Ep.47: The Fight for Choice - A Personal Perspective

# Satanists Nextdoor
# Ep.47: The Fight for Choice - A Personal Perspective

[Lilin Lavin]
Welcome dear listeners to Satanist Next Door. We're your hosts, Lilin Lavin and Tommy Lavin. Whether you're an open-minded curious onlooker or a fellow Satanist-seeking camaraderie, our goal is to share our personal experiences and delve into the intricate tapestry of Satanism in our daily lives, occasionally inviting other guests to share their unique perspectives, leaving no pentagram unturned.

We'll explore how our beliefs shape our views on society, dive into struggles and triumphs we've encountered, and reveal the humanity that unites us all. So grab your favorite chalice and join us on this captivating journey. Satanist Next Door is ready to peel back the curtain and offer you a glimpse into our world, one captivating episode at a time.

[Tommy Lavin]
Hello and welcome to another episode of Satanist Next Door. It's been a little bit, we've had a lot going on and as we said a few weeks ago that we would take a little bit of a break when our daughter gave birth, and she did. And so that brought up this important topic of abortion again.

And this time the way these draconian abortion laws not only affect women who are looking to have an abortion, but affect women who want a child, who are going through a pregnancy and something could go wrong, something could go wrong in birth. And how now in states like Texas, the doctors are pretty much handcuffed. They are afraid to do anything.

They will tell women to go out in the parking lot to bleed out. They'll tell them to become septic because if it's deemed that they assisted in an unwarranted abortion, which could simply be health care and saving the mother's life, they could face up to $100,000 fine and 99 years in jail. So ask yourself, if you were a doctor, what would you do?

And for this reason, a lot of people have, a lot of doctors have left, but this became really relevant in a personal way to us as our daughter went through her pregnancy and how, you know, pregnancy is, is, you know, normally a happy period and all of that. But this also added a very large fear with inside of, of her pregnancy for us as her parents, because at any time, if something happened, what, what, what will the doctors do? And even during birth, I mean, when she was, you know, giving birth, when she was in labor and delivery, it was a scary moment for us as her parents, because, you know, the thought is there, what happens if something goes wrong?

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. And we thought about that a lot. And it was just really, it was really, it put things in perspective for a whole different reason.

And, you know, I very much empathize and sympathize with people that don't have the resources or the support system or people that, you know, have valid reasons for seeking an abortion, which the only valid reason you need is not wanting to be pregnant. But, you know, people that wanted to be pregnant that then found there were horrific issues that kind of necessitated looking for abortion care. So, I mean, now people from all over the state of Texas from so many different states are trapped by often religious motivated laws that take away their freedoms to decide what the right thing is for their lives, for their bodies.

And even what the most compassionate thing to do is for a fetus that has something wrong with them, that makes them incompatible with life.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And why does this matter to Satanism? So, to me, it matters to Satanism for a couple reasons.

Obviously, the, you know, bodily autonomy, big one when it comes to abortion, no matter what the reason, but also the one that sticks out is number five, the beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should not take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs. Now, when you look at what these laws are doing to women who want a child, they want to be pregnant, but something happens, we are taking scientific facts and distorting them for these lawmakers and Christian nationalists' religious beliefs.

And that's wrong.

[Lilin Lavin]
It would be just as wrong if, let's say, one of my religious beliefs was that everyone should have the right to an abortion no matter whether they want it or not, you know, that if it's the right thing that they should have to have an abortion, and I would never, ever support that. But if they were, let's just say my beliefs were, if you're not in the right position, you should have to do it.

[Tommy Lavin]
Right. Or if you've got more than two children, you shouldn't have more than two children.

[Lilin Lavin]
I would never ever support something like that. But let's just pretend for a moment that my beliefs said something like that, that if you were in a situation where you couldn't provide, then you should have to do it. And then I could see being really upset about a position.

But my position is that each individual is intimately aware of their life, their body, their situation, and the individual who's pregnant should always have the final say what is right in their situation. And every situation is unique. Absolutely.

[Tommy Lavin]
And I will fight just to say, you know, because a lot of people, they look at anybody that's pro-choice like myself, like you, and they think, you know, they throw out there, Oh, baby killer, you're just looking, you're hoping to kill babies. But you know what I would say is if a, if a woman came to me and said, I really want to have this child and I'm getting heavy pressure from my partner to have an abortion, I don't want an abortion. I would be on the side of the woman who wants to have the child because it's her body.

It's her choice. At that point, the man's choice ended in this whole thing. When they decided to have sex at that point, their choice ended because everything after that happens with inside of a woman's body.

[Lilin Lavin]
You see the argument a lot where, you know, some guys are saying that, you know, you're taking away their rights and their autonomy. And no, I have to disagree. You as a sperm providing individual have every right to decide what happens and, you know, where your goes, whether or not it goes anywhere.

And once you've released that sperm, it's now the problem of the person that has possession of the sperm. So, you know, it doesn't matter how you feel after that. Your body is no longer affected.

You're no longer, you know, being medically disadvantaged in any way. You're not being harmed in any way. You are no longer involved in that manner.

Now, emotionally might have things going on, um, you know, in your community, in your personal life, those are things valid. Sure. There may be things that you're struggling with and there are appropriate ways to deal with that.

Counseling is a great option.

[Tommy Lavin]
Conversations.

[Lilin Lavin]
Conversation is a great option. But at the end of the day, if the person who is now affected by that sperm does not want to be the recipient of an unwanted pregnancy, sorry, that's the end of it, you know, and you can feel however you want to feel. You're entitled to that.

You can discuss it with the individual who's now pregnant and looking to make decisions on what involvement you can have, if any. But at the end of the day, it's now the person who's affected for the next nine months and on.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And I do want to say something in here. I know when we talk about this, I say women's rights a lot, women pregnant.

I do want to make sure that it's understood that I completely, um, what's the words I'm looking for? I recognize that trans men can become pregnant and they are a part of that equation. It's just when I'm making an argument, it's easier to kind of boil it all down to, you know, women's rights rather than, you know, kind of.

So I am recognizing the trans community with inside of this. And I want to make sure that's, that is clear that I'm not leaving you all out. You're, you're absolutely included.

And like your statement said, the person who gave the sperm and the person who received the sperm, you know?

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, I just tend to speak that way because it's very present in my mind all the time that there are so many individuals that can become pregnant and there's just so many different conversations around it. And the ultimate thing is whoever it is that's become pregnant, they ultimately have to live with that situation.

And they are the ones that are aware of what they can and cannot handle, you know, what they will and will not be able to, to do. And in other situations, they're the ones that are getting the unfortunate news that there is a fetal abnormality or an issue that now necessitates the decision, a very difficult decision, because again, at those points, you know, people have already picked up names and rooms and colors, and they've already imagined an entire life with a future individual. So, you know, it's a callous perspective to act as though people going to get an abortion are just these horrific individuals.

It shouldn't matter if you're married and you're looking for an abortion. If you're single and you're looking for an abortion, if you're a person who enjoys sex and you're looking for an abortion, none of these things negate the fact that you have a right to decide what you will and will not allow for your body.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And, and, you know, there is that healthcare part of it. And the idiotic things that I hear coming from, you know, a lot of these Christian nationalists, you know, you hear everything from women are having abortions at eight months.

Like nobody has gone eight months through a pregnancy, all the body changes, all the things that happen. And then eight and a half months and go, you know what, I changed my mind. You know, at that point, it is generally something horrific has happened, you know, and there is no such thing as a, a post birth abortion.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, let's just, there's compassionate care that's provided in that situation where a fetus is born. And now that infant is, is just not going to survive. And that's a whole different situation where some people feel like you should then prolong it as much as possible.

You know, like that's for the person in that situation to decide. But from my perspective, were I in that situation, I would want to do the most caring and compassionate thing and sort of stop any suffering from going on long term. If there just isn't anything that can be done, what is the benefit?

[Tommy Lavin]
Right? I mean, we do the same thing for people that get in car accidents, and they're put on life support. At some point, we say, there, there is no chance.

How is this caring and compassionate to keep somebody either suffering if they're, you know, or if there's just so yes, we do this for adult suit, there is no such thing as somebody has a baby. And then three weeks later, they go back to the hospital and say, you know what, I changed my mind. And they just so let's just take that bullshit, propaganda, religious propaganda.

And let's throw that out the fucking window.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. It's also, it's also not wrong for someone to find out that they're pregnant and not want to be for various reasons. Absolutely not wrong to just find that you're in that situation.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be sexual. There's nothing wrong with doing everything you can to be proactive about preventing a pregnancy and then it not, you know, working. And there's nothing wrong with having a situation where you were irresponsible, and then you realize what's going on.

And then you choose the responsible thing to say, I'm not in a position to do this. And then you decide abortion is the right choice. It should always be your choice, though.

It shouldn't be like your parents told you to do it, your best friend said it was the right thing, the person that knocked you up, like, it doesn't matter.

[Tommy Lavin]
It's your body, right? And your choice at that point. And, and like you were saying, I mean, it's just, again, we've talked about abortion from the, you know, the right of somebody who gets pregnant, they don't want to be pregnant.

And, and that is still just as valid in this conversation, as it was in the other conversations. It was just, it was amazing as we went through this process in a state like Texas, which has such draconian laws that women, I mean, we had 20 women sue the state of Texas, went all the way up to the Supreme Court, because they were women who wanted a child. They something that will never be able to have children at all because of the lack of comprehensive care, because they were forced to bring a terminal pregnancy to two term, and the damage that was done.

And they were forced to do that through Texas law. And it's not just 20 women that this happened to, it was 20 women that got together and said, you know what, we think we have enough examples here. Let's go through, let's go to the court.

This has been public, people have seen it, they know our stories, let's try this. And the Texas Supreme Court basically gave them the big old middle finger and said, no, we do not care.

[Lilin Lavin]
And the deciding board that they use, one of the individuals is a prominent pro-life advocate. I mean, you can't get more biased than that. So I have huge issue with the way that Texas is doing, but it's not just Texas.

It's many states. I mean, a huge portion of the South is now completely without recourse. And when you think about it, individuals that become pregnant, there's some people that have multiple jobs, that have other children, that have obligations.

It's not easy to travel now outside of the state, just to get care that you should be able to access at any medical facility.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, it used to be hard enough when it was in the same city and you had to make an appointment and all of the things that you have to do. If you've ever gotten a doctor's appointment and you work and stuff like that, you know how difficult and how disruptive to your day that can be.

And if you've ever had a procedure, any kind of, let's just say outpatient surgical procedure, it's disruptive. Now, on top of that, now people have to leave the state and it's not necessarily, oh, we're just going to jump over the border because the state like Texas is huge to drive through. It is at least 12 hours, you know, depending on where you live.

And on top of that, Texas has put in these invisible abortion borders that, you know, there are certain highways that, you know, towns and highways that they're junctures that if you're leaving the state, you pretty much have to go through this town and they've made it illegal. Now I'm not quite sure how they're going to enforce this, but they've made it illegal on top of abortion being illegal, but they've made it illegal to travel through that or on that stretch of road if you're leaving to have an abortion.

[Lilin Lavin]
I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on this. I think the majority of what's going on here is a scare tactic. There are constitutional rights that impeding one's travel is just not something that's permitted.

I know everyone's going to say, but they've already changed things. You're right. They've made changes to constitutional things and they've used their own special brand of logic to do it.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, and we've seen Texas throw the constitution, say, fuck you to the constitution. Oh, more times than I could say.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, just for example, we've gone through some very serious weather related issues and the state that seems to think they don't need federal anything certainly seems to put their hand out for federal assistance.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
We're going to succeed, but Oh wait, we need federal tax money. They're not totally succeeding, but that's fine. That's fine.

It just looks really freaking ridiculous when you've got these states like Texas. And as I understand it, they're not the only ones looking to succeed at this point. But the argument is just laughable when you continue to take billions of dollars in federal aid and utilize it while saying you don't need it.

[Tommy Lavin]
So Illinois wants to succeed, but they want to leave Chicago. Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Because that doesn't represent their values.

[Tommy Lavin]
Idiocy of that. They want the whole state to succeed, but the fucking city is Chicago. I mean, this is how stupid this stuff has become.

But again, most of this stuff is driven by religious theocracy. And that is the reason why we are talking about it. It's the reason why we're harping on it.

Yes. I understand there are some atheists that are against abortion and all of this.

[Lilin Lavin]
There are people in every group that are pro-life. There are people that are in every group that are pro-choice, but it's represented across the board.

[Tommy Lavin]
It is. But the majority of people that are pushing these laws, the reason why these laws are able to get over the finish line is because they are backed by Christian nationalists who are a large group, a powerful group, well-funded group, lots of money, and they can push these through. And they have this fucked up view of America that America is a Christian nation.

It's not. It's not. It says in the constitution, it's very clear.

No one religion should be put over another. But yet we do it over and over and fucking over again in this country. And at this time, we are stepping all over people's rights.

And that needs to stop. So again...

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. So, you know, it comes down to how it applies. Why does it apply?

Under what circumstances? So, you know, the argument for all of this that I've heard multiple times from multiple states is because of God, you know, life starts at conception, which I disagree with. I believe a unique human organism is in the process of development.

I believe, you know, all things go well. It will eventually become an individual once born. But I don't feel that there's any guarantee provided for that process to successfully complete.

There's no guarantee that life will be the outcome of conception. And to push this bizarre narrative that the minute something's conceived, that some invisible deific force now has deemed that this is a special, unique person that's saved by them...

[Tommy Lavin]
Drops a little spirit inside of it or soul.

[Lilin Lavin]
Bizarre. Now, if people choose to align with those beliefs, and they choose to live according to that, fantastic, fantastic. I am glad for you.

You know, I wish you the best. But for those that don't want to live under those specific interpretations of those beliefs, there should be no way to enforce that on them.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, and here's the other way. So, when you look at these laws being pushed through, generally look at a picture of the group of people that did it. And there's two ways that you can tell.

One, you can look at the picture of the people that did it. Normally, it's about 90% men, older men. And then the second way that you can tell that this is heavily driven by religious men is they argue that life starts at conception, but child support doesn't start until birth.

So, you've got 9 to 10 months there that supposedly this is a living, this is to be treated just as a person, except when it comes to the father's financial responsibility to it. None of those have gone through. Not a single one of those have gone through.

And so, I really kind of wish somebody would call bullshit on that, on the political side and say, well, hold on, you can't have your cake and eat it too. If this is this, then by the way, all of these men, they owe 9 to 10 months of back child support.

[Lilin Lavin]
There's doctor's visits and there's things that, you know, medication.

[Tommy Lavin]
Having a baby, the hospital bill for that is not cheap.

[Lilin Lavin]
No, no. Even with insurance. Again, you know, the other way that this relates to satanism is, you know, as you see these more extremist beliefs pushing the idea that they have the right to essentially force this on everybody and anybody, regardless of their beliefs.

And there's the aspect that we're satanist are often called, you know, as this is something that's ritualistic. And the proof is that we actually have a satanic abortion ritual. We do it at midnight.

You know, okay. Let me just go ahead and dispel this. We would never, ever, ever say to someone you're pregnant, we should do this like special sacrifice thing.

No, that is not what happens. So what happens is a person who aligns with the beliefs of satanism.

[Tommy Lavin]
TST specifically.

[Lilin Lavin]
TST specifically, but they consider themselves, you know, satanic temple satanist. They have the right to seek an abortion ritual. There is a virtual abortion clinic in New Mexico.

And there is a campaign, the RRR, the Religious Reproductive Rights Campaign. There's a virtual clinic, the Samuel Leto's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic or SAMSAC for short. And it provides people with medical abortion.

So that's specifically pill related. That's something you have to do much earlier on. And unfortunately, you know, it is limiting because of that.

But the quote unquote satanic abortion ritual is for the individual. It has nothing really to do with the fetus per se. The person who is pregnant gets to use ten and three and ten and five.

Ten and three being that one's body is inviolable. Wow. One's body is inviolable subject to one's own will alone.

So that's very important, right? We're talking about bodily autonomy. And then ten and five beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world.

One should take care never to distort scientific fact to fit one's belief. Then there's a personal affirmation by my body, by my blood, by my will. It is done.

I as a person that's pregnant get to decide whether or not I want this. I am choosing for myself and my body this direction. So we're again, we're affirming the individual's choice.

And then the way that this is typically done, you can choose to have a minister walk through it with you, but you find a quiet space where you're comfortable. You know, you have some things that you can see like yourself, a mirror or something like that. And then you have a copy of the satanic temple, third and fifth tenant, which you read.

And it's supposed to give you comfort in a difficult situation. And I say it's a difficult situation because regardless of what your choice is, you recognize the gravity of what you're doing. Even though you know, it's perfectly right for you, even you, you know, all these things, it's not easy, especially when you have the way society likes to push things on you.

And so all we're doing is affirming individual's right to make these decisions for their self. And at any point, you know, if they change their mind, we absolutely support the fact that they can just stop and choose to just remain pregnant and see the other that's always up to the person and no one should ever feel obligated. Either way, if they've decided to change their mind, or if they decided to go forward with it, it is always supposed to be up to them.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. So all this other shit you hear, like, you know, collecting the fetus and using fetus and blood rituals, and this is all bullshit that people get from either movies, or just flat out lies. And look, I've seen enough Hollywood horror movies.

And yeah, they've got some great special effects in there and shit. But hey, here's the catch. It's a fucking movie.

It's made to scare you. It's it's like, I don't believe Freddy Krueger's going to come out of my closet when I go to sleep. You know why?

Because it's a fucking movie. And so all of this other shit that you hear and that they try and use, oh my god, there's a pizza place and they've got a pay underneath and all of this sort of shit and we bathe in the blood of is just all complete, total bullshit. And if you believe it, I am really sorry about that.

But she should get a reality check and sort of, you know, come back down to the planet Earth.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right. I mean, again, so it's satanic because we believe in bodily autonomy. It's satanic because we believe in supporting individuals right to decide what's right for them.

And to sit there and try to pretend one religion in specific has the whole deciding factor for everybody. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
The bingo card that everybody else has to go by.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. It's just ridiculous. So, you know, again, if you're curious about the Religious Reproductive Rights campaign that TST does, you're more than welcome to go and check them out.

There's lots of opportunity to learn more at the, you know, our dash campaigns at the satanic temple and they've got lots of stuff. They've got flyers and they've got, you know, a lot of different resources for you to look for yourself and see what that's about. But, you know, if you feel like you're in a situation where you're not able to get the help you need, there are tons of other resources out there that are available for, you know, medicated abortions or surgical abortions.

There are funds for people that are stuck in places where they can't get access to those things. There are tons of counselors to help you if you might be going through a depressive episode because of a pregnancy, because it does cause imbalances and you're not sure where you are on your position. There are plenty of dedicated counselors that understand this and can help you just kind of sort that out.

So please don't feel like you're trapped. Please. I know that with the way this is done, you know, a lot of people are stuck in situations that are completely unfair, but you're not alone.

There are people out there that want to support you. And, you know, hopefully when it comes time to vote, and I'm not telling you how to vote, but I'm telling you that you have the opportunity to influence the situation. And so whatever your stance is, just look for whatever will help you to move to whatever it is you think is the best for you and for your options.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And your loved ones. And the other thing to keep in mind too is, is as we talk about how this is being pushed by theocracy, this is being pushed by Christian nationalists.

Right now the medication is available in many states. Again, that is starting to be pushed to be illegal. Birth control.

Again, how do you stop a pregnancy a lot of times? Not a hundred percent of the times, but a lot of times. Pregnancy.

Everybody always says, well, you should, she should have been careful, you know. Well, if you take birth control away, well, then you're the taking away the being careful.

[Lilin Lavin]
To be very clear, because, you know, a lot of people say that there's a biased perspective. I have had children. I've had an abortion.

I have gotten pregnant while on birth control and have had the discussion and chosen to either, you know, keep or end the pregnancy. And when I was in a position to keep the pregnancy, even though it was not something necessarily planned, you know, the discussion happens, can we? Can't we?

Is it the right thing? You know, when our decision, our decision, because I am married and wanted to include my partner, but ultimately he would have respected whatever I chose. But we decided it was the right thing in our life, in our situation, with our family.

And no one should be ashamed if they find themselves in that position and they feel like it's not, for various reasons. So it's okay to just say, I'm fine with where I am and I don't want to approach it into something.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And so, again, you kind of have the birth control, trying to take that away. You have the abortion medications, trying to take that away, which, by the way, those medications aren't only for abortions.

They're used for other things as well. And then you have IVF, which, you know, again, I think it was Alabama shed their hand, I think a little too early, you know, they, but how Arizona, you know, they showed their hand on, on, on where they're going to fall on this, if they gain power. And so people, anybody who's able to become pregnant, are going to be losing a lot of their personal rights, their satanic rights.

If the Christian nationalists make it through again, it's your, your choice, who you want to vote for. But, you know, you have to think about not even yourself. When I go to vote, I think about my children too.

[Lilin Lavin]
You know, how will this affect my children? A lot of these states aren't even putting in exceptions for incest. They aren't putting in exceptions for rape.

You have to think about the children who are being affected by abusive environments and what options they're going to have. This is going to be life altering for people at so many levels, and it will cause issues with, and this is the solver side, but nobody likes to talk about it, right? The increase in insurance premiums, because there will be an excess of special needs and, you know, life non-compatible fetuses born that then, you know, people have to pay for lots of extra types of care.

And if you have insurance, that's, that's wonderful. There's plenty of people that don't and can't.

[Tommy Lavin]
And there's people that have shitty insurance that doesn't cover any of that.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right. So, I mean, when these things go to insurance, as we all know, it ends up jacking up premiums. So that affects other people.

When you look at the healthcare options that are out there, there aren't many opportunities for people to, you know, get the care they need when it comes to things like long-term neonatal care, when it comes to the NICU, when it comes to special food, when it comes to special medication, when it comes to needing oxygen tanks or other devices, you're not thinking about the long-term consequences or the fact that when you have a special needs child, you have to be out of work, you know, who's paying for that. And so there's a lot.

[Tommy Lavin]
That's part of the, you know, I really do believe getting women out of the workforce is, is part of this whole thing, but that can be another, that's a different topic, but it is related.

[Lilin Lavin]
When I talk about this topic, you know, when I make decisions, when I vote for things, I make sure to vote for healthcare, for education, for child care, for living wages, because all of these things are interconnected. So when I say that I support people either way, it means that if they decide that they want to go ahead with the pregnancy, even if they are financially uncovered and they can't necessarily do these things easily, it should still be, especially if you're stuck in a situation where you don't have a choice, where you can still get an education, where the child once born can still get medical care and an education where you can get food, housing, living wages, you know, all these supports that you're going to need in order to raise a healthy individual.

[Tommy Lavin]
Which by the way, is yet another thing that the Christian nationalists are pulling back. So they can't really call themselves pro life because pro life means you are pro that life up into the point and after it is born. They are forced birth.

That is all they care about is that that fetus is born. Once that fetus is born and becomes a baby, it is somebody else's responsibility and they want no help. They want no help from the state.

They want the state to give no medical help. They want to cut food, lunch, you know, for for for children. Yeah, let's let's let all these children.

[Lilin Lavin]
Again, we're getting off on a tangent, but even the school choice thing where the public schools will end up closing and it's already starting to happen in some of the states that have implemented that, which means that you're going to lose local to you access to education. It means that education will be harder to get to. It means that you're going to have more segregated type of educational environments.

It means that you're going to have less oversight and less transparency in the actual education. So, again, that's a different subject for another day.

[Tommy Lavin]
But it is all kind of so kind of twisted together and wrapped up with this great big bow around the fucking Bible.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, you know, the seven mountain mandate to be specific.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yep. The Christian nationals evangelical seven mountain. I mean, yeah, it's wrapped up around those radical extremists, but I kind of call the Christian Taliban, the US Taliban, the Yalabon, the Al Qaeda, you know, whatever it is you want to call them.

But there is a good solid and it's kind of fucking scary, like 30, 35 percent of our population that falls into this spectrum of, yeah, some of them are more and some of them are less. And some of them and I did have hope when I remember when Beto was running in Texas. And this was before this was obviously before Roe was overturned.

I think if Roe was overturned, he would have won in the landslide, because even at that point, there were Christian evangelical women that were voting for him by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.

[Lilin Lavin]
Which is where this weird sentiment to get rid of the 19th and to stop women from voting and make votes household dependent.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, the man gets to dictate who you vote for.

[Lilin Lavin]
Or you get one vote per household.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And I've seen everything from one vote for household to you have to be a property owner. You have to be of a certain kind.

I mean, they're not saying this shit behind closed doors anymore. This is right out in the open. When they overturned Roe, they made the comments in there about birth control.

They made comments about in there about the LGBTQIA community. Interracial marriage. Interracial marriage.

I mean, so there was a lot there that they gave you a preview of. This isn't a, oh, maybe they gave you a fucking preview. They gave you the plan book.

And then you've got project 25, which lays it all fucking out for you.

[Lilin Lavin]
Project 25. Yeah. It's pretty, pretty scary.

Pretty fucking scary. And I do encourage you, even though it's 900 and some odd freaking pages to give it a good look, because it is them definitely clearly projecting what their thoughts are around what their future ideally would look like.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And so, again, kind of bringing this all the way back to where we started. We've talked about a lot of this stuff before when it comes to abortion.

But we've talked about it from the, you have a right to an abortion if you get pregnant. You don't want to be pregnant. But we had never lived through, you know, when you were pregnant, all the times that we've had children was before these draconian laws were put into place.

Excuse me. And so, even though pregnancy all by itself can be a little bit scary, because, you know, things happen.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. And we have our discussions to make those decisions, yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
You know, people still die in pregnancy, but...

[Lilin Lavin]
Alarmingly. So, we have a very high infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate in this country.

[Tommy Lavin]
But now, there's the added component of, holy shit, if something goes wrong, they might not treat my daughter. They might let my daughter die or get her so close to the point of death that she could die or become permanently injured or disabled or sterile and never able to have another child again. And that was terrifying to go all the way through.

So, for the whole sort of nine months, it was terrifying. And then during labor and delivery, I remember, because it was, you know, kind of her and her husband in the room. And, you know, so we're at home, we're waiting, we're texting back and forth.

And it's like, is everything okay? Everything doing okay? No issues?

Because it was scary as fuck. It was like, holy shit, what happens if something happens?

[Lilin Lavin]
The fear really was that they won't prioritize her life as being important.

[Tommy Lavin]
Right, right. They would prioritize the infant over her.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right. And it was a horrible thing. And, of course, you know, you want them both to be fine.

You know, you're rooting for everyone to come out of that okay. And it feels really messed up to have those thoughts of, you know, man, I don't want them to prioritize, you know, this potential child over my existing child. You know, because I don't want to see that happen.

It's a horrible thing. But, you know, you also, it's such a conflicting emotion. So, you know, I know, we held our breath, we decided we will wait until the end to actually discuss it.

Because we want to make sure, you know, things went okay. And and they did. And we were fortunate in that.

[Tommy Lavin]
And we have a beautiful grandson. You know, and, and they're amazing parents, though. I mean, they're amazing parents.

And she was really smart about she set her own rules. You know, this is, you know, we raised our kids to be independent thinkers. And and when she had her baby, even before she had her baby, she had the rules laid out, you had to be fully vaccinated in order to see the baby and to be within, you know, within any reach or the room or anything like that.

And and she enforces she enforces with her own family members that delayed or dragged their feet, and, you know, got the vaccination the day before. And she was like, well, you got to wait two weeks. And as a parent, I was so proud of, of that to look and say, wow, you really did become fully independent.

You know, this was not input from us. This was her making her own decisions and standing by the having the confidence enough to stand by them. And having a good enough partner to buy them stood by them and supported her.

[Lilin Lavin]
And then our job as parents at that point are to just respect and where needed or where, you know, call for share some, you know, friendly advice, but to understand that it doesn't matter that it's not up to you, and just standing by what their decision is. So you know, you're there, you support, you give the feedback, and then you just go along with what it is they want, because it's not about you. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
And as grandparents, you get to play with grandbaby. And then when grandbaby poops, you give grandbaby back. No, no, but I mean, it is it, it truly was, I can't express, you know, because I was there for all births of our children.

It was a completely different thing to to have a child go through, you know, and I say child, she's, she's in her 20s, adults, but to me, she's my child, you know, to go through that process, feeling very helpless, feeling helpless at times. You know, seeing where they did listen at certain times, they took our advice on certain things.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, I was gonna say not necessarily listening, just hearing what we had to say.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
And take it into account. But yeah, and then other times where they had very, you know, different opinions, and they made sense. And even if they didn't, it's not my call.

[Tommy Lavin]
Right, exactly. And as parents, that that was that that's our job as parents is to support our children. You know, and I say this, regardless of whether any we see it all the time.

We see it with kids that are in the LGBTQ plus spectrum, their parents disowning them or whatever. It's your job as a parent to love your children.

[Lilin Lavin]
It's your job to support your children, provide foundational understanding, give them the best guidance possible, listen to their fears, share your knowledge and experience, but let them be who they are and be them, you know, and and so again, like I said, this, this was a different look at abortion.

[Tommy Lavin]
And I think it's an important look to because, again, so many people when you talk about abortion, it's been so spun up by the the the forced birthers, as it's just mean people that want to kill babies, which, again, just isn't the case. But sometimes that catches people's emotional side of it.

[Lilin Lavin]
But it's worthy. Yeah, yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
But it's important to catch the other side of it as well. And just to understand what these draconian laws do, and how harmful they are, even for people who want children. And again, that's what the lawsuit was about in Texas.

They lost yesterday, Friday, today, Saturday. So as yesterday, they lost that all the way up at the Supreme Court. Again, I wasn't surprised.

Texas is, is kind of a little theocracy with inside of the United States, you know, and moving more and more towards a full theocracy as much as they can. I would hate to see what this state would look like if they were actually able to succeed from the Union. Yeah, secession is a...

Wow. I mean, that would be... I don't know.

[Lilin Lavin]
That was like, that's really settled. But I mean, is anything really settled anymore? Anyway.

So I mean, it was really important for us to share this and to wait to the end to know what that even the conversation would look like and how we even felt. Because there were plenty of times I think I didn't think about it and just kind of tried to push it off.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
And avoid some of the thoughts because there were some scary points. And, you know, to everyone that's in this situation, I'm sorry for where you are right now. I hope together we can move things in a way that everyone's respected regardless of what their choice is.

And everyone has the same rights and capability for themselves everywhere. And but for now, you know, we can support one another and we can fight to ensure that those rights are reinstated and codified in the future.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And I'll say one more thing on this. The whole defeating Roe and Dobbs came in as a states' rights issue.

That's how they presented it. That's how they won it. And then when they saw that even Republican states, when they gave the people the option to vote, because a lot of people...

Texas, we didn't have the option to vote on this. Nope. This was slammed in by our our legislator, our legislation.

We didn't get to vote. There was no vote saying, hey, now that this is up to states' rights, we're going to put it out there for the voters to vote. Never happened in Texas.

Didn't happen in a lot of other states. The states it did happen in, they lost and they lost big. And then all of a sudden they started to realize, holy shit, this isn't going to work.

So I will guarantee your ass if they gain power, this will become a national ban. They will move from states' rights to a national ban so quick your fucking head will spin and you will be like, whoa, hold on. The whole Supreme Court thing was about states' rights.

Now it's a national ban.

[Lilin Lavin]
It's a very personal decision how you choose to vote and what your personal alignments are. And those are yours to have. And just please keep in mind what kind of future you're building and the way these things affect the loved ones in your life or other people in your community.

And just, you know, go based on that. And I wish you the best. And I hope that, you know, next year we can be talking about a lot of different things.

[Tommy Lavin]
I really hope so. I really, really do. So yes, again, we can't tell you how to vote.

All we can say is think about your vote. Think how it will not only affect you, but it'll affect the people you love and care for and make your decision based off of that and the best scientific facts out there. And with that, I think it's a good place to wrap.

So have a good morning, afternoon, evening, wherever the hell you are.