Life

Dec 12 2025

House Passes Annual Defense Bill Enacting Conservative Priorities

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a massive $900 billion annual defense bill, sending the measure to the Senate before the year-end deadline.

The House passed the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in a 312-112 vote; 94 Democrats and 18 Republicans opposed the bill.

The NDAA includes a 3.8% pay raise for U.S. troops, blocks the Pentagon from reducing the number of U.S. troops “permanently stationed in or deployed to” Europe below 76,000 for longer than 45 days, and authorizes $400 million in annual security assistance for Ukraine, The New York Times reports.

According to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, the bill codifies all or parts of 15 of President Trump’s executive orders, including:

Restoring America’s Fighting Force
Ending Radical and Wasteful DEI Programs
Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border
Securing Our Borders
Clarifying the Military’s Role in Defending U.S. Territorial Integrity
Modernizing Defense Acquisitions & Spurring Innovation
Building the Golden Dome for America
Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security
Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty
Unleashing American Drone Dominance

The speaker’s office also highlighted multiple “major conservative victories” the bill delivers, including:

Ends wokeness and DEI by eliminating programs, offices, and training across the Department of War (DOW).
Secures the border by expanding DOW support for Department of Homeland Security operations, National Guard deployments and National Defense Areas.
Revitalizes the defense industrial base: Grows U.S. defense manufacturing jobs, onshore critical supply chains, and expands surge capacity.
Ensures allies pay their fair share: Adds new tools to push allies to shoulder more of their own defense costs.

House Democrats had pushed for the inclusion of a provision covering the cost of in vitro fertilization (IVF) for service members and their families.

Thankfully, Speaker Johnson “intervened during final negotiations to kill that provision,” the Times reports, over concerns it would lead to the destruction of many embryos.

Speaker Johnson is entirely correct. The provision he killed would have used taxpayer money to subsidize an industry that routinely creates and discards hundreds of thousands of tiny human lives each year.

In fact, the baby-making industry (fertility clinics) destroys more human lives every year than the baby-taking (abortion) industry.

Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy for Students for Life of America, applauded the speaker’s intervention.

“IVF is not an industry that deserves blanket support and funding. We can do better,” she said in a statement.

Lila Rose, president of Live Action, also thanked Speaker Johnson for “ensuring TRICARE was not used to subsidize this destruction of life.”

The House’s original version of the NDAA contained additional conservative priorities, “including a ban on the Pentagon covering [transgender] surgeries for troops. But that provision and several others were stripped out in final negotiations,” the Times notes.

Though the provision doesn’t appear in the NDAA, the Pentagon stopped fund transgender medical interventions for U.S. soldiers earlier this year after President Trump signed an executive order prohibiting transgenderism within the military.

The NDAA still includes a prohibition on biological males participating in women’s sports at U.S. military academies.

The Senate is expected to overwhelmingly approve the legislation, with President Trump signing it into law before the end of the year.

Related articles and resources:

Counseling Consultation & Referrals

IVF: Moral and Ethical Considerations

Frozen Embryos: Ethical Issues, Cryopreservation Risks, and IVF

Court Upholds Trump Ban on ‘Transgender’ Service Members

Photo from Getty Images.

Dec 10 2025

Correcting the White House: God Became Man at Conception, Not Birth

On Monday, the White House gave a strong presidential message recognizing the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day in the Catholic liturgical calendar. The President’s message begins, “On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Catholics celebrate what they believe to be Mary’s freedom from original sin as the mother of God.”

Of course, Protestant do not accept this belief, and Orthodox Christians hold an alternative view. All the same, it is notable that President Trump’s White House recognized it.

The statement briefly explains and celebrates the biblical story of how a lowly virgin from Nazareth is chosen by God to give birth to the Savior of the world. The statement properly states, “Mary’s decision forever altered the course of humanity.” But of course, God becoming man changed all of redemptive history.

This statement from the White House can at least be appreciated by all Christians as a reminder of the historical and biblical truth of the coming of the Son of God, even if we don’t accept the Catholic belief surrounding Mary’s own conception. So, the Trump White House is to be thanked for that. After all, as the statement documents, Catholic believers have played important roles in our nation’s founding and success.

But the statement included an unfortunate error that, no doubt, the president nor his staff who drafted the statement, intended.

At the end of the third paragraph, it states:

Nine months later, God became man when Mary gave birth to a son, Jesus, who would go on to offer his life on the Cross for the redemption of sins and the salvation of the world.

Can you spot the error? We hope so!

God did not become man – while also remaining fully God – at His birth. The incarnational miracle that shifted the balance of the whole universe happened at the moment of conception within Mary’s womb.

In fact, the Scripture beautifully notes this divine God-drama in the womb.

Shortly after hearing the angel Gabriel’s remarkable announcement, Mary went to the “hill country, to a town in Judah” to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was miraculously pregnant with Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist. As Mary entered Elizabeth’s home and greeted her, baby John excitedly leapt in Elizabeth’s womb. Elizabeth then exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” She then added, ^“And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:42-43 ESV)

John the Baptist, while in his mother’s womb, miraculously discerned the approach of the Savior of the world in Mary’s womb and leapt in joyful worship. Elizabeth also noted the blessed nature of the preborn Jesus in the womb, calling Mary blessed at that moment and “the mother of my Lord.”

God became flesh in a womb.

Of course, this is also a profound statement about the wonder of the feminine, the maternal and the nature of the unborn, for God used all of these to reveal Himself. It is also a profound statement about the second person of the divine Trinity, Jesus Christ, and His human origins.

This, after all, is the miracle of Christmas and Christianity itself. In fact, it is what C.S. Lewis called “the Grand Miracle”:

The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this. … If the thing happened, it was the central event in the history of the Earth – the very thing that the whole story has been about.

It is important to get our theology right on the matter. We hope the White House will correct this mistake.

Nov 20 2025

Abortion’s Lies Exposed by Activist’s Own Bumper Stickers

In a way, the bumper sticker predates the bumper – minus the adhesive.

Prior to the advent of Ford’s Model A in 1927 that included the world’s first car bumper, those wanting to communicate a message were known to strap wooden or metal signs using rope or wire onto the back of motorized vehicles. Prior to the car, they were affixed onto horse drawn buggies or carriages.

Forrest P. Gill is credited with inventing the “bumper strip” in the 1940s using self-adhesive paper and fluorescent ink. His first big order was to help promote a park in Clearwater, Florida. It took a few years before politicians began using them to campaign. Dwight Eisenhower’s election in 1952 was buttressed by bumper stickers featuring the ideal short and pithy slogan: “I LIKE IKE”. He won in a landslide.

Bumper stickers have been used for political and social activism ever since. If not always effective, they’ve certainly become ubiquitous. And why not? They’re cheap and everywhere. Motorists can’t help but look at the bumper in front of them while waiting at a red light.

Most causes benefit from reducing the mission, goal or call-to-action down to a single phrase that can fit on a bumper. And yet some are actually exposed by such an exercise – especially the abortion lobby and industry.

I was waiting at a red light the other morning when I spotted a sticker on a silver Subaru in front of me. It read:

ABORTION IS HEALTHCARE

PRO LIFE IS ANTI-WOMEN

Both statements are lies, of course.

According to Merriam-Webster, “healthcare” is “efforts made to maintain, restore, or promote someone’s physical, mental, or emotional well-being especially when performed by trained and licensed professionals.”

Abortion isn’t healthcare by any stretch of the imagination. It doesn’t restore anything but destroys innocent life and then burdens and enslaves the mother and father with a lifetime of guilt and regret.

The claim that being pro-life is somehow “anti-women” is a nonsensical statement on numerous levels, especially since half of the babies aborted are female. But it does speak to the selfish ideology that permeates the abortion movement overall. Many of the activists refuse to acknowledge the existence of life inside the womb and instead put all the emphasis on the mother and none on the baby.

Contrasting pro-life bumper stickers with pro-abortion ones is also instructive and revealing. It’s easy to note the aggression, anger and ignorance in the pro-abortion stickers:

“Keep Your Laws Off My Body,” “No Uterus, No Opinion,” and “My Body, My Choice.”

The slogans are also downright stupid. Do pro-abortion activists really not want any laws concerning the human body? Countless laws protect the bodies of both women and men by making murder illegal or regulating countless other things we ingest/utilize that can potentially kill us – everything ranging from medical procedures to our food and medicine. And only women can have an opinion about abortion? They seem to be fine with pro-abortion male presidents appointing pro-abortion justices to the Supreme Court.

The pro-life messaging?

“Choose Life,” “Every Life Matters,” “Love Them Both,” “Children Are a Gift From God.”

How can anyone be intellectually honest and disagree with these statements?

It can be difficult to reduce contentious issues to soundbites and bumper stickers, but truth is often revealed by contrast. None more so than by examining the rival messages regarding the sanctity of life making their way around the streets of our towns and cities.

Nov 10 2025

Abortionists Normalize Third Trimester Abortions as ‘Later Abortion Care’

The abortion industry describes third trimester abortions as “later abortion care.”

The deceptive euphemism normalizes the ghastly procedure, which ends the lives of preborn babies between seven and nine months old, so abortion providers can profit from it.

Americans’ support for abortion drops as preborn babies develop and begin to look less like “clumps of cells” and more like what they are — human children. But the closer preborn babies are to birth, the more money abortionists make from ending their lives.

Third trimester abortions cost up to $25,000. More clinics have started performing the brutal procedure for a chance to cash in. RISE Collective began performing third trimester abortions up to 34 weeks last month in Boulder, Colorado. A similar clinic plans to open in New Jersey this spring.

To make money, these clinics must convince pregnant women it is acceptable — even normal or humane — to end the life of a child with an 80- to 90% chance of surviving outside the womb. They do this, in part, by calling third trimester abortions “later abortions” or “abortions later in pregnancy.”

The Kaiser Family Foundation claims the “medical community” uses “abortion later in pregnancy” instead of “late-term abortion” because the latter implies an abortion took place at or past a baby’s due date.

For all its concern about rhetorical implication, the pro-abortion medical community’s chosen term offers no information about the age of the child being aborted.

Nor is “abortion later in pregnancy” used in a consistent context. The Kaiser Family Foundation uses it to describe abortions after 21 weeks, when a baby can survive outside the womb. Warren Hern, the infamous abortionist behind the defunct Boulder Abortion Clinic, used “later abortions” to describe abortions in the third trimester

Boulder Collective, the fundraising arm for RISE Collective, uses inscrutable terms like “later abortion care” to solicit donations without revealing what procedures RISE performs, or how it performs them.

“When Colorado’s only later abortion care clinic closed in April 2025, it left an unsustainable gap for people needing specialized care,” Boulder Collective’s website reads. “Clinicians and administrators immediately responded by forming the RISE Collective to provide later abortion care.”

RISE Collective’s website advertises a staff “trained in areas where only a handful of clinics in the country have experience” and offers to guide customers through their “healthcare journey.”

Media outlets could choose to use more accurate terms, like “third trimester abortions” or “abortions after fetal viability,” to describe procedures offered by clinics like RISE Collective. Instead, many choose to adopt the abortion industry’s euphemisms.

“The RISE Collective plans to begin by offering later abortion care, where the greatest gap in service remains,” 9News wrote of the new clinic.

“People seeking abortions later in pregnancy could soon get them in NJ,” the New Jersey Monitor wrote of the New Jersey clinic opening this spring.

The abortion industry uses “later term abortion care” and its variations to make people uncritically accept the morality of third trimester abortions. Believers must reject this language in favor of describing reality.

Third trimester abortions intentionally end the life of a human child in the seventh, eighth or ninth month of its life and confer no legitimate health benefits on a mother.

That is murder. It should never be described otherwise.

To speak with a family help specialist or request resources, please call us at 1-800-A-FAMILY (232-6459).

If you are experiencing an unexpected pregnancy and want to learn more about your options, visit My Choice Network.

To learn more about pro-life legislation in your state, contact your state Family Policy Council.

Additional Articles and Resources

Counseling Services

Counseling Consultation Request

Post Abortion Resources

Considering Abortion?

Colorado Abortion Clinic Performs Third Trimester Abortions ‘For Any Reason’

Are Late-Term Abortions Still A Thing?

Three Doctors Respond to ‘Abortion is Healthcare’

Guide to Abortion Definitions & Language

Induced Abortion: The Facts

Oct 24 2025

Seven Radical Abortion Bills Advance in Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee advanced seven radical abortion bills Wednesday that would protect, expand and fund the abortion industry.

Each bill passed in a 14-12, party line vote, with Democrat committee members voting for the proposed measures and Republican members voting against them.

“These laws would make Pennsylvania one of the most extreme abortion states in the country overnight,” Lexi Sneller, a Policy Analyst with the Pennsylvania Family Council, told the Daily Citizen.

Four of the bills would shield abortion providers from prosecution, both from pro-life states and women harmed by abortions.

HB 1643 and HB 1966 prohibit Pennsylvania courts from cooperating with out-of-state judgements and legal cases against in-state abortion providers.

HB 1640 prohibits abortion providers from disclosing records to state courts without patient permission. Sneller says this bill would protect abortion providers from in-state prosecutions if Pennsylvania’s government became more pro-life.

HB 1641 effectively requires insurance companies to provide medical liability insurance to healthcare companies that perform abortions on citizens from states where abortion is illegal.

Pennsylvania informed consent law requires a mother to receive counseling on alternatives to abortion before going through with the procedure. It also requires a mother to wait at least 24 hours between deciding on an abortion and receiving one.

HB 2005 would completely remove both requirements, allowing desperate mothers to receive abortions without any time to consider other options.

HB 670 would criminalize peaceful protest outside abortion clinics. Prohibited conduct would encompass violent and non-violent “physical obstruction and intimidation [of] or interference [with]” a person trying to enter an abortion clinic, including persuading someone not to receive an abortion.

The bill is modeled off the Biden administration’s FACE Act, which led to the imprisonment of dozens of peaceful, pro-life protesters in 2024.

The final bill, HB 1957, would amend the Pennsylvania state constitution give every “individual” the right to “exercise personal reproductive liberty,” including undergoing an abortion.

The amendment would impose strict scrutiny — the highest level of legal review — on current and future pro-life laws, effectively gutting Pennsylvania’s pro-life protections.

“It’s such a high bar that, colloquially, it’s referred to as ‘strict in theory, fatal in fact,’ meaning that very few laws survive challenge under this rigorous test,” Dr. Elizabeth Kirk, a law professor at The Catholic University of America, testified before the Judiciary Committee.

The amendment would further require taxpayers to fund elective abortions. It does not limit a mother’s “right” to abortion at a certain gestation, which means the amendment could be used to defend a “right” to abortion until birth.

Dr. Kirk also warned the amendment’s broad language could open the door for minors to receive abortions without their parents’ consent:

The plain text makes no distinction between adults and minors. It suggests that Pennsylvania courts may grant an absolute right to abortion or any other reproductive decisions, which substantially weakens the Commonwealth’s interest in protecting parental rights.

Planned Parenthood Advocates Pennsylvania celebrated the committee taking a “stand for health, dignity and freedom” on Instagram. But these bills do nothing to protect women’s health, dignity or freedom. Each one is oriented toward protecting the people who profit from performing abortions.

Enshrining a potentially unlimited “right” to abortion in the Pennsylvania constitution guarantees the existence of the lucrative abortion industry at the expense of women, babies and parental rights.

Eliminating Pennsylvania’s informed consent requirements and criminalizing people who encourage women to choose life increases the likelihood that business like Planned Parenthood will make money off vulnerable women.

Shielding abortion care providers from prosecution could prevent women from suing negligent doctors, which effectively eliminates abortion providers’ incentive to ensure women are fully informed and consenting before undergoing an abortion.

Pennsylvania abortion clinics routinely fail to meet health codes as it is. These clinics racked up a combined 600 health and building safety infractions between 2012 and 2025, according to Pennsylvania Family Council.

Between 2022 and 2025, 13 of 18 Pennsylvania “abortion mills” failed a health inspection — including nine Planned Parenthoods.

“The fact that Planned Parenthood is so excited about these bills shows they don’t care about women,” Sneller remarked. “They don’t care about choice. They don’t even care about freedom. They care about their bottom line and their ability to do whatever they want with as little restrictions as possible.”

Tax records show Planned Parenthood in Pennsylvania has gobbled up $45 million in taxpayer funding since 2012.

The Daily Citizen encourages Pennsylvania readers to contact your representative and urge them to vote no on these radical, destructive bills.

Additional Articles and Resources

President Trump Pardons 23 Peaceful Pro-Life Protesters

House Subcommittee Examines Weaponization of FACE Act Against Pro-Life Supporters

Louisiana, ADF Challenge Biden-Era Abortion-By-Mail Scheme

FDA Approves Generic Abortion Pill Despite Ongoing Safety Review

FDA Launches Review of Abortion Pill and the Harms it Causes Women

Pro-Abortion States Beef Up Protections for Abortion Pill Prescribers

Texas Father Sues Out-of-State Abortionist for Killing His Preborn Children

Shield Laws Enable Chemical Abortion in Pro-Life States

Shield Law Abortion Providers Advertised Alongside Black Market Abortion Pills