Tag Archive for: Ivf

EXCLUSIVE: Multiple Sources Confirm GOP Senator Attempted IVF Expansion during NDAA Negotiations

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As negotiations in the Senate continue over funding for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2027, sources familiar with the situation tell The Washington Stand that an amendment that would have implemented the unrestricted use of highly controversial in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments into basic health care for military servicemembers was put forward by a Republican in a closed-door executive session, before it was ultimately dropped.

Sources confirmed Thursday that Senators Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) offered competing amendments during a closed-door executive mark-up session for the NDAA that would have expanded servicemembers’ access to IVF treatments at the expense of taxpayers as part of the military’s Tricare health insurance program, without fully addressing pro-life concerns. The Sullivan amendment reportedly was shopped around to Republican offices, but failed to garner support because it was not clear that it protected frozen embryos, most of whom are discarded or experimented upon. The language of the proposed Duckworth amendment was said to be almost identical to language first put forward in an amendment she offered during last year’s NDAA markups. A source conveyed to TWS that during the session, Duckworth told those in the room that she and Sullivan agreed to withdraw their competing amendments and, as a compromise, to offer Duckworth’s language from last year. That amendment would have enabled Tricare coverage for “fertility-related care,” an open-ended term that could include “other information, referrals, treatments, procedures, testing, medications, laboratory services, technologies, and services facilitating reproduction as determined appropriate by the Secretary of Defense.”

The attempt by a GOP lawmaker to quietly fund IVF treatments with taxpayer dollars behind closed doors comes in the wake of the Trump administration’s efforts last year to “lower costs and expand access” to IVF by attempting to help lower the cost of fertility drugs used by women for egg retrieval. But pro-life advocates say that IVF procedures involve a host of ethically and morally problematic outcomes.

Based on CDC data and estimates from the Heritage Foundation, in 2021 alone, approximately 4.1 million embryonic children were created via IVF in the U.S., but just over 97,000 babies were born as a result, amounting to just 2.3% of the embryos created. Unused embryos are routinely discarded or frozen indefinitely. While actual figures are unknown, the number of destroyed embryos is estimated to be over one million per year, and at least 1.5 million embryonic children remain indefinitely frozen.

In addition, experts note that the open-ended language of policies like the Duckworth amendment leaves the door open for cloning, including the creation of human-animal hybrids known as chimeras. Other concerns include the lack of parental rights amid the unregulated IVF industry, in which embryos have been discarded without parental consent, the exploitation of women through surrogacy’s health risks, and the fact that the underlying causes of infertility are not addressed through IVF procedures. Experts point to restorative reproductive medicine (RRM), including NaPro Technology, FEMM, and the Billings Ovulation Method as far more effective and ethical methods of treating infertility.

While the IVF amendments allowing unrestricted IVF usage for servicemembers at taxpayers’ expense have been defeated for now, experts say that pro-life advocates must be especially vigilant that the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers who claim to be pro-life refrain from putting forward policies that harm preborn children and undermine human dignity.

“It is disappointing that, behind closed doors, Republicans continue to try to expand taxpayer-funded IVF coverage despite the fact that they have been educated, year after year, about the problems, and especially the problems with expanding IVF from service-related injuries to all servicemembers and their dependents,” FRC Senior Director of Government Affairs Quena González told TWS, responding to the source. “Not only would it be immensely expensive, but it would involve taxpayer-funded creation, storage, and ultimately destruction of human lives.”

He continued, “And this is the proverbial camel’s nose under the edge of the tent. Using the NDAA to start this experiment in the military before expanding to universal coverage of IVF is particularly sneaky because, at this stage, the NDAA is being negotiated behind closed doors to protect military secrets and national security concerns. It is concerning to learn that some Republicans are using a legitimate process to hide from public accountability and cut deals on harmful language behind closed doors.”

As González underscored, “Millions of Americans would object to expansive taxpayer funding of IVF, when better alternatives exist to actually treat (rather than artificially bypass, at great human cost to all involved) the underlying causes of infertility. The military is a fighting force to deter tyrants and protect America, not a social laboratory. Military spouses and families, and the millions of Americans who fund their healthcare, deserve better.”

When asked for comment, a spokesperson for Sullivan’s office replied to TWS, “As a pro-life senator, this is a very important issue for Senator Sullivan. He believes that there is no greater gift than parenthood and understands that some families need IVF treatment to have children. However, there are significant pro-life concerns regarding IVF treatment, many of which Senator Sullivan shares. He has worked with pro-life groups on legislation in the NDAA for years. In the current NDAA, he was trying to find a path forward on this issue that takes into account those pro-life concerns. When it was clear that Democrats would block the proposal because of pro-life provisions in the proposal, he withdrew the amendment.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was updated with a statement from Senator Dan Sullivan’s office, and additional clarifications to the markup proceedings, and a clarification that Sullivan’s measure was dropped rather than “defeated” in the original version.

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Defense Bill Squeaks through House with Wins on Life, DEI, Family Leave

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In a city where nothing seems certain — least of all cooperation between the parties (or in them!) — there’s a certain magic about the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The legislation, which is as close to a Christian tradition as Congress gets, is headed to its 65th straight year of passage — a record that should astound anyone in this bitterly divided town. What is it about the troop bill that gets both sides to thaw their icy standoff and work together? And can that reluctant, bipartisan cooperation be replicated?

Unfortunately for Americans, who would love to see the two sides set aside their hostility and at least try to solve the country’s problems, the charm of the NDAA is always short-lived. Imagine if Republicans and Democrats tackled the health care crisis with the same intentionality? That’s not to say there aren’t fireworks, since the parties are more explosive than a boat full of drugs in the Caribbean. But at least in this debate, they seem to have the mutual goal of moving forward, even if they do try to score political points in the process.

On Wednesday, the House did its part to keep history alive, sending the bill to the Senate by an overwhelming bipartisan margin, 312-112. The lopsided tally doesn’t convey the drama that led up to the final vote, when House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had to corral his quarrelsome members, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), and others to flip their “no” votes to yes. But he did it, defying the odds for the millionth time.

What makes the streak even more impressive is that it’s not easy to find a sweet spot on where to spend $901 billion in defense. The current bill, which clocks in at an eye-popping 3,086 pages — longer than most study Bibles — is the product of months of intense debate on everything from Ukraine funding to U.S. investments in China. But this year, the battle that sucked up most of the oxygen in the room was surprisingly extraneous: the taxpayer funding of in vitro fertilization for our men and women in uniform.

In a fight that threatened to overshadow all of the significant wins of the NDAA, Democrats (and some Republicans) continued their crusade to force Americans to foot the bill for fertility treatments that are not only morally controversial but highly ineffective. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s (D-N.Y.) rank-and-file disagreed, demanding that the military’s health care coverage, TRICARE, include a blank check for this kind of “assisted reproductive technology” for every active-duty servicemember.

To understand why this is such a dangerous idea, you first have to know the sinister side of IVF. This is not about “crushing the dreams” of our brave men and women in uniform, as Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) would have people believe. This is about being smart with taxpayer dollars and pushing parents toward alternatives that actually work. Dr. Lauren Rubal, a reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist, understands parents’ longing for children. She used to offer IVF, she explained to Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch.” But the more she worked in it, the more concerned she became.

“I think the first thing to say is that these couples are truly suffering,” Rubal emphasized. “And I wanted to help alleviate the suffering, to help them have children.” But things changed on so many levels, she explained. “First of all, medically, I felt more and more like I was putting band-aids over causes, [and] I wasn’t truly addressing the root cause of that person sitting in front of me: body, mind, soul. And in many cases, this is true. We know that IVF is kind of a blanket recommendation for most infertility diagnoses that we have.”

Secondly, Rubal stressed, “there are medical issues with the practice of in vitro fertilization. Of course, part of that, like I said, is not truly addressing the full spectrum of causes that, if we heal, can lead to pregnancies on their own and healthier moms and babies in that process. But,” she paused, “we know there’s an increased risk of complications for moms and babies. And then, finally, the last part of this is really coming to terms with the fact that as I sat there performing my daily work, I began to realize more and more how many embryos were being destroyed in this process of in vitro fertilization.” She thought she was helping life, but as a doctor and Christian, she came to the realization that “if every embryo is a human being that is a unique chromosome complement at his or her earliest stage of development,” they were destroying several tiny humans “to get to that one live birth.”

Probably the most frustrating part of the IVF debate, Rubal insisted, is that people assume that there are no other alternatives. That’s not true. “There is another alternative that, unfortunately, has felt more and more politicized in recent months … called restorative reproductive medicine. And [that’s] identifying those root causes [of infertility] and harnessing the hormone imbalances that may be present, looking at the microbiome, trying to optimize ovulation in that woman, as well as the sperm in that man, and really the timing of intercourse as well, and using medical and surgical procedures to do so.”

In terms of actual results, “this is yielding equivalent rates of live births compared to IVF cycles. The denominators are a little bit different here. And so, it does take more time. But with that being said, there is absolutely hope,” Rubal emphasized. “And it is a moral and … much less financially taxing process for couples.” Sadly, she notes, only 4% of OB-GYNs and family medicine doctors are familiar with how to counsel patients on these options. There’s just not the fertility awareness on these alternatives that there should be.

To be fair, Rubal pointed out, “I think that every single medical professional is trying to do their best with the tools that they’re given. I can speak for myself, and I know that I feel so much more at peace. And this is what I tell patients. Not everything is in our power here, but let’s try to optimize the parts that are, and then we can have a path moving forward in peace.” If people wonder about the effectiveness of her approach, she tells skeptics, “Studies support that we’re having babies based on these restorative reproductive medicine procedures who are healthier, who have less preterm deliveries, less multiples, and are being born at normal birth weight. So really a win-win.”

To her dismay and so many others, this whole conversation has been politicized. If you’re a conservative who believes taxpayers shouldn’t be in the fertility business period, you’re painted as “unbelievably selfish and callous,” as Johnson was for having the courage to keep this dangerous language out of the bill. As it stands, Americans are already footing the bill for IVF for servicemembers whose infertility was the result of an active-duty injury, which is problematic on its own. But opening up the entire force to a pricey IVF free-for-all isn’t the wisest use of American dollars.

And the speaker is to be commended for that stand. “Speaker Johnson took a lot of heat for the removal of the reckless Duckworth language,” FRC’s Quena Gonzalez stressed, “but the reality is that he and others in leadership who took the IVF expansion language out were speaking for a lot of rank-and-file pro-life Republicans who, although they’re just as glad as we are that thousands of babies born through IVF are alive today, cannot ignore the millions more lives lost when unborn children are discard, destroyed, or experimented upon.” Frankly, he said, “An industry that produces only 2.3 live births per 100 children conceived does not deserve public funding, and the military should not be hijacked as a giant social experiment in subsidizing ‘Big IVF’ on the taxpayer’s dime.”

Across the Capitol, Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who’s also an OB-GYN, applauded the change on “Washington Watch.” “I think [the NDAA] is moving in the conservative direction. And I know you and Family Research Council have had a big emphasis and impact on that in particular. I think the policy is moving toward putting some tighter guardrails around [IVF funding]. And the good news is the technology is improving as well … so I always appreciate your input on it.”

Perkins conceded that there’s “a lot of disagreement about it. But where we start … is the sanctity of human life, that every human being has the thumbprint of God, the fingerprint of God on it, and therefore must be treated with dignity and respect. And I think that part of that issue is how this industry has been unregulated. And I think it requires a little more work before we throw taxpayer dollars into it anymore.”

Thanks to conservatives, that wasn’t the only win in the NDAA compromise. Republicans continue to chip away at the wokeness in the Pentagon left behind by the Biden administration, including language that would:

  • Bar males from participating in athletic programs or activities designated for women or girls at military academies (Sec. 559A).
  • Expand and clarify family leave policies for members of the Coast Guard (would include members of the reserve component), allowing members to take leave when they foster a child, not just when they adopt (Sec. 7225).
  • Stop DEI programs and positions, including a prohibition against developing, implementing, and maintaining an employee resource group or affinity group based on certain characteristics, including SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) and religion (Sec. 901).

At the end of the day, the NDAA is a win for conservatives and yet another notch in Mike Johnson’s belt as speaker. “This year’s National Defense Authorization Act helps advance President Trump and Republicans’ Peace Through Strength Agenda by codifying 15 of President Trump’s executive orders, ending woke ideology at the Pentagon, securing the border, revitalizing the defense industrial base, and restoring the warrior ethos,” the speaker said proudly. “Under President Trump, the U.S. is rebuilding strength, restoring deterrence, and proving America will not back down. President Trump and Republicans promised peace through strength. The FY26 NDAA delivers it.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

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The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Sustaining the Consensus Against Violent Social Change

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A new article at NBC News completely flips reality about the recent bombing at a California fertility clinic, comparing the assault to attacks on abortion facilities.

Titled “Bombing at IVF clinic should be a security wake-up call for fertility centers, experts say,” the story by Elizabeth Chuck ignores the fact that the Palm Springs atrocity, in which the bomber died and four bystanders were injured, was perpetrated by a self-proclaimed anti-humanist who believed that bringing children into the world is wrong. The bomber, Guy Edward Bartkus, left behind a manifesto proclaiming his goal was to “sterilize this planet of the disease of life.” He was, in short, not a pro-lifer by any measurement, but the radical opposite.

Media reports like this one illustrate the now, near-ubiquitous challenge of what-aboutism, where what should be a sustainable consensus against violence from any quarter is converted into a tit-for-tat about one side or the other of public debates seeming to excuse such actions by its allies. The truth is that there is violence today on both sides of many hotly contested issues, and it is also true that most proponents of various causes reject such tactics as extreme. Maintaining this moral consistency has proven to be very difficult, but the facts about the prevalence of violence remind us of the urgent need for balance and self-restraint in what has become an aggravating blame game.

Take some of the most notorious criminal acts of the last several years. Besides the attack by Bartkus, as Wesley Smith notes in a must-read article at National Review, there has been a wave of antipathy to human existence in both the intellectual press and on the street. Smith cites an incident in 2010 where an assailant at the Discovery Channel demanded that the television service stop “encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants.”

Smith goes on to recap articles from the last few years in prestigious publications like the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of Medical Ethics that cast a relentlessly bleak picture of human existence and call for the end not only of policies that encourage childbearing but for any childbearing at all. In 2012, a planned mass shooting at Family Research Council was thwarted by the heroic action of building operations manager Leo Johnson, who sustained a serious wound when a man angered by FRC’s stances on sexual conduct invaded the FRC headquarters.

Far from isolated incidents, these kinds of crimes can become commonplace as a result of news events extremists label intolerable. Last month, a California man bent on killing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh pleaded guilty to attempted assassination, blaming his actions on the Supreme Court’s leaked draft opinion on abortion and other judicial actions he believed were responsible for the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. In the wake of the high court’s June 2022 ruling in the Dobbs case, attacks were launched against nonprofit pregnancy help centers across the United States. Varying in severity, and with fortunately no loss of life, an estimated total of more than 100 assaults occurred on centers and churches across the United States. Apprehensions and prosecution of individuals responsible were rare under the Biden administration but did occur under the federal FACE Act.

None of this is to say that opponents of abortion and objectors to other public policies have been immune from committing similar deeds. The individuals imprisoned for peacefully blocking access to abortion facilities may have been selectively prosecuted and disproportionately punished, but there is little question they violated the same federal law that protects pregnancy help centers and churches from illegal acts. Over the long history of the abortion debate, the killing of abortionists has occurred in Colorado, Kansas, Florida, Georgia, and several other states. Director-actor Clint Eastwood made the film “Richard Jewell” about a security cop who was wrongly prosecuted after he foiled a bomb attack on the Olympic Village in Atlanta. The actual perpetrator, one Eric Rudolph, was identified and convicted in 2005 for his role in the bombing of a gay nightclub and an abortion facility in Birmingham, Alabama, years earlier. He is serving multiple terms of life imprisonment for these actions.

Understanding why individuals resort to violence, and why more individuals now justify that resort, including when actions occur on the scale of the Black Lives Matter riots and the January 6, 2021 incursion into the U.S. Capitol, is a vital question of our time. It is a sad condition when one hears the first reports of a violent incident, a Tesla exploding outside a Las Vegas hotel or a car bomb outside an IVF facility, and immediately waits for news whether the perpetrator was “one of ours.” Because the truth is, people who abandon the law and resort to these actions, whatever their motive, are never one of ours, whether they are anti-natalists or militant pro-lifers or race partisans or election deniers. The temptation to which NBC News succumbed with trying to tie Bartkus to opponents of various IVF practices is another chapter of the continuing tragedy of what-aboutism.

It is vital that debates about ethical matters, especially those as potent as abortion and test tube babies, proceed without the injection of point-scoring masquerading as insight. On the eve of the release of expected policy recommendations on IVF from the Trump administration, the choice is not merely between massive public funding of this practice or endorsement of the Guy Bartkuses of the world. The choice is between rational, principled, public debate and a collapse into governing by fear, intimidation, or neglect.

It does little to defend democracy when smaller numbers than ever turn out to exercise it at the ballot box. The more passionate and portentous the issue, the more essential this commitment to peaceful change becomes. Add to the brew the fact, obvious from recent elections, that the United States is a sharply divided country on some of the most fundamental questions: what is a man or woman, who is a human being, are the disabled equally valuable, what is marriage? The side of these questions that not only makes the better argument but also appeals to our better nature, that eschews violence of action or rhetoric, that moves with compassion and clarity, is the side that can, and will deserve to, prevail.

Meanwhile, as Wesley Smith so persuasively demonstrates, the strain of nihilism running through today’s intellectual culture is far deeper than that of one madman who was bereft of fatherly presence or civil guidance. Today’s isolated and violent souls are increasingly fed by isolating ideologies for whom human doom is always just around the corner. Our most prominent journals would do well to do some couples therapy over their attraction to such thinking and stop publishing so much rancor, not because they do not have the right to do so but because it isn’t right to do so. The human future is only as bleak or bright as we are willing to make it.

AUTHOR

Chuck Donovan

Chuck Donovan served in the Reagan White House as a senior writer and as Deputy Director of Presidential Correspondence until early 1989. He was executive vice president of Family Research Council, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and founder/president of Charlotte Lozier Institute from 2011 to 2024. He has written and spoken extensively on issues in life and family policy.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Centuries’ of Christian Tradition on ‘Sanctity of Human Life’ Pitted against Left’s ‘Worldview of Death’

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“This whole kerfuffle in Alabama has revealed … the worldview of the Left, which is a worldview of death. And they’re really running with this like they ran after the Dobbs decision,” David Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, said on “Washington Watch” Tuesday. “This is not like a one-off,” agreed FRC President Tony Perkins. “The worldview has been revealed. And I think it’s becoming clearer and clearer.”

Enraged by an Alabama Supreme Court decision recognizing the value of all unborn human life, the left-wing media has attempted to carefully curate camera angles of the controversy, so as to portray a hamster as a hippo. First, they launched a scaremongering campaign falsely alleging that Republicans are targeting in vitro fertilization (IVF). Then, Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) opportunistically promoted a bill that wouldn’t so much protect IVF as it would legalize other anti-human practices, such as human cloning, human-animal chimeras, designer babies, and commercial gestational surrogacy.

To browbeat timid opponents into playing along with the charade, the Left trumped up fears of “theocracy” based on a non-binding concurring opinion. “The hand-wringing on the Left … isn’t actually on the majority decision,” Closson noted, but on “a concurring opinion that the chief justice wrote.”

Fear prevents people from thinking clearly, and that’s exactly what the Left is hoping for. If legislators had a moment to sit back and reflect, they would likely realize that “there are moral and spiritual, theological implications here,” said Perkins.

In fact, “There’s a long history within Christian ethics of looking at IVF and saying that … it’s morally fraught,” said Closson. IVF is a process designed for helping infertile couples conceive a child by combining egg and sperm in a laboratory, and then implanting the newly created human life back into the mother’s womb. “As Christians, we believe that at conception, when that sperm and egg come together, you have a human being.”

However, many IVF practitioners create far more embryos than would ever be gestated. “Usually it’s a dozen, maybe even more embryos” that are created, explained Closson. “They selectively choose which ones to implant in the woman.” Of these, all but one will likely be aborted. “Then the others are stored in freezer,” added Closson, resulting today in “millions of frozen embryos in freezers all over the country.” Many are never used and ultimately destroyed.

Despite the moral and ethical pitfalls of IVF, the Alabama Supreme Court did not prohibit the practice, nor even regulate it. All they said was a law protecting children from harm applied to all children, including embryos conceived via IVF. And, in a concurring opinion, Chief Justice Tom Parker added his commentary on the Alabama Constitution’s recognition of the “sanctity of unborn life.”

“That phrase, ‘sanctity of [unborn] life,’ appears in the Alabama Constitution. So, just being a good lawyer, [Parker] said, ‘Where did these words come from? What do these words mean?’ And so, he explored the Christian tradition of understanding sanctity of life, image of God,” Closson summarized.

Closson found it humorous that mainstream media accounts made the mistake of sneering at Parker’s opinion for “quoting 16th-century dead theologians like John Calvin and whatnot.” All their derision proved is that “Christians have been thinking about these issues for a very long time,” he pointed out. “It’s not that we just thought of these in a right-wing think tank last week. We’ve been thinking deeply about these issues for centuries.”

This is humorous because the Left doesn’t realize how far outclassed they are by centuries of brilliant minds. They don’t realize it because they never had to engage with that ancient tradition. Their thinking descends from Karl Marx, and while they might engage with some of his immediate intellectual forebearers (Rousseau, Darwin, Mill), they have little use for a tradition that had already grown wizened before those men were born. “The problem we’re seeing today is the absence of moral truth,” said Perkins. “There are no ethics that are standard and steadfast. It’s a Wild, Wild West.”

One implication of this ethical anarchy is the absence of any limits on what science should do. Just as researchers for the Chinese Communist Party continue to bioengineer deadlier coronaviruses and chimerical monkeys, so the American Left displays an apparent preference for pedantic, utilitarian reasoning over fundamental human rights. Duckworth’s bill would be a go-ahead signal to a lot of ethically dubious research.

“Just because science enables us to do something doesn’t mean we should do it,” argued Perkins. “We should be concerned about both the means and the ends of where this would lead us. And it needs to be guided by biblical truth, by morality … [and by] ethics.”

The fundamental reason why Christians believe all human life is valuable is that “God created man in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). To every human being, this reality imparts “transcendent value,” insisted Perkins. “It’s not value assigned to it. It is value that is inherent in it because it is created in the image of God.”

The road to pushing for designer babies, chimeras, cloning, and surrogacy begins by denying the fundamental reality that all human beings have inherent value because they bear God’s image.

“We need to start calling out a lie for what it is. It is a lie,” Perkins insisted. “Understanding is the first step, but having the confidence of that understanding gives us the ability to push back and say, ‘No, this is not true. It is not right, it is false.’”

Conservatives “playing defense” over the sanctity of unborn life don’t seem to realize that ours is the inherently stronger position. For centuries, Western civilization’s brightest minds have helped develop the implications of this doctrine, which is absolute truth. What does rootless, groundless, post-modern Marxism have to offer in comparison?

The current circumstances are as if the presidential motorcade was suddenly set upon by a gang of youths throwing pea gravel. Exiting the vehicle would be foolish, and waving a white flag would be irresponsible. If conservatives recognize and exploit the advantages of our position, the smear campaign against those standing up for the lives of unborn babies — including those conceived via IVF — can accomplish nothing.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.