← Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Abortion Isn’t Health Care: Why Retreating Now Betrays GOP Principles | Victor Davis Hanson
00:40:52
Pro-life activist and former president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute Chuck Donovan joins Jack Fowler to discuss the surprising “diverse” coalition of the early post-Roe, anti-abortion movement, as well as more contemporary battles within a now post-Roe world on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.”
Loading summary
Transcript30 lines
- [00:00]
A
The pro life movement was aspirational. That first decade we thought, we're going to reverse this thing within 10 years. We knew it would take time to fix a bad constitutional ruling. The pro life movement in the early days was by our standards, incredibly diverse. I think people would be shocked to learn or remember that one of the first votes on it that summer was on an amendment by Democrat Dan Flood of Pennsylvania. And 107 House Democrats voted for it. Margaret Sanger, she was a negative eugenicist. That her own phrase. She really didn't believe in having kids to improve society, which is what some of the transhumanists now think. She was in favor, though, of eliminating anyone she thought was genetically inferior. She founded something called the Negro Project, where she realized that she had a very white lily white movement. She wanted to attract black leaders to her cause. And you related back to the early days of pro life. Most of the black leadership then was instinctively pro life.
- [01:11]
B
Well, hello ladies and hello gentlemen, and welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Although we have no Victor Davis Hansen, as viewers and listeners well know. I'm Jack Fowler, I am the host and we are recording on Tuesday 20th January, and this particular episode will be broadcast through the Daily Signal, Our happy home on January, which is the anniversary, and I hate to use that word in this case, but it's the anniversary of The Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions that legalized abortion on demand throughout America. And who better to have on this particular day than a dear old friend, personal but friend of life. And that is Chuck Donovan. And Chuck has toiled in the vineyards and at the battlements of life for preborn life. And we'll say to natural death. Right. The arc of life protection. A truck's been doing this for sorry age. You date you, Chuck. But it's probably half a century. Probably 50. 50 years sounds better than half a century, right?
- [02:29]
A
It feels the same, though.
- [02:31]
B
Yeah. Well, it's a never ending fight. Chuck is the founder of a co. Founder. Co president of a new organization, salt, the Science alliance for Life and Technology. We're going to be talking about that later. Prior to this, he was the president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute. He worked on Capitol Hill defending life. He worked for Ronald Reagan in the Reagan White house in the 80s. And he has been. He's been a great friend of unborn children. So, Chuck, I have five questions to how we format this show in Victor's absence is. I have important people. Sorry, you're important. And I asked them five questions in their lane and we're gonna talk about the life issues. And we'll do that. We'll start that question one when we come back from these important messages. Since the founding of America 250 years ago, many things have change, but some things never do. The commitment of husband and wife, the importance of passing along our values to our children, the faithfulness of God. Some wonder how we can ensure America will continue to thrive as long as we keep first things first. We've only just begun. America the Beautiful. We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. And my guest today is Chuck Donovan. Chuck, here's a lengthy question. The pro life movement, the movement to defend innocent human life from conception to natural death, has today what it always had and will always have, struggles with the prevailing culture. Whatever successes it may have had politically and jurisprudentially, the movement is well aware of stark truths. 70 million legal abortions in the United States since the states in the late 60s and then the Supreme Court in the early 70s legalized abortion on demand. And this, as I mentioned earlier, this episode of Victor Davis Hansen in His Own Words goes public on the 53rd anniversary of the Roe and Doe rulings. And then we have the spread of legal euthanasia, assisted suicide, mercy killing. It's just not a good phrase for what actually happens. Doug. Chuck, you were very active in the early days of the pro life movement, particularly on Capitol Hill. And if you will, would you take us back to the late 1970s, mid to late 1970s, when this young movement was getting its bearings? What was it like? What were the challenges and who were some of the early champions, both politically and culturally, to the pro life movement?
- [05:28]
A
Well, thank you, Jack. I mean, there's an awful lot packed into that question. I do date back to that stage. I joined pro life Cause at Notre dame in early 1970s, helped found the student pro life group there. Lots of changes and many of them not for the better, I have to say. The pro life movement was aspirational that first decade. We thought we're going to reverse this thing within 10 years. We knew it would take time to fix a bad constitutional ruling. The pro life movement in the early days was by our standards, incredibly diverse. More religiously diverse in terms of its leadership then than it is now politically. You had people like Dan Barrigan, you had Jesse Jackson, believe it or not, the comedian Dick Gregory, a lot of left of center folks who in Berrigan's case was climbing on nuclear warheads at military parades and applying a Hammer to them because he was anti war. So you met a lot of different personalities in the pro life cause and then you got around to the first votes on the issue. One particularly of keen importance is the Hyde Amendment, first adopted in 1976. I think people would be shocked to learn or remember that one of the first votes on it that summer was on an amendment by Democrat Dan Flood of Pennsylvania, pro life. And 107 House Democrats voted for it. So the dynamics of an issue when you have large numbers in both parties who are with you are very different from what we have now.
- [07:12]
B
Chuck, I should add, by the way, I forgot to add, you and Bob Marshall wrote a book. It was about 20 years ago. Was that I'm just. Is it Blessed are the Baron?
- [07:25]
A
Blessed are the Baron's the name of it. It's 35 years old this week.
- [07:28]
B
Wow, wow, wow, wow. Could you tell us a little about the. Before I have to go to an ad, would you tell us a little about the book? And I think it's interesting that to me the thing that's stuck out about the book is you exposing the Negro Project, as I recall. Did you sort of expose it through that book?
- [07:48]
A
We were one of the sources for information about that. Margaret Sanger, as your listeners may know, and it's still true for a lot of people in the abortion movement these days, was she was a negative eugenicist. That was her own phrase. She really didn't believe in having kids to improve society, which is what some of the transhumanists now think. She was in favor though of eliminating anyone she thought was genetically inferior. That could be iq, it could be ethnic origin, it could be a country you were from. And she founded something called the Negro Project where she realized that she had a very white lily white movement. She wanted to attract black leaders to her cause. And you related back to early days of pro life. Most of the black leadership then was instinctively pro life. Jesse Jackson's certainly example of that much more consistent pro lifer. Irma Clardy Craven was a key figure and we helped to expose that in our book. It was subtitled the Social Policy of Planned Parenthood. And I think we've learned after decades that Planned Parenthood's way of fixing the abortion issue is not working. It's not being going to be fixed by government campaigns of birth control, for example.
- [09:11]
B
Well, Chuck, we are recording again on the 20th of January and there is still Christmas food. My kitchen, I've tried to eat all of it and my body, it's taken toll on the body. So what do you need to fix that? Well, if you're watching this video, you might see behind me, over my left shoulder, there's a Cove Pure machine. And that's a lot of water. Water. Delicious, delicious water. Water helps you out. How does it help you out? Well, everyone jumps into the new year buying new supplements. They try a new diet or they try workouts, but they completely ignore the most important thing. And again, that is water. Even mild dehydration impacts energy, focus, metabolism. And when you think about all the garbage that's in our water, you're starting behind the curve before you even begin. But Cove Pure changes that immediately. Their Clearwave technology is certified to remove up to 99.9% of contaminants. Pretty much anything that isn't water. PFAS, microplastics, pharmaceutical residue, fluoride, it all gets removed. It's the purest water you can get. And I love it because, you know, growing up in New York City, water didn't have a taste. It actually, I don't know if you had to say it tasted good. Well, when we would go visit our relatives in Connecticut, you're thinking, what the. What are they drinking here? The flavors, it was just. It was. It was. It was nasty. And now I live in Connecticut, so I deal with tap water that's nasty. But no more. Have my Cove Pure. And the water is delicious. It's refreshing. And I. I'm. I like it so much, I don't keep it in the kitchen. I keep it in my office. So drinking a lot of it, it's good for you. Hey, so Cove Pure, folks, you should get it. Cove Pure makes it so easy to get pure water with the push of a. So this year, make a New Year's resolution that sticks. Improve your health with clean water. Right? You can get $200 off for a limited time if you use the link covepure.com VDH that stands for Victor Davis Hansen. That's COVPure. C-O-V-E-P-U-R-E.com V D H to start this new year, right? And we thank the good people from Covpure for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Chuck, I may repeat some of the things you said before, but we have a little more. We go from the early days of the movement to the immediate days. So recently, Donald Trump, addressing the House Republican caucus, he shocked pro lifers when he said, quote, now you have to be a little flexible on Hyde. You know that you've got to be a little flexible. You got to work something. You got to use ingenuity, end quote. Well, one of the movement's great friends, my great personal friend, too, was Wall Street Journal columnist Bill McGurn. And about two weeks ago, he wrote a piece that he took poorly to Donald Trump's call. And Bill said that Hyde. And we're talking about the amendment named after, once again, Congressman Henry Hyde, which he placed on the old. It was then known as the Health, Education, Welfare appropriations bill that banned the federal funding of abortion. And that was challenged, by the way, in the federal courts and the Supreme Court in 1980 in a case called Harris v. McCrae. It upheld the Hyde Amendment. But Hyde was a thing of ingenuity. It was a thing of compromise, given, as you explained, the movement's initial hopes and dreams. That ban on funding had strong support from congressional Democrats at the time, as you mentioned. Chuck, what are your thoughts right now on what President Trump has said? How does it harm or help the movement and the cause for protecting innocent life?
- [13:21]
A
Well, Jack, it goes back to understanding what the Hyde Amendment does and what it is. It was a red line. It was the first significant vote in Congress after Roe vs. Wade, when people were looking for a way to get a handle on the fact that we now had this regime of abortion without limits to birth, thanks to Harry Blackmun and his cohorts. So Henry Hyde went to the floor, young congressman, towering figure in every sense of the word, introduced this amendment and as I pointed out, got almost majority House Democrat support, went to the Supreme Court. And the key legal brief in that case was an amicus brief devised by Americans United for Life, a great team, Dennis Horan, Victor Rosenblum and others. And I personally lobbied it. All the pro lifers went out for various groups and lobbied for that amicus. It was technical in a sense. It was on the appropriations power. And a lot of Democrats who weren't necessarily pro life said, you know what? There's no way HHS or HEW was then called, should be spending money on abortion that we haven't appropriated. And with the appropriations power at stake, they had almost 300 signatories, and we think that sealed the case. And Congress today, of course, still has that power, even though I think the current administration is really on the edge with respect to spending money it is not authorized to spend. But be that as it may, Hyde Amendment saves lives. It's not just symbolism for conscience, although it is that it has saved 2.65 million human lives through excellent research done by My colleague Michael New, that I've helped publish. And when President Trump singles it out for no reason, it's not necessary for a health insurance program to have abortion coverage. In fact, abortion isn't health care. And when President Trump signals retreat on that, it's like the Republicans signaling retreat on the slavery question with the Wilmot proviso or signaling it on polygamy, which is also a GOP concern at the founding of the party. Hyde Amendment is founding Republicanism. They want to run away from it. The pro life voter has no reason not to run away from the GOP.
- [15:55]
B
You know, going back to 2016, Chuck, and we're going to take a break here in a second. But in the very final days of the run up to the election, which included Donald Trump's controversy about unmentionable word grab, and he had a debate with Hillary Clinton, and I have to believe there are a lot of people sitting on the fence. I can't vote for this guy. Pro life is included. And he came out of that debate swinging and he beat her up on partial birth abortion. I was kind of shocked by it, seemed very heartfelt. And I think the case can be made that Donald Trump was elected in 2016, his first term, because pro life voters, either those who passionately loved him or those who held their nose and voted for him was because they voted for him. And to see him a guy that's. We're going to take over New Zeal or wherever we're take Greenland. Excuse me, maybe we're going to take.
- [16:57]
A
Over New Zealand would be nice. It's got nice mountains.
- [17:00]
B
Yeah. To show. Actually, I think it shows fear. By that quote I read. I find it unfaithful to the people who elected him. And I find it kind of out of character for him to show fear on this issue.
- [17:17]
A
I agree, and I think it's inaccurate, too. I don't think fighting for the Hyde Amendment is going to cost you anything. I went and looked at polls for the last 30, 40 years. You can't find one that suggests there isn't majority support for the Hyde Amendment. So there's the absurdity of that. There's also the literal fact that in 2016, pro lifers were disenchanted with Trump's overall approach to various personal and public policy issues. And they went and got a letter from him. Reagan had done one in 1980, which helped him no end. Trump's letter listed four specific things he would accomplish as president. And bless him, he did the most important of the four, the justices, because they removed the unconstitutional obstacle of the abortion ruling, but there were three others and one of them was to make the Hyde Amendment permanent. That pledge has not been kept and now when it's publicly rebuked pro lifers. I think I've seen groups that were very tolerant of Trump's malfeasance, but they are saying, no red line, can't do it. And we'll see how it plays out.
- [18:29]
B
Well, Chuck, we're going to take a little break and when we come back, we're going to look on the other end of life, mercy killing. And we'll do that when we come back from these important messages. We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words recording on the 20th of January, this episode will be published and up on the World Wide web On the 22nd, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I have my old and dear friend Chuck Donovan, who was many in the pro life movement may remember him from his leadership of the Charlotte Lozier Institute for a number of years. And now he's starting a new group. He's the co president of the Science alliance for Life and Technology. And we'll talk about that towards the end of this episode. So my third of the five questions, I, I held up four fingers.
- [19:23]
A
Hello.
- [19:28]
B
I may get an A from my teacher. Anyway, how things are curved. Chuck, you advocate for life in what many hold to be a culture of death. Millions of babies boarded every year across in America, million, nevermind globally. Mercy killing, if we look just north to Canada, is now rising to one of the leading causes of death there for all reasons of death. I think it's like number five and for good reasons that could have gotten one. Facing the Nuremberg trials after World War II, there were people executed for the stands that are taken today on assisted suicide. Chuck, Creation is good because it's God's handiwork. But. But is the culture that man oversees today, would you call it a culture of death? And if so, how do you see the cause of life growing to limit it? What will it take to have a culture of life?
- [20:30]
A
Well, Jack and I thought about this issue my entire life and there's no way to be glib about it. We have begun to see across the board the reapings of this culture of death that we've embraced. And it's incredibly powerful. I think about working on the abortion issue and one of the basic misconceptions about it is that it's somehow distinct from a whole range of sanctity of life questions. The question really is the right to life and Whether or not we're going to have a definition that that right is possessed by everyone, as far as we can realize it, it's possessed by the child with down syndrome, it's possessed by the child with the other trisomies. It's possessed by the disabled elderly person who has suffering from dementia. I'm certainly getting to the age where I'm conscious of that, forgetting where I parked the car when it's right outside the house or certainly seeing in other members of the family. And, and we are a culture that just hurrying on to the next thing, doesn't have time for caring necessarily for the disabled, elderly and sick. And that was certainly in the language of pro life back in the 70s. But the policy battles we've got. The United Kingdom has been wrestling for a year with an assisted suicide law and it may well pass. It's going to be very, very close. We have three US States bringing us, I think to about a dozen that have allowed assisted suicide by statute. The last few. It's no accident that they are liberal states, but it gives the lie to what some of the liberal policymaking has done. They claim to care for diversity, for inclusion, but the failure of many of their social policies leads them to think, well, you know, it's going to be cheaper to deal with poverty and healthcare costs this way. And I think that's in good measure why Canada is moving to make assisted suicide available. On top of that, next year Canada will allow it for mental illness. That's a particularly grievous one for me because it had some impact my extended family and you know, those folks need protection. They don't need to be encouraged to give up.
- [23:04]
B
Yeah, Chuck. I think many of the major ills of society from my own view, track irreligiosity. The decline in worship Christianity believes in. There's a virtue, there's good to come out of suffering and it's not hard to make a case. You can make a case, but when you have less people believing in that, why should we tolerate, why should the suffering suffer? You know, it's a more plausible cultural case to make in a world without worship.
- [23:47]
A
Absolutely, Jack, I agree.
- [23:50]
B
Anyway, I have another question and we're going to start to sneak into your new undertaking. So, Chuck, much of abortion, back on abortion, it's based on lies. The cases of Roe and Doe from 1973 were both based on contrived stories. The claim of the prevalence from back in the 60s of coat hanger abortions and back alley clinics. That's a lie. The thought that Abortion clinics were clean and safe. They've been as unmasked as lies. Especially folks remember a few years ago that Philadelphia abortionist and I saw him called also a serial killer, Kermit Gosnell. Then there's that the fetus is a blob or it's just a mass of tissues like some jellyfish. So they, they have the lies, but they also claim to have the science. This is just like it's maddening, but true, unpoliticized science. And this is where you've planted your flag, first through the Charlotte Lozier Institute and now through the recently created Science alliance for Life and Technology. Real science is the great ally of innocent life. So, Chuck, would you tell us why SALT was created, what its mission is, and also tell us about some of the, in your view, some of the more egregious abuses of science that have been deployed in the last few decades?
- [25:30]
A
Well, Jack, as you, as you probably know, in the whole history of the 20th century, the policies, practice and crimes of eugenics arrived on the human scene as one of the byproducts of Darwinian analysis of the human condition. And not necessarily to get into the whole scope of Darwinism, but we went through a century where things were taken to their absurd reducted limit, which is we can eliminate the weak, we can eliminate inferior races. Arianism is the perfection. And the evidence pretty clear in the writings of Frederick Wertham, who everybody should read, who observed about the Nazi regime that 20 years before they went to their absolute worst crimes, they were practicing euthanasia in the hospitals of Germany and the Netherlands. Well, now we have something much more massive on the horizon. And I wrote recently for Family Research Council on the case of Zhu Bo. He should be a household name, but he is a video game entrepreneur, something of a recluse, but he has an incredible amount of money. And apparently he's decided the way that he wants to perpetuate his business in China is to have surrogates conceive for him 20American babies. But not just any babies. He wants boys. He thinks girls are inferior, will not run his business. So given California's law and U.S. law, according to the Wall Street Journal, he's had at least a dozen babies created with the goal they will be shipped back to China and become the future of his business. Now, I could say he's extreme, but in fact, there are multiple major businesses out there now doing Gattaca style genetic screening to pick the best babies. Well, best babies according to what? According to Jubo, they'll be the best babies to operate his video game business. No girls allowed. I can't imagine a principle of western thinking and law that this doesn't violate sex discrimination. It basically is the slave auction written into the neonatal nursery and the frozen embryo strains of the future that we're supposed to embrace. So it's one example. There are many more. 270 million estimated human lives had been destroyed in the process of pursuing in vitro fertilization because we're picking the ones we think we're picking the ones that will be the best. The rest get discarded. But a recent peer review article said 270 million. So our science alliance, we're going to take on the toughest issues out there. It's no defensive. Life is easy, but saving the baby at 20 weeks, people start to empathize. But at the beginning of life is where the redefinition of humanity is coming our way. And we think a real science group needs to challenge that idea.
- [28:51]
B
Well, Chuck, I've asked you four questions. I have one more to give you. It's going to be a mouthful and you're going to hear it right after these final important messages. We are back with Victor Davis Hansen. In his own words, I should let people know even though this is the 20th, up on the 22nd. I did speak to our hero Victor, I think two nights ago. Things have been put up online. He wrote a somewhat detailed description of the progress, what he endured with his surgery and what he endured with his post operative. But he's progressing. I think it's a little bit of a two steps forward, one step back. The thing that just amazes me is I know there are millions, I mean, literally millions of people praying for him. And he knows it too, and he deeply appreciates it. Victor's not a Catholic, but I tell him, well, some guy wrote me, he said he has 20 priests in some monastery somewhere in the West. I'm gonna say they're praying masses. That's kind of. So anyway, he's on the upswing. It'll take a while for him to get back in the saddle, but he appreciates all the affection, love and good wishes. So final question for you, Chuck Donovan. Maybe Planned Parenthood clinics, which are closing in dramatic numbers. I think they're akin to the once plethora of porn shops because who needs them when you can get what you need at home? The abortion pill puts Gosnell typ of business. But they rely on chemicals. And these chemicals, like the chemicals women have taken for over half a century to prevent conception or the use of some devices that have the same purpose. They've wrecked havoc on millions. And not only the physical side, the psychological side of abortion, the post abortion syndrome, it's very real. But can you imagine Chuck, and a respected science journal publishing a paper on that? Anyway, is there anything you think our listeners and viewers need to know about this abortion pill sold to America as some easy peasy, do it yourself. No fuss, no mess, threat to unborn life and threat to pregnant women. And beyond that, if there are any other fronts you want to mention that Salt is taking on this, this abortion pill is really a poison pill, I think. Chuck, what's your take?
- [31:44]
A
Well, Jackie, it is huge and it's changed. I think all of the strategic decisions that has to be made. I'm not sure the pro life movement has adjusted to it yet. In terms of concerns about the Hyde Amendment, for example, the administration has been disappointing, I would say even profoundly more disappointing with respect to the abortion pill. The abortion pill is destroying about 70% or more of a million babies each year. The numbers are up, not down. The administration had promised they were not going to touch it, thinking that was politically smart. I know the vice President is speaking this Thursday at the March for Life. I'm hoping he's going to announce a change of policy. But we have women who are now being sent pills in the mail, whether they ordered them or not, without a medical visit, without a determination whether they have an ectopic pregnancy. And by the hundreds of thousands, the abortion experience has been turned to something that the woman herself is procuring. We're not even looking at the mental health implications of that realization that this was done by I myself, in a very isolated circumstance is the very antithesis of what medical care should be. And here's the tragic irony, and Salt hopes to deal with this. We are living in the most exciting medical time in human history. When Rose decided the baby could live outside the womb at 28 weeks. It's two months earlier now. And we can do incredible things for babies at risk. Children with down syndrome, my generation, 1970s, those children tended to live till their early teens. Opportunities for education and work were limited. But what was really limited was our understanding. Now these children with good medical care, with education, you see the stories there. There's that beautiful movie, the Peanut Butter Falcon. If seen it, go see it. But sadly, our reaction to the good science that has helped these children thrive is now we have countries that in their jaded age, like Denmark and Iceland, one or two babies a year will be born. The Rest will be killed. We don't have a dilemma because we can't care for each other. It's because we're not daring to try. And my main thing with pro life now is see the whole field, see the big picture, realize that strategies need to change. But we have to be the merchants of hope. The abortion industry is the merchant of despair, whether it's in surgical form or pill form. And we need to change that. We are not dour haters of the human race. We are people who think that life can thrive because it's precious in every day.
- [34:45]
B
Chuck, I don't know. Did I see two weeks ago a video somewhere on social media of an egg inseminated and in a like a slow motion firework display? Not seen these videos of what they called like the zinc light, but there was something much more detailed and exquisitely beautiful. Did you see such a thing?
- [35:11]
A
There is that spark at the beginning of life. There's also a study that's kind of interesting that shows even at the two cell stage, which we all went through, I don't remember, I don't even remember the 6 million cell stage. But even at the 2 cell stage there's some differentiation underway. This is no ordinary process. This is a marvel. It's beyond human comprehension and we've lost our sense of awe. And that allows us to take down the lives of millions of our fellow citizens and people. And boy, it's poison. Look at the birth rates around the world. And it doesn't matter if you're a religious nation like Malta or China or Taiwan. They're in the midst of collapse and we need to understand why it's happened. It's our own fault.
- [36:02]
B
Well, for whatever reason, I remember former colleague at the White House and my friend Charlotte DeMoss and her family creating those beautiful ads. Life, it's a wonderful choice back in the. I think it was in the 90s, early 90s. And we should continue to focus on that because that is the truth and that is the science. Chuck, I deeply appreciate your joining me here today and for all the work you're doing. For folks who are interested, look up. I have to say it. I have to read the Science alliance for Life and Technology. Go find it. See what they're up to. See what they're doing, get involved. And thanks again my friend. Thanks folks for watching. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the Daily Signal for carrying Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. And we will be back soon with another episode. God bless and bye bye.
- [37:05]
A
Thank you.
- [37:06]
B
Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website@victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features. In addition.