Daily Headlines | Friday May 20, 2022

Good Morning!

Our decisions can have profound consequences.

Writing in the Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis noted, “Satan wants us to think as little as possible about the eternal consequences of actions.”

In our first story, Steph Curry’s mother reflects on one of the best decisions she ever made:

1. NBA Star Steph Curry’s Mom Reveals He Was Almost Aborted

Focus on the Family president Jim Daly writes:

Golden State Warriors’ all-star Stephen “Steph” Curry led his team to victory Wednesday night in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals. Considered one of the greatest guards in NBA history, his 21 points and 12 rebounds proved decisive.

Married since 2011, Curry and his wife are the proud parents of three children – two daughters and a son. An outspoken Christian, Curry has not been shy about his Christian faith.

“People should know who I represent and why I am who I am, and that’s because of my Lord and Savior,” he said.

But now we’ve learned that Steph Curry’s life was almost ended at a Planned Parenthood clinic over 34 years ago. After having one abortion in high school, Curry’s mother, Sonya, discovered she was pregnant again. Writing in her book, “Fierce Love: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Purpose,” Sonya tells of standing outside and preparing to go in to abort her baby before the Holy Spirit intervened and she responded.

“God had a plan for that child,” she said.

“There could be no Stephen. If I would have gone through that there would have been no Wardell Stephen Curry II.”

Abortion not only takes the life of the child, it also deprives the world of a future influenced and impacted by that individual. We reference the tragic and devastating toll of 60 million aborted babies – but what about all the children who would have been born to those children one day in the future? The generational impact is practically incalculable.

How many future NBA stars have been aborted? How about women and men who might find the cure to cancer or disease? What if a future doctor who might have found the cure to COVID-19 was aborted thirty or forty years ago?

I’m so glad Sonya chose life – and I hope and pray women who learn of her decision and who might be considering an abortion will do the same. Steph’s mother is correct in saying that God had a plan for her son. But the reality is the Lord has a plan for every life – and our hearts break and the world loses out each time that plan is rejected.

2. Oklahoma Legislature Passes Bill Banning Abortion from Moment of Fertilization

From National Review:

The Oklahoma legislature approved a law on Thursday that would ban almost all abortions from the moment of fertilization, sending the bill to Republican governor Kevin Stitt to sign.

The law, which constitutes the most sweeping pro-life legislation passed by any state, allows anyone to sue a doctor or other person who “aids or abets” an abortion from the moment of fertilization for up to $10,000. While modeled on Texas’s ban on abortions upon detection of a fetal heartbeat, the Oklahoma law would ban almost all abortions, with exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

The bill would go into effect immediately upon receiving the governor’s signature.

3. The True Cost of Roe: With abortion on demand, cohabitation, single parenthood and child poverty have increased

From the Deseret News:

The widespread availability of abortion enabled by Roe v. Wade has not remedied inequality for women. It has entrenched it, by refusing to acknowledge and respect the sexual difference between men and women and the gift of women’s life-giving capacity.

After Roe, abortion became the easiest option for resolving all the complexities around women and men, their sexual relationship and the life that results from it. Abortion on demand meant no one would need to take responsibility for decisions that might result in the conception of a child. Few people would be inconvenienced by the pregnancy. Not the father of the baby. Not the woman’s parents. Not the woman’s boss.

Since Roe v. Wade, the marriage rate has dramatically dropped, cohabitation has increased by 17 times, and the out-of-wedlock childbearing rate has grown from 5% to 41%, with profound negative implications, especially for low-income women and children.

“Liberated” women find themselves trapped between acting destructively against their bodies and the life their bodies are designed to create, or trying to rear children on their own. Since single motherhood accounts for much of the rise in child poverty since the 1970s, the result is a vicious cycle of feminized poverty that only feeds dependence on the trap of abortion.

4. Donald Trump and His Elusive Base 

Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal: 

Something is changing among Trump supporters. It’s a kind of psychological moving forward that is not quite a break, not an abandonment but an acknowledgment of a new era. In Florida recently, talking with Trump supporters, what I picked up is a new distance. They won’t tell pollsters, they may not even tell neighbors, but there was a real sense of: We need Trump’s policies, but we don’t need him. They expressed affection for him, and when not defensive about him they were protective. But as a major backer and donor told me, it’s time to think of the future. Mr. Trump brings “chaos.”

They don’t want him to run again. If he does, they’ll vote for him against a Democrat. But as one said, wouldn’t it be good to have someone like Ron DeSantis ?

I stress: These are passionate Trump supporters.

Here’s a sign of the evolution, the most important words spoken in the 2022 election cycle. When Ms. Barnette was asked in debate why, if she’s so Trumpy, Mr. Trump endorsed one of her competitors, she said, “MAGA does not belong to President Trump. . . . Our values never, never shifted to President Trump’s values. It was President Trump who shifted and aligned with our values.”

That was more than a clever response, it was a declaration of autonomy.

Mr. Trump has obviously changed the party’s culture, its understanding and presentation of itself. An unanswered question is what this means for policy. Mr. Trump never talks about it. For him, once, it came down to slogans (“America first”) and now it’s all grievance (“stop the steal”) Beyond that it’s—what?

It seems to me at least two-thirds of the base is in agreement on traditional Republican policy—taxes should be lower rather than higher, regulation too. Spending? The general view is “Hold where we are or cut but don’t go crazy.” They are for cultural normality and stability as opposed to lability and extremism. They want these things advanced through the party. They are serious about policy.

But the third or so of the base that is Trumpist, they’re a mix. Some don’t care about policy or party. They’re about attitude—politics is a blood sport and this era is the most fun they ever had.

Regular Republicans know they can’t win general elections without Trump supporters. Some not-insignificant number of Trump supporters don’t care if they lose without non-Trumpers. Because winning isn’t the point, because policy isn’t the point. Attitude is all.

What will be interesting as this evolves is what proportion of Trump supporters really do want to win for serious reasons and will make the compromises victory entails.

5. Maine pulls LGBTQ lesson plan for kindergarten students after GOP criticism

From The Washington Times:

The Maine Department of Education removed from its website a video containing an LGBTQ lesson plan for kindergarten students that was the subject of a Republican ad targeting Democratic Gov. Janet Mills.

The ad, which first aired Wednesday, accused the governor of spending $2.8 million to create “radical school lessons” aimed at the youngest children in public schools.

The Department of Education quickly reviewed the online lesson plan and said Wednesday it had been removed. The governor was not aware of the video “and agrees with the Department of Education’s decision to remove the lesson,” the governor’s spokesperson, Lindsay Crete, said in an email.

The video was produced for an online resource hub created early in the pandemic to allow teachers to share lesson plans. There are more than 400 optional lessons on the website.

On the targeted video, a teacher discusses “Freedom Holidays” like the Fourth of July and Juneteenth before moving to a discussion on the different sexual identities under the umbrella of “LGBT+” and of the rights to same-sex marriage.

6. Suicide Contagion 

From First Things:

I have often argued that, as a matter of logic and intuition, the widespread legalization of assisted suicide will increase both the rate of assisted suicides and the rate of unassisted suicides. After all, many people conflate what is “legal” with what is “right.” Once a state gives its imprimatur to assisted suicide as a way of alleviating suffering and providing “medical aid in dying,” as it is euphemistically called, an ever-increasing number of people will resort to that means of ending their lives. And indeed, some recent studies suggest that in places where assisted suicide is legal, both assisted suicides and unassisted suicides increase.

There is evidence that suggests suicide begets suicide, and that legal assisted suicide has an effect on suicide rates overall. Obviously, we need to undertake more empirical studies and pointed analyses, but if we care as a society about preventing suicides generally—regardless of our beliefs about assisted suicide for the seriously ill—surely the question of assisted suicide contagion should become a pressing concern in fashioning public policy. Before any more states legalize doctor-assisted death, policymakers and the public should focus much more closely on this little-considered aspect of the debate. Human lives literally are at stake.

7.   American girls are now reaching puberty as young as six in phenomenon scientists think may be linked to childhood obesity, chemicals in plastic and stress 

From The Daily Mail:

Young girls in America are experiencing puberty at an earlier age than biologists would particularly expect with the average age falling to ten, with black girls undergoing the process a year earlier than their peers on average, experts warn.

The phenomena was first detected by Dr Marcia Herman-Giddens, a public health expert at the University of North Carolina, when she began to gather data on more than 17,000 girls in the mid-1990s.

She found that the average age of puberty was dropping, falling to ten years old, with some girls developing as early as age six.

Experts also warn that girls that undergo these early puberties are at an increased risk of developing multiple types of cancer and suffer from mental health issues like depression or anxiety.

8.   Micronutrients can help improve behavior in kids with ADHD, emotional dysregulation 

From Study Finds:

Children who have been diagnosed with ADHD and are vulnerable to frequent mood swings may benefit from taking more micronutrients (vitamins, minerals), according to a new study.

Scientists report that children with ADHD and emotional dysregulation randomly instructed to take a micronutrient formula were much more likely to see their symptoms improve (54%) in comparison to a placebo group (18%). The micronutrient formula was made up of various, known vitamins and essential minerals. Participants took the formula for a total of eight weeks.

“Supplementing with all known vitamins and essential minerals, at doses between Recommended Daily Allowance and Upper Tolerable Limit, may improve mood and concentration in children with ADHD and emotional dysregulation,” says lead study author Jeanette Johnstone, PhD, in a media release. “These findings, replicating results of a previous randomized trial of micronutrients in children with ADHD conducted in New Zealand, confirm that supplementation with a broad range of nutrients may benefit some children. These findings may offer guidance to doctors and families seeking integrative treatments for their children with ADHD and related emotional dysregulation.”

9. These 14 states had significant miscounts in the 2020 census

From NPR:

For the 2020 census, all states were not counted equally well for population numbers used to allocate political representation and federal funding over the next decade, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released Thursday.

A follow-up survey the bureau conducted to measure the national tally’s accuracy found significant net undercount rates in six states: Arkansas (5.04%), Florida (3.48%), Illinois (1.97%), Mississippi (4.11%), Tennessee (4.78%) and Texas (1.92%).

It also uncovered significant net overcount rates in eight states — Delaware (5.45%), Hawaii (6.79%), Massachusetts (2.24%), Minnesota (3.84%), New York (3.44%), Ohio (1.49%), Rhode Island (5.05%) and Utah (2.59%).

For the other 36 states, as well as Washington, D.C., the bureau did not find statistically significant net over- or undercount rates.

10. Archaeologists Find Ancient Underground City Where 70,000 Christians Could Have Fled to Escape Persecution

From CBN:

Archaeologists have uncovered a large, 2,000-year-old underground city in Turkey that could have been a refuge for early Christians escaping Roman persecution, Live Sciences reports. 

Excavators found the ancient complex inside a limestone cave in the Midyat district of Turkey’s Mardin province. The underground city contains storage chambers for food and water, homes, and houses of worship, including a church and what appears to be the remains of an ancient synagogue with a Star of David painted on the wall.

Archaeologists believe the city – officially named “Matiate” – was built sometime in the second or third centuries AD after discovering Roman-era artifacts like coins and lamps inside.

“It was first built as a hiding place or escape area,” Gani Tarkan, director of Mardin Museum and head of excavations told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency.

“Christianity was not an official religion in the second century [and] families and groups who accepted Christianity generally took shelter in underground cities to escape the persecution of Rome,” Tarkan said. “Possibly, the underground city of Midyat was one of the living spaces built for this purpose.”

Hope you have a great weekend!

Photo from Shutterstock.