One of the biggest moments in this second GOP debate was Carly Fiorina deftly taking control of the exchange and pointing it toward the macabre activities at Planned Parenthood—and how the top two leaders of the Democratic party are quite content to defend Planned Parenthood and let them go about . . . . Continue Reading »
On Saturday morning, my wife and I took our children to pray outside the Planned Parenthood clinic near our home in Nebraska. Nearly 700 other people joined us—praying on their knees, singing songs of praise, and holding pro-life signs for passing cars to read. Among the signs, I noticed several . . . . Continue Reading »
Nearly thirty years ago, I published a book, Abortion and the Private Practice of Medicine, in which I sought to understand what then was already emerging as the settled pattern of access to abortion services around the country. By the 1980s, the present pattern in which abortions are performed in specialized clinics rather than in hospitals or doctors’ offices had been established. Several writers in that decade, the sociologist Kristin Luker and the anthropologist Faye Ginsburg among them, described the politics of abortion clearly dependent on how physicians were delivering those services. Continue Reading »
Killing has dominated the news for the last few weeks. An angry debate has raged juxtaposing the harvesting of fetal body parts by Planned Parenthood abortionists with the trophy hunting of “Cecil” the Zimbabwean lion. Both stories provide fascinating insights into our society’s moral state. Continue Reading »
The Planned Parenthood videos are a far more important story than the Donald Trump nonsense. Whether by Columbus Day, or Thanksgiving, or Valentine's Day, the Trump campaign will be over due to declining poll ratings or defeat in delegate selection contests. The Planned Parenthood videos and, just as important, the reaction of liberal elites to the Planned Parenthood videos demonstrate the enormous obstacles and the equally enormous opportunities that conservatives face in reaching a large fraction of the American public. How we overcome those obstacles—or fail to—will determine the course of American politics and society. Continue Reading »
Since Cardinal Bernardin's death in 1996, his consistent life ethic has been (ab)used more often to deprecate pro-lifers than to expand their apparently narrow horizons. But charges of hypocrisy aimed at pro-lifers on this basis are unfounded. Continue Reading »
It’s amazing the difference a name makes. On one day this past week, nearly a hundred endangered elephants were killed and around 3,000 abortions were performed in the United States alone, and we were unfazed, but the killing of Cecil the lion broke our hearts. He wasn’t just any random lion. He was Cecil. Mere lions (along with chickens, cows, lambs, and pigs) are killed, but Cecil was murdered. We love the lion that was named Cecil. We feel as if we knew him. Continue Reading »
Last month, David Brooks published a column titled “The Next Culture War.” In it, he offers public-relations advice for Christians in the post-Obergefell era—an era when fewer people identify as Christians, and when laws and mores are moving farther away from basic Christian values. Continue Reading »
An old slogan has made a comeback. While speaking about the newly-released Planned Parenthood videos, a presidential candidate has walked back from a recent defense of their practices to say something you don’t hear much anymore from the pro-choice crowd: “I have said for more than 22 years that . . . . Continue Reading »