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Pro-Family Conservatives Must First Be Pro-Men


BY: DELANO SQUIRES | JANUARY 05, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/01/05/pro-family-conservatives-must-first-be-pro-men/

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Republicans interested in crafting pro-family policy must focus on the well-being of America’s boys and men.

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Those conservatives who want to shape the nascent pro-family movement emerging on the right must be willing to embrace a controversial — and countercultural — reality: Healthy families require strong, stable, and secure men. That means Republicans interested in crafting pro-family policy must focus on the well-being of America’s boys and men.  

Democrats have spent decades supporting policies that make men and fathers economically and socially obsolete. They’ve promoted the notion that families and societies flourish when women are empowered, even to the detriment of men. For instance, they see the fact that women outnumber men in the college-educated labor force as a win for gender equality.   

It’s not all progress, however, from the perspective of modern feminists. So-called access to abortion, a major plank in the women’s empowerment agenda, was dealt a serious blow when the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision struck down Roe v. Wade and returned the issue of abortion to the states.  

This seismic shift, combined with the economic challenges brought on by Covid-19 shutdowns and parental discontent with public schools, has opened the door for some conservatives to seek to rebrand Republicans as the party of families.   

The initial push for this political pivot came from Republicans in the U.S. Senate. The most recent iteration of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney’s proposed Family Security Act would provide between $250 and $350 a month per child, based on age. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s Provide for Life Act would expand the child tax credit, enable parental leave, expand support for pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, and fund mentoring services for low-income mothers. Conservative social commentators have also made the case that limited government and support for families are compatible policy goals. 

Whatever the merits of these efforts, the success of pro-family policies will depend on more than bipartisan support in Congress. The social and economic outcomes conservatives want to see must start with the understanding that men and women are not generic, interchangeable parts in the machinery of family life.  

Recognizing Roles 

Men have played the role of provider throughout human history, though in recent decades that role has been shared. Still, no culture teaches that it’s a woman’s responsibility to take care of an adult male and the children they have together. This is why women generally seek men who earn more than they do. One analysis of U.S. Census data found that female physicians married men in the same field. Male doctors, however, often married nurses and teachers. 

This is not an argument against women in the workplace. It’s an appeal for conservatives to recognize that disregarding the natural order in the name of “women’s empowerment,” whether through public policy or cultural norms, will make it harder for Americans to form strong, stable families.   

Conservative politicians and pundits need to become comfortable talking about what boys and men need in terms of education, economic opportunity, religion, social norms, and relationships.  

Their political speeches, op-eds, and podcast appearances need a renewed emphasis on vocational education that is aspirational, not framed in terms of a fallback option for young men who are unable — or unwilling — to attend college. Conservatives need to speak with a similar sense of clarity and concern when it comes to men, sex, and family formation.   

Every conservative bill, statute, policy, or regulation that directly affects families should include some version of the following statements:  

  1. Children have a right to the love and support of the man and woman who created them. 
  2. The ideal family structure for every child is to be raised by his or her married biological parents in a stable and loving home.  
  3. Men, not the state, are ultimately responsible for the children they father.  

These self-evident truths should function as the “iron triangle” of social conservatism. Men need something they are willing to both live and die for. The responsibilities that come with a family give them both.   

Critics on the left — as well as some on the right — will undoubtedly accuse conservatives focusing on men of promoting a regressive return to the rigid sex roles of the 1950s. What they fail to realize is that the sexual revolution and 60 years of liberal social policy did not destroy patriarchy — they distorted it by minimizing the importance of men while maximizing the influence male-dominated institutions have in every area of American family life.   

Different Forms of Patriarchy 

“Bureaucratic patriarchy” was introduced through the war on poverty’s expansion of the welfare state and policy incentives that provided aid and basic necessities for unmarried mothers. It has grown because of the symbiotic relationship between elected officials seeking votes, social service administrators overseeing the poverty economy, and single mothers who need financial support.   

Conservatives have a hard time criticizing “corporate patriarchy,” by contrast, because it promotes financial independence for women and exploits conservative deference to the private sector. A recent video from the pro-life organization Live Action satirizes an unfortunate reality brought about by the right’s allegiance to corporations: Many businesses would rather fund abortions than paid maternity leave for their female employees. Perhaps business executives are simply taking cues from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who said, “eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades.”  

The advent of “trans patriarchy” further complicates the pro-life, pro-family movement because men who believe they are women are committed to erasing biological sex altogether. In addition to attacking the foundation of human existence itself, this deformed version of patriarchy also seeks to usurp the family’s role as the primary shaper of children’s values.   

Many conservatives fail to see how the daycare-to-demisexual pipeline was built over time by politicians increasing funding for childcare and schools, corporations offering generous benefits in exchange for employee loyalty, and gender ideologues who want access to shape the next generation of children.   

The actors involved in all three deformed patriarchies are cruel taskmasters because they take a utilitarian view of women and children. A man who accepts his God-given responsibilities has a completely different orientation toward his family. His relationship with his wife is a covenant, not a contract. His children are the fruit of that union and the linchpin to multi-generational prosperity. They’re not mere “consequences” of sex and burdens to be overcome for the sake of economic productivity.   

In a sense, some form of patriarchy is inevitable. The question conservative policymakers need to answer is which form they believe produces the best outcomes for men, women, and children. This is why clear thinking about families must be preceded by honest reflection on the different natures of men and women and how they can be harnessed to fortify American households. That is why now is the perfect time for conservatives to lean into the connection between strong men and stable families.  

Delano Squires is a research fellow in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation. Follow him on Twitter @DelanoSquires.

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The Big Midterm Lesson: Defensive ‘Victories’ on the Right Aren’t Going to Save The Country


BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | NOVEMBER 10, 2022

Read more at https://www.conservativereview.com/the-big-midterm-lesson-defensive-victories-on-the-right-arent-going-to-save-the-country-2658627186.html/

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Republicans won big in places where GOP leaders leaned into the culture war and passed abortion restrictions. That’s no accident.

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If there’s a clear lesson to come out of Tuesday night’s bizarre midterm election, it’s that Republicans can no longer be content with defensive victories or defensive politics. To win political power and do what must be done to save the country, Republicans will have to go on offense, present a compelling vision for the future, and engage culture war issues like abortion and critical race theory without apologies. 

When they do that, they win. But it stands in stark contrast to the perennial advice of Beltway GOP consultants, who think it best to avoid major culture war issues like abortion. Indeed, the “official narrative” of corporate media in the wake of Tuesday’s midterms is that abortion was a big winner for Democrats, who supposedly capitalized on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, successfully making abortion a major electoral issue and blunting a red wave by boosting turnout among young, pro-abortion voters. 

It sounds good, but it’s not quite right. Republicans who didn’t shy away from talking about abortion after Dobbs, and who signed into law abortion legislation earlier this year without flinching or apologizing, did really well — they were Tuesday night’s winners. As Marc Thiessen noted on Fox News, Republican governors in Ohio, Georgia, New Hampshire, Texas, and Florida all signed post-Dobbs abortion restrictions, and they all won reelection by comfortable margins. 

That’s not to say abortion was a non-factor. Democrats squeezed every last electoral drop they could out of Dobbs, spending $320 million on abortion-related TV ads (much more than on all other issues combined) which helped motivate a voter base that might have otherwise been depressed.

Still, there was a clear contrast between Republicans who heeded the advice of Beltway consultants and tried to dodge abortion questions or take a noncommittal stance and those who defended their anti-abortion positions and pushed for post-Roe legislation. Only one of those groups fared well Tuesday.

The larger lesson here is that Republican candidates should lean into the culture war and make no apologies for their positions, even on contentious issues like abortion. Fighting back against the left, it turns out, is what a lot of voters on the right want from Republicans.

Consider what Ron DeSantis achieved in Florida, winning 60 percent of the vote after narrowly eking out a victory four years ago. He did that by not shying away from big, high-profile fights over hot-button culture war issues like critical race theory and transgender indoctrination. Glenn Youngkin did the same thing last November to pull off an upset in the Virginia governor’s race.

But DeSantis and Youngkin are, sadly, exceptions to the general rule that Republicans tend to be reactionary and defensive. Indeed, the failure of the conservative movement is largely attributable to this default defensiveness, and it needs to end. For decades, conservatives whined about just wanting to be left alone even as the radical left was marching through our institutions and transforming society, showing us at every turn they had no intention of leaving us alone. Yet some on the right still don’t seem to get it. On Tuesday morning, anticipating a red wave, Ben Shapiro tweeted: “The mandate for Republicans will be to stop Biden’s terrible agenda dead. It will not be to make very loud but tactically foolish moves.”

Shapiro didn’t specify what he meant by “very loud but tactically foolish moves,” but he followed it up with this:

Sorry, but the era of normalcy and being left alone is over. The left will never leave us alone. They want to win and wield power, and if we want to stop them, we will have to win and wield power ourselves. Conservatives who want to be left alone will simply lose, as they have been for decades now.

Those like Shapiro who long to be left alone are also apt to argue that the conservative project has been moderately successful over the years, moving slowly to notch wins. Look at Dobbs. Look at religious liberty and the Second Amendment. Look at all the good judges appointed to the federal bench during the Trump administration.

But this is a cope. Yes, there have been a few victories for conservatives. The Dobbs decision was the greatest policy victory of the conservative cause in a generation, and it was due mostly to the dogged work of the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, two institutions often unfairly maligned as “Conservative, Inc.” by the New Right, and — at least before Dobbs dropped — dismissed as failures.

Yet even the Dobbs decision was a defensive victory, handed down like a gift from on high by the Supreme Court. But it didn’t end legal abortion, and indeed the ruling itself bent over backward to avoid the broader implications of its own constitutional logic, which, as Justice Clarence Thomas explained in his concurring opinion, calls into question the constitutionality of substantive due process and the long train of Supreme Court rulings that have followed its invention more than a century ago.

As Dobbs itself suggests, defensive victories delivered by the federal judiciary aren’t going to reverse what has been, with few setbacks, a relentless, decades-long march by the left through every institution of American life. Anyone who tells you things aren’t that bad because we happen to have five mostly reliable Supreme Court justices is either delusional or quietly willing to acquiesce to leftist tyranny.

They’re probably also inclined to think Republicans didn’t really do so bad in the midterms, and that what Americans really want is just some tinkering with Social Security and the welfare state. Nothing too loud and tactically foolish. That’s more or less Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s plan if he becomes speaker of the House. After all, the country just wants to heal.

No. The country does not want to heal. It does not want “some semblance of normalcy.” There are two diametrically opposed moral systems at war right now in America, and it’s not enough at this late hour to be content with the status quo, to repose in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and hope the five good justices will somehow stop the revolutionaries.  

Just look at the successful pro-abortion midterm referendums in Michigan, Vermont, and California, where the right to kill the unborn is now enshrined in those states’ constitutions. What’s true of the abortion issue is true of nearly every other major issue in American public life. Being passive and defensive is not going to cut it. If Republicans want to win, they’d better be willing to fight. Let’s hope they are. The future of the republic depends on it.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

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For Lack Of Public Confidence In The Supreme Court, John Roberts Has Only Himself To Blame


BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | SEPTEMBER 14, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/09/14/for-lack-of-public-confidence-in-the-supreme-court-john-roberts-has-only-himself-to-blame/

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U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts

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U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is back in the public spotlight and his latest remarks on judicial integrity are turning heads. Appearing at the 10th Circuit Bench and Bar Conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado on Friday, the chief justice spoke about the perceived credibility of the Supreme Court among the American public and how disagreeing with its opinions “is not a basis for questioning [its] legitimacy.”

“The court has always decided controversial cases and decisions have always been subject to intense criticism, and that is entirely appropriate,” Roberts said. “But I don’t understand the connection between the opinions people disagree with and the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.”

Following the Supreme Court’s rulings on several hot-button issues this past session, such as the striking down of Roe v. Wade and upholding of Second Amendment rights, Democrats and their sycophants in legacy media have been quick to vilify the high court and call into question its ability to operate as an independent body simply because a majority of justices didn’t give them the outcomes they wanted. While it’s fair for Roberts to push back against such logic and distinguish the legitimacy of the high court from its judicial decisions, his next comments were impossible to take seriously.

“If the court doesn’t retain its legitimate function of interpreting the Constitution, I’m not sure who would take up that mantle,” the chief justice said. “You don’t want the political branches telling you what the law is, and you don’t want public opinion to be the guide about what the appropriate decision is.”

For someone who holds the rank of chief justice, the lack of self-awareness from Roberts is stunning. Throughout his tenure on the Supreme Court, Roberts’s judicial decision-making on various high-profile cases has been guided by “public opinion.”

When the court was considering the constitutionality of Obamacare in the 2012 NFIB v. Sebelius case, for instance, Roberts reportedly took extensive actions behind the scenes to alter the Supreme Court’s final decision on the matter, even though Obamacare is obviously unconstitutional. After initially siding with his Republican-appointed colleagues in striking down the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) “on the grounds that it went beyond Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce,” Roberts got cold feet over fears of potential public blowback over the high court’s impending decision and worked with his Democrat-appointed colleagues to change it.

As reported by SCOTUS biographer Joan Biskupic in her book, “The Chief,” Roberts’s bid to play politics led him to form a deal with leftist Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan that upheld and struck down certain portions of the ACA.

“After trying unsuccessfully to find a middle way with [Justice Anthony] Kennedy, who was ‘unusually firm’ and even ‘put off’ by the courtship, Roberts turned to the Court’s two moderate liberals, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan,” a review of “The Chief” published in The Atlantic reads. “The threesome negotiated a compromise decision that upheld the ACA’s individual mandate under Congress’s taxing power, while striking down the Medicaid expansion.”

Biskupic’s reporting echoes findings released by CBS News’ Jan Crawford. She in 2012 reported that “Roberts pays attention to media coverage” and that “[a]s chief justice, he is keenly aware of his leadership role on the court” and “is sensitive to how the court is perceived by the public.”

In spite of his efforts to maintain the court’s favorability as measured by often-biased poll results, Roberts’s games in the NFIB v. Sebelius case did the exact opposite. As detailed in their bestselling book, “Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court,” Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway and President of the Judicial Crisis Network Carrie Severino detail how “Pew [Research] reported that after the decision the Court remained at its all-time-low 52 percent approval.”

“The accepted narrative, even among those who welcomed the chief’s decision, was that he changed his legal position not on principle but in response to public pressure,” Hemingway and Severino write. “The right lost respect for him, and the decision won him no friends on the left, which still portrays him as unforgivably conservative and a craven political operative. It was a regrettable outcome for anyone concerned about the legitimacy of the Court.”

Roberts’s deference to the consistently changing and poll-manipulated opinions of the American public at the expense of upholding the Constitution didn’t stop at the Obamacare ruling, either. Over the years, Roberts has routinely abandoned originalism for political activism, with the court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision striking down Roe‘s made-up “constitutional right” to an abortion serving as a more recent example.

Despite Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett all correctly maintaining that the precedent established in Roe was unconstitutional garbage, Roberts attempted — yet again — to play politician and convince one of his Republican-appointed colleagues to change his or her vote before the opinion was released. Originally reported by The Washington Post and later Biskupic, Roberts directed his lobbying to save Roe toward justices including Brett Kavanaugh, which “continued through the final weeks of the [2021-2022] session.”

“Multiple sources told CNN that Roberts’ overtures this spring, particularly to Kavanaugh, raised fears among conservatives and hope among liberals that the chief could change the outcome in the most closely watched case in decades,” Biskupic writes. “Once the draft was published by Politico, conservatives pressed their colleagues to try to hasten release of the final decision, lest anything suddenly threaten their majority.”

The report went on to detail how the abrupt May leak of the Supreme Court’s majority draft opinion in Dobbs “thwarted” Roberts’ efforts, with Biskupic noting how the chief justice “can usually work in private, seeking and offering concessions, without anyone beyond the court knowing how he or other individual justices have voted or what they may be writing.”

In the final opinion, Roberts ultimately sided with the leftist justices of the court in upholding Roe, while also voting with his Republican-appointed colleagues to uphold the Mississippi 15-week abortion law as constitutional.

Whether he wants to admit it to himself or not, a decline in public confidence in the Supreme Court isn’t due to any originalist rulings, but to Roberts’s political activism. The role of a judge is — and always has been — to apply the Constitution as it was originally written by the Founders; not manipulate the law to satisfy some personal desire for public approval.

In abdicating his responsibility as a justice, Roberts has given the country every reason to be skeptical of the court’s ability to operate freely from the politics that plague America’s societal discourse. If the chief justice had any interest in ensuring the future of the Supreme Court’s legitimacy, he would quit acting like Mitch McConnell in a robe and start behaving like the judge he was appointed to be.

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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    Nazis And Eugenics Brought Us Chemical Abortion: Here’s Proof


    BY: RACHEL SCHRODER | AUGUST 26, 2022

    Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/26/nazis-and-eugenics-brought-us-chemical-abortion-heres-proof/

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    Chemical abortion is the backup plan of the abortion industry post-Roe, but it shields a ghastly history. The demand for this dangerous drug is rising in the U.S. despite its four times higher complication rate than surgical abortion and a jaw-dropping reality: the chemical abortion drug is connected to Nazi Germany. The affiliates of those who killed innocent children in the Holocaust introduced to our county the drug that is today killing innocent preborn children and numerous mothers.

    Pro-life activists often argue that the dehumanization of Jews by the Nazis and the dehumanization of the preborn by the abortion industry are philosophically similar phenomena. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was a relentless racist. However, few know the true historical relationship between the Nazi genocide during World War II and today’s chemical abortion industry, now responsible for 54 percent of abortions nationwide.

    In the early to mid-20th century, the pharmaceutical holding company I.G. Farben Chemical Company controlled much of the German chemical industry. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the infamous Auschwitz was one of I.G. Farben’s very own chemical plants, responsible for the slavery and deaths of more than a million people in World War II.

    Several of Farben’s directors were also found guilty in the U.S’s Nuernberg War Crimes Trials for slavery and mass murder. Georg von Schnitzler, a member of the managing board of directors of Farben, was even a captain in a violent division of the Nazi party that helped facilitate Hitler’s rise before WWII. I.G. Farben Chemical Company was the archetype of an industrial demon.

    After the war, Western countries attempted to utterly splinter I.G. Farben industrial power, but divided the holding company into three of its own industrial members, Hoechst, Bayer, and BASF.

    In 1974, the first of these three entities, Hoechst, gained a majority share of the holding company Chimio that controlled a French pharmaceutical company called Roussel Uclaf. By 1982, Roussel Uclaf had developed the RU-486 chemical abortion drug mifepristone.

    Abortion Drug’s Ties to Population Council, Planned Parenthood

    During the mid-1990s, Roussel Uclaf allied with the nonprofit Population Council, which led the charge for FDA approval of the abortion pill in the U.S., officially granted in 2000. During that time Hoechst acquired the remaining shares of Roussel Uclaf.

    Like Hoechst, the Population Council had deeply eugenic roots. Aided by the director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the organization was founded by John D. Rockefeller III, son of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

    Rockefeller Jr. sponsored German eugenic research leading up to the late-1930s that influenced later Nazi policy. Through the Rockefeller Foundation, he funded multiple institutions at which Ernst Rüdin, who spearheaded Hitler’s gruesome medical research during the Holocaust, held leading roles. One such organization was the Institute for Brain Research. According to The History News Network:

    Everything changed when Rockefeller money arrived in 1929. A grant of $317,000 allowed the Institute to construct a major building and take center stage in German race biology. The Institute received additional grants from the Rockefeller Foundation during the next several years. Leading the Institute, once again, was Hitler’s medical henchman Ernst Rüdin. Rüdin’s organization became a prime director and recipient of the murderous experimentation and research conducted on Jews, Gypsies and others.

    Following in the footsteps of the organization his father founded, in the 1950s Rockefeller III’s Population Council supported the American Eugenics Society, eugenics-motivated sterilization of women, and the use of sex-selective abortion. It also tested, along with International Planned Parenthood Federation, population controlling IUD contraceptives in Pakistan, Taiwan, South Korea, and India in the ’60s despite knowing their dangerous side effects on women. The council itself was led for years by openly eugenicist presidents Frederick Osborn and Frank Notestein, both of whom were members of the American Eugenics Society.

    Aborting Minorities

    Rockefeller III acted as chairman of President Nixon’s 1969 Population and the American Future Commission just two years after receiving Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Award. The commission staff was headed by Dr. Charles F. Westoff of the American Eugenics Society and advised by eugenicist Daniel Callahan. The final report endorsed decreasing population growth through supporting the option for women to obtain contraception and/or abortion. No wonder the Population Council was such a willing candidate to spearhead FDA approval for the Hoechst/Roussel Uclaf chemical abortion drug.

    Certain mid-19th century eugenicist figures such as Gunnar Myrdal in his 1944 book “An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy” schemed that “the most effective way they could advance their agenda would be to concentrate population control facilities within the targeted communities,” according to Life Dynamic’s Racial Targeting Report. Today, abortion is the leading cause of death among African Americans, having taken an estimated 19 million black lives. According to Students for Life of America, “Almost 80% of Planned Parenthood’s abortion facilities are located in minority neighborhoods. 88% of its new ‘mega facilities’ are located within walking distance of minority neighborhoods.”

    Today’s abortion industry today is continuing Sanger’s racist legacy. As filmmaker Jason Jones bluntly put it, even though today’s abortion supporters generally reject eugenics, by still endorsing policies (namely abortion) that disproportionately kill black babies, they are “watering an apple tree hoping they get peaches.”

    A disproportionate number of black babies are being killed by the abortion industry. This is the effect Planned Parenthood founder and eugenicist Sanger hoped for. It is no surprise that organizations like Hoechst and Population Council, who have eugenic roots too, were inclined to join the abortion bandwagon considering its ability to control populations.

    Eugenic leaders laid the groundwork for today’s abortion industry. Similar to the 1969 Commission using the language of women’s choice to propagate what was possibly the eugenic dispositions of its leaders, today’s abortion industry touts the language of bodily autonomy to bolster their abortion business. Considering that nearly half of black babies are aborted in the U.S. today, abortion supporters don’t seem to care that their policies, in effect, carry on the eugenic tendencies of the Population Council, both J.D. Rockefellers, I.G. Farben Chemical Company, and Margaret Sanger.

    The sad irony is that while the language of the abortion industry changed, its policies did not. Planned Parenthood still propagates a eugenic legacy through killing innocent children by chemical abortion.

    Rachel Schroder is a history major at Hillsdale College. She wrote this article during her internship at the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women.

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    Abortion is now illegal in several states after Dobbs ruling


    Reported By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter | June 28, 2022

    Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/news/abortion-is-now-illegal-10-states-after-dobbs-ruling.html/

    Anti-abortion campaigners celebrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2022. – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ended legalized abortion nationwide in one of the most divisive and bitterly fought issues in American political life. The court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and said individual states can permit or restrict the procedure themselves. | OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images

    Updated at 1:54 p.m. ET on June 28. 

    Abortion has now become illegal in several states following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization stating that the Constitution doesn’t contain a right to abortion. The Dobbs decision, released Friday, reverses the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The legality of abortion will now be decided on a state-by-state basis. As The Christian Post previously reported, 21 states will either completely ban or more severely restrict abortion than they did pre-Roe following the reversal of the decision.

    The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute has identified 13 states that have “trigger laws” that would ban abortion in the event of Roe’s reversal: Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. In the days immediately following the Dobbs decision, abortion bans have already gone into effect in 11 states, although a lower court judge has already struck down two of them as unconstitutional.

    Missouri became the first state to ban abortion following the Dobbs decision Friday, with Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt issuing an opinion declaring that “the United States Supreme Court has overruled, in whole in part, Roe v. Wade,” thereby granting “the state of Missouri the authority to regulate abortion to the extent set forth” in section 188.017 of the “Right to Life of the Unborn Child Act.” This portion of the law proclaims that “notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, no abortion shall be performed or induced upon a woman, except in cases of medical emergency.”

    Section B of the Right to Life of the Unborn Child Act stated that “the enactment of this section shall only become effective upon notification to the revisor of statutes by an opinion by the attorney general of Missouri, a proclamation by the governor of Missouri, or the adoption of a concurrent resolution by the Missouri general assembly” that the Supreme Court has overruled Roe.

    South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, announced Friday that “we have a law on the books that makes abortion illegal immediately, except to preserve the life of the mother.”

    Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor, a Republican, sent a letter to the state’s governor and the leaders of the state legislature Friday informing them that “As a result of Dobbs, the authority of the state of Oklahoma to prohibit abortion has been confirmed, and the state of Oklahoma may enforce Section 861 of Title 21 of the Oklahoma statutes or enact a similar statute prohibiting abortion throughout pregnancy.”

    The law O’Connor was referring to makes performing an abortion a felony unless it’s “necessary to preserve” the life of the mother. On Friday, the office of Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine published a statement indicating that “U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett lifted the preliminary injunction which had prevented the state of Ohio from enforcing or complying with Senate Bill 23,” which bans abortions after a baby’s heartbeat can be detected. Barrett’s decision enables the state to ban all abortions after six weeks of gestation.

    Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, announced Friday that the Alabama Human Life Protection Act, which bans elective abortions in the state, will now take effect following the Dobbs decision.

    “The state of Alabama’s emergency motion to lift the injunction and reinstate Alabama’s 2019 law, which prohibits abortions in most instances, has been granted,” he said. “Both the federal district court and the plaintiffs recognized that there is no basis for a continued stay of the duly-enacted law in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.”

    “Thus, Alabama’s law, making elective abortions a felony is now enforceable,” Marshall added. “Anyone who takes an unborn life in violation of the law will be prosecuted, with penalties ranging from 10 to 99 years for abortion providers.”

    The office of Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, a Republican, published an announcement Friday certifying that Dobbs “overrules the central holding of Roe v. Wade” and “reaffirms the state’s authority to protect unborn life.” Rutledge’s office stressed that “Arkansas has enacted and defended laws that prohibit elective abortion,” which can now go into effect following the Dobbs decision.

    Additionally, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron published an advisory opinion Friday noting that “the prohibitions on performing abortions” in the state’s Human Life Protection Act “became effective on June 24, 2022, the date on which the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs.”

    Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, took to Twitter Friday to announce that “Because of #SCOTUS ruling in #Dobbs, Louisiana’s trigger law banning #abortion is now in effect.” However, on Monday, the pro-abortion group Center for Reproductive Rights reported on Twitter that “#Louisiana’s trigger bans have been BLOCKED by a state court in response to our lawsuit filed earlier today” and therefore, “abortion care is resuming in Louisiana.” 

    John Fellows, the general counsel of the Utah Legislature, wrote a letter to lawmakers Friday explaining that Abortion Prohibition Amendments enacted in 2020 will take effect now that “a court of binding authority has held that a state may prohibit the abortion of an unborn child at any time during the gestational period, subject to the exceptions enumerated in this bill.”

    The pro-abortion group Utah Abortion Fund announced on Twitter Monday that “the Utah Courts have granted a 14 day restraining order on the trigger ban,” allowing elective abortions to continue taking place there for the next two weeks.

    On Monday, Attorney General Lynn Fitch of Mississippi, the state whose 15-week abortion ban was at the center of the Dobbs case, reported on Twitter that: “Today I certified Mississippi’s trigger law and I am excited for our State to move forward in this new post-Roe era to empower women and promote life!”

    On Monday, the office of South Carolina’s Republican Attorney General Alan Wilson published a statement noting that the state’s Heartbeat Bill banning abortions after six weeks gestation had gone into effect because a judge serving on the U.S. District Court of South Carolina stayed the injunction blocking state officials from enforcing it following the Dobbs decision. 

    A 12th state, Texas, will ban abortions within the next month. An advisory opinion from the state’s Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton reveals that “the Human Life Protection Act of 2021,” which “prohibits abortions in most circumstances and takes effect on the 30th day after ‘issuance of a United States Supreme Court judgment in a decision overruling, wholly or partly, Roe v. Wade.’”

    North Dakota will also ban abortions beginning July 28, as the state’s Republican Attorney General Drew Wrigley explained in a letter to the North Dakota Legislative Council Tuesday. Wrigley credited the Dobbs decision for removing the “legal barriers to enforcement” of a state law banning abortions with exceptions in cases of rape or incest and to save the life of the mother. The abortion ban will go into effect 30 days after Wrigley’s letter certifying that the “preconditions for enforcement” of the law have been satisfied. 

    The additional states projected to ban or severely restrict abortion in the near future are Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming.

    Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com

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    Virginia pregnancy center first location to be vandalized by ‘Jane’s Revenge’ after Dobbs decision


    Reported By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter

    Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/news/virginia-pregnancy-center-first-pro-life-location-vandalized-after-supreme-court-dobbs-decision.html/

    The Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center in Lynchburg, Virginia, was vandalized hours after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide, June 25, 2022. | Facebook/Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center

    A pro-life pregnancy center in Virginia has become the first anti-abortion organization to face vandalism since the United States Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

    Early Saturday morning, hours after the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the Constitution does not contain a right to abortion, pro-abortion activists vandalized Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center in Lynchburg, Virginia. While several pro-life pregnancy centers and churches have found themselves subject to varying degrees of vandalism since Politico first published a leaked draft opinion in the Dobbs case eight weeks ago, the attack on Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center is the first to take place since the publication of the Dobbs decision.

    One image of the vandalism shared on Facebook by the Lynchburg Police Department shows the words “Jane’s Revenge” spray-painted on the ground in front of the facility, with the “A” in the phrase written like the symbol for the anarchist movement. The symbol for the anarchist movement was also spray-painted onto the side of the building.

    A group of pro-abortion activists calling themselves Jane’s Revenge has taken credit for many acts of vandalism against churches and pro-life pregnancy centers in recent weeks. They have also called on pro-life organizations to disband and declared “open season” on such groups in a communique released two weeks ago. Republican federal lawmakers have called on the Department of Justice to take action against the group in response to the aforementioned threat.

    The FBI has already announced an investigation into attacks against “pregnancy resource centers and faith-based organizations across the country.” Last year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security included both pro-life and pro-abortion groups on a list of “domestic violent extremists” that “pose an elevated threat to the homeland in 2021.”

    Another image of the property damage at Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center reveals graffiti declaring, “If abortion ain’t safe you ain’t safe.” Additional images of the vandalism illustrated a broken window at the facility, along with the words “Vote blue LOL” spray-painted on the side of the building.

    The Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center in Lynchburg, Virginia, was vandalized hours after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide, June 25, 2022. | Facebook/Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center
    The Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center in Lynchburg, Virginia, was vandalized hours after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide, June 25, 2022. | Facebook/Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center

    The Lynchburg Police Department also provided a still image of security camera footage documenting “four masked individuals” who committed the acts of vandalism. The timestamp showed the perpetrators gathered outside the facility at around 1:20 a.m.

    Susan Campbell, executive director of Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center, reacted to the targeting of her business in a statement posted on Facebook Saturday: “BRPC has been vandalized greatly and we need the support of our community now more than ever. If you are available to give financial support for additional security, and lots of prayers, we would greatly appreciate you. We know God has [His] Hand over our center and the work at BRPC is not finished.”

    Campbell also posted additional pictures of the vandalism, including the defacement of a streetside sign advertising the facility with a symbol for the anarchist movement. 

    Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, condemned the vandalism of Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center in a tweet Saturday. “There is no room for this in Virginia, breaking the law is unacceptable,” he said. “This is not how we find common ground. Virginia State Police stands ready to support local law enforcement as they investigate.”

    There is no room for this in Virginia, breaking the law is unacceptable. This is not how we find common ground. Virginia State Police stands ready to support local law enforcement as they investigate.

    In a statement issued following the Dobbs decision, Youngkin said he plans to “take every action I can to protect life” now that “the Supreme Court of the United States has rightfully returned power to the people and their elected representatives in the states.”

    Maintaining that “Virginians want fewer abortions, not more abortions,” he insisted that “we can build a bipartisan consensus on protecting the life of unborn children, especially when they begin to feel pain in the womb, and importantly supporting mothers and families who choose life.”

    “I’ve asked Senator Siobhan Dunnavant, Senator Steve Newman, Delegate Kathy Byron and Delegate Margaret Ransone to join us in an effort to bring together legislators and advocates from across the Commonwealth on this issue to find areas where we can agree and chart the most successful path forward,” Youngkin added. “I’ve asked them to do the important work needed and be prepared to introduce legislation when the General Assembly returns in January.”

    Youngkin’s comments reflect the fact that with Roe overturned, the legality of abortion will be decided on a state-by-state basis. Virginia is one of 10 states that will continue enforcing existing abortion laws and/or restrictions until new legislation is passed. Currently, Virginia bans abortions after the second trimester of pregnancy.

    Twenty-one states will either completely ban or more severely restrict abortion than they do now and 16 states will continue allowing abortions throughout most or all of pregnancy as the right to abortion has been codified into law. Three additional states could soon enact changes to their abortion laws depending on the results of possible ballot referendums on the matter.

    Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com

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    Dr. Richard D. Land Op-ed: Pro-abortion Violence and Officials Noncompliance: A dagger Aimed at the Heart of the Rule of Law


    Commentary By Dr. Richard D. Land, Christian Post Executive Editor| Friday, June 24, 2022

    Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/voices/pro-abortion-violence-and-officials-noncompliance.html/

    A person holds up a sign reading “Ruth Sent Us” as pro-choice activists gather outside the U.S. Courthouse to defend abortion rights in downtown Los Angeles on May 3, 2022. | Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

    Every freedom-loving American should be appalled at the violence and threats of violence against U.S. government employees. We have witnessed the chilling sight of a potential assassination of a sitting Supreme Court Justice at his personal residence.

    We have had to witness through national media film clips hundreds of American citizens protesting in front of the justices’ homes.

    Around the country we hear and see spreading reports of acts of violence against crisis pregnancy centers (whose only aim is to save the lives of the unborn and to minister to their mothers).

    Circulars and posters have popped up, declaring: “Call to Action night of rage.” These “woke warriors” declare: “TO OUR OPPRESSORS: If ABORTIONS are not SAFE, THEN YOU’RE NOT EITHER.” Some crisis pregnancy centers have been targeted with firebombs.

    Now we have the even more dangerous specter of thousands of elected officials, openly declaring that they will not enforce abortion-related laws.

    First, most of these protestors, or recalcitrant public officials, have been whipped into a frenzy by political operatives (including mass media) that have misinformed them that this is true. Thus, they proclaim “if Roe is overturned, democracy dies!”

    Nothing could be further from the actual truth. If Roe is overturned, democracy is restored in America. The citizens of each state will decide for themselves when and under what circumstances abortions would take place — a decision taken out of their hands by an imperial Supreme Court 48 years ago.

    Given the current mood in the country, it is critically important to know the facts.

    I cannot think, however, of a greater threat to our nation’s rule of law, the bedrock of our entire legal system, than having public officials exercise a self-proclaimed “right” to disobey and ignore laws with which they are in disagreement — laws which they have taken an oath to enforce.

    It is bad enough when private citizens refuse to obey the nation’s laws. When elected officials refuse to fulfill their oath of office, society has descended into a dark and dangerous place. The other day a very disturbing headline appeared in newspapers, “If Roe falls, some DAs won’t enforce abortion ban.”

    In both red states and blue states, you have District Attorneys and other public officials who are openly declaring that they will not enforce laws they have taken an oath to uphold.

    As I said earlier, I cannot think of anything more destructive to the rule of law (a precious and fragile thing that Americans too often take for granted since it has always been part of the “furniture in the room” ever since the ratification of the Constitution in 1789).

    Once the rule of law is imperiled, it is a swift descent into oligarchy and then insurrection and chaos.

    Back in 1960, during one of the most intriguing presidential elections in our entire history as a nation, one huge issue was the fact that the Democrat candidate for president, Sen. John F. Kennedy, was a Roman Catholic and a Roman Catholic had never been elected to the presidency.

    This was a big deal! You must remember that you are dealing here with a pre-Vatican II Roman Catholicism, which could give formidable pause to your average American Protestant. Would the pope tell the president what to do under the threat of excommunication?

    So on September 12, 1960, a memorable weekday night during that hot and very contested campaign, which in the end would be decided by less than 100,000 votes (less than one vote per precinct nationwide), then Sen. John Kennedy came to my hometown of Houston, Texas, to answer the question of whether his Catholic beliefs would compromise his oath of allegiance if he were to be victorious.

    I was in my 14th year and new to all things political. Democrat presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was going to address the Greater Houston Ministerial Association (made up of Protestant ministers, including my pastor) on the question of his Catholicism — and he was going to take questions. Trust me, it was a big deal!

    I have seen the video of the event several times and I have read the transcript at least 50 times. I deemed the speech important enough historically to have it reprinted as part of “Appendix D (Presidential Addresses)” in my book, The Divided States of America? What Liberals AND Conservatives are Missing in the God and Country Shouting Match! 

    JFK was clearly miffed that he was having to address the issue at all. Near the beginning, he says, “because I am a Catholic and no Catholic has ever been elected President, … it is apparently necessary for me to state once again what kind of America I believe in!”

    JFK then observes,

    “Contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Pary’s candidate for President who happens also to be Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters — and the church does not speak for me.”

    Then the president gets down to the heart of the issue. Having declared his allegiance to religious liberty as defined in the First Amendment, JFK states:

    “Whatever issue may come before me as President…I will make my decision…in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to do otherwise.”

    In other words, his Roman Catholic faith informs his conscience, and he would be guided by his, not the Roman Catholic hierarchy’s, conscience. The “no power or threat of punishment” undoubtedly refers to the threat of papal excommunication.

    Then JFK, in my opinion, “threads the needle” perfectly by saying:

    “If the time should ever come…when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office. I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.”

    JFK was laying down a fundamental marker. He would not violate his conscience or his oath of office in which, if elected, he would, “solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution…so help me God.”

    This should be an example for every elected official in the United States. You have sworn an oath to uphold the law as it is, not as you would like for it to be. If you cannot in conscience do so, resign and then protest the law as a private citizen. Just ignoring the laws you have sworn to uphold is not an option — and some might legitimately call it treason.

    Dr. Richard Land, BA (Princeton, magna cum laude); D.Phil. (Oxford); Th.M (New Orleans Seminary). Dr. Land served as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary from July 2013 until July 2021. Upon his retirement, he was honored as President Emeritus and he continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor of Theology & Ethics. Dr. Land previously served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013) where he was also honored as President Emeritus upon his retirement. Dr. Land has also served as an Executive Editor and columnist for The Christian Post since 2011.

    Dr. Land explores many timely and critical topics in his daily radio feature, “Bringing Every Thought Captive,” and in his weekly column for CP.

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    Antifa, radical leftists reportedly call for ‘night of rage’ in wake of SCOTUS abortion overturn: ‘Enough is enough with peaceful protest’


    Reported by DAVE URBANSKI | June 24, 2022

    Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/antifa-night-of-rage-abortion/

    Photo by ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images

    Antifa expert Andy Ngo on Friday posted screenshots of tweets from Antifa-affiliated groups and other radical leftists around the country calling for a “night of rage” and similar actions in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade, which has permitted abortion nationwide for nearly 50 years. In a Twitter thread that he promised to update, Ngo first warned that the violent anarchist group Jane’s Revenge — which has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on pro-life groups since the leak of the Roe v. Wade overturn draft — has updated its flyers and is calling for violence Friday night:

    Ngo also tweeted that the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Youth Liberation Front — another “violent Antifa group” — is “calling for people to wear black, mask up & to meet at Folger Park at 7:30 p.m. The YLF was responsible for months of extreme violence in Portland & Seattle in 2020.”

    He added that Antifa in Portland already made plans for violence Thursday and announced a “direct action gathering starting at 5:30 pm PT at Lownsdale Square — the same location they occupied in 2020 & used as a base to carry out mass violence & arson.”

    Ngo also pointed to an “Anifa account representing members in DC, Maryland & Virginia” from which a tweet read, “Is your bag packed? Let’s f***ing go.”

    He added that the “Florida chapter of #Antifa group Revolutionary Abolition tells comrades to ‘bloc up.’ This refers to wearing black clothing & black masks to hide identities during crimes.” Ngo also said the group “retweeted a post calling for addresses of the family of their target.”

    Ngo also mentioned that “far-left writer” Gretchen Felker-Martin, who he said penned a “novel where two trans people murder their targets,” called for “violence.” One of Felker-Martin’s Friday tweets read, “Enough is enough with peaceful protest.”

    Ngo added that the “far-left Abolitionist Law Center”— anticipating that its “comrades will be arrested for crimes” — is “calling for people to donate to abortion & bail funds. Many far-left groups exist in US to provide legal support & bail money to violent far-left extremists.”

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    Kamala Harris Goes Off the Deep End and Declares War on Supreme Court and GOP: ‘How Dare They’


    Reported By Elizabeth Stauffer  May 4, 2022 at 9:59am

    Read more at https://www.westernjournal.com/kamala-harris-goes-off-deep-end-declares-war-supreme-court-gop-dare/

    Reminiscent of young environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s bratty “How dare you!” denunciation of world leaders, Vice President Kamala Harris railed against Republican leaders who she claimed are trying to “weaponize” the law against women on Tuesday evening. Speaking at an event for EMILY’s List, a political action committee that works to elect pro-abortion female candidates, Harris declared war on the Supreme Court over a draft opinion showing that a majority of justices are prepared to strike down the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

    The document apparently was leaked to Politico, which reported on it Monday night. Harris’ speech had been scheduled prior to the report.

    In her address, she expanded upon a brief statement she had released earlier in the day framing the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a threat to “the rights of all Americans.”

    “Women’s rights in America are under attack,” the vice president began.

    “Roe v. Wade, in its power, has protected a woman’s right — her right — to make decisions about her own body for nearly half a century,” she said.

    “If the court overturns Roe v. Wade, it will be a direct assault on freedom — on the fundamental right of self-determination to which all Americans are entitled.”

    “Women in almost half the country could see their access to abortion severely limited,” Harris said. “In 13 of those states, women would lose access to abortion immediately and outright.”

    “Those Republican leaders who are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women,” she said, her anger rising, “Well we say, how dare they! How dare they tell a woman what she can do and cannot do with her own body. How dare they! How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future! How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms.”

    READ THE REST OF THIS REPORT AT https://www.westernjournal.com/kamala-harris-goes-off-deep-end-declares-war-supreme-court-gop-dare/

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    Vermont Plans to Enshrine Legal Abortions Right Up to Birth


    REPORTED BY: JOHN KLAR | FEBRUARY 07, 2022

    Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/07/vermont-plans-to-enshrine-legal-abortions-right-up-to-birth/

    Vermont

    A three-year battle in Vermont is coming to a head over Proposal 5, an amendment to the state constitution that would enshrine existing Vermont abortion “liberties” to terminate pregnancies up until birth. 

    Roe v. Wade established “viability” as the determinant of when state governments hold a “compelling” interest to protect children. The current challenge to Roe in the Supreme Court concerns a Mississippi law that would ban abortions after 15 weeks. Vermont’s Proposal 5 essentially defines fetal viability at 40 weeks (birth), ignoring both Roe and the science of human development. 

    The Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade sought to balance not just competing moral and political views, but the two lives at issue:

    The pregnant woman cannot be isolated in her privacy. She carries an embryo and, later, a fetus, if one accepts the medical definitions of the developing young in the human uterus… Each grows in substantiality as the woman approaches term and, at a point during pregnancy, each becomes ‘compelling.’ With respect to the state’s important and legitimate interest in potential life, the ‘compelling’ point is at viability.

    Modern medicine has revealed the miracle of human development, increasing public awareness of that second person even acknowledged by Roe. This reality drives increased public opposition to late-term abortions: recent polls show 80 percent of Americans oppose them. Medical science is also clear about what the Supreme Court described as viability:

    Periviability, also referred to as borderline viability, is defined as the earliest stage of fetal maturity (i.e., between 22 and 26 weeks gestation) when there is a reasonable chance, although not a high likelihood, of extrauterine survival.

    The current Mississippi dispute, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, seeks to protect unborn children from abortion prior to current scientific consensus on viability, at 15 weeks. Abortion proponents portray that as restrictive, and indeed treat any objection to late-term abortions as moralizing religiosity, yet secular France is currently embroiled in a parliamentary dispute over whether to expand long-standing restrictions on abortions there from 12 weeks to 14.

    Vermont’s Abortion Law

    Vermont established “abortion protections” through delivery in 2019, in its “no-limits” H.57, overcoming Republican efforts to impose a 24-week limitation, or to exempt minor girls. Proposal 5 now seeks to cement those same horrors into the Vermont constitution, and compel conservative elected representatives to swear an oath to its abhorrent provisions.

    Women and young girls around the nation and world (Vermont provides free abortions to unlawful entrants) who make last-minute decisions to terminate their pregnancies may have no place to turn for “rescue” except the ghoulish Green Mountain State.

    Vermont has long embraced this barbaric extremism with regard to the unborn. Its leftist legislature has steadfastly avoided acknowledging fetal personhood at any age, which leaves pregnant women gravely unprotected from domestic abusers who murder their unborn children — there is no Vermont recognition of these as homicides, even if the child is viable.

    In one heartbreaking case, a young mother lost her twins at six months’ gestation when she was struck by an impaired driver. The Vermont legislature has repeatedly refused to honor her loss, or protect other mothers whose children are similarly murdered. Instead of acknowledging Roe’s “compelling” interest to protect the constitutional rights of viable children, Vermont uses its laws to deny the acknowledgment such children ever lived.

    Proposal 5 Is Even Worse

    Proposal 5 tightens that noose: unborn children in Vermont are not safe from murder by abortion when viable, only when they pass their mother’s cervix and breath air on their own. Vermont’s Proposal 5 will legally deny the recognition of the existence of that person Roe federally acknowledged in its “viability” rule. Thus Vermont has scorned even Roe’s political, moral, and scientific balancing efforts. 

    The Vermont progressive minority that has belched forth this abominable legislation is hell-bent on “preserving” its obscene accomplishments in constitutional cement. Planned Parenthood has even improperly cooperated with the Vermont attorney general’s office. Progressives invoke the eugenics horrors and the 15-week Mississippi attack on Roe as justification for Proposal 5. Vermont also offers sterilizing transgender hormone therapies to minor children without parental consent, in the same hospital that performs the majority of the late-term “procedures” in the state.

    Supreme Court Must Address this Inequity

    Vermont progressives are inviting the fall of Roe they fear. If states refuse to protect that second life acknowledged by Roe, and public sentiment continues to escalate in revulsion to abortion because of growing scientific awareness of the miraculousness of fetal development, is it not appropriate for the U.S. Supreme Court to take the required next step? Certainly there is no state constitutional recourse in Vermont on behalf of tortured viable children if its Constitution is amended to preempt that very possibility.

    Roe v. Wade concerned the constitutional right to privacy of women while acknowledging a constitutional right to human personhood in the unborn at viability. It established federal preemptive boundaries to protect the first class, but left it to states to protect the second — and Vermont isn’t.

    It is illogical for the U.S. Supreme Court not to address this glaring jurisprudential inequity. Does the U.S. Constitution contain a “right” for women to privately murder viable children? Roe specifically held they do not. But Roe did not articulate federal boundaries of constitutional protection for that child. As Justice Potter Stewart noted in his concurrence: 

    ….the protection of a person’s general right to privacy –  his right to be let alone by other people – is like the protection of his property and of his very life, left largely to the law of the individual States.

    Many speculate that Mississippi’s law may be affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The New York Times proclaims “If the justices were to approve the law, Roe’s viability standard would no longer be the law of the land.” That does not bode well for Vermont’s extremist left minority. 

    The Supreme Court must declare that there is a gestation date beyond which women cannot constitutionally exterminate their young in the womb, and acknowledge what science proves: there is a separate human at issue, who must not be marginalized. Even if at a post-viable stage of 30 weeks, once federal fetal personhood is rightly acknowledged (much like when women and racial minorities were included in the Constitution’s protections), unconscionable laws like Proposal 5 will collapse under federal preemption.

    Extremism such as Vermont’s demands federal rescue. 

    John Klar is an attorney, writer, pastor, and farmer who lives off-grid in Vermont. John blogs for Mother Earth News on agriculture issues, and maintains a weekly commentary in The Newport Daily Express.

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