The Family Beacon

Today marks the end of LEAD, a week-long, labor-intensive, thrilling roller coaster ride for both students and staff. Our students were some of the best we have ever seen, and it will be hard to say goodbye. We pray the skills and friendships that they discovered this week will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

As students began to trickle onto the University of Northwestern’s campus on Sunday evening, the energy and excitement became tangible. Students bid goodbye to their parents and turned their attention to Riley Hall, the academic hub for the week. In room 2308, our newly elected student Representatives found their seats and prepared to drink from the firehose. Senator Andrew Mathews (R-Princeton) led the students in their first introduction to the world of legislation. Questions shot out from the audience, showing exactly how eager each student was to learn how our Minnesota’s legislature really works. As the lights shut off across campus signaling the end of our first day, the excitement felt by students reverberated through the halls.

Monday morning started with an odd sight. As the leaders entered UNW’s dining hall, we saw students bent over the morning newspaper (a strange phenomenon in our screen-addicted generation). Thanks to the diligent work of our Media Track student Eli Johnson, daily editions of the LEAD Examiner were made possible. Each day, the paper included important topics such as world events, the weather, and hilariously misquoted students.

Vice President Kamala Harris thinks that the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson is comparable to slavery. “Our country has a history of controlling bodies,” she said in a speech to the NAACP. “Today,” she said, “extremist so-called leaders are criminalizing doctors, punishing women from making healthcare decisions for themselves.” Her remarks were met with thunderous applause. But a post-Roe world is not one of slavery-in fact, it is the opposite. A world without abortion grants the right to life and self-determination to millions of children, including black and brown children, who would never have made it if Kamala Harris had her way.

Slavery is an abhorrent and dangerous evil. In the United States, slavery was a part of our society until almost 100 years after our founding. A slave, as defined by Merriam-Webster is “a person held in forced servitude” and by extension, a person whose rights have been removed, or has no choice in how they live. So Vice President is correct to say that slavery is the ownership of human bodies. But is she correct to say that abortion is much the same thing? Let’s dive deeper.

Certain rights have been established in our nation. Our founding documents remind us that God has given us the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” which cannot be taken away by state and federal governments without due process of law. Enslaved people in the United States were certainly denied all these rights, without due process. One right that is not guaranteed in the constitution, however, is the right to choose to kill your child. If a woman does not have this right (which she most certainly does not), then abortion is morally abhorrent. Pro-lifers, then, are not controlling a woman’s body; we are merely protecting the body of an innocent child whose life is under threat.

In 2018, Keith Ellison won the Minnesota race for Attorney General against Doug Wardlow. He ran, as the Washington Post recorded, on the platform of taking on the Trump administration and protecting so-called abortion rights. Today, his view on the right to abortion has become even more radical in the face of the recent Dobbs v. Jackson decision. In a recent press meeting, Ellison said that he would defend the rights of any woman or doctor who received or preformed an abortion in Minnesota. This included, he said, denying extradition requests from surrounding states.

Ellison’s recent statements exacerbate the need for new leadership in our state. Now, Minnesotans are faced with a choice, and abortion will be a key factor in the upcoming November election.

On the Republican side of the issue, there are two candidates vying to replace Ellison. The two candidates will face off in an August 9 primary, and the winner will take on Ellison in the general election in November. The Attorney General is the chief legal officer of the state, and it is their role enforce laws where necessary. Both Republican candidates are pro-life, but they approach the topic in different ways.

This week, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) began a crusade against pregnancy resource centers. In doing so, she made it clear that her goal is not to help women in trouble. Instead, she intends to control them by ensuring that abortion clinics are the only option for women in crisis pregnancy situations.

Let’s look at what pregnancy resource centers actually do. Save the Storks, a mobile resource center for pregnant women works non-stop to inform women about alternatives to abortion. They provide safe, free, and accessible healthcare to women who are in need, including ultra-sounds, counseling, STI screenings, and pregnancy tests. Organizations like these are working towards promoting life by providing alternatives to abortion. And it is organizations like these that Senator Warren wants to shut down. Warren authored a bill with Senator Menendez (D-NJ) that would financially penalize centers that she says “mislead and deceive patients seeking abortion care.” According to a NARAL undercover investigation, misleading patients means referring to the child in the womb as a “baby” and telling a pregnant woman that she is now a mother.

Warren’s plan includes using the Federal Trade Commission to act as an “abortion disinformation board” that will shut down any organization that violates its standards, according to the National Review. This Orwellian bill gives the FTC the power to press penalties up to $100,000 dollars, a huge sum for non-profit organizations.

Some of our fellow countrymen haven’t realized that the overturn of Roe v. Wade is the beginning of one of the greatest civil rights movements in our nation’s history. In one document signed by five individuals, the rights endowed by the God and granted through the constitution ceased to be threatened by our federal government. This gives us reason to celebrate, but it has also unleashed the full wrath of the pro-abortionists, who seem to think they have gained politically from this decision. In reality, however, the momentum is on the side of LIFE.

The last two weeks have taught us of both the incredible fanaticism of the pro-abortion movement, and the great hurdles we still have before us. Our work is not done but we know that truth is on our side, and truth will always win. The side that advocates for abortion has nowhere to stand. They maintain that a woman has the right to snuff out her child’s life at any stage in pregnancy. “Abortion at any time, on demand and without apology” is their slogan. But we know the truth. We know that every child is a unique human being even from conception onward (Psalm 139, Jeremiah 1:5).

God has shown us this truth in His Word and His works. The heart starts to beat 22 days after conception. In the second trimester, a child the ability to kick and move about, the eyes begin development, and the ears can hear your voice. This is the truth that the pro-abortion movement suppresses. This is the truth that, if shared, can change the heart of even the most avid abortion activist, even those in leadership at abortion centers.Abby Johnson, once a Planned Parenthood clinic director who dramatically changed her view after seeing a human being ripped apart in the womb, spoke at our 2020 Annual Dinner about her experience. The knowledge that a human life begins at conception can change lives.