Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Are you a racist?
We have to do more than just pretend.
these people win, we are going to lose our country.
enough Americans did this, it would be a massive step forward.
Ask God to show me what it is I can do.
But I'm now a red hat wearer, and I'm proud Why won't you just criticize Donald Trump?
(00:36):
No one ever looked at me and said, Kathy, all the odds are against you.
You're black, you're a woman, you're poor.
Hang it up, kid.
No one ever said that.
I never felt like a victim.
Hello and welcome to all my freedom -loving sisters out there.
I'm Britt Ivey -Boise, and I empower women who've ended a pregnancy to live fulfillinglives.
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Today on your Path to Thrive podcast, I have an incredible guest for you, Mrs.
Kathy Barnett.
And Kathy Barnett embodies the life of fulfillment.
She was a U .S.
Senate candidate in the race that everyone remembers with Dr.
Oz, almost took that race.
And now she serves as a force of nature in Pennsylvania politics, as well as a gamechanger in her community.
(01:25):
She carries the essence of strength and resilience as a wife, mother, veteran, andcommunity leader.
I'm excited for you to get to know Kathy Barnett.
Radio show host.
Father of two.
Kathy Barnett.
Kathy Barnett.
Kathy, thank you for being here.
thank you so much for having me.
What do you think of My name is Kathy Barnett.
(01:48):
I grew up in southern Alabama, very rural, one -stop sign town called Nitchburg.
Getting ready to go to college, I decided to go into the Army Reserves.
I had to go get my BIRC certificate.
Mainly because the name was different.
The name I had always grown up with was Nelson, but then come to find out there wassomething completely different on my birth certificate.
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Clearly I could have done the math and realized just how young my mother was when she gavebirth to me, but it was never something that truly resonated with me until I looked at my
birth certificate for the very first time and just kind of studied it.
Her gender, they called her a Negro girl, and that was the first thing I saw, and it justkind of grabbed my heart.
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But then I saw her age, and she was 12.
And that just really struck a chord in me because I realized just how young.
My mother was when something so horrible had visited upon her.
Even to this day, it's a very hard word to say, but my mother was raped.
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Given her young age, at 11 years old, my father being 21.
It was hurt.
We was all devastated.
But my mother said, you know, you're pregnant, so we're going to get through this.
And she helped me get through it.
I don't want to use the word choice.
She was going to be born.
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I didn't have a choice to say, you're going to live.
I'm going to abort you.
That wasn't a choice for me.
And I thank God it wasn't a choice for me.
As a child, I knew no difference.
I was loved, and I felt loved.
It gave me a greater appreciation for my mother.
It helped me to forgive a lot of the mistakes someone at that age, having gone throughsuch trauma, would have made in their own parenting.
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But it definitely made me become very adamant about the sanctity of life, of all life,regardless of their conception, regardless of how they arrived, that I am valuable, I'm
worthy, and my life has purpose.
So Cathy, welcome to Faith Freedom.
(04:12):
Thank you so much for being with us today.
Yes, thank you so much for inviting me.
I'm really excited to have this conversation.
Well, likewise, how do you reconcile your story with the current debate between choice andlife?
Well, how do I reconcile it?
Yes, I am the product of rape.
My mother was very young when I was conceived.
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very
grateful for the adults in the room.
My mother was too young to make a decision for life or not for life.
But I'm very grateful for my grandparents on both sides of
my family.
I grew up in a very rural southern town, a one -stop sign town.
(04:54):
You had no running water, is that true?
Pardon the interruption there.
Is that true?
Yeah, we grew up in, again, a one -stop sign town in a home with no insulation, no runningwater, outhouse in a bag, well on the side.
And I often say we were so poor we couldn't afford the other.
we would just hoe.
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But as a child, I was loved.
And so I had no idea that we were, you know, living in poverty.
In fact, we had a little garden and I distinctly remember my grandmother asking me to helpher in the garden.
And I remember the feeling that, grandma just wants to spend time with me.
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But I didn't know until I grew up that that was in part
part of our survival.
wanted peas or beans or tomatoes or potatoes.
You know, we had to actually go out there and grow it.
But as a child, I grew up very loved.
My grandparents, they doted on me and my brothers.
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And I had a wonderful childhood.
I talk about that, you know, in comparison to in today's culture, because not only is itthe, you know, the life issue everyone wants to talk about.
whether or not the baby in the womb is a life or even if we care if it's a life, is itsolely just what the mother wants, right?
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If she wants it, it's a baby.
If she doesn't want it, then it's just a nuisance.
Let's get rid of it.
The way I grew up also, you know, speaks to the other aspect of our culture that blackpeople are victims, that poverty is the worst thing you can absolutely grow up in, which
is not, and it certainly doesn't.
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deserve a death sentence just because your baby is gonna grow up poor.
But it speaks to so many different things.
was never, no one ever looked at me and said, Kathy, all the odds are against you.
You're black, you're a woman, you're poor.
Hang it up, kid.
No one ever said that.
I never felt like a victim, didn't even grow up with that mentality.
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I actually grew up believing that.
If I keep my nose clean, do the right things, then I can create a life for myself.
And that's exactly what I've done.
And quite a life it is.
I love how you mentioned if you want the child, then it's a baby.
If you don't, they tell you it's a clump of cells.
Well, when I was growing up, the conversation was around whether or not that was a life inthe mother's womb.
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And if it was a life...
When did it become a life?
Is it a life at the moment of conception?
Is it a life and can it feel pain several weeks out?
Like that was the conversation.
Now fast forward 20, 30, 40 years, we have so much technology that we know that's a life.
And what's interesting is to see this conversation evolve beyond whether or not it's alife to now, well, what does the woman want?
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It is her body.
It's her body, it's her choice, she's God, she gets to determine if this is a life ofvalue or if this is a life that is not worth much or if it's an inconvenience.
She gets to decide when she wants to start a family.
This is the conversation, this is how it has evolved.
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This is a part of progressivism, the whole concept that, back in the day, you know, ourfounding father, they didn't know much, so we needed this.
thing called the Constitution and it sounds very moral.
We needed that because we weren't highly evolved people.
But today, a couple of centuries later, we've progressed and we're so smart, we can throwoff these reins, whether it's the Constitution that kind of keeps us in check as humans or
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if it's the Bible or some form of religion that keeps us in check and keeps us moving,interacting.
politely with one another, we can kind of throw off all of those, those, those chains,those reins, because now we're evolved, we're smarter, right?
And we know better.
And now we're, we're, we're God and everything, all decisions kind of are, you know,surrounds us on what it is we want and we get to choose, right?
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And that's exactly when I see how this conversation of life.
has evolved is it's no longer asking the question, is it a human or is it life?
Now the question is, well, do I want to be bothered with it?
Does it fit my life?
What do I feel?
What do I think?
What do I want to do as a woman?
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It's all about me, me, me, me, me.
And there's absolutely no thought or concern on the fact that that is a person and that isa human.
And that human, according to the Bible, I'm a Christian, I believe the Bible, and not justthe Bible being contained, but just looking at life, looking at, looking out even outside
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of the Bible and just looking at how the world has evolved, is that that life, if leftunaltered, allowed to live, that that life will turn into a functioning human being to
some degree, to whatever degree.
and that that life has the potential to do some great things.
But now we're at the point where we don't care and we're willing as a nation to just doaway with that life if the woman wants it to be.
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And I'm a woman and I do not believe that I am God.
I do not believe that everything surrounds me and how I feel, but that I have.
I have every right to believe what I want to believe about my body, my choices, untilthere's another human involved.
And that's what happens at the point of conception.
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Right.
It's hard to ask a baby in utero, what would you like?
I was so excited to hear you're a woman of faith.
And we know the great physician and healer, our Lord Jesus Christ.
I love that.
And I think that that is, you know, we live in a culture
And I certainly work in an industry, the world of politics, where you're not supposed tobring in the name of Jesus.
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Now, you can talk about Islam and you can talk about Hinduism.
You can talk about a little bit of everything.
You can talk about secularism.
You can talk about a lot of different things.
But the mentioning of the name of Jesus, I mean, I have literally been in rooms where I'mspeaking and I want to talk about Jesus.
And I could hear the gap.
I could hear the clutching.
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I can see people clutching their pearls in dismay, like, my gosh, he always talks aboutGod.
And yet they say absolutely nothing when two men are twerking in a dress in front of abunch of five -year -olds.
But you mentioned the name of Jesus, that's a problem.
Which has only given me the resolve to talk about my whole self, right?
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I'm not just black, I'm not just a woman, I'm not just a mom.
I love my country.
a patriot.
I'm in the military.
I'm a veteran.
But in addition to that, those things do not give me the hope that is necessary to moveday by day through life.
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Life is tough.
Life is hard.
Decisions we've made, the ones we did not make, what happens to our loved ones, what we'reexperiencing as a country, as a nation, this presidential election.
There's just so much and life is very, very, very tough, very hard.
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And when I look back over the things that I've done and the things that I've tried to, youknow, trying to do my part to make the world a better place, I keep coming back to Jesus
is my hope.
There is no greater hope for me, for mankind, I believe, than knowing that we are notalone, that there is someone who loves us.
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that he has looked through the course of time and he has seen me, especially when I thinkabout how I was conceived and all the hurdles Jesus had to go through in order for me to
come forth.
I do not glorify how I was conceived.
I have a young daughter myself and I cannot imagine someone breaking her little body.
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But I'm glad I'm here.
Well, I'm glad you're here, too.
my mother only came up one time, and I'm glad I'm here.
I'm glad that I was allowed to live, and I'm glad that I was loved, and I'm glad that, youknow, by the grace of God, I met a wonderful man, and we've had a wonderful family
together, and we are contributing members of this world.
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I believe the world is a better place because we are here.
I am here.
And so I'm grateful for that.
Before the foundation of the world, God saw me and He decided that I would be.
And He said in His Word that not only did I see you, but I called you.
I predestined you.
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And so as a Christian, I believe in the value of life, that when I was in my mother'swomb, He was knitting me together.
Even among Christians, even among staunch conservatives, an exception to the rule,
of being pro -life for many is in the case of rape.
And yet my life has value.
For me has come to very beautiful and charming and smart kids.
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Married to a wonderful husband, we've made a life for ourselves and none of this wouldhave happened if the exception to the rule had applied.
Regardless of how old you are and how the child was conceived.
That child deserve a chance.
And if I had have made that choice, where would I be at right now without my daughter?
The hardest struggle for my mother, the hardest thing for her to overcome, I think is justthe effects of the trauma itself.
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And that is why I think it's so important to help people understand that the trauma hasalready been inflicted.
The child should not be inflicted with the consequences that squarely belongs on the onewho inflicted the trauma.
You have to be able to see the difference.
Aborting me would not have eased a trauma that my mother suffered.
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Aborting me would not have allowed me to be in a place today where I can now take care ofmy mother.
It's just amazing to see them grow up.
Regardless of how my life started out, I'm blessed.
I'm not left with bitterness.
I'm left with overwhelming sense of gratitude that not only did God see value in my life,but that my
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families of value in my life.
I'm very grateful for that.
I'm eternally grateful that they chose to allow me to be
Well, congratulations on all of it.
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Motherhood, the work you do.
In fact, before we continue, just briefly tell the audience about your work in politics.
my gosh, would have never, you know, had someone given me a pen and paper and said, writeyour story, I would not have written it the way that it is turned out.
Last question, why are you doing this?
It's a good question.
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I reflect on this every day.
You have earned a really nice life.
I've met your friends.
You have friendships that go back to when you were in high school, even, and they're goodpeople.
I've met your beautiful family.
I love your family.
And, but you've earned this life.
You've worked hard for this life.
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You don't have to be doing this getting dragged and lied on and sullied.
So why are you doing this?
Well, you kind of say we've earned it in a shallow, in a, in a superficial sense, wecertainly have worked hard to achieve what we have, but I think it comes from a place of
gratitude actually to this country because we have no right to live the life we do.
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We have right to be free, but a right to
have been given the blessed life that we have been given in this country.
It's provided by God in the context of a country that allows us to live this Americandream.
And so in some ways it would feel like our purpose here is incomplete if we don't passthat on to the next generation.
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And so I can't just passively stand by and
enjoy and be grateful without that gratitude spilling over into doing something about it.
And so if you're to do something, you might as well do whatever allows you to be mostimpactful.
being the president is not necessarily the most important job or anything else.
But for me, when I look at how can I use my God given talents to give back and contributeas much as I can to the future of this country?
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Yes, I believe this is the way to do it.
And that's what calls me into this.
I don't relish the role of being president.
The closer we get, the more I realize that.
But I'm not sure we should want someone who relishes it either.
And so we view it as our way of doing our duty to a country that has given us far morethan we have yet given it back.
And I think that that's what we're in this to do.
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I love that.
And it reminds me when I was running against Dr.
Oz and those last couple of days and it looked like I could have won.
I remember feeling the same sense of, don't know if I want this.
From like a personal perspective, it's not Just from a personal perspective, like, mygoodness.
yet I recognize that this door of opportunity has been set in front of me.
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And to the best of my ability, I was determined to walk through that door.
listening to you also reminds me of Benjamin Franklin.
I'm sure you know the story.
Someone walked up to him and said,
when he walked out of Constitution Hall.
So what kind of government did you give us?
And he said a republic, if you can keep it.
The emphasis on we have to be willing to keep it, to do our part, to keep it, to learn, tobe active, not sitting around and waiting for someone else to come down and save us, but
(19:38):
for us to keep it.
Kathy, do you want to tell the audience just briefly how to get in touch with you?
Absolutely.
As you've already stated, I host my own podcast called the Kathy Barnett Show.
And you can listen to that wherever you get your podcast from, whether that's Apple,Spotify, Rumble, YouTube, for the video aspect of it.
(20:02):
But yes, go out, check it out.
Like, share, subscribe, hit that notification button, and let's continue to just challengepeople and actually teach people how to have a conversation about some very tough
topic sometime.
God bless you sister.
Thank you again for your time and I hope to talk with you again soon.
It's been absolutely a pleasure.
(20:23):
Thank you.