Assisted suicide more acceptable than a chicken sandwich?

A petition mission making the rounds addresses the fact that "Chick-fil-A was banned recently at Fordham University -- a Catholic institution. Why? Because leftist students don't like the restaurant owner's biblical view on natural marriage. So Chick-fil-A is not welcome on campus. 


However, a pro assisted suicide group called End of Life Choices New York has been invited to freely lecture on campus. In fact, the next pro assisted suicide lecture will be held on June 7 at Fordham's Lincoln Center campus.

Still, no matter how its advocates try to package it (e.g. death with dignity, compassion, etc.) assisted suicide or euthanasia is nothing more than another part of the Culture of Death. 

Despite the oath all doctors take to "do no harm", euthanasia turns doctors into killers - and it treats the elderly and infirm like "inconveniences" whose lives are cut short. 

But the Church is so clear on the issue. For example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that: 'Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.'

So, should Catholic universities host advocacy groups that publicly support assisted suicide?

If you think not, feel free to add your name to the petition to make your voice heard. Enough voices could result in the cancellation of this pro-death lecture at a university that should be promoting life instead."

The only treason here is by the left, not Trump

In response to all the hoopla that President Donald Trump shared classified information with Russia about terror threats involving laptops on airplanes, even Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who reportedly received this illicit information, mocked the accusation. 

Without directly confirming the details of their conversation, Lavrov said he didn’t understand what the “secret” was since the US introduced a ban on laptops on airlines from some Middle Eastern countries two months ago.

Asked to comment on the controversy surrounding the reported intelligence-sharing, he said media have reported that “the secret” Trump told him was that “‘terrorists’ are capable of stuffing laptops, all kinds of electronic devices, with untraceable explosive materials.” 

Well, no kidding. Everyone knows that, don't they?

“As far as I can recall, Lavrov said, "maybe one month or two months before the Trump administration had an official ban on laptops on airlines from seven Middle Eastern countries, it was connected directly with the terrorist threat. So, if you’re talking about that, I see no secret here.”

This hysteria over sharing supposed secrets is in addition to the DOJ’s appointment of former prosecutor Robert Mueller to lead the special inquiry into the Trump campaign’s potential collusion with Russia, which is also absurd. Maybe Russia did some email hacking to leak information about Hillary Clinton (that our own news media wouldn't report) and maybe that information swayed voters, who knows. But there isn't one shred of evidence that Donald Trump and his campaign were involved in that.

There was, however, substantial, staggering evidence of Hillary Clinton's treasonous corruption regarding her use of private email servers at the risk of national security. Now-fired FBI Director James Comey himself went into great detail about the extent of Hillary's wrongdoings - he just decided there was no need to prosecute her for reasons we can only guess at. And remember Barack Obama on a live mic whispering to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev about having "more flexibility" with Russia once the 2012 election was over? Did the left care about what that might have meant? But Trump - with zero evidence of anything illegal - already has a special prosecutor.

These false reports – and subsequent actions like special prosecutors -- are dividing our country like never before, they’re corrupting the minds of young people, and their purpose is clear and twofold: one, to undo the validly elected Trump presidency any way possible by those who simply cannot stand that an outsider like Trump bucked the system to become president, and, two, to silence the rest of us who helped make Trump president.

If anyone is guilty of treason – besides Hillary Clinton, of course – it is the Democrats' and mainstream media’s role in undermining our president by false means, putting this choke-hold on our country, and leading us down a path where every day American voices are no longer heard. Kind of like what you might see in North Korea today.

Worse, these antics are producing a citizenry that does not trust those who have been legitimately elected, politicians who would willingly destroy the belief in government to topple an opposition party, and a media that no longer reports news, but manufactures it.  

Add to this a population that is so increasingly uneducated and gullible and hysterical that they will believe anything the media says, and what we have when we put it all together is a formula for disaster.

Enough is enough.

Religious freedom: How reliant on government should we be?

Many conservatives are unhappy with President Donald Trump's recently signed “Presidential Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty”, because they say it doesn't go far enough to address the real concerns about threats to religious liberty. 

But others are a bit more optimistic. For instance, Mike Berry, Senior Counsel and Director of Military Affairs, said it "is the best news we’ve received from the White House in eight years,” and President and CEO of the National Religious Broadcasters Jerry Johnson said, “President Trump deserves praise for applying an emergency brake on the government’s movement toward coercion and discrimination.”

So what’s missing from the President’s order? Some say the president's order merely addresses the Johnson Amendment, which basically only pertains to churches' limitations on political involvement. But the concern is that, as bad as the Johnson Amendment has been, it has not been our biggest problem. 

In fact, there was an original draft of the religious liberties executive order leaked back in February that addressed much more of what many people are hoping for in terms of protecting religious freedom. According to Heritage Foundation’s Ryan Anderson, the original draft, if adopted, “would have finally and fully protected Americans from having to violate their consciences under the Obamacare abortifacient and contraception mandate. It would have protected the ability of all Americans to buy health care that doesn’t cover or subsidize abortion. And it would have protected all Americans who believe that marriage is the union of husband and wife from federal government penalties or coercion.” 

Those are the greater issues, issues which affect the average citizen, yet they’re not specifically addressed in the president’s new order.

But there’s still something positive here. Simply put, Trump’s order is a whole lot better than Hillary Clinton would have done, and at the very least, it's encouraging to hear the President of the United States say, “We will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied or silenced anymore. And we will never, ever stand for religious discrimination. Never, ever.”

He also stated, “Under my administration, free speech does not end at the steps of a cathedral or a synagogue or any other house of worship. We are giving our churches their voices back and we are giving them back in the highest form.”

Yes, the executive order is flawed, but it’s still positive that our president used his voice for this cause and displays the administration’s commitment to religious liberty in general.

But regardless of what President Trump does or does not do, the most important thing is that we remember our religious liberties come from God, not government, so we need to be careful about making government the sole decision maker on our religious freedoms. Yes we need the Constitutional protection of our liberties. Of course. But currently, the problem of intolerance toward religion in America is a cultural problem, not a political one, and the farther we get from God, the more reliant on government we will be for who decides how free we are, because it will largely come down to the personal opinion of the person in charge. Look at the attacks on liberty under Obama, for instance. For now, we may be safe with Trump, but if our liberties are left to the whim of an executive order, that is a concern that can't be overlooked. 

Pro-lifers care more about women than pro-choicers do

Following the Michigan Senate’s recent approval of a “Choose Life” license plate, an op-ed cartoon in one of the Sunday papers depicted pro-lifers rolling up their car windows to avoid impoverished children begging on the roadside. As usual, pro-lifers are portrayed as caring more about babies in the womb than about women or babies after they’re born.

Apparently there are some so fiercely committed to abortion that they cannot even bear the notion of encouraging the choice of life. But to accuse pro-lifers of not caring about women and children outside the womb as an argument against pro-life license plates (or pro-life initiatives in general) is a blatant lie that deserves exposure.

First, the “Choose Life” plates would actually help fund programs that assist women facing unplanned pregnancies, supplying them with food, housing, clothing, education, baby supplies, and the like. The plates are not about state-sponsorship of repealing abortion rights, as some opponents have also charged. They’re about letting private citizens publicly display their desire to change hearts, while supporting women facing unplanned pregnancies. Really, what is wrong with that?

Truth be told, since Roe. v. Wade, it is pro-lifers – not abortion supporters -- who have taken the lead in offering vital services to mothers and children in need. Countless volunteers do all they can to help these women, including driving them to doctor appointments, providing free ultrasounds, and helping them with housing, clothes, education, jobs and baby supplies.

This is done largely through approximately 4,000 crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) in our country -- at least 27 of which are in Southeast Michigan alone -- as well as local pro-life ministries like Abigayle House, Mary’s Mantle, and others across the country that exist solely to provide material and emotional support to pregnant women and mothers in need.

Also, let’s not forget the Catholic Church, perhaps the single most influential pro-life institution in the U.S., and one of -- if not the -- largest private donor of financial and other assistance to those in need, including pregnant women and single mothers. Add to this the many other Christian outreach services that commit time and private resources to helping women long after they give birth. Tell me one pro-abortion group that offers this kind of help to women interested in carrying out their pregnancies.

These pro-life resources are funded pretty much the old-fashioned way, too: through private donations. In contrast, the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, receives more than one million dollars a day from our government, while partnering with groups like NARAL Pro-Choice America to support legislation across the country – such as California’s recent Reproductive FACT Act -- that compels pro-life CPCs to speak the government’s approved message, not the pro-life message, and seeks to shut down CPCs altogether.

So who really cares about women here? If abortion supporters want to claim that title, then they need to start acknowledging the harmful effects of abortion. Instead, they ignore myriad studies that link abortion to increased cancer risk, anxiety, depression, substance abuse and other maladies. They reject efforts to require abortion clinics to share this information with women, or to show women an ultrasound before an abortion so women can make a truly informed decision. Abortion supporters even reject legislation that would require abortion clinics to meet the same standards of cleanliness and licensing that your average hair salon must meet.

Moreover, while congressional Democrats decry the Trump Administration’s recent decision to eliminate funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), abortion advocates ignore the UNFPA’s complicit partnership in some of the most unspeakably brutal population control programs around the globe – euphemistically called “family planning” and “reproductive health” -- including China’s genocidal one-couple, one-child policy, in addition to abortion, forced sterilization and savage eugenics programs throughout the developing world. Almost exclusively, it is women and children who are the victims of this fanatical crusade against life.

But why deny these truths? It’s simple. Abortion is a big money maker. So with statistics showing that almost 80% of U.S. women who see their baby in an ultrasound decide against abortion, CPCs (who provide free ultrasounds) become a major threat to the abortion industry. And as public opinion on abortion continues to change thanks to ever-advancing medical technology, it’s become much harder to push a blatant pro-abortion agenda. Hence, the truth must be buried and false claims about pro-lifers must be perpetuated.

I applaud the Michigan Senate for approving the “Choose Life” plates and hope the House will follow suit. In fact, in this dark time we’re in, where the most simple “Choose Life” initiatives invite ridicule, and the ending of innocent life becomes profitable, isn’t now actually a really good time for us all to promote the God-given sanctity of human life that so many seek to destroy?