A roundup of news and interviews from around the interwebs.
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Dr. Robert P. George, one of the most important anti-abortion scholars in America, has just made an encouraging prediction in First Things:
Let me offer a prediction, free of any face-saving hedge: Next year, the Supreme Court will hold that there is no constitutional right to elective abortions. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case pending before the court, it will return the issue to the states for the first time in forty-nine years. It will do so explicitly, calling out by name, and reversing in full, the two major cases that confected and then entrenched a constitutional right to elective abortion: Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). And the vote will be six to three.
He then lays out four key reasons why he believes that will be the case. They’re convincing, but as George knows all of the justices (and they are likely to read his piece), one gets the sneaking feeling while reading it that this is a persuasive essay as much as a predictive one.
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Also in First Things, this essay by Ephraim Radner is long but, if you’re interested in understanding the chasm between the world we inhabit and the one our grandparents and great-grandparents lived in, well worth the read. Radner makes the case that lengthening lifespans have separated us from the reality of death and that most no longer live their lives in the light of eternity, and that this fact has had a fundamentally transformative effect. His closing lines are incredibly powerful:
As every mother knows, whether in America or Africa, children born, whether dead or alive, are nonetheless children. They are enlivened by their very giftedness from God. The mortal edges of temporal existence upon which our efforts at love are made, well or poorly, show us this. The great communion of saints is informed by mortality’s gathering horde and its rumble. So the Church listens and speaks.
Tim Challies gives a ringing endorsement of Ray Ortlund’s new book The Death of Porn, which I’ve been meaning to read.
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According to the Washington Post, abortionist Alan Braid of Texas has already admitted to breaking the Heartbeat Act and aborting a baby. It will be fascinating to see how the enforcement mechanism of the law plays out in practice.
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A California federal judge has rejected a preliminary injunction asking the court to permit euthanasia within the state assisted suicide act.
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Just after the election, I wrote a column for The American Conservative explaining why I thought minority voters must be an essential part of a socially conservative coalition moving forward. This passage in a Texas Monthlyessay titled “Why Democrats are losing Texas Latinos” stood out to me:
Banking on an identity-based appeal, Democrats last year trotted out the sort of bilingual messaging in South Texas that has played well among Mexican Americans in Los Angeles and Puerto Ricans in New York, focused on a celebration of diversity and immigration. Republicans, by contrast, recognized that Hispanic South Texans share many of the same values as non-Hispanic white voters elsewhere in Texas and swept in with a pitch about defending gun rights, promoting the oil and gas industry, restricting abortion, and supporting law enforcement. Republicans proved more persuasive.
Socially conservative policies appeal to many nonwhite members of the presumed Democratic coalition. If we can appeal to them, we can redraw the electoral map.
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South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has presented herself as a rock-ribbed social conservative who defends life and family—but when the rubber hit the road, she caved to the transgender lobby and repeatedly sided with Big Business over social conservatives. What gives? In a rather devastating expose, Nate Hochman reveals Noem’s connections in National Review.
