← The World and Everything In It
The World and Everything In It
3.20.26 A new push against the abortion pill, a review of Project Hail Mary, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s plan to help people in crisis
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- [00:06]
Myrna Brown
Good morning. The legacy of a false prophet of population doom. Also dealing with the aftermath of DIY abortion and a poll asking can you be good without God?
- [00:18]
Nick Eicher
Katie McCoy will be along shortly for Culture Friday. Also today, a new sci fi adventure film that feels like Hollywood at its best. I'm not an astronaut.
- [00:29]
Myrna Brown
If you don't go, you die.
- [00:30]
Nick Eicher
A review of Project Hail Hail Mary from Joseph Holmes. Later, RFK Jr. S plan for tackling America's mental health crisis.
- [00:47]
Myrna Brown
It's Friday, March 20th. This is the world and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Myrna Brown.
- [00:54]
Nick Eicher
And I'm Nick Iger. Good morning.
- [00:58]
Myrna Brown
Up next, Kent Covington with today's news.
- [01:02]
Kent Covington
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters in Jerusalem that Iran's nuclear program and its ballistic missile production have been devastated. He said that Iran can no longer make new ballistic missiles and it can no longer refine uranium, a step in making a nuclear weapon. The prime minister delivered a portion of his remarks in English explaining the goal,
- [01:27]
Nick Eicher
removing both of these threats before they're buried deep underground and become immune from aerial attack.
- [01:33]
Kent Covington
The UN's nuclear watchdog has yet to confirm his claim on uranium enrichment. Netanyahu also addressed claims by some that Israel coerced the United States into launching military strikes against Iran.
- [01:46]
Nick Eicher
Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do? Come on. President Trump always makes his decisions on what he thinks is good for America.
- [01:58]
Kent Covington
Netanyahu also said Israel's military will not strike any more Iranian oil and gas infrastructure per President Trump's request. That comes after Wednesday's strike on the South Pars Field. Hours earlier, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said he'll be seeking more funds from Congress for the war in Iran, even as the administration says it likely won't last much longer.
- [02:20]
Joseph Holmes
It takes money to kill bad guys, so we're going back to Congress and folks there to ensure that we're properly funded.
- [02:27]
Kent Covington
The requested sum is reportedly $200 billion. Exith said the mission is to eliminate grave threats in Iran and then leave no nation building or quagmires as with some wars of the past. President Trump on Thursday hosted a special guest at the White House, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. One major topic of discussion was, of course, Iran. And speaking through an interpreter, the Japanese prime minister agreed that Iran has been a serious threat.
- [02:54]
Joseph Holmes
Japan condemns Iran's actions, such as attacking the neighboring region and also the de facto or effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
- [03:05]
Kent Covington
Trump pressed the prime minister to get Japan to commit to assist the US in securing the Strait of Hormuz. The president pointing out that 90% of Japan's oil flows through the Strait.
- [03:15]
Nick Eicher
Look, I expect Japan to step up because, you know, we have that kind of relationship and we step up with Japan. We have 45,000 soldiers in Japan. We have. We spend a lot of money on Japan.
- [03:27]
Kent Covington
So she told Trump that Japan has some constitutional limitations but will do what it can to help. And some awkward moments as the President took questions. One reporter asked Trump why he did not give Japan and other US Allies prior notice before launching Operation Epic Fury. In response, Trump referenced a darker chapter in U. S. Japan relations.
- [03:49]
Nick Eicher
And we didn't tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan?
- [03:56]
Myrna Brown
Okay.
- [03:57]
Nick Eicher
Why didn't you tell me about Pearl harbor? Okay. Right.
- [04:02]
Kent Covington
The 1941 Japanese bombing of the US naval base at Pearl harbor in Hawaii killed more than 2,000Americans. Senator Mark Wayne Mullen is one step closer to becoming the next Homeland Security Secretary. The Senate Homeland Security Committee advanced his nomination on Thursday.
- [04:19]
Katie McCoy
On this vote, the yeas are eight, the nays are seven, and the motion to report the nominee is agreed to.
- [04:25]
Kent Covington
That will now go to a full vote on the Senate floor, possibly next week. Democratic Senator Gary Peters voted no.
- [04:31]
Joseph Holmes
He argued the department and the American people deserve a leader who is steady and proven under pressure, not just someone better than the very low bar set by his predecessor.
- [04:43]
Kent Covington
But GOP Senator James Lankford says Mullen is exactly the kind of leader the department needs. If you want to sit down and
- [04:50]
Joseph Holmes
talk about an issue, he's glad to be able to talk about it and to be able to work it out
- [04:54]
Kent Covington
and has very good relationships in the House and in the Senate. President Trump removed Kristi Noem as DHS chief roughly two weeks ago. The nomination vote comes as DHS is still operating under a funding lapse, now more than a month old. The Office for Civil Rights at the Health and Human Services Department is opening investigations into 13 states for allegedly coercing health care entities to pay for abortions. World's Kristen Flavin reports.
- [05:23]
Katie McCoy
Federal investigators say laws that require insurance plans to cover abortion may violate the Weldon Amendment. That provision bars states from discriminating against health care providers that decline to cover, pay for, or refer for abortions. Investigators say the states have effectively coerced health care entities into funding abortion coverage against their beliefs. The Biden administration had asserted that the Weldon Amendment did not apply to employers or insurance sponsors, but the Trump administration reversed that. Each of those 13 states has 20 days to respond. All of the states in question have Democratic governors, except for Vermont. For World I'm Kristen Flavin.
- [06:03]
Kent Covington
New applications for US unemployment benefits fell last week to 205,000. That was better than analysts expected and near historically low levels. The Labor Department reported Thursday that claims dropped 8,000 from the previous week, below the 215,000 analysts had forecasted. The Healthy Weekly figures contrast with February's weaker monthly jobs report. The Federal Reserve on Wednesday left interest rates unchanged, citing deep uncertainty over the war and Iran's economic impact, though Chairman Jerome Powell said the U.S. economy is strong. I'm Kent Covington. And Straightight ahead, Katie McCoy is here for Culture Friday. Plus, treating mental illness holistically. This is the WORLD and everything in It.
- [07:07]
Myrna Brown
It's Friday, March 20th. Glad to have you along for today's edition of the World and Everything in It. Good morning. I'm Myrna Brown.
- [07:16]
Nick Eicher
And I'm Nick Eichert's Culture Friday author and speake. Katie McCoy joins us today. And we can add a new line to the bio now author, speaker and co host with Jonathan Morrow of Reality Check, an exciting pilot feature of World Watch, our video news program for students. Katie, good morning.
- [07:37]
Katie McCoy
Good morning, Nick and Myrna. Yeah, hey, how about that? That was so fun to do.
- [07:41]
Nick Eicher
Oh, I imagine so. And congratulations, by the way, Katie. The show looks really good. Just this week on Wednesday, Reality check made its deb 10 episode pilot season. So it'll go each week for those 10 episodes. It's a short, not even five minute feature Wednesdays on World Watch. The idea behind it is to pause a cultural argument and pose a simple question, what are the worldview ideas driving it? With the aim of helping students to see what the assumptions are that are really shaping the debate. Now, this has been a long time coming, but it is really something else to finally see it on the screen. So what was it like for you, Katie, seeing the finished product?
- [08:27]
Katie McCoy
So fun. And it was so fun to go from, you know, speaking into a teleprompter to seeing the full produced version. The creativity of the whole Worldwatch team is just phenomenal. And they took all these concepts and packaged them in a way that is very engaging and informative. And so please make sure your listeners know we want to hear from them and what they think about it and what we can do to improve. And this is this is kind of a work in progress, but we're really excited about it. We're having a lot of fun.
- [08:57]
Nick Eicher
Well, listen, we're really excited about it, too. And I will say to the listener, if you are not a World Watch subscriber yet, you can try it free for 30 days at Worldwatch News. That's not going to get you all 10 weeks of reality Check for free, but I think after a month you'll find that World Watch will be indispensable for any home that has young students in it. Check it out. Worldwatch News free preview on the house if you have never tried it before.
- [09:27]
Myrna Brown
Well, Katie, I've been where you were on the other side of the camera and as you know, it's not easy that you made it look easy.
- [09:35]
Katie McCoy
Oh, thank you.
- [09:37]
Myrna Brown
Well, I want to talk about Paul Ehrlich, Katie. He's the best selling author who got it wrong. He died at 93 a week ago, but he lived long enough to see populations around the world in decline thanks to sowing seeds of unfounded concern about population overwhelm. Lots has been written about him. I'm wondering how history will treat Ehrlich.
- [10:06]
Katie McCoy
Well, there's a few things happening at play. And Dr. Mohler had a great piece on world opinions about this, about how he was effectively a false prophet. He said that this was going to be just mass starvation back in the 80s and 90s and this gloom and doom. But really what he did was he gave kind of this ecological philosophical excuse to a lot of issues that we're seeing be front and center today. So for instance, when you look at some very pro abortion progressive arguments, you're going to see a connection between climate change, food insecurity and abortion. And to the point that some of these groups say things like reproductive justice is climate justice, that you have to have abortion in order to have a healthy and balanced planet. And so the logic goes, we need to eliminate unwanted births, unwanted pregnancies, and certainly forced pregnancies. And this isn't just like some fringe corners of the Internet either. This was on a website for the School of the Environment at Yale University and they were talking about how we need to reduce the population so that we can retain our human rights and liberties. And the way to do that is to prevent unwanted births. There's another element to this too, though, the psychological element, if you can believe that. You may remember former Vice President Kamala Harris talking about how young Americans are suffering from climate anxiety. The meaning there is Gen Z is reluctant to have children because they don't even know if they're going to have a planet in 10 years. Why would they want to bring children into the world? In fact, one study found that over one third of Gen Z was less likely to have children because of climate change. So these issues are trickling down to major sociological developments. And here we are, we've been talking for about 20 years now how in the west there is what we would call demographic winter. Fascinating. One more thing about this, you'll find another correlation between some of the things that we've talked about on this show related to critical theory and majority culture. Some of these climate activists and population control advocates do make the argument that someone who is born into a third world country produces exponentially less carbon emission than someone born in a wealthy country. And by wealthy, Read the West. So someone who's born in America or Europe by the time you have a baby, well, that baby is just producing all kinds of greenhouse gas. But third world countries, totally different story. And so really fascinating to see this intersection, this convergence of different cultural and political values that are brought to the surface by this man's theories.
- [13:13]
Nick Eicher
Well, Katie, let me turn to something that we saw last week involving Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri. He has introduced a bill called the Safeguarding Women from Chemical Abortion Act. The bill would bypass the federal Food and Drug Administration to effectively issue a nationwide ban on the abortion pill mifepristone by stripping the drug of its FDA approval. It was about a week ago he put on a press conference and stood with several women who described serious complications after taking the abortion pill. And what struck me was how different the stories were. One of them, a woman who took the pill but changed her mind last minute and got a reversal that ended up saving her child. That woman is Rebecca Hagan, now a pro life activist. But you know, even as I say the stories were different, there was a strikingly similar pattern. Let's listen to Ms. Hagan.
- [14:10]
Rebecca Hagan
Reminded that I was running out of time, that the window for having a chemical abortion was quickly closing. I swallowed the abortion pill in front of a nurse, signed some paperwork, and was sent on my way with a little brown bag of abortion drugs to take soon after. The only medical guidance I received, and I still remember her exact words to this day, were, once you start this, Rebecca, there will be no going back. Expect bleeding, expectations, cramping. Take your pain medication, rest, and call us if you pass blood clots larger than the size of a lemon. What I didn't understand was that I had just been sent home with instructions to literally send myself into labor. No one talked about the complications, what I might feel, what I might see. And no one talked about my baby.
- [14:57]
Nick Eicher
So it was just like this woman after woman describing being given the pills, sent home and largely left to deal with the consequences on her own. Now, we know that all Democrats are opposed to Josh Hawley here, but so are some Republicans as well. There are some anonymous White House staff dishing to the press how mad they are about Hawley's move here. But is that a reason not to move ahead?
- [15:22]
Katie McCoy
Thank the Lord for Senator Josh Hawley. He is taking up the mantle of advocating for pre born Americans. And let me just juxtapose it with this Nick. The Trump administration so far has been out to lunch on abortion. They have utterly failed their pro life constituents who were looking to them to continue a lot of the advances that they made in the first Trump administration, namely this issue of mifepristone, which by the way, the vast majority of abortions now are chemical. They happen oftentimes in a woman's apartment, her home, her bathroom, completely apart from medical care. And as our friends at the Ethics and Public Policy center have uncovered, about 1 in 10 or 1 in 11 women have a serious and urgent health complication because of these drugs. But our current FDA and Department of Health and Human Services have done nothing, nothing to rein in the Biden era liberties with which mifepristone was disseminated specifically. You can get it by telehealth. You don't even have to see a doctor and you can get it in your mailbox. Just this week, the Trump administration continued trying to fight gop. So Republican states and their efforts to rein in mifepristone to at least reinstate some of the restrictions that were before Biden. So those would be related to telehealth or, you know, requiring a doctor's visit, requiring the pills to be dispensed in a medical facility. The Trump administration has upheld these things. But oh wait, it gets worse. They've talked about how they're going to continue with studying or putting into motion the approval of a generic mifepristone. Now if they want to hide behind some kind of legal process, to that I just say, blah, blah, blah, you're changing the food pyramid and vaccine schedules. You can deal with a drug that is harming one in 10 women, but they won't. And I think the one word for that is midterms. Midterms. We are seeing this administration just play the political game like so many have before it related to abortion. And I think that every believer needs to make their voice known that yes, we may be grateful for many things in a respective administration and this administration has done many good things that would be in alignment with our values, even a biblically shaped worldview. But on the issue of abortion, they have failed, and they continue to fail, and they have given no indication that they want to do anything but fail.
- [18:11]
Myrna Brown
Before we let you go, Katie, another Pew Research study is out, and it reveals this. Almost 7 out of 10Americans now believe that belief in God is not essential to being moral or holding good values. Pew started asking the question back in 2002, and here it is. Is it necessary to believe in God in order to have good values and morals? And the number who said, no, it isn't 68%. It's the highest it's ever been.
- [18:48]
Katie McCoy
Yeah. So first, let's talk about what that Pew Research poll reveals. The idea of. Can you just be a good, moral person and not believe in God at all? It's incoherent. The whole premise of it is completely incoherent. Let's look at why. If there is no God, then the only worldview to explain the universe and the existence of you, me, and every other person on this planet is naturalism, meaning that the world evolved from purely material sources. You may recall Nietzsche's philosophy was all about power. And this goes with Darwinian naturalism and materialism perfectly, because the only thing that exists is power. Well, if you have a world where the only thing that exists is power, then there is no right and wrong. In fact, this is why Nietzsche hated Christianity, because he said Christianity did things like valorize humility. Well, in a world of everything is power, you don't need humility. Humility is something that gets in the way of you exercising your power. So the very values that people say they believe and would value, like kindness, like hospitality to strangers, like equality, you don't get those things without there being a transcendent being to whom you can lock those ideas into. So the idea that you can have a naturalistic, materialistic world and just evolve into morals, it is utterly incoherent. It simply doesn't work. And then, as we've talked about I think before on this show, the values that we espouse and prize in our culture are linked all the way back to the influence of Christianity in Western society. But if anybody watched the Oscars, you might have seen that the Best Actress award went to Jessie Buckley for Hamnet, and the Best Actor award went to Michael B. Jordan for Sinners. Fascinating little tidbit, both of those movies, and they won other awards, but both of those movies feature some sort of pagan spirituality, some sort of valorizing witchcraft, the occult In Hamnet, she is a forest witch who can do incantations and see the future. In Sinners, there's this protagonist who practices hoodoo, which is African ancestor worship and folk magic. And Christianity generally speaking is portrayed as oppressive, whereas pagan spirituality that is portrayed as a means to spiritual freedom. And so we're seeing these ideas play out not only in broader culture that you might find with a poll like Pew Research, but even in Hollywood. And we're seeing what our world valorizes and elevates and then wants to get rid of. It really is living in our post Christian and even post secular society where we want to hang on to Christian values. We recognize we need something more than materialism to make it make sense, but we're just trying to make it all up as we go in our own image.
- [22:11]
Myrna Brown
All right. Author, speaker and co host of World Watches reality check Katie McCoy. Always good to have you, Katie.
- [22:20]
Katie McCoy
Thanks, Nick and Verna, great to be with you.
- [22:28]
Kent Covington
Additional support comes from the Masters University equipping students for lives of faithfulness to the master Jesus Christ. Masters Edu from Truth for Life and a book to share this Easter titled the man on the Middle Cross by Bible teacher Alistair Begg.
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Stephen Ide
Truth for Life
- [22:52]
Kent Covington
and from Barnabas, aid, hope and support for our suffering brothers and sisters around the world. Aid from Christians through Christians to Christians. Barnabasaid.org.
- [23:15]
Nick Eicher
Today is Friday, March 20th. Thank you for turning to World Radio to help start your day. Good morning, I'm Nick Iger.
- [23:23]
Myrna Brown
And I'm Myrna Brown. Coming up next on the World and everything in it. A return to form in Hollywood. The new film project Hail Mary is a sci fi adventure starring Ryan Gosling. It tells a refreshing original story instead of copying what's already out there. Here's World reviewer Joseph Holmes.
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Joseph Holmes
Why doesn't Hollywood make movies like that anymore? I hear people asking that question a lot nowadays and they're usually talking about movies like Braveheart or When Harry Met Sally that praise self sacrifice and love without irony. Now every movie seems like it's trying to be marvel or some post modern deconstruction project. Hail Mary, however, feels like an answer. It's an old fashioned sci fi blockbuster that's deeply entertaining while unironically praising timeless virtues like friends and self sacrifice.
- [24:18]
Katie McCoy
Please state your name.
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Nick Eicher
Ryan Grace.
- [24:20]
Katie McCoy
I spoke up from a coma.
- [24:23]
Nick Eicher
I'm several light years from my apartment and I'm not an astronaut. I'm not an astronaut.
- [24:32]
Stephen Ide
I'm not an astronaut.
- [24:34]
Myrna Brown
If you don't go, you die.
- [24:36]
Katie McCoy
We're the rest of us Based on
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Joseph Holmes
the book by Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary follows science teacher Ryland Grace, played by Ryan Gosling, who wakes up alone on a spaceship with one solve the mystery of the organisms that are killing Earth's sun. While there, he meets an alien friend also trying to save his own world, and they have to learn to work together to save both of their species. The best description I have for Project Hail Mary is its Interstellar meets The Martian meets E.T. it's a refreshing film directed by the guys responsible for the Lego Movie and the Spider Verse films, and it's written by Drew Godard, who previously adapted another popular weird book, the Martian. This film deftly balances heroic space faring grandeur and grounded humor with smart scientific problem solving and a touching interstellar friendship. It has plenty of humor without undermining its dramatic moments with jokes. The world is ending, but not because humans are destroying it. In fact, humans are the world's only hope for survival. Ryland Grace is flawed without being a deconstruction of a hero. Human institutions are imperfect, but they are secretly evil.
- [25:49]
Nick Eicher
You want me to go back in
- [25:53]
Joseph Holmes
my ship,
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Nick Eicher
but I just got here.
- [26:00]
Joseph Holmes
The filmmaking is stellar. Gosling carries much of the movie on his shoulders, whether he's alone on the ship or acting opposite a CGI alien. And the movie never feels dull when it's just him on screen. The cinematography and editing convey both the vastness of space and the intimate moments of human and alien connection.
- [26:19]
Myrna Brown
The sun is dying. You are the only scientist who might know what this is.
- [26:25]
Nick Eicher
I'm just a teacher at Grover Cleveland Middle.
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Myrna Brown
You have a doctorate in molecular biology.
- [26:31]
Joseph Holmes
One pleasant surprise here that screenwriter Drew Godard often brings into his stories is faith. One character says they will succeed, God willing, and insists that believing in God is better than the alternative. It's a small moment that keeps the film from being a purely secular glorification of man's achievements to one where people choose to be part of God's plan of redemption, something even Interstellar never did.
- [26:56]
Nick Eicher
So I met an alien.
- [26:58]
Joseph Holmes
He's a genius engineer, and if I
- [27:00]
Nick Eicher
can't understand what he's saying, he puts on a little puppet show for me and my tiny brain. And you know what?
- [27:05]
Joseph Holmes
I don't mind it.
- [27:07]
Nick Eicher
His planet's dying too. We're here for the same reason.
- [27:11]
Joseph Holmes
This idea that heroes need help to be heroes is also a major theme and is handled in a surprisingly complex and dare I say, even Christian way. Grace is a smart man with a hero inside him, but he requires the encouragement of, and sometimes bullying of his ranking superiors to bring that out of him. Yet Grace isn't a passive character being carried along to virtue throughout. He makes real choices to be the best version of himself.
- [27:39]
Nick Eicher
He has incredible hearing. He can see through walls. Personal space is at a premium. Who is Grace talking to? Question. There's no way you can hear me right now. Can hear. Who are you talking?
- [27:52]
Joseph Holmes
You can hear this?
- [27:53]
Nick Eicher
Yes, Grace, say you can hear this.
- [27:56]
Joseph Holmes
The movie is rated PG13. As such, there is some violence and profanity as well as some crude comments. There are also a few storytelling weaknesses. The third act of this two hour, 48 minute film drags a bit with what seems like five different climaxes. The final climax feels a bit lightweight for a movie about sacrifice. And because the film's bad guys are just bacteria, the film is most interesting when the heroes are bantering or strategizing about how to solve the problem. It gets duller when they're actually facing down the threat in a generic Hollywood action sequence. In an age of sequels, remakes and cynically subversive films, project Hail Mary is a reminder of how good Hollywood can be. Hopefully the box office proves that audiences still want this kind of film too. I'm Joseph Holmes.
- [29:08]
Myrna Brown
Good morning. This is the world and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Myrna Brown.
- [29:15]
Nick Eicher
And I'm Nick Iger. Finally today, a fresh approach to three of America's biggest social homelessness, addiction and serious mental illness. Last month, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Announced a sweeping plan. Kennedy's looking at how to tackle what he's called a crisis of despair. Though light on detail so far, experts say the plan signals a new era in recovery policy. World's Grace Snell reports RFK Jr. Is
- [29:48]
Grace Snell
bringing a new theory of recovery to Washington.
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Nick Eicher
Addiction is about isolation. It's a disease of isolation.
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Grace Snell
He sees patterns.
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Nick Eicher
Addicts end up alone, they burn their relationships, they lose their jobs. They end up in rooms or jails or institutions or dead.
- [30:06]
Grace Snell
And says he's looking to treat root causes.
- [30:09]
Nick Eicher
The ultimate solution to that is reconnecting people to community.
- [30:15]
Grace Snell
That's a significant departure from Biden administration policies which prioritized external factors like housing or social stigma. Kennedy's plan prioritizes responding to people in crisis and then coaching them through different recovery stages, starting with psychiatric help and medical care.
- [30:32]
Nick Eicher
We find them on the street, we move them from crisis to detox treatment to housing to employment.
- [30:44]
Grace Snell
HHS also announced an investment into assisted outpatient treatment for people battling serious mental illness. And it encourages More faith based organizations to get on board with its programs. Stephen Ide is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He says the specifics of Kennedy's plan are still pretty vague, but there's a common thread.
- [31:04]
Stephen Ide
He wants to promote the idea of relying more on kind of social support, maybe even faith based approaches to recovery.
- [31:12]
Grace Snell
It's a perspective rooted in Kennedy's own experience of recovery. He spent his teens and twenties addicted to heroin.
- [31:19]
Stephen Ide
It is known not only that he has a personal story, but that he recovered, not using kind of intensive medical interventions.
- [31:30]
Grace Snell
Now Kennedy wants to bring together law enforcement, counselors, housing experts and faith leaders. He's hoping together they can find workable solutions for some of the deep rooted issues which have plagued the country for decades.
- [31:42]
Stephen Ide
They are also trying to do more to promote kind of sobriety oriented, employment oriented programs for homeless people.
- [31:51]
Grace Snell
Ide says the modern homeless crisis traces back to the 1980s. That's when four major factors converged. Loss of affordable housing, breakdown in family structure, street policing restrictions.
- [32:03]
Stephen Ide
And then lastly you have the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill. The shift away from a inpatient or asylum style mental health system to a community based one.
- [32:12]
Grace Snell
That shift, prioritizing local outpatient care, was spurred on by problems with serious overcrowding and abuse in mental hospitals. The system had started out much differently. Many were founded in the 1800s on an idea known as moral treatment. It espoused art therapy, education and work as a way to nurture patients back to health. A holistic approach not unlike the one Kennedy's advocating. But most institutions soon strayed from that guiding principle and eventually many of them got shut down or significantly downsized. While beds for psychiatric patients still exist in hospitals, prisons, residential treatment centers and nursing homes, Ide says some experts wonder if it's adequate.
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Stephen Ide
There are people who need inpatient care because they're so severely mentally ill who are not getting it because of the basically normative bias towards community mental health care.
- [33:08]
Grace Snell
On the campaign trail in 2024, Kennedy advocated the creation of healing farms, places where opioid addicts could receive therapy and work outside. The suggestion sparked significant backlash. Ide questions why.
- [33:22]
Stephen Ide
Something like a wellness farm or a residential treatment program, I think is just an uncontroversial idea. I think that because the Trump administration suggested it, people decided they had to be against it.
- [33:36]
Grace Snell
He sees commonality with the 19th century's moral treatment.
- [33:40]
Stephen Ide
Something like that original idea has always been there. There's still programs that are doing that. And it is always an idea that recurs when you're trying to help people.
- [33:50]
Grace Snell
But the ideas face varied, strong opposition.
- [33:53]
Stephen Ide
Some people on the left are afraid of bringing back the asylum, but other people on the right are afraid that it would cost too much because it would raise costs for Medicaid, which people are trying to keep costs down.
- [34:08]
Grace Snell
Still, Ide says he's glad to see a recognition that lasting recovery goes beyond the physical.
- [34:13]
Stephen Ide
We need to be careful about not over medicalizing recovery, that people who are grappling with addiction, it's not just that they have some sort of disease or health condition.
- [34:27]
Grace Snell
And that's why he hopes experts will continue to work through what helps people stay back on their feet, things like social support, church membership and stable employment.
- [34:36]
Stephen Ide
I do think it is very helpful what RFK has done to emphasize things like recovery housing, which experts in the field recognize are utterly essential in terms of individuals maintaining their sobriety. But really are programs more of a social than healthcare nature?
- [34:57]
Grace Snell
Reporting for World I'm Grace Snell.
- [35:05]
Myrna Brown
Now this was just part of some long term reporting Grace has done on the factors that have played into America's current mental health crisis. She's turned that into the next episode of Double Take and it's coming out tomorrow. Wherever you listen to the world and everything in it, we hope you'll listen in.
- [35:36]
Nick Eicher
All right, time now to thank the crew who contributed to this week's programs. Jenny Ruff, David Bonson, Mary Reichert, Carolina Lumeta, Grace Snell, Daniel Surgery, Hunter Baker, Mary Munsey, Janie B. Cheney, Josh Schumacher, Lauren Canterbury, Arsenio Ortezza, Cal Thomas, Katie McCoy and Joseph Holmes. Thanks also to our breaking news crew, Kent Covington, Steve Klosterman, Travis Kercher, Daniel Devine and Christina Grube. And thanks to the moonlight maestros working overnight to serve up the program each weekday bright and early, Ben Jaiker and Carl Peetz. Harrison Waters is Washington producer. Kristen Flavin is features editor. Lindsay Mast is producer. I'm executive producer Nick Eicher.
- [36:27]
Myrna Brown
And I'm Myrna Brown. The world and everything in it comes to you from World Radio. World's Mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates and inspires. The the psalmist writes, you guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish. You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But. But for me it is good to be near God. I have made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell of all your works. Verses 24 through 28 of Psalm 73. Be sure and gather at a Bible believing church this weekend and experience the hope of Jesus. And Lord willing, we'll meet you right back here on Monday. Go now in grace and peace.