November 3, 2024 • 59 mins
In this powerful episode of Voiceless Behind Bars, Sarah sits down with Elizabeth Anderson to discuss her campaign and the issues closest to her heart. Elizabeth, a passionate advocate for justice reform, sheds light on her vision for a fairer system and shares personal insights on the changes she wants to bring to Congress. Tune in as Sarah and Elizabeth explore topics including criminal justice reform, prison conditions, and Elizabeth’s commitment to amplifying the voices of those who are often unheard.
🌟 Follow Elizabeth Anderson's Journey:
🔗 Elizabeth’s website offers a detailed look into her campaign platform, including initiatives on equitable sentencing, rehabilitation opportunities, and her stance on important legislative reforms. Don't miss this episode for an inspiring conversation with someone who’s determined to make a difference!
🌟 Follow Elizabeth Anderson's Journey:
🔗 Elizabeth’s website offers a detailed look into her campaign platform, including initiatives on equitable sentencing, rehabilitation opportunities, and her stance on important legislative reforms. Don't miss this episode for an inspiring conversation with someone who’s determined to make a difference!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Zoon me afraid of It's sorry, be care foodstas not
every light is gone. And Cary your baby don't let
a very ice big get close to her heart.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
All love.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
The pressures kinda shrive you crazy because you're right to
the man in the morning. It's all kind of then
it's Jon me afraid of it. Side, becarefoodstas not every
lad iss gone? And guide you.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, when I blow up, I'm gonna saw a highlight.
Peter Pan in real life, be living out my dreams.
I'm waking up. It's in the four land, whole wrist
covering up in ice.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
All right, thank you for tuning in to voices behind bars.
My name is Sarah Dearman, and I've got with me
today Elizabeth Anderson, and she is Ah. I apologize. What
is it you're running for here in Alabama? Well, I apologized.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
I get confused. Sure, I'm running for US Congress in
Alabama sixth district against Gary Palmer.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
That's right, sixth district. I'm pretty sure, But I didn't
want to get that wrong on my podcast, So thank
you for clearing that up. Just the last thing I
wanted to do is go because you're running for the
seventh district, so that is my district right there, So
I will definitely be voting for you. I've been sharing
stuff with you about you on Facebook, so I wanted
(01:32):
to ask how. First of all, how has been a
mother influenced you as a politician.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Well, A lot of what I do is for my kids.
Right I've got two little girls. They are so sweet,
and I want to have a better future for them,
especially right now as we have had so many attacks
on women's rights from a political perspective, I want to
make sure that you know, even right now, for me,
(01:59):
I don't have the same rights as my mother had,
right and I want to make sure that my children
have the same rights that I have. And more so,
a lot of what I do is for them and
for future generations, because we're always thinking about the future.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, and go, uh when it comes to what they're
doing in schools, you know, ah, they're banning books like
right now. You know, my husband is a librarian and
libraries are under attack, and uh so does that worry
as a mother? Oh?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Absolutely. I've actually been really involved in protesting against these
library book bands even run for office, so I have
been doing that for you know, well over a year now.
My local library is the North Shelby Library, which was
the subject of HB eighty nine, where the legislature basically
(02:52):
took over our little nonprofit library here and heard about them.
It was really really awful, and we had so many
extremists come in. And I've been involved in that since,
you know, since it started being a big deal here
in this district. I'm really passionate about the library. I'm
probably at the library like three or four times a week.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Oh yeah, I've been going to the Hoover Library since
I was about three.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
That's yeah, that's the other one that we're at all
the time. We are consistently in the library, and my
kids use the children's section of the library, and I
want them to be able to check out books about
you know, lots of different people, people like the most
people who are different than themselves. I want them able
to learn about the world, and that means that we
have to have a really robust library system. These bands are,
(03:40):
in my view, they're not just uh, you know, we
hear so much of this this rhetoric around oh this
is making sure that it's appropriate materials for children, but
it's really not about that at all. It's about it's
about ensuring that LGBTQ folks cannot exist.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Trying to take people out of our society. It's really awful.
And the question that I always have and it never
seem to get a good answer from on the other side,
is well, what about the LGBTQ kids who want to
use the library as well? Or LGBTQ families who want
to use the family or to use the library. These
families exist in our district. We are one of them, right,
(04:25):
I am actually our as far as I know, I
am our first openly LGBTQ person to run for federal
office in the state of Alabama. Yeah, so my family
we exist. We're here, we want to be able to
use library services, and my kids want to use the
library services as well. And some of the rhetoric out
there is really disappointing, and oh.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
It all like it's not that they just make up.
Is not disappointing, it's downright dangerous.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
It is, and it's wrong. A lot one of it
is predicated on you know, a lot. This is where
a lot of people say falsets. But I'm going to
go ahead and say lies because I went to one
of the Moms for Liberty meetings, you know, to protest it.
And I took my kids with me because I think
that it's really important for them to kind of know
(05:18):
what's going on in their community. And my nine year
old leaned over to me and said, Mommy, they're telling lies.
And she was right, they were telling you. So you know,
it's really dangerous some of some of this rhetoric that's
going on. And I've also seen it from the other side,
you know too. I sat down at one of the
library more meetings, which everybody should be going to the
(05:41):
library board meetings if you care about your library, and
go to those. And I sat down at one of
the meetings, and a lady next to me, you know,
she kind of leaned over and whispered in my ear
and she said, Hey, that's the library director, and she
wants to make sure that every child that comes into
this library has gender reass surgery. And I said, well,
that's not true.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
What that's not true, and then she proceeds to say, well,
we've got this new board in place that the legislature
put in and if they don't do what we want
them to do, we're going to hang theut, and.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Like, just the level of violence for people on her
side was really astounding and made me think, you know,
what level of violence can we see? And for me too,
I've even been accosted. I was accosted in the parking
lot for Horrible by a man who was angry that
I stood up and spoke out against book fanning at
(06:36):
the library. And so just seeing that level of you know,
violences coming out of it too is really scary as well.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Speaking about LGBTQ wrights when it comes to and Christian
Coleman and I have talked about this for my all listeners.
You know, I did an interview with him recently. We
talked about Elizabeth and and Chris and I have talked
about transgender rights. You know, we all well point time
(07:07):
talked about it personally, right, so trans kids and I
wanted to know about I'm pretty sure what your views are,
but just it's important to get it out there. What
do you think about all their views when it comes
to like with trans kids getting to use all bath like,
(07:27):
for instance, the bathroom that they're ginger aligns with and
also that goes to the same for the adults and
just overall their life in general. You know, like when
it comes to like they say, you know, kids want
all you know, parents are encouraging them to be sliced up,
which is not true. I talked to my mom. You
(07:50):
know that's right ring pop propaganda right there, they're saying.
You know, when it comes to gingerfering, care for kids
that you know has to do like speech therapy, you know,
getting a gender specialist, you know, all pew rereading blockers.
You know, they can take them safely to like around sixteen,
(08:11):
you know when they can get off it anytime. All
but yeah, all done done. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Yeah, First of all, trans people are people, and people
deserve the same rights and basic human rights as everybody
in this country. I think a lot of the rhetoric
around this hatred for trans people has come from people
that don't know any trans people, right, and it's very
(08:41):
easy to demon as a group of people that you
don't know. And you know, I think it's so important
for I think that people should empathize and understand people
who are different from them, which kind of goes back
to why it's so dangerous to ban books from libraries,
because that's a great way to unders stand people who
aren't like you. And it's so easy for them to
(09:06):
push all of this hatred onto a very like an
incredibly small population of people who at the end of
the day aren't really bothering anybody exactly, And and so
it's it's easy for them to do that, and it's
a it's an easy way for people to direct hate
(09:26):
towards one group instead of focusing on actual issues that
actually matter. Right, our kids are going to school, and
one of the highest one of the highest, uh are are, like,
at the top of the list of reasons why children
die in America is gun violence. Right, our kids are
at school from gun violence in a real existential way,
(09:49):
But we have this panic about what library books that
they're checking out. I think a lot of it comes
from that. Obviously, I'm a huge supporter of trans writes because,
like I said, Frans, people are people, and trans people
deserve all of the rights that our country affords to everyone.
These are basic human rights. I think that I of course,
(10:11):
people should be allowed to do what they feel is
right to do, and I think that parents should be
the ones that are working with their children to make
those types of decisions. And I think that we can
all agree on that. So often what I've heard from
the other side is, you know, they will make this
argument that parents should be involved and you know, kids
(10:34):
determining their gender, but then they double down on that
and say, well, actually, that's not what we mean, right exactly.
We want to stop it. And I do think that
parents and kids know what's best for them, and I
think we should trust them.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
And when it comes to like gender dysphoria, like I
was reading a book, just whooping through it at the
UH teen fiction section of the Hoover Library a few
years ago because I was just curious what was in there.
Twin brother and sister, and one of them was going
(11:13):
through gender dysphoria, and the dad was a denial. The
mom was researching it, learning, you know, this isn't a choice,
And I'm like, no, I like this, And because when
I've done research on it myself, not only you know,
like you know, psychology websites of reputable full ones have
said it's not a choice. But talking to close friends
(11:35):
of mine, very close that I know some of them
I've known before that transitioned, and talking to them about
junior dysphoria, Yeah, uh, not a choice and uh uh
so it's like, uh, like you said, it affects like
one percent of the population, but ginger dysphoria, like they
(11:56):
told me, like I would, it's not that you know,
being transition there is wrong, but they told me, you know,
but the kind of pain it calls them and also
the way it's ostracized, It's like, why would someone choose
to be put through that? And again I'm not demonizing it,
but I see their point what they're saying, you know,
why would I choose that? So, like I said, I
(12:19):
get what they're where they're coming from.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Sure, well, and like I said, I think that I
think it would be really beneficial for people to get
to know transfers within their community who are really wonderful people, yeah,
you know, and who just want to live their lives.
And I think it's really unfair for us as a
society to demonize any demographic group.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah, and you said, oh, something that really you know,
I hit home with me because I remember, you know,
starting in middle school, we started doing gun drills and
no child should be doing that at school. And I'll
you know what this is. Right after Uvaldi, my husband
read this article online where dad was dropping his son
(13:07):
off in school and he was crying and sudden asked
what's wrong. His dad said, I'm afraid that all something
might happen to you, you know, so one may come
up and uh school shooter mate come in and it says, said, no,
don't worry dad. You know, we practiced for that, and
Dad was like, you shouldn't have to practice for that.
And you know, people I will talk about, you know
(13:28):
sometimes my social media. You know, we all you know,
no one should an AR fifteen, you know, and I've
talked about before. I support the Second Amendment, but you
know we should have you know, gun safety loss. And
people say to me, you can't take one of my guns,
and I'm like, I don't want your guns, want gun control.
(13:49):
They're like it starts with that. So what's your feeling
on all that.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Well, I am both a childhood survivor of gun violence
and can owner myself, and I really strongly feel, which
I can't believe that this is an unpopular opinion, but
I really strongly feel that we should keep guns out
of the hands of people who are dangerous, right, I know,
(14:17):
opinion that should be something that we can all agree on.
That people who are dangerous and violent should not have
access to firearms, because we have a huge problem in
this country with firearms, and if we just continue to
look the other way, we are going to continue to
have a huge problem with firearms in this country. Right.
This is life or death. People will die, children will die,
(14:38):
and it's not okay. And so that has to look
like background checks and certainly has to look like red
flag laws and proper gun safety storage laws and you know,
even insurance on our firearms. Those are important things that
we have in order to keep ourselves safe because it's
not worth it to have our firearms if that means
(15:03):
that children are dying, like, of course it doesn't, right,
and so we cannot allow that. And so for me,
that just it just seems like sensible, common sense gun
reform is the way. And a lot of it has
to do with money in politics. I know that a
lot of politicians get money from the NRA and we do,
(15:27):
and a lot of it comes down to that and
then sort of disseminates throughout society and people think that
you know, having a safe having a safe gun storage
law does not take your gun away exactly. It means
that you are absolutely allowed to have your gun, but
you have to start safely. And a lot of times
we hear the argument that, oh, well, people who are
(15:50):
using them to hurt people have these guns illegally. What
the truth of the matter is that they don't have
these guns illegally. A lot of them have them absolutely
legally because they got them through the gun store loophole,
or you know, they were able to purchase them without
an adequate background check, or there were no red flag
laws keep preventing them from having these guns. So a
(16:12):
lot of these people have the guns legally, absolutely, but
a lot of them if they do have them illegally,
it's because they were stolen or they were sold illegally
or something like that that happened. And you know, like
I said, I'm a childhood survivor of gun violence. I
actually do not know whether my dad had that gun
(16:33):
legally when he shot at me or not. Yeah, but
he But I can tell you absolutely affirmatively that he
should not have ever had access to a firearm legally
or illegally. Right, And so we have got to get
the guns out of the hands of people who are
(16:53):
violent and who are going to use them to HRSs
and that should not you know, that's a no brainer
for me, right like that, that there should be no
debate around that.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
So, speaking of your father, we discussed the earlier, how
did he influence you as a politician?
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Oh, my gosh. So I'm actually estranged from my dad
because he was very, very violent when I was growing up.
So he has been in and out of prison my
entire life. Actually just recently got out of federal prison again,
so he's sort of been in and out and I've
been a strange from him for many, many many years decades. Right, However,
(17:34):
I think a lot about I probably think about issues
of prison reform more than the average person.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
I think about it a lot too. So that's right
that you think about it.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
And I say that because you know, I look at
it from two perspectives. One is a perspective of someone
who was a child and went and visited him in prison,
and just how difficult that was and how scary that
was as a little kid when we went in and
you know, they are all of these guards and there's
(18:07):
this whole entire thing, and when you go in to
visit someone in prison, oftentimes you yourself are treated like
a criminal. Oh, real and so, and the other thing
was that, you know, at one point I was pulled
into a room with my mom and had to watch
my mom get a cavity search in art as a child, right,
(18:28):
like think that certainly my mom should not have had
to undergo that, but it should definitely not have to
be in that as well. And so just just looking
at it as a from the perspective of someone who
has visited, but then looking at it as a perspective
of someone who you know, I know someone in prison,
(18:50):
even though I'm estranged from that person. I believe that
all people should have access to basic human rights, whether
I like that person or not, right, whether not I
want to have anything to do with that person, everybody
should have access to basic human rights. My dad had
a stroke in prison not too long ago, a few
years ago, and nobody knew about it, right because they don't.
(19:13):
They don't call you. No one's gonna let you know.
The only way we found out was that he called
my brother, who you really couldn't understand what he was saying.
And that's the way that we had to find this out.
And then there's nothing that you can do for the
family members who are not estranged, right, And so I think,
you know, you hear these things, these horrible things about
(19:34):
the way that prisoners are treated without adequate air conditioning
in the summer or adequate heat in the winter. We
think about the way that prisoners were treated during the
COVID pandemic without adequate social distancing. We know that prisoners
don't have access to good health care. They don't. Oh no,
and that's just not how we should treat humans, no
(19:55):
matter who those humans are.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
And all I advocate for a few different prisoners who
either are overly sentenced for you know, a minor crime,
who have been wrongfully convicted completely for you know crime
they didn't do. Some of them, you know, have been
(20:20):
very forthcoming not only with me, but interviews I did
with them, you know, on this podcast. And one of
them have done has done interviews with two different podcasts. Like,
like I said, they've been very forthcoming that yeah, they've
committed all some other crimes. Don't like I'll be one
to advocate for his man named Timothy McGruder, who's in
(20:43):
federal prison life without parole for a crime he had
nothing to do with. Uh. He admits that, you know,
we both have talked about Yeah, ten years who have
been appropriate, you know, over the fact that he wasn't
a gang. No, he's never killed anyone, never can cloase.
But due to all, it's the criminal activity he was
involved in. Uh, yeah, he definitely deserves some prison time.
(21:08):
And but yeah, like I said, he had nothing to
do with this and all. And it's been twenty four
years he's been a federal prison. He absolutely has been
working on rehabilitating himself. And like I said, he believed
in prison. I was necessarily I agree, And so like
(21:32):
I said, he's done. He's done more than enough time.
He has rehabilitated himself. He hasn't been it to be.
He used to be hot headed and couldn't folded me.
You know, he no is like but a sweetheart. He uh.
You know, I don't want to go on and on
and on, but uh, hearing about what he goes through,
(21:55):
the other men in there go through with by the
correction officers, the salute, all oh gosh. Like I don't
want to describe everything, I will say one thing, which is, uh,
they will put their feet on the prisoner's backs. Uh,
call them the in words, say I'm your master now
(22:16):
and I, you know, more than one asked me, you know, please,
you know, if could you say something because someone's gonna die, yeah,
the way they beat us. So I spoke out, and
Timothy got put in the hole for two months and
which scared of his family, and I and his mom
(22:37):
trusted me to, you know, take care of things, because
she's like, you know, we don't all need to be
calling up there, but it, yeah, it's scary. And but
I hear about this in federal and state prison all
the time, all the time. And you know, you know
there's someone in prison right now that you know, I
(22:58):
don't I don't want to talk too much about him
because I don't want to be disrespectful to the victim.
But you know, I can't say the guy, but I
don't want to be treated like and humanly. I want
him to learn about what he did wrong, want to
get counseling. I really want him to learn, like what
he did to my friend's family and also what he
(23:20):
has put his own family through. Oh and I want
them to find ways, you know, to get back to
society wirel in prison, you know, like charity work they
can do in prison. And yeah, so and so would
you say that, you know, would you agree like getting
lost past about no more solitary confinement and getting like
(23:46):
some kind of a board review something like that for
correctional officers.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Oh, absolutely yes, because at the end of the day,
we need to treat people humanly, no matter who they
are or what they done. It's you know, we we
we have to. I think that when people are in prison,
then we have a then that puts a burden on
our society too to manage their well being appropriately, right,
(24:19):
and then that's now that's now our society's responsibility. And
I think our society has a responsibility for all people
to a degree. But when we have people who are
in prison, you know, we need to make sure that
they have access to basic human rights. And our constitution
(24:39):
says no cruel and unusual punishment, and I think that
sometimes we stretch the meaning that, but there's a lot
of I think that there's a lot of cruelty that
goes on in prison. And if there is someone, you know,
if I can say that as a person who who
who's someone who first and tried to kill me, very sorry,
(25:04):
even I don't want that person to be treated inhumanely,
and that I think that has to go across the
board personally. That's you know, that's my feeling about it.
And I think that I don't love carcoral systems in general,
but within the system that we are currently working under,
(25:28):
I think it would behoove us to look at that
as a more rehabilitative place and a place for strictly
you know, punishment.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
No, I I agree. It's like, and you know, people
will say to me, like, you don't care about the victims?
What about people who all I don't want to get
too people who have sexually assaulted others? And I'm like, yep,
look stuff like that, you know, I don't want to
(26:03):
all get too into it. But stuff like that, you know,
has happened to me too. You know, I've been a
victim too. But and look, they do deserve, you know,
some punishment. You know. I'm not saying, you know, just
just let them off.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
You know.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Oh they had a bad day, you know, I'm not
saying that. And of course I care about the victims absolutely,
you know I but you know, and they do deserve justice,
you know. The last thing you need to do is
let them, you know, walk free. Agous, Oh that was
the very bad thing. No, that's not it. But in
addition to you know, getting them rehabilitated, learning about what
(26:40):
they did was wrong, you know, getting counseling. But they
when it comes to the victims, what we need is
we need counseling. We all, what we went through was
a lot of trauma that we have to live with. Uh,
So the state needs to provide us with counseling, you know,
like group counseling. Because you know, when all of said done,
(27:03):
they say, Okay, it's just just for the victims that
we you know, need to live with this. And I yeah,
like I said, I think programs would help. And also
crime prevention programs because uh, you know, we all need
to solve the problem before it happens. And I'm not
saying you don't stop it completely, but getting more you
(27:25):
know all like ah, something like boys and girls club
you know available and more neighborhoods, and also like having
more access to healthcare, mental health care for children. I
(27:46):
what what do you think about that? You know, just
trying to getting them access to more programs they'll keep
off the streets. And that are not saying one specific demographic.
I'm talking about all kids. So what would you say
about them.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
Yeah, A few couple of things. One, I think that
when we are talking about victims rights, that is an
important conversation and we need to absolutely be having that conversation.
A few ways that I look at that are from
the perspective of when we're thinking about our incarcerated population.
(28:25):
It does not bring justice to a victim. For the
incarcerated person to you know, not have adequate access to healthcare,
or to have to eat food with maggots in it, right,
that does not actually that does that does not actually
help the victim to have a sense of justice. And
(28:48):
when I think about how we can get justice for
victims of crimes, to me, that looks like solving the
systemic problems that led to those crimes. Now, that's not
taking away from individual responsibility, because of course individuals are
responsible for what they do. But we prevent crimes from
happening in the first place, and what can we.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Do to.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Take away this social the social systemic reasons why crimes
often happen. Because we know that there are social and
systemic reasons that increase the likelihood of violent crime happening
to people, So how do how do we do better?
And how we look at justice in a more rehabilitative light,
(29:38):
like I mentioned earlier, and how can we take this
person who's committed a crime and make sure that they're
not going to commit another crime of some right? That
to me, and I know that not everybody feels this way, right,
but to me, it feels much more like justice if
we can prevent it from ever happening. Again, I agree, yeah,
(29:58):
And that's why a lot of the things that I
think about and you know, sort of my daily life
are pretty difficult upbringing, and a lot of it did
have to do with, you know, individuals, Like I mentioned,
my dad was really horrible and really rough growing up
with him. He was a very violent person. But also
I grew up Beulow the poverty line, and there were
a lot of systemic issues that I dealt with in
(30:20):
my life. And for me, what justice looks like for
me when I think about my you know, difficult childhood
and how I can have justice for that little child
version of myself, What that looks like to me is
making a better society overall, and that looks like is
eliminating the systemic problems that led to some of those
(30:43):
issues that I was experiencing, and I would love to
be to see more rehabilitation happen because you know I
know this acutely. Well, the person who victimized me is
has been in and out of prison my entire life.
He's out again, he'll be back in and again. It's
it's it's just been like an ongoing cycle. But wouldn't
(31:05):
it be better if we could rehabilitate them, Yes, so
that it doesn't have to happen again, like we know
it inevitable inevitably will right now. So I think of
it in that way. And you know that that that
is just my viewpoint on it, and I know that's
not everybody's bee point on it, but that's how I
look at it.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
So another one last question about the injustice system, will
move on. I want to ask you, how do you
feel about the death penalty.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
I do not like the death penalty at all either.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
M hm.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Well, I think that I think that the death penalty
has to go. I don't think that it's the federal
government's place to decide who lives and who dies, or
the state governments. I don't think there is any government
that should be deciding who lives and who dies. I
think it's wrong, but I also know for sure that
people have been wrongly convicted and wrongly put to death,
(32:03):
right yep.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
And say with prison, there are people who wrongly convicted
in prison right now exactly.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
And you know, and we know that there are government
there are situations where everybody knew that the person was
wrongly convicted exactly anyway, and so that that is wrong
on the face of it. And for a society to
say that, you know, especially in a state like Alabama
where we say we profess to believe in pro life,
(32:31):
well that has to include every life.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
And yes and all Like with our federal government, I'll
see when it comes to you know, each prisoner, you know,
we pay for them to be housed in there every day,
each prisoner with our tax dollars, and that goes for
federal tax dollars federal prison. And it's even more expensive
(32:55):
for death row and including the death you know, them
being put to die itself. You know, that is very expensive.
During the Trumpe administration, i'd say, the first six executions, yeah,
I know, that cost us millions of dollars on our
federal taxes. And two of those people were innocent. I
(33:18):
remember I didn't know. Well, I only knew of one
of them that was in US that I wish I
did the other one at the time. But I remember
Dustin Higgs, and I remember advocating for him. I was
devastated telling my followers he was executed. And there's another
man that I've been worked advocating for for years, Billy Allen,
(33:40):
and who is completely antiset, and he has written articles
You're saying, I'm afraid if Project twenty twenty five comes
to be, you know, Trump is elected, that I'm going
to die because if you read it, you know his
plans with the death penalty. You know, he wants to
start up executions right federal executions right way. And we've
(34:02):
had many wrongful debt. I mean, that's wrongful. But I'm saying, oh,
people who didn't sumit the crime, you know, who were
wrongly convicted, and you know, uh, you know, as people
all many of them get wrongfully executed. You know this
year alone, oh and you and it was one out
(34:24):
of eight people who were wrongfully executed, but it's recently
been updated to one and seven. And I just that alone.
I don't like those ones.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
Yeah, it's awful.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
And you know, it doesn't prevent crime. You know, it's
a study show. You know, it doesn't loader the murder rate,
and so uh like, it doesn't murder loader the murder rate.
You know. Oh there are those ons that you know,
I really don't like al it's it's just what's the
point of Yeah, so I want to ask, you know, okay,
(35:04):
so are you for the decryalization of marijuana.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
Yes, that's great, Yeah, absolutely absolutely, I would. I like
the I like the idea of regulating it in the
same way that we regulate things like alcohol, right con cigarettes,
I think that regulation is a great idea. I think
that it's also i mean economically beneficial because that makes
(35:30):
them exit, right, And so I think there are there
are more pros than cons, you know, to decriminalizing it.
So of course it has to be and that means
that we have to also wipe the record if anyone
who is currently sitting in prison for you know, marijuana
related offenses. Right.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
But the other thing.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
About it too is that I know that if we
if we legalize it and regulate it, then that can
make it a lot safer to use. No, I agree,
It's important to keep in mind too because right now
if you if you got that, you don't you don't
really know where it came from, right, And I think
(36:12):
a lot of countries have seen success with decriminalizing it,
So yeah, it's true, you know, why not now?
Speaker 3 (36:20):
And also like as long as you you know, a
doctor prescribes, that you're under the care of a doctor,
you know it, uh does have benefits when it comes
to anxiety. And there are people you know who have
uh uh uh uh that's in marijuana, whether it's you know,
baked in something like a cookie or smoked a little
(36:42):
bit of it after chemo. It makes those horrible symptoms
after chemo therapy much better. There are a lot of
medicinal purposes work as well. And I'll yeah, that's something
important for people to know, like you said, backs and
for it, you know. And and also something else that's
(37:07):
all being spread around that is that is it true
for s to cole when and I talked about this
and all this has been spread for a long time,
especially this election of the whole thing about illegal immigrants,
just so many lines, so I wanted to know, like
just your feelings at overall the lives are being spread
(37:31):
like oh oh they're bringing crime, uh they're bringing drugs. Uh,
what are your feelings? A lot?
Speaker 4 (37:41):
Well, there's an element of that that goes back to
what I was saying earlier about how human beings deserve
human rights and what we were talking about earlier with
how easy it is to demonize a group of people
that you don't know. And so I think a lot
of this demonizing certain different demographic groups of people comes
down to I think that if you can make people
(38:06):
hate someone, you can get them to vote for you
because you hate the same person as them. Right, Wrong,
because we should be focused more on actual policy. Right.
There are immigrants who are wonderful, lovely people. They're also
they're not great people, right because they're people like exactly
(38:28):
it is for all of us. But a lot of
people who are immigrants have come to this country because
they are in a situation of desperation and they need help.
And when somebody needs help, you help them. It's pretty
obvious to me. But what that what that can look like?
That doesn't have to look like you know, this panic
(38:49):
over immigrants stealing jobs or something like that, because I
do think that there is a lot of misinformation that's
going on about that.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
A lot.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
Yeah, really good reason search out there, and I would
definitely encourage people to read actual academic research, not not
what you read on some weird website on the internet,
but actual academic research about the economic impact of having
immigrants in our country. Because there is a degree to
which we have immigrants who come to this country and
(39:21):
they pay taxes, but they cannot receive government services. And
so you know, there is a degree to which it
is economically beneficial to have immigrants in this country. And
there are also immigrants who come to this country legally
or illegally, and who do amazing things. Right, we have
a number of like doctors and attorneys and professionals who
(39:45):
help us tremendously who are immigrants in this country, and
we should welcome those people with open arms because we
love immigrants here. I mean, this nation has founded on this.
It's a nation of immigrants, right, So that's kind of
my take on it. Human human beings deserving and rights
across the board, no matter who you are. It's kind
(40:08):
of the starting point of any policy decision that we make.
And also we should consider what the disinformation when you know,
when we are considering who to vote for, what policies
to put in place. We need to consider what's disinformation
and what is actually true and what the research and
data shows.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
So I know you don't have too long, so go
wrap this up. I do want to ask you, okay,
when it comes to abortion, uh Rad, I know you
talked about you know you have two girls and all
you know you don't have the same rights your mom.
Did you know that scares me too. You know all
(40:50):
by family members who plan on having children and they're scared,
you know, they they have they scared they can go septic.
There's a lot of misinformation out there about oh that
you know, they have an abortion, you know, nine months pregnant,
they have an abortion right before the babies born. I've
(41:11):
actually heard people, people in Congress say they have an
abortion after the baby's born. I thought, what And I
remember back of abortion was legalized, you know, in dire circumstances,
you know, I mean it has to be dire. Yes,
there were some late term abortions, but again very dire circumstances.
(41:32):
And topic pregnancy. You know that's not a biable pregnancy.
But that's no longer allowed either. We are forcing children,
you know it was in this ten who are raped
to carry you know, the pregnancy full term, which you
know they shouldn't be forced in that period, but also
(41:54):
they could die doing that. So again, what were your
thoughts on that? Just overall, you know, all taking away
all persons, the universe is right to choose.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Well, how much time do you have? Because so let
me start back with the idea of post birth abortions,
because that is it's a lie that's being spread right
now right What we are talking about when people say
(42:29):
post birth abortions, what they are talking about is parents
who have had a baby and carried the baby to term,
and that baby is incompatible with life. Right, So maybe
the baby does not have kidneys or important internal organs
or something like that. The baby may be technically breathing
(42:52):
for a little while, but the baby is not going
to survive. And what we're talking about here is a
situation in where absolutely devastated, heartbroken parents have place to
either hook that infant up to a bunch of tubes
(43:12):
and do invasive, you know, painful surgeries on that infant,
or to prolonged life back a couple of hours, or
whether we can just sort of gently let the baby pass.
That's the situation that we're talking about when we're talking
about post rods and the idea. When we say post
birth abortion, what pops into people's head is like a
(43:34):
really cute, squishy, three month old baby with like hair
and a little smile. You know, That's not what we're
talking about at all. We're talking about absolutely devastating situations
with you know, major medical implications here. And I think
it is so much disinformation when we're we're talking about something,
(43:57):
and it's so harmful to the people who've had to
experience this. And I do think that it's okay for
parents to make that. I mean, it's up to the
parents and the doctors in that situation. But what we're
not talking about here is like a perfectly healthy, cute,
squishy little baby that is born and then they're like, well,
(44:19):
change my mind about this. I've carried this baby for
nine months never mind, you know, like gradually flippantly, and
then the doctor is like, well let's execute it. That's
not what we're talking about. It all are same. That
does not happen, right, Like that emphatically, categorically does not happen, right,
And so I think that it is a huge amount
(44:40):
of disinformation. And again I would encourage people to educate
themselves on what that actually means. But before that point,
I think that when we get into these conversations about
like viability and when does life begin, that really distracts
us from the main issue, and the main issue being
that we should all have body like every single person
(45:02):
should have bodily autonomy to determine what happens within their
own body. And that has to come down to pregnancy also, right,
just like we would not force someone to you know,
if you if you if someone at large needed a
kidney and you were a great match for that person,
(45:22):
the government cannot make you donate your kidney to something.
They can't even make you donate your kidney to like,
you know, your spouse or your child or your parent,
right Like, no one's going to make you donate your
kidney to someone. And that's the same with pregnancy. And
I can confidently say, as someone who has had multiple
pregnancies and knows exactly what that means, that it is
(45:46):
a big impact on your body and you should be
the person who is deciding what to do with that pregnancy.
So like, hands down, I absolutely believe that we have
to have access to abortion in this country. And we
have to leave that decision to the person who is
having the abortion and their doctor. Right, the doctor is
(46:09):
not going to to go out there and like they're
not going to terminate a squishy nine month baby that
has just been born, right, that's not going to No
doctor is going to do that. And when we are
legislating these issues, we are first of all, so often
the people who are legislating the issues are people who
(46:31):
don't know what they're talking about. A lot of these
I mean, like really a lot of these are like,
you know, men who have never had a pregnancy themselves,
so they don't really they don't really know, and they're
not like, you know, the people who are legislating this
are not necessarily always people who are like intently aware
(46:52):
of what that entails. And they're not people who understand
the medical ins and outs of this either. Because the
other side of this is that when we regulate abortion,
we're also regulating pregnancy loss, right, because a miscarriage and
an abortion are really not that different from each other.
(47:14):
I mean, when we when we have a miscarriage, the
medical terminology for that is that it is a termination.
I recently had a town hall with multiple obg y
ns and I specifically asked this question. You know, if
someone comes into the emergency room and they you know,
can you tell if their miscare the taste I'm miscarrying?
(47:35):
Can you tell the difference between someone who is miscarrying
and someone like naturally versus someone who has done a
self managed abortion? And the answer is no, you cannot
tell the difference between those things from a medical standpoint.
So if someone goes in and they're miscarrying or their baby,
you know, who gets to decide whether or not that
(47:59):
was an abortion or a miscarriage. All that does is
it criminalizes every single pregnancy loss. And it's absolutely terrifying,
right because it means that any of us who has
a pregnancy loss can be accused of having an abortion,
and there's no way to prove that we didn't.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Do. You remember what happened to Brittany Watson, Ohio? Yeah,
exactly that I were talking about that online. I was
not horrified, but it broke my heart, especially seeing her
during her court hearing Bryan. You know, but she was planned,
she wanted that baby, and she was going to the
(48:41):
doctor saying, you know, I'm bleeding, and they just you know,
sent her home and they never took her seriously. And
she and Victoria, you're gonna have a miscurage, you don't
go home, deal with it. There's something we can do.
And so she had the miss carriage at home. You know,
(49:02):
oh if she I had it, you know, when she
was sitting on a toilet, there's nothing she could do
at that point, you know. And she went and talked
about it to the doctor, and the doctor reported it
to the police. And fortunately, you know, she uh, nothing
happened to her where she was put in prison, but
(49:23):
she was still put through all that trauma after you know,
losing her baby, having that miscarriage, and she talked about you.
First of all, she wasn't stating speaking because she's a
black woman, but and I agree, but also you know,
she uh they said that she had you know, uh,
(49:45):
committed a felony uh for the missus of a corpse,
when again, you know, she had a miscarriage, and if
you know, this would have happened. First of all, they
took her seriously, but also she had been allowed would
share miscarriage have been allowed to you know safely out
an abortion? Yeah, this never would have happened. And she
(50:10):
wouldn't have been retraumatized.
Speaker 4 (50:13):
Right, And I think there's two there's another piece of it,
like fortunately it's fortunately Brittany Watts was you know, they
dropped the case and that that was good. But then
you have other cases like Ambery, Nicole Thurman and Georgia
who she did everything right, exactly the way that you're
supposed to do, and she went in and could not
(50:36):
get the care that she needed and the doctors essentially
had to let her die because of the laws in Georgia.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
I heard about that.
Speaker 4 (50:44):
Yeah, it's really really heartbreaking. But the sort of flip
side of that is that if you go in and
you know you've had a miscarriage, there's already and there's
somebody who has personally had a miscarriage, for sure that
there is societal stigma around. You know, miscarriages happen, they
(51:07):
are totally a lot of times it is luck of
the draw a lot of pregnancies and in miscarriages through
no but I can say for sure that there is
social stigma around miscarriage. And when you have a miscarriage,
you often think to yourself, well, what did I do
to cause this? When the is you didn't do anything
(51:28):
to cause it, But there's also so much societal stigma
around it that you know that other people are thinking
what did she do to cause this?
Speaker 3 (51:37):
As well?
Speaker 4 (51:38):
And if we are in a situation where we already
have social stigma around miscarriage and we create an environment
where pregnancy loss is criminalized, what does that look like
when someone goes into an er and it's having a miscarriage,
and you know, what does that look like for someone
(51:59):
to say, well, what did she do to cause this? Right?
Because we already see that people in Alabama are being
criminalized for pregnancy for issues. We saw the report came
out recently where after the Dob's decision there was something
like three over three hundred women who were put in
(52:25):
prison across the nation are charged with crimes related to
pregnancy across the nation, and over one hundred of them
were in Alabama. Right, And we're not anything that had
to do with the abortion laws at all. These were
things that had to do with, you know, accusing people
of taking drugs and pregnancy. Well know that routinely women
(52:49):
are given drug tests during pregnancy and after the birth
of their babies, but we also know that those drug
tests can be wrong. There have been plenty of cases
where peop will have tested positive on a drug test
for heroin when they had a poppy seed bagel that morning.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (53:08):
And so when we get into this environment where we
are criminalizing pregnancy loss, that really creates a lot of danger.
Speaker 3 (53:18):
And all, okay, So our last question, what else I'll like,
do you all plan to do all? If elected? You know,
like anything else you want to highlight? Oh, that's the
better way to word to anything else you want to
highlight if elected?
Speaker 4 (53:38):
Yes, my first priority is a federal law and training
the right to an abortion. I think that's huguely important.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (53:46):
Internal health care is a massive issue for me as
a mom myself, and you know, living in a state
like Alabama where we have some of the highest maternal
and infant mortality rates in the entire nation, where the
county where I live in Shelby County, we do not
have a single maternity ward in this county, and having
(54:07):
lost four more maternity wards across Alabama just this year alone,
knowing that more are coming, we have to do something
about maternal healthcare. That's absolutely critical. That's another top issue
for me. And then of course alleviating poverty, really eliminating
poverty is what I would like to do. There are
so many kids who are trapped in poverty, and so
(54:29):
many people adults who are trapped in poverty through no
flock on their own. I can definitely say that I'm
well aware of what that looks like because, like I said,
I grew up below the poverty line. So we need
to do something to address poverty in this country more
than what we have been doing.
Speaker 3 (54:45):
Absolutely wonderful, and I agree with you. We got the
right to choose tackling the poverty issue eliminating it, and
you definitely have my vote, and so I wandermind you well,
Elizabeth Anderson, you know here in Alabama, uh, District six,
running against Gary Palmer. And uh, uh you can check
(55:09):
your voter registration. Uh it's okay, Sorry, it's tongue tied there.
I apologize. You can check your voter registration. It's in
the link in my bio on Instagram. Uh it's their only.
I T S S A R A H O N
L Y all one word. It's our only. The link
(55:31):
is in my bio was with Rock the Vote. Uh,
there's a link there where you can check your voter registration,
so make sure you check it and make sure you
check your polling place. And yeah, please vote for Elizabeth Anderson.
And uh if you tell us your website and where
to find you on social media.
Speaker 4 (55:53):
Yes, my website is www dot e a four Congress
dot com. You can find all of the links to
most social media on there, but it also has a
vote tab at the top so that you can check
your voter registration, you can find your polling place. You know,
we're trying to make sure that we put out lots
(56:14):
of information for voters to know who to call if
there are any issues as well. And you can also
check your district through the website. I know that's really
really important for people because we have been redistricted this year,
so in the same district as you were in last time,
because of that Supreme Court case which found that Alabama
(56:35):
was engaging in illegal racial jerrymandering. So definitely check your
district so you are informed and you know who that
you're going to be voting for on election date. And
I would love to have everyone's votes. This is a
really tough district, but we need better representation here. So
again it's www. Dot EA for Congress dot com.
Speaker 3 (56:57):
Thank you so much, and I want to remind you everyone.
You know they have stable ballots online you know, before
the election. Make sure you check those out see who's running. Uh,
and please do your research about the candidates. Research you
know their history, you know before they started running for politics.
(57:21):
You know how they treat others like you know, for instance,
some have worked as attorneys. Please uh. If that's the case,
check out their history as an attorney. Were they involved
in a lot of journey work when it came to
how they treated their clients? You know. So please do
your research on candidates and please vote up and down
(57:46):
the ballot because you're Congress. People like Elizabeth right here
are the ones who really decide do we make progress,
do we make forward or do we go backwards? So Elizabeth,
thank you so much for taking the time after biggs schedule.
It means everything. Oh to come on and uh again. Yeah,
(58:11):
I'll everyone you know this district district ll expect some
Did I get that right right, rank buck? But yes,
everyone just sticks it. I'll be for her and as always,
keep fighting and keep spreading that word.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
Show me afraid of it. Sorry, be care foodstars. Not
every light is kind and carty baby, let a very
nice by, keep it close to.
Speaker 3 (58:42):
Your heart, all love.
Speaker 1 (58:44):
The pressure is kind of shyyy crazy because you right
the man in the morning. It's all kind of then
it's showing me afraid of it. Sorry, be care Foodston.
Not every line is gon and gay you.
Speaker 2 (59:05):
Yeah, when I blow up, I'm gonna saw a highlight.
Peeter Pan in real life, be living at my dreams,
come waking up into a forest land, whole wrist covering
up in ice dealership. Never asked the price.
Zoon me afraid of It's sorry, be care foodstas not
every light is gone. And Cary your baby don't let
a very ice big get close to her heart.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
All love.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
The pressures kinda shrive you crazy because you're right to
the man in the morning. It's all kind of then
it's Jon me afraid of it. Side, becarefoodstas not every
lad iss gone? And guide you.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, when I blow up, I'm gonna saw a highlight.
Peter Pan in real life, be living out my dreams.
I'm waking up. It's in the four land, whole wrist
covering up in ice.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
All right, thank you for tuning in to voices behind bars.
My name is Sarah Dearman, and I've got with me
today Elizabeth Anderson, and she is Ah. I apologize. What
is it you're running for here in Alabama? Well, I apologized.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
I get confused. Sure, I'm running for US Congress in
Alabama sixth district against Gary Palmer.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
That's right, sixth district. I'm pretty sure, But I didn't
want to get that wrong on my podcast, So thank
you for clearing that up. Just the last thing I
wanted to do is go because you're running for the
seventh district, so that is my district right there, So
I will definitely be voting for you. I've been sharing
stuff with you about you on Facebook, so I wanted
(01:32):
to ask how. First of all, how has been a
mother influenced you as a politician.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Well, A lot of what I do is for my kids.
Right I've got two little girls. They are so sweet,
and I want to have a better future for them,
especially right now as we have had so many attacks
on women's rights from a political perspective, I want to
make sure that you know, even right now, for me,
(01:59):
I don't have the same rights as my mother had,
right and I want to make sure that my children
have the same rights that I have. And more so,
a lot of what I do is for them and
for future generations, because we're always thinking about the future.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, and go, uh when it comes to what they're
doing in schools, you know, ah, they're banning books like
right now. You know, my husband is a librarian and
libraries are under attack, and uh so does that worry
as a mother? Oh?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Absolutely. I've actually been really involved in protesting against these
library book bands even run for office, so I have
been doing that for you know, well over a year now.
My local library is the North Shelby Library, which was
the subject of HB eighty nine, where the legislature basically
(02:52):
took over our little nonprofit library here and heard about them.
It was really really awful, and we had so many
extremists come in. And I've been involved in that since,
you know, since it started being a big deal here
in this district. I'm really passionate about the library. I'm
probably at the library like three or four times a week.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Oh yeah, I've been going to the Hoover Library since
I was about three.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
That's yeah, that's the other one that we're at all
the time. We are consistently in the library, and my
kids use the children's section of the library, and I
want them to be able to check out books about
you know, lots of different people, people like the most
people who are different than themselves. I want them able
to learn about the world, and that means that we
have to have a really robust library system. These bands are,
(03:40):
in my view, they're not just uh, you know, we
hear so much of this this rhetoric around oh this
is making sure that it's appropriate materials for children, but
it's really not about that at all. It's about it's
about ensuring that LGBTQ folks cannot exist.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Trying to take people out of our society. It's really awful.
And the question that I always have and it never
seem to get a good answer from on the other side,
is well, what about the LGBTQ kids who want to
use the library as well? Or LGBTQ families who want
to use the family or to use the library. These
families exist in our district. We are one of them, right,
(04:25):
I am actually our as far as I know, I
am our first openly LGBTQ person to run for federal
office in the state of Alabama. Yeah, so my family
we exist. We're here, we want to be able to
use library services, and my kids want to use the
library services as well. And some of the rhetoric out
there is really disappointing, and oh.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
It all like it's not that they just make up.
Is not disappointing, it's downright dangerous.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
It is, and it's wrong. A lot one of it
is predicated on you know, a lot. This is where
a lot of people say falsets. But I'm going to
go ahead and say lies because I went to one
of the Moms for Liberty meetings, you know, to protest it.
And I took my kids with me because I think
that it's really important for them to kind of know
(05:18):
what's going on in their community. And my nine year
old leaned over to me and said, Mommy, they're telling lies.
And she was right, they were telling you. So you know,
it's really dangerous some of some of this rhetoric that's
going on. And I've also seen it from the other side,
you know too. I sat down at one of the
library more meetings, which everybody should be going to the
(05:41):
library board meetings if you care about your library, and
go to those. And I sat down at one of
the meetings, and a lady next to me, you know,
she kind of leaned over and whispered in my ear
and she said, Hey, that's the library director, and she
wants to make sure that every child that comes into
this library has gender reass surgery. And I said, well,
that's not true.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
What that's not true, and then she proceeds to say, well,
we've got this new board in place that the legislature
put in and if they don't do what we want
them to do, we're going to hang theut, and.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Like, just the level of violence for people on her
side was really astounding and made me think, you know,
what level of violence can we see? And for me too,
I've even been accosted. I was accosted in the parking
lot for Horrible by a man who was angry that
I stood up and spoke out against book fanning at
(06:36):
the library. And so just seeing that level of you know,
violences coming out of it too is really scary as well.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Speaking about LGBTQ wrights when it comes to and Christian
Coleman and I have talked about this for my all listeners.
You know, I did an interview with him recently. We
talked about Elizabeth and and Chris and I have talked
about transgender rights. You know, we all well point time
(07:07):
talked about it personally, right, so trans kids and I
wanted to know about I'm pretty sure what your views are,
but just it's important to get it out there. What
do you think about all their views when it comes
to like with trans kids getting to use all bath like,
(07:27):
for instance, the bathroom that they're ginger aligns with and
also that goes to the same for the adults and
just overall their life in general. You know, like when
it comes to like they say, you know, kids want
all you know, parents are encouraging them to be sliced up,
which is not true. I talked to my mom. You
(07:50):
know that's right ring pop propaganda right there, they're saying.
You know, when it comes to gingerfering, care for kids
that you know has to do like speech therapy, you know,
getting a gender specialist, you know, all pew rereading blockers.
You know, they can take them safely to like around sixteen,
(08:11):
you know when they can get off it anytime. All
but yeah, all done done. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Yeah, First of all, trans people are people, and people
deserve the same rights and basic human rights as everybody
in this country. I think a lot of the rhetoric
around this hatred for trans people has come from people
that don't know any trans people, right, and it's very
(08:41):
easy to demon as a group of people that you
don't know. And you know, I think it's so important
for I think that people should empathize and understand people
who are different from them, which kind of goes back
to why it's so dangerous to ban books from libraries,
because that's a great way to unders stand people who
aren't like you. And it's so easy for them to
(09:06):
push all of this hatred onto a very like an
incredibly small population of people who at the end of
the day aren't really bothering anybody exactly, And and so
it's it's easy for them to do that, and it's
a it's an easy way for people to direct hate
(09:26):
towards one group instead of focusing on actual issues that
actually matter. Right, our kids are going to school, and
one of the highest one of the highest, uh are are, like,
at the top of the list of reasons why children
die in America is gun violence. Right, our kids are
at school from gun violence in a real existential way,
(09:49):
But we have this panic about what library books that
they're checking out. I think a lot of it comes
from that. Obviously, I'm a huge supporter of trans writes because,
like I said, Frans, people are people, and trans people
deserve all of the rights that our country affords to everyone.
These are basic human rights. I think that I of course,
(10:11):
people should be allowed to do what they feel is
right to do, and I think that parents should be
the ones that are working with their children to make
those types of decisions. And I think that we can
all agree on that. So often what I've heard from
the other side is, you know, they will make this
argument that parents should be involved and you know, kids
(10:34):
determining their gender, but then they double down on that
and say, well, actually, that's not what we mean, right exactly.
We want to stop it. And I do think that
parents and kids know what's best for them, and I
think we should trust them.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
And when it comes to like gender dysphoria, like I
was reading a book, just whooping through it at the
UH teen fiction section of the Hoover Library a few
years ago because I was just curious what was in there.
Twin brother and sister, and one of them was going
(11:13):
through gender dysphoria, and the dad was a denial. The
mom was researching it, learning, you know, this isn't a choice,
And I'm like, no, I like this, And because when
I've done research on it myself, not only you know,
like you know, psychology websites of reputable full ones have
said it's not a choice. But talking to close friends
(11:35):
of mine, very close that I know some of them
I've known before that transitioned, and talking to them about
junior dysphoria, Yeah, uh, not a choice and uh uh
so it's like, uh, like you said, it affects like
one percent of the population, but ginger dysphoria, like they
(11:56):
told me, like I would, it's not that you know,
being transition there is wrong, but they told me, you know,
but the kind of pain it calls them and also
the way it's ostracized, It's like, why would someone choose
to be put through that? And again I'm not demonizing it,
but I see their point what they're saying, you know,
why would I choose that? So, like I said, I
(12:19):
get what they're where they're coming from.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Sure, well, and like I said, I think that I
think it would be really beneficial for people to get
to know transfers within their community who are really wonderful people, yeah,
you know, and who just want to live their lives.
And I think it's really unfair for us as a
society to demonize any demographic group.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah, and you said, oh, something that really you know,
I hit home with me because I remember, you know,
starting in middle school, we started doing gun drills and
no child should be doing that at school. And I'll
you know what this is. Right after Uvaldi, my husband
read this article online where dad was dropping his son
(13:07):
off in school and he was crying and sudden asked
what's wrong. His dad said, I'm afraid that all something
might happen to you, you know, so one may come
up and uh school shooter mate come in and it says, said, no,
don't worry dad. You know, we practiced for that, and
Dad was like, you shouldn't have to practice for that.
And you know, people I will talk about, you know
(13:28):
sometimes my social media. You know, we all you know,
no one should an AR fifteen, you know, and I've
talked about before. I support the Second Amendment, but you
know we should have you know, gun safety loss. And
people say to me, you can't take one of my guns,
and I'm like, I don't want your guns, want gun control.
(13:49):
They're like it starts with that. So what's your feeling
on all that.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Well, I am both a childhood survivor of gun violence
and can owner myself, and I really strongly feel, which
I can't believe that this is an unpopular opinion, but
I really strongly feel that we should keep guns out
of the hands of people who are dangerous, right, I know,
(14:17):
opinion that should be something that we can all agree on.
That people who are dangerous and violent should not have
access to firearms, because we have a huge problem in
this country with firearms, and if we just continue to
look the other way, we are going to continue to
have a huge problem with firearms in this country. Right.
This is life or death. People will die, children will die,
(14:38):
and it's not okay. And so that has to look
like background checks and certainly has to look like red
flag laws and proper gun safety storage laws and you know,
even insurance on our firearms. Those are important things that
we have in order to keep ourselves safe because it's
not worth it to have our firearms if that means
(15:03):
that children are dying, like, of course it doesn't, right,
and so we cannot allow that. And so for me,
that just it just seems like sensible, common sense gun
reform is the way. And a lot of it has
to do with money in politics. I know that a
lot of politicians get money from the NRA and we do,
(15:27):
and a lot of it comes down to that and
then sort of disseminates throughout society and people think that
you know, having a safe having a safe gun storage
law does not take your gun away exactly. It means
that you are absolutely allowed to have your gun, but
you have to start safely. And a lot of times
we hear the argument that, oh, well, people who are
(15:50):
using them to hurt people have these guns illegally. What
the truth of the matter is that they don't have
these guns illegally. A lot of them have them absolutely
legally because they got them through the gun store loophole,
or you know, they were able to purchase them without
an adequate background check, or there were no red flag
laws keep preventing them from having these guns. So a
(16:12):
lot of these people have the guns legally, absolutely, but
a lot of them if they do have them illegally,
it's because they were stolen or they were sold illegally
or something like that that happened. And you know, like
I said, I'm a childhood survivor of gun violence. I
actually do not know whether my dad had that gun
(16:33):
legally when he shot at me or not. Yeah, but
he But I can tell you absolutely affirmatively that he
should not have ever had access to a firearm legally
or illegally. Right, And so we have got to get
the guns out of the hands of people who are
(16:53):
violent and who are going to use them to HRSs
and that should not you know, that's a no brainer
for me, right like that, that there should be no
debate around that.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
So, speaking of your father, we discussed the earlier, how
did he influence you as a politician?
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Oh, my gosh. So I'm actually estranged from my dad
because he was very, very violent when I was growing up.
So he has been in and out of prison my
entire life. Actually just recently got out of federal prison again,
so he's sort of been in and out and I've
been a strange from him for many, many many years decades. Right, However,
(17:34):
I think a lot about I probably think about issues
of prison reform more than the average person.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
I think about it a lot too. So that's right
that you think about it.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
And I say that because you know, I look at
it from two perspectives. One is a perspective of someone
who was a child and went and visited him in prison,
and just how difficult that was and how scary that
was as a little kid when we went in and
you know, they are all of these guards and there's
(18:07):
this whole entire thing, and when you go in to
visit someone in prison, oftentimes you yourself are treated like
a criminal. Oh, real and so, and the other thing
was that, you know, at one point I was pulled
into a room with my mom and had to watch
my mom get a cavity search in art as a child, right,
(18:28):
like think that certainly my mom should not have had
to undergo that, but it should definitely not have to
be in that as well. And so just just looking
at it as a from the perspective of someone who
has visited, but then looking at it as a perspective
of someone who you know, I know someone in prison,
(18:50):
even though I'm estranged from that person. I believe that
all people should have access to basic human rights, whether
I like that person or not, right, whether not I
want to have anything to do with that person, everybody
should have access to basic human rights. My dad had
a stroke in prison not too long ago, a few
years ago, and nobody knew about it, right because they don't.
(19:13):
They don't call you. No one's gonna let you know.
The only way we found out was that he called
my brother, who you really couldn't understand what he was saying.
And that's the way that we had to find this out.
And then there's nothing that you can do for the
family members who are not estranged, right, And so I think,
you know, you hear these things, these horrible things about
(19:34):
the way that prisoners are treated without adequate air conditioning
in the summer or adequate heat in the winter. We
think about the way that prisoners were treated during the
COVID pandemic without adequate social distancing. We know that prisoners
don't have access to good health care. They don't. Oh no,
and that's just not how we should treat humans, no
(19:55):
matter who those humans are.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
And all I advocate for a few different prisoners who
either are overly sentenced for you know, a minor crime,
who have been wrongfully convicted completely for you know crime
they didn't do. Some of them, you know, have been
(20:20):
very forthcoming not only with me, but interviews I did
with them, you know, on this podcast. And one of
them have done has done interviews with two different podcasts. Like,
like I said, they've been very forthcoming that yeah, they've
committed all some other crimes. Don't like I'll be one
to advocate for his man named Timothy McGruder, who's in
(20:43):
federal prison life without parole for a crime he had
nothing to do with. Uh. He admits that, you know,
we both have talked about Yeah, ten years who have
been appropriate, you know, over the fact that he wasn't
a gang. No, he's never killed anyone, never can cloase.
But due to all, it's the criminal activity he was
involved in. Uh, yeah, he definitely deserves some prison time.
(21:08):
And but yeah, like I said, he had nothing to
do with this and all. And it's been twenty four
years he's been a federal prison. He absolutely has been
working on rehabilitating himself. And like I said, he believed
in prison. I was necessarily I agree, And so like
(21:32):
I said, he's done. He's done more than enough time.
He has rehabilitated himself. He hasn't been it to be.
He used to be hot headed and couldn't folded me.
You know, he no is like but a sweetheart. He uh.
You know, I don't want to go on and on
and on, but uh, hearing about what he goes through,
(21:55):
the other men in there go through with by the
correction officers, the salute, all oh gosh. Like I don't
want to describe everything, I will say one thing, which is, uh,
they will put their feet on the prisoner's backs. Uh,
call them the in words, say I'm your master now
(22:16):
and I, you know, more than one asked me, you know, please,
you know, if could you say something because someone's gonna die, yeah,
the way they beat us. So I spoke out, and
Timothy got put in the hole for two months and
which scared of his family, and I and his mom
(22:37):
trusted me to, you know, take care of things, because
she's like, you know, we don't all need to be
calling up there, but it, yeah, it's scary. And but
I hear about this in federal and state prison all
the time, all the time. And you know, you know
there's someone in prison right now that you know, I
(22:58):
don't I don't want to talk too much about him
because I don't want to be disrespectful to the victim.
But you know, I can't say the guy, but I
don't want to be treated like and humanly. I want
him to learn about what he did wrong, want to
get counseling. I really want him to learn, like what
he did to my friend's family and also what he
(23:20):
has put his own family through. Oh and I want
them to find ways, you know, to get back to
society wirel in prison, you know, like charity work they
can do in prison. And yeah, so and so would
you say that, you know, would you agree like getting
lost past about no more solitary confinement and getting like
(23:46):
some kind of a board review something like that for
correctional officers.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Oh, absolutely yes, because at the end of the day,
we need to treat people humanly, no matter who they
are or what they done. It's you know, we we
we have to. I think that when people are in prison,
then we have a then that puts a burden on
our society too to manage their well being appropriately, right,
(24:19):
and then that's now that's now our society's responsibility. And
I think our society has a responsibility for all people
to a degree. But when we have people who are
in prison, you know, we need to make sure that
they have access to basic human rights. And our constitution
(24:39):
says no cruel and unusual punishment, and I think that
sometimes we stretch the meaning that, but there's a lot
of I think that there's a lot of cruelty that
goes on in prison. And if there is someone, you know,
if I can say that as a person who who
who's someone who first and tried to kill me, very sorry,
(25:04):
even I don't want that person to be treated inhumanely,
and that I think that has to go across the
board personally. That's you know, that's my feeling about it.
And I think that I don't love carcoral systems in general,
but within the system that we are currently working under,
(25:28):
I think it would behoove us to look at that
as a more rehabilitative place and a place for strictly
you know, punishment.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
No, I I agree. It's like, and you know, people
will say to me, like, you don't care about the victims?
What about people who all I don't want to get
too people who have sexually assaulted others? And I'm like, yep,
look stuff like that, you know, I don't want to
(26:03):
all get too into it. But stuff like that, you know,
has happened to me too. You know, I've been a
victim too. But and look, they do deserve, you know,
some punishment. You know. I'm not saying, you know, just
just let them off.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
You know.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Oh they had a bad day, you know, I'm not
saying that. And of course I care about the victims absolutely,
you know I but you know, and they do deserve justice,
you know. The last thing you need to do is
let them, you know, walk free. Agous, Oh that was
the very bad thing. No, that's not it. But in
addition to you know, getting them rehabilitated, learning about what
(26:40):
they did was wrong, you know, getting counseling. But they
when it comes to the victims, what we need is
we need counseling. We all, what we went through was
a lot of trauma that we have to live with. Uh,
So the state needs to provide us with counseling, you know,
like group counseling. Because you know, when all of said done,
(27:03):
they say, Okay, it's just just for the victims that
we you know, need to live with this. And I yeah,
like I said, I think programs would help. And also
crime prevention programs because uh, you know, we all need
to solve the problem before it happens. And I'm not
saying you don't stop it completely, but getting more you
(27:25):
know all like ah, something like boys and girls club
you know available and more neighborhoods, and also like having
more access to healthcare, mental health care for children. I
(27:46):
what what do you think about that? You know, just
trying to getting them access to more programs they'll keep
off the streets. And that are not saying one specific demographic.
I'm talking about all kids. So what would you say
about them.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
Yeah, A few couple of things. One, I think that
when we are talking about victims rights, that is an
important conversation and we need to absolutely be having that conversation.
A few ways that I look at that are from
the perspective of when we're thinking about our incarcerated population.
(28:25):
It does not bring justice to a victim. For the
incarcerated person to you know, not have adequate access to healthcare,
or to have to eat food with maggots in it, right,
that does not actually that does that does not actually
help the victim to have a sense of justice. And
(28:48):
when I think about how we can get justice for
victims of crimes, to me, that looks like solving the
systemic problems that led to those crimes. Now, that's not
taking away from individual responsibility, because of course individuals are
responsible for what they do. But we prevent crimes from
happening in the first place, and what can we.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Do to.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Take away this social the social systemic reasons why crimes
often happen. Because we know that there are social and
systemic reasons that increase the likelihood of violent crime happening
to people, So how do how do we do better?
And how we look at justice in a more rehabilitative light,
(29:38):
like I mentioned earlier, and how can we take this
person who's committed a crime and make sure that they're
not going to commit another crime of some right? That
to me, and I know that not everybody feels this way, right,
but to me, it feels much more like justice if
we can prevent it from ever happening. Again, I agree, yeah,
(29:58):
And that's why a lot of the things that I
think about and you know, sort of my daily life
are pretty difficult upbringing, and a lot of it did
have to do with, you know, individuals, Like I mentioned,
my dad was really horrible and really rough growing up
with him. He was a very violent person. But also
I grew up Beulow the poverty line, and there were
a lot of systemic issues that I dealt with in
(30:20):
my life. And for me, what justice looks like for
me when I think about my you know, difficult childhood
and how I can have justice for that little child
version of myself, What that looks like to me is
making a better society overall, and that looks like is
eliminating the systemic problems that led to some of those
(30:43):
issues that I was experiencing, and I would love to
be to see more rehabilitation happen because you know I
know this acutely. Well, the person who victimized me is
has been in and out of prison my entire life.
He's out again, he'll be back in and again. It's
it's it's just been like an ongoing cycle. But wouldn't
(31:05):
it be better if we could rehabilitate them, Yes, so
that it doesn't have to happen again, like we know
it inevitable inevitably will right now. So I think of
it in that way. And you know that that that
is just my viewpoint on it, and I know that's
not everybody's bee point on it, but that's how I
look at it.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
So another one last question about the injustice system, will
move on. I want to ask you, how do you
feel about the death penalty.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
I do not like the death penalty at all either.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
M hm.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Well, I think that I think that the death penalty
has to go. I don't think that it's the federal
government's place to decide who lives and who dies, or
the state governments. I don't think there is any government
that should be deciding who lives and who dies. I
think it's wrong, but I also know for sure that
people have been wrongly convicted and wrongly put to death,
(32:03):
right yep.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
And say with prison, there are people who wrongly convicted
in prison right now exactly.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
And you know, and we know that there are government
there are situations where everybody knew that the person was
wrongly convicted exactly anyway, and so that that is wrong
on the face of it. And for a society to
say that, you know, especially in a state like Alabama
where we say we profess to believe in pro life,
(32:31):
well that has to include every life.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
And yes and all Like with our federal government, I'll
see when it comes to you know, each prisoner, you know,
we pay for them to be housed in there every day,
each prisoner with our tax dollars, and that goes for
federal tax dollars federal prison. And it's even more expensive
(32:55):
for death row and including the death you know, them
being put to die itself. You know, that is very expensive.
During the Trumpe administration, i'd say, the first six executions, yeah,
I know, that cost us millions of dollars on our
federal taxes. And two of those people were innocent. I
(33:18):
remember I didn't know. Well, I only knew of one
of them that was in US that I wish I
did the other one at the time. But I remember
Dustin Higgs, and I remember advocating for him. I was
devastated telling my followers he was executed. And there's another
man that I've been worked advocating for for years, Billy Allen,
(33:40):
and who is completely antiset, and he has written articles
You're saying, I'm afraid if Project twenty twenty five comes
to be, you know, Trump is elected, that I'm going
to die because if you read it, you know his
plans with the death penalty. You know, he wants to
start up executions right federal executions right way. And we've
(34:02):
had many wrongful debt. I mean, that's wrongful. But I'm saying, oh,
people who didn't sumit the crime, you know, who were
wrongly convicted, and you know, uh, you know, as people
all many of them get wrongfully executed. You know this
year alone, oh and you and it was one out
(34:24):
of eight people who were wrongfully executed, but it's recently
been updated to one and seven. And I just that alone.
I don't like those ones.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
Yeah, it's awful.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
And you know, it doesn't prevent crime. You know, it's
a study show. You know, it doesn't loader the murder rate,
and so uh like, it doesn't murder loader the murder rate.
You know. Oh there are those ons that you know,
I really don't like al it's it's just what's the
point of Yeah, so I want to ask, you know, okay,
(35:04):
so are you for the decryalization of marijuana.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
Yes, that's great, Yeah, absolutely absolutely, I would. I like
the I like the idea of regulating it in the
same way that we regulate things like alcohol, right con cigarettes,
I think that regulation is a great idea. I think
that it's also i mean economically beneficial because that makes
(35:30):
them exit, right, And so I think there are there
are more pros than cons, you know, to decriminalizing it.
So of course it has to be and that means
that we have to also wipe the record if anyone
who is currently sitting in prison for you know, marijuana
related offenses. Right.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
But the other thing.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
About it too is that I know that if we
if we legalize it and regulate it, then that can
make it a lot safer to use. No, I agree,
It's important to keep in mind too because right now
if you if you got that, you don't you don't
really know where it came from, right, And I think
(36:12):
a lot of countries have seen success with decriminalizing it,
So yeah, it's true, you know, why not now?
Speaker 3 (36:20):
And also like as long as you you know, a
doctor prescribes, that you're under the care of a doctor,
you know it, uh does have benefits when it comes
to anxiety. And there are people you know who have
uh uh uh uh that's in marijuana, whether it's you know,
baked in something like a cookie or smoked a little
(36:42):
bit of it after chemo. It makes those horrible symptoms
after chemo therapy much better. There are a lot of
medicinal purposes work as well. And I'll yeah, that's something
important for people to know, like you said, backs and
for it, you know. And and also something else that's
(37:07):
all being spread around that is that is it true
for s to cole when and I talked about this
and all this has been spread for a long time,
especially this election of the whole thing about illegal immigrants,
just so many lines, so I wanted to know, like
just your feelings at overall the lives are being spread
(37:31):
like oh oh they're bringing crime, uh they're bringing drugs. Uh,
what are your feelings? A lot?
Speaker 4 (37:41):
Well, there's an element of that that goes back to
what I was saying earlier about how human beings deserve
human rights and what we were talking about earlier with
how easy it is to demonize a group of people
that you don't know. And so I think a lot
of this demonizing certain different demographic groups of people comes
down to I think that if you can make people
(38:06):
hate someone, you can get them to vote for you
because you hate the same person as them. Right, Wrong,
because we should be focused more on actual policy. Right.
There are immigrants who are wonderful, lovely people. They're also
they're not great people, right because they're people like exactly
(38:28):
it is for all of us. But a lot of
people who are immigrants have come to this country because
they are in a situation of desperation and they need help.
And when somebody needs help, you help them. It's pretty
obvious to me. But what that what that can look like?
That doesn't have to look like you know, this panic
(38:49):
over immigrants stealing jobs or something like that, because I
do think that there is a lot of misinformation that's
going on about that.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
A lot.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
Yeah, really good reason search out there, and I would
definitely encourage people to read actual academic research, not not
what you read on some weird website on the internet,
but actual academic research about the economic impact of having
immigrants in our country. Because there is a degree to
which we have immigrants who come to this country and
(39:21):
they pay taxes, but they cannot receive government services. And
so you know, there is a degree to which it
is economically beneficial to have immigrants in this country. And
there are also immigrants who come to this country legally
or illegally, and who do amazing things. Right, we have
a number of like doctors and attorneys and professionals who
(39:45):
help us tremendously who are immigrants in this country, and
we should welcome those people with open arms because we
love immigrants here. I mean, this nation has founded on this.
It's a nation of immigrants, right, So that's kind of
my take on it. Human human beings deserving and rights
across the board, no matter who you are. It's kind
(40:08):
of the starting point of any policy decision that we make.
And also we should consider what the disinformation when you know,
when we are considering who to vote for, what policies
to put in place. We need to consider what's disinformation
and what is actually true and what the research and
data shows.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
So I know you don't have too long, so go
wrap this up. I do want to ask you, okay,
when it comes to abortion, uh Rad, I know you
talked about you know you have two girls and all
you know you don't have the same rights your mom.
Did you know that scares me too. You know all
(40:50):
by family members who plan on having children and they're scared,
you know, they they have they scared they can go septic.
There's a lot of misinformation out there about oh that
you know, they have an abortion, you know, nine months pregnant,
they have an abortion right before the babies born. I've
(41:11):
actually heard people, people in Congress say they have an
abortion after the baby's born. I thought, what And I
remember back of abortion was legalized, you know, in dire circumstances,
you know, I mean it has to be dire. Yes,
there were some late term abortions, but again very dire circumstances.
(41:32):
And topic pregnancy. You know that's not a biable pregnancy.
But that's no longer allowed either. We are forcing children,
you know it was in this ten who are raped
to carry you know, the pregnancy full term, which you
know they shouldn't be forced in that period, but also
(41:54):
they could die doing that. So again, what were your
thoughts on that? Just overall, you know, all taking away
all persons, the universe is right to choose.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Well, how much time do you have? Because so let
me start back with the idea of post birth abortions,
because that is it's a lie that's being spread right
now right What we are talking about when people say
(42:29):
post birth abortions, what they are talking about is parents
who have had a baby and carried the baby to term,
and that baby is incompatible with life. Right, So maybe
the baby does not have kidneys or important internal organs
or something like that. The baby may be technically breathing
(42:52):
for a little while, but the baby is not going
to survive. And what we're talking about here is a
situation in where absolutely devastated, heartbroken parents have place to
either hook that infant up to a bunch of tubes
(43:12):
and do invasive, you know, painful surgeries on that infant,
or to prolonged life back a couple of hours, or
whether we can just sort of gently let the baby pass.
That's the situation that we're talking about when we're talking
about post rods and the idea. When we say post
birth abortion, what pops into people's head is like a
(43:34):
really cute, squishy, three month old baby with like hair
and a little smile. You know, That's not what we're
talking about at all. We're talking about absolutely devastating situations
with you know, major medical implications here. And I think
it is so much disinformation when we're we're talking about something,
(43:57):
and it's so harmful to the people who've had to
experience this. And I do think that it's okay for
parents to make that. I mean, it's up to the
parents and the doctors in that situation. But what we're
not talking about here is like a perfectly healthy, cute,
squishy little baby that is born and then they're like, well,
(44:19):
change my mind about this. I've carried this baby for
nine months never mind, you know, like gradually flippantly, and
then the doctor is like, well let's execute it. That's
not what we're talking about. It all are same. That
does not happen, right, Like that emphatically, categorically does not happen, right,
And so I think that it is a huge amount
(44:40):
of disinformation. And again I would encourage people to educate
themselves on what that actually means. But before that point,
I think that when we get into these conversations about
like viability and when does life begin, that really distracts
us from the main issue, and the main issue being
that we should all have body like every single person
(45:02):
should have bodily autonomy to determine what happens within their
own body. And that has to come down to pregnancy also, right,
just like we would not force someone to you know,
if you if you if someone at large needed a
kidney and you were a great match for that person,
(45:22):
the government cannot make you donate your kidney to something.
They can't even make you donate your kidney to like,
you know, your spouse or your child or your parent,
right Like, no one's going to make you donate your
kidney to someone. And that's the same with pregnancy. And
I can confidently say, as someone who has had multiple
pregnancies and knows exactly what that means, that it is
(45:46):
a big impact on your body and you should be
the person who is deciding what to do with that pregnancy.
So like, hands down, I absolutely believe that we have
to have access to abortion in this country. And we
have to leave that decision to the person who is
having the abortion and their doctor. Right, the doctor is
(46:09):
not going to to go out there and like they're
not going to terminate a squishy nine month baby that
has just been born, right, that's not going to No
doctor is going to do that. And when we are
legislating these issues, we are first of all, so often
the people who are legislating the issues are people who
(46:31):
don't know what they're talking about. A lot of these
I mean, like really a lot of these are like,
you know, men who have never had a pregnancy themselves,
so they don't really they don't really know, and they're
not like, you know, the people who are legislating this
are not necessarily always people who are like intently aware
(46:52):
of what that entails. And they're not people who understand
the medical ins and outs of this either. Because the
other side of this is that when we regulate abortion,
we're also regulating pregnancy loss, right, because a miscarriage and
an abortion are really not that different from each other.
(47:14):
I mean, when we when we have a miscarriage, the
medical terminology for that is that it is a termination.
I recently had a town hall with multiple obg y
ns and I specifically asked this question. You know, if
someone comes into the emergency room and they you know,
can you tell if their miscare the taste I'm miscarrying?
(47:35):
Can you tell the difference between someone who is miscarrying
and someone like naturally versus someone who has done a
self managed abortion? And the answer is no, you cannot
tell the difference between those things from a medical standpoint.
So if someone goes in and they're miscarrying or their baby,
you know, who gets to decide whether or not that
(47:59):
was an abortion or a miscarriage. All that does is
it criminalizes every single pregnancy loss. And it's absolutely terrifying,
right because it means that any of us who has
a pregnancy loss can be accused of having an abortion,
and there's no way to prove that we didn't.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Do. You remember what happened to Brittany Watson, Ohio? Yeah,
exactly that I were talking about that online. I was
not horrified, but it broke my heart, especially seeing her
during her court hearing Bryan. You know, but she was planned,
she wanted that baby, and she was going to the
(48:41):
doctor saying, you know, I'm bleeding, and they just you know,
sent her home and they never took her seriously. And
she and Victoria, you're gonna have a miscurage, you don't
go home, deal with it. There's something we can do.
And so she had the miss carriage at home. You know,
(49:02):
oh if she I had it, you know, when she
was sitting on a toilet, there's nothing she could do
at that point, you know. And she went and talked
about it to the doctor, and the doctor reported it
to the police. And fortunately, you know, she uh, nothing
happened to her where she was put in prison, but
(49:23):
she was still put through all that trauma after you know,
losing her baby, having that miscarriage, and she talked about you.
First of all, she wasn't stating speaking because she's a
black woman, but and I agree, but also you know,
she uh they said that she had you know, uh,
(49:45):
committed a felony uh for the missus of a corpse,
when again, you know, she had a miscarriage, and if
you know, this would have happened. First of all, they
took her seriously, but also she had been allowed would
share miscarriage have been allowed to you know safely out
an abortion? Yeah, this never would have happened. And she
(50:10):
wouldn't have been retraumatized.
Speaker 4 (50:13):
Right, And I think there's two there's another piece of it,
like fortunately it's fortunately Brittany Watts was you know, they
dropped the case and that that was good. But then
you have other cases like Ambery, Nicole Thurman and Georgia
who she did everything right, exactly the way that you're
supposed to do, and she went in and could not
(50:36):
get the care that she needed and the doctors essentially
had to let her die because of the laws in Georgia.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
I heard about that.
Speaker 4 (50:44):
Yeah, it's really really heartbreaking. But the sort of flip
side of that is that if you go in and
you know you've had a miscarriage, there's already and there's
somebody who has personally had a miscarriage, for sure that
there is societal stigma around. You know, miscarriages happen, they
(51:07):
are totally a lot of times it is luck of
the draw a lot of pregnancies and in miscarriages through
no but I can say for sure that there is
social stigma around miscarriage. And when you have a miscarriage,
you often think to yourself, well, what did I do
to cause this? When the is you didn't do anything
(51:28):
to cause it, But there's also so much societal stigma
around it that you know that other people are thinking
what did she do to cause this?
Speaker 3 (51:37):
As well?
Speaker 4 (51:38):
And if we are in a situation where we already
have social stigma around miscarriage and we create an environment
where pregnancy loss is criminalized, what does that look like
when someone goes into an er and it's having a miscarriage,
and you know, what does that look like for someone
(51:59):
to say, well, what did she do to cause this? Right?
Because we already see that people in Alabama are being
criminalized for pregnancy for issues. We saw the report came
out recently where after the Dob's decision there was something
like three over three hundred women who were put in
(52:25):
prison across the nation are charged with crimes related to
pregnancy across the nation, and over one hundred of them
were in Alabama. Right, And we're not anything that had
to do with the abortion laws at all. These were
things that had to do with, you know, accusing people
of taking drugs and pregnancy. Well know that routinely women
(52:49):
are given drug tests during pregnancy and after the birth
of their babies, but we also know that those drug
tests can be wrong. There have been plenty of cases
where peop will have tested positive on a drug test
for heroin when they had a poppy seed bagel that morning.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (53:08):
And so when we get into this environment where we
are criminalizing pregnancy loss, that really creates a lot of danger.
Speaker 3 (53:18):
And all, okay, So our last question, what else I'll like,
do you all plan to do all? If elected? You know,
like anything else you want to highlight? Oh, that's the
better way to word to anything else you want to
highlight if elected?
Speaker 4 (53:38):
Yes, my first priority is a federal law and training
the right to an abortion. I think that's huguely important.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (53:46):
Internal health care is a massive issue for me as
a mom myself, and you know, living in a state
like Alabama where we have some of the highest maternal
and infant mortality rates in the entire nation, where the
county where I live in Shelby County, we do not
have a single maternity ward in this county, and having
(54:07):
lost four more maternity wards across Alabama just this year alone,
knowing that more are coming, we have to do something
about maternal healthcare. That's absolutely critical. That's another top issue
for me. And then of course alleviating poverty, really eliminating
poverty is what I would like to do. There are
so many kids who are trapped in poverty, and so
(54:29):
many people adults who are trapped in poverty through no
flock on their own. I can definitely say that I'm
well aware of what that looks like because, like I said,
I grew up below the poverty line. So we need
to do something to address poverty in this country more
than what we have been doing.
Speaker 3 (54:45):
Absolutely wonderful, and I agree with you. We got the
right to choose tackling the poverty issue eliminating it, and
you definitely have my vote, and so I wandermind you well,
Elizabeth Anderson, you know here in Alabama, uh, District six,
running against Gary Palmer. And uh, uh you can check
(55:09):
your voter registration. Uh it's okay, Sorry, it's tongue tied there.
I apologize. You can check your voter registration. It's in
the link in my bio on Instagram. Uh it's their only.
I T S S A R A H O N
L Y all one word. It's our only. The link
(55:31):
is in my bio was with Rock the Vote. Uh,
there's a link there where you can check your voter registration,
so make sure you check it and make sure you
check your polling place. And yeah, please vote for Elizabeth Anderson.
And uh if you tell us your website and where
to find you on social media.
Speaker 4 (55:53):
Yes, my website is www dot e a four Congress
dot com. You can find all of the links to
most social media on there, but it also has a
vote tab at the top so that you can check
your voter registration, you can find your polling place. You know,
we're trying to make sure that we put out lots
(56:14):
of information for voters to know who to call if
there are any issues as well. And you can also
check your district through the website. I know that's really
really important for people because we have been redistricted this year,
so in the same district as you were in last time,
because of that Supreme Court case which found that Alabama
(56:35):
was engaging in illegal racial jerrymandering. So definitely check your
district so you are informed and you know who that
you're going to be voting for on election date. And
I would love to have everyone's votes. This is a
really tough district, but we need better representation here. So
again it's www. Dot EA for Congress dot com.
Speaker 3 (56:57):
Thank you so much, and I want to remind you everyone.
You know they have stable ballots online you know, before
the election. Make sure you check those out see who's running. Uh,
and please do your research about the candidates. Research you
know their history, you know before they started running for politics.
(57:21):
You know how they treat others like you know, for instance,
some have worked as attorneys. Please uh. If that's the case,
check out their history as an attorney. Were they involved
in a lot of journey work when it came to
how they treated their clients? You know. So please do
your research on candidates and please vote up and down
(57:46):
the ballot because you're Congress. People like Elizabeth right here
are the ones who really decide do we make progress,
do we make forward or do we go backwards? So Elizabeth,
thank you so much for taking the time after biggs schedule.
It means everything. Oh to come on and uh again. Yeah,
(58:11):
I'll everyone you know this district district ll expect some
Did I get that right right, rank buck? But yes,
everyone just sticks it. I'll be for her and as always,
keep fighting and keep spreading that word.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
Show me afraid of it. Sorry, be care foodstars. Not
every light is kind and carty baby, let a very
nice by, keep it close to.
Speaker 3 (58:42):
Your heart, all love.
Speaker 1 (58:44):
The pressure is kind of shyyy crazy because you right
the man in the morning. It's all kind of then
it's showing me afraid of it. Sorry, be care Foodston.
Not every line is gon and gay you.
Speaker 2 (59:05):
Yeah, when I blow up, I'm gonna saw a highlight.
Peeter Pan in real life, be living at my dreams,
come waking up into a forest land, whole wrist covering
up in ice dealership. Never asked the price.
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com