More Than Medicine
More Than Medicine
Parallel Judgments: Susan Smith, Abortion, and the Fight for Equal Justice
Could society's reaction to Susan Smith's parole bid change how we view abortion?" In this episode of "More Than Medicine," my daughter Hannah Miller (the Host of The Hannah Miller Show Podcast) and I delve into the infamous 1994 case of Susan Smith. As Smith faces parole after 30 years in prison for the deaths of her two young sons, we dissect the public's heated response to her potential release. We then draw a controversial comparison to the actions of women who seek abortions, questioning why societal attitudes towards maternal responsibility differ so starkly in these cases.
Next, we explore a provocative argument for equal justice for unborn children, advocating for their right to the same legal protections as any citizen. Using biblical and constitutional perspectives, we compare abortion to high-profile murder cases, proposing that those who perform abortions should face similar legal repercussions. We tackle complex objections, such as pregnancies resulting from rape, and emphasize the importance of a fair judicial system to navigate these sensitive issues, supported by scriptural affirmations of pre-born personhood.
Lastly, we shine a spotlight on the inspiring journey of Allison Felix, whose advocacy for nursing mothers at the Olympics broke new ground. From her secretive training during pregnancy to securing landmark sponsorships, Felix's efforts led to crucial accommodations for female athletes. We reflect on the broader significance of her advocacy, celebrating her courage and the collective support from fellow athletes. This episode underscores the necessity of supporting women in sports during pregnancy and motherhood, while honoring Felix’s pivotal role in challenging outdated norms. Join us for these compelling discussions and much more.
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Welcome to More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country. Hosted by author and physician, dr Robert Jackson, and his wife Carlotta and daughter Hannah Miller. So listen up, because the doctor is in.
Speaker 2:Welcome to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, dr Robert Jackson, bringing to you biblical insights and stories from the country doctor's rusty, dusty scrapbook. Well, I'm delighted to have my daughter, hannah, on the program with me today and, ms Hannah, I'm going to let you introduce our topic for tonight topic for tonight.
Speaker 3:So this week we've got three subject, three stories that we're going to talk about, and they all have the same theme, but they were coming at this theme a little differently from each story. So the first one let's talk about is from something that happened 30 years ago locally here in South Carolina and someone is up for parole Now. I was approximately five years old when this happened. I know about it only because the story has made national news. When it happened, it exploded. There's been multiple kind of crime shows based off of what happened here, so it's kind of gone down in the history books here in South Carolina. So it's something that I'm somewhat familiar with. But again, I was only five when it happened. So, dad, tell us about this person that's up for parole here in South Carolina and what happened 30 years ago.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, most folks that are my age remember in 1994 when Susan Smith from Union, south Carolina, allowed her car to roll down the ramp into JD Long Lake in Union County with her two sons, a four-year-old and a 14-month-old, that were strapped into the seatbelts into a watery grave. She initially told police that a black man had carjacked her vehicle and abducted her sons and over the next few days her story unraveled. I mean, she gave multiple interviews and, through her tears, she told the entire nation that story multiple times. However, the investigators doubted her story from the very first day. The next few days, as her story unraveled, her car was retrieved and her sons were found clutching one another in the back seat of her vehicle and they were both drowned.
Speaker 2:Now, why am I telling you all of this 30 years later? Well, it's because Susan Smith is up for parole after 30 years in prison. While in prison she was charged with sexual misconduct with two prison guards. She's had multiple charges related to drugs. Her husband divorced her while she was in prison and in the last year she has texted her ex-husband for assistance with her parole and you can imagine how that conversation went and she's texted him asking for assistance with parole, despite having murdered his two sons. And what was her rationale for these murders? She murdered her two sons in hopes of furthering an illicit relationship with a paramour, a lover, a man to whom she was not married, who didn't have any interest in children.
Speaker 3:So basically, you know, I hear this, I'm a mom, I've got five kids, I have a 13-month-old and I had, you know, we hadold. And I'm laughing because just yesterday one of our girls was torturing my three-year-old, who was buckled into his car seat, and she was picking on him and my husband and I both were telling her leave him alone. He was trapped. He was trapped in his car seat, he could not retaliate in any way, he could not do anything to protect himself, strapped into that car seat, and it was just a semi-humorous situation then. But you know, sitting here as a mom having a 13 month old and a three-year-old children very close to this mom's age, knowing the vulnerability, that those children would have been in in that moment.
Speaker 3:it it's just horrific to me and this whole thing, I mean what has been people's response to her being up?
Speaker 2:for parole. Oh, my goodness, I've been listening to talk shows and there's no grace. I'm just telling you, many people who've called in um, to, to, to share their opinion about whether or not Susan Smith should be granted parole, um, I mean, there mean there's folks out there still demanding that she be given the death penalty. There's no grace from the part of me.
Speaker 3:Well as well there really shouldn't be. I have, I mean I don't know if it's because I'm a mom or because if it's unchristian of me, we can maybe talk about that later. But you know, I am kind of of the mindset. Yeah, death penalty, I mean, you know, this is a it basically for the purpose of it was inconvenient to me to have children and so I just murdered them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and see that that was her rationale. She didn't want the two children to interfere with some other part of her life.
Speaker 3:Right. They were inconvenient to that part of her life.
Speaker 2:She let go of the brakes, let her vehicle roll into the water and she disposed of her unwanted born children. So here's my question. Here's my question what's the difference between Susan Smith and any woman who walks into an abortion clinic pregnant and then walks out a couple hours later no longer pregnant, leaving behind a dead baby or babies just as dead as Susan Smith's little boys? Except this woman who just walked into the abortion clinic, paid money for a hired killer, called an abortionist, to do the deed for her in a sterile medical facility? If Susan Smith is guilty of murder and deserves jail time and shouldn't be released on parole, why, pray tell, should any woman who participates in the murder of her own child by abortion, whether surgical or medical abortion? Why should she not be just as guilty and deserving of jail time along-murdering doctor and his staff, who all know full well that their business is baby killing?
Speaker 3:The visceral reaction that I think we all have, that people have been having you've been hearing happen, with these folks calling into the radio shows, the talk show hosts this week.
Speaker 3:Uh, either their, their visceral reaction of absolutely she should not have be have parole, Absolutely she really should have gotten the death penalty People still calling for that. People's visceral reaction to that should be. It should be the exact same when we talk about abortion. But we have this mindset that I guess maybe we're just so callous to it because it's been going on for so I don't, I don't really know is is drowning somehow more horrific than ripping a baby's limbs apart or burning it to death with chemicals in the womb? Not to me, not to you, and it should not be to our listeners, to anybody else out there who looks at drowning children and somebody intentionally doing that and has such a reaction of disgust and horror. Your reaction should be the same when we're talking about abortion. And if it's not the same, why don't you roll up on YouTube and maybe YouTube, a couple of examples of what abortion looks like in the womb, because I'll tell you you'll walk away and you won't be the same, that's right.
Speaker 2:Many years ago there used to be a video called Hard Truth and I would show that video in churches and it was only 19 minutes long.
Speaker 2:But it showed graphically exactly what happened in a surgical abortion.
Speaker 2:And when I would show that video in churches there would be loud weeping from the congregation because it was a hard truth and it exposed to people exactly what abortion procedures did to little babies in the mother's womb and it showed the grisly, bloody process. And afterwards it was amazing how many people went from being nonchalant and unconcerned to being staunchly pro-life and activist pro-life. And you know, people somehow place that whole issue of abortion on the shelf somewhere in a distant land in their mind, as if it just doesn't really happen. But when they saw that video, ms Hannah, it somehow changed them and that visceral reaction, that emotional reaction that you're talking about, transpired in their hearts and minds and an army of people became activist pro-lifers when I would show them that video with their pastor's permission, of course. And so all I'm saying is that there's no difference between what Susan Smith did and what abortion doctors do with the permission of these babies' mothers, and they do it for a fee, like for these women who walk into the abortion clinics.
Speaker 3:we seem to have this concept of you know we give them excuses a lot of the time and the reality is is that no excuse is good enough for that. But the truth is the real, honest truth. No matter how you know how terrible somebody's life circumstances might be, murder is never an option or an answer to that kind of thing, but even so, the actual truth is is that the vast majority of abortions are happening as a matter of convenience, that's correct the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which is the research arm of.
Speaker 2:Planned Parenthood arm of Planned Parenthood. Their own statistics say that 97% of abortions are performed for the convenience of the mother. They're not the hard cases rape and incest, and handicapped children. 97% of abortions are performed simply because the mother doesn't want to be pregnant at that particular time and the industry calls them convenience abortions. Why did Susan Smith drown her little boys? They were inconvenient, that's right. She didn't want to be pregnant at that moment. It was interfering with a relationship, with a paramour, and that's why so many people have such a strong visceral reaction against what Susan Smith did.
Speaker 2:And if people fully understood why most women obtain abortions, their pregnancy interferes with a college education or prevents them having a scholarship, or interferes with a new job or with a new relationship with a boyfriend, or perhaps interferes with a new job. If people fully understood the reasons why women get abortions, they would have that same visceral reaction. And if they could see the grisly results of a single day's work at an abortion clinic, they would have that same visceral reaction. And I submit to you, I submit to you that God-fearing, right-thinking people would call this equal justice and demand that baby murdering women and their baby murdering doctors be treated the same way as Susan Smith. It's logical, it's biblical and it's constitutional. It's consistent with the United States and South Carolina constitutions.
Speaker 3:All right. So before you go any further, can we actually dissect that a little bit?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:Okay, so you just said let's talk about both the biblical aspect and the constitutional. Let's start with biblical. Those are the two most important things that I like to talk about on my podcast. I'm so glad that you brought them up, because I like to look at things biblically and constitutionally. So let's jump into that and let's come out at first from the biblical perspective. How do you back up the fact, the equal justice? And actually, before we even get into the biblical support for that, do a quick definition of equal justice. When you're talking about abortion and you're talking about equal justice, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:Well, what I mean by that is that you treat the unborn child in the same way that you treat any other born citizen of the United States. The unborn child is a citizen. He's a pre-born citizen. He should be treated in the same way that you and I would be treated anywhere else in this United States.
Speaker 3:Treated the same way as those two little boys in the back of that car. That were drowned and their mother was sentenced to 30 years in prison for murder. Those same mothers because they're also murdering a child, a citizen of the United States. We would say their mother also, and her hired killer. I don't even, you can't even call him a doctor. He's abortionist.
Speaker 3:They should also be, you know, suffer the consequences of murder so that's what we talk about, that's what we mean when we talk about and use that term equal justice that those children in the womb deserve the same justice, equal justice.
Speaker 2:And equal protection. They deserve the protection of the law. The law that protects you and me should protect unborn children, and if their right to life is violated, then those who violate their right to life. They should be brought to justice. Just like the little boys who died in JD Long Lake, their perpetrator, their mother, was brought to justice. Then anybody who kills an unborn child in the safety of his mother's womb should also be brought to justice. It's logical.
Speaker 3:And really quick. And I say this to folks all of the time because a lot of people get really um bowed up about this and, and you know, the immediate situation that comes to their mind is the 14 year old girl who's been raped by her uncle. He drug her up to the abortion clinic and he had, you know, the evidence of his crime killed and everybody's like, oh, you know, we can't have equal justice because she'll go to jail. And my point when people bring that up, I say the 14-year-olds, the 15-year-olds, these young girls that really are, that have been victimized a lot of times. They may not know any better and even if it's an older woman who just isn't educated doesn't really know. Those are the kind of things that's why we have a justice system.
Speaker 3:That's what the court system is for. It is up to our justices, our judges, to look at these cases and say you know what? That little girl doesn't belong in jail. Her uncle belongs in jail and we drug his booty up there and we deal justice on him. Or we look at this mom who let's say she's 28 and let's say she just doesn't understand and she's you know, this is totally new information. She's uneducated, maybe she's doesn't speak English, she just doesn't know.
Speaker 3:He would look at that situation differently than he would look at a woman who's up here having her fourth abortion, and she knows exactly what she's doing, it's been clearly explained to her and she says no, it's just not convenient to me right now. If you have a problem with that scenario and you, I would dare say you don't have a problem with equal justice. You have a problem with our judicial system in South Carolina, and we can talk about that all day long. If you say I don't believe that our justices, our judges in South Carolina would appropriately adjudicate these situations, then I would say, all right, let's have that conversation.
Speaker 3:And that's a conversation for another day, and it's a conversation for another day, but my point being you don't have a problem with equal justice, you have a problem with the justice, our judicial system. With our judges. So, anyway, I just want to make that point clear to folks who may be hearing this conversation about equal justice, equal protection for the first time.
Speaker 2:All right, but you asked me first to describe what I mean by it being a biblical concept.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's talk about it from a biblical perspective. The.
Speaker 2:Bible establishes the personhood of the pre-born. In many texts In Psalms 139 and in Jeremiah 1 and verse 5, the Bible clearly establishes that the pre-born child is a human being, created in the image of God and special in the economy of God. And the Bible also tells us in Exodus that we should not murder. In the Ten Commandments we're commanded not to murder. God's law also applies the same legal protection for when a pre-born baby is harmed by external violence. In Exodus it talks about if a woman is injured in a conflict between two men while she's pregnant, that if the baby is injured. That's where that whole phrase comes from. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We hear that all the time. Well, that's exactly the context where that whole eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth comes from. When a man is fighting with another man, if he injures the baby in a mother's womb, then that child is afforded protection under the law. And then God demands the civil magistrate enact just laws according to God's moral standards. And then in Isaiah, chapter 10, we see exactly where God demands the judge, the magistrate, to enact just laws according to God's moral standards. And then, lastly, god says that he who justifies the wicked, the baby killer, and then condemns the righteous, that both are an abomination to the Lord. That's in the book of Proverbs. So all of this is a biblical concept.
Speaker 2:Now you ask about where is this constitutional? It's the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution says nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. And the South Carolina Constitution says pretty much the exact same thing with pretty much the exact same wording. So equal protection and equal justice are constitutional under the 14th Amendment and under the South Carolina Constitution. So these are not things that you and I are just making up. These are concepts that are biblical and they're constitutional. And, as I said before, I believe that God-fearing, right-thinking people, when they think about it logically and biblically, they will understand that the equal justice applied to these situations demand that baby murdering women and their baby murdering doctors should be treated the same way as Susan Smith and they should be brought to justice.
Speaker 3:Amen. I don't think I could say it any better than how you just put it there. I don't think there's anything I can add to that.
Speaker 2:We're at the 22 minute mark. Hannah, We've run out of time and we got two other topics I wanted to discuss. Why don't we just do the one and then we'll probably bring the other one up another time? How about that?
Speaker 3:Okay, that works for me. That works for me, so let's talk about. It was the Olympics were recently, yep, and there were some things that happened at the Olympics this year that were the fruit of a woman named Allison Felix. Yep, if you're not familiar with the story of Allison Felix, we're going to get into it. But there were things that happened at this year's Olympics, such as a nursing mother's room, some things like that, that were accommodations that were made for the first time for mothers at the Olympics with young children.
Speaker 2:Mothers that were athletes.
Speaker 3:Yes, the mothers that were athletes, who needed a space to go and take care of the needs of their young children, and Allison Felix went to bat for these women and made sure that this happened, at least on a small scale of some sort. I don't know every single detail of it, but I saw multiple women who gave appreciation to Allison Felix for what she did to make this happen for them, so that they were, you know, if you've, if you've never been a nursing mom, you know, you may not know, but our lives revolve around every two to three hours.
Speaker 3:You got to feed that baby, or it's not going to be a happy baby and your body is not going to be a happy body, and it's very hard to compete at the level that these women do without sticking to, and so these women were having to, you know, find a safe space.
Speaker 3:They were having to run under the bleachers, they were having to hide in the back bathrooms trying to meet the needs of their child, their children before Alice and Felix went to bat for them. So she did. But the reason that she did, let's talk about the back history here. Bring us up to speed on that, dad.
Speaker 2:For years and years, female athletes considered pregnancy while in competition to be the kiss of death. And that was their phrase, not mine. If a female athlete competing at a high level became pregnant, it was considered the kiss of death, because it often ended their career, it ended their ability to compete and it also terminated their sponsorships. If their big-time sponsors found out they were pregnant, they would terminate their contracts, terminate their sponsorships and often without a sponsor, they were unable to continue participating because that was where their finances came from. And so Allison Felix found herself pregnant while she was in the run up to the Tokyo Olympics. And what did she do? Well, she practiced in the dark at night for three months at an obscure high school athletic facility, so nobody would know that she was pregnant. Why? Because of fear. Fear that if she were found out, she would lose her sponsorship. And then, at the end of three or four months, when it was no longer any way that she could hide the fact that she was pregnant, she went to her and she negotiated with them a contract that she could continue to compete and that, after she had her baby, they would continue to sponsor her for a year or a year and a half after she had her baby and they agreed to that. And then she then competed in the Tokyo Olympics and she won a gold medal and a bronze medal and everyone applauded, everybody was in support of her. But then she felt selfish because she was the only one in the female athletic world who had a contract like that. So then she went to bat for all the female athletes and she was able to begin to arrange contracts for lots of female athletes like herself and I applaud her for that. And that was a huge breakthrough for women athletes who no longer have to fear pregnancy, no longer the kiss of death.
Speaker 2:And you see what does the Bible say? The Bible says God tells us to be fruitful and multiply. And these women are competing at that time of life when they're most likely to be pregnant, most likely to be fertile, most likely to be married, engaged and married, and they shouldn't have to fear being pregnant. They shouldn't have to fear having a child, because the Bible tells us that a child is the fruit of the womb and a reward and that having a quiver full is a blessing from God. And yet, because of the way sponsorships work and competition works, the world presses in on them and causes them to be fearful of being pregnant, and the world should not treat us like that. We should not. Our female athletes shouldn't be afraid of being pregnant. They should rejoice in the blessedness of being pregnant and the commercial world should recognize that. And I'm just so thankful for a Christian athlete like Allison Felix, who's willing to embrace pregnancy, embrace having a child, and then go to bat for other women to enjoy the same privilege that she had.
Speaker 3:I think there was a, wasn't there an athlete at the Olympics this year? She did fencing and she won. She won. How many months along was she? Nobody knew. Their outfits in fencing world are kind of padded.
Speaker 2:They're padded.
Speaker 3:They're bulky, you can't really tell, but when she went up there to get her medal she talked about how it was more than one person up there receiving the medal.
Speaker 2:Everybody was like what it was, because she was pregnant and she was expecting.
Speaker 3:That didn't slow her down, it didn't stop her. And you know now, granted, if it were me, you know I don't know how these women do it when they're they're pregnant and they go on to have this level of athleticism because I'm just laying in bed holding frozen waffles over the side of my other kids the whole first three months you know, just like we're surviving, we're not thriving, okay so?
Speaker 3:but some of the, you know.
Speaker 3:But all women's bodies are so different and there are some who are able to still continue to perform at that level.
Speaker 3:And, as you said, just because they're pregnant doesn't mean automatically that they can't compete, that their body can't bounce back. Now, sure, there's some of us who that's not true, we can't do it, you know. For one, I mean, I ride horses up until I'm six months and there are people who look at that and they're just like I don't know how you do it, but of course that's been such a part of my life for so long that it's just second nature to me. So I guess that's a little bit, but nowhere near to the athleticism and the strength and the endurance that a lot of these women put forth and display. So it's just amazing. But you're right, if a woman has that ability and can continue to push through and compete at that level, being pregnant should not be something that she's afraid of. And of course, what's the other side of this conversation that is really going unsaid, but people are already thinking is how many athletes have had to feel like they've been forced to have an abortion in order to continue their careers.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's the dark side.
Speaker 3:That's the dark side of this wonderful story that we're talking about.
Speaker 2:Well, our time is running out. Let me conclude by reading a verse of scripture from Psalms 127. Behold, children are a gift of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward, like arrows in the hand of a warrior. So are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate. Should I say how blessed is the woman whose quiver is full of them? They should not be ashamed when they stand on the podium and hold up their gold medal. All right, well said. You're listening to More Than Medicine. My guest today is my beautiful daughter, hannah Miller, and I hope you'll come back and be with us again next week. If you like what you hear, follow, like or share, tell your friends about More Than Medicine. I'll be back again next week. Until then, may the Lord bless you real good.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this edition of More Than Medicine. For more information about the Jackson Family Ministry, dr Jackson's books, or to schedule a speaking engagement, go to their Facebook page, instagram or their webpage at jacksonfamilyministrycom. This podcast is produced by Bob Sloan Audio Production At BobSloancom.
