Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Today's topic is the life issue. And of course, there's a lot to say about that biblically and historically and constitutionally. We got a special guest coming on a little later, Michael New, gonna talk about really the reframing, the attempt by the left to create a negative image of the pro -life legislation that passed in Texas. And so even after you get things passed, guys, you gotta still fight the fight to keep them from actually making good news turned into bad news. Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton and guys, we worked hard in Texas to get incremental victories, incremental victories for years and years, even 25 years ago when I was in the legislature, just getting parental notification, not even consent was a big victory. And then we got consent and then we got informed consent. It was step by step by step. And then of course our friend Brian Hughes finally got that heartbeat bill passed, one of the greatest pro -life victories of our lifetime. But there's been a lot of folks claim that it's actually cost lives that that the pro -life legislation caused women to die. It's the craziest thing that they've been trying to get people to perceive. 

David Barton [00:01:15] Yeah, it's a really interesting thing because it's a serious problem if the news is right on this. So after Texas became pro -life, well, we've been pro -life for a while, Rick, as you mentioned, but after we really got that kind of abortion ban done in 2021 with the heartbeat bill, here's an article that came out recently where it looks like, according to stats, that it's become, really, Texas as a pro -life state has made it tougher on women, and there appears to be, by the stats here, some dangerous conditions that's created for women. So I'll just read the article here from ProPublica. It says, pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion in 2021, ProPublica found, and a first of its kind data analysis. The rate of sepsis shot at more than 50 % for women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester, ProPublica found. So first question, what's sepsis? 

Tim Barton [00:02:08] Well, and let me point out, right? They're making these claims without giving all the information as well, because it's a little bit like when, it reminds me of when we had the COVID conversations and they said, all these people are dying from COVID. And there was a lot of questions, like, wait a second, are they dying with COVID or dying from COVID? Number one, but then number two, if this is kind of what the claim to be that these pregnant women are getting sepsis at higher rates, and therefore it's causing more death of women, are there any external factors? Because what we found, for example, in COVID is that there were pre -existing comorbidities. And the people that had the highest death rate, and I'm not trying to, by the way, downplay, you know, everybody listening, I don't wanna trigger anybody by saying that COVID didn't significantly impact people's lives, but again, what we found - 

Rick Green [00:02:56] And wait Tim when you say you don't want to trigger anybody you don't mean that we love triggering people come on. I'm sorry 

Tim Barton [00:03:01] and go ahead. and go ahead. Well, but I only want to trigger them when I'm trying to trigger them, right? It's a little different. I have no problem triggering you with some basic truth, like there's only two genders, male and female, right? That's intentional. I have no problem. But I don't want to lose people before we make the point. Is when when we were concerned that we'll know it's so dangerous and deadly and we were closing down schools within the actual data comes out. And you realize, wait a second, this covid is not dangerous for kids by and large, I mean, like the highest survival rate of anybody was children. And then when you start looking at the fact that for people that were healthier, had a healthy lifestyle, they were able to overcome COVID at these incredibly, incredibly high rates, over 99%. The people that were having the hardest time with it were the elderly, and specifically those with pre -existing comorbidities. Now I say all that to say, when we see data like this, and they're saying, well, there's women pregnant in Texas and they're getting sepsis and dying from it. I would like to know more about this. Is it, how broad is this? Are there preexisting things with it? But sepsis, I think is really when someone gets sick, it can increase their heart rate, they have fever. There can be mental confusion, which interestingly enough could, and those are symptoms. I understand there can be more with it. But there could be a lot of things that fit in that category, right? Where you have a fever, you have mental fog, you're fatigued, that sounds like that could be like even cold flu -like symptoms on some level without maybe the drainage, et cetera. And so I'm sure there's a better medical definition. There's probably people listening right now that are saying, hey, do this, go look it up, whatever. But that's my recollection is a fast heart rate, It's fatigue. There's brain fog and I think a fever are part of what sepsis is 

David Barton [00:04:59] Yeah, and in this case, they're pointing to that, and sepsis is an infection that produces the symptoms, Tim, you just mentioned. It can be life -threatening, it can be pretty serious. And so the article is making the point that, well, these were women that in their second trimester, or in their second trimester, they did not have an abortion, but they had a miscarriage of sorts, which left some tissue in the womb, and that tissue turned into an infection, and that infection nearly cost their life. And so they're saying had they had an abortion, they would not have had that tissue to deal with and it would have saved their life. And so the point they're making is, hey, by carrying children in the womb longer than if you have a miscarriage, you're more at risk and it's more dangerous and et cetera. And so they're saying there's a 50 % surge in women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in second trimester. So that's what they're saying is that that pro -life law has now endangered the lives of 50 % more women in Texas. and the number of cases. So here's where I'm gonna go back to an old political axiom. It's got a word in it that I don't use, a vocabulary word that would go in the profanity comment, but I'm gonna give you the axiom. There's three kind of lies. Rick, do you remember this in politics, what the three kind of lies are? 

Rick Green [00:06:18] There were so many lies when I was in politics that I don't Ion't, I don't, I don't. 

David Barton [00:06:23] the axiom goes there's there's lies and there's d lies da oh yeah yeah yeah there's lies there's d lies and there's statistics and so to statistics was your third form of lying and so politically so let's back oh wait 

Rick Green [00:06:54] Wait David, there's one more, I remember Joe Barton telling me one time, no relation to David Barton, everybody, just so you know, I don't think, though you could be, I never thought you were related , but what did he say? Liars could figure and figures could lie and I'll that the I'll never forget that, man. That was 30 years ago. Liars could figure figures can lie. Anyway, sorry, go ahead. 

David Barton [00:07:03] It's the same kind of thing we got here. So I'm gonna demonstrate how this works. I'm gonna take Tim and his daughter and he's got two daughters, I don't care which one it is, but one of those daughters in just one year increased her age by 50% in one year. But that's not nearly as impressive as the previous year when she increased her age by 100 % in only one year. Now that's pretty impressive. When you can increase your age by 100 % That's impressive stats, right? Except what that means is she was one and became two, so she increased her age by 100%, and then she was two and became three, which increased her age by 50%. So that's really not all that impressive when you look at the raw numbers, but if I wanna talk percentages, I can make that sound pretty impressive, and that's essentially what we've got here. And so this ProPublica story has come out with percentages. but not raw numbers, not raw data. And you need the raw data to know whether you're talking about, you know, two years or three years or 2000 years or whatever the number is. So if you're talking a 50 % increase, were there four pregnancies we're talking about or were there 400 ,000? Cause that's a big, big difference. And that's - And this is where Michael - 

Tim Barton [00:08:14] points out so well in his article as he breaks it down to point out what they're saying is so Misleading and here's why and he gives the numbers and I got remember like guys I remember when we first saw that we shared it around said, okay We need to make sure that we get him on to talk about this because this is the kind of stuff That when you see for example like Charlie Kirk on a college campus and he's talking to students and somebody would bring up This stat. Well, hey 50 % more people are dying from sepsis in Texas because they can't have abortions now. You need to know the rest of that story so that you know how to combat some of these whys that are going to become far more pervasive in culture because the other side is looking for ways that they can distort truth to argue their perspective, to try to stop some of the good things that are happening like protecting the life of the unborn, making sure that every single unborn child has the right to be born, the right to life, the right to be alive. And so this is the kind of stuff that it really does make sense that we have these conversations. Help share some of this information with you so that you have the opportunity then to disseminate that among your friends so that we can help try to prevent the misleading of other individuals with incorrect data and bad narrative. 

Rick Green [00:09:30] Well, Michael New is our special guest. We'll go to that interview after the break. We'll be back. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show 

Rick Green [00:11:40] Welcome back to TheWallBuilders Show.  Thanks for staying with us. Dr. Michael New back with us. It's been a while, but good to have you back, sir. 

Dr. Michael New [00:11:46] Ah, thanks for having me. Much appreciated. 

Rick Green [00:11:48] Well, man, you're always on top of the pro -life issues. And of course, with all the pro -life victories over the last few years, those who are pro -abortion, pro -death, I like to say, they're doing their best to say that these laws have caused all kinds of problems and it's often a distortion and so you had an article about this, no pro -life laws have not led to a sepsis crisis in Texas. What specifically is the complaint in Texas? Cause we got some really good laws passed in the last few years. 

Dr. Michael New [00:12:16] Well, there is a publication ProPublica that is a very strong, you know, pro -abortion bias. And they have been working overtime to try to put pro -life laws in a bad light. And they wrote an article earlier this month that claimed there was a 50 % increase in sepsis cases in the state of Texas. And the media just jumped on this uncritically and just republished, you know, this headline and didn't look at the data very carefully. If you actually read the article, it's a lot more nuanced. They found there was an increase in sepsis cases, but only among a small subgroup of women. Only those women hospitalized for pregnancy loss in the second trimester. So that's not a large number of women. Secondly, when you look at the data very carefully, you find the annual increase in sepsis cases was 28 per year. 28. Now, sepsis is a serious issue, but keep in mind, there's 31 million people who live in Texas. There is almost 400 ,000 children born in Texas every year. An increase of sepsis cases, that's, you know, 28 annually, is not a public health crisis. You know, something to keep an eye on, but it's not like there's this massive outbreak in sepsis. It's an increase of 28. So the mainstream media, I think, did their best to confuse and mislead people. There's no public health crisis in Texas. 

Rick Green [00:13:34] Yeah, 28 cases out of 400 ,000 births in Texas. It definitely seems like a small number, not dismissing it, but I'm ignorant on this. So the headline that they use is to scare people. So sepsis increase, and because of the heartbeat bill is what they're trying to get people to think. What does that even mean? How dangerous is a sepsis case, and how does a heartbeat bill? How are they even connecting those dots and claiming that the heartbeat bill increased those cases? 

Dr. Michael New [00:14:07] I mean, sepsis is a serious issue, it can be fatal. There are women who die from it, but at the same time, they keep on using the sepsis diagnosis, not fatality. So sepsis diagnosed correctly can be cured. It's not fatal in every case, far from it. They're just kind of grasping straws. In a state as big as Texas, not every public health outcome or every public health trend will be positive all the time. It's a diverse state where things happen. They're trying to make arguments that because of pro -life laws, OB -GYNs are leaving and that, you know, women aren't getting health through Planned Parenthood and things are just not being diagnosed, but in reality, there's just not much to back this up. I mean, I don't see any evidence that OB -GYNs are leaving pro -life states. You know, a very small fraction of OB -GYNs even do abortions. So if you don't do abortions, why would you leave a pro -life state? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. On the other side, it's just grasping at straws here. 

Rick Green [00:15:02] Yeah, I wish Dr. Spock from Star Trek was here. He would say, that's not logical, Captain. So it's definitely not logical. Hey, well, I got you, Dr. New. Any other news on the pro -life front we maybe are missing? In other words, I know there's a lot of movements across the country and a lot of legislatures continuing to carry pro -life bills. We've got all kinds of things happening at the federal level. Anything you're focused on or that kind of jumps out to you right now on the pro -life news? 

Dr. Michael New [00:15:29] Well, a couple of things I want to highlight. Journal of the American Medical Association did actually a good study earlier this month. They analyzed birth data from all 50 states in the District of Columbia and concluded that pro -life laws that are recently enacted have saved over 22 ,000 lives. So this is a liberal academic journal. They're not going to go out of their way to put pro -life laws in a favorable light. They look at birth data, which is good. One thing I've told pro -life audiences is that post -DOBs, abortions are hard to count. We can go to other states and other countries and sadly, order these chemical abortion pills through the mail. But babies are pretty easy to count. The government doesn't do a real whole lot well, but it can count babies. It can count people being born. So if there is an increase in children being born seven months after the pro -life law takes effect, there's pretty powerful evidence the pro -life law is having an impact. So 22 ,000 lives saved, I think is a little bit undercount, but still shows things are going in the right direction and our laws are having a life -saving impact.  I think that, you know, we really need to focus kind of things at the federal level, uh, I think the big challenge for us in 2025 is chemical abortions, sadly, the Biden administration continued, I think a very unwise policy of a lot of women to obtain these chemical abortion drugs through the mail without an in -person medical examination. Chemical abortions are fatal to unborn children, but they pose serious health risks to women. If a woman has an ectopic pregnancy, this is a chemical abortion that can be fatal. If she's further on in gestation, she realizes, has a chemical abortion, that can have some negative health consequences that are pretty serious. So we're really hoping that, you know, RFK Jr. and the team at HHS and FDA put some claims down, put some safeguards in place. You know, chemical abortions are like 63 % of the total. If we can get those numbers down, we're going to save a lot of lives. 

Rick Green [00:17:15] Yeah, I couldn't help but chuckle there, Dr. New, when you said one thing they can do is count babies, because I was thinking about the census and I'm going, you know, as long as they're just counting citizens and not illegals and everything else and asking you about your bathrooms and all that, they do a pretty good job of counting. But even counting the government can mess up. Okay, seriously, last question I had for you was with regard to the chemical abortion pill. I've read something just the other day. I know this wasn't on our list for today, so if this isn't something you're up on, no big deal. But I saw somebody's post where they were talking about being at an abortion clinic, counseling someone, and that they apparently had taken the chemical abortion and there's some treatment you can do immediately to reverse the abortion pill. Is that true? I had never heard that before. So is that something that's... 

Dr. Michael New [00:18:05] Absolutely. There is abortion pill reversal. A lot of pregnancy help centers have information about that. Essentially that if a woman takes the first pill and then takes progesterone, there's a pretty good chance that pregnancy can be saved. Progesterone has been used for years to help women with troubled pregnancies, so it's nothing new. Uh, Dr. George Delgado pioneered this. Uh, hundreds of lives were saved because of, you know, abortion pill reversal, so again, if a woman does take that first pill and keep mines, a two pill regimen, but she takes the first pill and has second thoughts and she takes progesterone, she can save that child again. She has to do this with medical supervision, you know, needs to contact a pro -life OBGYN to help her through. I mean, this isn't something you do kind of randomly on your own. You do need medical supervision. But chemical abortions, you know, can be reversed, hundreds of kids have been born this way. And I think that's something that pro -life, I saw it on Waconsil. I have pamphlets about it. If I see a woman with a chemical abortion pill, I do try to give her the pamphlet. Sometimes they take it, often they don't, but at least I try to let them know that option is available. 

Rick Green [00:19:05] Powerful. It's brand new to me. I did not realize that. That's amazing. Dr. New, always good to have you, man. Thanks for so much information and continuing to update us. Look forward to getting you back again soon. 

Dr. Michael New [00:19:15] Sure. Great to be here. Keep it good work. 

Rick Green [00:19:18] Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton. 

Rick Green [00:20:28] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show thanks for staying with us back with David and Tim Barton now Thanks to Michael New for joining us guys it managed exactly what you said at the beginning of the program you've really got to look at the actual stats and you realize this is this was almost anecdotal what they were talking about 

David Barton [00:20:43] Well, as he pointed out, there were 400 ,000 pregnancies in Texas, and there were sepsis in 28 cases out of 400, nearly half a million cases, and they're highlighting a rise of 28 total cases in 400 ,000. Now, we talked earlier, percentages can be made to look really, really impressive. Like he said, a 50 % increase. Well, yeah, but you're still talking only 28 total out of 400 ,000. And just to put that percentage back into context, if you're looking at 28 cases out of 400 ,000 pregnancies, that's a total of seven, 100 ,000th of 1%. I mean, that's even too small to measure by and large. And so here's Pro Publica coming out with this big announcement that man, we're now showing that abortions save lives in Texas. No, they don't. I mean, you're talking about such a small measurement here. And the other point that's really good to know that Michael pointed out is look, since Texas passed that heartbeat bill, there have been 22 ,000 babies born in Texas that would have been aborted in previous years. So you've got a life growth right there of 22 ,000 actual lives versus 28 cases of sepsis. And there's no indication that any of those cases resulted in a fatality, just 28 cases of sepsis. So the stats, this is where again, that action we quoted earlier. You got lies, you got delies, and you got statistics. And this is where the left often uses statistics. It's what they use in Congress to try to get more money for programs. This is what they use in their reports. It's what the media reports. This is why you really have to dig into some of this stuff. 

Rick Green [00:22:25] Well, there's other areas, too, on this LiveHB, right? I mean, this was Texas. And I think you guys spent most of a Good News Friday several weeks back talking about the positive pro -life stances that Trump has taken. You know, there were concerns about that in the campaign because of that whole Florida thing. But man, he's reinstituted the Hyde Amendment. I mean, all the Mexico City policy, all these things that tend to flip -flop back and forth between pro -life presidents and pro -abortion presidents like Joe Biden was. What other areas? I can't remember now. What other areas are there? some new areas. 

Tim Barton [00:22:55] as we should discuss on the life front. Well, we have identified that some of the people that Trump has nominated in the past were very pro -life. We're continuing to see that again. In fact, with the re -institution of the Office of Faith in the White House, the fact he's giving people of faith a voice, and this is one of the very seminal issues for so many people of faith, is the right to life. And we're seeing this kind of resurgence of some of these basic values. And by the way, even with saying this is a basic value, it's also one of the basic principles of the American philosophy of government that there's a God who gave us rights and the first right God gave us was the right to life. And you're seeing so many people at Trump appoint kind of have those values and move back that direction, which is also why you're seeing people like Tom Homan be so aggressive on protecting the border and deporting. these criminals who are performing or carrying out these heinous acts, it's because we do value the inalienable rights of the Americans. And we wanna protect those rights, we wanna protect the individuals and their right to life. And when we see some of what's happening, I would say that this right to life is even bigger in the Trump administration, I think, than a lot of times he gets credit for, because it's not just the right to be born, it's also the right to defend your life, to preserve your life, to defend your property, Remove those that the fact that government exists to protect our God -given rights government's job is to Eliminate the people trying to take away our God -given right to life And so I think Trump is doing a really good job on the right -to -life issue and a lot of very broad big -picture ways 

David Barton [00:24:33] And on top of that, there's just some good pro -life stuff going on. I mean, recently, well, back, back up to the last legislative session, Idaho passed a pro -life bill that became a very strong pro -life state. And the Biden justice department went after Idaho suing to overturn their state law that made them a strong pro -life state. Well, Trump just, I guess in the last week or two, stepped in and said, no, no, no, we're not going to, we're not going to sue Idaho's pro -life law. and he pulled the Justice Department off that. So that pro -life law is now standing in Idaho without being challenged by the federal government. And we've seen several of his recent nominees in areas that are very important, take very strong pro -life positions, including National Institute of Health and several other agencies that deal with medicine. But here's one that's really strong. And Rick, you mentioned in the interview that you were not aware that that abortion pill could be reversed, that the effects of that abortion pill could be reversed. And that really is a big deal. And that's one of the things that even when Robert Kennedy was being grilled, they, they asked him about that abortion pill. And he said, no, he, he, he was unaware of that, but he's looking into it and he supports the ability to reverse those abortion pills. So, so national Institute of health, food and drug administration, those appointees that Trump has put in are the same thing and they testified in, in their hearings that they support that, that, and they're going to try to regulate the use of those abortion pills to try to keep like Texas. they're trying to mail abortion pills to women here in the state, Texas pro -life state. And now they're letting abortion pills be mailed in outside, but you can reverse it. Once those abortion pills have been taken within the first 10 days or so, you can reverse the process. And there are now thousands of babies that have been born that initially the mother was in a state of abortion, getting abortion through the pills and changed her mind. And now we have thousands of babies who have been born from that abortion reversal. So that is something that definitely can be done. And Trump's been putting people in office who support that reversal process, which is good news for pro -life people. 

Rick Green [00:26:32] I love having good news when it's not even Good News Friday. So it's just great throughout the week. Folks, we've got more for you throughout the rest of this week as well. You definitely don't wanna miss Foundations of Freedom Thursday and Good News Friday later this week. Thanks for listening to The Wallbillers Show.