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Sept. 6, 2018 - The Michael Knowles Show
50:55
Ep 213 - Sweeps Week

Traitors, tall tales, trolls, or spies: there’s a concerted effort afoot to take down this presidency. Cory Booker is behaving like an infant again. Second trimester abortionist and Consulting Medical Director of Physicians for Reproductive Health Dr. Anne Davis stops by to discuss abortion and the Kavanaugh hearings. Finally, the Mailbag! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Traitors, tall tales, trolls, or spies.
There is a concerted effort afoot to take down this presidency.
We will analyze who really is the enemy of the people.
In other news, Cory Booker is behaving like an infant again, which means it must be a day that ends in Y. Then, an abortionist and consulting medical director of Physicians for Reproductive Health, Dr.
Ann Davis stops by to discuss abortion and the Kavanaugh hearings.
Finally, the mailbag.
I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
Oh, do we have a lot to get to today.
We've got to start with this anonymous story, but then we're going to get into more substantial things.
The anonymous source that the New York Times published that says, I'm in the Trump administration, I'm a Trumper, but I'm secretly sabotaging him.
What if you found out it was me?
What if it were like one day on MSNBC, it was like, I'm the anonymous source.
Look at me, I'm like, what's Superman's real name?
Clark Kent.
Clark Kent.
But I only remember me and Maddow.
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Who is the anonymous source?
The anonymous source in the New York Times?
I'm sure everybody has seen the story from yesterday.
The New York Times runs this piece and they say, we have taken the rare step, the unconventional step, of publishing a long essay on the op-ed pages anonymously.
But trust us, it's a senior official in the Trump administration.
So you read the article...
And I'm sure you've heard it or you've seen it floating around the internet, so I'll just get to the heart of it.
You read it and they say, there are people in the high levels of the Trump administration who are actively sabotaging the president's agenda, resisting parts of the president's agenda, trying to push him in directions that he's not trying to go in.
And I know because I'm one of them.
That's the big reveal in the essay.
And it talks about how, you know, he's a conservative guy, and it's not like he's in the resistance on the left, but there is a pact, a cabal in the Trump administration that are actively undermining President Trump's agenda.
And a couple interesting things here.
The piece is really poorly written.
So the piece is very clumsily put together.
It begins in this big reveal on the resistance and da-da-da.
And by the end, it just ends up extolling the virtues of John McCain for a disproportionate period of time and goes on and on about McCain and uses all of these tired cliches and false dichotomies.
They say, you know, country first.
Country first is only used by people who have run out of their own ideological argument or their own philosophical argument.
They say country first.
What does country first mean?
What they really mean when they say that is country over party.
But what does that mean?
You join a party because you think the party is putting forth an agenda to help the country.
If it's not going to put forward the best agenda to help the country, you join a different party.
Winston Churchill hot parties back and forth all the time.
So these two things, they seem like they're in contradiction.
They're not really in contradiction.
The country and the party are supposed to go together all the time.
You know, other phrases like that.
We've got to put the country first.
And all of the John McCain stuff.
There's one interesting word here, which is load star.
And this has everyone saying that it was Mike Pence who wrote this, which is absurd, not Nobody seriously believes that the sitting vice president wrote this poorly written piece for the New York Times.
The main reason I don't think it was him is because it's not well written.
And it says, you know, the Lodestar, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
People notice that Mike Pence...
He's used the word lodestar in a number of speeches over the years.
Okay, but also the way that these things work, it could easily be somebody using this keyword that is associated with Pence to kind of frame him and get the pressure off of themselves.
There are three options here.
There are three cases for who it is.
That's the background.
Who could it be?
It's a traitor, it's a troll, or it's a tall tale.
Those are the three Ts of this anonymous essay in the New York Times.
Either this person does exist, and he is actually a senior official, and he is actually sabotaging the Trump administration, or it's someone who is, this is coming out of the Trump administration, and they're trying to troll the New York Times into destroying their journalistic credibility by running this outrageous anonymous essay in the op-ed pages, or the New York Times completely made it up.
What's the evidence show?
Are there people who do this, who would actually betray their employer and betray the Trump agenda?
Yeah, of course.
President Trump has been talking about this the whole time.
President Trump has been saying there is a deep state.
There are embedded interests in Washington, in the administration, working for the administration, who oppose the agenda that was elected by the American people in 2016.
So we know that that's true.
Both because this essay was published and because we've heard about it for so long and we've seen the evidence of that.
It certainly could be the case that this is all legit and this person really is at the high level and he's trying to undermine the Trump agenda.
If that is the case, he's a real traitor to his country.
President Trump tweeted out, treason, all question marks, all capital letters.
And that isn't overstating the case.
The American people did not elect this random staffer who published in the New York Times.
They didn't elect him.
They didn't elect his agenda.
The definition of tyranny in America would be overturning the results of a 2016 election, would be undermining the duly elected president.
Now, in all administrations and in all workplaces, You always have the underlings say, you know, well I could do it better than him.
I've got to stop my boss from being so stupid.
So that happens too.
But if it is really the case that President Trump is not able to push his agenda through, that is betraying your country.
Because they say it all the time.
They always say we have the best of intentions.
We're really saving the country.
No, you're undermining the constitutional order.
They're complaining about the Russians interfering in the election.
What is greater election interference than trying to overturn the results of a presidential election?
Than trying to sabotage the will of the American people and the constitutional order as expressed in 2016.
So that is really, really bad.
And there's nothing noble about it.
There's nothing high-minded about it.
If, at the worst scenario, if this is really the case...
This person should be very ashamed, and they should be ferreted out of the government.
This is a huge offense to the American people and a huge threat to liberty, if it's the worst example.
Now, is it a troll?
Is this a setup for the New York Times?
If any president were going to do it, it would be Donald Trump, wouldn't he?
Donald Trump has regularly referred to the press, the fake news media, as the enemy of the American people.
I always thought this was very, a little far.
It was obviously outrageous, very outrageous, and just even a little far for this administration, which thrives on spectacle and thrives on outrageous statements.
But if the New York Times is willing to do this, to basically obliterate any journalistic ethics and run this essay anonymously, It actually gives credence to the call, the enemy of the American people.
The person writing the essay is bragging about being an enemy of the American people.
He's saying, the American people elected this, and we're going to undermine that constitutional order and do something different.
So I've got to say, the reason that the troll thing kind of hits me is, first of all, the president is the greatest troll in America.
He's the master of this.
I did the blank book.
I'm happy to be a prince of trolls.
He is the king of trolls.
So he certainly could do this.
And Donald Trump always makes, he always makes his opponents live up to the criticisms that he lobbies at them.
So in this case, if anyone could make the New York Times live up to the charge of being the enemy of the people, it's Trump.
And then the third option is that it's just fake news.
Now, did the New York Times make this up from scratch?
I don't think so.
I don't think that the op-ed editor would really risk his reputation to do something so outrageous and ultimately something that likely will come out.
But what it could be is that the New York Times is exaggerating the position of this person.
So they've done this before.
I think it was, yes, there were these emails from a fracking story that the New York Times was running.
It was a big article on an anti-fracking article.
And the New York Times said, we've talked to senior officials, federal officials, senior analysts, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
It later came out that their source was an intern.
Their source was like the lowest level staffer you could have.
Even the New York Times public editor, Arthur Brisbane, said, can an intern be an official?
Doesn't sound right.
They've exaggerated this before.
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So that, I think, is the story.
It's probably much ado about nothing.
It underscores the claims that Trump has been making the whole time.
And that's why I think any three of these are plausible.
That this person really exists.
That there actually is someone trying to sabotage Trump from within the government.
We've been saying that for months and months and months.
That it's a troll.
That Donald Trump is getting the New York Times to live up to their terrible reputation.
And three, that the New York Times is just exaggerating this.
And they're running at least partially fake news.
It could be any of those.
But what is the takeaway?
What changes with this?
The guy says Trump is crazy and stupid and we don't like him.
Okay.
Is that even news that people around the president don't like him and underestimate him?
Is that news now?
The New York Times has been saying this for three years now, two or three years.
How is that news?
I don't see how this moves the needle one bit.
I don't see how this helps Democrats either because it puts Donald Trump in the position of underdog and it validates all of the claims he's been making about the government and about the press.
I don't see how this hurts him.
Perhaps that was the point.
Perhaps it's...
Perhaps it's either what we call the 3D chess, you know, that Donald Trump saw this coming.
And by 3D chess, we just mean that Donald Trump is good at manipulating the media, which is obviously true.
Either it is that, or it is just that Trump has this gut instinct about reality, and reality is proving him right.
I really want to get to our guest, but before we do that, I do have to make fun of Cory Booker a little bit.
Cory, let's just, I'll give you the recap.
If you didn't watch all of the hearings of Brett Kavanaugh, It was the same Corey that we've been seeing for months and months and months.
Corey, just give us the summary.
I hurt when Dick Durbin called me.
I had tears of rage when I heard about his experience in that meeting.
And for you not to feel that hurt and that pain and to dismiss some of the questions of my colleagues saying I've already answered that line of questions when tens of millions of Americans are hurting right now because of what they're worried about what happened in the White House.
That's unacceptable to me.
Unacceptable.
So that was from months and months ago.
But he did basically the same show here.
I also love, if you notice from that clip, he says, For you not to feel that...
Hurt.
Hurt.
Yeah, hurts the line.
For you not to feel that line.
Line.
What was my line again?
I'm sorry.
I lost it.
Can we take it from the top?
Can we do this schtick again?
Because he's running for president and he thinks that whining and screaming like a child is going to make him more popular to voters.
It'll certainly work with his base.
So here is Corey actually at this hearing today.
Senator Corden actually made a very good point.
I knowingly violated the rules that were put forth, and I'm told that the committee confidential rules have knowing consequences.
I'm going to release the email about racial profiling, and I understand that the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate.
And if Senator Cornyn believes that I violated Senate rules, I openly invite and accept the consequences of my team releasing that email right now.
What I'm releasing this document right now to show, sir, is that we have a process here for a person, the highest office in the land, for a lifetime appointment, We're rushing through this before me and my colleagues can even read and digest the information.
Running for president is no excuse for violating the rules of the Senate.
No senator deserves to sit on this committee or serve in the Senate, in my view, if they decide to be a law unto themselves and willingly flout the rules of the Senate and the determination of confidentiality and classification.
that is irresponsible in conduct, unbecoming a senator.
So it's a ridiculous show.
Cory is running for president, as Mr. Cornyn said right there.
He's obviously trying to create a spectacle, and he's begging people to kick him out of the Senate, because that's his only shot, right?
If there's a big fight about kicking Cory Booker out of the Senate, then he sort of has a chance to rise up to a tier one candidate in 2020, but they're not going to do it.
He released these emails.
These were confidential emails.
He wasn't supposed to release them.
It really violates the Senate, the rules, the sense of collegiality.
But what's funny is the Republicans beat them to it last night and cleared the emails for release.
So Cory didn't even get to release them and break the rules and have his big moment.
He actually said in the hearing that this was his Spartacus moment.
You're like, Cory, man, if you have to say it, it's not true.
You know, like, this is not a sorry buddy.
So just more ridiculous theater from the party that is telling us that they're the mature ones and they're going to take the reins.
Just whining and crying and showboating.
It's really pathetic.
And unfortunately for Corey, not going to help him.
You're not getting kicked out of the Senate, Corey.
I'm sorry to tell you that.
Okay, we're very lucky to have a guest here today.
You know, it's very hard to get guests from the left and guests who disagree with our point of view on.
And Dr.
Ann Davis has agreed to join the program to discuss these Kavanaugh hearings and the role that abortion and Roe v.
Wade is going to be playing in this.
And Dr.
Ann Davis is the Consulting Medical Director of Physicians for Reproductive Health and an abortion provider herself.
Dr.
Davis, thank you for being here.
Thank you for the invitation.
So, Dr.
Davis, before we begin, I want your thoughts on this Kavanaugh hearing and on the future of abortion politics in the country.
I have to begin with the name of your organization, the Physicians for Reproductive Health, because it has always seemed to me that of all of the euphemisms that we have in the abortion debate, reproductive health is the most outrageous one, as reproduction and abortion are diametrically opposed.
Why is it the case that the abortion movement, the pro-abortion movement, relies on euphemistic and dishonest language in so much of their political activity?
So our name, Physicians for Reproductive Health, really refers to our mission, which is that we support comprehensive reproductive health for everyone.
So that would include all the things I do as an OBGYN, Contraception, of course, and abortion pertinent to this show, but it's really a health, reproductive health concerns all reproductive health.
So that's the explanation for our name.
But this is the question I always ask, because I'm not suggesting that being an obstetrician gynecologist or delivering babies or any other of the medical aspects of that position don't concern reproductive health.
What I'm saying is that it seems bizarre to include abortion so essentially in this.
And I'm not just picking on your organization or your work, but so much in the political debates.
We never hear abortion called by its own name.
Very rarely do we.
So often we hear the war on women's health, the war on reproductive health, ironically because it's about the opposite of reproduction, but even on women's health broadly.
When I call up my grandmother, I say, how you doing, grandmother?
She doesn't say, well, you know, at least I've got my right to an abortion.
She says, at least I have my health.
Why is it about abortion politics that it has to be lumped within all of these apparently unrelated medical activities?
I think that what is happening there, what you've noticed, is that there's a lot of stigma around abortion, as we all know, so that people aren't necessarily comfortable saying the word abortion or talking about it.
Patients absorb that stigma, certainly.
There's a lot of that in the national discourse.
But remember that abortion is very, very common in medical care.
So if you look at the best numbers, we have about one in four women In the United States will have an abortion before she's in menopause.
So it's a very, very common procedure.
It's something that is sort of a core component of the care that we provide as OBGYN. So I think, you know, there is a little bit of a disconnect there with how common it is and how often the word is spoken.
I agree with you.
And I think that's really because of the stigma and misunderstanding around abortion.
Of course.
It's very common in the years after Roe v.
Wade was decided, the abortion rate nearly doubled, I think.
Since then, it's dropped dramatically.
But there was certainly an explosion in the 1970s and early 80s.
And yet, when we look at the polling, and not just from right-wing firms, not just from religious firms, but even left-wing polling firms like Gallup, we find that the majority of Americans, and the majority of American women, In particular, oppose abortion in the second and certainly in the third terms.
What does this mean for the future of abortion politics?
So much of the Kavanaugh hearing has come down to whether or not he would overturn Roe v.
Wade.
And so much of the abortion debate happens on, you know, is abortion morally permissible in the first three hours of pregnancy or something?
But what about those numbers?
Abortion is...
Certainly a common medical procedure, and yet the majority of Americans oppose it in the second and third term.
Is there a point at which the abortion movement will have to say abortion should not be licit in the second and the third term?
Is there a point at which we can say this is no longer merely a medical procedure that doesn't involve human beings and is infanticide?
I'd like to...
So backtrack a bit into your point, which is to say, remember that we have very, very clear numbers about when abortions are performed in the United States.
The huge majority of abortions are performed early in pregnancy.
So we know that about 85% of abortions are performed very, very early.
And that is a good thing.
We also know that abortion is much, much safer the earlier that a woman can have one.
So it's a simple, safe surgical procedure or medication that you can take early on in pregnancy and very, very safe and simple and suitable to just taking that in an office, a doctor's office, and being able to do that.
Also, it's very important to understand that the nomination of Kavanaugh really threatens the safety of abortion in our country because as abortion gets harder to access, and there are places in our country right now where it's very, very difficult for women to access abortion the harder it is to access the later it goes into pregnancy so when it's difficult to find an abortion because your insurance won't cover it because you have to drive a really long way to get to a place to have one when
you have a waiting period there are numerous restrictions they've been just piling up over the last five to ten years hundreds literally hundreds of restrictions in the states And so what that does is it moves the abortion later into the process, and that makes it less safe.
So it's in our interest to make sure that there's access to abortion in order to help women have access early so that abortion really remains safe.
And that's something I hear from my patients in my practice.
You know, they're very, very grateful to be able to get in early and take care of themselves in a way that's going to be safe for them.
That's primary on their mind.
But, Dr.
Davis, this does seem to evade the question, which we're talking about the safety of abortion.
The point for people who oppose abortion is that abortion is never safe for the baby who is being killed.
And so my question is, is there a point, not just at which it's less safe for the woman to have an abortion, say in the third trimester, or I don't know, but is there a point at which...
The pro-abortion movement, the people who are advocates of abortion, will say, after this date, this is infanticide.
Surely we would all say killing a baby who's one day old and has been born for a day, that that is not morally licit, that that is a sin and that's a crime.
Is there a point before then, especially looking now and even looking at poll numbers of public opinion on abortions and late-term abortions, Where the pro-abortion movement and abortion providers will say, this is not morally licit, this is killing a baby in either the second trimester or the third trimester.
I'd really like to focus more on the reality of the medical care that we're actually providing.
But this is the reality.
The babies are living in reality.
I'm not quite sure where your question is going.
You know, to my mind and our practice, the things that we're concerned about, we're concerned about making sure people get their care early, that the care is safe.
Those are the things that are important to my patients and that I'm dealing with every day.
The patients that I took care of this morning, really what they're concerned about is their safety, Their reproductive health, their fertility, their future, and that's what we're really focused on.
I understand that.
The average patient isn't saying, you know, this particular number of days in my pregnancy.
That's really not how we look at it.
Every situation with a pregnancy is going to be different in terms of the gestational age.
And again, having abortions later in pregnancy is really the minority.
The majority of people really are facing a situation where they're early in pregnancy and they need to get the care at that time.
Abortion is extremely safe.
If you compare the risk, for instance, of something extreme like a woman's death, a woman dying during an abortion, that is eight times, six to eight more times likely to happen giving birth.
So abortion is a very safe procedure.
We know that.
We're always working to make it safer.
I'm all about doing research and practice and changing practice to even make it safer.
But we know that abortion is safe, common care.
We want to make sure we can keep it that way.
And the nomination of Kavanaugh is really alarming.
But Dr.
Davis, respectfully, it seems that you're evading my question because I am asking a specific question.
I understand you say people don't care that much about figuring out at what gestational age...
Killing a baby in the womb is morally licent.
But I am asking about that question, about at what point we could kill that baby.
Because we say it's a safe procedure.
It isn't safe for those babies.
And I just want to know.
You're perfectly...
Able to answer and say the abortion movement does not care about that.
We do not care about public opinion which opposes late term abortions and second trimester abortions.
That's not what we're concerned with.
You're perfectly able to say that.
I just want to know if there will be a moment when the pro-abortion movement acknowledges that there is a living human being inside of that woman that is being snuffed out and killed in the process of providing a safe abortion to the woman.
Well, in the conversation, I can tell you what happens in the reality of medical practice, which is in my office.
I think that's really where the most important part of the practice happens.
That's where it happens, yeah.
Not in policy debates and not between people in theoretical, but really those conversations that happen between a woman and a doctor or another provider in her health for her life.
Yes, the baby is not theoretically killed.
The baby is killed really.
Right.
So when a woman has an abortion, the pregnancy ends.
I think we can all understand that.
That is exactly what happens when someone has an abortion.
So really what we're focused on is making sure she gets the right care at the right time and making sure that she has access to that care.
And I suppose then, so my follow-up question, if we're talking about care, if we're talking about the medical realities of these things, we must take into consideration the Hippocratic Oath not to hurt a patient, not to cause harm, at first do no harm.
Is there any point in the gestational age of the unborn baby at which you would treat that unborn baby as a human patient that you have to care for medically and physically?
Well, I think when you talk about the meaning of things, it really depends on Her beliefs, the beliefs of her family.
What are your beliefs?
I'm asking your beliefs as a leader in this field.
I am very clear about my beliefs, which is that I'm in full support of a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, as well as all the other forms.
All the way up until the day of birth?
Are you saying that you support the woman's right to an abortion?
All the way up through the entire gestational period?
That's not what I said.
That's what I'm asking you to clarify.
Well, we're not talking about gestational limits.
I think that...
I am talking about that.
That is what I am talking about and asking specifically.
Do you support the right to an abortion up until the day of giving birth?
My personal practice is that I provide care within the full scope of the law and in compliance with all the rules and the laws of my state and my hospital and that's what concerns me and the care that I give to my patients is really primary.
Just like if you were having surgery, really you'd be thinking about you and what you need for your surgery and your health.
That's really what's on my mind.
I don't want to belabor the point or beat a dead horse.
I just want to be crystal clear because I don't want you taken out of context.
You've said that you will provide an abortion up to the legal limit in your state, which could be well past the age of viability.
We have children that have survived and been viable and gone on to live who were born at just 21 weeks or 22 weeks.
In many states, that limit is 26 weeks.
In some cases, it can be even later.
But I am asking you, as a matter of not just of state law, I know the state law is not just a federal law, I'm asking you as a question of the practice of abortion itself and with your expertise in the medical field, Do you support, medically, not legally, not politically, medically, do you support the woman's right to an abortion up until the day of birth?
Is there any limit on gestational age at which point you yourself, regardless of the law, would say, I will not perform this abortion?
That's not a scenario that occurs immediately.
In my practice, it's not something that I have to make decisions about because it isn't a real scenario.
It is a real scenario.
Women are pregnant up until the day they give birth.
That is a real scenario.
It might not be a practical one that you experience.
I understand, but I think you're focusing on something that is so outlandish and bizarre to imply that people are having abortions the day before a baby is born.
Dr.
Davis, I'm using this as an example to take the logical...
I'm not really sure where you're going with it.
Well, I'll explain it to you.
Well, I'll explain it to you.
I am following the logic of abortion to its logical conclusions.
You're saying that we are disregarding the individual human life that is being killed in the process of abortion.
You're saying that you are disregarding that as a patient and as a human being up to a certain point.
And I'm just asking you to tell me what that point is and why.
And you can't provide an answer to that.
No, I gave you a clear answer, which is that I provide abortion up to the limit in my state, based on laws and in my practice.
That's what I do.
That's what I believe and what I do.
Yes, but that is a slightly different question.
So are you then saying that, let's say the limit is, I don't know where your practice is, but let's say the limit is 26 weeks.
Are you then saying that at 26 weeks in gestation, that baby is a baby and it would be immoral and wrong to snuff out its life?
That is not a conversation that I have with my patients.
But would you have it with me?
Just even in the last few days, I've had circumstances where we've been looking at pregnancies that have gotten very medically complicated.
And, you know, imagine that something like this happens to you, where you're at a certain gestational age.
I don't think it's going to happen to me.
It's something...
Okay, well, imagine it happens to someone in your family or a friend of yours.
And these things do happen all the time.
Human reproduction is not perfect.
So things happen where conditions develop either with how the women can get very, very critically ill when they're pregnant.
But Dr.
Davis, we would agree the vast, vast majority of abortions occur.
Things can happen with fetal development.
So we're in a situation where we have to make sure we're following the law, we're following best practices, and we're doing the right thing for that woman.
It isn't necessarily about Whether it's this many days or that many days.
Of course that's important.
It's important to her.
It's important to me.
But really my main concern is to give the good medical care that people need.
And I don't want to get into the details of any one scenario because that's privacy.
Of course not.
You don't want to talk about that.
But those are things that happen here every day of the week.
We have patients in scenarios where they have complicated care.
We're providing very advanced care to them, really to save their lives.
And we need to have the flexibility to give the right care at the right time.
At whatever stage We can, in the full practice of being in compliance with our local laws.
That's really what my job's about.
I understand it.
I'll let you go.
I've taken up a lot of your time.
But I do want to bring up one point, which is, you mentioned, the threats to the life of the woman.
And surely we can agree, the numbers are in, that the vast, vast, vast majority of abortions that take place, over 99% of abortions, do not concern cases of rape or incest or threat to the life of the mother.
Which brings me to my last question.
Again, in your work, not so much, As a doctor, but as a consultant to the physicians for reproductive health, which is that we know from Dr.
Bernard Nathanson, the guy who founded NARAL, the biggest pro-abortion organization in the country, and who ran the largest abortion clinic in the country for two years.
We know that the number that we're constantly told, women will die, thousands of women died per year from illegal abortions before Roe v.
Wade.
This has come up in judicial hearings from Bork all the way up to the present.
We hear it every single time a Republican nominates a judge.
We know from him, the man who invented that statistic, that it was plucked out of thin air.
He admitted it.
He said, quote, In NARAL, we generally emphasize the frame of the individual case, not the mass statistics.
But when we spoke of the latter, it was always 5,000 or 10,000 deaths a year.
I confess that I knew the figures were totally false.
And I suppose that others did too if they stopped to think of it.
But in the morality of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted.
So why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics?
The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated.
Anything within reason that had to be done was permissible.
We know from the Centers for Disease Control that the year before Roe v. Wade was decided, the actual number of women who died from illegal abortions was 39.
The number of women who died from legal abortions was 24.
Abortion was only legal in 20 states, which means statistically, both legal and illegal abortions were about as risky as one another.
Moving forward in this debate, and in these judicial hearings, will the abortion movement stop the demonstrable lie that thousands of women will die per year Wade is overturned?
Will they stop that or will they continue to harp on that?
And I ask you personally...
If you've ever had any of the thoughts or skepticism or pauses that Bernard Nathanson has had with regard to the moral quality of the activity that you're doing.
I don't mean this to demagogue.
I don't mean this to be rude in any way.
But if we're talking about what we're talking about, which is, is this baby a moral being?
Does it have moral significance, human dignity?
Does it have moral weight?
Is it okay to snuff it out?
If there's a 5% chance that that is true, if there's a 10% chance, if there's a 95% chance, how sure are you and does the activity of abortion give you pause?
There were a lot of questions in there.
You know, I love numbers.
I have a master's degree in public health and I'm a researcher, so I'm very happy to look at numbers and think about numbers.
And I'm not in charge of messaging for a movement.
I'm a doctor and I I'm also a patient advocate.
You're a patient advocate, which is why I like your public opinion on this.
But I want to say that when we look at numbers like how many people died before abortion was legal and how many people died after abortion was legal, I think it's very easy to understand the difference between illegal abortion and legal abortion back in, you know, decades ago.
That there really were not methods available to people that were safe.
They were equally risky, and statistically speaking, just as many women died from legal as illegal abortions.
I'll explain that.
I'm happy to explain that.
So when we talked to doctors who were practicing before abortion was legal, it was very common for women to come into the emergency room critically ill, wind up with a hysterectomy.
They may not have died.
But there was a lot of serious morbidity, losing their fertility, nearly losing their life, having emergency operations.
And those were routine things.
There were whole wards and hospitals dedicated to trying to save women's lives after attempts at illegal abortion.
Those things don't exist anymore, and they didn't exist after abortion became legal.
So you don't need a whole lot of Very particular numbers to understand that things got a lot, a lot safer.
It seems to me the numbers clarify things better than the anecdotes do.
I agree.
But when you try to count something that's illegal, right, it's super hard to do that.
And how do you count somebody dying?
You write something on a death certificate.
If it's a circumstance where something is highly stigmatized, it's pretty hard to count.
And what you see on a death certificate may have nothing to do with what actually happened.
Maybe it says the patient died of septic shock, but it was as a result of an illegal abortion.
Certainly, but doctor, we do have statistics on crime.
We collect statistics on crime very well.
So I think we know from common sense in terms of the practice and observing the practice what happened.
That's not something that was...
That was something that was very, very well documented.
And even colleagues, you know, 10 years ago, some of those doctors are older now, but they told us what it was like.
And these were people working in major medical centers in the United States.
So there were people that faced this, and that really was the backbone of trying to make sure that abortion became safe, because so many women were injured and even lost their lives.
So that's not something we want to see come back again.
You can argue about whether or not Things would be different now that we have different abortion methods.
It may be that illegal abortion may not be as physically unsafe for a woman, but keep in mind that if abortion becomes illegal, there are new risks, right?
There are risks for people like me who provide it.
There are risks for patients in terms of taking medications.
Well, I'm sorry, what do you mean there are risks for people like you?
For ending a pregnancy if Roe is overturned.
So those things are real concerns for us.
We're very concerned about that.
As to my last question, doctor, you don't have to answer it.
You're under no obligation to.
But considering the example of Dr.
Bernard Nathanson, among others, major not only abortionists, abortion providers, heads of abortion clinics, and abortion advocates who have totally changed their position.
We regularly see this.
People who supported abortion rights, who then became pro-life.
This happened to me myself, and I was convinced by a bioethicist to change my opinion.
I previously thought abortion was perfectly permissible.
Has the subject ever given you pause?
Even if you are not going to conclude that a baby in the womb is with 100% certainty a moral being worthy of dignity and respect and the protection of life, Would you be willing to grant that there's perhaps an 80% chance or a 20% chance or even a 2% chance that that baby in the womb has moral value?
I don't put percents on my morality.
I'm very clear about what I'm doing.
And I'm very clear about the care that I give.
And that's what's important to me is my patients and that they get the right medical care from me.
And that's where I put my efforts.
That's where I've been practicing for 20 years.
That's why I got my training.
That's why I teach young doctors to provide the care that I do, really so that women get the best care that they can, and that should be a priority for everybody.
Well, Doctor, I have to thank you for coming on.
Not a lot of people who are on the left will come on my show, and very few people who are in your position are willing to speak to conservative outlets, so I certainly have to thank you for doing that, and I'll be praying for you.
Okay, I welcome the opportunity.
Thank you.
Thank you, Dr.
Davis.
Take care.
Wow, I know we ran really long, but I just, I can't believe it.
It's an amazing thing when you have the opportunity for that sort of conversation because she just won't accept, she won't even acknowledge the premise.
She wouldn't even acknowledge the premise.
Is there any chance that this human life that we know is a human life, it's not a platypus and it's not dead, it's a human life.
Is there any chance that that has moral significance?
She wouldn't even acknowledge the premise.
I think that tells you everything you need to know about the abortion debate.
We'll try to get to a couple of mailbag questions.
If you're on dailywire.com, thank you very much.
You help us keep the lights on and covfefe in my cup.
If you are on Facebook or YouTube, we definitely got censored after that discussion.
That was far too frank and honest a discussion to possibly be allowed to be had on social media pages.
So, please go to dailywire.com.
It's $10 a month, $100 for an annual membership.
You get me, you get the Andrew Klavan show, you get the Ben Shapiro show, you get to ask questions in the mailbag, although this week you only get to ask like two because we ran a little late in our conversation.
And you get to ask questions in the conversation, speaking of, which we'll next time have Ben Shapiro, the big boss himself.
None of that matters.
You need the Cory Booker vintage.
You need it.
You need it.
He's running for president.
Senator Cornyn said it today.
He's running for president.
We're going to need to make a bigger vessel.
We're going to need a bigger boat.
We're going to need a bigger vessel when Cory Booker runs for president.
Go to dailywire.com.
Get your Tumblr.
We'll be right back with the mailbag.
I'm going to burn through as many of these as I can.
I'm fired up.
From Matt.
Michael, I just finished your book, Reasons to Vote for Democrats.
I loved it, but I had a question.
Could you elaborate more on what you meant by, and I quote, Looking forward to your response.
I will comment on it.
Obviously, when I wrote...
There was an exoteric meaning, which it seems you've picked up on.
And there also is an esoteric meaning for those great readers, for those best of men who can understand the conversation that I'm having with the ancients.
But I couldn't possibly explain it more clearly for fear of persecution in the art of writing.
From Donna.
Dear Michael, you're a millennial born in New York, attended Yale, or a relative of Hillary Clinton, with a name like Beyonce and looks like Rachel Maddow.
With all of that, how in the world did you become a conservative?
I think that's why.
Isn't that why?
That's got to be why.
Conservatives tend to be a little contrarian.
In our culture, a conservative is contrarian.
We stand to thwart history yelling, stop.
And if you're willing to weather the slings and arrows of that in our culture, you're certainly contrarian.
So I actually do think there is something to that.
If you grew up in all these crazy places and you look like Rachel Maddow, why would you become a conservative?
That's part of it.
I used to fear that if I grew up in the middle of Texas, I'd be a communist or something, but I don't think that's true.
I was born with hair parted, smoking a cigar, reading the Wall Street Journal or something.
That is true.
I did that from a young age.
But I went through a little lefty period when I was in high school.
I think a lot of teenagers do that.
I went through my atheist phase from 13 to 23 or so, about 10 years.
And it was great to come out of that.
Bill Whittle has this great idea...
That, like, when you don't know anything, you're a Democrat.
And then when you don't know anything, you're a Republican.
When you know a little bit, you're a Democrat.
And then when you know more, you become a Republican again.
I think there is something like that.
You kind of go through the fire of it, and then you come back out.
Part of it is that the left has gone so insane that people who aren't like me to the right of Attila the Hun, people who are like Dave Rubin, have come over to the right as well.
Because they sure can't stay on the left.
There's no room for them in the Democrat Party.
I was a conservative before I had any religious views, again.
So I don't know that you have to have those religious views.
But once you accept the reality of Christianity or Judaism or whatever your theistic religious views are, It's very hard, if you follow those ideas to their logical conclusions, it's very hard to remain a leftist because the left has totally embraced materialism, has totally embraced a scientistic, materialist worldview that precludes any sense of meaning and the human soul and sin and grace and redemption.
So I think that will also help bring people back over as well.
But as for me, I don't know.
I came out puffing a cigar.
From Timothy, what is your favorite C.S. Lewis book and why?
Thanks, Michael from the Block.
When I run against Ocasio-Cortez, that's going to be my nickname, Michael from the Block.
I don't even remember the lyrics to quote them.
My favorite Lewis books, it's really hard to pick two.
Mere Christianity and Abolition of Man are my two favorites.
Mere Christianity is essential reading.
Abolition of Man is terrifically wonderful reading.
But Weight of Glory is great miracles.
Problem of Pain, A Grief Observed.
They're all so, so good.
I love them all.
I haven't read the Narnia books.
Friends of mine don't really like his novels, and I don't read novels that much.
But those two, at least, are good to start with.
We've got time for one or two more.
From Corey.
Hey, Michael.
I've been looking more and more toward the Catholic faith.
What would you say to convince someone that Jesus Christ not only existed, but was also the Son of God?
To be 100% honest, I enjoy your show far more than any other Daily Wire podcast.
Yeah, baby!
Keep up the good work, Corey.
All right.
Good stuff, Corey.
You're asking that question in that way.
Is one great evidence of God?
That's a good evidence of grace and providence.
Okay, I'll put it this way.
I'm trying to figure out which step you should go through first.
I'll just tell you how I came to it.
The arguments for God are much better than the arguments against God.
I don't think there's really any compelling argument against the existence of God, except perhaps for the problem of pain and suffering, which ends up becoming one of the great arguments for the existence of God.
So we grant the existence of God.
Then the question that you have to grapple with is...
What sort of God is it?
You have to grapple with the person of Jesus Christ.
And this is one of the great arguments for Christianity is that it really happened.
It's not just a poem.
It's not just a philosophy.
It begins with journalism.
It begins with a fact.
The fact of God being incarnate, being enfleshed, coming into the world.
Living in the world, having a body, working with his hands, teaching, suffering under Pontius Pilate, being crucified, dying, being buried, rising again from the dead.
You have to ask yourself who this person of Christ is.
One, are these accounts that we have of him reliable?
They certainly seem to be.
Very few historians would suggest that there was no historical person of Jesus, that the historical narrative we have of Jesus is radically different from his actual life.
I don't know of anybody who would really say that.
Certainly no serious person.
So then you have to look at the Gospels, which are good texts and narratives of the life of Christ, and say, do they line up?
Do they seem to line up with reality?
Sometimes people try to disprove the historicity of Christ by saying the gospel accounts vary a little bit.
Some say he was here at this day and then he was there.
That's actually an argument for the historicity of Christ.
If this were just made up by some conspiracy and they were writing a legend, there wouldn't be any discrepancies.
Just consider the difference between a novel and a newspaper.
In a novel, you don't have any discrepancies because it was all thought out in a fiction.
Newspapers disagree with each other every day because you're talking about real facts that people see.
And if they're written 30 years later or 20 years later, there might be some discrepancies.
So that, I think, is actually an argument for the historicity of Christ to say nothing of the rest of the New Testament and other things.
Other historians of that time who would describe Christ and the writers of the patristic era and the acts of the apostles.
Another argument for it is that the apostles gave their lives for Christ to spread church.
These were people who knew Jesus, who saw him rise from the dead, who went to the ends of the earth.
We know that they went to the ends of the earth.
To attest to this and to be killed for it.
We know that they went all the way to Rome.
We know that they went all the way east to Socotra and India.
My confirmation state, Thomas, went all the way to India where he was killed.
Compare the founding of Islam and Christianity.
Islam was founded by people who spread their religion with the sword.
Christianity was spread by people who spread their religion and had their heads chopped off.
Who spread their religion in spite of the sword and ended up meeting the sword at the end.
It is very hard to convince me that those people were just in on a really funny joke, a joke that was so funny that they were willing to give their lives immediately, to leave their boats, to leave their communities, and follow Christ all the way to the ends of the earth and all the way to death.
Very hard for me to believe that.
Which is the more compelling explanation?
It seems to me that the fact of Christianity is true, and the fact that it is a fact is a good argument for the truth of it.
Okay, that's all we've got time for.
I know I ran late.
Sorry, too bad.
I don't even care.
Sorry, I'm not sorry.
Hashtag sorry, I'm not sorry.
Make sure you binge Another Kingdom, because we're recording season two.
It's really, really good.
Season one is still available for you to binge, and this new one is going to be even better.
So get ready for that.
Otherwise, I'll see you on Monday.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
Show.
Have a good weekend.
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Senia Villareal.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
Our supervising producer, Mathis Glover.
And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
Edited by Jim Nickel.
Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.
Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.
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