1.
Sara Carter: Bay of Pigs Veteran says Cuban people ‘would rather die than continue’ https://t.co/t8lIfN77jh
— Sara A. Carter (@SaraCarterDC) July 14, 2021
2. 99 shot, 17 fatally, across Chicago since Friday night in city’s most violent weekend of 2021
Among the wounded were at least 11 children and two Chicago police supervisors. Five of the kids were shot within nine hours Sunday evening through early Monday.
3. George Weigel on Pope Francis and life issues:
I submit…that anyone who compares an abortionist to a Mafia hitman—and who in January 2014 deplored a “throwaway culture” in which aborted children are “discarded as unnecessary,” declaring it “horrific even to think that there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day”—is no moral relativist.
4. Gov. Edwards signs bill providing accommodations for pregnancy in the workplace
5. Mike Aquilina: The Church’s original social justice struggle
Abortion was, in fact, the first social injustice confronted by Christians, plainly, passionately, and without qualification.
6. The abortion pill’s significant complications must not be buried or ignored
Since 2016, the FDA no longer requires distributors of mifepristone to report any adverse events other than death. Just over half the states collect information from abortion providers on complications resulting from abortion, and only a quarter of all the states require other healthcare providers to report abortion complications they treat. Of these, states enforce their reporting requirements to varying extents, and many complications are never reported.
However, what little information there is shows that chemical abortions lead to more complications than other abortion methods. A recent analysis of adverse event reports from the years that the FDA required wide-ranging reporting showed that chemical abortion has led to multiple known deaths and hundreds of hospitalizations, even though these adverse events were significantly underreported.
7. U.S. bishops again urge House members to restore Hyde to spending bill
“We implore the House Committee on Appropriations to reverse course on these bills that currently expand taxpayer funding of abortion, and to restore the long-standing, bipartisan Hyde provisions and Weldon Amendment that have saved millions of lives and protected conscience rights,” [Cardinal Timothy] Dolan and [Archbishop Joseph] Naumann said.
“These bills include many other provisions and funding for critically needed services that we support,” they added. “Americans’ tax dollars should be used for the common good and welfare of all, not to finance abortion or force Americans to violate deeply held beliefs.”
8. Henry Olsen: Why conservatives shouldn’t worry about child tax credits
9.
Among the reasons we needed a wage subsidy like the one proposed by @oren_cass or @isawhill
“I almost feel like low-wage workers are subsidizing the rest of us because they’re paying into the system but not reaping the benefits.”https://t.co/KbcQc4TEgZ— Brad Wilcox (@BradWilcoxIFS) July 13, 2021
10.
We are saddened by the death of Father Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest & tribal rights activist, who died in Indian custody under charges of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. We call on all governments to respect the vital role of human rights activists in healthy democracies.
— Office of International Religious Freedom (@StateIRF) July 7, 2021
11. Jay Smith: Don’t Force My Church to Pay for Abortions
Imagine, 75 years ago, some British officer lining up a group of young Indian children against a wall in Bombay, handing some bullets to Mahatma Gandhi, and ordering him to load soldiers’ rifles so that they could execute the youngsters.
Would you expect Gandhi to go along with that? Why would an officer even give such an order—except to humiliate Gandhi and mock what he stood for?
12. Charles C. Camosy and David McPherson: Consistent-life-ethic Catholics can (and should) treat abortion as today’s preeminent priority
While we unapologetically and vigorously support a consistent life ethic in which those who are born are equally sacred to unborn human lives, it does not follow that all matters affecting human life are morally equivalent. For instance, being wrong about the intentional and violent killing of an unimaginably vulnerable child who cannot speak up in her own defense is clearly worse than being wrong about what the marginal tax rate should be. Furthermore, we are concerned that appeals to consistent life ethics too often are used wrongly to downgrade or ignore the claims of prenatal human life.
13. Associated Press: California to pay victims of forced, coerced sterilizations
California’s proposal is unique because it also would pay women the state coerced to get sterilized while they were in prison, some as recently as 2010. First exposed by the Center for Investigative Reporting in 2013, a subsequent audit found California sterilized 144 women between 2005 and 2013 with little or no evidence that officials counseled them or offered alternative treatment.
14. Reuters: China’s gene giant harvests data from millions of women
BGI says it stores and re-analyses left-over blood samples and genetic data from the prenatal tests, sold in at least 52 countries to detect abnormalities such as Down’s syndrome in the foetus. The tests – branded NIFTY for “Non-Invasive Fetal TrisomY” – also capture genetic information about the mother, as well as personal details such as her country, height and weight, but not her name, BGI computer code viewed by Reuters shows.
15.
It’s not enough for @amazon employees to censor @RyanTAnd thoughtful book on transgenderism. Now they’re going after @AbigailShrier (and yes, Amazon does still offer Mein Kampf for sale) https://t.co/4ZsCRzUSLT
— Katrina Trinko (@KatrinaTrinko) July 14, 2021
16. Amy Wellborn: Not Like Other Girls
Gee. Was I trans?
This is a big topic of conversation in gender critical circles. Women my age down to the mid-20s musing how as girls we didn’t feel “like other girls” and never felt quite a part of intensive Girl World Life – maybe even excluded. For various reasons, of course. Some, like me just had no interest in what the girls in our lives were fixated on – others were “tomboys,” others athletic, others bullied by Mean Girls, and so on.
What would culture say about us today? What would we be pressured to feel and do?
Because, guess what? It wasn’t great. Yes, I did feel left out. Yes, I was resentful at times. Yes, I did wonder if there was something “off” about me as a female. I didn’t wish to be other than what I was, though. I was content with my interests. But still. In that context – small Catholic high school of mostly white Catholics in the South in the Seventies – I didn’t feel completely comfortable.
But did anyone? Does anyone who’s 15 feel at ease, comfortable and “themselves?”
17. Bill McGurn in the WSJ: America’s top public high school shows us what discrimination looks like today.
18. California wants teachers to violate education’s Hippocratic Oath
If there’s one principle that should be a fixed star in America’s schools, it’s that educators should be expected to do all they can to help each student develop their gifts and fulfill their potential. This should serve as education’s version of medicine’s Hippocratic Oath.
Regrettably, California has decided to push educators to violate that oath.
In a well-meaning but hugely misguided effort to promote equity, the state’s Instructional Quality Commission earlier this year adopted a new Mathematics Framework that urges schools to do away with accelerated math programs in order to promote “heterogeneous grouping” of students.
19. Nicole Russell: 2 Educators Fight for Their Jobs After Suggesting Commonsense Transgender Policies for School
The women suggest alternatives such as changing the names of “boys” and “girls” locker rooms and restrooms in public schools to phrases such as “anatomically male” and “anatomically female.”
It’s hard to imagine the two educators would have faced disciplinary action or had to file a lawsuit if they’d created a video or online post suggesting that girls and boys may dress however they like or be called whatever names and pronouns they desire.
In fact, a close look at their video shows their material isn’t controversial, but practical. It’s clearly an attempt to allow students freedom to “transition” while bridging gaps among parents, students, and school policies.
20. Michelle Boorstein: D.C. agrees to pay $220,000 in legal fees to Baptist church that sued over coronavirus restrictions
Hiram Sasser, First Liberty’s executive general counsel, said the payment of legal fees was standard after the court ruled in the church’s favor last fall. Still, he said the settlement is significant.
“It shows the first amendment is alive and well, and I don’t think you’ll see the government shutting down congregations without really good reasons,” he said Friday.
21. Andrew Sullivan: What Happened To You? The radicalization of the American elite against liberalism
Forget CRT for a moment and ask yourself: is nothing going on here but Republican propaganda and guile? Can you not see that the Republicans may be acting, but they are also reacting — reacting against something that is right in front of our noses?
What is it? It is, I’d argue, the sudden, rapid, stunning shift in the belief system of the American elites. It has sent the whole society into a profound cultural dislocation. It is, in essence, an ongoing moral panic against the specter of “white supremacy,” which is now bizarrely regarded as an accurate description of the largest, freest, most successful multiracial democracy in human history.
22. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Reflect on 75 Years of Marriage
Their partnership has withstood the glare of political campaigns and the strains of raising a family, triumphs that catapulted them to international prominence and a defeat that sent them home to Georgia as political outcasts with a faltering family business. As their world inevitably narrows in the dusk of life, the couple has come to rely on their bond even more.
“We’ve just grown closer and closer together,” Mr. Carter said.
23. Henry Parham, Who Fought in a Black Unit on D-Day, Dies at 99
Mr. Parham told CNN in 2019: “I prayed to the Good Lord to save me. I did my duty. I did what I was supposed to do as an American.”
24. Opera singer delivers her own baby in the car while husband drives
“My husband’s driving and the entire time I’m focusing on listening to the GentleBirth app to get me through each contraction,” she recalled. “I was just riding the waves and hoping we were going to make it back. We still didn’t realize how fast this was going.”
25. Today’s the feast of St. Kateri Tekakwitha — some thoughts about her here from Father Steve Grunow and from Father Roger Landry here.