Within hours of Justice Kennedy announcing his imminent retirement, voices on the left began announcing the imminent overturning of Roe v. Wade.

David Cole, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said, “If Donald Trump, who has promised to overturn Roe v. Wade, picks someone who is anti-choice, the future of Roe v. Wade is very much in question.”

More emphatically, Slate magazine ran a story with the headline, “The End of Roe,” declaring, “Anthony Kennedy’s retirement ensures the Supreme Court will allow states to outlaw abortion.”

And CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin tweeted, “Anthony Kennedy is retiring. Abortion will be illegal in twenty states in 18 months. #SCOTUS.”

During his appearance on CNN, he added that there was “just no doubt” that Roe v. Wade would be overturned, stating, “Roe v. Wade is doomed. It is gone because Donald Trump won the election and because he’s going to have the chance to appoint two Supreme Court justices.”

As stated succinctly in a tweet from Planned Parenthood Action, “With Kennedy retiring, the right to access abortion in this country is on the line. #SaveSCOTUS.”

May all these fears and warnings prove true! May we see Roe v. Wade overturned speedily, in our time. And may the many women who struggle with their pregnancies find new hope and learn that there are better alternatives than abortion.

Of course, it is too early to proclaim the end of Roe v. Wade. And for more than 55 million babies who have already lost their lives, this is too little, too late.

But, based on his performance to date, it is highly likely, if not almost certain, that President Trump will nominate a solid, pro-life justice. And it is then very likely that Roe v. Wade would be overturned in the years ahead.

This would be beyond historic. It would be unprecedented. It would mark the first time that the court made a radical, anti-life turn only to reverse course decades later. And it would mark a major turning point in the cultural life of our nation, since the overturning of Roe v. Wade seemed like an impossible dream for years.

Although I was almost entirely unaware of the battle for life in 1973 (I was 18 at the time and I don’t remember hearing a word about abortion in my church), older colleagues have told me how bleak things appeared at that time. They have even related that pro-lifers were more despised back than those who hold to traditional family values are today. That’s saying something!

Back in 1973, after the Roe v. Wade ruling, pro-life forces were in disarray. Yet, Nina Martin reported in the New Republic in 2014, they quickly mounted “a push for a constitutional amendment affirming that life begins at conception.”  But, she explains, “that first effort fizzled, and it’s only in recent years that a new wave of pro-life activists—many of them born after Roe and educated in fundamentalist Christian settings—have once again seized on personhood as a way not just of weakening Roe, but of overturning it. In state after state, they have been pushing to have their beliefs enshrined in policy.”

So, according to Martin, a lot of the recent success in opposing Roe v. Wade is due to the efforts of conservative Christians born after 1973. In other words, they were born after abortion on demand was considered a settled issue in America. After the battle for the unborn was apparently lost. After our side was told to throw in the towel.

But that was not the end of the story. As Austin Ruse noted, “Social conservatives point out that the number of young people opposed to abortion used to be equally bleak among the young but is now trending their way.”

What makes Ruse’s point especially poignant is that he made this comment in a short article documenting the rising acceptance of same-sex relationships among young Republicans. In light of that, he suggested that, “All this leaves open the possibility that Republican opposition to same-sex marriage may fade with time.”

That’s exactly what was expected with regard to the battle for life in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade. The die has been cast. The verdict has been rendered. The older, conservative opposition will soon die out. As for the generations that follow, abortion on demand will be the law of the land, unopposed and largely, if not universally, embraced.

And this, of course, is what we are told unceasingly with regard to same-sex “marriage,” almost word for word. Why couldn’t we see a cultural reversal there as well?

Today, we stand on the precipice of undoing the monstrous injustice of Roe v. Wade. Who’s to say we won’t live to see the reversal of Obgergefell vs. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court’s overreaching decision to redefine marriage?

It is for good reason that CNN is already writing about, “What Anthony Kennedy’s retirement means for abortion, same-sex marriage, affirmative action and the future of the Supreme Court.”

And Vox opines that “a Court without Kennedy is substantially more likely to: Overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states (and maybe the federal government too) to ban most or all abortions. . . . Rule in favor of religious challenges to anti-discrimination law, and perhaps, in an extreme case, reverse some past Supreme Court rulings on gay rights.”

All this sounds totally within reach today. And it could hinge on the next appointee to the Court. Let’s pray for God’s mercy on our nation, for the continuing turning of hearts towards life, and for righteous justices to adjudicate in our courts.

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This article was originally published at Townhall.com

The Leftist media and Islamic supremacist groups have been doing a victory dance ever since Saturday night, when Fox News issued an apology for statements made on the air by terror expert Steve Emerson and others about Muslim no-go zones in Britain and France. However, the apology doesn’t say what it has widely reported as saying – and there is considerable evidence that Muslim areas in both countries are a growing law enforcement and societal problem.

Fox Report host Julie Banderas stated:

Over the course of this last week we have made some regrettable errors on air regarding the Muslim population in Europe, particularly with regard to England and France. Now, this applies especially to discussions of so-called ‘no-go zones,’ areas where non-Muslims allegedly aren’t allowed in and police supposedly won’t go.

To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.

There are certainly areas of high crime in Europe as there are in the United States and other countries — where police and visitors enter with caution. We deeply regret the errors and apologize to any and all who may have taken offense, including the people of France and England.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s joyous headline read: “Fox News admits ‘no-go zones’ are fantasy.” The far-Left Crooks and Liars blog exulted: “Fox Pundits Finally ‘Apologize’ After A Week Of Being Mocked For ‘No Go Zones’ Claim.” More restrained but still unmistakably gleeful was the New York Times: “Fox News Apologizes for False Claims of Muslim-Only Areas in England and France.” The Leftist media has seized on Fox’s apology to declare that there are aren’t any no-go zones in France or Britain – and by extension that there is no problem with Muslim populations in Europe. NewHounds’s summation was typical: “Fox News has become the laughingstock of Europe this week as first England and then France lampooned its ignorant, Islamophobic reporting.”

The only problem with all the cork popping around Fox’s apology was that there is a problem with Muslim areas in Europe – and the Fox apology didn’t go so far as to say there wasn’t. To be sure, the controversy began with undeniably inaccurate statements from Emerson. He said on Fox on January 11 that “there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.” That is false, and Emerson has acknowledged that and apologized.

However, Emerson was not guilty of fabrication, just of overstatement. Some of the comments on a piece in the UK’s Daily Mail about his gaffe and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s reaction to it (he called Emerson a “complete idiot”) insisted that Emerson was at least partially right: “Just shows cameron doesn’t even know what is happening in this country , as the news presenter is totally correct , its a no go zone .” “There ARE some parts of Birmingham where you darent or shouldn’t go !” “Is he far off the truth? Maybe it’s not true for Birmingham as a whole but there are certain areas where it is true. Certainly it is true of certain other Towns in the UK. Bradford, Leicester, Luton spring to mind.”

Fox’s apology stated that,

“To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.”

That says as much as it says, and no more. It says that neither the British nor the French government has designated any areas to be no-go zones where non-Muslims aren’t allowed in, and that there is no evidence that non-Muslims are not allowed into any areas in either country.

But this carefully worded statement does not actually say that there aren’t areas in Britain or France in which non-Muslims are menaced for not adhering to Islamic law. That is a real and abundantly documented problem. Emerson pointed to it when he said:

“In parts of London, there are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and actually wound, seriously, anyone who doesn’t dress according to Muslim, religious Muslim attire.”

While Emerson’s implication that this was an ongoing phenomenon was false, there were indeed such Sharia enforcers in London between 2011 and 2013. In July 2011, the UK’s Daily Mail reported:

“Islamic extremists have launched a poster campaign across the UK proclaiming areas where Sharia law enforcement zones have been set up. Communities have been bombarded with the posters, which read: ‘You are entering a Sharia-controlled zone – Islamic rules enforced.’”

In December 2013, members of one of these self-styled “Muslim patrols” were imprisoned; according to the Guardian, in London they

“harassed people, berating them with shouts of ‘this is a Muslim area!’ They forced men to dump their alcoholic drinks, instructed women on the appropriate way to dress, and yelled insults at those they perceived to be gay.”

They didn’t just berate people; as Emerson said, they beat them. In YouTube videos, they threatened to do so, saying: “We are coming to implement Islam upon your own necks.” In June 2013, Muslims attacked an American who was drinking on the street, grabbing the bottle out of his hands and smashing him in the eye with it, causing permanent injury. In August 2013, according to the Daily Mail, “two brothers in law who went on a sponsored walk wearing comedy mankinis had to be picked up by police – after they were pelted with stones and eggs by residents who told them ‘this is a Muslim area’ and demanded they leave.”

A “Muslim area” – maybe even a “no-go zone.” Not in the sense that non-Muslims are barred from entering, but in that, if they do enter, they have to adhere to Sharia restrictions.

The Fox apology is all the more curious in light of the fact that others, even on the Left, have noticed the no-go zones in France before some Fox commentators began talking about them in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. David Ignatius wrote in the New York Times in April 2002:

“Arab gangs regularly vandalize synagogues here, the North African suburbs have become no-go zones at night, and the French continue to shrug their shoulders.”

Newsweek, hardly a conservative organ, reported in November 2005 that

“according to research conducted by the government’s domestic intelligence network, the Renseignements Generaux, French police would not venture without major reinforcements into some 150 ‘no-go zones’ around the country–and that was before the recent wave of riots began on Oct. 27.”

The police wouldn’t venture into these areas without major reinforcements in 2005. Does anyone really think that the situation has improved in the intervening years?

And the day after the Charlie Hebdo massacre set off Fox’s discussions of no-go zones in France, the reliably Leftist New Republic wrote:

“The word banlieue (‘suburb’) now connotes a no-go zone of high-rise slums, drug-fueled crime, failing schools and poor, largely Muslim immigrants and their angry offspring.”

So something the New York Times noted in 2002 and Newsweek in 2005, and that the New Republic reported was still a problem in January 2015, is now something that Fox News has to apologize for discussing?

Clearly there is a problem in these areas. Two of the three Charlie Hebdo murderers were born and raised in France. Where did they get their ideas about killing blasphemers? Not from French schools. They learned them in the Muslim areas where they were born and raised. What’s more, France leads the West in the number of Muslims who have traveled from there to wage jihad for the Islamic State, with well over a thousand Muslims leaving France to join the caliphate. Where did they get their understanding of Islam?

In objecting to Fox’s coverage, the French government objected to claims that these areas were outside their control and subject to Sharia, but it is obvious that whatever control they do have over these areas is not enough to prevent the indoctrination of all too many young Muslims into the jihad ideology.

There needs to be a balanced, honest public discussion of these Muslim areas in Britain and France. The controversy over what has been said on Fox in recent weeks only obscures the need for that discussion. And Fox’s apology, however carefully worded, only plays into the hands of Leftists and Islamic supremacists who have a vested interest in rendering people ignorant and complacent about the reality of what is going on in these areas.

So now would be a good time for Fox to apologize for its apology – and to devote extended attention to the Muslim areas of Britain and France, and shed light on what is really going on in them. That would be to provide a service far greater than the usual surface-scratching of television news.

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This article was originally posted at the Front Page Magazine website.