Currently in America there is a lot of time,
energy, and money being spent on legislating
and advocating for innocent unborn lives.
There are endless conversations swirling around
regarding the boundaries of when life begins
and the morality behind deciding when it ends.
There are all these different stages of cellular development.
Texas introduced a bill that would have made
it possible for a woman to receive the death
penalty for having an abortion.
As a Christian, the extreme juxtaposition
of life and death really fucked me up.
Sorry mom.
So let's talk about this.
How are we, and the systems and institutions
we've created in this country, valuing lives?
In the battle to protect the innocent unborn,
are we losing the fight for humanity?
Texas is the execution capital of
America, executing 561 of America's nearly
1500 state sanctioned homicides since the
death penalty's reinstatement in 1976.
And yet, Texas is also one of the states restricting
the most access and government funding to
abortion and reproductive health care centers.
If you believe that life begins at conception,
all right, cool.
How can you dictate that for someone else?
Do you know the meaning of life?
Does anyone in this
car know the meaning of life?
It is dogs.
It is finding a dog.
After you.
I do not know where I'm going.
Ok.
One of the first places that they would probably
come in would be to meet with a health center
assistant.
And come in and get their medical history
taken, blood pressure.
This looks like a normal doctor's office.
Just a doctor's office.
This is one of our largest in terms of the
number of exam rooms, and it sees the most
patients.
Okay.
Also while I'm here, I've been eating really
well.
I would just like to kind of...
Like six feet?
That's right, yeah.
Extremely tall and good looking.
And accurate.
That’s what that said.
It's very strange.
Your wheels are turning.
I can see it.
I know, I know.
I think I had my own idea of what to sort
of expect.
I kind of thought it would be more serious
and sad.
I don't think it's what people expect when
they hear Planned Parenthood.
You're not the first.
I mean, people walk in and they're like, wow
it's like a doctor's office.
I’m like, yes.
We're a health care provider.
And you're like, this idiot, who gave her
a show?
Scientifically, where do we often make the
distinction of when life begins?
Well, I don’t know that that's a scientific
concept, right?
So I think if you're talking about life of
cells,
there are cells that are on our skin, sperms
are cells, eggs are cells, different things
are cells.
Some people consider that life.
I think scientifically whether that's life
or not, we don't usually debate that.
That's more of an ethical concept.
No matter how you define when life begins,
an autonomous person contemplating an abortion
is inarguably alive.
In Texas, motherhood is risky business.
Despite the spike in Texas' maternal mortality
rate, during the most recent legislative session
lawmakers refused
to expand Medicaid coverage to people who
had just given birth.
There are so many contradictions, right?
Whether it's Medicaid coverage, you start
looking at the foster care system and the
number of people that are in the foster care
system, the value of life becomes very different
once somebody gives birth.
It's sort of a lack of consistency.
Absolutely.
It's only once a person is pregnant that they
care about that pregnancy.
We have heard it said, perhaps it's not so
much as pro-life as pro-birth.
I would agree with that.
The conversation surrounding abortion in America
has predominantly been driven by religious
beliefs.
You don't have to look too far to learn about the overwhelming Christian perspective on abortion.
Abortion is murder.
What is often left out of the conversation
is that the majority of people who have abortions
are already parents.
For example, 59% of the women having
abortions in 2014 had already given birth
before, and 62% reported a religious
affiliation.
These facts told me it was time to step outside
my presumptions and listen.
I had an abortion, and it wasn't based on
God.
It wasn't based on any of that because God
wasn't helping me pay the bills.
God wasn't helping me put her to bed every
night.
Stephanie is a Christian and a single mother
who found herself facing a difficult decision
when she became pregnant for a second time while on birth control.
I mean, I went to church every Sunday.
I definitely went from being a Catholic Republican
to a non-denominational Democrat.
I just couldn't choose a child that I didn't
know over the child that I already had.
Was it murder?
I don't know.
It wasn't about murder.
It wasn't about any of that.
It was...
I just can't do it.
And God be damned.
Basically.
No one looks
at the mothers afterwards.
The mothers seem to be the forgotten shells.
You know, we make the babies, but we are forgotten
afterwards.
The process is just very unforgiving in so
many ways
that, if you have the abortion, how dare
you.
If you need assistance after having a child,
how dare you.
If you take child support, oh, well you're
just greedy.
Until you can take your crown and put it down
and come and experience what some other people
who are experiencing, you just don't know.
We're all religious, we all have our ideas
or belief systems, until you don't.
Until you're put into a situation where you
have to put that aside and just be okay with
what you did.
How often do we actively challenge our own
belief systems and test the boundaries of
our faith?
As a queer Christian I've tested my faith
regarding sexuality time and time again, but
selfishly I had never taken the time to question
the religious perspective on abortion, because
well, honestly, it scares the crap out of
me.
I have to ask myself, if I'm terrified to
have this conversation, how much more scared
is a woman who has no sense that she can control
her body?
Reverend Keaton King is a Presbyterian pastor
in Houston and has made it her lifelong mission
to stand in support of a woman's right to
choose.
Her faith informs her that standing beside
Planned Parenthood is what Jesus would do.
There's this story traditionally known to
the church as the Annunciation.
It's when the angel Gabriel comes to tell
Mary that she will become pregnant and that
she will bear the son of God.
When the Angel comes to her and makes this
announcement,
the angel could have departed immediately
if the only goal of their interaction was
to deliver this news.
And then be like, peace.
Yeah, you're gonna be pregnant, bye.
That's not what happened.
Mary got the opportunity to ask questions
and the angel actually gives her an answer.
She gets to ask questions about her body and
her future, and engage her maker with those
questions.
What happens next is amazing.
She says, let it be with me, according to
your word.
Mary gives consent.
To me that says that God gave women choice
and expects us to use it.
I have never heard that before!
Have you ever engaged with someone who disagrees
with you on this issue from a similar faith
perspective?
And how did that conversation go?
Their background assumption was that a woman
seeking abortion was perhaps careless.
Christians are so fond of quoting John 3:16,
but what John 3:17,
the very next verse, says is God did not send
Jesus into the world to condemn the world.
How does your faith inform your opinion on
capital punishment?
Jesus is not about our condemnation and is
not interested in justice which is retributive.
No matter what someone has done, that does
not cut them off from God's love.
Retributive justice is based in suffering.
It's the concept that if you do something
wrong you deserve to pay the price.
But should the ultimate price be death?
I guess in reflecting on the people we've
spoken with on this trip and hearing where
different people draw the lines on life and
death as informed by faith, science, politics,
experience, I'm very mindful of how vague
and difficult to define life is.
But death is an absolute.
How are you making that definitive decision
on just the grand mystery of life that we're
all going to spend our lifetimes trying to
figure out.
It feels like a really crazy thing to-- crazy
and bold.
Very bold.
And potentially, and as we're seeing, quite
dangerous to
govern in absolutes on something that is so
mysterious.
And not really care too much, it seems, for
the consequences of things like capital punishment.
Death is an absolute.
I can't make sense of that.
It became really evident to me that if we're
going to enforce state-sanctioned birth, we
also need to be talking about state-sanctioned
death.
I was driving down the street to go to a regular
church meeting at night, and there was a group
of people over here just on Main Street with
signs.
And I became curious about that, and sure
enough, there was an execution going on.
And so I thought, seriously, while I'm driving
down the street just a few feet away they
are killing someone, and worse yet, they are
killing that person in my name?
It's on behalf of the residents of the state
of Texas that this person is literally being
taken from life to death.
Reverend Cheryl Smith is currently a pastor
at John Wesley United Methodist in Houston,
Texas.
But she spent years pastoring and standing
vigil outside the execution center at the
Huntsville Prison, the nation's busiest death
chamber.
Some people will draw on religious language
and say, well you know, in the Bible it talks
about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth.
I also speak religious language, but that's
not the religious language I speak.
I follow a man who talked about a different
kind of justice, and I believe we need to
be doing a lot more about justice in this
world.
It is not justice when little children go
to bed hungry.
It is not justice when children do not
get equal and good educations.
It is not justice that children are not well
served up to this point, and then we start
punishing them and maybe even putting them
to death.
Do I get to change the rules about how I value
and treat people based on what they've done?
You could even have said it like a value and
treat another life.
Another life, which is like the life I've
been given.
I didn't earn it,
I got it.
I was born with it.
Everybody gets born with this gift of life.
Do I get to decide, based on somebody else's
behavior, how much dignity they're going to
have?
I don't think they become some other class
of creation just because they made bad choices.
As Christians we’re called to love all image
bearers, knowing that sin is intrinsically
built into our humanity.
But what obligation does our country have
in valuing the lives
of those who have broken the law?
There's a bit of a righteousness that people
feel in supporting the death penalty that
I think is quite strong.
I used to feel it myself.
As a self-proclaimed conservative, Hannah
Cox was formerly a supporter of the death
penalty, but through her policy work with
the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Hannah
became aware of the issues within the criminal
justice system and is now the national manager
for an organization called Conservatives Concerned
About the Death Penalty.
How often are we getting things wrong with
regards to death penalty cases?
So we know that at least one out of every
10 people on death row, one person for every
10 executions, has been fully exonerated,
which is another level--
Are you serious?
Yeah.
On top of that, we know there's been over
800 exonerations for people who committed
homicide but were not sentenced to death.
One pushback I get a lot from people in the
pro-life movement is that they only believe
in protecting innocent life, and I have a
lot of problems with that statement.
One, even if that is how you’re caging your
support for the death penalty, that's not
a valid argument because there is so much
innocent life caught up in the death penalty.
But secondly, again, I don't see anywhere
in scripture where you get to only care about
innocent life, and what is innocent life?
We've all committed wrong, and if it were
not for Jesus coming, we'd all be given a
death sentence.
So in all state studies that we've done we
see that 96% of cases, there was evidence
of racial bias against the defendant or the
victim or both.
And if you look right out the gate, who do
we decide we pursue capital crimes against?
It's for people who kill white people.
We see a system that says some victims lives
matter more than others.
It feels somewhat hypocritical that there
is a major movement to criminalize abortion
to protect what is considered an innocent
life.
But the same energy is not given to saving
that same life if they commit a crime.
Is anything truly unforgivable in the eyes
of God?
I have a recording of his last interview before
he was murdered by the state.
He said, “You know, Mama, I got off track
for just three months, and it ruined my whole
life.
It did.”
Lee Greenwood is the mother of Joseph Nichols,
a man convicted of murder and executed in
Texas as a result of the law of parties.
The law of parties states that a person can
be criminally responsible for the actions
of another in certain circumstances.
This law seeks to punish criminal associations
and impose harsh penalties
for even being linked to a felony through
a conspiracy or planned crime.
This means that while Joseph's accomplice
pled guilty and was executed for the killing,
Joseph was eventually retried and suffered
the same consequences as the man who was initially
convicted of firing the fatal shot.
Joseph was executed in Harris County, Texas
on March 7th, 2007, 25 years after his arrest.
Do you recall a time that you or Joseph were
ever hopeful?
We were always hopeful.
I was told by various attorneys he may have
done six months at California Youth Authority.
Maybe he may have even gotten probation.
But I soon learned that the thing about justice
was a farce.
Especially in
Harris County, Houston, Texas.
I wonder, what would you say to someone
who is in support of the death penalty?
I believe I wouldn't have anything to say
to them simply because all the things that
they have heard or read in recent years about
persons being exonerated that while on death
row, if that had not convinced them, I certainly
can't.
And I would venture to say that most of those
people probably sit in some church every Sunday.
Do you consider yourself a person of faith?
I do.
How did the execution of your son impact your
faith?
I asked always that Joseph be free.
Now, I didn't specify how he'd be free.
I just wanted him free.
So if you believe in God, or whoever your
higher power is, you have to believe and have
to be willing to accept whatever the outcome
is.
Joseph said in the last days,
"Lady, stand on your faith and be at peace.
I've got this."
If he could say that, who am I to dishonor
him by falling on the floor rolling and flailing
and crying and all of that.
The day that we went to visit Joseph for the
last time, which was a Wednesday, we were
turned toward a big window and when they opened
the curtains, they had already strapped him
down on the gurney.
They allowed us to hear his heartbeat until
it was no more.
If it makes one person not maybe change their
idea or the way they look at the death penalty,
if it just makes them start thinking.
It won't bring Joseph back, but Joseph doesn't
have to be brought back in the body.
He's here and in his family and his friends’
mind and hearts every day.
So as far as I'm concerned, Joseph will never
mentally die.
He's always in our minds.
We all have to die.
We were born to die.
Not to be morbid, but Lee is right.
We're all born to die, and the inevitability
of death challenges me to examine how I live
and how I can honor the lives around me.
I strongly believe in the mystery of faith,
and impossible questions about life and death
only reinforce this belief.
But these impossible questions and strongly
held opinions should not be used to divide
us, but to encourage us to lean closer.
Take a moment to listen, adjust our lens,
and understand the lived experience of someone
different than ourselves.
Because when we're valuing each other, we're
valuing life.
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