← Them Before Us Podcast
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- [00:06]
A
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Them Before Us podcast. I'm your host, Jen Friesen, and this is the podcast for everyone who believes children deserve better and wants to do something about it. This week we launched something from them before us that we're genuinely so proud of and excited for all of you to know about. We graded all 50 states. That's right, every single one, on how well or how badly their laws treat children, or when it comes to the things that matter most, who the law says your parents are, whether your state has decided surrogacy contracts are perfectly fine, whether a donor conceived kid has any right at all to know where they came from. We looked at parentage, surrogacy, donor conception and IVF and marriage, and we gave every state a grade A through F, just like school. The results were not great. Most states failed, and not by a little. Two thirds of the US states got a C or below. A lot of Ds, some Fs, and one state, just one out of 50, got an A. It's the Children's Rights Scorecard. It just launched this week on Them Before Us Dot com. The interactive map is live. Click on your state, read why it got the grade that it got, and then use that information to actually go do something about it. In this episode, you're going to hear two conversations. First, the man whose state earned that one A, and then the team who built the whole thing. Let's get into it. So one state out of 50 got an A on our Them Before Us Children's Rights scorecard. And it's Nebraska. This doesn't happen by accident. It happens because people show up, stay in the fight, and know exactly what they're doing at the State House. Nate Groz is the executive director of the Nebraska Family alliance, the largest Christian public policy organization in the state. He's the guy behind the first Freedom act, one of the strongest religious freedom laws in the country. He helped pass a ban on dismemberment abortion and a prohibition on transgender surgeries on children. Way ahead of the curve, let's just say Nebraska's constitution still defines marriage as between just one man and one woman. And Nate has spent years making sure it stays that way. He hosts his own weekly radio show and podcast, and the governor appointed him to the Judicial Nominating Commission for the Chief justice of the Nebraska Supreme Court. He's a practitioner, and his state just got the only A in America. Here's my conversation with Nate Cross. Hey, Nate, thanks so much for joining the Then Before Us podcast.
- [02:35]
B
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
- [02:38]
A
So before we get into talking about the children's rights scorecard, I would love it if you just gave our audience a little bit of a picture of who you are and maybe some of your background. Why did you get involved in politics or. Or, you know, kind of the topics around family and then tell us a little bit about what Nebraska Family alliance is up to.
- [02:57]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a lifelong Nebraskan. I grew up here. I went to college at Colorado Christian University, and during my time there, just got more interested involved in politics, government policy, and particularly, you know, from the perspective of what is it like, you know, what does it look like to engage with government and politics in a way that's actually, you know, good for families and especially for kids and protecting, you know, the values that we care about. And so at my time there, I got to work for a public policy think tank and then ended up working as an associate producer for the Hugh Hewitt show. And I married. My wife, went to law school at the University of Nebraska, where we're both from. So we moved back and there was a position opening up at Nebraska Family alliance that's, you know, kind of in helping to represent families and kids in public policy. And so I hopped in there in 2016 and have been there since and have had the privilege of serving as our executive director here at NFA for the last two years.
- [04:06]
A
That's awesome. And before we got get into the project that done before us did about the states, what would you say with Nebraska Family alliance, your thoughts and the things you had been working on, where was the state of all of that? Around surrogacy, around marriage and divorce and donor conception? I would assume the family policy centers usually feel a lot more dialed into those things than sort of the average people around the state.
- [04:31]
B
Yeah, absolutely. You know, our mission is really focused on advancing family freedom and life. And we do that by influencing policy, mobilizing prayer, and empowering people to go out and influence government and culture with the truth. And, you know, a lot of the issues that we work on centered on, you know, parent and child policy and protecting life and families oftentimes, you know, get. Get controversial. But there can also be a temptation for people to want to, you know, avoid those issues and not think about it, not talk about it. And the problem with that is when we disengage, we create a gap, and that gap gets filled by everything except the truth. And one of the things that, you know, John Stonestreet says is ideas have consequences, but bad ideas have victims. And the number one victim of bad ideas is children. And, you know, kids don't oftentimes have a voice, particularly in government and policy discussions. And something that I've learned and that I tell people is, you know, politics is really won by the people who show up. And so who's showing up for our kids? Who's showing up for the next generation? Who's showing up for unborn children who don't have a voice? We have to be there to meet those bad ideas head on, to contend for the truth and to advocate for laws and policies that actually uphold and respect the rights of parents and of kids. And so that's what we do. That's what our network of family policy councils do. And it's critical we see, you know, just time and time again, the difference that it makes when. When people are engaged, when they're contacting their legislators, and when we're not afraid, you know, to speak out in favor of actually putting kids first. Even in areas where there's maybe disagreement
- [06:20]
A
or strongly held opinions from the more conservative side. We would argue family is the building block a civilization. Right. And so, you know, I'm reading some historical fiction right now that's gone through World War I, all the way through World War II. But you see these movements throughout history, the Communists, the Nazi Party, a huge piece of their movement, was trying to sort of separate children from parents and be able to inculcate them with the values of whatever the movement was at the time. And we see that in the United States. You know, I'm not super well versed on it, but the idea of the New Deal, hey, let's incentivize children to be raised by single mothers and to keep dads out of the home. And that's how you're going to get more financial aid from the government and things like that. And then you start to see the fabric of our society start to unravel. We talk about fatherlessness. That's decades and decades of bad outcomes. Like you said, victims. John Stone street victims because of bad policies.
- [07:24]
B
Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, we're at such a critical point in our nation's history right now. We're about to celebrate America's 250th anniversary. But I think what's so important for us to recognize is that when you look at our country today, the greatest threat to our nation is it's no longer a foreign king or foreign enemy. It's not economic. The greatest threat to our country today, it's the collapse of the family. It's it's, it's fatherlessness, it's separating kids from their parents, it's the moral decline of our culture. And all of the biggest issues in our society today all stem from the exact same thing. And it's the breakdown of the family. And so, you know, if we're going to, you know, continue to, to strengthen our state, our nation, it starts with strengthening families. And that starts with, with strong marriages and protecting the natural bond between parents and their kids.
- [08:24]
A
Yeah, so well said. Well, you know, them before us is obviously all about marriage and family. Family structure is one of the things we, we talk about and focus on trying to educate people. It's not just about two parents. It's not sort of love makes a family. And any combination of adults who want to get together is not the point. The point is a child exists. They have one mother, one father, and they do best. We know they have the best outcomes. We know they're raised by the two humans who created them. This is so plainly obvious. This was not controversial. Controversial five minutes ago. You know, so we've just seen this shift in culture and at them before us. We're trying to recenter the child in all these topics. And so one of the big projects that we're launching and that we are excited to have Nate on to talk about for a very cool reason, is our children's rights scorecard. What we did is we looked at every state and we looked at their policies around four criteria. How they talked about parents in the law, you know, whether they said mother and father or whether they removed all of that language. Their laws around surrogacy, their laws around assisted reproductive technologies, and their laws around marriage. And then we made this super cool map. It's interactive and every person can go and click on their state and see the grade that their state gets A through F, just like in school, and see the grade that your state got for the laws that you have, whether you are protecting children or you're violating the rights of children. And we want to make it super clear, especially to all of our family policy and family alliance groups across the country. This in no way implicates all of the amazing people who, especially in the blue states. So I'm in the Seattle area, Nate. I don't know if you knew that. You know, there are so many awesome people who live in these deep blue states who will have a bad grade. As we see. See, we're not implicating them. They are working, you know, upstream of culture and trying to do good work. We really Wanted this to be informative, to let people know where their state was at. And we wanted it to encourage people, go find your family policy center. Go find the people who are doing the work and get involved and change your grade. Change your state's grade. So what was your thought when you first heard about. Maybe heard about the project? I don't know how Patience Sunny was our colleague who was really getting this going, and so maybe she reached out to you or just tell me a little bit how you first heard about it.
- [10:51]
B
Yeah, well, we were really excited when we heard about this new scorecard that was actually looking at how states actually do on child policy and putting kids first. It's always amazing just how quickly that gets overlooked. You know, so often all the debates and conversations just delve into, you know, economics or the desires of adults, and we're not talking about, you know, the most important thing in our lives, which is our kids. And so we were excited and grateful, really appreciate the work that went into analyzing all 50 states and putting this scorecard together. And then we were, you know, really, really curious to see how things broke down on this scorecard. But it's an incredible, incredible new resource. I hope it's something that a lot of people hear about and actually take the time to look at, because it's really important that we understand, okay, what actually are the laws in our state when it comes to putting kids first and where can we do better?
- [11:56]
A
Yes. And there is one state in the entire country. Out of 50 states rated. There was one state that got an A, and it was Nate's state. It was Nebraska. And we can look when you see it on the map, one state right in the very middle sort of has the. The least amount of color. It's the lightest pink or the. Or the red one. And it's Nebraska right in the center has an A. So when did you learn that you got an A?
- [12:21]
B
I mean, just recently, last week, I think, when. When Katie kind of sent it out to the. The FPCs and different policy groups who were involved with it. And we were, yeah, really, really excited to see that grade for our state. I mean, there's. There's a long way to go nationwide and in every state, But I think it did show that, because it hasn't. It hasn't been easy.
- [12:48]
A
Sure.
- [12:49]
B
You know, it's been a lot of work, a lot of time. A lot of people who have stepped forward to advocate for laws and policies that are good for kids and to help oppose different laws and bills and ideas that have been pushed here that have passed in other states. And so it's a, it's a culmination of a lot of hard work and a lot of people stepping up to help protect kids in our state. And it was really great to see that, that, that, that work, those efforts are paying off and give us something to build off of as we continue working and looking ahead.
- [13:21]
A
Yeah, it's great because when you go click on the state, it pulls it up and it will give you kind of the. Based on those four criteria. And so for when I click on Nebraska, we see that parentage is very good in Nebraska law. It affirms that it's mothers and fathers. We're not just talking about random adults. The surrogacy laws you guys have are good. Maybe you could go into those if you know those a little. If you know some of what you guys have for surrogacy on the books. And then with donor conception and IVF and marriage law, you guys are rated as fair, which is what you're saying. There's still a lot of room to grow. And for people in Nebraska who look at this and say, oh man, we're doing pretty good. We're like the best rated one in the country, it's awesome, though, to see pretty clearly, here's the places we can focus some effort to get things, you know, even stronger. But can you tell us a little bit about where you guys are at with surrogacy?
- [14:14]
B
Yeah. So on surrogacy Nebraska, we actually, we are say we don't recognize surrogacy contracts. This is not something that we view as a valid contract, not something that our laws permit for good reason, to protect kids, to protect women, all the horrible things that can come from that. And so that's been something that we've maintained that surrogacy contracts just are not recognized, they're not enforceable as a valid contract in Nebraska. And certainly there's been efforts to try to change that with more progressive views of surrogacy and just giving any two adults the right to, to a child, even if it's not their child, and just the commodification and trafficking of, of women and wombs. And so we're grateful, you know, to see that that score reflected from our state's laws, including on surrogacy and the other one that you mentioned, you know, on, on parentage, some people might not even know. If you look at your, your state's laws, you might be surprised to find out that they don't use mother and father, you know, they might use spouse one and spouse two. And for the last several years, we have had to fight really hard to stop efforts to, I mean, literally erase the words mother and father and husband and wife from our state statutes and to replace it, you know, with generic terms or parent one, parent two, spouse one, spouse two. And, you know, it. It. It seems like it should be common sense. You know, we know every child has a mother and a father, but, I mean, there, There's a. A real agenda to, to erase moms and dads, including, from our laws. And, you know, when we talk to some legislators about it, you know, some of them say, what? You know, is it really that big of a deal? You know, can we just let it go? We don't really want to deal with this controversy. We said, absolutely, it's a huge deal. I mean, you're talking about the most fundamental, important relationship in the world, which is between parents and their kids, moms and dads and their children. And we also know that the law is a teacher. And so when you start to remove, you know, these, these, these terms from our laws to replace them with. With genderless terminology, that starts to have a ripple effect. And so that's something. We've been really vigilant to make sure that we maintain those terms of mother and father, husband and wife in our state laws. And there's likely going to be more efforts in the future to undo it, but we know how important it is, and so that was encouraging to see that reflected and scored well here in our state.
- [17:07]
A
Yeah, that's one of the things done before us has been so passionate about exposing is the uniform parentage laws that keep popping up here and there. And it's like you're saying it doesn't seem like it would be that big of a deal because why. Why can't we have inclusive language? But it's kind of like what happened with Obergefell. Redefining marriage then has other implications when it comes to parenthood. Because now if you're saying you can't discriminate based on someone's biological sex, meaning you can redefine marriage to include them, then why wouldn't that be the same for parenting? If someone wants to be a parent, you can't ex. You can't discriminate against me by denying me. You know, I want to procure this child in these ways, and the technology allows for it. Now I have to be allowed to do so. And a good contrast to Nebraska would be California. Washington also got an F. So where I'm from. We had an F I California. I picked them because I know something interesting about how they handle infertility. California got very poor for parentage and surrogacy and poor for the donor conception, IVF and marriage law. I think Prop 8. I think they were one of the first states that focused on redefining marriage. But some. Oh, go ahead.
- [18:26]
B
No, and that's. Right. I mean, that's something, too. You know, our, our Nebraska state constitution, you know, we've maintained our definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman. And so that is still in our state constitution. There's been efforts to take it out, but we've always held, you know, the truth about marriage, you know, regardless of what the Supreme Court says, doesn't change what. What marriage is. It always has been and always will be between one man and one woman. And so it's important that. That states continue to. To fight to maintain that. That definition of. Of marriage in their state constitution, in their state statutes, because that's, that's critical as well. As we've talked about, everything is built around, you know, the, the nuclear family and marriage. And when you redefine marriage, you know, like, like Katie says, when you make men and women optional in marriage, you make mothers and fathers optional in parenting.
- [19:26]
A
Right.
- [19:26]
B
And that has a direct impact on. On kids. And so part of a big part of keeping kids first is keeping and maintaining that definition of marriage.
- [19:38]
A
Yeah. And that's why the Greater Than campaign has been growing so much. So many folks, different organizations and. And thinkers in our country are joining this coalition because we want the Supreme Court to have to rule on the notion that a child has a mother and a father. That's the reason marriage should be defined a particular way. The arguments of the past on the pro, you know, LGBT side were about my adult rights to partner with who I want, have visitation in the hospital. And they told a good story. They made themselves feel seem very. They needed compassion. They portrayed themselves as the victim, and in some ways, rightly so. And we are trying to refocus that lens on children as victims. Children exist and have these particular natural rights. That's what the Supreme Court should have to rule on. It is interesting with Obergefell. How has that come against, or has it the Nebraska constitution? State constitution?
- [20:33]
B
Yeah, it's. It's left it essentially unenforceable. But as a state, we have not, you know, as a state, we haven't recognized or changed our marriage laws. It's just put us in a position like a lot of other states where, you know, unelected justices at the Supreme Court forced one particular view of marriage on all 50 states. And so same sex marriage is legal in Nebraska like it is in all 50 states. But the actual language about what marriage is in our Constitution still reflects the fundamental truth that marriage is between one man and one woman.
- [21:10]
A
Yeah, that's good. Well, and like we say with Roe v. Wade, with Obergefell, we don't think these things are settled. You know, it's settled until it's not settled. And so we are passionate about trying to restore that to the proper definition. But back to my thought about California, I was just going to say that one of California has such a bad grade because around infertility, they redefined it to include social infertility. So non procreative relationships, same sex couples, or just single people can also count as infertile and are, you know, an insurance company is required to give you the IVF services you want. And what's crazy is the notion of providing you a surrogate. If two gay men can say, you have to provide us eggs and a surrogate, or that's discrimination. You're essentially saying you have the right to other people's body parts and gametes. So it's just, you know, some of the states have gone so far afield of, you know, the rights of children, not violating the rights of children or women or whatever. And so it's, it's very stark when you see it all laid out with the grade. But that's, it's a cool contrast to see Nebraska and then some of these other states. Nate, just, do you have any final thoughts and then let us know where people can find you or if they're in Nebraska, how they can get involved.
- [22:29]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Well, really appreciate the, the conversation and the work that them before us is doing to put kids first. And this new children's rights scorecard, it's a great resource. People can find out more about our organization@nebraskafamilyalliance.org and you know, I would just say, you know, one of my favorite quotes from G.K. chesterton is that the true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. And that's why we do what we do, because of who's behind us. And it's our kids. And kids need people who are going to step up and advocate for them and actually put the needs and rights of children, of the voiceless, of the vulnerable, before the needs and wants of adults. And, you know, that's something that it takes all of us. There's some great work being done and a long way still to go. And so we're encouraged by. By the scorecard. We're going to keep doing, you know, everything that we can to put kids first and to fight for the next generation.
- [23:31]
A
That's amazing. Very well said. Well, thank you so much for all your work in Nebraska, Nate, all the people that you're representing by coming on the call, all of their hard work. We're thankful for you guys, and we will put those notes for people to go and find you, especially if they live in Nebraska. But we're thankful for your work and thanks for your time.
- [23:47]
B
Yeah, thank you very much.
- [23:54]
A
So now you know what the best grade in the country looks like. But here's how the scorecard got made. Patience Sunny is our engagement director and the lead on all of TBU's policy and legal work. She's the one who looked around, couldn't find a resource like this anywhere, and decided we were just going to have to build it. Katie Faust is the founder of Them Before Us, and she has thoughts on what this scorecard means and where we go from here. Here's that conversation. Okay, so I'm here with the brainchild, Patience Sunny, and our illustrious leader, Katie Faust, and myself and I help do things also. And that's the three of us that are going to have a little bit of a conversation around this awesome new project. But, Patience, I want to start with you because you were the staff person working for them before us who thought to start this whole project, and then you've owned it and incorporated all the different pieces and organized. So can you just start by telling us where the idea for having the children's rights scorecard came from?
- [24:59]
C
So it was kind of a combination of things. I've worked in the pro life movement for years prior to this, and several organizations in the pro life movement have over the years created really great state by state maps on where state pro life laws are at. And as I was diving in on the policy side of things when I started in my role at them before us, I was looking to compare various state laws on things like surrogacy, donor, conception, ivf. As I'm preparing things for our state allies. And every time it was like, man, I wish I had everything in one place. It would be so much easier if I could just look at what states have something that I could be looking at as a model. And so within a couple months of starting my role, I sent a note To Josh and Katie, I said, hey, it would be really great if we had a state by state look at how every state's laws are or are not protecting kids and what their laws are on all of our major issues, on art, on marriage, on parentage. And it was an idea that I just kept coming back to because every time that I was working on policy stuff, I was like, yeah, I actually still really wish this existed. And so at the beginning of last year, we, we were able to secure funding from the Heritage foundation for this, which meant that June of last year we were able to kick off the research phase with a team of contractors and start diving into it. And that has now turned into scorecard.
- [26:26]
A
That's awesome. Yeah. Katie, we didn't just get money from Heritage though, right? It's kind of a special deal.
- [26:33]
D
Yeah, it's a big deal to win the innovation prize. Let's just like, full disclosure, we've applied for it before and we didn't get it, but this time we did because Patience's proposal was so novel and so needed. It really was sort of this missing link in the marriage and family advocacy space. Space. There was just nothing like it. I mean, people make all kinds of like maps and grading across, but nobody had really looked at all the marriage and family and parentage laws from the perspective of, you know, the kids that have to live with all the laws that we're passing. And so it's a new way to look at some things that might be pretty familiar to people. It also allows state level lawmakers to say, well, this is abhorrent because there's what, like 2/3, right? Patients. 2/3 of the states got like a C or below. I mean, like, there's a real power at looking at our laws through the lens of child protection. So I'm just going to take an opportunity. I want to know, patients, when you like, finally saw the results, what state surprised you the most in terms of like, whether for the better or the worse?
- [27:36]
C
Yeah, you know, there were a few surprises. So something that I mentioned on my Twitter this week, I was really curious on how Minnesota and Iowa did, because I'm a native Minnesotan who has moved to Iowa within the past few years. And you know, I've seen major differences in the politics of the two states and they were actually neck and neck on this scorecard. They both got Cs. They ranked number 27 and 28, which, that, that was a surprise and also just a personal interest to me. But seeing a state that's very blue and a State that's quite red coming out very similarly. And it really reinforced something that we've talked about from the beginning stages of this project. This is not a red versus blue issue. This is about children's rights. And like that's why the coloring on the map is not a red to blue gradient scale because that's not what we're looking at. We're not looking at are you a conservative state or are you a liberal state? We're looking at are you a state that protects children's rights. Another surprise to me was that the states that are actually doing something about protecting the rights of donor conceived kids are consistently blue states. That's something that we have not seen a red state take up. So there are two soon to be three states that have laws dealing with a complete ban on donor anonymity. And that's Colorado, which led the way a few years ago. Oregon which followed suit last year and it was actually folded into a horrible bill, but they had that protection for donor conceived kids being able to know the identity of their second parent. And Delaware is in the process of passing it also rolled into a bill full of things that we are not excited about. But seeing a lot of blue states championing that issue when red states are not touching it has been a really interesting thing to see in the map as well.
- [29:31]
A
It probably also reflects a lot of what we talk about at them before us, that even the states that have better abortion laws that we would agree with more pro life, more pro life laws still might not get a great grade because of the way they've either not addressed IVF and the relating things around fertility clinics, or they just are actively supporting ivf, which is the big thing we're talking about. Again, that's not really been a partisan issue. Both sides are falling all over themselves to try and make sure that they have IVF protected and paid for and you know, insured and all these things. We had someone say, maybe Katie, you could take this one. We had someone kind of critique the map and say basically no state should have an A. If any state has abortion laws up to allows abortion up to birth. I first read it thinking they were condemning Nebraska specifically. Like Nebraska allowed abortion all the way up till birth. I was very surprised and I went and looked at Nebraska actually is, yeah, very conservative abortion law. I think they ban it after 12 weeks. I don't know if that is that heartbeat or. But Katie, maybe speak to a little bit why we didn't add abortion as a criteria to our map.
- [30:43]
D
We are all pro Life here. We all believe children have a right to life from the moment of conception. We're very clear about that. It's not as socially comfortable to be pro life on matters of ivf, but this is not a question of our pro life commitment. It absolutely we are committed to. The challenge is that the pro life movement, which we all support, takes up so much air in the room that there's very little left for any other matters as it relates to serious concerns about children. And this is an area where conservatives and Christians need to get up to speed. You know, we understand that children's right to life is critical as it relates to their surviving, but their right to their mother and father is critical as it relates to their threat, thriving. And these two things should go hand in hand. And like Patience says, there's a lot of attention, money, resources, a lot of organizations devoted to defending children's right to life from abortion. We are the one little organization def. Little and mighty little, but you don't want to face us in the ring organization that is defending children's rights on this side of the womb. And so not everything has to be all about abortion all the time. Like we understand it, we support it, but thank God there's other organizations, metrics, resources, efforts, campaigns to roll back the scourge of abortion. Nobody else is doing that on parentage laws, which if you get that wrong, you're buying and selling kids. Nobody else is doing that as it relates to divorce, which if you've got casual, easy divorce, you're dooming children to a 50, 35 to 55% increased likelihood of early death. Nobody else is doing that as it relates to the rights of children created through reproductive technologies. We are. And it deserves its own map.
- [32:32]
A
Yeah, that's so good. I don't know who the. I think it was a theologian that said something like when he was receiving critique, he said, I like the way I'm doing it better than the way you're not doing it. And so we can acknowledge there's ways to grow and get equip people for the new challenges and all these things. But there's so many of us in the space, like you're saying in the pro life family space, we all get lumped together when actually we're all focusing and working hard in sort of different parallel lanes trying to do the same work together. And so we do need to have a little bit of grace for each other that like we're making a tool for the things that we are passionate about and that we are trying to Focus on. We're not making a tool for the thing you're passionate about and you want to focus on.
- [33:12]
D
And it's the thing that's missing. That's the thing. Like, we need all 100 pro life organizations across this country. We are the missing thing. Then before us is the piece that is missing as it relates to marriage, family, children, parentage, reproductive technologies. Nobody is advocating for the kids on these topics. And we are. We don't have to. You know, it's just like that, like. Well, if you're really pro life, you're going to, you know, decry the deaths of children in the war in the Congo. No, we're doing the thing that nobody else is doing. We're defending children's rights in the family.
- [33:47]
A
Yeah, that's good patience. When you created the scorecard and we have this web, the website looks so awesome. It's an interactive map. We've got frequently asked questions. We tell the stories of kids that have been impacted by the bad policies that we reveal. Who do you picture using this tool the most? Or, you know, if you're just a layperson, you want to go check it out, you go to them for us.com you go to resources. There's the dropdown 50 state scorecard. How does an average person use it? Or how do you think of maybe a policy person or a political person in a state? How do you picture them using this tool?
- [34:20]
C
Yeah, so I mean, the short answer is it's for everyone. You know, it's for, you know, the stay at home mom with five kids. It's for the policy advocate. It's for the person holding elected office. It's for, you know, the, the person working a corporate job. It is for everyone to be able to look and see, how is my state protecting kids? How can my state grow in this area? But just kind of some examples of how people can be using it, you know, for the, the average layperson to be able to look at it and say, hey, you know, I didn't know any of this about my state's laws. And that's a conversation that we have so frequently I talk to people about them before us work, especially my side of things with the policy initiatives. And people have no idea that surrogacy is a wild, wild west in the United States where the few states that have laws are highly permissive and promoting it, or they don't realize that there are no laws preventing a sperm donor from donating to 100 different families and they just assume that that's in place. So this gives people the tools to really understand what's going on, what's at stake, and start having those conversations with people. I've had some fascinating conversations in my not particularly conservative city about things like donor conception and lack of protection for surrogate born kids where they're simply being assigned parentage on the basis of intent to a completely unbetted adult. And we have, like you said, the stories of real victims. So it's really a tool for lay people to understand what's going on and to start having those conversations in their community. This is a wake up call for people. It's also a tool for people doing the kind of work that I'm doing, people working in the policy space who have the same moment that I have where it's like, hey, I wish that I could just at a glance see what other states are doing on this issue. And I've actually had several conversations with people working in state level policy organizations just this week, talking through some of the specifics about their score and ways that it could be improved. So this is a tool for people working in public policy. It's also a tool for legislators because something that a lot of legislators do is once a problem has been brought to their attention, one of the first questions that they start asking is what have other states done? Because that gives them the ability to see what's working, what's not working, what language exists. And this map is a great tool for that because you can look at, you know, hey, my, my state has a C. Why does this other state have a B or a B minus? And start using that to track down. But we actually, in the report link to all of the legislation that's relevant in each of these state scores. So for a legislator who's looking at this and looking at it as a way of improving their state scores and addressing some of these issues, they're able to just click through and find that language that other states are using to protect children's rights.
- [37:25]
D
I have a question. Patience and Jen, you can jump in here too. You know, we look at different organizations that create sort of a super structure for people to achieve. You know, for example, the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, like do these things, you get a perfect 100, right? And then you get to brag, you know, you get to say, we are the socially responsible or LGBTQ inclusive company. There really does seem to be something about, let me give you a goal, like let me give you something to reach for some kind of tangible, accessible, measurable index. So what do you think Is the benefit there? Do you think that, do you think that that itself just saying this is where you are and this is where you could, this is how you can get to where you want to go. Like, how helpful is that going to be to different lawmakers or even just family policy organizations at the state level encouraging their local officials to move forward?
- [38:19]
C
Yeah, you know, I think that competition piece actually is really powerful in motivating people, helping people to want to do something and also showing that it is possible, it is achievable. You know, at one point in the project, I showed it to someone and I got some pushback of, well, all the states are doing badly on donor conception. And I said, actually no, we do not have a single metric where there are zero states that got a good score. And you know, that was, that was an eye opening moment for me as I was working on it, because I had a few metrics where I expected a lot of scores. But seeing, hey, on every one of these issues there is somebody who has done something and that really gives people a concrete goal to work towards and it shows people that reform is achievable. I talked to someone from a deeply blue state that got an F and he was like, we're stuck here. You know, we don't have the support to advance anything. And what I did was I pulled up two very similarly situated states that got Ds and I said these two states got Ds because it was actually Colorado and Oregon. I said they advanced protections for donor conceived kids and we're giving people something tangible, achievable. We're not just talking in vague, broad terms about the breakdown and redefinition of the family and woe is me. We're saying, hey, here are specific problems with specific solutions. And that really gives people tools to do something. It's more than just a complaint. It's more than just saying, hey, we think all of the states are doing badly. We're saying, hey, we see specific opportunities for improvement in each of these states. And I think that's a very powerful tool.
- [40:04]
A
Yeah. Well, Ann, take the example of South Dakota that we highlighted earlier in the year. It was a woman who found some resources, found our IVF FYI series and the Netflix documentary, and looked up fertility fraud in her state, thinking there's no way this is legal. But she got bipartisan support in South Dakota to get it made illegal, make fertility fraud a felony. And I just love what you're saying, Patience. Because there are probably things even in a Washington state, even in a California, depending where you could get people on the record and say, should someone have to pass a background check to be a surrogate or use a surrogate, showing that a lot of people who want to victimize children are intentionally going this route, could you get bipartisan support for that? You might be able to. So using some of these ways to get people to work together, like you said, protecting donor conceived kids, et cetera, like starting there, start somewhere. And are we going to release this once a year then, you know, and offer some awards maybe?
- [41:07]
C
Yeah. We don't have a yearly release schedule at this point point it'll probably be closer to a biannual update, especially because there are quite a few states that run on biannual legislative sessions. So if we did a yearly update, we'd have a lot of states that didn't have an opportunity to improve their score. So we haven't finalized exactly what the update schedule is going to be, but we do plan to continue updating it and giving states the opportunity to track their progress in that way. Awesome.
- [41:33]
A
That's so great. Well, amazing project. It looks so awesome. We'll put the link.
- [41:38]
D
Final Thoughts Katie I have so many thoughts. Yeah, them before us is killing it people. Have you been paying attention? Look at this. It is not even June yet. And we have spearheaded a national coalition to overturn gay marriage. We have procured a hit page on the Human Rights Campaign exposing how they are targeting children with their corporate equality index. We have now cranked out a never before seen tool to evaluate every state in the country on how well they are protecting or victimizing children. We're not even halfway through the year. I, I follow a lot of organizations that are a lot bigger than we are with 10 or 50 times the budget that we have. And who has done something like this? Like we are so serious about defending kids. And if you're not on our newsletter, if you're not subscribed to our substack, get on board because we are going to arm you to the teeth to defend kids, you know, with talking points, with resources like this. And you should, you should give to us like the kind of things that we are able to do because we have these faithful financial partners. Go and look at this scorecard. Go look at your state go number one. Look at the incredible content. Look at how great. I want you to also notice something else, people. Nothing we do sucks. Nothing we do sucks. Like the people, our staff, the thing that the resources, the research, the stories. Like go look at the scorecard that patients made, the design of the website. It's so user friendly and it's so great to look at. We're doing things that nobody else is doing because children are being victimized. And honestly, a lot of people don't have the spine, they don't have the social courage to speak up on their behalf. So get in here with us, like, join us. We really want you to be a part of this. Go enjoy the scorecard. Like, send it to your lawmaker to encourage them or to give them some appropriate level of motivation to improve. But I. Look, I'm just going on this trip because I'm so proud. I am so proud. Like, when I saw the website for the first time, like, the real reveal, I was like, dang, this is amazing. This is going to help so many people who want to protect kids. Because, like, that is the power of, like, accessible information that is crafted in a way that is deliverable and understandable and focused on the right victim.
- [43:57]
A
Yeah. So good. Thanks, Katie. That's good. Those are great thoughts too. And I just was thinking, we've had people who've donated $5 a month since you started us as an organization. We got, we get huge grants and we get big dollars for specific projects, but there's people who donate $20 a month and they're making the difference of us hiring, of us having contractors, because patients couldn't have done this on her own. How many people were working on this at any one point? Patients.
- [44:23]
C
So during the research phase, I had three contractors working on it. We've had, obviously the web team has been involved. We had Autumn do some review work on it, and then, you know, the them before us team with getting the launch off the ground. I had Covid the week before the launch, and it was amazing to see all of the things that came together without me and to log back on and be like, hey, this project did not fall apart. Things look great. So, yeah. So many hands have touched this project and it's been an incredible team effort.
- [45:03]
A
Yeah. So if you're donating to us already, thank you. Because you guys are the reason we get to do these things and the reason it looks so good and it's so awesome. If you're not a donor or you're not on our substack, it's not too late. Join right now. Be a part of a movement. We actually think we're changing the world and so you get to be a part of it. You're on the cusp of the beginning. Because we're only, what, six years or so in so we have so many more exciting things just the rest of this year that you'll want to stay tuned for. So thanks, Patience and Katie for your time for all this hard work. And guys, go check out the score sheet. You can tell we're passionate about this work and Katie is so passionate about our team and all the projects and things that we're getting done because of donors and supporters like you. Look, no one else is doing what them before us is doing. Nobody was sitting down and saying, let's look at every single state in the country through the eyes of a child and grade the state. Nobody except us. So here's what we need you to do. Go to thembeforest.com, go to resources, click on the 50 state scorecard, find your state, click on it, read your grade and read the why. And then send it to someone, your state legislator or your pastor or your neighbor who thinks donor conception is fine because the baby's wanted. Put it in front of someone who needs to see it. If you're already donating to us, this is what your money does. It's this right here. A full research project, a team of contractors, a web team, months of work and it's free. You can just hand it to your state senator tomorrow and say here, this is what we should be working on. And if you're not donating yet, there is no better date to start. You can go to thembeforest.com get on the newsletter, get on our substack. We're not done this year. We're not even halfway through. Children need people who are going to show up for them and defend their natural rights. You can be one of those people. Thanks for joining us on the Them for Us podcast. I hope you appreciated this episode. Please like subscribe. Give us a five star rating.
- [46:55]
C
Subscribe.
- [46:56]
A
Send it to a friend. We appreciate your support.