Interviewew With Susan Carpenter McMillan

MJ: Susan Carpenter McMillan, thanks you for joining us today.

SCM:Thank you.

MJ: Now I'll turn on the TV you're there, and I'll turn the radio on you're there, I will

read the paper and you're there. Tell us what it is that you do.

SCM:Well, I was kind of a designated conservative woman here in Southern California.

There aren't a lot of us, and so the competition wasn't all that steep, unlike being kind

of a liberal voice. There is not a lot of us here and I've been the conservative commentator

at KABC Channel 7, which is an O-on-O of KABC. I wrote for Column Right for the Los Angeles

Times locally which, of course, is the second largest newspaper in the world, or at least in

America. I think the world, but at least in America, and I just filled a much-needed slot when

they need the other point, a conservative point, the correct point, the right logical point, and

they call me, so I do a lot of television, a lot of radio, and pretty much I'm confined to the L.A.

Times because once you write for one newspaper that's pretty exclusive.

MJ: Now you consider yourself a conservative

SCM:Yes.

MJ: Do you consider yourself a feminist?

SCM:Absolutely! I'm a conservative feminist.

Feminism from 1800s

MJ: People may think that "conservative" and "feminist" do not go together.

SCM:Like an oxymoron? Well I think that liberals have usurped and certainly put a very twist on

the word Feminist. You must remember that Molly Yards and all of those people did not find feminism;

they found a new version of feminism. Feminism goes back to the 1800s. My grandmother who was an ordained

minister was a feminist in the '20s, and my role models have been Christian feminist women, conservative

feminist women who actually broke this mythical glass ceiling. Amy Simple McPherson, who is a very well

known figure here in America from the '20s, ordained my grandmother? My mother was an ordained minister

in the '30s when no organization ordained ministers, so I was raised that the only barrier that I as a

woman would have is myself though I won't take away from the good that the liberal feminist movement did

in the '60s, certainly opening doors. I work with liberal feminists now against spousal abuse, against rape,

and they have done some good things, but overall their abortion agenda, their lesbian agenda, their anti-family,

anti-men, anti-children agenda has been much more detrimental than good, so the good they've given us pales in

comparison to the bad they brought us.

Wackos at the Top

MJ: There was a recent poll that shows that about 18 percent of American women identified with the word "feminist."

Why has it become a negative term in American life?

SCM:Well, it's become a negative term because it's so identified with killing unborn babies and

lesbianism. It's very anti-family, just things that I told you. It's very anti-male, and the radicals

have taken over, and what happens in any movement no matter how it's beginning, outlives it's usefulness.

Every movement should graciously come to an end at some point and they never do. And so the good people

that see their mission was accomplished, the radicals come in and usurp that authority, and so what is life

at the top is wackos in almost every field. You see it even in conservative issues. We're seeing it now with

the pro-life movement. We see it with the feminist movement. So when many of us wanted to align ourselves

with feminism in the '60s, we don't want anything to do with it in the '90s. I refuse to give up the name

just because it's been tarnished by the wackos at the top leading the movement today.

Equal But Different

MJ: So what is feminism to you, then?

SCM:Ah, feminism to me. Feminism to me is, I am very equal with my husband. There is no difference as

far as our equality, but there is a difference merely because of our gender. I am a woman. I can give

birth. My husband is a man; he is much stronger than I am. When I say, pardon the very crackness of this

but I think it makes a point, until a man can lay in labor for 20 hours and give birth with his male genital,

they will never know what I feel until I am allowed to go out into a football field and be kicked in where it

hurts, I will never know what it is to be a man. We're equal but different, and that is something that the

feminists do not want to recognize. They want gender blindness. That's living in lala-land and because of

that laws have been changed to the detriment of this country. So I guess for me, I look at it; I am equal to

my husband but different. We are partners; equal, but different.

Need to Focus on Family

MJ: What issues are most important to you? What issues are you most active on?

SCM:I don't think there is any issue that our country should even be looking at other than number one, two

and three - the family, the family, the family - and then four, five and six - finances, finances, finances

- and if we could deal with those two areas I think that we would go to solve 80 to 90 percent of the problems

in the country. If the family were united and the family became the focal point, you would cut way down on drugs,

you would cut way down on crime, you would cut way down on illegitimacy. You would solve so many problems

if the family were once again made the focal point of our nation. You would see businesses excel because

families would work together, live together. The family unit, the family scattered from here to New York,

businesses would be cognizant for the fact that you can't suddenly uproot a family that has its roots here

and its children go to school and say, "I'm going to transfer Dad to New York." If the family would become

the focus of our country, we would see a surge in profits, a decline in violence, and just a whole new

revisiting of values.

No Good in Abortion

MJ: You're very active on one particular issue, the issue abortion. Tell us your thoughts on that.

SCM:The issue of abortion, which as I know is very… plays a very prominent part, sadly, in Japan as

it does here in America and throughout Europe, I don't know if it's controversial in Japan. I know that

it is probably one of the most leading controversial issues here in America. I know all about abortion.

I've walked in that path. I've had an abortion as a college student at the University of southern California.

I was 21 years old when I made the disastrous decision to go into an abortion clinic as an unmarried college

student and kill my unborn child. It is something now, as I am in my mid-forties that I will live with till

the day I die. It is a tragedy that I would have given anything to redo, to replay, that one disastrous moment

in my life. So don't tell me about the good of abortion. I lived that decision. Nobody can tell me about

it, nobody.

MJ: So does that fuel your involvement today?

SCM:Absolutely! And again as I said, every movement, every spokesperson comes to a time where they retire

and move on. Three years ago when went over to KADC to be a conservative commentator, I resigned my post as

spokesperson Right to Life. For thirteen years I have done it. I was coming to the end of what I needed to

do and of course I still talk about it. I do many shows, I write articles on it, but it is all again part

of my view of the family, it is the most innocent and helpless member of the family, so while now I encompass

10-15,20 issues it is just one, and it was good because I think one should stay focused on one area. It does

hurt after a while but certainly for those 13 years until the day I die it will always be a burning issue not

only in my heart but my womb.

MJ: What about those who say that women can't be free unless she can control her body. What would

you have to say to that?

SMC:Well I think in framing it in that type of phrase, I would agree. I would agree one would have to

be able to control their body. However, define that. Does controlling your body mean that you then have

the freedom to kill another human being? It would be like if I said I don't have freedom unless I can control

my motherly behavior so i.e. that means that I want to, I have just been offered a position as vice president

in a Fortune 500 club. However I am told that the candidates that will apply cannot have children. And they

did not know that I have a child and so I was given the opportunity, say I got home and killed my child because

that is empowering. Because I can't have this 3-year-old child hanging around me because I have just been offered

the vice president of a large corporation. So, does this child then suddenly become a hindrance and so I am not free.

That is ludicrous. I mean who will follow that kind of ridiculous thinking? But that is just what you asked me.

Am I not free unless I can control my body? Well, yes if you put it in that way, but killing a child doesn't

free me; it turns me into a killer, not someone who is seeking empowerment.

MJ: Tell us about your background? Your family?

SMC:Well I am married to, I wouldn't say my best-friend though I always used to say that, though he is my

dearest companion. I have learnt through the years that women and men are very different. I am married to

the human being that I love more than anyone in this world. But I have best friends that I enjoy female

companionship with. He likes to be with the guys. He needs his time of golf and cigar smoking, which neither

one I can stand to be around. I have very dear female friends. I have an all female staff that I am very close

with. I show dogs, I have a female partner and she and I love to travel. I just got back from New York from the

big dog show at Westminister. We have 2 beautiful daughters that we are partners with. It is emotional and It

think of how strong my family is. We raise our children together. My husband has to chide me when I say I am

home and I had to make that decision. But he will look at me and say, but it is my children too and we are going

to talk about this decision. We are partners in every sense of the word. I can only tell you that every year after

23 years it gets better, every single year. Does it mean we don't have our problems? No. Has it been a fairy tale

relationship? Most of the time but, and I don't want to bring in religion because I am sensitive to bringing religion

into anything besides beliefs that we must respect all religions. Be they Muslim, Hindu, Nudism, Christianity, Buddhist.

My particular religion, we believe in God. The same Muslim God, Jewish God and Christian God. And we have decided

that we live on a triangle. God is here and Bill and I are equally down here. And when we come to an end path,

we go up there. And that is our guiding light. It starts from the top and goes down. We raise our children together

and every major decision of our life goes back up to the head of the triangle. That is how we choose to live our

life. I think one of the most important things that I can say is that religious or not, we have made a commitment

to each other. A term that in America is not looked at. I think in Japan, that is one thing that I really admire

about the Japanese culture, they make commitments and they live up to that. This verbal commitment is very

important, at least from the point of view that I have been told about the Japanese. Is that a commitment is

very important. Commitment is not important here in America, what you say isn't necessary what you do with on

the written paper. My husband and I have made a commitment to each other to live together and be faithful to each

other and raise children together till the day we die. And both of us have held that end. People say monogamy

doesn't work anymore. It doesn't work because one partner chooses to break the contract. It doesn't work because

it becomes extremely selfish and my rights, me, who am I, it is me, has become paramount versus I am not the most

important thing, my family and my children and my mate and my God all come before me. And I can tell you, with

living with that ideology, everybody is free. I am always put first because my family is put first. And living with

"I will put you first", automatically boomerangs back to you. It is the most empowering philosophy we can have.

MJ: Tell us about a typical day. What sort of work activities do you do on a typical day?

SMC:Well, I'd like to say that it runs in spurts with me. I am leaving you and I am immediately going over to

another station. I am having lunch with some top executive producers. I then come back, change my clothes, pick

my daughter up from school and go to another interview at another network. Is that a typical day when it is going

in spurts? Yesterday, I didn't have to do anything but sit home in my pyjamies and warm slippers and torn robe

which I love, and finish an article for the Los Angeles Times and watch the OJ Simpson trial. This weekend, I

was allowed 4 days off to enjoy my sort of dog showing. But things come in cycles. Tomorrow I am a guest at

another studio depends on the story, depends on what I am working with. Our office is spokesperson for Paula

Jones so I may do nothing for Paula Jones and when a decision comes down on who is doing the President of

United States, we don't even have 2 minutes that we can give our family. So everything goes in spurts and

cycles. I can't give you a normal day. I work out at my home and made that decision three years ago. My staff

is here on the outside of our home so that I don't bother them and they don't bother me. I can maintain a family

life. My staff is wonderful. They knew when they were hired that they may have to; yesterday I had to do

something and I called the head of our media department and say, can you run to get my daughter up? I have

my mother who lives with me. Again, I go back to the family unit and when my father died, I said mom you have

to come and live with us. My mother pitches in and helps me. People say, "Oh well Susan, you are so successful

and that is why you have all these help." But the reality of it is that poor families in our inner cities have

more help, welfare mothers have more help than working mothers. Why? Because they will keep mum and dad all

living together and so if we can get them off welfare, I think if they would financially bloom because they

have so much of the family together. Grandma and grandpa in the inner city many times become surrogate parents.

So I have my mum that lives with me which is a very European mind. My mother is European. That is a very European

philosophy. In America we tend to get rid of our kids by the time they are 18 and kick mum and dad out to the

old folks again because it goes back to us. But my mum lives in with us and we all work together.

MJ: There was one question that I forgot to get to that was, you didn't volunteer the information that

you have had an abortion. Explain how that happened?

SMC:Oh thank you for asking me because I had been told by sources that as a conservative voice and as

the voice of "Right to Life" at that time, that there was an ongoing investigation into my life and the

only dirt that they could really come up with was the fact that I had one point had an abortion. I never

denied that abortion I just never made it public. My husband knew about it being an Irish Catholic before I

married him. My children have not been told because at that time they were very young. My youngest was six

and my oldest was eleven and twelve. I have never planned on telling my children until they were fourteen or

fifteen when they can really understand what it meant. My mother has never known because as of now, she cannot

deal with it, she has never spoken about it. And I knew that she couldn't deal with it then. I did choose to tell

my husband. They asked to do a profile on my life very much like you are asking me now and I answered all these

questions. They followed me around for several weeks and took pictures and they wanted to run a profile on a

conservative spokeswoman.

MJ: This is Los Angeles Times?

SMC:Correct. This is before I was writing for them. The last day of the interview, they said we just have

a few things to clear up so they can get me with this. I lied at first so I said no it is not true. That

does not go with my religious experience and my religious beliefs so I said I need to get back to you and

I immediately went and met with my minister. It is not something that I had ever denied to a movement or

to really anybody. I just never brought it up and I found myself in a very awkward position of not being

honest with the reporter. I met with my minister sobbing, this horrible thing was brought to forth. And he

said, "Suzie if you thought you could lie about it why are you here asking me? You are not coming to get by

blessing." So I called the reporter back up and met with him and I shall never forget that night. He said,

"Are you going to admit your abortion?" I said "I'll meet with you over cocktail for dinner." I needed a good

margarita to talk about it. And I sat down and I had a recorder, he had a recorder and for 2 hours I told him

what it was like to kill my child. I said, "You know, this isn't a religious philosophy in my church. My, church,

a Presbyterian church, happens to believe that abortion is ok. It isn't religious me. I am not a convert of

Christianity. This is very controversial within the Christian movement, within the American Christian church.

I am a convert of biology. When I open a book and see biological development of a fetus, you have to be either

mentally retarded or incredible denial or a freaking liar to say that this isn't human life. Now we can argue

over the value of human life. I am also against death penalty. 90% of America says this life, this murderer,

this Jeffrey Dahmer, no longer has value and can be done away with. We can argue that and I don't have a problem

with that. But lets me honest in our argument. If we choose, as an American society or if you do in Japan to say,

this is a human life. This is a living child where each one of us was and we choose to not give it value. I don't

quo with that I disagree with that but I will not quo with that. What I quo with is a lack of honesty in the

abortion debate. To say it is not a human, it is just a glob of tissues, it's developing cells is to then turn

around and say to you, "Well you are just unterminated tissue. You are tissue out of the womb. So that is what

I am a convert of. I have made a decision that all life is precious from the moment of its inception until it's

natural birth and that no human being or government have the right in life, be it in euthanasia, be it infanticide,

be it abortion. We have infanticide rampantly in China. If it is a baby girl and they don't want anymore, they take

it and kill it after birth. We are now doing that here. We see the basis, the beginning, the foundation of euthanasia.

So I don't believe in death, period. So, I unloaded on this reporter and I said if you are going to print that I had

an abortion, you are damn well going to print it from this mother's perspective who killed her baby; not a woman

who terminate her pregnancy.

MJ: How does this affect your daughter?

SMC:Tough. I haven't talked about this in a long time, so forgive me. And I knew that you that you were going

to ask me about it and I was willing to talk about it. I don't talk about it a lot and I won't go on the circuit

and talk about it because it is painful and I will not exploit the death of my child to further any cause. I will

go out and lecture on the biological facts but I will not share something that is so painful and personal.

Listen, you have it easy. The poor man who interviewed me for the story. My make up was down; my eyelash was on

my meal some place. I didn't eat anything. I was a basket case and I wept, snaught is running down my nose for

two hours recalling what it was like. And I don't want to go out there with that and I will go into what it was

like for my children. Women don't abort. Mothers kill. And you live with that till the day you die. Now you can

be in incredible denial which I immediately attained to. I went into denial for 7 years. Never shed a tear, didn't

bother me, didn't talk about it, it just did not happen. And I had to go through a lot. My best friend happens to

be a psychologist and so I didn't go through therapy. I didn't go through that, but I did a lot of talking, did a

lot of crying did a lot of soul searching and will never forgive myself until the day I die. I will never allow

myself that luxury. People who kill will ask for your forgiveness or their religion's forgiveness but they are

never allowed in life to forgive themselves. So, that is the problem. Now you ask me about my children? My baby

was too young and I found I am still paying the price. It wasn't six months ago that the word abortion came up

and my then six now ten-year-old daughter said "I don't want you to talk about abortion mum." And I said "But

we talk about the issue all the time." She said, "I don't want to hear it because you have one." Now that is

just as of recent. The article came out four years ago. That night, I took my two children, my six year old and

my twelve year old to have dinner. And I sat across that table and I said, "Mummy has to talk to you." And she

said "What?" And I said, "Well Mama is in the newspaper today, has anybody mentioned it to you?" She say "Well

mummy I have seen the newspaper and if you are in there my friends would say, oh I saw your mum, no they didn't

anything. And I said, "Well, there was a story about me and something that I did in college." And thankfully

my six year old was reading a book or playing with her balloon so I could really zero in on my twelve year old.

And I told her and I'll never forget her response. She looked at me and said in a very matter of fact, in a very

different reaction that my younger one, "You knew I always wanted a sibling, can you tell me why you killed

him?" Now that seems like a very cold thing to say but it was very comforting to me because I agree that is a right.

She saw that as death for her brother or sister. So you ask me how it affects me? It affects me personally but

it affects generations to come. And that is the truth and that is what of course, the pro-abortion doesn't tell you.

They phrase it in "the right to control my body". It is empowering. All their movement is, is a lie to women

like me. Who when I went in to make the decision, put their verbish into my mind so that it empowered me to kill.

But every women, every single women be they American, Japanese, Chinese, European, knows that when they are told

they are pregnant, they have a child and a life within them. If it is only for a fleeting second and they then

put up on their barriers and their blockades. They instinctively know, whatever they do to prepare themselves

to kill that child, only they know. I know what I did. I bought in and I clung on to the verbish of the pro-abortion

movement. But I'll never forget the moment they told me, I knew I was a mother.

MJ: Do you hear from people who have been affected by things you written or spoken on TV or in radio.

SCM:I got a call one day after doing a radio show. This is when I was spokesperson for "Right to life".

And she said such and such station gave me your number. Well I was furious because people don't give out

your personal number. And she said my niece is six months along in her pregnancy and has schedules an

abortion but heard you on the radio and won't talk to anybody but you. And I said I don't do counseling,

I am a spokesperson and I will put you touch… , no she won't talk to anybody but you. She said she will give

you a code name when she calls you. Well it was such a bizarre situation, I decided to take it. And I talked

to her from my heart. At that time, my abortion has not been made public and I did tell her what I had gone through.

She called me about two or three times with this code name. And then I never heard from her, figured she got

the abortion. Got a call one day about three or four months later. She said hi this is so and so, do you remember

me? I said, "Refresh my mind." She said, "I talked to you on the phone." "Yes!" And she began to cry. And she

said, "Of all the people in the world, I wanted to thank you. I gave birth this morning to my child." You know

all the times that my home is picketed, all the death threats that I have had, all the filthy names that have

been called, attacks on my life, all was made worth it when I get that one call. And so it is, when they ran

a story in the LA times and of course I was just suffering because everybody was reading about Suzy's abortion.

I was reading an obituary. And I receive letters from all over the country. I had one letter "31 years ago

I had an abortion and I have never told a single person in my entire life and that story that I read was me."

So yeah, it does make a difference but as a commentator, I am not trying to change your mind, I am just digging

in at the other side, I just love it. I love to say, "Look what they are looking!" I mean I really get excited

when I can say, when I can call the President of the United States you know "Mr Jiggly thighs." I mean I love that

and I am not trying to change anybody's mind. I am digging in.

MJ: Tell us about Gloria Allred.

SMC: Oh my friend. Well actually we are friends. Everybody always say to me "How can you stand to

be around her?" And I am sure they say the same thing to her, "How can you stand to be around Suzy?"

We are friends. We are on the other side of many issues. Actually, many things we do have in common.

But we are opposite especially on this one. She has had an abortion, bless her heart she is still living in denial.

We are having lunch today as a matter of fact. W e work together at KABC. I have tremendous respect for her.

She is a brilliant spokesperson for their side. I mean, how can you get somebody to defend killing children?

How can you get someone to defend lesbian rights? So they call Gloria, she is A+ in that stuffs, defending

all the wrong things. But we are friends.

MJ: Thanks you for joining us today.

SCM:Thank you, Mark, so much. Thank you. It's a pleasure.