Good Morning!
John Maxwell says, “Momentum solves 80% of your problems.”
The good news post-Roe is that pro-life stalwarts have been long preparing for this moment:
- More GOP-Led States Enact Abortion ‘Trigger Laws’
From CBN:
In Tennessee, abortions are now illegal at fertilization, except to prevent death or serious injury. The law does not criminalize women seeking an abortion.
Tennessee and Texas are among more than a dozen states that have passed so-called trigger laws.
Most of those states started enforcing bans right after the June 24 decision. Idaho, Tennessee, and Texas had to wait 30 days beyond when the justices formally entered the judgment.
Idaho’s new law that would have made all abortions felonies was supposed to take effect too.
A federal judge issued a preliminary order Wednesday that the state’s abortion ban violated federal law.
North Dakota’s trigger laws are set to start Friday.
2. Don’t Fall for the Call to Moderate on Abortion
From the Daily Citizen:
Citing recent election outcomes in New York, Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas, Thursday’s Wall Street Journal Editorial page is postulating that pro-life conservative purists are posing a threat to a once certain rout of radical, liberal politicians this coming November.
Simply put, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board doesn’t believe conservatives should be advocating for outright bans on abortion, especially in states with liberal legislators where there is little to no chance of such laws actually being passed.
The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan said as much earlier this month, much to the dismay of many pro-life champions who have long appreciated the columnist’s commitment to the pre-born.
“In Kansas, pro-lifers asked for too much,” she wrote. “People don’t like big swerves and lurches, there’s enough anxiety in life. They want to absorb, find a way to trust. Dobbs was decided only six weeks ago.”
But is it really “too much” to have asked voters in Kansas to ban government funding of abortion and allow innocent life to be protected under law?
While the pro-life community isn’t monolithic in its methods, it’s unified in its desired outcome:
We strive to serve mothers and save as many babies as possible.
It’s not radical to support life and oppose the killing of the pre-born.
Thousands of pregnancy resource centers have been toiling away for decades – serving women by encouraging them to carry their children to term. Adoption agencies have been placing over a hundred thousand children in forever homes each year, and hundreds of thousands of families have been hosting and raising children in foster care.
These armies of pro-life citizens, many of them volunteers, are the unsung heroes of the last century. They receive no medals, nor will you ever see their names in lights. But you will see something else – generations of children raised in loving homes and going on to live and accomplish great things.
- Uber Accused Of Using Abortion Activism To Mask ‘Horrifying’ Behavior Toward Women
From the Daily Wire:
Uber is being accused of using abortion activism to cover up the company’s alleged mistreatment of women.
A new ad campaign launched Thursday by the conservative organization Consumer’s Research hones in on allegations that female Uber passengers in multiple states have been “kidnapped, sexually assaulted, sexually battered, raped, falsely imprisoned, stalked, harassed, or otherwise attacked” by their Uber drivers.
Consumer’s Research accuses Uber of attempting to mask these allegations through its abortion activism — such as Uber’s promise to cover travel expenses for employee out of state abortions or the legal fees of drivers sued under Texas’s abortion law (these drivers would only be held liable under the law if there was proof that the driver knew that his passenger was on her way to abort her unborn baby that had a heartbeat).
“Uber’s woke leadership is attempting to hide behind the fig leaf of funding abortion travel for employees rather than fixing serious problems such as sexual assaults on customers and subjecting pregnant workers to discrimination and unsafe working conditions,” said the organization’s executive director, Will Hild.
- Transgender Patients vs. Religious Doctors
From the Wall Street Journal:
The Little Sisters of the Poor were a cause célèbre during President Obama’s tenure, and they’re still in court defending religious exceptions to ObamaCare’s contraceptive mandate. Progressives don’t merely want to win the country’s culture wars. They want to impose a Carthaginian peace.
The latest evidence is a case involving the Franciscan Alliance that was heard a few weeks ago by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The alliance is a Catholic hospital system, mostly in Indiana, founded by the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration. As the alliance argues in its brief, in 2016 the government interpreted ObamaCare’s nondiscrimination provisions “to require doctors and hospitals nationwide to perform and insure gender-transition procedures and abortions or else be liable for ‘sex’ discrimination.”
Specifically, the feds read the law to require that services be offered on an equal basis. “If a gynecologist performs a hysterectomy for a woman with uterine cancer,” the alliance’s brief says, “she must do the same for a woman who wants to remove a healthy uterus to live as a man.”
The alliance could not comply as a matter of conscience and medical judgment. Neither could members of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations. They sued, citing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and with help from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which also represented the Little Sisters.
This cultural clash isn’t going away, and the country is in for more trouble if progressives can’t rediscover the principle of pluralism. The government’s appeal shows a bloody-mindedness that is difficult to fathom. A second pending case, similar but in the Eighth Circuit, involves the Religious Sisters of Mercy, who run a nonprofit clinic in Michigan.
The government spent years trying to shove birth control into the health plans of the Little Sisters, so perhaps no one should be surprised that it’s fighting exemptions for the Franciscan Alliance and the Sisters of Mercy. But seriously, why not leave the nuns alone? We’d love to hear the Catholic President Biden’s answer.
RELATED:
Arkansas can’t ban treatment of transgender kids, court says
From Politico:
A federal appeals court on Thursday said Arkansas can’t enforce its ban on transgender children receiving gender affirming medical care.
A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a judge’s ruling temporarily blocking the state from enforcing the 2021 law. A trial is scheduled for October before the same judge on whether to permanently block the law.
Arkansas was the first state to enact such a ban, which prohibits doctors from providing gender confirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone under 18 years old, or from referring them to other providers for the treatment. There are no doctors who perform gender affirming surgery on minors in the state.
“Because the minor’s sex at birth determines whether or not the minor can receive certain types of medical care under the law, Act 626 discriminates on the basis of sex,” the court’s ruling Thursday said.
- Ukrainians Receive Medical and Spiritual Care from Samaritan’s Purse Field Hospital
Video from the Daily Citizen:
“You are doctor from God. I was afraid not to see the sun. I was afraid not to see people.”
Margherita, a resident from Mariupol, Ukraine, spent two months living in a crowded, flooded basement with other refugees as fierce fighting raged above them. Though injured, she managed to escape and found both spiritual and physical care at a Samaritan’s Purse field hospital in Lviv.
In addition to supplying 28 hospitals in country, Samaritan’s Purse operates their own facilities across Ukraine, providing desperately needed medical care to those injured in the war.
Margherita’s story was captured by the Daily Citizen’s Michael McGonigle and Tim Morgan, who on their own time and resources, visited Ukraine to learn more about the ongoing conflict and to provide a voice for those who are suffering as a result of the war.
This week marks the 6 month anniversary of Russia’s invasion and despite most news coverage shifting coverage away from Ukraine, people are still being misplaced and dying on a daily basis.
Pray for the people of Ukraine, that they might once again know peace.
- Texas Law Mandates Donated ‘In God We Trust’ Signs be Displayed in Public Schools
From the Daily Citizen:
Texas public schools have begun displaying posters with the national motto “In God We Trust” around their campuses – and some leftists are really angry about it.
A law, S.B. No. 797, was enacted by the Texas Legislature last year. This new statute governs the placement of the national motto for public elementary or secondary schools, and institutions of higher education.
The law states that these entities “must display in a conspicuous place in each building of the school or institution a durable poster or framed copy of the United States national motto, ‘In God We Trust,’ if the poster or framed copy meets” the following requirements:
Is donated for display at the school or institution.
Is purchased from private donations and made available to the school or institution.
In other words, if a private donor donates an “In God We Trust” poster to a public school, that school must display.
- Scanning students’ rooms during remote tests is unconstitutional, judge rules
From NPR:
The remote-proctored exam that colleges began using widely during the pandemic saw a first big legal test of its own — one that concluded in a ruling applauded by digital privacy advocates.
A federal judge this week sided with a student at Cleveland State University in Ohio, who alleged that a room scan taken before his online test as a proctoring measure was unconstitutional.
Aaron Ogletree, a chemistry student, sat for a test during his spring semester last year. Before starting the exam, he was asked to show the virtual proctor his bedroom. He complied, and the recording data was stored by one of the school’s third-party proctoring tools, Honorlock, according to the ruling documents.
Ogletree then sued his university, alleging that the room scan violated his Fourth Amendment rights protecting U.S. citizens against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” In its defense, Cleveland State argued that room scans are not “searches,” because they are limited in scope, conducted to ensure academic fairness and exam integrity, and not coerced.
- Missouri school district revives paddling to discipline students
From the Washington Post:
Classes started Monday for the 1,900 students in Cassville R-IV School District, about an hour west of Branson and some 15 miles from the Arkansas border. During open house, families were notified that the school board had adopted a policy in June allowing “use of physical force as a method of correcting student behavior.” Parents were handed forms to specify whether they authorize the school to use a paddle on their child, the Springfield News-Leader reported.
Formally known as corporal punishment, the disciplinary measure usually involves striking students on the buttocks with a wooden paddle. In Cassville, staff members will employ “reasonable physical force” — without a “chance of bodily injury or harm” — in the presence of a witness, according to the new policy. A teacher or principal must also send a report to the superintendent explaining the reasoning behind the punishment.
What exactly constitutes “reasonable physical force” is unclear. Superintendent Merlyn Johnson declined an interview request from The Washington Post, saying, “At this time we will focus on educating our students.” However, he told the News-Leader that younger students could receive one or two paddle swings, while older students could get up to three. Parents, Johnson said, had thanked the district for approving the practice that has mostly been in decline across the country.
“Parents have said ‘why can’t you paddle my student?’ and we’re like ‘We can’t paddle your student, our policy does not support that,’ ” Johnson told the outlet. “There had been conversation with parents and there had been requests from parents for us to look into it.”
- Go to bed! Just 20% of teens are getting enough sleep
From Study Finds:
Many adolescents consider staying up late a rite of passage into adulthood. While burning the midnight oil can be fun occasionally, new research out of Spain warns that poor sleep habits among teens increases their risk of becoming overweight or obese.
More specifically, teens sleeping less than eight hours nightly are more likely to be overweight or obese in comparison to their more well-rested peers. Similarly, “shorter sleepers” are also more likely “to have a combination of other unhealthy characteristics” including excess fat around the waist, high blood pressure, and abnormal blood lipid or glucose levels.
“Our study shows that most teenagers do not get enough sleep and this is connected with excess weight and characteristics that promote weight gain, potentially setting them up for future problems,” says study author Mr. Jesús Martínez Gómez, a researcher in training at the Cardiovascular Health and Imaging Laboratory, Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC), in a media release. “We are currently investigating whether poor sleep habits are related to excessive screen time, which could explain why older adolescents get even less sleep than younger ones.”
10. Up and Coming Singer Halts Career to Raise Niece, Signs Record Deal 8 Years Later
From the Daily Citizen:
It would seem that Jeremy Rosado was born with a song in his soul.
The 2012 American Idol contestant knew he wanted to be a singer by the time he was three-years-old. His family encouraged his dream, which led him to audition for the popular talent show.
“I was always the kid that had a fake microphone in his hand,” he recalled. “My parents were just so great to pour into that and help me navigate what it meant to be a singer.”
His powerful voice captivated judges Randy Jackson, Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez, earning him a golden ticket and a top 13 finish for the season. With his high-ranking performance on a national singing competition in his early 20s, it would have been natural to launch headlong into a full-time music career.
The Lord, however, had other plans for Rosado.
When he was 13, he and his mother began caring for his then-2-year-old niece, Jocelyn (Jocie). His sister had given birth to Jocie, but struggled with addiction and became unable to care for her.
“I learned how to be a dad super young,” Rosado said. “I promised God I would take care of this little girl for the rest of my life. It was nothing to do with me. It was all Him.”
Following his stint on Idol, Rosado said he felt the Holy Spirit nudging him to become Jocie’s dad. He was 22 years-old and Jocie was 11 at the time.
“It kinda came to a point where I had to make a decision. I felt like I needed to take that responsibility and so I got Jocelyn full time at that point, and I became a dad,” he said.
He became Jocie’s legal guardian and put all his time and energy into raising her to be a godly young woman. Now at 30, Rosado’s 19-year-old daughter is a high school graduate furthering her education in college.
“She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’d do it all again,” Rosado said.
