Supreme Court Takes On Major Abortion Case And More With Mary Szoch – Tune in for lots of pro-life news today! The Supreme Court agrees to take on a major abortion case in Mississippi next term and more with Mary Szoch.

Air Date: 05/28/2021

Guest: Mary Szoch

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

 

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live, we’re talking about the hot topics of the day, always from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. But depending on what that topic might be, it could be good, the bad, the ugly. Today, it’s going to be the good. We’re going to be doing Good News Friday. And that’s an opportunity to catch up on a lot of the good news stories out there that are not covered by the major media.

So David and Tim Barton have been doing, they’re digging into their stacks of good news and picking out what we’ll share today. David Barton is, of course, America’s premier historian, and our founder here at WallBuilders. Tim Barton’s a national speaker, and pastor and President of WallBuilders. And My name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach.

As fast as we’re going to get into today and try to cover as much good news as possible, there is more at our website, wallbuilderslive.com, wallbuilderslive.com. Go to that website, jump in the archives, you can get more good news there, as well as our other programs throughout the week. David and Tim, let’s jump into some good news. David’s up first.

David:

Well, we’re going to start with the US Supreme Court. And the US Supreme Court is actually kind of coming to the end of his term for this year. The Supreme Court usually finishes its session in June. So typically, in the first part of June, first half of June, you get all the major controversial decisions that they didn’t deliver all year long, they kind of deliver those decisions and then leave town. And so they will leave town and come back in October.

So from June through October, they kind of take a three month period off. And in that period of time, a lot of the Justices will travel to other countries and help young countries develop the judiciaries. They’ll do all sorts of meetings with Judges and kind of give guidance and instruction. So they take those three months off.

So they come back, and October really kind of starts the next year for them. And they have already announced some of the cases they’re going to start hearing next October. So we’re not yet done with this session. All those issues haven’t been handed down yet, but they are telling us what they’ve accepted for next term. And it turns out that one of the cases they’ve accepted for next term is an abortion case that comes out of Mississippi. And that abortion case in Mississippi, actually is a very strong prolife law that would say, hey, we in the state of Mississippi, we have the right to limit abortions to only these areas. Now, this is a direct shot at Roe v. Wade.

We’ve talked about this in previous programs. We’ve talked to a number of guys who are arguing in front of the Supreme Court. And they really felt like that the court was ready to get rid of Roe v. Wade, but they would probably do it in a two or three step process: that one of the things they would do is they would pick up some state law that dealt with, say discrimination abortion, is that you can’t have an abortion against someone who has Down syndrome or whatever it is. And they would say, well, you know, the states really do have a health interest in regulating this procedure in their state. And if a state says you shouldn’t have abortions on Down syndrome babies or sex selection abortions or whatever, then the next state can do that.

And that was seen as a step towards saying, well, Roe v. Wade used to be considered the standard for all the states and it came from the federal government. But we now recognize that science has changed a lot since Roe v. Wade and the states really do have an interest in the health policy of their states. And we think states should have a voice in this. And then the thought was that after that, they would then take a case that would say, hey, Roe v. Wade should have never belonged to the federal government. It’s a non-enumerated power under the Constitution. It should have been part of the states. And so it was saying that it would probably be a two or three step decision by the court to get rid of that.

Well, this is a step that a lot of people anticipate will be the step toward getting rid of Roe v. Wade. The fact that the court has picked this up is significant. And this will be the first prolife case it’s been heard since Amy Coney Barrett has been on the court. So this would be the first shot that she gets at a prolife decision. And she’s played to be strongly prolife. So this signal that they’ve said, hey, in October, we’re going to listen to this case, we’re going to hear arguments on the case and then we’ll decide sometime in the next nine months after that. This is really seen as a very positive sign that the court is on its way toward phasing out abortions.

Rick:

That’s a big deal, guys. I mean, huge, huge deal. This could be the game changer. Let’s not forget, I mean this makes not completely John Robert irrelevant, but pretty close. Because really, if the five conservatives go the right way on this where Roberts has been the one to bounce back and forth on the life issue, wow, guys, we could be talking about the Supreme Court literally okaying all the way down to six or seven weeks with the heartbeat bills and everything else.

David:

Well, there’s a little bit of drama on this and that last year, there was a similar type case that came to the court from Louisiana. And when it came at that time, both Gorsuch and Cavanaugh said no, to using that case to change Roe v. Wade. And so a lot of prolife folks scratch their head and said, no, wait a minute, these are two prolife Justices. They just had the perfect case for this scenario to start changing Roe v. Wade and they didn’t take the case. What’s going on here? So the fact they’ve taken this case is already a step in the right direction. But there’s no guarantee of how they’re going to rule because of what happened last year in that Louisiana case. So there still is a lot of drama here.

Tim:

And guys, it does seem significant considering where President Biden has been with a lot of the current position of the White House where President Trump had done things to restrict abortion and minimize abortion, restricting the funding for abortion facilities, federal funding, and Joe Biden has come in and he’s pretty much reversed all of that. He’s encouraging abortion and abortion funding and encouraging other nations to continue their abortions or to start practicing abortions.

And so certainly, this is now becoming a bigger cultural fight for a presidential administration that’s encouraging abortion. Guys, by the way along those lines, piece of good news I have on top of my stack is coming out of Texas. This one is out of Abernathy, Texas, which for those not familiar, Abernathy, I did not know this initially, only has 3,005 people in the town. So I think I’ve heard of Abernathy, I couldn’t tell you really where it is right now.

David:

I have no clue where Abernathy is and I live here.

Tim:

Well, apparently, it’s kind of close to Lubbock. And for those who might remember a couple weeks ago, we talked about how Lubbock became the largest city in Texas to become a

“Sanctuary for the Unborn” and many cities across the US have now started doing this, where City Council have taken a vote and they’ve declared themselves to be a sanctuary city. And the reason was because President Joe Biden’s position that is now very pro-abortion in many situations, cities are recognizing we don’t want to be a city that is encouraging the murder of unborn children.

So Abernathy, following Lubbock actually, then apparently they’re close to Lubbock, the same month that Lubbock did their decision, Lubbock did that in May 1st of this year and Abernathy and May 10th this year said that they wanted to do that. It’s really interesting, I have a quote from the mayor. He said “May 10th of 2021 is etched in my memory forever for two reasons.” He said, first of all, and this is Mayor Ron Johnson saying this, “It was my first meeting presiding as Mayor, but most importantly, Abernathy, Texas became a “Sanctuary city for the Unborn.”

So how about your first meeting as Mayor, one of the most significant things you possibly could do is say we’re going to make sure that we will always protect unborn life here? Guys, we have seen so much in the midst of the craziness of culture, in the midst of craziness of COVID, we have seen so much positive prolife news happening from around the nation, that there really is a reason for optimism and encouragement in the area of prolife.

Rick:

Alright guys, quick break. More good news when we return. We’ve got a special guest coming back from the break. You’re listening to help WallBuilders Live.

AMERICA’S HISTORY

This is David Barton with another moment from America’s history. Today, there are numerous documented accounts of individual students being disciplined simply for bringing a Bible to school. Fisher Ames would have been appalled at this open hostility toward the Bible. Fisher Ames was the Founding Father who authored the House of Representatives language for the First Amendment.

In his day, he vehemently objected to any attempt to minimize the Bible of schools. In fact, he declared “Why should not the Bible regain the place at once held as a school book? Its morals are pure. Its examples captivating and noble. The reverence for the sacred book that is thus early impressed last long, and probably, if not impressed, in infancy never takes firm hold of the mind.”

Founding Father Fisher Ames, the man most responsible for the wording of the First Amendment believed that the most important school book was the Bible. For more information on God’s hand in American history, contact WallBuilders at 1808REBUILD.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. Mary Szoch is back with us from Family Research Council, had the chance to visit with her a week or so ago about the American Separate Families Plan that Joe Biden is recommending out there. Mary, good to have you back.

Mary:

Thanks so much for having me back.

Rick:

Well, there’s a lot of good news to talk about on the prolife front, I mean legislature at the legislature tackling the life issue and some really big ways that used to be just like one legislature would even propose a bill like a heartbeat bill. And now we’re seeing things like that all over the country. So we just thought we’d get you back to give a little bit of an overview on what’s happening out there with regard to all of this good news. This is something you cover for Family Research Council as the Director of the Center for Human Dignity. So let’s just hit it. Where are you seeing the greatest gains across the country on the prolife issue?

Mary:

Well, I think I mean, just across the nation, we have seen an overwhelming amount of legislation, over 500 pieces of prolife legislation introduced with a number of them passing already. 46 separate states have introduced prolife legislation and…

Rick:

Wow, so not just Red states?

Mary:

Right. Right. And there have been 146 laws that have passed, including a ban of abortion. And so, we’re seeing across the country the American people’s willingness to stand up for the unborn is shifting. And there is now a greater sense of, okay, we’ve let too much time pass by where unborn babies in the womb have been targeted for death. And so we see that the American people, at least on a local level, on the state level, are electing officials who will reflect their prolife views. And that’s why we’ve seen so many of these abortion restrictions passed.

And Lubbock, Texas was a huge one, where we saw the city actually named a “Sanctuary city for the Unborn”. And this is huge. All of America should be a “Sanctuary for the Unborn”. But we all know a lot of good comes out of Texas. And…

Rick:

That’s right. All great things come from Texas. What do you mean a lot of good? All great things come from… No, seriously, there are a lot of good news stories coming out of Texas. But this Lubbock one was fantastic. I think that’s the biggest so far largest city in Texas that has done a Sanctuary city for the Unborn. We’re seeing a lot more cities do this and what does that exactly mean? I guess for our listeners to know that for sure, essentially means no abortion within those city limits, no Planned Parenthood can perform an abortion? I mean, they’re basically saying we’re going to protect the unborn in our city, we don’t care what the Supreme Court says.

Mary:

Right. And this was in response to a Planned Parenthood opening their doors and the people of Lubbock said, guess what we don’t want abortion here. This doesn’t reflect the views of our people. And overwhelmingly, the people of the city voted to make Lubbock a “Sanctuary city for the Unborn”. Now, it will likely be challenged. But we just saw the Supreme Court decided to review Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. And so the Supreme Court will be taking up a direct challenge to Roe v Wade.

Rick:

Now, I saw a headline on that, but I didn’t dig into it yet. So did Mississippi pass a ban on abortion after 15 weeks and then lose at the local quarter, I guess at the appellate court level, and that’s what the Supreme Court is now going to review?

Mary:

Right. So the Supreme Court is going to review specifically one question from there. They were asked to review three, but they’ll be reviewing whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional or not.

Rick:

Wow. So that’ll be heartbeat bills, I mean, all of those that have been passing in states?

Mary:

Right. Right. And we all know that Roe and Casey were wrongly and arbitrarily decided, that the nine justices on the Supreme Court, well, not all nine, thankfully, but a majority each time found an arbitrary right to privacy within the Constitution. And with the review of the Mississippi 15 week ban, the court has the chance to correct itself and to say, actually, there is no right to privacy here and the states should be the ones regulating abortion. And if that happens, thanks to a lot of the good work this year. We would see things like the Sanctuary City stand, we would see states all across the country, the laws that they have passed would be allowed to stand.

Rick:

Yeah, and that includes these heartbeat bills. And we thrown that term out a couple of times, tell us exactly what a heartbeat bill does.

Mary:

So a heartbeat bill restricts abortion from the time when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. So it says that from that point on, no woman can have an abortion.

Rick:

And that’s typically what, 7, 8 weeks, 10 weeks? When do we typically see that?

Mary:

Yeah. 6.5- 7 weeks, so very early. It’s typically just after a woman has found out she’s pregnant. So, so the heartbeat bill does a lot. But, but what we would love is for the unborn child to be protected from the very first moment of from conception.

Rick:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think I forget now which states have done a heartbeat bill, but there’s quite a few. I know, my home state of Texas just passed in the legislature and the governor’s indicated he will sign it. I think Arkansas did one. So I mean, that’s one that has become very, you know, that’s been an aggressive move by the prolife movement that has gained a lot of ground.

Mary:

It has. And even all out abortion bans, like Arkansas pass an all-out abortion ban. And these are a reflection of the views of the people in that state. Right? And we know around the country, people in various states sadly have different views on the value of an unborn child life. But right now, because of the wrongful ruling of Roe and Casey, we have sort of one standard that governs all and the Supreme Court challenge could change all that.

Rick:

Could be huge. It could be huge. And I’m guessing timeline-wise, they would hear that sometime this summer and we’d see a decision maybe in the fall. That sounds about, right?

Mary:

I think we’re actually sadly looking for, it’ll be a little bit later than that. Yeah, we would like to get it in there as quickly as possible. But I think…

Rick:

The wheels of justice move slow.

Mary:

Yes.

Rick:

For sure. So I did notice one thing in Tony Perkins article, he quoted a left leaning institute that said, 2021 will end up as the most damaging anti-abortion state legislative session in a decade. I love hearing that from the left leaning folks out there. If they are whining that it’s going to be a disaster for their cause, that means the prolife cause is winning and lives will be saved. That’s very good news.

Mary:

It is. And you know, every time that we see Guttmacher Institute or Planned Parenthood on their heels and frustrated by something that we’re doing, we know we’re doing a good job. And the number of pieces of prolife legislation that have restricted abortion, and have passed in 2021 is just incredible. But what I think is the most beautiful thing about it is that that legislation is a reflection of the change in hearts and minds. And maybe we’re not making waves at the national level right now, but I think that this is a sign of good things to come.

Rick:

Oh, that’s good. I think that’s absolutely true. I think it starts to local level. And if those hearts and minds have changed, the voting changes, and when the voting changes, you get the representatives that will support these kind of pieces of legislation, and eventually from the state level to the federal level. Mary, thank you so much for this update. Frc.org is the website. Appreciate your time today.

Mary:

Thanks so much for having me.

Rick:

Stay with us, folks. We’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

AMERICAN STORY

Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called The American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today.

And we would say very providentially in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil, and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things, like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not out the statement Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America.

Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America? We actually have written and told that story starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America not as the story of a perfect nation of a perfect people. But the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out wallbuilders.com, The American Story.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday. Back with David and Tim Barton, guys, a lot of good news packed into that segment with Mary. So you know, let’s jump into a little bit deeper into some of that. Because we’ve been saying for a long time, it’s the incremental victories that will eventually lead to the big victory. And a lot of folks want it all in one fell swoop, but these incremental victories are adding up

David:

Well, those incremental victories add up a whole lot faster when you have what we’ve had this year. And this year so far, I think it’s like 540 or 550 prolife bills introduced across the nation of which so far 146 have passed, now could go off from that. Texas has got three pending right now that had been passed either in one body or the other, the House or the Senate, they could go up. There’s a lot left to come. But having 146 already, I mean that’s a massive year.

Tim:

Yeah, guys, that’s so impressive. And certainly something as we try to celebrate things on Good News Friday, recognizing that that God is still moving, God is still doing great things, there’re still positive things happening in the midst of a cultural battle, a cultural crisis happening around us, still positive things are happening. And actually, in the top of my stack, I have some of those very laws that Mary was referencing, of those 146 laws that have been passed, this article, the title says “Idaho Governor Brad Little Signs Bill Defunding Planned Parenthood Abortion Businesses”. So that’s one from Idaho, where Idaho will no longer fund Planned Parenthood.

This is another article headline, “Tennessee Governor Bill Lee Signs Bill Recognizing Humanity of Babies Killed in Abortions”. And this one’s super interesting. Because although this is not an abortion in Tennessee, what it does say is if there’s a baby aborted, those bodies have to be dealt with humanely. There has to be a burial, something along those lines. And so still recognizing humanity of the unborn, it’s a step in the right direction.

And then guys, this is one of those things, too, that it’s interesting, seeing so much positive ground being made in this prolife battle that’s being fought, this war is being waged for the unborn, and their lives. Oftentimes people that are critical or skeptical of some of these bills that are taking a step in the right direction because sometimes people say no, we want the whole thing, we want it all now, and we don’t support that, because doesn’t go far enough.

But the reality is, and dad, you’ve made this point, many times, when the Israelites were going into Canaan, one of the things God told the Israelites is I’m not going to give you the land all at once because you’re not ready for everything right now. But instead, I’m going to give it to you little by little. And I’m not suggesting that the Israelites taking Canaan is the same moral equivalency of abortion and we couldn’t handle ending abortion all at once. It’s not what I’m suggesting. Other than the fact that incremental ism is something that is a biblical concept that you want to take a step in the right direction every time you can. It’s something that is a great sports strategy, right? You always want to be making progress down the football field, making those advancements where you can.

And we are seeing a lot of positive things happening. And some of these laws are much bolder than others, whether it be a heartbeat bill, or various things along those lines where we want to end abortion totally in different states. There’s a lot of positive prolife laws being passed. And we actually, I’m sure, have many more in our stack we’ll come to in the coming weeks. But those are just two that I had in the top of my stack.

David:

Well, looking at those laws and looking over what we’ve had so far in the States, here’s the list. The type of prolife bills include: abortion pill reversals, information requirements, regulating chemical abortions, protecting pain capable unborn children, protecting living unborn children from gruesome dismembered abortions, and acting born alive protection acts, constitutional amendments abortion ban, I mean, it just goes down the list. And so I started pulling some together here.

And so far, we have 10 states that have passed what they call trigger laws. And a Trigger Law is, as you can imagine, it’s like pulling a trigger on a gun. When you pull that trigger, something happens. With a Trigger Law in a state, what we have right now is the Supreme Court has said everybody gets abortion on demand Roe v. Wade. A trigger law says if that decision ever gets overturned, the decision of the court to overturn that Roe v Wade will trigger a new state law in our state that says abortions are illegal.

So 10 states have already passed Trigger Laws saying if Roe v Wade goes down, at the moment it goes down, our state is a prolife state, we will not have abortions in our state. And some states, they may have the one exception, two exceptions, or three exceptions, but 98% of abortion even stop. Texas is a state that is passed that Trigger Law this legislative session so far, it’s not made it through both bodies and the governor has assigned to yet, but he’s expected to. So that would up into 11 states. No House in other state that scattered coming through. So there’s a lot of Trigger Laws that are going on.

In addition to the Trigger Laws, you also have Heartbeat Bills. And Heartbeat Bills say well, in our state, as soon as you can detect a heartbeat, we’re not going to have abortion. And so that’s anywhere from 6 to 7 to 8 weeks, and right now, there’s 26 states that have introduced Heartbeat Bills that would say essentially, we’re not having abortion from the time a woman knows that she’s pregnant; at that point in time, we’re not going to have an abortion.

So of those 26 states, 15 have not passed yet, but 11 how so 10 states with Trigger Laws, maybe 13 coming soon, 11 states that have these Heartbeat Bills. And by the way, those Heartbeat Bills, of the 11 states that have them, the 11 states those laws have been blocked by the Federal courts. So that’s why the Supreme Court picking up this Mississippi law, if they decide not to block that law, then that takes the limits off 11 states total that have Heartbeat Bills. They would be untied and be able to move forward.

And then you join that to the states that have Trigger Laws that if this goes back to the states and away from the federal courts at the states get to decide, you’re looking almost instantly half of the nation will be antiabortion in its policy, not just in its bleep, in its policy. And by the way, as Mary mentioned, and Tim, you mentioned also in Lubbock, I think is so significant that Lubbock is the one who became abortion free because it’s a university town.

Texas Tech has 40,000 students in Lubbock, and they went prolife and usually University towns and Capitol towns are very liberal. But this goes with what we’ve been talking about in the last five to seven years, the rising generation is more prolife than even the older generations are. And so what happened in Lubbock with a major university town, there’s just a lot of good stuff across the nation right now, good news related to ending abortion.

Rick:

Well, guys, we’re out of time for good news today. But we’ve got more good news at our website, wallbuilderslive.com. And of course, we’ll have more good news for you in the coming weeks on Fridays as well. So even as we see the negative things in Washington, D.C., so many positive things in pushback across the country in the States, we’re going to keep a tab on that and keep sharing it with you here on WallBuilders Live, be sure visit the website today wallbuilderslive.com make that one-time or monthly contribution. We appreciate you listening to WallBuilders Live