Despite All Odds, One-Pound Baby Survives

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A baby born at 22 weeks and weighing only one pound and four ounces reached stability Monday after defying the odds of surviving.

Austin Douglas of England was born so early that his skin was translucent, organs visible, and ears and lungs undeveloped. He is the first baby to be born so early, weigh so little and survive.

Now, at 10 weeks old and after surviving two lung infections, his parents — Helen and Rhys — hope to take their baby home in the next month, reported Leicester Mercury.

Most full-term babies are born around 40 weeks, which means Douglas was only half way through full development when he was born.

Despite being only part way through the length of a normal pregnancy, his mother gave birth naturally at Leicester General. (Read more from “Despite All Odds, One-Pound Baby Survives” HERE)

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This Medication Could Reverse a Third of Abortions

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The abortion pill has been around for years and has become a highly common form of abortion.

Now, it appears an antidote medication has arrived, and it is already saving hundreds of babies.

The abortion pill (mifepristone, more commonly known as RU-486) has been shown in a new systematic review of literature to be effective at killing an embryo if given in doses ranging from 200 milligrams to 600 milligrams.

But an updated case series, soon to be published, will highlight the success rate of a little-known therapy called the “abortion pill reversal.” This therapy has a 60 to 70 percent success rate in reversing the effects of the abortion pill after it has been taken.

The therapy has already led to healthy births in 250 cases after mothers had taken the abortion pill, and there are currently 100 more pregnant women on this regimen after having taken the abortion pill and changed their minds.

U.S. medication abortions have been on the rise since 2000, when the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone under President Bill Clinton.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, medication abortions have increased from 6 percent of all abortions in 2001 to 31 percent in 2014, despite the overall decline in the number of abortions in the U.S. during that same period.

In addition, medication abortions account for nearly half (45 percent) of all abortions committed prior to nine weeks gestation.

In 2016, the FDA under President Barack Obama expanded the timeframe for the use of mifepristone to 10 weeks gestation. That move put women’s health and safety at further risk, since the abortion pill regimen is less effective the further along the woman is and carries a higher risk of major adverse events.

With the increase in state pro-life laws placing limits on abortion, and with fewer abortionists now in the medical field, medication abortion has become a convenient alternative to surgical abortions for the abortion industry.

The industry is intent on making medication abortions more widely available. Just in 2014, medication abortions were available at 87 percent of all non-hospital abortion providers.

The Procedure

Medication abortions involve two drugs in order to fully abort the baby—mifepristone and misoprostol.

The first drug, mifepristone, acts to block progesterone, a hormone that not only allows the embryo to implant but also stimulates the delivery of essential nutrients to the growing baby within the mother’s uterus. Without progesterone, the baby starves to death and the placenta separates.

Misoprostol is then taken about 36 to 72 hours after taking the mifepristone, causing contractions that are meant to expel the dead baby.

This process may take a few hours or up to a few days. The mother delivers the dead baby at home without the supervision of a doctor.

In order to work, the abortion pill reversal technique must be started generally within the first 24 to 72 hours of taking mifepristone and before taking misoprostol.

This innovative procedure was discovered by Dr. Matt Harrison in 2006. He realized that if he gave women extra progesterone, it competed with the effects of mifepristone and could save the baby’s life by allowing nutrients to once again reach the growing baby.

Since 2009, Dr. George Delgado has also been involved in the abortion pill reversal. Delgado and others established the Abortion Pill Reversal hotline in 2012. Now, there are more than 350 providers nationwide who are equipped to do the abortion pill reversal technique.

A Growing Movement

The women who have undergone successful reversal therapy are amazing testaments to the efficacy of the procedure.

Take for example Rebekah Buell, who at 18 years old realized she had made a mistake soon after taking mifepristone in the spring of 2013.

The new option of a reversal allowed Buell to save and give birth to her healthy son Zechariah, who is now a precocious 3-year-old.

Andrea Minichini experienced a similar miraculous reversal. Minichini, then 21 years old, desperately searched for a way to save her preborn son from the moment she swallowed the first abortion pill under pressure from her doctor and her boyfriend.

Although she underwent the abortion pill reversal at approximately 48 hours after taking mifepristone, the progesterone therapy was successful, and she too gave birth to her healthy son Gabriel, a thriving 2-and-a-half-year-old today.

Thanks to courageous mothers and the ingenuity of doctors who are using medicine for good, 250 babies have been miraculously saved from the grip of abortion and have been born healthy. And as mentioned, there are 100 more pregnant women currently undergoing the abortion pill reversal technique.

The abortion pill reversal truly gives moms a second chance at choice and their babies a chance at life. (For more from the author of “This Medication Could Reverse a Third of Abortions” please click HERE)

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The Hopeful Feminism of ‘Wonder Woman’

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“Wonder Woman” is a feminist movie conservatives can embrace.

It’s a fun movie that truly embraces the “girl” in “girl power.” Yes, the heroine Diana is a powerful fighter—and she’s raised on an island of Amazons, all of whom seem to excel at hand-to-hand combat and shooting arrows.

But she’s also a woman who is thrilled when she catches sight of a baby. And while she’s not a mom herself, her genuine sorrow and pity when she realizes the plight of women and children living through World War I makes her as much of a “mama grizzly” as Sarah Palin. In fact, she starts fighting—ignoring the men who urge her to wait—precisely because she is unwilling to tolerate losing the civilians she sees suffering.

Nor does “Wonder Woman” contain any of the anti-men sentiments so many feminists seem to feel a need to embrace. Thanks to being a superhero, Diana Prince is, quite simply, a better fighter than the men she encounters—but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t appreciate their company or their own skills. (And yes, Diana fights—but no other woman in the movie is seen on the battlefield. There’s no attempt here to push a male-female army.)

In fact, in the ultimate crisis of the movie, Diana is roused to action because she’s inspired by a man.

The climactic scene of “Wonder Woman” comes when Diana, who discovers she is actually a goddess, is urged by her brother Ares, another god, to allow war to continue.

Ares, who was the Greek god of war, urges her to see all the evilness and ill will in humanity and pushes her to realize that man doesn’t deserve peace and happiness. Humans, he essentially says, are so evil they merit the discord and horror of war.

Diana, who was not raised among humans, is certainly tempted by Ares’ argument. Her short time in the real world, a saga begun when a spy makes a crash landing in the ocean near the Amazons’ island, has been dispiriting. She’s realized that humans, far from being the wonderful creatures she originally thought they were, are decidedly a mixed bag—and sometimes not good at all.

In a way, Ares’ argument echoes some of the liberal themes we see in our modern conversation. Just consider the concern about humans’ impact on the environment touted regularly in climate change arguments, or the fears about overpopulation. Ares’ pessimism about whether humans contribute anything significantly positive to the earth seems to be a real mindset among some.

Yet Diana ultimately rejects it—because of the spy she met. That spy, Steve Trevor, is Diana’s love interest—but he’s also her introduction to the complicated emotional dynamics of the “good guys.”

Steve is not the starry-eyed idealist Diana is, and when she first is devastated by humans’ decisions, Steve ultimately concedes that she’s right: Some people may not deserve to be rescued or saved. But that doesn’t mean he won’t do it, anyway—and not long after, Steve knowingly and willingly gives up his own life to protect the lives of many others.

And is that sacrifice which makes Diana, even with her new understanding of mankind’s very real flaws, willing to fight Ares—and not settle for a world where humans are pushed into war and destruction.

I had my doubts about “Wonder Woman” going into the movie theater—especially since I’d read that the original Wonder Woman character was inspired in part by the niece of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.

I don’t know about the original comic-book character of the 1940s, but this version is instead someone who embraces life, including cherishing babies. In her horror at the destruction of war and her willingness to sacrifice for the lives of others, this Wonder Woman is very much a woman who shows, even at the cost of great sacrifices, that the lives of men and women are worth saving. (For more from the author of “The Hopeful Feminism of ‘Wonder Woman'” please click HERE)

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Christian Soccer Player Withdraws From Friendlies as US Team Is Set to Wear Gay Pride Jerseys

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A release from U.S. Soccer said [Jaelene] Hinkle, 24, who is a defender for the North Carolina Courage, was called into the national camp to play international friendlies against Sweden and Norway this month. She was not replaced on the roster after her withdrawal.

It is unclear if U.S. Soccer’s celebration of gay pride this month is related to Hinkle’s withdrawal but she wears her faith proudly on social media.

She proudly boasts Colossians 3:23 on Twitter which says: “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.”

“If you live for people’s acceptance, you’ll die from their rejection,” the tagline also notes.

She also converted a gay pride logo into a celebration of the cross on Instagram the same day the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in 2015 while sharing her thoughts on the decision. (Read more from “Christian Soccer Player Withdraws From Friendlies as US Team Is Set to Wear Gay Pride Jerseys” HERE)

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Gay Pride Month and the ‘Shot Heard Round the World’

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Quick quiz: According to statements published by the U.S. government, where was the shot fired that was “heard round the world”? Lexington and Concord, you say?

Good answer — but you’re only halfway there. There was another “shot heard round the world,” says the National Park Service. That one was in June 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, where two nights of rioting “led to the development of the modern LGBT civil rights movement.”

The Gay-Rights “Shot Heard Round the World”

You read that right. The U.S. government has co-opted Ralph Waldo Emerson’s deeply symbolic phrase to make the birth of the gay rights movement symbolically equal to the birth of our own country. To fill in the rest of the quotation:

The riots inspired LGBT people throughout the country to organize and within two years of Stonewall, LGBT rights groups had been started in nearly every major city in the U.S. Stonewall was, as historian Lillian Faderman wrote, “the shot heard round the world … crucial because it sounded the rally for the movement.”

There’s history at Stonewall, to be sure. And its reach was indeed global. The month of June is now designated “Pride Month,” and almost 150 gay pride festivals are scheduled in cities around the world.

But what does this mean for true freedom?

The Depth of Our National Confusion

It’s worth noting that Lillian Faderman’s full quote read, “to many homosexuals, male and female alike, the Stonewall Rebellion was the shot heard round the world” (emphasis added).

I give her credit for identifying the group who might have seen it that way. The Park Service’s version leaves that out, making it a statement for us all.

I shudder to think of how celebrations in 2017 would have turned out if Stonewall had happened a week later that year, on July 4. As far as I can tell, the White House has never been lit up in red, white, and blue. We’ve all got images seared on our brains, though, of it lit up in the six rainbow colors of the gay rights movement.

This isn’t just happening on some obscure web page, in other words. The gay rights movement has become America’s new freedom movement. It perfectly depicts the depth of our national confusion.

Freedom Based in the Image of God

For there is “freedom,” and there is freedom.

There is the freedom for which our forefathers fought at Lexington, Concord and beyond. It was a view of liberty rooted in a biblical understanding of what it means to be human.

They knew that humans are made in the image of God. We’re not just today’s snapshot in some ever-changing course of evolution. Instead human nature is a stable, enduring, real. We have a moral nature based in God’s own character. We have a well-designed sexual nature, based in God’s plan for us as individuals, couples and families who build communities and cultures together. We have a destiny based on how we relate to God in Christ and to each other in accordance with God’s design for us.

Argue all you want about whether America was founded as a Christian nation, there’s no denying that our founders’ view of human nature that was deeply influenced by the Bible’s view of humanity. Even Thomas Jefferson, who was no Christian, knew at our inalienable rights come from our Creator. Not government, not courts, not even (later on) our Constitution.

Our founders fought for freedom from political tyranny that kept them from determining their own course. Their fight was never for the “freedom” to do whatever anyone chose, though. Quite the opposite. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” Freedom was not merely the ability to do as one wanted; it was the ability to do as one ought.

Or Freedom Based in Making Ourselves Our Own Creators

That’s the freedom for which the shots were fired at Lexington and Concord. Stonewall’s freedom has almost nothing to do with that. With all thought of a Creator cast aside, “freedom” now means being able to create ourselves after our own wills. Not satisfied with your sex? Create yourself all over again! Not content with the morality that’s held the Western world together – in spite of various wars and injustices – for centuries? Call it off! Re-make marriage while you’re at it!

And why not? The view now is that nothing about us is fixed. We’re evolving, so we can make ourselves whatever we decide to be. The same goes for human purpose and moral standards: There’s nothing there but what’s evolved over the eons, but we can alter that, too, as we will.

Our Choice: Celebrating Freedom or Free Fall

We claim this as a new-found freedom. But we’re like the kite that yearned to fly high and away, free of the string it thought was holding it down. Freedom? No. Free fall.

Yet this is the freedom our own Park Service symbolically equates with Lexington and Concord. The patriotism of red, white and blue is being displaced by the spectrum of the gay rainbow.

America was never perfect. It took us way too long to recognize that human rights belong to everyone. Still we got there in law and (to an obviously lesser, yet still helpful, degree) in practice. The shots fired at Lexington and Concord led ultimately to our country becoming the world’s greatest champion for true freedom. The shot fired at Stonewall is leading us in another direction altogether.

The LGBT crowd will be celebrating their “pride” this month. That’s their choice. Our own Park Service seems to be saying everyone else is obliged to join them. I can’t think of anything else that so clearly shows the depth of our national confusion. (For more from the author of “Gay Pride Month and the ‘Shot Heard Round the World'” please click HERE)

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New Law Allows Govt to Seize Children If Parents Oppose Their ‘Gender Identity’

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Legislation passed by the Canadian province of Ontario has granted authorities the right to take children away from parents who refuse to accept their children’s “gender identity.” Critics of the new measure launched a petition aiming for a repeal of the “totalitarian” child abuse bill.

Out of Ontario’s 86 legislators, 63 voted in favor of Bill 89 or “The Supporting Children, Youth and Families Act of 2017” on June 1.

The legislation replaces the Child and Family Services Act which used to govern child protection, foster care and adoption services in the province.

The new law includes “gender identity” and “gender expression” as factors to be considered by child protection services “in the best interests of the child.”

It deprives parents of their earlier right to “direct the child’s education and religious upbringing.” (Read more from “New Law Allows Govt to Seize Children If Parents Oppose Their ‘Gender Identity'” HERE)

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‘God Restores’: Olympic Gold Medalist Who Grieves After an Abortion Wants to Help Other Post-Abortive Women

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Four-time Olympic gold medalist in track and field Sanya Richards-Ross recently penned a memoir. In it she revealed that she had an abortion right before the 2008 Olympics. The experience left her feeling loss and grief. But after a moment when she experienced God for herself in Bejing, she began the healing process. Now she says God restores, and through her book hopes to help other women who’ve suffered loss because of abortion.

‘The Toughest Time of My Life’

Just before the 2008 Olympics in Bejing, Sanya Richards-Ross found out that she was pregnant. She was at the top of her game and was favored to win gold that year. She didn’t see a way to have a baby during the height of her career and chose to have an abortion. In her new book, Chasing Grace: What the Quarter Mile Has Taught Me About God and Life, Sanya opens up about what she called the toughest time of her life.

In an interview with Newsworthy with Norsworthy, Sanya said she wasn’t sure she wanted to include the abortion in her book at first. “I literally prayed about that for almost two years because it’s something that is really private. A lot of women don’t talk about it.” Sanya felt like she’d been chasing something her entire life, whether that was gold medals or the best version of herself.

God’s Grace

“Ultimately what I learned was, while I was chasing all these things, what really kept me going was God’s grace.” She decided to add the story of her abortion because “I felt like if I didn’t share the moment of my life where I did feel God’s grace the most I felt like it would’ve been disingenuous to my journey.” If it wasn’t for God’s grace, she wouldn’t have been able to recognize that the decision of her abortion didn’t define her. “I am the person I’m striving to be,” she said, “I have to work on it every single day.”

Sanya felt that if she won her race in the 2008 Bejing Olympics it would take her shame away. She’d just had the abortion and was on the brink of a breakdown. “But then,” she said, “there was another part of me that was like, ‘I don’t deserve this victory.’”

God’s Presence

Her experience with God’s presence came as she was getting off of a bus in Bejing just before the race. “I felt literally, emotionally, physically lost. God wrapped His arms around me … He just hugged me and told me He loved me and I was going to be okay.” It was then that she said she felt a peace that passes all understanding. “All of a sudden, I just felt like, Oh my God — God has already forgiven me. Now I’ve got to forgive myself.” It didn’t happen overnight for Sanya, but “it was the beginning of recovery for me.”

She spent time between the Bejing races with her family, talking to her parents and praying. She returned to the last race revived and energized. “I had an amazing experience running from behind and beating Team Russia, so I’m grateful for that.” She received a bronze medal for her individual race but won gold in her team’s relay. She went on to win Olympic gold in 2012 in the 400-meter race.

‘To Glorify God’

While she worried about how people would receive her story, “Ultimately, I did it to glorify God. To tell people that ‘You can come back from any decision no matter how hard it is to make or no matter what you thought about it in the past. You can still have God along with you along the journey.’”

‘God Restores!’

Sanya is continuing to heal from her abortion. She is now looking forward to the birth of her second child. Although she still tears up about her experience, she has a message for other post-abortive women: “God restores!” Every time she tells her story she heals a little bit more, she said. “Healing means ultimately understanding that God has forgiven you. I think when you do that, then it really helps you to process that, ‘Look, God doesn’t love the way I love, you know, He loves me unconditionally and we all make mistakes.’” (For more from the author of “‘God Restores’: Olympic Gold Medalist Who Grieves After an Abortion Wants to Help Other Post-Abortive Women” please click HERE)

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Why We Kill Disabled Kids: For the Same Reason Cain Killed Abel

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Like many non-fiction writers, I’m a frustrated novelist. I’ve written a total of three. Each one stinks up a very old box in storage. But why? I’ve had to admit that characters don’t interest me very much except as hand puppets for arguing over what really grabs me: abstract ideas. A master of psychology like Dostoevsky could afford to work philosophical arguments into his stories. When I try it, the outcome reads, as one writing teacher told me, “like Maoist propaganda.” He was a leftist, but I don’t think he meant that as a compliment.

The Science Fiction Novel I’ll Never Write

But if I could write convincing characters, there’s one story I’d like to tell. What if we came across a group of humans who’d never endured the Fall? Or let’s go sci-fi: What if some scientist took DNA from the Shroud of Turin and cloned some? Sin passes through the blood, as St. Paul tells us. And Jesus’ blood didn’t have any. So right there you’ve got a sci-fi basis for how this could happen. Imagine some unhinged biologist in Italy opened up his lab and revealed that he’d created a thousand biological copies of Jesus Christ. (They’re purely human. No scientist can reenact the Incarnation.) Even better, this doctor did some tinkering and made a thousand females whom they could marry.

What would such people be like? That’s what I’d find interesting to picture. We’d get to meet Adam and Eve again, before the Fall. We’d be able to see mankind as God intended him originally — not hag-ridden by temptation. Not cut off from God by an infinite gap that only divine Grace could possibly bridge, at the cost of the Cross. No, man as he was meant to be. Doing what he was meant to do, as easily as dogs do. No struggle against the constant pull of a tainted will and darkened intellect. Virtue coming naturally. Kindness welling up easily. Good sportsmanship all round.

Catholics believe that Mary, too, was spared Original Sin (through the grace of Christ, which vaccinated her at conception. Don’t ask, I don’t want to argue about it, and I promise not to read any comments contesting it). So we RCs can look at the Gospel accounts of her actions for hints of this. But there isn’t that much there, really. Just a few lovely, tantalizing anecdotes. So even Catholics should find this question interesting. In fact we do; large swathes of our traditional theology are devoted to distinguishing firmly between what belongs to Grace, and what to created nature.

What Would Unfilled People Really Be Like?

That would be the fun part of the book: Laying out in fine detail just what people are like when they’re just what God meant us to be. Not the patched-up, battered creatures that even Christians redeemed by Grace still are throughout this life: full of scars from our sins, old nagging temptations, gross imperfections and regrets. Not what we’ll become at the Resurrection, when even our wounds will be transfigured, and every fall will seem to us happy. No, the simple, plain creatures that Milton tried to envision in Paradise Lost. That Lewis imagined on Malacandra in Out of the Silent Planet. You have to admit that this is an exciting challenge for a gifted novelist. (Too bad I’m not one.)

Then the book would turn very sad, very quickly. Because it’s obvious what the rest of us would do to these unfallen creatures as soon as we got bored of studying them.

Why We Target the Innocent

We would kill them. All of them. Quickly. Not even a breeding pair would survive in captivity, anywhere on earth. They would disappear like the Dodos, flightless birds that had known no predators till the white man landed, found them and ate them. Every last one.

How do I know this? There’s a long, long list of incidents that point to this melancholy conclusion: Sinful man envies innocence (even relative innocence), and because he cannot attain it, he often decides to destroy it. That’s why Cain killed Abel. Why Joseph’s brothers attacked him. Why the Egyptians targeted the Hebrews. It’s why the mighty Roman Empire over and over again wielded its legions against little Judea. It’s why so many in Jesus’ time and place agreed that He needed to die. It’s why the most helpless minorities, like Jews and Gypsies and the handicapped, attracted Hitler’s most savage hatred.

The great Christian thinker Rene Girard developed a philosophy of history based on this insight. He said that “scapegoating” the innocent lies at the heart of fallen human civilization: that every city is built with the lime of human blood. It was only the coming of Jesus that unmasked and began to unmake this.

But I don’t need elaborate theories or historical lists of victim groups to prove my point. To know that this book would be too sad to write, even had I the talent.

Hunting Down the Handicapped

We only need look at the fate of Down’s Syndrome children today. It’s not enough that unborn children per se are as innocent as it is possible to be, after the Fall. We destroy one in three of those. In our rights-obsessed, virtue-signaling West that will turn reality upside down lest some drag queen be banned from the restroom of his choice … more than 90 percent of children detected with this disorder are killed in the womb.

Even when allowed to live, few of these will ever reach the mental age where they can commit a serious sin. Parents report that Downs Syndrome kids are usually happy, loving, guileless and kind.

And Satan hates that more than anything on this earth. He hates it as he hated Adam and Eve. So he goads us, their luckless descendants, to feel that very same hatred. He casts it as fear. Of the inconvenience, the burden. He dresses it up as “compassion.” We are too kind, too generous to let such hapless creatures draw a breath, or walk the earth. It’s for their “own good” we tell ourselves. But we know better.

We bury that knowledge. Whole countries like France censor videos depicting how happy, how good, how innocent and lovable these hunted children can be. If only someone would love them, would offer them the care and protection that we pretend we offer the innocent and the helpless. We good, good tolerant humanitarian people, who don’t need the blood of Christ to wash us clean. No, we don’t need that, and we don’t need those kids to remind us how tainted we really are. And so we kill them.

So that’s why I won’t write that novel. I couldn’t bear it. (For more from the author of “Why We Kill Disabled Kids: For the Same Reason Cain Killed Abel” please click HERE)

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Let’s Help Military Families by Adopting a ‘GI Bill’ for Their Children

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President Donald Trump made helping the “forgotten man” a key theme of his presidency from the get-go.

The challenge for Trump is how to aid the forgotten man by shrinking the programs and institutions that left him behind to begin with while moving toward policies that will help him thrive in the 21st century.

One of the forefronts of that important shift is in expanding education choice, which Trump has announced as one of the priorities of his administration.

In Trump’s first speech to a joint session of Congress he said, “I am calling upon members of both parties to pass an education bill that funds school choice for disadvantaged youth.”

But how can Trump bring school choice to parents across the country without violating the principles of federalism and interfering with state-level innovators who are at the forefront of reform?

The answer is to create school choice within existing federal education programs that actually have a constitutional warrant, not the least of which is a program designed to serve our armed forces.

The Heritage Foundation’s Lindsey Burke and Anne Ryland propose just that in their paper, “A GI Bill for Children of Military Families: Transforming Impact Aid into Education Savings Accounts,” which was recently profiled by The Washington Post.

In a clear reference to the famous GI Bill of the 1940s, which provided education benefits to soldiers upon their return home from World War II, Burke and Ryland’s proposal would bring better education options to over 600,000 children of military families.

The proposal is an innovative way to further the school choice revolution that will hopefully transform America’s K-12 education system, while specifically helping our heroes’ most precious commodities: their children.

Our Constitution is explicit in the necessity to provide for national defense. This plan will help ensure that we provide for those who stand as its bulwark.

Failing Those Who Serve

The paper highlighted how a survey conducted by the Military Times found that a staggering 35 percent of military personnel surveyed said that unhappiness with their child’s education was a critical factor in their decision to remain or leave the armed services.

Many of these families live in states and localities with failing public schools, so if they wish to continue serving their country, they may have to do so amid concerns about the schooling options available to their children.

This is unacceptable, and should be concerning to Americans who believe in taking care of the people who dedicate their lives to defending this country.

Military families already bear the strain of long deployments, constant travel, and stress of deploying into harm’s way.

Additional pressures on our troops, such as concern about their children receiving the education that is right for them, is one Congress can and should attempt to resolve.

However, over half of active-duty military families in the U.S. dwell in states that have no school choice options for them to escape to if their local public schools do not align with their needs.

High-population states like California and Texas, which have the highest number of military families, have no private school choice options whatsoever.

This problem can be alleviated by having Congress redirect roughly $1.3 billion in funds from the Impact Aid program, created to bring federal tax dollars to school districts with military and federally-connected populations, directly to military families through education savings accounts specifically created for them.

Importantly, it would require no additional taxpayer money and would simply be using funds that already exist.

But like with other school choice programs, interest groups have come out to attack any proposal that breaks up the government school monopoly.

Breaking the Status Quo

The National Association of Federally Impacted Schools’ director charged that the military kids school choice plan was “misguided” in a recent interview with Politico, and claimed that it would “dismantle a program based on fairness to taxpayers.”

This echoes arguments that teacher unions in particular have made about school choice in general.

Changing funding mechanisms from districts to individuals threatens the exclusive control over how the money is used, but empowers parents and individuals to decide for themselves what services work best for them.

The National Association of Federally Impacted Schools also released a statement saying that “changing Impact Aid into an [education savings account] would burden local taxpayers with higher taxes and require students to go without.”

The charge that the plan would raise taxes for districts is incorrect. There is simply no reason to increase local taxes to pay for students who are no longer in the public system.

Even the Obama administration recognized the need for reforming Impact Aid.

In recent budget requests, both the Trump and Obama administrations suggested eliminating Impact Aid for federal property, arguing that districts have had plenty of time to adjust their tax rolls to federal acquisitions made decades ago, and that Impact Aid dollars should be directed to federally connected children.

The Obama fiscal year budget request said:

It is the administration’s policy to use available Impact Aid funds to help pay for the education on federally connected children and fund programs that serve federally connected children. Payments for federal property compensates LEAs [districts] for lost property tax revenue due to the presence of federal lands without regard to whether those districts educate any federally connected children as a result of federal presence.

Implicit in that argument is that if the kids aren’t there, the dollars should follow them to where they are: their chosen schools. If the kids leave a district school, the dollars should follow the child.

The Next Generation

Adopting school choice to better serve those who serve us would be a major boon to these families who have carried an enormous weight for the rest of us.

It would also help ensure that the next generation of military personnel—who in very high numbers come from military families—receive a first-rate education that will help them through life.

It will ease the minds and burdens of these families if Congress and Trump can give them the tools they need to thrive. We have a duty not to forget or neglect these people to whom we owe so much.

The forgotten child of the forgotten man will be given the opportunity to succeed and pursue the American dream. (For more from the author of “Let’s Help Military Families by Adopting a ‘GI Bill’ for Their Children” please click HERE)

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Bernie Sanders Just Applied a Religious Test to a Christian Nominee for Public Office

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The U.S. Constitution prohibits the use of a “religious test” for any office or public trust. But Bernie Sanders got very close to doing just on Wednesday. It was during the confirmation hearing for President Trump’s nominee for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget.

During Russell Vought’s confirmation hearing, Sanders took issue with an article Vought wrote for conservative website The Resurgent in January 2016, reported The Atlantic. In his article, Vought defended a Christian school that had fired a professor for expressing solidarity with Muslims. Sanders objected to Vought’s statement in the article: “Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned.”

Sanders objected. “In my view, the statement made by Mr. Vought is indefensible, it is hateful, it is Islamophobic, and it is an insult to over a billion Muslims throughout the world,” Sanders told the committee at the hearing. “This country, since its inception, has struggled, sometimes with great pain, to overcome discrimination of all forms … we must not go backwards.”

Later Sanders asked Vought, “Do you believe that statement is Islamophobic?” “Absolutely not, Senator,” said Vought. “I’m a Christian, and I believe in a Christian set of principles based on my faith.”

Sanders continued to berate and interrupt Vought. “I don’t know how many Muslims there are in America, I really don’t know, probably a couple million. Are you suggesting that all of those people stand condemned? What about Jews? Do they stand condemned too?” Vought replied that he was a Christian, but Sanders quickly cut him off. “I understand you are a Christian. But this country is made up of people who are not just — I understand that Christianity is the majority religion. But there are other people who have different religions in this country and around the world. In your judgment, do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?”

Vought tried to explain the concept of imago dei to Sanders. “As a Christian, I believe that all individuals are made in the image of God and are worthy of dignity and respect, regardless of their religious beliefs. I believe that as a Christian that’s how I should treat all individuals … .” Sanders cut him off again and asked Vought if his comments were respectful of other religions. Vought reminded Sanders that the article he wrote was as a Christian about a Christian university, which “has a statement of faith that speaks clearly with regard to the centrality of Jesus Christ in salvation.”

In response, Sanders told the committee: “I would simply say, Mr. Chairman, that this nominee is really not someone who is what this country is supposed to be about. I will vote no.”

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention responded to Sanders’ religious test in the hearing.

Senator Sanders’ comments are breathtakingly audacious and shockingly ignorant — both of the Constitution and of basic Christian doctrine. Even if one were to excuse Senator Sanders for not realizing that all Christians of every age have insisted that faith in Jesus Christ is the only pathway to salvation, it is inconceivable that Senator Sanders would cite religious beliefs as disqualifying an individual for public office in defiance of the United States Constitution. No religious test shall ever be required of those seeking public office. While no one expects Senator Sanders to be a theologian, we should expect far more from an elected official who has taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution.

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