Defending Faith, Family and Freedom Podcast

Gary Bauer: You're listening to Defending Faith, Family and Freedom, featuring Gary Bauer, senior vice president of public policy at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. And now, here's Gary.

Gary Bauer: Hi, this is Gary Bauer, senior vice president for public policy and culture at the James Dobson Family Institute. Welcome to our podcast Defending Faith, Family and Freedom. Glad you're with us and please tell your friends about us.

Gary Bauer: Well, the sanctity of life issue is back in the news and you probably, maybe you've heard a recent controversy. You know, every day there's just incredible numbers of babies aborted in America. Usually it's done without much notice, but we recently had an abortion that the parents chose to tell their very large social media audience about it all, and it's caused quite a story.

Gary Bauer: So, I want to introduce you to, not really introduce you, but the family's name is Ridgeway and the father is Jesse Ridgeway. Now you may never have heard of him, but he is, as I said, a huge star on YouTube where literally millions of people follow him and his wife.

Gary Bauer: Now, you know, you have a handle, you have an alias or a name you go by on YouTube, and his name is McJuggernuggets. I get the Mcnuggets part. I don't know what the jigger means, but anyway, that's his name, McJuggernuggets. And as I said, he receives a lot of clicks, which is, you know, particularly if you're a younger person listening to this podcast, you know, a lot of clicks translates into ad revenue, and eventually that's money in the bank.

Gary Bauer: Big money in the bank depending on how many clicks. And the Ridgeways, Jesse and his wife, they're very successful, and they make a lot of money by just sharing with, let's face it, complete strangers what's going on in their lives.

Gary Bauer: So, back in the spring, early April, Jesse Ridgeway, otherwise known as McJuggernuggets, posted a sonogram of the proud dad's preborn baby with a comment, the first look at our little nugget. Well, that's very sweet.

Gary Bauer: But then not long after that, he posted something which caused quite a stir. I'll read it to you. This week my wife and I made the very difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy of our little boy due to, I think it's pronounced Trisomy 21. T.R.I.S.O.M.Y. 21. That's the genetic factor that's associated with Down syndrome.

Gary Bauer: Jesse went on to say, the choice was not made lightly. We really appreciate all the personal stories that you guys shared with us, especially the unconditional support we received from our fans.

Gary Bauer: And then he went on, and I think this probably, if I would have been giving him advice, first of all, I would have told him, don't kill your unborn child. But in addition to that, I would have said, well, you made that decision. Now I would advise you not to act like you and your wife are the victims.

Gary Bauer: But Ridgeway felt like he had to explain, and so he said on his social media, as for us, we made a difficult decision that we believe in the long run will be beneficial for our family.

Gary Bauer: And he told his literally millions of followers that this was very traumatic for the two of them. Well, it was not just the two of them, it was three of them. And I understand that, I'm sure it was traumatic for he and his wife. But whatever trauma they experienced, it was nothing like the trauma their innocent unborn baby felt.

Gary Bauer: I mean, they'll experience trauma, but they'll go on and see the sun come up each day, and they'll experience life for another day. The trauma that their unborn baby felt was the trauma of having its life, their son's life, really, blotted out. The baby will experience none of the joys that the Ridgeway family are feeling as they get to go on living.

Gary Bauer: Well, a lot of the Ridgeway's following did not take kindly to the effort being made to make them the victims. And they received over 15,000 comments, many expressing anger, sadness, and shock that the preborn child's life had been snuffed out.

Gary Bauer: Well, that caused Jesse Ridgeway to go back on social media. I am mortified about how we're being treated. All this hatred, it's deeply disturbing. And so, he, the Ridgeways found themselves in the middle of this ongoing controversy that's that's gone on and on.

Gary Bauer: Now, a couple of things jumped out at me as I was reading all of this. First of all, the Ridgeways wanted to assure us that they did a lot of research before they made the decision to end the life of their baby, a baby who was made in the image of God.

Gary Bauer: And I wonder in that research, whether they actually talked to any of the families that have children with Down syndrome. We have an individual in our extended family who has Down syndrome, and she is a joy. She's now a middle-aged woman. She is one of the happiest people I know. She has a job. She's experienced many of the ups and downs of life. In fact, recently she mourned the passing of her father, who was a father that chose to give her life, not to kill her in the womb.

Gary Bauer: Look, there's there's a lot of people out there that have disabilities, and the research shows, I don't know if the Ridgeways came across this research, but the research shows that statistically, children with Down syndrome are some of the happiest children in the world. The suicide rate among children that have Down syndrome is virtually nonexistent.

Gary Bauer: So, really, would they, I mean, this this is the reason a lot of parents give for snuffing out the lives of their unborn children that have Down syndrome. Oh, they'll have this terrible life. They'll never have anything. They'll never experience joy. No, all the research shows they experience joy more than quote unquote normal children do.

Gary Bauer: There was another thing that jumped out at me. It wasn't during this period of time, but previously in their constant sharing of things on social media, the Ridgeways told everybody about their dog, who they decided to seek some pretty significant medical treatments for. And the dog survived the medical treatments and literally was now living without functioning kidneys. Now I don't know how they that dog's doing that.

Gary Bauer: But I don't know, maybe I expect too much, you know, for parents to give medical treatment to their unborn child that at least reaches the level of the medical treatment they gave to their dog. But, you know, maybe that's just me.

Gary Bauer: I started thinking about this a lot this week, and I've written a couple of things about it, and obviously in the podcast I I am talking about it. But I have to tell you, the thing that first came to my mind was something that happened to me in the cabinet room of the White House.

Gary Bauer: You know, as I've mentioned many, many times, I I worked for Ronald Reagan all eight years, and the last couple of years of those eight years, I was Ronald Reagan's chief policy advisor. And, you know, in the cabinet room, most of you probably haven't been in the cabinet room. It's it's really impressive. I I get to go over there periodically to see it, you know, with Donald Trump.

Gary Bauer: The cabinet room of the White House, it's impressive. The the outside the windows on one side of the room are the very well-kept White House gardens. And in the cabinet room itself there are large portraits of former presidents on the walls. If you're in the cabinet room in the winter, the White House staff will often build a crackling fire in the large fireplace at one end of the room. And at the other end, the door opens to the short passageway that connects the Oval Office to the cabinet room.

Gary Bauer: And that's a room, as you can imagine, that momentous decisions and discussions have taken place that fill the history books. War and peace decisions are made in the cabinet room.

Gary Bauer: Now, I was in the cabinet room one day having lunch with the President. There were about 15 of us, and it was President Reagan. And what happened that day in the cabinet room, I don't think has ever appeared in any history book yet. I've written about it a couple of times.

Gary Bauer: In those years with President Reagan, we the senior staff would have lunch with him every Monday in the cabinet room, if the President's schedule would allow it. And it usually was a very relaxed time. President Reagan would kind of let his hair down, and his Irish humor would begin to to show. The jokes would fly.

Gary Bauer: Now there would be there wouldn't be any media there, no press. This was one of the things that made this Monday luncheon so important and so unusual. It was just 10, 12, 15 of us with the President of the United States. And there were certain rules. Each one of us could bring up one subject with the President of the United States that would only be for his ears and the ears of the other senior staff members.

Gary Bauer: And usually what we would bring up is, you know, things about legislative strategy and some some pretty arcane things. But over the months, I found that the President seemed to enjoy talking more about just everyday people. So I I made it a point when we would go around the table not to bring up some, you know, Mr. President, there's a bill pending on Capitol Hill, and in subsection four, you know, section A. You know, he he would kind of his eyes would kind of glass over.

Gary Bauer: So I would bring him sort of human interest stories that I thought that he would be interested in. And I had seen this particular week a story that appeared in Newsday newspaper, and the title of the story was Baby Doe's Success, Progress Defined Prognosis. And I I asked the President if I could read the opening paragraphs of this story. And he said, yeah, of course, Gary. So, here's what I read to the President.

Gary Bauer: Carrie Lynn talks and laughs. She smiles and hugs and screams and plants kisses firmly on a stranger's cheek. The stranger being the reporter writing the story. She's recently started to demand more than her share and often resorts to throwing toys or M&M's when the focus shifts away from her. Then she whispers, I'm bad, aware that her mother is displeased with her behavior.

Gary Bauer: Sit down, Carrie Lynn ordered a visitor last Wednesday night while demanding that her mother, Linda, bring her a pack of crayons. Later she whispered, dance, Daddy, dance, as her father swept her into his arms to sway to the music of Stevie Wonder.

Gary Bauer: For most four-year-olds, those would not be unusual feats. But for Carrie Lynn, daughter of Dan and Linda, those are actions doctors thought she would never be able to perform. Just after she was born, doctors said that Carrie Lynn, better known as Long Island's Baby Jane Doe, would never know happiness and would never experience anything but pain.

Gary Bauer: They said she would be bedridden for life, probably unaware of who her parents were, and she was not expected to walk or talk. But now, Carrie Lynn, aged four, wears a white nightgown trimmed in pink and green with a cap of dark brown curls framing her slate blue eyes. And she demands in a hushed but firm tone, hug me.

Gary Bauer: I watched the President as I read those paragraphs. And then I I told him some good news. I said, Mr. President, I I thought you would want to know about Carrie Lynn. You may remember, sir, four years ago when she was born with multiple birth defects, you, Mr. President, went to court to obtain her medical records because there were reports that she was not receiving equal medical treatment with normal children.

Gary Bauer: In short, Mr. President, some people thought she should be allowed to die. You may remember, President Reagan, that we lost that case in the courts. I mean, the same courts they were able to find rights at the drop of a hat for thugs and pips and pornographers apparently couldn't find one word in our Constitution to protect this little baby.

Gary Bauer: And even though we didn't know the baby's name or her parents, we now have found out that those parents decided that they would ignore the doctors and do everything they could to save their newborn daughter.

Gary Bauer: Mr. President, I said to President Reagan, I believe this child is alive today because of the courage of her parents, and your courage, sir, in taking on the medical establishment.

Gary Bauer: You know, President Reagan was mightily attacked on this. Oh, this is outrageous. You're interposing yourself in the lives of this family and how dare you? This is a decision that only the family should be making. And, you know, the President was called all kinds of names.

Gary Bauer: And we were all heartbroken when we lost the case. And so we assumed the baby had been left to die. But as I was able to tell the President, it's now four years later and this baby's alive, and she's thriving.

Gary Bauer: And so I I looked across the table at President Reagan. I wanted to see his reaction. I I knew he would be happy. He was a generally happy guy anyway. But I knew this would be good news to him. But something happened I didn't expect. The President wept.

Gary Bauer: I I don't mean, you know, cry out loud, sobbing and so forth. But all of us around the table saw the same thing. A single tear welled up in his eyes and rolled down his cheek. He quickly wiped those tears away, that tear away. And he expressed his gratitude to me for sharing the story.

Gary Bauer: Now, we went on to other issues that day as we always did. But, you know, for one brief moment, one of the most powerful men, I would argue the most powerful man in the world, the President of the United States had cried over one little four-year-old who was born on October 11th, 1983.

Gary Bauer: A four-year-old born with spina bifida, an open spine, an abnormally small head, excess fluid on the brain, and a damaged kidney. No cameras recorded the moment when the President shed those tears. But it will always remain with me one of the most vivid memories I have of Ronald Wilson Reagan, and the kind of man he is or was.

Gary Bauer: And it left me with a lasting impression. If a President of the United States could be so moved by the story of this struggling little four-year-old who was defied all the odds, couldn't we as a nation find enough love to go around for all of America's abandoned children?

Gary Bauer: The aborted babies, the fatherless kids wandering our streets, the unborn children who will be torn to pieces, the teenagers sucked into the drug culture, enticed into sex without love or marriage or commitment. I I'm sure the Ridgeway the Ridgeway thought they did the right thing.

Gary Bauer: I pray they find Jesus sometime. Sooner rather than later for their sake. We adults have come up with a thousand ways in the last decades in America to fulfill ourselves, to reach our potential and to grow. But we are losing our children in the process.

Gary Bauer: Unless we can rediscover the passion behind that President's tears and turn it into a national commitment to save the young from the forces that have been loosed on them. In our secular age, this special experiment in liberty that we are celebrating the 250th birthday, liberty under God, that's going to be destined to fail. And we will not only suffer the verdict of history, we must also eventually answer to the just and loving God from whom each of these children came as His precious gifts of life.

Gary Bauer: This is Gary Bauer, signing off with my podcast, Defending Faith, Family and Freedom.

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