Illinois Democrats Seek the Abolition of Sex-Segregated Bathrooms

Illinois Democrats Seek the Abolition of Sex-Segregated Bathrooms

School Choice Promotes Social Justice

By Catholic League president Bill Donohue

As Catholics, we are called to support a preferential option for the poor. While some may debate what is the best way to achieve this, evidence suggests providing children with quality education remains one of the greatest determinants in socioeconomic status. Particularly, offering low-and middle-income students opportunities to access high-quality Catholic and charter schools has not only improved their educational attainment but greatly enhances their social mobility.

Therefore, policymakers who wish to offer a preferential option for the poor should mirror recent legislation passed in Florida and Indiana, two states that have demonstrated the effectiveness of school vouchers.

Recently, the state legislature in Florida has voted to expand its existing school choice vouchers making them available for more families. Already one of the most ambitious voucher programs in the country, last academic year, the state offered more than 36,000 students an average of $7,000. Next year, Florida intends to make eligible even more children by raising the household income cap to 375 percent above poverty. This means a family of four with about $100,000 in income for the year could participate in the voucher program. Further, the Sunshine State would annually increase the caps by approximately 28,000 new students.

Additionally, Florida will create special-needs scholarships for about 20,000 students. These scholarships are similar to education savings accounts that families can use for tutoring and related purposes. But perhaps one of the best elements of this legislation is that it would offer Florida students already enrolled in Catholic or charter schools eligibility for these vouchers.

Indiana, too, has recently expanded its decade-old voucher program. Indiana will now offer vouchers to 48,000 students a year. Families making $145,000 a year would be eligible for vouchers amounting to 90 percent of tuition support levels. Like Florida, the Hoosier State would establish education savings accounts for children with special needs. Further, Indiana's budget increases per student grants for charter schools.

In a recent interview with Today's Catholic, former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who signed Indiana's first school voucher bill into law, reflected on the success of the program. "Providing poor and minority families the same choice of schools that their wealthier neighbors enjoy is the purest example of 'social justice' in our society today."

Unfortunately, there are many policymakers who want to deny this social justice to the poor. Chief among them is New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. For years, he has waged war on the city's charter schools. His animosity for these learning options for children who would be condemned to failing public schools was so apparent that during his first year in office the state legislature passed a law preventing him from evicting charter schools from city property.

Undeterred by this law and with little regard for actually bringing about social justice, de Blasio's Department of Education recently failed to provide a new location for Success Academy, a charter school in Queens that primarily services minority students. As the school year comes to a close, these students will need to find a new school for the fall.

But even as his term is set to expire at the end of the year, New York students will have no reprieve. Of all the Democrats running for mayor, only Ray McGuire has said he would support putting no caps on the number of charter schools in the city. The rest basically support the status quo, keeping children prisoners in failing schools.

Unfortunately, even with the proven success of Florida and Indiana, too many policymakers decline to pursue a preferential option for the poor and provide them with the purest form of social justice.

This week's Faith On Trial

 

Relentless Attack on New York Pro-Life Advocates First Amendment Rights Continues

(April 29, 2021 – Brooklyn, NY) In a battle to uphold their First Amendment rights, peaceful pro-life advocates have requested an en banc (before the entire bench) rehearing by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit of the decision rendered by a three-judge panel. Thomas More Society attorneys have filed the petition for a rehearing on behalf of pro-life sidewalk counselors from Brooklyn’s Church@TheRock. These church members and their pastor, Rev. Kenneth Griepp, were originally targeted by now-disgraced former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. 

The federal lawsuit, brought against Pastor Griepp and nine members of his congregation in June 2017, charged the Church@TheRock members with harassment of abortion-bound women outside of the Choices Medical Clinic abortion facility in Jamaica, Queens, despite the fact that the Attorney General’s lengthy targeted surveillance campaign produced no evidence that they violated the law. 

The church members regularly engaged abortion bound women in discussion, offering information about life affirming alternatives and a willingness to listen. They also shared factual information and participated in prayer. 

Schneiderman labeled their speech “harassment” and asked the court to declare it to be “obstruction” under the Federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which prohibits blockage of abortion facility doorways. 

“The FACE Act specifically exempts constitutionally protected advocacy from its prohibitions,” explained Thomas More Society Senior Counsel Stephen Crampton. “We argued that almost the entirety of the Attorney General’s case consisted in prosecution for just such protected expressive activity. The district court agreed, rejected the credibility of the state’s witnesses, the merits of the state’s arguments, and the request for the injunction itself.” 

“Had Schneiderman succeeded,” observed Crampton, “the current United States Attorney General, operating under a pro-abortion administration, would be filing similar complaints in every state, and every pro-abortion state attorney general in the country, like Schneiderman, would be doing the same. The effect on pro-life sidewalk advocacy across the country would be disastrous. The abortion industry was watching this case, and still is.” 

After a sexual abuse scandal forced Schneiderman out of office, his successors, first Barbara Underwood, and then Letitia James, each have continued to prosecute the baseless lawsuit. 

Crampton and Thomas More Society Senior Counsel Martin Cannon represented the Church@TheRock throughout the lengthy trial in New York. The trial was marked by notorious moments. The owner of the Queens abortion facility – one of the biggest and oldest in the country -- called pro-life advocates the “American Taliban.” A prosecution witness falsely accused the church members of violence, but her testimony was later shown to have been lifted from an article about the actions of other people at a different abortion clinic several years earlier. 

The July 2018 decision by U.S. District Judge Carol Bagley Amon, of the Eastern District of New York, denied the state’s request for a preliminary injunction in People v. Griepp et al. On March 10, 2021, the Second Circuit reversed that decision in part, issuing an opinion favoring the state’s position in this contentious court case that had featured fabricated evidence against the Church@TheRock defendants. 

The Second Circuit classified the following as “physical obstruction” under the FACE Act: 

• Approaching patients and attempting to hand them a leaflet, causing them to “deviate slightly from their path” and to be delayed by “one second” “at most”
• Causing a patient to walk around a life-advocate in the cramped, crowded context of the sidewalk entry area (crowded primarily by clinic “escorts”)
• Delivering a leaflet to the driver of a vehicle who has voluntarily stopped the car and rolled down the window to communicate with the life advocate 

The court further held that even minor, inadvertent contact with a patient or an “escort” could constitute a “use of force” violation under FACE, and that a person commits “harassment” under a local ordinance if she continues speaking, even for a moment, with a person who has indicated even implicitly that he or she does not welcome the message. The court decided that such an implicit indication has occurred where a person remains silent or declines to receive printed information. 

Read the Petition for Panel Rehearing En Banc here [https://thomasmoresociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Griepp-Petition-for-Rehearing-as-filed-04.07.21.pdf]. 

Read more about the case here [https://www.thomasmoresociety.org/rock-solid-for-life-the-outcome-of-a-federal-trial-in-new-york-is-critical-to-the-future-of-pro-life-sidewalk-counseling/]. 

About the Thomas More Society

The Thomas More Society is a national not-for-profit law firm dedicated to restoring respect in law for life, family, and religious liberty. Headquartered in Chicago, Omaha, Rancho Santa Fe, California, and Fairfield, NJ, the Thomas More Society fosters support for these causes by providing high quality pro bono legal services from local trial courts all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. For more information, visit thomasmoresociety.org

 

 

An effort to 'silence dissenters': California targets pro-life sidewalk advocates

An effort to 'silence dissenters': California targets pro-life sidewalk advocates: 'The abortion industry is doing everything they can in California to increase their bottom line and silence dissenters in every corner of society.'

This Thursday (4-29) on Faith On Trial

This week’s guests:

Attorney Rita Gitchell, special counsel for the Thomas More Society on the rights of human embryos and what happens when human brain cells are injected into monkey embryos.

Columnist Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute on what “woke” schools are teaching (or not teaching) our kids.

Faith On Trial deals with societal and legal issues that affect people of faith and it airs every Thursday at 10 a.m. Central time. It can be heard at 1150 AM; 88.5 & 94.5 FM and streams live on IowaCatholicRadio.com where you can also listen to previous broadcasts and where you also can download our free and convenient app. 

New York tries forcing nuns to pay for abortions

WASHINGTON – Multiple orders of Catholic and Anglican nuns, alongside several Catholic dioceses, Christian churches, and faith-based social justice ministries asked the Supreme Court late last week to hear their case against New York’s abortion mandate. In Diocese of Albany v. Lacewell, the diverse coalition of religious organizations sued New York after its Department of Financial Services required that all employers cover abortions in their health insurance plans. After losing in the state court, the religious organizations have now petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to protect their right to operate their ministries without being forced to provide abortions.

“Our faith tells us that every life is precious from the moment of conception to the final breath. That’s why we spend our lives praying and serving to lift others’ burdens,” said Mother Miriam, of the Sisterhood of Saint Mary, the oldest religious order founded in America in the Anglican tradition. “New York has told us that if we want to hold our beliefs about the sanctity of life, we have to stop serving non-Anglicans. We cannot compromise on our religious beliefs, or in our service to people of all faiths or no faith at all. That’s why we need relief from the Supreme Court.”

When the New York State Department of Financial Services initially proposed the abortion mandate, it promised to respect the First Amendment by exempting employers with religious objections. But after facing pressure from abortion activists, New York narrowed the exemption to protect only religious entities whose purpose is to inculcate religious values and who primarily serve and hire coreligionists. This narrow exemption thus doesn’t apply to most religious ministries that serve people regardless of their faith. For example, the exemption doesn’t extend to the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm and their Teresian Nursing Home because they serve the elderly and dying regardless of religious affiliation. Nor does it extend to the First Bible Baptist Church, which operates social justice ministries for underserved community members.

“When New York instituted its abortion mandate, the Little Sisters of the Poor were already two Supreme Court victories into their battle against the contraceptive mandate. Now they’ve won for a third time, sending the clear message that the government can’t make nuns do its dirty work,” said Lori Windham, senior counsel at Becket. “New York’s failure to learn from the Little Sisters’ saga that you can’t make nuns pay for abortions is beyond reason. The Court needs to step in and teach New York that lesson.”

The story of nuns being ordered to pay for drugs and procedures that violate their religious beliefs has already played out at the federal level. In 2011, the United States Department of Health and Human Services ordered employers to cover controversial contraceptives and abortifacients in their health care plan or face crippling fines. Immediately, a lawsuit was brought by the Little Sisters of the Poor—an order of Catholic nuns who dedicate their lives to serving the elderly poor. Three times the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor, saying that if the government wanted to find a way to provide contraceptives and abortifacients, it couldn’t force the nuns to help.

The Long Knives Are Coming Out

By DEACON MIKE MANNO

(The Wanderer) - I think we’ve probably known all along that in the current state of things our religious liberty would be under attack. I’ve written about those things and my radio program has highlighted many more. Until recently, however, the attacks have been somewhat muted, limited to isolated instances, and, at least to the general public, not very brazen.

But with a new political magisterium of faux Christianity, faux patriotism, faux liberty, along with the growing acceptance of a cancel culture, the New Left has ratcheted up the ante and no longer tries to conceal its vulgar attacks on Catholicism, people of faith, and conservative Christians.

So while the Equality Act, endorsed by the president and the majority party leaders of Congress, is pending before the Senate, an act which would stifle churches’ ability to teach and live out their beliefs, especially in the area of sexual morality, a legal challenge has raised the possibility that religious colleges might be cut off from federal funding upon which they have been dependent.

Acolytes of the New Left, operating under the name of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project (REAP), have filed suit in an Oregon federal court on behalf of current and former students to prevent future students from using tuition grants, student loans, and any other federal financial assistance at schools that operate according to Christian beliefs on sexuality.

The crux of the argument is that the religious exemption afforded to religious institutions under Title IX are unconstitutional because it allows for discrimination on the basis of, among other things, sexual and gender identity.

According to the Department of Education website, “Title IX generally prohibits a recipient institution from excluding, separating, denying benefits to, or otherwise treating students differently on the basis of sex in its educational programs or activities.” But it does not apply “to an educational institution that is controlled by a religious organization to the extent that application of Title IX would be inconsistent with the religious tenets of the organization.”

That, according to REAP, is unconstitutional, and on its website argues, “REAP’s lawsuit asserts the constitutional and basic human rights of LGBTQ+ students, seeking to end the sexual, physical, and psychological abuses perpetrated under the religious exemption to Title IX at thousands of federally funded schools, colleges, and universities across America.”

The class action suit was filed on behalf of 33 current and former students of some 25 Christian colleges that receive federal funds from the Department of Education. The 33 named plaintiffs are claiming to represent more than 100,000 sexual and gender minorities attending religious institutions where, REAP suggests, they were discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The 67-page suit lists each student, the college he or she (using the person’s proper pronoun) attended, and briefly how they were discriminated against. Some seemed quite trivial, such as the complaint by Rachel Held, a bisexual women attending Messiah University, “Messiah believes that the Bible teaches that marriage is between one man and one woman.” Rachel is engaged to another woman. Messiah University is a private Christian school in Mechanicsburg, Pa., whose motto is “Christ Preeminent.”

Lauren Hoekstra is a self-identified “queer woman” who attended Dordt University in Sioux City, Iowa. Apparently what Lauren found so intolerable were “activities that the school has declared unbiblical include ‘promoting or advocating sexually immoral activity,’ ‘extramarital sexual relations,’ ‘homosexual relations,’ and ‘transgendered behavior’.” Dordt is a private Christian institution affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church.

I could go on, but I think you get the drift. Anyway, the catchall takeaway is summed up in the fourth paragraph of the lawsuit: “When taxpayer-funded religious institutions require sexual and gender minority students to hide their identity out of fear, or to behave contrary to their fundamental sexual or gender identity, the unsurprising consequences are intense pain, loneliness, and self-harm. Students perceive that their campus, and even their government, believes that they are inferior in dignity and worth.”

None of the colleges are named as defendants in the lawsuit. In fact, the only defendants named are the Department of Education and several department officials in their official capacities. Thus, if that is left to stand, the Biden administration would very likely “settle” the suit favorably to the plaintiffs.

However, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), representing four Christian colleges, has petitioned to intervene in the case to argue for the defense. Intervention in a lawsuit would allow a party not originally named in the suit to enter as an actual party. The theory being that the intervenor may have rights that would be affected by the court’s decision. Intervention can be granted by right, when the party can show that he cannot be adequately be represented by either of the existing parties, or it can be permissive when in the court’s opinion the claims by the intervenor has common elements of law or fact with the suit.

ADF has petitioned under both theories, but it is difficult to imagine a federal judge denying the request. In its 27-page motion and brief, ADF says, “The very existence of Title IX’s Religious Exemption is at stake here, yet none of the current parties are religious educational institutions that benefit from this exemption. This case asks whether the Department may continue to grant and recognize religious exemptions enshrined in Title IX and required by the Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Religious Schools are Christian universities and seminaries that qualify for the Religious Exemption….The court should not assess the Religious Exemption’s constitutionality without hearing from the very institutions the exemption was designed to protect.”

Of course sometimes what happens in court can be a crap-shoot, especially when the litigants forum shop. Paul Southwick, the president and lead counsel for REAP, was asked why file in Oregon rather than in D.C. His reply was that it was close to him and “the Ninth Circuit [Court of Appeals, in whose jurisdiction is Oregon] tends to take a view of the Constitution and civil rights that aligns with our lawsuit.”

David Cortman, ADF vice president of U.S. litigation, suggested:

“This lawsuit wants the federal government to tell Christian schools, ‘To continue accepting students who have federal financial aid, all you have to do is to start acting contrary to your own beliefs.’ That’s neither reasonable nor constitutional. No court should grant a radical request to rewrite federal law and strong-arm religious colleges by stripping their students of much-needed financial aid. For that reason, we are asking the court to let our clients intervene in this lawsuit so that they and their students can defend their freedoms under federal law and the Constitution.”

“The very existence of Title IX’s Religious Exemption is at stake here, yet none of the current parties are religious educational institutions that benefit from this exemption,” said ADF Senior Counsel Ryan Tucker. He noted that those who filed the lawsuit are asking the court “to declare the Religious Exemption unconstitutional and seek a permanent injunction rescinding and prohibiting religious exemptions for institutions that hold beliefs about marriage, sexuality, and gender disfavored by some. The court should not assess the Religious Exemption’s constitutionality without hearing from the very institutions the exemption was designed to protect.”

It would seem likely that ADF’s motion will be granted, the battle will be joined, and the topic of the religious exemptions will come front and center with the Biden administration, after the litigation ends, having the option to either withdraw the exemption, as the Obama-Biden administration tried, or to restore it with restrictions.

Time will tell. But I can assure you, more of these religious attacks are coming and the strong defense which Mr. Trump would have provided won’t be there for us. The long knives will be coming.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday at 10 a.m. CT on Faith On Trial at IowaCatholicRadio.com.)

 

Religious freedom doesn't matter to Biden WH, says attorney

Religious freedom doesn't matter to Biden WH, says attorney: In a move perceived by an attorney as a White House attack on religious freedom, the Biden administration is appealing a court decision allowing religious hospitals and doctors to opt out of gender-transition procedures.

Debunking 4 Claims the Radical Left Uses to Justify Their Supreme Court Coup

By Liberty McArtor 

Proponents of court-packing argue that adding more judges to our nation’s judiciary is the magical solution to urgent problems, and even paint the picture that doing so is an act of goodwill. But far from being a necessity, court-packing is a brazen power-grab by one political party to fix the number of Supreme Court justices or federal judges to get the political results they want.

And when we look at the history of court-packing across the world, there’s no way around it: Court-packing is a dangerous scheme with severe implications that would erase freedom and rights for future generations and destroy America’s constitutional order.

To equip you—and all Americans—in exposing the lie and the radical plan to overthrow America’s court system, here are four common (or rather, bogus) court-packing claims debunked with facts and logic.

1. Myth: The Supreme Court has been stolen.

Fact: The Supreme Court currently has nine highly qualified, legitimately appointed and confirmed justices. The far Left just doesn’t like some of them.

The reason court-packing advocates say the Supreme Court was “stolen” is because they disagree with the political party and the president who appointed the latest three justices (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett). For instance, they claimed that Justice Barrett’s confirmation happened too quickly. But as First Liberty President and CEO Kelly Shackelford has noted, justices have been confirmed in the same fashion nearly thirty (30) times. In fact, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom Justice Barrett replaced, was confirmed in a similar time frame.

Ironically, stealing the Supreme Court is exactly what would happen if the coup attempt to add two, four or even six more justices were to succeed.

2. Myth: Court-packing has popular support.

Fact: Court-packing is widely unpopular—and historically has been within both parties. 

Polls conducted in the last few years show the majority of Americans oppose court-packing.

• In 2020, a New York Times-Siena College poll found that fifty-eight percent (58%) of likely voters opposed packing the Supreme Court.
• In 2019, Rasmussen polls found that only twenty-seven percent (27%) of Americans favor packing the Supreme Court with additional justices.

What’s more, opposition to court-packing is prevalent across the political spectrum.

Here are some quotes from several politicians and prominent figures on both sides of the political aisle, starting with the current president:

• President Joe Biden (D):

In 1983: “President Roosevelt clearly had the right to send to the United States Senate and the United States Congress a proposal to pack the court. … But it was a bonehead idea. It was a terrible, terrible mistake to make.”

In 2020: “I’m not a fan of court packing.”

• Ted Cruz (R-TX)

In 2020: “Packing the Court means one very specific thing: expanding the number of justices to achieve a political outcome. It is wrong. It is an abuse of power.”

• Joe Manchin (D-WV)

In 2020: “I want to allay those fears, I want to rest those fears for you right now because when they talk about whether it be packing the courts, or ending the filibuster, I will not vote to do that.”

• Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

In 2020: “I can’t think of a more destabilizing event for America than changing the number of [justices] on the Supreme Court every election cycle, because it becomes a winner take all for the Court.”

• Jon Ossoff (D-GA):

In 2020: “We shouldn’t expand the Supreme Court just because a justice may be confirmed with whom we disagree on policy.”

• Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933 – 2020):

In 2019: “If anything would make the court look partisan…it would be that—one side saying, ‘When we’re in power, we’re going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.'”

The truth is both parties have long opposed court-packing, and the sudden flip by a select group of elites on the Democratic side on this issue exposes this scheme for what it really is: a barefaced power grab.

3. Myth: Court-packing is a routine procedure.

Fact: Changes to the size of the Supreme Court are very rare in America’s history, and the few partisan attempts at court-packing have been failures.

Congress has changed the number of Supreme Court justices only a total of seven times in American history. The radical Left distorts this fact to make you think court-packing is normal. But in nearly 250 years and 120 Congresses, the seven prior changes (many of them due to workloads and the addition of states to the Republic) do not offer a justification for packing the Court today. On the contrary, the seven changes show how rare court-packing is in America. What’s more, the number of Supreme Court justices hasn’t changed at all since 1869—that’s over 150 years!

4. Myth: Court-packing will save democracy.

Fact: Court packing will crush civil liberties by making the Supreme Court a partisan tool of whoever holds power.  

Using a baseball metaphor, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts once said of a judge’s role, “It’s my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.”

What would happen if several partisan justices were added to the Supreme Court—justices who were instructed to “pitch” and “bat” for the team that appointed them? The Supreme Court would become an extension of the party currently in power. The fundamental principle of the “separation of powers” would be destroyed.

If more and more partisan judges are added to courts every election cycle, those in the minority—people who don’t agree with the current ruling party—would have their freedom squashed under the weight of a rigged judiciary. Civil liberties like religious freedom would have no stable protection.

Far from saving the principles of our democratic republic, court-packing would lead to the demolition of constitutional rights—just like it happened in other nations, such as Venezuela and Argentina.

###

Liberty McArtor is a freelance writer in the state of Texas. As a contributor to FLI Insider, published by First Liberty Institute. Liberty covered various topics, including historical articles about the role of faith during the American founding and religious liberty in the military. Liberty earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Patrick Henry College and previously worked as a radio producer in Washington, D.C.

 

Americans Are Clear: Don’t Pack the Supreme Court

Washington, DC—First Liberty Institute today announced the results of a nationwide poll from Mason Dixon Polling & Strategy revealing more than two-thirds (2/3’s) of Americans oppose adding seats to the Supreme Court of the United States. First Liberty, the nation’s premier law firm dedicated exclusively to religious liberty, commissioned the poll. 

Read he results of the poll here. 

“Court-packing is a direct assault on the independence of the judiciary,” Kelly Shackelford, President, CEO, & Chief Counsel to First Liberty said.  “Other countries have done this, with disastrous results. Americans recognize that court-packing is a brazen power-play by political extremists to overthrow our court system.  The last thing our country needs right now is a coup on the Supreme Court. We need our Constitutional system. It is the envy of the world.” 

The poll, conducted by Mason Dixon of registered voters nationwide April 15-19, suggests that 68% of all respondents oppose court-packing.  Importantly, self-identified Independent voters overwhelmingly reject plans to pack the court (68% opposed). 

### 

About First Liberty Institute

First Liberty Institute is a non-profit public interest law firm and the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious freedom for all Americans.

Illinois Gov. Pritzker's Recommendations for Corrupting All Government Schools

Pritzker's Recommendations for Corrupting All Government Schools

This week's Faith On Trial

Guests: Tom Jipping, Senor Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation on court packing. Julie Blake, Senior Counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom on the case of a small Christian college that is suing the Administration because it mandates that the college place biological males into female dormitories and assign them female roommates, putting its religious freedom at risk

Nobody Cares

By Judie Brown, President American Life League

A longtime pro-life advocate recently told us a very sad story. As he stood in front of an abortion facility praying the Rosary and holding a sign, someone rode by on a bicycle and yelled, “Give it up. Nobody cares.”

That story struck a chord in my heart because what that individual yelled out at a faithful defender of the babies tells us exactly what is wrong with our nation today. We are living in a time when millions of our fellow human beings are going to their deaths, and most folks couldn’t care less!

I can give you plenty of examples of the “nobody cares” mantra, but here are just a few.

Headlines report that the president of the United States, Joe Biden, is undoing Trump administration regulations that prevented Planned Parenthood from referring expectant mothers to places where their babies can be killed by abortion. Reporters quoted a Biden administration official from HHS, who said: “Ultimately, continued enforcement of the 2019 rule raises the possibility of a two-tiered health care system in which those with insurance and full access to health care receive full medical information and referrals, while low-income populations with fewer opportunities for care are relegated to inferior access.”

Once again, we are told that killing a baby prior to birth is healthcare—a popular smokescreen about which nobody cares.

This “healthcare” not only results in a dead baby, but it’s not unusual for it to also harm the mother. We saw this recently when, at a Charleston, South Carolina, Planned Parenthood abortion facility, a 36-year-old patient bled uncontrollably and had to be rushed by ambulance to a local hospital. Tiffany, the Planned Parenthood official who made the call to the emergency services, not only laughed during the call but had no idea what an advance directive was or exactly how much help the patient might need.

This is the definition of women’s healthcare these days, but nobody cares.

Back in Washington, DC, Biden’s Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of mail-order abortion pills for the duration of the pandemic. A woman can now use telemedicine to talk to a doctor from her home. He then prescribes her the pills, and they are mailed to her, which she takes alone. While we wondered aloud why the Catholic bishops’ USCCB did not speak out immediately, the fact remains that once again pro-death counterfeit-Catholic Biden found yet another way to approve of abortion!

This is the Biden administration’s idea of women’s healthcare, but nobody cares.

So the beat goes on. In Nebraska, a corrections officer resigned because the state denied an inmate’s request to abort her child. And in Arizona, state resident Garin Marschall wrote in a local newspaper about his wife’s abortion. He opined: “When people say abortion is healthcare, it is not just a slogan, especially for people managing a health crisis. People get abortions for many reasons, making their own determinations based on their circumstances. For some, they find out new information during their pregnancy that changes everything.”

Please note that, in this case, it is the new information about “pregnancy” that makes an abortion decision the “right thing,” not new information about their child. This sort of dehumanization of the human being prior to birth occurs so many times a day that we cannot count them. And nobody cares.

Yet as we know—and as I told our fellow life defender—it is precisely because there are people all over this nation who do not care that we work hard every day to shine the light of truth in this moral darkness. You see, thousands of us do care! And we will continue to care, inspired by truth.

At the heart of our efforts to focus on the innocent person at every stage of his development is the fact that all human beings are made in the image and likeness of God. Pope Benedict XVI taught us to be cognizant of this greatness in every human being when he said: “Man is not a lost atom in a random universe: he is God’s creature, whom God chose to endow with an immortal soul and whom he has always loved.”

God loves every one of us, including the fellow on the bicycle who said “nobody cares.”

God loves and cares, so we persist because we do too!

 

This week (4-22) on Faith On Trial

Last week Capitol Hill Democrats announced a plan to add four new judges to the Supreme Court. How does the proposal to add justices affect justice and our civil and religious rights?” Joining us for that discussion Thursday on Faith On Trial will be Tom Jipping, Senor Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

After we’ll be examining the case of a small Christian college that is suing the Administration because it mandates that the college place biological males into female dormitories and assign them female roommates, putting its religious freedom at risk. Joining us to review that case is the author of the lawsuit Julie Blake, Senior Counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Faith On Trial airs this and every Thursday at 10 a.m. central for Faith On Trial on Iowa Catholic Radio, 1150 AM, 88.5 & 94.5 FM and streaming on IowaCatholicRadio.com where you can also find and listen to our older programing.