The Michael Knowles Show - Choosing Life: Welcome to the Choosing Life Podcast - Interview with the Director

Episode Date: July 30, 2022

In this first episode of the Daily Wire's "Choosing Life" podcast, Michael Knowles and film-director Ian Reid talk about the recent majority opinion of the Supreme Court in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization, discuss the lies the pro-abortion movement has used since 1973 with the verdict in Roe v. Wade, and give a sneak peak of upcoming interviewees and their stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey are overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives. That's what the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on June 24, 2022. It's the decision that the pro-life movement had been waiting to read since 1973, when the Supreme Court invented out of whole cloth a supposed constitutional right to abortion. Since that time, defenders of abortion tried to paper over rose weak, frankly, non-existent legal reasoning, with euphemisms and slogans, the right to choose, women's health care, clump of cells. At the Daily Wire, we're committed to cutting through these sorts of cheap slogans,

and getting to the heart of what matters in our politics and culture. On this podcast, we'll be getting to the heart of the abortion debate. We recently released an investigative documentary called Choosing Death, which shined a light on the four foundational lies of the pro-abortion movement. Conversations with abortionists, plant-parenthood workers, pro-life advocates, even abortion survivors. They are the firsthand accounts of the people who know abortion best. Now more than ever, we must show people the gruesome reality that lies beneath the euphemisms,

beneath the lies of the abortion lobby. Then and only then will we grow a culture of life. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is the Choosing Life podcast. Right now, I would strongly recommend you go to hallo.com 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, or 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 hallow.com slash choose life. The last few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind. This documentary comes out choosing death, the legacy of Roe, and then just a couple of weeks later, the Supreme Court overrules Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision. This is the most important Supreme Court decision probably of the last 50 years, if not longer. The timing absolutely incredible. and we are joined now by Ian Reid, the filmmaker, the documentarian behind choosing death, and the founder of Outer Limits, a film studio dedicated to stories that heal, move, and inspire.

Ian, thank you so much for coming on the show. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. The movie is marvelous. The timing is impeccable. I feel I can say this because, though I appear in the movie a little bit to present it, I had nothing to do with making the movie. this is really your project. You got these interviews. Now people will hear your side of the conversation in these very, very long form interviews and in this podcast. So I guess my first question would just be a little bit about you and how you found yourself in the pro-life movement. Yeah. Well, you know, it's really been a topic that I've just found to be incredibly important through the majority of my adult life. You know, as I arrived at voting age, I started analyzing the issues and what was important. to me as a voter and as a citizen. And really one issue rose to the fore above everything else for me.

And that was this issue of life. I can't think of a topic that deserves our attention more. I mean, if you look at the political landscape, what other topic in our country today has so much controversy surrounding it that it has become a single issue that dictates entire elections? And that's why the Dobbs decision is so groundshaking in the impact that it's going to have on our country moving forward and why we have to have a response to those who disagree with us for why the pro-life movement is the right movement going forward. And so when the Daily Wire started talking to me and my team about what might a film, a documentary about the issue of abortion and its history look like as we started diving into the lies behind the abortion movement and the facts

surrounding the Roe v. Way verdict back in 1973, the rationale for the majority opinion in that case. What we discovered as a team was that the lies really haven't changed since 1973. The same lies that the justices used to make their decision in Roe v. Wade are the same lies that are used today, albeit, you know, the language is slightly changed. The way that the lies are presented are, you know, more catchy and almost weirdly lighthearted in the way that they're talked about by the pro-choice movement now. But the lies are at their core, the exact same lies that were used to get Roe v. Wade passed into the social and moral mainstream. I love that you're using that verb past because that's not the common language that you would

hear about a court decision. That is the kind of language you would hear about a piece of legislation. And frankly, the court's decision in Roe was much closer to a piece of legislation, albeit from the bench, than it was a court decision. And so I think you're totally right. The arguments behind Roe were specious. They were simply not persuasive. Even defenders of Roe v. Wade, even Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for goodness sakes, would mock the legal reasoning or lack thereof. And then when Roe was upheld, partially upheld in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Casey decision overruled parts of Roe because it just, from a legal perspective, it didn't make a lot of sense. And I think that we get a sense of Roe v. Wade being something that was passed rather than something that was decided upon, even in conversations in this series, you know, we'll hear from the law professor at the University of Notre Dame, Carter Sneed. and he talks about how the arguments used by the court in the majority opinion aren't the typical types of legal argumentation that you would expect from the highest court in the United States.

What you get is you get arguments that are pulled from obscure legal briefs that weren't even heard in the argumentation before the court. Many of those facts were pulled from shoddy research that was done by pro-choice advocates and pro-choice organizations who wanted to prove a point rather than get to the actual truth of the facts that the court should be considering. And something I love about your documentary is it's not merely about the legal nitty-gritty. Frankly, that's only a very small part of it. I've always been fascinated with the abstract legal arguments around, especially around a case as preposterous as row. But the more damaging lies, it would seem to me, or the more shocking lies or the lies that really pull at your heartstrings are the lies that the

pro-abortion movement has told about the babies themselves. And I think you do a marvelous job in your interviews of exposing those. We're not just talking about how to misread some statutes. We're talking about living little human beings. Yeah. I think one of the most painful truths through this entire film, and it's something that we've seen a lot of response from audiences as well, is that the pro-choice advocates, the pro-abortion movement have successfully convinced the culture to talk about the unborn and human beings in the

womb as if the science somehow wasn't conclusive that these are actual human beings who should have the rights of personhood. And they somehow code over the entire fact that all scientists and doctors, in fact, if you look at recent studies, something like 95% or 90% of doctors and scientists who study life in the womb, agree that it's conclusive, that it's a human being in the womb from the moment of conception. Are the other 5% just total flunkies? What kind of an idiot can look at, do they think the baby is a giraffe or a duck-billed platypus or something?

The baby has all the characteristics of life. The baby is obviously a human. It's not some other kind of animal. Frankly, I'm shocked the number is so low as 95%. Well, and you have to ask, you know, is the answer that they gave somehow dictated not by the science, but by some sort of other core beliefs that are, in their opinion, more foundational to the way they live their lives and do their research than the science itself? Of course. It's just a way to paper over reality. I mean, this is a recurring theme in your film. Is these euphemisms, these slogans, the up is down and left is right and black is white kind of illogic that you see suffusing the pro abortion movement. Yeah. And what's really painful is, and what has become really clear to me as we've been working on this film, is just how widespread the group think has become. You see on social media, you know, look, I'm a filmmaker.

I have a lot of friends who are not conservative. You know, the majority of the film industry leans pretty far left. And seeing just the talking points and the total lack of research that spread in fun little memes and catchy one-liners that actually have no basis in either the science or in good legal decision-making from the court, you know, is shocking and a little bit frightening. when you think about how these catchy one-liners from the pro-warian movement have taken hold of people who haven't put any thought into the issue themselves. You'll sometimes hear people refer to an unwanted child or, you know, a product of conception. That's another euphemism. And it's this very dehumanizing kind of language. You never think about these people as people. You say, oh, it's just someone who's unwanted. Okay. In your movie, you sit down with, a woman who survived an abortion. So this is a woman who not only was once spoken of as a clump of cells, a product of

conception and unwanted child, but there was an attempt to assassinate her. There was an attempt to kill her when she was in the womb and she managed to survive, albeit with some injury. And I just wonder now that we're decades on, this is a fully grown woman now, if the same sort of pro-abortion advocate who uses that kind of language could look that woman in the eyes and say, oh, you, you're unwanted. You're just a clump of cells. You're a product of conception. The world would be better off if you had died. Yeah, I think there are really two types of people in the pro-choice movement. I think one group of people in the pro-choice movement are people

who just don't know, the people who don't know the reality of what's happening in abortion, don't know the reality of how developed children are in the womb when the majority of abortions are committed on them. And people who have seen the catchy phrases in talking points and are like, oh, yeah, I want what's best for women. And those people in their, in their, I hate to say naivete or ignorance, but they're well-meaning people, a lot of them, I think. They just don't know how gruesome and what a violation of basic fundamental human rights abortion actually is. And so I think that's one group. We really hoped, I hope that a lot of people in that group get a chance to see this film because we do present a lot of facts and presented in hopefully a winsome, interesting way through the stories that are told. But facts that counterbalance the false narrative on a lot of those talking points.

But then I think there's a second side of the pro-abortion movement. And unfortunately, those people are people who know the facts, know what's actually going on in abortion. and don't care. They want what they want, regardless of what it does to the human beings that are affected. And unfortunately, as we'll hear in Claire Colwell's interview, which is the first episode of this series, there are people in the pro-choice movement, the pro-abortion movement, who have said straight to her face, it would have been better if you had been killed. It would be better if you weren't speaking publicly about this issue, and we would rather that you had been killed alongside your twin in your mother's womb. And when you hear that, it just, it's shocking, but it also gives

you a little insight into what at least a segment of the pro-abortion movement really is all about. They don't really care about the value of the woman's life if that woman is on the, quote, wrong side of the issue from their perspective. Of course. Of course. I like that distinction, because that's true. There are plenty of people who support abortion out of ignorance. I supported abortion out of ignorance for my teenage years. I lived in a liberal place. Almost all my friends were liberals. The idea that one even could be pro-life was outlandish to me.

I assumed all the pro-lifers hated women. I just bought everything that they said on CNN and NBC. And I was convinced by a female bioethicist, actually, that all the arguments I was making were either stupid or extremely evil. And so I had my mind changed. There's an amazing interview that you have in this series where you're talking to not just a supporter of abortion, but an abortionist himself who, while performing an abortion, goes from one category to the other. This man had performed a lot of abortions, and in the moment, his eyes are opened and he sees the reality of it for what it is. Yeah, that's the story of Dr. Steve Hammond. And I think his story was one of the most moving personally to me, because here you have the story of, like you said, a doctor who's trained in abortions, who's skilled at them.

And something that he points out in his story is that he gravitated to abortions because he felt like he was really good at it. He was really efficient at them. he could do them quickly, he could do them cost effectively, and he started doing them moonlighting on the side because he could make extra money doing them more efficiently than other doctors could. And the moment that he realized that he could no longer do abortions was when a baby who was much further into term than he thought it was ended up kicking his instrument that was in the womb of the mother. And he just froze. And he tells the story better than anyone else could because he lived it, and you can feel the emotion as he tells his own story.

But I think you have to hear stories like that from actual former abortionists, people who are in the room doing those procedures, to actually get a sense of what goes on in real abortions, apart from the partisanship, apart from the talking points, to get a sense of what's actually happening at the hands of these abortionists. And his story is a difficult one, but I think it's important for people to hear. We'll hear more from our conversation with Ian in a moment. First, though, text pro-life to 47581. 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 Pro Life 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. As the crispy chicken sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect.

Like, I know I'm a handful. I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me, and baby I'm a whole meal. And with seven rewards, I'm just $4. Quiet, no. Krispy, saucy, and $4? Very.

Only at 711. Valley 36, 23, 26, Participating stores only while supplies lastly out for full terms. So what do you hope to accomplish with the movie and the series? If the point of the movie, and I'm not sure that this was the point, but if the point of the movie was to persuade people that we ought to overrule Roe v. Wade, when you made the movie, Roe v. Wade was the law of the land. Well, mission accomplished. That happened. We got this unbelievable decision. I mean, it's the greatest political event of my lifetime, truly, and maybe the least expected. So now we get this conclusion of the court. It's not the conclusion of the pro-life movement. So where do we go from here? Yeah, well, you know, I would say that we definitely had a few objectives with this film. I would also say that the first clarification I'd make is we in no way were hoping to influence the opinion of, you know, the political process or the court with the film because truth be told, I believe that the facts should dictate the opinion of the court. I think that justices made the right decision.

here, but they made the right decision based on facts that were actually presented in the court, unlike what happened in Roe. Sure. Though your movie, I think you're being too dismissive of your own movie, your movie presents these facts. I think you put these people out there, and they're just telling you, they're just telling you how it is. And it's a story that people probably have not been exposed to before.

Yeah, I think the real objective that we had, to your point, is that we wanted to present in a concise way, what are the primary lies that were at the core of the decision of Roe v. Wade, or the passage of Roe v. Wade, as you will, that laid the foundation for the just cultural upheaval over the issue of abortion in the following 40 years. And we want to tackle them one by one using actual facts, using actual science, and using actual logic and analyze. Are they, of those arguments that were used to arrive at the majority opinion of Roe v. Wade, are they good arguments? Are they factual arguments? And are the arguments that have existed since Roe v. Wade used by the pro-abortion movement? Are those arguments valid as well? And what you find is they just

really weren't. And so our objective for the film was we want to provide a little bit of a background on the issue of abortion and its history in the United States so that audiences can decide for themselves, should this have been the decision back in 1973? And what is my stance on abortion today? Look, we made this film just as much for a post-Dob's world, regardless of the decision as we did for a pre-Dob's world. We knew that there was going to be a decision sometime, you know, summer 20-22. And so our objective with the film was not to influence or guide the decision of the of the court on the on the case of dobs but what the objective was was to provide a primer of the history of abortion in the united states so that audiences regardless of where they

fall on the issue had a tool set to evaluate where do we go from here whether the dobs decision was going to be upholding roe v wade and and further enshrining that quote right to abortion in u.s law for who knows how many more decades or overturning roe v wade and putting it back to the states and giving the states the authority to decide for themselves, we wanted to give people a tool set to analyze the issue of abortion using real facts and real history rather than this fabricated set of facts and one-liners used by the pro-abortion movement. Right, because the Dobbs decision is not exactly a pro-life decision. The Dobbs decision is really about the structure of government and the proper place for making these kinds

decision. So all that the Dobbs decision does is sends the issue back to the people and their representatives. So now it is incumbent on the pro-life movement to win over the hearts and minds of the people throughout the United States to at that point build a culture of life. The Dobbs decision gave us an opportunity. And now it's up to us to know what to do with that opportunity. Right. And this is something that has come up in a lot of conversations both on our team and with friends and colleagues of mine, which is that the work of the pro-life movement isn't over now with a Dobbs decision. The work of the pro-life movement is really just now ramping up. It's not time to sit on our laurels and think, oh, well, now the law is on our side, or now the law is

protecting the unborn. It's really just the first step in what should be the beginning of a real groundswell of work by people who are in the pro-life movement. And really, even if you're not in the pro-life movement, if you're a pro-life person in the United States, now is the time to start acting in a way that brings support to women in need who works in your community and your state to push for greater protections of the lives of the unborn. And, you know, look, there are a lot of critics out there who say that the pro-life movement just cares about life before the child is out of the womb and doesn't care about life once someone is born. And while that's factually just destroyed by the data, and that's just not true, I mean, it's objectively not true. If you look at

who provides the most care for children in need, who provides the most care for women in need, who provides the most support to families who are low income and are struggling, you know, whether you're talking about birthing clinics, who provide diapers and milk and formula and support for mothers and families, or whether you're talking about charities that provide support for low-income communities and low-income families, across the board, those are almost always pro-life groups and organizations or people who are on the pro-life side of the debate. So factually, just totally false that the pro-life movement doesn't care about life after birth. But this is the time for us to prove it even more so, right?

It's the time for us to as a community not point fingers and say, how, we won this time. It's now time to say, look, we know that you might be scared. We know that as someone who's pro-choice, you don't know what your future holds, but we're going to come alongside you. And we're going to provide the support. We're going to provide everything that we can do to help you in a post-abortion world. And that's really what we're all fighting for, a post-abortion world where everyone in society sees the results. of valuing life even from the earliest stage. Right. We're not going to just say we won this time. We want to keep winning. We want to keep winning

and growing a culture of life. This series is a wonderful way to do it, Ian. I'm glad we had these interviews. I'm glad you did this because this is a great way in this post-row world of really, really accelerating that work, which we will get to on, of course, the next episode. In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Choosing Life podcast. Stay tuned. If this conversation and others like it are important to you, please consider joining DailyWire.com.

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Thanks for listening.