 I love technology. So Mary, how are you? I'm well. Thank you for having me on your show, Eric. Excellent. Excellent. Everyone, in case, I don't know if it was playing or not, now I can't tell. So this is Mary Bearworth. She is the Executive Director of Vermont Right to Life. And I'm super to have, I'm super excited to have her on tonight to talk about abortion going in our Constitution, abortion going in the Constitution, that being the thing. But also just generally, what are we seeing and what kinds of things are we dealing with in government and corporate corruption around the abortion industry? So this is not meant to be a morality conversation about abortion itself. We may have some conversation about that. This is really what place does it have in the Constitution? What kinds of things are we seeing as being a problem in Vermont in the way that the industry is run? And so if you would, Mary, take a moment and introduce yourself and tell everybody a little bit about what you do and what your organization does. Well, I'm the Executive Director of Vermont Right to Life. I've been at this starting as a volunteer in the early 1980s and became the Executive Director of a full-time position in 1996. So this is coming up on 25 years of trying to promote respect for human life from the moment of conception. And I know people think that the Vermont Right to Life Committee is only about abortion, but we have from the earliest days always defended the right to life of those who are unborn, the newly born, especially the disabled newly born at risk of infanticide and the elderly at risk of euthanasia at the end of their lives. And so it's a really comprehensive, seeking legal protection for the most vulnerable among us. We understand the situation here in Vermont. It's a highly heavily pro-choice state, pro-abortion state, I should say. And so the work has taken us further into an educational mode than a legislative. However, we do keep an eye on the state house where the largest single provider of abortions, Planned Parenthood, is a dominant force, political force inside the state house, and yet they use the wealth and the money that they have to exert an almost unbelievable pressure on legislators to vote, to protect actually their business. So just to give you an idea of a few things, Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the state of Vermont, the United States of America, and in the world. They, in Vermont, they have more Planned Parenthood clinics per capita than California has. So they are heavily funded by our taxpayer dollars. They were partly federal dollars in the last year that was taken over by our state dollars. We fund them to the tune of about $1.4 million a year. That money, it frees up their private funding so that they can be engaged in politically. So hold, so I'm going to interrupt you just a second and forgive me. I forgot to preppy for this part. I might interrupt you and ask you questions and we'll come back to it. Don't tell me that you need to finish after. So we give $1.5 million in Vermont taxpayer dollars, not federal dollars, but Vermont taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood. Did they spend almost half a million dollars running someone against Phil Scott a few years ago? They did, even though Phil Scott declared himself to be pro-choice. He's now proven that. And Vermont Right to Life said he was pro-choice. And yet they hammered down on him because, once upon a time, Phil Scott had supported notifying the parents of a minor daughter before she had an abortion that was all very connected to the safety of the young girl and parental rights and responsibility for the care of the child. So he thought that it was an issue that a parent be told that a medical procedure was being done on their daughter. They have a problem with that. He is young as 12. Yeah. Planned Parenthood stated in testimony that their clients are as young as nine. Now, some of these girls could be the victim of an abusive family member or abusive boyfriend or whatever. And so keeping secrets from parents is just an unhealthy and dangerous place for us to be on abortion covers up a crime, potentially. I mean, especially when you're talking about girls as young as 12. So those kind of issues compelled Phil Scott. He in the last session in 2019, he signed a bill that ignored any of the rights of parents and he even allowed abortion right up until the ninth month of pregnancy. So we feel he's now totally in the Planned Parenthood camp. Yeah, sounds like it. But that's kind of the result of spending something like a half a million dollars against him at election time, I would say. So, well, it boggles my mind that they seem to need. I mean, I used to donate to Planned Parenthood and they said they needed the money for saving services and things like that. But it sounds like what they were spending my money on was political campaigns so they could get money from the government instead. So twice nationally, there's a national and an international Planned Parenthood. And twice the president of the National Planned Parenthood tried to steer Planned Parenthood toward becoming more of a focus on their health care side of things and they were both let go because Planned Parenthood is a political machine and they want to and they want someone at the helm that understands that clearly. So that is fascinating. So, OK, I, OK, some of this is just when you hear it, you just go, OK, so you might be pro choice, but you would think that people would have a problem with that kind of influence over government. Sure, but what goes on inside the statehouse is not there's no light shining on what's going on inside. So, so here we just did a public opinion poll a year ago, a year ago this month. And what we found was that Vermonters say they're pro choice. We all understand that by pretty high numbers. But then when you get down to the nitty gritty, do they support parental involvement laws? Yes, do they do they want to pay? Do they want taxpayer funding of abortion? No, do they want restrictions and regulations later in the pregnancy? Yes, do they want health and safety concerns to be addressed? Do they want more information and alternatives? Yes, yes, yes. I mean, so so what we have is a it's a great divide. So inside the statehouse, there's a pro abortion force Planned Parenthood. In fact, Erica, I'm going to tell you something that my coworker witnessed firsthand, they had a rally in 2019 to kick off their their the promotion of age 57, unlimited unregulation, abortion legislation, which they successfully got. And this is how they kicked it off. The leader of Planned Parenthoods came in and said, who loves abortion? And the whole crowd cheered, we do, we do. So is that what the average Vermonter thinks about abortion? No, they think it's a tragic, sad reality. They believe it needs to be legal. They want women protected and they want onborn babies to get a chance at life. If that's what we can reasonably help a woman decide to do. And they certainly think a minor can't make this big a decision for the rest of her life and unchangeable, irreversible decision. Yeah, we've got the numbers on that. Not only that, but a dangerous medical procedure that can cause death. I mean, that's well, the surgical procedures if they're shifting much more to a medical abortion for those early abortions, there there's a chemical cocktail that you take that that is more and more being substituted for the surgical procedure. And you take and you get the round of pills and you take them at home. And at some point over the 24, 40, eight hours or maybe even a week later, you expelled the no longer living unborn child. So, yeah, but that's and that's I mean, that's some of it. It's so, oh my God, I just have to say to be to be perfectly honest and fair about, you know, where I come from and where I land on some of this stuff. You know, I spent a long time just not really getting into the conversation, avoiding it as much as possible. Like I think most people do. You know, it's very it's faux pas, right? It's not something that people feel good about. And I always love this. People go, oh, we got to take away the stigma of an abortion. And I'm like, okay, well, if that's the case, then why don't care when people have miscarriages? If it's just a clump of cells and it's not and it's not to be more than why do we mourn when people have miscarriages? Exactly. And we do feel great for them. That just I totally was going to say something else. And then, oh, this is what it was. And I got sidetracked. So I watched a video that I found on YouTube of a doctor talking about the various procedures. And I was pretty horrified. And I said I didn't want this to turn into a moral conversation or, you know, be medically gross. But I mean, it really is like, I realized how much I had to stay ignorant. Like I had like, there was so much information out there about Planned Parenthood and about, you know, some of these election schemes where they're helping get people elected, who then turn around and write them grants and bills and the legislature and things like that. It's all out there if you look for it. And I think people just don't look for it. No, it's a painful subject. You know, but we the way we see things is we want to promote the beauty of human life at the moment of conception. So that coming from not a negative perception, but from a positive perception that we can move the culture to a culture that reveres that child from the moment of conception and gets excited. I mean, it's exciting. And what we need is an organization, not Planned Parenthood, that has one choice they're offering women, but someone who has a more balanced perspective, like if you went to your own OBGYN, they have no real vested interest in whether you carry your baby to term or have an abortion. So they might say to you, look, look, Erica, you know, how will you feel about this 10 years down the road, 20 years down the road? Do you have an older sister who maybe can't have a baby that might like to adopt this child? And you would still be involved. Send you to places that have resources. We have 11 or 12 now crisis resource pregnancy centers in the state. And they really, oh, yes. And it's all without any taxpayer funding. So, so what are we doing? Why are we funding the organization that offers one choice? So wait, hold on. Okay. I'm sorry. Hold on. I shouldn't have interrupted you. I feel like you're just going to like drop a bomb there. So we don't give any money to pregnancy resource centers. That's right. But we give 1.5 million to Planned Parenthood alone. Yeah. Well, that's what this, so the, so in Sandra Day O'Connor, who was a former, you know, member of the Supreme Court, yes. She said in, in, I believe it was Planned Parenthood versus Casey. She said states have the right to prefer childbirth over abortion in public policy. And very clearly, and it's actually been stated, Vermont has decided to, to prefer abortion over childbirth. So is that how most Vermonters really feel? I don't think so. I think, isn't there something that, that has already had to be apologized for in the state of Vermont? That sounds something really a lot like that. For the state sanctioning of the eugenics project, which is a whole talk I give if anyone wants to have a speaker, but it's, it's, it started with trying to cleanse the gene pool in Vermont. And so families were broken up, largely minority families, French, Canadian missionaries, Abnaki tribes, and, and they were rounded up and put in all these different various state run programs and homes. And their condition of their release was that they would be voluntarily sterilized. Well, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was instrumental in that program. And here in Vermont, she had direct ties to Henry Perkins, who was the UVM guy who promoted all these eugenics programs and is now, UVM has had to apologize for not only his involvement, but for the money and all the services they used to back him up as he broke up these families. And in the spirit of these, these sort of tribes and people were less than, they weren't, they, we didn't want their pride to name because they were, and they all had one thing in common. I do want to say this, they, they were from various backgrounds. They were called gypsies. They were derogatory names were, were identified by state government officials, but they did have one thing in common, they were all poor. So it was this white, wealthy privileged people deciding who was going to live and who was going to die. And Planned Parenthood has never apologized for their connection to that eugenics project or for their founder, Margaret Sainter. That is amazing. And this is, you can go to the UVM eugenics, look up UVM and eugenics and you'll find Margaret Sainter's communications with Henry Perkins and this whole thing is all documented. Oh my God. Yeah. Well, the, the, once the project fell apart and was exposed as phony science and the horror of it all came out. They, the members of the eugenic project packed everything up in boxes and stuffed it in an attic in the UVM library and two researchers came across all of the proof of what had really happened. And so there's books written and it's all documented too. That is insane and horrifying. They're working to, to apologize for that. Now that project took place 100 years ago in Vermont and we were not the only state that was involved in eugenics. Some of the other states have apologized. So we're overdue for apologizing. Our stance on that is keep the paperwork because in a hundred years you're going to be apologizing again. Oh my gosh. That is wild. I have said, oh, I don't want to get off the track. I, well, maybe we'll come back around. I was going to say, I, well, no, I'll say it. I don't care. I'll say it. So I went, you know, I've had arguments with folks who think that we should defund the police and they say to me, well, don't you know that it was founded by, for racist reasons? And therefore we should, you know, dismantle the whole thing. And I go, okay, well, let's say, okay, now can we do that with your thing too? And they go, what do you mean? And I said, well, Planned Parenthood was founded by a vicious racist to kill black people and brown people. So should we defund Planned Parenthood? And they just were like, oh my God, you suck. You screwed you. And I was like, you know, you just, you, I'm just saying. If we're going to have that logic, what's that? I have an interesting thing to share with you. I had a call from a UVM student who's pro-life and she wanted to challenge the other side to a debate on abortion. And so I said, sure, we'll get you a speaker. I'll do it whatever, ask him, set it up. Well, the answer came back from the pro-choice, pro-abortion side. We can't have a debate because there aren't two sides. There's only one side to the issue. It's like, what? Yes. Yes. We cannot debate abortion because there's only one side. So. Wow. Wow. Okay. Um, that is, um. It's a 45 year debate in the United States history. And it's one of the top 10 issues in every single election, every race, all the way down to state legislature. And there's only one side. So we have a lot of work to do and we know it. Fascinating. Well, it really is, you know, the thing you mentioned earlier was your organization has kind of pivoted from legislation to education. I'm trying to remember if we were talking about it before we went live or if it was after. But you talked about like you, you're really more about education now. And it's always been, we've had a, we've had two pronged approach. We've been in the legislature with a 501c4, the Vermont Right to Life Commitment. And we've had for decades now a Vermont Right to Life Educational Trust Fund, which we put on conferences. We're at all the fairs. We have chapters and that's all part of the educational trust. So it's always been a two pronged approach. I feel like that's really important to do if you're going to fight the culture. You know, our culture, particularly in Vermont, is if you have an oopsie, then you just go get an abortion. That's just what you do. And there isn't, I mean, obviously we don't fund pregnancy resource centers, but we do fund Planned Parenthood. So they're at college dorm, you know, colleges and, you know, advertising. That's where people go. And, you know, High schools and middle schools, Erica, too. So, you know, I just think about, you know, my own personal experience. I have, I had an abortion when I was younger. And if I knew then what I know now, I would certainly have made a different decision. But at that time, you know, I didn't get counseling when I went in there. I wasn't told that there were other options, that there were people out there who wanted to help me or that I didn't have to do it alone. And so I want to circle back around to what you said was, it doesn't really sound like it's a choice. They say that they're pro-choice, but the culture and the government is really only giving women one choice. Well, and Erica, I want to say I'm sorry that you had that experience. You're certainly, certainly not alone. And I certainly understand it. There are, those of us in the pro-life movement are only here because we totally understand walking through that door with the pressure, the incredible pressure to solve everyone else's problems by cleaning up, you know, the situation. Yep. And they'll talk about, people will talk about it just like that too. You know, the, yes, exactly. And we know, I know from hundreds of stories. I mean, I just literally know so many stories. And often the boyfriend is pressuring. The father of the baby has so much at stake. And that abortion can make this all go away. He doesn't have to pay child support, doesn't have to tell his parents, doesn't have to raise a child. And so the pressure becomes extraordinarily intense. The highest number of abortions are performed on college age girls. That they have just hit the college of parents are all proud. They're in college. Now they've got their education at risk. The boyfriend pressuring walking in and finding out there's like a subtle, here's what we offer at Planned Parenthood. And here's the thing that's sad to me is that there are states, Massachusetts for one, where they have programs on the college campus. So you do not have to sacrifice your education. They provide housing and daycare and help for you to have that baby and finish your education. So wouldn't that be a novel idea for Vermont? Wow. Yeah. And we have something like that with the Lund Family Center. They are excellent at counseling girls who have decided to carry their babies. They provide a lot of resources and adoption services. That's a whole nother topic about, and we, Vermont Right to Life was part of working to change the adoption laws so that it's not punishing for a person to decide they want to give the baby up for adoption. They get to write how they want that adoption to look. Do they want pictures? Do they want to see the child? Do they want, you know, do they want to keep it private? You could absolutely say I don't want anything to do. I'm going to give this baby up and I don't want to have any contact. So there's lots of lots of new ways, but we don't seem to ever have those conversations with girls at the panic point that they're at when they have to make this decision. Well, and that's such a good point. What, you know, you said what a panic point, right? Because I know, I definitely felt panicked. I definitely felt like, like this was a life altering decision and I was terrified. And like a lot of women, I'm sure say, you know, I was with a guy who was not a good guy, which, you know, nobody was talking to me about why I was dating a deadbeat. But that's another story. You're alone. You're not alone. You know, you're like, Oh my God, what am I going to do all this stuff? So you're actually making a decision under duress. And so you're making a decision under duress. Oh my God. And then they let children make that decision under duress. Oh my God. Oh, okay. Alone. Oh my God. I'm going to have a heart attack. Okay. So yeah, so I do want to say of all the women I've talked to that the ironic thing is that nearly every story ends with saying, Mary, I just felt I had no choice. So why are we promoting choice? And then women are coming back years later saying I just felt I had no choice. That breaks my heart. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life working to change what we're looking at here. So I'll give you some good news though, Erica, because yeah, I think so. So when I first started in the 80s, the number of abortions here in Vermont were at 3,500. And that number today is down to 1,155. Are you serious? No, I'm very serious. And that takes into account all fluctuations of population. It is a real drop. And I believe that it's still way too many. Of that 1,100 abortions, Planned Parenthood does 90% of those abortions. The hospital does some and then there's a couple of doctor's offices. But primarily Planned Parenthood has a monopoly on abortion business here. Is that why they need to be enshrined in the Constitution? They're like, dang it, we're doing 2,000 less abortions. We need to put it in the Constitution. Well, okay, so we, which already shielded the abortion business from any government oversight, we will not know under age 57 what's going on inside of it. That is not what it says. That is not what it says. Oh yeah, it's an unregulated, unlimited abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. So we already have that in statute. Wait, but they're not regulated? We got to go back to that part. What is that? Yeah, Planned Parenthood may well have their own regulations as like a chain of abortion clinics. Like if you were to get a McDonald's franchise, you would, yeah. But there's no state oversight. No, none. Wait, there's no state oversight? Like you mean like like an architecture board or like the AICPA or, I don't know. There's no, we had 10 amendments to age 57 that there would be an ultrasound that there would be health and safety standards that parents would be notified that, and I earlier, you and I talked about Patricia Blair and the fetal homicide law, which 38 other states have. So if someone comes up to a pregnant woman, punches her in the stomach, kills her baby, there's criminal charges for killing the baby. Again, poll numbers show total support. That was rejected on the floor of the house. Wow, we can't even agree on that. I mean, a mother chooses to have her baby. One of the saddest stories of all, if you look up Bennington babies in Vermont, look up Patricia Blair, she lost her much loved already wanted loved twins at 25 weeks by cause a driver who had already had a prior record of driving impaired on drugs smashed into her car, forcing the steering wheel into her stomach and her beautiful viable babies were killed. And so that prompted a discussion in the state house of whether we could exempting abortion, but charge someone with a crime who caused the death through negligence or homicide of wanted unborn babies. And Planned Parenthood stepped in and they refused to do anything. And that was in 2009, Patricia Blair. See, this is what is, okay. So this is one of the things that I talk to people about. And I say, the abortion bill literally removes the personhood status of an unborn baby. And so now, and no one and people are like, no, it doesn't, that's not true. And I'm like, yeah, it is. It's in the fricking news. There's a story about it happening. You can go look it up. And they're like, no, no. I'm like, yeah. Like you can be for, I think what most people in general, and you can correct me. I think most people are like, first time after abortion, okay, fine. When you can go take the pills and you can't really tell it's a person, then it's okay. And then when you get to the point where it's a person, not okay. When it's a wanted baby, not okay. When you can't just kill somebody's kids and think that that's okay. Well, Patricia Blair will be the third instance in Vermont where they tried to get justice for an unborn baby. Way back in the 80s, a woman was punched in the stomach by her abusive boyfriend who did not want that baby. And the cause of death by the medical examiner was blunt force trauma of the little girl. And the court said, we can't do anything. Our hands are tied. And they said, we look to the legislature to take action. And that's now repeated itself a few times and they refuse to act. And it is Planned Parenthood who stands in the way. So just a few little facts though. Yeah. Life on the womb is just a fascinating story. And you can go to Vermont rate to life's website, vrlc.net. And we have lots of information there. But that little heart is beating at 24 days after conception, beating regularly. So there's always a little bit of circulation of blood or else the baby can't start, the embryo can't develop and subdivide. It's a rapid, amazing process. But at 24 days, most women cannot possibly pregnant at that point. But yes, there was broad agreement. It's four weeks. That's before you would even be late for your period. True. So then and then there was discussion over age 57 really centered on personhood. And we said at least at viability. Now an unborn child can feel pain between 21 and 23 weeks. And so there was great emotion on the floor for trying to establish personhood at least that second trimester point when the baby's viable outside the womb can feel pain and is viable. Yeah. So yeah, but all of those things were rejected. It's the way it is. So the things that we normally would be able to that normal people, regular vermonters, regular average vermonters agree on. They do. I mean, they're heavily pro-choice. I want to make sure that all of our polling comes in the same as anybody's other, you know, like Planned Parenthood polling would come in. Vermonters have a pro-choice. They will they will self identify as pro-choice. And then when you really get down to the nitty gritty, they're not they're not a Planned Parenthood kind of mentality about it. So what happened in the state house was that they got this monopoly on the abortion business got to shield their business. They use the state house to pass legislation that actually shields their business from government intervention or oversight of any kind. Now, if it goes into the Constitution, we're going to be talking about some very broad unforeseen, I believe, repercussions. The language is personal reproductive autonomy. We asked for definitions on that and the answer came back every time the courts will decide what personal reproductive autonomy means. No, actually, it's not it's not the court's job. Oh, my God, do you know, it's a no. It's like, oh, so they don't know how they don't know how government's supposed to work either. That's exactly right. I mean, you don't abdicate your authority to the courts. You want when when you amend the Constitution, you want language that's so incredibly clear, so concise, so tight that everybody knows what it means. They refuse to use the word abortion in either the purpose section of the amendment or in the actual language. Now, interestingly enough, the Attorney General's office thought that they should include abortion. The word abortion, the ACLU agreed, their own legislative council agreed, and Vermont right to life testified that, yes, they should clearly use the word abortion and the committee declined to use the word. So what do you think that is? I think they have a much broader agenda than just abortion. I think we are going to be looking at if something is a constitutional right. Your personal reproductive economy is a constitutional right. I think people need to just start imagining where that's going to take us. Now that they were clear, it includes sterilizations, birth control, and abortion. But it's going to mean, I believe, that we will be funding all abortions, that we will be paying for sterilizations, reversals of sterilizations, and then re-reversals of sterilizations, because if it's my personal reproductive autonomy and it's a constitutional right, how can I be guaranteed that unless somebody's paying for it? That's my take on it. Well, that's the whole point, though. That's what's funny about it, is when we're talking about constitutional rights, a constitutional right is something that we have just for being born a human being. It's life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Self-protection, right freedom of speech, all these things. All of those rights that are enumerated in the Constitution are not things that someone has to provide for me. When you say that an abortion or any of that stuff is a right, well, you're actually talking about something that you have to take from someone else to give it to you. So how is that even, that's not even something that should be in the Constitution. If you have to take from someone else to give it to you, or to give it to your take for yourself, that is literally the antithesis of a right. I know it's hard to wrap your mind around, but I want people to understand that you're going to see all you're going to see on your ballot in November of 2022 is this short phrase that includes personal reproductive autonomy and it's going to look like, yeah, sure. That's why they're going to do it. That's why they don't want to be specific. That's exactly right. And they have a larger agenda that they're looking for. Now, if you have a console, the other thing that they include very clearly is that you have the right to become pregnant when you want to be. Well, some people can't be pregnant when they want to be. So what are we going to be paying for there? How can you guarantee any of these things? And I think it's going to take us places we, and they said that in committee. So we transcribed a whole lot of the testimony and they very clearly said, Planned Parenthood most recently said, but one of their spokes people that the meaning of personal reproductive autonomy is something that will be up for discussion for lawmakers in the courts for decades to come. That's a that's an irresponsible use of a legislator's vote because if they don't know if the public is going to have before them something they can't understand the ramifications of then it's irresponsible to put it there in the first place. That's, this is all wild to me. It's all just wild, Mary. Like I just can't, I just can't even. So here is the thing. Okay, some of the stuff I just like for my brain. Okay, so we've got, so they're gonna, they're gonna try to put this thing in the Constitution, they're being intentionally vague so that when people vote for it, they, oh, of course I want personal reproductive autonomy, right? Right. So, okay, so I guess there are a lot, one of the things I hear all the time is that they're afraid that, you know, Roe vs. Wade is going to be overturned. And I go, okay, so Roe vs. Wade gets overturned. We're in Vermont. Like, they're all about abortion here. We're in no danger of our reproductive rights being infringed on. And if Roe vs. Wade gets overturned, all that does is return the subject to the states. I don't think people understand that if Roe vs. Wade gets overturned, that will affect nothing here. It's even, it's even more ludicrous than that. Because Vermont legalized abortion by Supreme Court order a year, a full year before Roe. So we already had court precedent. Should Roe vs. Wade be overturned, we already had. We still have. Yeah. And now we have age 57, which is now act 47. And that is a guarantee of unlimited unregulated abortion. So it's a super protected right already. So it's like wicked mega protected. It's yeah. It's yeah. So here's the thing. As soon as they passed the first round, so there's, there was a round of voting on last in 2019 on the constitutional amendment. They will vote on it one more time in 2020 or 2021 or 2022. And then it goes on the ballot. But the immediately planned parenthood jumped in front of the microphones and said, we just set an example for all the other states to follow by, by making this move to put it in our constitution. So, so it's always Vermont is the testing ground for an experimental thing that then they springboard to other states. Interestingly enough, the same year Maryland had an attempt to put abortion in their constitution. It never got out of committee because the dangers of it were just so obvious that they, they just tanked it. And Maryland has as liberal a legislature as we have. And yet it never made it out of committee. That is so fascinating. But we also have a wild over representation of Chittany County in the state house. So you have tons more senator. First of all, what's up with the senators being considered by apportionment as well? Like, come on guys, like, we're set up to fail. We're just set up to, we like Vermont has an example of why the electoral college exists. Because Chittany County basically decides what the rest of the state is going to do. And I, I, I find that deeply troubling that because you have a very liberal center with tons of college students that somehow they should get inside for the rest of the state. And we know the influence on those college students and on their thinking and they haven't paid taxes and they haven't confronted a baby. I mean, you know, you want to draw a crowd on a college campus, bring a newborn on, bring a newborn to a college campus. And you know what, it's like the crowd comes because they haven't even seen a baby in decades. So, you know, no, but really, I mean, we, we don't have the families where you saw, you know, the little baby brother or sister came along one when you're old enough to remember how precious the baby. So, you know what, none of this discourages me personally or the people who work for Vermont right to life because yeah, we've got our eyes on, on changing a culture and on getting that number of abortions to zero. And I don't actually care if it's legal or illegal. If Planned Parenthood could go out of business, I would be thrilled. And I think we would have a much more balanced, I think we better for women, better for their babies. If this political nature, this not health care organization was not the first place troubled kids turn to. See, that's, that's the thing. Like, like I, you said the most important thing, which is getting the number of abortions down to zero, because that is, that is the goal, right? You know, okay, yeah, sure, you'd like Planned Parenthood to go away, right? Obviously, because you would say, of course, you would think that. But really, it's about how do we prevent people, families, women, girls, and the fathers who often get overlooked in these conversations? How do we make it so people don't have to have that decision ever again? Like, why aren't we, what if we took all of that money, that $1.5 million that we give to Planned Parenthood and put it into programs for young people to help them build self-esteem and feel good about themselves and not feel the need to start having sex when they're teenagers and whatever to feel something, to feel loved and, you know. But it is Planned Parenthood in the schools preaching a very edgy sexual education. Once upon a time, they had a pamphlet out in California where sex is nature's way of saying hi. You know, I mean, this casual idea about sex when kids need to be focused on their careers, focused on being a mission-oriented, do something for your community. Instead, they're getting into terrible relationships and too early sexual activity, which leads to then, when they break up, they're too young for these emotions and they wind up in drug abuse, alcohol abuse, self-esteem problems. I mean, why are we doing this? The judgment portion of a child's brain isn't developed until 21, isn't even being finished developing until 21. So we are asking 12, 13, 14, I mean, they're having sex in these middle schools. I'm telling you, it's really crazy out there. And there's not really an effort to present another way forward to them. The shows that you know, the TV shows are all hypo... Oh my God. Oh my God. Mary, I'm sorry. I didn't think I was a brood. And so I like, there's, you know, my husband does action films and stuff like that. So when a new program comes out, he will see what it's about. So I don't know, like witches or I'm not going to be able to remember any of the names of it, but it's all like witches and stuff. And it's like everybody said, I was like, these are, wait, aren't these supposed to be teenagers? Why am I watching them have sex on the television? And they're teenagers. Okay. In this show, there's supposed to be teenagers, right? Yes. And they're having sex in the show. And it's like pretty graphic. Like, yeah, that's what they're, so I'm, I'm watching teenagers have sex and nobody thinks that's a problem. You know, and the only thing they're focused on Erica is that she, if she gets pregnant, they get an abortion form. And the parents need to understand the damage here. It goes way beyond a pregnancy. It goes way beyond getting her on the pill. This is, this is just all upside down and backward. And, and like you said, I feel like I'm approved, but come on, what are we teaching our kids? This is insanity. In some of the county schools, Planned Parenthood has sets up peer educators in South Burlington and Burlington. And they're there encouraging kids to go to Planned Parenthood. It's like a theater program. So is anybody in the schools talking to them about why like, I don't know, abstinence would be a good idea? That's just considered a joke. And even, and abstinence has become a word that's like, you know, but delaying until you can be responsible delaying until you have your education, you're, you've chosen your careers, you're, you know, you're thinking ahead and you're more mature and not with some guy that you're never going to be within the future. We can't even talk about delaying. That's what's going on right now. That's amazing. Okay. So that's crazy. I just, I'm, I'm, oh my God, I feel so bad for all of my friends who have kids. I do too. I really do. It makes me sad because, you know, these great little cheerful, lovely kids, they reckon their own futures. This is not good. It's just not, doesn't build healthy lifestyles. So before I forget to ask this question and forgive me if I've already asked this, but I think we got derailed a little bit. Why does it need to go in the Constitution? Like seriously? So we, we already know, right? I said it's not going to go if the, if Roe versus Wade gets overturned, it defaults to the states. The state already has precedent with the Supreme Court before Roe versus Wade. It's now H, Act 47, blah, blah, blah. So why? So like why? It can't, like why? Well, we touched on it a little bit when, when I said Planned Parenthood is kicking this off for other states to follow. They know but even that, but why? Like why though? Why? Like why at all? Why does it need to go in any Constitution? Clearly abortion does not belong in the Constitution. It's, it's, it's against science. We are now backing up viability further and further and further. We keep babies alive routinely who are miscarried or aborted at 21 to 23 weeks. That's going to keep pushing backward. We have saved babies that are smaller than the size of a Coca-Cola can. One little girl is smaller than a big apple and she is gone home from the hospital, not in Vermont, but, but there's a famous baby out there who was just this little tiny thing. And so there, this, they're on a collision course with science and it's just foolishness. Wait, science? Yeah. I thought they liked science. Indisputable and undeniable science. I thought they liked science. Sorry. There's no, there's 96% of biologists will tell you that life begins at the moment of conception. There's no other place to put the beginning of a human life. Now the other 4% are just playing politics, but, but that is, that is the broadest agreement you will get on anything to do with science that life begins at conception. So, so can we treat that with more respect? I am always struck when, and I love animals and I'm, you know, I love people's generous nature toward them. But when I see that folks are volunteering to shepherd salamanders across the road and save turtle eggs, I think where have we lost any sense that that is our, that those little babies are our brothers and sisters in the womb. They're part of the human family. They have never been before. They never will be again. It's a unique and unrepeatable human being. And can we put that baby on the scale of somewhere besides right now, which is minus zero? So hold on. I'm getting like weird spinning things happening. So, yes, I just want, I don't want to, I don't want to run. Literally is more action for baby animals than baby humans at this point. Oh, absolutely. Okay, let's see what's happening. Okay, it's doing weird spinning. I must be I'm having bad internet or something. Let's see. Do do do do. Okay, the little spinning things have stopped. So maybe it's catching up. I really just don't get the constitution thing. I just really don't get it. I just don't get it. I literally, like, so, so I would like to say this. So yeah, it passed in the Senate, 30 members of the Senate, 28 to two. Now, but the part of it that so that means even the Republicans all voted for it. Yes. And I do want to say and on behalf of some of the sitting senators, when you it's it's a form of arrogance to say, I'm not going to let the voters have a shot at voting on this. So, so for as you know, because it's going to go to the voters, it's going to be on our ballot. Now, they rushed this out of committee. We had they, they worked on this language with the attorney general. They had like the attorney general on retainer for the whole summer of 2018. And they worked on the language. They changed once they got into the state house, they changed it, changed it, changed it. We provided some excellent testimony from national experts. And a half an hour before it was supposed to be on the Senate submitted for notice on the Senate calendar, they made a final change. So there was no time to really look at the language and really study the repercussions of the final language. So, so we're going to be working really hard to point out that now, yeah, okay, fine, you, you thought maybe it was generous to let the voters have a chance to decide, but it's now when we really look at it, it's irresponsible for them to vote. Yes, again, on this legislation. So we will be working hard. That's very interesting. So and I forgot to say, if anybody's watching, you have any questions or comments or anything, please feel free to write them in the chat box. Let us know we can talk about it. I, I just feel like it's what's so fascinating too is even for folks that are like very libertarian, right? So many conservatives are pro life or lean pro life. But not all conservatives do libertarians often are pro choice. And I think that's why we have such why it's like not a big deal here, because whether you're a liberal, you know, or a libertarian, which Vermont culture is very libertarian. You just kind of want to leave people alone, like leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone. And so, yeah, oh, go ahead. Well, actually, in our polling, the independence attract very much along with what I was saying, they call themselves independence, but they, they are pro choice, but they still want some sensible regulations and oversight on what's happening. So they're, there is that same sense that you'll see it very not to ever so much with Democrats down in like the low 30s for some of the restrictions and regulations, but Republicans much higher and independence are right there. So that's really interesting. And I, I guess it just still shocks me so much because there's so many people who would rather just not have the conversation, you know, liberals. It's tough. And so, and so that's why, why make it, why make such a big deal? You know, like, well, we're gonna, we're gonna, do they just count, do they just count on people being, and I'm going to be, I'm going to be really rude here right now. Do they just count on people to be not paying attention? Is that what this is? Because I would think that if most people don't agree with that stuff, right? If most people are not for full term abortions, if most people are not for letting nine year olds get an abortion without their parents permission, why on God's green earth would you make such a huge deal? And well, remember, they didn't use the word abortion. They used personal reproductive autonomy. So it's going to be our job to tell them what that really means. And Erica, we're going to take that as a huge opportunity to have a conversation with as many households as we can. And we're going to try to bring that unborn baby into the picture and, and stir a conversation that maybe saves more lives when loser draw, we're going to use it our opportunity to, they want the conversation. Let's have it. Let's have it. That's how. Yeah. Well, and that's what even with the H, I'm not going to lie. The H 57 or was it Act 47 now? Yeah. That actually made me that actually made me not pro-choice anymore. I'm not going to lie. I just, I moved home and it was the reason that I decided to get involved in politics in Vermont because I had tried even as a Christian to maintain being pro-choice and supporting Planned Parenthood because when I was in my twenties, I was diagnosed with severe cervical dysplasia and it was diagnosed at my regular path at Planned Parenthood, you know, and that's just where you went for your, your annuals and, you know, this and that and whatever. And I just remember like that was life saving medical care, right? And then they got me a grant that paid for the surgery and all that stuff. And I thought to myself, and so I still had a high opinion of Planned Parenthood because they had provided me life saving medical care. I mean, I, I basically had cervical cancer and both of my sisters have had it. It's hereditary, apparently, or maybe because my parents smoked, I don't know. Mom, sorry, I love you. That's what the doctor said. Don't feel bad. But so I, you know, I tried to maintain, even after I became a Christian, even after I had done the save one class at my church to, you know, come to terms with my abortion because I did, I did regret it and I did feel bad about it. And I did want to figure out how to deal with that. So I, you know, went to like a grief class and, and then I moved back to Vermont in 2018. And I found out about the new bill and that it allowed for abortion up to the point of birth. And it was all of this other stuff. And I just thought, like, y'all have lost your minds. This is too far. This, you know, and then I heard about the woman who lost her, her twins. And I was like, you're literally saying like, this is dehumanizing an unborn baby. You guys have successfully dehumanized unborn babies to the point where a drunk driver can cause their death and suffer no consequences for it. That is like one of the most outrageous things I have ever heard in my entire life. It's a heartbreaker. And Patricia Blair came down to testify. She's just a heartbreaker. Look up Bennington babies. But you won't be alone, Erica. We had a storm crowd of people come to the state house. They were so outraged by what was happening. And so I'm sorry for your situation. I am not here to make anyone hate Planned Parenthood. I just want to expose what's true and what's happening inside the state house. And so that we have a real picture of what has brought us to this day here in Vermont. Well, and that's what, you know, we, I was raised up, I guess to say, in politics to believe that corporate greed in politics is bad, that money in politics is bad, that that wins you favors and corrupt things happen. And so that's not even Bernie Sanders. I mean, that was the one thing that I remember about Bernie Sanders when I was growing up listening to him talk was, you know, government corruption and corporate crony capital is a terrible accent. But we're supposed to be against that. And yet we're taking hundreds of thousands of dollars or politicians are taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from Planned Parenthood, who then get elected to office, who then write the bills and write the budget to give Planned Parenthood money. And if you don't think that that's a problem, you're not paying attention. True. It's just true. Thank you, Erica. I appreciate that. I appreciate the chance to expose some of what's really going on. So anything else we have come around the hour, I told you it would go by fast. So tell me if there's anything else that you want to say before we close, tell people, actually, give them your information, how to get in touch with you or for services, things like that. Maybe we can maybe you can send me some good links for the pregnancy resource centers and stuff like that. And I can include them in the description of the of the video. Yeah. So tell people how they can get a hold of you or get involved and whatnot. Well, the office number, we're right by the state house in Montpelier. Our office number is 229-4885. And you can find us on the web at vrlc.net. We have a great big conference coming up this fall. We're going to get everyone educated about proposal five. It's called the life symposium. And Erica, we're going to bring Vermont back to life. Hold on. Okay, we're having technical problems over here. Wait, I can't hear you, Mary. You're muted, I think. I think I was thinking. Oh, here we go. Oh, dang it. Okay, try it again. Okay, tell everybody again, technical difficulties. So you can find us on the web, vrlc.net. We are going to be putting on a conference called the life symposium in the fall. And Erica, we are going to continue the work to bring Vermont back to life. Oh, oh, I like that. That's a good, that's a good saying. I like that. That is really good. Thank you guys all for being here. We appreciate you. And you can show how much you appreciate me by going and donating at my Patreon. I got to figure out how to advertise that better. So if you like the programming and you'd like to see more and you like the work Guy Page and I are doing together, let us know by going to Patreon and supporting the programming and go support Vermont right to life too. They could use some money too. I'm sure they could use it. So there's that. Let's see. Next week, we'll have on Patrick White, who is running for mayor of Burlington. No, I'm sorry. Wait. Yeah, it's next week. Next week, Patrick White running for mayor in Burlington. He says he's not a libertarian, but he's got all kinds of libertarian stuff on his page. I was stalking him. I mean, not really like in a weird way, but just in like a who is this guy way. And so I'm really curious to see what he's got to say, what his background is and what his experiences. So come join us next week for another conversation with a great community leader. And Mary Beardworth, thank you again so much for coming on. I just appreciate you so much and the work that you do. Thank you. Thank you. Anytime. Love to come back. So yes. All right. Bye everybody. Bye. Okay, so hold on. I'm gonna end the broadcast. Oh, let's see if I can get the outro to play.