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20 Things That Caught My Eye: The Life behind Abortion; Muslims & Religious Liberty; & More

1. Meet Baby Olivia 

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3. Listening to the heartbeat of the pro-life movement: an interview with Maria McFadden of The Human Life Review 

4. Pope Francis:

All health care professionals have a right to conscientious objection, just as they have a right to denounce unjust harm inflicted on innocent and defenseless life, Pope Francis said.

When it comes to abortion, “I have been very clear — it is homicide and it is not licit to become complicit,” he told a group of pharmacists and other medical professionals.

5. Mustafa Akyol: Why, As a Muslim, I Defend Religious Liberty

Religious coercion does not lead to genuine piety. It only leads to hypocrisy. If people are forced to practice a religion, they don’t do it out of a sincere will to obey God. They do it out a disdained obligation to obey men.

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7. Robert L. Woodson: In the Fight for Racial Justice, Equality of Opportunity, Not Elitism, Should Be the Goal

The elitist condescension toward black Americans is nothing new, though it’s grown particularly virulent lately. Part of the current black experience in America is to be viewed by both progressives and conservatives through the lens of pathology instead of potential.

Many elites of all political and ideological stripes have long pathologized black people by treating us as problems to be solved, rips in the social fabric that need to be mended by well-meaning, though often seriously misguided, public policy interventions. Now, we’re often viewed as nothing more than helpless victims awaiting rescue from our privileged white oppressors.

When discussing the real problems facing the black community, it’s important to acknowledge that the majority of black people are doing just fine: We are middle class or wealthy, and our educational attainment continues to increase. 

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9. Barbara A. Blair, Tom Harris, Dan Biederman and Alfred C. Cerullo, III: Midtown Manhattan is in crisis today

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11. The Daily Signal: Federal Judge Rules New York Must Provide Religious Exemptions to Vaccine Mandate

The ruling follows New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s statement denying the legitimacy of religious exemptions during a briefing on Sept. 27. She stated that “there are not legitimate religious exemptions because the leaders of all the organized religions have said there’s no legitimate reason,” and that “we’re going to win that in court in a matter of days.”

Following the implementation of the mandate on Sept. 28, thousands of New York health care workers who refused to get vaccinated lost their jobs.

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13. Prominent Anglican bishop received into Catholic Church

14. The impact and significance of Michael Nazir-Ali’s conversion to Catholicism

15. Fox News: Down Syndrome Awareness Month: ‘Fox & Friends’ spotlights businesses giving back

16. Benjamin Watson: How Abortion Enables Abusive Men 

One story in particular caught my attention, and gave me pause for serious reflection. Uma Thurman, the famous actress, wrote a piece for the Washington Post describing her story of procuring an abortion as a teenager. And although the story was meant to highlight how abortion helped and empowered her, what it really shows is how abortion enables men to neglect, abuse and take advantage of women.

Thurman’s story is truly heartbreaking. It isn’t the story of a woman who was rescued from hardship by killing her preborn child; it’s the story of a woman driven by the bad behavior of men to feel abortion was her only option.

Every step of the way, Thurman describes the men who played a role in her decision to abort—from the much older man who impregnated her when she was just a girl to the father who had never discussed sex with her and sternly warned her not to keep her child. And then there’s the male abortionist who offered her consolation while still ending the life of her preborn baby without remorse. And of course, there’s the unspoken part played by all the men in her professional life who likely communicated that her career would be over if she became a mother at such a young age.

As I read this story, I of course saw Thurman’s pain and recognized its validity. But I also saw how numerous men in her life used abortion as a tool, and not for her empowerment. Sexualized and pursued by older men while she was just a teenager, alone in a foreign land, separated from her family, Thurman needed support, care and guidance. What she got was pressure on all sides to get an abortion.

Uma Thurman’s story is telling. It reveals the dark truth behind abortion: that it enables a culture of sexual abuse and relationship dysfunction that always terminates in heartbreak, sadness, shame and injury. The abortion industry doesn’t want us to think holistically about sex and pregnancy; it wants us to sexualize women while pathologizing motherhood, to adulate abortion providers while ignoring the circumstances that lead to abortion—circumstances that could, and should, have been different.

Here’s the problem, as I see it: behind every pregnancy there’s always at least one man, and all too often, abortion obscures his role in creating conditions wherein a woman feels that abortion is her only option. What’s worse, by treating abortion like a quick fix for pregnancy, the abortion industry, and the pro-choice narrative that protects it, indirectly support the men who create these conditions—conditions of neglect, loneliness and sorrow.

17.  Fox News: Down Syndrome Awareness Month: ‘Fox & Friends’ spotlights businesses giving back

18. Meghan McCain on Katie Couric:

One of my favorite adages is ‘Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t after you’. And this particular admission has hit me like a slap in the face.

The mainstream media is already a biased, hostile and awful space for conservatives. Both for those who appear in it and for those who read and watch it, who are constantly gas-lit into feeling bad about their perfectly decent beliefs.

If you are hesitant about the vaccine, you are a selfish, superstitious redneck who doesn’t care who they kill.

If you don’t want your children taught Critical Race Theory in school, you are a domestic terrorist.

If you vote Republican, you are an enemy of democracy and progress, if not an outright racist.

We all know it, we all feel it and now our paranoia has once again been justified.

We now have one of the most famous journalists in America admitting to rigging her interviews to make Ruth Bader Ginsburg look ‘better’ in the eyes of liberals.

How many other interviews did she rig or manipulate during her long, storied career? And why did her network allow it to air in such a fashion?

She wasn’t a one-woman band, there must have been a lot of people who enabled Katie Couric’s behavior and unethical journalistic practices. Where is the justice and consequences for them?

There has been almost constant talk and speculation about the breakdown of trust between Americans and our media. Katie Couric is one of the smoking guns.

How can there be any expectation of trust between anyone with an opinion to the right of Ruth Bader Ginsburg if interviewers and their networks believe editing out commentary they believe would hurt a progressive icon is an ethical thing to do?

I can assure you, Katie Couric would have afforded no conservative woman any such mercy.

The only thing I can hope for in the future is that the journalists and hosts coming up behind Katie Couric see the damage she has done, both in the workplace to female colleagues and, outside towards women who think differently from her.

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20. Dion — “Angel In The Alleyways” with Patti Scialfa and Bruce Springsteen

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/15-things-that-caught-my-eye-the-life-behind-abortion-muslims-more/

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