In a “Voice of the People” letter appearing in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune, JoAnn Lee Frank of Clearwater, Florida says the following:

The bill passed in Alabama banning nearly all abortions smacks of contempt and misogynistic views toward women. Why else would so many white Republican male legislators willfully rule that women carry a fetus to full term in cases of rape and incest? Even if it is their religious belief, it has no business influencing the law. The attitude of the lawmakers is not only cruel and unjust, it’s also sick and destructive. This stunning decision violates the constitutional protections guaranteed by Roe v. Wade.

How does opposition to human slaughter—including the slaughter of about 440,000 female humans annually—constitute “contempt and misogynistic views toward women”? And are the 36% of women who oppose abortion in “all or most cases” as revealed in a Pew Forum poll guilty of contempt for women and misogyny?

Frank asked why “so many white Republican male legislators willfully rule that women carry a fetus to full term in cases of rape or incest.” That’s an easy-peasy question to answer.

First, the voters in Alabama—including female voters—elected “so many white Republican male legislators.” Perhaps Alabama voters don’t discriminate based on race, skin color, or sex as Frank and so many other “progressives” do. Perhaps they judge candidates for public office by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin or their unchosen biological sex. One presumes that these white Republican male legislators are carrying out the will of their constituents, including their diversely hued female constituents.

Second, the white Republican male legislators—like humans of other colors and humans of the only other sex in our sexually dimorphic species—evidently understand the scientific fact that the product of conception between two humans is a human and that more-developed humans have no moral right to exterminate less-developed humans based on the evil actions of the biological fathers of those less-developed humans.

The decision of those lawmakers to protect the lives of humans in the womb is neither cruel, unjust, sick, nor destructive. It is the attitudes of people like Frank who have no regard for the dignity, worth, and rights of incipient human lives and who perversely call the slaughter of humans in the womb “health care” that are cruel, unjust, sick, and destructive—attitudes that result in the literal destruction of a human life.

Word to Frank: The Constitution says not one word about abortion. The Declaration of Independence does, however, say this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Another word to Frank: The right to have our religious beliefs influence political decisions and the law is guaranteed by the First Amendment. The First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a state religion. It does not prohibit citizens of faith from having their religious beliefs inform political decisions. (I would add that no “progressive” ever tells homosexuals who attend heretical churches that it is constitutionally impermissible for their religious beliefs about homosexuality to influence law or public policy.)

Perhaps Frank doesn’t know that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said this in his Letter from Birmingham Jail:

How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God.

To “progressives,” the idea of a separation of church and state no longer points to the importance of protecting religious freedom from the intrusive power of the state but instead refers to coercively eradicating religious expression from the public square. Only secular worldviews, which are shaped by myopic, dogmatic, unproved assumptions, will be tolerated—you know, the kind of assumptions that secularists argue religious worldviews represent.

Such a distortion of the idea of a separation of church and state poses a danger not just to people of faith but to the welfare of the nation. Can anyone look honestly at the state of the culture and reasonably argue that American society has benefited from six decades of divestment of religious influence from the culture?

People from diverse faith traditions and no faith could all arrive at the same position on a particular public policy. For example, although Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Baptists, and atheists may all oppose abortion because they value human life, the reasons for that valuation of life differ.

If there is a secular purpose for the law (e.g., to protect incipient human life), then voting for it does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The source of the various parties’ desires to protect incipient life is no business of the government. It would be not only absurd but also unethical for the government to try to ascertain the motives and beliefs behind anyone’s opposition to abortion and equally unethical for the government to assert that only those who have no religious faith may vote to oppose abortion. Such an assertion would most assuredly violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

Moreover, lawmaking absent an understanding that there exist moral truths that are objective and universal would represent an illegitimate and hubristic arrogation of power. Acknowledging that there is objective truth regarding what is right and wrong and that it is universal and knowable is essential to democratic institutions. What sense does outrage at human rights violations make if we assert there are no universal, transcendent, eternal, objective truths? And if we agree that these truths exist, that they transcend the subjective opinions of any particular individual, then what is their source other than a supernatural, eternal, transcendent being?

I guess JoAnn Lee Frank believes the exercise of raw governmental power and control over the lives of its citizens absent any acknowledgment of objective moral truth is a good thing. Others tremble at such an idea.

Like Leftists around the country, Leftists in Springfield are apoplectic that pro-life Americans are finally making some real progress in protecting babies in the womb. Rumors are circulating that anti-life lawmakers in Springfield are gearing up to push their bills very soon. Please speak out now against their efforts to make human slaughter even easier in Illinois.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your state senator, state representative, and to Gov. Pritzker. Urge them to stop targeting innocent pre-born children and vulnerable women in Illinois. Ask your state senator, state representative, and Gov. Pritzker to oppose all anti-life legislation.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Letter-Exposes-Bigoted-Anti-Liberty-and-Anti-Life-Attitudes-of-Leftists_audio.mp3

Last month a leading American research company abandoned the world’s first clinical stem cell pilot program. Officials claim money troubles have forced the first company doing a government-approved test of embryonic stem cell therapy to discontinue further human stem cell programs and lay off much of its staff. Nov. 14 Geron Corp., the world’s leading embryo research company, announced it is eliminating 66 full-time jobs, or 38 percent of its staff.

The Menlo Park, California-based company blamed the pull out on the high costs and bureaucracy of stem cell research and ‘uncertain economic conditions’. Some never believed the treatment really was actually going to produce the marvels promised.

“We are encouraged that neither voters nor investors think research that destroys human embryos is worth funding,” said David E. Smith Executive Director of the Illinois Family Institute, “and hope that companies will turn their energies to the much more productive field of adult stem cell research and therapy.”

New Jersey voters overwhelmingly turned down a ballot initiative to fund human embryonic stem-cell research on the taxpayer’s dime. In 2007 voters in the Granite State rejected borrowing $450 million to pay for stem cell research grants in the state for 10 years. The last time New Jersey voters defeated a statewide ballot question was 1990.

“Deciding to move out of the stem cell business was a very difficult decision to make,” said chief executive Dr. John A. Scarlett.

Illinois Family Institute (IFI) says it has long opposed the research on and the cloning of human embryos for the purposes of research since a life is destroyed in the process. In addition, IFI has trumpeted the many advances made through adult stem cell research and called on researchers and scientists to continue their work in finding an alternative to using human embryos.

“The news from Geron Corp. demonstrates that human embryonic stem cell research has failed to produce the medical miracles promised by proponents,” said IFI executive director David E. Smith. “If taxpayers are going to be forced to pay for research, it should be research that is not only ethical but also successful. While much of the rest of the world has rejected human embryonic stem cell research as a hopeless waste of money, in the United States our politicians continue to try to raid the empty public trough to prop up failing research. It’s another bailout that simply must stop.”

Geron officials note the company is working to find partners to take over its stem cell research and focus more of its energies into cancer research.

“Geron ‘s decision to abandoned embryonic stem cell research is just another example of what pro-life and pro-family organizations have been saying for years — there are no benefits to patients with human embryonic stem cell research,” said Ralph Rivera, IFI lobbyist and longtime pro-life advocate. “If venture capitalists were convinced that they could make money doing human embryonic research, there would be many billions of their dollars invested. Only one or two have been ‘fooled’ into thinking this was a good investment. That is why so-called “researchers” have sought to ‘fool’ States like Illinois into giving our tax dollars for embryonic stem cell research.”

IFI will continue to oppose human embryonic stem cell research and taxpayer funding of this research while pointing to the success ofadult stem cell research.