Abortion is NOT child sacrifice

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. I hear it's pretty warm at your place right now, Dan. Well- Other than the sweat pooling in the small of your back, how are things?

Dan Beecher We'll see. I think our viewers will have the opportunity to watch and see if sweat starts to form all over my body.

Dan McClellan I tell you what, when I was in Rome last week, most of the time, you could see a pool of sweat on my chest because it was 80 degrees everywhere, and I was begging for the- Oh, I think you're exaggerating.

Dan Beecher It was only 30-something degrees. No, it was 27 degrees- Oh, okay ...

Dan McClellan Celsius- Yes ... in the place where we were holding the conference, and I was constantly like, "Can we turn the air con on? Can we bring it down? Can I get a degree off of that?" Because you can see the sweat through my shirt. I had to find a shirt that didn't show the sweat as well- There you go ... by the last day. But yeah, and the hotel room was no better. Finally, I was just like, "I'm just sleeping with the windows open."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And I miraculously was not eaten by mosquitoes.

Dan Beecher Well, I would kill to have the heat that I'm currently in be because I was in a foreign land having a good time out there in sunny Rome. But alas, no, my AC just went out here in downtown Salt Lake. So, it's going to be a minute before I am cool. So, there you go. But life is good.

Dan McClellan Yep. We're going to end.

Dan Beecher We've got some fun things to talk about today. Today, we're going in with a twisted scripture.

Dan McClellan Oh.

Dan Beecher The next couple of episodes of this show are inspired by the same person. Is it Jesus?

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher Is it Abraham?

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher Noah?

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher It's Senator Mike Lee, our senator.

Dan McClellan Based Mike Lee- Based- ... if you're nasty.

Dan Beecher And he is nasty. He's the only one who would call himself Based. Because why would you use that term? You're a sitting senator in the United States Senate.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Have some respect for your own institution. Anyway, we're not fans of Mike Lee, you and I.

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher But there have been a couple of things that he has done recently that you and I have decided to jump on with.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher The first one, and the one we're going to use today, is he has tweeted multiple times invoking the name of Moloch.

Dan McClellan Yes. So, we're going to dive into twisted scripture.

Dan Beecher Okay, so twisted scripture. We got Moloch. I'm pretty sure that's one of the bad guys in the Masters of the Universe movie. Is that right? He's the red one, right?

Dan McClellan The big- I couldn't pick him out.

Dan Beecher Goatman.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Although if you're Mike Lee, it's Cowman. Well, I'll just dive in with sort of what got me steaming about Mike Lee and about this concept.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Which is that The Democrats, like @TheDemocrats- Mm-hmm ... recently tweeted a thing talking about James Talarico. I think we've mentioned him on the show before, but- Yeah ... James Talarico is a Senate candidate in Texas. He's got a slim... It's unlikely that he's going to win, but if our Texas people get out there, he might have a chance.

Dan McClellan So- Yeah, he's running against a guy who was impeached- Yeah ... by his own party's- Uh-huh ... House of Representatives for a laundry list of- Of corruption ... bad things.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Corruption.

Dan McClellan He's openly corrupt.

Dan Beecher Openly, and- Yes ... and kind of excitedly corrupt.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher He revels in his corruption.

Dan McClellan Defiantly just a corrupt human being. And yet, we have a pastor, and all around decent human being, and people are like, "He can't pull it off."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan This is where we're at.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Way to go, Texas.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Way to make us believe that the bad guy can win- Oy ...

Dan McClellan in that.

Dan Beecher However, so The Democrats tweet a picture of Talarico, and they say, "Texas, colon, James Talarico is the only candidate who will put you first." Okay, fine.

Dan McClellan Yes. Not the most earth-shattering rhetoric.

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan But- No ...

Dan Beecher you know. But that's The Democrats- But probably true ...

Dan McClellan for you.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Constantly snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. But then Mike Lee decides to step in, and his play on it is, "James Talarico will put you first on the altar to Moloch."

Dan McClellan Bum, bum, bum.

Dan Beecher Yes. And he included in that a- A very famous image.

Dan McClellan It is used an awful lot on social media.

Dan Beecher Okay, yeah.

Dan McClellan This kind of sepia tone-looking probably woodcarving from the late 19th century showing a bunch of worshipers, and one of them is holding out an infant, and there's a bronze hybrid anthropomorphic bovine statue seated there that has a fire underneath it.

Dan Beecher That means a cow-headed dude.

Dan McClellan Cow-headed dude holding out arms, and the idea is that the baby gets put on there and is burnt up in the process.

Dan Beecher And this time, Mike Lee went cool and had Grok make it animated. Oh, did So, it's got- Causing it to- The fire, the flames are burning.

Dan McClellan Oh, gosh. So- Yeah, so the flames are rising as- Yeah ... and the wind is billowing the robes. So, good grief.

Dan Beecher So, there you go. Why is Mike Lee talk... First of all, I don't know, what we should do is we should just mention that because I, lefty that I am, big guy who I follow politics from the left, and I- Right ... am a left-wing guy, and there are dog whistles on the right that I know about, and then there are dog whistles on the right that I don't know about.

Dan McClellan And th- Because they're stupid.

Dan Beecher Well.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So, this is a dog whistle that I wasn't aware of, and so I had to do some research.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher And the research that I did pointed to the idea that at least the political operatives on the right, people like Based Mike Lee, are using the image of this character that they believe, named Moloch, as an abortion stand-in.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher They're talking about the idea that abortion is, they're framing it as a child sacrifice.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher And so they're saying that the people who have abortions are sacrificing their children to an evil god.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And therefore, they are evil, and therefore, Democrats are evil, and therefore, anyone who wants women to have reproductive rights are evil.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And they're all worshipers of Moloch.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So, Dan?

Dan McClellan Yes, sir.

Dan Beecher How does that line up with the Bible? I feel like he's got it right. At the very least, I went and looked up some scriptures and found, for instance, in 2 Kings, a whole thing about, "You shall not give up any of your offspring to sacrifice them to..." And in the NRSVUE, it says Molech.

Dan McClellan Molech or Moloch, yeah.

Dan Beecher So, there you go. It's right there.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Don't sacrifice your offspring to Molech. So Mike Lee is right, and we should just end this episode.

Dan McClellan The problems with this rhetoric are legion. And we can start with the fact that the attempt to rhetorically equate abortion to child sacrifice is problematized by the fact that abortion takes place before birth, child sacrifice takes place after birth. There's a big difference between those two things.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And there's also the problem of the fact that if we go look in the Hebrew Bible, as we've discussed before on the program, the Hebrew Bible does not treat a fetus as a full legal and moral person. It treats it as a piece of property- Yeah ... whose accidental destruction is recompensed by the payment of a fine. And in the exact same passage where it's saying the accidental destruction of a fetus is recompensed with the payment of a fine, it says the accidental destruction of the mother who is injured in the act- Who presumably is a fully born human.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan That's the death penalty.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So, they're drawing a pretty clear distinction between born humans and fetuses. One is a full legal and moral person, the other is not, is property.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And property of the husband, because the fine is paid to the husband.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And this agrees with a lot of other ancient rhetoric where abortion is primarily punished legally as a property crime against the father.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan In other words, when they didn't like abortion, it was because it was taking away the father's property. But a father could cause that. In fact, in most ancient societies, and we're not sure exactly what the situation would've been in Israel and Judah, a father could expose, end the life of a newborn if he was not interested in it. So societies that said a woman can't have an abortion would've said a father could cause it.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan A father could do these things. So, there's a lot more complexity. The water is a lot muddier when it comes to what's going on with abortion in the Hebrew Bible. But what is very clear is that child sacrifice and abortion are two very different things.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So this is an attempt to rhetorically collapse a very clear distinction between two different types of beings, one a fetus and one a born human. It is a means for people to cheerlead among their own group. It's a way to preach to the choir by basically just ginning up this, "Oh, yeah, we think that abortion is child sacrifice, so we're going to go out there and just baffle thoughtful people capable of critical thought by spreading this rhetoric around."

Dan Beecher And so we- Well, we have talked about this in the past, but it's important to note that the history of this is that evangelical Christians and even Mike Lee, the LDS and stuff, had a far more nuanced and far less adamant view of abortion before around 1980, before the late '70s and early '80s- Yeah ... when people in leadership positions on the right decided to use it as a political wedge issue- Right ... which it never had been before.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher And so most evangelicals, most Baptists, most of Americans, other than Catholics, were pretty meh about the whole thing. They didn't care.

Dan McClellan Yeah. You had Criswell. I don't remember Criswell's first name, but I think this was an evangelical leader who actually came out in support of Roe v.

Dan Beecher Wade.

Dan McClellan Right. And then over the next decade decided, "No, this is of the devil."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And in no small part because of the machinations of Jerry Falwell and Paul Weyrich and others who got together and concocted a plan to create this wedge issue to galvanize the rise of a religious right that would facilitate more right-wing authoritarian Christians in government. And initially, their goal was to stop the government from taking away their funding because of the White supremacy that governed their universities. The government was saying, "Hey, if you want funding, if you want students to be able to get loans and grants and things like that, you have to allow Black students in your universities." And they were like, "I beg your pardon, sir." And were not going to have it. And so that was kind of the catalyst for all of this. And, yeah, there's a lot of scholarship on how the evangelical approach to feelings about abortion have evolved. And the LDS Church formally, officially endorses abortion in cases of incest, rape, and threats to the life and the long-term health of the mother.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so it's a grayer area. But obviously, Mike Lee is using this as an identity marker, as a flag that he can wave to rally around the troops to agree that James Talarico is the devil incarnate.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And this is the quintessential wedge issue for right-wing authoritarians. And many listeners of the show will know that I ran for my state legislature twice, in 2018 and 2020. And I don't know how many doors I knocked on and talked to people where we arrived at a point where they were like, "Yeah, I pretty much agree with you on most of these things over and against the other person." And they would even be like, "I know the other person is not going to listen to us and is more or less corrupt." But they would say, "But I could never vote for someone who approves of abortion." In terms of a wedge issue, that's the magic bullet.

Dan Beecher Because you can- Yeah, they really did a good job wedging that one.

Dan McClellan Yes. This one is incredibly effective because you can do whatever you want.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And they will not vote for the other side because of abortion, because they have been conditioned to think that this is the ultimate disqualifier. Up to and including a serial adulterer, a rapist- Yeah ... a pedophile, a serial sexual predator who is now talking about how much they love inflation- ... and makes a bunch of promises, lies about literally everything, looked at a solar eclipse.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Like the dumbest- To be clear, we've switched off of Mike Lee to Trump.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher I'm just- Yes ... I just want to make sure that we're not making accusations- This is- ... against the wrong person or whatever.

Dan McClellan Right. Mike Lee is far more intelligent than Donald Trump is, but this is an illustration of the degree- It's a low bar, Dan.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan This is an illustration of the degree to which they will tolerate corruption- Mm-hmm ... immorality, pure evil, rather than vote for someone who approves of abortion, wants abortion to be safe, legal, and rare.

Dan Beecher Right. Not even promoting abortion. Not saying- No ... not pro-abortion.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Just pro the right. But, okay, we've made that point. But I do want to get into who is this character of Moloch or Molech, and what are we talking about here?

Dan McClellan This is not a character at all.

Dan Beecher What? There was no- How dare you, sir.

Dan McClellan I dare. I dare.

Dan Beecher I saw a picture.

Dan McClellan Yes. It was a woodcutting. Brock made money and everything. There was never any deity named Moloch that was worshiped in the ancient world, at least as near as we can tell. And the references in the Hebrew Bible to Moloch as a deity are actually just references to a word that refers to a specific type of sacrifice, a molk sacrifice.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And one of the reasons we know this is because we have inscriptions, these are from Carthage, they're written in a Semitic language closely related to Hebrew, that talk about, "Oh, this is a molk sacrifice offered to Baal," for instance.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And then we have the remains of an infant. And so the word molk is just a noun. It just refers to a specific type of sacrifice.

Dan Beecher However- Now, are we...

Dan McClellan Sorry.

Dan Beecher I know that several of the ancient Semitic languages- Mm-hmm ... including Hebrew, just didn't have any vowels.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher So it was just sort of the M sound, the L sound, and the K sound.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So when you say molk, do we know that that's how it would've been pronounced, or are we just sort of guessing in the same way that Molech or Moloch is just kind of best guess as to- So we know that it's probably a single syllable noun.

Dan McClellan Okay. So we know it was consonant, vowel, consonant, consonant. That's how A lot of what in biblical Hebrew we call segolate nouns, that's how they were vocalized aintially.

Dan Beecher Aintially?

Dan McClellan Where did that word come from?

Dan Beecher Anciently.

Dan McClellan And we know this because of a number of different factors, including how the words function in different declensions and in different relationships with other words, but also in transliteration and into other languages.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so, for instance, you might find a text that is a Semitic language, but it's written in a Greek script where they do have to include the vowels.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So, that would tell us what vowels they were using in that time period. But we also know what kinds of vowels were usually used for what kinds of nouns. So, it's a very, very educated guess.

Dan Beecher Great.

Dan McClellan Now, when it comes to Molech or Moloch, we have to use the Septuagint's transliteration of that as a name is one of the indicators that those were the vowels that were used. But we have no good data that indicate this was the name of a deity. All of the indications are that this was a noun that referred to a specific type of sacrifice. So, instead of saying, "This is an offering to Moloch," these passages should all be read as, "This is a Molech offering." It is an offering as a Molech or Molk or whatever.

Dan Beecher Okay. So, that word, I guess this is just a standard translation issue where it looks ambiguous enough that it could go different ways. So, the Leviticus 18 passage that I just read, 18:21, I'm just trying to understand. I'm not reading out of NIV here.

Dan McClellan Uh-huh.

Dan Beecher I'm in NRSVUE.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And they're still saying, "You shall not give your offspring-" Right ... to sacrifice them to Molech."

Dan McClellan Yes. This is a very, very traditional reading. There are a bunch of things where scholars are like, "Yeah, that's wrong." It just hasn't filtered its way down to Bible translations. So, for instance, what is the disease?

Dan Beecher Leprosy.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm. That's today known as Hansen's disease. Uh-huh. That's not in the Bible anywhere. The word that is commonly translated leprosy has nothing to do with Hansen's disease. And we know this. But we just kind of leave it because it's traditional.

Dan Beecher Interesting.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And that annoys an awful lot of folks.

Dan Beecher But- I'm noticing, by the way, that when I click on the footnote- Mm-hmm ... for this thing, instead of, "Sacrifice them to Molech," the Hebrew says, "To pass them over to Molech."

Dan McClellan Oh.

Dan Beecher Which could mean something very different. Well- What you're saying could very much be, pass them over to the act of Molech. To the act.

Dan McClellan Well, the idea is pass them over as a Molk offering.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So, yeah, the verb there is actually cause to cross over.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And the idea is you are literally, physically handing over or passing over onto an altar or something like that.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But there's only one passage that a lot of people will point to as kind of like, "Aha, this is what actually proves it's a deity."

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And that's in 1 Kings 11:7, where it talks about, "Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab," and so abomination is a substitution for the god of.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan "And for Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem." So, that would- Oh, okay. Yeah, that would seem to identify Molech as the god of the Ammonites- Right ... and the name of a deity.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan The only problem is, we know who the god of the Ammonites was, and it was not Molech, it was a god called Milcom.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan And if you look two verses earlier, in 1 Kings 11:5, it says, "For Solomon followed Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites." So, this is just a textual corruption, where the final mem on the name Milcom fell off, and we're left with M-L-K- Right ... which could mean king, or as we see in the Masoretic Text, it is understood as a reference to the name Molech. If we go to the Septuagint, they fixed the problem by saying they're kings.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Which would actually indicate that it was... Yeah, they interpreted it as kings. And there were two or three other passages where it very clearly says Milcom is the god of the Ammonites. So, there's not a good case to make that any deity was ever worshiped in the ancient world with child sacrifice, or named Milcom. Named Molech.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan However, as we've talked about before on the show, there is a good case to make, in fact, I think it is correct, that the God of Israel demands child sacrifice- Right ... in the Hebrew Bible. I was thinking we might need to bring that up because- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher because, yeah, when you hear people like Mike Lee talking about, "They're sacrificing their children, and only the most evil ever people in the- Yeah ... in the history of the world would do child sacrifice," I got bad news for you, bro. So talk about that a little bit.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Well, there are a few different things to talk about, including the fact that within Judaism, as well as within Christianity, central events of the entire faith are child sacrifice.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Like Jesus is a child sacrifice.

Dan Beecher He's an adult sacrifice.

Dan McClellan You can dress it up. Offspring sacrifice. You can dress it up in a lot of different ways rhetorically, but it is God offering their child, their son, as a sacrifice.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Eh.

Dan Beecher And- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan that's pretty clear. And then, the Akedah, this is Abraham's offer of Isaac. I think we've talked about this on the show before as well. Right at the last second, God goes, "Psych, just kidding."

Dan Beecher Right. And- "I just wanted to see if you'd do it."

Dan McClellan Yeah. "Oh, I didn't know you were going to do it, man. That was crazy." But when we look at the text, as we've discussed before, it's a little fuzzy on what exactly happened because it talks explicitly about Abraham and Isaac. They walked on. They went up the mountain. They did this, they did that. Whatever happens, happens. And then it says, "So Abraham returned to his young men." Two go up the mountain, only one comes down. And there are medieval and later Jewish traditions that actually understand the sacrifice to have taken place.

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan Because Isaac vanishes from the narrative for a bit. And so there's this idea that, oh, he was sacrificed, and he lived in heaven for a couple of years before he was reconstituted on Earth. Or there's one where he was burnt as a burnt offering, and the ashes were scattered around the grasses of Moriah, and the dew mixed with the ashes, and Isaac- Oh, wow ... kind of was, again, reconstituted.

Dan Beecher So- Like a phoenix rising.

Dan McClellan Yes, rising from the ashes. And, so anyway, even within Judaism, child sacrifice is kind of central to the story.

Dan Beecher And- I mean, the Exodus starts with God just sacrificing all the firstborn sons of Egypt to himself.

Dan McClellan Yes. And here's where it gets really weird. Then God gives the covenant code to Israel, which we see in Exodus 20 as the Ten Commandments. Exodus 21 and 22 and a little bit of 23 have the covenant code, and the end of Exodus 22 sounds an awful lot like a command to offer a child sacrifice.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Because it says in English, verse 29 in English, it's verse 28 in Hebrew, "You shall not delay to make offerings from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep. Seven days it shall remain with its mother. On the eighth day, you shall give it to me." Obviously, with the oxen and the sheep, "give it to me" means sacrifice it to me.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So it sounds like that's what is being referred to in terms of the firstborn. Now, everybody immediately, or at least people who are informed about their Bible, will immediately go, "Wait a minute, Exodus 13 and Exodus 34 say you're supposed to start walking in that direction, and then at the last moment, you go, 'Just kidding. I'm going to pay you money, and then I don't have to sacrifice my child.'" Or they'll point to Numbers where it says this is really about dedicating the child to priesthood service or something like that. So we have circumlocutions of the commandment.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Now, I think the majority of scholars agree that the covenant code is the earliest legislative stuff in all the Hebrew Bible. And so these other passages are coming from later, and they're having to renegotiate what's going on here because they've found this peculiar commandment that says, "I want your firstborn kids."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And they're like, "Oh, we don't like that."

Dan Beecher So what if we- And presumably, nobody was doing it, so...

Dan McClellan Yeah, we have no data that indicates that there was actually the sacrifice of children going on in Israel. This kind of thing did happen in the ancient world.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan It was more likely than not any child you successfully gave birth to was not going to live past a year.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so the calculus of this frequently resulted in, "Well, maybe if we sacrifice the firstborn, then God will bless us so that other children will survive."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan That was the calculus. Whether or not it worked... But we have in the later renegotiations, they're substituting things, money or priesthood service or something like that. But notice that the foundation is still child sacrifice.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan We've just shellacked a hard left right at the last second over it. We've just said, "Just kidding, don't actually sacrifice the kid," which betrays that underlying all of this is something very deep in hoary antiquity that actually said, "Sacrifice your kids."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan You don't need to say, "Let's pretend to have them sacrifice their kids," if that was not actually what you wanted initially. You can just- Yeah ... not have a commandment about sacrificing your child.

Dan Beecher If nobody's even talking about sacrificing children, you don't need to have any commandments about it.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's not like somebody's like, "You know what? Here's what we got to do. We're going to command them to sacrifice their children, and then say, 'Just kidding'"- Yeah ... "right at the last second." And then, because everybody around the boardroom table would've been like, "Why don't we just not"- Can we not?

Dan Beecher "...

Dan McClellan command them to..."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan If you just want the money, just say, "Yeah, you got to pay this money if you have a kid." If you just want the priesthood service, you can just say, "Yeah, you got to give your child over to priesthood service." You don't have to say, "Well, sacrifice them. Just kidding. We're going to leap in in the last second and say, 'Do it.'" So- The rhetoric that Mike Lee is appealing to here is just transparently ignorant and emotive. This is just an attempt to try to get people to hate Democrats because they would like abortion to be safe, legal, and rare. And one of the biggest giveaways that they don't really care about abortion as anything other than an identity marker and a wedge issue is that we know what reliably reduces the occurrence of abortion.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It's things like comprehensive sex education. It's things like greater access to women's healthcare. It's things like greater access to contraceptions. And guess what three things the people who rail against abortion are also railing against?

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Absolutely. Those things.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yes. So they don't want abortion to- I mean- ... happen at lower rates ...

Dan Beecher if they were serious about abortion, they would call the pill an abortion prevention pills.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher They wouldn't be calling those- Yeah ... "You shouldn't be using that."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But they're not serious about any of these things.

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher They're serious about having a wedge issue- And getting elected ... that, as you say- This is about- ... works great to fire up their electorate.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And unfortunately, a larger portion of the voting public than I am comfortable with is happy to be like, "Sure, I'll just imagine that you're the devil incarnate because you think abortions ought to be safe, legal, and rare, even if the guy I'm ultimately going to elect literally rapes children."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It's baffling to me, and it is so disgusting, and I am embarrassed and ashamed that we put into office such a profoundly immoral, and profoundly corrupt person.

Dan Beecher Well, as corrupt morally as he may be, we'll have more Mike Lee in our next episode. So stay tuned for that, everybody.

Dan McClellan If you can stomach it.

Dan Beecher No. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to have fun with it. You'll be able to stomach it just fine. Anyway, hey, if you would like to become a part of keeping this show going and keeping food in Dan's family's mouths- ... then you can go over to our Patreon over at patreon.com/dataoverdogma. Sign up there. There are different levels that you can sign up at, where you can get access to an early and ad-free version of every episode of the show, as well as access to the after party, where we do patrons-only content every week for you. And you get the satisfaction of knowing that you're keeping us on the air, and that's nice. Thanks so much to Roger Gowdy for editing the show. Thanks to Sam for helping us out here on YouTube, and we will talk to you again next time.

Dan McClellan Bye everybody.