Culture Friday: Weaponizing confusion

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 9th of May. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

It’s Culture Friday. Joining us now is John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center and Host of the Breakpoint Podcast. Good morning.

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

EICHER: This week a Pulitzer Prize went to ProPublica for a story claiming that pro-life laws are causing doctors to let pregnant women die—because they’re afraid they’ll be prosecuted. The article made national headlines and even shaped talking points for Vice President Kamala Harris … in her unsuccessful campaign for president.

But is that prize-winning story true?

WORLD published a very strong, very detailed rebuttal by Leah Savas when the piece first came out last year. And now that ProPublica’s misleading story has been honored as “public service journalism,” we think it’s important to revisit specifically what ProPublica got wrong—and what’s actually happening in states with strong pro-life protections.

A spoiler: Doctors are still treating women. The law still allows doctors to treat women. And these scary stories about women not being treated aren’t what they seem.

John, the doctors Leah spoke to say they have no hesitation about treating complications like miscarriage or sepsis. But the media narrative is that doctors are paralyzed by fear, and as narrative, it worked. But journalism isn’t supposed to “work” that way, it’s supposed to tell the truth. I think we did our part on truth-telling, what do you think is the part of pro-life activists?

STONESTREET: Well, I think a big part is not to believe this narrative of inevitability. This is the overarching narrative that drives progressive ideas and always has: that this is the way the culture is inevitably headed, and whatever takes us further that way, then, is something that can’t really be argued against, and that’s a really paralyzing thing.

Think of how many times we’ve been told, “This is the way it is.” And it turns out that it’s not the way it is. Besides, to claim to be on the “right side of history” is something that no one can ever claim unless you have the bird’s eye view of biblical revelation that tells you where history is actually headed overall. But that, to me, is what’s at work behind this.

The other thing that I think is at work in this is that when a movement—or a set of ideas—runs out of any fundamental arguments, they run out of any rationale, then the most effective thing is to sow confusion.

That’s really what this journalism is, what the media reports have been. We know that’s true from some of the higher-profile cases that also made the same claim during the last presidential campaign, which turned out to be exactly not true. It turned out that none of the details backed the conclusion that was basically announced as settled. So confusion can take the place of argument in the public imagination, and that’s what’s happening on the pro-abortion side right now.

Pro-lifers need to commit themselves to a couple things. Number one is never going along with lies and not going along with confusion. We have to continue to bring clarity as much as possible, and this will be an example of that, unfortunately, for a long time, I think.

BROWN: Let’s talk about a fresh take on how the transgender movement lost cultural ground—and what it teaches us about winning the next fight. Writing in WORLD Opinions, Katy Faust argues that it wasn’t appeals to religious liberty or free speech that stopped the momentum of the trans movement. It was something deeper and more visceral: child protection. From Chloe Cole’s personal story to swimmer Riley Gaines to parents speaking out—Faust says the trans domino is falling because people finally saw the harm. And now she’s asking: could the same strategy be key to restoring marriage?

Question: Do you agree with Katy Faust that child-centered arguments—not appeals to religious liberty—turned the cultural tide on transgender ideology?

EICHER: (Laughs) You asked me whether or not I agree with Katy Faust, to disagree with Katy Faust is a scary prospect indeed. But she and I have had this conversation on a number of levels, so I’m happy to speak into it.

There’s no question that the personal stories of harm, primarily to minors or to young women, were the things that made everyone go, “Wait a minute. I did not sign up for that. That went too far.”

I think one of the differences here is that the harm is obvious. But I also think, too, that there’s a little bit here that needs to be corrected. Namely, the idea that a group of people got together in a strategy session and said, “I know how we’ll beat gay marriage. We’ll do it through religious liberty.” Now maybe some thought it was going to be a winning strategy to push back, but my recollection of the events was that we basically faced a fundamental cultural redefinition of love and marriage and its relationship to what it means to us as human beings, and we basically had nothing to stand on.

Part of this was the fault of the church not doing Christian worldview. In other words, we talked about how to do marriage, but not really what marriage is, and that’s where the whole conversation culturally kind of took us.

The conversations about religious liberty had much more to do with defense than offense. This wasn’t a strategy of trying to push back on same-sex marriage. This was more, Jack Phillips was accused of bigotry and discrimination, wrongly, and the state went after him for 13 years. There was an attempt to force people to comply, and in that case, what are you going to do? You’re either going to not stick with him, or you are going to stick with him.

Now, should we have been louder and clearer about the inevitable and potential harms to children because of changing and redefining marriage? The answer is absolutely yes. The entire history of redefining marriage has gone along with this myth that was stated in various ways that turned out not to be true—which is, "Ah, the kids will be fine," whether we’re talking about cohabitation or no-fault, divorce, or same-sex marriage. No, the kids aren’t fine. They haven’t been fine for a long time, and we should have had some more, I think, ammo in that arena to push back on it.

But the conversations over religious liberty, those were just trying to stand up for these people who are being targeted. And to me, should more have been done in the child protection arena? I’m with Katy 100%. I’m not going to fault those who stood in the arena and argued based on religious liberty and free speech, because that’s where the attacks were directed. That was defense, not offense.

EICHER: John, WORLD reported that Colorado’s Democratic super‑majority just hustled the “Kelly Loving Act” through the Senate. We’ve talked about this before. Looks like they’ve stripped out the egregious custody clause. But the measure still makes so-called “misgendering” and “dead‑naming” civil‑rights violations statewide. Were you encouraged, though, that more than 700 citizens—many parents and pastors—showed up to oppose it? You’ve been critical of some of the bigger institutions staying above the fray, which is why I ask.

STONESTREET: Yeah, I mean, it is better that they showed up than if they didn’t. The cynical side of me wants to say, you know, “too little, too late.” There was a time to do this, and it was upstream from this kind of crazy language. The stripping out of this egregious child custody clause is certainly it makes it better.

But this is deadly, you know? You take out half the cyanide in a poison cocktail, it still might be enough to kill you—and this is enough to establish a beachhead of state power and state control, not to mention establish a lie in the social fabric of the state, that will enable all kinds of other evils.

Once you give up this ground, once you have a state that lies and actually then penalizes others who refuse to lie, or at least to suppress dissent, it’s just not clear what comes next. 

The sad part of me says a whole lot’s happened in the last 15 years to get to the point where this many citizens—and we’re not even talking about the petitions that were signed and the other official testimony that was given from very influential and powerful people—and basically we got a pat on the head, a push through the house and and now it sits on the desk of Governor Polis. It doesn’t bode well for the future of being able to hold the next thing back.

BROWN: There was a small story this week that I’m sure is on pro-life radar screens: Evidently, the Trump Justice Department took a position identical to the Biden DOJ. It has to do with a lawsuit by three Republican-led states to restrict access to the abortion drug mifepristone. The Trump administration said the judge should toss it out on grounds that the states lack standing. So it’s not a pro-abortion filing, necessarily, but it kind of has the same effect. Does this concern you?

STONESTREET: Yeah, it does, really on a number of levels. This is the sort of gaslighting that we talked about earlier, saying it’s about restricting access to the abortion drug Mifepristone. No, it’s actually about restoring restrictions that existed prior to COVID. In other words, the Biden administration had so increased its access and availability.

I mean, removing common-sense restrictions, like a doctor’s visit before, a doctor’s visit afterwards, needing a prescription, and doing it instead over the phone, mail order, that’s what these states are pushing back against, and rightly so.

So why did the Trump DOJ take the same position as the Biden DOJ? I think it’s one of two things. It’s either the fact that during Trump’s presidential campaign, he basically said, "This is all I’m going to do on life. I did what I did, which is to remove Roe, and now it’s up to the states, and we’re going to get out of the way of this." He specifically, when asked, said he was not going to do anything about Mifepristone and its availability. So he’s basically keeping his campaign promise, which wasn’t a pro-life campaign promise. We talked about this on this program that really Trump’s language in this was really pro-choice. Of course, the Democratic position was was full-on pro-death.

The other possibility, and I think about this because of a recent interview with Marty Makary of HHS by PBS where he was asked about this, and he said, "Look, if more data comes in, then I have to take that seriously and follow where the science goes."

Well, more data did come in. There was a remarkable study by EPPC, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, that was the largest look at Mifepristone that we’ve ever seen using insurance data, which was significant as well, and found that this was indeed harmful for women.

The big principle is this, somebody’s not right or wrong because he’s our person. People are still under a moral law, and they have to be judged by that moral law, and we have a responsibility as Christians to call balls and strikes. The Trump Department of Justice is absolutely wrong on this. Mifepristone is something that kills babies and does it in a way that harms women. This is not something we can ever be okay with, and we can’t suddenly think that, you know, Trump’s position on this is right.

I’m not sure it’s Trump’s position on this. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. But it is really concerning here, because this isn’t hard. By the way, check out Sen. Josh Hawley’s letter to the DOJ this week, calling for them to make a different decision. Very well written, I think, gets to the heart of the matter, worth the read.

EICHER: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and Host of the Breakpoint podcast. Thanks, John See you next time.

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

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