The Michael Knowles Show - Choosing Life: Arguments for Life from a Progressive, Pro-Life Atheist - Terrisa Bukovinac

Episode Date: August 20, 2022

 As a progressive atheist, Terrisa Bukovinac isn't the stereotype pro-life advocate. But she's working to change that perception and she has the stories to back up her claim that the pro-life movement is one of the most diverse movements in the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When I'm looking at the landscape of the abortion issue in the United States, I recognize that the primary pillar of power for big abortion lies in their relationship with the Democratic Party. That's how they maintain power and control. But we know that at least 21 million registered Democratic voters today consider themselves pro-life. That's a third of voting Democrats. But what I find also is significant is that the vast majority of Democrats across the spectrum reject late-term elective abortion. And yet the party maintains such an extremist point of view, one that does not represent

even the vast majority of Democrats. All of the leadership for the Democratic Party is radically pro-abortion, as well as the Democratic Party platform. It's a lie. When most people think of the pro-life movement, they think of conservative Christians. And generally speaking, they're right. But that isn't the whole story.

In fact, some of the most important work being done today to expose the grisly reality of abortion is coming from people who never stepped foot inside a church or right-wing think tank. People such as Teresa Buchovineck, A progressive atheist who has devoted herself to the pro-life cause, because she argues, it is the only way to consistently advocate on behalf of the oppressed and marginalized. Right now, I would strongly recommend you go to hallo.com slash choose life,

because today's world is a scary one. Too many people don't seem to care about the truth. And I would suggest that that's all rooted in people, becoming less, really just anti-religious. That's why it's more important than ever to keep our relationship with God strong. Hallow is the number one Christian prayer app in the United States. It's like calm or headspace, but rooted in Catholic faith. It is the perfect resource to deepen your relationship with God and find peace through audio-guided prayer and meditation. Several of Hallow's meditations encourage you to choose life and to pray for others to choose life, such as their

litany for life with Lila Rose. Hallow is free to download. It will help you find peace and calm throughout your day. So do it. Do it right now. Download the app for free at hallow.com slash choose life. That is hallo.com slash choose life. Here's Teresa. My name is Teresa Bukovinaq. I am a full-time pro-life activist. I've been active online in the movement since 2011, and I joined the leadership for secular pro-life in 2014. I founded Pro-Life San Francisco in 2016, and in 2021, I founded Pau, the progressive anti-abortion uprising. Beautiful.

Tell me just a little bit about secular pro-life until, and then we'll jump to Pau. Secular Pro-Life is an organization that exists to create. a space for non-traditional pro-life people, particularly atheists and agnostics, but we are also creating a community of pro-life Muslims, pro-life wikens, and anyone who feels like they don't necessarily fit into the mainstream pro-life movement or narrative. But we also exist to help the pro-life movement as a whole use more secular arguments when defending the pro-life position. And why is that important to use secular arguments? Well, like we mentioned previously, Bernard Nathanson listed the lie of painting the pro-life movement as primarily religious as a way to keep most people from engaging with the issue.

The reality is even most pro-choice people are Christian, but they've been led to believe that this is a religious issue for them and that they're expected to keep their religious. opinion about abortion out of politics. But we think it's really critical that the movement is able to effectively demonstrate that this isn't a religious issue. And it's really hard to do that unless you have secular arguments and visibly secular people active in the movement. So tell me a little bit about Powell. What is Powell? The progressive anti-abortion uprising is an organization that I founded to mobilize rapidly. grassroots pro-life activists for action. We are looking at the abortion issue primarily through an anti-capitalist lens, and we are committed to the values of equality, nonviolence, and non-discrimination,

and are committed to engaging in non-violent direct action to dismantle the abortion industrial complex. That's awesome. And something that, you know, immediately came to mind when you were describing POW is, you know, one of the big arguments that the pro-choice lobby uses against the pro-life movement is, oh, you know, pro-lifers just care about life when it's in the womb. They don't care about life after the baby's born. You know, the pro-life lobby, they say, is, you know, just concerned about controlling women's bodies, just controlling women's choices. But once the baby's born, like, good luck and see ya is kind of the argument that the pro-choice movement uses. Can you respond to that? And is that, and is that,

true? Well, I don't think it's true for the pro-life movement, but I can certainly see why leftists, like myself, who aren't anti-abortion, could see it as hypocrisy. And I think it's important to show that regardless of your political standpoint, that this is a violation of fundamental human rights, as leftists, certainly, we are recognized that there are problems with capitalism, that there is a potential for exploitation, and that exploitation is happening. But I think it's important to understand that we are a single issue organization. And while many left-leaning pro-life organizations do adhere to a consistent life ethic, and me personally, I do consider myself consistent life ethic,

POW is focused on the issue of abortion alone. And I think that, you know, we really have to move past this idea on the idea on the left, that simply because Republicans might be hypocritical about certain things, that that makes it okay to dismember a baby. Very often the pro-choice movement will accuse pro-lifers of only caring about babies until they're born and then not caring afterwards. Obviously, as left-leaning activists, that challenges that narrative a bit, because clearly we do care about government aid, we care about providing for people and limiting the amount of exploitation that is happening due to the reality that we live in a capitalist world.

But I think that ultimately, the fact that leftists are looking for this hypocrisy in the pro-life movement doesn't in any way justify killing unborn children. So let's go back in time a little bit. Can you tell us a little bit about your story and what was your journey to becoming pro-life? My story. Well, I was raised religious, but we didn't talk about abortion growing up. So we were basically pro-choice. We just never talked about it as a family or in the context of the church I grew up in.

I have always had a sensitivity to animals and have been interested in the evolving conversation around animal rights. And I had someone challenge me on those views and said, how can you care about the dolphins if you don't care about unborn children being killed in the womb? I was religious at the time, Christian. I was going to a Lutheran church. I was on the board of evangelicals and believed deeply in the faith. But the church I went to was pretty pro-choice. And I grew up in a Christian home that was also nominally neutral on the issue, which ultimately is pro-choice. But when I was challenged by this individual, I was shown pictures and images of an abortion procedure and unborn children in utero.

And I was shocked. I realized that there was likely something bad happening in an abortion. But I thought, you know, babies go to heaven when they die. and in the end, God is going to write all the wrongs, and there are so many horrible things happening in the world, and I'm not getting involved in any of those things, and I just thought I'm going to pray about it. And that's how I felt about it for years, until I eventually lost my faith altogether over a period of time, and it caused me to rethink my entire moral compass. What is right and wrong and why? And I no longer read.

believed in a life after death. And I felt strongly that all creatures that are able to achieve a type of consciousness in this universe have a very rare and remarkable experience. And I started thinking about what would it take to justify taking that away from someone? And I thought about abortion. And I continued to think maybe there's something wrong here. But I had trouble finding my voice in that because I thought I'm atheist now and I am liberal, but I'm having pro-life thoughts. This can't be normal. So I just kind of kept it to myself for a while, but I knew that I had a discomfort with it. But I was not willing to call myself pro-life because I definitely wasn't one of those people, or so I thought. But I...

had a relationship with a coworker of mine. And then we stopped working together and were friends on Facebook for many years. And she posted on a page one day called Secular Pro Life. And you know on Facebook, you can see what your friends are posting on and commenting on. And immediately I thought, secular pro-life, there are secular pro-lifers out there. That's me. that describes what I'm experiencing. And I did dive into the website and I discovered Christopher Hitchens, who was an atheist thinker and

someone who had a big influence on my beliefs or my non-belief as an atheist. I found out that he actually considered himself to be pro-life also. And that really helped me to come to terms with where I was at. But I still was just, you know, getting into the thick of it. And finding secular pro-life changed everything for me. I realized there were other people like me out there. And that emboldened me to be pro-life publicly, to say it out loud, to talk about it on Facebook and in other online forums. And the more I explored the topic, the more I became convinced that abortion was a human rights violation in most cases.

But I still didn't know any pro-life people in real life until I got started working with secular pro-life, going to pro-life events. And eventually in 2016, when Trump was running for president, he was platforming off of the pro-life issue. I thought, there is no way someone like Donald Trump is going to reach the community I live in. I was living in San Francisco at the time, again, secular, liberal. And I felt like we needed another messenger. And I realized there wasn't really anyone else that I could count on. So I was going to have to get involved. And I was going to have to be that voice for the unborn in my community.

And so I started pro-life San Francisco and almost immediately after we began doing direct actions and emulating kind of the tactics used by the animal rights movement to bring visibility to my cause in my community. I think it's also noteworthy that I was somewhat radicalized by the videos released by the Center for Medical Progress in 2015. I was working in the private sector in fashion at the time. Volunteering was secular pro-life. But after viewing those videos, I definitely knew that my life was not going to be the same after that. I realized how severe and time-sensitive the issue was. And I recognized how much of what was going on in terms of how powerful the abortion lobby was, was rooted in communities in California.

And what were the videos that you saw? The Center for Medical Progress videos. Can you describe what was in those videos? In 2015, David Delighton, with the Center for Medical Progress, released footage from a two-year undercover project within the abortion industry exposing the fetal organ harvesting practices and trafficking happening within Planned Parenthood, within the National Abortion Federation,

and various other institutions, including third-party entities, doing business with abortion facilities in order to traffic fetal organs. It was especially shocking because the video footage was of abortion providers, high-level, high-ranking Planned Parenthood abortion providers haggling over the prices of dead babies and their body parts.

And many of these babies were very late term. And the circumstances that are required in order to harvest fetal tissue are really shocking and grotesque and gruesome and really weren't known before that particular project. And that project gave rise to the hashtag from our opponents, hashtag stand with PP. And it, the hashtag PP sells baby parts became popularized from those videos. So would you say that that's the, is that, you know, if you could boil it down to a single reason, what was the main catalyst for you joining the pro-life movement? people always are looking for this like compelling story from me about like maybe an abortion that

I had or almost had and I did have pregnancy scares and and do have you know personal experience with people close to me having abortions and all of those things definitely affected my view over time and it was really just taking small baby steps getting involved online getting um you know helping out with a few events with secular pro life feeling like my work was necessary. I think the thing that emboldened me the most was finding other pro-lifers like me. I don't think that I would have gotten involved had I not seen other people like me doing it. But what continues to drive me in the pro-life movement and to radicalize me is the need for help and recognizing that the abortion industrial complex can be weakened,

that we can topple this dictator, that there are clear sources of power for this industry that can be dismantled. And it's that knowledge and the reality that there are only a handful of people like me who are leaders in this movement who are openly secular, openly left-leaning. And it is my point of view that we cannot dismantle the abortion industrial complex unless we are able to break the relationship between the Democratic Party and the abortion industrial complex and big abortion. And there just isn't anyone else to do it right now.

I would love to retire. But I don't see that happening anytime soon. So that's what keeps me working. So you're an atheist and a progressive. And, you know, like the pro-choice crowd argues, you know, day in and day out, well, pro-lifers are religious zealots. How, you know, that's not the case for you. So tell me, tell me about that. Pro-choicers often will categorize all pro-life people as right-wing religious celets. That is something that we hear constantly. And it's often reflected in their

insults towards me. They'll say that I'm not really progressive or that I'm not really an atheist, which is weird because I'd be a terrible Christian if I just went around denying Christ all the time. But pro-choicers have claimed for decades that you, if you're pro-life, you're a right-wing religious zealot. And there are actually 12 million non-religious pro-lifers in America today, according to Gallup and Pew polling. That's not nothing. And there are over 21 million pro-life Democrats out there. And that's not just moderate Democrats that includes progressives like me. We launched POW just in October.

And today we have more than 30 ground organizers who are progressive, who are politically left-leaning, ready for nonviolent direct action on behalf of the unborn. It's a lie. It's not true. It's, there are a lot of religious right-wingers in the pro-life movement. But they don't define the pro-life movement. The pro-life movement began as a left-leaning movement. The relationship between the abortion industrial complex and the Democratic Party is roughly new. And the relationship between the pro-life movement and the conservative right is also fairly new.

That is not how things were laid out prior to Roe v. Wade. And there's a lot of reasons for that. the argument that in order to be pro-life, you must be a religious right-wing zealot is just not true. So on the secular pro-life website, you guys laid out basically a logical syllogism for your pro-life stance. Can you explain that syllogism? The four premises of the secular pro-life position, which I think is pretty consistent with the pro-life position in general, is first that a fetus, an embryo, a zygote, is a human being. We're not making a moral claim at this point.

We're just saying, on a basic biological level, a fetus embryo zygote is a member of the human species. The second premise is that there is no objective distinction between human being and person. And we recognize that the very concept of personhood is one that has been used exclusively to deny rights, often lethally, to entire groups of people. The third premise of the pro-lake position is that it is generally wrong to kill human beings. This is consistent with basically every culture on earth, regardless if they are secular, religious, or what religion they are. the fourth premise of the secular pro-life position is that bodily rights is not enough to justify most abortions. Great. Now, can you kind of break that last argument down? Because I think that last argument is where a lot of people might be like, well, wait, wait, wait, how do you get there? So, you know, why is bodily autonomy or bodily rights not enough to justify elective abortions?

And that's the problem in the pro-life movement is that there isn't a quick soundbite to explain to people why bodily autonomy doesn't justify killing. There are so many complicated court cases and complicated thought scenarios that help us to understand whether we're being consistent in certain circumstances. And that even divides pro-lifers because, you know, 59% of pro-lifers think abortions. in cases of rape should be allowed and the others don't. So it's, and I think often, you know, the pro-life movement will just say, well, it's not your body. There's two bodies involved. And that's not really a bodily rights argument. That is a personhood argument. Bodily rights is saying for the sake of the argument, even if this other, this fetus is a person that no one has the right to use your body against your will. And I think,

that, you know, there's, that's a complicated question because in jurisprudence up into this point, you know, we have decades of jurisprudence showing us that in certain circumstances, the right to have control over your own body does trump the right of others to live in certain circumstances. I think the, one of the primary things that sets bodily rights in the case of pregnancy apart from other bodily right circumstances is that in the case of abortion, one of the major distinctions between that and other bodily rights cases is that in an abortion, in almost every type of abortion, someone would be required to commit an act of direct violence against another human being in order to make that abortion successful.

It's not simply a result of someone looking to rectify lost bodily rights. It's a direct act of violence. And that is the primary distinction. So what would you say, you know, if there was like one strongest argument against the bodily autonomy pro-choice argument, how would you summarize that strongest argument? Well, to me, the strongest argument, it revolves around consent. And that's not going to be popular with your viewers or for this. And please don't make everyone hate me. And it's a problem.

I'm only going to explain it to you so they understand. It's a problem because most pro-lifers are religious and believe, like, the womb is a place where the baby is meant to be, that the baby has a right to the womb regardless. but secular people don't necessarily see something as meant for something. Like, yes, it houses the baby, but we wouldn't say that it was made for the baby. And, you know, and I'm not saying all secular people would agree with me either that consent is the one that is the most compelling. But I just think it's like consistent with the violinist scenario. So when you say consent, are you saying that for you, the strong, argument against the bodily autonomy is that the woman and the man basically consented to this

happening. Consenting to the risk involved. Yeah. How can I say that? I think one of the more compelling arguments that bodily autonomy should not be a justification for directly killing, especially in the case of abortion, is that the parties involved in the pregnancy entered into this situation of their own volition with known risks and that consent to engage in certain types of behavior is consent to the outcomes. That's how the law treats almost any other circumstance, that there is responsibility involved. It doesn't make sense to use bodily autonomy to justify killing in the case of abortion. when you had autonomy when making the decision of whether or not to take certain risks.

Your autonomy has not been violated, and it would be unjust to deny an unborn child their right to not be unjustly killed when bodily autonomy has not been authentically breached. Are there compelling arguments against the pro-choice argument that the woman's bodily autonomy outweighs the life of the unborn child? Yes, I think one of the more compelling arguments is that when two people have sex of their own volition, that they have already exercised their bodily autonomy, that bodily autonomy has not been breached and that they had full autonomy when making the decision to engage in sex. Is abortion a simple victimless procedure? Abortion is not a simple victimless procedure. It is inhumane. It is the dismemberment usually by suction or forceps or other methods to tear apart a human being, often fully alive and sometimes pain capable.

So a lot of times I think people, especially who aren't familiar with the current debate and where the science has kind of evolved to since Roe v. Wade, I think a lot of people, myself included until just honestly, relatively recently, think that there is a big raging debate between the two sides about when life begins and that that's like a really important question still in the debate. Is that even? in a question with current science in current medicine? We know through modern science that life scientifically, in a biological sense, begins at conception. That's not a debate. The debate is much more around when the concept of personhood begins and when human rights begin and when does life begin in the metaphysical sense. I think the debate is more about when does life begin in a moral sense? When do the unborn begin to have rights? I think that the science is absolutely clear, and we know that the science is clear, that human life begins biologically at the moment of conception.

So is there any compelling argument for a pro-choice stance based on the the argument for when rights begin? There's not one single argument coming from the pro-choice side that summarizes when pro-choice people believe that life begins. There is, I would say, an ongoing debate amongst pro-choice people about when life begins in the moral sense. When should we care about human life? Some pro-choicers will say after viability. Some will say after birth. Some will say after birth. Some will say several days after birth. So there's a variety of views, which is interesting because pro-lifers are the ones being accused of applying religion to the issue.

Yet it's pro-choicers who are saying, oh, well, we're going to ignore the science. Life begins whenever you think it does. We have more from our conversation with Teresa coming up in just a second. First, though, be sure to text pro-life to 47-581. Because as the country grapples with the aftermath of overturning Roe v. Wade, the pro-life movement has come under fire from far-left pro-abortion extremists. Not only have leftists firebombed and vandalized pro-life clinics in multiple states, but online pro-life groups have experienced mass censorship by Google, Facebook, TikTok, you name it.

That's why live action has been working tirelessly to find ways to spread the truth about abortion and share resources with those who need it most without relying on biased big tech. If you want to join Live Action's Fight for Life, text ProLife to 47581 and opt in to receive updates from Live Action about their ongoing work to end abortion. Texting Pro Life to 47581

means you won't be at the mercy of the big tech sensors in the ongoing fight for life. So tell me a little bit about Planned Parenthood. What is Planned Parenthood? And how was it involved in the history of abortion? Planned Parenthood is the most powerful arm of the abortion industrial complex. Planned Parenthood commits more abortions in America every day than any other single institution. How was Planned Parenthood involved in the history of abortion?

Planned Parenthood is responsible for a third of all the abortions in the United States, and they are one of the most politically involved. institutions in our nation. What do Planned Parenthood's financials maybe show about their incentives? And 40% of Planned Parenthood's bottom line comes from their abortion business. They are a $1.8 billion industry. So what do you think Planned Parenthood's incentives are? What's driving Planned Parenthood?

Planned Parenthood was originally conceptualized by, by several avowed white supremacists who were committed to the idea of eugenics. One of their founders, Lothrop Stoddard, spent many years writing on racist topics and actually was a consultant for the Nazis, traveled to Germany in order to consult on which people should be forcibly sterilized. He co-founded Planned Parenthood with another avowed racist Margaret Sanger, well known for her Negro project and for speaking at a KKK rally. And these two, together with various other eugenesis of their time, were looking for a way to control undesirable, as they called them, populations, targeting specifically black and brown communities, to limit the number of children that they were having.

This originally started out with birth control, but eventually throughout the history of the organization, they transitioned to doing abortions as a way to kill people in minority communities. Do I know what their motivations are today? I don't know for sure, but I can tell you that they are benefit. financially from the abortions they're committing. They are obtaining an incredible amount of political and cultural power. And they are ultimately doing the work that Margaret Sanger and Lothrop Stoddard envisioned, which is positioning themselves as helping underprivileged

communities of color in times of financial hardship when ultimately they're just killing poor and black and brown people. So, you know, we can't speak to Planned Parenthood's motives. No one, you know, knows for sure why they're doing what they're doing. But the organization has tried to paint the pro-life movement as being racists and has tried to separate itself from its racist origins. Can you kind of weave for audiences that weird juxtaposition and, you know, is that a fair tactic? Or what do you think about that tactic?

I find it really interesting that so many left-leaning pro-choice people are willing to acknowledge and shout from the rooftops how there is systemic racism in literally every institution in America. And I agree with that. I think often we hear about the racism in health care in particular and how black women in particular are impacted by racism in health care. That's a reality. And then I also find it interesting that they are so unwilling to acknowledge not just the reality that there's racism in healthcare, which would, of course, include abortion by their definition of health care. They're so unwilling to recognize that the root of this entire industry is not just systemic racism,

but overt eugenics. Are you shocked or discouraged or what's your emotional response to the fact that the vast majority of progressives just kind of knee-jerk say that they're pro-choice? I think most progressives will automatically consider themselves pro-choice because they're not religious conservatives. And they've been told over and over that if you're pro-life, that's what you are. And so it's it's about identity. We know from studies that people do not choose their political party based on their ideology, that they actually form their ideology based on their political party and their identity. And it stems from the reason that I remained quiet about it so long.

If you don't see other people like you doing it, you stay quiet about it. You conform. the pressure to conform is so strong. And that's not, it's not just something that's true pro-choice people. It's true for all of us. We are all products of our own confirmation bias. And that's why it's so important to give visibility to people like me who challenge that confirmation bias in a way that forces them to acknowledge that you,

can hold progressive values. Even the Marxist principle to each according to their need from each according to their ability fits into a pro-life worldview. There's nothing inherently right-wing about protecting the marginalized from exploitation and murder. So Planned Parenthood often says that without legal abortion, women would be forced into alleyways and, you know, committing, you know, coat hanger abortions or, you know, taking medications or chemicals to try to, you know, have abortions illegally. Is that a valid argument? Big abortion tells us all the time that if abortion is outlawed, if it is made illegal, that there will be back-alley coat hanger abortions everywhere, that it's going to create some kind of a medical emergency. But I wonder, in a world

where abortion isn't even regulated, where we can't even have abortion facilities held to the same standards as other surgical facilities, what is the difference between a back-alley abortion and a legal abortion when there are no regulations? And that's the reality that we're living in. What about the argument that they would say, oh, well, a woman would be forced to, you know, do it without a medical professional or, you know, women, you know, they point to, they point to some statistic saying like, oh, like, X number of women would, uh, X number of women would die or there would be an increase in, you know, deaths because, you know, if abortion was outlawed. How do you respond to that? I think the concern.

that a lot of pro-choice people have about the safety of those seeking abortion and the possibility that people would illegally procure abortions to their own detriment is concerning. That is a concern of the pro-life movement, and that should be a concern of all of us. I think it's also important to understand the truth of the situation, as made clear by Dr. Bernard Nathanson in his writings about his work in the early pro-choice movement, that the number of maternal deaths that occurred prior to Rovi Wade was similar to the number of deaths that occur in legal abortion to this day. To this day, people die procuring legal abortion. That hasn't changed. It's something that we need to deal with as a movement, as a society. It's something that we want to limit, but it doesn't

justify killing unborn children. That's great. And I love the fact that you brought in Dr. Nathanson. Do you mind touching on that? Or I guess there's this question, like, if this idea that legal abortions reduce maternal mortality, if that whole idea was fabricated by, pro-choice advocates from the beginning, does that cast suspicion on whether that claim has really any validity? I think that Dr. Bernard Nathanson's writings really does cast doubt on the validity of the claim by pro-choice people that this, by making abortion illegal, it will create a massive medical emergency. And another thing that I think is interesting is there's this Washington Post article where they actually Washington Post fact checkers looked into yeah are you familiar with that article yeah yeah yeah

how does one respond to the argument and and maybe maybe you can kind of weave you know look at a suspect from the beginning with Dr. Nathanson you know confirming that they basically made that up to convince people and then Washington post fact checkers just kind of like weave it all together into a single answer I think it's very problematic that big abortion continues to tout numbers that are inaccurate as it relates to maternal mortality rates prior to Roe and the reasons associated with that, we have seen top-level Planned Parenthood executives make the claim, the false claim, that thousands of women died trying to procure illegal abortions prior to Roe v. Wade. Even the Washington Post is very clear that that claim, that thousands of women died attempting

to procure illegal abortion prior to Roe is false. In comparison to this claim, even if you grant their claim that thousands of women died, you know, every year from illegal abortions, can you compare that number to the number of women who've been killed as unborn, you know, babies and just kind of like give audiences a juxtaposition of like, look, even if you grant that argument, you know, that Over, you know, a decade, you know, what, 10,000 women maybe would die from illegal abortion versus the number of women's lives who would be saved if abortion wasn't legal? When I'm weighing the hard edges of this debate, I recognize that a hard edge of our side

is that we need to be concerned about the repercussions for women and those who can become pregnant in a scenario where they're not able to procure a legal abortion. But I also recognize that the hard edge of the other side is mass genocide. We're talking about more than 60 million babies killed by abortion, and we know that many of them, thousands and probably millions were past the age of viability, and that some have been born alive and become victims of infanticide. That is the hard edge of the pro-choice side. And so when I'm weighing those two issues, accidental deaths that we are purposefully trying to prevent versus actively allowing people to dismember children and possibly allowing instances of

infanticide, well, one just weighs a little bit heavier for me. And I can't explain it. much further than that. Is the pro-life movement, I mean, we've already touched on this, but I think it's worth it, like, just asking one head-on version of this question. Why does the pro-choice crowd so frequently depict the pro-life crowd as religious zealots? Every generation has an obligation to nonviolence and non-discrimination. And if progressives are upset that the majority of pro-life people happen to be religious and happen to hold conservative values, well, that is just a, the problem with it is that portraying pro-life people

as religious and right-wing doesn't justify their position in any way. It just doesn't help them. It's just pointing out that none of them, or very few, or a few, it's just highlighting the reality that so few left-leaning and secular people are willing to speak publicly on behalf of the rights of the unborn. And that doesn't seem like something they should be proud of. I think that that left-wing people who've adopted a pro-choice position are adopting a pro-capitalist, pro-authoritarian, pro-exploitation position that's not really consistent with their values. And I don't think that they are in a position morally to judge conservatives when they think killing babies is okay. The reality is all people need to be pro-life. It doesn't matter what your political affiliation. It doesn't matter

what your religion is. We all recognize culturally across the globe that ending someone's life, without adequate justification is a moral wrong, and it's something that we legislate against in literally everywhere. It's something being pro-life is for everyone. I think conservatives often fail to recognize the capitalistic exploitation involved in abortion. I think often conservatives overlook the very very, real situation that people of color and other marginalized groups experience in this country. There is a perception by me that there is a lack of protection for these groups and that it is ultimately feeding a cycle of poverty and violence against the unborn.

Are all people who are pro-life right-wing? No. but even my most liberal, left-leaning, progressive pro-choice friends still think it's okay to kill unborn children as a way of achieving equality. And so it still puts conservatives who are pro-life head and shoulders above them. So the pro-choice lobby says that pro-lifers are anti-woman. Yeah. especially considering how they used, you know,

Norman McCorvey, for instance, to push through Roe v. Wade when she ended up not even deciding to have any abortions and kind of just used her as like a face. Can you just give us a brief thought on, you know, is that a valid argument for the pro-choice lobby to make to say that pro-lifers are anti-woman? The pro-choice movement has worked tirelessly to erase pro-life women from the conversation,

and yet we still remain half of the U.S. population, half of women, roughly speaking, and for decades, have been pro-life. I think it's also incredibly unfair to expect women and people who can become pregnant to shoulder the burden of abortion when statistically speaking in every poll that we've ever seen, the primary reason for seeking abortion is a lack of financial resources, not the desire for an abortion. And being pro-woman means protecting women from exploitation in their most vulnerable circumstances. Women are not getting abortions because they think it's fun or they want one. It's because of a lack of financial resources. If the abortion industry was truly pro-woman, they would be giving resources to these women and people seeking abortions.

They would not be exploiting their circumstances for their own political and financial gain. So does abortion violate the values that our culture says it wants, ideas like inclusion, equality, and, you know, being there for the marginalized or people without a voice? Abortion is a direct violation of the values of equality, nonviolence, and non-discrimination. It is completely incompatible with those values that we claim as a society as a whole to uphold. So by correlation,

is the pro-life stance really a stance that progressives should be more in favor of than anybody? Being pro-life is progressive. It is recognizing exploitation. It is helping those who are being marginalized and lethally killed for profit. Being progressive means sticking up for the marginalized. It means listening to low-income people and trusting them to know their own needs. And low-income people reject abortion by way larger margins than the rest of society. They recognize the exploitation involved. And to be progressive, we have to listen to that.

And to be progressive, we have to dismantle industries that are exploiting people for profit. And that means standing up to the abortion industrial complex. You cannot be a progressive unless you, you are standing up for the unborn. What do you say to the pro-choice argument that it's just, you know, old white men who want to control women's bodies and that's the reason why they're pro-life? Because I think that's a really popular, like, little, like slogan to say, like, it's just like white men who want to control women's bodies and tell women what to do.

Yeah, I think it's noteworthy that the feminist foremothers were all anti-abortion, that the people who originally passed sweeping abortion rights were Republicans and men and were white men and it was literal Nazi eugenesis

who created Planned Parenthood. I think it's interesting that the pro-choice side uses the narrative that the pro-life movement is all old white men when their entire movement was established

by not just old white men, but old white Nazi eugenicist men and a Supreme Court of all men, while the pro-life movement continues to be led primarily by women, and half of the women in this country remain pro-life. We also notice in polling that young people are much more likely to be passionate about their pro-life views than pro-choice people who are also young. So there is an intensity gap. The narrative that the pro-life movement is just old white men is simply untrue. How is it the case or how did it become the case that the progressive movement and that Democrats in general or in particular became the movement and the party of pro-choice kind of pro-abortion policies

when it didn't start out that way. Before Roe v. Wade, it was unclear which political party was ultimately going to align with the abortion industry. There were high-profile Republican leaders like Rockefeller in New York passing sweeping abortion rights laws, while Democrats like Joe Biden at the time

were openly, pro-life. And there wasn't necessarily this political divide that we see today. In the 1980s, evangelicals became more pro-life. Prior to that, it was Catholics and a lot of secular people, actually, but it wasn't until the 1980s that evangelicals, as a whole, became invested in politics and also became pro-life. And I believe that that secured the relationship. between the religious movement and right-wing politics. And that at the time included abortion. You know, what's your vision for progressives?

You know, can you kind of give us a summary of, you know, what's the objective? What are you fighting for? Yes, yes, yes. And, you know, what's the future look like? When I'm looking at the landscape of the abortion issue in the United States, I recognize that the primary pillar of power for big abortion lies in their relationship with the Democratic Party. That's how they maintain power and control. But we know that at least 21 million registered Democratic voters today consider themselves pro-life.

That's a third of voting Democrats. But what I find also is significant is that the vast majority of Democrats, across the spectrum reject late-term elective abortion. And yet the party maintains such an extremist point of view, one that does not represent even the vast majority of Democrats. All of the leadership for the Democratic Party is radically pro-abortion, as well as the Democratic Party platform. It's a lie.

There have been social justice movements that have come and won in this country and around the globe when the odds were completely against them. But the odds are actually completely in our favor. And I believe that what it's going to take is for these left-leaning people, especially progressives, because progressives have the most influence over the Democratic Party, not establishment Democrats, progressives. If progressives are able to put enough pressure on the party, if they see other people like them doing pro-life work, standing up for the unborn, they're more likely to stand up to, to stand up

from within the party rather than leaving it and to force change. And that's when I believe we will see big abortion fall. And I think that it's not going to happen unless we mobilize progressives for action. This isn't just about getting progressives to recognize that they're pro-life. there are already progressive pro-lifers out there and definitely enough to get the job done. But what we need to do is bring them out of the shadows. And I'm creating a space for them to get directly involved to put their bodies in between the oppressors and the oppressed and to ultimately change history. What can conservatives do? What can kind of the pro-life movement do to bring,

pro-life progressives out of the shadows? I think the most critical thing that the pro-life movement as a whole can do to help draw out more pro-life progressives is to give pro-life progressives leadership roles within the movement, to train them, to give them visibility, to give us a platform so that we can be seen and heard. The pro-life movement isn't a monolith. We are beautifully diverse. We are one of the most diverse social justice movements in the history of the world. It is our diversity that is going to bring us to victory. Beautiful. Do you think the future is pro-life? The future is pro-life. The future of California is pro-life. The future of America is pro-life. The arc of the universe bends towards justice. The lies of the abortion industrial complex

cannot stand forever. They will be exposed, and we will win. The abortion industry uses women for their own profit. These lies are pervasive. They're not difficult to refute, but it can be difficult to penetrate that culture of lies to get the truth out there. We have to do it. We have to do it because it's right. We have to do it for the victims of abortion? We have to do it for the women who are taken in by this industry, who are used for dollars, even to their own detriment. If you enjoyed this conversation with Teresa Bukovinaq, you'll want to check out our Daily Wire original documentary Choosing Death, The Legacy of Roe. In it, we take a wrecking ball to the four fallacies keeping the abortion

industry alive. To watch it right now, go to Dailywireplus.com. Today, if you join, you will see not only this full movie, Choosing Death, the Legacy of Roe, but you will have access to the Daily Wire's entire catalog of content, which we can only produce and distribute because of you, with your support. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Choosing Life podcast. We'll see you next time. The Choosing Life Podcast is a Daily Wire production,

produced in association with Outer Limits. Our technical and support team includes Ian Reed, Jesse Eastman, Ryan Moore, Mariah Cormier, and Jim Wirt. Copyright Daily Wire 2022. Thanks for listening.