The Rehumanize Podcast

Discussing the Incompatibility of Progressivism and Abortion with Terrisa Bukovinac

Terrisa Bukovinac returns to the podcast to introduce her new organization, the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising.
 
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Learn more about Rehumanize International at rehumanizeintl.org.

Talking About the War on Terror with David Swanson

In this episode, our hosts Herb and Emiliano are joined by David Swanson of World BEYOND War to reflect on the aftermath of 9/11 and the war on terror.
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Follow World BEYOND War at https://worldbeyondwar.org/.
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Find more info about Rehumanize International at rehumanizeintl.org.

🥳🎂 10th Anniversary Special with Aimee Murphy, Rehumanize's Founder

In this episode, hosts Herb Geraghty and Emiliano Vera are joined by the founder of Rehumanize International, Aimee Murphy, to celebrate the organization's tenth anniversary. They reminisce over the last decade of Rehumanize's existence and chat about their hopes for the future.
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Learn more about Rehumanize International: www.rehumanizeintl.org.
 
 

Chatting about Saving the Preborn and the Planet with Kristin Turner

In this episode, hosts Herb Geraghty and Emiliano Vera are joined by Kristin Turner — Executive Director of Pro-Life San Francisco and environmental and animal rights activist — to talk about the intersection between the Consistent Life Ethic movement and the fight against climate change.
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Follow Kristin's work at Pro-Life San Francisco, Sunrise Redding, and Take Feminism Back.
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Learn more about Rehumanize International: www.rehumanizeintl.org.
 
 

Pro-Life and Proud: Talking LGBT+ Pro-Life Advocacy with Sarah Terzo

In this special Pride Month episode, our co-hosts Herb and Emiliano are joined by Sarah Terzo of PLAGAL, the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians.
Follow PLAGAL on social media, and stay updated on Sarah's work by joining her mailing list at https://subscribepage.com/sarahterzo.
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Learn more about Rehumanize International: www.rehumanizeintl.org.

Greta Zarro on Building a World Beyond War

In this episode, Herb and Emiliano are joined by Greta Zarro, organizing director for World Beyond War. Rehumanize International is an affiliate of World Beyond War and a sponsor of their 2021 virtual conference.
 
Sign up for #NoWar2021: https://nowar2021.worldbeyondwar.org/
 
Learn more about Rehumanize International: www.rehumanizeintl.org.

"Running Pro-Life" with Xavier Bisits

This is the first episode with our new co-host: Rehumanize board member Emiliano Vera! Emiliano and Herb are joined in this episode by Xavier Bisits, Vice President of Democrats for Life of America; they discuss the challenges and benefits of running for office as a Consistent Life Ethic candidate.
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Learn more about Rehumanize International at rehumanizeintl.org!

Discussing Death Row with Shareef Cousin

In this episode, Herb is joined by Shareef Cousin of Witness to Innocence to discuss his experience on Louisiana's death row. Shareef was framed for murder and sentenced to death at just sixteen years old. 
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Intro/outro music: "Belize," by Monty Datta. https://montydatta.bandcamp.com/track/belize 
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Learn more about Rehumanize International at rehumanizeintl.org!

Hannah Cox on Conservative Opposition to the Death Penalty

In this episode, Herb is joined by Hannah Cox, National Manager of Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty, to discuss the various flaws in the death penalty system that have led many conservatives to work for its abolition. Tune in on Spotify, iTunes, or from our website at http://rehumanizeintl.org/podcast.
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Intro/outro music: "Belize," by Monty Datta. https://montydatta.bandcamp.com/track/belize 
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Learn more about Rehumanize International at rehumanizeintl.org!
 
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Transcription:
Maria Oswalt: Hello and welcome to Episode 15 of the Rehumanize podcast.
Herb Geraghty: Hello and welcome to the Rehumanize podcast. I am joined today by Hannah Cox, who works with conservatives concerned about the death penalty.
Herb Geraghty: Her work has led to the repeal of the death penalty in two states while supporting dozens of Republican lawmakers to sponsor repeal bills across the country.
Herb Geraghty: I am excited for Hannah to join us because as with every issue within the consistent life ethic that Rehumanize works on, people oppose the death penalty for a lot of different reasons. And I feel like to me at least, the arguments that conservatives concerned about the death penalty bring to the table are actually some of the strongest. So welcome, Hannah.
Hannah Cox: Thanks so much for having me.
Herb Geraghty: So I guess my first question is just simply, why should conservatives be concerned about the death penalty?
Hannah Cox: Well, like you mentioned, there's just so many problems with it, so I'm often asked, what's the number one issue? What's the number one problem with it that's making people change their mind on the right? And I don't think it's truly any different than the issues that are presented on the left, honestly. I just think that for a long time, people weren't being presented with the information about how the system functioned, and so there were a lot of people that sort of had a knee jerk reaction to the death penalty. There were many people, and I used to be one of them, who thought that it was needed, that it deterred crime, that it was something murder victims' family members would want, that it saved money. And none of those things are actually correct. But as a whole, it just took a bit of time to really get that data, get those stories in front of people. And usually when we do, we see a lot of people pretty quickly move away from supporting it. So, you know, the same old issues come up.
Hannah Cox: Of course, I think the innocence problems in the system get a lot of people's attention. As we've moved more into the age of information, people have become more aware of just how frequently we're finding wrongful convictions in the system. And I think they're starting to recognize that when we do find them, it's usually not the result of the system working.
Hannah Cox: It's not the result of the government catching its own errors. It's actually usually thanks to the pro bono work of outside groups like the Innocence Project coming in and combing back over these cases. And it's quite hard to overturn a wrongful conviction. So I think that, in and of itself, is enough for a lot of people to turn their back on it. We've had one person exonerated for every nine executions in this country. That's terrifying. That's a lot of wrongful convictions. We know, with that rate, we execute innocent people every year. Every year there's a new case that comes up in the states where most people believe the person to be killed is innocent. And we see a lot of those go through. And so I think that's probably the biggest issue. But there's just so many problems with it that kind of move on down from there, whether you're getting into how much it costs, the lack of a deterrent effect, the opportunity cost where we're wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on the system across the country every year when it doesn't work--it doesn't provide a deterrent. It doesn't provide the services the victims and their families largely need. And so that's an opportunity cost. That's money that we're spending that should be redirected toward things that actually would prevent violence, towards solving more crime, which we still do a very bad job at, or towards giving victims the services that they actually need to find healing and to begin to repair their lives.
Herb Geraghty: I think something that's so important about the work that you guys do, other than just sort of getting the information out there, is working with lawmakers in sort of red states that I think a lot of people outside of the movement might assume would all be, you know, pro death penalty [and] tough on crime in the strongest ways possible. But you guys have made a lot of headway in the state legislatures, where it really matters.
Hannah Cox: Yeah, we've found incredible success in the past couple of years. I think politics flows downstream from culture. And so when you really start seeing the large number of Republicans that we work with sponsoring bills to get rid of the death penalty, I think that shows you where the culture is on this issue. And we're really kind of hitting a crescendo effect at the moment. We've had, I think, 10 or 11 states in the past year that have had close to 60 Republican lawmakers signed on as sponsors to repeal the death penalty. And, of course, hundreds of others have voted in favor of those bills on the right. And so not only are Republicans opposed to the death penalty in large numbers at this point, but they're actually the ones really championing and leading at many of the state legislatures and doing so successfully. They were the difference makers in the New Hampshire campaign two years ago. They were the difference makers in the Colorado campaign this year. We've been successful two years in a row now at overturning the death penalty. And we have every reason to anticipate that trend will continue in the next year with either Wyoming or Ohio.
Hannah Cox: And so there's a lot of exciting stuff happening at the state level.
Herb Geraghty: So I think I want to talk about, sort of, the reasons that you think conservatives might support the death penalty, and why they shouldn't. Because I think to me, the one that I hear a lot from people who maybe haven't been exposed to all the research is that it should save money. That by killing people, we're not paying to keep them in prison forever, and so it saves money to just kill them and move on with it. But I've seen data that suggests that's not true.
Hannah Cox: Yeah, nothing could actually be further from the truth, but it certainly is an old stereotype. And I think, again, it's largely held by people who just haven't actually been that close to the system. They haven't really done any research into the policy. You know, unlike some more complicated policies that people maybe refrain from having an opinion on when they know they don't have enough information, the death penalty can be a very emotional issue for people. And so it's one that I think a lot of people maybe have a knee jerk reaction to, make assumptions about, and they don't actually go do their due diligence and actually look into the system to see if they know what they're talking about or to see if their assumptions are actually true. And what I found when I was in that position and actually did start looking in and checking myself, was that I was really wrong about a lot of the ideas I had and assumptions I had made about the system, one of them being that it was cheaper. We know that the death penalty is the most expensive part of our justice system on a per offender basis. I think that's actually pretty commonly known, that the death penalty is drastically more expensive than other punishments.
Hannah Cox: But people always make the mistake of assuming that that is because it takes too long to carry out. And that's frequently what you'll hear defenders of it say. That's not at all accurate, actually. If you look at it, the main cause, the main driver of those costs is the trial itself, where 70 percent of the additional costs of the death penalty are incurred. That means even if a jury is presented with a death penalty trial and votes for a sentence less than death, which they do more times than not by the way, that taxpayers are still paying a good bit more to have a death penalty trial than they would to have a life in prison without parole case. Now, if you really think about it, if you step aside and put down your presumptions and think about this, why would it cost so much more to have a death penalty than life in prison without parole? If the cause was that it takes too long and it's because we're incarcerating these people for so long, then life in prison without parole would be about equal, because those are people that spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Hannah Cox: But instead, we see the death penalty is about a million dollars more on average than a life in prison without parole case. And so, again, that comes back to the trial: how much more we spend bringing these cases forward. They're just not really worth it. And again, I think the worst part is not only is that fiscally responsible, but it's actually negligence. It's something that makes our communities less safe, because we're spending those excess millions of dollars on a system that fails. It doesn't work to deter crime. It will never work to deter crime. We know from research and from psychologists that the actual deterrent to crime is the assurance that someone will get caught. We only solve about 60 percent of homicides on average in this country. We're really bad at solving crimes. It's even worse for lesser offenses. And so the the actual odds are right now, if you commit a crime, your odds of getting away with it are actually pretty good. And I would argue in large part, that's because of the money we waste on security theater like the death penalty, instead of going out and actually spending those resources to stop crime or to prevent violence in the first place.
Herb Geraghty: I really like that--that framing of the death penalty as security theater. I don't think I've ever heard that before, but I think that's really accurate. It's sort of done for the peace of mind of the general public in some ways.
Herb Geraghty: And it's not--it's not deterring crime. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I think that that is a pretty common misconception, I guess, that I--if I wanted to kill someone, well, I don't want to be killed, and so maybe I won't go do that. Like, it seems sort of common sense that it would be, you know, a deterrent effect to have a death penalty. But you say research says that's not accurate?
Hannah Cox: Research does not show that that is true whatsoever. And in fact, we find that regions that do not have the death penalty or that do away with it tend to actually stay about even in their crime rates or even see a decrease in crime rates, whereas regions that do continue to use it--which is very few places in this country at this point, we only have about 10 states that are actively still doing this--they tend to have much higher rates of violent crime.
Hannah Cox: So I would say there's actually even a correlation in the other end that would indicate the death penalty contributes to higher rates of crime. Because, again, it's an opportunity cost: we're not spending those dollars on smart public policies, on things that actually work. And there's a good number of people that want to keep digging their head in the sand and do this, because I think it feels easy to them, right? The death penalty is an easy answer to violence. It doesn't take much nuance. It doesn't really take understanding trauma or science or violence. You don't have to do the messy work of getting in and trying to repair people. You don't have to really dig in and start dealing with the pain that so many find. What you'll find is those who commit crimes were usually first victims themselves; they're often victims of really traumatic experiences before the cycle of violence repeats itself in their lives and they end up being offenders. And so there's--there's some really messy work that I think needs to be done if we really want to understand violence in order to prevent it. And there are things we could be doing, but they're not simple solutions. They take more effort, they take more intelligence, they take more nuance and thought and planning and preparation. And I think that to some extent, there's a lot of people who really just don't want to do that work, and they want easy solutions. The death penalty feels good. It feels like vengeance. It feels like justice. It seems like this is a simple solution. It's not. It's something that continues to actually, I think, contribute to the root causes of crime, which again, are largely trauma. It creates new victims and other family members who lose a loved one.
Hannah Cox: It often amplifies the pain of the victim's family members themselves, which is why we see so many of them turn out to work against it and work to get rid of the death penalty. Because it's something that exacerbates their pain and really pushes them through a cycle of the system, for decades at times, instead of giving them the resources they might need to actually begin to rebuild their lives. And so it's something that just compounds trauma, compounds violence and pain and the effects of it and actually makes it worse. So it's not something that we really see providing any actual benefit. But again, I think it's something that, for some, feels easy, feels good. And so they, again, have kind of an emotional knee-jerk reaction to it and support it. But I want to circle back to the fact that I just don't think that's most people these days. I think it used to be. But these days what we find is that there are a lot of people, especially on the right, who have become aware of the need for criminal justice reform in general and, especially once they become aware of the flaws in the justice system, don't think that the system should be able to carry out matters of life and death. And so we find we actually have a lot of support for getting rid of it. And for those who maybe aren't as up to speed on the policy itself and on how it works, typically within a couple minutes of talking to them about all of this data, I'll see a lot of people change their minds pretty quickly. They'll say, "Oh, I didn't know that. OK, I guess I'm OK if it goes away in that case, let's try something better."
Herb Geraghty: Yeah. I think the death penalty is really one of those issues that, once you just get the data, it's a lot--it's a lot harder to keep supporting it. Which I think is good that we're on the right side of the issue, I guess.
Herb Geraghty: Another thing that I read about on your website that I really--I really liked was the idea that when it comes to the death penalty, justice is not blind and that fairness is a moving target. Can you talk a little bit about what you mean by that when you talk about it?
Hannah Cox: Yeah, well, we see that there is really stark disproportionality in the death penalty and how it's allocated. We see that only about two percent of counties bring the majority of death penalty cases. To date, all executions since reinstatement have come from less than 16 percent of the nation's counties. And so while a lot of people think that there is a difference in the level of criminality committed for people to get the death penalty, they think that these people are somehow more violent or what they did is more heinous than others in the prison population, that actually isn't the case. That actually isn't really how we determine who gets the death penalty. You'll find if you start digging into the cases of those on death row versus those in the life in prison without parole or sometimes even just general sentencing, that oftentimes you'll see very similar-looking cases. And it really just comes down to one county aggressively pushing for the death penalty and others don't. And so really, we see the number one driver of who gets it comes down to the location where the crime was committed. And that's true across every state in this country. So that's pretty arbitrary. That's actually partially why it was banned in the 1970s at the the US Supreme Court level: they proved that it was so arbitrary and so racially biased that it violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment. They didn't find that it violated the "cruel" aspect of the Eighth Amendment but [rather] the "unusual" aspect of the Eighth Amendment, because it was so arbitrarily allocated that it was as random as being struck by lightning. And so they overturned it for a period of a couple years.
Hannah Cox: And then states basically added some mitigating factors and some aggravating factors that were supposed to try to put barriers up to ensure that it was only for the worst of the worst, and that we weren't racially biased in how we allocated it, and that we were making sure we didn't have so many wrongful convictions. But we--you know, we did that in the late 1970s, early 1980s. And so we've got a lot of data, a decade's worth of data now, to look at how that's worked. And we see that it operates in the exact same manner. It's still really based on where the crime was committed, and the next [strongest] determining factors are the race of the defendant and the race of the victim. And we see both of those play really significant parts in who gets it [and] who doesn't. And then, of course, there's a lot of socioeconomic bias overlap within that as well. Basically, if you're somebody who can afford a private attorney, a good defense, the likelihood that you're going to get the death penalty is really, really low.
Hannah Cox: We don't see people of means--even of moderate means--as a whole on death row. And the number one combination of people across this country on death row are black defendants who had a white victim in the case. Even though we know that most crime, most homicides are carried out by people known to the victim. Most people live in socioeconomic racial bubbles in this country, and so of course you see the data shows that numbers of white on white crimes are higher, black on black crimes are higher. You don't have as many crimes that are across different races. And yet that's the leading cause of people on death row.
Herb Geraghty: Wow. I think--I don't know, I just find that statistic one of the most shocking, I guess. I think I know that within the criminal justice system, there are racial biases.
Herb Geraghty: I think that it's pretty hard to find people now who won't admit to at least some racial bias within, you know, policing and prisons and sentencing and everything like that. But I think the stat about it being a white victim making a difference is really jarring to me.
Hannah Cox: Yeah, there's something really creepy about it, right? It feels very sinister. And I think so often when we talk about the systemic racism in the justice system, people who aren't as familiar with the system, who don't really understand its intricacies as well, they assume what we mean by that is, like, there's people plotting in a room to make the system racist. That's not how it actually gets put into place. Instead, we had a lot of laws that were put into place for hundreds of years in this country that were racist. And just because we had the Civil Rights Act of 1960 doesn't mean that all those laws are just eradicated from our books. And so you still have a lot of laws that were intended to have racial disparities and their implications and that still produces racial disparities and their implications. As one example, we just saw the Supreme Court this year--this year!-- overturn laws in Louisiana and Oregon that allowed for non-unanimous juries. We have transcripts from when those laws were put into place where they basically were advocating at the state level to water down the votes of black people on juries when they had to start including them after the civil war ended. And so those things were still around. When you have non-unanimous juries, you might have two black people on a jury and ten white people, and we say these two votes don't count. And we just watered down the votes of black juries who might have voted for more lenient sentences for people of color.
Hannah Cox: We continue to see black men sentenced with all white juries in this country. And so there's subliminal biases, right? There's subconscious bias that enters that equation. There's the implication of the laws. And all of it contributes to the system that continues to be much more punitive towards people of color, much more likely to arrest people of color, much more likely to wrongfully convict people of color, to sentence people for the same crime much more harshly if they are black than if they are white. On and on and on it goes. But I do think of all of the racial disparities we see in the data throughout the justice system, the one that really--it just feels so icky to me is around victims. When we see how we decide what victims get what attention, which victims' cases we decide are worth an excess million to pursue a death penalty case for, and which ones we might not even solve--you know, go back to that 60 percent homicide clearance rate. That means 40 percent of victims, on average, get absolutely no justice, no closure, nothing whatsoever. And I think that there is a subconscious bias in how we allocate our resources to victims in this country, in which victims get more attention, which victims we think need to absolutely make sure we solve those cases, and in which ones we say, "All right, this one has to go to the death penalty trial." And consistently we see that it is for white victims that we put precedence.
Herb Geraghty: Yeah. And to be clear, when we're talking about this, we're not saying that--I don't know... I feel like--I don't think that seeking the death penalty is somehow more just to a victim or a victim's family. But it's more just those biases that I think clearly exist that lead to that disparity, especially when, as you've said, the cross-racial homicide rate is very low.
Herb Geraghty: And so the fact that it's, you know, offenders--or accused offenders--that have a white victim, is so just very jarring.
Herb Geraghty: And I really like the language that you guys use on your website about justice should be blind.
Herb Geraghty: We sort of have these ideas of a government who is just and a justice system that applies these laws equally.
Hannah Cox: Yeah. I think that's absolutely right. And without a doubt, we fail to do that.
Herb Geraghty: And I think the last thing I want to talk about is the idea of the death penalty as, for the families of the victim, that it is the only real way to provide closure in the case of a homicide.
Hannah Cox: Yeah, I mean, I think there's this perception by defenders of the death penalty that this is something that, largely, victims' family members want. And we often see, especially lawmakers who are arguing in defense of keeping it, say that this is for the victims. Right? "We're doing this for the victims." You even saw US Attorney General Barr and Trump try to say that when they resumed federal executions, even while the victims in these cases have been advocating against it and asking them to stop. There's something really gross about it that happens in that way. I see that repeat itself throughout general assemblies. I know this year in Colorado, where we were ultimately successful in overturning the death penalty, we had a murder victim's coalition, a family member coalition, that was showing up that had three or four dozen people in it, tons and tons of people that were there. They were holding press conferences. They were meeting with lawmakers, and the lawmakers who were determined to vote to keep the death penalty, wouldn't meet with those people. Wouldn't come to their press conferences. Wouldn't sit down with them. But then had the gall to get up on the floor and say that they were voting to keep this penalty for the victims. And they used them as scapegoats. And I think it's really gross. So I don't ever want to do the opposite and speak for victims' family members. They're not a monolith. Certainly there are some victims' family members who support keeping the death penalty.
Hannah Cox: But I will say that in the legislatures where I've been, when we're working on repeal campaigns, they usually are about one to thirty-six against keeping it. So I think that as a whole, we see a lot larger number of victims' family members really show up and advocate getting rid of it, versus the other way around where we see victims really show up and want to keep it and say this is something that has helped them. So as a whole, I think it makes sense when you, when you really work around the system, you see how families get brought in and out of court for decades. They have to go back and forth. They're constantly having to relive the worst moment of their life. Many of them have a problem with the death penalty from the beginning. And the prosecutors and police don't respect them or their wishes and pursue it anyways. So that's quite traumatic. We see that these millions of dollars get wasted on pursuing this death penalty instead of actually giving them resources that they need, whether that be counseling, whether that be assistance with child care if they've just lost a spouse, whether that be relocation help if they're in a dangerous situation or area. There's a lot of things that they actually say they could use or need when they have experienced crime that we don't do for victims and their family members because we're wasting so much money on security theater.
Herb Geraghty: And so I think my only question left is, what do we do? How do we get involved? As you said, public opinion really has shifted. It's more common to oppose the death penalty than to support it. Yet we still have, I think, over half the states have the death penalty at least on the books. So what do we do to create the culture that we need to abolish it?
Hannah Cox: Yeah. Well, I think so much of it is just going and doing the work of talking to others in your world about the problems with it. I think we have to really move the culture in order to get to a place where then the politics, the legislature follows through. And so in some states we're further ahead than others. And some states there's still a lot of work left to do to talk to Republicans and Libertarians and others on the right. And even those on the left; there's an assumption that everybody on the left is in favor of getting rid of it, and that's actually not even true itself. We need to continue working across both sides of the aisles just to get this information in front of people, let them know the flaws with the system. I think it's always good for people to contact their local state House and state Senate members and let them know what they want to see happen on this. And those are really the best ways you can effect change.
Herb Geraghty: Great, how can we follow Conservatives Concerned?
Hannah Cox: Yeah. Conservatives Concerned is under our acronym on Twitter, which is CCATDP. We're on Facebook @Conservatives Concerned. Our website is ConservativesConcerned.org. And so those are three really great places to connect with us.
Herb Geraghty: Ok, great. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Hannah. Do you have anything else you want to promote or share a final message?
Hannah Cox: I think that's it. Thanks so much for having me.
Herb Geraghty: Well, thank you so much.
Maria Oswalt: Thanks for tuning in to the Rehumanize podcast. To learn more, check out our website at rehumanizeintl.org or follow us on social media @rehumanizeintl.
 

Exposing Fetal Organ Harvesting at UCSF with Nick Reynosa of SERNOW

In this episode, Herb Geraghty is joined by Nick Reynosa of SERNOW (The Society for Ethical Research Now), an organization working to expose the injustice happening at the University of California San Francisco.
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Intro/outro music: "Belize," by Monty Datta. https://montydatta.bandcamp.com/track/belize 
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Learn more about Rehumanize International at rehumanizeintl.org!
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Transcription:
Maria Oswalt: Hello and welcome to Episode 14 of the Rehumanize podcast.
 
[Music plays]
 
Herb Geraghty: Hello and welcome to the Rehumanize Podcast. Today I am being joined by Nick Renosa who is the Director of Public policy of the Society For Ethical Research or SERNOW. Their mission is to document, expose, and mobilize against unethical fetal organ harvesting.  We’re going to talk a little bit about exactly what that means and the work that the Society For Ethical Research is doing to stop it. So welcome Nick. 
 
Nick Reynosa: Thank you for having me, Herb.
 
Herb Geraghty: So the focus of the SERNOW campaign has really been on the medical research going on at the University of California San Francisco.  Over the past year I’ve been down to UCSF a couple times to help raise awareness about this issue and I think the attention on it is only growing so I think it’s really important that you’re here today to tell our listeners about it.  But before we get into it, I don’t usually do this, but I do wanna give a quick warning that what we’re gonna talk about gets pretty dark.  It’s the Rehumanize Podcast we deal with Consistent Life Ethic issues, but um so nothing’s ever cheery, but this particularly for me at least I think is sort of another level at some points.  So I just want to throw that warning out there that this episode might be a little more disturbing than uh past episodes.  So Nick, can you tell us what is going on at UCSF?
 
Nick Reynosa: So just briefly going over UCSF fetal harvesting program: UCSF is, you know, the abortion-training capital of the world. It is also a leader in pro-abortion legislative advocacy, and it's an essential link in the supply chain for human fetal organs and experimentation and a lot of this information has been uncovered through the brave work of David Daleiden; our group, Society For Ethical Research is partnering with Pro Life San Francisco and Survivors LA to, you know, be a nonviolent active--you know--citizen activism in the Bay Area to document and expose these human rights violations and call for more ethical alternatives. And the procedures that are done at UCSF are definitely among the most extreme abortion procedures in the world. And definitely, you know, you talk about “rehumanizing”, this is the highest level of dehumanization of the unborn I’ve seen and I’ve been doing pro life work about ten years.  And so, today we’re just gonna talk about the work that we’ve done, the pressure that we’ve put on them, and also the procedures themselves and how they may violate federal law, and also sort of the ethical implications with the scientific community and with covid and other things--all of the different things that are entailed in fetal tissue research.
 
Herb Geraghty: Okay, so I have a hard time even talking about this. I think with a lot of sort of pro-life work that I end up doing, it’s easy to sort of, I guess, think of it in as like a philosophical point that like especially when you’re talking about embryos who obviously are human beings, then they deserve human rights, it’s sort of easy to not really think of them as persons even though we know that they are and they deserve rights.  That’s not what we’re talking about. This, when we say fetal organ harvesting and this unethical research, were not talking about, like, embryonic stem cell research which I think is a lot of people’s first impression.  These are--I think, Nick-- usually viable children, Right?
 
Nick Reynosa: Uh, a great many of them. The weeks--usually are between 18-24 weeks. Anything above 21 weeks would be viable, so I think it’s definitely fair to say a great many of them, and we have, at least (and this is a very conservative number) at least 288 victims in that age range, just from the contracts that we’ve discovered through the great work of like Robert Burg. He’s kind of piecemeal found these contracts, and we’ve kind of extrapolated the number 288. So definitely dozens, possibly hundreds, of viable fetuses in that age range. And you know it's interesting-- you’re vegan, Herb, and I think a lot of people who, you know, care for animals as well, it's the reality of the violence that, you know, brings them to care. And when we talk about these late term procedures it’s sort of, like, distinguishing--you said, between the philosophical and the embryonic to this real flesh and blood violent act and that, I think, that’s why this is such a hard topic to talk about.
 
Herb Geraghty: Yeah, yeah I know, I think--I just, I know that late term abortion (or we’re not supposed to call it; later abortion, post-viability abortion) is less common and I think that’s like a talking point that you hear a lot, that it’s only X percent of abortions in the US; but when you look at, you know, an ultrasound of a child at 21 weeks or 24 weeks, that looks like a person. They really don’t look that far off from what we look like when we’re born, especially because some of them are born and are human beings given the right to life by the state at that point. And it's just-- I don't know. I think for me late term abortion, it just, it's so hard to think about because I think it's easy to dehumanize someone who doesn't really look like what your idea of a human is. But the people doing this, they know. They can see their face and that’s so upsetting for me. But the other thing that I wanted to ask about: something that SERNOW talks about a lot (and I know I’ve done a lot of work with Terrisa Bukovinac, with Pro-Life San Francisco) is this idea that there are children not just being killed in the elective abortion procedures, then being used for medical research; that there’s a possibility, and probability, that some of them are being born alive.
 
Nick Reynosa: Definitely. You see, the thing is that a traditional later term abortion is very violent, very traumatic dismemberment and such things like that digoxin which is a toxic substance. It's very similar to potassium chloride, which is actually used in lethal injections of inmates. So that gives you an idea of the level of toxicity of the substance. But anyway, in order to have pristine tissue, the doctors have to get more creative with these procedures, and there are 2 main procedures. There’s a live dismemberment or D&E, which is where the extremities are removed, and then you have an intact abdomen, which is then dissected afterwards. And then you also have a procedure known as en vivo, which means “in the living”, which was actually invented at the University of Pittsburgh. (So we have this sort of macabre connection to San Francisco and Pittsburgh with this, unfortunately.) But these procedures allow the procedure to be less traumatic physically on the body, and it makes it more suitable for experimentation later. But the problem is, because it's less traumatic, it reduces the certainty of fetal demise. This is why many professional abortionists view these procedures as sort of beyond the pale and far too risky, and they'll refuse to do them. And this is the same thing with staff and patients. There was one medical journal that I read talking about how over 90 percent of patients wanted assurence of fetal demise, and many physicians and staff agreed because the idea of a born alive or a live birth during an abortion would be traumatic for the doctor, for the staff, for the patient. So even in the abortion community these are considered extreme procedures, and according to the Society For Family Planning, up to 50 percent of the time these children are born alive. And if they are not given care, that would be a violation of federal law. And that’s why we’re seeking transparency, because if we know that there’s been, for example, 288 victims, we don’t have any transparency as to the number that were born alive or the care that they received or did not receive. And the lack of reporting is a crime--not just the denial of care, but the lack of reporting as well. So these are all goals that we’re working towards to try to have more transparency and accountability at UCSF.  
 
Herb Geraghty: Mmhm. I think that that statistic, when I first heard it, I immediately didn’t believe it: that up to 50 percent of the time, these infants could be being born alive and then dissected for medical research. And I remember I think Terrisa first posted something about that or told me that. And I immediately assumed, I think, “oh Society For Family Planning, what is that, some kind of pro-life group?” that that’s where the stat is coming from (not that, I think, you know, pro-life groups are making up stats; but things can look a little different.) So I immediately went to their website and it's [a] pro-abortion [group]. There were studies on there that were like the harm that the lack of access to abortion causes, you know, this is not some sort of like right-wing conspiracy to accuse doctors of killing actual infants. This is happening, and it's not even that controversial. The doctors are just like “yeah, that’s what happens”--which to me is insane, that that's going on and that this isn't a national conversation.
 
Nick Reynosa: Well, I think there are three parts to that, Herb. The first part that people need to understand, is that in order for a typical abortion to be successful, there has to be some kind of damage done to the fetus; usually through like the digoxin, or through blood loss, or organ damage, or something like that. But especially with the en vivo procedure, there’s really no blood loss, there’s no digoxin. So the only thing that would really cause fetal demise is just the fact that it’s a very young fetus. So especially for the ones that are over 21 weeks, they’re coming out of the birth canal, they haven’t really experienced any trauma, so if they’re old enough, that’s why the numbers are so high.  Another issue is--and I think in the movie Gosnell it really touches on this well--you have a certain percentage of abortionists who are practicing what I would call ‘civil disobedience’ where there are abortion regulations on the books. For example, like the “guarantee of care for infants born alive”, where they feel that those laws are immoral, and they’re deliberately, as Gosnell said, you know, disobeying those laws intentionally. And then, thirdly, you have pro-abortion politicians who look the other way; and not to go easy on the Republicans either, because they haven’t been super strong in enforcement either when they’ve had the opportunity. But you factor those three things together and it makes sense how those  horrible things can happen. And I think regardless of whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life, if the law states that they are to be given care, then whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life is irrelevant. You follow the law or you pay the consequences.
 
Herb Geraghty: Yeah, I remember this kind of discourse came up a lot back in 2019, when the Republicans were really pushing for the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which basically, I think, was an extension of the current laws on the book that say: these children born alive during abortions deserve healthcare, and they should be treated as any other child born at that gestational age. But with this law they were attempting to, sort of, give that teeth and make it more enforceable and prevent situations like what we’re talking about. And I just remember thinking that the friends that I have, the colleagues that I have, who genuinely believe that “healthcare is a human right” and say that kind of thing, and say, you know, “everyone deserves healthcare.” And then they are willing to just exclude this group of people who are born alive during abortions and just, like, at best they can be ignored and they can die on their own; at worst we’re going to dismember them and use their body parts for medical research. 
And it’s just so unfortunate like for me, as someone who does believe healthcare is a right, I’m an advocate for that sort of outside my work with Rehumanize International; to see this group of people just completely denied even stuff like comfort care, and instead are being dissected alive. This issue--I just, sometimes with a lot of anti-abortion stuff, I think that--I get concerned that I am losing my mind, like I--I must be wrong. Like there’s no way I live in a society where, routinely, completely legally, children are just being killed. And about half the country is fine with that. And our politicians are doing almost nothing to stop it. And the ones who are doing something to stop it are just talking about, you know, defunding it. And I feel like I must be wrong; like maybe, pro-choice people have to be right. But then I look at the evidence that’s right in front of me, and it’s like no. This is happening; and it’s not on the news every night. Like maybe Tucker Carlson will run a segment on abortion every 6 months and that’s the best we can ask for and I just don’t understand why I…
 
Nick Reynosa: Well I think there’s several factors. We live in a… I often think about the Milgram Experiment where fake doctors told people to shock people, so we obviously defer a lot to scientific experts. And in a lot of ways that’s good, but the thing is, unfortunately, the stuff we see at UCSF is just part of a long history of bad ethics and science. I can think of the Mengele experiments, the Tuskegee Airmen experiments, experiments against the mentally handicapped, and so forth. Basically what it is, is when you have people that are otherized, or made less than--whether it’s Jewish people or African American people or handicapped people or whatever the case may be, in this case, the unborn--the typical standards of ethics are reduced. And also I think sometimes in this search for the greater good or what have you that scientists, engineers, you know, I live in Silicon Valley and sometimes they say move fast and break things. Well, just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.  And when we look at  sort of like the gold-standard of scientific ethics, there’s been pushback from the scientific community about these basic protections for patients. And that just reminds me that we constantly have to aspire for our science to be better and push our scientists to be better and respect their knowledge, but they’re not perfect. Just because you wear a white coat or a black coat or a blue coat, violence is violence, bad ethics is bad ethics.  I think if we take that principle we can do better. And you know just briefly you were talking about the extremism.  I think about other issues, sometimes, where the smallest, most common sense regulation is seen as tantamount to a full abolition. You know, like, if we oppose these procedures somehow that can amount to The Handmaid’s Tale.  It’s not a really logical, rational discourse, and I don’t think these people are being fair or intellectually honest, because abortion rights in America would not change drastically if these procedures stopped. But a lot of time it’s framed in that way because any kind of anything less than full cartes blanche is seen as tantamount to The Handmaids Tale or something. I don’t think we’re going to get very far if that’s the level of discourse that we’re having.
 
Herb Geraghty: Well, I think that from the pro-choice side, I think that almost has to be the level of discourse. Because when we start to say okay, a viable child, someone who is now 24 weeks old, well they deserve rights, why doesn’t that make sense for a 21 week old or a 20 week old. And then you just become pro-life, which is what I’m hoping they do.  But what you were saying about the history of sort of medical experimentation I think really holds true. And it is important to know that throughout history, especially when you think of things like gynecology and reproductive healthcare, the really sordid and just racist history of a lot of that in the US, really just like extensive abuse of black women’s bodies, to sort of make medical advancements is something that this sort of reminds me of in some ways. But it makes me think, you know, we’re not against medical advancement.  I want, you know, cures for the diseases that they’re working on and I want to improve our ability to help people with disabilities and all of these other things.  We’re just saying that there are other means that you can go about this with.
 
Nick Reynosa: Absolutely. And, you know, especially the topic on everyone’s mind now is Covid-19 and I was thinking about the relevance of our work as far as, they were talking about the different Covid vaccines that were coming out. And some were positively sourced through fetal cells, and some were not. And I’m 100 percent pro-vaccines as long as they’re ethically sourced. And the concern that I had was for your average person that’s not like us, like we’re deeply invested in the pro-life movement, if someone came to them and said I can give you your normal life back if you take this vaccine that was possibly sourced with fetal cells.  The average person probably isn’t going to care.  They’re just gonna go “give me my normal life back.”  But the thing is that’s why, if we were able to completely ban fetal experimentation, we wouldn’t be put in these possibly difficult situations,  Thankfully, we do have ethically sourced Covid vaccines and I would totally recommend that everyone take those ethically sourced vaccines. But I’m just concerned that we’re not always going to be that fortunat,  and I don’t wanna ever be put in a situation where normal people have to make that very difficult decision. And we’re very pro-healthcare, we’re very pro-science.  The Trump Administration has given 20 million dollars to ethical alternatives which was something to the effect of 10 times greater than the current amount for that particular [project which] they cancelled, which was like 2 million dollars.  
 
Herb Geraghty: And that project you’re talking about was the one that required the 2 …
 
Nick Reynosa: Yes, that was the UCSF contract, correct.  To be clear: there are, I believe, over 100 fetal programs throughout the country with funding of the NH $115 million, but when the Trump administration cancelled that particular one at UCSF, citing lack of transparency and safeguards and so forth, they replaced it with a 20 million dollar fund. But I think those who are experts in those alternatives, they use something called pluripotent cells which are adult stem cells which have the advantage of also having the flexibility of fetal cells; because one of the things that scientists like about fetal cells is they’re very malleable, so if you can have adult stem cells that have malleability, then you kind of get the best of both worlds. So that’s an experiment that they’re working on, but I totally agree with what you said.  We’re totally pro-progress but we don’t take a utilitarian approach on this.  It’s not like you only have to abort this many fetuses to save this many people, because if you use that kind of logic to justify 100 people, 1000 people, 1000000 people it never ends.  But if you have a principle that the patient is paramount and the patient is not there to serve others, then you abolish that type of experimentation and you don’t use that utilitarian approach.
 
Herb Geraghty: And I mean sort of as a catch-all I’m quick to say I oppose fetal organ harvesting, but that’s not entirely true.  I’m not against medical research on cadavers who have died of natural causes.  I know people who’ve donated the remains of their child after miscarriage to medical research and I’m not opposed to that.  I think what’s important to make clear is that these are elective abortions, and as a result, because Trump did cancel one contract, there’s still many [experiments being done] and a lot that are privately funded. And I’m sure Joe Biden does not have the same qualms about fetal tissue research that I do. So we’ll see what his funding looks like, but that is essentially creating a monetary demand for elective abortion.
 
Nick Reynosa: Well, particularly when you think about the parameters specifically that UCSF mentions in their contract. You know, they want fetuses of a certain gestational age, they want fetuses that are not the result of sexual violence, they want fetuses with no abnormalities. So not only does that take [away] many of the pro-choice talking points, like sexual assault or fetal abnormalities or things like that, but it also creates--let’s say you’re a woman who’s planning to have a normal first trimester abortion, but they need candidates for these second trimester abortions (and I’m not saying that I have any evidence that any one particular woman did this) but I’m saying that, in order to meet those parameters, you have to have women that are far along, like I said 18 to 24 weeks, that they haven’t resulted from sexual violence and they have no fetal abnormalities. So that sort of narrows that group. And so if you’re looking for candidates, that could create an incentive to extend the pregnancy to do that. And also by wanting the procedure to be a certain way, some doctors have brought up the fact that there are ethical concerns, because the patient should be the one that’s wanting this procedure a certain way, not the doctor. Because the doctor may have an incentive to extend the pregnancy to have that particular time frame.  That could create an incentive as well, so I totally agree with that.
 
Herb Geraghty: Yeah. There’s also the, I’m not sure if there’s evidence of UCSF doctors doing this, but I remember what came out in the tapes that David Daleiden released in the undercover footage at Planned Parenthood at least, there was evidence of someone claiming at least that they were altering the type of procedure that they’re doing, in order to get these contracts, to be able to use the tissue more effectively for medical research. And that I believe is illegal, right?
 
Nick Reynosa: Absolutely, especially when you talk about the en vivo abortion. When you look at just a picture of the abortions that were banned through the Partial Birth Abortion Act, and when you look at a picture of the en vivo abortion, they’re extremely similar, to the point where just the manner in which the fetus exits could make the procedure illegal. David Daleiden talks about this; and if that is the case then it is a violation of law, yeah.  That’s why oversight, or lack thereof, is so important because we can’t trust the industry to follow these regulations. We can’t trust the honesty or transparency, so we can’t trust the media--because it’s only independent outlets that are reporting this. Occasionally Tucker Carlson will, but it’s pretty limited. But yes, I do agree that the procedures could be altered and that that would be illegal.
 
Herb Geraghty: Another thing that I wanted to talk about that I’ve learned recently related to this topic too is, what exact types of research is being done or what the exact projects are? I know one at least was a sort of human mouse experiment.  I don’t fully understand it.  Could you just explain what that is?  I’ve seen pictures and they’re horrific, especially as someone who is vegan. And I organized around, when I was in college, stopping the violence against mice in Pitt’s research labs and the pictures of that upset me outside of the abortion question.
 
Nick Reynosa: So I’m not a scientist, so this is the highschool version of this. But essentially what they do is, some of the main organs that they harvest are the thymus and the liver. And a lot of the research they do is related to immunotherapy, because they’re trying to do things for HIV [or similar conditions], so the immune system is of great interest to them.  So by injecting the human organ tissues into the mice, what they’re attempting to do is to give the mice an immune system comparable to the human immune system.  Therefore they can experiment on the mice to see the reaction of different immunotherapy situations, and that would help them theoretically with HIV or other things like that. But the thing that’s so horrific about it is, in order for the liver tissue or the thymus tissue to be suitable to be injected into the mice, it has to be of top grade, and it has to be as normal as possible. So--and I mean we’ve all seen the movies where someone dies and they put in on ice and it goes on a helicopter and they try to transplant-- and it’s very similar with fetal tissue research, because you’re talking about, in one instance the language was a maximum of six hours between removal from the fetus and the use. Because they want that tissue to be brand new fresh. And so to give you a perspective on that, at Zuckerberg General Hospital, in San Francisco, these abortion procedures take place in the building called 6G and literally I would say probably like 300 yards away is the fetal experimentation lab.  It’s like a 5 to 10 minute walk away.  Just one building over.  And that’s how fresh this tissue is sometimes. And so I’m just trying to give people a perspective on--give them, like, a real-world picture of how this is literally a dissected organ out of a fresh cadaver into a living mice, within hours sometimes.
 
Herb Geraghty: Yeah, while the mother, the patient, is still in recovery for it.  I just find that so, I don’t know, traumatic to think about, sort of going through the very invasive procedure of a late-term abortion. Especially when, like this, where no fetucide is used. And then sort of as you are recovering your, parts of your child are being injected into mice in order to create these humanized mice, to then torture the mice through cruel experimentation. And that’s why I gave the warning on this episode that this is gonna be a little dark because I just don’t--I feel like my brain doesn’t even comprehend that there are people who go into work everyday, and do this for a living and that in many cases our tax dollars are paying for it with grants; and probably even more so, there are private businesses that are looking to profit off this once the research is complete. 
 
Nick Reynosa: Definitely, you know, I often think we think of--I’ve heard the saying like “the comfortable pro-choice view” that kind of doesn’t acknowledge the violence of abortion and doesn’t acknowledge the humanity of the fetus, but I do think there’s sort of a “comfortable pro-life view” and I really appreciate you talking about this topic, Herb, because not everyone does.  This is definitely a more advanced topic, it’s much grittier, it’s much more honest. And I think that there are people out there that are very well-intentioned, good-hearted, and they’re pro-life but they haven’t--this is the worst of the worst, and they may not have sort of encountered that yet or been exposed to it.  I think all aspects of the pro-life movement are important, and none of it should be ignored, but I definitely think for people who are wanting to learn more about the movement, extreme examples like this are also important to talk about because you’re going in eyes wide open.  You’re understanding the levels of dehumanization in our country, how bad it can get if it’s not addressed. I think those are all important things.
 
Herb Geraghty: Yeah. I mean, I also I think and I hope that for the sort of “comfortable pro-choice person”, often I think they’re like many Americans. They don’t like abortion but they think it might be necessary, and they don’t like late-term abortion. And when I look at this issue I hope, at least, that this is a potential olive branch to that sort of mushy middle who [say things like] “I’m personally pro-life and I would never get an abortion but I understand why other people might need it.” And the pictures of these babies, the actual victims, or just a fetus through an ultrasound at 24 weeks--it’s very hard, in my opinion, to deny their humanity unless you are about to profit off of it.  And I just hope that this potentially could be one of those issues that could bring people on board, at least closer to the pro-life side than the sort of just blind trust in the abortion-industrial-complex that [thinks] whatever they’re doing is probably fine, Gosnell was just a one-off extreme case and no one else is like that.  That’s what I hope, at least, when we’re trying to talk about this issue: that it can be sort of a radicalizing moment for pro-choice people who think that abortion is just, sort of, I don’t know, “getting rid of some tissue.”
 
Nick Reynosa: A couple of things to add to that. You know, any way you slice it, it’s pretty politically easy, I think, to achieve this. Because if you look at the numbers, the majority of women independents, Democrats, oppose these late-term procedures. And that’s just procedures in general, not specifically extreme, extreme late-term procedures. And then also, internationally these procedures are like--even when compared to most of Western Europe, where abortions are much, the term of the pregnancies are [restricted at a] much lower date. And so I think--and also, too, the abortion extremism in the Democratic party has cost them a lot of votes from people that would otherwise vote for them, and I think that would be a great olive branch to them.  Say, “hey, we’re reasonable people, we can still generally support abortion rights, but not this extremism.” And so, I agree that for people who are willing to be intellectually honest about it, there could be some progress there. And maybe, if they come to reject the abortion lobbyists, and come to more of an international center like where Europe is, or where most American voters are at in their opinions on this.
 
Herb Geraghty: Yeah. And I guess to me, when I think of that kind of thing with a lot of abortion legislation, there is so much diversity of thought within this country about exactly what they want abortion legislation to look like.  A lot of people want it to be legal, but with some regulation, and that is so not represented at all in the modern Democratic party. And the reason why is pretty obvious: it’s that who’s funding the modern Democratic party is Planned Parenthood, it’s NARAL, it’s Emily’s List. It’s these groups that exist to either provide or promote legal abortion. And so I think to make any sort of these incremental gains to save lives of unborn children we really need a groundswell of support from people all over the political spectrum, people all socio-economic groups, we need everyone on board saying: “hey, even outside of my opinion whether I’m pro-life or pro-choice, this extremism has got to go.” Because otherwise there’s no incentive for politicians to care about it enough to try to change these laws or to enforce the laws that are already in place.  I think that’s where the work of SERNOW really lies: in education about it, making sure that people know about this, and have an opinion on it.  It can’t just be something that no one knows about because it happens behind several layers of hospital doors, and no one talks about it because it’s not a popular topic.
 
Nick Reynosa: I have a couple of things to say about that. Number one is sort of a silver lining in the Democrats winning. I mean obviously from the pro-life point of view there’s some obvious complications in that, but one thing I took away from that was Kamala Harris, of all the 24 people that ran for president, she was by far the one most closely associated with the whole David Daleiden situation and UCSF and all those associated issues. I think it’s completely fair to say that, of all the Democrats who ran, Kamala Harris had the most extreme abortion record of any of them. And I’m not just saying that because she’s now VP-Elect, or because I work for SERNOW I just think that’s objectively true and that thing of--
 
Herb Geraghty: I mean, the thing about Kamala Harris that I think you’re about to say is, not only is she pro-abortion, she is like, anti-pro-lifer. She has targeted us, specifically David.  It’s scary.
 
Nick Reynosa: And that’s why David’s fight, which continues--and it’s important to remember that I don’t, we don’t, work for David directly but we do build on his brave work, and the discussion on banning fetal, unethical fetal experimentation, he’s been the root and branch of that. And any success that we have is because of him and his great work. But I think it’s so symbolic, because the outcome of David‘s case is symbolic, as far as we have Kamala Harris on one side, who persecuted David and supported UCSF and supported Planned Parenthood in their breaking of the law, and did not protect David’s freedom of speech, and journalistic rights and so forth--but we want to see that through.  Sarah now wants to see that through, and see David vindicated, because it would be America saying that Kamala Harris’s behavior was uncalled-for and we aspire to do better. It’s not even about a pro-choice or pro-life thing. It’s about freedom of speech, it’s about journalistic rights, it’s about her integrity as a prosecutor, and fairness, and all of those issues. And now that Kamala Harris is center stage, that can be a great talking point for our cause, and something to rally around David as we expose Kamala Harris’s extremism. And that’s something I look forward to doing in the future.
 
Herb Geraghty: So I guess my only question left, then, is how can the listeners get involved? 
What can the Rehumanize fans and colleagues do to work on this issue? 
 
Nick Reynosa: Well, I think there are a couple of things.  On a local level, there are over 170 fetal [experimentation] programs, so you can go on the NIH site and look at funding to particular universities. Find out if your local university is involved with any kind of fetal experimentation.  You know, one of the hardest things about this job is just how difficult it is to have a clear understanding of it.  A lot of what I learned about this, I learned from Robert Burr who’s just been tireless in his efforts, and he just piecemealed together this information. And not everyone has the time that Robert or I have to do that, and I just want to make sure that people have more transparency, so looking into local universities would be a great start. And if they’re interested in helping us more generally, we’ve been working on different legislation.  There is HR 573, which was the Integrity in Research Act, which was looking to abolish unethical fetal experimentation throughout the US. And then there was also, like you were saying, HR 962 which was the add on to the Born Alive Infant Protection Survivor’s Act. And if they want to help us more directly, in December on December 19th, SERNOW will be back in San Francisco at Zuckerberg protesting, and will also be at the Walk for For Life in San Francisco.  I believe it’s January 23rd.  Those are all ways they can come out and help us.  If someone has more time because of COVID and they’re interested in an internship, they could go to survivors.la and apply and they could get connected.  We have a lot of people that come for a couple months out to the Bay Area and help whenever, and that’s actually currently on hold because we’re getting another group of young people, but when that starts again it will be up in San Francisco. There will probably be a house, and there will be free room and board and such for the interns.  Definitely contact Jeff at survivors.la for that. I really appreciate your time, Herb, and all of the great work that Rehumanize does. Especially you guys are sort of unorthodox, like kind of a more holistic, kind of like left-wing kind of group so that’s…
 
Herb Geraghty:  Ughh I hate when people say we’re left-wing.  I’m conservative.
 
Nick Reynosa: No, I’m sorry, Herb but you know what I mean.
 
Herb Geraghty: No, I understand.  We’re a little different.  The fact that we have left-wingers on staff and sort of our orbit, makes us different enough.
 
Nick Reynosa: Yeah, so that’s important to have that voice. And I appreciate your friendship and all of the work you do, and I hope to come back sometime later and give you lots of great updates about what we’re doing.
 
Herb Geraghty: Absolutely.  Last thing, what is the website and social media so we can follow the work of SERNOW?
 
Nick Reynosa: So there’s survivors.la which is like the parent organization and then there’s also SERNOW which is sernow.org and then on social media it’s The Society For Ethical Research on Facebook and then on Instagram and Twitter it’s @s.e.r.org
 
Herb Geraghty: Well, sounds great. Thank you so much for coming on Nick. I hope you have a great night.
 
Nick Reynosa: Thank you. Appreciate it. Take care.
 
[Music plays]
 
Maria Oswalt: Thanks for tuning in to the Rehumanize Podcast.  To learn more, check out our website at rehumanizeintl.org or follow us on social media @rehumanizeintl