Speaker 1: It's nothing short of an attack on women's basic human
Speaker 1: rights and civil rights, and it's something that women in
Speaker 1: America are going to have to fight against with everything
Speaker 1: they've got. They want to challenge Roll verses Wade, but
Speaker 1: my humble is that this is not the case we
Speaker 1: want to bring to the Supreme Court because I think
Speaker 1: this want to lose. So that was Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Speaker 1: doing the saying the same thing all the Democratic presidential
Speaker 1: candidates said yesterday about the war on women and all
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. And then Pat Robertson, who's on
Speaker 1: the other side, he's a televangelist. He's on the other
Speaker 1: side who has problems with the Row Versus way, but
Speaker 1: doesn't think this is the way to go about it right,
Speaker 1: although I think he's missing a key point or two.
Speaker 1: And David French, senior writer for National Review, senior fellow
Speaker 1: at the National Review Institute, has written an absolutely terrific
Speaker 1: and thought provoking peace about what Alabama and Georgia are
Speaker 1: trying to do. And David French joins us, Now, David,
Speaker 1: how are you. I'm good. Thanks for having me. It's
Speaker 1: our pleasure. Really enjoyed your your reasoning in the article,
Speaker 1: why don't we lay out for the folks the legislatures
Speaker 1: in Alabama and Georgia understand this law will not take
Speaker 1: act effect anytime soon. What are they trying to do? Well,
Speaker 1: what they're trying to do is create the right vehicle
Speaker 1: for challenging Row versus ways. And the reason why they've
Speaker 1: drafted the law with this in mind and in some
Speaker 1: really important ways. One, Uh, this is a law unlike
Speaker 1: a lot of the restrictions on abortion that you've seen,
Speaker 1: these more modest restrictions for example that um, for example,
Speaker 1: say you know an abortion clinic has to meet these
Speaker 1: kinds of medical requirements and facility requirements, or that abortion
Speaker 1: doctors have to have admitting privileges. Uh, this is far
Speaker 1: beyond that. There are beyond that, and in what they've
Speaker 1: done because and the reason why they've done that, one
Speaker 1: this is a matter of moral conviction. And the other
Speaker 1: reason is that report could uphold every one of these
Speaker 1: modest abortion restrictions that are before it now, every single
Speaker 1: one of them, without touching Row or Casey. They could
Speaker 1: just say, well, you know, this is just the modest
Speaker 1: restricts and abortion. Wow, we're really we're really having very
Speaker 1: inequality of voice quality. David, I don't know if there's anything. Yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: it's just kind of phasing in and out. But anyway,
Speaker 1: we'll plunge on. Uh. But so they want to challenge
Speaker 1: Row though, And I like the part of your piece
Speaker 1: where they're talking about establishing the personhood of the baby
Speaker 1: the fetus. Why is that so important? Yeah, that's important
Speaker 1: because of suchs and nine of the rosy Rade opinion
Speaker 1: by Justice Blackman, And in that he says, if the
Speaker 1: personhood of the feet of the fetus is established by
Speaker 1: constitutional laws, in the case for Row for abortion collapses.
Speaker 1: In other words, once a baby is protected as a
Speaker 1: person under law, a person cannot lose its life without
Speaker 1: a right to do process for example. Um, and so
Speaker 1: then the abortion case for abortion collapses. And so what
Speaker 1: these both Alabama and Georgia are doing is they are
Speaker 1: saying that they're that an unborn baby in these states
Speaker 1: is a person. They're bestowing under state law personhood on
Speaker 1: the baby. And now they're saying, well, we have established
Speaker 1: personhood under ROW, the case for abortion therefore collapses. Now
Speaker 1: the counter argument to that is that, well, under Row,
Speaker 1: the only thing that matters is whether the federal Constitution
Speaker 1: establishes personhood, but that's not really traditional American law that
Speaker 1: the the parameters of individual liberties can be expanded by state,
Speaker 1: not contracted by states. And so what they're arguing is
Speaker 1: that by bestowing personhood on the child, they're expanding the
Speaker 1: liberty of the child. Now, the counter argument would be, well,
Speaker 1: then you're constricting the liberty of the mother, and that
Speaker 1: would be the core fight at the Supreme Court. But
Speaker 1: this is aimed directly at that section nine of the
Speaker 1: Row opinion. As the sponsor of George's legislation said, his
Speaker 1: bill wasn't waving its fisted row. It's answering Row versus
Speaker 1: Wade exactly. So it's exactly aimed at part of Justice
Speaker 1: Blackman's opinion. I think it's a very smart Now, again
Speaker 1: there's still guarantee that it will that it will win
Speaker 1: the day, but I think it's a very smart and
Speaker 1: it's a it's a philosophically and morally and scientifically, I believe,
Speaker 1: proper approach to the abortion issue, because the core assertion
Speaker 1: of the pro life movement is that that is a person,
Speaker 1: a very small person inside the mother's wound. Right would
Speaker 1: the court have to establish at what point it becomes
Speaker 1: a person though, because I could get pretty thorny, well,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's that is a essentially that they
Speaker 1: could say is that the Court doesn't establish that the
Speaker 1: states do that the Constitution of the US is silent
Speaker 1: on the state's ability to establish personhood beyond that, they
Speaker 1: cannot restrict personhood beyond which the you know, to a
Speaker 1: level the beyond the Federal Constitution. So the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: doesn't have to decide personhood. The Supreme Court can say
Speaker 1: the Constitution of the United States is silent on abortion,
Speaker 1: and it permits states to define personhood in a way
Speaker 1: that's more expansive than the Federal Constitution does and leave
Speaker 1: it to the states, which is I believe, the proper
Speaker 1: constitutional approach. I'm glad you brought that up. David French
Speaker 1: is online senior writer for National Review and Senior Fellow
Speaker 1: at the National Review Institute. I had one of my
Speaker 1: favorite professors in college a thousand years ago. Um made
Speaker 1: the point that the Road decision removed the well, it
Speaker 1: distorted the politics of it. States could no longer vote
Speaker 1: in a meaningful way on what they're people believed on
Speaker 1: this extremely difficult topic. Um, and you make another point
Speaker 1: in your piece about how it's distorted national politics presidential elections,
Speaker 1: for instance, What did you mean by that? Yeah, So
Speaker 1: think about this. If I live in the state of tendency,
Speaker 1: and I do UM, and I want to impact the
Speaker 1: abortion laws of my state, by far, by far, the
Speaker 1: most important election that I will cast a vote in
Speaker 1: is the United States presidential election. Because the president appoints
Speaker 1: a justice or can appoint justices of the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: my own state Supreme Court, my own state laws are
Speaker 1: far less relevant to the actual right to an abortion
Speaker 1: than the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Speaker 1: And this is something that has has meant that national politics,
Speaker 1: now for a generation since Roe have become have escalated
Speaker 1: in intensity because you hear, you have one of the
Speaker 1: most emotionally fraud issues, if not the most emotionally fraud
Speaker 1: issue in the entire all of the United States politics,
Speaker 1: and your ability to impact it is at best indirect
Speaker 1: by voting for a president who appoints a justice, and
Speaker 1: then once the justice is um and Um in office,
Speaker 1: he does what he wants to do. And so what
Speaker 1: I say is when you if you overturn row. If
Speaker 1: you were to live in New York and you want
Speaker 1: to protect abortion rights, then the most important election that
Speaker 1: you're going to vote in is going to be like
Speaker 1: your local state legislature. Right. And as you make the point,
Speaker 1: we've got this savage, bitter partisanship at the national level
Speaker 1: over an issue that we will have teeny tiny incremental
Speaker 1: indirect effects on as as voters, and so it's not
Speaker 1: worth all the hatred exactly. So it's distorting our politics massively,
Speaker 1: and what we need in this country we need to
Speaker 1: de escalate presidential elections. We need to de escalate national politics.
Speaker 1: Good luck with that. Yeah, but the citizens of California
Speaker 1: have too much power over the citizens of Texas and
Speaker 1: vice versa. I mean, this is this is not what
Speaker 1: the founders intended. And when you're talking about a hyper
Speaker 1: emotional issue like abortion, that is the constitutional United States
Speaker 1: is silent about it. This isn't the first Amendment, this
Speaker 1: isn't the second Amendment, this isn't the fourth or fifth Amendment.
Speaker 1: The Constitution is silent on that. That is a classic
Speaker 1: recipe for resolution by the states. And the more I
Speaker 1: think we can communicate that to people, that let Alabamabama
Speaker 1: be Alabama. Let New York be New York and have
Speaker 1: the pro life and pro choice movements fight it out
Speaker 1: on that turf. I think it's going to be better
Speaker 1: for our nation. Is certainly going to be better for
Speaker 1: unborn children. Its state after state after state announces it's
Speaker 1: it's pro life intentions. And look, if people want to
Speaker 1: build and create pro choice jurisdictions, they can do so. Hey, David,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you this question just because we
Speaker 1: bring it up a lot, and I don't ever hear
Speaker 1: it anybodywhere else talking about it being hyper emotional and
Speaker 1: you know, such a charge edition, all that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: The polling shows that most people, even Democrats, are uncomfortable
Speaker 1: with abortion after the first trimester. It's, you know, the
Speaker 1: controversies all in that first trimester or whether it should
Speaker 1: be allowed at all, But after that, the vast majority
Speaker 1: of people who say no, that ain't cool after the
Speaker 1: first trimester. Why can't we get some sort of ground
Speaker 1: going there in terms of the battle, Well, and I
Speaker 1: don't think most people know those poll numbers, by the way, listening,
Speaker 1: you know the way I take it through the news, right, Well,
Speaker 1: I think there's two reasons for that one. The number
Speaker 1: one most important reason is because this issue has been
Speaker 1: removed from the democratic process, largely by the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: of the US. We haven't had an opportunity to have
Speaker 1: national debates and reach a consensus and limitations that reflects
Speaker 1: public values. We have not been able to do that
Speaker 1: ever since Rows. So that's number one, and then number two.
Speaker 1: These national polls are very deceptive because the regional and
Speaker 1: state by state differences are dramatic. So you might have
Speaker 1: a state of New York with a whole, you know,
Speaker 1: ton of people who live there, they might have a
Speaker 1: supermajority for a less restrictive abortion regime. But then you
Speaker 1: might have a state of Alabama that has a supermajority
Speaker 1: for as far more restrictive. Okay, well, that reinforces the
Speaker 1: argument about letting the states, you know, or jurisdiction, very jurisdictions,
Speaker 1: make their own decisions. Then exactly exactly, And you know,
Speaker 1: people will point to national polls to try to rebut
Speaker 1: what Alabama is doing. But you know, you know who
Speaker 1: knows Alabama politics better than national posters. Alabama politicians, and
Speaker 1: they voted a massive supermajority for this. Alabama law. A
Speaker 1: massive in the Missouri um is just about to pass
Speaker 1: an eight week abortion ban, ban on abortions after eight weeks,
Speaker 1: and the margin in the House there with one seventeen
Speaker 1: to thirty nine and in the Senate four to ten.
Speaker 1: So if you're throwing a national poll at a local
Speaker 1: southern politicians their board, right right, David matter, David final question,
Speaker 1: in the limit of time we have, Unfortunately, what are
Speaker 1: the chances you think this gets all the way to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court either of these cases. Let me put
Speaker 1: it this way. I'm pessimistic, but I'm not as pessimistic
Speaker 1: ause I used to be. I think the more states
Speaker 1: that pass a heartbeat bill or a bill like Alabama's,
Speaker 1: the greater the likelihood that it will get to the
Speaker 1: Spreme Court, simply because the Supreme Court will realize that
Speaker 1: it has a popular ground swell on its hands and
Speaker 1: it's going to either have to say once in you know,
Speaker 1: at least decide this for a whole another generation, and say, no,
Speaker 1: we're gonna open this up. The Constitution is silent on abortion.
Speaker 1: We're going to open up for the states, or we're
Speaker 1: going to reaffirm row. Either way that's going to be
Speaker 1: very clarifying. But when you're talking about an immense, geographic,
Speaker 1: contiguous section of the United States of America now is
Speaker 1: declaring itself unequivocally for life, that increases the chances that
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court will take this up. David French, Senior
Speaker 1: writer for the National Review, Senior fellow at the National
Speaker 1: Review Institute, David, we can talk to you all day,
Speaker 1: but instead of that will have a link to your
Speaker 1: piece so folks can find it easily great to talk
Speaker 1: to you. Thank you, thanks so much for having me
Speaker 1: our pleasure. Isn't it corrected that the woman involved in
Speaker 1: the ROVERSUS Wade case ended up pro life at the
Speaker 1: end of her life. Yeah. Yeah, This might be one
Speaker 1: of those issues that I never thought would move in
Speaker 1: my lifetime, like a lot of them out there that
Speaker 1: have recently, and that is going to get some movement. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and honestly, especially if you can let the States
Speaker 1: tailor the approach to this incredibly troubling issue to the
Speaker 1: will of their own people. Um that I think the solution,
Speaker 1: the quote unquote solution for everybody will be much more
Speaker 1: comforta when wass um, I know they didn't have the
Speaker 1: they certainly didn't have the three D pictures of babies
Speaker 1: that they have now where you just see a baby
Speaker 1: in there. Um, did they even have ultrasounds? Did they
Speaker 1: have could you hear a heartbeat back then? I don't
Speaker 1: think you could even hear a heartbeat back then. So
Speaker 1: it was completely just you know, a conversation with with
Speaker 1: no knowledge of what's going on in there. For the
Speaker 1: most part um you you would hope this wasn't true,
Speaker 1: but it is absolutely true. The more focused and abstraction comes,
Speaker 1: and the more becomes and the more real it becomes,
Speaker 1: the more details, your understanding of it becomes a completely changed.
Speaker 1: That's why they think polling has changed on this issue.
Speaker 1: It's here in the heartbeat, it's seen the pictures, it's right,
Speaker 1: Oh that's a kid, right, And there are plenty on
Speaker 1: the left to the major media have a great deal
Speaker 1: of sympathy for who are okay with offering the baby
Speaker 1: after it's born, which which is an extremist position supported
Speaker 1: by virtually no but insane and listen. I respect people's
Speaker 1: views on this topic on all sides, I really do.
Speaker 1: It's a thorny one, it's a hard one. I don't
Speaker 1: respect you on people's on all sides that view you
Speaker 1: just put out that crazy. I mean, on both sides.
Speaker 1: You know, I lean this way, I lean now, I
Speaker 1: find I get it. But yeah, that that's an incredibly
Speaker 1: extremist view, and we are getting a absolutely fraudulent view
Speaker 1: of what people think about that from our lying, lying media,
Speaker 1: and the varant are strong and Jetty