← Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Ep 1357 | Baby 4! Overcoming Birth Fears & Knowing When to Add One More
01:05:32
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All right, we've got a big announcement in the Stucky home. We will be going into all of it on today's episode of Relatable. We will also be diving into this Jesse Ridgeway story. The horrible announcement that he and his wife aborted their child with down syndrome, then presented themselves as victims. But a question people are asking and for good reason, is, did that really happen? We've got all of this and more on today's episode. It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Get All American meat for Father's Day. For the related bro in your Life, go to good ranchers.com use code ALI at checkout for a discount. That's good ranchers.com code ALLY. Hey, guys. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. That your week is going well so far. Breaking news. God's eternal plan of redemption. It is going off without a hitch. Nothing surprises God. Nothing takes him aback. Nothing throws him off. He's never caught off guard. He's never looking down, wondering what the heck is going on. How did that happen? That is true about every single detail of your life. Every single one. Even the thing that was a huge curveball for you that you did not see headed your way. God saw it because he is completely sovereign. He is not bound by linear time or space the way that we are. And. And Romans 8:28 reminds us that God works all things, all means, all, every single thing together for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. And that's not just the things that seem good to us. That's the things that seem really bad to us, that are bad to us, that seem completely without purpose. God is in the business of giving purpose. He is in the business of infusing purpose into things that seem meaningless. And there is no wasted second in the life of the believer. That is the beautiful privilege that we have as Christians, that everything that we do gets to echo in eternity. And mostly that's unseen and unsung. Mostly that seems mundane. Sometimes that's things that are really hard. Sometimes it's things that are easy. Sometimes it's things that are wonderful, and sometimes it's things that just seem plain awful. All of that echoes in eternity and is doing something because of the God who is in the business of redemption. Um, and so that's one thing I am extremely thankful for when I look at not only our own lives, but also the state of the world, the evil that goes on, the people who don't understand justice, who can't see right from wrong, who celebrate depravity. I could go on and on listing all of the examples of that and we'll talk about some of them later this week. Specifically when it comes to the Carmelo Anthony trial and everything going on there, the conversation about justice. We'll talk about that on Wednesday. But I just remember the God who created justice, the God who created all of us, the God who is love. He knows what he's doing and he's coming back. And that victory is his. It is. Sure. And one day we won't have any debates, we won't have any disagreements. We will live in perfect peace with him forever and ever. And that can be your future too, if by grace through faith you believe in Christ. And so good news to start out our week, to start out every single day. And sometimes you just really need to preach that message to yourself as a mode of peace, as a way to infuse joy into your life when things are hard. Well, you might have seen the announcement by now. There is a very good, wonderful blessing going on that has been given to us by the Lord in the Stuckey family and that was announced exclusively by the conservative outlet the Conservator. Yes, Chief relay to BRO and I are expecting Davey number four, who will be arriving, Lord willing, sometime this fall. And so we'll talk about pregnancy today and all different kinds of things related to that decision making and all of that good stuff. But first, I just want to go through some of this article. So the title is While Preparing for Baby Number four, Ali Beth Stuckey is Challenging Christian Woman's Womanhood's Biggest Myth. So I'll just read some quotes from that and then I want to give you my own commentary because of course, not everything that I want to say can ever be be, you know, distilled in any article. It's a great article. I'm so thankful to the conservator. Really fun to work with them. But I also just want to add a little bit more commentary to some points that I made. So one of the biggest myths in Christian womanhood, and I could list several and have for many years now, but the idea that one biblical womanhood and so called traditional womanhood or being a so called trad wife are completely synonymous. That is one myth. And then also the idea that your life does not begin as a woman, your calling as a Christian does not begin as a woman until you get married, until you have children. My argument is not that those things cannot bring a level of fulfillment because they absolutely do. They're good and wonderful blessings. The biggest earthly blessings I have in this life are my family, my husband and my children. However, they are not the pinnacle of your fulfillment and satisfaction. Christ is, which means you can have that right now if you are a Christian, no matter what stage of life you're in. So here's my quote from the conservatory. You do not have to bake sourdough. You do not have to homeschool. You do not have to wear only floral dresses. You do not have to homestead in order to be a biblical wife. Scandalous to some people, but I think a few years ago that wouldn't have been seen as scandalous. But today we've kind of conflated the trad aesthetic, which is a social media trend for some people. I'm not saying it's not genuine for many people with being a biblical woman. And it's not always the same thing. I love sourdough bread. I can't eat gluten, and so it's a little tough for me. But I love sourdough bread. I love homeschooling. I think that it's great. I think that it is super beneficial and can be superficial beneficial for your children. I love floral dresses. Actually, most of the time that you see me, I will be in some of floral maxi dress. And I think homesteading is great. I can't say that I am a homesteader, but I think homesteading is great. I think it's wonderful. I love homesteading. But the distinction matters between that and biblical womanhood, because people have confused the two. They've confused faithfulness with tradition. And so I say we are not going after tradition as Christians. We are going after what biblical standards are. And the article states completely correctly, that a biblical woman, she argues, can faithfully serve God from a Manhattan apartment, a suburban neighborhood, or a rural homestead. She could be changing diapers, studying for an exam, managing a business, or caring for her family. Now, that is all true. At the same time, of course, if you have. If you are married and if you have children, especially if you have little children, that is your priority in. In that stage of your life. And that doesn't mean you can never do other things. It doesn't mean that you can't create art. It doesn't mean that you can't host a podcast. It doesn't mean that you can't speak or that you can't write. But the ordering of your life absolutely does matter. But this is speaking to women who are in different seasons of their life. I Don't want a woman who is a student to think, well, I'm not fully a woman or fully a Christian woman who can be satisfied in Christ and can live out my calling because while I'm still a student or, or I haven't met my husband yet and so I'm managing this Etsy business or I am in marketing or pr, and so I'm not fully a genuine, sincere Christian woman. That is just not true. Because the standard is not aesthetics. The argument echoes. The standard is obedience. And I say being a biblical woman in this moment is doing the next right thing in faith, with excellence and for the glory of God. And then I also talk about therapy culture. This is another part of the article and we'll link it. You absolutely should go read the whole thing. But one thing that I know that is also seen as kind of scandalous, but we've talked about many times and in many different ways for many years on this podcast. I argue that the biggest problem among women and Christian women in particular, is what I call therapy culture. The article says she points to the growing popularity of self help language, self affirmation messaging, inner child therapy concepts, therapeutic frameworks that increasingly influence Christian spaces. I say ultimately, I think all of these psychological ideas elevate the God of self rather than leading us to Christ and encouraging us towards self denial. Now, of course, if I, as I've said to you, there is truth infused in each of these concepts, a part of truth, but they're only true insofar as they are biblical, but they very quickly go outside the biblical realm that elevate the self rather than lead us into the self denial that Christ calls us to. The modern message, I argue, says happiness is found by looking inward. Christianity says fulfillment is found by looking to Christ. And of course that is true. And so I just want to encourage you, go read the article. I want to. I want to make clear that when I am talking about marriage and when I am talking about children, it's not to minimize the importance. The foundational importance of these things are to say that you won't find a level of fulfillment there or that you shouldn't desire these things as a single woman. They're very good desires. The Bible starts with the marriage and ends with the marriage. One of the first commands that we see in Scripture is be fruitful and multiply. It's a wonderful thing and children are a gift. But I just want you to know that if you're struggling with infertility, if you have not found the man that God has for you. Yet you are not in a waiting period for joy. Like you are not sitting in a waiting room saying, okay, one day I can be a biblical woman. One day I will find the fullness of joy that Jesus has for me. Psalm 16 says, the fullness of joy is found in his presence at his right hand. So don't just sit there and wait and say, okay, this time is about finding myself and making myself happy. Go serve the church. Go help children. Go work hard. Like, what can you do for the glory of God to make the small speck of the earth, the tiny spot of eternity on which God has placed you better for his glory and the good of other people? That is what all of us are called to, no matter what stage of life that you're in. And that is the crux of my argument. All right, let's get to what I know a lot of you want to hear me talk about, which is pregnancy, deciding to have another child because we talked about that for a long time in light of some of my past delivery woes and then how I found out I was pregnant, how I'm feeling and all of that good stuff. So we'll get to that in just a second. Let me pause. Let me tell you about our first sponsor for the day and that is Adele Natural Cosmetics. So if you're looking for clean, beautiful makeup, makeup that goes on really smoothly but is also really good for your skin so it's not clogging your pores, it's not weighing your skin down, then you need to check out Adele. All of their products are really moisturizing, all are made from holistic natural ingredients. I also love their skin care. Use it every day, especially when my skin is dry. Throughout the day my skin gets drier, more than oily and so I need that moisture. And so I'll use their moisturizing spray, which works in so many different ways. It not only makes your face feel moisturized and refreshed, it works as a room freshener, it works as perfume, and it's all made with ingredients from nature. And that's what I love about it. No endocrine disruptors or anything like that. Their essential cleanser has been a staple in my skincare routine for years now. They're unapologetically Christian family owned Pro life. Love Adele Natural Cosmetics. Go to Adele natural cosmetics.com use code ALI check out this Adele natural cosmetics.com code ALI. Also just want to remind you guys come to share the arrows if you're a Christian woman, share the arrows.com get your tickets. It's October October 10th Dallas, Texas October 10th. Every time I get that wrong Shane and Shane Leading Worship Elisa Childers Costi Hen First Related bro Speaking Natasha Crane Rosaria Butterfield Christiana Castleberry her mom Audrey Brokey Y' all, it's gonna be so good. Share the errors is but to you by Range Leather this year so thousands and thousands of Christian women for a gospel centered no fluff Biblical teaching conference. Share the arrows.com all right, let me talk to you about pregnancy. Also, you might remember a past conversation that I had with Lila Rose on this podcast about a year ago and we were talking about how do you use discernment in in deciding to have more children? How do you know when you are done having more children? Are Christians obligated to have a child every year if they can? And I still don't know all of the answers to that. I've talked to women who have four children. I've talked to women who have 10 children. And while yes, it absolutely is a blessing and I think a command to be fruitful and multiply, I also believe that a lot of this depends on your heart posture, a lot of this depends on your motivations and a lot of this depends on your particular circumstances. Should we, as a principle, of course, trust the Lord with everything, including how many children we have, including with our bodies, including with our finances? Absolutely. But can I say in every situation that you should have another child right now? When I don't know everything going on with your health, when I don't know everything going on in your home? I I can't say that. And so I do believe that there is also wisdom and mentorship that God give gives us as gifts to make any good decision. And so we decided to add another little one to our family or to try to add another little one to our family. And it's not because my past births somehow in my memory got easier. All of them were difficult in their own ways. I had two unwanted unplanned C sections with my first. The first one I would say was traumatic in some ways, although I can't say that it was, you know, as difficult as some people's births. Thankfully, I and all of my children are healthy and I'm very grateful for that. But first one really pressured into a C section that was completely and totally unnecessary. The recovery was really hard. I've talked about all of my births on past podcast episodes. You can go back and listen to them. And then my second one, I really wanted V back and went into labor naturally at about 41 weeks, but she had some heart decelerations. I had a high fever, ended up that we had this infection going on, and so we actually did need to deliver her via C section. And then third, I did have a successful VBAC after two C sections, which I found is very rare, because whenever I tell people the ordering of my births and the kind of births I had, they're like, hang on a second. You had your V back. You had that after your two C sections. And yes, and I'm so thankful for that. I don't regret that at all. However, in my experience, and this is not to deter you from trying to have a vbac, the recovery from that was much more difficult than I thought that it would be. I thought, okay, this is birth as God intended it. And so it's gonna be EAS easy. It's going to be an easy recovery. No big deal. Actually, the physical recovery from that and in some ways, the emotional recovery from that, I would say. I don't know if I could say it was my hardest one, because the first was really hard, but it was really difficult. It wasn't just up and Adam, I'm. I'm feeling great after a couple days. It was much harder than I thought. And there were many times when I thought and said, I just want to do it in this again. And you know what? 3. Totally respectable number of kids to have. Happy being a girl, mom happy with three kids. And honestly, I can't tell you there was some revelation that we had any time after that. I can't pinpoint a time when I thought, okay, yeah, we're. We definitely need to have more. I'm convicted. I just feel called we have to have more. It was just kind of a softening over time. It was just kind of getting things together and realizing, okay, I think that we could do this again, and I think that this would be good. And we prayed about it, and we thought about it, and we talked about it, and we decided, okay, let's go for it. And the Lord was gracious to grant us baby number four. And let's see. I found out. I decided, okay, so obviously, I knew that it was a possibility, but it's crazy how you know it's a possibility when you're trying to get pregnant, and still it never. The shock never disappoints. Like, you're always just really surprised when that pregnancy test reads positive. I've had lots of negative pregnancy tests in my life, and so you just kind of expect that to Be the result again. But I decided to take a pregnancy test on my birthday because I was like, you know what? It's way too early. Not way too early, but it was like a week too early, earlier than I would typically take a test. But. But I was like, but if it is positive, it would be super fun because it's my birthday. And so I just decided that I was going to take a pregnancy test the morning of my birthday, February 18th. And, you know, I take those digital tests, and in the past, when those digital tests have been positive, every single time I've had a positive result, I've always used one of those digital tests. And every time it's been positive, it's gone really fast. And if y' all have taken one of those tests, you know, I'm talking about the little blinking squares, like, go really fast when it's positive. Well, this was taking forever. I was sitting in our room. Chief related. Bro did not know this was happening. He was in another room. I was actually with our oldest. Oldest daughter, who did kind of understand what was going on, but maybe didn't understand the level of excitement and anticipation. So I took the test, and I just was like, this is taking forever. It's going to be negative. It's fine. I'm not even, you know, I'll take another one in a week. I'm not even going to be disappointed. It'll be okay. And I put it under my pillow, and I waited and waited and waited, and it took forever. I. And then I brought it into the bathroom, and then I flipped it over, and it said pregnant. And I couldn't believe it. And of course, the days following that, you take a million other tests just to make sure. I think I took, like, 10 tests just to verify that I was really pregnant. And obviously, we were so excited. Chief Relay Debro came in, and I told him, like, immediately. And we told our oldest, okay, it's really early. Like, I think I was, like, three, three and a half weeks pregnant. And so I was like, okay. Our oldest. I was like, I. Please don't go tell people. Like, please don't announce this to everyone. Like, this is just for us. This is any special that didn't work. Okay. She was too excited. She was overwhelmed with excitement about this. And so people in our lives knew pretty quickly, and we were excited to tell people, but I knew that I was going to wait to tell y' all until, you know, sometime in the second trimester, which is what I'm in right now. And that's just because you just want to make sure that all is good. And if anything happened with the pregnancy, I would want to be able to kind of, like, mourn that privately and talk to my family and all of that before feeling an obligation to announce to everyone that that is something that occurred. Just because you get messages about pregnancy, all that, all that kind of stuff. And so now we're well into the second trimester and just praying for a continued smooth pregnancy, smooth delivery and all of that. Before I talk about, like, how I'm thinking about delivery, I'll just talk about pregnancy and how I felt. This has been a harder pregnancy. The first, the first 12 weeks were really hard. And probably, if you go back and you watch some of those episodes, um, I don't know. March was tough. March and April were tough. I was really nauseous and I was really tired and I had a headache, and I did not feel good and nothing tasted good. And I just felt completely depleted, Completely depleted. And I was trying to figure out, is this the same as past pregnancies? I'll tell you, I'll tell you what I felt like. I felt like the one day, if you go back and you watched the first time that I interviewed Sweet Ginger Duggar Volo, that was. I was nine weeks pregnant with my third baby at that point. And you can see I'm, like, in a hoodie and my hair slicked back in a bun, and I have, like, no makeup on, and I am so tired. Well, that one terrible feeling day is how I felt most days in my first trimester. But thank you, Lord, for the second trimester. I know some people still stay feeling that bad all through pregnancy. I started feeling a lot better. And we do know the gender. I don't think I'm going to announce the dinner to you all until birth. I think I'm just gonna keep that a surprise. But we were, you know, we were going to be excited either way when, when we found out. And so of course we are. We're happy. And so everything is all good with that thus far. Now, how I am feeling about birth, vbac, all of that, I don't know. You know, I don't, I don't know. Like, I, I, I'm honestly not. To be frank, I'm not really thinking about it. I'm not really preparing for it. I feel like in my second and third pregnancies, because I wanted to be back so badly, I was already listening to podcasts and birth stories and talking to people and preparing and reading books, and I probably will get to that at some point. But I feel more open handed about my birth than I ever have. I really felt so much like I had to control the outcome and I wanted a specific kind of birth so much. And it's not that I don't care, of course I care. But now I've had both kinds of birth and I'm like, I've done it. I've done it both ways. Like, I just feel like, okay, whatever happens, happens. And maybe that's not the best mentality. But there's nothing I can do about it right now anyway. I have quite a while until we get there. And um, yeah, I'm just, I'm. I'm not anxious about it right now. I can't say that I won't be anxious about it when the time comes. Um, but right now I'm just not really thinking about it. Um. So yeah, for those of you who are wondering if I'm planning to VBAC and all of that, yes, I think so. But it's not top of mind. Pregnancies really do go by so much more quickly the more kids you have. And this one has flown by. If you are wondering, wait, your baby is due in the fall and you have share the arrows October 10th. It's October 10th, not October 11th. Yeah, I'm gonna be huge. Yeah, I'm gonna be huge. I am going to be. It was not within my window of birth yet. Plus I always give birth late. Like my baby's always arrive like after 40 weeks, like 41, 42 weeks even. And so I don't know if it'll be like this this time. But Share the Arrows is not quite in my window of delivery, not quite full term, but really close. So I'm going to be waddling. They're going to have to. You know, those productions are like planned down to the second. Y' all are going to have to give me like 30 more seconds to at least maybe three more minutes to walk down that aisle and to get up on the stage. Chief related bro is going to be carrying me. I'm probably going to have to sit down. Maybe I'll have to sit down for my speech and I'll have to have one of those chairs that like swirls around. I'll be like on a lazy Susan or something and I'll be sitting on a chair and y' all can just spin me around and I can talk to everyone that way. That will help alleviate my pregnancy pain. So no, it'll be all good. And yeah, that's it. That's how we're feeling. And I feel good because there are so many things that I've wanted to share with you guys about pregnancy, and I haven't been able to talk about it. And a lot of you guys have speculated that I'm pregnant. And I do just want to say to the conspiracy theorists out there who thought, like, oh, she's changed her set. She's trying to hide it. That's not true. None of the set changes have anything to do with pregnancy or trying to hide my baby bump or anything. I haven't really tried to hide it that hard because I don't really care if people. If people speculate. And so, no, we just decided to announce it when it was best to announce, and that's it. All right. I'm sure there will be more to talk about that soon. Now let's get into a story that I've been wanting to discuss. Quick Buzz, tell you about our next sponsor for the day, and that is seven Weeks Coffee. Seven Weeks Coffee is America's pro life coffee company. Mold free, pesticide free. It is so good. They have donated well over a million dollars to pregnancy centers across the country, and that has resulted over $1.8 million, actually. So we're at almost $2 million. That has saved thousands of lives. That translates into all kinds of resources to pregnant moms in need to fathers in crisis as well. And so they really are putting their money where their heart is. You can allow your coffee to serve a higher purpose. When you subscribe to seven weeks Coffee, they send you that box of coffee to your front door every month and you save 15%. And. And when you use my code ALI, you save an extra 10%. So that's a total of 25% total savings on your first order, plus a free gift. Go to 7weekscoffee.com. Use code ALLI. Check out the 7weekscoffee.com code ALLI. Okay, so if you haven't heard about this awful story, which I think most of you probably have because you're following on Instagram on X, lots of people have been rightly talking about it. And it's this YouTuber, this YouTuber named Jesse Ridgeway. He goes by McJuggernuggets, and he has over 4 million subscribers. Okay? So we probably wouldn't be talking about this story if the post had not gone viral and if this person didn't have so much influence, especially over young people. Okay. Very, very popular YouTuber. He is married and they have been documenting their pregnancy. They have been chronicling and, you know, monetizing discussion about the sonogram, finding out that they're pregn it and all of that good stuff. But then on X he posted this long post saying, my wife and I made the very difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy. That's a euphemism for killing the child due to trisomy 21. Trisomy 21, it's a genetic condition that's caused by an extra copy of the 21st chromosome, but it's most commonly known as down syndrome. So unlike trisomy or trisomy 18 or some of these other chromosomal anomalies, down syndrome. Syndrome is not immediately fatal. And some of these other chromosomal abnormalities are not immediately fatal, but they are more so many times babies who are born with trisomy 18, for example, they might die inside the womb or they might die minutes after birth. Now those people are just as valuable. They should also not be snuffed out inside the womb. But I think it's interesting that he used this terminology even though he knows that people, most people know what down syndrome is. It's almost like he wanted to present this as something like my baby is going to die in the womb at any moment and we wanted to end his or her suffering. And that's not what happened. Not that that would justify it, but it does seem like that's what he was trying to do at first. He said this choice was not made lightly. On X, he said, I know some of you may be very disappointed to hear this news. We are devastated. This has been extremely traumatic for both of us, especially Athleigh Ashley Rather, who is his wife. She underwent the procedure earlier this week and is on the men. Thankfully, everything went smoothly, but emotionally we are drained. So as I said, he's been posting about this pregnancy for a while. He posted in March Baby ridgeway coming fall 2026. They made a video talking about their positive pregnancy test. And then they made another video talking about their amniocentesis test where they take amniotic fluid to get a diagnosis of something like down syndrome. And here is that video of them getting the results set to. It says abnormal Insight. Result showed three chromosome 21 signals consistent
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with trisomy 21 down syndrome. Genetic counseling is recommended. Pattern consistent with trisomy 21.
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We talked before this guys about what would we do if we confronted this scenario because this was the more likely scenario. We talked about terminating the pregnancy. Obviously things could change because this is traumatic. Like very traumatic. Okay? The rest of his expos Talks about all the problems that down syndrome people can have. 50% of babies have heart defects, 75% will have hearing challenges, 50% have vision problems. They'd be fully dependent on others for the rest of their life. Genetic counselors, friends, family, talk to them. Learn that 90 of women terminate their pregnancy after this diagnosis. And, you know, he said, a lot of judgment is being cast. And so there was obviously a big response to this. A lot of pro lifers, even some people who are pro choice but think that, you know, this is discriminatory against people with special needs, had a negative reaction to this. He said things like, look, we're trying for a better outcome. He said, down syndrome is basically a genetic glitch, which is dehumanizing language. My response was, this is really sad. Babies with down syndrome are no less people and therefore no less worthy of life than anyone else. This can't be framed in a way that sounds virtuous or selfless. The only victim in this scenario is the baby. And I think that's so important for pro abortion people and pro lifers to understand is that typically the only victim in an abortion situation is the baby. Yes, sometimes the woman is a victim. If she has been raped, if she has been coerced into having an abortion, then absolutely she is also a victim. But you are not a victim just because you had an abortion. Just because you choose an abortion. You've got some emotional turmoil over that, which, by the way, is conviction. You are not a victim. It is sad, yes, that they had sad emotions because, of course, there are more considerations and more difficulties that come with raising a child with special needs. Of course that is true. But you monetize that reaction. You not only monetized your baby's little life, but then you monetized his death. And not just his death, but also his murder. And then you want people to feel sympathetic toward you. He reacted to the backlash that he's had. He said that he's seen the worst of humanity. And people pointing out that, hey, like this is really grotesque what you're saying. This is morally chilling that you are admitting and trying to euphemize your euthanizing a baby. I said you're not the victim here. You used your baby for content and profit until you realized that he wasn't. He wasn't your preferred, quote, unquote outcome. You exploited him, then you had him killed, then you used his murder to make more content. It is grotesque and it is quite heartbreaking. Now, the thing about this person is that he is not without compassion for vulnerable entities. Will say. Earlier in May, Jesse celebrated the sixth birthday of his dog, who was diagnosed with stage four kidney disease the previous year. At the time, he was told the dog would only live a few more weeks. We have a picture that we should put up. Here we are a whole year later, she is still fighting. She is in the 0.001% of superhero dogs that continue living with no kidneys. So that life was worth sacrificing for. His dog was worth paying lots and lots of money for doing everything you could to keep this dog alive. Even though your dog has special needs, will not live a very long time. That dog apparently was more worthy of life than their living child. Okay. The contrast there just goes to show the disordered nature of the human heart when we are given over to sin. The truth is, is that a child with special needs would be much more of a quote, unquote, burden for longer in a parent's life than a dog. And it seems to me like he didn't want that and that just wasn't the picture that he had for his son or daughter. Then we have people who actually think that what he said was totally fine. We've got leftists on Twitter saying things like, this is someone named John Carter. I find it genuinely baffling that people are piling onto this guy. Is there any level of congenital defect at which Christians won't insist that the parents have to keep it? No, there isn't. There isn't. Because I don't think special needs are a justification for killing someone outside of the womb. So why would the location or the age or the size of the individual change that? I don't believe that special needs are a justification for killing someone. If you believe that abortion is okay in the instance where someone gets a bad, a bad diagnosis or quote, unquote bad diagnosis, then you believe that killing people based on their diagnosis is justified. And you're gonna have to tell me why you wouldn't apply that to out to someone outside of the womb. Like, is it age? Is it location, Is it size, Is it sentence, Is it dependency? Because all of those things can apply to people outside of the womb too. And so really, it just becomes this arbitrary game of who gets to live and who gets to die. When it comes to babies inside the womb, it's because they're helpless, because they can't defend themselves. And you think that thinking won't eventually apply to people outside of the womb who can't defend themselves? It already is. That's what we're seeing in this Whole die by dignity or dying with dignity. Euthanasia movement. We have someone named Kia saying we need to stop equating suffering with sanctity. Choosing to carry a fetus with a profound disability to turn because God gives special kids to special parents is a coping mechanism. The reality is grueling, expensive and isolating. Choosing out. Choosing out is a valid, logical decision. So I guess she means choosing abortion. So I've never said the line God gives special kids to special parents. I just believe that all people are made in the image of God, no matter what their diagnosis is, and all humans are people. I hold the radical position that all human beings, as soon as they are human, are people and therefore they have a right not to be murdered. Richard Hananiah, weird heterodox person to call this eugenics is nonsense. People aren't aborting down syndrome fetuses for the future gene pool of humanity. They're doing it because they don't want to have severely handicapped children. They're doing the best thing for themselves and their families. In what way? And if this is the best thing for your family, then why does it stop when the baby is inside the womb? If it's the best thing for your family that you don't have a child who grows up with special needs, who has to depend on you more than other children, then why not justify the murder of a child outside of the womb? A baby or a toddler or a 10 year old. You do understand that people can develop all kinds of dependencies and all kinds of handicaps all throughout their life. You might not know that your child has severe autism until after they're born. You might not know that your child has a club foot until after they're born. Or a cleft palate. You can typically see those things in utero, but not always. There could be an accident that befalls you, that befalls your child when they're 10 years old and then they become severely handicapped. Is it still best for you if you murder that child? If not, why not? Like, why does your morality and your justification for murdering people depend upon where they are located? It's evil. It's just evil. Let me pause. Let me tell you about our next sponsor for the day and then we'll get into more of that. And that is crowd health. And so we have decided in our family to opt out of traditional health insurance. It's so much of a hassle, it's so expensive. And we have found that crowd health is a better way to have healthcare coverage. It's A refreshing alternative that puts you back in control. Crowd health is a community of people who come together to help fund each other's medical bills, negotiate unfair charges, and actually advocate for your family's wellbeing. With crowd health, you get personal care advocates, prescription discounts. Huge. A huge database to help you find great doctors and the freedom to choose any provider. No restrictive networks. Members crowdfund eligible bills with a 99.9% success rate, usually in about seven days. And together they've already saved over $56 million. Take charge of your health expenses and be a part of a community. Join crowd Health to get started today for 99amonth for your first three months. Using Ali to join@joincrowdhealth.com that's join crowdhealth.com code Ali CrowdHealth is not insurance. Opt out. Take your power back. Join CrowdHealth.com code Ali. Alright, so this is the crowd. This is the crowd, the crowd of progressives, most of whom will have nothing negative to say about this. As I said, you've got some people who are pro choice who are like, hey, I don't like this dehumanizing language about people with special needs. I don't like, you know, acting like people with down syndrome are more of a burden or less of a person. So I do just want to acknowledge that, that I've seen some of that on Instagram and I appreciate that. Even while they're saying, but these people should still have a legal right to kill a child, okay? I just want you to know, not that I use this kind of language, but if you believe that babies inside the womb do not have a right to life, but that you do, you are ableist like you are. It's because of the child's lack of ability to defend his or herself that you believe it's okay to poison them, to dismember them, to tear them apart with forceps and then to throw them away like medical waste, okay? That is your belief. If you are pro choice, pro abortion, whatever, you don't believe that babies inside the womb for whatever reason have the legal right to not be murdered. I do. But this is the crowd, okay? This is the same crowd that will absolutely freak out if you say something politically incorrect. As many people have pointed out online, this is the same crowd that if you say the R word they will call you a Nazi. Now, I don't use that word, okay? I know there's a lot of people who do who think, okay, you know, you're just being too sensitive and if you don't know what I mean by the R word. I'm sure that you can put it together. It's a. You know, people use it as a synonym for stupid or dumb or something like that. Very popular, like in the 2010s when we were in high school. But now it's kind of made a comeback and people use it for shock value or whatever. It's not a word that I use. But I also don't believe in equating people with Nazis who use it. And so we see over and over again that progressives care so much more about being performative in their virtue than actually being virtuous. Anything that doesn't require real sacrifice and real morality and real generosity, but can allow them to feel good about themselves, a typical progressive is going to opt for. That's true about socialism. Okay, I can outsource my compassion and outsource my generosity to the government. I'm only going to give money to the poor if you force me at gunpoint and threaten to put me in jail if I don't pay my taxes. It's the same thing with social justice. Oh, I'll post the black square. I'll put BLM in my bio. As long as I don't have to change where I live or change my life at all. Um, it's the same thing with political correctness. They call it kindness, but kindness requires some kind of sacrifice and some kind of virtue. It does have something to do with what we say, but it's not only what we say in our tone of voice. It's not only the words that we choose. It's also the things that we support and advocate for. And you can't call yourself a kind person if you believe that some people deserve to be murdered just because of their age or location or diagnosis. Okay? And so that is the thing about progressivism is that it outsources true compassion and kindness and love and sacrifice to the government, or it just confuses it with things like abortion or things like allowing men to become women. They believe that kindness and love is the same thing as affirmation of sin. So all kinds of issues with the progressive worldview that we've talked about many times, and we talk a lot about that, and, and toxic empathy. But look, if you believe in abortion being a right and being legal, I am so not interested in anything else that you have to say about morality or politics. Like, that's the worst of it for me. I mean, there are a lot of stupid things that you can believe politically. A lot of things that I'm open to debate, that I'm not 100% sure about myself. I am 100% sure that killing a baby is wrong. It should be illegal. It's really not that hard. Jesse Ridgeway, he responds to all of this. He said that he has seen the darkest side of humanity. He said, I've never seen such hate and vitriol for two people grieving the loss of their unborn child and making an impossible decision. You didn't lose your child. Okay? Like, if you purposely throw a coin in a fountain because you were making a wish, you can't then cry that you lost your coin. You threw the coin in there. You didn't lose it. You threw your coin away. Okay? If you purposely throw away a. I don't know, like a necklace or something like that, you can't cry because you lost your necklace. You threw your necklace away. You didn't lose your child. You threw your child away. That's different. You said that you made an impossible decision. It's not an impossible decision. People make the decision every day to give birth to their down syndrome children. The last 24 hours, he says, have exposed a side of humanity that is deeply disturbing. Being called murderous pieces of s. Evil compared to Hitler, non stop death threat. So obviously, I don't believe that they should be getting death threats, and I don't believe that they should be called any sort of names. I will never advocate for anything like that. It actually means that you probably can't make a very good point if that's the only thing that you can contribute to a conversation. But he is also just highlighting the worst of the worst rather than being like, okay, these people have a point. This is killing a human being because of their special need. And that's not good. There's a lot of people that have posted really beautiful footage and beautiful pictures of their children with down syndrome. Here's a mom who posted this video of her son with down syndrome and said this in the caption. This is voiceover one. She said, I've spent the last five years shouting his worth. I've shared our journey so other families can see what it's like raising a child with down syndrome. I'm not lying when I say, wouldn't change a thing about him. Huddy is exactly who he's supposed to be, and he is the biggest blessing in our lives. The joy he brings to this world is immeasurable. And he's so freaking cute. Oh, my gosh, he's so cute. So cute. And there's A lot of people who have posted look when they found out that their son or daughter was down syndrome, it was difficult because it is difficult having this expectation of the life that you're going to lead or the life that your child is going to have and then you find out it's not going to be like that. There's going to be a new level of difficulty that's going to be there, but that they wouldn't change a thing because of how God has redeemed it, because of how much they love their child. There's another person who posted to Jesse. I don't know how to pronounce her ex name, but this is full screen 15 big mistake. Our sweet girl had a heart condition and surgery. Down syndrome usually comes with something like that. But she's 100% healthy now. She has hearing loss, wears glasses, has potty training issues and takes a little longer to learn some things. But she has made our whole family's life a million times better just for existing. I'm glad I didn't listen to our doctors and kept our baby. Sorry you got bad advice. So sweet, that picture. I love people pointing out that, yeah, you know, it hasn't been the same as having a child with not with down syndrome, but life isn't about taking all friction away. Like life actually isn't about just making yourself as happy as possible. And I could go on and on. There are some really sweet responses this person, Dave Bruno said to anyone reading this who might be facing a similar crossroads, meet my son Josh. Josh is 3, has down syndrome. They received the prenatal diagnosis at 10 weeks. If anyone else finds themselves in a similar place, reach out. There's a whole community of people here to support you. Hasn't always been easy, but he's worth every bit of it and then some. Now some people are saying that actually this whole situation with Jesse Ridgeway, that maybe it just wasn't even real. Maybe he made it up just for clout. There's been some speculation online that the pregnancy and the abortion have been staged for clicks. He did something called a psycho series on YouTube a while ago, which made his YouTube channel popular. He played a character called Psycho Kid and scripted family dramas that were presented as real life. And then in this X post, he is writing from the perspective of the series as if it really happened 10 years ago. Jesse Ridgeway says, I shot my father and fled to Switzerland with what I thought was 30k in cash. It wasn't. The money was spent. I was spent and on the run now when I finally tasted freedom, I was forced with an immeasurable guilt for an unforgivable act that killed the man who wanted me to be better, albeit in his own sick way. And so people are wondering, okay, like, are you just kind of making this up? Is this another video in your series? I personally don't think so, but people believe that he's just trying to gin up some kind of controversy for attention. They've also posted about health issues, breakups, family drama, some of which apparently has been fictionalized. For example, in 2020, Ashley posted a video where Jesse, then her ex boyfriend, got into a physical fight with her dad. Jesse also had someone recording and apparently reportedly that also was just fake and made up. They also posted another video on the day that they posted the video about getting the results for down syndrome, where they're arguing with each other before they, the parents then throw a smoke grenade that gives off blue smoke, revealing that the baby is a boy. And so there are all kinds of questions about what is real and what is not and what is for clout and what is not. Either way, it's evil. I mean, really psychotic if you're making up a story like this, but just as psychotic to have your baby killed because they have special needs. All people, no matter what, are made in God's image. We read that in Genesis 1:27. And murdering them is wrong. When someone like James Talarico says the Bible doesn't say anything about abortion. Thou shalt not murder made the big ten. And if humans are people, which they are, and if we all become human at the moment of fertilization, which we do with our own DNA, that's not even a theological position, it's just a scientific one. Then murdering people inside, killing people inside the womb is murder. And it's wrong. Not only according to the law, which should obviously apply to babies inside the womb, but also according to the God who created us and who created justice and who creates every child. Now if you are someone I get reached out to a lot by women who have had abortions and who regret it, and if you have not brought that into the light, like if you're not a part of your local church and you haven't brought that to your pastor or a godly female mentor, maybe you're scared to at your church, I, I would go to your local pregnancy center and I would talk to them and they probably know someone who offers post abortive counseling. I think it's really important for all of us to feel the weight of our sin and to allow ourselves to feel guilt and some level of shame over all past things that we've done, including abortion. But to also know that you are not too far gone, that Jesse Ridgeway and his wife are not too far gone, like God can forgive them, God can redeem them. God can open their eyes. God can make them new. God can bring beauty out of ashes. And the same is true for you, that Jesus's blood covers all of your past sin. And I just want you to know that there's grace for you if you've made this decision. But I would encourage you to bring it to light. Because one way that God redeems things is he brings testimonies out of our sin and out of horrible things that have happened to us too. So that's how I want to end this, that we just have to be completely unwavering and unafraid in what is true to speak what is true. It could literally save someone's life. And also realize that the grace of God is big enough to carry all of this and to cover all of this for those who by grace, through faith, believe in Christ. All right, I want to go ahead and get to voicemails. You guys ask really good questions and so giving some advice and my thoughts on some of the questions that you guys sit in sent in. Let me pause and tell you about our next to last sponsor and that is Alliance Defending Freedom. So Colorado unfortunately is just a hotbed of First Amendment violations. It is really progressive and therefore Christians and conservatives have a hard time exercising their First Amendment rights in a variety of ways and all lines. Defending Freedom has had to come in and has had to protect the rights of many, many Christians in Colorado. And right now they are challenging the law that forces people to use preferred pronouns even if they are biologically inaccurate because a Christian bookstore and a Colorado based sports apparel company is being targeted because they don't want to follow this law in lie. So ADF is defending them. They're challenging this law. We want to be able to see them prevail. We want to be able to see the First Amendment's win in Colorado and everywhere. So support alliance of Fitting freedom. Go to joinadf.com/ally. You'll have your gift double joinadf.com ally. All right, let's get to some of these voicemails. We only have two today. They're both really good ones. Let's first go to voicemail number one.
- [51:57]
B
Hi, I am currently pregnant with my second daughter and I was wondering since you have little girls what advice would you give me so that they can have this nice bond and not one where they hate each other. Also, I'm from San Diego and I was wondering if you would ever do a share the arrows event in San Diego. Thank you.
- [52:28]
A
Well, thank you so much for your question. We do have an all girl family and we love it so much. It's really fun. Now I am still in the midst of all of that, so, you know, maybe in 10 to 15 years from now I will be able to have the perspective of saying, okay, this is exactly what we did and what works. We're still figuring out what works because we all have, we have little kids, but we are also learning this kind of in a new way. Both my husband and I are because both of us are the youngest of three and he has two sisters that are six and eight years older than him. And I have brothers that are ten and a half and seven years older than me. And so neither of us were raised with close siblings. Like, I get asked a lot, oh, is it so different raising daughters since you were raised with brothers? It's not the, it's not the sisters thing. It's not the daughter's thing that is different. I honestly feel like the Lord made me to be able to be a girl mom and to navigate all of these things. I love every aspect of it and I'm looking forward to every aspect of the future with it too. But it is the close in age siblings thing that is new for both my husband and I because we didn't really have to navigate those things of the sharing and the arguing and the picking on each other because we were the only one of our gender and because we were so much younger than our siblings. And so I can't look back and really say, oh, well, when my brothers and I didn't get along, my parents made us do this or this was their tactic to making us, you know, stop arguing. And so we're really learning a lot of those things. I will tell you that that is my, and I would say my husband's too. But really one of our top things is you cannot be without consequence, unkind to your sister. You cannot. We have a zero tolerance policy for bullying, for mean words, for being rude, condescending, excluding comparison. It's just zero tolerance. Like, you're going to go to your room, you're going to get a consequence, you're going to have to stop playing, you're going to get that toy taken away and you will get a talking to if there is rudeness that comes from your mouth or comes from your actions towards your sisters. And I am telling them all of the time, who are going to be your friends forever. My sisters. Okay, well, then we're starting right now with not only being good sisters, having each other's back, loving each other, building each other up, but being good friends. And I. I really want that for them. And, you know, I love my brothers, but I always wanted a sister. I always thought it would be fun to, like, have that kind of relationship. And I love that my girls have each other. I love that they have sisters. And I really, really want them to be best friends with each other long after my husband and I are gone. And so that requires them getting along and sharing and building up each other right now. Now, I wish I could say that that is perfect and that there's never any arguments or any fighting or any tears or anything like that, but of course, that's just not the case. But I always say that raising girls is relationship management. Raising boys is mostly injury management. Things break. In both cases, it's heartbreak, mostly for girls. And you're navigating that from a very early age. But they have to use kind words to each other. They have to share with each other. They have to be kind to one another. And if they break any of those parameters, there are consequences. And, yeah, we try to just create that. Create that environment of loving to spend time with one another and that we are each other's biggest cheerleaders, not our biggest competitors. Now, when it comes to share the eras. Okay, so. And this is. I don't want it to seem like I'm picking on you, but you just asked this question. I get questions like this a lot. Will you come to Minnesota? Will you come to Portland? Will you come to dc? This is not. It's not traveling. It's just a conference that stays pretty much in one place. Now, we might go to a different city at some point, but it's not a tour. Just like almost every other conference, it stays in one place every year. Every Christian conference is like that. And we've had people from six different countries, 48 different states. We had people come all the way from Australia last year. And the good thing about Dallas is that it's so easy to get to, including from San Diego. Now, I know that there are financial considerations with flights and everything. I'm not saying that it's possible for everyone, but, you know, you can't pick the location that everyone lives in. You just have to pick the location that is easiest to get to. And at least by plane. Dallas is probably the easiest place maybe in the world to travel to. And that's why it has been convenient for a lot of people for a long time. But we could change cities one day. We'll just see about that. I don't know if it'll be Southern California. As much as I love Southern California, I don't know that Share the Arrows will do as well there as it does in the south and in Texas. All right, before we get to our second voicemail to close this out, let me just tell you about our last sponsor, Paleo Valley, y'. All. You have to try their 100 grass fed beef steaks. It's not your average beef jerky. These are not the meat sticks that you grew up with. Paleo Valley uses 100 grass fed and finished beef from small scale regenerative American farms. So you can actually feel good about what you're eating and supporting. If you are going on road trips this summer and you don't want to just fill yourself and your kids with fast food and unhealthy stuff, you need to pack your Paleo Valley snacks. They also have really great clean protein powder. I've loved all of it. It's built for real lifestyles. Whether you're a keto or paleo or carnivore, it doesn't matter. Paleo Valley works with your lifestyle. They have all different kinds of really good flavors for these beef sticks. Really good. Over 55 million of them sold. That's how popular they are. Try them out. Go to paleovalley.com you will get 15% off your first order with my code Ali paleovalley.com code Ali. All right, let's do this last voicemail.
- [58:46]
B
Hi Ali, I love your podcast. So before I got to know Christ and before I became a Christian, I had an abortion. It was a very wanted pregnancy, but this termination was for medical reasons. And since then I have profound and deep regret and I really struggle to come to terms with my decision. It's something that really eats away at me. So I was just wondering if you could talk about this on your show. If you have any experience with any other women who have gone through this or if you have any advice for women who have gone through this and are now living with the consequences of this awful decision. Thank you so much and God bless you. Bye.
- [59:29]
A
Well, thank you so much for sharing. I'm sure that wasn't easy. I'm sure it's not easy to even think about, much less talk about. We have had a guest on this show who has an incredible testimony, actually multiple guests on the show who have abortions as part of their testimony before they became a Christian. And that deep regret, that guilt, I just want you to know that that is important for you to feel. Not because I want you to just be buried with shame for the rest of your life and want to hide in the darkness, but it is an indication of the Holy Spirit in you and working in you that you understand the depth of that sin and understand what actually happened. I think so many of us, I'm not even just talking about abortion, but so many of us try to make ourselves feel better about past sins that we have committed by saying, well, it, you know, it wasn't really that bad, or it didn't really hurt anyone, or it's not that big of a deal, and that's really a lie from Satan to try to make us feel better about the wrong things we've done. When you know that you have wronged another human being, you have wronged the God who created you and that baby, I think that is where you actually have to start to have the full surrendered humility that's needed for each and every one of us to come before the God of the universe and just say, I need you to heal me. I understand that you can forgive me. And that is true in case you're struggling with that. There is nothing that God cannot forgive. And not because of you, but because of Christ. Because God sacrificed himself and shed his blood on the cross and because God is the creator and because God is perfect, his sacrifice is fully sufficient for you, for me, for every single person who has ever sinned on the planet, his blood is sufficient to cover those sins. And so you're not too far gone, you're not too far off. You haven't committed the one sin that cannot be forgiven. It was a sin. It was wrong. It is very regrettable. It's okay to feel guilt about it, but you are not beyond forgiveness. And I can't tell you how many times God has turned ashes to beauty and has redeemed these horrible situations that Satan meant for evil and used it for good. And how he does that, typically is through the power of your testimony, is by sharing what you went through, sharing the regret you feel, and then helping other women make the right decision. That doesn't have to be publicly on a podcast. It might just be in a pregnancy center. It might just be with a friend who is trying to make this decision herself. I wonder if you have volunteered at a pregnancy center if you're not yet, then I would really encourage you to do that. I think that God could accomplish a lot of healing for you as you start to use your testimony to help other women choose life. And I think that you could see that even though that was not God's will for you to make that decision and end the life of your child, even though it was a sin, and that God is a good and merciful and redemptive God, that he's actually in the business of redemption and testimony using. I think that you will see how he can use you and that this isn't something that is just going to be wasted, because in the life of the believer, nothing is wasted. All things, all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. That's Romans 8, 28. And God can use this to help save lives and to bring people to himself. So that's what I would say. First, go to the Lord, openly surrender and ask for forgiveness. If you have not already done that, ask for healing. I would say go to your local church, find a godly female mentor that you can talk to, maybe a biblical counselor, if you haven't done that already, and volunteer at your local pregnancy center. That's what I would say. And just preach the gospel to yourself every day, that his blood is totally sufficient for you and your forgiveness and your reconciliation to God. Preach that good news to yourself. And when Satan tries to accuse you, which is what he does, he's the great accuser. You remind yourself that if you are a Christian, if by grace, through faith, you have been saved, which it sounds like you are a Christian, that Jesus is your advocate. And Jesus is not denied by God when he advocates for his sheep. Jesus is standing before the throne of God saying, no, she's good. Her record is cleared. Her slate is clean. You see that I'm white as snow. I give that to her and Jesus's innocence becomes your own. And just trust in that. It's not trusting in yourself. It's trusting in Christ and his sacrifice for you that can give you the peace that passes understanding. All right, thank you so much for all of your questions. If you ever have a question, need advice, want clarity on something? I'll do my best to give it. Our call. In number is 844-755-5252. Leave us a message. Try to keep it 30 seconds or less. It'll be more, more likely to be listened to and responded to on the show. If so. All right, we'll see you guys back here on Wednesday.