The Daily Signal - Mississippi's Governor Is Building Pro-Life Culture. Will Rest of America Follow?

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

The Supreme Court decision Friday that overruled Roe v. Wade and did away with the premise that there’s a constitutional right to an abortion was Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The case originated in Mississippi and was the linchpin in one of the greatest victories for the pro-life cause in the past 50 years. Mississippi’s governor, Republican Tate Reeves, has been instrumental in building the culture of life in his state to get to this point and hopes that Friday's victory is the first of many. "We want to represent to the rest of the country that every single life has worth, every single life has value, and that there are people in this state, and there are people in this country, that care and love every single mom," Reeves said. "I think we've made progress," he adds. "And the reason is because I believe in my heart that if we talk with compassion, we have the ability to win people's hearts and minds across the country on this issue." Reeves joins the show to discuss how Dobbs made its way to the court, and what the future holds for life in America.  We also cover these stories: President Joe Biden announces plans to increase America’s military presence in Europe in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announces his intention to step down tomorrow. George Washington University refuses to fire Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas from an adjunct teaching position despite some students' demands. Unilever sells its Ben and Jerry's ice cream business in Israel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, June 30th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Doug Blair. The court decision that eventually struck down row and ended the idea that there's a constitutional right to an abortion was Dobbs v. Jackson's Women's Health Organization. The case originated in Mississippi and was the linchpin in one of the greatest victories for the pro-life cause in more than 50 years. Mississippi's governor, Republican Tate Reeves, was instrumental in building the culture of life in his state to get to this point in hopes that this victory. is the start of many more. Reeves joins the show today to discuss how Dobbs made its way to the court and what the future holds for life in America.

But before we get to Doug's conversation with Governor Reeves, let's go ahead and hit our top news stories of the day. America is moving back into Europe in the biggest display of force on the continent since the Cold War. On Wednesday, President Biden announced plans to increase America's military presence in Europe by stationing two more naval destroyers in Spain, deploying two F-35 fighter jet squadrons to the the United Kingdom and establishing a permanent army headquarters in Poland. Additionally, the U.S. plans to deploy additional troops to Romania and increase rotational deployments across the Baltics, as well as strengthen air defenses in Germany and Italy. Here are some of Biden's other remarks via Bloomberg.

And together our allies, we're going to make up sure the NATO is ready to meet threats from all directions across every domain, land, air, and the sea. In the moment when Putin has shattered peace in Europe and attacked the very, very tenets of rule-based order, the United States and our allies, we're going to step up. We're stepping up. We're proving that NATO is more needed now than it ever has been, and it's as important as it ever has been. Per NPR, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs at the Department

of Defense, Celeste Wallander, said, this is a significant decision precisely because of the change security environment and the recognition that the United States needs to have a longer-term capability to sustain our presence, our training, our activities, and our support to the countries of the eastern flank. Today is Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer's last day on the high court. Breyer is stepping down, effective at noon, after a nearly 28-year career on the court. Today is also the last day of the Supreme Court session. Breyer announced his plans to retire in January.

at the age of 83. He wrote in a letter to President Biden that it has been his great honor to participate as a judge in the effort to maintain our Constitution and the rule of law. Breyer is being replaced by Judge Katanji Brown Jackson,

who clerked for Breyer. Jackson is expected to join justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elaine Kagan in the court's liberal minority. George Washington University has seemingly stood up to student backlash by declining to fire Supreme Court Justice Clarence.

Thomas from its staff. Following Thomas's role in overturning Roe v. Wade, George Washington students launched a petition to the school administrators to remove Thomas from staff. Thomas currently works as an adjunct professor who teaches a constitutional law class at the school. In a letter sent to the George Washington student body on Tuesday, the school confirmed it had no plans to fire Thomas or to cancel his class. School administrators wrote,

Because we stidfastly support the robust exchange of ideas and deliberation, and because debate is an essential part of our university's academic and educational mission to train future leaders who are prepared to address the world's most urgent problems, the university will neither terminate Justice Thomas's employment nor cancel his class in response to his legal opinions. The letter continued, like all faculty members at our university, Justice Thomas has academic freedom and freedom of expression and inquiry. The letter did note that the justice's views do not represent the views of the school. The multinational consumer goods company Unilever has sold its Ben and Jerry's business in Israel.

Unilever is the parent company of Ben and Jerry's and face criticism last summer when the ice cream company said it would no longer sell ice cream in East Jerusalem or the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Now Unilever is trying to distance themselves from the criticism that Ben and Jerry's has received. Going forward, Ben and Jerry's ice cream will be sold in Israel. Israel under its Arabic and Hebrew names. In response to the news, Unileverstock did rise slightly on Wednesday. That's all for headlines. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, as we discuss what his state is doing to advance the cause of life. At the Heritage Foundation, we believe voting is a sacred duty. It's how people express what course they want our nation to take. Given the importance of the ballot box, it's necessary to have

a transparent and fraud-free system that can be trusted. This is why Heritage's a Heritage created the Election Integrity Scorecard. The scorecard compares the laws and regulations for elections state to state and ranks them on their security and transparency. Check out the election integrity scorecard at heritage.org slash election scorecard. My guest today is Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves. Governor, welcome to the show. Thanks, Doug.

It's great to be on. Of course. It was your state that produced the Dobbs lawsuit that eventually overturned Roe v. Wade. confirmed that there is no constitutional right to an abortion. Given that your state was so important in this process, what are the next steps specifically for Mississippi on how to handle abortion going forward? Well, I see that Mississippi led the way in ending Roe v. Wade. This is obviously a battle

that has been fought for some 50 years since the court wrongly came to the conclusion that they did in Roe, and so I'm very excited. I just want to point out that it's, It's the convictions of our people that gave the elected officials the ability to fight this battle. But we also recognize that being pro-life is not simply being anti-abortion. And so it's incumbent upon all of us in the conservative movement and all of us that in our state and culture of life. And what is Mississippi doing specifically to help cultivate that culture of life across the nation? Well, first of all, we are working to significantly improve our, child protection services agency. We have had challenges in the past, but since I've been

governor, we've invested significant amounts of money into that particular agency so that those kids that foster care, the need help finding adoption, that we are here to help them. We work to provide the resources that are necessary for our expected mothers. We have 37, and just generally provide support and show that... It sounds like Mississippi has a sort of by-pronged approach to this, where there's a state responsibility to aid women going through maybe an unexpected pregnancy, but then also on the ground, private citizenry are going to help pregnant women go through this. Is that accurate?

Well, that is, that's exactly right, because what we know is that while the state or the government, certainly, when led by people like me, want to show compassion, and we also know that government's not very good at providing lots and lots of things, and that it is the faith community that is better situated to stand up the support that is needed. And so we've issued a challenge here in Mississippi, and we issue a challenge across America that churches and others in the faith community, each and every community across our state, because we know that we don't want to be just about passing, just about winning a court case.

It's about creating that culture of life and providing opportunities. for moms and babies. Now, given that you have this culture of life that you're trying to cultivate, let's look at and see what some of the laws on the books that you're going to put into place now that Roe has been overturned. Some states have what are so-called trigger laws where as soon as Roe is overturned, those laws go into effect and ban abortion. What does Mississippi currently have as the legislation? Is it the Dobbs decision?

Is it the Dobbs lawsuit that you're sort of keeping as the law on the books? Or what are you planning to do now? So obviously strategic, but the DOPS case was actually a 15-week ban that passed the Mississippi legislature, I believe in 2018. We were then immediately sued. In 2008, there was actually a trigger law that was passed. It's interesting, and it kind of speaks to how far Democrats have moved in just 15 short years. But we actually had a Democrat Speaker of the House and a Democrat chairman of public health that passed the trigger law in Mississippi. And the trigger law aband all abortions with the exception of his required by the statute,

signified that that plaintiff anticipate that the trigger law should have gone into effect 10 days. And so we're going to have to, but one, the Supreme Court of Mississippi confirms that the Constitution does not guarantee the right to an abortion, just as the United States Supreme Court has recently said, then the trigger. law will go into effect. You mentioned that carve-out where a woman can get abortion if the pregnancy is either dangerous to her life or if it's the result of a rape. There are certain laws across the country that do have those exceptions. Is that going to remain in Mississippi law in the near future, do you think, or will you

be looking at removing those exceptions? I think those discussions are ongoing. Mother, what you are looking at, in my personal opinion, is a medical decision. that has to be made by a physician because you have two lives at stake. And that's really the argument that we have the expertise to make that particular decision. One of the things that we expect to see in the future as these types of conversations and as these laws are getting passed is that pro-abortion states like California will attempt to funnel so-called abortion drugs into pro-life states like Mississippi. What are your plans to handle those types of situations? Yeah, we're those types of abortions because obviously that that would not be allowed the kind of things that we can do to make sure that we enforce every law in our state with respect to to that.

And whatever else the abortion on demand crowd does, it's been absolutely really, really surprising and shocking to me, and perhaps it shouldn't. but these pro-abortion states are not just interested, it appears, in offering services. It's almost as if they are advocating for more abortions. They're advocating and trying to make it simpler for more and more people to abort unborn children, and it really is a sad sight to see. Now, there's something to that, that there's a difference in culture between a state like California or New York and a Mississippi. How successful do you think that you've been in building a culture of life across the country?

I want to kind of reference something you said both in this interview and you've said before in a press release, where you said, despite what's a claim, Mississippi's objective was never simply to win a court case. It's been to create a culture of life across the country. How successful do you think you've been on that? Well, I think we've made progress. And I think that oftentimes my friends ask me why I's TV shows. and do some of these very combative interviews. And the reason is, because I believe in my heart

that if we talk with compassion, we have the ability to win people's hearts and minds across the country on this issue. I absolutely believe that. Because if you talk to Americans and you ask them the question, there's an overwhelming majority of Americans that believe that there ought to be reasoned on abortion. And I believe that even in New York,

who have two people, But quite frankly, in California and New York, are more like North Korea and communist China than they are like exactly the way Mississippi. We can save lives in California and New York if we talk to the people in those states, the 15-week ban, the Mississippi path, had we been successful in simply getting that law on the books

and not overturning Roe v. And then 39 out of 42 countries in Europe. And so the California needs to be had in those states, and we're going to try to drive that conversation. In terms of driving that conversation, does that involve more action at the federal level? Obviously, Dobbs was one of these things that went to the Supreme Court and now has national ramifications. Are you planning on doing something like that again? Well, what I would tell you is that I don't know that we have to have action at the federal level.

I do think that we have to have political activism in every region of our country. And I think that part of the next phase of the pro-life movement is to continue to convey views in our beliefs and the fact that these laws in these other states like California, New York, are so out of touch with the rest of the world. Now, how can Mississippi and other pro-life states serve as models for those states? What can they be doing right now to demonstrate that a culture of life is better than a culture that supports abortion? Well, I think exactly what we've talked about earlier, and that is implementing public policies that show providing resources for those mothers that find themselves in a pregnancy that perhaps they didn't necessarily want to make it so much easier for adoptions in our state. And that's one of the things, one of the policies that we're working on is making it easy. one of these young people, because we know that there are people in the faith community. We know that there are people in Mississippi that perhaps are struggling getting pregnant and want to choose to adopt a kid.

We need to make it so much easier in our state and across the country for adoptions. And we're looking at things in terms of helping pay for the cost of adoptions, because, as you know, it can be extremely expensive to do that. And we're looking at ways to expedite the process because for many parents who are interested in adopting, they really want to adopt a kid early 14 or 15. And so what can we do to make it easier to adopt that one and two before they get into, for instance, the state system or the foster care system? And so we also have to be willing to encourage and incentivize a parent and be willing to foster kids that do find themselves. in the state system.

And we also have to continue to improve educational outcomes for all of our kids, including those that find themselves in the state system. As one final question as we begin to wrap up here, Governor, I'm curious, there are 49 other states in the Union. They have wildly disparate views on where to go after this, on abortion and all of these different topics. What does Mississippi have to say? What do they want to represent to the rest of the country?

Well, we want to represent to the rest of the country that every single people in this state, and there are people in this country that care decisions that they made in the past, and there are people here in this state and across this country that love every single baby, whether it's in that womb or has been birthed. And so we want to represent a caring people who is in such a way that we create that culture of that health, to work with our faith community to create that culture of life. Wonderful. Well, that was Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves.

Thank you so much for your time, Governor. I really appreciate you coming on. Appreciate it. The Heritage Foundation takes the field on offense with their young leaders program. I'm Evelyn Homily from Hillsdale College. I'm Harrison Stewart from the University of Virginia. I'm a journalism intern with the Daily Signal. I'm a digital productions intern and communications.

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