Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 533 | RIP, Roe v. Wade

Episode Date: December 6, 2021

Today we're discussing Roe v. Wade and the case the Supreme Court is debating right now that could overturn it. The Left is going crazy over this possibility, but the reality is that abortion won't be going away if Roe is overturned. But it will allow red states to create their own pro-life laws. We look at some legal analysis of the case, how likely the court is to throw it out, and expert opinions of the consequences of overturning Roe. We also listen to some of the arguments from the justices themselves on both sides of the issue. --- Today's Sponsors: Good Ranchers is the perfect gift: a box of 100% American meat that's steakhouse quality. Get all your individual & corporate gifts today at GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE. Get $20 off & free express shipping! Your order keeps local, American farms & ranches open & donates 10 meals to people who would otherwise go hungry! Reliefband stimulates a nerve in the wrist that travels to the part of the brain controlling nausea. Then, it blocks the signal your brain is sending to your stomach, telling you that you're sick. It's 100% drug-free, non-drowsy, and provides all-natural relief from nausea with zero side effects. Go to Reliefband.com & use promo code 'ALLIE' at checkout to save 20% off plus free shipping. Annie's Kit Clubs are a fantastic way to build lasting memories with your kids while encouraging their creativity. Kits arrive once a month, are super convenient, & are designed so that your kids can make them on their own. Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE & save 75% off your first shipment! --- Show Links: Supreme Court of the United States: Oral Argument, Audio & Transcript: Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health https://bit.ly/3In1tLb The New York Times: "Four Times Opinion Writers Debate Abortion at the Supreme Court: 'My Guess Is They Overturn'" https://nyti.ms/3GmMsqK The New York Times: "The Case Against Abortion" https://nyti.ms/3EuYrSR Wall Street Journal: "John Roberts and the Abortion Precedents" https://on.wsj.com/3Ex7jXV --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV

or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey guys. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. So if you follow me on Instagram and you see my stories, you know that I am recording this episode that you are listening to our watching on Friday. Today, as you are listening to watching, I'm in Nashville on Candace Owens' show. So make sure that you tune into that if you are a subscriber. And I asked you guys on Instagram what you wanted me to talk about on Monday's episode. And I gave you a lot of options.

And honestly, I was a little surprised that the option that you guys chose was Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Center. We touched on it just a little bit last week when the oral arguments were being presented to the Supreme Court by both sides. but you guys wanted me to dig into it. I offered, okay, we can have a theological episode where we talk about, we break a part of a particular hymn and we talk about what scripture it corresponds to. We can talk about how I feel about Santa Claus and what we should do about Santa Claus with our kids, but you guys, most of you picked Dobbs overwhelmingly. I will still do those things.

I know there is a large section of you who really like the strictly theological episodes. I love those episodes too, by the way. So we will definitely be doing those in preparation for Christmas, but because you guys are my executive producers, and I do what my executive producers say, I wanted to deliver what most of you said that you wanted, your wish is my command. So we will be talking a little bit about Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Center today. Now, the reason I say a little bit is because we cannot get into all of the minutia of all. of the different, all of the legalese that corresponds with this case. And you guys don't come to me for that. You guys might go to people who have been reporting on the Supreme Court for a very long time. You guys might go to some legal expert to tell you exactly what that all means.

It would take a really long time. Thankfully, that kind of information is accessible to all of us, but that's not what you guys typically come to me for. I'm going to give you. you a summary of what this case is about based on the expert analysis of people who have been reporting on SCOTUS for a long time and have been reporting on abortion law, abortion cases for decades. And then we're going to look at some of the arguments that were presented, some of the back and forth between some justices and the legal teams representing both sides. So if you don't know, if you missed the episode last week where we explained or if you haven't read about it online, Mississippi in 2018 passed a law to ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

And now let me just pause there because before I got pregnant for the first time, I didn't really know anything about pregnancy. I probably couldn't have told you which trimester 15 weeks is, which is, you know, it's just not something I would have thought about. Obviously, it's pretty obvious if you know what a trimester is, but I just hadn't thought about it. I didn't really know that much about fetal development. I didn't really know very much about gestation, what pregnancy was about, which is why when I had my second ultrasound at 11 and a half week, so typically you have your first ultrasound at eight weeks just to make sure that everything is all good. That's typically where you see the heartbeat if you have a healthy baby inside you. So I saw that beating heart. I didn't hear

the beating heart the first time. But really, just that first ultrasound, he or she, which she is, he or she. She has a he or she at conception, even though you can't tell yet and blood work wouldn't even tell you as early as eight weeks probably. But you see that beating heart and it looks like a jelly bean. It just looks like a little jelly bean. It's hard to believe that this thing will turn into a full-sized baby and then will grow into a full-grown adult. But then by the time 10 weeks rolls around and then even more so at 11 weeks. So we're still talking first. trimester here. When you hear first trimester abortion, you typically hear that talked about very flippantly as if that's just nothing, as if it really just does look like a clump of cells.

Well, that's not the case. If you look at an ultrasound at 10 weeks and then 11 weeks and then at 11.5 weeks when I had my second ultrasound, what you'll see is what looks like a fully formed baby. And that is when, for me, I had a very emotional experience. It's kind of strange seeing something inside your body that you can't feel the first time, but it just kind of looks like a blob the first time around. And then by the time that you're at the end of the first trimester, you've got a fully formed. Of course, it still has to develop and it still has to grow a lot more for several more weeks before he or she can enter the world.

But you're looking at this little child with arms and legs and fingers and toes that's kicking, that's flipping around that you can't even feel. Think about how strange that is. If you found out another human being was inside your body, and you couldn't even feel this thing moving around. That's how tiny it is. And yet I could see her brain, her skull, even where her teeth would come in. You see the beating heart. You see the spine. You see the stomach. You see all the intestines. And she's flipping around. She's kicking. And again, we are talking still about the first trimaster. That was a very emotional experience for me. And honestly, it's very hard for me to understand how a woman could have that experience in the first

trimester and still somehow justify, sanitize abortion to the point to where she thinks that it is in any way morally acceptable. It's really hard for me to understand that because no matter the circumstances surrounding that child's conception, it's still a life. It's still a child. I mean, you see that in the ultrasound. And that's why, for example, that's why certain laws, for example, like ultrasound laws or regulations that require a woman to hear a heartbeat before she decides whether or not she wants to have an abortion or see the image of the ultrasound before she decides to have an abortion is so powerful. Knowledge is power.

And if we really are for informed consent, if you really are pro-choice, then you should want that choice to be as informed as possible. And yet, interestingly, the pro-abortion pro-choice lobby is a always lobbying against any requirement for a woman or even just the encouragement for a woman to see the ultrasound image or to be able to hear the heartbeat. So that just shows me that they're not actually pro choice. If you're pro choice, you want the woman to be presented with all of the information, all of the options truly available to her. And yet they're always trying to keep the woman in the dark because the pro-choice lobby is, in essence, a pro-abortion lobby. So 15,

weeks of pregnancy, that's when Mississippi, this law, wants to ban abortion after 15 weeks. So after 15 weeks, we're talking second trimester. So if what I'm telling you is true, that's still in the first trimaster at 11 weeks, even before that 10 weeks, you're seeing arms and legs, you're seeing this kicking, flipping baby, then 15 weeks you're looking at an even more developed baby. That's obviously even bigger than that. Second trimester, this baby is very close to being viable. Babies as young as 21 weeks gestation have survived outside the womb, obviously, with a lot of medical help. And when I talk about the development of the baby and the viability of the baby, viable means the baby can survive outside the womb. I am not saying that babies

who are bigger or babies who are more developed or babies who are viable are innately worth more than a baby at six weeks gestation or a zygote or, you know, an embryo, a fetus, whatever language you want to use, the fact of the matter is that this is still a developing human being. It is not a potential life. He or she is a human being. It is a human life. And therefore, from conception onward, the only logical, the only consistent view is to say that from every second, from conception onward, that,

pre-born child, that baby has innate worth and has the fundamental right to life. So I talk about viability. I talk about size. I talk about development. That's just trying to get people to picture what we're really talking about here. I am not saying that babies who are more developed are innately worth more than babies who are less developed. So I just want to clarify that. But this particular law does give women several weeks to decide whether or not they want an abortion. Obviously, That's not something I'm for. But this Mississippi law doesn't even try to ban abortion outright. We're talking about 15 weeks well into the second trimester.

We're talking about a very developed baby who is about to be able to survive outside the womb. And Mississippi is simply saying, okay, after this point, after you have had several weeks to decide this, after the point that most women, the vast majority of women, if you're paying attention at all, will know. they will know confidently that they are pregnant, you can't have an abortion. And of course, the pro-abortion side thinks that this is so draconian, so awful, so terrible, as you can see by some of the tweets of the pro-abortioners on Twitter, just absolutely losing their minds over this. It's a good reminder that the United States is one of only seven countries in the entire world that allows abortion after the point of viability. The vast majority of countries do not allow abortion that's far into pregnancy. And two of the other seven countries that allow abortion that

late in the game, North Korea and China. And so it's interesting that the side who always talks about empathy and compassion and being on the side of equality and liberation and human rights, and also they are always trying to compare us to other countries and say that other countries are so much better. They seem to be perfectly fine with the fact that when it comes to the human rights of pre-born babies that we are right on par with the biggest violators of human rights in the world. So the Supreme Court heard this case the other day last week to decide whether or not this law may be upheld fully, partially, or not at all. If parts of this law are appelled, this could allow for states to enforce abortion restrictions

before viability for the first time since Roe v. Wade. So as it stands right now because of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood versus Casey, it's really impossible for for states to restrict abortion before the point of viability, which is said to be about 24 weeks. But like I said, there are babies who have survived at 21 weeks gestation outside the womb. And so if this Mississippi law is upheld, which as I'll talk about, it kind of looks like it will be, then essentially that undermines Roe. and the states are going to be able to make their decisions when it comes to how much they want to restrict abortion. So abortion isn't going to go away if Roe v. Wade goes away. That's a piece of propaganda that a lot of pro-choices are trying to throw at you. I mean, I would say amen, hallelujah, if that were the case of abortion were banned, then that would be an amazing feat.

And I would celebrate and praise the Lord. And that would be such an act of mercy of God. But that's not what happens if Roe v. Wade is essentially overturned and this Mississippi law is upheld. It will simply say that states and they will be Republican states can restrict abortion as much as they want to. And you're still going to probably be able to get an abortion through nine months of pregnancy far after a baby can feel pain in states like California or Illinois or Hawaii or New York. The very liberal states will allow and will fund and will encourage and will celebrate abortion without apology for any reason through nine months. So a woman will still be able to get an abortion, but the red states with a lot of pro-life voters will also be able to

restrict abortion or hopefully be able to ban abortion outright. This Mississippi law also allows for, it allows for exemptions for the life of the mother. And I think there are some also, there are also some other exceptions when it comes to fetal anomalies. Males. And so this is not trying to ban abortion altogether. So even after 15 weeks, a woman may still be able to get an abortion for particular reasons. It does not make exceptions for rape and incest. And again, this is after 15 weeks. So if a woman is raped or a victim of incest before 15 weeks, she will be able to get an abortion under this Mississippi law. Now, we will not know the decision of the Supreme Court until summer of 2022. So the oral arguments have already been presented

and we're not going to know how the Supreme Court decides until the summer of 2022. And so that gives Christian such an opportunity to pray and to push and to change minds and hearts until then. Like you can bet that the pro-abortion pro-choice side is not going to forget about this. They're going to be pushing hard. And again, as we'll talk about to the Chief Justice Roberts, he really cares about public opinion. He actually seems to care a lot about the so-called or the reputation of the Supreme Court and what people think about the Supreme Court. What he might see is the integrity of the Supreme Court. He doesn't really like to rock the boat, even if that means, you know, not deciding in a way that would uphold the Constitution. He really just likes things to simmer down.

And so you can bet that there are going to be forces on the left that are pushing a particular decision and you can bet that the liberal justices on the court are going to be trying to persuade Chief Justice Roberts as they already have in some of the arguments that we'll read today. And so we need to pray. We need to pray for strength. We need to pray for wisdom. We need to simply pray for true justice and righteousness and constitutionality to win over here. We're not talking about trying to get the Supreme Court as pro-lifers to align with our particular religious views. We're saying uphold the Constitution, the Constitution does not include a right to abortion. It would have been completely confounding to the authors of the Constitution to hear that in some kind of implicit nook or cranny

of the right to privacy, that there is also a right to kill a human being, that there is also a right to kill a child simply based on the location of that child. I mean, it's bizarre. It's truly any argument for abortion. It's truly, truly bizarre. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary, ground, in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed. You can watch this D-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Okay, so let's see what Ed Whelan has to say.

He reports on, he's reported on several abortion cases and I read him often in National Review when it comes to, when it comes to the law, when it comes to Supreme Court cases. So he writes for the Wall Street Journal and he really, breaks this all down for us. What's on the line? What's going on? He says this, quote, the Supreme Court hears its most important abortion cases in a, sorry, most important abortion case in a generation on Wednesday. So he wrote this last week. Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization concerns of Mississippi law that bans most abortions out after 15 weeks gestation. That's more permissive than the laws of nearly every country in Europe, as we already noted.

But because it applies before viability, it conflicts with Roe. and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Many observers expect Chief Justice John Roberts, wary of overturning precedent and anxious to defend the court from political attacks to search for a compromise. But his record provides compelling reasons to think he will forge a supermajority of justices to overturn Roe and Casey definitively. So that would be amazing news. In Roe, the justices imposed a uniform national policy on a contentious social issue.

In Obergefell v. Hodges, that was the case. on gay marriage that legalized gay marriage, the court did the same thing with the Chief Justice Roberts in dissent. Just who do we think we are, Roberts asked plaintively. The majority's decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces to same-sex marriage has no basis in the Constitution or this court's precedent. And so, Whelan is arguing that because the chief justice was in dissent on Obergefell for the particular reason that he just listed, that if you follow that reasoning that he would also be against the decision in Roe. He says, the majority seizes for itself a question the Constitution leaves to the people at a time when the people

are engaged in a vibrant debate on that question. The same was true of abortion in 1973. And so Whelan is looking at the dissent that Roberts put forth when it comes to a Bergerfell, which basically he said, look, this is not, this is not a question for the court to answer. This is a question that should be answered democratically, which is true. This should have been left. Obergafel should have been left to the states. The states should have been able to decide whether or not they wanted to legalize gay marriage where they live. It should have been up to the constituents. It should have been a democratic process. And the same is true of abortion. Whelan is arguing. And he is saying that probably Chief Justice Roberts feel feels the same way.

That it should have always been left up to the democratic process because the Constitution doesn't actually talk about it. It doesn't talk about gay marriage. And it doesn't talk about abortion, therefore, this should be a matter of legislation. Now, people on the left don't like that. They really like to use the court. They weaponize the court. They use the court to simply push what they think is good, whether or not what they think is good is constitutional. And so you'll hear them saying, like, I saw Reese Witherspoon post on Instagram that she hopes that the court will see women as full human beings and make the right decision. Actually said she's, she didn't him just say she's hoping. She said demonically that she's praying that the court will see women as

full human beings. And there are many problems with that, obviously, that the right to abortion, the right to abortion doesn't make a woman a full human being. A woman is a full human being, but so is the baby inside her womb at every single stage of development. All that child needs is time in order to grow into a baby that is ready to live outside of the womb, but at no point is that human, not a human being. So the baby is also a full human being and as such deserves human rights. It's really, really simple. But the court is not deciding whether or not a woman is a full human being, whatever the heck that means, Reese Witherspoon, the court is deciding whether or not this Mississippi law is constitutional.

That is the role of the court. The court, any court, not just the Supreme Court, is not simply to put forward whatever one side of ideologues wants or thinks is good or even thinks should be a human right. Really, the left doesn't like to leave things up to democratic processes, ironically, since they're always talking about the importance of democracy. Really, they are authoritarian in nature. Progressivism is. and a lot of people who adhere to progressivism are,

they really just want things to be decided that they think are good and they call that democracy. So they really don't, they really don't care whether or not gay marriage is a constitutional issue. They're just glad that the court cited with them. They don't really care whether or not abortion is constitutional. They just want the court to do what they think is right. That is why they threaten to pack the court.

That's why Joe Biden, when he was running, wouldn't put that off the table. And what they mean by packing the court is not just putting justices on the court if current justice resigns, putting the justice on the court that they nominate. Of course, every president does that. But actually expanding the court to, for example, 13 seats and filling those new four seats with liberal justices who will do what they say. That is packing the court. That is something that, that President Trump did not do. And yet they say that he did and he obviously didn't. He didn't expand the court because they are authoritarian in nature. They are authoritarian in wanting to push the things that

they want. Apparently, there's a good chance that this is going to be overturned. And the New York Times saying that there were four opinion writers for the New York Times that all agreed that their guess is that it gets overturned. So this is Lulu Garcia Navarro Ross Duthat. I think that's how you pronounce his last name. He had a really good opinion piece. I'm thinking. I think that it was the same person. I'm just remembering this off the top of my head who he had a really good opinion piece in the New York Times recently the case against abortion. And he just so eloquently talks about why abortion is a moral travesty and why it's not constitutional and why we should be against it. And I thought it's really good. And then Charles Blow, and then one other writer that I forgot to include in my notes.

But they basically, they all agree that it's probably going to be, that the Mississippi law is going to be upheld and that Roe will, in essence, be overturned. So Garcia Navarro says that the plainly, or that the liberal justices plainly spoke about the politics of the issue. Justice Sotomayor's comment about whether the court can survive the stench of overturning Roe was almost a direct appeal of Chief Justice Roberts. So when Sotomayor was asking questions to the, to each side, to the attorneys that were arguing in front of the court, she was basically saying that, look, if we overturn this, if we uphold this law, this is going to be damaging to the reputation of the court.

She's appealing to the chief justice, who is a swing vote in this particular case, basically saying, look, you don't want to ruin the reputation of the court, do you? It's funny. whenever the reputation of an institution is on the line, the Republicans are always the ones to acquiesce. The Republicans are always the one to say, okay, you're right. We care about the reputation. We care about the so-called integrity of this institution. So we'll just do a Democrat say it never goes the other direction. And so that's what Sotomayor is trying to do. She's talking about the politics of it because they care about the politics. But we don't

want this entity to be political one way or another. Ross, do that says, yes, it's a peculiar your situation where everybody assumes that none of the conservative justices think that either wrote or Casey was rightly decided. So the question then becomes to what extent do they act like politicians, something Roberts especially is always ready to do, as opposed to just following their legal conviction. So that's like what I was saying. We don't want them to act like politicians. We do want them to follow their legal convictions, especially Kavanaugh, especially Barrett, especially Roberts, who are all kind of seen as swing votes. And actually Gorsick could too, because we saw he made a decision in Bostock that we never thought that he was going to make as a conservative justice.

Really the votes that we know for sure are Alito, R. Thomas, who are conservatives. And obviously, we know the votes of Sotomayor of Kagan and Breyer as well. And Charles Blow says, you know, that he agrees and basically that they think that it's going to be overturned. But if you read some other scholars, they say it's really not a shoe in yet. There's a lot that could happen. There's a lot that has to be decided upon in the next several months. And we don't know for sure. We don't know for sure if it is going to be, if Roe is going to be overturned.

There are a lot of factors that go into this and we just don't know. And so I think that you'll see a lot of people, particularly in the liberal media who are going to say that Roe is going to be overturned. What they're trying to do is they're trying to prepare for the midterms. They're trying to drum up outrage. And I think, honestly, probably there are some Republicans that don't want Roe to be overturned in the summer as cynical and terrible and political as that is because they're afraid it's going to hurt them in the midterms. Terrible. Terrible. But I think that that's probably true. However, is people who hate abortion who know that abortion is the true stench from which America must recover, but may never recover. I mean, we're talking about a true Holocaust of millions and millions. of babies over the past several decades torn apart limb by limb with forceps. We're talking about a brutal and barbaric procedure that happens thousands of times a day

on defenseless human beings that there, that millions of people in the United States openly celebrate and advocate for. It's hard for me to understand how the court or really the country is going to recover from the reputation that we have gained by allowing and celebrating that. Now, I do want to point out, again, what Andrew McCarthy National Review is saying, the consequences of all of this. So here's what Andrew McCarthy says. He says, substantially, if Roe is overturned, nothing will happen. That's why it's what he calls a big fake.

Blue states will enact highly permissive abortion laws. Red states will tightly regulate abortion to the point that it is available only as a dire measure when necessary to save the life of the mother. Since we are the richest most mobile society in history with a political class that would find ways to subsidize abortion for the needy regardless, no woman who wants an abortion will be unable to get one. And that's an unfortunate reality, but I guess it's a comfort for the people on the left who are screaming like banshees over this. Life will go on mostly as before. The disappearance of Roe will barely be noticed. The federal courts will return to being what they should always have been on this matter of democratic self-determination. So he's arguing that's what abortion should have always been.

irrelevant. He's saying that the courts should be irrelevant when it comes to issues that should be democratic. That's what ought to happen and what I hope will happen. The justices will tune out the demagogic noise, do their jobs and realize that the hubbub will die down when it quickly becomes clear that, in fact, the catastrophe has not struck. And so we need to pray for the court to be insulated from the demagoguery and from the cries and the complaints of people outside the court and simply apply the law. They simply need to uphold the Constitution. I'm not even asking them to so-called do what is right. I am simply asking them to uphold the Constitution. That's their job. There's no constitutional rights to abortion. Read the entire Constitution. You will not

find a right to abortion in there or even implied. Now, I want to read you, and I'll even play you, some of the arguments that were put forth in the court, some of the questions that were asked by some of the justices, and we'll respond to a couple of those. But I want to read you the opening statement of Scott G. Stewart, who is the Solicitor General for the State of Mississippi. He is arguing in defense of Mississippi's abortion law. And he said things that I think deserve to go down in history and that are very profound. found in that we should hold on to because he's absolutely right. So he said this before the court. Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court, Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood versus Casey

haunt our country. They have no basis in the Constitution. They have no home in our history or traditions. They've damaged the democratic process. They've poisoned the law. They've choked off compromise. For 50 years, they've kept this court at the center of a political battle that it can never resolve. And 50 years on, they stand alone. Nowhere else does this court recognize a right to end human life. Consider this case, the Mississippi law here prohibits abortions after 15 weeks. The law includes robust exceptions for a woman's life and health. It leaves months to obtain an abortion. Yet, the courts below struck the law down. It didn't matter that the law applies when an unborn child is undeniably human, when risks to women surge, and when the common abortion procedure is

brutal. The lower courts held that because the law prohibits abortions before viability, it is unconstitutional no matter what. And it is unconstitutional no matter what. Roe and Casey's core holding, according to those courts, is that the people can protect an unborn

girl's life when she just barely can survive outside the womb, but not any earlier when she needs a little more help. That is the world under Roe and Casey. That is not the world the Constitution promises. The Constitution places its trust in people. On hard issue after hard issue, the people make this country work. Abortion is a hard

issue. It demands the best from all of us, not a judgment by a few of us. When an issue affects everyone and when the Constitution does not take sides on it, it belongs to the people. Roe and Casey have failed, but the people, if given the chance, will succeed. So what he is primarily arguing here is not about abortion. Again, it is about who should decide. Who should decide how legal abortion is, if at all. And he is arguing that this should be a democratic process that is decided by the people who represent the people who represent the people who voted for them and is done through legislative process. So this is about principle. This is about constitutionality. What you will often hear from people on the left and what you'll hear from Sotomayor,

which I will play you in just a second, is not really about whether or not it should be a democratic process. It's not really about whether or not it's constitutional. It's about what they feel and what they like, which is so typical for how leftist view every system. So I want to play you some of the dumbest words that I've ever heard in my life from apparently one of the top legal minds in the country and in the world. And I believe that is clip number eight. So if we can play that. The literature is filled with episodes of people who are completely and utterly brain dread responding to stimuli. There's about 40% of dead people who, if you touch their feet, the foot will recoil. There are spontaneous acts by dead brain people. So I don't think that a response to by a fetus necessarily proves that there's a sensation of pain or that there's consciousness. Talk about brain dead.

She might be brain dead herself. And yet she's talking, which is amazing. But what she's saying doesn't make any sense. So if you can understand that, what she is saying, she's responding to the contention that around 15 weeks. a baby can feel pain. We have been studying this for a very long time, and we know that their nerves are developed to the point to where they can feel pain, which means that in a second trimester abortion,

which is obviously what you have to do in around 14 weeks, so right before the cutoff of this particular law, you have to kill the baby, starve the baby, and then you have to remove the baby using forceps, and there have been testimony of people who have watched an abortion on an ultrasound when the needle that is supposed to stop the heart of the baby is inserted through the woman's abdomen. You actually see the baby flinch. You see the baby writhe in pain.

You see the baby try to get away from the needle. And yet the doctor is chasing that little baby around using his needle, looking at the ultrasound to make sure that he can stab the baby. and the baby goes into cardiac arrest and then dice. That's what happens in a second trimester abortion, okay? It's never fairy dust. It doesn't just dissolve. The baby is brutally and barbarically and cruelly callously murdered. And in response to that reality and the argument that, look, a baby at this point can feel pain.

We see all these things that I just described. Justice Sotomayor, one of the most learned people in the country and in the world, is saying, well, dead people also respond to stimulus. So just because a baby flunches during an abortion doesn't mean that the baby is alive or doesn't mean that the baby has consciousness. But of course it does. Of course it does. We know that the baby isn't dead.

That's why the woman is having an abortion, you idiot. I mean, what do you think is happening in an abortion? If the baby isn't alive, then you don't need to have an abortion, right? You would just remove it. But because the abortionist has to ensure fetal demise, that's why the baby is getting a needle inside his or her heart. So why are they even weighing in on, why are they even weighing in on this? Does she have, I mean, does she have some medical expertise that trumps medical expertise of the people who have been studying babies inside the womb for decades? And are she really trying to compare

what we know is a living baby? If it wasn't alive, it'd be a miscarriage and you wouldn't need an abortion? Is she really trying to compare a living baby to a dead person that responds to stimulus because the nerves are still alive? It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any scientific sense. It doesn't make any logical sense. We know the baby is alive, okay? We know it's a living human being. That's not a question. That's not a question. The only question that is relevant. Well, not even to the court. Really, the only question that is relevant to you in deciding whether or not abortion is justified is whether or not you believe that in some cases it's okay to kill an innocent human being. If you are for abortion, if you're for the choice of having an abortion,

you believe that it's okay sometimes in some cases to kill an innocent defenseless human being. That is your position if you believe that it should be legal to kill a baby inside the womb. Now, you can try to obfuscate. Like you can try to avoid that. You can try to say that that's not what you believe. But you probably say that you believe in general that, innocent people shouldn't be killed, that people do have a right to life, that you have a right not to be murdered. You probably say that you believe that. You probably say that you believe in human rights and empathy and compassion. But the reality is when it comes to abortion, if you're on the pro-choice side, you are suspending that rule. You would say that the rule that you live by is that you shouldn't

hurt innocent people, I'm sure, and that you certainly shouldn't kill innocent people, that that would be murder. There should be a punishment for that. But for whatever reason, you have decided that you suspend that rule only when it comes to babies inside the womb. And you need to understand and you need to be able to articulate why. Why do you suspend the rule that you say that you abide by when it comes to babies inside the womb? Is it because of location? Is it because of their size? Is it because of their development?

Is it because of their dependence upon the mother? Those are all very arbitrary reasons that you could also, by the way, apply to many people outside of the womb to justify the killing of a baby. It should honestly encourage pro-lifers that someone like Sotomayor, who is a person, Supreme Court Justice, who I'm sure in a lot of ways is very smart, very learned, very educated, knows a lot about the law, that this is the best and most sophisticated argument that she can make. It should encourage you that the top legal minds in the world have no sufficient, logical argument for abortion. When I testified before Congress and it was about abortion law, it was actually about

of Missouri abortion law and I was defending it and I was the only pro-life witness with four other pro-abortion witnesses that the Democrats called and Republicans called me to testify and I heard all of these arguments and I heard all of these Democrats pontificate about abortion and how mean and draconian anti-abortion law is and what I realized and I've said this before what I realized as I was listening to them is wow you guys as smart as you are are really stupid. when it comes to this. But that's what sin does. Sin makes you really stupid. Depraved minds are going to spew out depravity. No matter how much knowledge, no matter how much education, no matter how many books they've read. What does First Corinthians one say that God shames the wisdom of the wise,

that he brings to nothing things that are. And he glorifies, he raises up the people that may seem foolish to the world, that may seem small to the world, that may seem insignificant to the world. And Romans 1 also tells us what a depraved mind actually produces. It produces a lot of stupidity. And I know I call Zedemeyore an idiot. And I typically, I don't like to name call. But honestly, if that makes you matter than the fact that she is defending very idiotically, which I think is a generous term, by the way, if that makes you matter, my calling her a name makes you angrier than the fact that she is defending the barbaric practice of abortion makes.

makes you angrier than the act of abortion itself, your priorities are totally out of whack. I think that the god who called the Pharisees a brood of vipers would be okay with calling a woman who is trying to defend the indefensible and idiot. Her argument is idiotic. Now, I want to also play some good arguments. I want to play, let's see, let's play what Clarence Thomas said in clip one. General, would you specifically state what the right is? Is it specifically abortion? Is it liberty? Is it autonomy?

Is it privacy? The right is grounded in the liberty component of the 14th Amendment, Justice Thomas, but I think that it promotes interests in autonomy, bodily integrity, liberty, and equality. And I do think that it is specifically the right to abortion here the right of a woman to be able to control without the state forcing her to continue a pregnancy, whether to carry that baby to term. I understand we're talking about abortion here, but what is confusing is that we, if we were talking about the Second Amendment, I know exactly what we're talking about. If we're talking

about Fourth Amendment, I know what we're talking about because it's written, it's there. what specifically is the right here that we're talking about? Well, Justice Thomas, I think that the court in those other contexts with respect to those other amendments has had to articulate what the text means and the bounds of the constitutional guarantees. And it's done so through a variety of different tests that implement First Amendment rights, second amendment rights, fourth amendment rights. So I don't think that there is anything unprecedented or anomalous about the right that the court articulated in Rowan Casey and the way that it implemented that.

that right by defining the scope of the liberty interest by reference to viability and providing that that is the moment when the balance of interest tips and when the state can act to prohibit a woman from getting an abortion based on its interest in protecting the fetal life at that point. So the right specifically is abortion? It's the right of a woman prior to viability to control whether to continue with a pregnancy, yes. So he's making a great point there. Basically he's saying, okay, where are you deriving this?

supposed right to abortion that you say is found in the Constitution? Like, what right are you talking about? Are you talking about a right to privacy? Or you talk what right? Because we see these particular rights in the Constitution. We obviously don't see the word abortion. So what umbrella are you putting abortion under? And basically what he causes her to narrow down to is that it's not really essentially a right to privacy. It's not essentially a right to any kind of liberty or autonomy. It is essentially a right to abortion. And what I'm guessing that he is implying is that, well, there is no right to that. What you're arguing is that they have a right to abortion, but where do you actually find that in the Constitution? And she, of course, will be unable to say so. Now, we don't have time to go through all of the arguments that I think we're good that were put forth by the conservative justices. Roberts asks a good question, you know, why is it 15 weeks enough? If you say that you're pro-choice and you're for the choice of a woman to be able to have an abortion, why can't you do that before 15 weeks? What's the argument there? So he asks that. That's a good question. Kavanaugh says, which this I think is a good indication for where this case could go, good in terms of where conservatives and pro-lifers wanted to go.

He says precedents isn't everything here. Really what the court has rested upon for the past several decades is simply precedent. Not really looking at whether or not Roe is constitutional, which is decidedly not. But what does precedent say? It's kind of an easy out so they don't have to make the decision. And Kavanaugh says, well, precedent isn't everything. even though justices like Kagan, like Breyer, like Sotomayor, are saying it is precedent. They know they can't argue constitutionally.

And so they're arguing politically. They're arguing emotionally. They're arguing stupidly. They're arguing on precedents. But Kavanaugh is pushing back on that same precedent isn't everything. Barrett also, she pushed back on this idea that this idea that was being put forth by one of the attorneys. I think it was Reichelman who argued. you know, women who aren't able to have an abortion, you know, babies might not live the life

that they should live. Like, this is not good for women. This is not good for children. And Barrett brings up safe haven laws. There are safe haven laws in several states where if you get pregnant and you have a baby and the baby is unwanted, like you can put this baby in a safe haven box. And there is a person on the other side of the safe haven box that will take that baby and make sure that baby gets to a safe place. And so that should absolutely be taken into account. Let's take into the into account that there are thousands and thousands of pro life volunteers and pro life pregnancy centers that will help you take care of your baby and help take care of you financially will help you find refuge, find a job, find education, find supplies and clothes and everything that

you need if you are a woman who is pregnant in crisis. Like all of those things have to be taken into account if you are honestly going to argue before the Supreme Court that a woman who can't get an abortion and her baby will absolutely be destitute. That's not necessarily true. And then there were other good things that were said by Scott Stewart when he talks about, when he talks about, you know, why this isn't constitutional in the arguments that, the arguments that he put forth are all available. All of these, the entire transcript of the arguments, I think it's about 125 pages, are all available online. I encourage you to read them for yourself.

We'll include the link to all of those in the description of this episode. It's a contentious issue. Obviously, it's a very dramatic issue. There's going to be a lot of propaganda in the next coming months. Certainly it's going to whip up a lot of hysteria before the midterms.

That's the purpose. But at the center of all of this, there are babies. There are human lives. We're talking about human beings, innocent, defenseless, human beings, babies that deserve a right to life. That's what it is. That is at the core of this debate. So remember that. Whenever you hear the sob stories of why we should be able to legally brutalize

children in the United States, remember that you're talking about brutalizing children. All right. So a reminder, once again, that we should be praying about this. We should be trying to change hearts and minds. I still get messages all the time from people. It's the number one subject that people tell me that they change their minds on after listening to this podcast. I don't take credit for that at all. Not a single bit. I give thanks to the mercy and the grace of God. And I certainly am not the only person who God is using to change people's hearts

and minds. Live action has done excellent work on this. Abby Johnson. There are so many other pro-life advocates that have been fighting this battle for so long, who have been so effective in persuading people. And really the number one thing that I am told when I ask people on Instagram, what changed your mind about abortion? The number one thing is not having a child yourself, not hearing an argument unrelatable,

not hearing some compelling testimony of a survivor of abortion, although those are all incredibly effective. The number one thing that I hear changes people's mind on abortion is knowing Christ. That when someone became a Christian, when they started following Christ, he opened their eyes. to what abortion is, to the image of God and people. And they were able to see how destructive, how terrible, how sinful, how awful, how murderous abortion actually is. For people who say that they follow Christ and they don't see the brutality of abortion,

I would certainly implore you to humbly seek whether or not you truly believe in the Christ who said, let all the children. children come to me. I think that's something that you should consider, especially this Christmas season is whether or not you're truly saved. All right, that's all I've got time for today. I'll see you back here tomorrow. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't

just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.