Alexandra DeSanctis is a colleague of Jay’s at National Review. A recent graduate of Notre Dame, she is a William F. Buckley fellow at NRI (the National Review Institute). She is especially knowledgeable about the “life” issues. About abortion in particular. Also, she has been on the beat of Planned Parenthood, doggedly. She and Jay talk about that organization, and about abortion, etc.

“Is this dinner-table conversation?” Jay asks at the end. Is abortion a topic for polite company? For a podcast? In any event, it’s an important one. Both Jay and his guest are pro-life, or anti-abortion, if you like. (Jay will even accept “anti-choice,” on the subject of abortion.) But perhaps even the other side will be interested in what they have to say. To “know where they’re coming from,” as was said, once upon a time.

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There are 8 comments.

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  1. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    When listening to this podcast I thought of another angle with abortion… especially when Jay would so gallantly defer to his female guest.

    One of the reasons that abortion is protected so fiercely by the Left is that it shifts the responsibility for pregnancy solely to the woman.

    For some reason, Democrats find this empowering, but it essentially makes the man unnecessary…

    Perhaps this is lauded because women are told they should embrace sexual permissiveness with abandon?  Idk.  My sense is they feel this choice creates a strange new form of gender “equality” by removing the cumbersome chains of tradition.

    Regardless, a man is not allowed to have any voice because he has no womb.  That’s a woman’s realm: the destruction of his infant.

    This is, btw, somewhat strange logic because if the woman gives birth to a live child, the man is supposed to contribute financially, though government programs also make it quite quite easy to remove him from the picture.

    Anyway, I was pro-choice as a young woman.  Everyone I knew in college was pro-choice.  Then I was pregnant, and I really thought about abortion outside the abstract… Outside the Fast Times at Ridgemont High presentation of “choice”...  Not sorta thought about it either.  Truly considered what it all meant.

    I’ve been pro-life ever since.

    Also, I believe Cecile Richards has had an abortion, so it seems logical she’d want to believe that her choice was no big deal, yes?

    • #1
  2. Michael Collins Member
    Michael Collins
    @MichaelCollins

    Thank you for this podcast about something that is rarely discussed.  Apparently it takes a certain kind of courage to bring this subject up.  Why is that?

    • #2
  3. connorfamilyr1 Coolidge
    connorfamilyr1
    @connorfamilyr1

    Great podcast. I’m so hopeful for the pro-life/anti-abortion movement, really seems to have gained momentum after the election.

    I guess I have to give Trump credit for this, he often fumbled over his words and explanations, but his unapologetic Pro-Life stance was refreshing. Really opened up the debate, the brutish way PE Trump presents himself really provides cover for others in the movement.

    It’s hard to imagine Speaker Ryan being able to take a hard stance on his CNN Town Hall just 18 months ago and so much support for the GOP defunding Planned Parenthood. Really feels like a turning point in the debate for us Pro Lifers!

    Paul Ryan pressed on Planned Parenthood CNN

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKPfstUV-Ig

    • #3
  4. LesserSon of Barsham Member
    LesserSon of Barsham
    @LesserSonofBarsham

    Excellent podcast as usual! I had to pause at the close of the adoption discussion to post this. My wife and I are in the middle of the process of adoption. The process of adoption is long, full of paperwork, very personal questions, and decisions that in a regular pregnancy don’t have to be made. During the home study and paperwork side of things I would oscillate between, “Yeah, I understand why they have to do this,” and “Two drug addicts can make a baby and we have to beg for permission to be parents!” We began with the intention of adopting domestically (never liked that term, sounds like it’s for cats or something) but eventually made our way to adopting internationally. There is more than one reason but one of the big ones is both good and bad, and I’m not sure how to square this particular circle. It is very difficult to sever the rights of parents in the United States. As a matter of principle I think this is good. The government shouldn’t have the power to remove children from parents in the most final legal sense very easily, but on the other hand it makes adoption more difficult. You can go through the entire process, spend thousands and thousands of dollars and in the end the child be returned to their biological parents. Again, I’m conflicted.  Where do you draw the line with “bad” parents? cont…

    • #4
  5. LesserSon of Barsham Member
    LesserSon of Barsham
    @LesserSonofBarsham

    cont…

    Internationally, the children that are available for adoption are already in a position to be adopted so their biological parents have almost assuredly either had their parental rights severed by the State or they have signed those rights away willfully. This too is not without its complications. My wife and I found out just yesterday that the country we were intending on adopting from (who already has all of our paperwork in hand) has utterly changed how they are going to proceed with international adoption and as a result we may find ourselves almost at the beginning all over again after more than a year. It is, without question, extremely stressful and emotionally painful to adopt (this ignores the financial portion completely).

    cont…

    • #5
  6. LesserSon of Barsham Member
    LesserSon of Barsham
    @LesserSonofBarsham

    What is interesting, and a little more in line with the discussion, is some of the things we had to sign in order to adopt through our agency. We are not allowed to post pictures, names or detailed information about our adoption once we have been matched with children. Why? Because “Anti-adoption” exists. My curiosity took over and I started searching the internet and found two major reasons. The first is tied to abortion. Pro-Abortion activists of a certain bent will proclaim that “Adoption is not an answer to Abortion!”  Because it hurts their cause they will openly advocate against it, and harass on social media those who adopt apparently, so much so our adoption agency puts in their contract that you are not to put information about the children on social media including their pictures until the adoption is final. The second reason is tied to leftists/marxists who paint adoption as “colonialism” and “a tool of the bourgeoisie to steal children from the poor.” After about 30 minutes of searching the internet I closed my laptop and decided to never search for that again. Adoption is difficult for a myriad of reasons, I’m not really surprised that more people don’t do it. Not because they don’t have the heart for children in need, but because sometimes the process is more than people feel they can take.

    • #6
  7. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    @lessersonofbarsham

    First, I hope that God leads you to your son or daughter soon.  Second, I understand your conflict over domestic adoptions, but one of my dearest friends who went international summed it up nicely for herself.  She said the birth pains she had felt over the long years pursuing adoption had been too hard and painful to even contemplate losing her baby in the end because someone simply “changed her mind.”

    However, I totally get that going to other countries is not easy either.

    She shared the documentary Stuck with me, and she has said she feels the US State Department would be fine with simply shutting this option down.

    Then I read this article in The Federalist, and I wondered if she was right even though I do understand it’s complicated: http://thefederalist.com/2016/11/02/obama-administration-make-international-adoption-lot-harder/

    Hang in there.

    • #7
  8. Lazy_Millennial Inactive
    Lazy_Millennial
    @LazyMillennial

    Great podcast as always. Small note: heads up @jaynordlinger , “retarded” is now another one of those words you’re not supposed to say. The thought police usually suggest “differently abled”, but I find “mentally handicapped” and or “physically handicapped” aren’t objected to, and “disabled/disability” is also still ok.

     

    • #8
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