In an alarming May 24, 2020 article titled “Scoop: Inside the Secret Talks to Overhaul the GOP Platform,” published by Axios, political reporter Jonathan Swan exposed the behind-the-scenes efforts of the socially liberal son-in-law of President Trump, Jared Kushner, to change the GOP platform so that it reflects Democrat views. While the radical overhaul of the GOP platform—and, therefore, the GOP—is the brainless-child of Kushner, the nitty gritty of the subversive project has been assigned to Bill Stepien, second in command for Trump’s re-election campaign, just under Brad Parscale.

According to Swan, Kushner has been working on this secret “radical overhaul” of the GOP platform with Trump’s campaign officials for the past six months. This radical overhaul includes reducing the size of the platform from 58 pages to 1 page, a perhaps Herculean task but otherwise untroubling. Who doesn’t like brevity?

No, it’s not Kushner’s desire to reduce the platform’s size that should concern conservatives. It’s what he seeks to eliminate that should raise the antennae and hackles of conservatives. I bet those with culturally sensitive antennae have already guessed what socially “progressive” Kushner wants to jettison.

But before we get to that, let’s take a moment to reflect on another subversive project of Kushner’s: criminal justice reform. Daniel Horowitz more accurately refers to it as “federal jailbreak legislation,” and he places Kushner at the center of the effort to set criminals loose in our communities. Remember Kushner’s role in this as you watch thugs loot and burn down American cities.

Swan reports that in a December 2019 meeting, Kushner told his band of revolutionaries—that is, both “senior White House and campaign staff”—that  “more of their policies should be drawing people to the party, so they ought to eliminate alienating language.” So far, so good. The GOP should aim for non-alienating language in its platform.

Ah, but there’s the rub. Kushner doesn’t mean profane, obscene, harsh, boorish, or hateful language. He means language that expresses principles, values, beliefs, or assumptions regarding sexuality that “progressive” Americans hate.

Swan makes clear Kushner’s intent:

As an example of language that would alienate voters, Kushner said that he didn’t want to see anything about “gay conversion therapy” in the 2020 Republican platform. The 2016 Republican platform did not explicitly mention gay conversion therapy, but it included this line: “We support the right of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children.” Gay Republicans were furious because they viewed it, accurately, as a coded endorsement for the widely condemned practice that’s rejected by major medical associations and whose use on minors is banned in many states and some other countries.

Can’t have any “language” that infuriates “gay Republicans” now, can we. According to Kushner, their fury dictates Republican policy.

Space does not permit a discussion here of what is either ignorantly or deceitfully identified as “gay conversion therapy” in order to ban all forms of counseling to help those who experience unchosen, unwanted homoerotic attraction. That will have to wait for another day.

What’s most important to note is that Kushner wants to eliminate language that supports the right of parents to decide what kind of therapy or treatment their same-sex attracted or gender-dysphoric children receive. This should trouble every parent who believes they—not the state or leftist-controlled medical and mental health organizations that have abandoned both common sense and science—know what’s best for their own children.

Let’s hope the presumptuous, unelected Kushner doesn’t pursue a secret project to eliminate other “alienating language,” because there is a boatload of alienating language in the GOP platform.

You know what else alienates and infuriates homosexual RINOs? This language in the GOP platform really chaps their hide:

Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values. We condemn the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Windsor, which wrongly removed the ability of Congress to define marriage policy in federal law. We also condemn the Supreme Court’s lawless ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which in the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, was a ‘judicial Putsch.’

You know what alienates Americans who cheer abortion? They’re alienated by this language from the GOP platform:

we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed. … We oppose the use of public funds to perform or promote abortion or to fund organizations, like Planned Parenthood, so long as they provide or refer for elective abortions or sell fetal body parts rather than provide healthcare.

You know what alienates those who believe the U.S. Constitution is an infinitely flexible document with no fixed meaning or who think it’s hopelessly outdated? This language in the GOP Platform alienates them:

the Constitution was written not as a flexible document, but as our enduring covenant.

You know what alienates those who support “progressive” judicial activism? This language in the GOP platform alienates them:

A critical threat to our country’s constitutional order is an activist judiciary that usurps powers properly reserved to the people through other branches of government. Only a Republican president will appoint judges who respect the rule of law expressed within the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including the inalienable right to life and the laws of nature and nature’s God.

You know what alienates Americans who think the world is ending in 12 years? They’re alienated by this language in the GOP platform:

The Democratic Party’s campaign to smother the U.S. energy industry takes many forms, but the permitting process may be its most damaging weapon. … We support the development of all forms of energy that are marketable in a free economy without subsidies, including coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and hydropower.

You know what alienates those who want universal healthcare? They’re alienated by this language in the GOP platform:

Any honest agenda for improving healthcare must start with repeal of the dishonestly named Affordable Care Act of 2010: Obamacare.

You know what alienates those who favor open borders? They’re alienated by this language in the GOP platform:

Illegal immigration endangers everyone, exploits the taxpayers, and insults all who aspire to enter America legally. We oppose any form of amnesty for those who, by breaking the law, have disadvantaged those who have obeyed it.

Kushner doesn’t really seek to “eliminate alienating language.” He seeks to eliminate language that reflects assumptions, beliefs, values, and principles that he opposes. If he agrees with the assumptions, beliefs, values, and principles reflected in the GOP platform, he’s A-OK with “alienating language.”

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact the Republican National Committee to urge them to protect the 2016 GOP platform from liberal activists. There is no need to radically redevelop the GOP platform. Keeping the strong planks for the sanctity of human life, traditional marriage and family are nonnegotiable.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Jared-Kushner-The-Wolf-in-Sheeps-Clothing-Hovering-Too-Near-Trump.mp3

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Late last month we sent email alerts to churches and pastors to let them know that we were organizing lawsuits to challenge Gov. J.B. Pritzker‘s illegal “shelter-at home” Executive Orders, and invite them to join us in making a case against his abuse of authority.

Big box stores, Planned Parenthood clinics, “medical” marijuana dispensaries and liquor stores are considered “essential” by the governor, while church services have been banned. This sets a dangerous precedent. The First Amendment specifically protects our religious liberties from tyrannical government forces. It doesn’t take much foresight to realize how similar future orders could be mandated and extended in the name of “safety.”

In response to our email, we received replies from 24 interested churches across the state. We’ve been able to match up 7 churches with local Christian attorneys who will file their complaints, hopefully this week, in circuit courts in Lake County, Grundy County, Montgomery County, Winnebago County and Madison County.

We are still looking for other attorneys to help represent churches in 9 other counties. Therefore, we covet your prayers for these items and more at this time.

Please Pray:

• That the cases that have been or will be filed would find the presiding judge to be sympathetic and responsive to the complaints presented on behalf of pastors/churches.

• That the attorneys would be winsome and persuasive in presenting the cases and answering questions.

• That the judges hearing the cases would clearly see how Gov. Pritzker’s orders violated state law and Illinois Christian citizens’ constitutionally protected civil rights.

• That additional attorneys would come forward to offer their legal assistance to churches not yet represented.

Pray for the Trump Administration:

• That God would bless President Donald Trump, Mike Pence, the president’s Cabinet and his close advisors with wisdom and discernment in every situation.

• That they will recognize how dependent they are on almighty God in administering their duties for the American people.

• That God would show President Trump’s medical team how to wind down COVID-19 restrictions and Trump’s economic team how to reboot the American job market.

• That God would use President Trump to safeguard and even advance religious liberty in the United States and around the world.

• That God would show President Trump how to deal with our adversaries: China, North Korea, Russia and Iran.

Pray for the Church:

• That as God shakes the world with this COVID-19 pandemic, families would run to God as their fortress and high tower. Pray that our friends, neighbors and relatives would cling to Him instead of inadequate worldly solutions.

• That God would convict the church of areas were we have failed or fallen short. Pray that the church would recognize and become resolved to heed God’s call to repent and reform.

• That God would bring a third great awakening in America, which can only come after true repentance. May God use His remnant of faithful servant leaders and followers to advance His Kingdom. May His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

• That God would raise up rigorous gospel-minded leaders who will boldly proclaim the truth and seek to advance God’s will on earth.

Pray for Families:

• That God would instill in us a desire to serve and bless others within our own local church and in our communities. Pray that families would work together to be the hands and feet of Jesus to meet physical and spiritual needs of their neighbors.

• That God would continue to turn the hearts of fathers to their children. Pray that every father realizes they are the pastors of their own households, and it is their responsibility to point their children to God and His Word as often as possible, to impress upon them God’s perfect precepts and commandments, and to testify to His amazing work in our lives.

• That God would help mothers realize the sway they have in their children’s lives and use it to edify and equip their children to be godly and productive citizens who love and follow the God of the Holy Bible. We know how much influence mothers have in the lives of their children. The old adage tells us that the hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world.

• That God would inspire and encourage grandparents to be the mortar in the bricks of their children’s families, filling in gaps and helping to cement bricks together. Pray that God would give them a vision for their role in the training of their children and wisdom on how to instill a Biblical worldview.

• That God would have mercy on those who are considering abortion. Pray that He would convict the hearts of mothers to choose life for their babies. Pray that God would provide a strong and visible support system for these women.

Miscellaneous Prayer Requests:

• Pray for the Illinois Christian Home Educator’s free online conference that starts today. Pray that Christian families abandon government schools and explore home education as a much better way to instruct, equip and train their children to thrive as independent and productive adults.

• Pray for the General Election and for godly candidates who must find ways to get their campaign messages out during this time of social distancing. Pray that a large wave of pro-life/pro-family candidates would be triumphant in November at the state level as well as on the federal level.

• Pray that the federal government’s investigation into political corruption in Illinois would root out self-serving wicked incumbents and government employees.

• Pray for the financial demise of Planned Parenthood International. Pray specifically against their new abortion mills in Flossmoor, Fairview Heights and now Waukegan. Pray that more and more abortion employees would see abortion for what it truly is and quit. Pray that they cannot fill these positions and are forced to shut down.

• Finally, pray that God will draw more and more people to Himself during this time of uncertainty. Pray that He would use our families to spread the light of the Gospel.

The works of His hands are truth and justice;
All His precepts are sure.
They are upheld forever and ever;
They are performed in truth and uprightness.
He has sent redemption to His people;
He has ordained His covenant forever;
Holy and awesome is His name.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
A good understanding have all those who do His commandments;
His praise endures forever.
(Psalm 111:7-10)

We take very seriously the trust you place in Illinois Family Institute when you send a gift.
We understand that we are accountable before you and God to honor your trust. 

IFI is supported by voluntary donations from good people like you.

What happens when people live in an abortion-complacent culture? Hold that thought; we’ll return to it shortly.

Nanfu Wang was born in China in 1985, six years after China instituted its one-child policy. The Chinese were told that if they averaged three children per family, there would be starvation by the middle of the next century, but if families limited themselves to only one child, their standard of living would double. The government used wall-to-wall propaganda to promote this message, and where messaging failed, it levied fines, destroyed property, or imposed forced abortions and sterilization to enforce it. It was put to the people as a “population war.” These measures, it was said, were necessary to prevent mass death in the future.

Nanfu never gave much thought to it all until she became a mother in 2017. She could hardly bear being separated from her newborn son. What was it like for people living under the one-child policy? By this time, she had moved to New York City and established herself as a filmmaker, so she did what any intellectually honest journalist might do–she started asking questions and chronicling the quest on camera.

She returned to China with her son in tow. The one-child restriction had been lifted in 2015, so presumably people were free to speak openly about it. She talked mostly with family members and hometown officials. Surprisingly, none of them were critical of it, though some (not all) who were charged with carrying it out did appear to feel troubled morally.

She documented her journey in One Child Nation, which has been shortlisted for the 2020 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature (but censored in China). It’s worth watching for the way it demonstrates several things: (1) the creepiness of the incessant propaganda that is part of the Chinese people’s daily life and how most of them seem to accept it, (2) people’s insidious, servile submission to government authority in violation of their own consciences, and (3) which I want to focus on here, the callous indifference toward human life that manifests itself in seemingly “nice” people among whom abortion is commonplace. Here are two examples:

• Chinese men and women tend to favor sons over daughters (if feminists care about real sexism, they should start overseas, but I digress). Nanfu’s mother recounted how she helped her younger brother abandon his infant daughter in the market so he could try again for a son. The baby girl remained there, getting eaten up by mosquitos, for two days until she died. Nanfu’s mother, a kindergarten teacher, related the incident nonchalantly, as if she were merely talking about yesterday’s shopping outing.

• Shuqin Jiang, a highly decorated family planning official, said that early in her career, she thought forcing abortions was an atrocity. But she got used to it. Many of the fetuses were eight or nine months along, she said, still alive when she aborted them. She talked about this affably, chuckling at one point when she recalled a pregnant mother who tried (unsuccessfully) to run away from an abortion naked. She affirmed the whole agenda as “absolutely correct–our leaders were prophetic. If not for this policy, our country would have perished.”

In all her interviews, Nanfu lets people speak for themselves, rarely pressing anyone to reflect on the horror of what they’re actually saying. In the end, she appears as confused and conflicted as at the beginning–as if she knows something was very wrong about it all, but can’t quite put her finger on what.

Okay, you might be thinking, those are matters for the Chinese to sort out. What do they have to do with us in America? I’m glad you asked. Consider the following, and see if you can spot some parallels:

• Ann McElhinney, who wrote a journalistic account of Kermit Gosnell’s crimes and trial and co-produced the movie, Gosnell, wrote about being especially disturbed at “the banality of evil” inside Gosnell’s clinic. For thirty years, seemingly “nice” people went about their daily work in a building where dead baby bodies literally cluttered up most every room. At the end of a day, there might be “bonuses” to be had (late-term abortions paid more), so they might go out for celebratory drinks afterward, like waitresses in a restaurant pooling their tips after a lucrative shift.

• Abby Johnson spoke similarly of the social atmosphere in the Texas Planned Parenthood clinic she directed. Jokes would be cracked, and camaraderie prevailed as it might in any ordinary office environment – all while sanitized killing took place under the same roof.

Surely you see the similarities. Abortion, since it is so egregious and deeply personal, seems to be especially damaging to people’s moral sensibilities. Where it is welcomed, it works a kind of dehumanizing moral erosion in those who welcome it.

The difference between abortion in China and America is noteworthy too. In China, its prevalence was national and imposed by government fiat. In America, it’s balkanizing–some states are pushing it out, others welcoming it in. You may have seen that Planned Parenthood just opened, stealthily (again!), another center in Illinois, accelerating Illinois’s race for the title of abortion capital of the Midwest. This is not at all to say that pro-life Illinois residents are culpable for abortions in their state–I am not saying that. What I am suggesting is that its clear and present spread will inevitably have effects.

Like cancer, sin is progressive and always degenerative. For that reason, if you live in one of the abortion magnet states, your pro-life presence may become harder to live out. But it is needed and has great potential as well. Abby Johnson said that the peaceful presence of people praying outside her clinic was extremely disturbing for the staff inside. She now knows (and is thankful for it in hindsight) that it’s disturbing because it rattles those complacent consciences that, for their own benefit, need to be rattled. More important, she said, when people are outside praying, the no-show rate for abortion appointments can go as high as 75 percent. (40 Days for Life is huge!)

So, I hope you’ll take courage, pro-life friends, and not grow weary in your well-doing. Ann, Abby, and Nanfu were all at one time either complacent or complicit in abortion. Ann and Abby are complacent no more, and it appears Nanfu is moving in the same direction. Each of their three films, One Child Nation, Gosnell, and Unplanned, presents a gripping portrayal of what abortion is and the effects it can have where it is tolerated. If you have the opportunity, share them with your friends or family who might be sitting on the fence regarding abortion. Whether or not they ever thank you for it, you will have at least dropped a stake in a certain piece of moral ground for the cause of life.

We take very seriously the trust you place in Illinois Family Institute when you send a gift.
We understand that we are accountable before you and God to honor your trust. 

IFI is supported by voluntary donations from good people like you.

Written by Jerry Newcombe

Dr. Richard Land once called our country, “the divided states of America.” How apt — especially when we survey the various responses to the coronavirus. They are lessons in liberty and lessons in tyranny.

To paraphrase what a friend of mine wrote me recently, “We have 50 real-world government examples of liberty or tyranny — 50 real-time experiments in whether state governments moved towards liberty (as in Texas and South Dakota) or absolute control (as in California, Michigan and New York).” As a resident, I would add: Florida’s leadership is doing a great job.

Churches Closed, Planned Parenthood Open

Nowhere can this contrast be better seen than in how the state authorities deal with churches versus how they deal with abortion, ordering churches closed while deeming Planned Parenthood and other abortionists “essential services.”

How fitting. In her classic book, Godless, Ann Coulter postulates that abortion is the left’s “sacrament.” The sacraments of the church are out. The left’s new sacrament is in. The most pro-abortion leaders are the ones who are most cracking down on real constitutional freedoms in their states. If a politician gets abortion wrong, they tend to get everything else wrong too.

This anti-religious spirit at work is exceedingly ironic because America was born as a religious nation. In the Mayflower Compact, the Pilgrims explained their reason for coming: “For the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.”

Our First Amendment declares our first freedom — freedom of religion. The founders stipulated there would be no national denomination and there would be no prohibition on the “free exercise” of religion. They didn’t add, “except in times of pestilence.”

“No Pandemic Exception to the Bill of Rights”

Indeed, Attorney General William Barr sides with the churches (following social distancing guidelines, etc.) in this conflict. He said, “There is no pandemic exception to the Constitution and its Bill of Rights.”

But many of the left today have used the pandemic crisis to try and shut down a lot of religious services:

• The mayor of Kansas City, Missouri was demanding that churches hand over a list of anyone who attended any of their services. When Mat Staver and Liberty Counsel threatened to sue, the city backed down.

• The governor of Illinois postulated that church services may need to be banned for a year. This is the same governor who prohibited residents in his state from traveling — while apparently his wife vacationed in Florida.

• Overzealous administrators have sought to ban churches even from holding “drive-in” church services, which follow the mandates to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

If your church parking lot permits, holding a drive-in service is a clever way to worship the Lord together. Usually, the pastor would preach to the congregation in their cars though a low frequency on the FM dial in such services.

“A Lesson to Governors”

But even in the Bible belt, such as in Kentucky and Mississippi, some overzealous administrators have tried to shut such services down. First Liberty Institute has threatened lawsuits, and the cities have relented.

The Wall Street Journal had an editorial entitled, “Caesar, God and the Lockdowns,” in which they note, “A federal court ruling on religious liberty is a lesson to governors.”

The editorial talks about Maryville Baptist Church in Louisville, which held a modest Easter service — with some worshipers inside and others in the parking lot, hearing the service through a loudspeaker.

To harass the worshipers, notes the WSJ, “The police took down license-plate numbers. The church sued.”

A panel on the Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of the church: “It’s not always easy to decide what is Caesar’s and what is God’s — and that’s assuredly true in the context of a pandemic. … Why is it safe to wait in a car for a liquor store to open but dangerous to wait in a car to hear morning prayers?”

The Left-Right Divide in Leadership

A new report out of Chicago over the weekend shows the lengths to which the anti-God forces will go. Wirepoints observes that the mayor sought to punish a church, Philadelphia Romanian Church, to prevent it from holding services. They stated, “On Sunday morning the tow trucks descended — not just on churchgoers, but on residents and everybody else, and on a private lot used by parishioners.”

The pastor of the church said, “The mayor is inciting hate against the church which is very sad. A lot of our members risked their lives to escape Communism, only to find it germinating in 2020 under Mayor Lightfoot in Chicago.” Lori Lightfoot is so committed to abortion rights, she helped drive out of office one of the last Democrat, pro-life U. S. Congressmen.

Wirepoints adds, “It should also be a clarion call to the churches across the city as to how far the left will go to crush the faithful of all denominations.”

Freedom-loving Americans can look at a map of the country and see how those on the left versus those on the right are delicately handling the crisis. The abortion-loving, church-hating politicians stand in great contrast with their freedom-loving counterparts in the red states.

Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is a senior producer and an on-air host for D. James Kennedy Ministries. He has written or co-written 32 books, such as The Unstoppable Jesus Christ, American Amnesia: Is American Paying the Price for Forgetting God?, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (with D. James Kennedy) and the bestseller, George Washington’s Sacred Fire (with Peter Lillback). Learn more at jerrynewcombe.com and follow him on Twitter @newcombejerry.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Planned Parenthood opened a new clinic in Waukegan, its 19^th in Illinois. Like its predecessor in Fairview Heights which opened last October, it was built in secret. The clinic, called The Waukegan Health Center, is located within a 1.5-mile radius of a middle and a high school.

Bonnie Quirke, president of Lake County Right to Life, learned of the clinic’s opening when, “I read an article in our local paper. The surprise was the stealth nature of it.”

“We knew it was coming, especially after the passage of last year’s Reproductive Health Act,” she shared. “Still, it was devastating.” The Reproductive Health Act, which allowed abortions throughout a woman’s pregnancy, was signed into law by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker in June 2019.

The Pro-Life Action League has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out more information about how the clinic was built.

Waukegan, located in Lake County, has the third largest population in the state of Illinois. It also has the fifth highest rate of uninsured residents, a growing number of which have tested positive for STDs, which Planned Parenthood cites as part of its rationale for placing a clinic in the city. Quirke noted, “The county health department is located not too far from the clinic. They do HIV and other testing, which is paid for with our tax dollars, therefore, free to the public.” That would make the clinic’s services a duplication of those offered by the county.

According to the media release from Planned Parenthood of Illinois, the clinic was originally scheduled to open in March, but was delayed due to the pandemic. While the release doesn’t mention surgical abortion services, it does list chemical abortions as one of the services it provides. However, when Quirke called the center, she was told the chemical abortion information was correct, only then to be informed that surgical abortions were going to be offered as well.

The new clinic has two procedure rooms, five exam rooms, plus a conference room and administrative space. The presence of the two procedure rooms gives further evidence surgical abortions will be performed.

Quirke went by the location, noticing the new landscaping with multiple fir trees, but the public sidewalks have been “torn up from around the building.” The center is located in a remodeled bank building and has 100 parking spaces. With so many parking spaces, trees, and removal of sidewalks, Planned Parenthood has removed the visibility of people entering and exiting the center. In addition, they’ve taken away legal public access for pro-life advocates to protest abortion and to counsel women.

In the release, Planned Parenthood lamented the prior lack of nearby abortion facilities, however Quirke pointed out there is clinic in nearby Kenosha, Wisconsin, just 20 minutes away. Including Waukegan, there are now 11 clinics in the greater Chicagoland area. The Planned Parenthood website states it has 18 clinics in Illinois, however, it does not list the Fairview Heights clinic which opened in Oct. 2019, making the count 19.

“Social problems are never solved by killing, they’re only exacerbated.” said Quirke. “The community should be outraged on all levels, including the spiritual level.”

She urged churches and church members to act. “Girls need to know there are other things we can provide. We have given up our religious rights, we have allowed abortion rights, and we have remained silent. We have to mobilize.”

Take ACTION: Quirke invited pro-life advocates to, “Come out and witness on Friday, May 22, at noon in front of the clinic.” Waukegan is a COVID-19 hotspot and proper social distancing is expected. Attendees should wear masks and stand at least 6 feet apart. The clinic is located at 1601 N Lewis Avenue in Waukegan. Click HERE for more information.

To learn more: Visit the Lake County Right to Life website, e-mail lakectyrtl@sbcglobal.net or call (847) 223-7022.

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There’s nothing quite like a crisis to bring out the best in people. There’s also nothing quite like a crisis to bring out the worst in people. Case in point, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer’s idiotic defense of prohibiting doctors from performing “non-essential” surgical procedures, including joint replacements, while allowing doctors to continue to perform freely chosen, that is, elective abortions.

Before discussing Whitmer’s idiotic statement, let’s remember that abortion—i.e., the deliberate killing of a human prior to his or her delivery—is never necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman. While there are emergencies that require a pregnancy to be terminated to save the life of a mother, terminating a pregnancy never requires the prior and intentional killing of her baby—also known as human slaughter. To be clear, a pregnancy can be terminated via a Caesarean section, which does not involve the direct killing of a baby. Sometimes the emergency delivery of a baby prior to full gestation will result in its death, but such a death is not an abortion. Therefore, abortion is never necessary to save a mother’s life, and if it’s never necessary to save a woman’s life, abortion is by definition non-essential.

Governor Whitmer begs to differ, arguing irrationally the following after being asked about her pandemic regulations regarding abortion:

We stopped elective surgeries here in Michigan. Some people have tried to say that that type of a procedure is considered the same and that’s ridiculous. A woman’s health care, her whole future, her ability to decide if and when she starts a family is not an election, it is fundamental to her life. It is life sustaining and it’s something that government should not be getting in the middle of.

Whitmer, like so many other leftists, can’t even bring herself to say “abortion” (let alone the more fitting term “feticide”). Instead, she uses the cumbersome euphemism “that type of procedure.” Whitmer’s statement, dripping with irony that was apparently lost on the witless Whitmer, refers to the intentional slaughter of the unborn as a “life-sustaining” procedure.

Still avoiding the term “abortion,” Whitmer employs the strategically useful go-to term of cultural regressives everywhere: “woman’s health care.” Someone should ask Whitmer how the slaughter by abortion of 431,000 little women every year in the U.S. alone constitutes “health care” for those females.

While deciding whether or not to allow a human in the womb to continue to live may affect a woman’s “future,” affecting one’s future does not make a procedure essential. Nor does deciding “if and when” to start a family make a medical decision “essential.” In describing the “procedure” of feticide as deciding “if and when” to start a family,” Whitmer inadvertently reveals that feticide is, indeed, elective, and if it’s elective, it’s non-essential.

Whitmer must believe the entire country just fell off the turnip truck if she expects anyone to believe that joint replacements to end daily and often excruciating pain and disability are elective and must cease during the pandemic while freely chosen abortion—a procedure that leftists call “pro-choice”—is non-elective and essential.

And she must believe all Michiganders are dupes when she says government should not be “getting in the middle of” health care decisions as she—the government—gets in the middle of health care decisions.

Whitmer tweeted a photo of herself wearing a pink hat that says in all caps, “PLANNED PARENTHOOD MAKES AMERICA GREAT,” accompanied by her words “The future is bright… and pink!” That photo encapsulates the depraved “progressive” vision of a “great” America. For “progressives,” slaughtering the unborn at any point from conception to birth for any or no reason and forcing taxpayers to subsidize this elective, non-essential human slaughter makes America great.

Whitmer’s hubris and  incompetence extend beyond her “getting in the middle of health care” by designating the practice of women freely hiring “doctors” to kill their offspring “health care.”  She also banned  “lawn and landscaping services, motor boating and golf. Large stores can’t sell paint, furniture or garden equipment. People aren’t allowed to travel between residences, which blocks them from visiting second homes and hunting cabins.” In so doing, Whitmer provided yet more evidence that regressives lack both moral compasses and an ability to think coherently. We should have learned through history that leaders who lack both morality and rationality use the exercise of raw power to achieve their destructive ends.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Leftists-Say-Freely-Choosing-Feticide-Is-Now-Non-Elective.mp3

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As the Coronavirus pandemic wears on, government officials have shut down schools and businesses while stressing social distancing. The work continues to get personal protective equipment (PPE) into the hands of medical personnel with even elective surgeries canceled for the foreseeable future. However, the pandemic hasn’t slowed down the abortion industry. Several states have tried to close abortion clinics, calling the procedure an elective surgery that would take up medical resources, and Planned Parenthood has fought back in the courts to keep their doors open.

Only the state of Texas placed an outright ban on abortions as elective surgeries until the end of the pandemic. On April 7, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ban that Texas governor Greg Abbott put in place categorizing an abortion as an elective surgery. Planned Parenthood has petitioned the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Other states that have deemed abortions to be elective surgeries are Alaska, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Ohio, and Oklahoma. The Oklahoma ban was blocked in court April 6.

In an April 3 letter to supporters, Jennifer Welch, president & CEO of Planned Parenthood of Illinois (PPIL), shared, “To best serve our patients during this crisis, we have temporarily consolidated into six ‘Mission Health Centers’ to provide essential services including medical and in-clinic abortion care.” The six centers are located in Aurora, Flossmoor, Peoria, Springfield, and two in Chicago. However, eyewitnesses have noted that the Planned Parenthood in Fairview Heights has continued to receive patients.

National Planned Parenthood as well as PPIL have also continued to fund-raise heavily during the pandemic. In an apparent reference to the states that that don’t consider abortions essential medical procedures, Welch wrote, “We are also taking action against those who attempt to use the pandemic as an excuse to restrict health care for millions of people across the country.”

Abortions continue in Metro East area

In Illinois, the abortion industry is still going strong. The 18,000-square-foot Planned Parenthood abortion clinic built in secrecy in Fairview Heights and just 13 miles away from downtown St. Louis, Mo., has been a source of controversy since it opened in October 2019.

Angela Michael is a pro-life activist and head of Small Victories Pregnancy Outreach. Michael, a former obstetrical nurse, protests regularly outside the clinic in Fairview Heights and a nearby clinic in Granite City, called Hope Clinic. The latter is a privately-owned women’s health clinic that mainly provides abortions and sits across the street from the city’s only hospital.

Hope Clinic tweeted Governor JB Pritzker to complain about, and called the local police to disband, a group of protestors outside the clinic March 27. The group consisted of Michael and three others. Four police officers arrived, and Michael shared in a Facebook message that, perhaps upon seeing the body camera she was wearing, they told the pro-life advocates to “Have a nice day.”

Michael publishes eyewitness accounts from the two clinics almost daily to the Small Victories Pregnancy Outreach Facebook page. She has been noting the large groups of people entering the clinics, failing to practice social distancing, and cars traveling there from as far away as Colorado.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, there were 40 facilities providing abortions in Illinois in 2017, and 25 of those were abortion clinics.

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Written by Patricia Mosley

As part of their COVID-19 response, the U.K. initially approved new measures to allow women to take the complete abortion pill regimen at home. Now, it appears that this measure has been reversed. The reasoning given was, “This was published in error. There will be no changes to abortion regulations.”

The abortion pill is a two-drug regimen that is basically a do-it-yourself method anyways, but normally, the woman would have some type of interaction with a physician by taking the first pill (mifepristone) under their supervision at the clinic and then going home to take the second drug (misoprostol) 24-48 hours later.

Because the U.K. considers abortion an “essential service” amid the pandemic, their response was to completely place the burden of abortion on women. These women would have been popping both pills at home with no physician oversight.

But this is what the abortion industry all over the world has been calling for even before the current pandemic—for abortions to be unrestricted, unregulated, and do-it-yourself. Gone are the days when they were calling for “safe, legal, and rare” to protect against desperate women performing their own “back-alley” abortions. Now abortion pills are the new back-alley method, credentialed by the world’s most prestigious medical institutions.

Because the U.S. has FDA restrictions (REMs) on the abortion pill (U.S. brand “Mifeprex”), it cannot be a “complete” DIY method, but either way, restrictions or no restrictions, the abortion pill method is set up to be an at-home, multi-day, traumatic process that comes with the risk of serious complications.

Chemical abortions carry four times the rate of complications compared to surgical abortions. The two side effects observed to be more prevalent during chemical abortions than surgical abortions were hemorrhage and incomplete abortion. An incomplete abortion means there needed to be surgical intervention to extract any remaining parts of the unborn child from the woman’s uterus. Prolonged hemorrhage requiring blood transfusion can occur. It’s already been reported to the FDA that over 500 blood transfusions, over a thousand hospitalizations, and 24 deaths took place as result of Mifeprex. And that is just what’s been reported.

Fortunately right now, the U.S. has strong pro-life leadership from the top down, so at a national level it’s unlikely that we will see abortion be declared an “essential service” at a time like this. However, that will not stop the abortion industry from demanding that it should be. Some states have already deemed abortion “essential.”

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and their allies have already put out a statement complaining that abortions are being left out of essential health care services that need to remain open at this time. Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio is at war with the state Attorney General and Health Department as they continue to perform abortions even though they have been directly ordered not to.

Planned Parenthood claims they can still achieve the goal of conserving medical resources for essential health care personnel combatting COVID-19 by remaining open. How would they do this? They didn’t explain.

It doesn’t take a lot of time to deduce that the abortion industry is likely dispensing abortion pills to pregnant women who are past the FDA-approved gestational age limit of 10 weeks. The abortion industry has already been experimenting with performing abortions past 13 weeks on vulnerable women in Burkina Faso, Columbia, and Mexico.

Even the once abortion-neutral humanitarian aid group Doctors Without Borders (DWB), with the approval of the World Health Organization, has instructional guidelines on how women can perform their own drug-based abortion up to 22 weeks!

Although they claim these instructional videos are for training their medical workers, they acknowledge that they expect women to go to the site in order to learn how to induce their own abortions.

The fact that chemical abortions already carry significant complications and that the rate of those complications only increase as the gestational age of the pregnancy increases shows that Doctors Without Borders are bordering on medical malpractice.

The complications that can arise from taking the abortion pill place women in life-threatening situations that may require follow-up visits to the abortion clinic and the emergency room. We are now likely to see scenarios where women who have taken the abortion pill regimen will need blood transfusions, treatment for infections, and possible follow-up surgery to complete the abortion, which means they will need to go to the emergency room and wait for treatment next to possible victims of the coronavirus pandemic. How is this conserving medical resources? How is this protecting the safety and health of women?

Thankfully, there are still some reputable medical leaders, such as AAPLOG, who refuse to put women in this type of danger by categorizing abortion as an “essential service.”

Killing innocent children in the womb should never be considered any type of “service,” in the midst of a pandemic or not. By encouraging women to self-manage an abortion up to 22 weeks and calling do-it-yourself abortion a “paid” service, the abortion industry has been and is currently showing us that they have no regard for human dignity whatsoever—for the child or the mother.

This article was originally published at the FRCblog.com.

WBEZ reporter Natalie Moore praised Illinois last month for what she saw as a strength. Illinois has become a go-to state for abortion:

Women travel from all over the country to have abortions in Illinois. As neighboring states restrict abortion access, Illinois is seen as a haven that protects access.

The number of “tourist” abortions carried out in Illinois nearly doubled from 2014 to 2018. She credits two groups of people for this development. First, while neighboring states have enacted laws related to such things as parental notification, counseling, waiting periods, or restrictions on public funding, Illinois politicians have been busy making law too. Even if Roe v Wade gets overturned, they have seen to it that Illinois’s abortion centers will remain open for business – with taxpayer funding for customers on Medicaid. Because of moves like these, says Chicago activist Megan Jeyifo, pregnant women pursuing abortion are choosing Illinois “because it’s quicker and less expensive.”

“Looking at Abortion More Expansively”

Moore also credits Illinois activists for having worked to change the narrative about abortion. I read her article carefully. Here is what is meant by “changing the narrative,” based on what she wrote in Abortion Access And Activism Remain Strong In Illinois:

• Abortion should be commonplace. In an earlier era, “keep abortion safe, legal and rare” was the operative slogan. No more. “Rare” must be dropped. Why? Because …

• Words are tools. “Political education means astute communication.” Messaging must serve the cause, and saying abortion should be “rare” doesn’t project the right message. How is the “right” message to be projected?

• Storytelling is a political tactic. Political education also means “storytelling” and “humanizing people.” Here’s what is meant by that. Since nearly 1 in 4 women will at some point have an abortion, everyone knows and loves someone who’s had one. Also, abortion experiences can be difficult. Therefore, stories designed to stir up feelings of love and compassion, especially those involving hardship, should be told.

The campaign to change the narrative, then, reduces to a political strategy by which stories are told to manipulate people into going along with an agenda they would not otherwise go along with. Emotions surrounding the universal values of love, compassion, and goodwill are stirred up and tied to a message that says, if you are loving and compassionate, you will join the “fight” for this cause. This is the very essence of propaganda.

Tack on the all-purpose rhetorical caboose “justice,” and voilà, you have organized a “reproductive justice” train. Moore lauds the fact that the idea of abortion as “reproductive justice” was conceived in Chicago. “The beauty of the reproductive justice framework,” said Toni Bond, one of the framers of the strategy, “is the way that it looks at things much more expansively.”

Looking at Abortion Activists More Expansively

I abhor abortion. I think it’s one of the most egregious human rights violations of our day. But abortion activists aren’t moved by my outrage. Or by yours. In the face of hardened abortioneers (social activists specifically pushing abortion), I think there’s a time and place for drawing them out.

Here are two ways to do that. Both involve looking at abortion – and the abortioneer – more expansively. (Never give an ounce of air to the emotional manipulation. Just call it out, and then proceed.) One approach is to make the case for human life based on facts and logical reasoning. If a conversation is to be had, center it on the nature of abortion. For more on how to make the case for life this way, I highly recommend the work of Scott Klusendorf, president of Life Training Institute (LTI) and author of The Case for Life. Click here or here for more on that.

“Why We Fight”

The other way to proceed is to do what the activists do – tell stories. Except that we tell stories that are true. Here’s a true story:

In 2001, HBO released the ten-part miniseries Band of Brothers. Based on the Stephen Ambrose book of the same name, it followed a group of WWII paratroopers, E Company (“Easy Company”), through basic training, D-Day, occupied France, and finally into Germany.

In Episode 9, “Why We Fight,” the soldiers encounter an altogether different kind of evil. It’s April 1945, the war in Europe is all but over, and they’re stationed in the German town of Landsberg awaiting orders. One day, a few of them venture out to explore the area. They come to the edge of a forest, and before them stands a high barbed wire fence with a locked gate. They venture closer and find behind it hundreds, perhaps thousands of dazed, emaciated and starving prisoners. They have seen fierce battle, but this is a horror on a whole new level, and they are speechless.

After they set about meeting the prisoners’ basic needs – food, water, medical attention – they marched the Landsberg townspeople out to the camp. They made them look, straight on, at the human atrocity that had been taking place in their own backyard, with their complicity. I think it’s safe to say that nobody would want to have been one of the Landsberg townspeople that day.

We can’t drag Illinois abortion defenders out to the POC rooms of Planned Parenthood’s sparkling new complexes in Fairview Heights (near St. Louis) or Flossmoor (near Indiana), or to the spa-like Carafem (near Wisconsin). But one day, all the things that have taken place behind those fences and walls will be exposed.

What we can do now is challenge the activists to look more expansively – straight on, as much as is possible – at exactly what it is that they are championing. Invite them to watch an actual abortion procedure with you. There are plenty online. Maybe even let them have the honor of choosing one to watch. Click here, here, or here for options. Afterward, invite them to explain what they just saw. Perhaps they might further explain how it merits the term “justice.” For the truly hardened, if you can manage to do all this in public, that’s all the better.

You may not change the moral orientation of a given abortioneer, but you can proceed with confidence, knowing that the real justice train only runs one way. In drawing the abortioneer out into the light, you will have invited someone championing evil to look at it from a very uncomfortable place. That’s what tends to happen when the light of truth is shone into the “haven” of darkness.

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Written by Worth Loving

Recently, Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest (R-N.C.) came under fire for comments he made regarding Planned Parenthood and its founder, Margaret Sanger. Speaking to an MLK Day breakfast at Upper Room Church of God in Christ in Raleigh, Forest said this: “There is no doubt that when Planned Parenthood was created, it was created to destroy the entire black race. That was the purpose of Planned Parenthood. That’s the truth.” Forest later defended his comments to McClatchy News:

“The facts speak for themselves. Since 1973, 19 million black babies have been aborted, mostly by Planned Parenthood. I care too much about the lives of these babies to debate the intent of Sanger’s views when the devastation she brought into this world is obvious.”

Margaret Sanger, her sister, Ethel Byrne, and Fania Mindell opened the first birth control clinic in the United States in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York on October 16, 1916. The clinic was later raided by the NYPD, and all three women were arrested and charged with violating the Comstock Act for distributing obscene materials. After laws governing birth control were relaxed, Sanger founded the American Birth Control League in 1921, which was renamed the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942.

While Lieutenant Governor Forest was attacked by many on the Left for pushing an uneducated, insensitive agenda, history backs him up. The fact is that Margaret Sanger strongly believed the Aryan race to be superior and that it must be purified, a view that finds its roots from Charles Darwin’s defense of evolution in The Origin of Species. Darwin argued that a process of “natural selection” favored the white race over all other “lesser races.” Sanger advocated for eugenics by calling for abortion and birth control among the “unfit” to produce a master race, a race consisting solely of wealthy, educated whites. Sanger said she believed blacks were “human weeds” that needed to be exterminated. She also referred to immigrants, African Americans, and poor people as “reckless breeders” and “spawning…human beings who never should have been born.”

Sanger once wrote “that the aboriginal Australian, the lowest known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development, has so little sexual control that police authority alone prevents him from obtaining sexual satisfaction on the streets.” In an effort to sell her birth control and abortion proposals to the black community, Sanger said: “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.” In 1926, Sanger was also the featured speaker at a women’s auxiliary meeting of the Ku Klux Klan in Silver Lake, New Jersey.

Sanger opened her clinics in largely minority neighborhoods because she believed immigrants and the working class were inferior and needed their population controlled so as to purify the human race. That trend continues today where almost 80 percent of Planned Parenthood facilities are located in minority neighborhoods. In fact, although only 13 percent of American women are black, over 35 percent of all black babies are aborted in the United States every year. Abortion is the leading cause of death for blacks in the United States. According to Students for Life of America, “more African-Americans have died from abortion than from AIDS, accidents, violent crimes, cancer, and heart disease combined.” Black babies are about five times more likely to be aborted than whites. On Halloween in 2017, Planned Parenthood’s “Black Community” Twitter account tweeted: “If you’re a Black woman in America, it’s statistically safer to have an abortion than to carry a pregnancy to term or give birth.”

While Margaret Sanger tried to portray Planned Parenthood as a merciful organization that helps needy families, the facts speak for themselves. In her testimony to the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in September 2015, former Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards openly admitted that over 80 percent of her organization’s annual revenue comes from performing abortions and not basic health care for poor or disadvantaged women. When you dive deeper, well over 90 percent of Planned Parenthood’s annual revenue comes from performing abortions.

Despite this sordid history, Margaret Sanger is almost universally recognized as a pioneer for women’s rights rather than the racist she actually was. When accepting Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Award, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that she “admired Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision…I am really in awe of her.” Those like Hillary Clinton are ignoring the explicitly racist statements that Margaret Sanger made throughout her life. The fact is that Sanger normalized birth control and abortion in the United States as a means to accomplish eugenics. Her ultimate goal was to eliminate non-white races, people with sickness or disabilities, children born to felons, the poor, and immigrants, to name a few.

Margaret Sanger is no heroine, and Planned Parenthood is not some merciful health care provider as the Left paints it to be. Margaret Sanger repeatedly stated her racist intentions for the whole world to see and hear, and Planned Parenthood was and still is the manifestation of those racist ideologies. America was founded on the idea that no matter your race, creed, national origin, disability, or station in life, everyone who comes here or is born here has the opportunity to live a successful, fulfilling life. Margaret Sanger didn’t believe that.

As pro-life activists, we must do our part to expose Margaret Sanger for who she really was. We must also expose the racist history of Planned Parenthood and how that history is still relevant today. For more information on Margaret Sanger and the racist roots of Planned Parenthood, check out these FRC resources: Planned Parenthood Is Not Pro-Woman and The Real Planned Parenthood: Leading the Culture of Death.

This article was originally published at the FRC Blog.

The Trump Administration has rolled back a number of federal rules instituted by the Obama Administration and has instituted others, including these amazing pro-family policy victories:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) began enforcing the new rule, which “prohibits the use of Title X funds to perform, promote, refer for, or support abortion as a method of family planning.” As a result, nearly 900 abortion clinics have lost taxpayer funding. This is a great first step toward the goal of completely defunding abortion businesses (like Planned Parenthood) of our tax dollars.

HHS has also rescinded Obama administration guidance that prevented states from taking actions against providers that may be necessary to prevent Medicaid funds from going to fund abortion.

HHS has created a Conscience and Religious Freedom Division for the purpose of protecting the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious liberty for physicians and other medical professionals.

HHS has also proposed defining sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and identified at birth. In addition, agency staff—including those at the Centers for Disease Control—have been instructed to stop using the word “transgender” in official reports.

The U.S. Department of Defense has banned persons suffering from gender dysphoria from serving in the military.

The U.S. State Department is refusing visas for same-sex partners of some diplomats and U.N. workers if they are not “married.”

The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice eliminated Obama Administration “guidance” that told government schools to treat “trans”-identifying students as if they were the sex they are not.

The U.S. National Institute of Food and Agriculture rescinded guidance for 4-H programs, removing a policy specifically welcoming LGBTQ children in the program, which led to the firing of an official who protested.

The U.S. Department of Education refuses to respond to civil complaints filed by “trans”-identifying students, including those who were barred from using opposite-sex bathrooms.

The U.S. Department of Justice rolled back Obama-era LGBT interpretations of the Civil Rights Act that gave special rights to “trans”-identifying and “non-binary” workers from employment discrimination and ceased enforcing non-discrimination protections.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons rolled back an Obama-era policy that housed “trans”-identifying prisoners with opposite-sex prisoners.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed a rule to permit homeless shelters to house “trans”-identifying and/or cross-dressing homeless persons in shelters based on their biological sex.

The Trump Administration has interpreted immigration rules specifically so the child of a same-sex couple born abroad via surrogate would be considered “born out of wedlock,” thereby making it more difficult to obtain U.S. citizenship.

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Written by Dr. Everett Piper

Cambridge Professor C.F.D. Moule once said, “The gospel is more than a declaration … It is something which we do not merely know but experience.” He continued, “The action of Christ in our world is not a dead and static thing,” but on the contrary, “a great flowing stream, not a separate draught of water; the apex of a pyramid, not an unattached point in mid-air.”

According to Moule, there will “never be an end” to the pursuit of justice and righteousness, for there is “a living God at work … through that which we call the Church, the Body of Christ.”

St. Athanasius, whom many have called the author of the Nicene Creed, once wrote, “Seeing the exceeding wickedness of men, and how little by little they had increased it to an intolerable pitch against themselves … [Christ] took pity on our race, and had mercy on our infirmity.”

He went on to conclude: “Lest the creature should perish, and the Father’s handiwork in men be spent for naught,” God “took unto Himself a Body,” a body that not only endures, lives and breathes in His resurrection but also in His church. “A blind man cannot see the sun,” said the bishop, “but he knows that it is above the earth from the warmth which it affords. Similarly, let those who are still in the blindness of unbelief recognize [what] He has brought about through His manifest powers in others,” i.e., the church.

Even those who openly place themselves somewhere along the atheist-agnostic continuum are now speaking honestly about the redemptive power of the church as described by Moule and Athanasius. For example, Fox News contributor Greg Gutfeld, who describes himself as “non-religious,” says, “I haven’t been to church in years. But there is one thing I know: The church is a positive influence in communities, in terms of encouraging charity and neighborly concern.”

Then there is Matthew Parris, writer for the London Times, who extols the virtues of Christian missionary work in Africa: “As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God … Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone, and the machete.”

Indeed, the church is the salt and light of human history. It has preserved culture in the midst of disease, debauchery and despair. It has been a beacon of hope in the darkest days of violence and oppression. Wilberforce led the British to abolish the slave trade. Mueller rescued orphans from the poverty of the industrial revolution. Bonheoffer defied Hitler. William Booth served the poor. Orange Scott, Luther Lee and B.T. Roberts fought for abolition, and Chuck Colson befriended prisoners.

Yes, the church has stemmed the tide of evil time and time again. From the killing fields of Cambodia to the prison cells of Cuba, it has been the “flowing stream” of justice. Amid plague and contagion, it has been the “apex” of care and compassion. In times of terror and war, it has been God’s “mercy on our infirmity” and His “pity on our race.”

Jesus tells us — indeed, he promises us — that the “gates of hell will not prevail” against His church. Not the Orwellian hubris of the European Union. Not the unprincipled materialism of billionaire elites. Not the moral nihilism of the West or the Muslim extremism in the Middle East. Not the “exceeding wickedness” of Planned Parenthood or the pure evil of NAMBLA. Not the child abuse of trans-activism or the comic delusions of drag queen story hours.

Not the selfish focus of “intersectionality” or the disingenuous sanctimony of the SPLC. Not the blatant arrogance of the progressive left or the transparent pandering of those who seek political power. Not the “increased intolerable pitch” of my sin or yours. Nothing can stop the “manifest power” of “a living God at work.” He is not a “dead or static thing,” but alive and well.

“Nothing in all the vast universe can come to pass otherwise than God has eternally purposed. Here is a foundation of faith. Here is a resting place for the intellect. Here is an anchor for the soul, both sure and steadfast. It is not blind fate, unbridled evil, man or Devil, but the Lord Almighty who is ruling the world, ruling it according to His own good pleasure and for His own eternal glory.” ~Arthur W. Pink

Thank God for the church.

This article was originally published at The Washington Times.

Truth is not only stranger than fiction. Truth is also more disturbing than fiction. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the abortion industry, where baby parts are meticulously collected and systemically labeled for immediate, profitable sale.

Not only so, but all this takes place without the knowledge of the mother, who recovers in a waiting room nearby. And, if the reports are accurate, some of the slicing and dicing is done while the baby is still alive.

Did I say that truth is more disturbing than fiction?

For the last eleven years, I have been doing live, daily radio broadcasts five days a week, taking calls, tackling controversies, and interviewing guests. And it is exceedingly rare that the words of a guest or caller are so troubling that I am literally moved to tears.

But that is exactly what happened when I interviewed Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal organization which is now defending Sandra Merritt against Planned Parenthood.

Merritt is described as “a courageous pro-life grandmother who exposed Planned Parenthood’s horrific trade in baby body parts.” Together with David Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress, Merritt recorded secret videos of Planned Parenthood leaders and workers discussing the sale of baby parts for profit, creating shockwaves for the abortion giant.

Now, as the trial proceeds, shocking, heartrending testimonies are being heard.

On my show, Staver referred to “amazing situations” where Planned Parenthood clinics“were taking babies and intentionally aborting them so they could harvest intact organs, some of which were born alive while the hearts were still beating. Hearts were being removed while they were still alive.”

He continued, “Brains were being removed while the hearts were still beating, and we have evidence where they sliced the baby’s face in two with a scalpel and then extracted the brain while the baby was still alive.”

Who can imagine such things? Who would even envision them in a work of fiction? Yet, according to Staver, these are 100 percent, accurate accounts. And the motivating force behind these allegations is greed.

Let that sink in for a moment.

For good reason Staver spoke of Planned Parenthood’s “inhumane, unthinkable, unspeakable acts.”

Yet Planned Parenthood was not alone in its savaging of the unborn.

According to Staver, companies like Stem Express had full menus on their website where you could make customized choices when ordering your baby parts.

He explained, “You could actually go on the website and select . . . that you wanted a certain heart at a certain gestation at a certain size, intact. Then Stem Express would take that to Planned Parenthood that day. They would fulfill that order from those babies that were brought in, never telling the parent, the mom, what was happening with her child in the room next door.”

Staver was not exaggerating when he stated that if he described such procedures without revealing the age of the victim, we would think this was coming from Nazi Germany.

Precisely so.

A recent report on the Liberty Counsel website carried the headline, “Selling Baby Scalps,” stating that, “A former board director for the Center for Medical Progress testified during the civil trial in the San Francisco Federal District Court that the scalps of babies provided by the abortion industry are being harvested for research in treating baldness.”

Yes, selling baby scalps for treating baldness.

The mind boggles when trying to comprehend such cruel, cold, and calculated barbarity. Yet we dare not close our eyes or stick our heads in the sand. All this is happening on our watch.

In my new book, Jezebel’s War with America, I document the clear connection between radical feminism, witchcraft, and the militant pro-abortion movement. (Yes, I actually document this.)

I also compare the horrific, ancient practice of child sacrifice with late-term and partial-birth abortion procedures.Perhaps this doesn’t sound so extreme to you after hearing some of Staver’s testimony?

Ironically, after Pastor Robert Jeffress made a similar comparison during a recent radio interview, referencing Moloch, the ancient god of child sacrifice, leftists responded with sarcastic glee.

One tweeted, “ALL HAIL MOLOCH HIS WILL BE DONE.”

Another wrote, “DON’T MESS WITH OUR GOD, MOLOCH.”

Yet what they posted in jest is not without truth.

That’s because, for many of those on the radical left, abortion is not just a right. It is a rite, a venerated rite, a sacred rite. “Do not mess with our right to abort!”

Not surprisingly, most of the Democratic presidential candidates are veering further to the left when it comes to abortion, to the point that most of the candidates now support bills which, if enacted, would legalize some of the crimes committed by abortionist Kermitt Gosnell.

And all of this leads to a simple question: What are you and I going to do to stop these horrific practices? And how can we offer a message of life and hope to mothers and fathers who want to abort?

Somehow, someway, we must shout to the nation the humanity of that unborn child and the sacredness of life. Then, just as loudly, we must bring to the attention of the nation the barbarity of the actions of Planned Parenthood and their cohorts.

If each of us does our part, through sharing the message, through pro-life activism, through voting and campaigning, through prayer and compassion, the tide can turn.

We owe it to the little ones to take action today.

This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.

Folks, if you hope to defeat “trans” activism in your public schools, public libraries, the Springfield Swamp, and halls of Congress, you must first find those old rubbery spines that have been gathering dust in your attics. Then muster some courage to speak truth to Leftists who have been winning gold medals in epithet-hurling. Their tongues are now the strongest part of their bodies, while apparently their brains are the weakest. Try getting them to answer a few foundational questions that emerge from their incoherent, science-denying “trans”-ideology and watch them bob and weave, evasively changing subjects in between screeching “hater” at you. Just keep repeating to yourself the old adage your parents taught you: Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will never hurt you. More on those foundational questions shortly.

Before you go on your spine search, please pay close attention to what has been happening in District 211—the largest high school district in Illinois with 12,000 students and 5 high schools—where local control has secretly been wrested from the community by a group of Leftists “colluding” secretly with “LGBTQ” activists outside the community—way outside the community—to sexually integrate student locker rooms.

Last week, I wrote about the purchase of the District 211 school board seats in 2017 by Laurence (aka “Lana”) Wachowski, “trans” director of the Matrix movies who lives in Chicago; a “trans” architect from Pennsylvania;  the lesbian head honcho of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network from New York; a state senator from Chicago; a homosexual CEO from D.C.; a “trans” activist from Maryland; a homosexual activist from Chicago; and two “trans” activists from Chicago who secretly funded the defeat of three excellent school board candidates.

Since then, it’s been revealed that Illinois’ premier “LGBTQ” activist organization, the grossly misnamed Equality Illinois, sent a representative to the District 211 School Board meeting on September 19 at which the proposal to sexually integrate all locker rooms was discussed. Equality Illinois boasted on its website about sending its “civic engagement coordinator,” Anthony Charles Galloway, who is the former Project Coordinator at Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region & Southwest Missouri.

Last Monday, Vicki Wilson, president of D211 Parents for Privacy, and Tracey Salvatore, an epithet-hurling mother of two District 211 elementary school children, were invited to appear on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight to be interviewed by Carol Marin.

Salvatore is the activist I mentioned in last week’s article who, instead of explaining exactly why private spaces should correspond to “gender identity” as opposed to biological sex, hurled epithets at parents who believe girls and boys should not be allowed to access the private spaces of opposite-sex peers.

Before I get to what Tracey Salvatore said on Chicago Tonight, it bears mentioning that for some odd reason her coach—er, I mean, escort to the Chicago Tonight studio was Ed Yohnka, communications director for the ACLU in Chicago. I wonder why Salvatore invited him?

Salvatore managed to refrain from her customary hate speech when making her points on Chicago Tonight. Perhaps her escort helped her avoid that pitfall.

In response to Carol Marin’s question about the prior policy requiring “trans”-identifying students to change behind privacy curtains (still bad policy but marginally better than unrestricted access) if using opposite-sex locker rooms, Salvatore said,

I do feel that it fell short of full inclusion, full equity, full access just by singling out transgender students as requiring them to use the privacy curtains.

Well, it rightly did prohibit “full access” because the person seeking “full access” to the girls’ locker room was a biological boy. But “transgender” students are not being “singled” out. The boy to whom Salvatore was referring singled himself out by asking for special treatment. He asked to be allowed unrestricted access to the girls’ locker room—something other boys are not allowed.

“Trans”-identifying persons, like all other humans, have a sex, which is objective, immutable, and meaningful. Schools, like every other place of public accommodation, have sex-separated spaces in which humans engage in personal bodily acts like undressing and going to the bathroom. Treating a boy as a boy is the epitome of equity. Conversely, including a biological boy in girls’ private spaces is the antithesis of fairness, impartiality, and equity. Treating a boy as if he is a girl in girls’ private spaces means treating him specially and violates the privacy rights of girls.

If girls have a right to be free of the presence of objectively male peers in their private spaces, that right is not abrogated by the feelings of some boys about their biological sex. If women have no right to be free of the presence of objectively male peers in their private spaces, then why have any sex-separate private spaces, including for staff and faculty. If biological sex has no intrinsic meaning relative to undressing and engaging in bodily functions, why have any sex-separate spaces?

Commitments to “inclusion” and “equity” do not require that persons who wish they were the sex they aren’t have access to opposite-sex private spaces. Their feelings about their maleness or femaleness do not grant them the right to dictate that private spaces no longer correspond to biological sex.

Grotesquely exploiting the words of Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren in Brown v. Board of Education, Salvatore said, “separate but equal is not equal.” Warren said this:

We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

Segregating blacks from whites in schools or other places of public accommodation was a pernicious practice based on the erroneous belief that whites and blacks are by nature different and based on white hatred of blacks. Separating boys from girls in private spaces is based on the true belief that boys and girls are sexually different and that those differences matter when undressing and engaged in personal bodily functions. The desire to be free of the presence of persons of the opposite sex when undressing has nothing to do with hatred. Salvatore’s claim is patently foolish.

Salvatore’s third claim is equally foolish:

Transgender individuals are not a threat…. Transgender people are not a safety concern to anyone, not in a locker room, not on the street, not anywhere else.

First, the primary issue is not concern about predation—though that is an issue, particularly outside of schools. But how can Salvatore know with absolute certainty that “transgender people are not a safety concern” to anyone anywhere ever? Of course, she can’t and doesn’t know any such thing. While it is unlikely that a “trans”-identifying boy will sexually assault a girl in the girls’ locker room, can prognosticator Salvatore say with absolute certainty that no such boy ever will? Can she say with absolute certainty that no such boy will look at girls who are undressing? Can she say with absolute certainty that no such boy will ever expose himself in the presence of girls?

And what about students who have been victims of sexual abuse. Estimates are that 1 in 4 girls (and 1 in 6 boys) will be sexually abused by the age of 18, which means in District 211, there are likely 1,500 girls (and 1,000 boys) who are victims of sexual abuse. In contrast, the Williams Institute estimates that .7 percent of teens identify as “trans,” which would mean that there are about 42 biological boys who identify as “trans”  in District 211. Many, perhaps most, sexually abused girls feel uncomfortable changing clothes in the presence of opposite-sex persons. They should not be compelled to leave their own locker rooms in order to feel safe.

Though the issue of protecting the feelings of children who were victims of sexual abuses is critical, it is not the primary issue either.

The primary, foundational issue is the meaning of sexual differentiation. Do our sexed bodies have meaning or not? Cultural regressives, like Salvatore and school board member/sexpert Kim Cavill, essentially say that physical embodiment as male or female has no intrinsic meaning relative to feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy when engaged in personal acts like undressing and going to the bathroom, which is absurd and destructive nonsense. Three times Salvatore mentioned “respect,” and none of those times referred to the respect due to students who have a right to a locker rooms free from the presence of opposite sex peers.

Salvatore then made this baffling statement:

I think people have learned that transgender individuals are just like human beings.

Well, “transgender” individuals are not just “like” human beings. They actually are human beings, and I don’t know a single person who thinks otherwise. Recognizing “trans”-identifying persons as humans includes recognizing that they have a sex and that in private spaces their sexual identity is all that matters. Prohibiting students from using opposite-sex private facilities does not deny their existence or their humanness.

Salvatore assures the Chicago Tonight viewing audience that “the reality is that people are not getting naked in the locker room.” That may be true, but it’s hard to believe that students who are taking a swim class or are on swim teams, diving teams, or water polo teams are never naked as they change from clothes to swimsuits. That, however, is beside the point.

Unrestricted access means that if girls in girls’ locker rooms are permitted to be in their underwear or fully nude, so too is a biological boy who pretends to be a girl permitted to be in his underwear or fully nude in the girls’ locker room. And a biological boy who is permitted unrestricted access to the girls’ locker room is also permitted to be anywhere in the locker room when girls are changing into swimsuits. Whether any particular boy chooses to partially undress, fully undress, or be in the area where girls are changing into swimsuits is irrelevant. It’s the principle that matters.

Finally, here are the questions that every school board member, administrator, and supporter of the sexual integration of private spaces should be required to answer before any votes on policy proposals are taken:

• Why should locker rooms correspond to “gender identity” as opposed to biological sex?

• Who decided that in private spaces biological sex is subordinate to subjective feelings about maleness and femaleness and by what authority did they make such a radical decision?

• Do humans have an intrinsic right not to undress in the presence of persons of the opposite sex? If so, is that right abrogated by the feelings of “trans”-identifying persons or their aesthetic deception?

• If humans have no such right, then why retain any sex-segregated private spaces anywhere?

• Why is it reasonable for “trans”-identifying students to refuse to use restrooms/locker rooms with students who don’t share their “gender identity,” but it’s hateful for other students to refuse to use restrooms/locker rooms with peers who don’t share their sex?

• Why should girls in girls’ locker rooms who don’t want to undress in the presence of biological boys be forced to change behind a privacy curtain? Why can’t biological boys in the boys’ locker room who don’t want to undress in the presence of biological boys use a private changing area in the boys’ locker room or nurse’s office?

• If schools can’t discriminate based on either sex or “gender identity” in private spaces, wouldn’t prohibiting normal students (i.e., “cisgender” students) from using opposite-sex facilities constitute discrimination based on sex and/or discrimination based on “gender identity”?

• What should school restroom and locker room policy be for “gender fluid” students?

• In the “trans” community, girls who “identify” as boys are boys, so why should they be free to use girls’ private facilities? Should girls who “identify” as boys be required to use boys’ locker rooms?

• Are lesbians and homosexual men who oppose the sexual integration of private spaces—especially the private spaces of girls and women—demonizing, bullying, intimidating, hateful bigots as Salvatore characterized those who oppose the sexual integration of District 211 private spaces?

So many essential questions asked by no one even as we deny human nature and the fundamental rights of girls and boys.

Correction: This article has been corrected with regard to estimates of number of abuse victims and of teen boys who identify as “trans.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/What-Conservatives-Should-Know.mp3

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For Breast Cancer Awareness Month,
Spread Awareness of the Abortion Breast Cancer Link

In 1996, Dr. Joel Brind along with colleagues at Penn State Medical College published a meta-analysis of peer-reviewed literature on the connection between induced abortion and subsequent breast cancer. Based on 23 studies, it found a 30 percent higher rate of breast cancer for women with abortion histories. Six years later, in February 2003, the National Cancer Institute officially declared the abortion breast cancer link nonexistent. Clear-thinking people know risk factors are complex and that study results are subject to interpretation, but which is it? Some say the abortion-breast cancer link is real; some say it’s not. Who should we believe? Hold that thought.

When Canadian journalist Punam Kumar Gill first heard about risks associated with abortion, she thought it was all pro-life propaganda. But when she heard that some 40-50 million women worldwide have abortions every year, even as a lifelong pro-choice feminist she thought the sheer numbers called for a closer look into the matter. What if there really were critical health risks following abortion? And what were women being told before consenting to one? Shouldn’t the risks at least be discussed rather than dismissed as anti-abortion strategy?

A Quest for Truth

As a just-the-facts-please kind of journalist, Gill set out to find out the truth for the sake of women’s health. First, she talked to doctors. Dr. David Grimes, an Ob-Gyn and abortionist seemed perturbed at the question: “There are no long-term consequences from abortion, either reproductive or otherwise,” he said rather tersely. “And that includes psychological effects as well.” It’s “an old dog that they keep on flogging,” he continued. There’s a small group of people who hold that view, and their common theme is “religiosity.”

She also consulted Dr. Brind, who emphasized the research findings. Yes, I’m pro-life, he said, but the politics of abortion shouldn’t come into play on this. What should matter is that women have accurate information with which to make an informed choice. That made sense to Gill, as that was what she was after as well.

Next, she visited breast cancer surgeon Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, who, like Brind, has been criticized for going against the medical establishment on this. Lanfranchi started collecting complete reproductive histories on her patients after seeing mention of the link in a textbook, and it’s not about politics for her either: “This is about having fewer patients in my office that are thirty years old with breast cancer,” she said bluntly. She mentioned two patients with “very aggressive breast cancers.” One had had seven pregnancies and five abortions. The other had had five pregnancies and three abortions. “They both died very quickly,” she said.

The Mystery Deepens

Dr. Grimes had emphasized that his opinion was the same as that of all the medical organizations, so Gill looked there next. She contacted the American Cancer Society, the Canadian Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the World Health Organization (WHO), the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) and its counterparts in the UK and Canada, RCOG and SOGC. But no one would give her an interview. Not. A. Single. One. The case was closed, they all said, and each referred her to their respective websites.

Now things were starting to feel suspicious. If the jury was in, then why wouldn’t any of them stand behind their position and speak to her?

She kept digging. It turned out, all of their websites referred to an NCI conference that had taken place in 2003. It was then 2016. Had there been no subsequent research into this matter in thirteen years? She travelled to the National Cancer Institute, hoping to persuade someone to talk to her, but upon arrival she was swiftly escorted off the grounds. Things were now approaching scandalous, but she was not one to go away quietly.

She returned to Dr. Brind. As a longtime participant in this debate, he knew some history that wasn’t on the NCI website. At one time, he said, the NCI position accurately reflected the equivocal nature of the debate. Some studies showed a link; some didn’t, and the NCI forthrightly informed the public about the discrepancies and ongoing investigations. That changed in 2001 after Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach came on as NCI director. Soon after his arrival, Brind explained, a letter had arrived on his desk for him to sign. The letter had been signed by twenty-eight congressmembers, and it requested that the NCI website be updated to say that there was no link between abortion and breast cancer, as this was what the congressmembers understood to be accurate scientifically.

Just pause a moment, and let that sink in. If what Dr. Brind said is true, then we have a situation in America where congressmembers requested that a particular medical opinion be issued as the official, government-endorsed position on a risk factor for a terminal disease. And the head of the medical organization complied with the request.

Much could be said about this, but at the very least, those who want more government involvement in health care might want to reconsider their faith in government.

And the Mystery Remains

Back to 2016: Gill was on a mission, now. She found a recording of the 2003 conference and went through it frame by frame. Several things were odd about it. Here are just three: First, in his introduction, Dr. von Eschenbach told attendees that the abortion- breast cancer question was not the topic or purpose of the conference, but it was the reason they were there. Second, in spite of the assertion that some one hundred experts had been cited as declaring the case closed, only a small handful of them were scientists who had actually done research directly related to the subject. Third, only one of them presented–Dr. Leslie Bernstein, Ph.D., a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California. She was given twenty minutes, and she said the data showed no connection.

So that was it. Before February 2003, the data was inconclusive. After February 2003, the matter was settled. There were contradictory findings… until there were not. Make of it what you will, and choose for yourself who you’re going to believe. Gill documented all of this and more in her excellent 2016 film Hush: Start a Healthy Conversation, which she characterizes as pro-information and pro-women’s health.

And the Beat Goes On

Dr. Brind recently reported on meta-analyses from China (2013) and South Asia (2018), that found heightened post-abortion breast cancer rates ranging from 44 percent to 151 percent. Meanwhile, Western public health organizations–the NCI, the American Cancer Society, ACOG, RCOG, the Canadian Cancer Society, WHO, and Susan G. Komen (that one is especially perverse, given that it’s specifically about breast cancer)–continue to maintain, based on 2003 “information,” that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer. Well, and Planned Parenthood, of course, that bastion of medical ethics and women’s health.

For the rest of us though, October has been designated as “Breast Cancer Awareness” month. What better time than now to become informed, promote women’s health, and engage in a healthier conversation? Check out the excellent work of Ms. Gill for yourself, and spread some awareness of the mystery of the abortion-breast cancer link.

A Night With Rev. Franklin Graham!
At this year’s annual IFI banquet, our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st. You don’t want to miss this special evening!

Learn more HERE.