Roger Marsh: Welcome back to Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh and today you're going to hear the second half of Dr. Dobson's reaction to and reflection on the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Now, if you missed yesterday's program, which was the first half of today's important discussion, remember you can listen to it by visiting drjamesdobson.org/familytalk. On today's program, Dr. Dobson will once again be joined by his good friend and esteemed colleague, Gary Bauer.
Gary is the president of American Values, chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, and Emeritus Washington director of the Christians United for Israel Action Fund. He has a daily radio commentary called End of Day Report that airs on the Bott Radio Network, and a daily "End of Day" current affairs newsletter that is emailed to hundreds of thousands of constituents. Previously, Gary Bauer served on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and was president of the Family Research Council. Gary also served as chief domestic policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan and was the under secretary of Education. He's the author of several books, including Children at Risk, co-authored with Dr. James Dobson. Gary and his wife, Carol, make their home in Fairfax, Virginia. Let's join Gary Bauer and Dr. Dobson right now as they continue to celebrate the overturning of Roe v. Wade and discuss the implications of that decision and the future of our nation.
Gary Bauer: Women are exploited by abortion. Abortion on demand, among other things, gave men an excuse to, once they got a woman pregnant, to say to her, "Well, you're on your own. Don't look at me. I'm not going to hang around for this, you know what you can do." It left a lot of women psychologically damaged by the act of abortion because God made women to be life-givers, and at the end of the day, many women were haunted by the thoughts of the little boy or little girl that they ended up not having. And we also know that abortion has coarsened our culture in ways that I don't think we even fully understand. It was a culture of death that spread throughout our society. And I think it's led to all sorts of things that, you can't prove it in a court of law, but logic tells you it's played a role in the increasing crime we have, some of the horrible things you see happen to women and children in our society, where women are afraid to walk down the street at night. All of that, I think, gets back to the culture of death.
And, of course, one of the big things that the pro-life movement did and that you supported, Jim, and I tried to support was this network of crisis pregnancy centers that stood with women that were abandoned when nobody else would stand with them and helped those women be able to choose life. And it's not an accident now that not only are the Supreme Court justices under attack, but those crisis pregnancy centers are literally under attack. As we do this show, the centers have been burned, destroyed in many ways, and you've got political figures in our country and in the media using rhetoric against them that makes these attacks on those crisis pregnancy centers more likely.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, what that means is all the rest of us need to ratchet up our support. Not only for the crisis pregnancy centers, but for women themselves, and those who are carrying babies to term that they could go down, pay a fee, and get rid of. And now, many of them will choose to keep their babies and we've got to be more supportive of them in every way. You mentioned the culture of death. That raises one of my favorite verses. It's in Deuteronomy 30:19, where it says, "Behold, I set before you two choices. Life and death. Blessings and curses. Now, therefore, choose life, that you and your children shall live." Boy, that says it. That speaks directly to the culture of death that has taken over this country, and abortion is only a part of it.
Look at the killing that's taking place, the violence throughout the country. I really believe a lot of that started with our being desensitized to the killing of babies, little human beings. The far left tried to dehumanize them in the early days. They called them 'meaningless protoplasm' and did other things to make them not fully human. Science has now showed that that is wrong, that they are fully human from the moment of conception. They have different DNA and, in many ways, they are human, distinct from every other human being who ever lived.
Let me ask you this question, Gary. Are you uneasy or nervous about the conservative majority on the Supreme Court that, with the death or two of people that are now getting old, could change it back and we could be in a mess again. Do you think about that?
Gary Bauer: I do, Jim. On really good days, we have six votes on the Supreme Court, and that's wonderful. But there are a number of decisions, a number of subject matters where Chief Justice Roberts is not always reliable. He wasn't reliable on this decision. So those kinds of cases, the margin is only five to four, and a number of the more constitutional type of justices that are in the majority right now, a number of them are up in years. Some of them have had health issues. And we should all pray for the health of these justices. And then, look, the other thing is that, unbelievably, there's a massive attack on the institution of the court itself, and if a few senators change more to the liberal direction, we could have the senate, by majority vote, expanding the size of the Supreme Court and putting two or three or four pro-abortion, leftist justices on the court. So it all gets back to why it's so important for Christians and other men and women of faith to be involved in the public square to make sure our country stays on the right path.
Dr. James Dobson: And, to vote.
Gary Bauer: Yes. Absolutely.
Dr. James Dobson: Because it all comes back to the will of the people, and if they do not exercise that right to defend the things that we believe from Scripture represent righteousness, then we could be in another scramble.
Gary Bauer: There's no question about it. Look. If you were born in America like we were born in America, that was a gift from God. To be born in a country that was founded in the idea that liberty comes from God. So I've always felt, I know you do, too, Jim, that Christian men and women would be ingrates if they don't vote, if they don't defend the country as being one nation, under God. If they don't teach that to their children, if they don't do everything they can as free men and women to ensure that this place, which I believe God's hand was in at the founding, is preserved and is strengthened and really is a shining city on a hill, which is what the founders intended for it.
Dr. James Dobson: And what really gives authority to what you just said is what's happening in the public schools, where a whole generation of kids is being taught to hate America and to hate other people, to hate different races. It's wrong, it's evil, and that's a passion that is almost at the level of how I've felt about Roe v. Wade. We have got to fight for those kids. Somebody has got to speak up with passion about that because we're losing them. We're losing a whole generation.
Gary Bauer: Well, you know, when you were just saying that, Jim, for some reason the name of a book came in my mind. We wrote that book, Children at Risk: The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of our Children, and one of the points you made so eloquently in that book was that there was this Civil War. Not a violent Civil War, but a clash of ideas. "A civil war of values."
Dr. James Dobson: Of values.
Gary Bauer: Raging in America. And the winner of that war would get our children and the right to teach them what to believe about life and death, love and sex, freedom and slavery. And that's what we've seen play out since we wrote that book a number of decades ago, and it's actually played out in ways even more dramatic than I think you and I suspected at the time. And a lot of people thought we were way out there when we wrote the book. And that battle for the hearts and minds of our children is continuing today.
Dr. James Dobson: That was 1990. Those children are now millennials and beyond, and another generation is coming up that knows not Joseph. They haven't been taught Scripture. People have forgotten God because they weren't taught about Him when they were young. And that's what we were warning against, but it happened.
Gary Bauer: Well, it did happen, and it shows why it's so necessary. I know you've experienced that, Jim. Over the years, one of the saddest things I've experienced is getting letters from good, Christian men and women that did everything they could to raise their kids the right way, and often they sacrificed and saved to send those children to some of the finest universities in America, not fully realizing that those universities are in the hands of folks that have a completely different world view than we do about what this country is all about. And they will write and say to us, "My child came back after one year at that university and I don't even recognize them anymore."
Dr. James Dobson: Gary, you've got four children, don't you?
Gary Bauer: We have three children and seven grandchildren.
Dr. James Dobson: Seven grandchildren.
Gary Bauer: Yes.
Dr. James Dobson: This is a very relevant question for you. Suppose they were coming through high school today and wanted to go to a big state liberal university. Would you send them there?
Gary Bauer: It's a great question, Jim, and, because they're grown now, somebody could say, "Well, it's just hypothetical to him." But we thought about it a lot at the time. No. Look, I've heard Christian parents say, "Well, my child needs to be confronted with different views because that's what's going to happen in life." But you don't send your children to the front line of the battle. You want your children to be in schools where what you have taught them about all these issues is reinforced so that they are prepared later to be in the battle. The number of universities out there to choose from, unfortunately, is getting smaller and smaller.
Even some of the Christian universities have fallen away from the values you would hope that they would promote. But I would urge parents, don't sacrifice your whole life, go without many times, to send your children to some school that's going to teach them that everything you believe in, everything that you taught them about God, and about the country, and about the right way to live is going to be undermined. You're subsidizing the destruction of your own family when you send your children off to those kinds of schools and universities.
Dr. James Dobson: You know, one of the most tragic things that I've seen is where a family that is deeply committed to Jesus Christ and to His values bring children into the world that you're committed to teach that value system for the next generation, you take them to church, you take them to Sunday School, you teach them to read the Bible, you teach them Scripture, and you bring them through the years and they say all the right things. And then, at 18 years of age, you send them off to a secular school that hates what we stand for, and they come back four years later and they don't accept anything you've tried to teach them. That happens all the time and I just would recommend that parents think that over before you run that risk. It's too great a price to pay.
Gary Bauer: I agree completely, Jim. And my hat goes off. Not everybody can do it, but my hat goes off and my heart goes out to those that have homeschooled their children. I know it's tough for some parents to be able to send their child to a Christian school. Thank God that some parents are able to do that. Winning the battle in your own home, in your own household, among your own flesh and blood, that is the very least that we've all got to do. We all have to do, if we're going to save our families, save our country, and have a chance to restore the country to the country it needs to be, which is one nation, under God.
Dr. James Dobson: Gary, let me turn a corner. I mentioned at the start of the program last time that my concentration has been on taking care of Shirley, my wife, who fell and broke her hip and has gone through surgery and she could not walk and all of that. She's doing fine now, but during that time, I was really not able to carry on some of my duties here at Family Talk. And we re-aired some programs that had been done in the past and I was just on leave, more or less. Now I'm back and it's a wonderful privilege to start that new day with you. But, at my request, you wrote the July letter on the Dobbs decision, and it's out there and I appreciated you doing that. But in that letter, you listed four or five or six recommendations to pro-lifers for what to do now, those who are celebrating this victory. What do you think we ought to be doing to solidify and validate that decision?
Gary Bauer: First of all, it was an honor for you to turn over to me that letter that goes to so many households around America, and I know people that, the highlight of their day is if one of your letters arrives in the mailbox with your guidance on all sorts of issues, and it was a pleasure for me to be able to do that in the wake of the decision. But you're right and we've talked about this a little bit. This is no time to walk away from the battle. Now is the time to double down. There's a number of things I think we can do, even if people are uncomfortable getting into debates and all the rest of that. One of them is to stand with these crisis pregnancy centers. They're under attack. I'm afraid some of them won't be able to get insurance on their property because of the physical attacks that are taking place on those CPCs, so please consider donating to those crisis pregnancy centers. I've asked our own pastor if we could come up with a group of volunteers who would literally go to the CPC and guard it at night until this emotional moment passes, because so many of these centers are being attacked, and we definitely need to pray for those volunteers that work there.
Another idea that I know you and I both feel strongly about is to get your own pastor and church to speak from the pulpit now. Some pastors were using the excuse, "Well, I can't be preaching against abortion. It's a constitutional right." Well, it isn't, so you don't have that excuse anymore, so this is a great time to talk about that from the pulpit.
Dr. James Dobson: The other excuse, Gary, is that, "I don't want to be political." Well, political means you're for or against a particular political candidate. We're not suggesting that. People may want to do it, but it's not coming from here. That's not our purpose. But this issue is morality and immorality. It is evil versus Biblical truth, and I think pastors should think again about addressing an issue of that import.
Gary Bauer: Absolutely. You know, Jim, Lincoln once said he was frustrated because he would go to political events and talk about slavery and they would say, "Don't bring those moral issues into here." Then he would go to a church and talk about slavery and they would say, "Don't bring politics into the church." So both sides were using it to not deal with the most important issue in the country, and we saw something of the same thing in our country on abortion. And by the way, that is one of the things that we all need to do in the wake of this. Register to vote in the party that you choose. You can register as a Republican, you could register as a Democrat, but whichever party you register in, stand up for the sanctity of life in that party, and make candidates, whatever their party, tell you specifically what they will do to promote the sanctity of life.
Jim, another important thing, and it's so important because it's the moral and right thing to do. We need to stand with women. We are not anti-woman. Those of us that are men, we're married to women. I have daughters, I have granddaughters. I know you have a daughter, Jim. The idea that we are anti-woman? That's ridiculous. Women have been exploited by abortion. We've had young women in America told that, to be a modern woman, you have to embrace the idea of destroying your own children in the womb. I heard a high level government official the other day say that if abortion is no longer a constitutional right, it will hurt our economy. What a terrible thing to say.
Dr. James Dobson: Oh, my goodness.
Gary Bauer: And this was our Secretary of the Treasury that said that, so I almost fell off my chair. We need to stand with women. There's nothing pro-woman about abortion. Every abortion takes a life and exploits a woman. And then, as we've said, win the battle in your own family. That's so important. And then, of course, the last one, but it's not last, pray, pray, pray. America desperately needs a revival. Our founders, Jim, believed that only a virtuous people, only a moral people could remain free, and they were right. We're seeing the results every day on the evening news about what happens when we lose the concept of having a virtuous, moral people.
Dr. James Dobson: It was John Adams who made that statement, our second president, so it goes right back to the founding fathers. All right, Gary, at the beginning of our program last time I mentioned that I wanted to share some Scriptures that are supportive of life and God's plan for us, and I emailed you some of the Scriptures that my staff pulled together. I want to read one and then you read the other and we'll do that alternatively.
Gary Bauer: Fantastic.
Dr. James Dobson: Round out the program in that way. Okay. I'm going to read Psalm 139: 13 and 14. Just two verses. "For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Read the next one.
Gary Bauer: This is Proverbs 31: 8 and 9. "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly. Defend the rights of the poor and needy."
Dr. James Dobson: Psalms 82: 2 and 4. "How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the weak and the fatherless, uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed, rescue the weak and the needy. Deliver them from the hand of the wicked." And there is none more weak and vulnerable than the unborn child. That's my attitude.
Gary Bauer: Isaiah 1, verse 17. "Learn to do right. Seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless. Plead the case of the widow."
Dr. James Dobson: Micah 6:8. "He has shown you, oh mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."
Gary Bauer: Psalm 146:9. "The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked."
Dr. James Dobson: Gary Bauer has been our guest. Gary, it's so good to work with you again after all these years, and it's good to have you on our team as actually a member of our leadership. I want to tell everyone that, in addition to being president of your own American Values in Washington DC, you are now vice president of JDFI, this organization, and now are the director of public policy. Welcome, my brother. It's good to work with you again.
Gary Bauer: Well, this is one big deja vu, Jim. I feel like we've done this before because we have, and I couldn't be happier. And the great battle that we're in, to be in the front lines with you, and I know we're going to have some more victories ahead.
Dr. James Dobson: I love you, brother.
Gary Bauer: You too, Jim. God bless you.
Roger Marsh: Well, this is Roger Marsh, and we join Dr. Dobson in welcoming Gary Bauer to the team here at the JDFI. Gary will be serving as director of public policy, and we are glad to have him here.
Now, you just heard the conclusion of Dr. Dobson's two-day reaction to and reflection on the reversal of Roe v. Wade. June 24th, 2022 will surely go down in history as a victory for life. But we are not out of the woods, so to speak, just yet. The decision between life and death now has gone back to the states, and the Christian church must continue to work and fight to empower and equip women, men, and families to choose life.
Now, to listen to the full conversation from today's and yesterday's programs, visit drjamesdobson.org/familytalk. That's drjamesdobson.org/familytalk. Or, remember, you can always call us at (877) 732-6825. We have team members available around the clock to take your call to answer your questions about Family Talk and the JDFI, and suggest resources for whatever stage of life you find yourself in. Again, our number to call is (877) 732-6825.
Well, thanks for joining us here on Family Talk today, and every day, for that matter. It's because of listeners like you that we're able to continue encouraging families and proclaiming the truth in the public square. Be sure to listen again next time for another important timely program, right here on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.
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