Promoting Islam in Our Schools

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Memorizing the Islamic conversion prayer. Reciting the Five Pillars of Islam. Affirming that Christians are not as strong in their faith as Muslims. Several school districts across the nation are requiring their students to study Islam. And parents aren’t happy about it.

A 1963 Supreme Court decision allows for historical instruction about religions. But it seems that Islam is the only religion that is okay to promote. Some parents believe the Islamic teaching has gone too far. And now there’s a lawsuit.

The Court Opens the Door

The Supreme Court in Abington v. Schempp ruled that organized religious events violated the First Amendment. Schools could not require Bible reading or praying in class. But they could offer courses on the Bible or religion as a secular subject. The Court said that “education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization.”

Those who know Abington know it as the case that kicked Bible reading out of public education. But it left the door open for a historical study of the Christianity — or any other religion. Now the study of Islam is making its way into the school systems nationwide.

Islamic teaching in public schools has alarmed several parents. They believe it has crossed the line from a historical study to indoctrination. They believe that school districts are promoting Islam over other religions.

The Problem with Teaching Islam

A La Plata, California, High School parent brought a lawsuit against the school. John Kevin Wood and his wife said that his daughter’s school required her to complete assignments that endorsed Islam.

The school required her to affirm that “Most Muslims’ faith is stronger than the average Christian.” The school required all students to recite the Islamic conversion prayer. The prayer, called the Shahada, states that “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.” The school also required students to profess the Five Pillars of Islam.

Wood said his daughter’s school forced her to write statements that offended and denied her Christian beliefs. When she refused to complete the assignments, she received failing grades. Her teacher sent her to the school library away from her classmates. As a result, she felt ostracized because of her Christian beliefs.

Wood contacted the school and asked for alternative assignments. The school’s principal refused. Wood informed the principal that he would contact an attorney and the media. The school then reportedly responded by obtaining a restraining order against Wood. He could no longer pick up his daughter on school property or attend parent-teacher meetings.

La Plata High School did not teach Christianity the same way as Islam, according to Wood. Christianity was taught for one day—disparagingly. Islam was taught for two weeks—sympathetically. The lesson did not require students to learn any of Christianity’s tenets, faith statements or creeds. Nor were the students required to learn any of Judaism’s.

It Happens in Other Schools Too

It happens in other schools, too. Parents across the country have complained that their child’s school required them to:

Dress up as a Muslim, learn prayers and scriptures from the Quran;

Memorize the Five Pillars of Islam and listen to a Muslim prayer;

Memorize and recite the Shahada, or the conversion prayer; and

Write the Shahada in Arabic as part of a calligraphy lesson.

Parents of students at several schools complain that teachers do not teach non-Muslim religions. And that is the crux of the issue for many parents.

The Ten Commandments would never be a lesson requirement, said one New Jersey mom. “If Islam is taught, teach Christianity, too. [My son] couldn’t even put a Bible verse in his presentation that was student-initiated. So they’re not only teaching Islam, but they’re not allowing students to be free in expressing their [Christian] religious beliefs.”

Many school districts indoctrinate students in Islam, said Thomas More Law Center President Richard Thompson. “This is happening in public schools across the country. And [parents] must take action to stop it.”

The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause

The Establishment Clause prohibits the government from establishing a religion. The Supreme Court decided in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) that a three-part test would govern what constitutes “establishment of a religion.” Under the “Lemon test,” government can make laws or policy about religion if the reason for the law is secular, it neither promotes nor inhibits religion, and it doesn’t excessively entangle church and state.

Teaching about Islam in schools may not seem at first glance to be a problem. But the law is clear that the government may not adhere to, promote or inhibit a particular religion. This includes public school districts. Teaching Islam as a secular subject along with other religions equally is lawful. When the teaching of Islam promotes the religion above others, that is against the law. This is found in the Establishment Clause of our First Amendment.

The First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University stated these lessons can go too far. In particular, some “hands-on” activities border on unconstitutional endorsement of religion. They added, “Would any of these schools dream of acting out the Catholic Mass or inviting a Protestant minister to give a sermon in the gym?”

Even if school districts have good intentions, they can still cross the line, the Center noted. “However well-intentioned, including religions and cultures by violating the Constitution doesn’t help anyone. … All of us have an important stake in making sure that First Amendment principles are applied fairly and justly to each and every individual and group in the United States.” (For more from the author of “Promoting Islam in Our Schools” please click HERE)

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Charges: Sex Traffickers Took Hundreds From Thailand to US

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Hundreds of women were brought from Thailand to the U.S. and forced to be “modern day sex slaves,” according to an indictment unsealed Thursday that charges high-level members of what authorities called a sophisticated sex-trafficking ring that concealed millions of dollars in earnings.

The indictment brings the total number of people charged to 38, making it one of the largest sex-trafficking prosecutions in the U.S., said Acting U.S. Attorney Gregory Brooker. Authorities say the operation lured Thai women to the U.S. with promises of a better life, then forced them to work as prostitutes until they could pay off often insurmountable bondage debts.

Women were rotated through several prostitution houses around the U.S., forced to work long hours, and “forced to have sex with strangers, even if the men were abusive,” Brooker said. (Read more from “Charges: Sex Traffickers Took Hundreds From Thailand to US” HERE)

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Harvard Law Journal: Unborn Babies Are Constitutional Persons

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“Harvard law journal: unborn babies are constitutional persons.” So reads the surprising headline on the press release from the student-run Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. In a provocative article, law student Joshua Craddock fires a challenge not only at pro-choice orthodoxy but at mainstream pro-life thinking. He declares both “constitutionally unsound.”

Edited by Harvard Law School students, the journal describes itself as “the nation’s leading forum for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship.” New Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch’s article on assisted suicide first appeared there. Ted Cruz was an executive editor.

Before he went to law school, Craddock worked for Personhood USA, a United Nations NGO. A recent graduate of King’s College in New York City, he has written for The Stream.

The Article’s Challenge

Craddock’s article challenges the Supreme Court’s pro-choice decisions. The majority of the Court since 1973’s Roe v. Wade refuses to decide whether an unborn child is a human being with human rights. The court basically says, “Who knows? So we’ll say no.”

The justices think other matters are more important than the answer. One of them is the belief found in the majority decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” A definition of personhood “formed under compulsion of the State” would keep people from exercising this liberty. So the justices believe.

The article also challenges the broad agreement among pro-life legal scholars that the Constitution doesn’t say anything on the issue. Most speak as “originalists,” people who try to find what the Constitution meant to those who wrote and approved it.

Most conservative legal scholars claim that the Constitution doesn’t deal with the nature of the unborn at all. Conservative judicial hero Antonin Scalia declared that the Constitution says “absolutely nothing” about abortion. It assumes only “walking-around persons” are real human beings, he once said.

These scholars would leave the decision to the political process. That means the state governments. This allows what Scalia called “regional differences.” In their idea of the Constitution, an unborn child might be protected in one state and killed at any moment until birth in the next one. Craddock calls this “the states’ rights view.”

They’re Both Wrong

Craddock thinks they’re both wrong. Pro-choicers and pro-lifers both misinterpret the Constitution. The “original” meaning includes the unborn child’s right to life.

He focuses on the Fourteenth Amendment, passed in 1868. No state, it declares, shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Whatever the original Constitution may have to say on abortion, Craddock argues that amendment includes the unborn among the “persons” whose rights it protects. They can’t be deprived of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” They, just as much as born persons, have the Constitution right to “the equal protection of the laws.”

Craddock provides three arguments: What the word person meant then, the anti-abortion laws of the time, and what the people who wrote the amendment said about it, all show that the amendment includes the unborn.

Take the state anti-abortion laws in place before the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. Almost every state had laws against abortion, he notes. Most of these laws were part of the law covering “offenses against the person.” In addition, 23 of the 37 states explicitly called the unborn child a “child” in their laws. Six of the 11 territories did so as well.

Craddock offers other evidence. In 1859, the American Medical Association demanded the government protect the “independent and actual existence of the child before birth.” Eight years later, the Medical Society of New York called abortion at any stage of the child’s life “murder.”

This and much other evidence shows that “a general consensus treated preborn human beings as ‘persons.’ … [T]he preborn were included within the public meaning of the term ‘person’ at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted.” Therefore the amendment itself considers the unborn to be persons with the right to life.

A New Birth of Freedom

States that allow abortions violate the Constitution, Craddock declares in his conclusion. “Congress or the courts must intervene.” For example, if a state allows the unborn to be killed but prosecutes the murderers of other groups of people, it denies the unborn the equal protection of the laws. A higher authority must act to protect the lives of the unborn.

If Craddock is right, the Supreme Court may finally base its rulings on what the Constitution assumes about the unborn. “The Fourteenth Amendment,” Craddock concludes, “was to be a new birth of freedom for all human beings.” (For more from the author of “Harvard Law Journal: Unborn Babies Are Constitutional Persons” please click HERE)

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Horrifying Video From Abortion Conference Shows Utter Disregard for Human Life

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Lawyers for Center for Medical Progress founder David Daleiden released a new video on Thursday that exposed horrifying statements from leaders within the abortion industry. The video footage was obtained at National Abortion Federation conventions that took place in California in 2014 and 2015.

The National Abortion Federation describes itself as “the professional association of abortion providers.” It “exhibits and presents at numerous conferences … about topics related to abortion care.”

The video notes that “Planned Parenthood makes up about 50 percent of [the National Abortion Federation’s] members and leadership.”

The video opens with a Planned Parenthood medical director speaking on a panel about “heads that get stuck” and the “hemorrhages that we manage.”

She is later seen telling a panel: “Given that we might actually both agree that there’s violence in here, ask me why I come to work every day. Let’s just give them all the violence, it’s a person, it’s killing, let’s just give them all that.”

A Planned Parenthood abortionist then complains about how an unborn child “is a tough little object” and is “very difficult” to take apart.

A lawyer from the American Civil Liberties Union is heard remarking, “When the skull is broken, that’s really sharp!” as the crowd laughs about the difficulty of “getting that skull out.”

Another Planned Parenthood official is seen speaking on a panel recalling that an “eyeball just fell down into my lap, and that is gross!” as the crowd laughs.

A procurement manager from StemExpress is seen commenting that there are “a lot of clinics that we work with that, I mean, it helps them out significantly.”

A Planned Parenthood official later says that “[t]he truth is that some might want to do it … to increase their revenues. And we can’t stop them.”

One would think the state of California would be concerned about what was said at these conferences.

But instead of looking into potential illegal profits from the transfer of fetal tissue, California is charging Center for Medical Progress journalists with 15 felonies for bringing these troubling questions to light in the first place.

California argues that the Center for Medical Progress unlawfully recorded the subjects of undercover videos without their consent.

When the charges were announced, Casey Mattox, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Signal that even in two-party consent states like California, “It’s well understood as a matter of First Amendment law that people have a right to be able to record their own conversations.”

He added:

These were publicly recorded conversations, they were recorded in restaurants and other places where Planned Parenthood officials should not have expected they had any privacy at all. I find it fascinating that the state of California is apparently very concerned about the privacy of Planned Parenthood officials, and much less concerned about getting to the truth of Planned Parenthood actually engaging in violations of the law by selling baby body parts.

As this concerning case makes its way through court, Americans should remember that Planned Parenthood receives over half a billion dollars from taxpayers each year.

Today’s video once again demonstrates the urgent need for policymakers to end taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, its affiliates, and other abortion providers once and for all.

Funding could instead be redirected to centers that provide health care for women without entanglement in on-demand abortion.

Congress has the opportunity to deny Planned Parenthood certain federal funds in the upcoming budget reconciliation bill to repeal Obamacare by ensuring the language includes a provision (just as the 2015 version of the bill did) that would disqualify Planned Parenthood affiliates from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for one year after the enactment of the bill.

Ultimately, Congress should send the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which passed in the House of Representatives in January, to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature. (For more from the author of “Horrifying Video From Abortion Conference Shows Utter Disregard for Human Life” please click HERE)

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Exposing the Lies: Continuing the Legacy of America’s ‘Abortion King’

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“A medical education is not a philosophical education,” writes Charles K. Bellinger at Public Discourse. It’s the first line of his article about the new book by “Christian” abortion doctor Willie Parker, Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice.

Christian abortion doctor? Sure, why not? I’m told there are Christian porn stars too and goodness only knows what else.

Parker, let it be said, has moved on from his Bible-believing past to the liberal mainline Christianity he now practices. And since most Protestant Mainline churches today believe little more than the platform of the left wing of the Democratic Party — including support abortion or get out — I’m sure he fits right in.

Despite the title, Parker’s book, according to Bellinger is a philosophical and theological wasteland. It brims, he writes, with clichés, contradictions and outright lies. Bellinger sites, for example, this bit of nonsense: “As a Christian and as a scientist, I can authoritatively attest that life does not begin at conception.” That’s genuine anti-science.

Bellinger concludes, “In sum, the pro-choice worldview is fully on display in this book, with all of its ignorance, arrogance, and violence.” And why not? Abortion in America was founded on lies designed to encourage ignorance, arrogance and violence.

America’s ‘Abortion King’

That’s the message of the new book by Terry Beatley, What If We’ve Been Wrong?: Keeping My Promise to America’s “Abortion King.” The book is the result of an interview she conducted with Dr. Bernard Nathanson shortly before his death in 2011.

In the 1960s, Nathanson co-founded the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). He aggressively lobbied and propagandized for unrestricted abortion. He convinced Planned Parenthood to get into the abortion business. And he grew rich performing abortions and instructing others to do the same.

But ultrasound imaging emerged in the 1970s. Nathanson suddenly had the ability to see what was going on in an abortion. He began to rethink his position. As a result, he reversed not just his view of abortion, but the entire course of his life.

Nathanson left NARAL. He left his abortion practice. And he left the abortion movement to become a passionate pro-life advocate. He worked to expose what he called “the dishonest beginnings of the abortion movement.” Dishonest beginnings that he created by crafting deceitful public relations campaigns based on slogans, invented statistics, personal attacks and outright lies.

Nathanson also forsook his “atheistic Judaism” and was baptized into the Catholic Church in 1996.

The ‘Facts’ Behind the Abortion Industry

In his own writings, Nathanson admitted that even NARAL’s board minutes included “nonsensical medical and scientific claims.” Those claims included the widely reported “statistic” that, prior to 1973, sixty percent of Americans favored unrestricted abortion. It was, Beatley notes, probably closer to half a percent.

Beatley writes that Nathanson “acknowledged that the bigger the lies, the more likely Americans would believe them … By simply repeating the slogans and false data, the media created its own narrative and the doctor’s lies became the marketed ‘truth,’” concluding, “It was propaganda and it worked.” It worked in the court of public opinion and it worked in the Supreme Court’s misbegotten Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

And as Willie Parker’s book indicates, it’s still working.

Unexamined assumptions, entrenched worldviews, and the “facts everybody knows” continue to empower abortion advocacy. They help fund the abortion industry. They sear consciences. They poison our politics. And they result in the deaths of millions of unborn children.

Telling the Truth in the Face of Old Lies

In her book, Terry Beatley weaves her own story of pro-life advocacy with Nathanson’s. Hence the subtitle of the book: Keeping My Promise to America’s “Abortion King.”

Her promise wasn’t to write a book. Nathanson told most of the story himself in his book Aborting America and the film The Silent Scream. Her promise was to continue Nathanson’s legacy of telling the truth in the face of lies. These are the popular old lies Nathanson created.

Willie Parker’s book is a clear indication that many in America have not tired of those old lies. Perhaps Terry Beately’s book can act as an antidote for the American’s who have had quite enough of the lies by now.

As Fr. Paul Scalia wrote about the book, “Terry was tasked by the cofounder of NARAL … to teach the truth of how he used propaganda to deceive Supreme Courts justices, legislators and the American public. He equipped Terry with the truth. Now it’s our turn to listen, learn, and respond to the truth.” (For more from the author of “Exposing the Lies: Continuing the Legacy of America’s ‘Abortion King'” please click HERE)

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Christian School Bans Pregnant Senior From Graduation, Pro-Lifers Respond

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Maddi Runkles is an excellent student. She attends the small Christian school Heritage Academy in Hagerstown, Maryland. She was the student council president and an officer in the Key Club at her school. But she won’t get the chance to walk across the stage at graduation next month. Maddi is pregnant.

Maddi found out that she was pregnant in January. She briefly considered an abortion but soon rejected that idea. Her parents supported her decision to choose life for her baby.

Maddi’s Unique Consequences

Maddi’s father and then-school board president, Scott Runkles, broke the news to Heritage Academy that his daughter was pregnant. Maddi was removed from her leadership positions in the student council and Key Club. Then she served a two-day suspension.

Maddi knew there would be other consequences, “because I did break the school code.” Students are required to sign a contract stating that they will not have sex outside of marriage. Heritage’s statement of faith requrires that “no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of the marriage commitment between a man and a woman.”

Maddi said she is being treated differently than other students. Other students have broken the contract, but only faced suspension. “I told on myself,” she said. “I asked for forgiveness. I asked for help.”

Principal Dave Hobbs was going to tell the school about Maddi’s pregnancy, but Maddi decided to do it herself. Her dad read half of her prepared statement while Maddi composed herself. She admitted her mistake but also said she chose life for her child. “It was embarrassing, but I wanted my peers and my friends to hear it from me.”

No Graduation

Scott said that some board members and staff thought Maddi should be allowed to participate in graduation. Others, including Hobbs, did not.

Hobbs did not respond to The Stream’s request for a statement prior to publication. However, Hobbs told The New York Times that Maddi’s pregnancy is “an internal issue about which much prayer and discussion has taken place.”

Some are concerned about the message other students will get if the school allows Maddi to participate in the graduation ceremony. Rick Kempton, Chairman of the Board of the Association of Christian Schools International, addressed the issue. “She’s making the right choice. But you don’t want to create a celebration that makes other young ladies feel like, ‘Well, that seems like a pretty good option.’”

Christian Grace?

Others wonder where grace is in all of this. Jeanne Mancini, President of March for Life, told The Stream in a statement that Maddi needs encouragement and support, not shaming. “Very often when a young woman is facing an unexpected pregnancy, shame is a factor in her decision to choose to carry her child to term, or not,” she said.

Shame can be the difference between a woman choosing life or death. I can certainly appreciate the code of conduct at the school, but what this young woman needs now is encouragement and real, tangible help and support. What will happen to another young woman at this school who gets pregnant? The precedent set forth in this situation is not life-affirming.”

Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins said, “She made the courageous decision to choose life, and she definitely should not be shamed. Hawkins unsuccessfully petitioned the principal to let Maddi graduate. “There has got to be a way to treat a young woman who becomes pregnant in a graceful and loving way.”

Scott resigned as school board president because of how his daughter was treated. “[I]n situations where you have a genuinely repentant student like Maddi,” he said, “grace and love should always have prominence over discipline.”

In a separate statement on Heritage Academy’s website, Hobbs said it concerned him that Heritage folks thought that he and the Board were “harsh, cruel, hard-hearted men.” Yet he said that the kind of grace he could offer Maddi was discipline in the “application of love.” He added, “The best way to love her right now is to hold her accountable for her immorality that began this situation.”

Maddi’s Struggles

Maddi struggles with the seeming contradiction of a pro-life Christian school that shames a pregnant young woman. “Some pro-life people are against the killing of unborn babies, but they won’t speak out in support of the girl who chooses to keep her baby,” she said. “Honestly, that makes me feel like maybe the abortion would have been better. Then they would have just forgiven me, rather than deal with this visible consequence.”

But Students for Life stepped in and provided the support that Maddi needed. Last month Maddi spoke at Students for Life’s #Sockit2PP on Capitol Hill when pro-life leaders asked Congress to defund Planned Parenthood.

Surrounded by a mountain of baby socks representing abortions Planned Parenthood performed, Maddi talked about her unexpected pregnancy. “I look at all these socks, and that could have been my baby,” she said. “But I choose to let my baby wear these socks. I know it’s going to be hard, I know it’s going to be really hard, to still accomplish all my goals and all my dreams. But I get to have a little guy following right next to me. And we get to do it together.” (For more from the author of “Christian School Bans Pregnant Senior From Graduation, Pro-Lifers Respond” please click HERE)

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Faux Life? Why a Texas ‘Pro-Life’ Org Fought a Dismemberment Ban

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A proposed law to stop a gruesome abortion procedure has made its way through the Texas state legislature, but it is running into some surprising opposition from an organization that bills itself as pro-life.

A provision to ban the performance of dismemberment (also known as D&E and D&X) abortions, except in the case of a “medical emergency,” passed the state senate back in March and the House on Friday.

However, some of the opposition to the bill’s passage might surprise anyone not familiar with abortion politics in the Lone Star State. While pushback from major pro-abortion groups is to be expected, one pro-life group has been actively campaigning against the measure. Texas Alliance for Life, and its executive director, Joe Pojman, spent months leading up to the final House vote, recommending that the legislature reject the ban on the grounds that it is unconstitutional.

For reference, this is exactly what happens during a dismemberment abortion:

During one of these procedures, the preborn child is ripped apart in utero before being pulled out through the birth canal piece-by-piece.

But efforts to ban the practice have been thus far opposed by Pojman’s group, which sent out a letter to state legislators urging them to vote against the measure.

Furthermore, for an organization that is dedicated to “protect[ing] innocent human life from conception through natural death through peaceful, legal means,” Texas Alliance for Life stood alone in its opposition to the bill, as several other pro-life organizations lined up behind the legislation.

If the measure were to become law, the letter speculates to lawmakers, “it would not survive a federal court challenge” because of rulings in previous cases, even though the ruling would occur in the 5th Circuit (which is perhaps the most friendly court in the federal system because of its makeup).

Empower Texans, a conservative state-level grassroots organization, explains on its website that Texas Alliance for Life’s Joe Pojman testified on the bill before the committee in February, and recommended that the legislature not pass it, alongside activists from the National Abortion Rights Action League, better known as NARAL.

“Pojman’s remarks today plant dangerous land mines in the way of any legal strategy to defend SB 415 if it passes and is challenged in court,” said Tony McDonald, Empower Texans’ general counsel, at the time. “Abortion groups will use Pojman’s testimony as a ‘confession’ that SB 415 is so ‘extreme’ that even pro-life groups are opposing it.”

And that very thing happened at the 11th hour.

Prior to the vote on Friday, Jessica Farrar, a staunchly pro-abortion Democrat state representative, invoked Pojman’s testimony while speaking in against the provision, which was attached as an amendment to a larger legislative package, on the House floor.

“Are you aware that Texas Alliance for Life testified against this bill in the senate committee?” Farrar publicly asked of Republican Representative Stephanie Klick, contending that the measure was “unconstitutional.”

Pojman responded to Empower Texans’ claims, calling them inaccurate and saying that his testimony was “on” the bill and that he did not take a side (before diving into his reasons for not supporting the bill).

Texas Right to Life Legislative Director John Seago disputes the assertions, however, saying that they are based on what he calls a “fundamental flaw their assessment of the policy” that runs parallel to many pro-abortion criticism of the legislation.

Counter to such judicial concerns, the prevailing reasoning among many pro-life advocates in favor of outlawing the procedure argues that – since the legislation bans a procedure outright – it would fall in line with the Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling that upheld the 2003 national partial-birth abortion ban, off of which Seago says the current language in Austin is based.

“[Opponents] have read the bill and understand the bill to be prohibiting all D+E abortions,” Seago told Conservative Review. “That is a gross mischaracterization of the bill, just like the partial birth abortion ban doesn’t prohibit all late abortions; it prohibits one specific procedure.”

“Some pro-lifers are worried about going to court,” he says, admitting that any such litigation is a gamble on some level. “But we understand, the pro-life movement lives in the shadow of Roe v. Wade and the only way we’re going to take down this legal edifice is by working in the courts,” like it did with the partial-birth ban.

“That doesn’t worry us,” Seago said. “That’s how the movement has to move forward.”

“I can’t understand TAL’s objections to a dismemberment ban — I don’t get it at all,” says JoAnn Fleming, executive director of Grassroots America, who has been a conservative activist in Texas for over 20 years.

“I’ve seen the objection about how the court will unravel it and this, that and the other, that and the other,” she adds, but “If we have to fight for life in the courts, then we simply take the fight to the courts. We don’t withdraw from that fight just because we might have to do battle in court.”

To Pojman’s assertions that the current legislation will not save any lives in effect, Seago points to similar criticisms made about the partial birth debate and of pain-capable bills, which have both proven to decrease abortion rates.

However, critics say aren’t surprised by TAL’s opposition to the ban, as they say the group has previously fought to either dilute or otherwise obfuscate pro-life legislation in the state. Republican Representative and Texas Freedom Caucus member Matt Rinaldi claims that the group has sought to water down other legislation before, such as the original version of a 2011 sonogram bill.

“They’ll pick bills [to support] that don’t really accomplish much,” explains Rinaldi. “They act as a cover group for leadership in killing pro-life reforms.”

Rinaldi tells Conservative Review that he views Texas Alliance’s efforts to weaken or oppose stronger pro-life bills as “disgusting,” mainly because they are supported by funds from pro-life donors.

“Their donors and supports don’t realize that they’re being had,” Rinaldi said. “I think it’s despicable.”

Responding to Rinaldi’s statements, Pojman put forward TAL’s list of legislative priorities this session, calling the agenda both “aggressive and substantive.”

“Our goal is to protect unborn children from abortions throughout pregnancy,” reads an emailed statement from Pojman to Conservative Review. “However, we do not recommend that the Legislature pass the dismemberment ban this session because it will not sustain an inevitable court challenge. There are not sufficient votes on the US Supreme Court to uphold it.”

Meanwhile, the group’s critics say, the organization also provides cover for establishment Republicans who would rather not take the heat for voting in favor of stronger pro-life legislation, but still want to don a pro-life mantle come election time.

Chronicling documented financial exchange between House leadership and TAL, Empower Texans’ executive director Michael Q. Sullivan wrote in a 2015 op-ed at Breitbart News that the group’s rhetoric about the pro-life bona fides of certain members of the legislative leadership – most notably state Speaker Joe Straus – did an “about face” following a large influx of cash to the nonprofit’s political action committee. Pojman responded to Sullivan, calling the assertions “misinformation.”

Disagreements over how to best protect the unborn, however, are not specific to a few policy groups in the Lone Star State nor a single dismemberment bill, Seago told CR. Rather, they are endemic of a tactical split in the pro-life movement as a whole.

Whereas some pro-life organizations develop their political priorities based on where the movement needs to go, he says, “Unfortunately, all I’ve seen some pro-life groups in Texas and other states do is show up and see what the politicians give them” and then tout those items as priorities.

“You can’t just give [elected officials] cover,” Seago says against this approach. “The pro-life movement really has to objectively determine where we need to go and then hold our politicians accountable.” (For more from the author of “Faux Life? Why a Texas ‘Pro-Life’ Org Fought a Dismemberment Ban” please click HERE)

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We Must Stop Sacrificing Children on the Altar of Sexual Pleasure

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Cosmopolitan writer Jill Filipovich ranks right up there with some of the most devoted religious people I’ve ever heard. Her singular focus, dedication and commitment is impressive. She is 100% sold-out, all-in, nothing held back. A true believer if there ever was one.

Take notes, folks. This is what it looks like when you shape your life, your philosophy and your decisions around the tenets of pure religion hedonism.

In this case, the deity is guaranteed to accommodate, because it’s the face in the mirror. Inside the Shrine of Sexual Pleasure, there on its altar the required sacrifice of blood is paid in an endless stream of silent victims, given over in dutiful homage by all the disciples seeking unrestricted happiness.

Ms. Filipovich believes women cannot be equal to men unless we abort our babies. She believes sex can only be freely, fully enjoyed if we have the assurance that we can get rid of any pesky little people that result from our sexual exploits.

If You Object to Abortion, You Must Hate Women

As the Washington Free Beacon noted:

In a December CNN op-ed, she lamented President Donald Trump’s election because “sex is about to get a lot less fun.”

She argued that, in addition to the usual “benefits” of abortion, “more of us are able to have sex without the anxiety of pregnancy, to enjoy the unique and fundamentally human pleasure that sex creates, and to tend to our relationships without the interruption and emotional devastation that an unintended pregnancy can bring.”

“In essence,” said LifeNews, “she accused conservatives of wanting to control women and prohibit them from having recreational sex.”

She continues:

But the future of women’s health under President Trump, and HHS Secretary Price, looks grim: Price’s plan turns sex for pleasure into a luxury item and puts our health at risk. And it sends women a clear message: That partaking in a full range of human enjoyment and physical experience isn’t for us, and that we exist instead to reproduce.

She thinks anyone who objects to abortion is out to ruin the sex lives of women because they’re misogynist pigs who hate women. There simply can’t be any reason to object to abortion other than that you hate women. And you hate sex. And you don’t want women to ever ever ever enjoy sex. Because SEX! Life is all about sex!

I’m Sick and Tired of the Abortion Narrative

Frankly, this is so tiresome and annoying. It’s brainless, insulting and cheap. The irony, Ms. Filipovich, is that sex is all about life!

I’m tired of hearing people like Filipovich, Democrat chairman Tom Perez, Nancy Pelosi, Cecile Richards and 99.9% of Hollywood tell me that abortion is vital — no, indispensable — to women’s health, well-being, equality, success and happiness in this world. I’m sick of hearing that women simply cannot thrive without the legal right to terminate their babies.

I’m sick of the womb being cast as the ball and chain around a woman’s neck. I’ve had it with babies being cast as the aggressor, the enemy, the thief of dreams. Abortion advocates rely on the narrative the Mom and Baby are locked in combat with each other, and only one can come out alive. This demented view of pregnancy means Mom has to kill Baby in self-defense.

I’m sick of fertility being cast as a disease, and pregnancy as some flukey and horrible thing that happens sometimes after you have sex, even though it shouldn’t because latex and chemicals are supposed to prevent that. I mean, how’d that happen?

I’m sick of women being told they cannot be happy unless their female bodies cease to do female things. I’m tired of hearing that women must be like men in every way, or they cannot be considered equal. What a load of horsehockey.

But at least Ms. Filipovich is honest where the politicians and Planned Parenthood continue to lie through their teeth. Abortion absolutely is utilized as “back-up birth control.” It’s the contraceptive method you use when your other contraceptive methods have failed. And nobody knows better than Planned Parenthood just how often contraception fails. That reliable, splendid failure brings in tremendous revenue — more abortions!

Pitting Women Against Their Bodies and Their Children

Filipovich says abortion has to be available so women can have “worry-free” sex. Without knowing she can abort the baby if she becomes pregnant, a woman simply can’t relax and “partake in a full range of human enjoyment.”

If I can’t kill you later, how can I possibly enjoy myself now?

This isn’t feminism. It’s not womanhood. It’s not equality, or freedom, or liberation, or progress. It’s not health care. It’s completely depraved and unutterably sad.

To consign women to this — you must live your life at war with your own body and at war with your child, if you ever hope to be “happy” — is the most hopeless and inhumane kind of slavery. It chains women to the lie that their female nature is a continuous threat to their plans and their own personhood. In order to achieve anything worthwhile, women have to be men. Hmm. Sounds like sexism to me.

Nothing Could be More Anti-Woman Than Killing Babies

Corrupt men throughout history have done a stellar job of demeaning and objectifying women for their own pleasure, but in 2017 it’s fashionable for women to disdain their own bodies and have a flippant disregard for the most innocent of human beings.

Well, not this woman. Filipovich’s hedonistic worship of sexual pleasure is revolting. Women are not served by this violent notion that it’s us versus our own babies in a fight to the death.

The future of women’s health has nothing to do with uninhibited sex and everything to do with respect for the female body as God designed it, and reverence for human life. Nothing could be more anti-woman than abortion.

Sorry, Ms. Filipovich, but child sacrifice doesn’t make for great sex, either. (For more from the author of “We Must Stop Sacrificing Children on the Altar of Sexual Pleasure” please click HERE)

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Will You Help ‘Slay’ for Planned Parenthood?

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Planned Parenthood wants supporters to “slay” by sharing its new ad, directed by Hollywood screenwriter Joss Whedon.

“Every single one of us has a hero inside; and it’s our responsibility to use our superpowers to slay,” states a Planned Parenthood donation page. The abortion group highlights some of Whedon’s best known works, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The appeal, flanked by an online petition, closes by asking people to “watch it, add your name to join Joss Whedon in standing with Planned Parenthood, and then share, share, share, using #IStandWithPP. That’s how we slay, that’s how we win.”

As The Daily Caller noted, the call to “slay” is a play on the “vampire slaying” that took place in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The word “slay” has also risen in recent popularity as a slang term for “succeed” or “dominate.”

Pro-life groups noted the dark irony of Planned Parenthood adopting the slang term to promote its services. Planned Parenthood performs nearly 35 percent of U.S. abortions (323,999 total in 2014).

“UNLOCKED”

The ad, released Wednesday, features three primary characters. Entitled “UNLOCKED,” it supposedly previews a world without Planned Parenthood.

One teen girl becomes pregnant and is seen crying as she opens a scholarship letter to a university. Another girl appears unable to stop her friend from having sex at a party. Her friend ends up with an STD. A middle-aged mother dies from cancer that was noticed too late. The ad works backwards from the point of tragedy for each character (the scholarship letter, the STD, the death) until you see the three women approaching a Planned Parenthood facility at the same time, only to find it closed and the door locked.

The ad then imagines what would happen had the facility been open. The first teen gets a pack of birth control pills. The second teen takes a sex education course, which she shares with her classmates. The middle aged woman is screened for cancer and is shown celebrating her next birthday.

“If politicians succeed in shutting down Planned Parenthood, millions of people lose access to basic health services. STD testing, birth control, cancer screenings … how can these be at risk?” Whedon said.

Untruthful?

However, data reveals that Planned Parenthood’s non-abortive services are declining, while their abortions continue to rise. Pro-life group Live Action noted in a video last month that the organization performs less than 2 percent of the nation’s cancer screenings. But between 2004 and 2014, its number of annual abortions rose 27 percent.

Most women will never visit Planned Parenthood. Eric Scheidler, executive director for the Pro-Life Action League, previously told The Stream that “four out of five women will never step foot” inside one of its facilities. Additionally, other comprehensive care facilities for women and their families outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities 20 to one.

In April President Donald Trump signed a bill allowing states to stop funding family planning services, including Planned Parenthood. But the nonprofit still receives $500 million annually in government funding. Pro-life advocates have called for a reallocation of those funds to comprehensive health care centers. (For more from the author of “Will You Help ‘Slay’ for Planned Parenthood?” please click HERE])

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Brain Damage Increases Religious Fundamentalism — or Scientific Arrogance?

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You didn’t hear it coming. You didn’t even feel it. Yet there you were on Hamburger Hill, May 12, 1969, praying you’d come through the battle, when a piece of shrapnel dug into your skull.

It’s still there today. Doctors couldn’t, didn’t dare, take it out. Maybe it doesn’t hurt; the doctors said it shouldn’t. But you swear you can feel it in there.

Suppose this wounded Vietnam veteran was you, dear reader. Now I ask you the obvious questions: How does this make you feel? Would this injury — just perhaps — lead you to deepen your religious faith?

If you answered that question — no matter how you answered it — you’re one up on five scientists. Wanting Zhong, Irene Cristofori, and three others studied the religious views of Vietnam vets with brain injuries, and published the results in a peer-reviewed journal. These scientists thought brain injuries caused vets to become more religious. Not, they surmised, because life-threatening experiences might lead some folks to become more religious. No, the scientists thought the injuries themselves caused the vet’s brains to, in effect, misfire and induce these men to become more “fundamentalist” in their religious beliefs.

What’s this about religion? The authors say, “Religious beliefs are socially transmitted mental representations that may include supernatural or supernormal episodes that are assumed to be real.” That they might be real did not enter the authors’ minds. Never mind. The real object is religious fundamentalism, which they say “embodies adherence to a set of firm religious beliefs advocating unassailable truths about human existence.” Unassailable truths like the scientific method?

“Fundamentalism requires a departure from ordinary empirical inquiry: it reflects a rigid cognitive strategy that fixes beliefs and amplifies within-group commitment and out-group bias.” If that’s not bad enough, “Recent studies have linked religious fundamentalism to violence [and] denial of scientific progress.”

These authors assume that the brain causes religious fundamentalism. “Evolutionary psychology explains the appeal of religious fundamentalism in terms of social functional behavior,” they say. Yet the “neurological systems that enable such inflexible, non-disastrous beliefs [such as fundamentalism] remain poorly understood.” So they studied it.

But if the Brain Can’t Be Trusted …

But if evolution made the brain cause religious belief, did evolution cause the authors’ brains to believe religion can be explained by the brain? What part of the brain is responsible for bad science?

It is an old argument, but a good one: If the brain causes our thoughts, then it cannot be trusted. For what guarantee is there that if it misleads us in one area it’s not misleading us in another? There is none. If the brain causes false religious beliefs, it could also cause false science beliefs. And there’s no way to tell the difference.

Now to assess “fundamentalism” our authors asked a few questions to an even smaller group of men. Some of these men had brain injuries and some not. The main concern was with 24 men with ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) injuries and about the same number of men with two other injury types. These were compared against 30 other men with no brain injuries.

Bad Theology

One of the questions was agreement with this claim: “The basic cause of evil in this world is Satan, who is still constantly and ferociously fighting against God.” This, like the other questions, makes little theological sense. You can imagine a devout Christian, who knows that human beings cause of a lot of evil, trying to answer it. The authors of the paper seem to think “the devil made me do it” is the basic way Christians explain their sins.

Still, analyzing the answers led the authors to say that they “found that participants with vmPFC lesions reported greater fundamentalism” than controls.

Bad Stats

But this just is not so. By their own data, the person with the lowest “fundamentalism” had a vmPFC lesion. And a goodly fraction of those with lesions had lower “fundamentalism” scores than did those in the healthy control group. Only two of the 24 veterans with lesions had higher scores than did the highest healthy controls. The variability of scores is high. That’s why the differences in “fundamentalism” scores claimed were small.

As it happens, the vets with injuries “consisted of 2.5% Mormons, 38.8% Protestant, 16.3% Roman Catholic, 10% other affiliations.” 32.5% did not respond. The healthy vets “consisted of 35.3% Protestant, 23.5% Roman Catholic” with 41.2% not responding.

Since there is a lot of variety in views among these groups, the imbalances in group membership are enough to explain the observed differences in “fundamentalism.” It’s odd the authors did not analyze “fundamentalism” by self-reported denomination to answer this obvious criticism.

What’s most disturbing is that they took the result of this tiny group and implicitly extrapolated it to the whole human race (at the end they do admit “larger…samples…are necessary to confirm that our conclusions are applicable to healthy individuals”, but they wave these doubts away throughout the paper and speak of religious beliefs in general). In other words, they used a rude statistical analysis with not even a hint that their results are far, far from certain.

Still, one of the authors was bold enough to insist that “the variation in the nature of religious beliefs are governed by specific brain areas in the anterior parts of the human brain and those brain areas are among the most recently evolved areas of the human brain.”

Which part of the brain caused this man’s over-confidence? (For more from the author of “Brain Damage Increases Religious Fundamentalism — or Scientific Arrogance?” please click HERE)

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