A POST-ROE WORLD: Reversing Roe v. Wade won’t solve the abortion crisis — but it’s a necessary beginning

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s resignation is sending the Left into a panic, terrified a fifth conservative vote could lead to overturning Roe v. Wade — what Democrats like Sen. Dianne Feinstein have hallowed as “super-precedent.” Meanwhile, pro-life groups are jubilant, waiting in hopeful expectation that the decision even abortion supporter Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg has called unjustified “heavy-handed judicial intervention” will be consigned to the trash bin of jurisprudential history.

But what would a post-Roe world look like? Contrary to popular opinion, reversing Roe would not solve the abortion crisis in this country; it would simply kick the question back to the states to decide on a state-by-state basis, as was the regime pre-Roe.

Historically, since the founding of this nation, abortion has always been a matter within the purview and jurisdiction of the states, and never a federal matter. It wasn’t until 1973 in Roe that this changed. Critics claim with Roe that not only did the U.S. Supreme Court usurp jurisdiction over a question that belonged to the states, the justices also distorted the Constitution’s “right to privacy,” interpreting it in a way never intended.

In the years immediately before Roe, the majority of states had outlawed abortion except for the life or health of the mother, while four had legalized it and 13 had allowed abortion in limited circumstances. The trend, however, was moving towards legalization — until Roe, when five justices on the High Court determined by judicial fiat that the states no longer had the right to decide the matter. The straitjacket ruling of Roe imposed on all 50 states — mostly against their will — led to a polarization that even abortion supporters recognize has harmed the country.

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The legal landscape in the early 1970s before Roe v. Wade (courtesy of The Washington Post)

Roe, I believe, would have been more acceptable as a judicial decision if it had not gone beyond a ruling on the extreme statute before the Court,” said feminist Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg. “Heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict.”

Some states already have “trigger laws” in case Roe is overturned. Laws in Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota will automatically outlaw abortion if Roe is reversed, the wording of South Dakota’s law, for instance, making clear it goes into effect “on the date that the states are recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court to have the authority to prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy.”

Other states have abortion bans still on the books from pre-Roe times, which could be revived and enforced if the case is struck down.

And then there are states that have enshrined the right to abortion in their constitution, including Alaska, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey and New Mexico, and who will likely continue to keep abortion legal.

But the issue would no longer be a federal matter, resolved instead on a state-by-state basis through the ballot box — as it was for approximately 200 years before Roe. With the right to travel protected under the Constitution, individuals who reject their state’s abortion law can lobby to change them, or else move to another state.

Pro-lifers will still have to battle to educate and inform the public about the reality of abortion, and continue to work to restore a Culture of Life, state by state (something pro-lifers were already busily engaged in before Roe) — but at least in a post-Roe world, outlawing Planned Parenthood mills and shutting down abortionists’ business would no longer be an impossible scenario but a real possibility — one out of reach of the long arm of the Supreme Court.

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A Primary Goal of Leftists is to Lower the Age of Consent for Sex — Pedophilia in Mexico, the Middle East & the European Union

Your News Wire reports:

Mexico has lowered the legal age of sexual consent to just 12-years-old, becoming the latest nation to give in to pressure from an international liberal network of activists determined to normalize pedophilia and legalize sex with children across the world.

Federal law in Mexico now establishes the age of 12-years as the age of legal consent, while the age at which there are no restrictions for consensual sexual activities is 18-years (sex with someone as young as 12-years is legal, but can be open to prosecution if deceit, force, or an abuse of authority was used.)

According to Age of Consent:

The Age of Consent is the legal age at which an individual is considered mature enough to consent to sex. Sexual relations with someone under the Age of Consent are considered statutory rape, even (in some jurisdictions), if both partners are themselves younger than the Age of Consent. To learn more, choose a country from the list below or learn about the highest and lowest ages of consent worldwide.

Below is a list of the age of consent by country.

Find Age of Consent laws in the United States 

Note: Those Muslim majority countries who list the age of consent as “must be married” allow underage children to marry to older men in accordance with Islamic (shariah) law.

Country Region Age Of Consent
Afghanistan Asia Must be married
Albania Europe 14
Algeria Africa 16
American Samoa Oceania 16
Andorra Europe 16
Angola Africa 12
Antigua and Barbuda North America 16
Argentina South America 18
Armenia Europe 16
Aruba North America 15
Australia Oceania 16
Austria Europe 14
Azerbaijan Europe 16
Bahamas North America 16
Bahrain Asia 21
Bangladesh Asia 14
Barbados North America 16
Belarus Europe 16
Belgium Europe 16
Belize North America 16
Benin Africa 18
Bhutan Asia 18
Bolivia South America 14
Bosnia and Heregovina Europe 14
Botswana Africa 16
Brazil South America 14
Brunei Asia 16
Bulgaria Europe 14
Burkina Faso Africa 13
Burundi Africa 18
Cambodia Asia 15
Cameroon Africa 16
Canada North America 16
Cape Verde Africa 14
Caribbean Netherlands North America 16
Central African Verde Africa 18
Chad Africa 14
Chile South America 18
China Asia 14
Colombia South America 14
Comoros Africa 13
Cook Islands Oceania 16
Costa Rica North America 15
Croatia Europe 15
Cuba North America 16
Cyprus Europe 17
Czech Republic Europe 15
Democratic Republic of the Congo Africa 14
Denmark Europe 15
Djibouti Africa 18
Dominica North America 16
Dominican Republic North America 18
East Timor Asia 14
Ecuador South America 14
Egypt Africa 18
El Salvador North America 18
Equatorial Guinea Africa 18
Eritrea Africa 18
Estonia Europe 14
Ethiopia Africa 18
Federated States of Micronesia Oceania 14
Fiji Oceania 16
Finland Europe 16
France Europe 15
Gabon Africa 18
Gambia Africa 18
Georgia Europe 16
Germany Europe 14
Ghana Africa 16
Greece Europe 15
Grenada North America 16
Guam Oceania 16
Guatemala North America 18
Guinea Africa 15
Guinea Bissau Africa 16
Haiti North America 18
Honduras North America 15
Hungary Europe 14
Iceland Europe 15
India Asia 18
Indonesia Asia 16
Iran Asia Must be married
Iraq Asia 18
Ireland Europe 17
Israel Asia 16
Italy Europe 14
Ivory Coast Africa 18
Jamaica North America 16
Japan Asia 13
Jordan Asia 16
Kazakhstan Europe 16
Kenya Africa 18
Kiribati Oceania 15
Kuwait Asia Must be married
Kyrgyzstan Asia 16
Laos Asia 15
Latvia Europe 16
Lebanon Asia 18
Lesotho Africa 16
Liberia Africa 18
Libya Africa Must be married
Liechtenstein Europe 14
Lithuania Europe 16
Luxembourg Europe 16
Macedonia Europe 14
Madagascar Africa 14
Malawi Africa 14
Malaysia Asia 16
Maldives Asia Must be married
Mali Africa 18
Malta Europe 18
Marshall Islands Oceania 16
Mauritania Africa 16
Mauritius Africa 14
Mexico North America 17
Moldova Europe 16
Monaco Europe 15
Mongolia Asia 16
Montenegro Europe 14
Myanmar Asia 14
Namibia Africa 16
Nauru Oceania 17
Nepal Asia 16
Netherlands Europe 16
New Zealand Oceania 16
Nicaragua North America 18
Niger Africa 13
Nigeria Africa 11
Niue Oceania 19
North Korea Asia 15
Northern Cyprus Europe 16
Northern Mariana Islands Oceania 18
Norway Europe 16
Oman Asia Must be married
Pakistan Asia Must be married
Palau Oceania 16
Palestine Gaza Strip Asia Must be married
Panama North America 18
Papua New Guinea Oceania 16
Paraguay South America 14
Peru South America 14
Philippines Asia 12
Poland Europe 15
Portugal Europe 14
Qatar Asia Must be married
Republic of the Congo Africa 18
Romania Europe 15
Russia Europe 16
Rwanda Africa 18
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic Africa 13
Saint Kitts and Nevis North America 16
Saint Lucia North America 16
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines North America 15
Samoa Oceania 16
San Marino Europe 14
Sao Tome and Principe Africa 14
Saudi Arabia Asia Must be married
Senegal Africa 16
Serbia Europe 14
Seychelles Africa 18
Sierra Leone Africa 18
Singapore Asia 16
Slovak Republic Europe 15
Slovenia Europe 15
Solomon Islands Oceania 15
Somalia Africa 18
South Africa Africa 16
South Korea Asia 20
South Sudan Africa 18
Spain Europe 16
Sri Lanka Asia 16
Sudan Africa Must be married
Suriname South America 16
Swaziland Africa 16
Sweden Europe 15
Switzerland Europe 16
Syria Asia 15
Taiwan Asia 16
Tajikistan Asia 16
Tanzania Africa 18
Thailand Asia 15
Togo Africa 16
Tonga Oceania 16
Trinidad and Tobago North America 16
Tunisia Africa 18
Turkey Europe 18
Turkmenistan Asia 16
Uganda Africa 18
Ukraine Europe 16
United Arab Emirates Asia Must be married
United Kingdom Europe 16
United States North America 16
Uruguay South America 15
Uzbekistan Asia 16
Vanuatu Oceania 16
Vatican City Europe 18
Venezuela South America 16
Vietnam Asia 18
Yemen Asia Must be married
Zambia Africa 16
Zimbabwe Africa 16

 

Designated for Destruction

Several recent studies have revealed the increased number of public school and college students who are experiencing various forms of mental illness, such as depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, and others. A Wall Street Journal report claims as many as 25 percent in elite colleges are thus classified, and require accommodations for exam taking, seating preference, quiet private rooms, and comfort animals.

Steve Schlozman and Eliza Abdu-Glass, authors of The College Mental Health Crisis: Focus on Suicide, disclosed the thousands of suicides on college campuses each year, about two to three every day. Their emphasis is on students’ inadequate counseling, but we should ask why this generation, specifically, is so unstable and why the obvious signs have been ignored.

Is it possible to identify what could be so threatening?

Our educational system was restructured according to a radical, global, political ideology (Agenda 21) promoted by President Obama’s White House, Bill and Melinda Gates, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the Governors Association, and other supporters of a federal takeover of education for a Global Economy. Called the Common Core Standards, it was implemented by 46 states and D.C.

While we were deluged with Hillary Clinton’s oft-uttered phrase, “no child left behind,” David Coleman, the architect of the controversial, experimental (experimenting on our children!) curriculum, was executing an equal-outcome system, thereby eliminating the motivation and ambition of equal opportunity for individual excellence and achievement, each to his/her own interests and abilities. And, since all schools – public, private, parochial, home schools – were subject to the same textbooks and tests, and the governors handsomely rewarded, the Standards were assumed almost nationwide.

Result: the students have become guinea pigs to a seemingly untested Standard – with a specific purpose.

Flawed textbooks frustrate students

Seriously flawed mathematics and science standards, put into practice by mathematically- and scientifically-illiterate state boards of education, are frustrating, limiting, and damaging to the children who experience distress despite their efforts. Creative classic literature has been replaced by depressing, sexualized dystopian novels that oppress the spirit and exceed the children’s maturity level. Maria Calamia, licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist, reported 200 to 300 percent more children experiencing serious stress and trauma due to the new curricula, citing numerous incidents of the better students’ crying, bedwetting, self-mutilating, and experiencing nightmares at their new mediocrity.

Non-fiction, informational texts and historical documents of a leftist agenda were also introduced, guaranteed to not only indoctrinate, but also to increase boredom and lessen interest and reading ability, with one report showing that 700,000 graduates per year cannot read their own diplomas. In 2016, more than 40 percent of four-year-college students (two million) did not earn their degree and dropped out; and only 26 percent of two-year students will earn their degree.

Result: frustrations, inabilities, inadequacies, distress, youthful hopes dashed; a generation betrayed, unable to cope and function independently in society.

Isolating students from close friendships

Parents were powerless to defy the system as they saw their children dealing with lessons of sexual deviancy that inspire change to their very natures, secular progressivism and Islamic indoctrination, and diminished coverage of Judeo-Christian values, American and European history. Having already been deprived of best friends, a buddy, a confidant, the troubled students are in the untenable position of being isolated at the same time that they are being molded to conform to a group-think mentality.

Result: psychological disconnectedness and susceptibility to neuroses.

Academia’s adoption of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States provides a leftist focus on the exploitation of the majority by the “elite white population.” White privilege has become the accusation du jour, creating a dangerous intolerance for whites, America’s foundational documents and principles. Several private schools nationwide have begun segregating their white students, encoding them to believe they have unfairly benefited from their whiteness at the expense of other races; students of color are receiving praise and rewards, not for excellence, but for their skin. Harvard is now being sued by Students for Fair Admissions for its nonacceptance of qualified Asians and white males, the same kind of discrimination and stereotyping used to disqualify Jewish applicants in the 1920s and 1930s. Additionally, white teachers are being challenged about their own cultural competence.

Result: divisiveness, a pervading but undefinable burden of guilt leading to the losses of pride, belief system, and self-assurance.

Intersectionality: Politics of strife

The comparatively new concept, called “Intersectionality,” has been introduced. A student may claim victimhood, anger, blame, and failure on the basis of skin color, gender, religion, country of origin, heritage, and any combination or number thereof for more status.

Academia and the Left have now bestowed on every race, religion, heritage, and sexual orientation the psychological reasons for injury to their self-esteem, to stir hatred toward others or inwardly toward themselves. Whites have been classified as the enemy to the degree that white students are riddled with guilt and white educators are being singled out as “troublesome” and unqualified to teach students of another color.

Result: inadequacies on several levels, conflict and confusion from the clash between reality and new indoctrination.

If that were not enough, where parents rebelled against the schools, the schools may now institute Jeb Bush’s new kind of depersonalized training, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, that keeps the students at their computers, sans accommodations for higher or lower achievers or interaction with teachers and peers. Conversation, analysis and discussion are deterred, leading to group-think and loss of emotional ties, and the graduates earn watered-down degrees with little labor-market value.

Result: loneliness, joblessness, idleness, depression.

With best friendships discouraged and sexual differences devalued, textbooks teach that promiscuity is acceptable, that biological sex is meaningless and fluid, and that sex change is plausible.

Result: loss of identity from gender destruction.

The proverbial floor is being pulled out from under these children who are experiencing increased seclusion, fears and anxieties, without a friend or parental support system. The young and vulnerable are defenseless against the multi-pronged attacks issued by their teachers and professors. So, can anyone wonder that the suicide rate has increased, doubled for boys and tripled for girls?

Result: escape by self-destruction.

Now ask yourself, “Why?”

RELATED VIDEO: Testimony at Suffolk County Forum by Mary Calamia, LCSW

Army Gives Trans Training the Boot

Finally, the military is announcing a kind of transitioning we can support! For the first time since President Trump overturned Obama’s transgender military policy, the Army is shifting away from the focus on politically-correct topics like gender and back to the issues it should be concerned about — like combat.

In a message no one could mistake, the memo makes it clear: “Transgender training is complete across the total Army.” From now on, sensitivity classes and lessons on gender transitions will be 100 percent optional. “The move, Army leaders argue, is designed to relieve stress on the overburdened troop training regimen and refocus on soldiers’ ability to fight in combat.” In a nod to the hundreds of wasted hours spent on ridiculous topics like “male pregnancies” and “off-duty drag” the chief of the Army’s training program explained, “It was all the other [training] requirements that we levied on ourselves, or we had levied from other places” that took away from military readiness.

Like a lot of commanders, he told the Washington Times that the trainings Obama handed down as part of the integration of people who identify as transgender “served as barriers to maximizing time… to build readiness and lethality.” Of course, this is the argument that experts like FRC’s Lt. General Jerry Boykin had been making all along. The military is a fighting force, not a gender clinic. “Talk to any service member today and you will find that a majority of them will express great frustration with the amount of time that they spend in these lectures at the expense of preparing for war,” he argues. “They spent all their training time in classrooms listening to lectures on diversity, tolerance, and inclusion instead of the Military Code of Conduct.”

That’s time our military can never get back. Every hour (and dollar) our troops waste on the social engineering of the last administration is time they could have been on the range or practicing combat maneuvers. “When do you train for battle when you’re bogged down with these politically-correct mandates?” General Boykin asked. “You don’t. You go out and crash ships or get captured by Iranians, because you were never prepared for war.”

Fortunately, the Army is putting an end to two years of this P.C. nonsense. “One of the things this [change has done] is reinforce to commanders out in the field that you have the authority and responsibility to ensure your units are as highly trained as humanly possible” to carry out combat operations,” Colonel John O’Grady said. And sexual politics aren’t the only thing getting the boot. Branch leaders are also paring down on other non-essential trainings. It’s about time, say most troops, who were overwhelmingly opposed to the idea anyway. With the growing number of global threats, we need our servicemen and women focused on what matters: making America safe again.


Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.


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VIDEO: Hollywood Two-Step — Against Sexual Assault, Except When It Involves Planned Parenthood

Hollywood celebrities have declared the era of hiding sexual assault to be over. The #TimesUp movement launched earlier this year and gained the support of some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. They have used their money and star power to raise millions of dollars to fight against sexual assault and on other issues.

Many of these same celebrities, however, have refused to revoke their support for one of America’s most prolific protectors of sexual abusers: Planned Parenthood.

As revealed by Live Action’s amazing research and seen in the embedded video below*, Avengers star Scarlett Johannson, Harry Potter star Emma Watson, and others in Hollywood stand behind Planned Parenthood even as they say #TimesUp on sexual assault. 

Live Action has for years exposed Planned Parenthood’s frequently illegal and always immoral practices. Their newest campaign, focused around Planned Parenthood’s cover-ups of sexual abuse, may be followed here and here.

The hypocrisy of these hashtag activists is appalling. You can hold them accountable, however — let them know on social media that just as #TimesUp for Harvey Weinstein, it should also be up for Planned Parenthood. Urge them to retract their support for an abortion company that cares more about its bottom line than protecting little girls.

And don’t forget to use your second vote wisely outside of Hollywood. You can see all the companies that support Planned Parenthood’s abortion industry on 2ndVote’s resource page here.

*2ndVote is grateful to Live Action for allowing us to be the first organization to post the above video. We couldn’t be prouder to help such a great organization make the world aware of the evils of Planned Parenthood.

RELATED ARTICLE: Abortion Activists and University Staff Wash Away ‘Provocative’ Pro-Life Messages

Help us continue developing the content and research that conservatives are using to hold corporations for their activism by becoming a 2ndVote Member today!

Trump Orders Fix to Family Separation on Border, Calls for ‘Comprehensive’ Immigration Solution

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to halt separating families that illegally cross the border, but also said he wants to sign a “comprehensive” immigration bill from Congress.

In signing the executive order, Trump said, “We are going to have a lot of happy people.”

“It’s about keeping families together while at the same time being sure that we have a very powerful, very strong border,” the president said. “Border security will be equal, if not greater, than previously. So we are going to have strong, very strong borders, but we are going to keep the families together. I didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families being separated.”

Trump added, “It continues to be a zero tolerance. We have zero tolerance for people who enter our country illegally.”

“Zero tolerance” marked a tougher approach by the Trump administration in enforcing existing immigration law by arresting those who enter the country illegally.

The order is a temporary fix, and is titled “Affording Congress an Opportunity to Address Family Separation.”

The executive order says:

The Secretary of Homeland Security (Secretary), shall, to the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations, maintain custody of alien families during the pendency of any criminal improper entry or immigration proceedings involving their members. … The Secretary shall not, however, detain an alien family together when there is a concern that detention of an alien child with the child’s alien parent would pose a risk to the child’s welfare.

Trump was accompanied in the Oval Office Wednesday by Vice President Mike Pence and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen

“This is a situation that president after president hasn’t dealt with for decades,” Nielsen said. “This one is willing to stand up and fix it. We ask Congress to do their part.”

Pence called it a “false choice between being a country of law and order and a country that demonstrates compassion and heart of the American people.”

Trump said that Congress must act, not only to address the minors situation but also for a “comprehensive” bill to address immigration.

“We are also wanting to go through Congress. We will be going through Congress,” Trump said. “We are working on a much more comprehensive bill.”

Past “comprehensive” proposals have awarded legal status to illegal immigrants, while increasing border security.

Trump met with 11 Republican senators and five GOP House members earlier Wednesday in the Cabinet Room of the White House where he first announced he would be signing the order, and also called for a broader measure.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., asserted that immigration has “bedeviled” lawmakers for 40 years.

“You’re the president who can help us solve the immigration problem with your leadership,” Alexander said. “You may be able to do for immigration what Nixon did for China and Reagan did for the Soviet Union and a lot of us would like to work with you on that.”

At least two bills have some GOP support in the House.

House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., sponsored a more conservative bill that requires employers to use E-Verify, to check immigration status of employees, gives renewable legal status to beneficiaries of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for three years, authorizes a border wall, and ends chain migration.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has a “compromise bill” that gives DACA beneficiaries a pathway to citizenship and includes $25 billion for a border wall.

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., told Roll Call of the two bills, “We don’t like any of them,” and said that “Immigration is kind of my sacrosanct. You’ve got to do this the right way. You just can’t do this badly.”

The detention of children has been a raging controversy as the administration increased enforcement.

According to immigration experts, under the federal government’s Flores settlement of 1997, the federal government would release unaccompanied minor illegal immigrants after no more than 20 days of detention. A separate 2008 law required unaccompanied minors be transferred out of custody of the Department of Homeland Security to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Then, a 2016 judicial interpretation expanded the Flores settlement to include minors brought into the country with their parents. So, conforming to the expanded interpretation of the settlement and the existing law, the DHS enforcement agencies, after arresting illegal immigrant parents, have transferred minor children to the custody of the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement, which tries to place them with relatives or a caretaker.

During the meeting with members of Congress, Pence told lawmakers the administration was limited.

“We don’t want children to be taken away from parents, but, right now under the law, and we sit with these lawmakers, we only have two choices before us,” Pence said. “No. 1 is don’t prosecute people who come into our country illegally, or prosecute them and then under court cases and the law, they have to be separated from their children.”

The executive order references the Flores settlement.

The Attorney General shall promptly file a request with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to modify the Settlement Agreement in Flores v. Sessions, CV 85-4544 (“Flores settlement”), in a manner that would permit the Secretary, under present resource constraints, to detain alien families together throughout the pendency of criminal proceedings for improper entry or any removal or other immigration proceedings.

The order is not a policy departure for the president, said Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow for The Heritage Foundation.

So to the extent the 1997 Flores settlement and the 9th Circuit’s misinterpretation of it prevents DHS from holding juveniles for more than 20 days, this language gives DHS the exception they need to still separate families if they have to in order to comply with Flores.

As I expected, the [executive order] also tells the AG in Sec. 3 (e) to file a request with the court in the Flores case to allow DHS to detain families together “throughout the pendency of criminal proceedings for improper entry or any removal or other immigration proceedings.”

So the president is not backing down from prosecuting all illegal aliens who cross the border, which is what the critics wanted.

Pence reiterated the president’s call for a comprehensive measure when talking to lawmakers.

“The president’s vision, as articulated in his State of the Union address, was let’s solve the whole problem,” Pence said. “Let’s build a wall, let’s close the loopholes, let’s solve the problem for 1.8 million people that were brought into this country through no fault of their own, and let’s deal with law and order and compassion with this issue of family separation at our border.”

COLUMN BY

Portrait of Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

RELATED ARTICLES:

How Immigration Officials Cooked the Books and Fooled Congress for Years

Who’s Responsible for Separating Alien Kids From Their Parents? Many People, but Not Trump

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of President Donald Trump holding a signed executive order to keep families together at border in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, D.C., on June 20, 2018. Photo by Olivier Douliery/ Abaca Press (Newscom TagID: sipaphotoseight258174.jpg) [Photo via Newscom]

Time to Preach to the Non-Converted on Abortion

Filip Mazurczak writes that no one says he’s personally opposed to human trafficking, but it’s better to have it safe, legal, and rare. So why on abortion?

Those who believe that the right to life is a fundamental human right have experienced two major defeats on two continents in less than a month. On May 25, two-thirds of Ireland’s population voted to strike down a constitutional amendment protecting the right to life, paving the way for what the Irish government has promised will be one of Europe’s most aggressively pro-abortion regimes. Then last week Argentina’s Congress voted by a 129-125 margin to legalize abortion up through the fourteenth week of pregnancy (for the bill to become law, it needs to pass the Chamber of Deputies and be signed by the nation’s president).

It is clear that pro-lifers are losing the battle to save unborn human life. To emerge victorious in the long run, we need to create a social consensus that the unborn deserve the right to live, a consensus transcending political and religious divides.

The recent anti-life Irish debacle has been often presented as more evidence of Ireland’s rapid retreat from its Catholic roots since the 1990s. In Argentina, there is still hope that the Chamber of Deputies, more conservative than the Congress, might stop the legalization of abortion. But even if it does there is a strong probability that it will be an ephemeral victory: polling shows that 60 percent of Argentines support the liberal abortion bill, almost twice as many as those who oppose it (34 percent).

Furthermore, in Argentina, as in Europe or North America, pro-life forces are very closely associated with Catholicism. And Argentina is one of Latin America’s least religious countries. Thus an Irish-style anti-Catholic, anti-life popular rebellion there seems very likely in the not too distant future.

Internationally, the greatest weakness of the pro-life cause is its close association with Christianity and the political Right. It’s not a bad thing, of course, that churches – Catholic, Orthodox, and some Protestants (along with Orthodox Jews and some Muslims) – stand at the forefront of the battle for life. On the contrary, Christianity is once again showing evidence of its rejection of the Zeitgeist in favor of timeless values, just as it did in 1537 when slavery was a common practice during the European colonization of the Americas and Pope Paul III issued a bull prescribing excommunication for that odious practice.

Rather, the problem rests in the fact that in a pluralistic democracy, no party or leader will permanently rule. Helmut Kohl was the West German chancellor for sixteen years, but even his grip on power eventually ended. I was happy when President Trump rescinded the Mexico City policy and enacted other pro-life policies. But Trump too won’t last forever.

In the United States and in many countries, someone’s stance on abortion is strongly tied to political affiliation and religion. In recent decades, this has become even more pronounced. The number of pro-life Democrats in Congress, for example, is in the single digits today, compared to more than 100 in the 1970s. For pro-life legislation to be irreversible, a certain consensus has to be created.

To do that, we need to reach out to so-called people of good will. We need to start on a grassroots level and explain to our non-conservative and non-Christian friends and family why we are pro-life. The pro-life movement may not have the political clout or generous financing of Planned Parenthood or George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. But we have a much more powerful weapon: the truth.

With advances in science, technology, and medicine, we know that the unborn child is not a clump of cells. The embryo’s brainwaves are detectable just six weeks after conception, which is when abortion is legal in almost all Western countries.

Intellectually honest people, who adhere to Socrates’ advice to follow the evidence wherever it leads, will be compelled by the irresistible logic that the unborn child is human and thus deserves legal protection, regardless of which side of the political aisle they are on, or what God or gods, if any, they believe in.

While Hinduism is not absolute in its opposition to abortion (as evidenced by India’s extremely permissive abortion legislation, allowing the procedure through twenty-four weeks in some circumstances), Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu turned off by the hypocrisy of the Christians who had colonized his country, said that to him it was “clear as daylight that abortion would be a crime.”

The late Nat Hentoff, a music critic for the Village Voice, hardly a hotbed of social conservatism, was a libertarian Jewish atheist. Yet as someone intellectually honest, he saw the evil of abortion, which he actively opposed. There are many minds that, like Gandhi or Hentoff, are in other respects politically or religiously on different planets than Christians, yet they have the potential to see abortion for what it is – if we inform them.

The more such people there will be, the more pressure there will be on policymakers and on society to condemn abortion as a violation of basic human rights.

Imagine someone saying, “Personally, I’m opposed to human trafficking, but it’s better if it’s regulated instead of having it happen illegally and unsafely. And the government shouldn’t pry into the trafficker’s personal business. Instead, they should let him be an adult and make his own decisions.”

Chances are, you’ve never heard such silly sophistry from anyone’s mouth. Many people, however, make very similar statements about the killing of unborn humans – humans with brains, spinal cords, and fingerprints, who can feel pain and in some cases are capable of living outside their mothers’ wombs.

The recent Irish catastrophe and developing Argentinean tragedy show that we must work to create a society in which abortion is seen as being just as unacceptable as human trafficking, and we should preach not to the converted, but to those who, because of their ideas on politics or religion, are our strange bedfellows.

Filip Mazurczak

Filip Mazurczak

Filip Mazurczak is the assistant editor of the European Conservative. His writing has appeared in the National Catholic Register, Catholic Herald, Crisis Magazine, and many others.

RELATED ARTICLE: Francis Condemns ‘Eugenic’ Abortions and Fake Marriage

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of St. Paul Preaching at Athens by Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino), c. 1515 [Ashmolean Museum of Art and Architecture, Oxford, England] © 2018 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Fact-Checking 4 Claims About Detaining Children at the Border

The Trump administration is taking heat from Democrats and Republicans for separating parents and children after they illegally crossed the southern border.

Over the six weeks from April 19 through May 31, federal officials separated about 2,000 children from their families at the U.S.-Mexican border, the Associated Press reported last week.

President Donald Trump blamed the procedure on Democrats in Congress.

“They’re obstructing. They’re really obstructionists and they are obstructing,” Trump said Monday at the White House. “The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility. It won’t be.”

“If you look at what’s happening in Europe, if you look at what’s happening in other places, we can’t allow that to happen to the United States—not on my watch,” he said.

During the White House press briefing Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said: “This is a very serious issue that has resulted after years and years of Congress not taking action.”

Here’s a look at four of the more questionable claims made about the enforcement action.

1. Democrats’ Law or Trump Policy?

“The Democrats forced that law upon our nation,” Trump asserted last week.

Democrats, backed by some media commentators, counter that it’s not the law but a Trump administration policy.

Actually, experts say, the situation is a combination of a bipartisan law and a Clinton administration policy.

In 1997, the Clinton administration entered into something called the Flores Settlement Agreement, which ended a class action lawsuit first brought in the 1980s.

The settlement established a policy that the federal government would release unaccompanied minors from custody to their parents, relatives, or other caretakers after no more than 20 days, or, alternatively, determine the “least restrictive” setting for the child.

In a separate development, in 2008 the Democrat-controlled Congress approved bipartisan legislation to combat human trafficking and President George W. Bush, a Republican, signed it into law.

Section 235 (g) in that law, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, states that unaccompanied minors entering the United States must be transferred to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement rather than to the Department of Homeland Security.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit expanded the Flores settlement in 2016 to include children brought to the country illegally by their parents.

For consistency between the provision of the anti-trafficking law and the 9th Circuit’s interpretation of the Flores agreement, children who came into the country illegally with parents had to be taken into HHS custody, said Art Arthur, former general counsel for Immigration and Naturalization Services (now known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement) as well as a former federal immigration judge.

“As soon as their parents are detained, the children are classified as unaccompanied,” Arthur, now a resident fellow for law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Daily Signal.

2. Unprecedented Action by Trump Administration?

Some media outlets have called the practice of separating children from parents at the border “unprecedented” or a “new low” for the United States.

What’s different under the Trump administration, though, is a “zero tolerance” approach to enforcing existing immigration laws and policy.

On May 7 in Scottsdale, Arizona, Attorney General Jeff Sessions directed federal prosecutors to prosecute all adults who illegally enter the country, including those accompanied by their children, under a provision of federal law (8 U.S.C. § 1325(a)) that covers illegal entry.

“If you’re smuggling a child, then we’re going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law,” Sessions said. “If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally. It’s not our fault that somebody does that.”

Since it takes more than 20 days to adjudicate an asylum claim, the 9th Circuit’s interpretation of the Flores Settlement Agreement essentially provides three options, said David Inserra, a homeland security policy analyst for The Heritage Foundation.

“The Trump administration currently faces two options: Either release every family that crosses the border and claims asylum and know that most of them will never show up at their immigration court hearing; or release the child as required by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ interpretation of the Flores settlement while holding the parents while awaiting trial,” Inserra told The Daily Signal.

“A third, better solution is to fix the loophole created by the 9th Circuit with regard to Flores and improve the asylum process to discourage frivolous asylum claims, while also better serving those with legitimate asylum cases,” Inserra added.

Proposed legislation by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.; Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C.; and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. would reverse the 9th Circuit’s interpretation.

“This would mean only a brief period of separation while the parents are prosecuted,” Arthur said.

Depending on the outcome, the family would be reunited and either be released or deported together.

3. ‘Concentration Camps’?

Much of the criticism of separating children from parents at the border has been from Democrats.

However, former CIA Director Michael Hayden, who served under President George W. Bush, and former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who was once lieutenant governor of Maryland, both compared the practice to Nazi concentration camps.

The Department of Homeland Security rejected the comparison, noting that most children caught crossing the border illegally are not detained by federal officials.

“We have high standards,” Nielsen said during the White House press briefing Monday. “We give them meals and we give them education and we give them medical care. There are videos, there are TVs. I visited the detention centers myself.”

In the last fiscal year, 90 percent of apprehended children were released to a sponsor who was either a parent or close relative, according to the department.

Homeland security officials also say they work with HHS to improve and ease communication between detained parents and their children in HHS care.

Sponsors may be “a parent, adult sibling, relative, or appropriate home that meets criteria for the safety of the child and continuation of any immigration proceedings,” according to DHS. Also, a parent who is prosecuted and later released can be a sponsor and ask HHS to restore custody of the child.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has dedicated a facility to operate primarily as a family reunification and removal center. ICE staff who interact with parents will receive training in trauma-informed care, and the agency will assign staff trained in mental health care to detained parents who have been separated from children, according to DHS.

4. Taking Babies From Nursing Mothers?

CNN reported last week on an illegal immigrant from Honduras who claimed her nursing daughter was pulled away from her before she was handcuffed. CNN cited a lawyer from a liberal legal group called the Texas Civil Rights Project.

In a conference call with reporters last week, a senior Department of Homeland Security official said this was not the case.

“We do not separate breastfeeding children from their parents. That does not exist. That is not a policy. That is not something that DHS does,” an official told reporters Friday. “We believe that that is false.”

An estimated 14,500 to 17,500 individuals are smuggled into the United States each year. For perspective, that number constitutes about 5.7 percent of total apprehensions of illegal immigrants in 2017, though apprehensions don’t account for all border crossings.

This article has been modified since publication.

COLUMN BY

Portrait of Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Left Is Spreading Misinformation About Our Border Crisis. Here’s What’s Really Happening.

House ‘Compromise’ Immigration Bill Fails to Adequately Address Broken System

Trump Is More Right Than Wrong About Migrant Crime in Germany

Here Are Horrifying Photos Of Obama’s Illegal Alien Facilities The Media Refuses To Show You.

13 Facts the Media ‘Pros’ Don’t Want You to Know About ‘Family Border Separation’

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is by Leah Millis/Reuters/Newscom.

Francis Condemns ‘Eugenic’ Abortions and Fake Marriage

Robert Royal praises recent pro-life words by Pope Francis. But why was the Holy Father all but silent about abortion votes in Ireland and Argentina? 

I’d been on the road for much of the past week and hadn’t been very carefully following the news. But I woke yesterday to the heartening news that Pope Francis had strongly condemned selective abortion and the various attempts to redefine marriage as something other than a life-long commitment between one man and one woman.

Even more, he did so off-the-cuff, departing from the text he had prepared to deliver to the Forum delle famiglie, an Italian family association. It’s usually been on just such occasions – when he speaks spontaneously and “from the heart” – that he’s delivered the most troubling remarks of his pontificate. It was largely because of those remarks and his early criticism of Catholics who are constantly “insisting” and “obsessing” on life issues and marriage that he alienated and, sad to say, even lost the confidence of many active Catholics – even before the ambiguities and implied infidelities of Amoris laetitia.

He has, of course, condemned abortion and gay “marriage” on multiple occasions. But the world, Catholic and not, seemed to sense that his heart wasn’t in it. The coverage of his recent remarks in the main secular outlets was very brief, usually just reproducing parts of an Associated Press story – quite a contrast to the extensive coverage when he seemed to be moving towards modern culture.

The Wall Street Journal made the obvious observation that the latest remarks were “unusually strong for a pope who has generally played down medical and sexual ethics and taken a strikingly conciliatory approach to gay people.”

The question arises: why now? There was the humiliating spectacle last month of the Irish overwhelmingly voting to rescind a law prohibiting abortion, after voting for gay marriage in 2015. Perhaps more to the point, just this past week, legislators in Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies approved a bill allowing abortion up to fourteen weeks by just four votes.

Pope Francis was silent about Ireland – a very odd reticence by a man who has no qualms about weighing in on public issues like climate change, fossil-fuel exploration, immigration, Middle Eastern politics, Hindu persecution of Muslim Rohingyas, international economics – the list goes on. All these have moral dimensions, of course, though it’s hard to see what expertise or insight the Vatican brings to such complex situations. By contrast, allowing abortion in Ireland means the direct and immediate killing of thousands of innocents.

The pope was (perhaps) not entirely silent on this question in his native country. Back in March, he sent a letter to Argentina. It was only five paragraphs in length and mostly a thank-you for a letter he had received congratulating him on completing five years as pope. It was quite mild and, even when he turned to the question of abortion, mixed together multiple issues:

I ask you all that you be channels of the Good and the Beautiful, that you lend your support in defense of life and justice, so that peace and fraternity may appear, so that you make the world better by your work, so that you care for the weakest, and share with full hands all that God has given you.

You would have to be an Argentinean to know for certain whether this was read as strong opposition to impending abortion changes, or whether this was the right tone given the way particular nations respond to papal comments – but the official Vatican News account didn’t even mention abortion.

Perhaps that was one reason why the latest comment was not at all subtle, more in keeping with what many Catholics expect from the occupant of the Chair of Peter. Pope Francis went to the modern touchstone of evil, comparing “selective” abortions (usually because of fetal abnormalities, sex, etc.) with the Nazi eugenics program of race purification. This time, he says, we are doing the very same thing “with white gloves,” as if it’s just a medical procedure. (If you read Italian, there’s a transcript of the spontaneous remarks as well as the prepared speech here.)

Though it comes too late for the millions of innocents who will die now in Ireland and Argentina, still, it’s good that Francis gave this full-throated affirmation. We might add it wasn’t only the Nazis who practiced eugenics in the named of racism: Margaret Sanger, hero to so many American abortion advocates and founder of Planned Parenthood, took the same view – though maybe she wore lace-gloves.

It’s interesting that Francis was also so vocal about marriage. The off-the-cuff remarks refer a lot to Amoris laetitia, the very text that many of us feel both seeks answers to current troubles with marriages and – despite the announced intention of pursuing a path of mercy and discernment – weakens, perhaps implicitly contradicts, Our Lord’s strong words about the indissolubility of marriage. And will likely lead to even further confusion and breakdown.

Still, there are very good things in the recent remarks: “Life in a family: it’s a sacrifice, but a beautiful sacrifice. Love is like making pasta: you do it every day. Love within matrimony is a challenge, for the man and the woman. What’s the biggest challenge for a man? To make his wife more a woman. More woman. That she grow as a woman. And what is the challenge for a woman? To make her husband more of a man. And thus they go forward, both of them.”

This insistence on growing into being men and women will not win the Holy Father any awards at the U.N., or the E.U., or the various gender activist groups that have half-welcomed the tone he adopted from the first days of his papacy. There are other things in these off-the-cuff remarks less straightforward. But he’s affirmed “male and female He created them” and supported traditional marriage.

Where would the Church be now if only, as pope, he had stayed close to these sorts of peasant insights and not been drawn into the swamps of modernist German theology?

Robert Royal

Robert Royal

Dr. Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing, and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent book is A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century, published by Ignatius Press. The God That Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West, is now available in paperback from Encounter Books.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Pope Francis in the Clementine Hall on Saturday receiving and addressing the members and children of the Forum delle famiglie [Photo credit: ANSA]. © 2018 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Once Again, Obamacare’s Constitutionality Comes Into Question

Readers might recall that, in 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, colloquially known as Obamacare, by a 5-4 vote in a case captioned NFIB v. Sebelius.

Last year, Congress revised Obamacare. In the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Congress eliminated the penalty imposed on people who do not purchase health insurance by reducing the penalty to $0 effective January 2019.

What makes that 2017 law interesting for present purposes is this: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the controlling opinion in NFIB v. Sebelius; he concluded that the Obamacare penalty can be characterized as a “tax”; and he decided that, so viewed, Obamacare was a constitutional exercise of Congress’ power to raise taxes.

Enter Texas. In February of this year, Texas and several other states filed a lawsuit alleging that, by reducing the Obamacare tax to zero, Congress eliminated the only basis on which the Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare. A sine qua non of a tax is that it generates revenue, Texas argued, and beginning in January 2019 Obamacare will no longer do so.

Accordingly, concluded Texas, starting next year Obamacare can no longer be upheld as a lawful exercise of Congress’ taxing power, so the federal courts should hold the law unconstitutional now.

The possibility that Obamacare could yet be consigned to the ash heap delighted some and troubled others. (For my opinion on the matter, see here.) Recently, the Department of Justice filed its answer to the Texas complaint. In it, the department agreed with the plaintiffs that Obamacare will become unconstitutional once the individual mandate penalty effectively disappears next year.

The Justice Department believes that, as a result, several provisions of Obamacare must go, such as the requirement that insurance companies provide coverage to someone with a pre-existing condition—but the Justice Department thinks that the rest of the statute can stand.

Texas disagrees. It argues that the Obamacare statute is like the base in Jenga: Once you remove the critical elements, the entire superstructure falls apart.

So what happens now? Here is how the case might proceed.

The district court is likely to act without delay. Why? There are no facts in dispute, only (at most) two legal issues: Is Texas right that Obamacare can no longer be upheld as a lawful exercise of Congress’ taxing power? If “No,” game over. If “Yes,” then is Texas also right that the unconstitutional portion(s) of the law cannot be severed from the remainder without leaving Obamacare a jumble of words that does not make sense?

Those issues may be difficult to resolve legally, but there is no need for a trial over the facts. Plus, the district court knows that, in all likelihood, the Supreme Court will ultimately have to resolve this dispute and that, the closer it gets to January 2019, the more attention there will be on the effect of eliminating the “tax” on the insurance markets.

The Supreme Court will need to decide this issue because of the odd way that it upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare in NFIB v. Sebelius. Four justices concluded that Obamacare was a lawful regulation of commerce, and four disagreed. Roberts was the fifth vote to uphold Obamacare. He decided that the health care law could be upheld as a tax, but not as a regulation of commerce.

The result was that five justices found the law constitutional, but they disagreed about why.

Given the odd nature of the court’s lineup in NFIB v. Sebelius and the pending disappearance of the “tax,” it is incumbent on the Supreme Court to take up the issue once again and—hopefully—come up with a majority opinion that puts the matter to rest.

Once the district court issues its decision, it is possible for one or more parties to ask the Supreme Court to review the case even before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit does.

How? One of the parties could file in the Supreme Court what is known as a “petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment,” a mechanism that allows a party to leapfrog over the appeals court and go directly to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court does not have to grant such a petition, and it prefers to have at least one appeals court review an issue before taking it up, because it likes the help that comes with having three circuit judges write about a problem. But it may not make much of a difference because the court of appeals is also likely to act expeditiously.

Regardless of how the case reaches the Supreme Court, it is likely that the Supreme Court will revisit the constitutionality of Obamacare this fall. With luck, the whole matter will finally be resolved before the end of this year. Stay tuned.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Paul J. Larkin Jr.

Paul J. Larkin Jr. directs The Heritage Foundation’s project to counter abuse of the criminal law, particularly at the federal level, as senior legal research fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Read his research.

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY

Senators Announce Bill to Protect States’ Legalization of Marijuana

One likes to think of policymaking as a deliberative process, one where legislators base their debates on scientific information to craft evidence-based bills. Au contraire, mes amis.

For several years, an emerging marijuana industry has poured money into sponsoring ballot initiatives and lobbying state legislators to legalize marijuana. Industry’s money not only legalized pot for medical use in 31 states and for recreational use in 8 of those states, but also silenced the nonprofit voices of prevention, treatment, and public health that lack the wherewithal to compete. The legislative playing field is by no means level.

In January, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Obama Administration’s Cole Memo, which gave the industry a pass from federal enforcement so long as it adhered to eight conditions (all of which were violated within weeks without follow-up enforcement).

Infuriated by Sessions’ action, Colorado Sen. Cory Gardener put a hold on all judicial candidates nominated by President Trump until he capitulated in April, promising he would uphold states’ rights to legalize pot.

Last week, Senators Gardener and Elizabeth Warren (MA) introduced the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) Act. Representatives Jared Polis (CO), David Joyce (OH), and Earl Blumenauer (OR) introduced the companion bill in the House. President Trump announced he would support the bill.

The STATES Act would exempt states that have legalized marijuana from the US Controlled Substances Act. If Congress passes the Act, the marijuana industry will not only be able to expand in states that have made pot legal, it will amass even more money to lobby for full legalization in the 42 states that haven’t.

Americans have no idea how much money is being spent by the marijuana industry to get what it wants: full legalization nationwide at the expense of public health.

Read ABSNews story here.


Yes, You Can Become Addicted to Marijuana. And the Problem is Growing.

Although many Americans are unaware that marijuana can cause addiction, in the public health and medical communities, “it is a well-defined disorder that includes physical withdrawal symptoms, cravings and psychological dependence,” and increasing numbers of people are seeking treatment for it, notes this Pew Charitable Trusts story.

Experts are trying to find out why. Some think the intense levels of THC in marijuana strains (up to 20%) and concentrates (up to 80%) are responsible for the upsurge. Others think it may be because more users are taking the drug multiple times a day.

Nearly 3 million Americans meet the diagnostic criteria for marijuana dependence.

This article chronicles the trajectory of marijuana addiction in one young man, Quintin Pohl, pictured above, now age 17. Quintin began smoking marijuana in middle school and is now free of the drug thanks to treatment at a California residential treatment center and extensive follow-up aftercare.

Read this Pew Charitable Trusts story here.


Vermont Marijuana: What Parents Should Know about Pot and Juuling THC

The latest fad for teens and tweens is “to Juul.” Picture above, Juuls are e-cigarettes popular with young people who often post pictures of themselves on social media inhaling candy-flavored liquids from them. Juuls and other e-cigarettes heat the liquids and produce vapors which can then be inhaled.

The liquids can contain nicotine or cannabis oil. No one can tell the difference, but both can be harmful to health. Some chemicals in e-cigarette liquids are carcinogenic.

Schools are developing policies that ban Juuls on campus and recommend that parents reinforce that message at home with their teenagers. Legal marijuana will soon be available in Vermont but not for anyone under age 21. This article offers six tips to parents to help them talk with their teenagers about marijuana.

Read the Burlington Free Press article here.


Helping to End Addiction Over the Long-term (HEAL)

The directors of the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; and the National Institute on Drug Abuse lay out a research plan for ending addiction over the long term.

Read the JAMA article here.

The Marijuana Report is a weekly e-newsletter published by National Families in Action in partnership with SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana).

Visit National Families in Action’s website, The Marijuana Report.Org, to learn more about the marijuana story unfolding across the nation.

Subscribe to The Marijuana Report.

Our mission is to protect children from addictive drugs by shining light on the science that underlies their effects.

Addictive drugs harm children, families, and communities.

Legalizing them creates commercial industries that make drugs more available, increase use, and expand harms.

Science shows that addiction begins in childhood.

It is a pediatric disease that is preventable.

We work to prevent the emergence of commercial addictive drug industries that will target children.

We support FDA approved medicines.

We support the assessment, treatment, and/or social and educational services
for users and low-level dealers as alternatives to incarceration.


About SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana)

SAM is a nonpartisan alliance of lawmakers, scientists and other concerned citizens who want to move beyond simplistic discussions of “incarceration versus legalization” when discussing marijuana use and instead focus on practical changes in marijuana policy that neither demonizes users nor legalizes the drug. SAM supports a treatment, health-first marijuana policy.  SAM has four main goals:

  • To inform public policy with the science of today’s marijuana.
  • To reduce the unintended consequences of current marijuana policies, such as lifelong stigma due to arrest.
  • To prevent the establishment of “Big Marijuana” – and a 21st-Century tobacco industry that would market marijuana to children.
  • To promote research of marijuana’s medical properties and produce, non-smoked, non-psychoactive pharmacy-attainable medications.

ICYMI: Facebook Is Still Targeting Conservatives, Protecting Planned Parenthood’s Abuse Cover-Ups

Last week, we told you that Starbucks is still funding Planned Parenthood despite the abortion giant’s cover-ups of sexual abuse of underage girls. We’ve now been made aware that Live Action — the amazing organization which has exposed this illegal and immoral practice — has been blocked from promoting one of their videos on Facebook!

Check out that video here.

Live Action’s exposure campaign may be followed here and here.

We all know that Facebook doesn’t like conservatives. But blocking access to exposing a taxpayer-funded organization’s shocking cover-ups is just too far. Planned Parenthood has long protected its abortion bottom line by sending little girls back to sexual abusers. One abortion center in Mobile, Alabama gave two abortions to one girl in 2014 in just four months — and only admitted it to state authorities after they were caught.

That’s illegal. But authorities let Planned Parenthood slide, just as corporate backers have. This must stop. We urge you to spend your second vote dollars at companies that don’t back Planned Parenthood. This is an abortion company which protects sexual abusers, kills unborn children, and has illegally sold babies’ body parts.

You can see all the companies that support Planned Parenthood’s abortion industry on 2ndVote’s resource page here. Let them know they won’t be getting your second vote!

Help us continue developing the content and research that conservatives are using to hold corporations for their activism by becoming a 2ndVote Member today!

The Importance of Dads in an Increasingly Fatherless America

There is a growing split taking place among American fathers today.

On the one hand, more and more children are growing up without a dad in their lives. But on the other hand, fathers who are involved in their kids’ lives have actually become even more active.

The Pew Research Center reports that fathers who live in the same home as their children have become increasingly engaged in the lives of their kids over the past half-century. In 2015, fathers reported spending an average of 7 hours a week interacting with their children, compared with 2.5 hours in 1965.

Today, 57 percent of dads say they see parenting as a central part of their identity.

This encouraging shift in fatherhood involvement could be owing, at least in part, to the greater amounts of research showing the importance of a father’s role in the life of his child. Nonprofits like Focus on the Family have championed the role of fathers and have promoted well-researched materials to back up their claims.

While it’s true more fathers are taking the time to come home from work and throw the football around with their kid, an increasing number of children find themselves without an active paternal presence in their lives.

Pew reports that only 11 percent of American children lived apart from their dads in 1960. Today, that number has grown to 27 percent. One in every three American children are now growing up in a home without their biological father.

There is a “father absence crisis in America,” according to National Fatherhood Initiative, and the results are sobering.

Studies have found that children raised without a father are:

  • At a higher risk of having behavioral problems.
  • Four times more likely to live in poverty.
  • More likely to be incarcerated in their lifetime.
  • Twice as likely to never graduate high school.
  • At a seven times higher risk of teen pregnancy.
  • More vulnerable to abuse and neglect.
  • More likely to abuse drugs and alcohol.
  • Twice as likely to be obese.

From education to personal health to career success, children who lack a father find themselves at a disadvantage to their peers raised in a two-parent household.

A 2017 Heritage Foundation article reported that “routine family bonding activities like reading bedtime stories and eating meals together have a profound effect on children’s educational development and psychological well-being.”

Simply put: Dads, we need you.

As I reflect back upon my own childhood and the role my dad played, and is still playing in my life, I find myself overwhelmed with gratitude. My father is far from perfect, but he was present.

School was challenging for me as a kid, so my dad often took time to help me with my homework after he got home from work. I remember sitting on our living room couch struggling to understand my math homework with my dad’s instruction.

To be honest, I’m not sure he was much of a help—but he was there. I have always known that my dad was there for me, not just because he told me he was, but because he showed me. The greatest gift my father has ever given me was his time.

So to the fathers who have sacrificed for their children, who have worked to be involved in each day of their child’s life, thank you. Your children will always remember your involvement in their lives.

And to the fathers who would like to do more, remember the importance of your role. It is not about being perfect, but being present.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Virginia Allen

Virginia Allen is an administrative assistant at The Heritage Foundation.

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Rule to Defund Planned Parenthood Moves Forward

WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) by Anita Carey : The federal government is proposing removing federal tax dollars from Planned Parenthood, and is seeking the public’s opinion on its proposed rule.

In May, when President Trump spoke at the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) Gala, he introduced the Protect Life Rule that would stop all federal money from the Title X family planning program from going to organizations that perform abortions. Last week, the federal government opened the mandatory 60-day public commenting period before legislative discussions to adopt the rule.

Father Stephen Imbaratto of Priests for Life calls this “a good and proper first step to totally defunding the abortion industry.”

Eric Scheidler, executive director of Pro-Life Action League, told Church Militant, “Planned Parenthood likes to pretend that low-income women depend on them for health care, but that’s simply untrue.” He explained that they offer mostly contraception and abortion services, while only providing about one percent of all STD testings and less than one percent of all Pap tests.

Title X was passed in 1970 and was aimed at providing government grants to public or nonprofit entities to establish and operate family planning projects, “including natural family planning methods, infertility services and services for adolescents.” The program was never intended to be used to fund abortion.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) explained that the new rule is needed because there is not sufficient guidance to ensure funding is not used to encourage or promote abortion as a method of family planning.

Scheidler said that the $60 million Planned Parenthood would be stripped of “would go to healthcare providers that offer a wider range of services and a higher standard of care.” He added, “This could include pregnancy resource centers and abstinence programs.”

Mallory Quigley, vice president of communications for Susan B. Anthony List, told Church Militant, “The Protect Life Rule directs tax dollars to Title X centers that do not provide or perform aboartions — such as the growning number of community and rural health centers that far outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities — without reducing family planning funding by a dime.”

“These alternatives offer holistic ppreventative and primary care, not just for women, but for their children, as well as men,” Quigley noted. Planned Parenthood often tells women not to bring their children with them to appointments.

In 2016, Title X handed out over $286 million in taxpayer money to 48 states and 43 family planning agencies that provide contraception, testing for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and cancer screenings to almost 3,900 clinics. Planned Parenthood receives about $60 million from Title X grants, representing only about 20 percent of all the federal money they receive.

Father Imbaratto told Church Militant, “Planned Parenthood gets more than this and by all accounts spends all government monies either directly or indirectly to elect pro-abortion candidates.”

Quigley said abortion mills can use this funding as a “slush fund” that allows them to pay for rent, electricity, and other overhead costs. “It can also be used for advertising within the community to attract more clients,” she said.

A recent poll found 60 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion. Quigley said it’s important for all pro-life Americans to submit comments to the HHS: “A large outpouring of public support ensures that the abortion lobby understands the majority of Americans side with President Trump and support the pro-life action taken by the administration.”

Scheidler pointed out that stripping Planned Parenthood of its Title X funding would “reduce Planned Parenthood’s access to low-income women, who will have to go elsewhere for family planning.” He said this could reduce the number of women seeking abortions because “Planned Parenthood will not be able to market abortion to these women.”

Susan B. Anthony List agrees, saying, “Research released by the Charlotte Lozier Institute in 2018 shows Planned Parenthood has inflated the U.S. abortion rate, controlling more than 35 percent of the abortion industry and resulting in more than three million ‘extra’ abortions that could have been avoided.”

Quigley noted that Planned Parenthood’s annual report show that “despite the increase in taxpayer funding, the only thing not to decline at Planned Parenthood is the number of abortions they do.”

“To fully defund Planned Parenthood of all federal money would require legislation,” Scheidler explains. He said the November general election could provide enough votes in the Senate to look at “making Planned Parenthood ineligible for Medicaid funds, which would be a dramatic pro-life victory — and very bad for Planned Parenthood.”

“There is no need to justify withholding such funds,” Dr. Monica Miller, national director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, said. “One red cent of taxpayer money should never be granted to any group that fails to respect life.”

“No other argument need be given and Planned Parenthood is the flagship when it comes to carrying the blood of the unborn,” Miller said.

Quigley noted that their “working to-do list” in the pro-life movement mirrors Trumps’s campaign promises: “appointing only pro-life Supreme Court nominees,  to defund Planned Parenthood … to protect the Hyde Amendment, and to advance and sign into law the Pan-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act — which would end abortion after five months.”

“This is not about the pro-life movement,” Fr. Imbaratto clarified. “It’s about babies and moms.”

The commenting period runs to July 31. Pro-lifers are asked to weigh in before the period closes.

Meet the Arnolds: Planned Parenthood’s Billionaire Benefactors

With Starbucks in hot water over its donations to Planned Parenthood, 2ndVote decided to look into other major donors to the abortionist the general public might night be aware of.

John and Laura Arnold

The Laura and John Arnold Foundation has donated almost one billion dollars to research since 2011. The organization is renowned for its focus on evidence-based solutions to public policy problems. Its grants fund projects have funded research on those suffering from mental healthbetter understanding of gun violence, and bail reform.

What’s less known is that behind the Foundation’s “evidence-based” efforts is frequently distinctly left-wing, anti-life advocacy.

For example, while the Arnolds give to both parties, John Arnold was a bundler for the 2008 Obama campaign. According to Huffington Post in 2012:

Billionaire John Arnold, a former Enron trader and his wife Laura, were slated to host in their Houston home a $10,000-ticket Obama fundraiser to feature Michelle Obama last October (the event was postponed). Arnold describes himself as a libertarian, and his wife Laura identifies as a Democrat. Still, Arnold was one of Obama’s top 2008 donors, a bundler who gave the campaign between $50,000 and $100,000. According to Huffington Post’s FundRace, he has given $35,800 to the Obama Victory Fund 2012.

Both Arnolds have also contributed a few thousand each to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and hundreds of thousands to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The Arnolds have also personally donated millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood and Planned Parenthood’s powerful political arm. In the past two years alone, the Arnolds contributed to the following pro-abortion entities:

Also, their foundation gave nearly $1.5 million in 2015 and 2016 to Improving Contraceptive Options Now (ICON), a research project of MRDC which explicitly focuses on funding abortion-inducing drugs and devices like the Intra-Uterine Device for teenagers.

See more of 2nd Vote’s research on which companies and non-profits are funding Planned Parenthood here.

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