The U.S. Supreme Court of the United States has consistently upheld the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children within the guarantee of liberty found in the U.S. Constitution. A subversive movement emanating from the United Nations, however, is seeking to undermine parental authority by, in effect, making children wards of the State. Under the guise of protecting children, globalists are pushing a draconian agenda known as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which if ratified will overrule the authority of parents to act in the best interests of their children.

Standing between American families and the all-consuming power of the State is the Parental Rights Amendment to the United States constitution. This constitutional amendment will protect parents and their offspring from an overreaching bureaucracy that promotes unbiblical practices that harm children and also punishes households that seek to maintain Christian values.

Only two countries, the United States and Somalia, have not approved the UNCRC. According to Article VI of the United States Constitution, all treaties entered into by America “shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” Ratification of the UNCRC would, therefore, limit American sovereignty and supersede all federal or state laws. But the endorsement of any treaty requires a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate to pass, which the Senate has thus far failed to achieve.

At first glance the UNCRC sounds both appropriate and needed. After all, few would disagree that children should have human rights as well as adults. But, as they say, the devil is in the details, and the UNCRC truly emanates from the Pit. It would sweep aside all restrictions on abortion and contraception under the rubric of providing “health care services” to children–without the consent of their parents.

Moreover, children will be indoctrinated with values and views that many parents will find objectionable. The UNCRC mandates that underaged youth be exposed to “information and material from a diversity of national and international sources,” including a variety of viewpoints related to their “spiritual and moral well-being,”–once again, values and views that many parents will find offensive.

Relegating the instruction of moral and religious beliefs to a host of questionable sources will have predictably  deleterious consequences. The United Kingdom is a prime example of what happens when the State becomes the instructor of ethics. A government-issued pamphlet entitled “Talking to Your Teenager about Sex and Relationships” advises children to choose their own morals regarding sexuality and instructs parents to keep silent lest they discourage their children from exploring any and all views on sexuality and relationships.

The World Policy Analysis Center at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health noted a number of areas of progress regarding children’s rights since the introduction of the UNCRC. However, the Center also noted that “Global challenges still remain in the area of child marriage.” Despite all the rhetoric about “children’s rights,” the proponents of the UNCRC still cannot face up to the massive inconsistencies of their position.  If they are fighting for “children’s rights,” should that not include the right to marry?

Far from evincing concern about this worldwide scourge, the UNCRC apparently approves of the “right” of children to be forcibly married at young ages.  Michael P. Farris, is a constitutional lawyer and president of ParentalRights.org, an organization that has been campaigning against U.S. ratification of “dangerous U.N conventions that “threaten parental rights” such as the UNCRC.   Farris notes:

“The United States demonstrates its commitment to human rights whenever it follows and enforces the Constitution of the United States, which is the greatest human rights instrument in all history.”

The Washington Post predictably rails against Farris and ParentalRights.org, claiming:

The group fears that ratifying the treaty would mean children could choose their own religion, that children would have a legally enforceable right to leisure, that nations would have to spend more on children’s welfare than national defense, and that a child’s ‘right to be heard’ could trigger a governmental review of any decision a parent made that a child didn’t like.  

The Post is apparently oblivious to the fact that children have few if any of these “rights” in the vast majority of countries that so eagerly climbed aboard the bandwagon of the UNCRC. According to The Post,

The United States can learn from other member nations on how to reduce poverty, ensure women’s rights, improve education and educational access, and healthy living conditions, for starters.  

Such facetious claims are the epitome of hypocrisy when hundreds of thousands of migrants from Central America have either arrived or are at this very moment making the arduous thousand-mile journey on foot to have the opportunity to cross the border and enjoy lavish government benefits that are unknown in much of the world.

The Migrant Policy Institute confirms that the United States is by far the preeminent destination country for migrants seeking a better life–with more than four times the number of immigrants seeking asylum than in the second-place country: Saudi Arabia. Accounts of the horrific abuse suffered by those who are forced out of necessity to work in the desert kingdom are well-known, but lie beyond the scope of this article.

Contradicting the implications of the UNCRC charter, another United Nations organization, UNICEF, states unambiguously:

Marriage before the age of 18 is a fundamental violation of human rights…. Child marriage often compromises a girl’s development by resulting in early pregnancy and social isolation, interrupting her schooling, limiting her opportunities for career and vocational advancement and placing her at increased risk of domestic violence. Child marriage also affects boys, but to a lesser degree than girls.

Yet today dozens of countries openly allow child marriages below the age of fifteen. While the United Nations is quick to condemn the United States for its alleged failures, nary a peep is heard concerning the travesty of child marriages primarily in South America and the Arab world, which have the highest rates of child marriages.

Hope is on the way: the Parental Rights Amendment to the United States constitution is gaining momentum.  Introduced this week by U.S. Representative Jim Banks (R-IN).  The Amendment already has fifteen cosponsors, six more than when it was introduced last year.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your U.S. Congressional representative to urge him/her to become a cosponsor of the Parental Rights Amendment (H.J. Res. 36).  The Parental Rights Amendment will ensure that the next generation of children will be raised and guided by their loving parents, not by an impersonal government bureaucracy pushing an agenda inimical to the values of American families.

Christian Life in Exile
On February 22^nd, IFI is hosting a special forum with Dr. Erwin Lutzer as he teaches from his latest book, “The Church in Babylon,” answering the question, “How do we live faithfully in a culture that perceives our light as darkness?” This event is free and open to the public, and will be held at Jubilee Church in Medinah, Illinois.

Click HERE for more info…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has awarded the Trump Administration a victory by staying a lower court decision which blocked the administration’s attempts to restrict the military service of “trans”-identifying people who suffer from gender dysphoria. The court found that Trump’s new policy, which was based on the findings of former Secretary of State Jim Mattis, was in fact a more nuanced version of the original policy and should not have been summarily blocked by District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. The Trump Administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on its attempts to place restrictions on “trans”-identifying persons serving in the military.

Hanging in the balance are the last vestiges of Christian culture, and the marginalization of those who hold to the words of Jesus: “At the beginning of creation God made them male and female.”  We see this already in Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is requiring employers to attest that they respect transgender “rights” in order to receive summer job grants. In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party LGBT+ adviser has argued for the right of children as young as 8 years old to choose their “gender” and begin “transitioning” to embrace their “true selves.” And in America, Christian parents in Hamilton County, Ohio, have lost custody of their 17-year-old daughter after they refused to support her “transition” to male.

LGBTQ groups, celebrities and politicians have expressed outrage over the administration’s proposal to define gender as biological and fixed. This self-evident understanding, unquestioned for millennia, was overturned by former President Barack Obama, who enshrined subjective feeling rather than biological sex as determining one’s “gender.” Thus, a man may decide that his “true gender” is female, and a woman may decide she is male. Further complicating this absurd notion–a notion that would have left our forefathers aghast–are those who refuse to consider themselves either male or female, instead inhabiting the bizarre realm of “gender fluidity.”

The field of battle for the determination of the meaning of “gender” is none other than the several branches of the U.S. military, which of necessity have strict standards for those charged with the vital role of defending the nation. In his memorandum to the president regarding transgenders in the military, former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis concluded: “Based on the work of the Panel and the Department’s best military judgement, the Department of Defense concludes that there are substantial risks associated with allowing the accession and retention of individuals with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria and require, or have already undertaken, a course of treatment to change their gender.”

That this studied judgment angers those who reject the immutable reality and meaning of biological sex defies comprehension, for it should come as no surprise that the military, which turns away diabetics, should decline those who may require major surgery and continual hormone replacement therapy—both of which carry serious health risks. This is recognized by the service members themselves, only 39 percent of which approve of “trans”-identifying troops.  Sergeant First Class Jamie Shupe, who identifies as “trans,” has had second thoughts and now feels he has “a duty to speak about the problems with transgender military service,” which “can seriously affect their duty performance. While they’re obsessing about their gender identity, they don’t have their head in the game.”

The military is all about maximum combat effectiveness. Soldiers do not serve in isolation, but work, eat, shower and sleep together.  No female unit should be required to sleep next to or bare themselves in front of an objectively male peer who insists that he is a woman.  As one commentator notes: “We can’t even agree on which bathrooms trans people can use, but somehow we’re safer if we’re all in the shower together? No distraction there.”

Author Walt Heyer lived as a woman for nearly a decade and suffered medical surgeries and treatments before “detransitioning” back to his true male gender. His book Trans Life Survivors tells the stories of 30 people gleaned from many hundreds of cases who “shared their lonely, surreal experiences falling down the trans rabbit hole, hoping to escape as he did.”  Sadly, our society will suffer dire consequences if it rejects the inborn nature of male and female, as designed by our Creator, which will result in a frightful descent into the “rabbit hole” of sexual anarchy.

Save the Date!

On Saturday, March 16, 2019, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This coming year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We already have commitments from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.

Abortion pills are becoming more common among women seeking to abort their offspring, and the availability of these pills online is growing, allowing women to avoid going to an abortion clinic entirely.

Numerous news outlets have reported on the efforts of Dutch physician Rebecca Gomperts to expand her 13-year-old internet abortion-pill business Women on Web into the U.S. Gomperts, who launched her U.S. push in April, has received awards from Planned Parenthood and various feminist groups and is also known for her environmental activism.

Reports in the mainstream media have portrayed Gomperts’ efforts as heroic or at least worthwhile, while the perspective of pro-life groups has been given only minimal attention. A story in the Atlantic noted that,

For American women who’ve wanted pills, though, there’s been one major problem: Women on Web wouldn’t ship to the United States. American women could (and do) instead search online for abortion pills, but some of the medicines and pharmacies they’ve found have been less than reliable. Now Women on Web’s founder, a doctor named Rebecca Gomperts, has launched a new service that she says is just as safe as Women on Web, and it does ship to the United States. The cost is $95, but the website says the service will try to help women who can’t pay.

Just like Women on Web, the new service, Aid Access, will screen women for their eligibility to take the pills—they should not be more than nine weeks pregnant—through an online process. (If the pills are taken later, they are less likely to work.) Gomperts will herself fill each woman’s prescription for misoprostol and mifepristone, which together are about 97 percent effective in causing an abortion within the first trimester and already account for a third of all abortions in the United States. She then sends the prescriptions to an Indian pharmacy she trusts, and it ships the pills to women at their homes in the United States.

The market for abortion pills and for buying them online is growing in the U.S. because of their low cost and convenience, because of tightening state restrictions on surgical abortions, and because of the belief that a Trump-era U.S. Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade.

Gomperts was previously hesitant to sell the pills to women in the U.S. because of the strong pro-life movement here. She has established the new, separate service Aid Access so as not to jeopardize Women on Web. In an interview with Mother Jones, Gomperts characterized what she is doing as “humanitarian aid.”

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of abortion pills in 2000, but selling them over the internet through unregulated channels might violate U.S. laws and the FDA has said it is evaluating whether any laws are being broken. Americans United for Life told CNN that Gomperts’ push to sell pills in the U.S. is “reckless and irresponsible.”

Abortion clinics have been providing pills for women up to 10 weeks along in their pregnancies, so they can have what’s called a medical, or chemical, abortion. Mifepristone, also known as RU-486 or Mifeprex, cuts off nutrition to the baby growing in a mother’s womb. The mother then takes misoprostol, typically within 48 hours, which causes intense contractions. Abortion activists misleadingly characterize what happens next as a miscarriage to mask the deliberate taking of a life.

Many women now prefer the idea of having an abortion in the comfort of their own homes as opposed to undergoing a procedure at a clinic, which they consider more invasive and less private. But pro-life groups say a growing number of women are emotionally traumatized by the process, especially if they are not prepared for the possibility of seeing what is clearly a developing baby get expelled from their bodies.

According to LifeSiteNews, chemical abortions put women at a greater risk of being traumatized: “At home, a woman may actually see the remains of her baby, sometimes while alone and in great physical pain…. ‘Those who do see more [by using the abortion pill] have more nightmares, more trauma symptoms.’”

Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said earlier this month, “It’s hard to imagine a society any more dangerous and any more deadly than a society that will kill unborn life in the womb by a pill.”

Mohler said Gomperts’ efforts to sell abortion pills online to women in the U.S. reflects “the desperation of the pro-abortion movement, so determined to make abortion available to as many as possible, as quickly as possible, in as uncomplicated a manner as possible, whether or not the law is on their side.”

Women having second thoughts after taking the first abortion pill, RU-486, can potentially get the effects reversed and continue their pregnancies, according to Heartbeat International. The success rate is 64 to 68 percent, according to the group’s Abortion Pill Reversal website. The website can be found at abortionpillreversal.com. There’s also a 24/7 helpline number, 877-558-0333.

Read more:

Yale Now Sells Abortion Drugs From A Vending Machine (The Daily Wire)

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Introduction by Laurie Higgins

One of the joys and blessings of working for IFI these past ten years has been meeting remarkable people from across the country. One very special friend is Dr. Daniel Boland who has master’s degrees (one in theology and one in education), a PhD in psychology, and three years of post-doctoral training and research in human behavior and applied behavioral science. He taught, supervised and counseled at the University of Notre Dame and, later, at Arizona State University. After teaching, he opened a private practice as consulting psychologist in Scottsdale, Arizona and eventually moved to Southern California, where he enjoys the atmospheric climate much more than the political one. Dr. Boland now studies and writes about the radically secular trends and de-moralizing ideas which are eroding the influence of traditional Judeo-Christian principles, beliefs and practices. His wise, compassionate, and edifying essays are available on his blog to which you can and should subscribe. Here’s his essay on the meaning of the Kavanaugh imbroglio:

Beyond the Kavanaugh Event: America’s Fading Traditions
Written by Dr. Daniel Boland

A vast divide now exists among Americans. It is far more than a political rift between Democrats and Republicans. It is not merely a struggle between conservatives and liberals. The true nature of this conflict centers on how we shall live as individuals and what values we shall uphold as a nation. The facts at hand are not encouraging.

The Kavanaugh Event highlights the rabid polarization in the struggle for survival of our fundamental values, our American identity and even our national security.

“Progressivism’s” Errant Values

“Progressive” Leftists seek to create a nation without national boundaries, moral traditions or constitutional restraints. “… Let people do what they want. Let them have their way, no matter what price we pay for unhindered progress or what age-old laws and time-honored customs of dead-white-men we banish along the way…” say “progressive” Leftists.

America’s national character and moral coherence are based on 230+ years of constitutional stability inspired by Judeo-Christian mores. These legal and spiritual codes emphasize individual accountability and define the natural and lawful limits of human behavior.

Until recently, individual rights have always been balanced by personal responsibilities—and by accountability to God and to other human beings—for the common good, starting with the first natural right of all persons, the right to life, which includes the unborn.

Until recently, these codes have restrained government abuse and tempered the fads and foolishness to which humans are attracted. Today, the “progressive” Left jettisons these norms as outmoded, offensive, restrictive—the stale product of male/sexist/white/Christian/conservative dominance.

To advance their vision of unhindered “progress,” Leftists seek to eradicate our American system. Thus, many of our sacred traditions and boundaries are being overthrown by practitioners of Marxist political correctness and moral relativism, mental and moral distortions to which many Americans are in militant, yet ignorant, thrall.

And now comes the Kavanaugh Event where accusation and condemnation—rather than civility and restraint—are common. The dignity and achievements of a good man’s lifetime are expunged in favor of flimsy rumor and deliberate exaggeration (if not outright lies) in service to manipulative power.

Memory’s Weak Links

The Kavanaugh hearings quickly devolved into character defamation, focusing not on the nominee’s professional qualifications but on whether he was a teenaged drunkard, so afflicted by alcoholic blackouts that he was forgetfully capable of anything, including violent rape.

Politically correct character assassination is the goal of the Kavanaugh Event, with the threat of impeachment ever hovering. To the Left, solid reputations of moral probity earned over an adult lifetime are relative.

Judge Kavanaugh is accused of a felony. But the preponderance of evidence assuredly does not support this charge. However, many Leftists hope the ensuing FBI probe will unearth additional dirt about Kavanaugh’s college drinking and belligerency, and a subsequent charge of perjury they hope to pin on him—dirt with which they expect to bury Judge Kavanaugh.

It is crucial to note that dissociative amnesia and the validity of recovered memories—the bases of his accuser’s charges—carry scant weight in research psychology and forensic testimony. The validity and credibility of recovered memories is highly unreliable.

Research tells us that recovered memories are by no means credible and carry no probative value. Yet Democrats grant eager assent to the accusations, which originated in trauma forty years old. Despite this, the “progressive” Left celebrates the accusation as “proof” of Judge Kavanaugh’s guilt. (If you wish to review these accusations and, more to the point, read the report of Rachel Mitchell, the prosecutor who interviewed Dr. Christine Ford during the proceedings, click here.

The Progressive’s Approach 

To the “progressive” Left, accusation alone cancels reasonable doubt. It “proves” Judge Kavanaugh is unworthy. Henceforth, he shall be known and dishonored as a liar, drunk and rapist.

For the “progressive” Left, even a reckless, fact-less accusation that anyone is a racist or a homophobe, a chauvinist-pig or a sexist, a bigot or a promoter of hate speech or, worse, a faithful Christian baker or florist (with all the attached spiteful, religious baggage), even a mere accusation is sufficient to cast shadows over good people to justify punitive wrath and budget-busting fines.

Such is the “progressive” politically correct ethic in our morally-wounded, rationally-bereft culture.

The Behavior of Some Senators

The insults and “gotcha” posturing by Democrat Senators were, to many observers, way over the edge. It was deeply disquieting to watch our elected representatives leverage Judge Kavanaugh’s plight for their own unsavory political agendas, their unseemly grandstanding and their appeals to financial donors.

For example, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declared his resistance to Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination less than half an hour after the announcement. Mr. Schumer’s rush to pre-judgment was startling in its alacrity and vehemence.

U.S. Senator Kristen Gillibrand’s opportunistic “anti-males-in-power” feminist screeds were wearisome in their denial of historical and biological reality—which is nowhere better explained than in this brief, must-watch Prager U video.

U.S. Senator Mazie Hirono’s advice to men to “shut up and step up” was simply incoherent and outlandish.

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris’ fumbling, all-too-obvious attempts to trap Judge Kavanaugh into contradictory testimony were feckless and amateurish.

U.S. Senator Cory Booker indulged in several episodes of self-promoting rodomontade a’brim with cringe-worthy virtue-signaling and martyr-ish rhetoric. His performance was out of sync with his own teen-age sexual excesses, about which he wrote in a college column proclaiming his conversion to feminism.

One could also mention U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal’s needless slur that Judge Kavanaugh’s appointment will “stain” the Supreme Court. This is the same Blumenthal who claimed to have served in Vietnam when, in fact, he did not.

There are other embarrassing and unstatesman-like (or, if I must, unstateswoman-like) examples from our national leaders in this unfortunate inquisition, but the point is evident and disturbing.

The Stunning Absence of Honesty

The intemperate name-calling and adversarial behavior of Democrats did indeed shock. Such behavior compels us to recognize with heavy heart that politics and far too many politicians no longer exemplify responsible civility, moral and intellectual clarity, human courtesy or simple fairness.

Some will counter with a challenge: “Yes, but how ‘bout Trump and his ranting, blathering incivilities?”

Yes, many Americans vehemently condemn President Trump’s tweety indiscretions. In fact, many loathe our president for his tactless style and his tasteless crudities.

Many people also criticize Republicans for their hesitant, tradition-bound approach to their exercise of their congressional majorities and for their failure to reach effectively across the aisle and seek unity with Democrats. “… After all, Republicans have the power…”

Fair enough.

But “progressivism’s” defamatory strategies and divisive energies—now on grim public display—clearly reveal how they are deliberately eroding our American ideals and how responsible these “progressive” Leftists are for the toxic state of affairs we now face.

To this day, the story of America is a record of human nature’s best attempts at limited governance and the evolution of justice. Sadly, today’s destructive Leftist politics reveals that power-grasping can overshadow the good will and highest hopes of human nature which defined American exceptionalism.

Political Life and Reality’s Bite

Our Declaration of Independence declares that our laws are codifications of rights and responsibilities granted by our Creator—except to the “progressive” Left.

Our nation’s historic struggle for a balance between human laws and their divine origin are summed up in the admonitions of John Adams, who cautioned that our form of governance relies not only on law but also on the virtue of citizens and their representatives—except to the “progressive” Left.

We can see that American politics today is no longer a unified struggle for a common goal. Party politics is now a bitter, morally divisive enterprise. Americans are separated according to our vision of human life, its origins, its rights and its inherent value.

These differences are nowhere more definitively clarified than with the issue of abortion. The divisions in our country relate to our beliefs about life itself—about the “right” of individuals to live and the “right” of both the state and private persons to take life away from its own citizens, especially from the unborn and the elderly.

It is the taking and giving of life which threaten our Republic’s very survival. It is abortion, its moral consequences and its political leverage which are at the dark core of the Kavanaugh Event. 

Threats to American Stability

The corrupting intrusions of Marxist political-correctness, the ascendance of moral relativism in the American consciousness and the denigration of Judeo-Christian principles now inspire character assassination as a mainstream political tool. But there is also much more to worry about.

Our national malaise is exacerbated by Leftist propagandists in the media and entertainment industries to the grave detriment to our entire culture. One has only to listen to some late-night hosts to realize how foul “humor” has become, as Jimmy Kimmel’s disgusting comment affirms.

To the Left, factual reportage and decency in speech are relative to the desired outcome.

The impact of the “progressive” Left’s relativism on American politics, education, family life, law enforcement on our entire culture is difficult to face but impossible to deny:

• erosion of speech and religious exercise protections and the concomitant ongoing denigration of Judeo-Christian traditions

• triumph of non-judgmental, “anything goes” moral madness

• acceptance by medical professionals and parents of gravely misguided “transgender” “identity” change therapies over natural sexuality

• destruction of moral codes that respect the unborn and the elderly

• increased taxation and subsequent re-distribution of income and opportunity, regardless of talent, work ethic or experience

• perpetuation of welfare without qualification

• the support for open borders and further influx of unregistered non-citizen “sanctuary” seekers demanding care and comfort for all entrants—this added to an illegal population which is twice what experts previously estimated

• increased control of industry, commerce and systems of distribution, psychological and medical services and educational institutions

There is also the mortal danger of Islamic militancy which promises violence and death to America. In fact, violence is now occurring throughout Europe, a continent made victim by its own twisted sense of giving aid to its destroyers and welcoming its enemy in the names of suicidal empathy and false altruism.

Do We Get It Yet?

The un-making of America in accordance with the desires and will of the “progressive” Left proceeds apace as self-restraint is diminished and counterfeit, artificial “freedoms” are let loose among us. The public destruction of Brett Kavanaugh is but one of countless tragic events ahead for America and for many Americans.

History tells us that disturbing outcomes are increasingly probable unless we take seriously the facts at hand. The facts at hand attest to the demise of our moral traditions, truth and civility in the “progressive” Left’s politically correct, socialist America and to the continuing destruction of American exceptionalism and identity.

It can’t happen here? Really?

It is unfolding before us every day.

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I recently tweeted, “Regardless of the charges against Justice Kavanaugh, this much is absolutely clear. The frenzied attempt to try to keep him out of the U.S. Supreme Court is simply a battle for the ‘right’ to abort babies in the womb. That’s the bottom line.”

Similar sentiments were expressed by Brandon Morse, writing on RedState.com: “The whole reason Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is in the crosshairs of a sexual assault allegation, and a media circus is ensuing, is because the left is 100 percent focused on making sure their ability to abort children and profit from it goes uninterrupted. They can pretend it’s about honor and making sure an attempted rapist doesn’t get a seat on the highest court in the land, but the left cares very little about sexual assault or abuse.”

Is Justice Kavanaugh guilty of an attempted sexual assault 36 years ago? Is his accuser, Prof. Christine Blasey Ford, a credible witness? Those are totally separate questions.

The left’s opposition to Kavanaugh would be no less intense, no less angry, no less pitched had these charges never been raised. The real issue is abortion.

To quote Morse again, “This is about Planned Parenthood’s ability to keep the money wheel flowing for the Democrats. This is about keeping a narrative alive that without abortion, America would fall apart.”

Yes, “Democrats are so desperate to keep abortion alive and well in the United States that they’re willing to paint an innocent man as the worst kind of person so that they can continue killing children without trouble.”

And what would happen if Roe v. Wade was overturned? What would happen if “abortion rights” were severely restricted (or entirely removed) from state after state?

All hell would break loose on the streets. Fierce protests would arise. Things would get ugly overnight – and by ugly, I mean very ugly.

A headline from July 12, 2013 on Townhall.com read, “Bricks and Tampons Intended to be Thrown at Pro-Life Lawmakers Confiscated by Police. UPDATE: Jars of Feces Too.”

The accompanying article, written by Katie Pavlich, stated that, “Apparently chanting ‘hail Satan,’ ‘f*ck the church,’ ‘bro-choice’ and holding signs that say ‘hoes before embryos’ just wasn’t enough for pro-abortion protestors in Texas. According to reports on the ground, police have confiscated bricks, tampons, pads and condoms protestors planned to throw at pro-life lawmakers.”

Fast forward to October 17, 2017, and a headline on LifeNews stated, “Topless Feminists Throw Firebombs, Tampons and Feces at a Catholic Church to Protest Abortion.” (This took place in Argentina.)

Are you seeing a pattern?

So, I ask again: What happens if Roe v. Wade gets overturned? What can we expect?

We can expect fury. We can expect feces. We can expect vitriol. We can expect vandalism. We can expect violence.

Watch this short video of Antifa and other leftists stealing and destroying pro-life signs in a Boston park. Then ask yourself: What happens when it’s not just pro-life signs that are the issue? What happens when pro-life laws are the issue? What then?

On May 1 of this year, Matthew Vadum reported that Antifa activists in California “protested a campus speech by Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America.”

As Vadum noted, according to the Orange County Antifa group Refuse Fascism, “Because Hawkins’ group would outlaw abortion, its members are equivalent to ‘Hitler-youth’ who want to treat women as ‘mere breeders or incubators, subordinate and shackled to a patriarchal order that sees them merely as objects.’ Pro-lifers are about ‘control over women, not saving lives (as evidenced by their bombings of clinics and outright murder of heroic doctors who provide abortions).’

Indeed, “Hawkins ‘and the whole fascist program against women and their rights’ need to be opposed and the ‘entire culture on campuses needs to be shaken up’ so students take on ‘the grave threat being posed by the Trump/Pence fascist regime.’”

You can be assured that these radical activists believe every word of this rhetoric, which could easily lead to violence. And I repeat: This kind of rhetoric is being used while Roe v. Wade remains the law of the land. Antifa activists and their ilk would go absolutely berserk if the laws were dramatically changed.

To be clear, I recognize that for many women, having an abortion is an intensely difficult moral choice. I’m thinking of a woman in her 20s, reared in a religious home, already raising two little children without a father. Her boyfriend takes advantage of her, she discovers she’s pregnant, and she is devastated by the news.

She cannot imagine adding one more child to her household, she struggles with depression and fear, finally deciding to abort her baby after four months.

Her decision was still morally wrong. But this woman is unlikely to join the “Shout Your Abortion” movement or, even less, to hurl feces at a church building.

Put another way, most of the women (and men) raging for the “right” to abort babies do so ideologically. Among them are devout feminists (although the pioneer feminists were reportedly anti-abortion). Among them are a large percentage of atheists. (According to a recent Pew Research report, 87 percent of atheists feel that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.)

Among them are LGBT activists, like those featured in this story describing, “How Queer Women and Nonbinary People Led the Fight to Secure Abortion Rights in Ireland.” (According to the congratulatory article, there is a clear “connection between LGBTQ+ rights and reproductive rights.”)

Among them are Satanists, like those who led a battle for “abortion rights” in Missouri. Yes, these Satanists claimed that the “rules in Missouri’s strict abortion law violate their religious beliefs.”

This is quite the coalition.

The bottom line is that, these examples, which provide just a sampling of the ideological opposition to the pro-life movement, remind us that hell hath no fury like that of the militant pro-abortionists.

Get ready.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com.

Abortion is much in the news lately as Judge Brett Kavanaugh—who many abortion-cheerleaders fear will overturn Roe v. Wade—stands poised to become the newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court. Their protestations to the contrary, abortion supporters—who call themselves euphemistically “pro-choice”—are, in reality, pro-death. Women who seek abortions do not seek centrally to terminate a pregnancy. They seek to terminate a human life.

Here’s a thought experiment that might help reveal the ugly truth hiding behind euphemisms: Imagine if all these past 45 bloody years, it had been technologically possible to extract tiny humans from the wombs of their mothers at the earliest stages of pregnancy and incubate and nourish them until they reached full development at which point they could have been placed for adoption. The pregnancy would have been terminated but the lives of babies spared. Does anyone really believe many women would have chosen to terminate their unwanted pregnancies without terminating the lives of their children whom they didn’t want?

Even without such technology, women could have chosen to allow the termination of their pregnancies to occur naturally and without killing their human offspring. All they had to do was wait 1-8 months and voilà, pregnancy terminated, babies’ lives spared. But the termination of a pregnancy was not the ultimate goal. Death of a new human life—the product of conception between two humans and one with unique DNA—was the ultimate goal. The incomprehensible truth is that women who choose to “terminate their pregnancies” prefer the ignoble choice of death for their children over the noble choice to give their children life in the arms of women and men who want them.

Defending abortion in such a way as to mask the barbarism of the act requires recasting incipient human life as either non-life or life unworthy of any rights (The non-life argument is challenging because of, well, science). Since ideas have consequences, we’re seeing that what was once considered shameful and tragic—that is, killing one’s own offspring—is now celebrated by the rich and famous. Actress Martha Plimpton encourages women to “shout their abortions,” Hollywood made a romantic comedy about abortion, and comedienne-manqué Michelle Wolf performed an abortion-celebrating comedy sketch titled “Salute to Abortion” for her now-canceled show.

The idea that because tiny womb-inhabiting humans are not fully developed, lack self-awareness, depend on others for survival, have physical anomalies that will cause suffering, are afflicted with conditions “incompatible with life,” or are inconvenient to their mothers, those mothers have the right to have them killed has far-reaching, tragic, and predictable consequences.

As I wrote prior to HB 40 being signed into law, there are no criteria that Leftists can manufacture to defend the right of some humans to snuff out the lives of other humans that apply only to incipient human lives. Whether those criteria are intrinsic or extrinsic to humans in the womb, they can be applied to humans who escaped the torture chamber that the womb has become.

Intrinsic criteria such as immature development, dependency status, lack of sentience, or lack of perfection apply to humans outside the womb as well. Extrinsic criteria such as being considered a financial or emotional burden also apply to humans outside the womb. And so, we’re seeing the mission creep of death supporters.

Unethical Princeton University bioethics professor Peter Singer wants to extend killing “rights” 30 days post-natally to allow parents to ascertain the health status of their conditionally wanted children. After all, some imperfect humans may have escaped all the currently available tests for determining human perfection and, therefore, “wantedness.”

As I wrote earlier, Leftists who believe that more developed, self-aware, able-bodied, and cognitively superior humans have the right to exterminate less-developed, or cognitively or physically impaired humans whose self-awareness is diminished or absent are kindred spirits with Singer.

The infamous Singer himself acknowledges in his book Practical Ethics that we have already started down the unctuous slope:

I do not deny that if one accepts abortion on the grounds provided in Chapter 6, the case for killing other human beings, in certain circumstances, is strong. As I shall try to show… this is not something to be regarded with horror…. [O]nce we abandon those doctrines about the sanctity of human life that… collapse as soon as they are questioned, it is the refusal to accept killing that, in some cases, is horrific.

Then in 2011, two philosophers at the University of Melbourne, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, published a paper in which they advocated for “after-birth abortion”:

[W]e argue that, when circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible.

One of the many grotesque arguments “progressives” use to rationalize human slaughter is to suggest that in order to prevent adult women from choosing to have back-alley abortions, we must keep the slaughter of humans in the womb legal.

Let’s add some perspective. Here’s from the liberal pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute:

In 1930, abortion was listed as the official cause of death for almost 2,700 women…. The death toll had declined to just under 1,700 by 1940, and to just over 300 by 1950 (most likely because of the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s, which permitted more effective treatment of the infections that frequently developed after illegal abortion). By 1965, the number of deaths due to illegal abortion had fallen to just under 200.

Compare those numbers of accidental deaths to the 647,000  intentional killings of humans in the womb just this year.

Someone recently asked me who would care for and how we could afford all the “unwanted children” that would result from the abolition of legalized human slaughter (well, that’s not exactly what he called it). It’s important to note that not all of the babies who are currently in the death chute, destined by their mothers to be killed would become wards of the state or dependent on social services. Moreover, the $500 million dollars that we currently give to Planned Parenthood for their bloody business could be re-allocated to organizations that help needy families—including faith-based organizations.

If legalized feticide were abolished, the very real possibility exists that some—perhaps many—women would use their “reproductive rights”—rights that don’t include killing other humans—more responsibly. There are reasons we have a million abortions every year, and one of those reasons is we’ve made it cheap and easy.

Some women would use birth control more consistently. Some would become less promiscuous. More would allow their offspring to live and place them up for adoption. More would allow their children to live and would raise them themselves.

And some would freely choose to have back-alley abortions. If infections followed, they would be treated with antibiotics. None of these women would have their hearts injected with digoxin, their skin burned off, their brains scrambled and sucked out, or their limbs torn off. Let’s remember that none of the over 60 million humans slaughtered in the womb since 1973 chose her or his own slaughter.

But most important, no amount of public expense can ever justify the deliberate killing of innocent humans.

Once humans arrogate the right to determine the value of the lives of others or, as with abortion, when humans predict the future value or experiences of the lives of others or the costs to others of the lives of weaker humans, we have launched ourselves down a slippery slope that will end in involuntary euthanasia (also known as murder) of those who are deemed unworthy. Once we say that a person’s unwantedness or presumed unwantedness or physical imperfections rob her of her right to exist and justifies her killing, how is it possible to prevent the killings of others whom the powerful deem unworthy? Once we rid ourselves of that pesky notion about the “sanctity of life,” who among us is safe?

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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In Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s U.S. Senate confirmation hearing earlier today, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) made a mind-blowing—make that head-exploding—statement. Citing the liberal Guttmacher Institute, Feinstein said, “In the 1950s and ’60s, the two decades before Roe, death from illegal abortions in this country ran between 200,000 to 1.2 million [emphasis added].”

That is not what the Guttmacher Institute says. The Guttmacher Institute says, “Estimates of the number of illegal abortions in the 1950s and 1960s ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year.” Please note, this statement does not mention death. Feinstein’s numbers would have been correct if she had been referring to humans in the womb, but she wasn’t.

Here’s what Feinstein omitted, also from the Guttmacher Institute:

In 1930, abortion was listed as the official cause of death for almost 2,700 women—nearly one-fifth (18%) of maternal deaths recorded in that year. The death toll had declined to just under 1,700 by 1940, and to just over 300 by 1950 (most likely because of the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s, which permitted more effective treatment of the infections that frequently developed after illegal abortion). By 1965, the number of deaths due to illegal abortion had fallen to just under 200.”

The number of (accidental) deaths of women caused by illegal abortions in the 1950s and 1960s doesn’t come close to 200,000, let alone 1.2 million. Compare the number of actual deaths of women from illegal abortions in the 1950s and 1960’s to the almost 61 MILLION intentional killings of humans in the womb since 1973, or the almost 630,000 humans intentionally killed in the womb just this year.

The “Conservative Millennial” Allie Stuckey recently wrote this:

The most impressive feat the Left has accomplished is convincing millions of people that decapitating a child inside the womb is worthy of celebration. That alone should teach us to never underestimate the power of a lie and the willingness of ignorant people to believe it.

The success of the Left can be attributed in no small measure to their repugnant willingness to lie in the service of evil.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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Based on the response from the left, you would think that the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court would virtually guarantee the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Why, then, are some conservative and pro-life groups opposing his confirmation?

On the positive side, many pro-life leaders reacted enthusiastically to the nomination of Justice Kavanaugh, including Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the highly-respected Susan B. Anthony List.

She said, “President Trump has made another outstanding choice in nominating Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, keeping his promise to nominate only originalist judges to the Court.”

In her opinion, Kavanaugh was “an experienced, principled jurist,” who has a “strong record of protecting life and constitutional rights.”

Many others were enthusiastic as well, including conservative think tanks and long-term pro-life leaders.

On the negative side, Jane Coaston wrote an article for Vox.com explaining, “Why social conservatives are disappointed that Trump picked Brett Kavanaugh.”

She pointed to a number of top leaders in the conservative and pro-life movement who had reservations about Kavanaugh or who called for outright opposition.

Upon hearing of President Trump’s nomination of Kavanaugh, the National Review’s David French wrote, “I’ll defend [Kavanaugh] vigorously from unfair critiques tomorrow, but tonight I join many conservatives in a slight sigh of regret. There was a better choice.”

Tim Wildmon, President of the highly influential American Family Association, wrote, “AFA has opposed the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S Supreme Court for some very valid reasons. We are deeply concerned about how he might ultimately rule on issues related to abortion and religious liberty. For these reasons, we consider this nomination to represent a four-star appointment when it could have been five-star.”

Other groups, like Columbia [South Carolina] Christians for Life sent out e-blasts with titles like, “ROE VS. WADE protector Kavanaugh: Another red flag for Jesuit-educated, Jesuit school director, BRETT KAVANAUGH.” (This was sent out August 30.)

Another pro-life activist sent out links to this video, with this warning: “President Trump broke his campaign promise to pro-lifers when he nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Ricardo Davis of Georgia Right to Life calls Kavanaugh’s pro-abortion position ‘morally reprehensible’ and urges pro-lifers and conservatives to demand Kavanaugh’s withdrawal and for Trump to replace him with a real pro-life nominee such as Amy Coney Barrett.”

How can we make sense of this?

On the one hand, there is agreement that someone like Justice Amy Coney Barrett, if appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, would definitely vote to overturn Roe v. Wade should the opportunity present itself. The downside is that many believe that in today’s climate, despite the Republican majority, she would not have been confirmed.

Others have suggested that it’s unlikely that there will be a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade as much as an incremental challenge. What if something like the Fetal Heartbeat Bill became law and was challenged up to the U.S. Supreme Court? How would Kavanaugh vote on that?

The real answer is that we simply do not know what a U.S. Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh would do.

According to Thomas Jipping, Deputy Director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and a Senior Legal Fellow, Kavanaugh’s “record meets the Schumer standard of a judge who does not predictably rule for a particular side. That is because Kavanaugh is the kind of judge who follows the law rather than his personal views.”

What, then, are we to make of the varied and passionate responses to Justice Kavanaugh? Does the left have reason to fear? Does the right have reason to rue a missed opportunity?

Here are a few things that seem clear.

First, we can be almost certain that Justice Kavanaugh will be a far better friend of the U.S. Constitution and of conservative values than any judge a President Hillary Clinton would have appointed. That is a very big positive.

Second, we who are pro-life do well not to put our ultimate trust in a man (Kavanaugh) or an institution (the U.S. Supreme Court) to change the direction of our nation. (This is not to deny the importance of both the man and the institution. It is simply to bring perspective.)

Third, it is possible that Kavanaugh himself cannot guarantee how he will rule if confirmed. There have been surprises in every direction from various appointees in the past, and even the best vetting process cannot guarantee the future.

Obviously, I hope that the leftist opposition to Kavanaugh is correct and that, should the opportunity arise, he would vote for life and for family and for our essential liberties.

But there may be a reason for the concern of some on the right, in which case we should be praying for Kavanaugh and the rest of the members of the Court that God would direct their hearts.

Scripture teaches that, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He will.” Surely He can turn the hearts of U.S. Supreme Court justices as well.

More importantly, He can turn the hearts of a nation. That is the greater goal when it comes to cultivating a culture of life, and it must always remain the foremost goal for all of us who love life. As powerful as the Supreme Court has become, it alone cannot transform hearts.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com

What the heck is wrong with Denver attorney “Autumn” Charlie Scardina? Oh yeah, he’s delusional. He thinks he is or wants to be a woman. And he definitely masquerades as one. That’s not an excuse for his reprehensible act of going after Masterpiece Cakeshop baker Jack Phillips, but it may help explain it.

In June 2017, just after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take Phillips’ case regarding his refusal to bake a cake for a same-sex faux-marriage and in full knowledge that Phillips would refuse his request, Scardina called the bakery to try to order a cake with a blue exterior and a pink interior for the celebration of his futile quest to become a woman—something he erroneously calls a “transition.”

As Scardina knew he would, Phillips refused, so Scardina filed a complaint with the loathsome Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which has “issued a finding” in which it declares that “there is sufficient evidence to support” Scardina’s “claim of discrimination.”

And we’re off to the races. “Autumn” may find running in heels challenging.

Phillips did not “discriminate” against Scardina based on Scardina’s desire to be a woman or his choice to masquerade as one. Phillips refused to use his skills and labor to create a product he has never created and that would convey a message that violates his religious convictions. If Scardina, still adorned in all his inglorious fakery, were to request a cake to celebrate, for example, his parents’ anniversary, Phillips would create it and sell it to him. Why is the distinction between refusing to sell a type of product or refusing to create an offensive message or refusing to serve a type of event and refusing to serve persons so difficult for cultural regressives to understand?

A word about “transitioning.” Men and women don’t and can’t. Castrations on anatomically and biologically healthy men don’t turn them into women. They turn them into eunuchs. Inverting penises to turn into fake vaginas doesn’t turn men into women. Tracheal shaves, feminizing facial surgeries, cross-sex hormone-doping, and evening gowns don’t turn men into women. Sure, with multiple surgeries, lipstick, flowing hair, and elaborate costuming, men can create disguises more likely to deceive people, but they cannot transition from man to woman.

This effort to destroy the small business of a Christian baker who seeks nothing other than to live his life as an authentic Christ-follower is revolutionary. Many dark forces impel and sustain this science-denying madness. There is the sexual revolution that ushered in the notions that our bodies are only instruments for our pleasure; that bodies have no intrinsic teleology (and certainly not related to procreative potential); and that there are no absolute, transcendent, objective moral truths. Second-wave feminists taught that there are no substantive differences between men and women (well, except when they argued there are, and women are superior). Then came the “LGBTQ” revolution that taught us the lie that men and women are interchangeable when it comes to sexual partners. The old heresy of Gnosticism reared its ugly head. Gnosticism teaches that the human person is dualistic rather than an integrated, inseparable whole composed of body and soul. Add to this toxic stew the cowardice of Christians who should know, care about, and speak truth but now stand largely silent while the bodies of men, women, and children are being mutilated in Frankensteinian and futile experiments, and voilà, a revolution of historic proportions is upon us.

At the most fundamental level, this revolution constitutes rebellion against God and his created order. It’s yet another manifestation of man’s pursuit of disordered desires, including the desire to be like God, which are the desires that get humans into mess after mess. Some messes, however, are worse than others. This is among the worst.

And cultural regressives will brook no resistance. They demand that every man, woman, and child genuflect to all cultural manifestations of their madness. In our schools, in our leisure activities, in our language, in our restrooms and locker rooms, and one day in our churches, we will be made to pretend that men can become women—or else. Live and let live is definitely not their motto.

Remember the concerted effort to force Jack Phillips to bake multiple cakes with unholy, deceitful messages next time some cultural regressive scoffs at the suggestion that Christians are being persecuted. Remember this next time some cultural regressive says the “lgbtqqap” ideology affects only the persons who embrace it. Remember this next time an opportunity presents itself for you to speak truth and, instead, you feel like God is “leading” you to remain silent.

Isn’t it remarkable how often we Christians feel “led by God” onto the path of least resistance—you know, the same path everyone else is on—the wide, crowded path lit by thin strands of those tiny, bedazzling lights that illumine little?

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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The three cases dealt with quite different issues.

In National Institute of Family Life Advocates v. Becerra, a 5-4 majority of the court overturned a California statute that required anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers to inform clients where they could obtain free or inexpensive abortions — something the centers regard as homicide.

The same 5-4 majority in a second case, Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, reversed a 41-year-old precedent and ruled that public employees don’t have to pay unions fees that cover the cost of collective bargaining. Echoing a position taken by then-President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, the court reasoned that collective bargaining with a public employer is inevitably a political matter, and that forcing employees to finance it is compelling them to subsidize political speech with which they disagree.

In the third case, Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court avoided a direct decision on whether a baker, whose Christian belief opposed same-sex marriage, could refuse to design a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple, contrary to a state law that bars discrimination against gays. Seven justices ruled that the commission showed an impermissible animus against religion, but the four liberal justices endorsed a separate opinion indicating they’d rule against the baker otherwise.

Rational arguments can now be made for the dissenters’ positions. In Becerra, they argued that the law simply prevented misleading advertising; in Janus, they argued that union members should pay for services rendered; in Masterpiece Cakeshop, they argued that selling a cake is a routine service, not a form of expression. You may not agree, but you can see why others might make these arguments.

But are they “liberal”? That word comes from a Latin root that means “free.”

And “free” is the keyword in the First Amendment to the Constitution, which bars Congress from passing laws “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion or “abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.”

The Supreme Court First Amendment jurisprudence got its start almost exactly 100 years ago, in cases challenging laws passed by a Democratic Congress and endorsed by a Democratic administration, prohibiting opposition to the government and, specifically, American participation in World War I.

The justices hesitated to block such prosecutions, but those considered “liberal” — Republican appointee Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and Democratic appointee Justice Louis Brandeis — were most likely to look askance. The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 to defend the free speech rights of everyone, even vile extremists.

Unhappily, the ACLU today subordinates free speech to other values, like defending the sensibilities of certain students on campuses. And other liberals have been moving in the same direction. It’s less important for them that people say what they think and more important that they say what the government requires.

In his Bagehot blog, the Economist’s Adrian Wooldridge describes the process. Historically, he says, liberals understood that conflict was inevitable and tried to foster freedom based on their distrust of power, faith in progress and belief in civic respect. But today, Wooldridge writes, “liberalism as a philosophy has been captured by a technocratic-managerial-cosmopolitan elite.” They have moved from making “a critique of the existing power structure” to becoming “one of the most powerful elites in history.” In response, we see “a revolt of the provinces against the city”: Brexit, Donald Trump. In counter-response, as Niall Ferguson puts it in a column for The Times of London, “‘liberals’ are increasingly authoritarian.”

Like the “liberal” Supreme Court justices, who don’t see a constitutional problem with compelling crisis pregnancy centers to send messages they find repugnant, or requiring union members to subsidize political speech they disagree with, or forcing people to participate in ceremonies prohibited by their religion.

In the process, they are providing support for Friedrich Hayek‘s argument in “The Road to Serfdom” that moving toward socialism means moving toward authoritarianism. And they seem to not have noticed Yale Law Professor Stephen Carter‘s observation, as quoted in The Atlantic, that “every law is violent” because “Behind every exercise of law stands the sheriff.”

Carter calls for “a degree of humility” in passing and enforcing laws that compel speech against conscience — something today’s “liberals” seem to have forgotten.

Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

This article originally posted at Creators.com

Truth is, abortion is not health care. And the truth is the number of taxpayer funded abortions is increasing dramatically in Illinois following Governor Rauner’s signature on House Bill 40.

A majority of Americans including many mainline Christians support legal abortion, but many religious conservatives say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center.

Those religious conservatives are now hoping that Roe v. Wade will be overturned in light of President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, a practicing Catholic, to the U.S. Supreme Court. They’re optimistic that having a fifth conservative on the bench could lead to a reversal of the 1973 landmark case that made abortion a constitutional right. Kavanaugh gave a speech last year in which he praised former Chief Justice William Rehnquist for dissenting in Roe v. Wade.

A Pew survey last year showed that 57 percent of Americans support legal abortion, while 40 percent believe it should be illegal in most or all cases. A Pew 2014 Religious Landscape Study found that evangelicals tend to oppose legal abortion while people in mainline Protestant churches, as well as Jews, atheists, and agnostics, tend to support it. While Catholics are divided, the Roman Catholic Church continues to speak out against abortion.

Sixty-six percent of Southern Baptists are opposed to legal abortion, compared to only 8 percent of Unitarian Universalists and 18 percent of Episcopalians. Other religious groups with a high percentage opposed include Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christians affiliated with the Assemblies of God.

In a January 2018 news release, Pew reported:

Among those who do identify with a religion, the majority view about abortion among members of a particular group often mirrors that group’s official policy on abortion. This is the case with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon church) and the Southern Baptist Convention – both churches oppose abortion, as do most members of those churches. And the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Unitarian Universalist Association, and Reform and Conservative Judaism, for example, all support abortion rights, in line with most of their adherents.

There are, however, cases where the views of a church’s members don’t align with its teachings on abortion. For instance, while the Roman Catholic Church is an outspoken critic of abortion, U.S. Catholics were divided on the issue in the 2014 survey, with 48% supportive of legal abortion and 47% opposed.  (See chart HERE.)

In June 2017, the Southern Baptist Convention at its annual meeting denounced Planned Parenthood and called on Congress to fully defund it. The convention passed a resolution that called out the “immoral agenda and practices of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates, especially their role in the unjust killing each year of more than 300,000 precious unborn babies, its use of particularly gruesome illegal abortion methods, and its profiteering from harvesting unborn babies’ tissues and organs.”

By contrast, representatives of mainline denominations have been vocal in support of legal abortion. This past March, 68 faith leaders in Iowa wrote a letter published in the Des Moines Register criticizing a bill in the state legislature that would make it illegal for a woman to get an abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected. The letter said in part:

Every person has the right to their own personal and religious beliefs and to live their life how they determine is best for them. The government does not have the right to infringe on the freedoms or privacy of Iowa women based on those religious beliefs. Every woman deserves to consult her values, faith, and doctor when making a decision about her body and her pregnancy. Any law that strips a woman of her faith and tries instead to legislate her values for her is immoral.

Republican state lawmakers in Iowa were able to pass the fetal heartbeat bill despite objections from Democrats. No Democrats supported the bill. It was signed into law by Republican Governor Kim Reynolds, but a judge blocked it from taking effect July 1 as a result of a lawsuit filed by abortion activists.

The Chicago Tribune has reported that more out-of-state women have been coming to Illinois for abortions because of less restrictive laws compared to those in surrounding states. The overall number of abortions had dropped, however, but is now on the rise, an increase attributed to a state law passed last year that expands taxpayer subsidies for abortions. Under the new law, which took effect January 1, Medicaid recipients and state employees and their dependents covered by state employee insurance can get taxpayer-subsidized abortions.

Read more:  Illinois Taxpayer Funded Abortions Increase at Least 274 Percent in First Six Months of 2018

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“Progressives” control academia, government schools, the mainstream press, professional medical and mental health organizations, the arts, and are infiltrating even churches. And now they seek absolute control over the judiciary through “court-packing.” They want constitutional revisionists to dominate the Supreme Court even if that means expanding the number of Justices. And some of them openly share their reasons for this proposal, thus exposing the brazenness of their tyrannical quest to transform America into a totalizing and totalitarian “progressive” dystopia.

READ MORE

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In an email, conservative Chicago attorney Joseph A. Morris, former Assistant Attorney General of the United States, President and General Counsel of The Lincoln Legal Foundation, and frequent guest on WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight,” told IFI that he is “thrilled by the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh,” elaborating,

Brett Kavanaugh is smart, learned, and honorable. He is exactly what President Trump promised to nominate and appoint: An originalist in the tradition of the late Antonin Scalia. With his hundreds of finely written, rigorously-reasoned opinions as a judge of the Court of Appeals, Judge Kavanaugh’s jurisprudence is literally an open book. He will make one of the finest Supreme Court justices in history.

While “progressives” work fast and furious to do what they do best—that is, manipulate emotions—Mr. Morris works to quell nerves jangled by the paranoia of people untethered to reality, wisdom,  or the Constitution:

Although the work of judges is not, and should not be, political, the nomination, confirmation, and appointment of Federal judges are necessarily political acts.

Much wailing will be heard, and ink will be spilled, this summer, regarding President Trump’s asserted “politicization” of the judiciary. A few simple numerical facts about the current staffing of the higher levels of the Federal judiciary may help put things in perspective.

Staffing of the United States Supreme Court:

Appointed by Republican:  4

Appointed by Democrat:    4

Vacant:  1

Total:      9

Staffing of the United States Courts of Appeals:

Mr. Morris is far from alone in his assessment of Judge Kavanaugh. All across the country, voices of support for Kavanaugh’s nomination are sounding. American Center for Law and Justice’s Jay Sekulow wrote,

The nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to fill the vacancy created with the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy is a superb choice who is certain to serve this nation well. Judge Kavanaugh is a brilliant jurist who embraces the philosophy of our Founders—an unwavering commitment to the rule of law and the Constitution.

The Thomas More Society released a statement, saying in part,

The Thomas More Society applauds President Donald J. Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States…. “We are excited to see the President nominate a great human being who is one of the finest legal minds of our time. Judge Brett Kavanaugh has a proven track record of judging fairly, always applying the Constitution and our laws as they are written. We look forward to his confirmation and anticipate that he will distinguish himself in his time on the high court.”

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote,

“By any measure, Judge Kavanaugh is one of the most respected federal judges in the country and I look forward to supporting his nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States. For over a decade, Judge Kavanaugh has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, often referred to as the second highest court in the land. He has over 300 published opinions, with a strong record of defending the Second Amendment, safeguarding the separation of powers, reining in the unchecked power of federal agencies, and preserving our precious religious liberties.

Even National Review’s David French, who was an impassioned proponent of Amy Coney Barrett, said, “Kavanaugh will be an excellent judge.”

Be of good, cheer, friends. This is most definitely not a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Thanks to President Donald J. Trump and his crack team of experts, it’s quite the opposite.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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Written by Pastor Myles Holmes

Tonight’s expected announcement of Trump’s pick for the U.S. Supreme Court and the upcoming confirmation process to fill Justice Kennedy’s seat marks a historic moment for the nation. Let us cover it in prayer.

Heavenly Father, Creator of all there is, Lord and Master of time and history, we praise You today for the blessings You have bestowed upon this great nation.

Our freedoms and liberties, our prosperity and bounty, are not the work of the hands of man, but they are Your mercies and grace upon us.

We acknowledge that we have failed you over and over again, we have mocked Your Word and spat upon Your law.

We have called good evil, we have celebrated evil, and truth lies fallen in the streets.

But You have always had a people in these United States who have cried out to You and Your mercies.

We your people cry out to You again.

You are a Miracle Worker of signs and wonders. You open doors that no one can shut. You make rivers in the desert, and You make a way through the sea and a path through the waters. You restore the years that the locusts have eaten.

We praise and thank You today that there are so many signs in this nation of our prayers being answered.

We pray for a continued spirit of repentance and conviction.

We pray this spirit of repentance and conviction will emanate from the church and affect every sphere of society … from our streets and businesses and  schools and local city halls, to the halls of the U.S. Congress and the White House.

We thank You for those you have placed in servant leadership over this nation.

We pray your protection and blessing and grace upon our President Donald Trump, Vice president Mike Pence, the cabinet members, and their families.

May they humbly seek you daily for direction, instruction, and Godliness. Grant to them insight to lead and foresight to anticipate what must be done to turn this nation back to You.

Now Father, You have granted us another opportunity to appoint a new U.S. Supreme Court justice to interpret the laws of the U.S. Constitution of this great land.

Heavenly Father, we cry out for mercy and Your leadership.

We pray that President Trump, Mike Pence and their advisors will be led by your wisdom, discernment, discretion and courage to appoint a man or woman who will serve on the U.S. Supreme Court with character and competence.

We pray in the Mighty and Matchless Name of Jesus Christ against all obstruction and hindering forces; we bind every evil, demonic power that would resist a man or woman of righteousness being appointed to this Court.

We know that righteousness exalts a nation.

We know that our laws and legislation must reflect an honoring of the God Who has blessed this nation.

We pray that this U.S. Supreme Court Justice appointment will be one who honors this great Constitution that you have blessed this nation with, respects the original intent of its authors, and believes in the individual freedoms that are enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

We pray that unjust and immoral laws will be overturned.

We pray that justice will run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Amos 5:24

We pray that all distortion and deception of laws will cease.

We pray that all perversions of justice will come to an end.

We pray that morality and decency will return to the chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court.

We pray that our justices will be blessed with moral courage, supernatural strength, and the backbone to speak against evil and to support the good, the right and the true.

We pray that our U.S. Supreme Court justices will continue to uphold freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and thought, to enable Your church to boldly rebuke evil, courageously defend the Truth and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We, your people, pray for Your blessing on the United States of America, we ask you for another great revival, another great move of your Spirit sweeping millions into the Kingdom, and pushing back the darkness. May Your Kingdom come and may Your Will be done.

May Your people remain faithful and humble, but bold as a lion to speak for righteousness and truth.

Protect our President and Vice President and their families from every evil spoken against them and every plan and plot of destruction, and draw each of them closer to You as they lead this great nation.

Send your Spirit,

Send revival,

Build your church that the gates of hell cannot prevail against,

let no flesh glory in Your Presence,

May the Name of Christ be high and lifted up above every other name,

the Name of Jesus,

It’s in His Name we pray,

Amen and Amen.

Pastor Myles Holmes (holy terror to mediocrity) is Lead Pastor REVIVE Church in Collinsville, Illinois and an IFI board member.  You can find him on Facebook and on Twitter @PastorMHolmes