Category Archives: Abortion

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Daily Broadside | Donald Trump Isn’t A Hardline Pro-Life Candidate, But I’ll Still Vote for Him

On Monday president-in-exile Donald J. Trump posted a video in which he affirmed IVF (in vitro fertilization) but declined to endorse a federal abortion ban. Instead, he said that the issue should be left to the states.

Many pro-life conservatives were severely disappointed by his announcement, especially since he had said he would sign a federal ban on abortion during his previous administration.

As a 2016 presidential candidate, Trump embraced a federal abortion ban as he sought to consolidate Republican support for his unexpected ascension to GOP nominee. He sent a letter to anti-abortion leaders committing to signing legislation that would have criminalized abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for instances in which the life of the mother is at risk or cases involving rape or incest.

President of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Marjorie Dannenfelser, issued a statement typical of the pro-life response.

“We are deeply disappointed in President Trump’s position. Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry. The Dobbs decision clearly allows both states and Congress to act.

“Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. If successful, they will wipe out states’ rights.

A bit stronger was the statement from LiveAction, the pro-life advocacy organization founded and led by Lila Rose.

Killing babies is always wrong. President Trump is not a pro-life candidate. He’s far less pro-abortion than Biden, but he supports killing some preborn children and will even make that his position in an attempt to get pro-abortion votes. 

President Trump also says that abortion should come down to the “will of the people.” It is not right for democratic societies to vote on the fundamental rights of unpopular minorities. There is no more unpopular minority today than preborn Americans. Abortion is not about the “will of the people,” it’s about respecting the human right that we are endowed with by our creator. Our rights come from God, not the government. Those rights do not change because of the circumstances of our conception. Children conceived in rape do not deserve to be killed. Children conceived in IVF do not deserve to be killed, frozen indefinitely or subjected to lethal science experiments.

President Trump’s position also stands in opposition to the GOP platform, which has for decades advanced the idea that the federal government has a vigorous role in protecting children from abortion.

[…]

That position represents the views of the vast majority of Republican voters and supporters of former President Trump. It is tragic that President Trump is abandoning this long-held Republican position. President Trump’s new position is not leadership; it’s a stab in the back against his supporters. With a leader like this, the GOP has little hope of making meaningful progress to protect preborn children. President Trump’s mistake will also make it more challenging for the pro-life movement to win statewide referendums. 

Human life begins at fertilization, and this is the true pro-life position. Human life deserves protection from the moment life begins. 

Personally, I am in full agreement with the position on abortion in both statements. Human beings should not be executed in the womb because they’re inconvenient or for any other reason.

But I’m also sympathetic to the political realities facing Trump. In order to get a federal ban or even some federal restriction on abortion, we have to win the presidency, along with the House and Senate. To win office, Trump has to attract as many voters as he possibly can (without totally selling out). If the margin is too small, the Democrats will cheat again and win. (They’ll cheat no matter what.)

I particularly liked the tone set by Tony Perkins, president of the pro-life Family Research Council, in his response (read the whole thing).

Trump is not a perfect candidate. Ironically, he’s the closest “choice” we have to a pro-life president. Let’s not forget his nominations of Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, who sent Roe to the ash heap of history. He deserves our thanks for that.

Would I like a hardline pro-life candidate to vote for? Yes. Do I have one on the ballot come November? It’s not looking like it.

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Daily Broadside | One Year On From Reversing Roe v. Wade

A new week and the last of June 2023. Thank God “Pride Month” is nearly over.

You know another thing to thank God for? The overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

One thing to note is that the the SCOTUS ruling did not outlaw abortion. It simply returned the question to the jurisdiction of the individual states. It did, however, undo a grievous judgment of a prior Court that essentially made up a detailed law, far beyond its stated legal power to do so.

Now the decision is back in the hands of state legislatures, meaning that there are 50 fronts for pro- and anti-life forces to fight.

Over the last 12 months, 13 states have enacted near-total bans on abortion, while at least a dozen more have approved new laws curtailing access. In one state, Wisconsin, abortion services are suspended due to uncertainty about the status of an abortion ban from 1849 that remained on the books after the Roe decision. Wisconsin’s top officials are challenging the pre-Roe ban in court, arguing it should be unenforceable.

But we should be gratified with the huge “win” and the downstream impact that it has had.

Another great after-effect of the demise of Roe is that donations to abortion access groups have fallen off.

The “ rage giving ” did not last. Abortion access groups who received a windfall of donations following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade one year ago say those emergency grants have ended and individual and foundation giving has dropped off.

After the Dobbs decision, some major funders of abortion access also have ended or shifted funding from organizations working in states where abortion is now banned, said Naa Amissah-Hammond, senior director of grantmaking with Groundswell Fund, which funds grassroots groups organizing for reproductive justice.

Women’s health and foster care nonprofits, who expected increased demand in areas where access to abortion has been eliminated or restricted, say they also haven’t seen increased support.

What this tells me is that abortion is no longer a front-and-center issue for the culture at large, which is a detriment to Democrats, who fund-raise off of, and get voters to the polls from, the spectre of not having “safe and affordable” abortion services available. If abortion isn’t screaming for attention then there is less for the enemies of life to gin up fear over.

John Zmirak at The Stream wrote a good piece the other day and made these points:

The Unbridgeable Chasm
The point I was making, and which we should all insist on, is that the Life issue finally isn’t negotiable. It’s the Great Divide, the Grand Canyon, as slavery once was. Across it, no lasting rope bridge is possible. Either you think human life is fundamentally good and hence sacred, or you don’t. Either you believe that sexual convenience is a basic human right like life and liberty, or you don’t.

I’ve written here before about how quickly pro-aborts dropped the pretense that “abortion rights” are somehow grounded in the unwritten implications of this or that part of the U.S. Constitution. Justice Samuel Alito’s brilliant, historic majority opinion demolished the rickety, Rube Goldberg constructs of every pro-abortion precedent.

The Pretense Dropped Like a Towel at a Bathhouse
Now leftists have stopped citing “privacy” and “liberty,” which is handy — since they’ve made it clear that they actually believe in neither. If they did, they wouldn’t support secret FISA warrants aimed at Trump supporters and mandates for experimental vaccines. The same people who claimed for decades that “privacy” protected abortions up through nine months were happy to have the hostess at TGI Fridays demand women show their vaccine passports.

Now things are easier for them, in a sense. They can be honest and admit that they don’t care about “choice.” (You can’t choose your vaccine status, your kids’ public school, or what you say on the Internet.) They just care about abortion.

They’re willing to rally with Satanists who claim that it’s their “sacrament.” They don’t want abortions “safe, legal, and rare.” They never did. (When Bill Clinton said that, he was just as sincere as when he promised Hillary that he would “forsake all others.”) They want them easy, plentiful, and profitable — and they want to gaslight women who’ve had them into “shouting” them proudly in public.

To Face the Party of Death, We Need a Party of Life
We should help the left to make this point, that it’s unambiguously the Party of Death. It’s also the party of crime in the streets, child castration, chaotic open borders, racist “diversity” mandates, gun grabs, massive debt, election fraud, censorship, mass indoctrination, torn down statues, Antifa, mob rule, and defunding the police.

I particularly like his cut that the Democrats are “the Party of Death.” It’s true and I long ago came to the conclusion that I’d rather be an American than a Democrat. Their party is nothing but anti-Americanism draped in the red, white and blue.

Abortion may no longer be considered a constitutional right, but that fight, and many others, are far from over.

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Separation of Church and State | Part II

Consider for a moment the questions we’ve asked thus far:

  • What is the Common Book of Prayer?
  • What is a Puritan?
  • Why did the British refer to the Revolutionary War as a “Presbyterian Rebellion?”
  • How many times did Congress call for a National Day of Prayer, Fasting and Humiliation?

The first two questions outline the way in which the Anglican Church was replacing the “Lord’s Prayer” with the “Common Book of Prayer” along with several other directives that positioned the monarchy over the Trinity. This lead to the Puritans wanting to “purify” the doctrine espoused by the Church of England and return to a biblically based approach to one’s relationship with Christ.

By the 1700s, the “Act of Uniformity” had been expanded to include mandates pertaining to church government – something very beligerent in the mind of a Presbyterian who subscribed to a Scriptural approach to elders and deacons as they are described in the New Testament.

Moreover, part of the “Common Book of Prayer” included prayers that were to be made for the king, which implied a form of political support regardless of that monarch’s character or conduct.1

This is what was meant by the “separation of church and state.”

The delegates that formed the Constitutional Convention were not attempting to facilitate a potentially godless society with the First Amendment. Rather, they were honoring the Authority of God’s Word by placing a limitation on the way the government could dictate the manner of your worship.

Congress could not tell you how to pray or fine you for not attending church on Sundays. There would be no legislation that dictated how a church’s government was to be structured.

But while the individual is free to choose how they worship God according to the dicates of their own conscience, the individual is not at liberty to reconfigure the Foundation upon which that right was based.

In a 2019 ruling, the Supreme Court emphasized the importance of context in determining meaning in defamation cases. They said that context is “a factor of considerable importance” and that the “…words complained of should not be fixed by technical, linguistically-precise dictionary definitions divorced from the context in which the statement was made. Nor should individual words be removed from their context and defined in isolation, before reconnecting them to the rest of the statement.2

If that ruling is to apply to the debate surrounding the separation of church and state, then you’re obligated to conclude the the Founding Fathers were not looking to limit Christianity’s influence on government as much as they were resolved to limit government’s influence on Christianity.

John Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli which was designed to ensure the militant Muslims that were preying on American ships that the US was not planning on invading Jerusalem. Part of that Treaty says:

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen (Muslims); and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan (Mohammedan) nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries (Treaty of Tripoli).

Some will take the statement, “…America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion” to mean that the Declaration of Independence represents nothing more than a token acknowledgement of God and the sixteen Congressional proclamations calling for a National Day of Prayer and Fasting had no specific reference to Christ.

That’s just not the case.

Adams himself said:

The general Principles, on which the Fathers Atchieved Independence, were the only Principles in which, that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their Address, or by me in my Answer. And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all those Sects were United: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities Sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence.3

In 1789, James Madison, the architect behind the Bill of Rights, wrote a “Memonstrance and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments.” His goal was to discourage the use of tax dollars to financially support teachers of the Christian religion.

His point wasn’t to discredit Christianity or minimize its place in the public square. Again, it was a concerted resolve to avoid the sins of the Church of England in the way government was used to obligate people to process and revere God in a specific way, if they were to even worship God at all.

Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against God, not against man: To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered.4

Again, while the individual is free to choose how they worship God according to the dicates of their own conscience, the individual is not at liberty to reconfigure the Foundation upon which that right was based.

While Madison is brilliant in his defense of not using public funds to finance religious education, bear in mind he was part of the group of men that wrote the following Congressional Proclamation:

The United States in Congress assembled, therefore do earnestly recommend, that Thursday the thrid of May next, beay be observed as a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer, that we may, with united hearts, confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and by sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease his righteous sidpleasure, and through the merits of our blessed Savior, obtain pardon and forgiveness…5

The Separation of Church and State was never designed to be used as a way to normalize Homosexuality or justify Partial Birth Abortion. The government of the United States, while it will not dictate how or to whom you pray, it will not be redefined in a way that removes the Divine Absolute that is both its heritage and its Foundation.

 

1. “Variations in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer”, “The Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England (1662)”, http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/Variations.htm, accessed June 13, 2023

2. “Supreme Court emphasizes importance of context in determining meaning in defamation cases”, https://hsfnotes.com/litigation/2019/04/11/supreme-court-emphasises-importance-of-context-in-determining-meaning-in-defamation-cases/, Herbert Smith Freehills, April 11, 2019, accessed November 5, 2022

3. “John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 28 June 1813”, “Founders Online”, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-06-02-0208, accessed November 5, 2022

4. “Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, [ca. 20 June] 1785”, “National Archives, Founders Online”, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-08-02-0163, accessed June 13, 2023

5. To see an image of the Proclamation as its preserved in the Library of Congress, click here.

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Daily Broadside | Two Imperfect Self-Proclaimed Christians Battle for Georgia Senate Seat

Daily Verse | Matthew 5:37
“Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

Wednesday’s Reading: Matthew 8-11

We’re already to the first hump day of October.

Somehow I got Herschel Walker’s autograph when he was a member of University of Georgia football team and eventually won the Heisman trophy as a junior in 1982. I was hoping to find it and post a picture of it, but the photo below will have to do. He went on to play for 12 seasons in the NFL after playing for three in the now-defunct USFL.

Now he’s the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Georgia, opposing incumbent Democrat “Reverend” Raphael Warnock. I place Warnock’s titular title in scare quotes because he’s a “pro-choice pastor.”

I can’t tell you whether Warnock is “saved” or not. His relationship with God is between him and God, but I can’t see how he can logically hold that position with what scripture teaches about the value that God places on human life. Hence the scare quotes.

Herschel Walker, on the other hand, claims he is a pro-life candidate who opposes abortion with no exceptions. He’s a first time political candidate and a friend of Donald J. Trump, who encouraged him to run. He also claims to be a Christian, but I can’t vouch for his faith any more than I can Warnock’s.

Walker is virtually in a dead heat with Warnock, which is important because a “Walker victory in Georgia is crucial to Republicans’ chances of retaking the Senate majority.” Earlier the Washington Examiner reported that “the race between Walker and Warnock remains too close to predict, with polls alternating back and forth between which candidate is leading the other. The recent polling that shows Walker (47%) leading Warnock (44%) is a reversal from the 3-point lead Warnock held over his Republican challenger in July.”

But, because it’s October, SURPRISE!

The uber-leftist The Daily Beast reported that an anonymous woman alleges that Walker paid for her to have an abortion when they were dating back in 2009.

‘Pro-Life’ Herschel Walker Paid for Girlfriend’s Abortion

… A woman who asked not to be identified out of privacy concerns told The Daily Beast that after she and Walker conceived a child while they were dating in 2009 he urged her to get an abortion. The woman said she had the procedure and that Walker reimbursed her for it.

She supported these claims with a $575 receipt from the abortion clinic, a “get well” card from Walker, and a bank deposit receipt that included an image of a signed $700 personal check from Walker.

The woman said there was a $125 difference because she “ball-parked” the cost of an abortion after Googling the procedure and added on expenses such as travel and recovery costs.

Amazing that this story is just breaking now. Why didn’t the woman come forward earlier?

Asked if Walker ever expressed regret for the decision, the woman said Walker never had. Asked why she came forward, the woman pointed to Walker’s hardline anti-abortion position.

“I just can’t with the hypocrisy anymore,” she said. “We all deserve better.”

The ‘hypocrisy’ is so overwhelming that I’m willing to anonymously accuse a pro-life candidate who happens to be threatening the Democrats’ control of the US Senate.

Walker immediately denied the claim as an “outright lie” and threatened to sue The Daily Beast for defamation.

Look, I don’t know if what the woman alleges is true or not. I also don’t know just how a “Sen. Herschel Walker (R-GA)” would behave in the US Senate. But one thing I know is that we are in an existential fight for the survival of this country, which is being overrun by true fascists and moral deadbeats.

With that in mind, I honestly don’t give a flying political rip whether or not Walker did what he’s accused of doing 13 years ago. Yeah, if he did it, it was immoral and that sucks, but it’s irrelevant. I’m concerned about now.

The Democrats are the political equivalent of the mob or a drug cartel. I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them. Any complaints or accusations against Walker and anyone who supports him falls on my deaf ears. They have no standing with me to complain about corruption or hypocrisy or any other matter of moral judgment.

If I had to choose between a divorced ‘pastor’ who supports broad access to abortion with no limitations and was accused of deliberately hurting his ex during a domestic dispute, or a divorced former athlete who opposes abortion with no exceptions and also claims to be a Christian but hasn’t lived up to that billing either—I’ll go with the guy who opposes abortion every time.

Unfortunately, I won’t be voting in Georgia’s midterms. But spare me the faux indignation coming from the Left.

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Daily Broadside | Exposed: Fetal Heartbeats Are Fake and Allow Men to Control Women’s Bodies!

Daily Verse | Micah 2:11
If a liar and deceiver comes and says,
    ‘I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,’
    he would be just the prophet for this people!

Friday’s Reading: Micah 5-7
Saturday’s Reading: Nahum 1-3

Friday the 23 and one more week of September. The days fly by.

Stacy Abrams, Democrat and Georgia gubernatorial candidate for governor and president of United Earth, has made the absurd claim that there is no such thing as a fetal heartbeat at six weeks. Instead, she claims that the heartbeat you hear is a “manufactured sound.”

And why would ultrasound machines fake heartbeat sounds? Because men.

I don’t know any of the science behind fetal development or the mechanics of an ultrasound machine, but I’m pretty sure the “science is settled,” as they say, regarding when a fetus develops a heart.

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier slammed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams for her “flat-out lie” after the Democrat claimed the fetal heartbeat at six weeks gestation is a “manufactured sound.” Saphier ripped Abrams Thursday for her remarks on “Outnumbered,” demanding she be held “accountable” for her fictitious claims…

So what about three weeks after gestation or after conception? The heart, the cells of the heart, the myocardium starts to rhythmically contract. So really the heart starts beating at three weeks. Yes, you can start seeing the heartbeat five to six weeks after conception on the ultrasound, but that’s only because it’s so small and because of all the other structures are in the way with the pelvis. But that heart is contracting very easy early on. It is not a conspiracy. It is not anything to do with what she’s talking about, and I think that she needs to be held accountable for the lies that are coming out of her mouth.

What’s not so easy to understand is her claim that the so-called “manufactured sound” is “designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman’s body.” Can we break it down?

“Designed to convince people” — I think what she’s referring to here is not the actual design of the sound (such as its pitch or believability) as much as she’s saying the idea of faking the sound of a heartbeat will be persuasive to people.

Odd choice of the word “people” as opposed to, say, “women,” given what she says next. But I think what she’s referring to is the general electorate. The voters.

And what will the electorate be convinced of?

“That men have the right to take control of a woman’s body” — This, says Abrams, is what the people who vote will be convinced of if they hear a heartbeat.

They will be convinced that there’s a living baby in the uterus, not just a clump of cells.

They will be convinced they have a moral obligation to protect and care for that baby as it grows through the nine months of pregnancy.

So if “people” are convinced that there is a heartbeat, they’ll vote to make it illegal to kill the baby in your womb by abortion or, as she puts it, “to take control of a woman’s body.” This is unacceptable to her and the modern Left because abortion is the sacrosanct religious practice of child sacrifice in the name of sex without consequence.

What makes my analysis unsure is that she refers only to “men” taking control of women’s bodies. But both men and women vote, so I could be wrong. On the other hand, she could be making men the oppressors and women the victims, which fits neatly with her Leftist ambitions.

Whatever the twisted logic behind her claim, Abrams is peddling a conspiracy, which we know is dangerous misinformation and should be censored by big tech and social media companies.

Right?

Have a good weekend.

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Daily Broadside | Biblically Illiterate Politician Loves His Neighbor by Killing Her Baby

Daily Verse | Obadiah 15
“The day of the Lord is near
    for all nations.
As you have done, it will be done to you;
    your deeds will return upon your own head.”

Wednesday’s Reading: Jonah 1-4

Well, it’s Wednesday and hump day. Hang in there if it’s a tough week—Friday’s coming.

It continues to surprise me how often national political leaders employ scripture in support of their agenda. On the one hand, I believe scripture ought to factor into policy decisions that affect the welfare of our citizens. On the other hand, scripture in the hands of the Left seems to be pressed into service for unholy purposes.

Newsom Quotes Jesus to Advertise Abortion in Pro-Life States

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday cited the words of Jesus from Mark 12:31 in support of abortion, “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.” The billboard campaign advertises California abortion in seven pro-life states — Indiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas.

The advertisements are paid for by Newsom’s reelection campaign, and Newsom tweeted the ads at the respective governors of those states from his personal account, presumably because he understands that the campaign is nothing but a political gimmick unworthy to be funded by California’s overburdened taxpayers.

If Newsom was aiming to cause a reaction, he succeeded. While the billboard campaign itself is unremarkable political grandstanding, invoking the words of Jesus to defend abortion provokes a refutation. Newsom understands that most of abortion’s fiercest critics are Christians. So he chooses to promote abortion in the words of the very same Son of God who “Morning Joe” Scarborough insisted on September 9 “never once mentioned” abortion.

My reaction to the Joe Scarborough misuse of scripture is here. In that commentary, I lay out the value that the Bible—and Jesus himself—place on children.

Children are a heritage from the Lord,
    offspring a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
    are children born in one’s youth.
— Psalm 127:3-4

As the author of the linked article says, Newsom’s use of scripture isn’t any better than Scarborough’s. He’s taking Jesus’ words to mean that giving a pregnant woman an abortion is “loving your neighbor.”

But is it?

It all hinges on whether the life in the womb is a child or not. Women’s rights advocates, Planned Parenthood administrators, abortion doctors and progressive Democrats will swear it isn’t a child. It is a “mass” or a “clump of cells” or, maybe, among the most extreme of those who support abortion, they will admit it’s a baby but insist the mother has the right to terminate its life.

On the other hand, pro-life advocates will insist that the life growing in the mother’s womb is, indeed, a human being. From a Christian’s point of view, there’s no question that the fetus is a person from the point of conception, made in the image of God and worthy of protection. Even an obscure verse from the book of Job (3:3) confirms it:

“May the day of my birth perish,
    and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!’”

If the fetus is a human being, then it is absolutely wrong to kill it. The sixth of ten commandments says, “Thou shalt not commit murder,” which is the intentional taking of an innocent life.

You can’t get more innocent than a baby in utero.

Circling back to the use of Mark 12:31, then, Newsom is infusing the verse with an incorrect application. Yes, we are to love our neighbor, but not while violating another commandment.

What his use of the scripture amounts to is a cynical swipe at Christians, twisting one scripture verse taken out of context to mock their concerns for the unborn.

Without being alarmist, Newsom might want to reconsider how he’s using the Bible. Elsewhere it says,

Woe to those who call evil good
    and good evil,
who put darkness for light
    and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
    and sweet for bitter.
— Isaiah 5:20

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Daily Broadside | Talking Head Blasts Pro-Life Christians with Poor Reasoning From the Bible

Daily Verse | Daniel 12:2
“Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.”

Wednesday’s Reading: Hosea 1-7

Wednesday and I think of this blog as daily commentary on politics, culture and the Christian faith. I see those three fields as directly interrelated. Politics is downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from faith. The politics we’re experiencing are a result of the culture we live in, and the culture we live in is shaped by the amount of biblically-accurate faith that exists in the culture.

According to research conducted a year ago by Dr. George Barna, 176 million Americans claim to be Christian (69% of the population), but only 9% of them possess a biblical worldview. In other words, nearly three-quarters of us identify as “Christian” but only about one in ten of us actually live life according to that biblical identity.

What that means is that we end up with proclamations like the one that Joe Scarborough recently offered up during MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Scarborough lauded [Republican South Carolina state Sen. Katrina] Shealy’s speech and then accused pro-life Christians of “heresy” and suggested that Jesus doesn’t necessarily oppose abortion because the Bible doesn’t record him having said the word.

“As a Southern Baptist, I grew up reading the Bible — maybe a backslidden Baptist, but I still know the Bible. Jesus never once talked about abortion, never once! And it was happening back in ancient times, it was happening during, in his time!” Scarborough said angrily. “Never once mentioned it, and for people perverting the gospel of Jesus Christ down to one issue, it’s heresy.”

Backslidden Joe Scarborough is correct in his assertions about two things: abortion was a common practice in biblical times, and Jesus did not, in fact, address abortion in scripture. But knowing those two facts does not lead necessarily to his conclusion, which is that “there are people who are using Jesus as a shield to make 10-year-old raped girls go through a living and breathing hell here on Earth.”

I would put Scarborough among the 176 million Americans who claim to be “Christian” but don’t have a biblical worldview. His rant is not meant to be a strong biblical argument, but an emotional appeal to win support for his ideological position. The 9 percent of Christians with a biblical worldview are constantly hammered with arguments like these and need to be able to answer them with biblical reasoning and logic.

The most obvious flaw in his argument is the logical fallacy of arguing from silence. He’s saying that because Jesus never addressed abortion, it’s un-Christian to make such a singular issue out of it—”heresy,” as he labels it.

The problem with his argument is that we don’t know that Jesus never addressed abortion. Not everything Jesus said and did is recorded in scripture (John 21:25). Jesus is not recorded as addressing slavery, sex trafficking, drug use, systemic racism or transgenderism. What can we conclude about his views on those issues?

Nothing. We don’t know because scripture is silent on what Jesus thought.

Scarborough, though, is declaring what Jesus believed about abortion by what he didn’t say. But silence does not mean approval nor, to be fair, does it mean disapproval.

Essentially, the argument from silence is attempting to prove something in the absence of evidence. What would help, then, is evidence. And when it comes to children and their value to Jesus, we have plenty.

First, Jesus himself experienced the process of conception to birth, arriving incarnate as a child rather than a fully formed adult.

Second, Luke 1:41-44 records an in utero interaction with his cousin, John the Baptist, who “leaped for joy” over his proximity to Jesus while he was still in the womb. That indicates awareness, emotion and agency, which are all aspects of personhood.

Third, Jesus honored the Jewish scriptures as authoritative during his life. We can safely assume that he would affirm the declaration of David in Psalm 139:13-16.

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

And, finally, Jesus scolded his disciples who tried to prevent children from being brought to him (Mark 10:13-16).

People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

Jesus was indignant with his disciples’ treatment of the little kids. I can imagine him saying, “Whoa, whoa! What are you guys doing?” He was offended by their presumption.

Even though Joe Scarborough is correct that Jesus never mentioned abortion in scripture, he’s wrong in concluding that therefore it’s wrong for Christians to make such a big deal about it. It’s clear from the rest of the Bible that children are created by God and that Jesus found them worthy of blessing.

That’s why we fight the scourge of abortion.

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Daily Broadside | The Weaponization of the Federal Government Continues Apace

Daily Verse | Proverbs 14:34
Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

Thursday’s Reading: Proverbs 18-21

Thursday and, if you’ve been paying attention (and even if you weren’t), the Supreme Court sent Roe v. Wade to the dustbin of history last month with a 6-3 majority (although Roberts only concurred with the case in question, Dobbs, not with overturning Roe). Of course, there was the much anticipated reaction from the Left, which had been hyperventilating with murderous threats since the draft opinion was leaked in May, with one near-assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh. As the Left likes to spout about every issue it supports, “people are gonna die!” And they almost delivered.

Roe was overturned on solid constitutional grounds because it was originally established on faulty reasoning and unconstitutional grounds. In other words, Roe was judicial malpractice, with the court overstepping its authority and usurping the role of the State legislatures. Even the notorious RGB agreed that Roe was bad law. Remember, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In other words, the federal government has only the powers delegated to it in the U.S. Constitution. If a power isn’t listed, that “power” belongs to the states or to the people.

The legality of abortion — killing an unwanted child all the way up to the moment of birth in some cases — was rightly returned to the States for adjudication.

A number of States have banned (or will shortly ban) abortion, while many others have codified abortion. Some, like New York and Vermont, want to make abortion access a constitutional right so that it can’t be rescinded with new legislatures. While I am adamantly opposed to abortion, this is how it should be: each State working out through their legislatures how they will handle baby-killing.

So, with all being right in the world, why does this press release give me the chills?

The Justice Department announced today the establishment of the Reproductive Rights Task Force. The Task Force formalizes an existing working group and efforts by the Department over the last several months to identify ways to protect access to reproductive health care in anticipation of the possibility of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 

Oh.

Let me get this straight. SCOTUS corrects an egregious (not to say illegal) wrong and the United States Department of Justice — justice which is supposed to act only according to the law without respect to education, rank, wealth, sex, skin color or opinion — is not only choosing sides, but aligning itself against SCOTUS?

“As Attorney General Garland has said, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision is a devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States,” said Associate Attorney General Gupta. “The Court abandoned 50 years of precedent and took away the constitutional right to abortion, preventing women all over the country from being able to make critical decisions about our bodies, our health, and our futures. The Justice Department is committed to protecting access to reproductive services.”

As is usual with Leftists, they constantly lie, and especially so in our ruling class. SCOTUS did not “take away a constitutional right to abortion” because there never was a constitutional right to abortion to begin with. That so-called “right” was made up by unelected men in black who “concocted an elaborate set of rules, with different restrictions for each trimester of pregnancy, but [they] did not explain how this veritable code could be teased out of anything in the Constitution, the history of abortion laws, prior precedent, or any other cited source.”

Also note the euphemism, “reproductive services.” If you’re fighting for abortion, you’re not fighting for “reproduction.” You’re fighting to keep from reproducing which, let’s face it, is pretty simple: keep your zippers zipped.

But that won’t stop the DOJ and former SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland from bringing the weight of the federal government to bear on the States and, in effect, on We the People.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta will chair the Task Force, which will consist of representatives from the Department’s Civil Division, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Attorney community, Office of the Solicitor General, Office for Access to Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Office of Legal Policy, Office of Legislative Affairs, Office of the Associate Attorney General, Office of the Deputy Attorney General and Office of the Attorney General and will be supported by dedicated staff.

Hey, Fat, what’s with all the “offices”?

Those many “offices” who are banding together to intimidate those who oppose abortion are being paid for by your taxes. This is a perfect example of the federal leviathan that, once created, keeps growing and consuming more resources, more office space, more overhead and, most of all, more tax dollars. Like Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors.

Guess who else the DOJ is “partnering” with.

The Justice Department is working with external stakeholders such as reproductive services providers, advocates and state attorneys general. The Task Force will continue this important effort. It will also work with the Office of Counsel to the President to convene a meeting of private pro bono attorneys, bar associations and public interest organizations in order to encourage lawyers to represent and assist patients, providers and third parties lawfully seeking reproductive health services throughout the country.

Can you imagine the DOJ, or any agency of the United States government for that matter, advocating on behalf of crisis pregnancy centers if the situation had somehow been reversed and it was pro-life advocates who had lost a “right”?

Yeh, me neither.

The DOJ is pulling together a juggernaut of baby-killer advocates to fight for an imaginary “right” to murder your offspring instead of upholding the law of the land which is now being determined by the States. In Garland’s own statement, he says that, “The Justice Department will use every tool at our disposal to protect reproductive freedom.”

It sounds like he’s serious.

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Daily Broadside | Back in the Saddle Edition

Daily Verse | Proverbs 8:13
To fear the Lord is to hate evil.

Tuesday’s Reading: Proverbs 10-13

Happy Tuesday and welcome back, me!

My family and I had a good two-week vacation to the east coast where we spent time in the sun and surf off of South Carolina. The more time we spend there the more we think we’d like to live there someday.

Someday. But not today.

My thanks to Bruce Gust for his engaging and upbeat writing on A Biblical Approach to Politics. I’m blessed to have him as a long-time friend and brother in Christ who comes at life in much the same way I do. I’m hoping you found his thinking and insight as helpful to you as I did.

So, did anything happen while I was out?

LOL JK.

Bruce mentioned one of the main developments in the opening to his blog post yesterday that happened right after I left: the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and sending the matter of abortion back to the states.

I won’t rehash the news here except to note that it’s particularly mesmerizing to watch the progressive leviathan writhe in agony when political or cultural decisions don’t go their way, thrashing in the extremes and then, once the cameras are off, standing up and going back to what they do best: criticizing and destroying anything good and noble out of their hatred for anything we’d consider normal.

Are women really going to “die” if a State prohibits abortion? Nope. Pregnancy is not a disease and abortion is never necessary to save the life of a mother. Are States that prohibit abortion “forcing” women to carry their pregnancy to term? Nope. The body does that. Pregnancy is a naturally-occurring process that, based on the current world population, has happened at least 8 billion times. Killing a baby in utero is unnatural and used to be considered an appalling crime against humanity.

Let’s just call abortion what it is: after-the-fact contraception.

Let’s also call Roe v. Wade what it was: a wrongly decided, unconstitutional court case wielding nothing but “raw judicial power” that invented a right — and the law to support it — out of whole cloth. Or, as Samuel Alito put it, writing for the majority:

Not only was there no support for such a constitutional right until shortly before Roe, but abortion had long been a crime in every single State. At common law, abortion was criminal in at least some stages of pregnancy and was regarded as unlawful and could have very serious consequences at all stages. American law followed the common law until a wave of statutory restrictions in the 1800s expanded criminal liability for abortions. By the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, three-quarters of the States had made abortion a crime at any stage of pregnancy, and the remaining States would soon follow …

Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives …

Roe found that the Constitution implicitly conferred a right to obtain an abortion, but it failed to ground its decision in text, history, or precedent. It relied on an erroneous historical narrative; it devoted great attention to and presumably relied on matters that have no bearing on the meaning of the Constitution; it disregarded the fundamental difference between the precedents on which it relied and the question before the Court; it concocted an elaborate set of rules, with different restrictions for each trimester of pregnancy, but it did not explain how this veritable code could be teased out of anything in the Constitution, the history of abortion laws, prior precedent, or any other cited source; and its most important rule (that States cannot protect fetal life prior to ‘viability’) was never raised by any Opinion of the Court party and has never been plausibly explained.

A lot of people kept up the fight against abortion for these last 50 years. I remember my youth pastor going to protest at abortion clinics back in the 80s. Those who fought the monstrosity called “abortion” for decades deserve the greatest share of the credit for Roe’s demise.

But there’s another person who deserves great credit, and that is president-in-exile Trump. No matter what you think of him — and opinions vary widely on both sides of the aisle — he said he’d put originalists on the court, and he did. Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett were all appointed by Trump, and all three were key to overturning Roe v. Wade.

Who would have thought it? A big-city billionaire who turned out to be the most pro-life president in history. And his legacy, should he come to the end of his life having served only one term, will live on in the lives of millions who are born as a result of this historic decision made possible by his appointments.

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Daily Broadside | Local Attorney in Virginia Refuses to Prosecute Pro-Abortion Protesters

Daily Verse | Ezra 3:12
But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy.

Wednesday’s Reading: Ezra 4-6

Wednesday and I’ve mentioned this before, but one of my go-to news sources is The Epoch Times. They describe themselves as “founded in the United States in the year 2000 in response to communist repression and censorship in China. Our founders, Chinese-Americans who themselves had fled communism, sought to create an independent media to bring the world uncensored and truthful information.”

And while they still have a focus on China, they also cover news across the U.S. in a professional and objective approach. I have a paid subscription and highly recommend them.

Also, I was not paid for that endorsement.

I give them a nod because I’m highlighting an exclusive report they published yesterday that I found encouraging.

Virginia’s attorney general is calling on prosecutors to enforce a law that bars disruptions outside people’s homes after about 100 hundred protesters descended on the residence of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

At issue is Virginia code that forbids gathering outside a person’s house “in a manner which disrupts or threatens to disrupt any individual’s right to tranquility in his home.”

The law “states that protesting in front of an individual’s private residence is a class 3 misdemeanor,” Victoria LaCivita, a spokeswoman for Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Under Virginia law, local commonwealth’s attorneys are responsible for prosecuting violations of this statute. Attorney General Miyares urges every commonwealth’s attorney to put their personal politics aside and enforce the law,” she added.

The call comes after a noisy protest outside Alito’s home in Alexandria on May 9. Protesters shouted through loudspeakers and chanted “[expletive] Alito.”

You may remember that in 2021, Virginia businessman and political novice Glenn Youngkin beat former Governor Terry McAuliffe (D-Woke) in the gubernatorial election and Republican Jason Miyares beat incumbent attorney general Mark Herring, becoming the first elected Cuban American and Hispanic attorney general of Virginia. Their elections, along with the election of Republican Winsome Sears as lieutenant governor (becoming the first woman, the first woman of color, and the first Jamaican American elected to the post), electrified the nation as conservative Virginians pushed back—hard—on the efforts of the woke mob to corrupt our children in public schools through CRT and gender confusion, and the horrific attitude of then-governor Ralph Northam toward children who survive a third trimester abortion.

“The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

With the infanticidalist out of office, no one could have guessed that Roe v. Wade was itself about to be aborted, with a pro-life attorney general in office in a state in which several Supreme Court Justices live.

The irony.

The point is that in a country where mostly peaceful rioting is tolerated unless you’re a Trump supporter and the current administration is all but endorsing a campaign of intimidation against one of our last “independent” institutions, Virginia is uniquely situated to punch back twice as hard on the anarchists.

Unfortunately, it seems that Miyares has to prompt the local commonwealth’s attorneys to actually take action.

Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano did not respond to a voicemail or emailed questions after Miyares, a Republican, urged him to take action.

Descano, a Democrat who was a federal prosecutor in the Obama administration, has not remarked publicly on the protest.

Descano said on May 3, in response to the leak of the draft opinion, “I will never prosecute a woman for making her own healthcare decisions.”

A Democrat who served in the Obama administration.

You don’t say.

We should make it easy to impeach and remove these so-called “law enforcement” officials when they refuse to enforce the laws that were legally enacted by duly elected representatives and signed by the chief executive. No more of this, “I’ll decide which laws to uphold.” The office is supposed to enforce all of them, buster, not just the ones that fit your political priorities.

Federal law bars protesting near the homes of any judges “with the intent of influencing” them, but U.S. prosecutors have shown no indication they plan on pursuing charges against protesters, who recently went to the homes of several other justices in Maryland.

My shocked face is all worn out.

Brandon isn’t going to prosecute. He’s the titular head of an illegal junta that is all about finishing the fundamental transformation of the United States that Barack Hussein Obama started. And they don’t care how many laws they have to break to get there.