The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Ben Watson on Journey From NFL to Front Lines of Fight for Life

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

Saturday marks the one year anniversary since Roe. v. Wade was overturned, and as former NFL player Ben Watson explains in his new book, “The New Fight for Life: Roe, Race, and a Pro-Life Commitment to Justice,” the work of the pro-life community is far from over. There is a “widening the tent” that is happening within the pro-life movement, Watson says, explaining the pressing need for women to receive support after giving birth.  Watson joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to share how he went from the NFL to becoming a leading voice in the pro-life movement. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily's little podcast for Friday, June 23rd. I'm Virginia Allen. Saturday, tomorrow, marks the one-year anniversary since Ruby Wade was overturned. It's estimated that tens of thousands of lives have been saved from abortion just over the past year. But the fight for life, it's far from over. Ben Watson is a former NFL player and pro-life advocate. He has a brand-new book out called the new fight for life, row, race, and a pro-life commitment to justice. Ben Watson is joining me on the podcast today to explain what exactly this new fight for life is and how the pro-life movement can continue forward in our efforts to protect and preserve every life. Watson is also joining the show today to share a little bit of his personal story, how he moved from being in the

NFL to being on the front lines of the pro-life movement. But before we get to my conversation with Ben Watson, I want to share a little bit with you about another podcast that I co-host right here at The Daily Signal. You know, conservative women, we're problematic women. Why? Because we don't adhere to the agenda of the radical left. And every Thursday morning on the problematic women podcast, Kristen I, Camer, Lauren Evans, and me, Virginia Allen, are joined by other conservative women to break down the big issues and news that you care about. Whether you're interested in hot takes and conversations on pop culture or Congress, problematic women has you covered. We sort through the news to keep you up to date on the issues that are particular interest to conservative

leaning or problematic women. You can find problematic women wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, be sure to follow us on Instagram. Now, let's get to my conversation with Ben Watson. It is my pleasure to welcome to the show, former NFL tight-end, author and vice president of strategic relationships for the pro-life organization Human Coalition, Ben Watson. Mr. Watson, thank you so much for being here. Good to be here with you. Thank you. You played in the NFL for 15 years. Much of that time was with my team, the New England Patriots. So how did you go from the NFL to today being one of the boldest voices in America defending the unborn and standing for life?

Well, Virginia, it wasn't the plan at all. You know, I can honestly say I didn't enter the NFL back in 2004 thinking that I'll be speaking about this issue, although I always had a strong sense of justice and a sense of really wanting to speak for vulnerable people groups. And throughout my time of the NFL, fortunately, my wife and I had the opportunity to engage on a lot of different issues, you know, from trafficking to obviously the abortion issue to racial justice. just using our platform and opportunities to help people. And we see that so much in Scripture. One of our favorite verses was Micah Six-eight, which talks about doing justice, loving, kindness,

and walking humbly before God. And we saw our life and our kids now, seven of them, as really an opportunity to engage on these issues. And so we actually purchased some ultrasound units while I was playing through a partnership with another organization and that was something that we just wanted to do to really give mothers and fathers an opportunity to see inside the wound. And I guess when you do that, when you're in the NFL, it makes headlines for some reason.

I don't know. But for us, being parents, we just thought it was a great thing. So we did that in a few places where I played, and that kind of allowed me the opportunity to speak about this issue, which I like to call it a justice issue because that's why we're involved. Yeah, well, it's exactly what it is, a justice issue. You've just released a brand new book on the topic, the new Fight for Life, Roe, Race, and the Pro Life commitment to justice. Why did you write this book?

I didn't really want to write the book. That's honest. Yeah, I'm being honest with you. I did not want to. It's too heavy topics. I've written a book about race before after what happened in Ferguson, Missouri several years ago. And obviously, with abortion, I've spoken about it and, you know, supported resource centers. I work with the organization, Human Coalition, that serves pregnant women and engages

on state and federal legislation on that issue. But I just saw this kind of connection between the two. And perhaps not in the traditional way when we talk about the history of abortion and stuff like that. That's to be debated, and a lot of that is true. And some of the narratives aren't quite honestly. But more as we look at the landscape of abortion right now, even in our work, a human coalition and our work personally, I always heard, I kept hearing the stat that kept

getting thrown out. And it was that black women were three to four times more likely to have abortion than their white peers, but also more likely than any other ethnic group in the United States. Instead of stopping there, I wanted to know why. I'm inquisitive, always has been. My mom used to say I asked a lot of questions.

And so I wanted to know why. And the reason why I wrote the book was because of my conversations with some of these women. I did a documentary about the topic not too long ago. And I just felt like there were some voices that need to be heard, and there's some, I guess, some reasons or maybe some descriptions that need to be made about how abortion is impacting,

specifically the black community. And so after Roe went down and we all cheered, which we should have, I thought to myself, what's next? I think a lot of pro-lifers were thinking what's next. And so I wrote the book to kind of tell the pro-life community that the fight isn't over. I mean, even right now, as we sit here, about 75% of the country still allows abortions. And even if you're in a state that has a 15-week ban, 93% of abortions occur in the first 13 weeks.

And so this is still a very pertinent topic. It's still something that needs our prayers and needs our advocacy and needs people in legislation at the federal level. But now, really, it's a state-level issue. So there needs to be, you know, just a reimagining or more energy poured back into this that we had before. And then looking at the racial components of it, I wanted to dig into what are the systemic drivers, whether it's relationship with the father, whether it's poverty, whether it's health care, whether it's housing. These are the things that women say make them feel like they need to choose abortions. And what I'm saying for the pro-life movement is how do we talk about those things, more responsibility? How do we engage with those things?

Did you feel like in writing the book you were able to come up with those tangible solutions to say this is how we can tackle an issue like so much follow list in America that people do point to as one of the leading reasons for just this furtherance of abortion and generation after generation? I realized that I couldn't fit it all in one book.

That's fair? You couldn't solve all the issues in one book? I couldn't. I had high hopes and a lot of it's incomplete. A lot of it's just, you know, what I found, I think there are so many. I mean, this is, this is, when you look at marriage rates and you look at, you know, housing or, or poverty or health care deserts, you know, there's just so much that goes into a decision. And we need to enter into this with conviction and with compassion. The conviction is the child in the womb, the preborn child has inherent dignity and inherent value.

That value does not change when that child. is born or when that child dies, they're valuable because God created them that way. And that doesn't change. And so to snuff out or determine that life is something that, you know, we shouldn't stand for and we shouldn't ever say it's okay. That being said, I dug into those issues. And what did I find? Well, there's a statistic that we found at Human Coalition, and it's 76% of abortion-determined women say they were preferred a parent if those circumstances were different. And you ask them what those circumstances. circumstances are. And undoubtedly, you know, there's a father piece to that. What does he say?

But also it's do I have dependable housing? Am I living with my parents with my mom? Am I living in an apartment? Do I have another child that I'm dealing with? Economically, do I think that I can afford another child? And so what I do in the book is encourage the pro-life movement to perhaps reimagine what simple straight-line pro-life advocacy don't have an abortion, really means now because there is an entire world, an entire America that is looking at us and assuming that we only care about children up until birth, although we know that's not true. And I see this as an opportunity to wind the tent. There are some people who would be pro-life in the sense that they'd be against abortion if they felt like some of those needs

were important and perhaps met. And so in the book, I talk about some policy things. I talk about things like maternity leave. How does that factor in when it comes to fathers? I mean, having a job as a dad makes a big difference. Yeah. And so how do we provide opportunities where there sometimes aren't opportunities? And for me, being a believer, being a Christian, this issue is not necessarily political for me, although it has political connotations. I mean, we operate in law as Americans.

Like that's a big part of what we, legislation is important. I'm not saying it's not. but to me it's bigger than that. It's about human flourishing and it's about restoration. I like that expression that you use, the widening of the tent, to think about what are the additional resources

that maybe moms need now to go even further? Because as we know, pro-life pregnancy centers, they've been doing such good work for so long, but where is there now maybe a role to step up further? I mean, there's 2,700 pregnancy resource centers around the country,

give or take a few hundred, I guess. And they, as you mentioned, are doing a tremendous job. I've had an opportunity over the last several years to partner with many of them, visit. Many of them speak to their directors, speak to women and men who have come through their doors. I mean, I remember playing for the Baltimore Ravens and visiting a local pregnancy resource center of the street from where we are right now. And speaking to a mom who came in and then a dad who came in afterwards and they ended up keeping their child. And so they're doing tremendous work, but they don't make legislation. They don't deal with government spending and budgets or state spending from that aspect.

And so it's what can we do there? Education is a huge thing. When you think about the average woman who has an abortion, she is in her late 20s. And you can find this on conservative or progressive or, you know, any sort of outlet will tell you this. I saw it on the New York Times and I also saw it with human coalition. So, you know, two drastically different things. But she's usually in her late 20s. she usually has a child already.

She usually has high school education, perhaps some college education. You know, disproportionately, she is from ethnic minority, probably black, American, just from a proportional standpoint. And so if I'm looking at her and I'm trying to address her needs

from what I can do, education is a big piece. And when you think about the fact that educational spending is not even in this country, a recent statistics showed how, majority white school districts receive much more funding than majority non-white school districts, even though the states are supposed to even it out, they don't a lot of times. How is that, which doesn't seem like a pro-life issue? How does that factor into an education of a child

and opportunities that that child has after they leave the school district and going to do different things in life? If we're looking at the average person who has an abortion. And so though these things may not seem connected, I think that they are. And so my point is that this being a new fight for life is all those factors were still there the day after Dobbs was decided. A year ago, June 24th,

2022, Dobbs was decided and it did not change a lot of these issues. It changed none of them, actually. And so this fight, and that's why you see, that's why you see Virginia such a sway on

the quote-unquote other side and the fact that they're able to talk about these things and say that you pro-lifers aren't really dealing with them. Whether that's true wholesale or not, that's the narrative. We have an opportunity to combat that narrative and also to save lives in the process and serve women in the process. Yeah. One of the narratives that we do hear from those on the pro-choice abortion side is this

argument that restricting abortion disproportionately harms African-American women and this argument that that African-American women, quote-unquote, need abortion. You make a very different argument. Talk a little bit about that. Well, the first part of that is true. It does impact African-American women disproportionately. You know why? Because African-American women disproportionately have more abortions.

And so that's a true statement. There's always some truth in a lie. You know, if you're going to sell it, there's always some truth in a lie. The second part of that statement is that they need it is the lie. The lie is that, no, they don't, we don't. needed. Abortion has been legal in this country for 50 years. There have been 65 million plus abortions that have happened. Approximately 32 or so percent of them, according to statistics, have been black. In that time, black children were still three times more likely to be

born into poverty. In that time, the racial wealth gap has been 10 to 1. In that time, the list goes on and on of issues plagued in the black community and abortion has solved none of them. And so while it is true that black women, black men, black communities will be impacted by abortion, it's not because we need it. Matter of fact, we don't need it. But there are some other things we need. And when you listen to black women specifically, and I know many of them, a good friend of mine named Cheryl Lowe from an organization called Pro Black, Pro Life, she actually wrote my forward. love her and she talks about some of the things that black women need and they're all the things

that we've been discussing in this conversation but those things somehow get swept under the rug and instead you're offered abortion and perhaps the reason why is because abortion is a money making industry and if I'm going to make money I'm going to go where I feel like people will buy what I'm selling because they feel like they need it for other for other reasons and so I hate hearing that I do, but it's something that I think we have to faithfully and holistically combat. Not just say it's not true, but also explain why it's not true. As you have become so outspoken on this issue with this new book and over the years with the documentary, what is the response that you have received from the NFL, from your community

of people who maybe don't hold to the same views or maybe actually surprisingly do? I think the latter part of what you said is more. fulfilling. There are so many people, you know, from different backgrounds who agree. And specifically when it comes to black folks, there are a lot of, black people are largely, I guess I used the term socially conservative in a lot of ways when it comes to marriage, gender, when it comes to, you know, even the issue of life. And there are a whole host of organizations and people, whether they're in the faith community or outside of faith community who adhere to this life ethic,

who believe in the sanctity of human life. The difference, however, in what you may call a more, I guess, known pro-life community, meaning the more right-leaning white evangelical community is that with this community, there's also an emphasis on all these, other issues that we're talking about. And the reason why is because that's our lived experience.

In this country, that's the lived experience largely. I having to fight for those things and deal with those things. And so there's this widening of understanding how they're all interconnected. But I think that this language is spreading. The idea of being wombed a tomb, it doesn't mean that I'm soft on abortion. No, very strong stance on abortion. Abortion is an evil. Abortion is unthinkable and we want to make it unnecessary, all those sorts of things, but also a focus on the totality of human flourishing and the things that are obstacles to human flourishing.

I've been pleasantly surprised with some of the people who don't have loud microphones, but they feel the same way. And then there are others who definitely don't agree. As far as the NFL goes, was interesting. So I've been out for three years, but even while I was, playing, we were involved in a lot of ways, you know, with pro-life advocacy. And I never really felt any sort of, I never felt ostracized. I never felt like I lost a job because of it. I basically lost my job in the end because after 16 years, I just couldn't really run

anymore. So I had to move on. That's fair. But what was happening while I was playing was just that, you know, I would have coaches come up to me sometimes and say, I heard what you said, my wife told me to read this. and we agree with you. And so the thing I loved about the NFL that I don't think a lot of people know,

I'll just drop this nugget, is that in the NFL, you really can be a lot of different things, politically, socially, even in your faith. I mean, I had a friend who was a Muslim and he were praying a shower. I mean, but can you play ball? Can you play ball?

And I think that the lesson there, it's not that there's no discrimination in the NFL. I'm not saying that, because there is some. But what I'm saying is that because we're in relationship with each other, even though someone's different and disagrees, doesn't believe in God and we have an argument about it before we go to practice, I respect their humanity. And a lot of what the book is about is human dignity and respecting others' humanity and acknowledging that in the best ways we can. Yeah, and what more powerful way to do that than through pro-life advocacy. see the book is the new fight for life, row, race, and the pro-life commitment to justice. You can get your copy now, wherever books are sold.

Ben Watson, thank you so much for time today. We appreciate it. Thank you. And with that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Again, be sure to pick up a copy of Ben Watson's book, The New Fight for Life, Roe, and the Pro-Life commitment to justice wherever books are sold. Thanks for joining us on today's show. If you have not had the chance, be sure to be sure.

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