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- [00:00]
A
Hey, Pro Life Jen, it's Kristen Hawkins.
- [00:02]
B
And welcome to this unique episode of.
- [00:06]
A
The Kristen Hawkins Show.
- [00:07]
B
I'm actually on Christmas vacation, but I took the day today, which is why my hair is not done, because these arguments don't deserve Kristen's hair done. But I wanted to take the day today to respond to a video that was released. Actually the day I spoke on stage for Charlie Kirk at amfest, the group Abolitionist Rising put out this edited video of a speech. Well, they didn't really cover my speech, but just a Q and A of my speech at Oklahoma Central University where several abolitionists attended. And I wanted to give you some context on that. And I also wanted to bring in a very well known pro life Christian apologist in Canada who I've had the honor of knowing since I started Students for life. I'm aging JoJo Aruba and myself. JoJo has worked with Stephanie Gray and he, he can give you a little background of himself. But I actually contacted JoJo when the video came out because I wanted him to watch, you know, the Abolitionist Rising video and from a, like a neutral third party viewpoint, assess what I said, what I could have said better. Because something that you, we have to understand as pro life activists, and I certainly have said this anytime I go out and speak on college campuses, I do not feel like I am the most eloquent pro life apologist I don't claim ever to be. The reason I, you know, campus tour videos and things like that have gone viral over the years is because I'm the one willing to accept the crazy things. I'm the one putting on the bulletproof vest. I'm the one who's willing to let people have long Instagram conversations about my weight gain and my weight loss, which is not a lot of fun. I'm just the one crazy enough willingness to, to deal with that. So I've never thought that I'm like the best Christian apologist or pro life apologist. So I wanted JoJo to come on and kind of go through with us. Like, Kristen, you could have said this better or this scripture was being twisted and didn't sound quite right. Because I want this to be for you. The reason I'm doing this podcast is not because my PR person said that's the best thing. Obvious. You know, a lot of times in prison when people who are like on the fringe attack, the best thing is to ignore them because they obviously want your spotlight, they want your, your, you know, credentials. Right. For example, Abolitionist Rising did a video in November and it was like, my face on it. And it's like all this stuff, and I watched part of it and it was really about my friend Marjorie at SBA List, but they tagged me in it because I have a much larger social media following than Marjorie. They put my face in it because my face is more recognizable than Marjorie, who leads, you know, the largest, most well funded political pro life group in the country, SBA Pro Life America, and who I greatly respect. So anyway, I'm not doing this for them. As I said, I'm not doing my hair for them. I'm doing this really for our pro life student leaders. Because as you all know and as you all go to state capitals this year, we've got 47 state lobby days coming up. Like this month, you may run into some of these folks and they will film you without your permission, which is what they did here at Oklahoma Christian University. There was a sign, no filming allowed. They were actually talked to before the event because, you know, they kind of all sat together in the back row. It was kind of clear they were abolitionists. They weren't students. They were talked to before the event. The student at the beginning of the event, and I'm going to have our producer play a couple of clips here in a second. The student at the beginning of the event who introduced me once again reaffirmed the university rules of no recording. I at one point actually say, hey, they're filming. Please stop filming. You don't have right to film. They obviously filmed. They put it out. But you, as a Students for Life leader, need to know what you're dealing with and how to have conversations. And sometimes when you can have a calm, reasonable conversation. Not in this. I don't think, like, a public speech is ever a really great way to have, like a really in depth conversation about pro life strategy. I don't think it's really the place to have it. That usually happens like after hours at the hotel lobby. There's multiple text messages going, going back and forth between the person. When I've had disagreements with my friends in the pro life movement, whether it's Abby or even Marjorie, these are long conversations. They're not public conversations because they're amongst friends. And. And it's like, what were you thinking here? What was your reasoning? There's a level of respect. That's not what this is. This is not a conversation amongst friends. Who this is. This, you know, obviously is a setup and this is intact and trying to make points for social media, but I do want you to hear their arguments. I want you to see some of my initial gut reactions and responses to the arguments. And then I want you to hear from JoJo, who can give you more of a biblical, as a pastor, a biblical perspective on some of the scriptural references, which I do not claim to be an expert on in any, in any regard, sadly, because I think this will be helpful for you when you're having conversations maybe with your club members who've seen an Abolitionist Rising or some other video. I know Ali Best. Ducky had one of these abolitionists on not too long ago and starts to think, oh, maybe this is right. When you want to have that sit down conversation with your friend, you're going to hear the same arguments over and over again. Because there's really, it's kind of like when we argue with pro abortion people and there's really only a handful of arguments and that's the same that these pro prosecution folks are using. And so I think it will be helpful for you and instructive for you. I will warn you about three times I think I started yelling in the Q and A. I actually watched the entire Q and A this morning, my day off. My husband was not too happy. He kept thinking I was talking because he was watching my video, listening to me play my video. He kept getting confused in the living room. I was like, no, I'm just watching myself, which something I don't ever do, which is why I was confusing him. But I actually watched it this morning and I was like, you know what, Maybe I was too mean. Maybe I was too crazy. I actually watched it fully going in with, maybe I need to start this podcast off with apology. But I will, I will tell you, I'm trying not to quote like Michael Scott or anything like this, but like, I regret nothing of what I said. Like, it was, I was actually a couple times I was like, oh, when I prayed to the Holy Spirit, he came through that night. Because there was a couple of things, I'm like, wow, that wasn't even in my notes. I am extremely passionate about what we're doing. And like I said three times I raised my voice and I did it for an emotional appeal because I think the thing you have to understand where I'm coming from, where a lot of pro lifers are coming from, like the Texas alliance for Life, who the Abolitionist Rising just announced they're protesting their fundraising gala in a couple weeks in Texas. You have to understand is everybody in the pro life movement is sacrificing for this cause and has sacrificed a great deal, especially the longer You've been in the movement, the more you've sacrificed, you've sacrificed better pay. You've sacrificed, you know, years with your family time away, the death threats, all the things, right, all the things that come along with putting yourself out there publicly and serving this movement, trying to advance this movement. It's extremely personal when someone then shows up at like an event, like at Turning Point USA's event foundation to Abolish Abortion, which are like besties with abolitionist rising. They change stuff was going around and passing out this literature. We should be able to end abortion, but pro life leaders are blocking it, like attacking the pro life movement. And you know, it gets extremely personal because you're like, what are you talking about? You're spending all this time, all this money, all this effort, this time away from your family, which is like the most precious thing you have on this earth to be told and to be lied about. And so, and I think that when I said it in my speech at Oklahoma, at Oklahoma Central, I'll say a couple of times, you'll hear me say in the Q and A, I think what happens is when we get into a strategy disagreement, a lot of times people begin to view the babies as a abstraction. And I think we need to start thinking about that. Like this isn't just like some. It's not an argument about tax policy or even foreign policy, which foreign policy is important because it does affect people's lives. But it's not like this academic argument at the end of the day when we're talking about killing pro life bills or stopping bills that have a serious chance of passing. Like we know we have the votes, we have the tallies and we've proven it, right? We are talking about allowing more children to die. And that's extremely offensive, that is to me and JoJo as a pastor might have nicer words to say, but that to me is worse than being pro abortion. Because to say that you're against abortion, you know that every act, intentional act of abortion, which intentionally kills an innocent human being made in the image of God, ruthlessly, painfully kills them. And you agree with me that that's the case. But then you condemn pro life bills and you work to kill bills that have a legitimate chance of passing. They aren't just like for show votes, right? They have a legitimate chance of passing. That is way worse in my view than some pro choice college student, you know, feminist blue haired girl on college campus who comes up to me shouting at me that abortion is a woman's right to choose.
- [09:57]
C
Why?
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B
Because for her, she doesn't, she doesn't get it. It's assuming the best in humanity. My assumption is she doesn't know what abortion is or she doesn't want to know. She's never really studied it. Right. Because studying abortion, thinking about means she has to change her viewpoint, has to change her maybe her behaviors and her relationships. She's keeping herself purposely very ignorant from what's actually happening. And that's wrong. That's a sin, absolutely. And should be called out. But when she advocates her abortion or she put, you know, pushes, you know, to submit on the polling, the voting machine and she votes for Kamala Harris or she votes for whoever what pro abortion politicians running in our district, she's not doing it like, ha, I'm killing more babies. She's doing it because she thinks, oh, pro women's liberation and pro removing, you know, meaningless tissue from women's bodies that's going to harm her for the rest of her life. She's wrong 100%. But she's not doing with the intention and knowing it's killing babies. I, I just think that, I don't know. I, I don't got the time for that. I don't got time for that and I can't. It's almost, almost impossible for me to, to intellectually understand how you can say abortion is the, is this ultimate human rights injustice, but then actively work and lobby against. And this is why I'm saying this to you all for lobby days coming up, there will be abolitionists who will like in Oklahoma, South Carolina, who actively oppose us when we're trying to pass a life of conception act to end all abortions and imprison those who commit them abortionists. And it's. Yeah. So.
- [11:45]
A
Without further ado, I'm going to introduce Jojo.
- [11:48]
B
Jojo, welcome to the Kristin Hawkins Show.
- [11:51]
D
So glad to be here in my honor, Kristen.
- [11:54]
B
Well, this is gonna be a long show. I should just warn everybody because we're gonna go through a lot of footage. But do you want to introduce yourself and tell everybody how amazing you are?
- [12:02]
D
Well, I started doing pro life work when I was 13, so that was many, many decades ago. I'm actually a Christian apologist now, which, as you know, doesn't mean we say sorry very a lot because we're Canadian. We, we want to be able to give good reasons for the hope that we have. As 1st Peter 3:15 says, I'm actually not a pastor. I'm a youth pastor. But as someone who is an apologist full time, I speak at Churches everywhere. My dad's actually the Baptist pastor, the Southern Baptist pastor. We are part of the Southern Baptist Church here in Calgary in Canada. And we see actually the results of one, abolitionist ideology is the only method used to stop abortion. Because in Canada, we've had no legal protection for any preborn children for 38 years. Now this, starting this month, this is the 30th anniversary of this year because the pro life leaders here decided for an all or nothing strategy. And so we've got nothing. And I, when I watched this video that we looked at, I've been, I'm familiar with some of the abolitionists and I've spent time reading a little bit about what they've said before. We have to realize there's a couple of things, especially for your Christian students out there who are listening to them, there's a deep theological misinterpretation of how they apply Old Testament law to the current secular state that we as Christians live in. So that's number one, and we're going to go through that today. But, but secondly, and I think this is important when we have these kinds of debates, I truly appreciate the passion the abolitionists have. I love that. I wish we had more people like that. But as one of my mentors said, we need pro lifers. We meet pro lifers who have plenty of passion but no wisdom. We also meet a lot of pro lifers with a lot of wisdom but no passion. And we need both if we want to stop the killing of preborn children. And right now, especially some of the comments from the videos that produced by abolitionists and the material that you just cited, they're actually slandering pro lifers. And the scripture says do not slander. It's quite clear. And what I mean by slander is they're saying things that are completely untrue. And we'll talk more about that in our video here. But when you start saying things that are already things you refuted or you already made a case for at the beginning of your speech, for example, and then they kept saying, no, Kristen doesn't say this. It's like, it's hard to think, do you actually listen to yourself? Because no one should take you seriously if you're lying about other Christians. And I think that's why we need to have this video produced. It's not because we want to attack them. It's not because we don't believe abolitionists are good people. Of course, they're good godly people trying to do their best. But the strategy they're using right now to distract and fight other anti abortionists is actually lethal. And the testimony that we have here in Canada of people who, when they follow that same model is that we have no protections and that's killing children here. We can't let that happen in the.
- [14:58]
B
U.S. yeah, that's exactly right. When I was at Amfest, there was already conversations about the 2020 Republican platform, which I don't know if you know, Jojo got, was severely weakened in 2024 because of Donald Trump. And it was a huge victory. We got the 14th amendment in the platform, which took a whole year of my life. And we kept some pro life in it.
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A
Right.
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B
It wasn't a full on victory, but it was better than it was going to be. Trust me, I saw what it was going to be. And so there's already conversations about it. And one of the things that Jojo, you and I talked about with the Canadian pro life movement history, you did your master's thesis right on this, is that in Canada, the abolitionists were kind of the Catholics. They weren't the Calvinist Baptists, they were the Catholics in the late 80s. And was it 1988?
- [15:44]
D
1988, yeah. And it was the evangelicals, Protestants like me, who actually were the ones saying, hey, we have to have something. We have to put a person in the criminal code. Well, the, the pro, certain pro life leaders. One, the, the main pro life political organization said, no, it's all or nothing. We're not going to have gestational legislation where we older babies at the expense of younger babies. And so now we have no protections for any babies. And it was that Puritan mindset that said the only morally acceptable way to have abortion law is to protect all babies that resulted in this. So that's the same argument abolitionists are making. That's both theologically problematic. That's not what scripture says. But it's also practically impossible when we're talking about a Democratic state because again, watching the abolitionist Kristen just blew my mind because they're assuming we can create laws. Pro lifers are not the ones responsible for making laws. It's the majority of voters who make the law. And it's our job to convince those majority of voters to think our way. So that's part of what we need to be able to do to change hearts and minds. But to insist that we can follow Levitical law, the passage that they keep citing to Deuteronomy and Leviticus applies to a Jewish theocratic state where the people, the judges who are making we'll look at the verses later. The judges making the law already believe in God and follow God's laws. So there's no need to compel them. The mandate is there. The moral mandate hasn't changed that we should never tolerate child killing. But how we apply that as we live in different kinds of societies with different kinds of laws, and we'll talk about that later. Changes not because the law has. The moral law has changed, but because the cultural law has. And the fact that the abolitionists keep making this argument as if we still are responsible for making laws in North America is ridiculous. It's not us killing babies, it's the society killing babies. We're trying to save babies from being killed.
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B
We're trying to triage it.
- [17:47]
A
Yeah.
- [17:48]
B
I mean, the point I was making just to viewers who haven't studied Canadian pro life history is essentially in 88, there was a plan to pass a late term law that would prevent ban abortions later in pregnancy. There was rumor that the Supreme Court in Canada kind of like signed off on it. Wasn't going to overturn. Wasn't great, but it was a start and it was going to put it. You know, speaking of the law, being a teacher, that would be a very big teaching moment to say not all abortions are good. And what had happened was a moral argument was made of we as a pro life movement can't get behind this because if we, if we tolerate this, it means we're saying that the lives of these other babies that aren't gonna be protected are less than these other children, which is not the case at all. So what happened was the pro life movement splintered. The. The bill did not pass because there was pressure put on the conservatives in the legislature and the parliam. Tell me if I'm wrong. I don't be lecturing you, JoJo, and Canadian history. I'm just trying to summarize what happened.
- [18:56]
D
It's actually worse than that because what had happened was the 88 bill. And I, again, I did my thesis on this. I actually talked to this one of the chief of staffs and one of the members of parliament who helped draft the law.
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B
Okay.
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D
And he said they actually vetted the law through one, at least one, maybe two of the Supreme Court justices of Canada who promised they would not strike it down. Because. Because that's another thing with abolitionist bills. Sure. You can get a bill passed 1, 1 year, what, follow the election cycle. It will be struck down the following election cycle if you haven't changed the culture. Right. So you've made a you paric victory. It doesn't work unless you change the culture as well. And so then this, what happened was the cabinet, the conservatives, so in the Canadian legislature, the cabinet is part of the legislature, so it's part of the House of Representatives here called the House of Commons. They were for vote for the bill and it barely passed the Parliament. But the Senate also has to approve it. And unlike the US Senate, our Senate is even non elected. So they actually should have no political power. And because of the lobbying of the pro boards and the pro life organization that was leading the fight, they convinced one senator, there were two senators I think who were pro life but voted against it. So it was defeated by the unelected body by one vote. And the prime minister at the time said we're never bringing any abortion bill back to Canada ever again. And subsequent prime ministers have followed up and the lesson they learned from that debacle was we're not going to bring up the abortion debate ever again. In fact, in one of the last elections, federal elections here in Canada, all but one leader of a political party said in order for you to qualify as a Prime minister, to run for office as prime minister, you must be radically pro abortion. Obviously they didn't use the word pro abortion abortion, but they said you have to be pro choice. No one in the media questioned that. And, and what's happened in Canada since is the debate is no longer about abortion, Kristen. The debate is whether we're allowed to have a debate. So the pro life group that was pushing for this, that said we are pushing against this law, they're still out there, they're still saying they did the right thing. And look, they're my friends, I worked with them. I'm not trying to bash them. They're great, wonderful, mostly Catholic people and I love the fact that I could serve alongside with them. But even members of their own group, the head of their, the former head of their youth wing and one of the key leaders of their provincial organization, all Catholics, said we messed up, we should have not done that. And I just got a text from one of them this morning asking I'm going to meet, meeting with him later next week. He said the mistake we made was we tried to translate a moral law of God which is that all human life is valuable and insist that we put that as a practical political strategy. Well, that's not how it works. The moral law never changes, but the law of strategy, how we implement that moral law will change as we go from society to society and we can see that in the lives of Esther and Daniel and Nehemiah and the apostle Paul, they all lived under different governments and so they're all going to try and attempt different things. Even the US Proclamation that that freed the slaves. Right. When Abraham Lincoln made that statement and that was cited by the Proclamation or the 14th amendment, emancipation proclamation that Lincoln gave did not stop slavery in at least four border states.
- [22:35]
B
That's right.
- [22:35]
D
And so the abolitionist moral standard would be all slavery should be, should end, which is our standard too. But then there's their legal strategy would be let's oppose the Emancipation Proclamation because it's not perfect. Well, Lincoln passed that as a step towards a total ban. And there's nothing unbiblical or immoral about that. Why? Because we can see that as well in the Old Testament too. When Daniel, Nehemiah or Esther appealed to their rulers to save the lives of say the Jews in Esther, the book of Esther. This is lies we're talking about. So just like abortion, she did not appeal to Jewish law. Mordecai wrote the law that actually said, yeah, no, that we can't change the meta Persian law, but we can add to it and make sure the Jews have a right to self defense. That was the best they can do in the culture they lived in. And nowhere in scripture is that a corrected in any kind of way. So the passage they're reading in Leviticus to justify their moral position that the only God endorsed position is to ban all abortions and that's the only bill we can ever vote for is not biblical.
- [23:46]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [23:47]
A
No, I mean the point I was.
- [23:48]
B
Making is like there's already concerns about keeping the pro life plank that we have now, which is not as good as used to be in the 2020 platform. And what we've started to see with abolitionists, like they did this in Oklahoma, they actually changed the pro prosecutionists changed the Oklahoma GOP's platform. And so right now it's like a lot of people don't know what's in there that the Oklahoma Republicans are calling for, you know, equal punishment, maybe capital punishment. Because if you're going to go by Leviticus, you're talking about capital punishment by stoning. By stoning, by the way. So most people have no idea it's even in there. I was actually, when I was in Oklahoma, I was meeting with someone running for a state senate and she was like, I went home to feed my dog. I came back and like this was in the platform. No one even knows it's in the platform. And so the concern and the reason I wanted you to bring up that history is because. And I'm going to ask our producer to play a clip from Charlie Kirk. He actually won our, we gave him our Defender of Life award last year at National Pro Life Summit. So I want to play just a few minutes of Charlie's kind of. He gave a short talk to all the students there. It was kind of like his advice. And one of the things that Charlie and I had to wrestle with during the 2024 election was but some of the pro choice sounding things Donald Trump was saying. And how are we going to work with him? And how are we going to encourage the president and not discourage him and to make him feel like we're against him and that we're attacking him and now the pro life movement's his enemy. Because we've seen a lot of really great things happen just in the past one year, less than one year of President Trump's presidency. It hasn't done everything I wanted, of course, but way better than I even thought we were going to get with the temporary one year defunding of Planned Parenthood in the BBB for 80%. Like, I didn't even know we would be able to get that right. But we had to do that while, while working with the president. And one of the things that I have become increasingly concerned about with some of this rhetoric is, you know, statements of like, well, I don't care about politics. I'm just doing what God wants to do. And it, well, everything is political and it does go back to politics. And politics is one of the ways we engage in the pro life movement. And so your words, your are going to have consequences. And one of those consequences I'm getting very concerned about is like, right now, like, Donald Trump doesn't know who her prosecutionists are. Most people don't know. Like, I have these conversations, people are like, who are you talking about? Who would come and protest you? Who's against the board? Like, it's like this brand new information. But the challenge is, is we've got to get, make sure that this doesn't pervade the gop, because what we will see is what happened to the Canadian Conservative Party of a washing of hands of the pro life movement, of, you know what? You are crazy. You've got, you've got this. You are so off base culturally, you are toxic. And we're staying away from this issue. We already have that problem at the state legislative level because of some of the lack of leadership of President Trump. And we now, we have a lot of state representatives who aren't acting as courageous as they should. They're kind of taking their lead from President Trump. That's why we've been fighting so hard to, like, hold them accountable, pass as strong as long as we can. Because I want them to know who the pro life movement is and that we will make them feel pain now and if they ever try to run for future office in Washington, D.C. and that we have, we have actual political power that we can bring to bear to educate their constituents and to really make them feel the one thing they don't want to feel, which is pain. But I think, I think it's, that's the danger of, like, not addressing this or like, letting this get. Get pervasive. And even Abby Johnson myself, who we disagree on this issue, she's now for prosecution for women, for anyone involved. And she and I publicly have talked about from our students and how do you. Our Students for Life leaders. And we had a whole disagreement in public because we wanted students to see how you can disagree and still be friends and not assume the worst.
- [27:49]
A
But one of the things I disagree.
- [27:52]
B
With Abby on is this view of, well, I'm just going to do what I know God wants us to do, and I'm going to put myself above politics. And I don't think we have that luxury because whether or not we want to be in politics, politics is happening, elections are happening, laws are being made. And so just to stay out of it and be like, well, I'm above it, and I'm just going to say what I think, you know, God would want me to say, or what I think biblically is correct and be damned. The consequences of that, I don't think that. I don't think that's what we're called to do either. So can we play the Charlie clip, Charlie Kirk clip? Just because I feel it's important, because Charlie and I focused on this so much. And then I saw these abolitionists at Turning Point. I was talking to Erica about, I was like, she was like, this is terrible. And I'm like, it's. This is against the very wisdom that Charlie shared with the pro life movement less than a year ago.
- [28:43]
E
When you have state rep. Races, governor's races, presidential races, congressional races, the untapped political potential of the pro life movement is unbelievable. I have to try to convince pro life leaders at times to stay involved in politics. And I can understand why you don't. I totally get it. Because you think it's demoralizing. Because they are not as pro life as we are. But let me tell you, we have to be incrementalists when it comes to politics sometimes. This is a fight that's going to take five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. And that's this social movement that is built here in this room. You're up for that fight. That's why you are the pro life generation. And you're not going to win every referendum, you're not going to win every single ballot measure, you're not going to win every single contest when it comes to local politicians. But if you stay involved and you take over your state parties, if you stay involved and hold your leaders accountable, you can then all of a sudden see so much of this legislative progress come to fruition. And that is the final and third point I want to make here. I understand that some people in the Republican Party want to say that abortion should no longer be mentioned anymore in the party platform and it should no longer be mentioned. This is why you have to stay involved in politics. I am here to tell you right now that not only do we want it to be mentioned, but if we don't fight for life, then what good is politics? If we are not going to fight for the union? Boring. Then what good is corporate tax cuts? However, I need you guys in the room to back me up when I say that, because some of these leaders say, where are the pro life, where are the pro life warriors? We need more of you as the infantry in the political fight. And I know that you might be jaded and I know that you might say, well, I'm pure. That. Look, first of all, we're all sinners that fall short of the glory of God. You're not purer than that.
- [30:29]
F
Okay?
- [30:30]
E
But the actual activism that you think for the, for those that do sidewalk ministries, God bless you. Those of you that do pregnancy resource centers, God bless you, are the backbone of the pro life movement. I'm asking you just to dedicate a little bit, not a majority, a little bit of energy, more than you have before in the political arena. I'm a political animal, right? That's what I do. I focus on, I emphasize it. But I could tell you right now, if you guys show up and you reinforce the arguments we're making, you hold these elected leaders accountable. If we combine our forces to say, no, we're not going to fund Planned Parenthood anymore, we're going to encourage President Trump for being the most pro life president in American history, that we could start to See that multi generational progress. And that's what excites me the most about what I see in this room. What I see in the pro life movement is that we are starting to see these gains and these wins and these victories.
- [31:18]
B
I think that's so poignant because what most people don't know is Charlie was in the room on a lot of conversations with the President and his team during the platform fight, during.
- [31:33]
A
I got a call, and I can't tell you.
- [31:35]
B
Who I got the call from, but I got a call in May. They're taking defunding Planned Parenthood out of the bbb.
- [31:42]
A
And I'm not going to tell you.
- [31:43]
B
Who they is and you can guess who it was, but that person got a call, very angry call from a certain shaped room demanding defunding to get taken out. Charlie was the first person I called and he was the one who I believe made the convincing winning argument. And so the words you're hearing Charlie speak are profound. And there's a lot more meaning behind the words he's saying of encouraging President Trump being incrementalist, because that was one of the things we struggled with as keeping pro lifers together during the election fight, when President Trump was saying some things that we didn't agree with at all. I think. And Charlie, more than anybody else in our entire pro life movement, knew the arguments that are happening behind closed doors about kicking pro lifers out of the conservative coalition. And those arguments, even we are in a more dangerous position now, Jojo, than we are when Charlie was alive. Because one of the things that, and I've said this a couple speeches, but I haven't said it, you know, publicly for the whole world to hear. But Charlie was our person on the inside in the pro life movement. He was our inside person for a lot of different issues. We've lost our inside person. And we are in an even more dangerous position as a pro life movement than we are before his, his murder.
- [33:04]
D
If I could just add something to the question, because I think you're, you're absolutely right when it comes to how we handle this. What you've articulated as someone who's definitely within the political world is you understand how our political system works. And again, I want to emphasize this again, we are not the ones writing or passing the laws. The legislators are. And our job is to convince their voters to think our way. So this is not the same kind of mandate that we would have if we lived in a Jewish theocratic state. And that's the problem that we're Dealing with abolitionists, Kristen, is they view the world from a perspective, often in safe red states, that they want to impose this. They think we have a duty, this is our right to do this. Yeah, we have a duty to fight for this. But within the system that we're living in. Right. When Jesus family was told to leave Bethlehem because Herod was going to kill all the babies in that town. Right. They had a job to do. They could have advocated that. Their mandate to protect born children, to protect innocent lives, still the same. But they didn't cite Jewish law to push back against Herod. They had a job to do. Right. And so we see that kind of pattern throughout. And it seems to me I don't like calling them prosecutionalists, I think is what you call them because we all agree people who perform killing children should be prosecuted eventually.
- [34:34]
B
How's that?
- [34:35]
D
Yeah, but that, but that's a difference. Okay. The Emancipation Proclamation did not articulate how we punish slave owners. Many of them murdered their slaves. And so. Because Abraham Lincoln wasn't, wasn't thinking about that during the Civil War.
- [34:51]
F
But.
- [34:52]
D
And so the debate about whether or not we should prosecute women is not the time now because we're still in the middle of the war. But why are we, why are we wasting time having this conversation when ultimately what we need to do is humanize the child, help people realize they're killing the child we taught you talked about in this video. We'll get into it. I'm sorry, just one last point. The law is a tutor. Absolutely. That was probably taken out of context because I was talking about how Jewish law is a tutor to Christ, but it's still a tutor. Right. But if your audience is at a point where they're killing children and celebrating killing children, then you have to teach them at the level that they're at, saying that we're going to prosecute you like you killed a born child. The mental comprehension of our culture is not even there yet. So you have to be able to tutor in the way that the culture can learn most. So in Canada, we won't have any kind of abolitionist law. Now, I'd love to have that. I'm not opposed to that. That's the whole point. The point is we're not ready for the law to tutor us there yet. What the 1988 bill would have done, and this is why the pro aborts were so against it, is it would have put abortion back in the criminal code. And that means the pro aborts would have been doing everything they can to remove it while the pro lifers are doing everything they can to expand that protection. And the abortion debate would still be happening in Canada today. Instead we have pro lifers being persecuted for simply wanting to talk about abortion. And in the B.C. legislature, one of our provinces, the elected government actually said pro lifers are not welcome to talk to their own elected officials. They actually passed a motion to say that that's what's going to happen if we follow abolitionist strategy. If you pass a bill in Oklahoma that says abolition, what you're doing is you're condemning babies in Oregon and California and New York because those state legislatures are going to say we don't want to be like oklahom, let's make the pro abortion laws even more powerful. And if God forbid, that law went all the way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court struck down that law, you've now set legal precedent that the pro life movement has to deal with for the next five centuries, five decades maybe. And that's the problem. These groups are not thinking politically, they're thinking morally and religiously and applying the lesson from the moron religious and saying we now have to turn that into a legislative measure without actually thinking practically. And that's not endorsed by God.
- [37:29]
B
Amen. There's not, there's not an expectation that there's a good faith debate happening here. And you can see that just in the way they respond. And I think that's, that's what's really, we need to really make that point. As a Christian woman, they even some of the stuff that they've said, like they would repeat my full name in the video, like Kristen Hawkins hates the word of God. That's one, it's a lie. Two, it's very hurtful. But it's also something three, that actually leads to a lot more of extremism because as you'll see in one of the videos, this woman who started yelling at me within like 90 minutes, that's how you get to someone who justifies violence when you start saying stuff like that. So I think we should go through some of those lies flat out. Why don't we play the, the first two clips there's at 30 seconds and then there's one at 1 1:03 both times me telling them not to film because I actually think that's like number one, like this whole thing was illegally filmed. Like I just start that with that talking about sin.
- [38:38]
A
Also, filming or audio recording of any.
- [38:40]
B
Kind is not permitted during this event unless you were issued immediately pass out the door Students for Life of America retained all rights to any content created this evening.
- [38:49]
C
If you have found a recording without.
- [38:51]
A
Authorization, you'll be asked to delete the footage and leave the event. We appreciate your cooperation and understand who abolitionists need to stop filming, by the way, because there's somebody in the back of the room filming, and I don't give you permission to film.
- [39:04]
B
All right, Jojo. I've already established there was sin because they were told not to film. There was a sign not to film. They were asked at the film before beginning. The student leader who introduced me said, not to film. I said, not to film. And there was filming.
- [39:20]
D
Yeah. No, it definitely is disrespectful. And I think if they're. They're wanting to produce an honest conversation later on in the video with. With Russell, he actually says, we want to. We're not mean. We don't have the conversation. But that's a very hard thing to say when you're already violating the first rule that is in the video, which is please don't film. So you're not showing respect that way. And if he was simply wanting to have a respectful dialogue, he needs to show respect first. You say right off the bat during Q and A that you do support sometime in the future that anyone who performs abortion should be prosecuted. And by the way, you never disagreed with the idea that doctors and abortion providers should be prosecuted. Everyone in the pro life movement agrees with that. And I want to play this clip here because I think it's important to establish this was already part not only of the conversation, but of the abolitionist video. So it's one of the first things in the abolitionist video, in fact, where you say this publicly, you don't put any caveats. It's something that's actually there on public record. Recently, in a video called Abolitionists Attack, you said that you would be four.
- [40:36]
F
Sorry.
- [40:37]
A
Oh, I'm just counting you one.
- [40:38]
D
Okay. I'm the first one. You would be for prosecuting the mother.
- [40:43]
F
Who murders her own child at some.
- [40:45]
D
Point in the future, correct?
- [40:47]
A
Yep.
- [40:47]
D
Now, again, the reason why I wanted to play that, Kristen, is because it's on the record. But multiple times in Russell's video, he says that you don't say that or you don't believe that or you don't believe prosecution should happen. So that's. That's outright being deceitful or disingenuous at the best. And again, if you want to have respectful dialogue, you need to be honest about the position the other side is giving. I'm Always trying to be honest, even with abolitionists, because we want to be able to understand their passion is great. We want them to be guided biblically. As a Christian apologist, I want them to defend scripture. But when you misapply scripture or when you use it to twist it to allow for unwise strategy that will actually lead to more babies being killed, we have to speak out of that and we have to point out right away right at the beginning here, there's already misleading statements in this video and they need to apologize to you for what they said. I believe you said that it would be once the law has changed and.
- [41:46]
F
The culture has changed so that women understood that it's murder.
- [41:51]
D
So what do you do with the fact that the law currently states through.
- [41:54]
F
The 14th Amendment that all state governments are required to abolish abortion through.
- [42:02]
D
Because of the equal protection of the.
- [42:04]
F
Laws, everyone has the right to life.
- [42:06]
D
Liberty in the pursuit of.
- [42:07]
A
Yeah, the 14th amendment doesn't say you imprison everyone.
- [42:09]
B
It says everyone has.
- [42:10]
A
Well, I mean one legal scholars would disagree with both of us about the 14th amendment because we would say that the 14th amendment applies to the preborn child in the womb because those who wrote the 14th Amendment, the drafters and the ratifiers in the state legislatures were not excluding the unborn, the preborn from the 14th Amendment. They view the preborn as persons to be protected. So do you the 14th amendment does not equally protect the preborn? Absolutely. Abortion should be abolished and they should be protected. The 14th Amendment does not say this is the criminal punishment for seeking an abortion.
- [42:46]
D
Well, Kristina, I mean, I'd love to give you more of a chance to respond to this, but you know, when he's Speaking about the 14th Amendment and equality rights in the United States, of course we agree that pre born children should be included in that. The problem is not pro lifers agreeing. It's the problem is the courts don't agree with us. Elected officials, the political parties, the majority of voters don't agree with us. So the question is not the moral law. We are in the same agreement. The question is how do we implement that moral law when we don't have a Jewish theocratic state that we're living in and what you're doing as part of the pro life community. I'm just so amazed by that. I'm not just saying that we need that here in Canada. And it's actually incrementalists in my case, the people who left, the abolitionist groups here who are making the most change because they recognize the moral law never Changes. But how we advocate for it in a culture that kills babies has to be different depending on the culture. We have to speak to where the culture's at. And the fact that this young man is saying, if you don't agree with our political strategy, therefore you don't agree with the moral law, shows the moral confusion their biblical interpretation actually has. The Lord said to Moses, give the people of Israel these instructions which apply both to native Israelites and to the foreigners living in Israel. So let me just pause there. This law that he's about to give, who does that apply to? This is what I do in Bible study with my youth group, right? Because we read the context and this guy is not citing the context. The law applies to the native Israelites and the foreigners living in Israel, which is a theocratic Jewish state. And not only that, it says here to the instructors. So the people who are supposed to create the law are the people who are instruction or instructing in that theocratic state. Then it says if any of them offer their child, children as a sacrifice to Moloch, they must be put to death. The people of the community must stone them to death. So the sanction or the result of this law, if you sacrifice, and by the way, this is sacrificing your children to the God of Molech. Now, it's possible it's the same demon that people have sacrificed their children to through abortion. We don't know. But I would imagine most women who have abortions in North America today don't know anything about Molec. So again, that's a different context. Over here, I'll read verse three and then I'll let you continue. I myself would turn against them and cut them off from the community because they have defied my sanctuary and brought shame on my holy name by offering their children to Molech. So again, very clear, the principle is sound. Don't kill your babies, don't sacrifice them. But there are, as we've mentioned by this young man here, there's a threefold part of the law. There's the moral law, there's the civic law, and there's also the ceremonial law. There's the part that exists only in Jewish state. Well, if we're going to follow this and say this is how we need to deal with abortion today, we should see abolitionist bills having women stoned to death if they have abortions. Again, if you're following the letter of this law, that was for Jewish people in a theocratic state. That's what you should be pushing for.
- [46:12]
B
What I'm hearing you say is what I should have done is I should have said, I should have whipped it out and said so are you saying that women should be stoned today? When he brings up that's what Christian should have said. Okay, yeah. No, because it is true. Is abortion sacrifice to the demon of Moloch? I don't know. I, I, I, I do think it, it's, it is going to be different. I mean, these are people who are taking born children who, you know, had experiences and they're gonna say I'm arguing like a leftist right, but that, you know, Hunt then slitting their throats or whatever they were doing in this horrific thing. I think most people would say there's probably a difference between a mom who thinks that the baby is a clump of cells or has no feelings, is not actually a baby, and is paying someone in a sterile abortion facility what they think is sterile, which is not. But yeah, you're absolutely right. If we're going to go by the threefold division of law and say this is never changing moral law, then we are arguing for stoning. And I think that's, that's, and it is interesting because you'll see later on I actually asked one of the women, the shouty lady who, the abolitionist who was sitting with the abolition, but they edited out of their video, the shouty girl, if there should be capital punishment, if she believed in capital. And she actually said yes.
- [47:37]
A
And I think that that's a, that's.
- [47:39]
B
An important point that you need to understand that this is where this is, this is where this is going. So do you want to keep playing it or verse 4 and 5?
- [47:51]
D
I think there's something more that we can say there.
- [47:52]
B
All right, so in four it says, and if the people of the land do at all hide their eyes from that man when he gives one of his children to Moloch and do not put him to death, then I will set my face against that man, against his family, and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in playing the harlot, harlot after Moloch.
- [48:14]
D
And this is, these are the proof texts that abolitionists use to justify saying we can never vote for incremental bills because then we're ignoring the sacrifices, we're ignoring the deaths, and it's on us for ignoring them. But again, it's very clear the moral principle is we cannot ignore the deaths. They're translating that moral principle to a political principle to say, well, we therefore can't pass incremental legislation. See, that's a leap of logic. That's not in that passage. There's nowhere in the Bible where it says if you try to save some babies or some people because you're trying to save all people, that that's immoral. Right. Let's take another moral example. Or command. God directly said to Joshua, go conquer the promised land. Joshua started with the southern part of the promised land because they're the kingdoms who attacked them first and then went to the northern parts. Now, did Joshua disobey God? There's nowhere in Scripture that says Joshua disobeyed God because he was fighting some in order to get all. And that's what incremental legislation is. The translation that they have of this passage does not compute when you actually put it into a political strategy. The theology is still the same. We agree. Ignoring the deaths of unborn children. The church will actually have to pay for that. It's heartbreaking for me to think of all the Christians who do nothing to stop the killing of children. And I've been doing this for over 40 years now. So I'm not at all in disagreement with the passion these abolitionists have. And I just wish they'd understand that. We love the fact that you're passionate. Right. We want you to be involved. But if you're going to use scripture, don't twist scripture to say something it does not. And that's what they did here. That's why it makes me so upset as a Christian apologist that they're using this passage to justify their perspective. They also use a passage in Isaiah. Well, Isaiah is also saying the same thing. He's again talking to Jews and he's saying, you Jews did not follow the Jewish law that God gave you. Therefore he's going to punish you by putting you under the the control of the kingdoms around you. Okay, so again, there's a specific law for a specific time for a specific group. The principles are the same, but the ways those principles need to be advocated for, changed do not have to be the same. There's nothing in this passage that says it ought to be. I think if you could show this verse as one. I don't. It's from First Peter 2, verse one. And this is a nice summary of what I'm going to be talking about here. It says believers should get rid of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander. I'm a journalist by trade, and slander is something we were always taught against as a journalist because we have to be careful if we are writing a story and we say something false, we could get sued. And when you say something like, pro lifers don't want to ever make abortion criminal, right after you just said, yes, I do, that's called slander, and that's not Christian. And in fact, the Bible says, Russ, you have to put that aside and you have to stop talking that way. If you want to have a debate about strategy, absolutely, let's do that. But for you to say slanderous things about Kristen and what she said and what she believes, what pro lifers believe, that's not only wrong, it's unbiblical. That's immoral. That's against the will of God. And I think that has to be put out even on, you know, on 16 in one of the clips there. We'll take a look. The question actually goes to, should women be allowed to murder their children with immunity? That was one of the statements, and then the one particularly that Kristen Hawkins hates the law of God. I think we should watch that, because.
- [52:20]
B
I think one that I saw that I was like, I can't continue watching my entire Christmas.
- [52:27]
D
I think we should watch it. Not because. And as much as I. I love your work, Kristen, I'm. I'm supportive of you, this. This video is not about you. This is about the pro life movement.
- [52:36]
B
This is the nature job.
- [52:39]
D
As much as I want to defend your character, which I'm happy to do, what he's engaging here, and again, we're not attacking him as a person. We're attacking what he said. Okay, so students out there, you need to understand the context of why this was so difficult to watch, why this is so important for us to understand and what we should not do as pro lifers. We cannot respond in kind. We cannot respond with the same kind of slanderous statements abolitionists are making about us. But in this clip, Chris, Russ says Kristen Hawkins hates the law of God.
- [53:13]
G
So Kristen Hawkins hates the law of God. Like, she doesn't like how God dealt with divorce or how God dealt with people who had ended up in servitude. Oftentimes, God passed laws to protect women in various situations and to protect slaves. Believe it or not, in various situations, slavery needed to be regulated and slaves needed to be, you know, cared for and treated as equal humans. And so there is, you know, yes. In the Old Testament, they're right after the Hebrew slaves are out of slavery and they're getting the Ten Commandments. Immediately after that, you get laws regulating slavery. Why? Because they have been in cruel slavery They've come out of cruel slavery, but they are still living in a culture where there is going to be slavery because there's going to be wars, there's going to be conflict, conquered people, and they're not always going to be, you know, oppressing the people they conquer or they're not always going to be killing everyone. They're going to be slaves. There's going to be laws regulating how you treat slaves. That's a whole complex thing and you shouldn't be scared to go into it. But people who hate the Bible, hate the law of God, often will go there in order to sort of like bludgeon people who love the law of God. So she's doing this again. This is very common. When you're talking to an atheist, you're talking to some kind of secularist, some, some anti Christian. They often want to go to difficult passages in the Bible which they don't understand. They don't understand that they are good. Like they, like this is like Kristen Hawkins is not someone who looks at like Psalms 119.
- [54:59]
D
Again, the same lie. Right. You don't believe law should be passed that murderers should be allowed to kill their children with immunity. Right. That. That's not where we're at as pro lifers. Again, the strategy of how we deal with punishment should happen when the laws already have changed. Right. We, the, this abolitionist, the people who were fighting against slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation, did not listen to all of the punishments that were necessary for people who own slaves or killed them. So that's, I think, just in a practical level, but what you said, and I don't understand why he's twisting this, the principle of how God dealt with this evil of slavery, that there was an incremental, and this is what you said, there's an incremental way for us to change the minds and hearts and the laws of people who are used to slavery. That's morally acceptable. That's the argument we're making here. Even though slavery is immoral, it's wrong to kidnap people. They said that later on. It's in the scriptures. Clear. The practice may be regulated as we transition away from that idea or that practice. So the moral principle is actually there. But even with murder. Right, even with murder. Even with killing innocent people. I often think, would Russell throw and demand that the Apostle Paul be stoned to death because he contributed to the death of Stephen? Was Stephen's life any less valuable because he was killed alongside Paul? Agreeing with it? No. The value of Stephen's life does not change despite the punishment that Paul did not receive. And by the way, Paul did not receive a punishment. Why? Because in the Roman Empire at that time, it was perfectly fine for him to prosecute and kill Christians. It wasn't illegal. So what is the way then for us to change, if I was living in the Roman Empire, how to change the law so that we can put an end to these deadly practices like gladiatorial practices, child sacrifice, abandoning children in the forest. Well, you know what pro lifers did? They went to those forests and rescued those babies. Even in Roman states where it was actually capital punishment to save those babies, you could actually be killed for saving those babies. Now, what would the abolitionists do? Would the abolitionists scream at those Christians because they couldn't save all of the babies, or they didn't pass a law that banned that practice completely? Or would they work with those Christians to rescue the babies that they could, under the legal political system that they could. Which one would be the one that we honor in God? And I'm passionate about this, Kristen, because it is such a mockery to use the Bible to attack you, to say that you don't like the word of God when they're actually twisting the word of God to justify their terrible strategy. And as we talked a bit, their terrible strategy has led to hundreds of thousands of babies being killed with no legal protection in Canada. So, of course pro lifers are going to be passionate about this because they're wasting their time and energy fighting us, screaming at us when they should be fighting abortion. And this is what's really challenging for me as I listen to what they're saying, Kristen, because what they're actually saying is, is you. You take the, the example that we talked about, the triage example, and that's the one I would have used more. Like, my brother is a medic in the military. And in the triage situation, one of the things they're taught is if there's two soldiers being who are injured and you can only have time to save one, it is not unethical to save one. Even if the other one dies while you're trying to save the first one, that's perfectly, legally, morally, ethically, and biblically sound. It's not unethical, it's not against God's will. Now, imagine the situation where you're the nurse or you're the doctor, and you have to decide. And one of the soldiers, he's right close to you, he's easy to reach, and the other soldier, he's under heavy enemy fire. And that soldier is really difficult to reach out to. So of course you're going to try to reach the guy that you can save who's right in front of you now. But imagine that same situation, and rather than supporting you, your own fellow soldiers come at you as the medic and they start screaming at you because you're not saving both of them. That's what abolitionists are doing. And what's going to happen is you're going to lose concentration, you're going to lose focus. That soldier that you could have saved will die. And now who's morally responsible for their deaths? Those soldiers who were screaming at you because you couldn't save both of them. That's why abolitionists, when they do what they're doing, are morally culpable for the deaths of the babies that we could have saved. And that's very different from what pro lifers are trying to do. That's why this kind of personal attack is such a waste of time and energy. And frankly, it's in a spiritual abuse of what the Bible teaches.
- [60:07]
B
Yeah, I mean, yeah, obviously I couldn't say that any better than you, and I'm taking notes, but I think that's what's so disheartening about it. It's like, this is why I'm doing this on my day off, because, like.
- [60:19]
A
I, I ain't got any time for.
- [60:21]
B
This on my working days. Like, I'm trying to make sure Planned Parenthood's permanently defunded this year and doesn't get re. You know, re upped on their funding on January 1st. So come Monday, that's what I have to focus my time. I've got to focus my time on raising more money so we can double our Students for life groups. That's why I'm doing this on my.
- [60:37]
A
Day off, because I don't have time.
- [60:40]
B
In the course of my day.
- [60:42]
A
And I work 12 to 15 hour.
- [60:43]
B
Days to deal with this. And every hour that I spend on it almost feels like I'm morally culpable because then I'm spending time that people are donating money to pay me to, to defend students for life, to defend the pro life movement against these slanderous attacks, which only serve as a. A tool of Satan to distract from what I'm doing. Like, if I would have taken my Monday to watch the Q A and to do this, even though this podcast is great, I'm loving it, Jojo, but.
- [61:16]
A
Like, I would have been time I've.
- [61:19]
B
Been morally responsible for wasting that we could be using to Abolish abortion. I think it. That's so frustrating.
- [61:25]
D
Yeah. And, and I think that's really important. You said that we as pro lifers believe in abolishing abortion. We as pro lifers also believe we need to do it in the right way that will be permanent and long lasting. What they're offering is abolishing abortion if possible in places like Oklahoma, but then they would strike those laws down in the courts or other states and would actually codify even worse laws in other parts of the country. As one debate opponent of these abolitionists said it was so well done. He said they're actually geographical incrementalists because when they fight for laws only in Oklahoma, in Texas and Kansas or Iowa where they're already influential, they're basically saying it doesn't matter how these laws are going to be treated at the federal level or how other states treat these laws or other countries treat these laws. We know when Roe v. Wade got struck down, France wanted to codify their pro abortion bills and make it even worse. Right. So we have to remember there's international implications. And by the way, Mr. Russell, Canadian babies matter too. And I don't know if you even care about us up here, but what you guys are doing out there has terrible consequences to our advocacy here. Because you're talking about something like punishing women where the culture is not ready to be tutored in that yet. What they need to be tutored is babies are being killed. We have about 300 killed every day in Canada and we need to stop that killing and not be distracted about whether or not the women who get those abortions should be killed. Just like the slavery argument that says we need to end slavery, let's talk about how we punish the slave owners later on. That's not our job. So why don't we talk about this? Because I think this is important to is they asserted many times that pro life laws don't work, that their pro life movements legal strategies are not working. It's been 50 years, for goodness sake. Slavery took 200 plus years in the UK to be defeated. So. And it wasn't done by people who said all or nothing right away. And it's just funny. This is not the purpose of the podcast. But Wilberforce, as you said, fought for the end of the slave trade so he can end the slavery as a practice. That's an incremental decision. That's not something that's an immediate abolition. But this is the question that came next in terms of abolitionist question by a very, and I Thought she was a very thoughtful young lady. I love her passion. I wish she was still on our side on this issue, because I think if reasonable people can agree about what we're talking about, I think she'd actually side with us. And I think most abolitionists would if they presented the right biblical and political case and not just have it twisted the way the leaders of the abolitionists have done.
- [64:14]
C
I'm really glad to know that you ask students the question of if the.
- [64:19]
B
Child in the womb has the same value as you and I.
- [64:25]
C
You called it a system of oppression that would call abortion choice or health care. My question is this. When legislative efforts treat abortion as a valid choice for all mothers, treating the.
- [64:39]
B
Child as lesser than born humans by refusing them the same justice under law.
- [64:45]
C
That you and I have, do you think that if those legislative efforts are.
- [64:52]
B
In disobedience to God, do you think.
- [64:54]
C
That God will bless those efforts?
- [64:55]
D
When I hear someone with this kind of passion, again, I'm just. I want to commend her. I'm like, of course we want to follow God's law and God's effort and do it according to God's way. No one who's pro life wants to not do that. The question we need to ask, and I want us to be fair, is are you saying legislative efforts to protect some babies so that we can protect all babies is against God's law?
- [65:25]
B
That's what she admits later in the line of questioning when I finally said, well, would you repeal the Texas heartbeat law? And she said, yes.
- [65:33]
A
And I was like, okay, bye.
- [65:35]
B
I'm done with you. Like, there's nothing more to prove at that point. Because she actually does say that. That, yes, she believes any incremental law is not God's, in God's will, and God does not bless it. Therefore, all these incremental laws that we know can save lives and how to save lives must be repealed. That to me is just some unfathomable thing. And, and we get into. And I actually get into statistics here of saying, well, Dr. Michael New Scholar at Catholic University of America, he's the foremost scholar. I had him on my podcast several times when I used to interview guests all the time about, you know, he. He actually researches how incremental laws, which incremental laws save the most lives according to abortion records and vital birth certificate statistic records, you know, to figure out, you know, like, we now know, like, the. The most effective thing you can do in a state is to. To stop state Medicaid funding of abortion. That is that gives you the, the, the lowest abortion rate or the highest amount of babies saved. When you pass that law, then it's parental consent is the next most important law because you have to actually get parents to sign on a piece of paper for minor 7 abortion more than parental notice. So you can actually even qualify these incremental laws to say which ones will save the most lives. But she doesn't want to get into that.
- [66:55]
D
I think this is important for you to address if you have some more there, because Kristen, this is where Russell comes in and says all of these statistics were done by pro lifers. We can't trust pro life statistics. So it's already been debunked. So to give you a chance to say, wait a second, Mr. Abolitionist, I think the point you're making is you don't have an alternative.
- [67:20]
A
You don't have to.
- [67:21]
B
I mean that, that's the, that's the real tragedy of this whole debate about a strategy of this person now saying he doesn't trust anything that pro lifers say. Right? Like that's a huge problem because you can't trust anything pro life or say ever. So I mean, maybe Russell would agree with the Journal of American Medical association, jama, which by the way is rapidly pro abortion. But JAMA in February of 2025 released a study on the impact of pro life laws. They analyzed state level fertility data from all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, Columbia from 2012 to 2023. And it According to JAMA, now maybe he'll trust a pro abortion source found that state level abortion bans and heartbeat laws resulted in increases, significant increases in state fertility rates. So that's the birth rate. And according to this pro abortion study, which I would argue always, you know, weakens the effect of pro life laws because they don't want them in ever. But the laws save lives. They estimated in the February 2025 JAMA study, 22,000 lives had been saved from these laws that they had studied.
- [68:42]
D
Right, exactly.
- [68:44]
B
Like that's a pro abortion source, not a pro life source, pro abortion. But maybe he would trust that. And then Dr. New actually in this November at National Review Online, Dr. New analyzed another pro abortion study that came from the American Journal of Public Health that was analyzing specifically the Texas Heartbeat act using in state and out of state abortion data from like surrounding states. According to the American Journal of Public Health, they said that the heartbeat law that had gone into effect pre Dobbs and it was the strongest pro life law in effect in the country before the Dobbs decision that it reduced the abortions committed on Texas women. Now, once again, they used in state data and out of state data. So they looked at abortion facility records in surrounding states where Texas women would have went to have an abortion. They're saying it reduced abortions by over 18%.
- [69:43]
D
Yeah, yeah. And I would actually point out the abolitionists actually do have a test model. It's again, Canada. When abortion was still restricted in Canada prior to 1969, there was about 11,000 abortions being performed as abortion became legal in 1970, 1969, 1970, and then in 1988 when abortion laws all got struck down. The numbers are now over 100,000 every year. And here's the really scary thing, Kristin. I'm so glad that you guys have these numbers, but two of the three largest provinces in Canada now actually don't collect the numbers of abortions performed or don't tell people how many abortions are performed even though all of them are publicly funded. So they know how many there are because we have to pay for them. That's the kind of society we create when we have all or nothing.
- [70:36]
B
Oh, yeah. And we don't have a national abortion reporting law here, JoJo. So, like, even the abortion data that we have is inaccurate and incomplete because there's some CDC data, but states aren't legally required to give the data to the cdc. The lot of times when you hear pro life activists quote data, we actually use the Guttmacher Institute, which is, you know, used to be Associated Planned Parenthood.
- [70:58]
D
Right.
- [70:59]
B
We have to use their own data. And so it is, it's. Yeah. I didn't watch Russell's comments on that, but that's. To me, it's shocking that he doesn't, he doesn't even believe. Like a scholar who literally has his PhD in statistics, like, that's his job, but he won't take what he has to say because he's just a pro lifer. Like that, to me, shows you the, the powerful and sad effects of like this tribalism. Because then there's no. I mean, this is literally. It goes on. I, I show her, I tell her so many stats and then she's like, I just don't believe it. Well, okay. I mean, it's like arguing with a pro abortion person on a campus who's like, like, I don't believe you when you say at three weeks, there's fetal cardiac pole activity, I. E. Heartbeat has begun to be. Even though the heart isn't fully formed and all four chambers aren't present. Right. Like, you can say you don't believe me, but there it is, undeniable. And that's biology. And that's, that's what's happening here. It's statistics. And you can say it doesn't. You don't like it, it doesn't fit your narrative. But, yeah, it's out there.
- [72:06]
D
It's really frustrating. And I could hear your frustration. I would be frustrated, too, of course, Kristen. But I think there's two things here that are important as a Christian apologist. If I'm talking to an atheist, a Muslim activist, LGBT activist, my response at that point would be, okay, well, I've cited my sources. I've given you my information. What's your source for what you believe? Where's your evidence? Because I'm happy to change my mind if you can give me better evidence, but you have to give that to me. The other thing I would say, and I think especially for abolitionists, because, again, they're, I think they're just, they're Christians. They're. They love the Lord, but they have to. Have to love the Lord enough to actually read the word and say what it says. Because if you read Proverbs 3, 27 and 28, it says, do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it is in your power to help them. If you can help your neighbor now, don't say, come back tomorrow, then I'll help you. It's saying, do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it's in your power to help them. Right now, according to American Canadian law, it's in our power to protect babies in the late term of pregnancy. Most Americans side with that. Most Americans are the voters who decide what the law is. Right now, most Americans would say, let's stop abortion. Let's not talk about putting women in jail because they're not on our side on that. So it's not about making a moral judgment about God's rules. Moral judgment is there. God's moral truth doesn't change. It's about applying these simple truths that we have to save who we can. That is not immoral. That's not against God's rule. It's something even you know. Jesus even did that when Jesus sent his disciples to go share the message of salvation two by two. So this is, this may not be about abortion, but this is still about souls. It's about saving people. He said to them, go talk only to the people who are willing to welcome you at their house. If they don't welcome you, walk away. And when we realize that even when it comes to evangelism, we have to take strategic steps to make sure we reach those who we can reach first and then reach everybody else. Because Jesus actually says through the people who welcome at your house, then you can talk to all their friends and family. Right. So it's the same kind of mindset here. Let's work with the low hanging fruit who we can save now so that we can save them all. Her mindset, the question she asks is how can God bless legislative efforts that are not going to basically save everybody Again, our mandate is not to not save everybody. We're just saving who we can at the moment. And I think this is why this is so. It becomes such a insidious lie because it's wrapped in something good. Yes, we need to obey God's word, but to maintain the idea that that's the only political strategy that's available, that's not in scripture. And as my Catholic friend who led one of these abolitionist type groups in Canada said, I wish I understood the difference between making moral laws and abiding by moral laws and then transforming them into political strategies. Those are not the same things.
- [75:19]
B
So true.
- [75:20]
D
Well, I actually want to go one of the clips from, from your video because I thought this question was actually a good one. And it's the young lady who says, and it's a quick question, how much life is okay to lose? That one. That's a good one.
- [75:36]
A
I just have one question. How much life is okay to lose.
- [75:43]
D
For the pro life movement? Well, you know, again, this is a well meaning student, probably a Christian student. I, I love her desire to protect human life. I would have affirmed that as part of the conversation here, and I think you do that too. The question though is implying that pro lifers are the ones sacrificing children's lives when it's actually the culture that's sacrificing children's lives. It's again, blaming the, the doctor as she's trying to save a triage patient because the other patient isn't being treated well. She's only doing what she can because it's the war, it's the injury that's causing the death, not the doctor. And it would be blaming like blaming the doctor. But, but when she asked this question.
- [76:25]
B
The whole problem with the pro. Immediate pro prosecutionist is, and I brought this up in the Q and A where I started quoting Russell Hunter at the Washington Post earlier this year, I think it was like May 2025, because I think, think it's illuminating for people to understand that they publicly tell people their mission isn't to protest abortionists or the abortion facilities. It's to dismantle the current pro life movement. And I think. I think I one, I was shocked that he would publicly say this, you know, to the wash, you know, not friendly source. But I think that you have to understand that that's where they view their mission like they view their mission going in protest me and attacking me and multiple times saying I hate the word of God and questioning my board's decision for employing me. Right. That's actually what they view as their mission. Like, they. Like I view all this as a demonic, you know, attack against the work that we're trying to do and takes away time away from what we're supposed to be doing. They view their mission literally as attacking the pro life movement. And I think that. I think. I wish people understood that more, because when you understand that more, some of the questions or the way the questions are asked actually make more sense.
- [77:45]
D
Yes, absolutely. Just a quick analogy. Another one for your students. I think that might be helpful with a question like this. As I said, when she asked the question, my response would be, actually, no life is worth sacrificing the pro life for. SA want to save every life, but we can't do that yet because we live in an evil society. So will you join us to try to save as many as we can as we try to save all of them, or will you continue to oppose pro life strategy just because we can't do everything yet? In fact, it reminded me of. I'm a World War II buff, so it reminded me of the time when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. We just remember that last month. Right now, what the American military did was they actually declared war on Germany and decided to focus most of their military power and strength on Germany and contain Japan and the Japanese Empire, which actually was controversial.
- [78:46]
B
I'm assuming a lot of the. The soldiers who were killed in Pearl harbor, their families were probably pretty PO'd with that decision.
- [78:53]
D
Absolutely. Well, my. My grandparents were being bombed by Japanese airmen in the Philippines, where I'm from. So it really sucked for us, right, that we weren't being liberated. But that. That strategic military decision said nothing about the value of the people in Asia compared to the people in Europe. It said nothing about the value of the moral value of every person who was involved where. Where they were being enslaved or during the Holocaust. What it was was a military tactical decision to minimize the number of deaths and to expedite the victory as fast.
- [79:32]
B
As possible because we could not let Europe fall. And that had been the argument from Churchill pressuring FDR in the months leading up of we are going to fall unless you step in now.
- [79:44]
D
So would the abolitionists hold the US Military, Churchill, all of the military leaders at the time, would they hold them morally culpable because they made that strategic decision? The answer, of course, is no. This is a military decision. We need to expedite. We need to fight in the battle that's most likely to win so that we can win it all. And that's, I think, what's missing with our friends of the abolitionists. They don't realize this is not a moral debate about whether or not we should protect life. Of course it is. It's a tactical debate about what is the best way to win this war. And this is ideological war. No one's advocating for violence, at least not on our side. But we have to remember that when they apply these kinds of, these moral standards that they get from the Old Testament law under a different covenant, and they apply it to us, they're actually forced to lecture people throughout history, including Christians, including Jesus, for goodness sake, to say, because you are incrementalist, it's your fault. Let me just say it this way because I don't want to put anyone down but Kristen and the pro life students out there. The Bible is on your side. I want to assure you about that. You just read it yourself. And anytime these fine folks who love the Lord, exactly. Who claim to follow Jesus and are basically implying that we are not, you just need to whip out the Bible and actually get them to read the Bible verses that they're to going. They're sighting and then we can begin to see who's actually following what the scripture says. So if we could go to. This is the last thing. And we can, we can go to what you want there. The, the person asking about Moses. And if we could just take that clip and then I want to actually show you how that story.
- [81:31]
B
Because I didn't even know when I started talking to you, you're like, oh, well, Kristen, that was easy to answer. I was like, huh? Like I had to go back to scripture and I just read Exodus anyway. It's not even my favorite podcast ever because I just. It's like a Bible study. Like I'm going back and forth. It's so much fun.
- [81:49]
D
Well, that's what we need to do here. That's all.
- [81:51]
F
I, I will be frank. I am an abolitionist. I know that's kind of a Cuss word.
- [81:54]
B
But.
- [81:56]
F
But my question. It took me a really long time. I was arguing with. I know my brother for probably like a year about abolitionist, because I disagreed with him.
- [82:07]
A
Your biological brother?
- [82:08]
H
Yeah.
- [82:09]
F
Yeah, my biological brother. But I eventually started to agree with them, and what convinced me was the abolitionists of slavery. I thought they did a really good job. And so I wanted to bring what I thought was a biblical argument if I could. Whenever Moses was talking to Pharaoh and God was sinning, the different plagues to Pharaoh, Pharaoh offered a couple compromises that I think were unjust. The first one was to take the men and go, but to leave the women and children and the livestock. And Moses denied it, and a couple more plagues go by. And then the next compromise that he offered was complete emancipation of the Israelite slaves. Only leave the livestock. And Moses responds, rather than emancipating the slaves was no quote, unquote, not a hoof shall remain in the land. And so, to me, do you think what Moses was doing in denying the complete emancipation of the slaves, do you think that was prideful of him? Or do you think I'm reading this wrong? Or how would you look at it?
- [83:19]
A
I think slavery is vastly different from dismembering human beings in the womb who experience excruciating pain during abortion.
- [83:25]
D
Yeah. And. And I want you to read the passage here for. For us, Kristin, because when I listen to this, I'm like, there's something off with this, because he's arguing that Pharaoh is the incrementalist, just like we are, right? And so we. We are the ones enslaving the Egypt, the Jews, the Israelites, and we're at fault for it. So. So first of all, the analogy doesn't work. We're not enslaving anybody. We're trying to save people. So that's the wrong analogy. Then he says Pharaoh is an incrementalist because he's not completely giving them full freedom. They're allowed to leave, take everything they have. They're not giving the full freedom to be set free. But that's wrong, because we can't be incrementalist. And that's what he's doing. But actually, if you go to the story itself, you realize the first person who offers a step towards freedom is God himself. So why don't you read Exodus 3, verses 18 to 20, Kristen? Exodus 3, 18, 20. And we can put that verse up.
- [84:30]
B
As well, and they will listen to your voice, and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt. And say to him, the Lord, the God of the Hebrews has met with us. Us. And now we beg you, let us go to a three days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to Lord our God.
- [84:51]
D
So right there, there's more, a little bit, but right there it is God who actually proposes a step towards freedom for three days. Isn't that incrementalism right there in the story of Moses? So the story of the Exodus should actually approve or show that God approves incremental steps, not that God doesn't disprove them or doesn't God opposes them. And, and in fact, when we actually.
- [85:21]
B
Knew it wouldn't work. I mean, because in the next verse he goes on to say, I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I'll stretch my hand and strike Egypt, all the wonders which I will do it in. And then even in chapter seven, you see, he says, but I will harden Pharaoh's heart. And though I'll multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. And then I'll lay my hand upon Egypt and bring forth my host, my people, the sons of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. That's actually, you'll see me at one point, I'm like, was there a burning bush that talked to abolitionists all this like that you have to kill all these pro life bills? Because there was like a very specific conversation that God, creator of the universe had had with Moses about what was going to play out. And you know, you're going to offer this incremental approach, but it's not going to work. And this is what's going to happen. Right.
- [86:15]
D
And, and that's the whole point. There's a purpose. God never said the incremental approach was immoral. There is a purpose for the incremental approach to show the sin of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. So for abolitionists to say incrementalism is never ordained by God, God himself is ordaining it right here in this passage based on their own definition of Pharaoh being an incrementalist. And that's the whole point. Their position that incrementalism when it comes to legislation is always immoral because it endorses child killing is completely off in terms of understanding what we're actually doing. We're saving who we can to save all. If we were to say we're going to save only nine month old babies and then stop that criticism would be appropriate. Exactly.
- [87:03]
B
And I make this point when I talked to the. One of the last girl, the redheaded girl with a pretty Christmas sweater. I actually gave her the example of what we did in Kentucky, right, where we introduced a bill, didn't have exceptions. They put it in and I told our team we got to go back and fight and get those exceptions out of the law, because if not, then we are who they. Then we are who they accuse us to be. Right? Then that's. That's us not fighting for the life and dignity of every human child. Yeah.
- [87:31]
D
Yeah. So those were the main ones. I think we can. I'll leave it to you to do. To respond because Russell throws out at the end of his video a invitation to do a debate. And, and it's. It's a little bit painful for him to do that after saying all these slanderous things about you for, for him to say, oh, don't worry, we're not going to buy that you've misconstrued and lied about our position throughout your video. That that's not an honest debate. If you're going to promise to be honest, okay, we. That. That's different. But you've already proven yourself as someone who's not going to characterize our position properly.
- [88:07]
B
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I think, Jojo, if you want to go down to Oklahoma and debate these folks, you can be my guest and I will do our best to have our videographer there and to make sure it's fair recording. But I haven't seen anything that proves to me that there. It's an honest and truly an honest question from one Christian brother to a Christian sister, from the illegal recording to the things that were said. And even if you watch the video, like the part that I watched where they repeat my full name over and over again, like it. That's a. I won't say what it is, but it's a tactic that some not great people use.
- [88:53]
A
So it's.
- [88:53]
B
There's nothing that's like telling me, oh, yeah, this is going to be a worthwhile conversation with people who truly care or want to understand or want to have, are open to having their minds changed or being persuaded. There's, you know, that's why I love talking with, with college students, mostly pro choice college students, because often I'm able to say something that they've never heard before and it. Like what? That's completely crazy. Why would you say it? And then you can have this conversation because you've gotten them to take the ear pods out of their ears and You've perked their interest enough that they want to engage in a debate and dialogue with you. And, and there's no, like, there's no financial motive. I mean the fact that they did this video illegally, then they put ads on the video so now they're profiting off of the clicks of the video, which makes it even more illegal. Like, like that to me, isn't somebody who's like genuinely interested in having like a friendly conversation?
- [89:52]
D
I think if they commit to honest reporting and frankly, I think they need to apologize for slandering you. I'm open to having that conversation with Russell and we can work that out. They can contact me, whatever. We can work with you guys. If you want me to represent you, I'm happy to do that. I am just appalled frankly that they cite Bible passages they don't actually code in context. And then they try to encourage Christians, my fellow believers, most of them are from my denomination or other conservative Baptists. Right. Protestants. And they're getting swathes by. By unwise counsel that Canada has, has had to live with for 38 years. And we don't want that to happen to you guys. As I said many times. And I think there's much wisdom in this case to push back if they actually want to argue scripture, if they want to argue facts and truth, which is what Russell said in his video clip, let's do it. But you need to start by being honest first and that means apologizing to Kristen.
- [90:57]
A
All right, so what I want to.
- [90:58]
B
Do now in the interest of time we're going to put in the show notes the entire speech which I thought was pretty good and the full Q A Q A is like a hundred and an hour and 50 minutes. It's a lot. I had a nice little talking to with my video team about cutting off questions because Kristen be tired because I start my days at 6:00am by the time this rolls around 9:00 clock at night. But anyway, so. But there's a couple of. So the Abolitionist Rising video had had three of the Q A questionnaires in it. Then you could see Russell's snarky comments and feedback. The third person is Shouty Lady. She was in the with the abolitionists. They were all seen together in the same row. Abolition. These pro prosecution folks need to probably get better about being more strategic. So I get. But they were all staying together. So Shouty lady comes up and I know she's with them because she was sitting with them. So you can go ahead and my guard was already up at this Point.
- [91:52]
C
I was actually going to start a chapter of Students for Life actually in Virginia. But then I received this from the contract. I'm going to read it out. That's the prohibitive behavior. And I'm not going to just read, like, the first three points because I told you. Number two, you know, we. We definitely shouldn't be, you know, doing.
- [92:11]
A
Our behavior contract that we send to all Students for Life chapters.
- [92:14]
B
Yes.
- [92:14]
C
Yeah. Mean, we definitely shouldn't be participating in violent and illegal actions. You know, we shouldn't be doing that. But what I do disagree with is you say in this contract, it is prohibited to unite with organizations for individuals who support harsh punishments, incarceration, or the death penalty for women who have received abortions. So my question for you is, now.
- [92:40]
A
I'm against the death penalty.
- [92:41]
C
Why? For everyone creating. And I'm going to stay on topic. Why are you creating an us versus them mentality with pro life, pro lifers versus abolitionists? And that would be specifically your members versus someone like me. I mean, I'm going to be honest. You know, as somebody who survived being in a cult, I can tell you this is a manipulation tactic that cults actually use called us versus Them. And I'm gonna be honest. It's. It's not cool. And also, like, why are you calling murdering women victims when they celebrate their abortions? You know, I was actually there in front of the Supreme Court in December of 21, and this was back when I was with the Banner people. And I remember seeing women willfully take abortion pills. No one forced their hand. They willingly took the abortion pill. And these women, you know, they weren't sobbing over their abortions. They were celebrating them. And I can also pull up video after video, and I've seen it in person myself after being at abortion clinics myself. These women, they celebrate, they dance, they twerk and everything. So, like, you know, these views you have on women being victims, it's.
- [94:11]
A
Do you think every woman who. Abolitionists need to stop filming, by the way? Because there's somebody in the back of the room filming, and I don't give you permission to film.
- [94:21]
B
Do you believe that every woman who.
- [94:23]
A
Has an abortion should be tried for crimes of capital punishment and be put to death?
- [94:29]
C
Yes.
- [94:30]
A
Okay, sit down. I don't have anything else to say to you.
- [94:32]
B
Sit down.
- [94:33]
C
So you.
- [94:35]
A
Sit down.
- [94:35]
C
So you don't. Okay, so you don't like different ideas.
- [94:40]
A
Sit down.
- [94:41]
C
Yeah, you don't like different ideas until you're telling me to sit down when you don't like my idea that's different than yours.
- [94:48]
A
I mean, because, because of your attitude. No, I don't need anything else. 1.4 million women babies have been murdered. When I get 20, 20 990,000 babies were murdered. And on a 3 year old post ro, 1.4 million babies were murdered. You got, you can take this microphone away from me, but I can yell. Sit down. I don't need to talk to you any further because you proved my point. Hey, that's mine. 1.4 million babies. I do want to thank the abolitionists for coming here tonight because if there's anyone who's pro choice on the fence, which I believe there's a couple people, according to my text messages, you will change their minds. And to join the pro life movement more than anything else. When the abolitionists actually come and protest me on campus, they were at UC Davis and protesting me with aborted image signs. No, no. Charlie Kirk actually spoke at our summit this January and lectured the entire pro life movement about how imprudent the pro life movement has been in demanding immediate the end of abortion.
- [95:53]
B
And talked about how in Matthew 19.
- [95:56]
A
Jesus talked about how Moses permitted divorce, how he permitted slavery, not because it was right, not because it was moral, because their hearts were hard. But at UC Davis, funny story. So at UC Davis, these two abolitionist men came out to protest me with images of babies who had been aborted. And these were heartbreaking images. And they actually converted more people to pro life that day because girls came up to me thinking I was pro choice because these two white men with abolitionist signs were protesting. And I was able to have some amazing conversations because they thought that they were protesting me because I was against abortion. I was like, no, actually we agree on 99% of things. They just think I'm evil because I don't think women should be put in jail for having abortions because largely we see women as victims. Not all women are victims. And that's the question is how do you create a law that treats every single woman the same when four or five decades we've told women that abortion is nothing, a clump of cells? And you don't change minds by coming out and advocating for capital punishment for 40 million women who've had abortions?
- [97:08]
B
So I, I love that. I mean, I think I, you know, my husband and I were talking about this today and I was like, how quick it took her to start screaming and shouting at me and then to, to you to use whatever. If she's using La Vegas 20 or whatever to justify it. That is, you know, that is extremely dangerous when you get to that point. But how else would you have handled it? I, I don't have anything else to say to somebody who thinks that we should murder women and stone them to death for having abortions because I'm against capital punishment in general. So I, I think at that point you just. I don't. There's nothing more for me to say to them on that point. But what would you have said, oh wise one?
- [97:53]
D
Kristen, don't say that. Come on. They're gonna use that against me now.
- [97:56]
B
You know that one, not me. You're the man.
- [98:00]
A
You can answer these questions.
- [98:02]
B
I mean, like, that's the part of, like this whole, these attacks, these ad hominem attacks against us is. Well, you know, these abolitionists are like, women shouldn't run the pro life movement and they're feminists and feminazis.
- [98:13]
D
And can I just address that quickly and then get got onto her, because again, that's a misapplication of scripture. Right. Even if you believe women should not be leaders in the church, there's nothing there that says women can't be businesswomen, can't run their own companies, can't do their own ministries. In fact, the Proverbs 31 woman is a businesswoman who sells her wares at the gates of the city. So clearly there's nothing wrong with women providing leadership in secular areas. That's not in the Bible. You have to read that in there. If you want to argue about the role of women in the church. Sure. That's another discussion we can have. I tend to have a more conservative position on that as well, but with nonprofit ministry, and I represent Christian apologists who are very conservative, very pro life, who have the position that says, look, if I want to have someone share about their abortion testimony at my church, it's probably going to be a woman because that's the, that's the people who are directly affected by it. So how in the world can we expect them to share if we're not even going to let them provide the leadership that's needed in these kinds of ministries? So again, it's, it's not theologically correct to have that view, especially to, to throw you in the, the same pit as the feminazis or whatever they want to call it. That. That's slander again. And that's.
- [99:38]
B
Yeah. I mean, at work, the Golden State abolitionists are part of abolition rising. They were quoting my, my pay salary and stuff. And so that's what led a lot of the pro Choice girls to come over to me and talk to me. Like I said, I kind of Joe by demon, we start paying the abolitionists to protest me on campus because it gets more pro choice students over to the table. I don't have to get a dialogue going with someone yelling at me for more pro choice kids come over.
- [100:01]
D
When I hear this lady, you know, my heart breaks. Kristen, for her, I just, I, I.
- [100:07]
B
There's a lot of pain there.
- [100:08]
D
Yeah, Maybe it's my masculine wanting to protect a woman, but I just, I don't understand why she would go so fast to such opposition where she's laying the deaths of all these babies at your feet when you're trying to stop it. That's the, the challenge. And, and yeah, we may or may not agree on capital punishment. I don't share my views on that, usually publicly, because I don't have to, because again, the challenge here, and this is what I told her, is would you agree with me that ending abortion is more important than deciding what punishment women should have or men should have or doctors should have? Isn't it more important to put an end to it? Just like the Emancipation Proclamation put an end to slavery before deciding what punishment slave owners should have? Because there's legal precedent for that. And just because there may be different punishments, that does not change the value of the person who was murdered. So David was a murderer. He killed people. God confronted him. Just because God did not put him to death, that does not mean the innocent victim that he killed was any less innocent or less valuable to God. He was a convert to Judaism, so he was someone who was clearly valued by God and that his death caused all kinds of trouble with David, but not capital punishment. So again, they're making moral equivalency here. They're saying if you don't allow for the worst kind of punishment for abortion, therefore you don't value the life of the child. That's not in the Bible. That's a moral leap of logic, and there's plenty of reasons why we don't want to have that. So one of my new colleagues is Jocelyn. She's a former trans. She's also former post abortive before she met Jesus. And when she met Jesus, she realized how awful what she did was. And she's regularly at the abortion clinic protesting because the Holy Spirit transformed her life. Now, do you think this is the question I would ask this young lady after I said, I hear your heart, I love your passion, but do you believe my colleague Jocelyn should face the death penalty now? Remember when she had her abortion here in Canada, it's perfectly legal. There's no punishment.
- [102:20]
A
At this point, I think the abolitionist.
- [102:22]
B
Response is no, because an abolition bill hasn't been passed yet. So when I've had, when I've been able to have respectful conversation with abolitionists, it's like, well, yes, we believe in capital punishment, we believe in prison, but it wouldn't be retroactively applied to people who've had abortions already, because that wasn't the law yet.
- [102:44]
D
So in terms of the law not being there yet, would it be fair to say that you wouldn't retroactively implement it because you also recognize that not a lot of women would have known or a lot of women would have been confused while they had those groups abortion? So there's a lot of extraordinary circumstances that could be in place. And by the way, that's what the, the job of the judges and juries and prosecutors have. That's their position. That's their position. But both in the states and in Canada, I think you mentioned this in one of your podcasts. There was a handful, maybe two to five women who were prosecuted under pro life laws before Roe versus Wade. Right. In Canada, the same thing. Why is that? Because for the most part, prosecutors wanted to give those women a chance to testify against the abortion providers and they needed their testimony to put those mass killers in jail. So for them to focus on the woman, when the first person we should tackle is the abortion provider, the people selling the pills, the people promoting the pills, those are the people we should tackle if we were to talk about prosecution. Right. Only when that happens. Because again, going back to the law, being a tutor, the law is now tutoring the culture that providing abortions is wrong. And so by that point, maybe 10, 20 years after that, women taking abortions would have been tutored enough to abortion pills, would have been tutored enough to know this kills a baby. And so the law can apply then that if you're trying to kill your child, this is now appropriate for us to extend the law of punishment at that point. But, but to jump the gun and threaten pro life bills and legislation in other parts of the country, because in Oregon, in Canada, one of the things they've been saying is we can't have Oklahoma laws, we can't have laws from South. South Carolina about abortion, because if we were going to have these laws, we're gonna have to throw women in jail. That's a pro abortion argument here. So they're using the push by abolitionists to have more Babies killed in Canada.
- [104:46]
B
I want. Absolutely.
- [104:48]
D
So that's geographical incrementalism, by the way. I love that phrase. They're focusing on their geography, trying to save their babies at the risk of other babies around the world.
- [104:58]
B
Yeah, I mean, and that's the risk of like even engaging with this nonsense on X. And I've, and I've engaged from time to time because then you're just, you know, the comments I get from pro choice women are like, I've. See, now you're finally realizing pro lifers hate women. See, that's right. I'm like, no, no, I'm a pro lifer. I'm saying this group of people who don't want to be called pro life and say they want the pro life movement to die are, you know, saying this. But it is. And that's, that's the real, like dilemma as a pro life leader, especially for our students for life groups, is how do you educate and call some of this stuff out without drawing more attention to it? Because as you draw more attention to actually is pushing women further away. And that's. That. That's a great segue. This was a young man who's pro life. He was in the Turning Point chapter, so he kind of leaned libertarian. I had a long conversation with him after this next day. He's super smart. His IQ is way higher than mine. He's using words. When we were having a late night discussion, I was like, you got to define what you just said.
- [106:00]
A
But he had some really, he had.
- [106:02]
B
A really good question here and we get into the talking to women thing.
- [106:07]
H
So let's go that I have had the honor of greatly offending a lot of the girls on my campus by standing against abortion and trying to debate the sanctity of life and trying to do so in a gentle approach that follows a lot of the lines that you say, as well as trying to have an exegetical approach to understanding the Bible. Psalms 139 is one of the favorites. So I just want to get some pointers for how I can better not only share the gospel with these women, but also do so in a biblical way as well as. As you pointed out, there's a lot of my generation in the coming that do not care for theology. They don't care for history, they don't care for God. Being able to bring a biblical approach to, to someone who's very clearly suffering that battle and doesn't want to hear that doesn't always work.
- [107:12]
A
No, it doesn't.
- [107:13]
H
And unfortunately, I've had The humbling stances a few times of having to have those debates, not being able to necessarily reach people, because I don't have the fundamental understanding that someone like you would have on being able to debate this. So I like some pointers for how to be able to do that.
- [107:31]
A
You might be my favorite question all night. I think it's really interesting. We've had, like, just to back up the conversation, right? Like, collectively, we've had a conversation in a conservative movement and even in the Christian, like, Twitter sphere for a couple years about, like, young men. We gotta win back young men. And we. In the wake of Charlie's death, we talked about how Charlie's brought these young men to be men. Be proud to be a man.
- [107:57]
C
Right?
- [107:58]
A
No one gives a shit about women. Like, even today, you had last week where Madame won New York, Abigail Spamberger. I mean, these are radical abortion supporters, won Virginia. And the same people that are abolitionists took to Twitter to say that the solution is to bring back the household vote and repeal the 19th Amendment. You're not on the same Twitter as I am. Okay. You're shocked. Your algorithm's all whack.
- [108:27]
D
Okay?
- [108:27]
A
This is all my algorithms. And it's been interesting because I'm like, if you want to win women, like, maybe we should have an actual conversation. Because repealing the 19th amendment takes, like, 180 million votes, 37 states have to ratify. It's kind of a crazy thing even. I mean, honestly, I can look at the numbers. I know how liberal the country's gotten. Yeah, like, you can draw that comparison. But is that actually the solution? Like, how do you actually win women? How do you talk to women? And it's weird because it's like, we're not like, the woman who is the shouty girl. She's not wrong. There are women who have an abortion and go, fuck it. I'm gonna kill it. And they'll tell you to your face, that's not every woman. But there are women who are like that. And the question I have is, hold up. What has happened to you in your life that makes you think that that's okay? Do you first, do you honestly believe I'll kill it? Do you actually believe that? Are you saying that because you think.
- [109:31]
B
It'S going to get me mad and shouty at you?
- [109:34]
A
And if you do actually believe that what's happened in your life, what has happened to you that you feel like you're, like, in this fight or flight mode where you have to choose to pay someone to end the life of your child in order to use, to survive. And where were you taught that this selfish behavior is acceptable or something to be celebrated? Right. And I think that's the conversation we're missing with women. And especially when you're trying to talk to women about the Bible. It's going to be hard to talk when people are wounded. Like, trying to like, convince someone is always hard when you're. Because, just in general about abortion, because you're not just. It's not like an esoteric question, right? Like, when I changed my mind on the death penalty, it was like really easy. Now, did I admit it in a conversation with a friend? No, because I'm a stubborn woman and.
- [110:32]
B
I don't admit anything.
- [110:34]
A
And I think about later, right, like most of us, because we all have.
- [110:37]
B
Ego and we don't like to ever.
- [110:38]
A
Admit we're wrong, just in general. But, like, changing my mind on the death penalty didn't change the way I live my life. I don't have any trauma with that. So I think when you're talking to women, especially about abortion, you have to assume she might be post supportive. She might have been party to an abortion. And we know from psychologists, right, if you've been party to an abortion, you're like, eager to justify all abortions, to become this warrior, because that silences that thing in the back of your mind that maybe you were wrong. That's why they can't stand anyone saying abortion's wrong and they lose their shit and flip over our tables and freak out. Because anyone saying abortion is wrong, affirming.
- [111:20]
B
What they already kind of know in.
- [111:21]
A
Their heart of hearts, because it's kind of written on our hearts as women, like, hey, don't kill your babies. But you also have to understand there's like, there's that trauma there. But you also understand changing your mind on abortion means you might have to change the way you're living your life. That boy you're hooking up with, if you become pro life and you continue to hook up with him, you may have to be an adult and accept the adult consequences of your behavior. It's a lot harder. You raised your finger. What were you gonna.
- [111:54]
H
I was gonna say that I was fortunate enough to go to the memorial. I also was fortunate enough to see Russell Brand a couple weeks ago. And you're kind of saying something, and I want to just echo something that he would say is that you're right. It's not just a debate against the flesh and blood. There's the trauma, there's the Relation. And proverbially, we are going to want to justify our sins to admonish that so that we can feel good about it.
- [112:25]
A
Thanks for sounding way smarter than me, but, yes.
- [112:29]
H
The other thing that he said to relate to that is it's not a battle against flesh and blood. It's a spiritual principle that we have to have. So I agree. You know, it's not about an argument. It's not about trying to prove you're right or wrong. It's just about gently getting the truth across. But anyway, I just want to say planting a seed.
- [112:44]
A
No, I mean, I think years and years ago, a priest told me I was having lunch somewhere in Seattle, and this priest was like, whoa, I love what you do. You guys. You guys are like, so in the seed. And, you know, you never know when you're gonna ripen the harvest. I was like, huh? And I always tell to our student leaders, especially when you first become pro life, because you don't want to, like, drop a conversation until you've changed someone's mind. You're like, no, we're gonna continue to have this conversation until you admit you are completely wrong. That's not going to work out. Just because. I'll use myself as an example. Human ego never likes to admit that we're wrong. And I think when you're talking about these very difficult things, right? Abortion, which is always trauma behind it, I think we have to think about as planting the seed. And sometimes it's really awesome because as pro lifers, like, we come along, like, I'll say something, and someone's like, you said this thing, and it changed my mind. I'm like, cool, but probably not. You were kind of stewing on something your friend told you probably six months ago. And then I came along and said this one line, not that I'm a genius, and then that you flicked the light bulb on, right? I just got to see it watered and harvested. And I think we have to be okay to be sowing the seeds and know that sometimes when we throw those seeds out of our hands, they're going to land on rocky ground, and sometimes they're going to land on fertile soil. But we are called, as Christians, to sow those seeds and to throw them out as far and as wide as we can possibly go and let God do what God does, which is change their hearts. Does that help?
- [114:24]
H
It does. Thank you. Have a good night.
- [114:26]
B
You know, I was talking to you about this conversation on the phone because Students for Life is working on this documentary. And, you know, for our 20th year and we're going to film some incredible student heroes and we're going to talk about how students for life leaders are these heroes on their campuses, reaching into really this pit of darkness with these candles and lighting the way and showing the value and dignity of the person. Not only just preborn baby, but, but her as well. And one of the, you know, challenges that I have a meeting with the director next week is also showing her as the victim. Because one of the things I've done of notice with the rise of this immediate pro prosecutionism, some of the kind of the very right wing direction in this and the conservative movement is like this, very much of this like appeal to attack the women, which is kind of going back to like 1980s, early 1990s pro life movement, before the pro life movement started saying, wait a minute, she's a victim and you had child no more. And post support of women come out and go, this isn't how we reach women and we need to bring women to healing. And so like the pendulum is shifting back. And I'm, I'm actually like, no, we have to show that like when we're on campus and talking to a pro choice woman, we're trying to save her unborn baby if she's pregnant or when she does get pregnant, but we're also trying to save her. And I have this fear that like churches aren't going to want to show it because it's going to be like considered too liberal or too feminist to like care about the septum ring blue haired girl. And that's something we've got to push back on because that's what we've always been about in the pro life movement. I don't know.
- [116:02]
D
Yeah, no, I, I love what you said. There's a couple of things I would add as well in terms of just helping, especially address that concern because at the end of the day we have a responsibility to be ambassadors for Christ. I'm talking to the Christians in the audience. We second Corinthians 5:20 says we are ambassadors for Christ as though we're making an appeal directly through for God. And that message we bring is a message of reconciliation. So it's not a message of condemnation. It's a message of we need to be reconciled to God. And I think part of the challenge that we have here is twofold. We have a culture that's gotten worse, that's killing more children. And I would think, and your statement there was really important about society, especially women, is we've come to a Point where we are no longer making arguments, we're emoting. So we have our moral standard based on the fact that we think we're good people. We think we would never be discriminatory or hateful, we would never harm other people. So me having an abortion or encouraging my girlfriend to have an abortion must be a morally good thing because I'm a good person. And then they try to find logical arguments to justify their morality. And so if we correct them and say that they're wrong, what we're actually doing is personally attacking their moral character. And oftentimes you have, you end up in this situation because you've rejected God. God is no longer your moral center, your feelings are. And so as conservatives, we struggle with that because I think most conservatives, we're rational people, right? Both male and female. And it's so disingenuous to attack female leaders when they've come to their positions for the most part with rational thinking. That has to be respected, just like we do with men. Being rational means you don't treat someone in a sexist way just because of their gender. That's not biblical either. Right. It's the same thing as racism. Right. So ultimately, when we discuss these issues with people who have put their moral standard as their center, it's frustrating for us because we want to speak to them rationally, but they don't want to talk to us rationally. They're emoting. They judge everything we say through their emotional well being. I mentioned earlier that in British Columbia, one of their provinces here on the left coast of Canada, both geographically and politically, they actually passed a motion condemning Christians from actually going into lobbyists or even talk to their MLAs, their legislative assembly members, they're members of the legislature and all of the arguments given by the government to justify this were emotional. Pro lifers are hateful. Christians do not respect other people. We can't be discriminatory against everybody, so we're going to discriminate against pro lifers. It's just so irrational, it blows your mind. And I think the wisdom that the.
- [119:04]
B
Scriptures give us, I think they're Supreme Court uphold that.
- [119:10]
D
The Supreme Court just basically struck, didn't strike down any law because the law was never passed. And they, they basically have no law, had no law since 1969. The problem with. Sorry, yeah, so, yeah, yeah, since 1969, since 1988. The problem is even the Supreme Court, when they ruled on this, invited the parliament to make a law and they didn't. So sorry, let me clarify here. So 69, the law got changed to legalize abortion sometimes. In 1988, the Supreme Court struck down that law and invited parliament to make a new law. So in 1989, the parliament tried to make law, and that was defeated by the abolitionists, partly because of the abolitionists here. Okay, so that. That was the mindset. So I think in terms of context, though, this is what. What I say, and I'm actually writing a book on how Christians can engage on LGBTQ questions by going through five key assumptions we need to overcome in conversation. And the fifth one is applicable because the fifth one says what we need to do is not give up on rationality and truth. We need to know, show that being truthful is actually the most compassionate thing to do, that being able to tell people the reality that we live in is actually the thing that's the most loving thing. So it was Augustine who coined the phrase, hate the sin, but love the sinner. I'm sure all of us have heard that before. I think a better way of saying that is we have to hate the sin because we love the sinner, because that's how God loves us.
- [120:46]
B
Right?
- [120:46]
D
In order for us to condemn abortion, condemn the evil of that, it is. We can strongly do that. We can better do that because we love the woman who's had the abortion, because we love the person who's facing that situation, Even the crazy abortion doctor killing children. How do we love her? We need to ask that question, because when we're motivated by the love of God, who tells us to love our enemies, whether they're abolitionists, unfortunately, they made us their enemies. So I'm sorry, guys. I'm not saying that I want you to be my enemy, but you've made yourself the enemy by attacking pro lifers, but also the abortion provider. When that's your motivation, that will come out in conversation. And in fact, the first question I encourage in my book that we should ask when we're faced with these difficult moral issues is this one, can we disagree and still be friends? Can we disagree and still be friends? Because if the person says, yes, of course we can disagree and still be friends, then they're rational people. They recognize your moral position is not the same as you as a person, and I can love you as a person, even if I hate your ideas. And if they say, well, no, we can't disagree if we're. We can't be friends if we disagree, then my next question is, how many friends do you have that agree with you 100% of the time on everything? And if they're honest, the answer is none. Because no one has that. And this is what a healthy democracy actually does. It says, we don't have to kill each other, we don't have to slander each other. We can still disagree and be friends. And that's the same call we have for abolitionists. As I said, guys, if you can be honest, if you can apologize, whether you've slandered people like Kristen, we're happy to converse with you, but you need to make that change. And my challenge with you, if you want to have a healthy dialogue with pro lifers, stop saying that we support abortion because we don't. Just because we don't.
- [122:40]
B
I know like this thing from Amfest where it's like pro life leaders are blocking them. I mean, they were going around to every table, everywhere. I was at doing media interviews and you could watch them. They were like passing us out. And then when our. We had hundreds of students lining up to see me, they were trying to pass this out in line with the students.
- [122:56]
A
And it's.
- [122:57]
B
Pro life leaders are trying to kill bills to abolish abortion. And average person looks at this is like, what are you talking about? So I confronted one of these guys because he was going up to point the poor girl at preborn. She was like some staffer. Preborn does amazing work. They raise money for pregnancy centers, have ultrasound, so they've saved like tons of babies. And he was like lecturing her about how pro life and she was like, you could see her face. Like, what is going on? I was like, she. He just wants to imprison women. Like, it's, it's. These are like flat out lies. Pro life establishment groups are a major obstacle to ending abortion in America. There were 24 abolishing bills killed by pro life groups under Roe versus Wade. At least 20 abolition bills killed. And as I. You'll see in the full clip, when you watch the full Q A, I actually asked the one guy name it.
- [123:46]
A
Tell me when I killed a pro.
- [123:47]
B
Life, pro abolition bill.
- [123:49]
A
Yeah, yeah, tell me when I spent money.
- [123:51]
B
Because you don't have to spend money to kill their bills. In fact, I would say it would be an imprudent use of donor resources to spend money. Like, I would think there would be a moral problem with spending money to kill abolition bills because they're going to die anyway because they haven't convinced the majority of the legislators to vote for now I can sign onto a letter and saying, I don't agree with this. There's a better bill. It's not me going door to door doing mailing postcards, the phone calls, the text, all. The program we usually run in a state to get bills passed and are like our. But like it's. But like, that's their argument. Like, is that it's lying.
- [124:31]
D
Yeah. And I would say for your pro life students listening, here's a line that will be helpful. Okay. When you're faced with that kind of confrontation, not ever is not the same as not yet. Not ever is not the same as not yet. To make a moral judgment about our character. To say because you're not an immediateist and you want all abortions banned and all women thrown to jail and therefore you don't value the life of the preborn child is a lie. Because what we're doing is not saying that they're not valuable. What we're doing is we're saying, who can we save? Again, the triage example is the best one because it's not us killing the soldier, it's the injury. It's our opposing army that's doing the shooting at us. And you need to blame them, not us. And any kind of improvement where we save some lives as opposed to no lives like we have in Canada, God blesses that right now. God is not blessing Canada because we're not saving any babies. The church doesn't seem to care because the law is a tutor. The abolitionists are absolutely right, Kristen. And what is the law tutoring Canadians now? That no one cares about abortion, that no one cares about preborn children, that we should do nothing about it. And by the way, if you raise it as a political issue, you are a sore loser. And that's exactly what's happening with these abolitionist bills as they keep trying to pass them and they keep being defeated. The mil. The media who's not on our side. And again, I'm a journalist by trade, so I say this as someone who's lived in that field, are reporting on how much of a loser pro lifers are, and they're discouraging even more people who should be on our side, more politicians who should be on our side to not vote with us. Because your bills keep losing. So why do you.
- [126:18]
B
That's a very big tactical thing. Like I remember, I got into a disagree with sort of national to life one time because national to life's view, and they're my friends, but I don't always agree with their tactics. But their view is never call a vote unless you know how that vote's going to go and that you're going to pass the bill because of what you just said. They don't want it to go on record that pro life bill failed because it makes like it looks like we're losing momentum now. I disagree. I want to call votes because I want to get members on record so then I can go back and apply the legislative cycle to the election cycle and I can go and tell their constituents, hey, did you know so and so came to your pro life banquet and say he's pro life. But actually here's on record him. But. And so you've got to. But I understand their strategy. And so for me, I always have to think about okay, I'm gonna. We want to force a vote on this bill. We know we don't have the votes. I need to make sure if we force a vote on this bill, I have the financial resources that I need to go and do the work I need to do. I can't just be willy nilly doing that because I understand the point that National Right to Life has and what the point you just made is. And so it's like you can understand the different tactics within the movement and it's how do you reconcile them in a way that, that you believe is the most godly way to kind of advance the ball down the core, the most moral way to, to use our finite resources and time.
- [127:39]
D
I would say, Kristen, I mean, I don't think we're in disagreement at all. I think what you just articulated is actually attacking tactical approach that sometimes we do have to lose a vote in order to win the debate further on to make further political gain. Right, but that's not what abolitionists are saying. They're saying they're intending to be self righteous and I'm sorry for using that phrase, but that's how they come off to be right. Everybody else is wrong. And that's what's happened in Canada. All the people who fought for an abolition like law, who fought for. Against the what the, the bill that was tried to pass, they're still right, but now we have no protection for babies. And I cited this earlier. So it was mark 6, 7, 13. There's other passages where Jesus talks about being. Sending out his disciples two by two. One of the key things I love about this passage is the responsibility is on those disciples to talk to people. That's where we start. And I think that's what we have to be able to do when it comes to politics as well. We have to learn to talk to people. So that's why this conversation was so Good. When you're talking to this young man, I would encourage him to do what the disciples did in this passage, which is to constantly, not just plant seeds. I actually like saying the phrase, we want you to till the soil. We want you to remove the rocks and weeds that are preventing people from hearing the truth. So that those seeds, it may not be me, it may be you who plant the seeds. But the problem is there's rocks, there's weeds, there's all kinds of things preventing them from hearing us in the first place. And I think that's what's key. I remember a young woman who came to our Gap display in Florida. She's a nursing student. She actually was there, I think, two years earlier, Kristen, and it was fascinating because she said, I came here, I saw your graphic images. I just hated you. I was there the whole day debating you. And I just, I was so upset and angry that I went home and went on the Internet and realized you guys were right in the middle of these tears. This is two years later, she comes back to this and she says, I just want you to know you changed my mind. It took a long time, but because you're willing to have a conversation with me about this critical issue. As a nursing student, I am now pro life, and so I would encourage the abolitionists who want to do something that's the kind of work you need to do. Have conversations with pro abortion students, have conversations with pro abortion relatives. Don't be attacking pro life leaders just because they don't like their strategy publicly. If you want to attack Kristen and have a private conversation with her, and if you're not going to go nuts on her, she promises not to go nuts on you, and you can have a healthy conversation. Conversation and difference, that's fine, but this is not a healthy, it's not a biblical way to air out your differences, especially if you haven't reached out to these pro life leaders one on one. First, there's a clear way in Matthew 18 to deal with conflict in the church. I don't think they're following it.
- [130:47]
B
Agreed. It's like they're throwing rocks into the soil as we're trying to plant the seeds. Let's do one more segment. This was the gentleman. After this gentleman. It starts at 1 hour, 19 minutes, 11 seconds. This kid was not with the, he was an actual student, wasn't with the outside abolitionist, but he had some genuine questions. And I, I, I really wanted folks to hear this point because, and I, I talked about earlier of, like, this view of treating These babies as an abstraction or like you're just making an intellectual point. And I think because they've convinced themselves. And the girl who. The skull cap girl who comes up after him, you know, she didn't want to look at vital statistic records. She said she disagreed with all the statistics showing incremental laws save lives. So when you convince yourself that all incremental laws haven't saved any lives, then I think that's how you sleep at night. Because you think, well, as an immediate pro prosecutionist, I'm not really killing any babies because none of these bills have saved laws. It saved lives, even though we have proof that they are. So let's roll this tape.
- [131:58]
I
Hi, Kristen. First of all, just thank you for being here. It's a great joy and a privilege to have you on campus. I had two quick questions, both of which you've kind of touched on as the night has gone on. So my first question. So I myself am a lifelong devout Catholic. I've always been pro life. This is just the way that I was raised.
- [132:18]
A
Be careful. Some people in the room don't like that. Shh.
- [132:21]
I
That's what my handshake. Yeah, that's what my question is about, actually. So it was recently I came into contact with certain abolitionist groups, and they.
- [132:30]
A
Think we're going to hell. Just FYI.
- [132:31]
I
Yeah. Yeah, that's sort of what I've gathered.
- [132:33]
A
It's hard when you're a Calvinist. Everyone's either going to heaven or hell. You don't know, but Catholics are really going to hell.
- [132:39]
I
And so I guess my question stemmed from whenever I ran into these abolitionist groups. Initially, I didn't realize that they were So I guess you could say prejudice against the pro life and the pro. And the Catholic side of pro life argument. And so I looked to get involved quickly, found out that they did not want me there.
- [133:02]
A
Hey. Well, you were a man, so you're a gut checkboxer. I'm a woman and a Catholic, so it's Right.
- [133:08]
I
Yeah, but twice as hard.
- [133:09]
A
Yeah, you could use. You can probably infiltrate if you want to.
- [133:11]
I
Dude, I can try.
- [133:12]
A
You could try.
- [133:13]
B
You got a beard.
- [133:13]
A
I thought you were an abolitionist. You had a beard.
- [133:15]
I
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [133:16]
A
Sorry. I'm sorry. Keep going. You have a thoughtful question. I'm interrupting you.
- [133:21]
I
But anyways, my question was, I also noticed that they specifically argue against the reason they disagree with the pro life position is because we would be in favor of sort of. Of incremental change, whereas they are, you know, full stop. It's all or nothing. And so what I was always taught is that it's really pretty simple in my own mind is that less loss of life is better than no change at all. And so I guess how would you approach conversations regarding sort of the abolitionist view versus the pro life view?
- [133:57]
A
Yeah, I actually wrote something about that today. I was a lot smarter at 6, I am than I am right now. But no, I mean, the point I was getting to earlier was like, in the Old Testament, God obviously allowed. I mean, Aquinas talked about this.
- [134:13]
D
But.
- [134:13]
A
Like, God allowed something that was not ideal. Divorce, slavery. Not because he suddenly, like, changed his mind in the old test in the New Testament, but because he was, as Jesus told the Pharisee, he was dealing with hard hearts, a fallen people who couldn't bear the full weight of moral perfection. And he met them where they were limited, the evil, and drew them closer to him. And I think that's. That's really interest. That's a good, good way to start with this because I think obviously, I mean, before the abolitionists came around, they were now abolition rising. They used to be abolished human abortion. Oh, my gosh, the northern lights are out in my house.
- [135:02]
B
I'm missing it.
- [135:04]
A
I better have changed someone's mind about.
- [135:06]
B
Abortion because I am missing the northern.
- [135:07]
A
Lights in my house. So someone change your mind about abortion.
- [135:12]
B
Make this day worth it?
- [135:14]
A
No, I mean, I think. I think abolitionists treat the child in the womb as like this abstraction. They actually treat the child in the womb as an abstraction similar to how the pro choice movement treats them. I wrote about this today and actually brought the receipts because I wanted to actually put this in a thread for our student leaders who are very careful. Confused, because people get very confused. Like, Kristen, why are you yelling at this person who says he's abolishing abortion? Why are they so mean to you? And it gets very confusing. But I think it's this abstraction because the abolitionist movement will say over and over again and literally, like I'm looking at my Twitter today from one of the Students for Abolition chapter leaders, quote, our goal isn't to ultimately end abortion, is to obey God.
- [136:14]
B
In the Washington Post this May.
- [136:18]
A
Russell Hunter, the founder of Abolishing Abortion, which they changed the name because we owned Abolish Abortion. So they changed it. Now it's Abolitionist Rising or whatever. He quote, he said, the abolitionist movement wants to save babies, but our focus is establishing justice. He further went on the Washington Post to say, we do not concern. The movement does not concern itself with abortion rights advocates, but engages with Those who already hold anti abortion views, why they're protesting me and not Planned Parenthood. And the goal isn't converting pro abortion people to being pro life or choosing, getting young people to change and reject the abortion culture. It's fighting the pro lifers. That's why they protest pregnancy centers. People like me. Their own website says it. The chief and end goal of Abolitionist Rising on their website is to, quote, glorify God. And I think, and I've heard this before, I had a Baptist minister one time call me who started yelling at me and told me that if I was actually pro life and merciful, I would support abortion because the babies who are aborted go automatically to heaven.
- [137:35]
B
His view.
- [137:39]
A
I know as a Catholic you're like.
- [137:40]
I
Yeah, setting off some alarm bells, okay, but.
- [137:45]
A
And so that you know, these babies are being born to mothers out of wedlock who aren't Christians, who might be raised in poverty, poverty, have a hard life, they're going to go, they could go to hell. So wouldn't the more merciful thing to do would to just let them be aborted?
- [138:01]
I
Well, and so I wasn't originally going to talk about this, but I even have my own personal anecdote from my own life. I don't talk about this often, but my, my own mother was. She had fallen away from the Catholic church in her teen years, got involved in some very unhealthy, immoral lifestyles, and long story short, she was heavily drug addicted, impoverished, engaged to her drug dealer, and lo and behold, she gets pregnant with me. And it was sort of this moment where she had to face those decisions and say, am I going to continue living this way or am I going to take responsibility for this life that I brought into the world? And obviously she chose me because I'm standing here. But you know, my father, on the other hand, he did not. And he chose to exit sort of our life. But I see in my own life just a very, very good testimony, not just to, you know, to our Lord's infinite mercy, but even just to the simple fact that I was not limited by the conditions into which I was brought into this world.
- [139:21]
A
And you probably just changed another mind. I just, I don't know where I was going with that because I always try to understand where people are going.
- [139:29]
B
Right.
- [139:30]
A
Like, so I was talking about that bill. This year I want to see all abortions abolished. The first abolitionist who came up and questioned me, I've said, after abortion is made illegal, I think eventually you'll have punishment for people who engage in abortion. I don't think it's now we're not even near close to that. We saw with the abolition of slavery, it wasn't until like 1917 the first person was actually tried for trying to. Tried brought to trial for trying to enslave humans, right? Africans ensuring the deep South. It took what it took a while, right? And that's not really our movement.
- [140:06]
B
Our movement isn't about like how, how.
- [140:07]
A
Long should you stay in prison for? It's like just hey, just stop killing babies. But when I try to understand the abolitionist mindset because what I was saying earlier about the bill that was the abolitionist killed, like how could you just like how do you sleep at night? Right? We could have saved, we could have passed a bill this May in Oklahoma, which is going to be perfect. No. 1, because man wrote it. Two, we know people are always going to do bad and evil things, but we were going to be able to limit some of the evil. We were going to be able to save babies. How can someone who says we should kill a pro life laws because they're not perfect, because they don't end all abortions go to sleep at night. Like I couldn't live with that on my conscious because I don't view the babies as like an obstruction. And I also don't think just aborting them sends them automatic. Possibly. I hope because we serve a just and merciful God, I hope that they.
- [141:01]
B
All go to heaven.
- [141:02]
A
But I don't know. The Bible didn't really have a whole conversation about that. And the Catholic Church has its own.
- [141:07]
B
Thoughts about that, right?
- [141:08]
A
And some of them are like, well.
- [141:09]
B
I can believe it or not, who.
- [141:10]
A
Knows, I'm a convert. I get very confused by the whole concept of limbo. But to try to assume the best of the abolition and how I think they sleep at night is. I think the thought is these babies are going to heaven when they're aborted. So therefore when I kill a bill that would save 90% of babies, not 100%, even though babies are going to continue to die, I can sleep at night because they're still going to heaven. I don't know. That's assuming the best, but I don't know if we can always. That we don't know. And as Christians we're told to limit evil, to fight against evil, to fight against the justice. So like being in the pro life movement and fighting against abortion is the way I live out my Christian faith. It's one of the ways I live.
- [141:58]
B
Out my Christian faith. Right.
- [142:00]
A
And I think we're called to that. Like, if you know you were created by the God who spoke the universe into existence and that we were all equally valuable and you know this. And then you're, you're like, nah, I don't care about abortion. You're obviously sinning. You're obviously not fulfilling what you should be doing. So I don't know, I just. They measure their purity and it's like, well, the bill isn't pure enough. And to me it's like it's an abstraction because I can guarantee you even shouty girl, if there was an orphanage on fire, we were on the street, we heard 500 kid screaming inside of that orphanage. Even though me and shouty girl, if it was just me and her, me and shouty girl know we're not going to be able to save all 500 babies. I don't know, there's going to be big kids that can run out, but there's going to be a lot of babies in cribs. But I would guarantee you she would run into that building with me to save as many babies as we could, right? We would try to get. We would call 91 1, we would shout for neighbors, we would ask for help and we would go in to save as many babies as we could. And we would know there's still a tragedy happening because some babies are going to die and they're going to die excruciating, painful deaths, but we're going to try because we're Christians and we're called to do that. Yet when it comes to pro life bills, the abolitionists will say, no, I think it's immoral. We kill the bill. They're viewing the baby as an obstruction action, not actually like a tangible flesh and bones human being who's going to die excruciating death. And I just, I have no tolerance for that because to me, it's worse than someone that is so much worse in my mind, than someone who's radically pro abortion, who doesn't get it, who's like, it's a compass. Cell has no value, has no meaning. Okay, I can have a conversation with you because I can use science, I can use philosophy, I can use religion to tell you why you're wrong. But then someone who uses religion to justify killing and letting babies die.
- [144:11]
B
Sorry.
- [144:12]
A
I'll be a logical woman all day long and lose my crap.
- [144:15]
B
I think it. That sums up how Abolitionist Rising painted me in that video, right? It's like Kristen, a female gets emotionally unhinged and, and I, I went back and Watched it. I was like, I don't think I get angry enough. Like, because this is what it is. But I guess, Jojo, from your biblical perspective, like, I don't know if you want to go into, like, what happens to babies when they die, because I, I don't know what happens, happens to these souls, these children. But I am trying to understand, like, what is the Calvinist, because most of these abolitionists are, they're whatever point five point Calvinists or whatever it's called, but they are Calvinist. So it's like, is it that view of, like, all the babies automatically go to heaven so we potentially save their soul? I, I Googled around for Calvinism about what Calvinists believe about infant death, and it doesn't look like there's like one particular thing that's like this tried and true, but then, but then the other girl who comes up and asks a question after him. Well, yeah, because there's another abolitionist, the Pharaoh guy, then her, she's the one talking about what God hates, and God hates unjust laws. But then she was the one saying she didn't agree with any vital statistic or record. So then I'm thinking, okay, well, maybe it's not just they think the babies go automatically heaven. They just, they discount every single statistic out there. So they truly just don't think any incremental laws has saved any babies, therefore they're morally justified. And I don't know, Help me out.
- [145:52]
D
Well, there's, there's a lot in there. I think one of the most important things that I would have.
- [145:58]
B
I didn't tell you being a podcast was going to be easy, by the way.
- [146:02]
D
No, these are, these are actually quite important questions that we've, we've talked about, thought about quite a bit as pro lifers here in Canada. But one of the things I would have added to your comments, which was a brilliant. I, I completely agree. And again, I'm not just saying that I think objectively was the, the correct way, but I've also added, if you were in front of that burning building with 100 children inside that building, you would not have a theological check on the person beside you to see if you were of the same theology in order to save those babies. Right? Just like you don't. You don't. When your house is burning and the firefighters come, you don't say, well, only Christians can come rescue me, because they miss that analogy that they're trying to say is the Christian response has to be theologically sound because they don't recognize we live in a secular culture that needs us even if they don't hear the Christian message right away. So it doesn't matter. What your point is that with, with Calvinists to answer quickly your question, because I don't, I don't think that's the most important thing here. But most reformers, that's what, what these groups are led by have a view called of theonomy where they actually believe the only way to change and the law, the only way to change the law and have Jesus come back is to build Canadian or cultural laws, civic laws based on Old Testament principles. Okay. So that this is what Christian nationalism actually is. It's based on this theonomy as a perspective. I, I don't share that view. But even Calvinists who agree with theonomy don't agree with the strategy. There's several debates online with Doug Wilson. You mentioned another guy that you mentioned in the debate.
- [147:45]
B
Yeah, I didn't know who Doug Wilson was, so I want, afterwards I went and looked him up. Apparently he lives in Idaho too.
- [147:51]
D
He is in Idaho. Yeah.
- [147:52]
B
I don't think he and I would be friends either.
- [147:55]
D
But yeah, the point is, and this is what we've always learned. When I was starting pro life work as a 13 year old kid, I was the only Protestant among Catholics and especially as a.
- [148:07]
B
Me too.
- [148:08]
A
You're just stronger because I guess I.
- [148:10]
B
Acquiesced and joined them.
- [148:13]
D
We're not as Filipino Protestants. There's a lot of problems we have with the Catholic Church. And so it was working that I partnered with Stephanie Gray Connors, who is a Catholic, a Scottish person. Scottish people are mostly Protestants. And we started, I think the most important pro life apologetics ministry here in Canada, the Canadian center for Bioethical Reform. So God in his wisdom brought a Catholic and a Protestant to come together to save babies. How much more blessed could that be? And they're doing wonderful work right now. The only reason why I stepped back or the main reason is because I'm doing Christian apologetics now. And, and this is the point that, that bothers me like in terms of this commentary that we're dealing with is they don't seem to want to engage the culture where the culture is at. Because we need to never, never ever compromise biblical truth and biblical principles. But we have to translate those biblical principles in the language of the day. I just have one more clip and this is where I think it would be good for me to end off.
- [149:22]
G
I've got someone here that believes the Bible. I've got someone Here, making logical arguments. Time to ratchet it up. Start yelling and pointing and then, boom, right here, you ain't got the votes. Now we're citing Kristen Hawk Hawkins. God, it is the culture we've been seeing that this whole video, she appeals to the culture. The culture is the determining factor on what we should do, what we can possibly get done. And here we have it, plain as day. The real reason that we can't do what you abolitionists are suggesting that we do is because we ain't got the votes. Doesn't matter what God says. And by the way, if we change the, the culture will have the votes. Who's keeping us from changing the culture? Students for Life of America.
- [150:10]
D
I, I, I wanted to play that because, well, not only is it slanderous again, but, but it, it shows how out of touch his thinking is. Because we are not appealing to the culture as the culture determines what we do. We have to appeal to the culture to start where the culture is at and bring them to the gospel, bring them to biblical truth. So the culture determines where we start. It doesn't determine what we say. And I think that's why it's so dishonest for him to say that. No one is saying the culture changes what the church teaches or changes what the Bible teaches. But the Bible, the ones we're reading right now were translated by people who understood our culture. The, the Bible that we're reading right now was translated by people who wanted them to fall in love with what the word of God says. So I wanted to end off with this key idea from 1st Corinthians 9. I don't know if you want to read along with me, Kristen, or if you want to read part of it. Why don't you start this time and read the first three verses? First Corinthians 9, verse 19. And I'll read the last two verses so you can do the rest. So 19 to 23. So, but if you'll read 19, 20, and 21.
- [151:31]
B
For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all that I might win the more. To the Jews, I became as a Jew in order to win Jews. To those under the law, I became as one under the law, though not my not being myself under the law, that I might win those under the law. Law. To those outside the law, I became as one outside the law, not being without law towards God, but under the law of Christ that I might win those outside the law.
- [152:01]
D
To the weak, I became as weak that I might win the Weak. I have become all things to all men that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel's sake, that I may be partakers of it with you. And so there's just a couple of points there. Wasn't Paul using the cultural standard of his day so that he can reach the people there with the Gospel? He just said that it's absolutely clear that's what we ought to do. And I think that same principle would apply to changing the law in a secular culture that hates the Bible. It's not the same as a Judaic theocracy that we read in Leviticus. And then that line, I really love that I have become all things to all men that I might by all means save some. He's not saying so I can save all. He's saying so we can save some.
- [152:51]
A
Right.
- [152:52]
D
Not because he doesn't want to save everybody, but because he's saying my job is to try to save who I can. So is Paul then someone the abolitionists should condemn because he's talking about their step by step, incremental approach. Again, to your students, do not be intimidated by these abolitionists. They're taking Bible verses out of context to justify a political strategy that has failed Canadians for 38 years and will fail you. And if you're not careful, if you're not wise, you're going to continue down that path where they're taking these Bible verses of the context and your faith will be challenged because it's not based on truth. That's the problem. And I'm not attacking your character. I don't need to. Because our position is based on truth. If you want to rely on slandering Kristen or other pro lifers, you have to start asking the question, why do you need to do that? If your position is true, why do you need to rely on slander? And so, again, my heart is open to debate. Absolutely. I love debate. I do that for a living as part of my job as a Christian apologist. And I'm happy to do that on this issue, but only with people who are honest and not going to slander us because we disagree with you.
- [154:07]
B
That's a great way to end. Jojo. I. There was one more thing. I. There was one more thing. We can go back to it. Maybe we can plug this in. Earlier there was a. In the skull cap girl. She. I was quoting Exodus and she was quoting Exodus. And then I realized after the event, I was like, what is she talking about? Like, no, I just read this and I do want to go into Exodus 21, because in Exodus 21 in the Catholic Bible, so the, the Revised Standard Edition, right, it says 22, verse 22 in chapter 21, and men strive together and hurt a woman with child so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows. The one who hurt her shall be fined according as the one woman's husband lay upon him, and he shall pay as a judge is determined. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth of tooth, hand for hand, foot for what, burn for wound, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. And I think that was, it was interesting because that actually came up in this, in the girl, the longer girl, Rachel, I think her name was, because she kept quoting this as eye for eye. And I'm like, well, the Talmudic. I know in the Talmud and in the Greek, which is where the new cath, the Catholic new arise Standard version comes from. It actually talks about. About miscarriage. I just wanted you to go into that because. So the NIV version, the Protestant Bible version basically makes it sound like if there is a miscarriage and the baby dies, then it. Eye for eye applies. The Catholic Bible does not say that. And that's more off the Jewish tradition. And I know that's was Jewish law.
- [155:42]
A
How do you.
- [155:44]
B
Well, I got you. How do you rectify that? Because, I mean, obviously, I mean, my, my, my response would be like, well, first of all, that's Old Testament. If there was a different understanding of fetal human development at that point, I think it's a lot different. These were laws that were given to the Israeli people, not laws. You know, we saw laws on divorce and permitting slavery at the same book here. So it's not. These were these. The absolute moral laws, These were how to regulate these immoral acts within their society. But I didn't know if you had anything more to say to that before I left.
- [156:21]
D
That's good. But. So if you're speaking to people from my tribe, Protestants, Baptists, we would actually see that the wording there is a little bit ambiguous. And so what it says is there's any harm, meaning if there's a baby who's disabled because of the actions of the situation of the woman or the men, then there's eye for eye, tooth for tooth, based on the disability of the child. If the child, however, is dead, then it is a capital offense in that society. So first of all, I think that the, the first response I would say is in this situation, it's an accident. It's not an abortion, no one was intentionally trying to harm the baby. So those rules, again, don't apply to the abortion situation the same way. Secondly, even if you, regardless if you take the Catholic or the Protestant interpretation, in this situation, both interpretations say the child has been harmed and we need to do something about the harm. So it humanizes the child. Now, again, there may be different ways the punishment is meted out, capital punishment or not. Again, that doesn't change the value of that person. It just means the way the administrative force of that time is different than it would be today. Like we talked about earlier, the threefold part of Mosaic law was there's the moral law, there's a ceremonial law, and then there's administrative law. And so the ceremonial, which is only something that was done for Israeli culture, Jewish culture, the administrative, which is built around a theocratic state, we cannot. We don't have the ability to follow those right now. Even the Jews right now know that much of their ceremonial laws are incomplete. So they can't do everything. I have messianic Jewish friends, Christians who are Jews who try to, you know, go outside. And the feast of the branches, I think they try to tent it outside, so they're in their backyard, intense. They don't have palm trees to use as leaves. Right. That's what the, the requirement is in the Old Testament. But the moral law still exists. So in that passage, what the moral law is teaching is that that child in the womb is not just a thing. Clearly there's a punishment for harm against that child, whether that child is born dead or injured. There's. It's still a child or she's still a child. And. And that's the. That's the moral teaching that we need to take from that. That applies.
- [158:54]
B
Thank you. I couldn't let you go until I got that question answered. I have my notes, but I'll sure have more questions later. But, Jojo, I want to thank you for your time. I want to thank you for watching that full video and just weighing in on it. And I really, really appreciate you doing that and helping me and come alongside me and going, yes, you should have had this. Maybe you should consider this. I have taken my notes as any good attempted apologist tries to be. So I thank you for that.
- [159:24]
A
This episode is brought to you by the Pro lifegen shop and our brand new hot off the press Planned Parenthood tears mug. This is a custom Kristin Hawkins designed mug that I specifically requested because I have been waiting for a long, long.
- [159:42]
B
Time for Planned Parenthood to be funded.
- [159:45]
A
So for $10, actually $9.99, you can get your Planned Parenthood Tears mug. So just go to shop.prolifegen.org and get.
- [159:53]
B
Your mug today and you can sip.
- [159:55]
A
Your coffee or energy drink, in my case, in a brand new mug celebrating.
- [160:01]
B
The fact that we finally defunded Planned Parenthood because of you and I. I really hope I know this was a long podcast for you all. My dinner has come and went. My husband had to make it. Thankfully I had everything laid out. But I'm hopeful that this is instructive to you and that you have more time.
- [160:18]
A
You can go back and watch the.
- [160:19]
B
Whole speech and the whole Q and A which we'll link in the show notes. But I do hope it'll help you all answer questions and in your conversations with people who are pro prosecution, immediate pro prosecutionists or maybe leaning that way. I've seen some videos and you don't know how to answer it that who want to have a genuine conversation. This is going to help you have.
- [160:39]
A
That genuine conversation with them. So until next time, thank you so.
- [160:43]
B
Much for tuning into the Kristen Hawkins.