A roundup of news and commentary from around the interwebs.
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News that the Supreme Court will be hearing an abortion case with the potential to strike down Roe v. Wade has spurred the Democratic Congress to action. From Live Action News:
The Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA) of 2021, hailed by abortion supporters as the bill that will ensure equal access to abortion for all, is being re-introduced in Congress today. Currently, “health of the mother” loopholes including financial health and familial health allow abortion up to birth in the United States, but the WHPA will ensure a woman can have an abortion for any reason at all through all nine months of pregnancy. The bill could also wipe out conscience protections, parental notification laws, and informed consent laws.
Over at The American Mind, Nathaniel Fischer explains once again that while you might want to ignore politics, politics will not ignore you:
The cultural and institutional power of the Left makes it the path of least resistance. This starts with seemingly anodyne acts like rainbow flags superimposed on logos, “Black Lives Matter” window signs, or small donations to activist organizations. More substantive demands follow, such as diversity quotas, mandatory pronoun announcements, changes in hiring standards, and “anti-racism” training sessions. These are still rationalized on business grounds—such as claims they uncover undervalued talent and improve team cohesion, or Harvard Business School studies purporting to show that diversity improves decision-making—even though the supporting evidence is often dubious, and the only real beneficiary is the Human Resources industrial complex.
These demands are not just marginal costs—a “woke tax” of sorts that lets you otherwise run your business as you like. Rather, they will stifle dynamism, drive away freer-thinking employees, and alienate half of America’s population (who will choose alternatives as these arise). Many of these demands—even if initially tempered or covered in a management-friendly veneer—are designed to subvert the market system on which businesses are built. They are based on precepts of critical theory that are fundamentally opposed to the market system.
How much will their demands cost you? What share of your profits will their programs consume? Will they let you keep your job if you play ball, or will an arbitrary infraction serve as the pretext for your quiet marginalization—or ritual public sacrifice?
The transgender agenda continues to erase women. The Canadian city of Winnipeg, for example, is considering providing free hygiene products to “menstruating individuals,” whom we once referred to as “women.”
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At The Gospel Coalition, Trevin Wax notes that many of the critiques of Red State evangelicalism come from a place of profound hypocrisy:
Could it be that some of the leaders who express concern about Christianity’s public witness and reject political proposals they believe stand in the way of people receiving the gospel are just as tribal as the Christians they criticize?
Much of the talk about “missional reach” and “cultural engagement” and “faithful presence” assumes people are seeking to be faithful in post-Christian secular blue parts of the country. And that makes sense, considering the secularizing trends and leftward drift of younger generations.
But what does “cultural engagement” look like in the redder than red areas of the United States, where missional presence is more likely to take place at McDonald’s than the high-end coffee shop? Places where the culture’s post-Christian tableau is painted in the shades of the post-Christian-right? Red states where a preacher’s loud and vociferous opposition to the Republican platform or the policies of the previous president would also cost something in terms of “public witness”?
The assumption of some of today’s leaders most concerned about Christianity’s reputation is that taking a public stand against immorality and godlessness on the right is necessary, no matter the cost. But would the same critics who advocate a prophetic posture in the red states tell the preacher in the bluest areas of the country to be a consistent and vocal opponent of politicians and policies that result in the destruction of unborn life, or the redefinition of marriage, or the distortion of the body in service to new definitions of “sexual freedom”? I fear not.
Abortion activists are crowing about new Gallup polling that they claim indicates a sea change in public opinion on abortion in their direction. Dr. Michael J. New debunks this claim at Live Action.
