Dr. Clinton: Hi, everyone. This is Dr. Tim Clinton and you're listening to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, a production of the James Dobson Family Institute. I'll be your host today. Thanks for stopping by and making us a part of your day. Before I introduce my guest, I'd like to tell you something pretty important. Today and tomorrow's programs are for more mature audiences. We're going to be talking about abortion and some of the discussion will be pretty graphic, but this is one of those non-negotiable issues that Dr. Dobson has stood strong on and for, for over 45 years, the sanctity of human life: that all life from conception to natural death is sacred and must be defended. I hope you'll listen closely and share our message where you can.
Most people are unaware of the true impact abortion has had on our nation. This is why those of us committed to pro-life take time each January to solemnly remember the over 62 million babies now who have been aborted, killed in this country since abortion was made legal in 1973. Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is observed each year on the Sunday closest to the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. This year, Sanctity of Human Life Sunday will be this coming Sunday. I hope you'll take time on that particular day to pray and pray for our nation. This entire month, we will observe and reflect with fellow Christians and citizens of the country whose hearts and their collective conscience grieve the tragedy of abortion.
My guest is an expert on the subject of abortion. He is a staunch pro-life advocate. He's a believer, and he's not afraid to defend his faith and his views on the sanctity of life. He loves his wife and his children, loves his job, his patients, and we're grateful to have him here with us. His name is Dr. William Lile. He's a board-certified OB-GYN doc and formally served as department chair at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, Florida. But he's hardly your average OB-GYN doc. What Dr. Lile did in 1999, when he took over a practice, which happened to be the largest abortion provider in Pensacola, was extraordinary. On day one, to his credit, this passionate pro-life advocate immediately stopped all abortions and abortion referrals.
In addition to his educational work, Dr. Lile was a part of a nationwide network of 500 physicians who voluntarily performed abortion pill reversals, that's really significant, and he's unapologetic about his worldview and his savior on his website where he proclaims, "Abortion is never the right choice," and I love this, "and forgiveness is available to all through the blood of Jesus Christ." No wonder they call him "The Pro-Life Doc." That's why he's drawn to the best line of Dr. Seuss's book, Horton Hears a Who, "A person is a person, no matter how small." Dr. Lile tweaked that line and made it his life motto: "A patient is a person, no matter how small." I love that. Dr. Lile, Bill, thank you for joining us and welcome back to Family Talk.
Dr. Lile: Well, thank you very much. It's an honor to be here. It's an honor to protect the lives of my patients who are patients of mine from the moment of conception.
Dr. Clinton: Bill, it was, what, a year ago, you and I were at the March for Life in Washington, DC. Here we are a year later and we're dealing with a topic that, by the way, is exploding right now. There's so much division in our country, but this issue is one of the biggest issues in America right now. Bill, what are your thoughts?
Dr. Lile: Well, it was an honor to be together with you in January of last year. I still remember going through this huge crowd and actually just taking the moments when we were trying to get through security, turning around and facing the crowd and just asking them, "Do you know that we treat the preborn as patients within the womb?" All of a sudden, we had all of these faces looking at us and it's like, "Do you know that we can do blood transfusions to babies at 18 weeks' gestation in the womb? Do you know that we can actually do heart surgery? We can do spine surgery. We can save lives at 22 weeks' gestation."
Then we were asking them, "Do you know that we can do a blood test on the mom seven weeks after conception? Not only can I tell you if this is going to be a boy or a girl, but I can screen for scores of different conditions. We treat the preborn as patients." Here we are, we're at the March for Life. This is the most educated group that you can imagine, yet this was all new information for them. They did not know that if we are treating the preborn as patients, and bottom line, if this is a patient, it is a person, and if it's a person, they need to be protected.
Dr. Clinton: Bill, I remember how many students were there, high school students, college students who were fired up and really serious about taking on the issue of life and standing boldly. Why? Because it matters. Bill, as we get started, I want to re-ID the issue before us and why you're so passionate about it, but Bill, 62-plus million abortions in our country. It's just unbelievable. And now we're in a place where we're having conversations about birthday abortions and more. In other words, taking the life of a child all the way up to actual birth, and in some cases, they're talking about taking the life, giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down after birth. It's unbelievable. It's unconscionable that we'd even have to talk about this. Dr. Lile, just your general impression on, first of all, where we're at when it comes to the movement. Are we making progress? Are we winning? There's so much information we want to share today because engagement is what this is all about, information and engagement.
Dr. Lile: Exactly. What we need to do is we need to educate first. When we look at Nancy Pelosi, she says, "Look at the science." When it came to COVID, everybody was saying, "Look at the science, follow the science." Well, okay, let's follow the science. We treat the preborn as patients. If they're patients, they are persons. Let's look at the science: from the moment of conception, genetically, this little baby on the inside when it's only one cell is genetically unique from the mom, genetically unique from the dad. In fact, you could do an ancestry.com or a 23andMe study on that one cell and it would be able to tell you the family story of the parents, the grandparents, great-great-grandparents.
We need to educate not only with the science, but also in the spiritual principles, and we need to give the kids the Scripture. That's what I love to do, get together with the kids and I want to arm them with the facts. I want to educate them. I want to give them the Scriptures, give them the science that they can defend the preborn. This is a spiritual battle. When people say, "Well, I'm pro-choice," well, what is your choice? Your pro-choice to do what? It's my right to do what? You're pro-choice as far as the choice of killing the baby on the inside, a patient from the inside? So, we train the kids, we educate and we motivate and we join together. It's a spiritual battle and if we don't join together, we will not win.
Dr. Clinton: Dr. Lile, I read where you have delivered more than 4,000 babies. You understand this world really, really well. Let's start with terms, just for a moment. I know, and you've used it already, you've used the term "preborn" versus "unborn" baby.
Dr. Lile: I really want this to be part of the new terminology, using the term "preborn." Why? Because "preborn" means that the normal expectation of the preborn is if that are then going to be born, as opposed to unborn. Unborn just talks about at that moment in time, that little baby is unborn. Before you send your child to school, you send them to preschool because the normal expectation of sending them to preschool is that they're then going to go to school. Before you watch a football game, you watch the pregame show because the normal expectation is after the pregame show, you're going to watch the game. We don't have "un-school", we have preschool, so I use the term "preborn" because the normal expectation of the preborn is just give them a few weeks and they will be born.
Dr. Clinton: Take us back, Bill, if you would: A heartbeat starts when? About day ...?
Dr. Lile: About day 26 or so, and that's 26 days from the first day of the last menstrual period. Conception happens two weeks after that, so you're really looking at a heartbeat about two weeks after the moment of conception when we use that kind of terminology.
Dr. Clinton: Yep, conception is when we describe the moment of life and that a person is now formed. Now, would you agree with that?
Dr. Lile: Oh, absolutely. The only event in the whole timeline of fetal development that makes any sense as far as when we're we created in the image of God is in that moment of conception where genetically that baby, even though when it's only one cell, is genetically unique from mom, genetically unique from dad, genetical unique from the other seven billion people on the planet. The baby has its own blood type, its own circulation. It's just amazing how unique. The mom is an amazing life support system of the baby, so that is the truly amazing miracle of when we are created in the image of God.
Dr. Clinton: Out of that, then, the issue of the personhood debate becomes front and center then. Bill, can you help us understand that? Because we often hear people say, "Well, the baby is not a person."
Dr. Lile: Yeah. I speak at a lot of different events. In fact, I was recently at the University of Florida College of Medicine. This is not like going up the Liberty University. This is not a Christian campus. We started off the presentation with "If a patient needs heart surgery, but they were not born in the United States, should they still be able to get that heart surgery?" All of the students are like, "Absolutely." I said, "What if they need spine surgery, but they don't have a birth certificate?" "Yeah, they should be able to get that." It's like, "Well, what do they need a lifesaving blood transfusion? Are they entitled to get that lifesaving blood transfusion even if they weren't born here in the United States?" Universally, they were all saying, "Yes, yes, yes."
I said, "Okay, these are all three patients of mine. All three have one thing in common and that thing in common is all three of these patients are still in the womb," and it got real quiet. Then I started to contemplate and I'm like, "Oh, my goodness. We have just painted them in a corner." All of a sudden, the things that they have been told, "Well, it's a woman's right." Well, what about patient's rights? We give blood transfusions as early as 18 weeks' gestation. We are now doing heart surgery. We're doing valvuloplasty, septoplasty. If they are a patient, they're a person, and if they are a person, they deserve our protection, so science, we're going to follow. The science says that this is a patient.
Dr. Clinton: Yeah, Bill, the baby is very unique. You actually have learned that through everything from chromosomal development to, like you said, blood transfusions. Can you help us understand that even a little bit more?
Dr. Lile: Sure. There are conditions. One of the first things that a woman has done when she comes into my practice is the ultrasound and we identify the life within the womb. The second thing is a lot of blood work. One of the components of that blood work is called an "antibody screen." The antibody screen looks for antibodies in the mom's blood which can actually cross the placenta and attack the baby. Why? Because the baby is not part of the mom. The baby is an amazing combination of genetics from mom and genetics from dad.
Well, why do we look for antibodies? Because these antibodies can cross the placenta and they can actually attack the baby's blood and the baby's blood count can dramatically drop. If we don't do something, that baby's blood count can get so low that the baby will die in the womb. If you had a bad accident and your blood count was real low and you went to the emergency room and in order to save your life, they would do what? They would give you a blood transfusion. Well, how do you give a blood transfusion to a baby in the womb? We do it routinely. We can actually take a needle with blood that somebody donated at the Red Cross or OneBlood, we take that O negative blood, we guide a needle into the baby's umbilical cord, and we give a blood transfusion directly to the baby there in the womb and we save the baby's life.
Dr. Clinton: Amazing.
Dr. Lile: Sometimes we have to do that every three or four weeks throughout the rest of the pregnancy. The mom is a life support system for the baby, but the baby is not part of the mom. It would be like if somebody got an organ transplant that, even though it might be their sister or their brother, they still need to take anti-rejection medications because is it similar to the donor? Yes, but it's not an exact match. Same thing with the baby: It's related to the mom, related to the dad, but this is a unique, new person.
Dr. Clinton: Bill, with this kind of information, I think Americans, as they become educated, begin to understand the importance of limitation on abortion. As a matter of fact, the majority of Americans want some type of limitation on the practice of abortion, 'kay? That being true, we're now living in a day and age where the abortion discussion is cascading off the cliff, if you will. We're not talking about abortion in the first trimester, Bill, we're talking about abortion being legal all the way up to what's known as "birthday abortion." Dr. Lile, help us understand just for a moment, why have we moved in this direction and why in the world are we even talking like this? What's happening to us in our culture?
Dr. Lile: It's a progression of sin. I mean, this is why this is a spiritual battle. There is an evil that we are fighting and we must look at the biblical principles in order to find out how we defend these children.
Dr. Clinton: Bill, through the years, we've all heard of the different types of procedures for abortion. It's mortifying. I mean, it really is. It's really infanticide. It's not abortion when you're talking about birthday abortion, Bill. I mean, this is unbelievable. You have done a lot of work and research. Let's talk about a new, dangerous trend, and that is the whole issue, or the fastest form of abortion is really of the abortion pill. Help us understand, first of all, maybe the difference between the abortion pill and the morning after pill, Bill, and then why this is becoming so important for us to understand and why we need to talk a lot about this subject.
Dr. Lile: Oh, absolutely. First, one is called "Plan B," which is the morning after pill and it's indicated to cause a menstrual cycle up to 72 hours after conception. It's still wrong, but let's compare that to the abortion pill. The abortion pill is indicated to take the life of the baby up to 70 days, 10 weeks after the first day of the last menstrual period. We have all seen our relatives and family members' ultrasounds where they come home and they say, "Look, I'm eight weeks along," "I'm nine weeks along," "I'm six weeks along," and you can see the heartbeat, you can see the arms, you can see the feet. You can see the head, you can see the baby moving around on the inside.
This is a combination of five pills that is 98% effective in killing the baby in the womb, and even more heinous, even though this is the fastest growing form of abortion - it is 39% of all the abortions in the United States are now being performed with the pill - but now there are actually websites online where you can obtain this combination of pills through the mail where the abortion pill can be mailed to you and you can have an abortion in the privacy of your own home. That is how bad this has become. In fact, there are good things with telemedicine. You can have your blood pressure controlled with telemedicine you can have your diabetes controlled with telemedicine, but taking the life of a baby in the womb is not healthcare. This is killing the babies within the womb.
Dr. Clinton: You're listening to Family Talk. I'm Dr. Tim Clinton, your host. Our special in-studio guest is Dr. Bill Lyle. He is an OB-GYN doc. He also is affectionately known as "The Pro-Life Doc" in America. It's a delight to have you here again, Bill, in studio. Bill, let me ask you about how accessible is this pill again. You talked about telemedicine and more. Then what happens if you, I think like a 24-hour window is usually when a person makes the decision about what to do with a baby. Let's just say she makes that decision, Bill, can she actually reverse that process? You and I think a lot of doctors have been working on this very thing. Can you tell us about what you've learned and what's available now?
Dr. Lile: Sure. Do any of us have regrets on decisions that we've made before in the past? Absolutely. I have regrets of things that I've done in the past. When we look at suicide, there was a study out of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most common areas where people attempt suicide. 1800 people have jumped that 200-foot fall to their deaths. There was a psychologist that realized that not everybody who jumps off the Golden Gate bridge dies. In fact, she found 39 people who had survived jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge and she interviewed them, 39 of 39 who might've walked out onto the Golden Gate Bridge saying, "Nobody loves me. Nobody cares for me. This world will be better without me." Those people jumped off the bridge and they had immediate regrets. When they saw the bridge above them, they cried out to God and said, "I don't want to die," and by some miracle, they hit the water and they did not die and they were able to be fished out.
I see the exact same thing when it comes to abortion, where women walk into the abortion clinic, and what's going through their minds? "Nobody loves me. Nobody is there for me. Nobody cares for me. This world would be better without this baby." They walk into that abortion clinic, they sign a consent, they swipe their credit card, and they're given the abortion pill. They walk out and they, too, have immediate regrets. But fortunately, with just basic pharmacology, this is not a miracle, this is basic pharmacology, if we can get in touch with these women within the first 72 hours, yes, we can safely reverse the effect of the abortion pill and we are successful about 70% of the time. I've attempted this in our area 11 times, and yes, we've been successful eight out of those 11 times.
But that is also the message of redemption. That's in our spiritual lives as well where 100% of us were walking to death, eternal separation from God, yet what happens? We are redeemed. We are bought back with the blood of Christ. We invest $109 worth of medication to reverse the abortion pill on these women. We are redeeming these babies' lives back just like we were redeemed by the blood of Christ.
Dr. Clinton: Bill, can you explain real quick how this works?
Dr. Lile: Sure.
Dr. Clinton: What's the process? What's it doing?
Dr. Lile: The abortion pill blocks the hormone progesterone. It would be like me unplugging your earphones. You're listening to me with your earphones on. If I unplug your connector, you're not going to hear me speaking and you'll go, "What happened to Bill? Bill's not here anymore." Well, the same thing with the abortion pill. What do we do? We can't just plug it back in. We actually supplement with a hormone called "progesterone." The progesterone that we use is bioidentical, it is made from yams and it is made from soybeans, but chemical structure is the exact same as the hormone the mom creates, so the device gets unplugged and the mom thinks, "Well, I'm not pregnant anymore." We supplement with a higher dose of this progesterone.
We use this progesterone in regular obstetrics. This is not some dusty pill on the back of the pharmacy shelf. We use this to prevent miscarriage. We use this to prevent preterm labor. I had a patient who was pregnant with triplets and the only thing she took was progesterone to keep the pregnancy going. Anybody who has had in-vitro fertilization has been on the same medication. It's not a miracle. It's basic pharmacology, it's basic medicine that we save the lives of the preborn. Healthy moms, healthy babies.
Dr. Clinton: Let me ask, again, how effective is it? Say, is it something you have to do on day one, day two?
Dr. Lile: The goal is to start the reversal therapy as soon as possible. We know that after they've taken the first pill, support for the pregnancy starts to be withdrawn. Our best success is in the first day and we have successes out to the third day. After the third day, we really have not seen much success, but when we initiate it early...
I have taken calls from patients who not only do they have regrets, they are still in the parking lot of the abortion clinic just after taking the pill and something plucks their heart. I had a patient that lived in Destin. She couldn't get an abortion legally with the abortion pill. She drove all the way to Jacksonville, Florida, over a four-hour drive, and she walked in there thinking "This is the right thing to do." She took the abortion pill there in the clinic in Jacksonville and she started driving on Interstate 10 back to her home in Destin. When she was driving along Interstate 10, she saw one of those billboards, and we all see them, it was a billboard that said, "Your mom chose life. You should, too," and she goes, "Oh, boy," and then she keeps driving and she sees another billboard and that other billboard says "Heartbeat at 22 days," and she was just so convicted by that.
She got out her smartphone and she didn't know about a website, like the website that we use is called abortionpillreversal.com, but she didn't know about that website, so she looked up "abortion pill antidote." She found our website. Google took her to our website. She called the nurse, she spoke with the nurse. The nurse then put her in contact with me. I spoke with her and I said, "Where do you live?" and she told me. I said, "What pharmacy do you use?" and she told me. Then I called the medication into that pharmacy. A couple hours later, she drove directly to the pharmacy. She went to that pharmacy, the pharmacist met her, and she said, "I'm here to pick up some medication." We started the reversal within just hours of taking the abortion pill.
I saw her in my office one week later, we did an ultrasound, we had a heartbeat. We did an ultrasound a week after that, we had a heartbeat, and I had the honor of delivering that baby. There's nothing more precious than delivering a baby, but when you are delivering a baby that you knew had a 98% chance of dying, yet because people got involved, somebody put up a billboard, a nurse was working on a call center, a gynecologist wanted to get involved, a pharmacist got involved. That's how God works. God works in chains. We need to connect the links to make a strong chain. If any one of those links in that chain said, "You know what? I know God's telling me to get involved in this, but nah, it's just not me." One link doesn't do the job, the whole chain falls apart.
Dr. Clinton: Boy, there's so much more to talk about on this subject. Dr. Lile, we've got to get this information out to as many people as possible. This abortion reversal pill is fascinating to me. Dr. Lile, we're out of time here, but I'd love to have you stay over and let's do a day two on this very subject so we can really get this great news out. I know there are a lot of questions like medical science behind it to the ethics related to this and more. Let's do that. Are you good for that?
Dr. Lile: I am honored to help.
Dr. Clinton: Thank you, Dr. Lile.
Roger Marsh: Certainly a powerful conversation today here on Family Talk featuring Dr. Tim Clinton and Dr. William Lile. Now, William Lile's a regular contributor to Family Talk. He's known as "The Pro-Life Doc" and you can learn more about his ministry when you visit our broadcast page at drjamesdobson.org. Simply click on D-R jamesdobson.org, hit the broadcast tab, and you'll learn more about Dr. William Lile, The Pro-Life Doc.
On tomorrow's edition to the broadcast, Dr. Clinton and Dr. Lile will conclude their conversation by revealing the worst culprit in the abortion tragedy, the organization called "Planned Parenthood." They'll also discuss ways that you, as a listener, can express your outrage to your representatives on the state and federal levels. That's coming your way tomorrow on a very special edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. Thanks for listening.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.