Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 962 | Will IVF Sway Suburban Women? | Guest: Ron Simmons

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

Today we discuss the fallout from the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling on IVF. Why are so many pro-life Republicans coming out in favor of IVF and pushing for fewer restrictions? How does IVF fail to uphold the dignity of human life? And is it even possible for someone to be pro-life and pro-IVF? Plus, we go through a recent article in the Washington Post that points to Christian women in support of IVF. What could this mean for the upcoming election and the suburban woman vote? Plus, Allie's dad, Ron Simmons, joins to discuss today's Super Tuesday primaries and the Supreme Court decision on states that sought to remove Trump from their ballots. --- Timecodes: (03:11) Summary of Alabama IVF ruling (16:08) Republicans supporting IVF (30:17) Washington Post article (40:44) Democratic backlash (43:30) Trump SCOTUS ruling (53:20) Super Tuesday (56:30) Nikki Haley wins D.C. (58:07) Polls --- Today's Sponsors: 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" for a discount. Good Ranchers — Go to GoodRanchers.com and use code 'ALLIE' when you subscribe to get a FREE Easter ham and $25 off any box! EveryLife — the only premium baby brand that is unapologetically pro-life. EveryLife offers high-performing, supremely soft diapers and wipes that protect and celebrate every precious life. Head to EveryLife.com and use promo code ALLIE10 to get 10% of your first order today! --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 955 | The End of IVF in Alabama https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000646307482 Ep 860 | Should Christians Do IVF? | Q&A https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000625300677 Ep 554 | IVF, Embryo Adoption, & Surrogacy: Answering the Hard Questions | Guest: Jennifer Lahl https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000549207733 Ep 254 | Birth Control, IVF, & Surrogacy https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000475691301 Ep 961 | Ditching Disney for Vaccine Freedom | Guest: Leigh-Allyn Baker https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-961-ditching-disney-for-vaccine-freedom-guest-leigh/id1359249098?i=1000647983469 --- Links: The Washington Post: "Red-state Christian women are rising up, speaking out to defend IVF" https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/03/01/ivf-embryos-alabama-ruling-conservative-women/ --- 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. Today is Super Tuesday. We've got our political analysis of everything that is going on. Also, the Supreme Court ruled 9 to 0 that Trump stays on the ballot. Wow, we will talk about what that means.

Also, Republicans are all coming out in favor. of unrestricted IVF. And the Washington Post is very mad that people like me are talking about it. Okay, that's all we've got on today's episode of Relatable, which is brought you by our friends and Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use code Alley at checkout. That's good ranchers.com. Code Alley. Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far. Go listen to yesterday's episode if you haven't already or watch it on YouTube with Lee Allen Baker, amazing guest, Disney Channel star turned anti-mandate activist. She's amazing. Her courage was just so edifying for me and you guys from the feedback that I got really, really loved to that

conversation. So if you need something encouraging, uplifting, while also serious, because we're talking about serious consequential things, go listen to our watch yesterday's episode. Also, up on blaisTV.com slash alley, we've got our first instance. installment of our new series debatable Catholic versus a Protestant, two apologists, Dr. James White on the Protestant side, Trent Horn on the Catholic side, really good two-hour conversation. You can subscribe. Go to blazattsdiv.com slash alley. You'll get $30 off when you use my code Ali. And just a reminder, the reason why we put things behind the paywall is not just to try to get some dollars out of you. It's actually to protect us. And it's to protect us. And it's to

you because we just never know what's going to happen with the censorship on YouTube or all the different platforms where we give you content for free. They could decide, especially in an election year, that they don't want to hear Allie Stucky anymore. They don't want you to hear Allie Stucky anymore because of what I have to say about abortion, because of what I have to say about gender, what I have to say about marriage, whatever it is, they might want to prevent you from hearing those things. And so they could either throttle our page or they could just take it down all together. and we would have no way to be able to fix that potentially.

And so if you want to keep hearing from us, if you want to protect us from the sensors, make sure you subscribe to blazTV.com slash alley. We've got lots and lots of subscriber exclusive content coming down the pipeline this year that I'm super, super excited about. All right, let's get into it. Let's first give an update. Before we get into the politics of today of what's happening,

in the voting world and between Trump and Haley and all of that. Let's get into what's happening with IVF. This is an update from, I believe it was last week or was it a couple weeks ago? Everything just kind of blurs together where we talked about the Alabama Supreme Court case that ruled that embryos are children. And therefore, if you destroy them, those embryos actually have a right to life. And so you are held liable. You are held accountable under the law. This was an 1872 law, the wrongful death of a minor act where the Supreme Court said, yeah, embryos count as a minor. And so you got a consequence. You got a legal consequence if you're going to destroy these embryos. Now, the media, of course, is running with this. They're running with this because they know it looks bad on Republicans. And they're trying to say, look, Republicans are coming after, I don't know. IVF. They're against in vitro fertilization and Dobbs, the overturning of Roe was just the beginning.

They're trying to come after all of your reproductive rights, not just what they would call the reproductive right to abortion. But the reality is like, I just want to make sure, before we get into what some of the Republicans and Democrats are saying, I just want to make sure that this is framed correctly. The IVF battle that's going on in Alabama right now, first of all, It's not really about IVF. That's not what the Supreme Court case was about. It was not deciding whether IVF should be illegal or not. And this is not a battle that was waged by IVF opponents. No, this lawsuit was filed by the parents of the embryos who were created through IVF in the state of Alabama. And you'll remember that someone who was not an authorized person was in this fertility clinic,

and accidentally or purposely, we're not really sure, they destroyed these parents' embryos. And so these parents actually sued under this law, the wrongful death of a minor act. So they are not anti-IV. They are not anti-abortion activists. These parents weren't trying to take down the IVF industry in the state of Alabama or anywhere. These were pro-IVF parents who had used IVF. themselves, but who wanted to fight for the right of their children, of their embryos to not be murdered or to have justice after they were destroyed. And so this is being framed entirely

incorrectly, which is not surprising by the media, that this is like pro-life anti-IVF activists who are trying to abolish IVF in the state of Alabama. That's not what happened. These were parents seeking justice on behalf of the embryos that they created through IVF. The Supreme Court did not say, yeah, IVF is illegal. The Supreme Court said, well, these embryos are living humans. And since they are living humans, there's really no scientific or moral or certainly no biblical reason why they shouldn't have the same human rights that other humans have just because they're young, just because they're small, just because they're at the earliest date of development. And of course, I agree with them on that. And when they talked about IVF in the decision, as we talked about a couple weeks ago when we summarized their decision, they said as it pertains to IVF, that's going to have to be something that the legislature wrestles with in the state of Alabama.

And there are lots of things that can be put in place. There are lots of regulations that can be implemented that wouldn't abolish IVF altogether but would protect. the rights of embryos from being frozen indefinitely or destroyed. And the case, the decision that was handed down by the Alabama Supreme Court cited several other countries that have very common sense regulations in place in the European Union, in Australia and New Zealand, where you can't do what you can do in the United States, which is the wild, wild west of the reproductive industry where you can just freeze as many embryos as you want to. You can destroy as many embryos as you want to. You can implant a ton of embryos. And then if all four of those embryos, say,

are or transfer all of those embryos and say all four of those embryos actually implant and you're pregnant with quadruplets, then you can selectively reduce. That happens very often in this country. where the baby, two of the babies will actually be aborted because the parents decide that they don't want quadruplets. And so there are all kinds of things that happen in the United States that are entirely immoral, entirely unethical because we have so few regulations surrounding IVF and because we do not regard these embryos as what they are, unique human beings, human life. Other countries around the world do. Other countries at least, put in some kinds of protections and regulations to protect the lives of these embryos.

Again, America is really the Wild Wild West. The Supreme Court here in Alabama did not rule on IVF. They just said, we're going to have to have more laws in place that recognize that these human beings are in fact human beings and as such are entitled to human rights, the most fundamental of which is the right to life. This is the anti-abortion argument. So everyone says that you are pro-life. You are pro-life because you believe that life starts at conception.

Anytime we get into this business of saying, well, sure, life starts at conception because what else is an embryo except for a living human. We know that. Anytime you get into the business of saying, well, even after a human being is created, you might not have value. You might not have worth. You might not have rights. You might not have protection.

Then it becomes very arbitrary. And based on what factor? Like, are we giving people the right to life based on the size they are, based on their location, based on their sentience, based on their stage of development, based on their ability to fight back? Then you can see how that's really tricky. You're basically saying that a toddler is not as important as a teenager or a teenager shouldn't have a right to life in the same way that a 25-year-old does. Like you see, when you give a person rights any time after conception, it becomes very slippery,

very barbaric, very arbitrary. So that is the pro-life argument saying, no, from the time that life is conceived, which scientifically is when that egg is fertilized, is when that embryo is created, that is when human rights start. Again, the most fundamental of which. is the right to life. And because IVF involves so often, not always, but so often, the destruction of embryos, the indefinite freezing of embryos, the abandonment of embryos, people who are pro-life should rightly say, wait, we have to care about their protection,

too. These are people too. We can't just say that embryos have a right. to life when they're inside of the womb, but embryos in a lab don't. Again, then we're just, we've just completely imbibed this pro-choice idea that these are just clumps of cells that don't have value, that don't have rights because of their location. And so I just, I don't, I don't see it. I don't see the ability to be pro-life and to have the anti-abortion logic that we do as pro-lifers and say, yeah, IVF should just keep going as unregulated as it is. Yeah, you should be able to create as many freeze, as many transfer as many embryos as you want because, well, we're a pro baby.

No, that's not a thoughtful position. I also don't believe that that is a biblical position because we are, are placing the wants of adults over the well-being of these tiny human beings. And again, that is the, that is anti-pro-life. However, most people have not thought about this. Most people haven't thought about this subject. And I understand that. I do. It's not like I have always been this passionate about this. There was a time just a few years ago where I also didn't really know what to think about all of this. I also thought of IVF as just a thing that people did to have babies. And I love babies. And I want people who want to be parents to be able to have kids. And wow, the yearning for a child,

especially when that yearning is not fulfilled, when that longing can't be met. That is so heartbreaking, unimaginably difficult. And so if IVF allows someone who wants to be a parent to have children, isn't that wonderful? Shouldn't I be on board with that? But that was before I really started thinking about it. That was before I knew about the IVF process. That was before I knew about the ethical quandaries that so many parents are put in when they've created so many embryos and they don't know what to do with the leftovers. And I understand that's not everyone's story. Maybe you're listening. You're like, well, we transferred all of our embryos. We only created three. We transferred all three. Look, I still think that there are ethical and moral questions

about conceiving outside of the womb and the risk of failure of transfer and the burden that that places on the embryo. But of course, I think that is the better option. But that is the minority. That is the minority. In the vast majority of cases, you're creating more embryos than you actually ever plan to transfer or implant, and so many frozen embryos are left over. And these are all people made in the image of God. And when I see that and when I see how the reproductive industry profits off of all of this, and I see the consequences that the whole process actually has on female bodies, I have a lot of now fervor for talking about a subject that most even,

just won't just won't touch. And I just want us to be more thoughtful on it, even though I feel sometimes like I and just a few other people are kind of alone, like in the pro-life evangelical world when it comes to talking about this and certainly on the Republican side. And I'm going to read you some of the takes from Republicans over the past few days who have realized, ooh, this is unpopular. And because we want to win an election, we're going to make sure. sure that we say yay IVF is awesome. So I'll read you some of those in just a second. 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. All right. So Donald Trump came out in support of IVF several days ago. He said, let's see, I don't want to read this whole thing. He said, like the overwhelming majority, this is on truth social of Americans. including the vast majority of Republicans, conservatives, Christians, and pro-life Americans. I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby. Today I'm calling on the Alabama legislature to act quickly to find an immediate solution to preserve the availability of IVF in Alabama.

Look, even though I am against IVF and I've done several episodes on it and I could spend this entire episode going into all the reasons why, even though I've already articulated some of the reasons why here, go back and, listen to those previous episodes and you can hear that. But even though I am against all cases of IVF, I would be happy moving in the direction of, say, Europe or New Zealand or Australia, where you can't just create all of these frozen embryos and then do whatever you want with them. I would be happy moving in the direction of protecting those embryos while also maybe allowing the transfer and the freezing of one embryo at a time. Italy doesn't even allow you to freeze the embryos. You have to transfer them immediately. Again, I would be happy moving in that direction. But maybe this will cause state legislatures to actually thoughtfully consider this issue and ensure that there

are at least some protections in place for these tiny embryos. Nikki Haley, not surprising at all that she is kind of flip-flopped on this. So at first, she says embryos are life, but she's also in favor of more IVF clinic. So here's not one. I mean, embryos to me are babies. Even those created through IVF. I mean, I had artificial insemination. That's how I had my son.

So when you look at, you know, one thing is to have to save sperm or to save eggs, but when you talk about an embryo, you are talking about to me, that's a life. And so I do see where that's coming from when they talk about that. Okay. So I agree with her on that that embryos are life. Of course, when you have an embryo in your womb and you see that you're pregnant, you say that you are having a baby. but we change the terminology, it seems like, or the pro-abortion side does, or even some pro-life, pro-IVF advocates change the terminology when it comes to embryos or embryos outside of the womb. Now, here, Nikki Haley, is saying that we actually want more IVF clinics. Let me make it clear.

We want more IVF centers. We want these parents to have these options. We want government to allow the conversation to be. between the doctor and the parents without government getting in the way on the decisions that are made about them and what happens with these embryos. So the goal is fix whatever you need to fix to keep government out of it. All right. So that's basically the pro-choice talking point when it comes to abortion. And it absolutely does apply here. If embryos are human beings, are human babies at the earliest stage of development, as Nikki Haley said in that first clip, then why do we,

want more unregulated, she's saying, unregulated IVF clinics, where these embryos are not protected by law. They do not have a right to life. They can be abandoned, they can be sold, they can be indefinitely frozen, they can be destroyed, they can be fodder or a volleyball in the middle of relationship problems between parents. This is what happened. Who is that actress that was on Modern Family? Sophia Vergara, that was part of what happened there. They had frozen embryos that she didn't want to transfer.

And then the husband did. I mean, that kind of thing happens all the time. That's why I'm saying these embryos have to have rights. They have to be seen as individuals. And here, Nikki Haley is saying, well, no, these human beings, they should not have a legal right to life because she's saying the government shouldn't get in the way. So again, I would just ask her, why do you apply that logic when it comes to embryos in a lab? But you say that you're pro-life, you say that you're anti-abortion. And so should those embryos inside the womb, should they have a right to life?

It's very, very confusing. same. And then Carrie Lake, she says one in six Americans struggle with fertility issues in the Senate. I will advocate for increased access to fertility treatment for women struggling to get pregnant. IVF is extremely important for helping countless families experience the joy of parenthood. I oppose restriction. So again, what we are hearing from Republicans is that there should be actually an increase, an increase of frozen embryos, an increase of frozen embryos, an increase of embryos created and placed on ice indefinitely. There should be more of this.

There are already millions of frozen embryos in America. Again, because we are the unregulated wild, wild west because the reproductive industry makes so much money off of this and surrogacy and all of these things. We're already absolutely wild and an anomaly in the world when it comes to this stuff. and here you have Republicans, pro-life Republicans, who one day will say, yeah, of course, babies have the right to life. Those babies need to be protected. I'm 100% pro-life.

Oh, but we need more IVF clinics. We oppose restrictions. We do not want the government to get involved. So these embryos over here, they do not have a right to life. In order to have a right to life, you actually have to have that right recognized by law. And they're saying, no, they shouldn't have a legally recognized right to life. There's so much hypocrisy and incongruence. And I don't think they're stupid.

I don't. I think that they think that you're stupid. I think that's what it is. They don't want you to see that hypocrisy. They know that saying your pro-life and pro-IV, no matter what, unconditionally, is actually a pretty popular position. among a lot of people, even though it is, as I said, very incongruent. They don't want you to see the duplicitousness. Even Mike Johnson, who has said a lot of things that I agree with, especially when it comes to Christianity. He said that, yay, he's pro-IVF. Here's dot nine.

I believe in the sanctity of every human life, I always have. And because of that, I support IVF and its availability. It needs to be readily available. It needs to be something that every American supports and needs to be handled in an ethical manner. So we'll continue to support that. I don't think there's a single person in the Republican conference who disagrees with that statement. Yikes. That's because most Republicans haven't thought about anything.

That's just the case. Most Republicans haven't thought about anything. Most people have not thought about anything. No one, it seems, is looking at this from the perspective of this defenseless life. And I don't want it to seem like I am condemning all of you who have used IVF. I have a lot of people in my audience who have. And as I've said so many times, one, your pain of not having been able to have children naturally is real and deserves compassion and deserves empathy and deserves focus and

attention and I am sorry. I can imagine. I can absolutely imagine the heartbreak that it was for you month after month seeing that negative pregnancy test. Hearing from the doctor, you're not going to be able to conceive children naturally. IVF is your only available option. I imagine how difficult that was to hear. That's not what you wanted to go through. You didn't want to have to go through IVF, but you saw that as your only ticket to being able to conceive and bear a child that is biologically yours. So that's one. Two, I know that you love your children. You love your children just as much as I do, just as much as anyone else does. And three, your children are made in the image of God. They have just as much value as anyone else's children. And so all of these things are true.

All of these things are true. That does not, none of these things, though, just, justify unfettered access to IVF. None of these things negate the ethical and moral questions that we have and should have about the process of freezing and transferring and implanting and dissecting embryos. There's still a eugenics process when it comes to testing these embryos. There is still the issue of the failure rate of transfers. there is still the entire moral and biblical issue of taking conception away from the sexual act. Again, this is something that evangelicals don't talk about a lot, but it has to be talked about. What do we always say about technology?

When it takes us from what is natural to what is possible, we are obligated, especially as Christians, to ask, is this moral? natural to possible, but is this moral? A lot of times it is, but sometimes it's not. Just because something is possible does not mean that it is moral. And I've talked to many of you who went through IVF and you are dealing with this moral quandary now where you've got babies left on ice and you are not able to have those children yourself. You've got health restrictions, whatever. And you can't bear to put those embryos on ice up for adoption because you have no control over who adopts those babies. Will it be two men? Will it be atheists? Will it be people who don't have good intentions? And those are your babies. You also can't bear to just leave them there on ice and to pay that

freezer fee every month. You also can't bear to destroy them. And so what are you to do? That's difficult. It's very difficult. There are private adoption options where you can ensure that the couple is a Christian, but it's difficult. And I'm just saying we as Christians got to start thinking about this stuff a lot more. Our Republican leaders aren't. They're not going to. So pastors, can you step up? Can evangelical pastors, can we start talking about this, please? Because your congregants are wondering, and they don't know. They don't know. Look, these are image bearers of God. And therefore, they are of other. utmost important to us. And we as Christians, we have always been a refuge of clarity and courage for children. We have always put an end to child sacrifice. We have always put an end to marginalizing children. The Christian order is to put the needs and the well-being of the weak before the desires of the strong and the powerful. And so often reproductive technology reverses that order. So that is why we as Christians need to care about this and talk about this. Mike Johnson, I love for you to come on this show and talk to me about it. Chances are he's never

thought about it. Okay, I'm not indicting his character. He's probably just never thought about it. Several other Republicans are all saying the same thing. I'm sure that he is right when he says that most Republicans completely agree with him. So the Washington Post published this article that was about my Instagram post and the response to it. I posted on Instagram 10 slides and it was titled the Alabama ruling in a Christian consideration of IVF. And I went through what the Alabama Supreme Court ruled and how I see IVF from my Christian perspective. And so here's the title of the Washington Post article says red state Christian women are rising up speaking out to defend IVF. The Washington Post pointed to my Instagram feed

and the post and then highlighted a few women who commented their dissent under it. So these are people who follow me. They're probably generally conservative. They are Christian women and they disagree with me about IVF. This reporter reached out to them. I think that she probably went to the comments and then reached out to them on Instagram and said, hey, can I interview you for the Washington Post? This reporter also reached out to me. I did not respond to her because I could tell by the previous writings that she had done that it would probably not be a good faith conversation. And so she reached out to these women, you know, probably asking, do you want to talk about this? And one of the women who was interviewed is named Hannah Nelson. She's a school counselor.

And she said, I never thought that IVF was so polarizing. There's mamas who I just truly believe are meant to be mamas that can't do it without IVF. She said the procedure can be used for God's glory and that it's best for the government to keep its hands out of it. Her original comment on my Instagram post that was included in this article was, although it may be rare, I think there is an ethical and Christian way to do IVF. I'm curious why you're against that means of creating a family. Her comment went on to get 96 replies. Many of those arguing against IVF say it was because the procedure is not natural. Of course, that's not my take. And this article actually doesn't include any of my arguments. It doesn't include anything that I've said about why I'm against IVF. And I have nothing against this person who commented her dissent, her disagreement. You are totally welcome to do so on my Instagram. My Instagram comments are limited to people who follow me. That's it, though. People accuse me of closing down my comments on my Instagram post. That's not true.

I just keep them limited to those who follow me. And so I don't have anything against this person commenting, but I will say I included why I am against that means of reproduction in my post. And of course, I've talked about it many, many times on this podcast. You can search relatable IVF wherever you listen or even on YouTube, and those episodes will come up. And I think it's interesting that this article includes some of the not very great arguments against IVF and not my own arguments that I listed that I listed on my post.

Then there is another woman that's included in this Washington Post article. A nurse wrote this comment. Her name is Sarah. She wrote this comment on my post. This post is so incredibly insensitive and triggering to patients experiencing fertility issues. With all due respect, you truly have no idea. idea what it is like to be faced to walk this path. As a Christian, I believe the most Christian-like thing one can do is show others love, grace, and sympathy rather than judgment. Look, I do understand.

I do. I understand where you are coming from. But again, of course, I disagree with that perspective. that it's not about whether or not parents really want to have kids. That's not my biggest concern. My biggest concern is not about the feelings, however valid they may be, of the parents. My biggest concern is the rights of the voiceless children, the rights of voiceless embryos. And again, we understand that when it comes to the abortion conversation, but we don't understand that when it comes to all the ethical issues surrounding. IVF, you can say all you want to, that it's insensitive, that it's rude, and that it doesn't

take into account your feelings. Yeah, I get that a lot too when it comes to the pro-choice conversation. But at the end of the day, I am most interested in, not exclusively, because I care about your feelings too, but I am most interested in the morality here. I am most interested in the well-being and the rights of these embryos. Yes, more than adult desires. How whoever good those desires may be, the desire to have a child is good, but desires do not justify in any means necessary approach to having children. And I understand that a lot of Christians don't like this view. And also, there's no judgment. There's no judgment here. I also find it interesting how many conservative Christians will say that saying something is wrong is judgmental.

when it comes to something like this, but they see that as like a silly progressive retort when it comes to anything else. No one is, it's not about you. It's not about you. It's not about how we are trying to make you feel or about how you do feel. Those things may be important.

Again, they're not the center of the conversation when we're talking about the rights of the voiceless. Lindsay White, University of Alabama graduate, pro-life Christian, included in this article, says, I just wish there was more compassion on the religious right. You are punishing families trying to create a family. That's crazy to me. It's not about punishing you. It's not about punishing you.

It's not about you. It is the same logic of the pro-life conversation. It is about these embryos. Emily Lay, she has a large Instagram following, and she also has, spoken out in the past in support of Democrats and Democrat policies. And so she posted in favor of IVF and, you know, like this is going to be what the media does. Of course, this is going to be what the media does. They are going to use this to try to get Christian suburban women to vote Democrat. And I can't say it's not going to work, unfortunately. I can't say that it's not going to

work. I do think that because this is such a personal and emotional issue, that this is going to be difficult if the left successfully paints the right as anti-IVF, which I'm sure my words will be used to do that, then I do think that there will be a lot of suburban women who say I can't vote Republican, which of course I think is absolutely wrong. I mean, you've got to remember everything the Democrats stand for. I mean, if it comforts you at all, Republicans aren't on the same page. me. Mike Johnson said it, and you can bet your bottom dollar that whatever Republican representative you have is not coming after IVF, if that makes you feel better. Again, I think it's incongruent to believe in the rights of some embryos and not others. I think it's incongruent for us to say,

yeah, we should be the wild, wild west when it comes to reproductive technology. Who cares about the rights of embryos? No restrictions. No government in place. and then when it comes to abortion all of a sudden we want the government to care very much about those embryos. But I can only do what I can and give you my perspective on this. These are image bearers of God. They have just as much value as you and I do. And God cares about them very much. And how we treat the most innocent and the most vulnerable among us matters.

Again, I think it's very telling that this article doesn't include any of my arguments at all doesn't actually include what the Supreme Court really decided in their logic behind it. They don't, media doesn't want you to think about those things. They only want you to hear these stories. They only want you to feel a certain way. They know that they can get women to feel into voting Democrat, which is very sad. One of the paragraphs in this was about the backlash that one of the commenters got on my, on my page. And I thought that how she phrased to this was very purposeful, this author of this article.

Like Nelson, the nurse was attacked by commenters on the site who said that neither she nor IVF was Christian, talking about the commenters under my post. She asked to be identified only by her first name because of that reaction. Stucky, an author who also hosts a biblically based podcast called Relatable, did not respond to a request for comment. So I just think it's interesting how they put those two things in the same paragraph, obviously trying to say that it is my fault that there were commenters who were rude or who attacked or trying to say that I endorsed that in some way. I haven't even gone to read the comments at all. Sometimes I'll go back within the first few hours of posting something. I'll respond to some comments. I have not gone back and looked at the comments.

There are thousands of comments. I haven't responded to them. I never endorse bullying or harassment or hatefulness at home. name calling any kind of abuse whatsoever ever ever ever I never endorse that kind of thing and so of course this journalist whose name is Molly Hennessy Fisk is trying to make it seem like somehow I was okay with that or that my silence is complicity in some way of course I don't endorse that kind of thing but it is also okay for people to disagree, and that is not necessarily any kind of attack. And so, of course, Democrats are jumping on this.

Green Jean-Pierre said that this is Republicans' extreme agenda. Vice President Kamala Harris said extremists are not stopping with Alabama. House Republicans have backed a cruel and outrageous bill that would threaten IVF in all 50 states. Let me be clear. President Joe Biden would veto it, but we must remain vigilant. too much is at stake. Chuck Schumer, the Alabama decision is cruel and enraging

countless people of children because of IVF. It's not countless people. This definitely can be quantified. But, okay. Hillary Clinton, reminder, without Trump's MAGA Supreme Court majority, there is no lower court ruling attacking IVF. So again, this is Trump's fault.

It's just so strange. Just a reminder that this case was not waged by IVF opponents. So just all being framed. in the wrong way. And this is a good summary of kind of what I've already said. Someone who was, I guess, responding to Michael Knowles on Twitter said this. Unfortunately, it seems to just reinforce the pro-abortionist arguments.

That is, these are neither just a clump of cells or a baby, and it all depends upon what the mother chooses to call it. And Michael Knowles said, beyond the ethical implications, this is precisely the political hazard of Republicans endorsing IVF. Absolutely right. So I know it's a complicated and very emotional conversation, but it's one that Christians need to be willing to have. And I don't really care if it's politically popular or not. I'm not a politician. I'm not in politics. I never want to be in politics for this reason. I'm just not cynical enough for that. I actually believe 100% the things that I say that is the

only reason I talk about them. The only reason I talk about them. and this is probably not even popular fully with my audience. And yet I feel a conviction. I just feel convicted to talk about this and not enough evangelical women think about it. And I think we can do so in love and in compassion, but not just for the parents who want the child, but also for the child himself. All right. Now we've got a conversation with my dad about what is the child? going on in the political world because we got to care about it. Elections do have consequences. They absolutely do matter. And at the end of the day, we don't want Joe Biden in the White House, right? So we got to know what's going on in the primaries, lots of voting going on today. And so,

of course, I am bringing my dad in, our resident expert on all of this stuff to break it down and explain it to us. So without further ado, here's my dad, Ron Simmons. Dad, thanks so much for joining us again. Oh, it's always good to be here. Okay, let's talk about this SCOTUS ruling 9-0 in favor of Trump remaining on ballots. When's the last time? Do you know the answer to this? When's the last time the Supreme Court decided anything 9-0? Well, I was looking for Jesus to come yesterday because I figured that was going to happen if that happened. But actually, technically, they actually do that a lot on a lot of the cases that don't.

They're not, they wouldn't be cases that we would say matter tremendously. They're more specific cases and what have you. In fact, there was another one earlier last week that they did 9-0 as well about, you know, something totally different. It just didn't make the news. It doesn't make the news because it wasn't politically charged. But in a politically charged one that has partisan implications, almost never. In fact, Senator Cruz has a book out called One Vote Away, which I know you're not necessarily promoting a bunch of books. But it is very interesting because it talks about all the five, four decisions that made big.

difference like Bush v. Gore. You remember one of your very first elections that we were all jacked about? That was fun. But yeah, very, very unusual that they did it. Now, the three liberal justices did have to do their own opinion, concurring opinion as to kind of the parts of it that they disagreed with, right? They felt the court went too far because the court was trying to make a statement alley, essentially that, look, we don't want to see something like this come up here again.

This is for a bunch of states to say whether or not a president can be on the ballot would create chaos like we've never seen before because what will happen is if Colorado says, you know, that Trump can't be on the ballot, then Mississippi may say Biden can't be on the ballot. And what they talk about is you end up with just a few states determining the presidency. Yeah. As a matter of fact, though, one of the interesting things is, is that they do this under the 14th Amendment. Now, the 14th Amendment originated after the Civil War, and its purpose was to obviously assure equal protection under the law and to make sure that, you know, African Americans could vote and all of those types of things.

But it also was to make sure that a bunch of former Confederates couldn't fill all the state houses. and therefore state houses remember still then elected the senate the senator so that's really what it was for and when it goes through what states can do it specifically leaves out federal offices like the president and vice president that's left up to congress to pass a law or congress would have to vote on doing that so okay so just some background so the supreme court yesterday um as we mentioned rule nine zero and favor of Donald Trump reversing Colorado's decision to remove Trump from the ballot. Now, why Colorado did this, they argued that Trump was disqualified from public office under the 14th Amendment for causing an insurrection in 2021. Here's what the Supreme Court ruled, or here's the text from

part of the ruling. Because the Constitution makes Congress rather than the states responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse. This case raises the question whether the states, in addition to Congress, may also enforce Section 3. We conclude that states may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office, but states have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency. Justice Barrett, concurring opinion. It was very short. She said the court has settled a politically charged issue in a volatile season of a presidential election.

particularly in the circumstance, writings on the court should turn the national temperature down, not up. For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity. All nine justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home. So still surprising to me that someone like Sotomayor would agree, at least with the outcome. So I think it sounds like Barrett is saying kind of what you said, that there were some different. is and how far the court should go. But at the end of the day, this is about saving democracy or whatever they say. And we agreed that he needs to be on the ballot. Yeah, we agreed that it shouldn't

be up to the states to do that. I think that was the simple question. And if you read section three of the 14th Amendment, it actually doesn't even mention the presidency that can be done. It mentions the electors for the president. You know how presidents are elected. We don't technically vote for them personally. We vote for electors that will vote for them. Right. Donald J. Trump, he posted on truth social, big win for America, exclamation, exclamation, exclamation. Ben Shapiro said, unanimous decision from SCOTUS that a state can't just declare a candidate for the president ineligible, duh. But also another win for Trump in a season filled with them. So probably not surprisingly, the left was very angry about this. A lot of them, said that this is, this is an attack on our Constitution.

So here we have a little montage of them freaking out, SOT 11. This is actually what I had been concerned about. I had been concerned that it should it go to the Supreme Court, they would rule this way. I'd laugh if it weren't so sad. My next guest says Donald Trump is still an oath-breaking insurrectionist. Do you have confidence in the Supreme Court? Do you think this court is partisan? The court itself may have overstepped.

The court went way further than it needed to go. Our colleague Melissa Murray has called this Supreme Court, the Yolo Court. The criticism of the court is that they're playing interference. Not since Bush v. Gore, but we've seen a court has had this many opportunities to interfere in the election. Okay. David French wrote for the New York Times, the Supreme Court just erased part of the Constitution. Keith Oberman said the Supreme Court has betrayed democracy. members, including Jackson Kagan and Sotomayor, have proven themselves enapped at reading comprehension.

Let's see. Jenna Griswold said, I am disappointed in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision. This is the Colorado Secretary of State. Stripping states of the authority to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment for federal candidates, Colorado should be able to bar oathbreaking insurrectionists from our ballot. You know what? When I say to that, President Trump's never even been charged for insurrection. Jack Smith, the guy who's so much after him at the federal level, he purposely didn't put that in his charge.

And so how can they say that he was an insurrectionist when he's never even been charged for insurrection? Right. I mean, it's nothing but politics is all it is. It's politics. And it's the worst part of politics that all of these people are trying to use the power of their office to shut down whatever the will of the people might be. I have no idea if President Trump's going to be reelected or not. I have no idea. But I know one thing, it shouldn't be left up to the commentators to make that decision or any state official.

These are the same people that are always talking about the importance of upholding our democracy, protecting our democracy. Nancy Pelosi, I believe, had a tweet about how the Supreme Court is now on trial to see whether or not they are going to uphold our democracy. So the definition of democracy, it seems to them, means what they decide and not what the people decide, which is not the actual definition of democracy. So I'm a little bit confused by what they mean by that. Well, talk about voter suppression. Right. This is the ultimate in voter suppression because they don't want you or I or anyone to be able to have a choice. And they so hate this man, Donald Trump, for whatever reason.

They probably actually don't hate him as much as they hate his politics. and his unwillingness to caltie to the elite that they're used to having to caltie. Okay, let's talk about the election at everything that's going on there. So just give us a rundown. So first of all, big day. If you're in one of 18 different states and you hopefully know who you are, if you haven't voted, get out to vote. And let me explain why that's important, okay?

people might say, well, we know President Trump is probably going to win and President Biden's probably going to win. So why is my vote count? Well, the reason it counts is because your state government has much more effect and your local government on your daily life than the federal government ever will. Did you know how many bills that the federal government actually passed in 20, 23? How many? 20. 20. And these were mostly, I'm naming the bridge after Ali Stucky or something, right?

Wow. That's a really good bill. Yeah. They didn't even tell me about that. It was my surprise to you today. And then, but like for the state of Texas in 2023, 320 bills. Now, I don't know if they were all good or all bad, but I sure want to know that I had a voice in them. And the only voice that I can really have is when I go to the ballot box.

So the down ballot is even much more important than the top of the ticket many times. Now, give you where the everybody. is, though, on the delegates. Remember we talked about this last time that in order to get the nomination, you have to have so many delegates by Democrat or Republican. President Trump has 273 delegates as of yesterday, and he needs 1,215. He's likely to pick up today between 7 and 800 delegates, okay? So he'll be what, just a few hundred delegates short, just a couple hundred delegates short by the end of today. Nikki Haley has 43 delegates, so she's got much further to go if she has.

I believe that Governor Haley is staying in the race, which I'm happy that she is, just in case something happens. Who knows what can happen, you know, in this crazy environment that we live in today? And then President Biden on the Democrat side, he needs 1,900. and 68 delegates, and he's got 206, but he's probably going to pick up 1,400 today alone. So both of these candidates will be very close by the end of today, I believe. If we were doing this tomorrow, I think we could say exactly how many. Now, the next important thing is the next big primary is on March the 12th, and that's Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi, and Washington.

And in those four races, for the Republicans, there's about $1,000. 30 delegates up. And for the Democrats, there's a couple of hundred. So neither candidate will quite make it. But in my opinion, we'll know the Republican and Democrat candidate for president, pending any legal issues or any mental capacity issues. We'll know that by March 19th, when Arizona and Florida do their primary, because they're going to push over probably President Trump and President Biden.

Okay. Nikki Haley did win D.C. Yeah, she got her first W yesterday. And, you know, that's, or two days ago. And people are going to make fun of her for that because D.C. is super liberal. It was only Republicans that voted in the primary. So she won the Republican primary. Yeah, but they're probably more liberal Republicans. They're so people are saying, here's what Donald Trump had to say. Trump campaign statement on Nikki Haley being crowned queen of the swamp. It's kind of funny. It's kind of funny. tonight's results in Washington, D.C., reaffirmed the object of President Trump's campaign. He will drain the swamp and put America first.

While Nikki has been soundly rejected throughout the rest of America, she was just crowned queen of the swamp. Why would she be queen of the swamp when she never had an office in D.C.? Well, because she won D.C. Now, I don't think Donald Trump did a good job of draining the swamp. He could have fired Fauci, Christopher Ray. A lot of people he probably should have fired, to be fair. I just think his nicknames are funny. Well, they are funny.

I mean, yeah. That's just part of what people like about him. He's a nickname kind of guy. Yeah, he is. I still think, I'm sorry. I know we're talking about Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz is catching strays. But I always still think of lying in Ted.

I remember all of the nickname Sleepy Joe Biden. It's just Crooked Hillary. And what was the one about John Casey? It was something about the way he ate pizza, wasn't it? Wasn't there? There was some type of pizza. There was a pizza reference, if I remember right. Who knows?

Hillary and Lion Ted were hard to. I mean, hard to over. And Lil Marco, really hard to overcome. Yeah, those are really. And what was sleepy, sleepy jab? Probably sleepy jab. I think it was sleepy Jeb, something like that. Yeah.

Okay. Let's look at the polls really quickly for Joe Biden. So a Fox News poll showed Trump leading 49 to Biden's 47. Wall Street Journal polls showed Trump leading 47 to 55. CBS News poll has. Trump's leading Biden 52 to 48. Now, I saw Nikki Haley. She posted a poll. I don't have it in front of me showing that she apparently has a better chance of beating Biden than Trump does in the general. I don't know whether or not that's actually true, but Trump is doing okay in the polls right now

compared to Joe Biden. So what do you make of that? Well, the thing that worries me about that is that most of those polls are still within the margin of error. And given as low of rating as Biden has in so many areas that they poll like the economy and the border and what have you, which are much lower than what his voting percentage is, that worries me because Trump should be winning by more than that. And I think that's why Nikki Haley is saying what she's saying is that, look, there are just a 40-some-odd percent of the people minimum hate Donald Trump and never going to vote for him, okay? so it's a very small margin that could throw the difference.

Whereas in her case, she would say that, look, I don't have that many haters out there, okay? And so I'm going to get, I'm, I, the, the middle of the road Republicans that will never vote for Donald Trump in a general election will still vote for me. And what she's not saying, but what is true, the conservative Republicans will vote for her as opposed to voting for Joe Biden. What is your take on Nikki Haley, Donald Trump, Mike Johnson, all these Republicans, after the Alabama ruling, realizing that it is not popular to mess with IVF and they're all coming out in favor saying, oh, no, we got to support IVF. Democrats are calling them out, though, and saying, but you've been saying this is life and this is a baby since conception.

and so Democrats are obviously going to use this to try to get the suburban woman vote. I mean, what do you think? Do you think that this is going to be enough of an issue to really hurt Republicans at November? Well, November, the thing is, is now that you've got seven or eight months to talk about it, right? I don't think it'll have an effect, you know, obviously on primaries one way or the other, on which one candidate does that. But I do think they're going to have to figure out what all of that means. and we're going to have to all understand it because I do believe there are people that say,

hey, now I think there's a difference, you know, I think there's a difference, potentially people may parse it out between embryos and frozen eggs, okay? Well, yeah, that's not the issue. Okay. It's the fertilize, it's the embryo, right? Yeah, it's the embryo. And so I think there are some people that will definitely conservative that would say, hey, they're just trying to increase their chances to have a baby, right?

I guess that's why they do it. I'm not 100%. We have some friends that have done that before, but they used all of theirs. Yeah. I think it's a tough spot for them because they have said it's, if we believe in life at conception, then if you truly believe that's conceived,

now, of course, the other argument is, is it really conceived if it hasn't been implanted? Some people might use that argument, right? Yeah. If it's not a living human, though, what is it? That would be my question. And of course, it is a living human being. remember the Alabama decision said that these embryos that were destroyed

had a right to life to be protected and then the person who did the destroying has to be held liable under the law under harm to a minor act which I think is right and it was the parents of these embryos who sued under that I think the media is what happened to end yeah explain that because the way I read it the parents were the one that were upset that they were destroyed, is that correct? And who decided to destroy them then? It was an accident. Oh, okay. Apparently, someone who wasn't supposed to be in the fertility clinic accidentally destroyed them and they thawed them and then all of their, you know, embryos, yeah, and all of their embryos were destroyed. Well, that was the question. Okay. Yeah,

that makes sense. Yeah. So I do think those would end up at the Supreme Court, by the way. Yeah. Now, I think Supreme Court could punt and say we already decided this in the Dodd case, right? Because they're saying that the states need to determine that on their own. Yeah. Okay. We'll see. Well, thank you, Dad, so much.

Is there anything else you'd like to tell everyone? No. Just you can find me on ronnes.com. And don't forget to buy my book. It's Life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon. Okay. Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you. Hey, this is Steve Daste. 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.

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