Tangle - Reader interview, Part 3: Bradley

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Bradley Pierce is a 40-year-old Christian, attorney, father of 10, husband of one, who says he is pro-parental rights, anti-abortion, and pro-self-defense. Bradley is also a homeschool graduate who is now home-schooling his kids. In this episode, we talk about raising 10 kids, his work on parental rights, and the quest to abolish abortion.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Zosha Warpeha. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and this is part three, our third interview in the Tangle Reader interview series. And today we have Bradley Pierce from Liberty Hill, Texas. Bradley, thank you so much for coming on

and sitting down with me. Hey, good to be with you, Isaac, thanks. So before we get in, what I've been doing with everybody is just reading very briefly the bio that you submitted in the Tangle forum where your name was drawn from randomly. So this way, Tangle readers and listeners just have an idea of who you are

and sort of come into the conversation with the same background info I have. So this is what you wrote in the Tangle Forum. You said, I'm a 40-year-old Christian, an attorney, a father of 10, a husband of one, pro-parental rights, anti-abortion, pro-self-defense, and also a homeschool graduate and homeschooling your children. Basically, every part of that sentence I'm interested to scratch at and hear from.

Before we jump in, I also want to acknowledge, like our last part two interview, Miriam Stein, who I just got off with earlier today, she had been reading Tangle for two plus years. You have also been around for a while. So I want to acknowledge and thank you for that. That's almost the entire time I've been doing this newsletter. So I very much appreciate your support and staying on our mailing list, as I'm sure I've written some things, we haven't agreed in the past. Oh, well, I'm grateful to you for doing it. Yes, a friend of mine introduced it to me a little over two years ago and said, hey, you should check this out. It's a great place to kind of hear from both sides. And this guy's, you know, really fair about presenting that. And that's certainly been my experience

since reading it. So I appreciate all of your work that you put into it and giving your take and changing that take if things change and really being open with that and sharing your viewers' questions and feedback. I just appreciate your approach to it. Thank you. I really appreciate that too. I just appreciate your approach to it. Thank you. I really appreciate that too. Well, look, I mean, the first thing I have to ask about is 10 kids, man.

Holy cow. What's that like? That is a lot of kids running around. It's pretty awesome. You know, it's pretty busy. My wife and I love children. We're each ourselves. I just have one brother.

She just has one sister. So it's not like we come from a big family. But we love children. We think they're a blessing. We're Christians. We think that they're gifts from God, that everybody's made in the image of God. And so we just trust God with however many we have. And he's decided, at least for now, that that number is 10.

Wow. Amazing, man. Mazel tov. That's a beautiful thing. I can't imagine the pack pack so give me some ages here what's the the youngest and the oldest in that and what's the the span you guys have well this will make you this will make your eyebrows raise even higher so our oldest is 11 and our youngest is coming up on one year but we have two sets of twins in there wow so they're all they're all

still fairly young but they definitely keep me on my toes. All right. I'm going to give you one shot at this. I want to hear the 10 names of your children off the top of your head. Cause I'm not convinced that, you know, all of them. Let's hear it, baby. Wow. Amazing. I, that's really cool too. I have a in my family. My brother just had a baby about six months ago. My first niece on my side, my wife has two nieces. Yeah, thank you. A really amazing experience to be holding somebody who's like, you know, my grandmother's blood. It's totally cool. Very interesting. So, I mean, this is a really, I guess, a very intriguing bio to me. You know, obviously, you're an attorney. I just plugged everybody who got selected into Google. And some of your work that came up is, I think, fair to say a lot of work that I think is tied closely to some of the stuff that we've covered in Tangle. Can you tell me a little bit about what kind of work you do and what kind of law you practice? Yeah, so I handle a number of different things. on the issue of parental rights, defending families, parental rights, defending families who are falsely accused of child abuse or neglect,

and CPS investigations and things like that. And I also do work on the self-defense rights front and involved with, you know, legislation, drafting legislation and analyzing stuff related to gun rights and other self-defense rights. And then a big part of my work over the past several years has become about abolishing abortion on the anti-abortion front, kind of part of the abolitionist movement and legislation and other activities on that front. Got it. So I guess let's start with the first part of that.

You know, there's a lot there and all those things. I mean, what kind of cases do you run into? Obviously, parents being falsely accused of child abuse or neglect. I mean, I can't imagine anything really more horrifying than your children being unjustly taken from you by the government or CPS or whoever. I mean, when people come to you, what kinds of situations are they in? Yeah. On this particular issue, kind of the other things I get involved in may be a little more kind of partisan, I guess, or the parties may be pretty clear where they stand. On this issue, it's kind of a bipartisan

issue that everyone believes that, you know, there's some problems with our job protection services system. There need to be reforms. There's, you know, too much intrusion or there's children that are removed that shouldn't be or they're removed and then they're not properly cared for in the foster system and things like that. And so, you know, so that's where I spent a lot of my work. Over 90% of reports across the country made to job detective services are ultimately deemed unfounded. Over 80% of the actual investigations are deemed unfounded. So we have lots of families, you know, the vast, vast majority of investigations happening, the families being investigated are ultimately not guilty of any kind of abuse or neglect.

And so CPS spends a lot of time there. But for those families, for those 80% of families in those investigations, it can be very traumatic that you have someone investigating you, second-guessing your parenting decisions. And maybe it was just a misunderstanding, or maybe there was just some kind of an accident. And because of maybe various laws, like mandatory reporting laws, or maybe there was just some kind of an accident. And because of maybe various laws, like mandatory reporting laws, or maybe because of just kind of a general, you know, desire to protect ourselves and kind of, hey, when in doubt, go ahead and report. You know, these families find themselves in these situations where they're having to deal with a, you know,

investigation of their family. Wow. That is a startling statistic. 80% of the investigations are found to be unfounded. 90% of the reports are unfounded. I mean, how does that happen? Is that people doing it in a vengeful fashion to try and gain custody of kids from an ex or something? I mean, what's like a common thread there that that's happening so frequently? That's definitely part of it. The three top sources of reports are law enforcement, school personnel, and the medical community, all of which are mandatory reporters in every single state. So you have, you know, a lot of it's just kind of basic, you know, desire. Hey, you know, see something, say something.

Let's go ahead and report. When in doubt, let's go ahead and report this. And that's kind of how it is for all crime, right? But in this particular arena, it's not just a kind of natural inclination to report things, but there's also mandatory reporting. So we, as a result of that, we have lawyers, you know, who are telling hospitals and doctors, hey, even if you don't have a suspicion of abuse or neglect, go ahead and report if it's a certain kind of break, you know, oblique fracture or spiral fracture, or if it's a more than one recent injury, or if it's a suspected head injury of an infant.

Like I had one case that a mother was walking, you know, with her children at the park and was holding their eight-month-old and was walking along. And she slipped on some gravel and fell and cradled her baby. And he was pretty sure that the baby didn't hit his head, but she just wanted to be sure. So she went to the hospital, got him checked out. And the hospital said, no, your baby's fine. Everything's great. But we are reporting this to Child Protective Services. She's like, well, why? Do you think I did something? They're like, no, we think you did everything right. You protected your baby, brought him in, got him checked out. Well, then why are you reporting me? Well, we have a policy here that if a child has,

if someone under two years old has a suspected head injury, then that's an automatic report to CPS. Like, yeah, but you ruled out a head injury. Like, yeah, but it was a suspected head injury. Wow. And so that ends up turning into investigation that they didn't have to deal with and so there's a lot of that you know and and just kind of liability protection going on there but then also like you said you also have like you know vengeful exes that absolutely will use child protective services as a tool to harass each other. You'll even have neighbors do stuff like this. I've seen cases where, I've seen this multiple times,

where you have neighbors that get into some kind of dispute, and someone will, you know, kind of one of those like, wow, that escalated quickly situations where they're like, all right, well, I'm just going to call CPS on you. Even though they don't have any reason to believe they're abusing or neglecting their children that's just their trump card that they they play and because not only is it a mandatory report thing but if you report you have immunity uh both criminal and civil immunity unless they can prove that you did it maliciously which i still haven't seen that prosecuted. So it's almost carte blanche to just make false accusations against people. And then that's how you get to these 80, 90% cases unfounded. Wow. That is a really wild world. So how did you get into that work? I mean,

you went to law school and this was like an area that kind of caught your eye? Yeah. It's just, you know, I've always cared about parental rights and parents having the freedom to raise their children and then seeing, you know, seeing some cases, not any real personal, but it's kind of seeing them from a distance, some cases where, you know, things didn't go well and people didn't have good representation and, you know, things really just got out good representation and, um, you know, things really just got out of hand, uh, was just a, you know, I thought, you know what, I really like to help people. I really like to serve families and, um, help people navigate these situations to help clear their name and make sure they can hold on to their children if they haven't done anything wrong.

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. I guess this sort of shows my immersion in the political punditry. But when I saw your form and saw the pro-parental rights thing, I mean, my initial thought was kind of like the don't say gay legislation, the quote unquote, don't say gay legislation in Florida, like a lot of the stuff that's happening in public schools. Do you feel like that sort of encompasses that world as well too? Because it seems to me just from this description, you're like, I mean, this is like a very direct in the most like legal sense, you're defending the rights of parents to keep their children. But have you found yourself sort of operating in this other world now that I think is this sort of new school board parental

rights with their kids in public school kind of movement that we've been seeing in the political space the last couple of years. I really haven't done much in that area. I mean, that's something I care about as much as the next person. But but that hasn't really been a big part of my practice. No. Got it. OK, so let's let's talk about that a little bit. I mean, you you have you know, you yourself are homeschooled. You decide to homeschool your 10 kids, which is, I mean, you basically, I guess you have a classroom at home, so they're getting plenty of, uh, social interaction. What's the, what's the decision like that for you? Um, you know,

I imagine you're, you're obviously a conservative person. You're living in a fairly conservative place. Why not send your kids to public school? You know, I mean, ultimately, it comes back to my faith. I'm a Christian. I think that it's first and foremost, parents' responsibilities to take care of their children's education. Kind of coming back to Deuteronomy 6, you know, that teach these things to your children as you walk along, as you rise up, as you lie down, as you walk along the way. You know, these parents, the primary responsibility to educate children belongs to parents. And so I kind of start with that presumption, you know, and then there's not a

whole lot going on in our public school system that I find super attractive. I mean, having been homeschooled myself, I'm super grateful for my parents doing that for me and provided a lot of freedom, a lot more time with my parents and my brother. And I'm super grateful for that, a lot more flexibility. And also just a lot more freedom for me personally as far as choosing what to study. I remember when I was about 12 years old, my mom said, uh, okay, you have to do math

and you have to do English because those are going to be on the SAT someday. But other than that, you can study anything else you want as long as I approve of it. And so I said, well, I, I mean, I love history. So the other had homeschool curriculum fairs. This was like in 94. Not a lot of those. There's way more than now. But I'd just go in there and pick out books that I liked and show them to my mom.

She'd be like, OK, it looks good. And so I'd study the math and the English. I'd already had a foundation on a lot of other subjects up to that point. But then I could really explore the things that I was interested in. And for a long time, that was architecture. I really enjoyed that. But then when I was about 16 is whenever I decided, kind of developed an interest in the law and kind of did more studying in that. So I want to give that same kind of freedom to my children and give them time with their siblings, time with their mom and I.

And homeschooling allows us to do that. It's really interesting. I mean, as somebody who went to public school, I mean, I don't even know. I'm thinking, I'm trying to rack my brain. Like if I know anybody who I grew up with who was homeschooled and nobody comes to mind, I'm sure I know people in my work life and my kind of adult social life who are homeschooled and I just don't know about it. But what was the, I guess now for your kids, what's that process look like? I mean, how do you and your wife manage the duties of

teaching them? You obviously have a full-time job as an attorney. you know, you guys go through the process of deciding what books they're going to learn from and you flesh out a curriculum for them for, you know, the age that they're at. I mean, that seems like a huge amount of work. Yeah. I mean, it is. But I mean, this is my life, you know, my children are, I'm an attorney and that's my vocation, but my children are a way higher priority than that. And so I don't know that my time directly reflects that, but I think it should, you know, try to make our time reflect what our true priorities are. And so, yeah, my wife, she does pretty much everything for the younger children as far as teaching, reading and math, arithmetic and, and you know kind of all your basic stuff and then our older children i've kind of taken on the past couple

years kind of their education and the math and you know writing and uh and then other subjects and you know the other great thing about homeschooling is that every child is different every child goes at a different speed. Every child has different interests and strengths and weaknesses. And so we're able to adapt what we're doing to each one of them. And so far, it's working well. You know, one of the things that stuck out, I think, a little bit about both your work and your form is obviously with your religious background, you're pretty passionate about the issue of abortion. And you had in your bio, one of the bios I saw for kind of like, you know, your law and your practice online, that one of your goals is to abolish abortion, I think nationally, but certainly in the state of Texas. Obviously, Roe v. Wade certainly in the state of Texas. Obviously, Roe v. Wade has fallen. There's been a ton of movement in this space in the last year or two. I'm curious if you could tell me a little bit about your work in that space, how you're hoping to accomplish a goal like that, that I think is a really huge monumental task. You know, what, what, that's quite aspirational. What, what's that look like for you in your work?

Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously it's counter-cultural, you know, in our society, at least where we're at right now. And yeah, it's also something that, you know, it's got to be God who does it, but I believe that I've got a duty to speak up for those who can't speak for themselves and to rescue those who are being carried to the slaughter, as Proverbs 24 says. So I believe I have a duty to do what I can and then trust God with that. But I've always been a pro-life. My parents were pro-life. I've always been, you know, I'm a pro-life, my parents were pro-life. But then a number of years ago, I really kind of, you know, troubled by some inconsistencies I saw in the general kind of political pro-life movement, pro-life politicians, establishment pro-life organizations.

And ultimately, I now call myself an abolitionist. And we started this organization called Abolish Abortion Texas here in 2016. And we've been able to make some progress here. Not any, you know, not any legislation passed, but as far as just culturally, we've been able to make some progress here. And then that's then taken me beyond Texas doing work, you know, helping with other states. And ultimately, even in the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe versus Wade, I had the privilege of being an attorney who submitted a amicus brief in that case on behalf of 21 organizations and 20 state legislators who signed on to that, arguing that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, well, then what are the laws that protect born people? Well, those should be the same laws that protect people before they're born.

That's what we believe, and that's what equal protection means. That's what abolitionists stand for. The court obviously didn't go there, and I'm sure it would have caused way more uproar culturally if they had. But I still think it was the right thing to do constitutionally. And so we're going to keep fighting for that, both at the court, in the states, and at the federal level as well. to pick at there. But I guess one of the first things you said that sort of perked my ears up is kind of the inconsistencies you've seen in the abortion movement, the anti abortion movement. I'm curious what you mean by that. I mean, what were you seeing from people that you thought were kind of on your team that frustrated you a bit? Well, a lot of the rhetoric of the pro-life movement, you know, for the last 49, you know, 50 years, next month, since Roe was decided, you know, has been a fetus is a person

and that Roe versus Wade is unconstitutional. Well, now at this point, even Supreme Court says Roe versus Wade is unconstitutional. So on the fetus is a person front, you know, that's kind of been what the pro-life movement has said. However, when you actually look at the legislation that's being passed, that's being introduced and pushed around the country by pro-life organizations, by pro-life politicians, it doesn't actually treat a fetus like they're a person. they're a person, right? It says, okay, if you make it to 20, if you survive to 20 weeks gestation, okay, that point will give you some protections, but still not the same protections as if you survive all the way until birth. And then there's always a carve out for the mothers to say, okay, well, you have basically a legal right to cause the death of your unborn child up to the moment of birth because we write into every single pro-life bill an exception that whether it be a partial birth abortion ban, a dismemberment bill, heartbeat bill, whatever it is, we always write into it says, you know, except for the mother. And we explicitly exclude that mothers from any sort of liability whatsoever, you know, for the part that they play in the abortion.

And that's not what we do for born people, right? That's not how we treat born persons. That's kind of the inconsistency that I saw that we say a fetus is a person, but we don't act like it. And the Supreme Court actually pointed this out actually in Roe in 1973. They actually pointed it out then because we were arguing that, hey, a fetus is a person. And in fact, it was Texas, an assistant attorney general that was arguing, hey, a fetus is a person, so it's entitled to 14th Amendment protection. And the

court basically pointed out, wait a second, if that's true, then your own current laws don't provide equal protection. Even in 1973, we weren't providing equal protection. So actions speak louder than words. So you're not treating them like a person. So we're not either. So that was actually a big part of how we got Roe in the first place. And the court actually said, you can read this in the Roe decision, they said, in arguing that a fetus is a person, Texas faces a dilemma. If a fetus is a person, why is the mother not a principal or an accomplice? If the fetus is a person, why are the penalties different? Because it was a two to five year penalty for killing a person in the womb.

Whereas, you know, it could be up to life or even capital punishment for killing a person outside of the womb, depending on intent and all that. or even capital punishment for killing a person outside of the womb, depending on intent and all that. You know, that's a big part of the inconsistency that, yes, feels like we've been talking out of both sides of our mouth for 50 years that a fetus is a person, but none of the bills that we're actually putting forward actually treat them that way. So I'm curious. I mean, obviously, you read Tangle, so you know that this is an area that we have disagreement on. Sure. From your perspective, I mean, a fetus is from the moment of conception then, right? Right, right. From the moment of fertilization or conception.

Some people use those terms differently, but I use them as synonyms. So does that mean that you have, I guess, an opposition to the kinds of birth controls that have the possibility of stopping a fertilization from happening or terminating a fertilization immediately after it happens? Things like Plan B and some of the other birth control pills that we've seen sort of popularized in recent years? Yes and no. I'm not against the actual substances. I don't think we should be regulating the substances that way. I think really it's an issue of how are these substances being used? What is the intent in using them? And so yes, if someone is intentionally using a substance in order to destroy a human being that's already after fertilization, then yeah, I think that that use should be criminalized. Obviously, every case is going to

be decided on a case-by-case basis, so there's not some one-size-fits-all response to that. But as far as what should the law be, the law should be that that person from the moment of fertilization is protected by the same laws protecting everybody else. I'm curious if you feel like your position is radical. Because I think a lot of the country, to your point, I mean, a lot of the country, I think, would view it that way. I'm sure many of Tango listeners would view it that way. Obviously, what you're experiencing, even in the pro-life movement, is that some people view it that way because they don't want to go down this path of criminalizing women who get abortions or criminalizing the act of abortion. Many of the sort of pro-life

bills that are out there are focused on the medical providers and limiting it through other means. I mean, do you feel that way about yourself? I mean, how do you place yourself on this spectrum of, you know, anti-abortion activists? You know, I mean, in some ways, every human rights reform has, you know, has started with the people being called radicals, right? So being called that is neither here nor there. It's really what is consistent, what's the right thing to do, what's moral, what's biblical, and what is loving my neighbor as myself? What is doing unto others as I would have them do unto me? What laws would I want protecting me now in my

life? Well, then if I truly love my neighbor, my pre-born neighbor, then I should want the same laws to protect them. And it's also not just even for the protection of the baby. It's also for the women. Because mothers, because abortion is not treated as homicide right now under our existing laws, you know, there's something like and this is kind of old data, maybe 18 years old. There was a study that said something like 64 percent of women who have abortions indicate that they felt pressured by somebody else. Now, again, they're not saying someone had a gun to their head, but they feel pressure from somebody else. saying someone had a gun to their head, but they feel pressure from somebody else. Well, if you were to abolish abortion by providing equal protection, treating it as homicide, equal protection of the laws, then it would actually be illegal to pressure someone into getting one or even to encourage someone to get one. If there's people saying,

hey, all these mothers are being pressured into it. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. But yeah, I mean, I think it should be illegal to pressure someone into committing homicide. So it even protects women from those who would try to pressure them into these things. So I guess, how do you square this with, I mean, the obvious pro-choice argument, like the 900 pound elephant in the room is, well, there's a ton of them, I guess, but

the first one that comes to mind is that, you know, there are a lot of scenarios where women are getting abortions out of, you know, concern for their own health because they have genuinely dangerous pregnancies. I know there's a ton of really interesting stuff happening in the kind of pro-choice space around reframing abortion as self-defense for some women and trying to fight it in court on those grounds because I know women who have had incredibly complicated, dangerous, life-threatening complications from pregnancy before and after birth. And when you talk about banning abortion and criminalizing it and making it, you know, equivalent to homicide, I think it puts a lot of women at risk immediately. And we're seeing that play out, I think, in some

states right now that have banned abortion, where there's a lot of horror stories coming out. I mean, how does somebody like you navigate those things if you have the care in mind for the women as well? Yeah, absolutely. No. I mean, those are very tragic and, and that's not what we're talking about at all, as far as, you know, banning access to medical care, you know, for those kinds of life-threatening medical emergencies, ectopic pregnancies, things like that. That's something that, you know, really the law already has in place. Pardon me if I use some legalese here, but, you know, what's called the doctrine of necessity that really allows for dealing with those situations and provide the justification

in the event of those situations. And even in the bills that I write, we explicitly write that in, if it's already in the law or sometimes even when it is, that that's not something that can be prosecuted. Nobody really counts that as abortion, maybe from a medical terminology perspective, that may be still considered an abortion, but that's not really what we're trying to stop. Okay. But I guess if in a world where abortions are banned and, you know, they're put on equal footing as something like homicide or murder, I mean, there's going to be a natural deterrence for doctors to provide that medical care because, you know, they're already making extremely complicated decisions about the threshold for, you know, a threat to a mother's life or health. I mean, the thing that we're seeing right now

is that those doctors are scared to take action because they're scared of being prosecuted under some of the laws that have been put into place. I mean, fundamentally, I think that's kind of the objection to this. So drafting laws, I mean, to address that, it's hard for me. I mean, this is one of the things that I really struggle with, with a lot of my conservative friends on this specific issue, because there's so much about conservatism that I think sort of vouches for this kind of limited

government ideal that like, there are so many places in our world where conservatives say, you know, the people who are responsible for this, for their day-to-day lives, living these things out are the ones that get priority in deciding how these decisions are going to be made. I mean, you homeschooling your kids is a great example. You know, you're not going to court for truancy that you've decided that you're going to homeschool your kids. The government's not compelling you to do that. You've decided that's the best thing for them. I mean, it seems inconsistent to me to say that we could draft laws that are having the real world impact right now of kind of scaring away the care that women need.

I mean, again, I think there's a lot of different reasons for me that I struggle with some of the pro-life stuff, but just specific to this narrow conversation we're having, that seems like a pretty big contradiction. I mean, what makes you think that the government can successfully abolish or ban something like that in a way that won't result in so much, you know, danger, I think, for pregnant women across the country.

Yeah. Well, you said a few things. I'm going to try to hit them and bring me back if I miss anything. You know, I think as far as the stories that, you know, that we may be hearing about doctors denying care and things like that, I really question how genuine those are and what's really going on there. As I know you do as well, sometimes the facts that you read in the news aren't always what they seem. Not that people are necessarily promoting misinformation, but there's a lot of times there's a rush to a story without really being able to know all the facts and a lot of times in these cases because of HIPAA laws and things like that you'll never know all the facts you know so you should just kind of go with what you have so I really question that because first of all none of the laws that they're

talking about in any way hamstring doctors from providing care to women, you know, who are true in true health emergencies. So there's that. And then secondly, there's pressures the other direction, right? Not only are there laws that require doctors to provide care for emergency situations, but there's also liability that comes from refusing to handle situations. And if harm comes to the mother, now that doctor is civilly liable or potentially even criminally liable for her death or for harm to her. I think when you're dealing with life and death, I think it's good for there to be some tensions and some pressures to do the right thing. But I think those are already there as far as protecting the mother's life. And I think there should be more there

protecting the life of the child. And in the legislation that I've been involved with drafting, you know, it's been there. So I understand people are in difficult situations, but I really think that the, you know, the few stories that we've heard,

I don't know, I doubt the genuine, how genuine they are in those situations. One other thing that you said about limited governments, because I'm certainly, you know, for limited government, I think government has a defined role that should stay in. That said, I'm not an anarchist. I do believe in government. And I believe that the most fundamental function of government is civil and criminal justice. And the most important justice is on the issue of homicide, right? Protecting people who have been wrongfully killed or protecting people from being wrongfully killed. I think that is the primary function of government. That's the other thing

government does, but if it's not doing that, then it's failing at its most basic function. I mean, we've written a little bit about this entangle, but that means a woman, say a pregnant woman commits a crime. Can you put her in jail knowing that you're now imprisoning the fetus that's mother. I mean, I don't see any way we can reasonably separate the fetus from the mom. Obviously, we've defined viability as the point that we're doing that now. But what about a situation like that? I mean, how do you navigate that? Isn't that just like an, sort of the obvious proof that we have, that there is, there is a difference between, you know, a mother and, and a fetus? I mean, that we can't really take the two of them apart? Well, I mean, in that scenario, obviously, you know, the fetus is inside the mother and the mother goes to prison. Obviously the, you know, no one, the fetus is not going to want to

be separated from the mother because that means death. And so I don't know that that's a particularly difficult ethical conundrum there that, yeah, I mean, the baby should be with the baby's mother. And, you know, then once the baby's born, then, you know, at that point it becomes a different question. And that is, you know, what does our criminal justice system think about infants being with their mothers, you know, in institutions? And that's kind of a totally separate question. But as far as the life of that child, yeah, I mean, there's nothing about the mother committing a crime that should in any way condemn the child to be separated from their mother, you know, to the point that it causes the death of the child.

Well, I mean, I guess I actually find it more complicated. I mean, I assuming assuming that, you know, I think maybe I don't know, maybe you don't agree with this, but I think I can make a pretty good argument that the living conditions inside, you know, a federal or state prison are much different than the ones inside, you know, most homes in America and are much worse, right? So if we're starting from that point, a mother commits a crime, she's pregnant, and we condemn the child to the living conditions inside the prison, the, you know, deprive them of certain medical care that are on the other side, the fetus of the kind of, you know, the accessibility of care and the living conditions that it would have if its mother was not behind bars, not in prison, not subject to potential, you know, abuse, violence, all the things that we know happen in our prison system. Yeah. Well, and again, I mean, that's something to be

considered, you know, should pregnant mothers, you know, begin their sentences until they've had their babies? That's something interesting to consider. And maybe they shouldn't. But I think that's a separate question from should anyone, the mother or anybody else have the ability to end the life of this child? But yeah, I mean, I agree that they should still be able to have proper care and nutrition and protection because again, I'm all about following what Jesus says, loving our neighbor as ourselves. And so, yeah, that means the baby, that means the mother, that means the mother, even if she's convicted of a crime, we still love her as ourselves and provide justice, but do it in a way that's you know humane and that cares for both her and her baby in your work specifically do you run into like in your day-to-day i guess like a lot of the

opposition from the pro-choice side and i don't know like what do those interactions look like for you are you actively trying to change the minds of some of the political opposition that you guys face? Or are you sort of like, you know, we have to get the pro-life side on our playing field first? Since, as you said, you know, from your perspective, there's a lot of inconsistencies there that you feel like, you know, the guys who are supposed to be on my team aren't even quite on my team. Right. All of the above. We certainly, you know, want to convince people who disagree with us of the reasonableness and soundness of our positions. And we believe it's logical, logical, biblical, legal. Actually, even in 38 states today, we have fetal homicide laws in 38 states. Many of those states are pro-abortion states. But still, we believe that we've all agreed that we should be protecting fetuses.

Now, we may disagree about whether they're persons or not, but we all agree they should be protected. So we have some agreement there. We have agreements with a lot of the folks on the pro-abortion side on the issue of mothers or women being free moral agents. Generally speaking, although there are people who are forced into situations and things like that, that obviously shouldn't be liable if someone's forcing them to do something. But most women are free moral agents. They're're strong they're capable of making decisions for themselves they should be held accountable for their own decisions and um we have a lot of agreement there you know then kind of on the pro-life side we we have an agreement there with a lot number of people as far as life begins at fertilization but then we have disagreements about okay now let's act like life

against the fertilization by treating it like we treat born people with the same laws protecting them so we're kind of you know fighting on multiple fronts and i have a lot of people to convince and you know it's certainly an uphill battle to put it mildly but but we believe it's ultimately the the consistent thing to do. You know, we've been meeting with a lot of success and progress, at least as far as the direction, although, you know, granted, we're still a long ways from abolishing abortion in any state, much less the entire country. I'm struck by it. I mean, I think it's so fascinating that the calculus in some of this, like the worldview, the perspective

that you're bringing forward is that you feel like you're genuinely increasing the choice for women. Because to me, it seems like the logic you're applying is almost the exact argument I would put forward for why we shouldn't ban abortion, which is like, we want to provide a free moral ethic to women, allow them to make these choices for themselves, when there are two choices to have an abortion or not, and you're proposing putting up a barrier to one of the two choices. I mean, you're cutting them in half. How does that fit? Yeah, well, and I hope I didn't, maybe I wasn't clear. I'm not saying that we're expanding the choices. No, we're certainly taking away a choice as far as legally. But what we are doing as abolitionists that I think a lot of the pro-life organizations don't do is that we're treating women like they're free moral agents.

We're not writing exceptions for them that treat them as if they don't know what they're doing or that they're incapable of making decisions for themselves by creating this entire exception to abortion for them, which ends up resulting in, you know, I think there's 12 states, 11 or 12 states today after Dobbs now and after some time after that, Tricker bills that went into effect, pre-roll laws. I think there's 11 or 12 states where clinic abortions are generally outlawed. And yet, in every single one of those states, with the exception of maybe one of them, self-induced abortion or self-managed abortion is still 100% legal. And so I'm sure you've read, you've seen, it's been a number of articles in New York times and elsewhere about how that's exploding. And, um, and so you're seeing that, uh, on the rise, in fact, almost replacing the numbers, um, that are being, uh, saved by, you know, the decrease in the clinic abortions, you know, we're not just trying to force women into do it yourself abortions by making that the only form of legal abortion. You know, we're not just trying to force women into do it yourself abortions by making that the only form of legal abortion. You know, we're trying to protect everybody with the same laws. Um, we give everybody the same due process as well.

And every case be considered on a case by case basis by law enforcement, grand juries, judges, juries, prosecutors, you know, appellate courts, the governor who can pardon or commute sentences, all the whole justice system, whole justice system should consider each case and treat each person according to their own circumstances. But where the pro-life movement has been for 50 years is saying, no carte blanche, every mother should get a pass regarding her own culpability and her own abortion. In their words, because every woman is a victim. And I don't agree with that. I think it's insulting to women. Even a lot of the pro-abortion women I've communicated with think that that's insulting. So that's why I say that, at least in that area, we have agreement that women are free moral agents. We just disagree that they should

have the freedom to make this particular decision. I'm curious, given like this, you know, your your whole set of kind of conservative Christian views, how you're feeling about the state of the Republican Party and the conservative movement right now. And, you know, in 2022, as we stand, I mean, you look around or there. Do you feel like the party's headed in the right direction? Are you supportive of Republicans? I mean, what's like your, how do you feel politically these days? Because like you said, I mean, I think there's a lot of different brands of conservatism that are out there right now. And in my mind, listening to you talk, I imagine there's a few of them that aren't particularly appealing to you, even though it seems like you would, on the surface, stand much more on the right side of the aisle than the left.

Yeah. I mean, I vote Republican, and the Republican Party platform, at least at the state level, I think is really, really good. Obviously, there's a big difference in both parties between the platform and then the politicians and what they actually do once they get into office. I think as a whole, the direction of the Republican Party across the country is not good. I think it's going a bad direction, both in terms of our standards for our own candidate and also in terms of our consistency to our own principles.

You know, a lot of times Republicans, even when they win and get into office, they don't actually govern like they promised that they would when campaigning. And again, I know this is this human nature period and both parties, I'm sure, complain to the same thing. But but I think more so with conservatives and even the term conservative, I think is a, you know, not a great term because it's like, you know, we take five steps the wrong direction and we're conservative because we take one step back or we're conservative because we take we just stop taking more directions. That's the wrong direction. Instead of actually retaking ground and taking things the opposite direction in some way, I think we need to stop conserving and we need to start actually advancing our policies. But, you know, politicians are great at saying things and not falling through with them. That's true on both sides.

I'm curious if you've changed your mind about any of your political positions in the last few years or maybe if Tangle has influenced your mindset on anything we've covered. Because obviously, specific to the abortion issue, we've written a lot. I think you and I probably have a lot more common ground on things like religious rights and gun rights. But yeah, I'm curious, if you've had any kind of political evolution throughout your career, you've gone into situations where like you had a particular view and something you experienced or read or whatever kind of changed your mind on or if maybe the views you hold now are actually new to you and a change from, you know, some aspects of how you saw the world

before. I don't know. you know, some aspects of how you saw the world before? I don't know. I mean, it's going to be hard for me to think about anything specific. But yeah, certainly my views across my lifetime, there's some of them that are, you know, have not changed. There's some of them that have changed in the sense that they've just gotten deeper.

But there's others that have changed. I wish I could give you a soundbite that Tangled was fundamental in changing one of those in a certain direction. But I can't think of anything right off. But I think what Tangled has done is really given me more perspective and helped me to understand different sides and also just to, you know, learn about news that I may not have, you know, may not have been my particular interests or my particular area, but something that you, you know, brought to the fore and talked about and did a deep dive on that I, you know, really appreciated. So I can't point to anything specific, but I think it would certainly been, been really helpful. Yeah, no, I mean, I appreciate that. I honestly wasn't intending to kind of like key up a softball for a soundbite, though that would have been awesome. I really, I genuinely asked because it's so interesting to me to talk to people who are really passionate about these kinds of issues. And I'm just always fascinated if it's life experience, if it's,

you know, the environment someone grew up in, if it's like a major event that happened to them, that sort of defines a lot of their political views. And I think that's really, that's kind of what I was interested in scratching at. I mean, you know, because for me, I know it's like such a, like the, the things that I'm like really, really partisan and really, really, you know, really care about are issues that I've probably experienced personally. Like they've impacted somebody I love in a really deep or profound way. And so I was, I was more interested if like, you know, there's some of these views that you came to, if they came to you later in life because of the experiences you've had. Obviously, I assume having 10 kids and going through pregnancy in that way has played a huge role in some of the more pro-life stances. I can imagine how an experience like that would be really profound.

experience like that would be really profound. You know, also, I should say, too, just to compliment you. I mean, I'm, again, like I, there's clearly places we disagree, but I appreciate the fact that you're, you know, you've been sticking around Tangle for a while and, and read, I mean, listening to you talk, I'm like, Oh, I've probably written some stuff that would piss this guy off. And, you know, I'm, I'm really, really grateful and appreciative of readers who are, you know, open-minded and open-hearted enough to kind of stick it out and stay on our mailing list and keep reading the newsletter, even through those kinds of issues. Because I do think that's something not a lot of Americans do right now. And I think it's been a really big growth

experience for me, but it's really cool to sort of talk to somebody who I know has had to go through that too on your end. Yeah. Well, and I appreciate that. I'm a Christian and I try to really get my views on things from the Bible and from what God says, the best that I understand it, not that I always understand it perfectly by any means. And I'm certainly growing in that way. And then also, that is my foundation. But then I'm always learning. I always want to stay humble. I want to be finding out what's really going on. As a lawyer, it's my tendency to not take things at face value and to want to dig deeper. And so there's a number of issues out there that I may just not even have an opinion on because I feel like I don't have enough information.

I try to reserve judgment, which I think is a lost art in our society. Like, hey, let's wait till facts develop before we actually decide what we think about this. So I try to do that. And also, I try not to take my talking points from the general media, whether it be conservative or otherwise. You know, I definitely have some views that would be kind of maybe out of step with general Republican political talking points. You know, I'm for border security, but I think we should be encouraging immigration, you know, more the merrier. You know, I think the Bible has a lot to say about that. But I'm also for criminal justice, but I'm also for criminal justice reform.

I think the way that we treat prisoners and things like that in this country is really important and reflects who we are. On a number of different issues, I probably may fall in different areas of the ideological map. I think that's where we should all be, is not taking our talking points from any particular party or politician or media outlet. But really going back to our fundamental philosophy for me is what does God say? And then go from there. So that's what I try to do. This has been awesome. I appreciate you giving me your time. I know we're just over an hour here. And I mean, I could talk about some of this stuff forever. And I'm sorry to put you in the abortion hot seat there for 30 minutes. I mean, again, it's a really unique opportunity to sort of have these conversations and the

debates a little bit in real time. Before we go, I'm trying to give people an opportunity. You know, I'm sitting here grilling you about your life and making you tally off all 10 names of your kids. I want to give you a chance, you know, if there's anything, A, you want to ask me or B, you know, any message to the folks who are listening and reading Tangle, you've got a chance in front of an audience here. And yeah, the floor is yours for a few minutes. Well, if you're going to let me put you on the spot, I may ask you a question. And that is,

you know, we all come to life and, you know, these things that we encounter in the world with our own kind of worldview and fundamental principles that are our starting points for, you know, deciding what we think about things and in every tangled, you know, or virtually everyone, you know, you kind of give your take on things. Obviously, this could be a much, you could spend forever answering this question, but my question is, how would you describe your fundamental principles or how you, you know, what, what your worldview is and what, what lenses you look at things through? What's your, I guess, life philosophy in that way? Wow. Yeah. That is a really interesting question. Um, shoot, I should not have done this. This is a bad idea. Uh, no, it's a great, it's a great question. I mean, look, first of all, I think fundamentally, I think Tangle comes from a place of compassion and empathy. And I think that automatically puts me on like the left side of the spectrum,

because I think the, you know, liberals in America today are kind of framed as being like the, you know, hippie to be worried about everybody's feelings and safe spaces and all that stuff. And I really mean it in the genuine sense of the term that like people come to their beliefs and their viewpoints through their lived experiences and their upbringing. And I am really, really passionate about the fact that like we have to respect the views that people have because everybody comes to them honestly. Nobody believes something because they think it's wrong or stupid or it's going to... I mean, some people I'm sure believe things because they want to, because it advances a certain life goal or worldview for them. But most of us, the vast

majority of all of our beliefs and principles and the things that you're asking me about, I think come from a place of the experiences that we have paired with the upbringing that we have, and then the information that we're taking in. And so I try to lead with, with that kind of just empathy, even especially towards the people who I really disagree with, which is like, you know, they have this, this genuine belief and there are reasons behind the belief. And I need to give, you know, space in myself to hear those reasons and to give them like an honest chance. So I think that's really primary for me in terms of my political and governmental worldview. I mean, look, I think that America is a really, really beautiful, broken, totally perfect ideal that

has been executed in a really, really sloppy way. And I'm incredibly grateful to live in this country and to have grown up here. And I also take the responsibility and the gift of living here and growing up here really, really seriously in the sense that I think we should all take advantage of the freedoms that we have and the ability to criticize our government and the ability to vote and the ability to choose our leaders and many, many things that a lot of people who are, you know, living across the world right now don't have. And so I am simultaneously grateful for the country that I'm in and also, you know, see all of its flaws and blemishes and all those things from knowing it pretty intimately, I think. And I really, really feel strongly about, you know, my the reserving the right to sort of speak honestly and critically about it, because, you know, I don't think any political party or politician or idea is off limits for criticism or debate or conversation. And so, you know, those are those are sort of like the the guiding principles for me. sort of like the guiding principles for me. I talk a bit about limited government and some of these things that I think are more conservative, but I also, to your point, I think the government plays a really critical role. And when the government does things really well, it's

awesome because it's like our tax dollars are paying for it. And that makes me feel good about where my money is going. And it takes pressure off the kind of private sector that I think is a bit more selfish and capitalistic to have to take care of certain needs that every society has. So it's a balance. It's really complicated. That's a really good question. I don't know if that's a clear answer, but those are the kinds of things I think that come to mind for me. Great. Appreciate that. Well, Bradley, thank you. That's, um, I'm going to like, you're, I think you're, you might've just inspired some writing. I'm going to have to like, take that question and flesh it all the way out. Look, I appreciate you opening up and,

and the honesty about your worldviews. I know this conversation, this podcast will, will kick some bushes and get some interesting responses. And I'm curious for those too. But thank you for spending an hour of your day with me. Let's keep in touch. Maybe we'll get to do it again sometime down the road. And again, yeah, I really appreciate you

reading Tangle and hanging out. Well, I appreciate it. Thanks for your work. And yeah, I'd love to connect more in the future. Awesome. Thanks so much, man. I will talk to you soon. All right.

Take care. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by Zosia Warpea. Our script is edited by Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and Bailey Saul. Shout out to our interns, Audrey Moorhead and Watkins Kelly, and our social media manager, Magdalena Vakova, who created our podcast logo. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. For more from Tangle, check out our website at www.tangle.com. We'll see you next time. Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th,

only on Disney+.