Why the Left is Redefining Parenthood

 Delaware has quietly passed a law that dramatically changes the definition of parenthood—and the implications reach far beyond one state. Joseph and Ashley unpack the growing movement to redefine parental rights, why activists are pushing to make intent more important than biology, and what these legal changes could mean for children, families, and the future of adoption. They also examine a disturbing Louisiana case involving a father accused of secretly giving his pregnant teenage daughter abortion drugs, sparking a broader conversation about chemical abortion pills, state protections, and the legal battles that could reshape abortion policy nationwide. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to politics for happy people. This is where we have happy, serious conversations, a combination of those two. We're glad you're with us trying to understand the crazy world around us without losing our joy. Ashley, good to see you today.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Good to see you, Joseph.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

What do we have? Today, I mean, our agenda. Very quickly, we are going to go through um something in Delaware that actually pertains to all of us. Delaware has created five new ways to become a parent. Five new ways.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Sounds scary.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Well, it kind of is. Uh, you got to get creative, but we're gonna get creative today. And also we're gonna cover a tragic story that has some implications for um what's going on in North Carolina, frankly, all around the country, some efforts that we are part of here. A father poisons his daughter with an abortion pill drug. And uh, of course, layers there, terrible. We're gonna talk about it and why it matters to us. So that's our agenda, but you had something else.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

I did. We're gonna open with something fun. And that is fun. We do. So, okay, I'm a big nerd, and that's gonna come out right now, and I apologize for that. But one of the things that I get really interested in is sort of the impact of the life experiences that we have on our bodies physiologically, chemically. It is just so interesting to me how life impacts us on a material level. And so there is some new research out about how parenthood, how becoming a parent, affects fathers. It's a book called Dad Brain by Darby Saxby. It came out earlier this month, and some of the findings are so fascinating to me. I am curious. Yeah, about how dads Do I have a dad brain?

SPEAKER_02 2:00

I must.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

About how dads change biologically and physio physiologically. So we're gonna see if you think that these is this like a quiz?

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Yeah. Is this like oh I'm gonna find out how bad my dad brain is? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Okay, okay. So here's number one.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Fatherhood literally changes men's brains.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

So it's been Especially if you have girls, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Changes your brains. Uh that's there's no research, that's just experience.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Okay. I'm interested in that. So what the research says, and we've known this for a while, that in the postpartum period, women lose brain mass, white brain matter goes down, and that has to do with the body's way of reworking to orient towards parenting.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

You say that's postpartum? Yeah. Because my wife talked about, and I've heard people talk about pregnancy brain. Is that a real thing?

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Well, it it does. You're right. It does, it it's throughout the pregnancy and postpartum. It's the whole spectrum of it. Um, I think a lot of it happens postpartum. Okay. But evidently, according to this new research by Darby Saxby, fathers also brain scans show that fathers also lose brain mass, which is evidence of the brain reorienting itself towards caregiving. And these alterations in these specific regions are associated with increased empathy, social understanding, attention, and caregiving. And they think that these brain changes are meant to help fathers become more attuned to their children. This is the same way it happens in mothers.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

This is kind of the inverse of sympathy weight that dads put on when their wives are pregnant, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:45

We're gonna get to the dad bot, actually. That's the one I'm most excited about.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Okay, all right. No, but that I'm we're talking about the brain right now. You're talking about the but but you if your brain loses mass and becomes more empathetic, it's odd to me that a loss of brain mass would somehow be, would somehow correspond with empathy, but I will I will accept that you accept it. Yeah, I mean, I have no no no reason to challenge it. That's just that's just interesting. But I mean, I think being a parent should make you more empathetic. It's it's odd that there's something physiologically that happens, apparently, to kind of stimulate that process of developing some empathy. And what were the other it you said empathy, but there were a number of other things you mentioned there.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah, so it's empathy, social understanding, attention, and caregiving. They're kind of all related.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Yeah, it is like so. It just basically your brain g undergoes some kind of renovation to make you more prepared for fatherhood.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yeah. Okay, so here is the second one. Engagement drives transformation. So the more that dads wanted to engage in parenting and were invested in it, the more their brain changed. And this also went along with a cost. So the the fathers who are more involved had higher stress and fatigue and even some depression, emphasizing that that deep engagement brought them both rewards and strain.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

That that seems right because if if you if you care and you take it seriously, there's a sense of responsibility and some stress associated with that. If you don't really care, if you're detached, if you're still mostly living for yourself, then presumably you don't feel anxiety around the well-being of your children or your family in general. So I guess that kind of makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Okay. The next one is hormone shift. Testosterone goes down.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Uh-oh. As you have children, is this like is this like sequential? So if you have like 10 children, you're you basically have no testosterone left?

SPEAKER_01 5:56

You know, I I would need to look into this more. I'm presuming that these are temporary changes. I hope so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

I mean, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Okay. All right, here's the next one. Um dadbod in the book. This is a hypothesis. This is, I mean, this is from this book, and this is based on the research and this brain scans, but also there's interpretation and analysis of those findings, right? Okay, so this is another posit that uh dadbod has a possible is a possible biological adaptation rather than simply a consequence of neglecting fitness. Weight gain and metabolic changes around fatherhood have been observed across cultures and even in other species. So as an aside, there's some uh evolutionary assumptions here.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

Primate dad bod, they're just saying so it just isn't it's normal. I mean, I sure I assume that's true. Like aging happens in all creatures, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Yeah, yeah. So wait, but so if you have a dad bod, you now have an excuse. Because you're biological adaptation. But what's the adaptation? How does it benefit you? Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

I mean I of course reject the premise of evolutionary theory in general. Of course. And of course, we know that I mean, people do change within, you know, species change within the species, but the the assumption that you adapt only in ways that are beneficial, and that's kind of what evolutionary theory assumes. What is the benefit of the dad bod? That that makes no sense to me.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

Maybe Yeah, that that makes it it makes a lot more sense to me that that is a a normal um development when you become a father.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Maybe it's that you're putting your energy towards the children instead of 100% are, and you have not instead of mate finding or something, you bad.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Well, you have less margin in your life to go to the gym and exercise, right? Because at some point it becomes neglectful if you have a bunch of little children to like spend two hours at the gym every day.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Okay, my well, but also my husband and I were talking about this this week. It's also neglectful if you let your body go and you therefore become a burden on your family.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

Entirely, yes, for sure.

unknown 8:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

I mean, there is a middle ground, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:23

You can absolutely make it exactly. You can make an argument either way to not for if you don't take care of your body. I mean, my my husband was literally saying this. He's like, I view that as part of my duty to this family to take care of myself so that I can take care of you.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

Stewardship. I mean, it's not just so that I can take care of you, though that that is true, but you have to model what it is that we're supposed to do and stewardship and and responsibility and not being gluttonous and all of those things, I think is an example you want to provide to your children. So yes, but you don't, but what I would argue is that on the other end of that, if you are like if you spend two and a half hours in the gym every day and you only eat boiled chicken, um, you know, there there's a ditch on the other side of the road where you are probably neglecting the things that are primary. Yes. Because um taking care of your temple is a good idea. Idolizing your temple may not be. And when your children are three, they need you present and involved, and your wife needs you present and involved in assisting in the parenting when you can, more than she needs you to be able to bench 450 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

So you know, needs you to do that, Joseph.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

No, she does not need me to do that. I'm actually quite sure of that. She does not care. Maybe somebody cares. My wife does not care, and she definitely wanted me to take my kid to take the kids to the zoo on Saturday so she could have a break more than she wanted me to be.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

That's wisdom, Joseph. That's wisdom.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Well, that's also just listening to my wife. Again, even if I had that's wisdom. Even if I did not intuit that, she she told me, and so I just did it.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

It's good.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

So, I mean, dads probably do become more sympathetic, though. I mean, I that that makes sense to me. And um, but but there's interesting, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

I think what what's cool about it, that does make sense. I think what's cool about it is that there's actually physical, physical changes, chemical changes that go along with that. Well, there's very neat.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

There's something about this, though, the the way that we're wired and the connection between behavior and desire in in many other contexts. It's like we are inclined to say, I am the way I am, you know. So, I mean, that's just who I am, and we just take it for granted I can't change. But the reality is behavior changes desire, and desire changes behavior in in many different contexts, and and you begin to desire the thing that you do, and that can be really bad, and that's you know, substance abuse addiction. You know intellectually that this is terrible for you, but because you've done it, you now desire it, and there's a physiological connection to that as well. Um, discipline, you know, we're just talking about the gym. If you if you exercise consistently, soon you crave it. If you exercise never, you loathe it, right? You desire sitting on the couch and eating potato chips and being comfortable. That's the thing your body desires. But you can change that desire by changing your behavior. And so I think in all sorts of ways, God has like created us in such a way that our current mood, our current habits, our current desires are not necessarily fixed. And especially when we know that one is objectively better than the other, it isn't always going to be miserable to change course. And to your point here, that the body actually physiologically adapts to a new course of behavior once you once you establish new patterns, new habits, you experience the benefit of those things. So change is hard for a moment, but then it becomes actually pretty good, and you actually desire the thing that you have changed.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

There's a what you're saying is so true, and there's a deeper spiritual correlation as well. What came to mind when you were talking just now was Romans 12, too. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. There it is. Your mind can be renewed. And actually, we have physical evidence of how the mind can be changed. And and this principle that you're saying, uh, which is um what you put into your mind, what you choose to do with um with your body and and with your mind and and throughout your life, those things um have implications on who we are and who we're becoming. Um so yeah, it's pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

The connection between your thoughts and your behaviors and your feelings, right? Is is that when you when you remind yourself of truth in moments, I mean, whenever we are, I think, in in in a bad place emotionally, it's when we experience fear and anxiety, it's generally because we're believing things that are not true, I think.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Someone actually once defined that anxiety as wrong thinking to me. And it's the simplest, it is the simplest definition of anxiety I've ever heard, and I think it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

And so when we when we remind ourselves of truth, when we preach to ourselves, when we are transformed by the renewing of our mind, and what is the renewing of our mind, other than reminding our reminding ourselves who God is, who we are in relation to him, what he's capable of doing, what he has done, how he loves us, thinking true thoughts suddenly is the counterbalance to the to the lies that were leading to the depression and the anxiety and the you know nerves or anger or rage or jealousy or covetousness, all of that stuff that that we struggle with, that we can um we can combat that with truth. And as a result of that, our mood changes because our mind has been renewed, it has actually changed, and that's how it was kind of designed to, and that's you know, battling temptation. There's lots to it that is spiritual and and physiological. But I think maybe the the big point here is we do not have to accept the status quo as you know what we feel is this is the way it's always going to be. So, young men, if you do not feel especially nurturing, maybe I won't be a good father. It'll change, it'll change. Um, you you will learn to love those little rascals, I assure you. And uh, and and not just because it's you know creation order goodness, but it seems that God has hardwired us in a way that And this is actually true in marriage, right? When the two become one, that's physiological. I know the the whole marriage bond is not just theoretical, that things happen to us chemically that bond us to our mates in ways that are that are and do help you know help things endure.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

This is all part of God's design.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

How he wired us.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

So yes. All right, that was a long lead up. We need to switch now.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

But it's actually a good lead up because we're talking about parentage, right? Yeah, and and we're talking about you know, dad brains and what connects fathers to their children and mothers to their children and all of those things. Um, because we continue to try to reimagine what it means to be a parent in America. And the the jumping off point here is what's going on in Delaware. Because the state of Delaware has just passed a law. Their governor just signed it, Matt Meyer is his name. And for those of you who don't know Delaware, I feel like Delaware is maybe a forgotten state. Um, it gave us Joe Biden, of course. Um, I don't know if I know anybody else from Delaware. I mean, I know some people from Delaware, but like famous people from Delaware. But I, you know, gave us Joe Biden. It is a blue state, and so it is kind of on um that side of the blue-red divide in doing all of the things that the sexual revolution would like it to do. Now, Ashley, as I get into this, I want to um my little quiz to start is how do people become parents, Ashley, traditionally?

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Multiple ways. Either two people go through the necessary process.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

The procreative process. The procreative process.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Okay. And a baby is born naturally or through the process of adoption, where there is a child that is in need, there's a family that has the desire and the love um for that child, and and that's a legal process, and that also creates a family. It's so beautiful how God, you know, the picture of adoption. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

That is the correct answer historically. That is how people have become parents. We know how babies come into the world, and so you either bring a baby into the world the um natural way, or parental rights can be established through an adoptive process. But most people understand that the adoption process is uh not simple. And then you have not been through it yourself. You watch people go through it. You see, we have friends, friends who have adopted it.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Yeah, we do. We do. It's a hard, it's a hard road.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Yeah, it's it's cumbersome, it can be expensive, it can be emotionally directly.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

There can be a lot of there can be heartbreak along the way when when things change. And um, I I know multiple families who were set to adopt a specific child, and then that that did not happen, and and it was heart-wrenching because they already love the child.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

One of the reasons the adoption process is cumbersome is because it's trying to be mindful of the parental rights of birth parents. And I think we would agree, I I certainly feel, and you can respond to this, that it is really important to honor and respect the innate God-given rights of biological parents. And so we have always had a legal system that was very protective of those, and we are very cautious about eliminating the parental rights of biological parents because it is on balance always going to be preferable that uh children are known and loved by their biological parents. And only as a matter of last resort do we transfer those parental rights to someone else. And of course, that becomes necessary if the biological parents die and we transfer rights to somebody else who becomes the legal guardian, or in probably even more tragic situations when mom and dad are deemed to be not fit parents for a variety of reasons. And and it's statistically rare, it's more common than any of us would like that that parents are not fit. And so in those cases, those child those parental rights are terminated, and there are different ways that happens, but then those parental rights might be transferred to the government.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Or if they choose to carry the child to term, knowing that they don't have the ability to care for that child, yeah, and and choose to give the child up for adoption.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

One way that parental rights are um severed are is when they are voluntarily surrendered, and that's kind of the situation that you've described.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

A beautiful and selfless thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Difficult, but yeah, and and obviously the context is the to carry a child to term. Carry a child to term way, way, way, way better than killing the child because you don't feel ready to be a parent. Of course, we're always going to prefer a situation where you will put that child up for adoption. And so that process is sometimes less complicated because mom knows in advance I'm not ready to do this, I'm gonna voluntarily surrender them. It's more complicated when mom and dad do not want to surrender those rights, but the system through a long process ultimately determines you are not a fit parent. Yes, the system is going to terminate those rights, and that can be you know hard on everybody and complicated and very timely, uh a very long process for that to happen. So that's kind of generally been how parental rights have worked. Now, as the sexual revolution has marched on, we all know that same-sex marriage got defined, and redefining parenthood has become the next frontier. Because why did we redefine marriage, in my opinion? It's essentially because we wanted to establish as a legal matter that relationships involving people of the same sex are in every way equal to relationships involving people of the opposite sex. That's the premise. But what's the problem with that premise, of course? One can produce children and one cannot. Same-sex relationships will never produce children, and we all understand why that is. But that has been seen by the sexual revolutionaries as a form of discrimination. The fact that same-sex couples cannot easily obtain parental rights to children is frustrating. And from my perspective, it's appropriate because um they should not easily establish parental rights because the two of them cannot easily be, they can never become parents to the same child biologically, and that's just reality. But they're sad about it because the way you get parental rights if you are in a same-sex relationship, the only other means to do that we've established, other than biologically producing a child, is the adoption process. The adoption process is hard. And so the same-sex couples are saying, hey, it's harder for us to have a children than it is for the heterosexuals. That's discrimination. Normal people look at that and say, that's insane. Of course, that's not discrimination. That's just a function of the creation order. They're saying it's discrimination. So they have now tried to create a world in which they can get parental rights just as easily as the straight people.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Is that what's happening in Delaware?

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Yes. And that and Delaware is an illustration of this. It's not just Delaware, but That I'm I'm trying to help lay the groundwork because we're going to talk about what's referred to as the Uniform Parentage Act, which is, you know, not exciting language. That's kind of what's being adopted in Delaware. But people need to understand where this is coming from.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Because we've established Delaware has five new ways of becoming a parent. Because we've talked now at length about the original two, and those are kind of the best ways. But the sexual revolutionaries have created five new ways to become a parent. And so we're going to talk about those.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

And understand why these are. And the first is um presumed parentage. Now, this is not entirely new because actually it makes sense to you that when when you you are married and then you gave birth to a child, and the law assumed that your husband is the legal parent of that child. Rightly so. Well, rightly so, yes. And of course, we we understand as a factual matter that when a married woman gives birth to a child, it is not guaranteed that her husband is going to be the biological father. We understand that it that it is possible to be. That it's possible for that not to be the case. But the law assumes that is the case in the supermajority of uh situations, that is the case. So the law assumes that that father is actually the legal parent and immediately transfers upon birth parental rights to the spouse of, to the to the husband of the wife. But of course, now spouses are not ne- spouses of wives are not necessarily husbands, is the is the new frontier that we've created. So they have said that the presumption that a husband is a legal parent, but a wife of a wife is not a legal parent is a form of discrimination. So that's what they have tried to change. So now, when a woman is in a relationship with a woman that is titled legally a marriage, the law is going to assume that that other woman is also the parent, is the second parent of the child, when we know as a biological matter, that's impossible. So this assumption that has always extended to husbands is now being extended to women who certainly are not. And in the and the challenge is in this air in this situation, is there's a guy out there somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

I was about to say that. What happens to the guy?

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Nothing. The law pretends he doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

So are his parental rights severed then?

SPEAKER_02 24:30

They aren't severed.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Well, wouldn't they?

SPEAKER_02 24:32

They never existed. That's the thing. They they they never existed, and the law is not curious about him and doesn't ask. It just has parent one and parent two in a lot of the forms. I don't know exactly in Delaware. I know this happened in Washington, where they take away mother and father, and it's parent one, parent two, right? They take away all the gendered language and everything. And so parent one is the woman who just gave birth, and that makes sense. Parent two is the person that the woman is married to, uh, irrespective of gender. So if it's a woman, legally gets the rights of the parent, and the father in that scenario, for the purposes of the law, doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Let me just ask one question.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Just to understand, and you may not know the answer, but you have a married couple, the woman has an affair, and the father is not the husband. Does that man ever have parental rights, the biological father?

SPEAKER_02 25:28

I he would have, I believe, that's a good question. Because the presumption would be that the husband is the right, but if it was later understood. Would he challenge and prove paternity and therefore get and I believe the answer to that is yes. Okay. I believe the answer to that is yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Okay. So the the only difference the main difference here though, with the same-sex uh situation is that we know for sure that woman isn't the parent.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

We know for sure.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

But we're saying that she is parent.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

We are saying for sure that she is. The law now says for sure that she is, even though we know biological scientifically, biologically that she for sure is not.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

And it does not necessarily mean that a biological father could not appear at some point and challenge for parental rights, right? But in in the old, in the old world, they would have asked the mother, who is the father? Right. And she would either provide a name or say that.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

We know there is one.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

But but what we Who is it? We would operate in the reality that we know there is one, we're curious about it, we're gonna try to find out. In the new world, we're not even curious about it because there's this woman who is just replacing the father, and we pretend that the father doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Now number generally the same facts, but they're not married. The two women are not married.

unknown 26:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Right?

SPEAKER_02 26:47

So we can't have the presumption of parentage that comes with marriage.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

This is number two. Way number two.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Yeah, this is the second way we're getting parental rights. That's right. Okay. Is it same facts, two women in a relationship, except there's no legal marriage. Woman gives birth. Obviously, there's going to be a dad, but there's actually a woman involved in the relationship. We're not going to presume she's the other parent because there's no um marriage license that would carry that presumption. So instead, they sign, they've created a parental rights through notarized quote-unquote voluntary acknowledgement, which gives parental rights to an acknowledging parent. So all you have to do is acknowledge and just say, I'm the parent, you have a statement and you go to a notary who's going to notarize, oh, this is the person who acknowledges themselves to be in uh the other parent of this child, gonna be most applicable when it's a woman. No reason to think it can't apply when it's another when it's a man, presumably. There's no biological test, but you just sign something. And so this is basically pronoun rights uh through paperwork. And so no adoption process necessary. And we're gonna talk into you know why when why circumventing the adoption process is so problematic. So that's the second way, right? Notarized voluntary acknowledgement. The third is now that we are having children through IVF, sperm donors, all of these kind of uh new science-assisted reproductive technologies, arts, I think is the is the acronym there, you have parental rights simply by consenting to the procedure of IVF. And interestingly, what that when, and that makes sense. If you if you are if you are impregnated by a child that assumes that you have are a parent because you've gone through the process, but what this specifically did is it bars anyone from challenging for parental rights through genetic testing.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

And we know there have been cases where the wrong embryo is implanted.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Right. So it the law is looking out for the same-sex couples who necessarily have the genetic material of someone else involved in the creation of their child, and specifically says the biological parents are forhibited, prohibited for all time from challenging for parental rights, even if you prove that is your biological child.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

So would this prevent someone? I mean, there have been horrific cases of the wrong embryo being implanted, and then people like what do we do now? And and do we, does this child go back to their biological family? So would that impact those situations where it was an accidental?

SPEAKER_02 29:44

I I cannot answer that question definitively. I'm I'm not sure. Um, but what I know it's anticipating is again, the premise here is we need to make sure that same-sex couples feel and are treated in all ways as if they are like heterosexual couples, when we know and unambiguously they are not. And this is the clearest case why. Because one can produce a child and one cannot produce a child. And what they're frustrated by is the fact that we cannot have the child without borrowing genetic material from someone else. Yet we want to make sure that someone else never has any rights, because if they're involved, that makes us feel like our relationship is not the same. So it's it's just the law trying to lie and to participate in a fiction that this is exactly the same when you're not. And so all you do in the process is make sure that the actual biological parents never have any rights. And that that's now the process because that makes the same-sex relationship feel more normal because now they're not threatened by legal action from somebody else to say, hey, that's my child. And so that's that's the scenario that they're anticipating. So that's the third one. The fourth one, um, this might be the most disturbing. It's called de facto parentage. Any adult who resided with a child and took on a parental role can be deemed as a de facto parent. So the fact pattern that they have in mind with this, and we'll try to make sure we're tracking. We talked, we we know that every child has a mother and father. So we're imagining a situation where mom and dad have a baby and then they split up. Then mom gets into a relationship with another woman for a period of time and they have a child with them. So mom's same-sex partner kind of acts like a parent for a while because she's living with mom and child or children. Then mom and same-sex partner break up. They all move on, mom leaves with children, but same, but ex-same-sex partner, she's sad because she doesn't have children in her life anymore. She loved the children, and maybe, and I don't mean to like insult that, and she may actually genuinely care about the children. But now she feels like it's in those children's best interests to have a relationship with them. So ex same mom's ex-same-sex partner can now sue, go to court, and have a judge deem her as a quote unquote de facto parent with all the rights and privileges of the legal parents. So now the kids will have a third, who knows, fourth, fifth parent when the court says you are a de facto parent. So you have mom and dad, neither of whom have been found to be unfit. Neither of them want the other person in their lives, but the court says, hey, we think it's in the kid's best interest. And oh, by the way, I'm very sympathetic to the same-sex relationship and the same-sex ex who's gonna feel validated by feeling like she has children. So we're gonna deem her a de facto parent. Now the kid has three parents. Mom and dad now have to juggle this other person legally who has the same rights to visitation. The same rights. That's that's what de facto parentage is.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Joseph, that is shocking. I mean it should be. It's it's shocking for a number of reasons to raise children with one person, you know, two parents that both, you know.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Once you're divorced, right? Even then it's hard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Well, even when you're married, it's when you're married. You know, there's you you're talking through things, there's a lot of decisions, there's a lot of sacrifice, there's a lot that goes into raising children, okay? That's hard. Then you think about a divorce situation, that's even harder. So many extra challenges that come into that. Then you think about a third person being involved. I mean, what do you do? Call a meeting, you know, of all the parental meeting. Yeah. And then, I mean, this is crazy. This is an absolute breakdown of the family order. It's it's clearly riddled with issues. It's clearly not um how God designed it to be. It's clearly not how we see these things being intended to be just by nature. Like, even if you're not a Christian, you kind of look at this and you're like, this is a not natural.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Like Well, obviously it's not natural. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

You know, I mean, to to have to have three, four, five parents.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

Now, I have no reason to think that this has been done like multiple times and there's any kid out there with three de facto parents.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

You're just saying theoretically it's possible based on this.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Yeah, because the it's all given to the judge. And we know judges with agendas have done all sorts of of zany things. And if what they are trying to do is prioritize the feelings of the adults, which all of this does, right? This entire framework, all of these five new ways of establishing parenthood, all prioritize the feelings of the adults over the well-being of the children. And so when a court decides, hey, you ex-same-sex partner, I know you're sad because you don't have children, you don't feel like a family anymore. Let's just allow you to be. There's not, there's not a there's not an actual limit on the number of times the court can do that. Now it's it's hard to imagine that that's gonna be done seven times if mom has all these relationships and breaks up with all of them and then all of them sue for de facto parenthood at some point, you know, it it's probably not plausible. But the fact that it's plausible even once, that mom and dad can agree about something, these are our children, biologically, no dispute, but now a court is gonna say, hey, you guys have to share your parental rights with this other person because I think it's good for your child and them to do that. I mean, the only time in which the court should be able to substitute its judgment for that of the parents has went is when there has been a finding of unfitness. And that's always been the standard. We know that even those cases are sad, but it makes sense. At least there's a standard. Only when mom and dad can't do it themselves does somebody else need to intervene. This allows the court to intervene even when everybody thinks mom and dad are doing great. But we just don't care about your opinion because we think somebody else's feelings should matter too.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

So all of this makes me think about the importance of the greater than campaign.

SPEAKER_02 35:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

That and what you're saying is exactly what this the point that is being driven home by the greater than campaign, which our organization joined, and it's it's a bunch of, I believe now it's 83 different uh state policy groups and organizations around the comp country that have joined in this effort to overturn Obergefell. And everything you're talking about now is sort of the fallout, right? From Obergefell part of it. And it's the campaign's called Greater Than because the whole premise is that the needs of the child are greater than the desires of adults. That's right. Um, and so and I think that I think that's exactly right. I think we have largely forgotten that, you know, children don't children don't exist for our happiness. I mean, certainly they bring us joy and happiness, but it is us who are supposed to be the ones who are pouring into the children, who are serving and and loving and sacrificing for them and and raising up the next generation. And that is what it takes. It takes uh sacrifice, intentionality, all of this. And and it we've gotten it completely backwards when we when our laws and just our culture prioritizes what what parents want and and and these you know crazy situations that they come up with, where we're prioritizing that over what is best for the children, which we know unideal things happen, but it is ideal for children to be raised uh by a mother and a father.

SPEAKER_02 37:45

And and the standard that has always been used when evaluating these things is the best interest of the child. And and and that is what's being discarded. And I want to talk about the fifth way in which parental rights have been established here uh through surrogacy that really kind of illustrates the way in which we are abandoning the status. So the uh the the standard that we have used to protect children. Now, surrogacy is is the context here, and we kind of understand what surrogacy is. Um, commercial surrogacy has been hotly debated because essentially surrogacy is paying a woman to carry a child to term that she then gives to the intended parents who are the ones who paid her to carry the child. And now, this happens sometimes with you know wealthy people in Hollywood, and she doesn't want her body to change, so she pays a surrogate to carry a child. Um, but very often it is same-sex couples who are wanting a child, and obviously in the most common situation here will be for the men who do not have the ability to carry their own child. So if they want to have a child, they don't need a sperm donor, they need a womb. And so they go and hire the womb. But these situations get complicated because sometimes mom will agree, you know, very often we're dealing with um women who are financially stressed. Uh, some very often in the third world, Southeast Asia is very commonplace to do this, Russia is a common place to do this, where you hire surrogates, and if you say, you know, I'll give you $50,000 for this, they're like, sign me up, I'll basically do anything. But then seven or eight months into it, they're like, I'm bonding with this child. And in some cases, it's actually biologically the surrogate's child. So she's not just carrying it, it is, it is sometimes biologically hers. That's not the majority of the cases. But what is not that uncommon is is custody disputes. And some of this is just the the surrogate changes her mind. Sometimes the surrogate changes her mind because she learns something about the intended parents that makes her very concerned about whether they're going to be good parents. You know, they're sex offenders, they are drug dealers. I've learned some things. This is terrible. I cannot give this baby to these people. And so then she would sue for parental rights by virtue of being the woman who gave birth. And those lawsuits end up being stressful for the same-sex couples because they just want to very quickly and easily get the parental rights that they paid for. Now, there's other tragic situations where the same-sex couple pays the surrogate, then the baby is imperfect or the wrong gender, and then they bail. There's many of those cases where the intended parents say, I didn't, this is basically not what I purchased. It's not what I paid for, I don't want it. See you later. And because it happens in other countries, they just go back to the country they came from, and the baby and the surrogate are just abandoned because that's not what they got. That's not what they wanted, right? So it's a commercial transaction. And so, bottom line of the surrogacy parental rights transfer is what they want in most custody disputes involving a child, uh, up until now. A court will look at a claim by a surrogate and a claim by same-sex intended parents or any other kind of dispute and apply the standard of what is in the best interest of the child. That is what they would evaluate. Okay, you guys are drug dealers, you're bad people, you're right. You shouldn't have parental rights. It's not in the best interest of the child. And so the surrogate might win in that situation. But what Delaware has done, and what the kind of the blue state movement would do in general is prohibit the court from evaluating the dispute by the best interest of the state of the child standard, and instead transfer it entirely to contract law. So the the law looks at those situations differently. When you are evaluating a contract, all you do is look at the four corners of the contract and say, is this enforceable? Did you intend to sign the contract? Did you do it under duress? Was there actually an exchange of money? You received the money, you gave the money. Okay, all of those factors are met. The contract is enforceable, the parental rights chant transfer, irrespective of what's in the best interest of the child. So that's what they're trying to do is make sure that in all surrogacy situations, the court is not allowed to consider the best interest, best interest of the child, only consider it as a contract matter. The parental rights are bought and sold exclusively, nothing else matters, because that's easier for the people in the same-sex relationship who had the money. So that's what they've done in Delaware and in a number of other places. And to show you how this works, two quick examples. In Pennsylvania, there were a couple of guys who actually crowdfunded their surrogacy journey and they put this on social media. One of those guys was a convicted sex offender with a felony child pornography conviction. And so he purchased the right to a child. In Australia, there were two men who were imprisoned for a deliberate creation of a child through surrogacy, specifically for the purpose of abuse, abuse that was uploaded to a pedophile website. So these are sex offenders who would never, ever, ever get through adoption screening, who are able to get kids that they can abuse and exploit because they have enough money. And now the surrogacy law forbids governments from looking at these situations because it's just a contract. So that's how this applies to surrogacy.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

That blows my mind. That blows my mind. And even just what you're saying about the implications of the way that the surrogate surrogacy industry operates and how someone is able to purchase a child when they would never have been able to uh to adopt a child. So previously, again, this is this is um situations you know arising that you couldn't, I mean, I I would never for foresee that. I mean, that is just incredible to me that we now have this workaround. If you have enough money, you can just buy a baby. And and the I've I've heard about like the I mean, and technology has made it's like it's technology and and this whole sexual revolution, gender ideology, LGBTQ stuff. It's it's the it's the me.

SPEAKER_02 44:01

There are rich kids in China who have hundreds of babies through surrogacy.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Rich kids.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

I mean, we're we're talking like young adults. They're not married, but they are they're they're wealthy and they pay hundreds of surrogates to have their babies. And then they hire nannies. It's not super common, but it's but it is a reality that this framework allows. It's just a contract. If you've got enough money, and if you have hundreds of millions of dollars or you're a billionaire, there's no limit to the number of and and it's like this ego thing. I'm gonna be like, you know, Solomon or Genghis Khan, and I'm gonna have millions of descendants because I can pay to have hundreds of children.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

And you're you're detaching the relationship, a parent and child. When you detach it from the creation order, which is a man and a woman have a baby, that can't be done hundreds of times. You know, there are there are real constraints to that biologically in the in our in our lifespans, right? I mean, if you produce 20 children in the course of a marriage, that's incredible. And for most people, that's not theoretically even possible. But now when you detach um procreation from marriage and from a relationship and from what's good for the child, then you know it's a wild, wild west.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

It is.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

All you're limited by is your creativity and how much money you have. And and just to this is transferring parenthood from a child-based situation. And all of these, the theme they have, is it's now just an intent-based situation. It's a feeling. If the parent intends, if the adult intends to be a parent, then the law says you are.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Are you biologically? We don't really care. As long as you intend to be, because we know it will make you happy to give you those rights if you intend to be, then we're going to give those to you. And the friction of the adoption process, which is real. It is real friction, but the friction exists because of how highly we have valued the rights of children and the and the um outcomes for them. We were removing that friction, and therefore we're removing all of the safeguards of the children. Why? Simply because it makes the adults involved feel better. And that's not the right approach.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

Well, I appreciate you explaining that all to me because I do think, you know, it does kind of take an attorney to go through like what's the standard and explaining the difference between uh looking at what's best for the child and looking at this simply as a contract and and the implications of these changes. Because I think the average person, you know, it doesn't understand all of that. And um, but it is important because uh these laws really impact people's lives. This is impacting children, real children.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

And it is a cultural shift in in what we value. Yeah, and and and that's the you know, we redefine marriage. We we redefine marriage, and we were told over and over and over again nobody's gonna be impacted except the loving same-sex couples that are gonna be, you know, released from second-class citizenship status. And it was a lie then, it is a lie now, and and what we're seeing is just the way in which a lot of people, in fact, are impacted by this because we didn't just stop at redefining marriage. Now we have to redefine parentage, because without redefining parentage, then the the marriage thing doesn't feel quite so equal. So we're gonna redefine the parentage, even if it costs kids something. All of this costs kids something.

SPEAKER_01 47:27

So I want to switch gears a little bit. Another parenting story, but this is a tragic example of a very bad, we would probably say unfit parent. Uh, there was a story that caught my attention last week out of Louisiana. It is it's a horrible story. Uh a man named Jamel Kelly, he's 39, is alleged to have poisoned his 17-year-old pregnant daughter with the abortion pill without her knowledge. So there was an investigation into this, and Kelly was arrested on June 12th. And uh when he committed the poisoning, his daughter was 23 weeks pregnant. So that is past the point of viability outside of the wound. It's just right on the cusp.

SPEAKER_02 48:26

And and and and also, as I understand it, that's far beyond the timeline in which anyone would recommend well past chemical. They allow, they recommend it only up to not that we ever support chemical abortion drugs being taken.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 48:44

But even the FDA says that it should not be taken after 10 weeks.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

That's exactly right. 23 weeks beyond. Yeah, we obviously believe that a life is a life, no matter how small, uh, from conception. Um, and yet the FDA has approved the abortion pill up to 10 weeks. Okay, so this was at 23 weeks. Uh 22, 23 weeks. That's basically the cusp of viability outside of the womb. So the the daughter became ill, she was rushed to the hospital and prior or following the poisoning, poisoning, and the baby was delivered via emergency C section.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

23 weeks.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

And so the baby was born at one pound, and to the best of my knowledge, is in the NICU still.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

Um so this is a new story. So that baby is alive.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

Mm-hmm. Yep. Hopefully, I mean to unless there's an update that I okay that I haven't seen or or hasn't been reported, uh, the baby is in the NICU.

SPEAKER_02 49:50

I would have said that the earliest like premature birth that survived was like 24 weeks or something. And maybe my fact with I know the line is closely. Well, I used to, you know, I was a NICU nurse.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Yeah. Um, so the 22 weeks is very, I mean, the older, the further along, the greater the chance of survival. So the chance of survival is is low. I think it's it's below 50% at 22 weeks. Um, but that's like the very, very earliest.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

That's better than I would have guessed. That you can you got a 50% chance of.

SPEAKER_01 50:20

No, no, I said it's below 50%. I don't have that statistic. It's it's it's low. Um, but but every week it increases pretty dramatically, actually. Um, I should I should look up those statistics. But the point is every week it becomes uh a lot more likely that that that baby will survive. And the other thing is we don't know exactly how far along, you know, because we're we're relying on um prenatal dates and I'm sorry, um, menstrual dates and and measurements, but but a lot of times we don't really know exactly is it 22 weeks, is it 22 and a half, is it 23? And so um, yeah, you just you just don't always know. But this baby, praise the Lord, survived this this terrible ordeal. And so again, this took place in Louisiana, where abortion is illegal. And so now the father faces two felonies, first attempted first degree, feticide, and domestic abuse and battery of a pregnant victim.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

There's so many like layers to this because it it happened in Louisiana where abortion is illegal generally, and so now he's facing criminal charges. But I think one of the interesting points that we need to talk about for our purposes is the fact that a chemical abortion drug was used, which had to have been acquired from someplace other than Louisiana, right, and begs the question how is a man who definitely is not pregnant getting his hands on chemical abortion drugs that he can use to poison someone else? Because everybody knows he doesn't need an abortion.

SPEAKER_01 52:06

There are multiple ways. One is there's sort of these kind of black market type websites where Mifepristone and um well yeah, miphopristone can be ordered from other countries. And so they might come from India or somewhere else, and these are pills that aren't regulated, they aren't inspected, and it's just it's completely outside of our medical system that this is happening. So that there are these websites. Um, another way that it can happen that someone who lives in a state that where uh abortion is illegal, and in Louisiana, surgical and both are illegal, um they can basically have that prescribed to them by a doctor residing in a state where abortion is legal. And then some of those states have shield laws that protect them from prosecution uh in the state where abortion is illegal. I doubt that is what happened here, though, because he is a man and he is not pregnant. And so, obviously, and so I I would it's unclear how he obtained the pills. That's not a part of the report, but the point is that he was he was able to, and this whole thing has been made possible in part by um abortion pills being allowed to be mailed and and um prescribed via telehealth.

SPEAKER_02 53:44

And that is that that's part of the conversation that you know for for our purposes and for our audience purposes uh needs to understand because it's a real policy question, is because there has been debate about and in legislative debates, and we have banned in North Carolina it is illegal to ship chemical abortion drugs from outside the state inside to inside the state.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

But it's still happening.

SPEAKER_02 54:05

We know it's still happening because the penalties are not sufficient, and that's something that we would like to change. And so there's there's actual um there's actual consequences that people are going to be concerned about. Right. Just understand the dynamic here and in kind of the medical realities of even if you think abortion is wonderful, this drug is not recommended after 10 weeks. And oh, by the way, the way it is accessible right now, they have no idea who you are, so they cannot screen. They're providing no kind of medical examination to determine how far along you are. Is it an ectopic pregnancy? Right. Are you even a woman? Right. Right? So could you even theoretically be um pregnant? And it and the lack of supervision and oversight over these chemical abortion drugs, which is exactly the wild, wild west that the abortion industry wants, is making it possible for people who have no business having these kind of drugs because they can't theoretically be pregnant, to get them. The only reason they might want them is for nefarious purposes. And the abortion industry's attempt to make sure there are no rules around any of this is what's creating this possibility that now, I mean, we've heard other stories about husbands poisoning their wives, there are lots of boyfriends poisoning their girlfriends.

SPEAKER_01 55:19

And it's not just poisonings. A poisoning is the, you know, the woman has no idea that she's ingested this substance. But another concern is coercion. You know, when you have males who are threatening females, you you have to take this, and and they're able to easily obtain this substance because of the way that things are now. Um, you think of uh women who are in like sex trafficking situations. Um, it's it's very it's it's very bad.

unknown 55:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:51

We know that, you know, if if somebody goes to a hardware store and buys like a shovel, a tarp, and some duct tape, right? Suspicions are going to be raised and something might be flagged because of that. But we the world we live in right now is where a man orders a chemical abortion drug and nobody does anything about it. And that's only because we treat abortion differently than everything else. And that shouldn't be the way it is. We just need greater awareness. I mean, because people are like, oh, it's just abortion. I, you know, maybe I don't care, maybe I do, but it's not my business kind of a thing. These are situations the that the indifference to the issue in general is is allowing a legal landscape to develop where um this kind of exploitation is happening. And if you're for women's rights, right, you have to be for the girl here. You have to be. Right. And you have to be for a system in which men cannot get chemical abortion drugs and then poison the women in their lives. That's the only like pro-women position. Yet the abortion industry doesn't want any of those regulations because really just what they want is to make sure that chemical abortion drugs can move frictionlessly. Is that a word? Move as effortless effortlessly as possible wherever anybody wants them to be. And this is the kind of outcome you get.

SPEAKER_01 57:06

You mentioned the legal landscape, and I want to talk about that real quickly before we close today. So also in Louisiana, there's this, there is a court case that's kind of been traveling through the courts. Louisiana actually sued the FDA in arguing that the 2023 rule that allowed Mifeprestone to be mailed and prescribed via telehealth, that it actually violates Louisiana's abortion ban. Uh, so it's, I won't, I for the sake of time, I'm not going to get into how this case has moved through the courts. Um, but where it is now is um the Fifth Court Circuit is gonna hear oral arguments in this case this fall. And the Supreme Court is likely very good possibility could take up this case. But the big question here is can the state sue the FDA to override these drug approval rules? And does mailing abortion pills into a state that has made abortion illegal violate federal law, the Comstock Act? So obviously, the point I'm making here is that you know, we've got this legal situation um to kind of resolve this tension uh in our country over what are we gonna do over Nifepristone, and it hasn't been resolved yet. Meanwhile, you've got daughters being poisoned, you know, you've got wives being poisoned. Um and so it's for me, it's really frustrating to see how long this process is taking to roll back these allowances that the FBA has made to mail these pills around and to uh be able to prescribe them via telehealth because um real people are are being harmed. That's right. Um, and they're women. Um and and and unborn lives also aren't being protected.

SPEAKER_02 59:05

That's right. And and it's just it just is another way in which we expose the hypocrisy from the abortion industry about how they're really much less pro-women than they are pro-abortion, because unregulated miphapristone is not pro-women, but it is pro-abortion. And when they have to make the choice, they choose abortion over the well-being of women all the time because abortion is the greatest good, not the welfare of women. They just talk about the welfare of women because it sells better.

SPEAKER_01 59:31

So, our organization, NC Values, we filed an amicus brief in support of Louisiana's position. We have a great um interest in how this case turns out. And so we'll be keeping you updated on it.

SPEAKER_02 59:46

Yeah, and and again, that that case that we hope will prevail, will in which the state of Louisiana will successfully argue that the FDA and that when we ban abortion, you know, if we ban uh, you know, cocaine, the FDA does not get to just uh tell people it's okay to send cocaine into Louisiana. In the same way, if abortion is illegal in Louisiana, uh the FDA does not get to create regulations that tell everybody it's just fine to send these into the state of Louisiana. So um that's the case, you know, as as technology changes, as the world changes, there's always new legal questions being raised. Um, but we hope and pray for a result there that will allow us to protect life.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:32

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:34

So thank you, friends, for joining us. I think that's what we got for today. Um, it's good, important, and uh hopefully it compels you to do something that you wouldn't have otherwise done. Reminder that new episodes drop every Tuesday and every Friday. Like and subscribe where you found us. That makes sure you get the next one and it helps us find new friends. We're grateful for you. We'll see you next time here on Politics for Happy People.