I know many of you listening or watching to this podcast today care about life, care
about human life. Many of you would describe yourselves as pro-life. And it's a very important
discussion, but I'm very excited to have this guest today. Her name is Nicole, and
she has not just a philosophical kind of view of pro-life, but has some very real and raw
life experiences that she has to share for us today. So Nicole, it's great to have you
on. And why don't you tell the guest a little bit about yourself?
Yeah, sure. Well, my name is Nicole Smith, and I am married to a wonderful man and have
two beautiful little girls. My career beyond motherhood, which is the most important career
you could have, as I'm sure everybody else would agree, would also be on the communication
sides of global human rights. So I've taken on many, many topics over the years, one of
which being abortion, but also the cases of the child, Brian Uganda, the sex slave of Afghanistan,
the religious minority in prison done Iran, and really any continent has been that's
occupied. I've probably dealt with some really tough choices and cultural realities, and
advocated on the behalf of those that are hurting, you know, so that's really my career background.
But as you said, yeah, I birthed my second daughter would bring a flesh and blood bone
to my career, really make it all the more real and tangible because it became my everyday.
So I'm actually going to throw a little bit of a curveball at you. So we're going to jump
into the to your daughter, which we will. But let me actually go the other way first.
Yeah, where did the that desire of being in some pretty extreme situations, particularly
globally, religious persecution and the Middle East over there, you know, that's that doesn't
scream a lot of little girls' favorite dreams when they grow up. So tell us just a little
bit about that process of what led you there. Yeah, actually, it's funny you say that because
I've had that brought up quite a bit throughout my career. You know, how do you handle such
a such tough topics so often, but really it originated my parents were church planters
as a as a child, and they dealt with a lot of at risk use. So they they dealt with the
church planting for youth ministries. And so I don't know, it's just like a family cultural
reality that if someone was in need, you get up to help, right? And so I just grew up that
way. And my brother and I were very oriented and wired that way, because that's how we were
raised. And as I got older, actually, my family is not really oriented this way, but more
in the political spectrum, I became just really intrigued by politics very, very early in
life, which my parents allowed me to foster and in my own way. So as I got older, I decided
that I wanted to go and get a map, an undergraduate in political science, and then I pursued a
master's in law and public policy. And yeah, so I was not really prepared for what God
had in store with the use of that education. I had more of a mindset that I would go into
constitutional law. And the irony of all ironies, one of my very first jobs out of my master's
was at a constitutional law firm. And but I was on the communication side, we called
it the the court of public opinion. And they had a an extensive network of affiliates on
a global scale. So things that we did in the United States were oriented towards life and
liberty issues. So that's a lot of where the abortion topic came in, though I did deal
with it in Europe and that kind of stuff as well. And it but they have that global aspect
kind of came into play with those global affiliates. And so some of the biggest work that we did
were mostly with religious minorities that were imprisoned in Iran, Sudan, Turkey, all
sorts of different countries that was very common for people to be thrown in prison for
apostasy or a threat to national security Iran would use that reasoning a lot. Well,
if you go into Iran court systems, you're not going to expect that a Christian would
get fair due process of law, right? So essentially, what we would do is bring bring awareness
to these cases globally, we would raise a bunch of petition signatures, one of our cases
got over a million petition signatures, we present it to political political process,
President Obama caught attention of it and put one of our clients on the Iranian deal.
And he was released back to the United States. Another one out of Sudan, this poor woman
was actually pregnant, had to be imprisoned with her young child because if she's a Christian,
she can't be right. Her children can't be raised by Christians. So they have to children
are actually imprisoned with their parents if they're. Yeah, it's pretty messed up.
But yeah, her her case, Angelina Jolie ended up taking on to it also the Pope, she was
eventually released and now lives in the United States. So again, those are sort of that path
that I didn't really anticipate at the outset. I sort of got into this digital communication
world that I wasn't actually trained for, but I was very intimately aware of the intricate
knowledge of really the policy processes and that kind of stuff that actually gave me kind
of a leg up in that world. And I saw great success and success being that we saw great
outcomes like people were freed out of prison and I ran it, it would take time, but you
know, some pressure and some good political maneuvering we got into places and people
were released. So it was pretty, pretty amazing. But I got that question quite often. I would
go to these conferences and, you know, you circle up and everybody's like, Hey, you know,
what do you do for your company? What company do you work for? I'm like, I sell shoes and
I sell coats and whatever. And like, what do you do? I'm like, I free religious minorities
out of, you know, like, why are you heroes? Like, because people do need to be free from
these places. And these are the tools that we're able to use to really impact outcomes
that are just unreachable, like really was just unreachable, the outcomes for these people
would largely mean a death sentence. And I mean, literally, they would die. Because
they're, they're very short time tables for their release. Sometimes it's just like six
to eight months. Sometimes it'll be several years, but still they're, and I ran, they
hang you up on out for the public to see and literally execute you in those manner. So
it's just really brutal.
Yeah, which that brutal is a good word there. Very, very intense. Now, when you're bringing
I'm just trying to work on my own timeline here. When you were doing that, were you were
you married and a mom at that point? Or did that happen later?
Yeah, actually, so I was married in school, we actually got married. My husband's a civil
engineer. So he took his time going through school. So yeah, so I was already married.
I think it was about three years into to my career, four years into my career, I ended
up giving birth to my first child. And I really like to tell the story because motherhood
really is just a very transformative experience. At least it was for me. I kind of look at
it like entering the world of Oz was in black and white. And then I ended enter into Technicolor.
And you know, I like the first story that I have for my first daughter is just it taught
me how strong women were. And I know not all women have to take this path. But I'm kind
of one of those like, Hey, you know, go with flow type girls. I was like, if I can do it
without an epidural, I'm going to do it. Well, I had a 29 hour labor without any medication.
And I pushed for 15 minutes, I burst almost every blood vessel in my face to give birth
to a child. And then I'm walking up and walking around within minutes after giving birth. And
for months and months after that, my husband kept going, you did that. That's amazing.
I was like, I called it the birth high. He was just like, Oh, my gosh, that's amazing.
And I know after that point, I was just like, Oh, man, kind of bought into this cultural
lie. In a way, probably not on on like a high level surface. My mom was a homemaker and
she she made it a very prideful endeavor, career endeavor to go in and and be a homemaker.
She always was very adamant that you called it homemaker. You're not I'm not a stay at
home mom. I'm not just a mom that stays home, like I have a career path that I've chosen.
And but I was very different than my mom, like personality wise, I knew that I wanted
a bit of balance of home ownership in the sense of what I create in my home, but also
work outside of the home and my own capacity in the own way and own balance to like, because
you can't have all things at once, right? So I in those early years of my oldest daughter's
life, like especially that first year, it was a very enriching experience is just beautiful.
Am I too so sweet? She was just this beautiful little girl. And I'd gotten into an awareness
of female strength that, you know, I'd always try to unwittingly compare myself to men and
some ways because I did have this idea of wanting to go and work in a, you know, non
traditional, I guess, role and some respects. And then it just gave me such a deep abiding
awareness of, Oh my gosh, like I am incredible. I could do absolutely nothing else for the
rest of my life. And I'm just amazing. I did that, you know, and then I sustained that
body, that baby, that body that I grew. And with my own body, like that's just like blue
my mind. So that first year was just like really just a beautiful experience and so much so
that we decided we wanted another little one about the time she was a year old. And that's
when things in our stories sort of try to shift. Where I experienced something that's
called secondary infertility, didn't realize that was a thing. But I think it's like 20
or 30% of infertility are second or multiple childs. Usually you think it's like the first
kid you struggle. But a lot of stuff was going on with my body, I didn't understand in the
hormone space that was gave me this physical ailment that would prevent me from conceiving
a child. And so I went on this really intense journey of healing, you know, because it actually
put me in an immense like mind bending pain. It was, I can't describe how painful it was.
It was 24 seven for three years straight. I was just like, I kind of liken it to being
doused with kerosene. And you just feel like you're on fire all the time. I've never been
set on fire, but that's what I feel like. And so I sort of went on this like journey
of discovery of how to get this, this ailment gone, the inflammation of my body that was
just constantly racking my, my immune system. So after two years, sort of transition into
a new season, which is a season of miscarriages, unfortunately, the inflammation was going
away, which meant I would get pregnant. But then it was hormone responsive. So I get
pregnant and it would respond and I would lose the baby. So I for about a year, I started
to go through an even more dark season than I ever imagined before, you know, here you
want a baby. And then my oldest, she just children are just so spiritually aware on
a level, you know, here she is like two, three years old. And I'd be like laid out on the
floor just sobbing because I've, I'm, I've losing another child and my, my, my three
or four year olds like laying her hands on me praying for healing and praying that, you
know, maybe God will let this baby stay with us instead of going with Jesus. And I'm just
just, just, just absolute, just a beautiful. But it was a struggle too, because I felt
this is another season. It was hard to describe. It was almost like I was losing two children
because when I lose a baby, I was put into this really dark space that I was losing my,
my baby in front of me because I was losing the experiences with her where I was supposed
to feel joy at all of her firsts. And I wasn't feeling any joy because I was just so wracked
with grief. And of course my body is just tired and pain all the time. So I got a lot
of people tell me all the time that like, well, you're great, you should be grateful.
You have a child. And I said, I don't think you understand what the implications of what's
happening, you know, because you can't, and I don't know if you have children, but do
you have children?
I've got, I've got two little ones and I got one on the way. So congratulations.
Thank you.
Wow, that's awesome. Yeah. So, you know, probably observed with your wife or even for yourself,
this, when you want a kid, you just really want a kid. It's like this, like switch that
goes off. It's wild. So yeah, it was just this deep dark cycle of about three years
when the ailment was starting to, I'm finally finding the solutions. That was great that
I get pregnant with my youngest daughter and she is a fighter. So we named her Cossette
and it has like kind of two uses meanings, victorious little one. I really enjoy meanings.
I usually base it off of family names, you know, but this one really stuck and I was
like, you know, she's alive. She's here. She's, she's growing when none of her siblings were
able to, you know, she's victorious little one. And so the pregnancy was okay. Like
wasn't terrible, but wasn't great. And that's really when we go into a new season too, that
I don't know if I've like skipped a head up your schedule, but you know, we've arrived
at my second daughter's birth. Yeah, that's fine. Okay, good. Yeah. So this was COVID,
like she's a COVID baby. She was born in April 2020. Oh, so she's really a COVID baby. She's
like at the height of it. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so it was like, I don't know if anybody remembers
this or if you do, if you experienced it, but you know, it was like dry, literal, like
parking garage, gynecological exams, like I, you had to go into parking garages to get
your prenatal testing. Most everything was telehealth. It was awful. So unfortunately,
I went into labor before, like, they didn't give me my 36 week, like, test and shots to
make sure I didn't have an infection. They usually do them because of COVID, they pushed
everything back while I went into labor three weeks early. So 27 hour labor, they didn't
touch me but a few times. And as it turns out, I had what they call prolapse cord. And
it's when the cord comes out in advance of the baby, that was discovered at 27 hours.
And it was, you know, you're just laboring and again, I don't have an epidural. I did
it first time. I didn't do this time either. And you're just laboring and everything's
fine. Actually, my husband had started to take a nap. And because it had been a while,
you know, I don't fault him for that. And the doctor finally comes in, it's like, hey,
you know, it's been a really long time, but it's looking like the baby might be in a little
distress. I need to check you. So she checks me. And yeah, I prolapse cord. She yells out,
like 20 medical professionals are in that room scrambling to get me covered up and rushed
to the OR. I have no idea what a prolapse cord is. Like, they're very rare. And my husband's
like, stands up all of a sudden, like, what's happening? Nobody comes to tell him what's
happening really rushed to the OR. I don't have an epidural. So I feel everything that
they're doing shoving the catheter in the late, the doctor's hand has to be still remain
up there to keep the cord, the baby off the cord as long as possible. And I start to like
couple tears roll down and the sweet anesthesiologist like says, you know, I know you're feeling
a little overwhelmed right now, but we do this all the time, you're going to be okay.
And I was like, but I'm not falling asleep. What are you going to do? Are you just going
to rip her out of me while I'm awake? And she said, no, we're going to put you under
general. And at that point I black out. And when I wake up, I have no baby for hours.
I have no baby. And I'm delusional. I have no idea where I'm at, you know, because when
you don't have an epidural, they do put you under general. And when you come out, you
just feel everything because there's no epidural to sort of taper off and then pain medication
to come into play. So they put me on a narcotic, but it never did anything. It just made me
high as a kite. Honestly, I was just like just out of my mind delusional. And finally,
they bring her to me. And almost immediately we know something is wrong. She's acting
erratic. She can't latch. She's looks like she's having seizures, all this stuff. But
it takes four days for them to formalize that there's something wrong. And they send us
off into NICU again, height of height of COVID. So no family could be there. My husband couldn't
be there. Here I had just had major surgery without any pain medication. And then when
you're an upper NICU, the intensive NICU, they just give you a chair in the corner.
And I couldn't put my feet up. There was no place. And at the end of the day, they get
you in a raffle and you get to maybe stay in a separate room. And you go in from like
six o'clock and you have to be out in the morning. And then right back to your chair
again. And at night, I would, I mean, just a massive box with a really thin mattress
on it. That's what I slept on. And I would just, my body would go into shock. I would
just shake uncontrollably from the pain. And up the next morning, right back out, because
I had like memorized their shift changes. So I could follow what was happening. Well,
they never told me this actually. I three weeks later, during a shift change, I heard
one of the nurses during a shift change say that she had been resuscitated at birth. They
never formally told me that she was ever resuscitated. And confirming was the insurance that said
resuscitation of infant $746. It was a line item. Yes. So we just, it was, it was hard
because, you know, again, you're doing this by yourself and you have a near five year
old at this point. They isolate you. They, they, yeah, it was indescribable experience,
but I had this one really impactful conversation I had with my husband over the phone late
night. He was just didn't want to get off the phone with me. Got to understand my husband's
very introvert and quiet talking is not really his jam. So I'm like, I just want to get off
the phone. I want to go to sleep, you know? And he goes, Nikki, this is, this is it. Like
our daughter, she is our mission. She's, she's giving life and breath to, to the identity
that we have in Christ, the identity we have as a, as image bearer. It doesn't matter her
outcome. She is important. She is precious. She is ours. And she's who we prayed for to
God gave us. And it would be six months. Once you receive the formal diagnosis of cerebral
pausing, which is essentially brain damage. And the way every case of cerebral palsy is
different because the damage done to the brain is a unique brain done, you know, the damage
is done to a unique brain. So everyone is just like our, our idea is CPU is always there.
They're bedridden. They're in a wheelchair the rest of their life. They can't speak.
They can't do a lot of stuff. And early on, you don't know, like they just have guesses,
educated guesses. And she had to get a gastric tube because she was unable to feed. She is
three and a half. She is free of that gastric tube. She can now eat. She cannot speak. She
cannot walk. But she will, she will one day. It's a matter of when not if, you know. And
so the prognosis that she had at the early outset, never eat, never walk, never talk,
you know, well, she will be a victorious little one. She's just tipping away at every little
one. And so I just, I remember a NICU standing over her and, oh my God, now I know why you
gave her that name. And I insisted that everyone call her by her full name. Because her, her,
her nickname is Eti, but we call her Cassette because I wanted even a doctor that didn't
believe in God that every time that they uttered her name, they were speaking a blessing of
victory over her at every single time. And so through prayer, she will have victory. It's
not a matter of if it's when. So that's, that's where things sort of have given a deeper meaning
to, like to our, to my mission. So yeah.
Wow. Yeah. So many winding roads, ups and downs throughout the, the precursor, the buildup
of trying to get pregnant, to having pregnancy and then obviously the birth itself. And then
afterwards, already proving so many people wrong.
Amen.
And what an incredible story of, of perseverance, of strength. That kind of goes back to what
you're talking about before of, I see this a lot with women that, yeah, well, I'm, I'm
just, I'm just a mom or just this, just that. And I look at my wife, my, like I said, my
wife's pregnant right now and her pregnant sees she is a blessed soul. She is sick like
the entire nine months of all three and all three. The babies are due in the summer. So
she's throwing up well at the hundred degrees, like, but then that baby's born and she feels
great. But what an incredible thing. There's, there's nothing more like, for those of you
that are listening, if you're, if you're not a parent and like you've not experienced that
there literally is nothing like it in the world.
It's incredible, like absolutely incredible that that is your child that came out of and
your case out of your body. If your husband out of your, your wife's body, it's amazing.
And for our culture to really downgrade that.
Oh, I know.
It's, it's awful.
It's a, it's a great disservice to, to women, honestly. And I think it's, it started off
really in a quiet manner, right? We're, we're wanting the suffragettes didn't downgrade their
womanhood in order to obtain what they should be, which is equal, equal footing within society
to be able to vote, right? And then, you know, we've moved so much that this idea of equal
footing within equal access and equal outcome that it slowly just eats away at the reality,
the truth that, you know, we're seeking out this male, male view of the bomb baskets,
the bombastic strength, which is beautiful. Like don't get me wrong.
Men are just the way that God makes you to be strong and powerful and to protect is something
of its own, its own brand of, of beauty that should be celebrated.
But in an attempt to, to get these little gains, what they saw as gains, they whittled
away the reality of women's strength. And it is a great disservice, you know, again,
I didn't, I don't think I've fully bought into it, but really at the surface on the,
under the surface, I feel like I did until I had kids and I'm like, Oh my gosh, this
is just amazing, you know, and everybody has different experiences, I understand.
But it just, when you really think about the fact you grew a person, and when you equate,
like, especially when you're saying your wife is sick, but they equate like the energy
outputs required at different stages and gestational development, it's insane that women are still
upright, still walking around, still taking other children, taking care of other children
and still doing jobs. Like, I mean, I know my husband when he has a cold.
He's definitely not a, and that's, that's actually, I mean, we make fun of it so much
in society, but it's true that's actually female strength exemplified. Like, we, we
can endure intense amount of internal pain and still continue to push because we can
deliver human life through our body. And I know what most women are like, I can't do
that. No, you can, you just don't want to, because you haven't had pedural, it's a wonderful
option, don't get me wrong. But you can actually do that, you know, that's what you're designed
to do. And so when we have these moments of resilience that are transcend what men are
like, how do you do that? It's because of that, you know, and I think we've sort of
forgotten, you know, because we don't really think of it in that way, that this is us being
strong and powerful.
Absolutely. And I like the way you put that of men. And obviously we're talking in generalities
of everybody, but yeah, that strength, I'll speak for on my behalf. I've always been
a pretty happy, go lucky, like I've never been in a fist fight. So like that side of
the physical strength of having to bash heads in or whatever, and that never been my big
thing. But I don't remember this specific moment. But I remember when I was dating my
wife, and I don't think we were even engaged at that point that I'm thinking of, but these
thoughts of like, Hey, if somebody looks at her the wrong way, I'm going to do something.
It was just this inner thing, this inner protection that I hadn't felt the like I had protection
for like my sister and for my nieces, but not this intensity. And that's that, like
you said, that's beautiful on its own right. But yeah, nobody nobody that knows my wife
and has known the difficulties of pregnancies that she's gone through. And she is she stays
at home with with our kiddos and raises them. Nobody can say that she's weak because she's
sick like no, she's incredibly strong. All this while raising a baby and baby, which
is for all all we know for now has been super duper healthy. And we're really grateful for
that. But yeah, that is strength is the right word. Just because she can't lift as much
weight as I can does not mean that she's not strong. She absolutely is a limitation in
turn on the term. It you know how like you look up a word and a dictionary has multi
levels of a definition. I think we very much limited the word of strength to something
that is outward in bomb basket, bombastic. And that's a cheapening of that word that's
there's more to that. And and again to like physical strength, but physical tied to an
emotional strength that comes with that, you know, I, I look back at my the first birth
I have, you know, of course, that was an amazing physical accomplishment to look at my second.
And it was an amazing physical accomplishment to and its own right. But the emotional toll
and strength that I had to take. So, you know, sort of my NICU experience was, I believe
that that the outward presentation is a reflection on the inward mentality. So I would get up
every morning about six o'clock and I would curl my hair and put my makeup on and I'd
put my clothes on and I would open the curtains and I was open for business the way I looked
at it. It was a really difficult time in which I had to push through emotionally and on a
level I didn't know I was capable of. And I had to keep doing that and I still have
to do that today because the reality is my my daughter's not out of the woods, right?
You know, she still has many challenges that she has to endure. But this is built endurance
and me and to a level that I just I could not comprehend at the outset, you know, and
parenthood in general is that right? It's every every passing day, week, year is a different
set of challenges that we have to figure out the solutions to that build an endurance and
awareness of our internal reality that our own struggles, right? We're not perfect. Now
my daughter's eight and I'm like, okay, look, you're where mommy and daddy are not perfect.
She's like, oh, I'm aware. So, but you know, just surmount those those ever increasing
challenges that, you know, when they're little, they have little problems and they get big,
they have big problems, right? So that that God gives you that a buildup of endurance
through the years of as those challenges change. And as a mother, I think that that's made
me stronger in my career as well. Because again, it gave that flesh and blood to when
I was working with the with young child brides in Uganda, I didn't have the honor of holding
her and telling her how important and precious and wonderful she that she was. I I and I
knew that behind her, there will be hundreds of other little ones that will be put in the
same circumstance than that she was that I could buy back her diary and put her back
into school. But there are the culture around her would perpetuate an idea that she wasn't
as valuable as a man. And that wasn't okay with me. So probably getting back to the career
part of how hard it was is that I just couldn't I couldn't settle for that anymore. That that
culture could perpetuate this reality. That as my daughters grow, in American cultures,
no different than Ugandan, or Iranian, or French, or Armenian, they're all the same.
They're all the same. And I know it looks different. Every culture perpetuates this
idea that dignity can be measured. Someone can be devalued for another criteria or another,
right? Culture perpetuates that idea. And it and it's has different products. American
culture, abortion is one of those realities. Human trafficking, drug culture, foreign culture,
euthanasia. We have about what I believe around seven or eight core core industries that
commoditize the human person in American culture. And we need to change the mindset around human
value, you know, we need to create a mindset within our culture that says, Hey, you are
the image bearer of the heavenly father. Heck, heck, you don't even have to believe in God.
Do you do you see that this is a person with a genetic genetic DNA? And that alone is access
to full equal rights of personhood. Because if you don't look at it as the genetic, you
know, genesis of the genetic human person, then you are making a philosophical allow
meant for the measurement of human value, because it says, Hey, culture has the right
to measure human value at any point in development, even if it is at six weeks, even if it is
at 20 weeks, even if it is at 40 weeks. And I like to try to try to bring this into because
it's more of the reality we were facing too is that that several state governments were
presenting death by medical neglect up to 28 days after birth around the same time that
my daughter was born. That means that on the table, they could have told me your daughter
will have brain damage, do not resuscitate, because her value, her quality of life will
she'll be fed by a D tube, she'll be whatever they're whatever they say, and she's better
off dead. And the people that said it wasn't a reality that we could enter from the point
of the discussion around human value within the womb could ever exit out of the womb
and be put into question, you need to look at California, Maryland and Colorado. And
some conversations I've had with parents one out of Colorado in particular, their son had
a very similar birth to cassette. His was just a longer duration without oxygen, so
a higher ischemic damage, brain damage. And they approached them and said, Hey, why don't
we just put them into extended care? Because when he's 30 something years old, you're still
going to be wiping his rear end. So we'll just withhold all medical intervention and
just let him die. And he's just fine. So this is the reality that we're in, because we put
into question any point in the gestational development, the value of human life was
put into question, it will exit the womb. It already has exited the womb. And would
you have people that without question say yes, it is the right for a mom to just let
her child die on the table. And that was a reality I could not handle either. Because
that's that's the idea that my daughter is not as valuable as her sister. And that's
not a world that I'm okay with. And we need a serious rework of our mindset around human
value within culture. And a big thing, you know, I've worked with the abortion discussion
for well over a decade, because that was a lot of the topics I took on, seen every imaginable
angle from pro life to pro choice. There's really nothing new under the sun unless it's
just borderline psychotic, you know, we're nonsensical. And I always feel like the conversation
starts about two to three steps too too far down the conversation line. We need to bring
it down foundationally. And it's very hard to refute the idea of human life holding intrinsic
value when you place it at that level. Because you know, if you come in on that discussion
where you're like, I mean, talk about any talking point in the abortion discussion,
it's like, it's all the same. It really is where you just kind of put intention, the
level of value of human possesses, like the mom has a greater human, a greater moral significance
than that of the fetus because of the fetus's point and development makes them more dependent
upon. So if that's the philosophical argument you're looking at, you're on a sliding scale
of value for your whole life, you know, because when you exit the womb, you leave that child
there, they're still in a total state of dependence. They need you for a life, for breath, you
know. And honestly, I mean, you can argue all the way up until through adolescence,
just a sliding scale of moral value. And then once you hit the certain point, then if you
get into an accident and you sustain any type of physical or mental impairment, then your
measurable value decreases because it's off this philosophical concept that it's physical
dependence that is where you derive or lose your moral worth, you know. So again, it's
just this bringing it down another step and really seeing where those conversations lie.
It's really hard to be like, hey, you know, culture should have a right to measure human
value. I'm like, well, what about like the Holocaust? Kind of what they did? Yeah, you
know, you don't support that. Okay, well, let's have that conversation around the philosophy
of what, how they got there. Because, you know, kind of jumping into that racial idea,
we don't really talk about World War Two in particular had multiple racial groups at play
at that time, right? And so we think of it like the Nazis are looking at Jews as a racial
inferiority, but they always forget to talk about the Japanese and the death of 20 million
Chinese that were killed because of their racial inferiority. And we sort of, they've
divided and, you know, put us in these different camps and forgetting the narrative that it's
an impact on, it's a reality of the human condition to try to measure, right? We like
to believe that we're better than someone else or we're stronger because we feel weak.
And, you know, that's what Hitler played a part in, you know, they felt weak from World
War One and they, he made them feel strong. He made them feel powerful. And when you feel
powerful, you feel powerless and you are made to feel powerful, you will always degrade
someone else's value in that process to make yourself feel important. And if you make that
allowance within culture at any level in development, you get this point in which they can say to
my daughter, you're not worth living, your value is not worth it because you're going
to have disabilities.
You know, I think what you're saying there, we're seeing similar discussions and you mentioned
this briefly on the opposite end, particularly into Canada of euthanasia of when's the right
time to end life. And look, I'm pretty staunchly against the whole practice. So just doing this
for kind of a devil's advocate. I think the intention is behind, oh, grandma's been suffering,
she's going to die next month anyway. So why not do the merciful thing and just let her
go down easy. Like that's what's, but she's not a dog.
Exactly.
So I like this. Okay, so say grandma did die, right? You're driving to the funeral and you're
greeted by the groundskeeper and says we're not going to bury your grandmother. Instead,
we're going to toss her out in the field. And that's going to serve as her final resting
place. Why is it that that idea of not treating human remains with the dignity that's deserved
when the soul is not there anymore, even if you don't believe in a soul, that person doesn't
exist has no breath, no sentience, the idea that you don't treat that with respect is
offensive, deeply disturbing. It's because it doesn't matter that image and of itself
has value and you cannot just throw it away, cannot dispense of it as if it's trash, as
if it's just a carcass of a deer, even that even deer have value and that's, you know,
all things actually have value if you're really going to talk about it. But human value is
this what it is and you either value it wholly or you allow it to be valued not wholly and
you allow and it basically says this, if it isn't to be put into a segmented, weakened,
scalable reality, it means that that truth existed always. It means that human value
has always been measurable. It's measurable today. It's measurable in the future. It's
measurable way back when that means that slavery, that means that rate, that means that all
of that sort of concept is as long as it benefits society and the whole, which slavery, it does
have a benefit, a whole holy benefit. And again, one of the abortion debates off arguments
is that abortion benefits society wholly because it actually reduces demand for welfare state
and all these, you know, our prison systems, our school systems, there's a net benefit
to society by allowing abortion, that's population control. And so if you allow that concept,
you're essentially basically saying if it's okay today, it was okay yesterday and then
you were okay with every form of dignity measurement that's ever existed as long as that wholly
benefits society. If there's a net benefit, it's okay. And actually there's a lot of,
I mean, I've written on this a lot over the years and especially since my daughter has
been born, because there is a lot of ethical, and I say ethical very loosely, around net
benefited value measurements. So it's this idea that if society can, if the death of
a disabled child, this is actually from a Princeton ethics professor, again, very loosely,
that the death of a disabled infant means that there could be a birth of a non disabled
infant. And that child's life is a greater chance of happiness than it's, it's good that
the disabled child dies. Because essentially the round this concept of happiness being derived
from your societal output, how you contribute to society as a whole is that's how you measure
moral significance, that's how you measure net happiness, which I cannot tell you what
it would feel like if my daughter did not have breath in her body. She is, am I my oldest,
I try to say this in a sense like my oldest is so beautiful and sweet, and I don't lessen
her contribution to the world. But my youngest, I think it's just because of who she is and
what she's overcome. There is just this shining light of joy. And children that I've met that
are in the same situation as her, they're so deeply happy, they bring so much joy. And
let me tell you, I'm not lessening the impact of the struggle too, because, you know, I
mean, my daughter stopped breathing four or five, six times a day for first two years
of her life. You know, your child tokes on a chicken nugget once and it's like you're
so it was terrifying, like, that was first two years of my life of her life was just,
it was a struggle. But I, I couldn't imagine not finding to put that breath back in her
lungs every single time to ensure that she is still here. I don't, if I could go back
and change the circumstance of her birth, absolutely. So she didn't have to struggle
through that. But let me tell you, my daughter is not disabled. My daughter is actually,
I actually look at her compared to my oldest daughter in the sense of struggle breeds character
development. Her first breath on the side of the womb is, is a testament to that journey
of character development that my oldest I have to falsify. I know that seems kind of
weird. I have to create instances of struggle where she can have development in her character,
where my youngest, I don't have to do that because just by every breath she's striving
pushing through in a way that my oldest is, is not going to ever really fully understand.
And me too, like, I mean, I'm fighting with her, but I just look on her and such awe,
like, that is human strength. That is human resilience. She is powerful. She is important.
She has brought so much happiness with her disability or without, you know, I'm just
this concept of measurable value is a sick thing. It really is.
Well, it, you know, you were just talking about the World War II. And I've been having
kind of this internal debate in my head about just just about eugenics in general. And that
was a huge 20th century, early 20th century theme. And then obviously, yeah, World War
II, like, Oh, that's, that's bad. But my, my internal struggle here is like, did it
ever go away? Or was it just kind of not talked about as much? Because it's pretty apparent
that nobody's coming out and just saying, Yeah, I'm for eugenics. But saying to not
treat your daughter, how is that not eugenics? That's, that's awful.
It still exists very much. Identity politics is very much rooted in a eugenics argument.
It is this idea that value is buildable based upon a criteria set up by culture at the time,
right? So our culture is setting those value criteria that looks different than it did
in Nazi Germany, right? But it's still the same basic principle. And like I'm saying
that, you know, in Uganda, the principle is the same as in America, we're doing the same
thing. It's under the same idea that we can measure human value based on a criteria that
set out by that culture in this time now. And it's not, it wasn't okay then, it's not
okay now, or it was okay then, and it is okay now. You're either in one camper or the other.
And that's why I like to, you know, discuss this in a way that, you know, the organization
that I founded, we haven't really talked about that yet, was based off that need of connecting
the dots, because we're not connecting the dots very well within these discussions,
you know, again, you know, from, and that was a, that was a struggle. The non connecting
of dots was a struggle for me when I was addressing the issue of abortion and communication
side of things is because I believe that it was a bit short, short sided. And it, and
it was, you're addressing too much of the political noise, like you just, you're never
gonna, you're never, you're always gonna lose at that level. It was just very frustrating.
And, and especially in the abortion areas, it's such a politically like, loud area, we
can all agree on that. But if you walked over just to the side, and let's talk about human
trafficking, some very, very big discussion, very, very big shift in mentality around
that discussion, no matter who you're speaking to, whether they're left, right, center, wherever,
they're like, yeah, trafficking is bad, like we should not do that. Except for the problem
is trafficking is not only surviving its thriving, call it like the McDonald's, everybody's
swears are not a part of it. But they're obviously growing, right. And the problem is, is that
human trafficking in and of itself doesn't exist because of trafficking. There's a demand
that drives into trafficking. So porn culture, that is a big part. So the very first person
that is dehumanized in the process is a man. A man is taught that he is nothing but a set
of chemical impulses that need not be controlled. And an outlet is through this is pornography.
And he starts to consume and his mentality shifts from the harmless distance to the physical
consumer, or which offsets the supply and demand for the willful participants in pornography,
the porn industry or sex industry, to the non willful participants in the sex industry.
And so if they don't have enough willful, they'll get many un willful participants.
Those un willful participants are getting they get them addicted to drugs, and they get
them locked into a legal system that prevents them from thriving and they guilt them into
staying and they're addicted to drugs anyway, so that keeps them there. So drug culture
feeds into it. Then when they're impregnated, they're sent to the abortion industry in order
to get those sort of symptoms of the consequences of the industry to have that problem removed.
And then, you know, it's just there, it's more connective than we give it credit for.
And because of that idea of the complexity of these interwoven players to approach it
from that foundational precept to really, we cannot have any evidence of commoditizing
of human value. Like, because if you just get rid of human trafficking, or try to address
just trafficking itself, you're always going to have a demand feeding into it. Things that
are perpetuating it. So, again, I dealt with all these really hard issues. So I just felt
God was convicted me like, we have to do this differently. Can't do this the same way. Because
it's like we have a dam that is bursting and we're just sticking our fingers in it, just
praying to God that it doesn't just and it's about to blow. And so instead of just sticking
our holes and waiting for the impending disaster, we have to find the source of the problem
itself. And it's really rooted in this idea of human value, changing and shifting our
mindset around it culturally.
So for people that are listening, and I'm going to speak for the audience, I think most
are probably going to track with you that, yes, just go into the ballot box voting for
the right person. While it's not inherently a bad thing, it's not we're not getting to
that deeper level or just having a quick little debate over abortion or human trafficking
or whatever it may be. Again, it's not really sufficient. It's not getting to the depths
there. So those that are listening that like, okay, yeah, we want to get to the deeper level,
but how do I do it? What steps do I take to kind of start changing some minds and being
able to have cultural change towards towards life in that way? But why do you think that
they can do?
Yeah. So I want to first sort of address like how we're approaching holistically as an
organization and then see how they sort of fit into that. Because one of the big lessons
I always learned in and communications and which we call digital advocacy or advocacy
in general is that not everybody can do all things, right? The point of entry is sometimes
it's you can sign a petition, sometimes it's can share information, sometimes it's you
can donate, sometimes it's you can volunteer, you know, like everybody has their role to
play in that in the battle at hand. And so some coming out this from organization, we
wanted to be holistic about our approach. So we wanted to have kind of a three prong
area of impact. So we want to educate to change grassroots mindset around human value through
the telling of stories and really like, like my daughter's story or many others that have
experienced this measurement of their their value through culture. And to really start
to think outside like, Oh, my gosh, actually, we are doing that. Sometimes it's just about
like that idea. Okay, the question, because the question, the questioning is where we
is where we begin to change our concepts about a value, right? Because I think we're preaching
too much forward and saying, Hey, you must believe this. Well, and they're like, why?
And so if you start to think holistically about this idea of human value and educate,
we can start to see that law and this is a longer term goal. Education is a long term.
You don't just see that overnight. But also not only does culture impact policy, policy
impacts culture, right? So we do have to look at policy. And so, you know, we're compiling
experts that can help with educating. And but we're also going into the halls of government
to try to be a stop gap for laws like the one I mentioned in Colorado, that are allowing
for the death of infants up to 28 days after birth, like, you got to stop that stuff before
it goes through. Right. And then also additionally, organizations, one of the biggest critiques,
especially in the abortion arena, is that you don't care enough about the person beyond
their birth, which is actually one of the biggest lies there is, because it's not true,
because there's thousands upon thousands upon thousands of nonprofits out there that are
working on their little corner of the dignity arena, whether it's in human trafficking or
if, you know, abortion, whatever it is. And again, like even on abortion, there's different
aspects of like the mother and the child's care or if your child has disabilities or,
you know, there's there's all these organizations that deeply care. But I've worked with organizations
and they're really struggling to do their job well. Sometimes they're not connecting well
with other organizations that can help amplify their impact. So we're trying to work with
organizations to find the connectivity to improve how they're operating so that we can better
serve people, transform culture while improving how we serve people. So that's what we do
traditionally. And you as the individual is really to start thinking on that deeper level.
And then, you know, organizationally, we want to share that content that they can have that
different perspective. But to try to educate yourself, because again, we're coming at this
so politically, we're allowing the political noise to like, and even from, I would even
say from the pro pro life side, there's a lot of this noise that that's not helpful. It's
more it drives away conversation that doesn't exactly lend yourself to to building those
relationships with people that go, Hey, let's ask questions. Let's ask questions about the
pro life side. Let's ask questions about the pro choice site. And you know, what do we
think about this or that or how how is the abortion industry commoditizing? Let's, let's
ask about that, you know, and ask hard questions. And don't just let your I wouldn't call it
political bias, but the things that like your your most like anchor towards start putting
question marks around it so that those question marks make you stronger in your position, they
do not make you weaker. They just don't. And then also to be aware of the public policy
process, because what is very, very trouble troublesome to me is that these these laws
can sneak through, right, unnoticed by groups like like ours that would really care to do
something about, but don't always have the ear to the ground in all parts of the nation,
so we have a place on our website that's just a contact us forum. We use that for all things,
you know, you're in Colorado, you see something like that, you know, reach out to an organization,
even it's just not ours, but another policy group that's in your area and just like, Hey,
really feed into this because we need to change culture through the conversations we have
and the questions we're asking, but we also need to make sure that our public policy is
just is is protecting life. And, and I always try to make this point too, that if, if somebody
tries to say that that law is not designed to preserve human value, I ask you to look
at our traffic laws. So why do we have traffic laws? Like order? No, really, it's the idea
that you can't just jaywalk and walk out into traffic because you have value. And other
people that you could potentially intercept have value to you. It's not just about order.
All of our laws, we maintain bodily autonomy in and so much as it affects somebody else's
bodily autonomy. So our laws should at its foundation look at not just the order they
create within society, but the value and the impact that our choices make on other people's
value. So really thinking like more holistically around that, and our minds head around what
law is actually supposed to do. It's actually supposed to protect us. And so we can maintain
proper bodily autonomy. So I'm not a fan of that argument. It's such a silly idea. Because
they're like, what laws dictate men's bodily autonomy? I'm like, every law, like you can't
you can't take a left turn when it's read. Okay, it's like, pretty much everything is
supposed supposed to dictate what you can and cannot do with your body, your intellectual
output, because if you're doing these things, they're affecting someone else in a negative
fashion, that should be unlawful. Right. So yeah, yeah, it's pretty wild.
I think that's all all great information. Your organization sounds like it's doing not just
great work. Like I generally will will plug for people to, you know, be involved if they're
supportive of pro-life type of things of going to your local like crisis pregnancy center
and things of that nature, which are fantastic. But what I like about what you're describing
of your organization is there's not a lot of those going around like there's a ton of
crisis pregnancy centers, which are great. But like you're saying, there are some that
thrive and some that don't. So why aren't they thriving and how can we help them? I think
that's great that you're just the whole basis of your organization is kind of that deeper
layer thinking, which is desperately needed and this movement for sure.
Yeah. And I hate it, this idea. And again, everybody's kind of I've worked in organizations
for a lot of times like they get their territory and you feel comfy in your territory and you
don't want anybody stepping your territory. And I think that is a harmful thinking, because
sometimes those territories they need to cross so that those other organizations that can
actually build you up and they can you can build them up. There's there they have strengths
that are your weaknesses. And sometimes you don't need to build those parts of yourself
up. You just need to do smart partnerships. Get that interconnectivity and the camaraderie
around the deep, deep desire for protection of life. So I always take, take key to the
criticism. The pro choice is always going to say, you don't care. Prove them wrong.
You care so much that you will go into the places that they are unwilling to go because
you see that person that has hurt in the trafficking situation. You feel that see that woman that
is being exploited by the abortion industry. You see that man that is addicted to pornography
that is putting his family in a terrible situation, whatever, whatever it is, you care so much
that you want to exact change. Prove them wrong. Get up, stand up, do what you need.
And we all have our own thing that we're supposed to be doing right. You don't have to like do
everything. Find your thing, care about that thing and the people that are affected by
that thing is just that simple.
Absolutely.
I said, this has been wonderful. I could, I'm sure we could share stories all day long.
For audience members that are listening to you that want to stay plugged into you, follow
you on social media, learn more about your organization. How can they give me be in contact
with you?
Sure. Our organization is called Dignity Defense Institute and it's dignitydefense.org that
you can find us. DignityDefense.com will bring you to a gun manufacturer. That's not us.
Though I kind of appreciate that a little bit in the sense of why. Yeah. So dot orgs
is very important. And we also have our own podcast. It's called Prodignity No Doubt and
it's very oriented towards these really tough stories and tough questions of surrounding
the different ways that American culture measures our value and the impacts and people's real
life.
And on our website pretty much most of the social media is mine at this point. It's at
Nicole M. Y. Smith. You'll pretty much on any platform you'll find me. But you can look
on our website. They're on there too. So yeah, that's how you reach us.
Awesome. Well, I have all that included down in the show notes and again, Nicole is great
having you all and wonderful stories, wonderful organization and certainly very, very thankful
for you to be on the show and for you to share that with us today.
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
Absolutely. And thank you to everyone that were listening along with us today. Again,
check out all Nicole's stuff down in the show notes and we'll see you on the next
episode.