Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E56: Imprisoned for Saving Lives with Kristin Turner

Transcript

E56: Imprisoned for Saving Lives with Kristin Turner · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  It's absolutely insane the double standard that's being
• 0:03
  wielded against the pro-life movement.
• 0:04
  But I want to talk about the particular trial that your
• 0:07
  friends just endured, this unjust trial, because the judge
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  tell us about some of the injustices during the trial.
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  I mean, the courtroom was absolutely a clown show from the
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  beginning of the trial. Of course, the whole courtroom
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  was packed with pro lifers and the judge was very upset about
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  this. She did not want it publicized.
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  She did not want us there. She treated us horribly the
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  entire time. Hey everybody, welcome back to
• 0:34
  the Lila Rose Podcast. Thank you all for being here.
• 0:37
  It has been so fun over the last few months to do the podcast and
• 0:41
  to just see it grow. I mean, there's been so many
• 0:43
  amazing listeners who have come on board.
• 0:45
  We just hit 85,000 subscribers on our YouTube.
• 0:49
  The podcast is growing and that's because of you.
• 0:51
  So thank you so much for listening, for sharing the
• 0:53
  podcast with your friends, with family.
• 0:55
  It's been great to get messages from a lot of you guys and to
• 0:58
  get comments from you guys. And also a huge shout out to our
• 1:01
  new patrons. The Patreon is growing.
• 1:03
  I'm super pumped about that. You can come and be a Patreon of
• 1:06
  the show or patron of the show at any level.
• 1:09
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• 1:12
  really at any level, we love having our patrons be part of
• 1:15
  the show. This helps us produce more
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  episodes and special projects in the future.
• 1:19
  You can go check out the Patreon at the link in the bio, whether
• 1:23
  it's through you're listening, through podcast or on YouTube.
• 1:25
  But it's been awesome. It's awesome to be a part of
• 1:27
  this growing community and I'm just thankful for you guys.
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  Thank you for listening to the show.
• 1:32
  Very pumped about all the stuff to come.
• 1:35
  All right, so this week there has been a new federal trial
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  started in the District of Columbia prosecuting pro lifers.
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  You guessed it, the Department of Justice under President Biden
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  loves prosecuting pro lifers. These pro lifers are being
• 1:51
  charged with violations of the FACE Act, which is a law that
• 1:56
  was put into place in the early 90s specifically to criminalize
• 2:01
  peaceful pro-life protest, particularly pro-life protest
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  that involved demonstrations outside and inside peacefully
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  abortion clinics. So last week there were
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  convictions for the first five activists who were charged with
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  violations of the FACE Act. These activists, including two
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  very young ones, were dragged off to jail, which is unusual
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  before sentencing has even taken place.
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  And they're sitting in prison right now.
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  You can actually show your support.
• 2:27
  We'll show you how to do that at the link in the bio.
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  But this week there are three more activists on trial.
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  That trial is ongoing. There's a very pro abortion
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  judge presiding over this trial. This is not getting headline
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  news because as you know, most of the media is very biased for
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  abortion. But if you're in the pro-life
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  world or you're adjacent to the pro-life world, you need to know
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  about this and everyone to know about this.
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  Because the reality is if you're an environmental activist, if
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  you're a, a vegan activist, you know, you're part of PETA and
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  you're doing similar demonstrations that the pro
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  lifers are doing, except your target is, you know, a factory
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  farm as an example. You're not going to face the
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  draconian penalties that the pro lifers are facing.
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  Our government because of the FACE Act has put draconian.
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  By draconian I mean like 10 plus year federal prison sentences
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  for peaceful pro-life activism that not even environmental
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  activists face for similar activism.
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  So that's the state of affairs legally in our country right now
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  to try to chill pro-life work. So today we're going to actually
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  talk to Kristen Turner, a 22 year old young woman and the
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  director of community organizing at the Progressive Anti Abortion
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  Uprising organization. And it's called POW.
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  And she's someone really special.
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  She's been doing this work since her late teens and she is very
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  close with what's called the rescue movement.
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  The rescue movement, which involves effectively civil
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  disobedience to use one's body peacefully to put it in place,
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  direct place between the abortionist and the body of the
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  unborn child, the preborn baby that that abortionist is trying
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  to kill for profit. So the way this typically looks
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  is sometimes it's sidewalk counseling outside the abortion
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  clinic, but more specifically in these cases, it is sit
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  insurance, peaceful sit insurance in the clinic or
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  sittings in the hallway to stop the abortionist from reaching
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  their prey. And these are done by peaceful,
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  very often loving and sacrificial pro-life activists
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  who are taking these risks in order to save lives.
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  Kristen is going to explain the really the history of civil
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  rights work using civil disobedience in this country,
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  that tradition. She's going to talk about her
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  friends, rescuers who are sitting in jail right now, about
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  the really sham trial that they just underwent by a federal
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  judge who was very pro abortion and refused to allow all kinds
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  of evidence into the courtroom and mocked the pro-life
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  defendants. She's going to talk about her
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  own story, how she got into the movement.
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  I think it's just a really important and compelling
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  interview because I believe that part of the future of the
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  pro-life movement is the loving, sacrificial actions of the
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  rescue movement. Now there are some and even the
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  pro-life movement who are heavily critical of the rescue
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  movement. They don't like civil
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  disobedience because it's uncomfortable, because it's
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  risky legally. I understand that.
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  I don't think anybody is required to do any sort of legal
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  risk taking in the pro-life movement.
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  There's plenty of pro-life strategies that don't require
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  that. Live action, as an example, does
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  not do rescue movements. My organization, instead, we
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  focus on different pathways of activism as well as, of course,
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  education. That's completely acceptable.
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  It's normal to have different strategies in a successful human
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  rights movement. But what I think is not
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  acceptable is to heavily criticize and to disparage the
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  loving actions of rescuers and to ignore the history and the
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  importance of civil, peaceful civil disobedience.
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  So we're going to get into that in today's episode.
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  For those who support the pro-life movement already, thank
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  you so much. Your support makes the world of
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  difference, and it's helping directly save lives.
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  Let's get into this interview now with Kristen Turner.
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  Kristen, thank you so much for joining the podcast.
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  Thank you so much for having me on.
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  I'm very excited to be here. Excellent intro.
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  I'm just excited to tell people about everything that's
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  happening. Awesome.
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  Well, we're going to hear your first hand account because
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  you're very close to what's been happening.
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  And I want to talk to you too about the history of civil
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  disobedience here. I know that's a very important
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  tradition in our country that the pro-life movement is proudly
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  carrying out through the rescue movement.
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  Can't wait to hear your thoughts on that.
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  But I want to start with, you're 22 years old.
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  You just I think turned 22. So happy birthday.
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  You have been fighting now for life for years.
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  Tell us why you're pro-life, how you got involved in the pro-life
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  movement. Well, I got involved in the
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  pro-life movement after a string of very unfortunate events that
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  I'm still dealing with to this day.
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  When I was 16, I was abused by a 35 year old man and I thought
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  that I become pregnant by it. And up until that point I was
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  outspoken in support of abortion.
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  I did presentations at my school about why we need to support
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  abortion. And it wasn't until I was in
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  that moment that I thought that I was pregnant, that I actually
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  watched a live action video about what an abortion procedure
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  really is. And it wasn't until then that I
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  had seen the truth, the violent truth, that abortion is murder.
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  And I knew that as a feminist and as a progressive that I
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  could not support the killing of other people in order to
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  liberate myself. And so I'm here today.
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  It's been a few years since that happened.
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  I started doing pro-life work in 2020.
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  So it's been almost, it's been a few years, but I am happy to be
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  here. And I can say that I've been
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  welcomed into the pro-life community with open arms.
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  And ever since I started doing pro-life work, I just have
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  really changed the way that I see the world.
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  I've seen brutal things and I've seen sacrificial love, and both
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  ends of that has been absolutely chilling and a privilege to see.
• 8:17
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• 8:20
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• 8:23
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• 8:40
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• 8:54
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• 8:57
  use the code Lila at checkout for 10% off your order.
• 9:01
  That's Seven Weeks coffee.com. Well, I can't wait to hear some
• 9:05
  of those stories. I know you've seen, like you
• 9:07
  said, those brutal things, which I think people need to know
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  about and then that heroic love of some of your own friends.
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  Kristen, when you first saw those videos and you became pro,
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  like, how did you you know, we talked about sexual abuse
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  sometimes on the podcast. We've explored it and
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  investigated it at live action exposed it.
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  How did you get disentangled from that situation that you
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  were in? What happened after you saw that
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  video and and you started to change your mind on abortion?
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  Well, I later found out I was not pregnant, thankfully, and my
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  abuser was taken away. He resigned.
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  And you know, it's been a long, hard journey these last few
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  years dealing with that, and it definitely still affects me.
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  But I realized in this moment of suffering that I, I had the
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  power to help people that have been hurt like me.
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  And for me, seeing the unborn, being so vulnerable, seeing them
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  be dehumanized and seeing them being treated as non human, it,
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  it struck A chord with me because I knew what that felt
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  like. And so as somebody who went
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  through that experience, it wasn't, you know, the societal
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  narrative. It wasn't that I was abused.
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  And because of that, abortion is the answer.
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  It was I was abused. And I relate to unborn children
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  who are also being abused. And so it was in that moment
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  where I had to leave school early.
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  I couldn't graduate on my own time.
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  I had to graduate high school early.
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  So I never got to go to a ceremony or senior prom or
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  anything. So it was in that moment of
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  desperation when I realized that I could make a change for people
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  who had been hurt and who are still being hurt.
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  And I decided to start a pro-life group at my college.
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  And I didn't even realize how controversial abortion was until
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  I started talking with people about it and meeting new people.
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  And it was really doing that college group that I got more
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  connected with the pro-life movement.
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  I met Teresa Bukovanak, the founder of POW, and she
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  introduced me to activism and actually doing things on the
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  street and taking direct action. And since then, you know, I've
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  been just doing more and more to support unborn babies and to
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  stop them from being killed. When you had that transformation
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  yourself, with your mind being changed on abortion and you
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  started your pro-life group at your college, how did friends of
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  yours respond? Well, unfortunately, at that
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  time, I, you know, had lost my friends.
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  A lot of people alienated me because of the experience that I
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  went through. You know, many of people accuse
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  you of being a liar or, you know, think that it's your fault
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  and all these horrible things that survivors of sexual abuse
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  have to deal with. And so at that time, I was
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  feeling very alone. But the friends that did stick
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  by my side, even though they didn't agree with me on the
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  pro-life issue, they were still kind to me and they still
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  understood why I was doing what I was doing.
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  And they could see that my concern for the unborn was truly
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  rooted in my belief that human life is valuable and it
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  shouldn't be exploited. And they knew because, you know,
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  I've been friends with them for years, and I care about a litany
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  of other issues like animal rights, feminism, the
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  environment. They could see that my care for
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  the unborn fit in perfectly with my concern for all these other
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  groups of living beings. The pro abortion side likes to
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  paint the pro-life side as completely monolith that there
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  are no, there's no dissent among other issues among pro lifers.
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  They're all just kind of maybe hardcore red meat conservative
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  Christians. And you know, you can't be
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  atheist in pro-life. You can't be progressive in
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  pro-life. But you and I both know that's
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  simply not true. There's tons of atheists,
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  progressives and people of all different religious backgrounds
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  or none who are pro-life. You're part of the progressive
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  anti abortion uprising. You mentioned Teresa, she's the
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  founder. You know, I know her as well.
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  She's a great person. Tell me about your work at POW.
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  You now serve as their director of Community organizing.
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  What are some of what's some of the work that POW is doing?
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  How did you get involved with POW?
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  I've been with POW since our launch in October almost two
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  years ago, and since then I have really seen our work shift, the
• 13:16
  pro-life movement. I originally got involved with
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  Powell when I moved to San Francisco to take over pro-life
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  San Francisco, the organization that Teresa founded, and she
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  moved to DC because she knew that going into the election
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  that was happening. We were going to come out with a
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  pro abortion government and more so than we have ever seen.
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  And she knew that going to DC was the right move and that she
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  needed to found a national organization in order to take on
• 13:45
  Democrats who claim to care about human life while at the
• 13:48
  same time destroying it. And really the one of the only
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  ways that we can challenge that in a really powerful way is by
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  saying, no, I'm progressive and I disagree with you on the issue
• 14:00
  of abortion. And so she knew she needed to
• 14:02
  start a national pro-life organization that was
• 14:05
  progressive. And in October of that year, she
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  decided to found the progressive anti abortion uprising.
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  Since then I have served as the director of communications and
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  then recently I became the director of community
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  organizing. So for a long time we were
• 14:23
  working really hard to get press coverage about how the pro-life
• 14:27
  movement isn't a monolith and how there are lots of people
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  with lots of different views specifically like our members of
• 14:32
  Powell who are atheist, who are vegan, who are leftist, who are
• 14:35
  feminist, all of these different viewpoints.
• 14:38
  But also understand that you can't kill people through
• 14:41
  abortion. It's not the right thing to do.
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  So in our work through Powell, we have changed the landscape of
• 14:47
  the media on the abortion issue. It's not just as monolithic as
• 14:51
  it has been in recent years. We hold a place of power within
• 14:55
  the pro-life movement. And not only that, we've also
• 14:59
  done incredibly powerful grassroots campaigns like our
• 15:02
  Justice for the Five campaign and Exposing the Truth of
• 15:05
  Abortion by showing the victims of the abortion industrial
• 15:08
  complex. So in our work with PAO, in less
• 15:11
  than two years we have already I believe changed the landscape of
• 15:14
  the anti abortion movement and the landscape of abortion in
• 15:18
  general and how we talk about it in our country.
• 15:21
  How have you seen responses from other progressives?
• 15:24
  Do you feel like you guys are making progress?
• 15:25
  Do you have you seen in the last couple years people who were pro
• 15:30
  abortion progressive switch? You know, after seeing, hey, you
• 15:34
  guys are out there, you can be progressive in pro-life and
• 15:37
  become pro-life and join pal. What?
• 15:39
  What's that landscape looking like?
• 15:43
  Definitely there have been a lot of people who have come to us,
• 15:46
  people who are in significant places of power within pro
• 15:49
  abortion circles who have said, yeah, I actually now that I
• 15:53
  think about it, I don't think I agree completely with my side.
• 15:56
  And I think that it takes that sameness and understanding that,
• 15:59
  you know, we are like them, but we disagree on this issue.
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  And they know that it comes from a place of good faith from us
• 16:06
  when we do disagree because they know that we see eye to eye with
• 16:09
  them on other issues. So whereas there may be, you
• 16:13
  know, a stark difference between somebody who is pro-life and
• 16:16
  more conservative and someone who's progressive and supports
• 16:18
  abortion. If you're progressive and you
• 16:20
  don't support abortion, then you have a lot more in common with
• 16:23
  somebody who already supports abortion, happens to be
• 16:26
  progressive. They can see that you're coming
• 16:28
  at the abortion issue within the same framework.
• 16:31
  And for and for POW, that's an anti capitalist framework.
• 16:35
  It's a feminist framework. And we are really working hard
• 16:38
  to show people that just because you are progressive doesn't mean
• 16:42
  you have to support abortion. And in fact, being pro abortion
• 16:45
  is antithetical to progressive values.
• 16:49
  Can you explain why that is? I mean, if there's a progressive
• 16:52
  listening right now who is thinking, no, of course you're
• 16:56
  for full bodily autonomy for women, you know, to do anything
• 17:00
  else would be a terrible injustice.
• 17:02
  And at the end of the day, the woman's rights, the pregnant
• 17:06
  person's rights, as they would say, is more important than the
• 17:10
  fetuses rights. And the fetus isn't fully
• 17:13
  actualized as a person anyways. Right?
• 17:15
  This is the the maybe most common argument.
• 17:18
  What's your response to that? I would say I understand where
• 17:22
  they're coming from. That used to be my view as well.
• 17:25
  And the abortion issue is difficult because it is a
• 17:28
  conflicts of rights scenario between the person who's
• 17:30
  pregnant and their child. And so when we look at the
• 17:33
  abortion issue, we have to acknowledge that they have these
• 17:35
  reservations, but we also must explain that we can't violate
• 17:38
  the rights of somebody because they're dependent on their
• 17:41
  parent. We can't, you know, kill
• 17:44
  somebody because they're dependent or because they're
• 17:46
  underdeveloped or because of any of these reasons.
• 17:48
  And you know, we approach the abortion issue through a lens
• 17:53
  where we're anti ableism. And I think that that plays a
• 17:56
  big role in the abortion issue. People see the unborn as less
• 18:00
  than human because they don't have specific capacities or
• 18:03
  functions because of their developmental stage.
• 18:06
  And that's ableist. And we stand against that
• 18:08
  because whether or not you can perform a specific function or
• 18:11
  produce a specific thing or play a specific role in society,
• 18:15
  you're a fully valuable human being.
• 18:17
  And whether you're dependent on somebody like, you know, we, we
• 18:20
  see people who are twins, who are conjoined.
• 18:23
  Those people aren't less valuable because their body
• 18:26
  cannot be separated and maybe some of their organs are
• 18:28
  dependent on their twins body. So we definitely approach the
• 18:33
  abortion issue through an anti ableism lens, but we also
• 18:36
  approach the abortion issue through an anti capitalist lens.
• 18:40
  This multinational corporation founded by eugenicists is now
• 18:45
  coming into our underprivileged communities and robbing them of
• 18:49
  opportunity to get out of the system of oppression.
• 18:53
  These underprivileged communities are not being
• 18:56
  afforded, you know, the housing that they need, the food that
• 18:58
  they need, the healthcare they need.
• 19:00
  And if we can address many of these material needs, we will
• 19:03
  see that the abortion issue and the number of abortions will
• 19:06
  decrease significantly. We know that according to the
• 19:10
  Guttmacher Institute, a pro abortion institute, that 73% of
• 19:15
  people seeking abortion cite financial concerns.
• 19:18
  And in my own experience doing rescues and sidewalk counseling,
• 19:22
  I've had many people say, yeah, I have this much dollars.
• 19:26
  I have this much money in back rent.
• 19:28
  And so I'm getting this abortion because if I don't, I can't pay
• 19:32
  the bills. I can't feed my other kids, I
• 19:34
  can't survive. And these survival abortions are
• 19:39
  part of a broader system of injustice.
• 19:41
  And as a progressive, you cannot support survival mechanisms that
• 19:45
  only end up hurting people in our community instead of
• 19:48
  actually addressing the core of the issue.
• 19:51
  And so for Powell, we take an anti capitalist position.
• 19:54
  We believe that people should be granted free, free healthcare,
• 19:59
  housing, food, all of these things so that they can be
• 20:01
  supplied with the needs that they have, so that you don't
• 20:03
  need survival abortions or don't feel that they have to have a
• 20:08
  survival abortion. And of course, we also believe
• 20:11
  that it's antithetical to our progressive values because it's
• 20:15
  killing the little guy in a in a literal way, it is killing the
• 20:17
  little guy, It's killing somebody who doesn't have the
• 20:20
  privileges that people who have already been born have.
• 20:23
  And so there's definitely several frameworks that we as
• 20:28
  progressives face the abortion issue through.
• 20:30
  And we believe that because of our progressive values that
• 20:34
  coming to an anti abortion conclusion is the right
• 20:36
  conclusion. So I was at a activist roundup.
• 20:41
  This was a few years ago, I think it was hosted by CBS and
• 20:43
  they had activists from all different causes there.
• 20:45
  And surprisingly, they invited a pro-life activist, but they had
• 20:48
  some, you know, feminist type activists there.
• 20:50
  And one, one woman, I remember her name is Liz Plank.
• 20:52
  I don't know if you've come across her, but she's very
• 20:54
  talented and she's very pro abortion.
• 20:56
  Unfortunately, you know, she identifies, I think, as
• 20:59
  feminist, as progressive, but there is a sort of, you know,
• 21:02
  group of people out there who seem to identify very strongly
• 21:06
  as of course, feminists and progressive and in these
• 21:08
  different, but at the same time, and she also, by the way, says
• 21:11
  she's very anti ableist. So she, I think would resonate
• 21:13
  with that title and and claim that title.
• 21:16
  I think she does important work on inclusion for people with
• 21:19
  disability, but she's very pro abortion.
• 21:22
  And to the degree that she makes, you know, TikTok videos
• 21:24
  that, you know, get hundreds of thousands of views about how,
• 21:27
  you know, this is how you get your abortion in, you know, a
• 21:30
  state, there's limited abortion and sort of celebrating, really
• 21:33
  celebrating, normalizing, de destigmatizing in every way
• 21:37
  possible the violence of abortion, abortion.
• 21:39
  If you were talking to Liz right now, who in some ways has a lot
• 21:43
  in common with the activists that you work with directly at
• 21:46
  POW, what would you say to her? I would say that the unborn are
• 21:51
  not your enemy, they're not in conflict with you, and that
• 21:54
  affording them rights does not take away rights from you.
• 21:58
  And I know that it's difficult because it's a conflict of
• 22:00
  rights scenario. But in progressive circles, we
• 22:04
  often say rights are not like π some rights for other people
• 22:07
  don't mean less rights for you. And we know that that's true
• 22:10
  with the abortion issue as well. Affording rights to the unborn
• 22:13
  does not take anything away from, you know, the feminist
• 22:17
  movement, from progressive movements, from anybody involved
• 22:20
  in these circumstances. And we cannot solve the
• 22:26
  underlying causes of abortion by simply continuing to kill
• 22:31
  underprivileged children. And so if you're coming at it
• 22:34
  from a disability rights lens, I would say, you know, that's
• 22:37
  completely inconsistent. You're saying that these human
• 22:39
  beings are less valuable because of their abilities and their
• 22:42
  level of development and the functions that they hold instead
• 22:46
  of the fact that they're living human organisms.
• 22:49
  And I would also say that this multi corporate, this
• 22:56
  multinational corporation, Planned Parenthood, in tandem
• 23:00
  with the abortion industrial complex, the police, the court
• 23:03
  systems that uphold pro abortion rulings, all of these people
• 23:06
  working in tandem, they're not going to set you free.
• 23:09
  The only thing that can set you free is working together with
• 23:11
  your community to understand that the unborn are not your
• 23:14
  enemy. I agree.
• 23:17
  Well said. Well said Kristen.
• 23:19
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• 23:21
  conservative or values based Yelp for businesses that are
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  free app. All right, so part of your work
• 24:14
  has been rescue. Tell people what rescue is.
• 24:19
  There's different branches of rescue.
• 24:20
  We don't necessarily need to get into all the differences of the
• 24:23
  kinds of rescue. But what is the underlying goal
• 24:26
  of the rescue movement? How has it been operating?
• 24:29
  And then I want to get into the story of particularly Lauren and
• 24:32
  Erb. But then obviously there's other
• 24:33
  activists caught up in the charges coming from a very pro
• 24:37
  abortion Department of Justice. Yeah, rescue is, people define
• 24:42
  it a lot of different ways, but rescue is when you put your body
• 24:45
  on the line to save and to love an unborn child who is scheduled
• 24:51
  to be killed. And of course, like you said,
• 24:54
  there's lots of different types of rescue.
• 24:56
  More traditional rescues include sitting in front of doors,
• 25:00
  blocking hallways, that type of thing, the actual physical act
• 25:03
  of interposition between an abortionist and a child.
• 25:07
  And then there's other forms of rescue, which also happened back
• 25:12
  in the rescue days but were less common, which include things
• 25:15
  like opportunity rescue, where you go inside the abortion
• 25:18
  facility, you counsel the people in the waiting room, you try and
• 25:23
  get them to not have the abortion, and you offer them
• 25:26
  alternatives. And then most of the time you
• 25:28
  will leave before the police arrive or leave when you're
• 25:31
  asked. So rescue looks a lot of
• 25:33
  different ways, but generally rescue is putting your body on
• 25:36
  the line to save or love or both save and love a child who is
• 25:42
  going to be killed. And when I was introduced to
• 25:48
  rescue, I, I had no idea how controversial it was.
• 25:51
  I saw a photo of a woman who had changed herself to the table at
• 25:56
  an abortion facility. And I thought to myself, that
• 25:59
  would stop a lot of abortions. And this lady looks really cool.
• 26:03
  And I knew that I wanted to do it because I wasn't so engulfed
• 26:08
  in this type of culture of safety and this culture of, you
• 26:13
  know, playing it safe all the time.
• 26:14
  I obviously am a progressive. I'm willing to take risks and do
• 26:18
  kind of wild out there things. And I had already been involved
• 26:21
  with, you know, environmental activism, animal rights
• 26:24
  activism, all the stuff where rescue also takes place.
• 26:27
  Rescue is also prevalent within the animal rights movement.
• 26:30
  And so for me, it wasn't a question of should we be doing
• 26:34
  rescue? It was a question of how can I
• 26:36
  do a rescue for the unborn child who is scheduled to be killed
• 26:40
  that day. So there's a long journey of how
• 26:43
  I got there, but rescue is, in my opinion, one of the many ways
• 26:47
  forward and one of the many uniting points that the pro-life
• 26:50
  movement can connect on in this post Roe era that we're in.
• 26:56
  And the people involved in rescue, like even the people
• 26:58
  that have been, are being persecuted by our government.
• 27:03
  And I'm going to get into the face act here in a minute.
• 27:05
  They are from all different backgrounds.
• 27:07
  I mean, you have very different political beliefs represented
• 27:11
  among rescuers, but they all share the same foundation that
• 27:15
  human life is sacred and deserves equal protection.
• 27:18
  And we need to defend these babies.
• 27:22
  Yeah, and even like you said, we're going into the face act
• 27:24
  later. But even on this recent trial
• 27:26
  that happened, I mean, we had one Jewish person, 1 atheist,
• 27:29
  and three Christians who were all on trial together because
• 27:32
  they could agree that human life is valuable and they need to
• 27:35
  step in and do something to stop those human lives from being
• 27:38
  killed and their parents from being exploited.
• 27:42
  You look at the history of our civil rights movements in the
• 27:45
  United States and, you know, you look at the history really of
• 27:48
  many human rights resistance movements.
• 27:51
  I mean, what Gandhi did and the civil disobedience that he
• 27:53
  practiced. And you see the common theme of
• 27:56
  I'm going to use my body peacefully to put myself in the
• 28:00
  way of the aggressor or to put myself where I justly belong in
• 28:05
  order to protest the aggressor, right.
• 28:07
  So I'm referencing here the the sit insurance as an example.
• 28:10
  You know you're not allowed to sit in diner because of the
• 28:13
  color of your skin, but we're going to do this anyways.
• 28:15
  You know Rosa Parks, the famous story, I'm going to stay in my
• 28:18
  seat because it is unjust that I'm being asked simply because
• 28:22
  of the color of my skin to move. These are acts of civil
• 28:26
  disobedience using our bodies. They may be difference with the
• 28:30
  pro-life movement is the people who are doing the sit in are not
• 28:34
  any of them the victim themselves, the victim of the
• 28:37
  child in the womb. They can't do a sit in.
• 28:39
  They can't practice civil disobedience in defense of
• 28:41
  themselves. They can't even speak out.
• 28:43
  Their vocal cords are you know, usually not even developed yet.
• 28:46
  They are completely dependent upon whatever actions and
• 28:50
  unfortunately affected by the inaction of the people who have
• 28:53
  the privilege of birth. So how has, how do you think the
• 28:57
  history of civil disobedience in this country has impacted your
• 29:01
  view on the rescue movement? And what do you see as sort of
• 29:04
  the ongoing tradition that rescue has in our movement of
• 29:07
  continuing what the civil, the civil rights movement, you know,
• 29:12
  the the 60s, etcetera started in this country?
• 29:17
  Well, social justice is a science and I think when I look
• 29:20
  at our movement right now, we are falling right in line with
• 29:23
  where many other social justice movements fell in line as well.
• 29:27
  Right now, I would say that, you know, some people dissent to
• 29:30
  rescue and it's not very popular and most people aren't
• 29:34
  participating in it. But I also acknowledge that over
• 29:37
  history, most protesters were not popular.
• 29:40
  The women's voting rights movement, labor rights
• 29:43
  movements, civil rights movements, they were never
• 29:45
  popular in their day. And it's not until decades
• 29:48
  later, when we look back retrospectively and ask people
• 29:51
  what they think of it, that they can say, yeah, I support that.
• 29:54
  And it's easy to support it when you're not right in it.
• 29:57
  It's easy to support it when it's not right in front of you,
• 30:01
  when it's not the life that you're living because we are so
• 30:04
  engulfed in a culture that is against human life and an
• 30:07
  abortion culture that sets the pro-life issue is an exceptional
• 30:11
  1. You can do a sit in, but not for
• 30:13
  the pro-life movement or you can do a protest, but don't do it
• 30:17
  for the pro-life movement. It's like we have this weird
• 30:19
  exceptionalist framework for the abortion issue and even pro
• 30:23
  lifers have that framework, unfortunately.
• 30:24
  So for me, you know, I was in support of abortion and then I
• 30:30
  came into the rest. I came into the pro-life
• 30:32
  movement with a completely blank slate, and I hadn't heard all
• 30:36
  these descentis points about how the pro-life movement should go
• 30:39
  about things. And so I was open to trying lots
• 30:42
  of new things that we hadn't quite done yet.
• 30:44
  And, you know, I think the words of Joan Andrews yesterday at her
• 30:52
  trial that she's currently on in connection with the five other
• 30:55
  activists sums it up pretty well.
• 30:57
  Today the babies are dying. Today, the babies are not dying
• 31:03
  when we're ready to save them. The babies are dying now.
• 31:06
  And that's why rescue is important.
• 31:08
  You and me, both Lila, are from California and we understand
• 31:12
  that our state is worth saving. It is worth staying there and
• 31:16
  fighting for the children there. And we cannot do that in a post
• 31:19
  row America when there are laws that legalize abortion until
• 31:23
  birth. But what we can do is we can
• 31:25
  step in and we can rescue because, you know, if the FACE
• 31:30
  Act is repealed, these sentences are going to be much shorter.
• 31:34
  They're, of course, going to try and find other ways to prosecute
• 31:37
  pro lifers. But we can see a large influx of
• 31:40
  people rescuing in California, saving babies that the laws
• 31:44
  cannot reach right now, saving babies that are dying today.
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  20% off your order at checkout. What's some of the impact that
• 33:02
  you've seen of rescues either personally or first hand
• 33:05
  accounts you've heard from friends in terms of, OK, this
• 33:07
  rescue shut down the clinic or shut down operations for X
• 33:11
  amount of hours and we're confident that it saved X amount
• 33:14
  of babies. What are some of the What are
• 33:15
  some of the success stories of rescue?
• 33:19
  We have seen huge success with the rescue movement just in the
• 33:24
  past year. We have seen, you know, many
• 33:27
  babies saved. For example, we got a call a
• 33:31
  couple of months ago from Emily Burning of Let Them Live.
• 33:34
  She's the founder there. And for those of you who don't
• 33:36
  know what Let Them Live is, they're an organization that
• 33:38
  helps provide material resources to mothers considering abortion.
• 33:43
  And, you know, they've saved so many babies.
• 33:47
  And Emily told us, you know, we're getting calls all the time
• 33:52
  from women who received your pink roses during these rescues.
• 33:55
  And our first reaction was, you know, maybe that's happened one
• 33:59
  or two times. I'm sure it's not like a all the
• 34:02
  time occurrence. And she said, no, almost every
• 34:05
  single time you're doing a rescue, we are getting a call.
• 34:08
  And my heart just shattered because I mean, I had heard for
• 34:12
  so long, rescue is not effective.
• 34:14
  It's not doing what it needs to do.
• 34:15
  Like you're prioritizing yourself over the long term
• 34:20
  impacts of what rescue can do. But I knew I saw in those
• 34:24
  waiting rooms people turn away. I talked to those moms.
• 34:28
  I know that they were suffering. And there were so many times I
• 34:30
  was able to connect them with alternatives.
• 34:33
  And hearing these words and hearing that almost every single
• 34:36
  time we're doing a rescue, we're getting someone calling and
• 34:39
  saying, I don't want to go through this abortion.
• 34:41
  I need help, help that is worth it.
• 34:44
  And additionally, there have been many babies saved from
• 34:49
  first hand accounts. For example, Lauren and Teresa,
• 34:52
  they did a rescue at Cesare Santangelo's abortion facility
• 34:57
  in DC, the same place where they did a rescue and are now in jail
• 35:01
  for. They did a rescue years later
• 35:03
  there. And they talked with a mom there
• 35:06
  who said I have $4000 in back rent.
• 35:09
  That's why I'm here. And I mean, she was almost full
• 35:12
  term. That's what Cesari Santangelo
• 35:14
  does. He kills almost full term
• 35:15
  babies. And so they talked to this mom
• 35:18
  and they were able to provide the money for rent and her baby
• 35:21
  was saved. Rescues are reaching babies that
• 35:25
  the laws and the pro-life movement are not reaching right
• 35:27
  now. Additionally, back in the rescue
• 35:30
  days in the 80s and 90s, there were rallies where they would
• 35:33
  bring all the people who had changed their mind because of
• 35:36
  rescue and they would have them bring their babies to these
• 35:38
  rallies. And we could see 80 to 100
• 35:40
  children at any single one of these rallies holding their
• 35:44
  babies. And we got to see the actual
• 35:46
  tangible lives saved. So for anybody thinking, you
• 35:50
  know, is this rescue thing even effective?
• 35:52
  It absolutely is, and I've seen it first hand.
• 35:55
  And on top of that, I just want to, I want people to know that
• 36:00
  of course these lives being saved is important, but what's
• 36:04
  also important is that these lives are loved.
• 36:07
  We know that babies are dying today, babies that the laws
• 36:10
  cannot save. But what we can do is we can
• 36:13
  tangibly love them in the moments before their death.
• 36:16
  If you were being hold away to your death, you would want
• 36:20
  someone there physically with you to be there in support of
• 36:24
  you affirming your human dignity before you died.
• 36:28
  And when we rescue, of course it's about the babies being
• 36:31
  saved, but it's also about the babies being loved.
• 36:34
  It's about loving a child on their day of death.
• 36:37
  And the rescue doesn't stop after we're arrested.
• 36:41
  The rescue never stops when when you're arrested, you go to jail
• 36:45
  and you get to sit in the place of a child in court who has been
• 36:50
  denied due process under law. You are standing in the place
• 36:54
  that they should be in. They should be afforded that
• 36:56
  trial. Then when rescuers could be
• 36:59
  convicted and sent to jail, they continue by acting in solidarity
• 37:03
  with the unborn in jail. Many rescuers in the 80s and 90s
• 37:08
  did specific protests in jail where they refused to do
• 37:12
  anything that an unborn child could not do.
• 37:15
  And this helped disrupt the jail system and get rescuers out
• 37:18
  quicker. They would not talk to guards,
• 37:21
  they would not do any exams. They would not do anything but
• 37:24
  eat and sleep and go to the bathroom because that's what an
• 37:26
  unborn baby can do. And when we rescue, we are
• 37:29
  sitting in the place of that child.
• 37:31
  We're going through the due process.
• 37:32
  They're denied and we're loving them before they're dead, and
• 37:35
  we're loving them in the moment of their death.
• 37:39
  It's, I know, not necessary, I mean, to be a Christian.
• 37:42
  Like you said, there's an atheist that was just convicted
• 37:45
  for rescue. But there's nothing more
• 37:47
  profoundly Christian than taking that radical solidarity with the
• 37:52
  least of these who Jesus Christ himself identifies with.
• 37:56
  And he put himself on the cross in the place of the absolute
• 38:00
  least of these, the most hated and treated, the most wretched
• 38:04
  in all of humanity for the sake of love.
• 38:06
  So it's taking on really by the the literal cross of Christ to
• 38:11
  love others. I see criticism of rescue from
• 38:16
  some pro lifers and it's hard for me to have patience for it
• 38:20
  because I can completely understand the choice by pro
• 38:23
  lifers, You know, live action as an example, we don't do rescue
• 38:26
  at live action. I can understand the choice to
• 38:29
  choose a different strategy and the contribution that you want
• 38:32
  to make in the pro-life movement, but to in any way
• 38:34
  disparage or to criticize the incredible sacrifice and effect,
• 38:40
  effective activism of those that are willing and feel called to
• 38:43
  rescue. I, I can't, it's difficult for
• 38:46
  me to again, have respect for that position because it just
• 38:50
  seems not only cowardly and that it is, you know, criticizing
• 38:55
  from a place of legal safety, saying, hey, I'm, you know,
• 38:58
  that's not me. I'm, I'm, you know, I, I condemn
• 39:01
  that. But it also, it seems irrational
• 39:04
  because the reality is psychologically speaking, if you
• 39:08
  are a woman and you are with all the conflict that goes into the
• 39:12
  abortion decision, you're seeking an abortion, especially,
• 39:14
  you know, in the, in the case like you mentioned, a late term
• 39:16
  abortion clinic like Sant Angelo's clinic in DC.
• 39:20
  Many of these women, we know this in the pro-life movement
• 39:22
  are deeply conflicted about their decision.
• 39:25
  They are going into that often with financial considerations or
• 39:28
  sexual assault that they endured or any number of pressures and
• 39:32
  coercions that they are feeling. You know, there's a very rare
• 39:35
  woman who walks in saying, I can't wait for this abortion.
• 39:38
  And of these women that go in and these girls that go in,
• 39:40
  they're looking for, they're looking for a rescue, they're
• 39:43
  looking for a sign, they're looking for an opportunity for
• 39:47
  another way. And rescue is directly offering
• 39:50
  that. It's literally stepping in the
• 39:51
  gap. Yes, you can do this outside the
• 39:53
  abortion clinic through sidewalk counseling, but it's
• 39:55
  particularly dramatic and and present when it's in that
• 39:59
  clinic. And as you have said yourself,
• 40:01
  this has led to many lives saved.
• 40:03
  So I I just see the power of it that it in saving lives.
• 40:07
  And so, you know, what's your response?
• 40:09
  What is your response to the critics?
• 40:12
  So many good points you made there.
• 40:14
  First of all, you're right about the people waiting in those
• 40:17
  waiting rooms. It can be really hectic outside
• 40:20
  when there's sidewalk counseling happening, and we love sidewalk
• 40:24
  counselors. I don't know any rescuer who's
• 40:27
  not also a sidewalk counselor. But sometimes it can be hectic
• 40:30
  with the escorts and with the cars going by and trying to give
• 40:33
  them this pamphlet and they just want to get out of there.
• 40:36
  Their boyfriends yelling at them, whatever.
• 40:38
  When you go inside, the walls come down, you quietly approach
• 40:42
  them and you offer them a rose. And for many of the women that
• 40:45
  I've given roses inside of abortion facilities, to me, you
• 40:49
  can see the look on their face that they've never even been
• 40:52
  offered that small act of kindness.
• 40:53
  No one's even thought to buy them flowers.
• 40:56
  And when you give them that rose, when you risk something
• 41:01
  and they know you're risking something coming in there, the
• 41:03
  walls come down because somebody is going out of their way and
• 41:07
  risking something for them. To people who, you know, the
• 41:15
  people who say I don't support rescue, that's not good for the
• 41:18
  movement, that's scary. I'm going to sit here behind my
• 41:21
  safe little screen and I'm going to put my head down.
• 41:25
  Babies are only dying when I'm ready to save them.
• 41:27
  It's. Not just I'm going to put my
• 41:29
  head down. That's one thing, you know,
• 41:30
  choose your different strategy, that's fine.
• 41:31
  But it's I'm going to put my head down and spend my time and
• 41:34
  energy criticizing rescuers who are literally sitting in jail
• 41:38
  right now like that. That that's the part that gets
• 41:41
  me. It's like, it's one thing to say
• 41:42
  I'm not going to do rescue, OK, that's completely acceptable.
• 41:44
  Live action doesn't doesn't do rescue like that's you know, you
• 41:47
  have a different strategy that's completely acceptable.
• 41:49
  And there are multiple strategies needed to win this
• 41:51
  100%. But to sit there behind that
• 41:53
  safe computer screen and then to use your time and energy instead
• 41:57
  of fighting abortion, to fight rescuers, that part I think is
• 42:01
  just unacceptable. Yeah, And we're not going to win
• 42:07
  anything if we don't sacrifice anything.
• 42:10
  The reason that Roe V Wade was overturned was because the
• 42:14
  rescue movement forged its way through.
• 42:17
  It created a political party that cared about abortion.
• 42:20
  And while, of course, I don't align myself with that political
• 42:23
  party, Roe V Wade would not have been overturned without the
• 42:27
  rescue movement. Nobody would care about abortion
• 42:30
  if it wasn't for the rescue movement.
• 42:31
  Of course, there would be people who care about it.
• 42:34
  But if you look at the scope of our globe and different
• 42:38
  countries who did not have a rescue movement, you can see
• 42:41
  that America stands as a significant pinnacle above those
• 42:47
  other countries who didn't have a rescue movement.
• 42:49
  America, the United States, we have one of the strongest
• 42:53
  pro-life movements in the world. And I truly believe that is
• 42:56
  because the rescue movement. And I have so many people reach
• 42:59
  out to me from countries in Europe, from countries in South
• 43:02
  America who say, I wish we had a strong pro-life movement like
• 43:05
  the US And the reality is I really believe those countries
• 43:11
  would be much further on the pro-life side of this issue if
• 43:15
  they had had a rescue movement. And like you said, you don't
• 43:20
  have to do rescue yourself. I believe that, you know, there
• 43:23
  are some people who are specifically not called to do
• 43:25
  rescue. I think it takes a specific
• 43:26
  temperament to do rescue, especially in the current
• 43:30
  political and social state that we're in in our country.
• 43:33
  I think you have to be very patient.
• 43:35
  You have to be extremely convinced to nonviolence, even
• 43:38
  when you're being beat by abortion Staffs.
• 43:40
  I think that it takes a specific temperament to do rescue right
• 43:44
  now the way that things are. But what it doesn't take a
• 43:48
  specific temperament to do is say I support you.
• 43:51
  I am going to, you know, be here in solidarity even though I
• 43:55
  don't disagree with you. And as a progressive
• 43:58
  organization in the middle of what is considered one of the
• 44:01
  most conservative movements, we have had to work through our
• 44:05
  principle of unity through diversity.
• 44:08
  We have had to work with people we disagree heavily with on just
• 44:11
  about everything but abortion. But what we can agree with is
• 44:14
  that abortion is murder and it's time to act like it.
• 44:18
  And so really what we're saying at PAO is not that you have to
• 44:23
  do rescue. And if you don't do rescue, then
• 44:25
  you're not a good pro-life. Or what we're saying is that you
• 44:29
  don't have to do rescue. There's a space for you in the
• 44:31
  pro-life movement. But just don't speak out against
• 44:33
  people who are sitting in jail cells because they sacrificed
• 44:37
  something for an unborn child who was scheduled to die that
• 44:40
  day. And I know, like you said
• 44:44
  earlier, yeah, it it's it's very Christian to rescue.
• 44:50
  And I agree with that. And I read Joseph Foreman's
• 44:53
  book, Shattering the Darkness, The Crisis of the Cross and the
• 44:56
  Church today, and he talked extensively about how rescue is
• 45:03
  very similar to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
• 45:06
  And at first I didn't understand what he meant by that.
• 45:08
  But it, it wasn't until I dug deeper into it that I, I
• 45:12
  understood what he meant. And specifically right now I'm
• 45:16
  converting to Catholicism. And I was in RCIA just last
• 45:20
  night and I was thinking to myself, Jesus wants us to accept
• 45:27
  his love. He wants us to accept his
• 45:29
  sacrifice. And there was specifically, we
• 45:34
  were reading from Matthew, and it said, if somebody wrongs you,
• 45:36
  if someone sins against you, you go and talk to them privately.
• 45:39
  And if they continue to sin against you, you bring one or
• 45:42
  two other people with you so there can be no
• 45:44
  misunderstanding. And if they continue to sin
• 45:47
  against you, you bring the church into it.
• 45:49
  And that really reminded me of what I do as an activist because
• 45:52
  really we try and solve these issues with as little friction
• 45:55
  as possible, but we know that that's not going to happen with
• 45:58
  the issue of abortion. And so we have to appropriately
• 46:01
  escalate and resist and bring that social attention to the
• 46:04
  surface. And when I think about my role
• 46:08
  as a rescuer, what do I want out of this rescue?
• 46:11
  I want the pregnant mothers and their children to accept the
• 46:15
  love that I'm offering. And in the same way, Jesus
• 46:19
  Christ wants us to accept his sacrificial love for us.
• 46:22
  And when we are rescuing, what a lot of rescuers said,
• 46:26
  specifically in the 80s and 90s, was you put your body on the
• 46:29
  line and you let the chips fall where they may.
• 46:32
  And for rescuers in this case, that just happened, we can see
• 46:36
  that that included physical brutality.
• 46:39
  They were beat, but with the sharp end of a broomstick.
• 46:42
  They were attacked. They were thrown against the
• 46:44
  wall. They were choked.
• 46:46
  They were treated horribly. And they did not resist.
• 46:50
  And I think that's the the, the incredible.
• 46:52
  Thing they did not fight back. It's all yeah, this the movement
• 46:56
  is, is completely peaceful. And I think that part is lost in
• 47:00
  translation certainly by the pro abortion side.
• 47:02
  And the DOJ tries to paint rescue as somehow militant in in
• 47:06
  a violent way. They are completely peaceful.
• 47:09
  And as you just described, they did not react when they could
• 47:12
  have fought back to defend their own, you know, bodily autonomy.
• 47:14
  You want to use that term, their own protection of their own
• 47:16
  physical bodies. They did not fight back.
• 47:20
  Yeah. And you can see.
• 47:22
  So there is specifically you said that there was one of the
• 47:25
  charges face there was a special finding that the rescuers used
• 47:28
  force. The jury found that the rescuers
• 47:31
  used force in this case. And I think that that's one of
• 47:34
  the points that people have been kind of stuck on because they
• 47:36
  don't understand what that means.
• 47:39
  There was a scuffle in the hallway during this rescue
• 47:43
  because the rescuers were in the same group of people who are
• 47:48
  seeking abortion services that day.
• 47:49
  So the group was mixed together. And when the doors to the
• 47:53
  abortion facility opened, some of the patients tried to go
• 47:55
  through that door and the clinic staff tried to slam the door
• 47:59
  shut. And these people seeking
• 48:02
  abortions being mixed in with the people who are doing the
• 48:04
  rescue, start shoving them. And you can see that when the
• 48:08
  door is finally open and the rescuers are coming in, that the
• 48:11
  clinic staff gets violent. The clinic manager came with the
• 48:14
  sharp end of a broomstick and started beating the rescuers
• 48:16
  with it. A few of the clinic staff
• 48:18
  grabbed rescuers by the neck, threw them against the wall,
• 48:21
  threw them into the chairs. Herb Garrity, specifically one
• 48:25
  of the rescuers there that day, was grabbed by the back of their
• 48:28
  collar and thrown out of the abortion facility.
• 48:32
  And I mean, some of these rescuers were elderly rescuers
• 48:38
  who clearly posed no threat. And, you know, the the facility
• 48:43
  staff just did not care. They came at them violently.
• 48:46
  And I think that it was hard looking at that video to hear
• 48:53
  the jury say that it was the rescuers being violent because
• 48:56
  you're watching your friends get treated like animals and you're
• 48:59
  watching your friends get beat by abortionists and their staff.
• 49:02
  And then they're being the ones called violent.
• 49:06
  Wasn't part of the confusion there?
• 49:07
  I mean, the, the reason the jury included that conviction that
• 49:12
  the use of force, there was a use of force with in this case
• 49:15
  of Herb and Lauren and the others, it was that because they
• 49:19
  walked into, they refused to be stopped, right?
• 49:23
  They did not fight back, but they walked through that door.
• 49:26
  They consider that force even though they never way touched or
• 49:30
  tried to in any way harm anyone else in the clinic.
• 49:33
  But in the process of them walking through the door and the
• 49:35
  scuffle, one of the abortion staff who were literally, you
• 49:38
  know, fighting back with the broomstick and everything else
• 49:40
  and, and the rescuers are being nonviolent in response.
• 49:43
  But they tripped and they hurt their ankle, you know, something
• 49:45
  along those lines. And so therefore, because
• 49:47
  someone injured themselves, quite frankly, by reacting
• 49:51
  violently to the rescuers, they blamed that on the rescuers.
• 49:55
  Yeah, that is what happened. So one of the nurses during the
• 49:59
  rescue that was happening, you can see her on the camera
• 50:01
  running across the waiting room. And she was never struck by a
• 50:07
  rescuer. She was never pushed by a
• 50:09
  rescuer. And you can see that clearly in
• 50:12
  the video. Yet she claims to have sprained
• 50:14
  her ankle, then later claimed to have broken her ankle and then
• 50:17
  went back to saying it was a sprain.
• 50:18
  She couldn't really get her story straight.
• 50:20
  But frankly, in her own abuse of the rescuers, she was injured.
• 50:23
  And the rescuers were blamed for that.
• 50:25
  And they were blamed for, you know, a lot that day that was
• 50:28
  not their fault, including one of the people.
• 50:33
  There was a woman and her husband who came in seeking an
• 50:36
  abortion. And she was in incredible pain.
• 50:39
  She was in active labor because of the way that Cesare
• 50:42
  Santangelo does his abortions. And she comes in an incredible
• 50:46
  pain and faints and falls to the floor shortly after she arrived
• 50:53
  that day. And one of the rescuers, who was
• 50:54
  a nurse, went to her and tended to her and said, you need to
• 50:58
  call an ambulance. You need to call 911.
• 51:00
  And from the knowledge that we had from the rescuers, the
• 51:03
  abortionist wasn't going to be there for another few hours.
• 51:06
  So she would have just stayed there in pain and active labor
• 51:09
  in the waiting room for hours. And so if the rescuers weren't
• 51:13
  there, she would have continued to stay in active labor for
• 51:16
  multiple hours in the waiting room.
• 51:18
  Yet the rescuers were blamed for her being injured because she
• 51:24
  collapsed on the floor while they were doing the rescue.
• 51:27
  Do we know what happened to that woman, Kristen and her baby?
• 51:31
  So her baby was killed. The doctors told her that her
• 51:37
  child was disabled, yes. So or I'm not sure if it
• 51:41
  happened that day. It wasn't clear from her
• 51:45
  testimony. It sounded as if, yes, she did
• 51:48
  have her baby killed, unfortunately.
• 51:51
  And what she said in the courtroom during her testimony
• 51:54
  was that a doctor had told her, you know, your child is
• 51:57
  disabled, has an abnormality, and you should go through with
• 52:01
  an abortion. And, you know, many people go
• 52:04
  through this where the doctor say, you know, you should have
• 52:06
  an abortion because your baby has some type of problem.
• 52:09
  And so she sought out an abortion.
• 52:11
  And in the video, you can tell she's seven months, almost full
• 52:15
  term pregnancy, and she went there that day and she was on
• 52:21
  the third day of her abortion procedure when the rescue was
• 52:24
  happening. And unfortunately, it did sound
• 52:27
  from her testimony that she went through with the abortion.
• 52:29
  I'm not sure if it was that day or if it was a later point, but
• 52:33
  because she was in active labor, I'm assuming that her child died
• 52:36
  that day. So let's break down a couple
• 52:40
  quick things for folks listening who are not familiar with the
• 52:42
  face act. And I just, you know, I, I was
• 52:44
  texting with you earlier today, but today we just came out live
• 52:47
  action myself with an an op-ed and Newsweek saying that, you
• 52:50
  know, if the face act is unjust, it's being weaponized against
• 52:52
  pro lifers right now. It needs to be repealed.
• 52:56
  What is the face act? Kristen, Break it down for
• 52:59
  people here quickly. And then also, I want to get
• 53:02
  into what happened at Sant Angelo's clinic.
• 53:07
  The FACE Act which stands for Freedom of Access to Clinic
• 53:11
  Entrances Act was implemented in 1994 specifically because of the
• 53:17
  pro-life rescue movement. So in the 80s and 90s there was
• 53:20
  a surge of anti abortion activists doing and taking
• 53:23
  direct action at abortion facilities.
• 53:26
  And you know, many people don't know this, but the rescue
• 53:30
  movement was responsible for more arrests than any other
• 53:35
  nonviolent civil disobedience cause in U.S. history.
• 53:39
  So it wasn't women's voting rights, it wasn't labor laws, it
• 53:41
  wasn't the civil rights movement, it was the pro-life
• 53:44
  movement. And of course, we want to follow
• 53:49
  in the history of that the rich history of activism over many
• 53:53
  movements, including our own. But at the time that was that
• 53:56
  was happening, the abortion industry knew it was over for
• 53:59
  them. And Joan Andrews Bell, someone
• 54:01
  who's been rescuing since the rescue days before Operation
• 54:05
  Rescue and still rescuing now, she's currently on trial in DC
• 54:09
  She said that, you know, I'm friends with Bernard Nathanson,
• 54:12
  the man who founded NARAL, one of the largest pro abortion
• 54:15
  organizations in the US. And she said that when he
• 54:19
  changed his mind and became pro-life, he told her that, you
• 54:23
  know, the abortion movement knew it was over.
• 54:26
  We, we didn't know what we could do.
• 54:27
  There's nothing we could do to stop rescuers.
• 54:29
  And it wasn't until the FACE Act stopped rescue that the abortion
• 54:33
  industry was able to continue. So the FACE Act was implemented
• 54:37
  in 1994 to stop pro lifers from rescuing unborn children and
• 54:43
  their parents. And basically what this does is
• 54:48
  it makes it illegal to block the entrance of an abortion
• 54:52
  facility. It makes it illegal to block
• 54:54
  ingress or egress. It makes it legal to vandalize
• 55:00
  or commit violence against the abortion facility and their
• 55:02
  staff, which notably these things are already illegal.
• 55:07
  So how does the FACE Act make that any different?
• 55:10
  Well, the FACE Act, the FACE Act made these charges much larger.
• 55:17
  The FACE Act made it to where instead of getting, you know, a
• 55:19
  trespassing charge or a vandalism charge or some other
• 55:23
  charge, now it's a federal crime.
• 55:26
  So the FACE Act itself, it's, you know, depending on whether
• 55:31
  it's a misdemeanor or felony, you can get a year, a couple
• 55:34
  years in jail. But the thing that makes it so
• 55:39
  difficult as that if you conspire to deny a right the
• 55:44
  rights afforded within the FACE Act, that is where the real jail
• 55:48
  time comes from. So conspiracy to deny the rights
• 55:52
  afforded within the FACE Act is what will get you jail time,
• 55:57
  which is what the rescuers were charged with.
• 55:58
  They were charged with conspiring to deny the rights
• 56:01
  and then FACE Act itself. So the FACE Act made it a
• 56:05
  federal crime to do a sit in, but only if you're pro-life.
• 56:09
  So you can do a sit in for any other cause at any other place.
• 56:12
  But if it's an abortion facility, then you can get 11
• 56:16
  years in prison for it, which I don't even have to go into why?
• 56:18
  That's a blatant violation of our First Amendment rights.
• 56:23
  It's clearly discrimination based on the specific message
• 56:26
  you have. Yeah, I I agree.
• 56:30
  It's absolutely insane the double standard that's being
• 56:33
  wielded against the pro-life movement.
• 56:35
  It's always, you know, it's been a pro abortion law from the
• 56:37
  beginning and it's being used to try to basically chill peaceful
• 56:42
  demonstrations by the rescue movement and by a future
• 56:45
  rescuers. But I don't I don't think
• 56:47
  ultimately it's going to have that impact.
• 56:49
  I think that it's going to only galvanized people to say this is
• 56:52
  absolutely obscene and absurd and we're going to fight back
• 56:55
  peacefully. We're going to fight back
• 56:56
  peacefully. And you know, we're also going
• 56:58
  to call to abolish it because it's an unjust law.
• 57:00
  It is just crazy to think that there were additional felony
• 57:02
  charges and convictions levied against, you know, just the five
• 57:05
  activists last week because they did it together.
• 57:09
  I mean, the fact that we do peaceful demonstrations
• 57:12
  together, they get federal felony convictions.
• 57:16
  I mean, to put this in context, murder is not a federal crime.
• 57:21
  You know, you, you, you, you don't get the federal charges
• 57:23
  for murder. Typically it's a state crime,
• 57:26
  right? And so the, the amount that this
• 57:28
  has has been escalated by the federal government and then
• 57:31
  particularly under this administration who is paying
• 57:34
  careful attention to this because they hate the pro-life
• 57:36
  movement and they want to throw the entire pro-life movement in
• 57:38
  jail. So they're going to use
• 57:39
  anything. But I want to talk about the
• 57:41
  particular trial that your friends just endured, this
• 57:45
  unjust trial because the judge, the DC judge who presided over
• 57:49
  the trial, who by the way, claimed to be Catholic, I mean,
• 57:51
  this is like a Joe Biden Catholic who's wildly probe.
• 57:54
  She said that she graduated from CUA which?
• 57:57
  I mean, that's that's totally tragic.
• 57:59
  You know, Catholic University of America, there are good
• 58:02
  graduates from that school, too. But she claimed to be Catholic.
• 58:05
  But she let's just talk through what she did.
• 58:07
  She herself has basically lobbied for abortion, you know,
• 58:11
  which as a judge, that in and of itself should disqualify her
• 58:14
  from presiding over a case on abortion.
• 58:16
  But she said that the 13th Amendment, as an example, should
• 58:19
  be used to interpret the stronger sort of super right for
• 58:22
  abortion. Tell us about some of the
• 58:25
  injustices during the trial from this judge.
• 58:30
  I mean, the courtroom was absolutely a clown show from the
• 58:34
  beginning of the trial. Of course, the whole courtroom
• 58:37
  was packed with pro lifers and the judge was very upset about
• 58:41
  this. She did not want it publicized.
• 58:43
  She did not want us there. She treated us horribly the
• 58:45
  entire time. And for me, that was just so I
• 58:50
  couldn't understand it because she released a decision before
• 58:54
  this happened. She released a briefing where
• 58:56
  she invented this constitutional right to abortion and then she's
• 59:00
  surprised when it gets media attention and when pro lifers
• 59:03
  show up in the courtroom. So like you said, she believes
• 59:05
  that abortion should be a constitutional right because of
• 59:09
  the 13th Amendment. And more specifically, she said
• 59:12
  that, you know, when Dobbs addressed Roe V Wade, it did not
• 59:17
  address whether abortion was still a constitutional right
• 59:20
  within other amendments. It only talked about abortion
• 59:23
  through the lens of the right to privacy and said that it wasn't
• 59:26
  part of the right to privacy, which wasn't true.
• 59:29
  And Roe V Wade definitely did cover other amendments.
• 59:34
  And the other justices did try to find other places in the
• 59:37
  Constitution that they could stick abortion in.
• 59:40
  But we're unsuccessful because Roe was a bad decision from the
• 59:43
  beginning, grievously decided, as stated in Dobbs versus
• 59:46
  Jackson, the case that overturned it.
• 59:49
  And we know that abortion has never been a constitutional
• 59:53
  right. Again, something that was said
• 59:55
  in Dobbs V Jackson. And so going into this case, the
• 59:58
  rescuers tried to argue that, well, we couldn't conspire to
• 1:00:02
  deny, to deny constitutional rights.
• 1:00:05
  We couldn't conspire to deny constitutional rights.
• 1:00:09
  Because abortion is not a constitutional right.
• 1:00:12
  And instead they just went with Ohio.
• 1:00:13
  Well, you conspired to deny the rights that are afforded within
• 1:00:17
  the FACE Act. And the FACE Act was predicated
• 1:00:20
  on Roe V Wade. The FACE Act was predicated on
• 1:00:22
  the fact that abortion is a constitutional right, which as
• 1:00:25
  we know, it no longer is. And the decision that overturned
• 1:00:28
  that constitutional right even went so far as to say that it
• 1:00:31
  was never a constitutional right and that the law had been
• 1:00:34
  misinterpreted. So it's not just, Oh, well, it
• 1:00:37
  was a constitutional right when you did this rescue.
• 1:00:40
  No, abortion was never a constitutional right.
• 1:00:43
  And therefore they are not denying rights given to people
• 1:00:47
  within the Constitution. But instead they decided to go
• 1:00:50
  with, well, they denied the rights that are guaranteed to
• 1:00:52
  people through the FACE Act. And just from the start, she
• 1:00:57
  tried to deny any chance that we had at arguing our case, any
• 1:01:01
  evidence we wanted to submit as to our intent for being there.
• 1:01:05
  She tried to, you know, deny any constitutional arguments we had
• 1:01:10
  about the relevancy of Roe V. Wade, about whether or not the
• 1:01:14
  FACE Act was constitutional, anything.
• 1:01:16
  So from the beginning, she didn't even want to acknowledge
• 1:01:19
  that Roe V. Wade being overturned had some
• 1:01:21
  type of impact on this. She said that she didn't want to
• 1:01:24
  make a ruling on that before. So we're just going to exclude
• 1:01:28
  it. We're not going to talk about
• 1:01:29
  Roe V. Wade being overturned the entire
• 1:01:30
  trial. So going in, we're like, OK,
• 1:01:32
  great. We can't talk about our main
• 1:01:34
  point. The part, the part that was so
• 1:01:37
  mind boggling to me, in addition to what you just stated,
• 1:01:39
  Kristen, is that, you know, as an example, Lauren, part of her
• 1:01:43
  inspiration for doing rescue at Sant Angelo's butcher shop in DC
• 1:01:48
  where he's killing full term infants was a live action
• 1:01:51
  investigation from 2012 and 2013 where we exposed Sant Angelo
• 1:01:56
  himself. Talking about how he would leave
• 1:02:01
  a born alive baby to die in his clinic.
• 1:02:04
  Talking about how he would not offer the medical care and he
• 1:02:07
  would let them die. And why women should not call
• 1:02:10
  the hospital if or go to the hospital.
• 1:02:13
  Little clients of his who are part of the three day abortion
• 1:02:15
  process if they have anything going wrong because the hospital
• 1:02:19
  might deliver a live baby. And if the baby is alive, the
• 1:02:22
  hospital would care for the baby as is required by federal law.
• 1:02:26
  And Sant Angelo explained on tape why he would not help a
• 1:02:31
  born alive infant from a botched abortion in his clinic.
• 1:02:34
  And so he's basically saying I would practice infanticide and
• 1:02:37
  violate federal law by not providing medical care to a born
• 1:02:40
  alive infant in my own facility because he's being paid for a
• 1:02:43
  dead child. That's what he does.
• 1:02:44
  He's a butcher. He's a human butcher.
• 1:02:47
  And so this is what we documented on camera.
• 1:02:49
  We had an actual pregnant investigator, very brave talking
• 1:02:51
  to him about her pregnancy, about her baby.
• 1:02:53
  And this is he's also describing in graphic detail about how he
• 1:02:57
  basically exsanguinates the baby.
• 1:02:59
  So he cuts the umbilical cord in utero to bleed out and to starve
• 1:03:04
  basically, or to deny any kind of basically they can't.
• 1:03:10
  The baby isn't able to get oxygen and the baby can die and
• 1:03:12
  then be bleed out this way. And that's how he murders these
• 1:03:15
  children. So it was just totally gruesome
• 1:03:17
  stuff. You know, Lauren, your friend
• 1:03:20
  watches this video, is totally appalled and broken hearted and
• 1:03:24
  this is part of her motivation going in to do again, nonviolent
• 1:03:28
  peaceful rescue at his clinic. That wasn't even allowed in the
• 1:03:31
  courtroom. That that evidence, her
• 1:03:34
  testimony about that was not even allowed by the judge.
• 1:03:38
  Yeah, like he said, the judge denied our motion to include
• 1:03:41
  this video, which was very important in establishing her
• 1:03:44
  intent for being there and the intent of the other activists
• 1:03:47
  who knew that Cesari Sant Angelo was using the FACE Act in order
• 1:03:51
  to defend himself from charges against him because he doesn't
• 1:03:55
  fanticide. And to be clear, it's not just
• 1:03:58
  Sant Angelo. There are abortionists all over
• 1:04:01
  the country who are using the FACE Act to cover infanticide,
• 1:04:05
  including Eleanor Dry, who is an abortion in San Francisco, who
• 1:04:09
  is harvesting the fetal organs of these children that she's
• 1:04:12
  killing. And pro-life San Francisco has
• 1:04:15
  been given the records by the lawyers from the hospital.
• 1:04:18
  She does these abortion procedures at SO.
• 1:04:22
  How late term are dryers procedures?
• 1:04:26
  She claimed they were up to 24 weeks.
• 1:04:30
  Yeah, she claimed that her abortion procedures only go to
• 1:04:32
  24 weeks. We know that children can be
• 1:04:34
  viable anywhere between 21 and 24 weeks.
• 1:04:37
  They can live outside the womb. But now that Proposition One has
• 1:04:42
  passed in California, and abortion, elective abortion is
• 1:04:45
  legalized until the moment of birth.
• 1:04:47
  It is very likely that she's doing them later than that now,
• 1:04:50
  but. And she's harvesting.
• 1:04:51
  Before of these babies. Yes.
• 1:04:55
  So UCSF takes these fetal organs and they get the baby body parts
• 1:05:00
  and they give them to different, they give them to different
• 1:05:04
  people, including advanced bioscience resources.
• 1:05:06
  So we know that multiple abortionists are using the FACE
• 1:05:11
  Act to defend themselves from infanticide charges.
• 1:05:15
  And I mean, it's just another Kermit Gosnell.
• 1:05:20
  And when when people found out the horrors that were happening
• 1:05:24
  at Kermit Gosnells abortion facility, they pretended like
• 1:05:27
  they had no idea how this could happen.
• 1:05:29
  And, you know, he's an outlier. He's just some horrible hack job
• 1:05:32
  of abortionist who doesn't care about women and he's only doing
• 1:05:35
  it for the money when they're abortionists all around the
• 1:05:38
  country doing that. There were people like Leroy
• 1:05:41
  Carhartt. There are people like Eleanor
• 1:05:43
  Dry, There are people like Cesari Sant Angelo who has
• 1:05:46
  committed these horrors and are continuing to commit these
• 1:05:48
  horrors. And they're getting away with it
• 1:05:50
  because of the FACE Act, because these activists are being
• 1:05:53
  prosecuted for exposing them and exposing them, committing
• 1:05:57
  infanticide. And that video that the
• 1:06:01
  activists watched, it terrified them.
• 1:06:04
  And on top of that, this rescue happened in 2020.
• 1:06:08
  And for people who don't know, just the year before, in 2019,
• 1:06:12
  another one of Cesare Sant Angelo's victims bodies were
• 1:06:16
  found. The body of Philomena Grace, a
• 1:06:18
  nearly full term baby was found in the toilet of a Ruby Tuesdays
• 1:06:23
  because Cesare Sant Angelo had induced an abortion on her
• 1:06:26
  mother. And her mother ended up
• 1:06:28
  accidentally giving birth to this child in a toilet who ended
• 1:06:31
  up dying there. And it wasn't until paramedics
• 1:06:34
  came and retrieved her body that they found out that this child
• 1:06:37
  was killed via abortion. And, you know, nobody wanted
• 1:06:42
  anything to do with her body. They didn't, you know, want to
• 1:06:44
  do an autopsy. They didn't want to do anything
• 1:06:49
  to investigate it. And it wasn't until Missy Smith,
• 1:06:52
  a brave activist, stepped up and talked with these people who are
• 1:06:55
  dealing with the case that she was told it was from an abortion
• 1:06:59
  facility. And it was an abortion facility
• 1:07:04
  near where basically the people who were dealing with the case
• 1:07:10
  of Philomena Grace said that it was at an abortion facility that
• 1:07:13
  this had happened. But Missy knew that there was
• 1:07:15
  not an abortion facility near the death of this child.
• 1:07:18
  And so she said, well, there's no abortion facility near there
• 1:07:21
  in Maryland. Where are you talking about?
• 1:07:23
  And they said, oh, it was actually from an abortionist in
• 1:07:25
  DC. And Missy said, oh, Cesare
• 1:07:28
  Santangelo. And the people involved in the
• 1:07:30
  case said, how did you know it was him?
• 1:07:32
  And Missy, of course, knew it was him because he's notorious
• 1:07:35
  for butchering children. So on top of that gruesome video
• 1:07:38
  of him explaining that he would leave a child to die or kill
• 1:07:41
  them after birth expire in his words, he also killed a child
• 1:07:46
  whose body was found in Maryland just the year before this
• 1:07:48
  rescue. And when the rescuers tried to
• 1:07:51
  admit this video into evidence, the judge said no.
• 1:07:56
  She said that this video is propaganda and that they use the
• 1:08:00
  term abortionist in the video, which is a derogatory slur,
• 1:08:04
  which to me is just absolutely wild because I don't know anyone
• 1:08:10
  who considers abortionist a slur.
• 1:08:11
  That's just an abortion industry talking point, which I think
• 1:08:15
  perfectly portrays where she's at.
• 1:08:17
  She's clearly a mouthpiece for the abortion industrial complex
• 1:08:21
  and she is working in tandem with them to make sure that
• 1:08:24
  these rescuers suffer as much as possible.
• 1:08:26
  This video was not allowed in evidence.
• 1:08:28
  Also not allowed in evidence was the bodies of Sant Angelo's
• 1:08:32
  victims, whether or not that was before the rescue or after the
• 1:08:36
  rescue. But.
• 1:08:39
  Right, the the bodies that that Lauren and the Lauren and Teresa
• 1:08:44
  discover, you know, a whistleblower handed the bodies
• 1:08:47
  of over 100 children from Sant Angelo's butcher shop and
• 1:08:51
  several of them were nearly full term and showed signs of illegal
• 1:08:56
  abortion. Maybe they've been born alive,
• 1:08:58
  some of these babies from the Justice for the five expose.
• 1:09:01
  And you know, none of none of this, none of the butcheries,
• 1:09:05
  the the reality of what this clinic does and what was
• 1:09:08
  actually motivated invading these rescuers was allowed in
• 1:09:11
  the courtroom. And like you said, the reason
• 1:09:14
  for it, you know, it's propaganda.
• 1:09:15
  The judge called, I think live actions videos also propaganda.
• 1:09:19
  And she had no evidence for that.
• 1:09:20
  She had no reason. Oh, selectively edited.
• 1:09:22
  We have the full footage you could have submitted.
• 1:09:24
  Exactly, and we also tried to submit the full footage.
• 1:09:28
  Yes, it's insane. Yeah, we also tried to submit
• 1:09:31
  the full footage, but I believe they don't quote me on this.
• 1:09:34
  I think they said it was burdensome to watch the whole
• 1:09:36
  thing, so they won't watch the whole thing.
• 1:09:37
  But they also say that the small part is selectively edited, so.
• 1:09:41
  And so let's send these rescuers to jail for 11 years because we
• 1:09:44
  can't do our basic diligence as a courtroom.
• 1:09:47
  I mean, it's absolutely. Exactly.
• 1:09:50
  And the judge couldn't do her diligence in multiple areas.
• 1:09:53
  I mean, when Herb was testifying and said that there are abortion
• 1:09:57
  restrictions in DC and that partial birth abortion is
• 1:10:01
  banned, she said that doesn't apply here.
• 1:10:04
  That's, you know, that doesn't count, basically.
• 1:10:06
  And it was wild. Yeah, I didn't.
• 1:10:10
  She kind of mock him for having an opinion about abortion law,
• 1:10:13
  saying, well, you, you're not, you don't know what you're
• 1:10:15
  talking about. And he actually did, and she
• 1:10:16
  didn't. Yeah, so the prosecutor gets up
• 1:10:20
  there to cross examine Herb and he said are you aware that there
• 1:10:24
  are no abortion restrictions in the District of Columbia?
• 1:10:26
  And Herb said there are abortion restrictions in the District of
• 1:10:30
  Columbia. And the prosecutor continued to
• 1:10:33
  cut him off and say it's a yes or no question.
• 1:10:35
  It's a yes or no question. And Herb said there are abortion
• 1:10:38
  restrictions in the District of Columbia.
• 1:10:40
  And the judge turns in and said no, there are not.
• 1:10:43
  And he said partial birth abortion is banned federally.
• 1:10:46
  There's a federal law against it.
• 1:10:48
  And she said that's not in the District of Columbia.
• 1:10:50
  That doesn't apply here. And the shock that went over the
• 1:10:55
  faces of all the pro-life people sitting in the gallery.
• 1:10:58
  I mean, we were all wearing masks because it's required in
• 1:11:00
  the courtroom. But you could see everybody's
• 1:11:02
  face change still with a mask on.
• 1:11:04
  Be like, what is she talking about?
• 1:11:06
  Partial birth abortion. And the federal law against it
• 1:11:09
  definitely applies in the District of Columbia.
• 1:11:13
  And then she turned to Herb and said, well, I guess that you're
• 1:11:15
  going to be the legal expert here.
• 1:11:17
  And, you know, Herb didn't say this on the stand, but of course
• 1:11:21
  he's going to try and be a legal expert because it's his life on
• 1:11:25
  the line. It's 11 years of his life in
• 1:11:27
  jail that's on the line. And if she's not going to care
• 1:11:29
  about it, he clearly should. Unbelievable.
• 1:11:33
  All right, so you know, Lauren, you know Herb personally,
• 1:11:36
  Lauren, I think was your roommate.
• 1:11:39
  She's a friend. She's a colleague.
• 1:11:42
  What was it like for you as her friend watching her, watching
• 1:11:46
  Herb go through this and seeing your own friends hauled off to
• 1:11:52
  jail? Because that's what happened in
• 1:11:53
  the end. They, they convicted Lauren and
• 1:11:55
  then before they've even sentenced her.
• 1:11:57
  I mean, this is a non violent offender.
• 1:11:59
  She's not committed any act of violence.
• 1:12:01
  But because of the way this kangaroo court system worked,
• 1:12:04
  she was, she's literally in federal prison even before her
• 1:12:08
  sentencing. What?
• 1:12:09
  What's that been like for you on an emotional level?
• 1:12:14
  It's been really difficult for everybody involved just because
• 1:12:19
  obviously it's hard to see this happen.
• 1:12:21
  But at the same time, we are dedicated to radical joy and we
• 1:12:25
  know that any time that we step out in the public and we are
• 1:12:27
  joyful and we continue to fight abortion, we know that that is
• 1:12:32
  an act of resistance against these prosecutors and these
• 1:12:34
  crooked judges who want to see us beaten down and sad and give
• 1:12:38
  up. But we're not going to give up.
• 1:12:40
  We're going to continue to be here and we're going to continue
• 1:12:42
  to fight for the unborn. I know that on on the day that
• 1:12:46
  all the activists were taken away, Herb Garrity, Lauren
• 1:12:49
  Handy, Heather Idoni, Will Goodman and John Hinshaw, we had
• 1:12:54
  been waiting around for days in the cafeteria of the courtroom,
• 1:12:57
  just waiting to hear a decision while the jury was deliberating.
• 1:13:00
  And for us, you know it, it had been a couple days.
• 1:13:03
  So we thought to ourselves, well, that good, that's good.
• 1:13:05
  The jury is being diligent. They're they're really thinking
• 1:13:09
  about this is important. And of course, that's what we
• 1:13:11
  want because it's an important case.
• 1:13:14
  And we had heard that the jury gave a note to the judge.
• 1:13:17
  And beforehand when they done that, they were just asking a
• 1:13:20
  legal question about the statutes and other parts of the
• 1:13:23
  case. But this time they said they'd
• 1:13:26
  given the judge a note. And we all rushed up to the
• 1:13:29
  courtroom. We were waiting, and several of
• 1:13:31
  the activists were holding hands in the gallery, just waiting to
• 1:13:34
  hear what it was, hoping that at least one of them would get off
• 1:13:36
  on any single one of the charges.
• 1:13:39
  And, you know, the jury says guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty
• 1:13:44
  on every single charge. And I mean, I think we were all
• 1:13:47
  just too shocked to feel anything.
• 1:13:50
  I, that day, I was the one who was setting up the press
• 1:13:53
  conference as soon as the verdict came down.
• 1:13:56
  So as soon as they said they were all guilty, I mean, I, I
• 1:13:59
  couldn't feel anything. I was just numb.
• 1:14:00
  And so I was like, OK, I have to do this press conference.
• 1:14:02
  So I, I rushed outside. I went to get all the supplies
• 1:14:04
  for the press conference and I'd set it all up.
• 1:14:07
  And then it was taking a while for everyone to get out there.
• 1:14:10
  And, you know, I thought it would be quick.
• 1:14:11
  And so I was starting to get worried.
• 1:14:12
  And then Caroline comes out and she goes, she, they took them.
• 1:14:15
  And I was like, what do you mean?
• 1:14:16
  And she said they took them all. They arrested them.
• 1:14:19
  And apparently what had happened was the judge, as soon as the
• 1:14:22
  sentencing happened, said that there was a few matters she
• 1:14:24
  needed to research and that she was going to give us a couple
• 1:14:27
  minutes for a break. And when they came back in from
• 1:14:31
  that break, the judge said, actually, it turns out because
• 1:14:36
  of the charges and that you were found guilty on the force
• 1:14:38
  special finding under the face Act, you are going to jail now.
• 1:14:41
  And, oh, it's out of my control. There's nothing I can do about
• 1:14:44
  it. When she clearly was happy to
• 1:14:46
  see that this was happening. And the prosecutors also
• 1:14:49
  advocated for them to be sent to jail during sentencing, even
• 1:14:51
  though they were clearly nonviolent and dedicated to
• 1:14:54
  nonviolence. And I will note that when Herb
• 1:14:58
  was on the stand and he was asked about whether he was
• 1:15:00
  committed to nonviolence, he tried to say several times, I'm
• 1:15:04
  the director of an organization who specific our specific
• 1:15:08
  purpose is to fight violence and to be nonviolent.
• 1:15:11
  And the prosecutors objected many times and said this is an
• 1:15:15
  argument for good deeds about the defendant and it's not
• 1:15:19
  relevant to the case. But then in the end, when they
• 1:15:22
  were found guilty and they were accused of being violent,
• 1:15:27
  clearly it wasn't just good deeds, it was something
• 1:15:31
  pertinent to the case. So the rescuers were taken away
• 1:15:34
  before sentencing, which is very abnormal when they haven't been
• 1:15:38
  held during the trial and before the trial.
• 1:15:41
  Usually if they're going to be held after, after the
• 1:15:44
  conviction, it's only if they've been found to be a risk during
• 1:15:48
  the trial or before the trial. So for us, this clearly seems
• 1:15:53
  like a political move. They're trying to scare us.
• 1:15:55
  They're trying to hurt our activists.
• 1:15:57
  And I mean it, it's been hard since then.
• 1:16:03
  I think that it's hit, you know, it's hit us all very hard seeing
• 1:16:09
  our friends be treated this way. At the same time, the rescue
• 1:16:13
  doesn't end when you go to jail. We've been in contact with
• 1:16:16
  Lauren every single day and she's telling us here's what you
• 1:16:19
  should do on the POW website and here's what our new campaign
• 1:16:22
  should look like. And she's not done in the
• 1:16:24
  pro-life movement. She's still organizing.
• 1:16:26
  And we've set up an inside, outside organizing structure so
• 1:16:29
  that she can continue to contribute even after she's been
• 1:16:33
  put in jail. And you know, we are all just
• 1:16:38
  fighting so hard right now. Our vision is so clear for the
• 1:16:40
  future. We need to repeal the FACE Act.
• 1:16:43
  And we know that if we continue our efforts, the FACE Act is
• 1:16:46
  done for. And babies and all these states
• 1:16:48
  where they cannot currently be saved will be rescued.
• 1:16:51
  And I just have a lot of hope for the future.
• 1:16:56
  I do too, Kristen. I do too.
• 1:16:57
  I think the face axe days are numbered.
• 1:17:00
  I think that these convictions will be overturned.
• 1:17:03
  I think these, you know, they will.
• 1:17:05
  There's certainly appeals happening, but I think there
• 1:17:07
  will be pardons in the future. It's absolutely insane that it's
• 1:17:10
  gotten to the place that it's at.
• 1:17:12
  But I so admire the courage of the rescuers.
• 1:17:16
  I admire your courage. How can people follow your work,
• 1:17:20
  Kristen, and support your working pal?
• 1:17:24
  So currently, there's still three other rescuers on trial
• 1:17:28
  and there will be one more rescuer on trial for the same
• 1:17:31
  rescue. So they ended up splitting into
• 1:17:33
  three cases. Right now, Jonathan Darnell,
• 1:17:37
  Joan Andrews Bell and Jean Marshall are on trial and later
• 1:17:41
  Paulette Harlow will be on trial.
• 1:17:43
  So continue to support these rescuers.
• 1:17:46
  You can catch up with the trial and see what's going on by
• 1:17:49
  following Powell on social media.
• 1:17:51
  Our handle on every social media platform, Facebook, Instagram,
• 1:17:55
  Twitter, TikTok, all of that is POW now PAAUNOW and you can
• 1:18:01
  follow us anywhere online. And then we also have a new
• 1:18:05
  Twitter account that is specifically for following
• 1:18:07
  updates on whether the FACE Act will be repealed.
• 1:18:10
  So you can follow us there. If you type in POW repeal face
• 1:18:13
  updates, it's right there on Twitter.
• 1:18:15
  And we have a lot of big stuff coming, a lot of big stuff ahead
• 1:18:19
  of us. And I really do believe that
• 1:18:23
  rescue will live on. And we're hopeful of this
• 1:18:26
  because rescue is not just a tactic.
• 1:18:29
  Rescue is a way of life. And it is, in the words of John
• 1:18:33
  Hinshaw, one of the rescuers in jail right now, the most
• 1:18:36
  psychologically appropriate response to what is happening to
• 1:18:40
  the killing of little babies. And we know that if a baby is
• 1:18:43
  dying, we must step in and do something about it.
• 1:18:45
  So if you want to keep up with our work, follow us on social
• 1:18:48
  media. We have lots of good stuff
• 1:18:50
  always coming out. We are constantly updating our
• 1:18:53
  website, posting new content, explaining rescue, telling you
• 1:18:57
  how you can get involved. And really anybody who's willing
• 1:19:00
  to put their hand in the circle and say I'm willing to help is
• 1:19:04
  really amazing. So thank you for the support
• 1:19:07
  already and for anybody who is watching this who wants to
• 1:19:09
  support us. Thank you Kristen, and people
• 1:19:12
  can donate, right? People can donate to POW your
• 1:19:14
  5O1C3 and that will help your activists be able to do their
• 1:19:19
  courageous work to reach more people with the truth about
• 1:19:22
  abortion and get more progressives as part of the
• 1:19:25
  pro-life movement. Yeah, so currently we have a
• 1:19:29
  resource on our Instagram that gives you information about how
• 1:19:33
  to donate to all the rescuers who are in jail to help them,
• 1:19:37
  you know, make phone calls and get food.
• 1:19:39
  And we also need donations at POW.
• 1:19:42
  We have a lot of big work coming ahead.
• 1:19:44
  And our activists actually all live in one space together.
• 1:19:49
  We are in a community together. So if you want to fund our
• 1:19:51
  community and help us to continue doing direct action to
• 1:19:55
  continue to forge a path forward in the pro-life movement and to
• 1:19:58
  save babies, donations are always a great way to do that.
• 1:20:02
  Thank you so much, Kristen. Godspeed.
• 1:20:06
  Thank you so much. Well, that was inspiring.
• 1:20:11
  Talking to Kristen, it's clear that she is compelled by a deep
• 1:20:15
  love and conviction about the value of every child in every
• 1:20:19
  life. And I think that's something we
• 1:20:21
  can all share. Love and a care for those that
• 1:20:26
  are most vulnerable and something that we can also
• 1:20:28
  prayerfully consider. You know, what's my role in the
• 1:20:30
  movement, in the pro-life movement?
• 1:20:32
  What can I do to love that child and love that mother and love
• 1:20:36
  that family that's in need? I think we all have a role to
• 1:20:39
  play in the pro-life movement. It's going to look different for
• 1:20:41
  all of us, but I think we all have a role to play.
• 1:20:44
  So I'm just very grateful for the diversity of this movement,
• 1:20:48
  about how many different people have different calls and
• 1:20:52
  important approaches, all of them nonviolent, of course, to
• 1:20:54
  love and serve the preborn child and to advocate for their right
• 1:21:00
  to live. You can check out Powell's work
• 1:21:02
  at the link in the bio. Also, liveaction.org, my
• 1:21:06
  organization, which is reaching millions of people every single
• 1:21:08
  week with the truth about abortion.
• 1:21:10
  And we're also reporting heavily on these cases over at Live
• 1:21:14
  Action News Go check it out. Thank you all so much for
• 1:21:17
  listening. A huge shout out and a huge
• 1:21:19
  thank you huge to our new patron, to our new Patreon
• 1:21:24
  supporters. You guys are awesome.
• 1:21:26
  I really appreciate you. We are growing our Patreon.
• 1:21:29
  We're going to be doing an exclusive live stream at the end
• 1:21:33
  of this month for new patrons. So go check out our Patreon at
• 1:21:37
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• 1:21:40
  We'd love your support so we can help growing, help to grow the
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  Give us five stars and leave a review that will help the
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• 1:22:02
  aware about what's happening right now in the Pearl of
• 1:22:04
  movement. Thank you all so much and we'll
• 1:22:05
  see you next time.