Roe V. Wade And The Dobbs Decision – With Representative Phil King – What are the results of from the Dobbs decision, and what happens now? What are trigger laws? How does that affect abortion? Tune in now to learn the answers to these questions and more exciting news with Representative Phil King.

Air Date: 06/13/2022

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 are taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And we’re thankful that you’re here with us to do exactly that. It’s good for all of us. We all need to have a biblical perspective on whatever’s happening in our lives and in the culture and the neighborhood around us. We need to have a historical perspective. So we can learn from history. And then of course, as American citizens, a constitutional perspective teaches us how to know our rights, how to proceed when those rights are violated, how to assert those rights peacefully and constitutionally, and how to uphold that constitution and teach it to the next generation as well.

So that’s what we do here at WallBuilders Live. And we’re thankful for you being a part of the solution. I hope you’ve considered coaching a constitution class, they’re in your home and your living room or at your church or you’re somewhere in your neighborhood. It’s a great way to come alongside us. And another way to come alongside us is on our website, at wallbuilderslive.com, you can make a one-time or monthly contribution there: those dollars put fuel in the tank, it allows us to reach more people across the nation, and teach them these values. It also allows us to train more pastors and legislators and young people, so many different things we’re doing here at WallBuilders and you’re a part of that when you make that contribution. So, thank you to all of you across the country that already do that on a regular basis. We appreciate you very much for coming alongside us.

My name is Rick Green, by the way, I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s constitution coach. And it is my great honor to be here with David Barton and Tim Barton. David is America’s premier historian and our founder here at WallBuilders. Tim Barton is a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. And all three of us, again, thank you, we want to all thank you for being a part of the program.

Another thing I want to encourage you to do, already asking you to do a third thing, I know a lot of action today, right, but it’s to share the program. Actually, be a part of sort of a force multiplier system where you not only listen to the program, and you take action, but you share the program with other people so that they will do the exact same thing. Lots of great things are happening in the culture because of people like you being a force multiplier. So, thanks for being a part of that too and sharing the program with as many people as you can.

Alright, David and Tim, we got Phil king with us a little later. He’s not only a state rep, soon-to-be Senator, he’s your state rep soon-to-be, your state senator. So a little bit of a, I don’t know if that’s a promotion or what that is. But anyway, somebody I went into the house with 20 years ago, you all known him even longer than I did and helped get him elected in the first place. But Phil’s always been a prolife leader. So we’ll be getting him on to talk about what we do now.

So if Roe v Wade gets overturned, which we fully expect it to and may have already been done by the time this thing airs, but man, guys, that could shift our focus to a lot of new things.

Tim:

It could. Yeah, as you’re mentioning, as we’re recording this over the weekend, this will be aired on Monday, we expect that it could be today. It could be sometime this week. We think very shortly, we will hear the Supreme Court decision from the Dobbs case, that dealt with for Mississippi, the 15 week abortion ban. And the indications are that this ruling could be the decision that undercuts Roe v. Wade, which a lot of people have been said that the Left is active, as extremists have said, this is going to end abortion. And actually, this will need to be a conversation for different program.

But it’s worth noting that you have people bracing for the response from the American people because of what the Supreme Court is going to do. And President Biden has talked about how violent and extreme the prolife people are. And yet what we’ve seen at this point is even in the last week where you have pro-abortion activists who have gone and done violence against prolife organizations, prolife facilities. And so the argument from the left has been that this ends abortion. It doesn’t end abortion. It sends abortion and back to the states, which some people say well, it shouldn’t be a states’ rights issue.

Probably after we talked to Phil, we can get into the conversation of if it should or shouldn’t. Because the Founding Fathers actually did address this, that this is a kind of a fundamental foundational principle that you can identify in the Declaration, that was largely should have been enshrined in the constitution from the understanding of the Declaration. Nonetheless, this is something that will go to the states. And there’s already I think 27 States, I think is the number that I last saw, dad, you might clarify if it’s a different number of states that have already done laws that are known as trigger laws, that have Roe v. Wade is overturned that their state will have an official legal position with the abortion issue.

Now in some states, it ends all abortion; in some states, it legalize abortion. So in these 27 states, it’s different but the vast majority of states are going in an anti-abortion position. So it will be very interesting and God-willing, it will be today as our program is airing that we will hear this decision from the Supreme Court. But we do expect in the coming week or two, certainly before very long at all, we will hear from the Supreme Court dealing with the hopefully overturning of Roe vs. Wade in the Dobbs decision.

David:

You know, there’s several options here and they’re all really big. I don’t know how it’s going to go. There was certainly the leak that came out that seemed to indicate that they were going to overturn Roe v. Wade. But let’s assume they overturn it, the language they use is super, super important. Let’s say they overturn it because there’s inalienable right to live well, that takes trigger laws out of every state because no state can kill life if it’s inalienable right to life. Or they could say, hey, this is a Tenth Amendment issue, the court should never have gotten involved in this. This is something that belongs to the states, we’re going to leave to the states.

Well, let’s assume that it goes that way. Thank what that opens up. That opens up the marriage decision again, these 31 states that had marriage amendments now come back and say, hey, what you just did on abortion, you did the same thing on marriage. We had it at the state level and 31 states had marriage amendments, and you guys came through and said no state can do that. I think you’ll see all sorts of things come back to the courts. If they say that this is a Tenth Amendment issue, you’re going to see all sorts of things that have been taken away since the activism of the 1960s. And man, you think that there’s riots going on now over life, think what LGBTQ would do if they were to come back, think of all the different dissident groups that have proven themselves to be fairly radical, fairly violent, are willing to use violence.

And Tim, you mentioned they have been violent last week. There are now over 30 incidents of fire bombings and attacks and physical assault and the guy arrested last week that said he went there to kill Justice Cavanaugh because Justice Cavanaugh is going to overturn abortion. I mean, just add that to all these other issues, the cultural issues, how they word this thing could have great impact for a long time to come.

Rick:

Yeah. And in fact, and we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, we’ll jump into the interview with Phil. But there’s so many good things in that draft of opinion. And if that’s what comes out today, some of that same language, just a restoration of federalism, I mean, there’s some really good constitutional principles that are talked about. But let’s take a quick break. We’ll be right back with State Representative Phil King here on WallBuilders Live.

AMERICAN HISTORY

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. In the early 1700s, the Reverend John Wise preached that all men were created equal, that taxation without representation was tyranny, and that God’s preferred form of government was the consent of the governed: all of which is language recognizable on the Declaration of Independence. Why?

Because in 1772, the Sons of Liberty led by founders such as Sam Adams and John Hancock, reprinted and distributed the Reverend Wise’s sermons. So four years later, much of the declaration reflected the language of those sermons by John Wise. In 1926, on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, President Calvin Coolidge affirmed “The thoughts in the declaration can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was saying.”

Few today know that the Declaration was so strongly influenced by the Reverend John Wise. For more information on this and other stories, go to wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Always good to have our good friend, State Representative for a few more months and soon-to-be state senator, Phil King from Texas. Phil, how you doing, brother? Thanks for coming on, man.

Phil:

Doing good, Rick, it’s always good to have me on your show, just so I can slow down because nobody talks as fast as you and it just gives your listeners a rest.

Rick:

They’re like I thought Texans talk slow, so we’ll have you want to sound like a real Texan and force me to slow down. No, it’s not going to happen. I’m just going to talk fast and then you can talk slow. No, seriously, brother, you have been a champion for life since you and I went in the legislature together back in 99. You’ve led the way even in that session for parental notification and so many other bills that have passed over the last 20 years. Thanks to you shepherding them through the legislature.

And then you’ve also been involved in national organizations working with legislators and others across the country. So we thought this would be a great interview with you to talk about, okay, what happens with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, how two states deal with that, the trigger laws that you pass in Texas and in other states have done and just other approaches. So, just a great chance to catch up with you on the prolife issue in general. And kind of where do we go from here? You know, assuming in our recording today, that will air next week is prior to the decision being handed down, but we fully expect that it will happen in the next week or so, and may have already been handed down by the time this actually airs.

But fully expecting that they will overturn Roe v Wade, assuming Alito’s opinion holds that was leaked. What are you seeing just kind of the big landscape? And I guess let’s get specific. How does the Texas Trigger Law work? And then we’ll talk about some trigger laws across the country.

Phil:

So, and you’re right, there are a lot of question marks and every state is going to be different. We got to talk about that in a minute. But the Texas Trigger Law assuming as we think it will, that it holds up legally in court, it simply said that if Roe v Wade goes away, then Texas goes back to the pre-1973 Roe laws in Texas, which Texas had a prohibition on abortion and except for the life of the mother.

So in Texas, if everything works right, and we think it will, when that decision comes down, then abortion is illegal in Texas. Now, you got some questions even with that? Well, how do you enforce that? It was a criminal offense but before Roe v. Wade, in Texas to have an abortion. I think it’s going to be a criminal offense again. Will DA prosecute that? You know, how does that work?

My hope is what happens is abortion clinics are all about money. They can say all they want. But it’s all about money. And I’ve worked with a lot of them on the opposite side. And that’s what it’s about. My bet is, as soon as the money goes away, the abortion clinics go away. They may have some doctors trying to privately do it and then you got to figure out how to enforce it and all that. But I think 99% of abortions in Texas go away because the money goes away.

Rick:

Now, does that mean at that point, is there any kind of a law against transporting a well, I guess isn’t there some sort of law against transporting a minor across state lines to get an abortion? Am I making that up or did we do that in Texas?

Phil:

I’m not aware of it. But that’s one of the discussions. I mean, we’ve already got different companies saying our employees, we will pay you to go get an abortion in the end. And for me, I’m just not going to do business with that company or I’m not going to buy their coffee or whatever it may be. But that’s something we’ve talked about is how do you deal with that? And I’m not sure…

Rick:

Now wait a minute, wait a minute, I got to tell our audience here that for Phil King to say that there’s any coffee, any coffee anywhere that he would not buy, that’s a big deal, folks. You just don’t understand. I don’t know if I’ve ever been around Phil that he didn’t have coffee in his hand. So just making sure we know that’s a big deal what you just said.

Phil:

Yeah, it’s a serious statement on my part. But anyway, at the end of the day, we’re just going to have to figure that stuff out as soon as we know. And we’ll know by the time the legislature reconvenes in January what we need to think about. Here’s the other thing, Rick. I’m working on now, I’m getting a study group together, and we’ve been already started working on it, having a first formal meeting next month. But we’re trying to figure out alright, if you had 50,000 abortions in Texas last year, we’re going to have a lot more infant babies out there looking for adoptions. And that’s wonderful. But the average cost, our research has shown in Texas to get a private adoption is $25,000-$50,000.

And the legal process is a complex. We have got to find a way to streamline that, both in time, in complexity and in costs. Because we want to create a culture of adoption to where if your 16 year old daughter has become pregnant, that there is an easy private process way for her to go and help give that baby to a wonderful 25 year old young couple that can’t have children or just want to go ahead and adopt or 35 year old.

But you know, when you were 25 and 35, I didn’t have $25,000-$50,000 to spare…

Rick:

So, what makes it so what drives that cost up so much?

Phil:

We’re working through that right now. But like home studies, now, they’ve made it so complex, multiple hearings, pre-adoption home studies, postadoption home studies, all these different things that just add to it. And you know that private adoption center, they have to make enough money to stay in business so they can provide this service. Well, then that usually involves the prenatal care, all these things, so it just runs up. So we’ve got to figure out where that is, how we can streamline that, how we can help create a culture of adoption.

Because you know, if we’re talking about right to life all these years and love and babies, we better well be prepared to step up and take care of them when they’re born and take care of those young mothers.

Rick:

Amen. You know, and I think in a lot of states they still don’t even allow, they call it “brokering” or whatever, if you introduce a young unwed mother to a couple for private adoption and you’re not licensed and all this kind of stuff, I mean, I understand the motive there, you know, you’re trying to prevent the selling of babies by the trafficking and that kind of thing. But, boy, it sure prevents just good well-meaning people from trying to solve that problem in their communities.

Phil:

Well, think about this way. Think about that giant network of crisis pregnancy centers that we have out there right now. Think about them taking on that since they’re not going to have to do abortion counseling as much like do some because we want to go out of state. But think about them being able to add on a transition into adoption counseling, and helping link those people up. There’s some real possibilities there too with a network that’s already established.

Rick:

I love that. And I’m guessing there it’s almost like I mean because I know there’s a solid group of guys and gals like you that have been prolife all this time, have been fighting this battle, been in the in these trenches? You all are probably poised and ready. I mean, you all are probably looking forward to January and these types of things that you can tackle and…

Phil:

But we also feel like the dog that caught the car, top the tire when you’re chasing it, it is because I do not think we are prepared for this. I do not I think all of a sudden. I mean, two months ago, we didn’t know what’s going to happen, right?

Rick:

Yeah. Yeah.

Phil:

And so now all of a sudden, we’re going wait a minute, how are we going to deal with these adoptions, and I’m just hoping other people are having to see same discussions in other states.

Rick:

Well, and that was the next thing I was going to ask you. I know, you’ve been president of ALEC and been involved in all kinds of national organizations with legislators. What are you hearing from other states? And are there quite a few other states that have trigger laws and that sort of thing that will go into effect immediately?

Phil:

Rick, it’s a hodgepodge. I was with one state, their president of the Senate a couple of weeks ago. And he told me that in their state, they have a constitutional right to abortion. In other words, when Roe v. Wade goes away, abortions will be more legal than they were before theoretically. And then you’ve got states that are run by the Democrats. And some of those states, a lot of their leadership wants to make abortion available on demand and advertise come here for abortions. And they’ll pay for it. And you hear discussion of abortion up to the time of delivery and things like this.

Here’s one of the things going to happen. I think we’re going to see wonderful things happen in a lot of states that they’re just a strong prolife state. They’ve got a strong Republican Party is focused on life. You’re going to have on the far other end of the spectrum, you’re going to have some states that now believe they have a license to do abortion at any time. And you’re going to have everything in between.

And so I think what you’re going to have to see happen is the church and the grassroots and those who love babies are going to have to step up and really get engaged with their legislature to make sure that they don’t start funding abortions and to make sure that they’re trying to limit abortions. And I think we’re going to see what the founders I think envisioned, although they never talked about or thought about abortion, I don’t think really. But what they envisioned was every state’s going to have to figure out what they’re going to do about this. I hope Texas has done the right thing already.

But there’s a lot of states where we’re going to have some really, really serious legislative battles going on.

Rick:

Yeah. With federalism being applied to this issue, we’re literally just sending it back to the states. No longer will it be federal decision, it’s going to be a state decision. And what you said is so important. This is not a time to say, oh, Roe v. Wade has been overturned. We’re done. We won the life issue. Move on! It’s actually time to dig in and say, okay, now we get much more specific, our hands have been tied in many ways. We’ve done as much as we could, and a lot of good. I mean, Texas led the way on these issues. But now, even more important is what I’m hearing you say to stay even more involved and pay even more attention to the life issue.

Phil:

Yeah. I think some states, their right to life groups are going to do a lot of work. And in the states, like Texas, hopefully, the biggest problem we have is help and create a culture of adoption and helping reduce that cost and streamline it and make it easier for people to adopt these wonderful little babies.

Rick:

Do you think this is a whole another topic we’ll do another show on it at some point? But will some of the focus shift to a personhood amendment or the whole debate about just protecting life from conception in general for not only individual states but eventually the whole nation?

Phil:

Well, that’s being guys like you and me, and we believe the Bible teaches we don’t believe we know the Bible teaches that life begins at conception. And so when we read the protections for life that are in the US Constitution, we’re going well, that applies to baby from conception on right?

Rick:

That’s right.

Phil:

And so that was always a discussion as they began to try to legally figure out how to combat way decades ago, was wow, do we try to do this under life begins at conception and tried to have the courts declare that protections in the US Constitution apply to a baby in a womb? Or do we just go the federalism route and try to undo Roe? Back then when our states were much more conservative and our people were much more conservative, the decision was to just go after Roe and it just kind of stayed that way all these years.

Now, with some states being so crazy far, illogically crazy far left, those states are or are going to have a lot more abortion than they had back in 1973 when Roe was passed, or became law.

Rick:

Yeah. The battle will still be there and the strategies and tactics will change. But what a great victory that Texas is poised to do the right thing with Roe v. Wade being overturned and what a wonderful opportunity to have a chance to really focus on these adoption issues as well. Phil, we appreciate you leading on this and so many other issues in the Texas ledge. Congratulations on moving over to the Senate. I think congratulations. I don’t know. Is this Senate…

Phil:

You know, I’ve loved the house. I just look at it as a lateral at the right time.

Rick:

Yeah. Amen. Amen. Well, God bless you, brother. We always appreciate you coming on WallBuilders Live. Tell Terry and the Family hi from the WallBuilders family. And we look forward to seeing you soon.

Phil:

Thanks, Rick.

Rick:

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

SUMMER INSTITUTE

Hey, guys, this is Tim Barton, I am interrupting the normal broadcast to bring you something pretty special. This summer, we are doing a special program for college aged students 18-25 year olds. And it’s something that is becoming more and more special based on where the climate is.

In the middle of a crazy culture, in the middle of a nation going in crazy directions and right now we’re seeing in academia where even Christian universities are promoting critical race theory, teaching the 1619 project, we want to do something to help equip young people the next generation, to know the truth, the truth of the Word of God, the truth of America, the truth of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the free market, we want to get into a lot of this. And this is something that if you are an 18-25 year old, or if you are a parent or grandparent, if you have an 18 or 25 year old, if you’re in church 18-25 year olds, this program is something that can be life-changing for them, you want them to be a part. Go to wallbuilders.com and look for the summer institute to be part of this program.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks to Phil King for joining us today. Back with David and Tim Burton. And of course, guys, we know Phil’s been in this fight right on the front lines for two decades now. And so to be thinking about that next wave or that next battle, I love this idea of expanding adoption and looking for ways to make that easier and less expensive, get government out of the way and so many of the ways that it does increase the cost and those kinds of things. So that’s a pretty interesting angle he was taken there.

Tim:

It is. And I can speak as someone who actually we adopted our first daughter. And having gone through the process, how many the amount of paperwork, all the hoops to jump through, it was crazy the process. And actually, Phil and their family with some of his grandkids, there have been a lot of adoptions, even with Phil’s family. And so, this is something that there are many people even listening to speak of this issue. And one of the arguments that people have said is right, if people can have abortions, who’s going to care for these kids? Right now, there are more families waiting to adopt than there are babies to be adopted.

And one of the tragedies is that so many of these families are told they have to wait two or three or four years before they can get kids that are ready to be adopted right now, but it’s because of the process the paperwork, the government bureaucracy that goes on. And certainly, in some of these scenarios, there was good hearted intention where you know they want to do these welfare checks to make sure that the kids aren’t going to abusive homes. And I get that.

However, the problem is when we are in a world of changing definitions and the idea of what abuse is now, if you’re taking kids to church, if you’re teaching a kid about Jesus, your kids in a Christian school, your kids homeschooling, there are people today that would say that’s being abusive. Well, that’s utterly ridiculous. It’s crazy. But because of the way definitions are, the fact that the government has the power and authority to come in and you serve that ability of parent to be able to parents according to religious faith or whatever the case might be, it is pretty crazy.

But it’s great that there’s people like Phil and many others around the nation. There’s actually with our ProFamily Legislative Network. There’s some groups we are working with right now and Tennessee and some other places as well that are working on some basic policy that can be implemented in all 50 states to help move forward based on what happens with this Dobbs decision. So, very important stuff for prolife and profamily organizations to consider and be looking at to see what can we do to help save more kids lives and to get kids in good homes where they will be loved and cared for and hopefully learn the gospel message and the love of Jesus Christ.

David:

But you know, it’s so good of Phil and so life filled to be not only tactical but strategic. So the decision is going to come down. We know it is. Don’t know what it’s going to be. But he’s already thinking about how to implement the downstream effects of that. How do you make adoptions easy? How do you get rid of that paperwork? And so I love the fact that he’s thinking two or three steps ahead of where we’re talking right now. And all the news media’s going to be captured with the decision and we’re all going to be rejoicing. We hope on that decision. But Phil’s already down the road thinking about what do we do next to facilitate all the consequences that will come from a good decision of the court. I love that.

Rick:

Yeah, we didn’t always do that, did we? You know, I mean, we tend to be reactionary in our movement and just deal with whatever’s right in front of us, instead of being strategic and thinking down the road. And we need more folks like that. I remember that serving with Phil when we were freshmen together, he already had that ability. He’s always had that strategic mind and thinking about how to get things done and what’s the next battle and how does this battle affect that battle. There are not many on our side like that. So we thank the good Lord for Phil King and for the state of Texas having him in our legislature and other legislators across the country getting the benefit of his help through ALEC and through the ProFamily Legislators Conference and other ways that he networked with those state reps and senators from across the country.

So, thanks to Phil King for joining us today. Thank you for listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.