'm like short and, you know, I blend in the crowd. But what a phenomenal, I don't know. What a humbling experience to say that we as a pro-life generation, now this post-road generation, have played, you know, a small part, a tiny part in this 50-year-long struggle, this human rights struggle. And that we've never been deterred.

And just like the human rights activists of our past, whether they were fighting slavery, whether they're fighting segregation. We haven't given up. And it's going to be hard in the next couple weeks. Tonight's the summer of night of rage. I'm preparing for violence and vandalism against our own headquarters. And I have the security protocols and, you know, officers following us around. Because, I mean, people who express support for violence against babies,

of course, they're going to, you know, commit violence in the streets. Yeah. But it doesn't mean we stop. It can't mean you stop. And now more than ever, our pro-life centers in all of these different cities across America, they're going to be strapped. They are going to need you to volunteer your time, money every month, make pledges, and also being willing to donate, you know, goods and different things, items, diapers,

cribs, whatever, all those different things. Talk about them. Yes. Just talk about them. Like, I would be happy if every pro-life in America could tell me where their local pregnancy center is. Because I can't. I will go into. rooms of thousands of people and I'll have only handful can raise their hand. That's a problem.

That's great. Kristen, thank you so much for coming on the spillover, especially last minute. Thanks for having. I'm so cool. I'm cool enough to get on the spillover. I just thought I wasn't hip enough. Oh, you are, girl. I'm hip enough. I'm with it. Oh my gosh, huge day. I had to get this out for you guys. We never ever do more than one episode a week, but today was a special circumstance and a lot to celebrate. And also, I know you have a lot of questions and wanted some information on how and what and when and all that to say. So anyway, I hope this helped. And please be looking forward to this was a special bonus episode, but we do have another brand new episode coming out next Thursday night at 9 p.m. Pacific, midnight Eastern. It is a very special episode to be a couple days before the 4th of July.

We are talking to, and I'm also announcing this early, so here we go. We are going to be hearing the story of escaping communism and coming to America from Tanya Pesobic. That is Jack Pesobic's wife. It is the first time ever. that I cry in the middle of an interview with a guest. So it is going to be just an absolute heart-bursting, emotional episode of just hearing from an immigrant, coming to America, leaving behind communism. And also the part that really made me cry was just her explaining the differences between America in the early 2000s to now, how we have changed what's different about our country. And of course, why America is, especially today, the great. greatest country on earth. Thank you so much for listening. Love you, mean it. Bye.