Tag: abortion

At War with God

 

Versta, Photostock ID: 317290838 (Shutterstock)

We blame others. But it’s our own fault. It’s all our fault. Complaints about “identity politics,” “structural racism,” or “cancel culture” begin with us, according to Mary Eberstadt from her speech, “Men Are at War with God.” Eberstadt’s research into the storied wreckage of human lives begins with breakdown in families. She reports:

A Real Life, Pro-Life Story

 

When I first started teaching high school, I looked for stories about ideas that I wanted my students to wrestle with. One of those stories – Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants – is an abortion story without using the word. Both points of view are considered. The man would obviously like the woman to have an abortion, relieving himself from the consequences of raising a child. The woman, carrying new life within her, wants to think about keeping the baby. There is much to take into consideration in the story from both points of view.

But what I remember most about that reading and the ensuing discussion was a letter I received in the mail the next year. One of the students from that class discussion about abortion had written a paper on the topic. Surprisingly, a literature professor in the first year of this young woman’s college experience had the class read the same Hemingway story. My former student was kind enough to send me a copy of the paper she had written in her first-year college lit class.

The introduction to the paper described a woman who had gone through the same experience as the woman in Hills Like White Elephants. It seems a senior in high school had been impregnated by her high school principal. The man in this real-life situation was trying to persuade the young woman to have an abortion. The majority of the paper then went on to interpret Hemingway’s short story. But the conclusion, oh, the conclusion of the paper, I will never forget. Returning to the introduction, the young woman in the story was my former student’s mom; and the pregnancy being considered for abortion was my student. I was flabbergasted. The student never mentioned the story in my class. But I retell her story here as a testimony to the celebration of human life. For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found. [First posted at MarkEckel.com]

[Member Post]

 

During his presidency, Netanyahu said there was never a better friend in the White House to the Jews than Trump.  Among many achievements, Trump moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem amidst many protests. He and his son-in-law Jared Kushner worked tirelessly to try to build bridges with The Abraham Accords.  He never received the leadership […]

⚠️ This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet's community of conservatives and be part of the conversation.

Join Ricochet for free.

Rejecting Secular Ideologies Helps Black Families

 

After the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, where the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it allowed states to decide their respective abortion laws, primarily because the Constitution has no references to abortion.

Many school districts nationwide endorse curricula based on critical race theory and antiracism. These districts’ policies force this race-based ideology into all core subjects. It treats students differently based on race, ethnicity, and religious background. Many of these districts ignore challenges to this ideology by labeling disagreeable opinions “discriminatory.” These policies force children to view everyone through the lens of race and to label white students as “privileged,” “oppressors,” and “victimizers” while labeling all other children as “underprivileged,” “oppressed,” and “victims.” Many parents want these districts to treat each child with basic human dignity, value, and equal treatment–not based on racial discrimination.

Within political discussions on the Right, social conservatism is on the rise. Why did the Right have a libertarian phase, and why is it leaving it behind? What does social conservatism look like in the world of practical public policy, and what is its future? How do religious citizens fit within the conservative movement?

Ryan Anderson ’04, is the director of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a thinktank at the forefront of just such questions. After graduating from Princeton, Dr. Anderson pursued his PhD in Political Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is the co-author of five books, most recently Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing (Regnery, 2022). His research has been cited by two U.S. Supreme Court justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, in two Supreme Court cases. In addition to leading the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Anderson serves as the John Paul II Teaching Fellow in Social Thought at the University of Dallas, and the Founding Editor of Public Discourse, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute.

The pill has rocked our society to its core: but have we fully examined all its repercussions? Influential author and essayist Mary Eberstadt thinks we’ve only scratched the surface; in her most recent book, Adam and Eve after the Pill, Revisited (Ignatius Press, 2023) she argues that the papal encyclical Humane Vitae predicted our deep loneliness and other modern woes.

Mary Eberstadt holds the Panula Chair in Christian Culture at the Catholic information center in Washington, D.C., and is a Senior Research Fellow at the Faith and Reason Institute.

The Parlous State of the State of Washington

 

Over in the Ricochet Catholics group, @scottwilmot said he awaited a post from me on the horrific thing the heavily Democrat State Legislature has done to our once-beautiful state. He was referring to Senate Bill 5599, which is said to “protect” minor children who run away from “abusive” parents who do not wish their children to receive “gender-affirming care.” Scare-quotes are necessary for all the aforementioned concepts, since none of those words actually mean what the Democrats think they mean.

Local reporter Jason Rantz has been doing yeoman’s work on communicating about this situation, as he normally writes on local site MyNorthwest.com. He has also been posting on Twitter, and I have written a post on my own blog, copying his Twitter posts and adding additional commentary.

You might need something stronger than a martini as Jim and Greg dig into three big stories today. First, they respond to the congressional testimony of former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, who said our top officials knew from the start that COVID likely came from a lab leak and then knowingly pushed a false narrative that the virus naturally occurred. And the maddening truth doesn’t stop there. Then they tackle the gut-wrenching testimony of a U.S. Marine Corps sniper stationed at Abbey Gate on the day of the terrorist attack during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews says he and others had the bomber spotted and were ready to take him out but they never had permission to fire. And his frustration grew even more when no one in our government wanted to hear his story. Finally, Jim dissects California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s condemnation of Walgreen’s for refusing to sell abortion-inducing drugs in states where the retailer might get sued. Jim explains how Newsom frequently ignores the most basic responsibilities of governing and how he tries to distract his constituents from his terrible record.

Betrayal of the Hippocratic Oath

 

We live in a time when doctors are not only willing to kill babies in the womb up until they’re born, but they are also trying to punish other doctors who don’t agree with them. This state of affairs is only one more example of how the woke medical profession has allowed itself to abandon its principles and ethics.

The most recent battle occurred when the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) was excluded from a conference near Washington, D.C., sponsored by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Council on Resident Education. The pro-life association wasn’t told that they were excluded until they arrived at the conference:

Dr. Christina Francis incoming CEO of the pro-life group, said the doctors weren’t told about the cancellation until after arriving in Maryland, even though the organization booked the booth last year and has participated in the conference for the last 15 years.

Join Jim and Greg as they welcome Sens. Joe Manchin and Jon Tester joining with the GOP to pass a bill reversing a Labor Department rule on factoring climate and social matters (ESG) into investing decisions. We realize it’s a political calculation but Tester and Manchin still voted the right way. They also thoroughly unimpressed by the Senate testimony of Attorney General Merrick Garland, who says there have been so few arrests in response to attacks on pregnancy centers because the crimes happened at night. Finally, they are crestfallen to learn Biden Climate Envoy John Kerry is disappointed in so many of us for how we drive, heat our homes, and more.

To Kill an Infant

 

I believe that abortion is infanticide.  Perhaps technically a child needs to be born to be an infant, but I don’t see a discontinuity between a living human being in the womb and a living human being outside the womb.  We are all in a continuum from conception to aged death, from the inception of life to our last breath.

But I acknowledge there is a linguistic precision between a fetus and an infant.

Happy New Year!  Jim and Greg start the new year by closing out the awards season for last year. Today, they give our their prestigious choices for Person of the Year, with Jim focusing on the midterm elections and Greg thinking about a moment that took almost 50 years to come. Then they reveal their selections for Turncoat of the Year, as Jim zeroes in on presidential politics and Greg goes with people in government doing the exact opposite of their job description.  Finally, they offer up predictions for 2023. One of them is optimistic and one of them most certainly is not.

Thanks for listening! Our usual 3 Martini Lunch format returns on Tuesday.

It’s media day in our year-end Three Martini Lunch awards and Jim and Greg have plenty to say about how things were covered – if they were covered at all.  Specifically, they look at the stories the mainstream media covered far too much, the ones they conveniently ignored because they didn’t fit their narrative, and they highlight what they saw as the best stories of 2022.

The Latest in Protest Styles

 

Birmingham, UK is the latest jurisdiction to promote a wonderful new style of witness and protest. In the latest in a string of such arrests in the UK, Isabel Vaughn-Spruce was ripped from her daily constitutional and accused of praying silently outside of an abortion clinic.

Now, it is very good practice to pray when passing an abortion clinic. Nothing draws demons like mothers killing their children, unless it is medical personnel talking them into it and helping them in the commission of the atrocity. It’s probably a slippery slope thing for Birmingham. If people pray silently, they might discourage the demons that infest these places, spilling out everywhere, and send them to the foot of the Cross to be dealt with. Birmingham politicians have a huge stake in keeping the abortion mills running and the demons in bad spirits to encourage the butchery they call “women’s health care.” Nothing says evil like a mother killing her own child. Unless it is a Birmingham cop arresting a woman for disturbing the pandaemonium. Bonnie King Charles must be very proud.

[Member Post]

 

On Tuesday, Trump announced his candidacy for the president in 2024.  The Pro-Life organization, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, put out a press release following Trump’s announcement.  The organization acknowledged Trump’s contribution to the pro-life cause while refraining from endorsing Trump.   The organization did, however, argue that leaving the abortion issue entirely to the states […]

⚠️ This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet's community of conservatives and be part of the conversation.

Join Ricochet for free.

[Member Post]

 

There has been lots of discussions about Donald Trump’s influence on the outcome of the 2022 midterms.  Many have argued that Donald Trump made loyalty to Trump the key determinant as to whether a candidate could receive the GOP nomination and loyalty required pronouncing some version of the line that the 2020 election was stolen, […]

⚠️ This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet's community of conservatives and be part of the conversation.

Join Ricochet for free.

[Member Post]

 

Here is a summary of the abortion-related referenda in 5 states for which I found election results.   I will start with arguably the most conservative, most pro-Trump state of the 5 states and on down to the least conservative, most pro-Biden state.   Preview Open

⚠️ This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet's community of conservatives and be part of the conversation.

Join Ricochet for free.

Scot Bertram, general manager of 101.7 FM Radio Free Hillsdale, is in for Jim today. Scot and Greg discuss the dramatic lurch leftward in Michigan during the midterm elections and how things somehow got even worse in Scot’s home state of Illinois. They also groan over Michigan’s full embrace of abortion and Montana voters rejecting a law requiring doctors to care for all babies born alive. They end on the lighter side as reports suggest some writers at Saturday Night Live are refusing to work this week in protest of host Dave Chappelle.

 

Tuesday Evening Watch Michigan

 

Like many of you, I have been reading the polling data — and I am confused . . . in part because the pollsters are no longer able to gather the data requisite for a representative sample (thanks to the abandonment of land lines for cell phones), in part because nearly all of the so-called “independent” pollsters are partisan manipulators. So, I will have to wait for the results on Tuesday night.

I will be watching Michigan, as you should. It is a purple state. Trump won it in 2016. Biden was awarded it in 2020. The Democrats’ gruesome threesome is up for re-election: our governor, our attorney general, and our secretary of state. All three are female. All three regard abortion as a sacrament and care very little about anything else. They represent better than any other candidates in the country a certain propensity within the Democratic Party. There is also a proposition on the ballot to make abortion a constitutional right for all individuals (including your fourteen-year-old daughter, if you have one). It would also legitimate a sex-change operation for one of your children without your permission. Bodily autonomy — that’s the ticket.

[Member Post]

 

When teaching a college class or giving a talk about the history and organization of the US Senate, I always include this: When Congress enacted the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, it created six “leadership” positions within each political party’s caucus or conference. They are, in descending order: Floor (majority or minority) Leader; Assistant Leader […]

⚠️ This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet's community of conservatives and be part of the conversation.

Join Ricochet for free.