It’s the state of Selma, of Martin Luther King Jr. It was where Rosa Parks took a stand by taking a seat. Now, that same Alabama isn’t just home to the civil rights movement, but a human rights movement. And liberals couldn’t be more irate. That’s because this bill isn’t about ending abortion in Dixie. It’s about ending abortion, period.

H.B. 314 may say Alabama at the top, but both sides know: the bill’s real target is a lot bigger. And State Rep. Terri Collins (R) isn’t shy about saying so. “This bill is about challenging Roe v. Wade,” she insisted – a decision that claims “the baby in the womb is not a person…” Well, Collins argued, “[O]ur law says it is.” It’s time for the Supreme Court to rethink 46 years of abortion in America, she says. “I have prayed my way through this bill. This is the way we get there eventually.”

To give the legislation a better shot at the high court, the bill’s sponsors outlawed abortion in every case but one: if the life of the mother is at stake. State Senator Bobby Singleton (D) tried to add an exception for rape and incest, but his amendment was gaveled down. In a meltdown that went viral, Singleton erupted in a nonsensical tirade at pro-lifers, shouting, “You just aborted the state of Alabama with your rhetoric with this bill! You just raped Alabama with this bill that you about to send out here! And the governor, when you sign it, you just raped the state of Alabama yourself! …You just raped every little baby, you just raped every little girl, you just raped every woman who been raped by women, you just raped her all over again!” he repeated. “Yes I said it! And I hope your conscience is eating your head up! She was pregnant with this bad bill, and you just aborted her!”

If the Human Life Protect Act was controversial, no one told the Alabama House or Senate, who sent the bill sailing to Governor Kay Ivey’s (R) desk with two landslide votes: 74-3 and 25-6. Most of them agree with Ainsworth, who said simply, “Abortion is murder. Those three simple words sum up my position on an issue that many falsely claim is a complex one.” Based on polling, that doesn’t just sum up his position, but the position of almost 60 percent of state voters. Abortion extremists can pressure Alabama all it wants, Senate Majority Leader Greg Reed (R) told reporters, but make no mistake: “This bill will become law because Alabamians stand firmly on the side of life.”

[…]

Calling it “outrageous,” “dangerous,” even “exceptionally cruel” the Democratic candidates were tripping over themselves to be more incensed than the next guy. Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) — the same Democrats hoping to persuade voters that killing a newborn baby is a “personal choice” – reminded everyone just how out of step they are by arguing that pro-lifers had no business being legislators.

Others, like the ACLU, Cecile Richards, and Leana Wen, took issue with the fact that Alabama refuses to punish an unborn baby for the circumstances of her conception. People like Rebecca Kiessling understand. They’re living proof that even through something as horrendous as rape, God can still do something miraculous. Because of her mothers’ courage, she’s been able to engage in a pro-life movement that’s changed thousands – if not millions – of hearts.

Back in 2012, Kiessling had a chance to sit down with Texas pro-life Governor Rick Perry and explain to him, “When you make that rape exception, it’s like you’re saying to me that I deserved the death penalty for the crimes of my father. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, my father didn’t even deserve the death penalty. The Supreme Court has said there is no death penalty for rapists. But you say that I, as the innocent child of rape, deserved the death penalty?” He never fought for a rape exception again.

And there are more Rebecca Kiesslings that people might think. At the March for Life a few years back, NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez posted a powerful picture of a group of pro-lifers, who were all conceived in rape. “These lovely women want you to know that they are people, not hard cases.” Just last week, Ryan Bomberger — who’s never met his birth mother — made a moving video on his birthday, May 5, dedicated to his mom. “On this day, many years ago, I was born. Some say I should’ve been aborted. I was adopted & loved instead.” We should all be grateful that Alabama understands what the rest of the Left does not: every life has potential.

Originally published here.

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PBS Changes Its Toon on Marriage

“Arthur” isn’t just the longest-running cartoon series on television — it’s also the most controversial! That’s all thanks to PBS, who’s spent the last umpteen years using its half-billion taxpayer dollars promoting the agenda of the far Left. Now, apparently, that agenda includes pitching same-sex marriage to kids as young as four — and using one of their favorite characters to do it.

The episode, part of “Arthur’s” 22nd season, is called “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone.” Naturally, Mr. Ratburn’s third-grade students (and every child watching) thinks that “special someone” is a female. So imagine their surprise when Mr. Ratburn walks down the aisle on the arm of an aardvark named Patrick. The show cuts to Arthur, who’s still trying to process the idea. Then suddenly, he and his friends break into happy smiles.

One parent who tuned in contrasted the characters reaction to her own children’s. “The [cartoon] children are a bit surprised but mostly nonchalant about the whole thing. Needless to say, in the real world, our children were shocked and confused.” Of course they are! The target audience for the show is pre-school and elementary kids! They barely know the alphabet — let alone L-G-B-T!

For PBS, though, this is all par for its liberal course. Taxpayers have fought for years to stop the government’s broadcasting arm from sexualizing kids on everything from the Muppets to Sesame Street. When Donald Trump became president, one of the first things his budget proposed was slashing the $445 million for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. The Left always pleads with Republicans to lay off Burt and Ernie, but what they really mean is — don’t stop funding the Left’s free microphone! For years, NPR and PBS have taken advantage of the airwaves to spout their radical agenda. And in the end, taxpayers are the ones that have been puppets — for the Left. But now that PBS has shown that it can’t be trusted, it’s time for Big Bird’s liberal friends to feather their own nest!

“Remember,” FRC’s Cathy Ruse says, “Americans didn’t ask for a re-definition of marriage. It was forced on them by activist judges, who overturned tens of millions of votes cast to keep marriage a man-woman institution. But gay activists are not satisfied with just changing the law — people must change their beliefs, too. There can be no dissent. Children are not asking for their cartoon characters to be gay — activists in the entertainment industry are forcing it on them.”

Which is all the more ironic, considering how “impressionable” liberals say kids are when it comes to something like religion. Out in Pennsylvania, secularists were hyperventilating that students had been exposed to the words “God Bless America.” They’re too susceptible to messages like that, they said. They might be overly affected by the idea of faith, they argued. But throw a same-sex wedding in a popular cartoon, or pornographic sex-ed material in the classroom, or Drag Queen Story Hour at the local library, and somehow it’s perfectly okay. That’s the double standard of liberal activism. It’s fine to indoctrinate kids — as long as they’re the ones doing the indoctrinating.

Moms and dads, be warned. “Children’s entertainment is no longer in formed by a Judeo-Christian values system, but by left-wing political interest groups,” Cathy cautions. “Now more than ever, parents have to be vigilant about the media their children consume. Parents trust shows made for children, and the creators of the show are taking advantage of their trust.”

Thanks to today’s technology, there’s no reason to sit your kids in front of live TV and wait for messages like this to assault them. If you’ve run out of Veggie Tales and are looking for shows you can trust, don’t give PBS a second thought. Try a Christian media provider like “Jelly Telly.”

Originally published here.

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Birth Controlled: U.S. Heads for Worst Fertility Crash Ever

Fringe Democrats have been pushing population control for decades. And based on the latest U.S. birth rate, no one is probably happier than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Earlier this year, when she was pitching her ridiculous Green New Deal, parenthood was just one of the things she thought people should reconsider to save the planet. But if the fertility numbers keep dropping, just who are we saving it for?

“There’s scientific consensus,” Ocasio-Cortez claimed, “that the lives of children are going to be very difficult. And it does lead, I think, young people to have a legitimate question, you know, is it okay to still have children?” Wow, Jim Geraghty writes in NRO. “Any lawmaker with any familiarity with the One Child Policy in China would be wary about floating these kinds of arguments. We don’t want government officials going anywhere near the argument that one size of a family is moral and a different size is immoral.” It’s funny, he said, “how quickly the argument ‘my body, my choice,’ disappears outside of its most prominent context.”

Right now, overpopulation should be America’s last concern. The number of babies born last year in the U.S. just hit a 32-year low, worrying anyone with an eye on the country’s future workforce. Only 3.79 million children were born in 2018 — a two percent drop from the previous year. We’re been hovering under America’s replacement level of 2.1 for decades, but this new report is a frightening snapshot of where the country is headed.

Fewer babies means fewer workers, and fewer workers means less economic growth, and a smaller tax base, and even less consumer spending. If we continue down this path, the country will have a workforce too small to support their parents’ generation of retirees. And what does the Left want? More abortion.

“Nevermind, for the moment, the fact that there are far more American families looking to adopt children than there are abortions performed or children eligible to be adopted — the imbalance is so great that Americans go all over the world looking for children to adopt — and just consider the implicit argument [of the Left’s abortion agenda] on its own merits, which is this: ‘If we think that there might be some inconvenience involved in seeing to the needs of these children, then it would be better to put them to death.’”

And, Kevin Williamson goes on, “The Left’s war on children is by no means restricted to the project of maximizing the scope of opportunity to surgically dismember them prior to birth, preferably at public expense. From radical feminists to radical environmentalists to academics and such mainstream figures such as Bill Nye, the word has come down: Children are not the future, but the future’s enemies.”

The world is on the verge of reaping the long-term consequences of this mentality that children are a burden — not a blessing from the Lord. Just look at Scripture. Nowhere does God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply” have an expiration date. As Americans, we should be extremely cautious in embracing the radical ideas that contradict the Christian principles Western civilization was founded upon.

Originally published here.

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This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.