Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 844 | Is the Pro-Life Movement Fake? | Guest: Bradley Pierce

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

Today we're joined by Bradley Pierce, president of the Foundation to Abolish Abortion and VP of Heritage Defense, to discuss the abortion abolitionist movement and what it broadly believes. First we explain what some of the differences might be between abolitionists and pro-lifers, one of which is that abolitionists largely believe in criminal charges for a woman who gets an abortion. We discuss what justice for abortions might look like and how to balance impartiality and compassion for those misled by the media and the abortion industry. While it may seem like abortion abolitionists and pro-lifers are on the same side, much abolition legislation has been struck down by the pro-life camp – why is this, and what other criticisms of the pro-life movement exist from the other side? Abolitionists also don't believe in abortion restrictions, such as heartbeat bills, unless they are full bans (and in some cases have other qualifications). We discuss this rejection of incrementalism and ask what the proposals are that replace this method of fighting abortion. Will abolition legislation put women at risk who have had miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies, and why do abolitionists attack pro-lifers online? We cover these questions and more. --- Timecodes: (01:11) What is abortion abolitionism? (11:10) Partiality & compassion to those misled (17:17) Do pro-lifers give into the pro-choice view? (21:35) Who is opposing abolitionist laws? (26:00) What about ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages? (28:42) Death penalty & struggle between feelings and logic (36:18) "Abolitionists are misogynists" (39:30) Incrementalism (52:55) Abolitionists attacking pro-lifers --- Today's Sponsors: Cozy Earth — go to CozyEarth.com/ALLIE and use promo code 'ALLIE' at checkout to save 35% off your order! EdenPURE — when you buy one Thunderstorm you get one FREE, this week only! Go to EdenPureDeals.com, use promo code 'ALLIE'! Patriot Mobile — go to PatriotMobile.com/ALLIE or call 878-PATRIOT and use promo code 'ALLIE' to get free activation! Jase Medical — get up to a year’s worth of many of your prescription medications delivered in advance. Go to JaseMedical.com today and use promo code “ALLIE”. --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 191 | Planned Parenthood Uncovered with Abby Johnson https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-191-planned-parenthood-uncovered-with-abby-johnson/id1359249098?i=1000458001992 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: 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. What's the difference in being a pro-lifer and an abortion abolitionist? This is a very contentious and controversial debate among those who are anti-abortion. And today I am talking with an abolitionist. Bradley Pierce, he's the president. of abolish abortion, Texas and the foundation to abolish abortion. And he is going to tell me why today abortion abolitionists oppose much of the mainstream pro-life movement, specifically from a biblical but also a constitutional perspective. This is a really fascinating discussion that you guys have been asking me to have for years at this point. And I know that you are going to be

educated by it. You are hopefully going to be encouraged and challenged by it. I know I was. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use Code Alley at checkout for a discount that's good ranchers.com. Code Allie. Bradley Pierce, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do? Yeah. So, I mean, the most important thing about me is I'm a Christian, saved by the grace of God. I'm a husband, to my wife Cindy, father to our, we're expecting number 11 right now. Oh my goodness. And tell everyone how old your oldest is. And our oldest is 12 years old. And you're expecting number 11. We have two sets of twins in there. Yes. And they're all just a blessing.

We love them. We're excited. And I'm due in December. So it got a little more long, a little longer to wait. But then as a profession, I'm an attorney. I've been practicing for 16 years. Awesome. And you are an abolitionist. You are the president of abolish abortion. Texas, also the foundation to abolish abortion. Now, most people who listen to this podcast are pro-life. We are against abortion. It may even call themselves abortion abolitionists, but not very many people know exactly what that means. So what distinguishes an abortion abolitionist from maybe your standard pro-lifer? Yeah. Well, I mean, I've always raised pro-life, you know, raising a Christian home, raised pro-life, always thought abortion was wrong. It's a sin. And, you know, it was at some point,

though, I started to see a lot of what I would call compromises happening in the pro-life movement, compromising principles, not fighting the battle against abortion on, I think, Christian, biblical terms. And so for me, what being an abolitionist means in a nutshell is first and foremost that I'm a Christian, which means that I approach the issue of abortion from Christianity. I use God's word. It's, you know, it's the most powerful words in the universe. Certainly not to the exclusion of science and reason and things like that, but we shouldn't be afraid to use God's word, the sword of the spirit. So I'm a Christian who believes that murdering anyone should be illegal for everyone. Because everyone's made in the image of God and God tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves.

So what are the laws protecting my life from someone murdering me right now? Well, those should be the same laws that I want to protect someone's life before they're born as well. And you don't see support for that idea among a lot of mainstream pro-life organizations. Or they might say that, right? They would say Christian pro-lifers, everyone's made in the image of God. Life starts at conception. We should be able to protect the dignity and the right to life of unborn children using the law. Right.

And yet there are some distinctions between what you believe or what abolitionists believe and what the standard pro-life person and organization advocates for. So what are some of those distinctions? Yeah. So again, one of those is using the authority of God's word and being willing to do that. A lot of times, I even saw a post today. Someone's saying, hey, we really shouldn't use scripture, right? Because the people that we're talking to, they don't submit to the authority of scripture, right?

they're not Christians, so why would we do scripture with them? You know, but God's word says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, and so we should be using God's word. So I think that's a big distinction between abolitionists and the pro-life movement. And when I say pro-life movement, you know, obviously it's a generalization. There's obviously individuals within it that this would be, you know, there would be differences of opinion on this, but generally speaking, the pro-life movement, although it's full of many, many Christians, it when it comes to the arguments typically doesn't begin with and end with scripture. They're trying to make a so-called secular case against abortion, yes, which I've also said something

I realized though over the past couple of years. I can't say that I've always realized this, that there really isn't a secular case against abortion. People say it's against science, it's against morality, it's against ethics. But morality and ethics don't mean anything if they're not rooted in absolute truth. And science can tell us what can be, but not what should be or what is, but not what must. And so science doesn't really tell us that abortion is wrong. So I agree with you there, that there is an effort. No, we're going to make this secular, progressive argument for abortion. You can try, but it still starts with the premise that that life inside of the womb is valuable and science can't really can't really answer whether or not a human is valuable. Right, exactly. So

that's why we have, you know, because ultimately even the pro-abortion movement today, you know, we think, well, if they can just realize that this is a human being, well, then everyone will stop doing abortions. But the kind of the pro-abortion, the intellectuals, the scholars and the pro-abortion movement today, many of them have conceded, okay, it's a human being. But mother's rights trump the baby's rights. Exactly. And it's like, again, without an absolute standard of God's word, okay, how do you argue against that? Other than to say, that sounds really bad and that's out of touch with history, it's like,

yeah, but there's good things that have sounded bad and been out of touch with history, too. So how do you judge? You've got to have an absolute standard, and that's what God's word gives us. Right. And you would say, or abolitionists would say in general, again, this is another movement that's made up of individual, so there's going to be some variation there. that while pro-lifers would say that they agree that life inside the womb matters, the life starts at conception, and they would deny this whole bodily autonomy,

my body, my choice argument. I do hear abolitionists say a lot, though, that this kind of second victim mentality that a lot of pro-lifers have, that the woman is also like an equal victim of abortion as the child, inhibits most pro-lifers from actually doing justice when it comes to the unborn, because they're unwilling to go to the point of legal, equal protection. So talk about that distinction between abolitionists and most pro-lifers. Yeah, well, that kind of comes back to, you know, when I say,

I believe that murdering anyone should be illegal for everyone. Like the general pro-life movement, certainly the pro-life lobby, is I would put it, the people pushing the policy and the legislation around the country, they don't agree with that. they believe that, you know, aborting a child should be illegal for everyone except for the mother. And you can go look at the bills that are being introduced and passed around the country for the last 50 years. And that's exactly what they all say. They say, you know, abortion is illegal.

You write the best bills, we would say ban all clinic abortions, ban all abortionists, but then says, but this does not apply to the mother. Right. And so then what happens is, you know, you're really doing a couple of things on a principle level that are wrong, right? Both first biblically, you are doing something that God expressly forbids. God says you shall not show partiality in judgment. He says it throughout scripture that you should not show partiality in judgment. What is partiality? Partiality is, in Hebrew, that word means regarding faces.

So in other words, whenever it comes to judge a case, right, people are commonly seeing like lady justice holding the scales of justice, and lady justice is typically blind. And so that's what justice should be. It should be blind to who these parties are, right? Are these parties, is one of them rich and one of them poor, is one of them strong and one of them weak? It's one of them a woman, one of them a man, or one of them of this skin color, or that skin color, or in this case, is one of them born or one of them not yet born? Or is this the mother or her or her? her child, right? Justice says you don't take those factors into consideration as far as determining the outcome of the case. You take what happened here, right? What is murder? It's two elements to murder, causing the death of an individual with criminal intent, right? That's what murder is. It's not based upon, well, is this individual born yet or not? Or is this individual this or that? At that point, Once you start looking at that, now you're showing partiality, which God expressly forbids doing that. Hey, this is Steve Day.

If you're listening to Alley, 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. So just to read the specific scripture, this is something we've talked about a lot, partiality, especially when it comes to so-called social and racial justice. We talked a lot about this in the summer of 2020. this passage, Leviticus 1915, you shall do know injustice in court, you shall not be partial to the poor, nor defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. So you can't defer to someone or show partiality to someone because you think they're weak or you think they're oppressed or you think they're marginalized or because they have a certain status of power that you think would be helpful to you or whatever. So what you're arguing is that this doesn't just go for the so-called equity progressive agenda with black and white, rich and poor, press and oppressor. But it also comes to a woman and her child that if we are willing to punish the doctor or punish the other people involved and not the woman, we are showing partiality.

We're showing partiality to the woman, I guess just because of our sense of pity and compassion, which I can really empathize with because of. a lot of women who have abortions are victims of something. They're often victims of abuse, victims of neglect. They're victims very often. I've talked to people who used to work at Planned parenthood of misinformation. They're expressly told this is not a human. This is not a child. This is a blob. I mean, even the media we see, oh, look at what this fetus looks like or whatever they would call it pregnancy tissue looks like at nine weeks and they show something that is not scientifically accurate. It looks like, you know, wadded up tissue paper. So some people really are totally ignorant. So what do we do with that? Like how do we pair the compassion that we have for the women who are

victims with everything that you're saying that I believe to be true? Right. Right. Impartial, righteous justice and truly fighting for the full dignity and rights of that baby in the womb. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a lot right there. You know, first of all, just on the partiality. You know, we just had a ruling from the Supreme Court recently on affirmative action where they said, hey, you can't use someone's skin color in determining, you know, who you admit to your college or who you don't. Right. Right. They said, basically, you can't show partiality in deciding admissions for colleges. How much more so, when we're talking about protecting a person from murder, we certainly shouldn't be showing partiality there. You know, as far as women who are victims, there certainly are. I mean, there's a sense in which everybody's a victim, right? We're all victims of the society that we live in, the misinformation that's fed to us,

the cultural things that we see in the media. And so there's one sense that, hey, we've all been lied to, we've all heard misinformation. You know, there's another extent to which how many of us have swallowed it willfully because it goes along with, you know, what we already want. But to a certain extent, everyone's victims. And then, you know, there certainly are women who are victims against more specifically, like you're talking about. They've been abused. They've been neglected. They've been, you know,

lied to by the abortion industry and absolutely, you know, they're victims in that sense as well. But there's a difference, you know, between that kind of victimhood and what I would call legal victimhood, right? Legally, we have victims under law where someone can say, hey, yes, I technically committed this crime or this act, which is a criminal, but I did it in such a way that I'm a victim and I shouldn't be prosecuted for it. Like they were forced to, they were told by their trafficker, pimp, if you don't do this, I'm going to kill you, kind of thing. That's right.

So that person, we call that duress in most states, and some states call that coercion. And so if someone is basically under threat of life or limb, if they don't go through with this thing, well, then yes, we already have that built into our justice system, that that person is, you know, immune or excused from liability, you know, for those actions. It's like a person who, you know, you're in your car at the local convenience store and somebody jumps in and puts a gun to your head and says, hey, you're my getaway driver now and you drive them away. Yes, you've technically committed a crime because you're aiding and abetting this person who's committing a crime, but you did it under duress. Someone had a gun to your head. So certainly women who were in that situation, absolutely.

Our law would already say, yes, you are a legal victim and you should not be in any way liable for your actions there. Or we also have in the legal realm something called mistake of fact. And that is someone did something, but they didn't really know what they were doing. Right. You've heard of like mistake of the law. And everybody has heard, I think, mistake of the law is no excuse. A mistake of fact is if you truly did not know what you are doing, then, yeah, you're not going to be held accountable for that.

Right. Right. And there's certainly women who fall into that category as well. So as an abolitionist, what equal protection means, and that's a constitutional phrase we can talk about, but what equal protection means is that, you know, right now the laws are written in such a way that mothers, right, the mothers who abhorred their children have just absolute immunity, no matter how not victims they are, right? In every single state. Is there any state legislation that applies any kind of criminal penalties, fines, community service, anything to the woman

who has an abortion? The closest is Oklahoma, but even there, the Attorney General has not interpreted that to apply to the woman. So I would say no. There's not a same. single state that in any way has any kind of liability for the mothers. There's a couple of states that you could argue do, but there's enormous loopholes, so they really don't. So that's the way that the laws are written. That's the way the pro-life movement is written laws. And that's what abolitionists. We're saying, that's not just. That's not justice. You know, above the Supreme Court, you walk up to the Supreme Court, it says equal justice under law. That's not equal justice. That's not equal protection, as the Constitution says. And it's certainly not in part.

So you're kind of arguing that the pro-lifers, even though they say that they don't, they kind of do give in to the same idea that pro-choicers do, pro-abortionists do, that life inside the womb is different. It's a little less valuable. Sure, we say that it's a human being, but it's different than, or it should be treated differently than a woman who hires a hit man to kill her three-year-old. we would advocate, all of us would say, yeah, that woman should be liable. She should be held accountable for hiring someone to murder her toddler. But we say if she hires someone to murder her baby inside the womb, she shouldn't be held accountable. And that shows that in our minds, we hold the distinction between the value of a three-year-old and the value of the baby inside the womb, even though we would argue, all day that we don't as pro-lifers, that that's actually one of the arguments that we make to pro-choicers, that there is no distinction. And yet because we are unwilling to, you know, allow women to go

through due process, because that's what you're arguing for. Every situation would be different. It wouldn't be, oh, you heard someone had an abortion and so immediately she's going to jail. You would go through due process and you would figure out, was she coerced? Was she a victim? did she really, was she 12 years old and really had no idea? Obviously, she would be a victim there too, but she had no idea what was going on. So that's what you're advocating for. You're advocating for her to go through due process and that that would be real justice for the unborn child. Right, exactly.

I mean, again, you talk about the pro-life movement that, yes, has said these things, but actions speak louder than words, right? We say the baby in the womb is just as valuable as a person outside the womb. but actions speak louder than words. And that's where we need to really repent of being discriminatory, you know, toward children in the womb. And we've said, I mean, just imagine that for a born person, right? If we were to say, well, you know, we're going to allow this certain class of people to murder you

and for there to be no consequences for that. I mean, that's totally absurd. Yeah. That's absurd. But yet, that's where we are. That's where we've been in the pro-life movement. So, yes, due process is exactly what. what we're calling for, right? The 14th Amendment of the Constitution says no state shall do not

shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction, the equal protection of the laws. Right. So the pro-life movement, we said a fetus is a person. Well, then that means that the Constitution is not neutral on the issue of abortion. It means it says you states shall not deny equal protection to those persons, equal protection of the laws. So that means every time we write a bill that says this doesn't apply to the mother, then we are violating the U.S. Constitution, and we're violating God's word which says, you shall not show partiality. And I think that's why we've gotten where we are. And so what we're calling for is, no, the law should be the same. And it really doesn't require writing new laws, right? We already have laws against homicide in all 50

states, but then they have these exceptions for mothers and abortions. And you talk about, you know, a mother who hires an assassin for a three-year-old. You know, what's happening with abortion today, even a few years ago is that it's not the mother hiring an assassin. It's she is the abortionist, right? She is the one performing the abortion because medication abortion several years ago became, you know, over the majority of abortions. And now today, even in states that claim to be abortion-free

after the Dobbs case, overturned row, which we're grateful for, but nevertheless, even in those states, mothers are still ordering abortion pills, getting them delivered, and doing their own abortions at home, and none of that is illegal because of the pro-life exceptions. In all 50 states, none of that's illegal for a woman to order Mithepristone and the other abortion medication that escapes my mind right now to abort her child. That's legal in all 50 states? Yes.

Wow. So the overturning of Roe v. Wade, obviously we all celebrated that. But something I've heard abolitionists say is what she just said, that abortion is still legal in all 50 states and that the laws that have been passed that say were protecting unborn life after Roe v. Wade haven't really done that because they failed to meet that equal protection standard. But abolitionist laws have been proposed in most of these states.

Who's been the biggest opposition to those bills? The pro-choicers or the mainstream kind of pro-life organizations? I wish I could say it was the pro-choicers, the pro-abortion organizations. But the bills that we've introduced in 15, 16 states now have been opposed and ultimately killed by the pro-life organizations, pro-life lobbying organizations and pro-life politicians across the board. We just had one just a couple of months ago that I went and testified for in Missouri that they allowed two people. They only allowed us five minutes for all the testimony in this committee.

And so there were two of us testified in favor of the bill, and then there were only time for two to testify against the bill. And the two that testified against the bill was the two largest pro-life organizations in Missouri, Missouri right to life and campaign life Missouri. And that's what we've seen, again, not just in Missouri, but really across the country, because of, you know, the mentality of the pro-life lobby that no mothers have to have complete immunity in every state. And what we're saying, what we're calling for is not the opposite of that.

We're not saying, no, every mother must get, you know, must be thrown in jail, period, regardless of what the, you know, what the allegations are, what circumstances are. No, all we're saying is, what's the justice system that protects born people? We're calling for that same justice system to protect people before they're born. And what does that look like? Well, there is a presumption. Everybody has heard about you're presumed innocent until proven guilty. Right?

So there is a presumption that everyone is a victim and that everyone is innocent, right? That should still continue to apply. And so we do say that. Yeah, let's presume that everyone is innocent, that everyone is a victim. and then let's require the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of their peers, who've been indicted by a jury of their peers, before a judge, that they have committed this crime. And there's every opportunity then for them to argue duress or I didn't know or what have you. And then there's multiple appellate courts that then review all of that,

governors or boards of paroles or pardons in every state can then review that and even pardon people. if they don't think it was a just outcome. So that's the justice system that we already trust. And it's not perfect, right? And there's plenty of improvements that could be made there. But that's the justice system we have protecting our own lives and born people. We're just calling that that justice system should be the one that also protects people before they're born. And I think I know what you'll say to this, but I'm trying to anticipate some of the questions that my audience will have.

Do you fear or would there be a legitimate concern that this would put at risk women who, who have had ectopic pregnancies or have had a miscarriage and someone then accuses them of aborting their child. Or sometimes you have to take the same medications or go through a D&C after you've naturally miscarried your child. And if someone accused them of murder, okay, well, then you've got the tragedy of losing your child via miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, and then you get convicted of murder because the child inside your womb died. I don't know if pro-lifers would say, well, that's part of the reason why we want these protections from others, because there are so many different situations in which it would not be helpful for this woman to have to appear in a court of law. What do you say to something like that?

I think a lot of that is kind of buying into the pro-abortion scare tactics. I don't really think that's very likely, right? For one thing, you know, to even investigate, kind of the process to even get to having someone in court requires that there be a report made, hey, I suspect that someone has murdered somebody else, which then law enforcement then begins investigating, which then, hey, if they want to dig deeper, they have to go to a judge and prove that there's probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed, which a judge then gives them a warrant to go dig deeper. And again, at this person, at this point, this person is not, they don't even know that any of this is going on.

And then if they believe that there is probable cause that a crime has been committed, then they can go to a grand jury and get an indictment. And if the grand jury agrees that there's probable cause, then at that point the person can be charged and arrested. So there's a lot of people that have to agree that a crime has been committed before we even get to someone having to defend themselves in court. But I think the likely, and the bars are pretty high to really get to that. So I think it's, I think it's a scare tactic that people use that's not happening today. Again, pro-abortion, they're using that today. They're saying, oh, your laws banning abortion women are, it's not happening. It's not happening today.

And it wouldn't happen under an abolition bill. And as far as ectopics and those sort of things, again, our bills, you know, make provision that, yeah, that's not murder. that no one isn't wanting for this baby to die. Everyone's trying to save as many people as they possibly can and doing everything that they can to save as many as possible. Well, yeah, that's excluded, and that's not what we're talking about here. So you would say in states where the death penalty

is on the table for murderers, that a woman who self-medicates, self-induces, and abortion, that the death penalty should be on the table for her too. I think it should be. I think it should be on the table. It's something for the jury to consider. And, you know, you think about, you know, I was at the, our organization, along with 20 other organizations and 20 state legislators, we submitted a brief in the Dobbs case. And we were there on

December 1st, 2022 when the case was being argued. And they were right in front of the court. There were women out there shouting their abortions, taking abortion pills, killing their children right there in broad daylight in front of everyone, you know, celebrating it. Right. At some point, you've got to say, Well, yeah, some people are, they're doing it with such malice. They know exactly what they're doing. They're doing it with malice. That's why we have the death penalty, right?

Or someone, you know, and again, I think the death penalty is biblical. God says when he first institutes civil government, Genesis 9, he says, whoever sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed. And some people may say, well, that's an Old Testament thing. But then in the New Testament, Romans 13, right? the government does not bear the sword in vain, right, but they're God's ministers of justice. Well, the sword is not a tool of chastisement or imprisonment. It's a tool of execution. And so both Old Testament and New Testament, I think God says that the death penalty is the proper

response for someone who maliciously takes human life. And so absolutely, I think it should be on the table. And again, that just tells us how serious God treats, you. human life and how valuable human life is. And again, he says why right there in Genesis 9, because we're made in his image. Yeah. And I am against this kind of second victim mentality that I do see from a lot of people that every woman who has had an abortion is a victim. No, some women who have abortions are victims. Absolutely. But someone is not a victim because she had an abortion. She may be a victim because of other things that have happened to her, absolutely. But she's not an automatic victim because she chose to have an abortion. And you're right. We've seen shout your, we hear a lot from the

pro-choice side. No one is pro-abortion. No one celebrates abortion. But you see the shout your abortion rhetoric. You see the kind of malice. There was this awful, awful video that I don't even think I've played. I'm not sure if I reacted to it or not of this man who said that he wanted a uterus transplant just so he could be the first so-called trans woman, aka man, to have an abortion. And so there is like, there is a bloodlust there. And I do think that we have to just be honest about that and say, well, why shouldn't? Like we see someone who is celebrating the murder of a human being, someone who pro-life per se is a human being. Why shouldn't that person be held accountable at all? But it's, I mean, it's an uncomfortable thing. It is, it's really uncomfortable because in that,

category and I know that people are going to say, well, that's just feelings. I understand that. I'm someone who speaks against, like, allowing feelings to dictate right and wrong and like what the law is. But gosh, there are so many women I know who I love, who God has redeemed to have had abortions and God has used their story, use their testimony. They've gone on to have lots of beautiful children and, gosh, God has just used their platform and their testimony so much and so powerfully. It's really hard for me to picture that woman in jail. And it's not, and I understand there's some cognitive dissonance there. I understand. I'm just being honest that that's difficult for me, that I love those women so much. And I'm glad that they're out in the world sharing their testimony that what Satan meant for evil, God is then

using for good. And, but at the same time, I totally understand what you're saying, the impartiality that is needed to enact true justice, the truly believing and acting upon the belief that that child is an image bearer of God and that they need the equal protection. So that's just where, I don't know, you know, my feelings and my logic kind of duke it out. Well, and I think that's, I mean, that's appropriate, right? There's people that you love and you don't want to think of them, wow, that they would go to prison. But the thing is, we're not talking about going backwards, right? We're not talking about going backwards and imprisoning or prosecuting people who've had abortions in the past, you know, before a bill of abolition would be passed, right? No, our laws have told

people that this is legal. So of course it would be unjust, to be unconstitutional. It would be wrong first to go back and try to prosecute anybody. Right. But picture the people that you're thinking about or the people that your viewers may be thinking about and think about would they have had an abortion if it had been illegal, perhaps even up to death penalty, right? To get to do that abortion. And the answer is almost certainly no. Yeah. And a lot of the women we talk to that are abolitionists, they say that have had abortions. They say, I wish it had been illegal. I wish it had been considered murder for me to do this to my child.

Because then I never would have done it. You know, because these are law-abiding women. And if the law made it murder, then they would not have violated it. I just got a message this morning from someone saying that, that she said 19 years later, it haunts me every day. I so wish I hadn't made that choice. And, like, she does struggle with the emotions of it because of course she would like to,

it's hard for her to picture herself going to prison instead of living the life that she does now in retrospect. But she said, if it had been illegal, I wouldn't have done it. And that's the whole point, right? The purpose, I'd say there's three purposes of the law. Number one is to teach people what's right and what's wrong, to reflect God's character and his value. And that's one purpose of making it, okay,

then let's make it where it treats this child the same is, you know, me and you, that we're all equally valuable. That's the first purpose of the law is a tutor, the scripture calls it. Right. Then secondly, the next purpose of the law is to deter. It's to prevent people or to deter people from committing crimes. You know, someone who, like, okay, they don't, they're not taught by the law, but they can be deterred from committing the crime.

And that's what we want. And then the third function of the law is, okay, if someone's not taught and not deterred and they still go through with that, then it's to provide justice for the victim. And that's exactly what should happen when it comes to abortion. And again, if an abolition bill passes and provides equal protection, I would expect that many of the people who would have otherwise gotten an abortion, they instead say, I don't want to be subject to being prosecuted for that. So I'm not going to do that. And again, that's what's true mercy. That's what mercy really is. isn't saying, oh, there should be no penalty whatsoever, because that just then says, okay,

it's right to do this thing. Right. Mercy is saying, it's putting up barriers and making it difficult and saying, no, if you do do this thing, these are the consequences that God has prescribed here, and then they don't go through with it, and they have their child. That's merciful, and that's what we want to be. And so to those who say, because I've seen this, of course, in the media, saying abolitionists or misogynist, very extreme misogynist. Like you would say, no, it's actually for the love of women and the love of their children, of course, that we want to put up every obstacle that we possibly can so that they won't go through this thing that will wreck their life.

It will wreck their heart. And it will also wreck the life of their child. So you would say it's motivated by love and mercy. not by some bitterness towards women. Absolutely. It's not, I love women. You know, I'm grateful for my mom. I'm grateful for my wife and all of our children.

I'm grateful for the God's created woman. It's not good for man to be alone, right? We're all, we need one another, men and women. And God's, you know, created us both equally valuable and equally in his image. And so I'm grateful for that. So it's not against women. It's not saying, oh, I'm trying to control your body. It's, it's no.

that life is just as valuable as your life. And you were once in the womb, right? And I'm saying your life in the womb should be protected. You know, slightly over half of babies in the womb are female. And we want them protected just as much as everybody else. So it's certainly not misogynist in any way as I would describe misogyny. But instead, but yeah, men should be. Men should be standing up and fighting to protect women and children.

And I know that sounds sexist to some, but to me, that's our God-given role to do that. So one thing that I have a hard time with is there's a couple things with the abolition movement. And one is the complete opposition to any form of incrementalism. So the opposition to any bill that restricts abortion, because obviously you don't want to just restrict murder. You want to abolish murder. And I understand the reasoning for supporting laws, supporting bills that abolish abortion. But you will also oppose like any resolution or any legislation that does not fully abolish abortion. And you will say, no, I'm not going to cheer for a 20-week ban. I'm not going to cheer for a six-week ban because this still allows murder in some cases.

What do you say to those who say, okay, I'm with. you, but this is better than nothing. We're still making it harder for women to have abortions. We're still putting an obstacle in the way. And while it might be small in the grand scheme of things, there have been fewer abortions since these laws were passed, since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the last year. Like, shouldn't we at least be on board with the legislation that we can get passed. Yeah, so obviously there's a lot, a lot to that. And, you know, we all want to pass whatever we can to protect as many lives as we possibly can. But there's, you know, the Bible talks about we don't do evil that good may come, right? The ends don't justify the means. So we have

to ask, okay, you know, we can use practical, you know, some may call pragmatism to decide what we do, and where we do it. And, you know, really, it's everything is increments in the terms of step by step, right? Everything that we accomplish is step by step. We're human beings bound by time and space. And so everything is chronological step by step. But, you know, that's why, you know, someone would call it incrementalism is whenever you are actually compromising principles, but kind of because the ends justify the means.

And what I would say is, what is the limiting principle to the thing? that, right? Where does, where do you cross a threshold to where you say, okay, well, that means at that point, that becomes off limits, right? What means and methods of abolishing abortion are off limits? And as an abolitionist, I would say, means and methods that violate God's word, not just because they fall short, but of perfect justice, but because God explicitly prohibits them. So those methods of trying to abolish abortion are off-limits to us. So when God says, you shall not show partiality,

that means, I believe, we shall not, and we should not support any bill that writes an exception from others, or that says, oh, well, this only protects you if you're six weeks old, because they violate God's law, right? I think that's our limiting principle when we say, okay, we can compromise. Hey, I'm a lawyer. We negotiate, right? I'm all for compromising and people, everybody gives a little.

But there's a point in which compromise becomes wrong, and that's whenever you're compromising principles. And so whenever we're actually violating God's word, showing partiality and judgment, that's wrong. We shouldn't do that. And that's what those bills do. And they do that, and they also violate the U.S. Constitution, which says no states should deny equal protection of the laws. Well, does this bill deny equal protection of the laws?

Well, then it's constitutionally prohibited and you as legislators have sworn an oath to the Constitution as I have as an attorney. And so that is not open to you. That kind of going that route and that means to try to do something good, yes, the motives may be great, but that method is not open to us. So you think all Christian voters and legislators should oppose any legislation that simply restricts abortion and does not abolish it. They should not vote yes, for example, on a heartbeat bill. I think if it denies equal protection, if it shows partiality, then they should oppose that. Okay. So if every Republican legislator did that, if, but I can kind of already see the response to what I'm about to say, but I'll let you do it. If every Republican legislative

later did that if they said I'm not going to vote yes on a six-week ban or something like that. I guess the argument would be, well, then they would support the abolitionist bill and then that would be a good thing and then abortion would be abolished. Or I don't know, if a significant number, say a significant number of Republicans across the state legislatures said, I'm not going to support these restrictionist, incrementalist, pragmatist bills only equal protection. And they stood in the way of, say, a six-week ban getting passed, but they didn't have enough votes to get an abolitionist bill passed. I mean, we would obviously be looking at a lot of states that would restrict abortion a lot less than they do now. We'd probably be looking at a lot more dead babies.

And so I understand that that's the pragmatist mentality, but that's just what I keep thinking about, you know, the babies. And the babies that are actually protected from these imperfect laws. it's hard for me to say, well, no, I'm not going to protect those babies in any way because this bill isn't exactly what we want it to be or what we believe it should be. Right. Well, I mean, ultimately, we're called to be faithful to what God says and we leave the results to him. That said, I think even in the long term, I think far more babies will die because we compromise these principles.

I think far more babies have died over the last 50 years because we have been compromising these principles who've not been consistent. Our actions and our words have not been in alignment. And so far more babies have died. And so that's, you know, even today, you look at a state that passes a heartbeat bill. There's one major conservative state that passed a heartbeat bill a couple of years ago. And people came out to the governor and said, well, what about mothers, you know, who are raped? And he says, oh, well, they still have six weeks. Right. A heartbeat bill doesn't protect a single baby from being aborted. It just means that they have to be aborted. earlier. And you go stand outside of clinics, you know, like a state Georgia I heard the other day,

someone was telling me they were outside of clinics there and, you know, people are going in, and they're harder to talk to and to counsel and to take time because there's so much rush to get your abortion now. So they're not seeing numbers really going down. They're just seeing people rushing there faster. So they're really the get your abortion faster, take less time to think about it, bills that still allow for all babies to be aborted. And even in states that have total bans, right? They all have written in that this doesn't apply to the mothers, which ends means, okay, every baby can still be legally aborted in those states. It just means mothers have to order the pills online. And the data is showing that they are in huge numbers.

There's New York Times has said that overall across the country, it looks like abortion numbers have gone down, reported abortion numbers. But then they said actually, but there looks like there's over 6,500 self-managed abortions, these pills coming in to these abortion-free states in the country, and they're being aborted that way, which that more than makes up for the drop in the reported abortions. So you may have a lot of states that pass the heartbeat bills, pass these bans on clinic abortions, but have not actually even seen an actual drop in abortions. And so that's what's happening. You know, Aid Access is one of the largest abortion pill providers.

They just, they've been providing telehealth from Europe to women in America and getting pills shipped from India. And like I said, they were already saying that that was more than the drop in reported abortions, 6,500 of those. Then they just came out about a week ago and said, actually, we're now sending pills from U.S. states, 3,500 of those from U.S. states to a their U.S. states under what are called shield laws where the pro-abortion states are shielding abortion providers that are shipping pills to the pro-life states. And so really we're just seeing we're seeing that it sounds nice. I want to believe, and I hope that there are babies that are being saved under heartbeat bills, under, you know, clinic bans. I don't really know that there are a whole lot. You just think it's happening sooner and it's happening through medication.

So even when CNN reports, there's been, I forget, if it was 30 or 60,000 that they said fewer abortions in the past year since Roe v. Wade, you don't really see that necessarily as a win. Well, yeah, the last numbers I saw were 25,000 fewer reported abortions, right? So that's clinics, which were required to report abortions. But that doesn't account for all those that are not reported, the abortions that are taking place through pills that you get through. the male. And so I don't really think the number is very high at all. And I think that pro-lifers are lulled into a false sense of security thinking, oh, abortion, there's only 10 abortions in my state. Yeah. We have 10 reported abortions. But we're seeing it's actually maybe in the tens of thousands

in that state and across the country, certainly. And obviously these medications are not good for women either. And trying to self-induce an abortion is very dangerous. I've seen a lot of stories of women who have just been left pleading, and then they're not given any kind of follow-up care or things like that. And so in your view, in the abolitionist view, these laws also protect women from that kind of fate and that kind of physical and emotional and spiritual trauma. You also oppose the U.S. House Resolution, 464, the recognizing life resolution, acknowledging the unborn children are legal and constitutional persons who are entitled to the equal protection of the laws. So that, I mean, it sounds good. It sounds like something

that abolitionists would support, but why don't you support it? Yeah, well, I support most of the bill. I think most of the bill is great. But one of the pro-life lobby organizations insisted on one clause being added to the bill that really completely undermines all the rest of it. And that one clause says that the Constitution does not permit a mother who abortes her child to be prosecuted for that.

That's not just saying that the Constitution is neutral. What we say the Constitution requires equal protection, right, then a lot of people say, well, no, the Constitution is neutral. That's kind of the argument that won the day in the Dobbs case. But what the clause that somebody added into that bill

says that, no, no, the Constitution is not neutral, it actually prohibits equal protection. And so, absolutely, we're against that. And I think even the people who, a lot of them that were originally behind that bill, I think probably regret that that's in there. Yeah. And because it undermines what it's really all about. That, no, it's equal protection doesn't mean that there's no, there could be no consequences for the mother. How's that equal? Yeah. That's not. Okay. So I'm just going to be honest. The first important, the first important, that I got of abolitionists, I didn't know that there was a distinction between abolitionists and pro-lifers. I just, I didn't know that. I thought everyone was kind of on board with whatever pro-life legislation that we could get passed. And then I had Abby Johnson on my podcast. It was probably 2019. And she is the former Planned Parenthood worker employee. She's talked a lot about the evils of abortion and fights against it. But man, I got a ton of pushback and a ton of hate and just really mean comments about Abby Johnson.

And it wasn't from pro-choicers. It was from abolitionists. And I've seen abolitionists protest and picket outside of conservative Baptist churches. And they very often, and again, this is a movement of a lot of different individuals. And so this is not to paint a broad brush. There's a lot of harassment online. There's a lot of meanness and just like degradation towards pro-lifers and just like, I have to say it's not the most attractive movement because even like there are pro-life organizations. They get harassed and protested by these abolitionists.

And I'm not saying that protesting and being aggressive is all an assertive. And I'm not saying that that's always bad. Right. But, like, I think a lot of people, just to be honest, their impression of the abolitionist movement, it's like, oh, my gosh, you guys are exhausting, kind of annoying and mean. Right. So, and I think that's part of why some people don't want to be associated with it. I'm not saying that that's just, I'm not saying that that's right. I'm not saying that that's a good justification for not listening to the abolitionist argument.

But I've noticed that. I've noticed that kind of just, like, fear on this. a lot of abolitionists. I'm not just talking about passion. Like I'm talking about just downright, nasty in some cases. So I don't know. That's just, I just wanted to represent that because I know that's what a lot of people are thinking. Right. Well, I mean, back to Abby Johnson, you brought her up. She's a friend of mine. And I appreciate her. And she supports equal protection now. Right. In 2019, she did not. But as of today, she now, she agrees. She agrees with equal protection. Yeah, mother should be subject to prosecution.

Okay. I didn't even realize that that was a shift or that she had what believed one thing and chifference. Yes. She dealt lobbies in favor of our bills. So, but that, yeah, as far as the, you know, the actions that you've seen by some abolitionists, again, like you said, there's obviously a broad, it's a broad movement. I'm certainly not going to defend everything everybody has ever done because some of it is not defensible. That said, I do think that in our country, and I think generally it's a pro-life movement and before I was an abolitionist,

I mean, we don't treat it seriously enough. There should be way more noise, we should be way louder, we should be way more. People are dying, and if we take into account that people are dying, it's kind of like our laws, Do our actions, what are our actions say? And a lot of the pro-life, you know, the average pro-life, our actions don't say people are being murdered and there's a genocide.

They don't reflect that. And so the abolitionists, I think it's like they do reflect that. There is genocide happening. There is abortion. And we're seeing a lot of the pro-life movement that's actually defending this and defending basically a woman's right to an unassisted abortion. And so, yeah, there's passion. reacting against that and reacting against churches which you know like during the holocaust we see you know sing

a little louder right and and yeah there's reaction against that and god says that you know in in the old testament to his people when there's when there's not doing justice to the fatherless when they're allowing bloodshed in their land god says i hate your worship because you are not doing these things this is what I want you to do. Honor me with your actions and not just with your words. And so I think abolitionists are wanting to obey God. They're wanting to respond to this serious thing with what should be the attitude that we all have,

which is extreme passion toward it. And I think it probably gets excessive sometimes. but I think that that's that we should all be extremely passionate about this and let's act like what we say is happening. Let's act like it really is happening because it is. But we can get in, we can be very apathetic and get in our little, you know, worlds and these things don't affect us personally. Yeah. So we don't react to them like we should. And, you know, I think abolitionists are trying to wake people up.

Yeah. maybe sometimes go a little too far. Yeah, yeah, that's understandable. Well, thank you so much. You have, you have laid out your case really well, and I think given a lot of people a lot to think about, I think some people have never really thought about this. That was me a few years ago, and I've had a lot of people request over the years, can you please talk about this? And it can be a difficult thing to talk about. You're dealing, obviously, with sensitive issues, you're dealing with a lot of different people, a lot of different scenarios. And I imagine that I'm going to get a lot of interesting comments with a lot of legitimate questions.

So where can people, if they want to talk to you, because you're the expert on this, or they want to talk to your organization or learn more about this, where can they go? They can certainly find me on Twitter, Bradley W. Pierce, on Twitter, or they can check out our page, FAA. For the Foundation to Abolsh abortion, fAA. Okay. Bradley, thank you so much. Thanks for taking the time.

This is a great conversation. It gave me a lot to think about, too. and I just really appreciate your passion and love for unborn children that you and I both share and we both want those lives to be saved and to honor God. And I really appreciate how biblically you approach this. So I hope, I know everyone will be really edified by this discussion. So thank you so much. Great. Thanks for having me.

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