Abortion by Pill on the Rise, Putting Women’s Health at Greater Risk

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A new study by Reuters found that the rate of women aborting their children by medication has greatly increased, citing “innovative dispensing efforts in some states,” including abortion prescriptions by webcam or over the phone.

Medication abortions rose from 35 percent of Planned Parenthood’s abortions in 2010 to 43 percent of their abortions in 2014. Reuters speculates that new federal prescribing guidelines for the abortion pill Mifeprex will make that rate even higher now. In the last few months, demand for medication abortions tripled in Ohio, Texas and North Dakota, the three states most affected by that change, with some clinics reporting that almost one-third of abortions are now performed with the drugs, the news service reported.

Abortion proponents tout the switch as a boon to women’s health and safety. Pro-life doctors are concerned that this is willful ignorance of the dangers women face when they abort without medical supervision.

“Women who have had these abortions describe them far more difficult, painful, and bloody than the abortion industry led them to believe,” said Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., Director of Education & Research at National Right to Life, in an email to The Stream. “These abortions are not only bloody and painful, but dangerous. We already know of more than a dozen women, several of them by name, who have died after using these drugs to induce their abortions. Some have bled to death, some have had undiscovered ectopic pregnancies rupture and others have died from aggressive rare infections. The more it is used, the more women will be exposed to these dangers.”

While more clinics are advertising the pills as an easy way to end a pregnancy — one poster reads: “Abortion. Yeah, we do that.” — doctors warn that abortion by pill is more traumatic than these women are prepared for. “It isn’t just the shock and betrayal that they’ll feel when they begin to cramp and bleed, when the process and the pain drag on and on, but when they encounter their aborted babies, when they see with their own eyes the bodies of their children, their eyes, their tiny fists, when they realize the lies that they have been told and the enormous loss that has really taken place,” O’Bannon said.

Having these abortions by web-cam or by mail won’t make them any better, just more dangerous as women scramble to find medical help who understand and can treat the unique problems associated with chemical abortions. They act as if having this at home will make the process comfortable and cozy, but the reality is that a woman is more likely to feel alone and abandoned at precisely the time when she is most vulnerable, when she is in the most pain and the most danger, trying to figure out if what she’s going through is just ordinary bodily assault of the abortion or something even worse.

Donna Harrison, MD, executive director of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told The Stream in an email, “The continuous fantasy that drug induced abortions are simple is the oft repeated mantra of the abortion industry. Drug-induced abortions are neither safe nor easy.”

Pro-life groups concerned for women’s safety warn that the new FDA guidelines mean the procedure will be riskier as doctors are not required to be physically present to the women to whom they prescribe the abortion pill. Abortion performed in an abortion facility by a doctor had its risks, O’Bannon noted, but the doctor knew them and how to treat them. “With web-cam abortions and abortions by mail, with abortionists getting less and less involved with their patients, it isn’t clear that any of this remains any more.”

Harrison cited a recent study in the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research, which found that “the most common presentation was excessive bleeding (77.5%). Severe anemia was found in 12.5% of the patients and 5% of patients presented with shock…62.5% of the patients were found to have incomplete abortion, 22.5% had failed abortion and 7.5% of patients had incomplete abortion with sepsis. Surgical evacuation was performed in 67.5% of the patients, whereas 12.5% of the patients required surgical evacuation with blood transfusion.”

The study recommended against unsupervised medical abortion. “The abortion industry wants to minimize knowledge about these risks, and minimize involvement of physicians, in order to keep down their costs and boost their income,” Harrison said. “It is tragic that women are misled about the serious complications, including at least a ten-times increased risk of death from drug-induced abortion as compared with surgical abortion.”

“All of this suffering for women is for the convenience and profit of the abortionist,” Harrison concluded. (For more from the author of “Abortion by Pill on the Rise, Putting Women’s Health at Greater Risk” please click HERE)

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Top U.S. Security Official Makes Speech on … the LGBT Agenda?

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Last week, the Obama administration enacted a rule that prohibits the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from contracting with groups that engage in “discrimination” against people who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. According to National Security Advisor Susan Rice in a speech on Wednesday:

This rule means that any organization that contracts with USAID must ensure that all people can benefit from its federally-funded programs, regardless of race, religion, disability — or sexual orientation and gender identity. It’s a major step towards ensuring that American assistance is provided in a fair and equitable manner.

But “fair and equitable” have a specific meaning for the Obama administration. It doesn’t include the unborn. “Discrimination” is still permitted against the unborn — USAID has given tens of millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups, and engaged in other anti-life policies.

It does include LGBT people. As Rice notes elsewhere in the talk, some countries punish homosexual acts with death, and a death penalty law was narrowly defeated in Uganda a few years ago. Her speech suggested that supporting the LGBT agenda is more important to the Obama administration than stopping the Syrian slaughter, preventing Russia’s advance internationally and protecting Christian refugees.

The Administration’s LBGT Pressure

Rice’s speech reflects how the administration has spent years blackmailing African nations over the LGBT agenda, demanding acquiescence in exchange for basic humanitarian aid. Many Christian leaders have refused to bow to the administration, but the pressure has continued. While some nations certainly have deplorable and inhuman policies, many times the administration has prioritized the LGBT agenda over fighting terrorism and stopping starvation.

She thanked the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and another group “who fight so admirably to promote equal rights and dignity for all.” Co-founded by Terrence Bean — who squirreled out of being found guilty in the alleged sexual abuse of a minor — HRC has targeted pro-marriage advocates to such a degree that a college professor told me he’s never sure if his family is safe.

HRC has also attempted to bully Johns Hopkins University into denouncing a much-cited study that debunks LGBT talking points about sexuality, and has led the dishonest-yet-successful effort to tar North Carolina’s HB2 “bathroom” law as bigoted and hateful. (The Obama administration has also contributed to this misleading state of affairs, with Attorney General Loretta Lynch comparing the very modest bathroom law to racist Jim Crow laws.)

Finally, after referencing the Pulse nightclub shooting this summer, Rice compared HB2 and state-based religious liberty laws to unfair and sometimes inhumane treatment of people who identify as LGBT in other nations. She briefly mentioned the cultural and legal LGBT fight in Indonesia, “governments in Central Asia and Eastern Europe” that are passing anti-homosexual laws and how that “in as many as ten countries, same-sex acts are punishable by death.” She then said:

And, in Syria and Iraq, ISIL has unleashed a unique brutality on LGBT people — dragging gay men behind trucks, stoning them, and burning them alive. ISIL works with chilling efficiency, often going through the cell phones and social media accounts of their victims to identify more LGBT individuals for slaughter. As we speak, the United States is supporting Iraqi and Kurdish forces as they push to liberate Mosul, where ISIL fighters were taped hurling gay men off of buildings. As one Iraqi man testified before the UN: “In my society, being gay means death.”

Again, some of these laws are downright horrifying, and ISIS’ actions are the same. The Obama administration is right to condemn them, and put pressure on nations to change those practices and laws. But Rice’s speech shows that the Obama administration’s ideology on LGBT “rights” continues to go above and beyond what is right and just, instead giving state-sanctioned preference to the LGBT agenda over the rights of business owners, women and children. (For more from the author of “Top U.S. Security Official Makes Speech on … the LGBT Agenda?” please click HERE)

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The Government Seized $100K From This California Family’s Bank Accounts, College Savings

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James Slatic was sitting in a breakfast meeting when he heard the news.

An employee who worked for him and his medical marijuana business, Med-West Distribution, called to tell him he arrived at Med-West’s facility in San Diego, California, to find “25 police cars” outside.

It was Jan. 28, and on that day, an estimated 30 armed agents with the San Diego Police Department and Drug Enforcement Administration raided Med-West, a company that manufactures cannabis oil cartridges for medical use, according to court filings.

The company has complied with state medical marijuana laws, registered with the city of San Diego and paid taxes to the IRS, the state, and the local government, Slatic, Med-West’s CEO, told The Daily Signal.

But the agents with the task force ended up seizing computers, records, equipment, and more than $324,000 from Med-West.

Police also arrested two employees working that day, but they were released and never charged with a crime.

“It was like a scene out of a bad movie,” Slatic said.

But for Slatic, the movie didn’t end there.

Five days later, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office froze bank accounts belonging to Slatic, his wife, Annette, and their two teenage daughters, Lily and Penny Cohen, under a procedure called civil asset forfeiture.

In total, law enforcement seized $55,258 from James Slatic’s checking and savings account, $34,175 from Annette Slatic’s account, and a combined $11,260 from Lily and Penny Cohen’s savings accounts—money designated to pay for college.

“This is the dirty secret of the justice system,” Slatic said of civil forfeiture. “When you’re a family person that’s been a law-abiding citizen and something like this happens, when you talk to the person on the street and say you’re a legal, licensed, regulated, tax-paying business, people are like, ‘Oh, they can’t do that.’”

“Well,” he continued, “that’s what everybody thinks, but unfortunately they can.”

A spokeswoman for the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office said the investigation into the Med-West and the raid conducted is ongoing, and the case under review.

“The primary mission of the asset forfeiture program is to enhance public safety by removing the proceeds of crime and other assets relied upon by criminals to perpetuate their criminal activity,” Tanya Sierra said in an email to The Daily Signal.

In the nine months since the family’s money was seized, police haven’t charged anyone with a crime.

Federal prosecutors declined to prosecute Med-West, as an amendment included in the federal budget for 2015 prohibits the Justice Department from prosecuting people acting in accordance with their state’s medical marijuana laws.

The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office also decided not to prosecute Med-West.

The company, however, ultimately shuttered. As a result, Slatic said 35 people lost their jobs.

Now, Slatic and his family, along with the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, are challenging the government’s seizure of their money—which sits in what the Institute for Justice calls “legal limbo”—in court.

“We’re going into debt while we fight what we consider to be an illegal government seizure,” Slatic said. “But we’re hopeful that our family will get justice and our kids will get their college savings back.”

‘Crossed Into Abuse’

Civil forfeiture is a tool that gives law enforcement the power to seize cash, cars, and property if they suspect it’s tied to a crime.

Law enforcement agencies argue the procedure is needed to curb money laundering and drug trafficking.

But civil forfeiture opponents point to cases like Slatic’s as evidence that police are abusing the tool and using it to put more money in their coffers.

According to a November report from the Institute for Justice, law enforcement in California forfeited nearly $280 million from 2002 to 2013.

“The zeal shown by police has crossed into abuse, and the only thing they’ve accomplished is to take nearly half a million dollars from an innocent family,” Wesley Hottot, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice representing Slatic, told The Daily Signal. “This case isn’t about crime fighting. It’s about policing for profit.”

Med-West legally operated in California—the state legalized medical marijuana in 1996—but in an affidavit filed with the courts that led to the seizure of the Slatics’ money, San Diego police Detective Mark Carlson cited state law that prohibits “chemical extraction” to manufacture marijuana as part of their justification to take the money.

Slatic, though, said that Med-West refined oils, and didn’t extract them.

Additionally, the Institute for Justice said in court filings that the equipment found at Med-West’s facilities cannot be used for chemical extraction.

“Critically, the equipment that Carlson describes—a rotary evaporator—can only be used for refinement,” the documents state. “Indeed, it is impossible to use a rotary evaporator to extract cannabis oil from raw marijuana, as expert testimony at the hearing will show.”

In his affidavit, Carlson said that the building where Med-West was located contained a “sophisticated clandestine” laboratory and distribution center—a characterization Hottot refutes.

“All of this was being done not in a clandestine fashion, but across the street from a Mercedes-Benz dealership in a commercial building,” he said. “The government knew it was there. They had been paying taxes. They weren’t hiding. They had a public website that mentioned what they did.”

Despite the allegations against Med-West, Slatic and the Institute for Justice are challenging the San Diego County district attorney’s seizure of money from the family’s personal bank accounts.

Med-West is challenging the government’s seizure of the $324,000 in a different case, as a criminal investigation is ongoing.

The law firm argued that the government’s seizure of the money belonging to the Slatics and their children is a violation of the U.S. Constitution and the California Constitution.

Additionally, California state law requires that the government be able to “trace” forfeitable property to a crime, which, according to the Institute for Justice, the government cannot do.

“The government can’t seize every penny from a family based on the mere suspicion that one member violated the law,” Hottot said. “It’s not just wrong, it’s unconstitutional.”

‘Deeply Troubled’

The civil forfeiture case against Slatic and his family comes just months after California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed legislation reforming the state’s civil forfeiture laws.

Under the new laws, which take effect in January, law enforcement must secure a criminal conviction before forfeiting cash worth up to $40,000.

California is one of a handful of states that reformed their civil forfeiture laws this year, and legislation is making its way through the federal legislature.

Hottot, the lawyer with the Institute for Justice, said what happened to the Slatics demonstrates why further action is needed.

“There’s a troubling profit incentive for police and prosecutors to continue to do what’s happened here,” he said. “It has to stop, and we need major civil asset forfeiture reform in this country to make these sorts of seizures impossible.”

Hottot also said the Slatics’ case should serve as a “warning sign” for the American people in terms of how the tool is being used, particularly since law enforcement seized money not only from Slatic and his business, but also from his wife and daughters.

“If people knew how police and prosecutors can directly profit, I think they would be deeply troubled by how vulnerable their property is,” he said. “All it takes is one police officer alleging that one person committed a crime to take everything from an entire family.” (For more from the author of “The Government Seized $100K From This California Family’s Bank Accounts, College Savings” please click HERE)

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Alabama Judge Finds Right to Gruesome Abortion Procedure and Allows Clinics Near Schools

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Late last week, I warned Alabama Republicans that if they accede to the tyranny from judicial supremacy, it would run much deeper than the issue of marriage and Judge Roy Moore. Well, on Thursday a federal district judge engaged in nullification and blocked the state’s common sense abortion regulations. Do these same impotent Republicans believe this is also the law of the land? This case is particularly poignant because it is a quintessential example of why the federal judiciary must be stopped by blunt force, irrespective of who wins the presidential election.

Myron Thompson, a puny district judge for the Middle District of Alabama used his misconstrued ‘judicial veto” to block Alabama’s law barring abortion clinics within 2,000 feet of a K-8 public school. The liberal Carter-appointed judge also blocked the portion of the law barring the use of the “dilation and evacuation” method of abortion commonly used in the second trimester to tear apart the baby with forceps [watch this video demonstration of the particularly gruesome procedure if you can stomach it].

While any lower judge will obviously uphold the underlying bad precedent of Roe and Casey, this decision is part of a disturbing trend of lower courts expanding the concocted right to an abortion to new extremes and precluding states from enacting common sense limitations and regulations on the procedure and on clinics. Evidently, not only is there a right to an abortion that never existed in the Constitution and since our Founding, but judges are now saying that any restriction on the clinic or any procedure at any time is burdensome. Judge Thompson opined that the restriction on clinics near schools would shut down too many abortion facilities and place a burden that is “particularly devastating for low-income woman.” He also said that requiring doctors to first stop the heartbeat of the baby instead of tearing it apart limb by limb places a gratuitous burden and risk on the mother.

Why do we even have elections anymore when district courts — which were created by Congress, not the Constitution — can decide every social and political issue of our time?

Consider the following perverse constitutional jurisprudence in the legal system: the government can ban guns within range of schools, even though carrying a gun is an unalienable right explicit in the Bill of Rights. At the same time, a state cannot regulate the most gruesome abortions and ban the practice within range of schools, even though there isn’t a mention of the word “abortion” in the Constitution.

The Long-term problem with lower courts shutting down red states

Remember, even in the best case scenario — if Republicans win the White House, Congress, and the majority of state legislatures — there will be almost no policy benefit to such an electoral outcome. The courts will nullify the few good policies that Republicans actually enact, which are few and far between. Abortion regulations are a superlative example of how the lower courts are shutting down the debate over issues squarely within the purview of state governments. States have been unable to get common sense regulations on abortion clinics or defunding of Planned Parenthood past a single appeals court.

What about the Supreme Court?

There is a widely held myth that the high court hangs in the balance pending the outcome of the presidential election. In reality, Anthony Kennedy is about as far left as the other four liberals on Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence, especially as it relates to abortion. He already made it clear this year in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt that not only is abortion a fundamental right, but states cannot enact reasonable regulations on clinics that will in any way limit access to abortions. Replacing Scalia with an originalist or blocking the appointment of a Hillary pick will not alter the balance because the Left already has five votes in the ‘super legislature’ on almost all social issues. And few legal experts believe Chief Justice John Roberts would overturn Roe.

Ironically, although we’ve chronicled a torrent of court cases in recent months inhibiting states from exercising basic state powers, it will get a lot worse if we actually elect conservatives. Most Republican legislatures are as useless as Republicans in Washington and drift like balloons in the wind. Commensurate with the degree of righteous initiative that we desire from elected conservatives will come the blowback from the entrenched forces of legal warfare. Pick your favorite policies you want to see enacted in your state and just understand that the Left has the ability to place the law in court within days and usually succeed in obtaining an injunction.

This is why we must think beyond the failed judicial strategy of the past half century. It’s time to restore the courts to their original mandate — interpreting the law, not nullifying it. One idea I propose in Stolen Sovereignty is to begin with the lower courts and block them from adjudicating broadly political cases concerning issues such as abortion, marriage, religious liberty, election law, and immigration enforcement.

As we’ve noted before, district and appellate courts are created by Congress. The legislative branch of government has the power to abolish those courts, so members of Congress can certainly regulate their jurisdiction. In 1812, the Supreme Court ruled that the lower courts “possess no jurisdiction but what is given them by the power that creates them, and can be vested with none but what the power ceded to the general government will authorize them to confer.”

There is simply no reason a lower court judge should have the unilateral authority to veto every policy created by a legislature. However, there would still be an avenue for judicial review by bringing lawsuits in state court. The advantage here is that most state courts have some form of election or retention ballots for their judges. While plaintiffs would still have the ability to appeal directly to the Supreme Court, the limited resources of the high court would prevent it from intervening in many cases that the lower federal courts have been officiously asserting their will.

Thus, if by some miracle we have 20 Republican-controlled legislatures promoting good policy on an array of foundational issues, there is no way the Supreme Court could “police” them all like the numerous district courts do at present. All we need is a party actually committed to preserving the states and reining in the runaway judiciary. (For more from the author of “Alabama Judge Finds Right to Gruesome Abortion Procedure and Allows Clinics Near Schools” please click HERE)

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The Baby Elephant in the Room: Pro Abortion Researchers Attack Abortion Stigma

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Abortion activists have removed the barriers to abortion across the West, with millions of women and men being part of abortion decisions and procedures.

Yet, despite the massive number of abortions, researchers and public health officials note the persistence of stigma associated with the procedure:

… abortion stigma can be observed at the individual level by measuring worries about the judgment by others, isolation, self-judgment (such as shame), and perceptions of community condemnation. (Cockrill et al., 2013)

Leila Hessini, writing in Rewire, takes it one step further and says that abortion stigma is a form of discrimination:

Abortion stigma occurs when people are labeled, dehumanized, or discriminated against due to their need for, or association with, abortion.

Students at Loyola University participated in a Student’s for Reproductive Choice activity with a papaya to help de-stigmatize abortion:

Students used a papaya to learn about vacuum aspiration abortions, claiming it’s similar to sucking out papaya seeds … a “teacher” tells a student how to insert the cannula into the papaya (uterus) and instructs her on how far to go and how to suck out the insides. … The purpose of the papaya workshop is for students to learn about aspiration abortions, and to destigmatize abortion in general.

Kate Cockrill, MPH is the co-founder of Sea Change, whose mission is to “transform the culture of reproductive stigma.”

The Sea Change website asks some questions about abortion stigma:

Why is abortion so hard to talk about?

Why does getting an abortion often feel illicit and shameful?

Why don’t we hear about the abortion experiences of our mothers, sisters, friends?

Cockrill and her colleagues talk about strategies to reduce and eliminate abortion stigma with the goal of lessening a woman’s isolation and building connection, social support and validation of their abortion decision:

We can imagine a world in which abortion stigma and shame do not taint the relationships of people with abortion experiences … People might talk regularly about their abortion experiences with co-workers, friends, and family members. …

Reduce the secrecy — remove the shame guilt and silence — and women are supported and empowered by their reproductive choices. Abortion is just another in a series of life events and transitions that women can share with friends and family.

Yet even here in the United States where abortion is displayed in media and television in a positive light, most of the women and men who experience this most common and intimate of medical procedures keep it a closely guarded secret.

The Lived Reality of Abortion — The Female Body is Not Pro-Choice

Pro-abortion researchers and public health officials look outside the individual for the source of stigma. The lens through which they look at a woman’s abortion experience is filtered through a narrative of abortion as an act of female autonomy and empowerment.

After all, abortion is as simple as sucking the seeds out of a papaya, right?

Women who have experienced the procedure have a different perspective*:

It was extremely painful, and I will never in my life forget the loud horrifying sound of the suction machine taking the life out of my body. — Cathy

Funny thing about the pro abortion language of bodily autonomy and choice — a woman’s body is not pro-choice.

Once conception occurs, and the pregnancy is developing normally, a woman’s body nurtures and protects the life in her womb. On an emotional and physiological level, a woman has to violate and sever an intimate communion between mother and developing child when that relationship and pregnancy is terminated.

The shame, guilt and unacknowledged loss called “disenfranchised grief” are common after the procedure. They are connected to a sense within a woman of violating something innate, deep within her identity and an intuitive sense that this intimate relationship has been severed.

The biggest impact abortion has had on me is that every time I look at my children I have now, I think about that little face I never saw and the child I have never known. — Aimee B.C., Canada

Women and also men may develop various addictions and become involved in abusive relationships and impulsive sex to dull their pain. Many others throw themselves into hyper-success drive to get far away from their guilt and grief.

I lost what I was trying to save with the abortion. I sacrificed my children on the altar of my ambition. Addictions came into my life as I tried to run from the pain. My misery drove me to my knees. — David

Pro-choice feminists Kate Michelman of NARAL and Gloria Steinem zealously promoted abortion rights after their abortions. Their natural post-abortion feelings of sadness, grief and guilt were channeled into abortion rights activism. Others become public health workers, researchers and volunteers spreading abortion rights around the globe.

Leslie shares about her pro-choice activism after an abortion:

I discovered I was pregnant and I had just landed my dream job as a TV Talk Show Host. A roommate drove me to an abortion clinic in Greensboro, N.C.

After graduation, I threw myself into the new job creating a façade of the perfect young career girl who had it all together … drinking, drugging and sleeping around … self destructing.

Trying to validate my choices, I became a strong pro-abortion supporter and at times militant with anyone who didn’t agree with my opinion.

Stigma as the Door to Recovery

Pro abortion public health officials imagine a world free of abortion stigma and shame.

Yet when a woman or man participates in the death of their unborn child, they naturally experience feelings of sadness, fear of judgment, and isolation in their secret shame. Even when there is a sense of relief after the procedure there are still feelings of grief, anxiety and emptiness.

The path to recovery, and the reduction and elimination of the feelings associated with abortion stigma, requires an affirmation of what was lost and the healing of the broken relationship between parent and child. This is best accomplished in a faith-based abortion recovery program with others who have experienced this loss.

Pro abortion ideology blinds abortion researchers like Kate Cockrill to the true source of abortion stigma and the effective remedy for women and men’s post abortion suffering.

It’s the baby elephant in the room of the pro abortion movement. (For more from the author of “The Baby Elephant in the Room: Pro Abortion Researchers Attack Abortion Stigma” please click HERE)

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Supreme Court Enters Legal Battle Over Gender Identity and the Purpose of Restrooms

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Why do we make our restrooms and locker rooms private? Each of us performs a variety of necessary life functions in front of strangers every day.

We eat in public restaurants, we work in public offices, and as anyone who ever has been stranded in an airport can attest, we even sleep in public. There is no shame or embarrassment in doing such activities in front of complete strangers.

Yet when it comes to activities that involve a measure of undressing, we realize that most people are not comfortable doing them in public—and especially not in the presence of members of the opposite sex.

So as a society, we set apart designated areas—restrooms, locker rooms, showers, changing rooms—for individuals to perform these intimate activities. In other words, private facilities exist because privacy matters.

But according to the federal government and LGBT activists, the primary function of private facilities is not privacy; it is affirmation of a person’s gender identity.

And now the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a related case out of Virginia.

In December 2014, the Gloucester County School Board made what should have been an uncontroversial decision. In response to a request to use the boys’ restrooms from a female high school student who asserts that she is male, the school board adopted a policy stating that the girls’ and boys’ restrooms can be used only by students of the designated sex.

The school board concurrently made several single-stall, unisex restrooms available for anyone, including the self-described transgender student who was uncomfortable using the communal facilities at Gloucester High School.

The board otherwise allowed the student, Gavin Grimm, to live as a male, dress like a male, and use a male name and pronouns. And by offering accommodations, the school district guaranteed that Grimm would be afforded privacy—whether Grimm chose to use the single-stall facilities or the female communal restrooms with others of the female sex.

But Grimm, 17, rejected this solution. Relying upon guidance from the U.S. Department of Education, which for several years quietly had pushed the idea that schools must treat a student consistent with his or her gender identity, Grimm sued the school district.

The suit argues that under federal Title IX and its regulations, the school must affirm Grimm’s male gender identity by allowing use of the boys’ restrooms.

The lawsuit received immediate support from the Education and Justice departments, which ultimately issued the now infamous “Dear Colleague” letter in May 2016. In it, the departments threatened to strip federal funding from any school that does not use its locker rooms, showers, restrooms, and even overnight accommodation on school trips to affirm a student’s gender identity.

The Gloucester school board courageously stood against the full might of the federal government, recognizing that complying with Grimm’s demands would violate the constitutional privacy rights of other students, to whom the board owed a duty of care.

While the school board won in lower court, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision and found that the government’s re-interpretation of Title IX and its regulations should be given deference.

Under this re-interpretation, a law that allows schools to maintain separate locker rooms and restrooms on the basis of sex becomes one that orders schools to open up these facilities to anyone who asserts he or she is of the designated sex.

The school board immediately asked the Supreme Court to review the case.

On Friday, the high court accepted the case, and the implications of its eventual ruling likely will be historic and affect millions of schoolchildren across the country.

Two aspects of the case are noteworthy. First, the Supreme Court previously issued a stay, allowing the school board to maintain its policy that protects student privacy in communal facilities. The stay, which remains in effect, recognizes that there would be irreparable harm if students were suddenly forced to share locker rooms and restrooms with the opposite sex.

Second, the court declined to take up the issue of whether “Auer deference”—the legal doctrine relied upon by the federal government to claim that its nonbinding guidance interpreting Title IX have the force of law—should be overturned. Instead, the court will examine whether the interpretation itself is consistent with Title IX and should be given deference.

As a result, the privacy implications of the federal government’s lawless actions are likely to play a prominent role in the case.

And it is clear that the federal government’s interpretation of Title IX has no foothold in the law, whether one looks to the text of Title IX and its regulations (which authorize schools and colleges to maintain separate dorms, locker rooms, and restrooms on the basis of sex); the law’s legislative history (where concerns over privacy and safety were addressed by allowing sex-specific facilities); or subsequent court decisions interpreting the law (the overwhelming majority of which reject the claim that Title IX extends to gender identity or requires schools to affirm a student’s self-perceived gender).

Indeed, when you research the purpose of Title IX, it is apparent that Congress sought to affirm the equality of women by guaranteeing them equal access to educational opportunities.

One’s sex is irrelevant in the classroom or science lab. Yet by recognizing that sex-specific facilities are permissible when privacy is needed, Congress communicated that women are not disaffirmed as being equal to men nor denied equal educational opportunities by the commonsense recognition of biological differences and the need for privacy that those differences necessitate.

The same is true in the Gloucester County case. The school board has shown incredible compassion and accommodation to Gavin Grimm. Yet Grimm and the federal government are not seeking privacy or equal educational opportunities; Grimm is receiving both. Instead, they are demanding affirmation of Grimm’s decision to identify as a male.

But locker rooms and restrooms are not for affirmation; they are for privacy. And schools should remain free to put the privacy of their students above political agendas. (For more from the author of “Supreme Court Enters Legal Battle Over Gender Identity and the Purpose of Restrooms” please click HERE)

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Clinton Campaign Wants Anti-Hillary Ad With Michelle Obama Taken Down

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Along with her husband, first lady Michelle Obama has been on the campaign trail in recent months advocating for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

“I’m out here first and foremost because we’ve never had a more qualified and prepared candidate for president than our friend Hillary Clinton,” the first lady told a rally in North Carolina Thursday.

However, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wants Florida voters to hear what Michelle Obama had to say about Clinton long before she had a vested interest in electing the candidate who has pledged to continue President Barack Obama’s agenda.

The ad shows comments made in 2008, the year in which the Obamas were campaigning against Clinton in a bitter contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The ad features video footage of the first lady telling a crowd, “One of the things, the important aspects of this race is role modeling what good families should look like. And my view is that if you can’t run your own house, you certainly can’t run the White House. Can’t do it!”

The Obama campaign later clarified that the statement was not in reference to former President Bill Clinton’s sexual conduct, but the remark was interpreted that way at the time.

Michelle Obama’s comments are something the Clinton campaign would prefer voters not hear.

BuzzFeed reported that the Clinton campaign has sent a cease and desist letters to several stations demanding they stop airing the ad, which was paid for through the Defeat Crooked Hillary PAC, a subsidiary of the Make America Number 1 PAC.

In a letter to the stations, Make America Number 1’s lawyer Larry Levy denied the demand from Hillary for America to stop running the ads.

Levy said the Clinton campaign seeks to “deny the public an opportunity to view our advertisement because it is ‘false and misleading’. In reality, HFA simply finds it politically inconvenient that a top surrogate for its candidate once held a differing view concerning her qualifications for office.”

PAC spokesperson Hogan Gidley said the Clinton campaign finds fault with the ad because it is effective.

“Hillary’s just angry because the ad is impactful, it’s working and it speaks directly to the women she’s been trying to con for years,” Gidley said.

“Hillary’s own campaign said when Michelle Obama speaks out, ‘it has a real impact,’ and indeed, we agree – because it was Mrs. Obama who correctly pointed out Hillary Clinton ‘certainly can’t run the White House,’” Gidley said. (For more from the author of “Clinton Campaign Wants Anti-Hillary Ad With Michelle Obama Taken Down” please click HERE)

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Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Transgender School Bathrooms Case

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The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether a federal order requiring public schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity is lawful.

The Obama administration issued a directive earlier this year requiring public schools to accommodate transgender students.

The case before the Supreme Court originates in Gloucester County, Virginia. The high court agreed Friday to hear it, granting review on two legal questions.

The Obama administration’s directive advised that the U.S. Department of Education read Title IX, the section of the federal code concerning gender discrimination in education, to include transgender individuals—meaning a school may not discriminate against them in any way.

Some school districts across the country have ignored the order and set their own policies, arguing the administration does not have the authority to issue such a rule. Some states, led by Texas, challenged the order in federal court; a federal district judge in Texas sided with them and blocked the order.

The case arose when Gavin Grimm, a 17-year-old student in the Gloucester County public school system who is transgender, sought to begin using the men’s bathroom.

Grimm was born female but identifies as male. Gloucester County schools require transgender students to use alternative bathrooms.

In a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Grimm claims the district’s policy violates Title IX and the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

Though a district court sided with the schools, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled for Grimm, finding that the courts must defer to Department of Education guidelines requiring schools to treat students consistent to their gender identity to comply with Title IX.

The Supreme Court justices must determine whether an unpublished agency letter that itself does not carry the force of law is subject to “Auer deference,” and also whether the department’s interpretation of Title IX will stand.

Auer deference is a legal doctrine requiring the courts to defer to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulation. The court also was asked to revisit the 1997 Auer ruling in its entirety, but declined to take up that question.

“The Supreme Court has the chance to rein in an executive branch that has once again gone around our laws and the will of the people in violation of the Constitution,” Roger Severino, director of The Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, said in a release by the think tank.

Severino noted that the Department of Education determined that it is discriminatory to reasonably accommodate transgender students with private facilities:

Incredibly, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals said it was required to defer to the administration’s backward and bizarre rewriting of the law and effectively handed its gavel to the Department of Education.

Across America, schools have been able to address student concerns sensitively and fairly. The last thing they need is a one-sided mandate from the federal government that jeopardizes student privacy.

A date for oral arguments has not yet been set.

In the absence of a ninth justice, the court has declined to schedule arguments in major cases on which they are expected to split along ideological lines. It is possible, then, that the case will not be argued for the foreseeable future. (For more from the author of “Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Transgender School Bathrooms Case” please click HERE)

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Franklin Graham: Media Do Not Want the Political Corruption to Change

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Commenting on the “incredible” media bias this election year, evangelical Pastor Franklin Graham said the “corruption” in both political parties is “unbelieveable” and the media, “along with many politicians from both parties, doesn’t want any of this to change.”

“Isn’t the media bias incredible — especially relating to political candidates?” said Rev. Graham in an Oct. 24 post on Facebook. “Geraldo Rivera said last night that it’s like nothing he’s ever seen.”

“They spin story after story against the candidates they don’t like and in favor of the candidates they support,” he said. “I hope and pray that Christians are not deceived by the media’s bias, but will give prayerful consideration as they go to the polls and vote.”

“Our political system in this country is broken,” said Rev. Graham. “The corruption is in both parties and is unbelievable. The media, along with many politicians from both parties, doesn’t want any of this to change.”

“As I went to all 50 states this year and stood on the capitol steps with Christians from every state, we prayed and confessed our sins to God,” he said. “We asked His forgiveness and asked Him to heal this land. My prayer is that you will continue to pray, and that you will vote.” (Read more from “Franklin Graham: Media Do Not Want the Political Corruption to Change” HERE)

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Pastors, They’re Coming for You!

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OK, I get it.

The title of this article sounds conspiratorial and inflammatory. In fact, it sounds like a “shock” headline designed to get your attention. Who, after all, is this ambiguous “they” I’m referring to, and why are “they” coming for “you” — referring obviously to Christian leaders? And what, pray tell, are “they” coming to do to “you?”

So I’ll admit it. I did come up with the title of this article for shock value, but the fact is, you need to be shocked. It is only sensational because it is true.

Consider this October 26 headline on Fox News: “State of Georgia demands pastor turn over sermons.” Yes, “A lay minister who is suing the Georgia Department of Public Health for religious discrimination has been ordered by the state’s attorney general to relinquish his sermons to the government, according to federal court documents.”

In the words of Attorney General Samuel Olens, “Please produce a copy of your sermon notes and/or transcripts.”

And why is the state of Georgia demanding his sermon notes and/or transcripts?

As Todd Starnes reports, “Walsh, a Seventh-day Adventist lay minister had been hired in May 2014 as a District Health Director with the Georgia Department of Public Health. A week later, a government official asked him to submit copies of his sermons for review. He complied and two days later he was fired.”

In other words, he was not fired because of any lack of qualification. To the contrary, he was highly qualified for the job.

As noted by attorney David French, Walsh’s resumé included “working for former President Bush and President Obama to combat AIDS, serving as a board member of the Latino Health Collaborative, and starting California’s first city-run dental clinic for low-income families dealing with HIV/AIDS,” but that “wasn’t sufficient to overcome the horror at Walsh’s Christian views.”

Yes, Walsh was fired for the unpardonable sin of preaching against homosexual practice, based on Scripture — and note that he was preaching this to his fellow-congregants, not giving a lecture to his staff. As Walsh’s lead attorney Jeremy Dys said, “He was fired for something he said in a sermon. If the government is allowed to fire someone over what he said in his sermons, they can come after any of us for our beliefs on anything.”

Yes, continued Dys, “It’s an incredible intrusion on the sanctity of the pulpit. This is probably the most invasive reach into the pulpit by the state that I’ve ever seen.”

It’s No Surprise

But this should not surprise us at all. As I pointed out in 2013:

Already in April, 2009, an article in the Washington Post documented how, “Faith organizations and individuals who view homosexuality as sinful and refuse to provide services to gay people are losing a growing number of legal battles that they say are costing them their religious freedom.”

This was confirmed by Georgetown Law Professor Chai Feldblum, appointed by President Obama to serve on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and herself an out and proud lesbian, when she remarked that when religious liberty and sexual liberty conflict, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”

That’s why Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran, was fired for his personally held beliefs about sexuality and marriage.

That’s why Dr. Angela McCaskill, associate provost of diversity and inclusion at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. (and herself deaf), was suspended from her job for signing a petition at her local church which called for a public vote on same-sex “marriage” (rather than for a legislative decision).

That’s why Crystal Dixon was fired from her position as Associate Vice President of Human Resources at the University of Toledo for writing an editorial in her local newspaper, taking issue with the idea that gay is the new black.

And the list goes on and on, growing on a regular basis, as I and others have documented now for years. (Just check out the chapter “Big Brother Is Watching, and He Really Is Gay” in A Queer Thing Happened to America for some sobering examples.)

And I used these three examples here because in each case, gay sensitivities not only trumped religious rights, they also demonstrated that, when it comes to “gay rights,” even black Americans can be perceived as victimizers rather than victims (Cochran, McCaskill, and Dixon were all black).

As we have now learned with Dr. Walsh (did I mention he’s black as well?), not even the pulpits are safe.

But this too should not surprise us. After all, it was just last year that Annise Parker, the lesbian mayor of Houston, along with the city attorney, David Feldman, demanded that five local pastors turn over their sermons, speeches, presentations, and even emails to congregants which addressed the issues of homosexuality and gender identity, among other subjects.

It was only when Parker and Feldman came under intense national pressure that they backed down, with Parker still denying that “the request[s] were in any way illegal or intended to intrude on religious liberties.” (I document this in detail in the chapter “The Day the Line Was Crossed” in Outlasting the Gay Revolution.)

With all respect to the mayor’s position, her explanation was absolute rubbish, and there is no question that what she did intruded on religious liberties.

The Church Must Resist!

As I warned last week, if Hillary Clinton is elected, this will only get worse. Even if Donald Trump is elected, abuses like this will continue on a local level for years to come. There’s only thing that can stop it, and that is simply the Church of Jesus, led by its pastors and elders, standing up to speak what is right and do what is right, regardless of cost or consequence. If we do, the tide will turn.

Now, I’m quite aware that I sound like a broken record, having written on this theme three times in two weeks, including this article (see here and here).

But I will keep sounding the alarm until God’s people wake up — beginning with the leaders — and with yet another example staring us in the face, we sleep on to our own peril, not to mention our lasting shame.

In recent days, I’ve been reading a terrific book by Dean G. Stroud entitled, Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich. And while I am absolutely not comparing our current government to Nazi Germany and while I do not believe we will go the way Nazi Germany went, I can’t help but see the striking parallels between our two countries, beginning with these incremental attacks on religious freedom, back then and today.

And so, while I am not saying that America will one day look like Nazi Germany, I am saying that very soon, America will hardly be recognizable, the antithesis of the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”

After all, who would have believed that in the last two years, government officials would be demanding that pastors and Christian teachers turn over their sermons, sermons notes, and private emails dealing with sexual morality and that, in the last 10 years, Christians would be fired from their jobs or kicked out of their schools because of their privately held, biblical beliefs?

And so, I will say it again. It’s time to wake up! (For more from the author of “Pastors, They’re Coming for You!” please click HERE)

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