Michigan abortion rate reaches 30-year high; Minnesota’s falls to post-Roe low (or does it?)

Michigan and Minnesota have much in common. Geographically, they’re roughly the same size and are located in roughly the same location. Only Wisconsin keeps them from being next-door neighbors. Both have Democrats in the governor's mansion; both are represented by Democrats in the Senate. Michigan entered the Union in 1837; Minnesota followed suit 21 years later, and they even sit next to each other in the alphabetical list of states. Both have four professional sports teams (not counting soccer or the WNBA), and their cost of living is almost the same—slightly above average. But while Minnesota’s population is 25% wealthier, Michigan’s is 55% larger. And when it comes to abortion, these two states are even further apart. In Minnesota, 12.6% of unborn children were reportedly killed by abortion in 2020 (excluding spontaneous miscarriage). In Michigan,…

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One Nation Under “Science” with Abortion for All

Nacho Libre is one of my favorite comedies—much to the chagrin of my wife and daughter. It’s drivel to them, but I find it rather brilliant. Still, I little imagined that Nacho’s hygiene-challenged sidekick, Esquelito (aka Steven), would come to so perfectly encapsulate America’s sudden and rather ridiculous obsession with science. “I don’t know why you have to be always judging me,” Steven laments, “because I only believe in science.” What makes this complaint so laughable is the fact that Steven’s knowledge of science is virtually nonexistent. He thinks eagle eggs will bestow magical powers, and he believes he and Nacho are sufficiently talented to be pro wrestlers. Spoiler alert: they’re not. 

Like so many who feign devotion to science today, Steven was simply looking for a way to justify his personal preferences—which included an aversion to baptism and a self-proclaimed hatred of orphans. To that end, Steven embraced a simple mantra: “I don’t believe in God; I believe in science.” The problem of course is that it’s a false dichotomy—something akin to denying…

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U.S. Abortion Total Rises for Second Straight Year

Today marks the 48th anniversary of the Supreme Court verdict rendered in Roe v. Wade—the verdict that unilaterally struck down all state prohibitions against abortion. When I first began as a full-time anti-abortion activist, Roe was a mere quarter-century old. I’ve been fighting abortion for a generation, and in every year but two (2006 & 2008) I had the satisfaction of seeing America’s annual abortion total decrease. Until now, that is. For the first time since 1985, the U.S. abortion total has risen two years in a row. It’s not official yet, but enough data are in to make it all but certain. Abortion rose in 2018—which the CDC confirmed this past November—and it looks to have risen again in 2019.

As of this morning, Abort73 has obtained 2019 abortion totals for 26 states. Statistically, these states account for roughly 39% of all U.S. abortions. That’s enough to reasonably extrapolate a total…

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The Overblown and Under-Reported Influence of Birth Dates

I’m not a regular reader of Scientific American. They’ve been publishing pro-abortion articles since before I was born and insist that “science” required them to endorse Joe Biden. Because science, of course, is infallible. It’s never misconstrued, never manipulated, and never allows for more than a single conclusion. That’s sarcasm, by the way. Scientific American is about as objective as the DNC, but one of their recent articles caught my eye. It’s titled “Inequality Before Birth Contributes to Health Inequality in Adults.” The basic premise is this: some of the chronic health problems people suffer as adults stem from things that happened to them in the womb. Think about the ramifications of that for a moment. The author writes:

Decades of research show that [diabetes, hypertension and asthma], usually diagnosed in adulthood, can reflect hardships experienced while in the womb. Children do not start on a level playing field at birth. Risk factors linked…

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Abortion and the Veil of Ignorance

My oldest son is a senior in high school. I’ve watched him play hundreds of baseball games over the years—along with a smattering of football, basketball, and soccer contests. My daughter is 16 and plays sports year round: volleyball, basketball, and softball. All that to say, youth athletics is a big part of our lives—and so are loud, unruly parents. The two go hand in hand. But I’ve never in all my life seen a parent lose their mind over a “bad” call made in their team’s favor or berate a coach for playing their child too much. For all our talk of “fair play,” we seem awfully adept at selectively applying it—which is why we might benefit from a “veil of ignorance.”

The veil of ignorance—not to be confused with the cone of silence—is a hypothetical construct articulated by the renowned political philosopher John Rawls. His 1971 work, A Theory of Justice, coined the term to help describe a means of making judgments that aren’t tainted by personal bias. The reason umpires tend to be more reliable arbiters than parents, fans, or coaches is that they don’t have a…

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12 Rules for Protecting Life (Part Six)

This is Part Six of "12 Rules for Protecting Life: An Antidote to Abortion"—which applies Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life to the issue of abortion.

Rule #11 Do not bother children when they are skateboarding

There are lots of reasons why parents and municipalities frown upon skateboarding. It’s dangerous. It’s countercultural. It’s a public nuisance, and it creates all sorts of liability issues.  But Jordan Peterson isn’t buying any of that. More precisely, he doesn’t regard any of these reasons as providing a sufficient rationale for trying to shut skateboarding down or squelch its irreverent boundary-pushing soul. Here’s why:

Kids need to go out and push themselves against danger, because that’s what life is—pushing yourself against danger. And when you see kids doing things that are dangerous but spectacular you kind of have a moral obligation to back the hell off and…

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