Last week, The New Yorker published Apoorva Tadepalli’s essay “The Unsettling Ambiguity of Early Pregnancy.” Pregnancy tests, she writes, draw a “misleading, somewhat arbitrary, binary” between pregnant and not pregnant. “You can be kind of pregnant, a little bit pregnant, almost pregnant, or maybe pregnant,” she says, “and still test positive.” The essay treats implantation, the human embryo’s attachment to the uterus, after which a home test can detect hCG, as the snapshot from which we merely invent the beginning of pregnancy.
Commentators and readers recoiled from a claim that still sounds like a joke: that a woman can be “a little bit pregnant.” The outrage is reasonable. The idea is not new.
If you think “pregnancy” begins at implantation rather than fertilization, you have already accepted the false premise the magazine is now selling: a living human being can be physically present in a woman’s body while she is simultaneously defined as not pregnant — “almost pregnant.” And it has been written into federal regulation and obstetric terminology for more than half a century.
A new human being begins to exist at fertilization. That is Carnegie Stage 1, the first stage of the gold-standard system that documents the first 56 days of human life — the Carnegie Stages of Human Embryonic Development. The new human being, called an embryo, is not a “potential,” not a “maybe,” not a “possible.” He or she is a whole, individual, living, self-directing human organism with a unique genome. For about a week after fertilization, that human being develops and travels from the fallopian tube to the uterus before implantation even starts. Implantation is a change of location. It is not the origin of that human life.
Call the gap what you like. The result is the same: A living human being who does not count in regulation or on the label. You cannot be “a little bit pregnant.” Either a new human being is present or it is not. In ordinary human sexual reproduction, fertilization answers that. Implantation, or any later developmental milestone, does not.
Pregnancy is the presence of a new human being, not a human being who has implanted, produced enough hormone for a drugstore test, or reached some later biomarker. As the human embryologist Bruce Carlson writes in a standard medical-school textbook, “Human pregnancy begins with the fusion of an egg and a sperm.”
The New Yorker did not invent this “almost pregnant” doctrine. In 1965, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued Terminology Bulletin No. 1 and redefined “conception” as “the implantation of a fertilized ovum.” The college’s 1972 terminology volume was blunter: conception, it said, “is not synonymous with fertilization,” and the synonym it assigned was implantation. That was a change in the glossary, not a finding in the lab.
The British reproductive biologist A. S. Parkes of Cambridge was among those who, in mid-century reproductive biology, suggested the simple revision. Equate conception, he said, “with the time of implantation rather than the time of fertilization — a difference of only a few days.” In this way, a product that can act after a new human being exists, but before implantation, can be sold as contraception rather than as a grave intervention that can end a human life.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services codified the same start line. When it issued Subpart B of the human-subjects research regulations in 1975, pregnancy was defined from implantation. The current text, 45 CFR 46, still says pregnancy “encompasses the period of time from implantation until delivery,” and defines “fetus” as “the product of conception from implantation until delivery.” It misdefines pregnancy and fetus, and it omits “embryo” altogether. The embryonic period, the first eight weeks of a human being’s life, is missing from the definitions written to protect human subjects.
The abortion industry, drugmakers, IVF clinics, and human-embryo researchers all benefit from the false definition. In 2005, the Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm, wrote that the implantation definition of pregnancy is “critical to distinguishing between a contraceptive that prevents pregnancy and an abortifacient that terminates it.” If implantation is when pregnancy starts, action against a living human being beforehand is contraception by definition. That is not a scientific conclusion. It is a useful one.
The New Yorker widens the gap the implantation rule created. It makes the official line feel too slight to bear the weight we put on it. If a positive test is only a “somewhat arbitrary” snapshot (a pregnancy, she writes, not a baby), then implantation is merely the first official maybe, and what counts is whether someone is willing to say a child is there.
HHS can correct the false definitions it wrote. Rewrite 45 CFR 46 to reflect scientific reality: pregnancy begins when a human life starts, at fertilization, and “embryo” names the human being during the embryonic period. Labels and research rules should describe what is present, not what is convenient to exclude — and they should do so before still more children disappear under the banners of “contraception” and “tissue.”
***
Brooke Stanton is the co-author of “The First 56 Days of You: How Your Human Journey Begins” and the chief executive officer of Contend Projects, a registered 501(c)(3) education organization spreading the basic, accurate scientific facts about when a human life starts and the biological science of human embryology.

Foetus ultrasound

The New Yorker’s Dangerous Ambiguity About When Life Begins

abortion

american college of obstetricians and gynecologists

new yorker

opinion

pregnancy

Some abortion advocates are so zealous that, I’ve heard people say, it’s as if abortion is their religion. Now, in the latest entry to the truth-can-be-stranger-than-fiction file: Abortion extremists in Indiana claim that the state’s law banning most abortions violates their right to…wait for it…exercise religion. The Indiana Supreme Court is now considering their lawsuit.
This is the legal backstory. The First Amendment protects the fundamental right to freely exercise religion. Because this right is so important, the Supreme Court has long said that government needs a “compelling” purpose to interfere with it. In 1972, <a href="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2024-08/LM358_0.pdf">some creative law professors</a> argued that a woman exercises religion when she has an abortion allowed by her religious or moral beliefs. Since protecting human beings in the womb is not a “compelling” government purpose, the argument goes, pro-life laws violate the First Amendment.
In 1990, however, the Supreme Court said the compelling purpose standard applies only when the government deliberately undermines religious practice. That hardly ever happens, which means the government almost never violates the First Amendment, no matter how it hinders, or even prohibits, the exercise of religion. Congress responded by passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to bring back the compelling purpose standard for all religious exercise cases. Many states, including Indiana, have passed RFRAs to similarly protect religious exercise against state government action.
When Congress considered RFRA, some pro-life groups warned that abortion advocates might once again claim that pro-life laws violate the right to exercise religion, this time citing RFRA rather than the First Amendment. The nation’s leading First Amendment scholars <a href="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2024-08/LM358_0.pdf">pushed back</a>, arguing that, to be an exercise of religion, a decision or action must actually result from religious belief. Simply being consistent with, or not prohibited by, those beliefs is not enough.
The Supreme Court had taken this position in 1980 when it upheld the Hyde Amendment, a federal law banning taxpayer funding of most abortions. The Court said that, to be an “exercise of religion,” an action or decision must actually be compelled by, rather than just consistent with, religious belief.
Now abortion advocates are, once again, making the same argument in challenging Indiana’s pro-life law. Their first hurdle, which the Indiana Supreme Court explored in the argument on September 10, is whether the plaintiffs have legal standing to challenge the pro-life law at all. A plaintiff must have suffered an actual or imminent legal injury caused by the defendant that the court can address. In this case, none of the plaintiffs is pregnant, intends to become pregnant, or has ever been denied an abortion. Indiana has never even attempted to enforce the law they are challenging. Instead, the plaintiffs can only make the hypothetical claim that the state prohibits abortions that they might, someday, seek to obtain.
The second hurdle is the one the Supreme Court addressed almost five decades ago in Harris v. McRae. The plaintiffs say that the hypothetical abortion they might someday seek, but that the state would prohibit, is “consistent” with their religious beliefs — exactly what the Court in Harris said was not enough. Imagine how many decisions or actions your religious or moral beliefs do not explicitly prohibit. Then think of how many laws of all sorts you could ignore simply by claiming that your beliefs allow you to do what those laws prohibit or refrain from doing what they require.
The third hurdle — if they get past the first two — is that government has an obvious compelling reason to protect human beings in the womb. Abortion, after all, is homicide committed earlier, and by different methods, than the homicide the law already prohibits. Calling it “abortion” rather than “homicide” can’t change that. If protecting human beings from being killed isn’t a compelling government purpose, what is?
This Indiana case is one of several similar attempts to eliminate pro-life laws. Abortion advocates did not need this religious argument after the Supreme Court created a right to abortion, but they want to bring it back now that the Supreme Court has said the abortion right does not exist. Their argument is no more valid today than it was when it was proffered and rejected in the past.
***
Thomas Jipping is a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom.

Crowds Attend Annual March For Life In Washington DC

Abortion Is Not A Religious Exercise

first amendment

indiana fever

religious freedom

supreme court

Democrat Blake Gendebien has spent his campaign presenting himself as a rural, independent-minded Democrat who can compete in one of New York&#8217;s most conservative congressional districts.
But newly obtained undercover audio by The Daily Wire reveals Gendebien telling voters and activists that he supports abortion without restrictions, universal background checks and gun-storage laws, and broad vaccination mandates.
Gendebien is running against Republican Anthony Constantino in <a href="https://censusreporter.org/profiles/50000US3621-congressional-district-21-ny/">New York’s 21st Congressional District</a>, a sprawling Upstate constituency currently represented by Elise Stefanik (R-NY). The district encompasses 15 counties and more than 16,000 square miles, stretching across much of New York&#8217;s North Country, the state&#8217;s northernmost geographic region. The district voted for President Donald Trump by roughly 21 points in 2024, according to <a href="https://punchbowl.news/article/campaigns/constantino-gendebien-race-tightens/">Punchbowl News</a>, and Stefanik <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/new-york-us-house-district-21-results">won re-election with nearly 62% of the vote</a>. Gendebien, a second-generation dairy farmer, has nevertheless attracted national Democratic attention as Democrats look to compete in traditionally Republican districts.
Gendebien has emphasized his rural background and willingness to work across party lines as he campaigns in the district. But in recordings obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire, he describes positions on some of the most contentious issues in American politics that are considerably more explicit than the moderate image he has cultivated on the campaign trail.
He was asked during a September 3 event in front of an audience of healthcare workers whether he supported any restrictions on abortion and what limits he would impose. 
“I fully stand with women and the decision to control their reproductive care is between their physician, between their family, and, of course, themselves,” Gendebien responded. “We need to go back to the precedent set by Roe v. Wade.” 
Pressed specifically on restrictions, Gendebien could not identify any.
Gendebien also spoke favorably about Planned Parenthood during another portion of the event, discussing his mother’s work there. 
“My mom also taught reproductive classes at Planned Parenthood in Ogdensburg, New York, when there was an office there,” he said.
His position on guns is similarly explicit. Gendebien said he supports both universal background checks and laws governing firearm storage. 
“We have to have universal background checks, we have to have safe gun storage laws,” Gendebien said in the audio obtained by The Daily Wire. “And we’ve got to take those things seriously.”
Gendebien has also endorsed maintaining vaccination mandates. During the September 3 event, he said, “I’m laser focused on making sure that we don’t lose vaccination mandates. That’s just, to me, it seems crazy. So we need healthy communities, we need healthy kids, and I don’t want to go back in time.”
Michael Waller, Gendebien&#8217;s campaign manager, did not address specifics in response to the Daily Wire&#8217;s questions. &#8220;Blake has spent his whole life in this district — farming, coaching, running the school board, and representing farmers for a decade,&#8221; he said. &#8220;People here know where he stands, that&#8217;s why he&#8217;s earned support from Republicans, Independents, and Democrats alike.&#8221;
The comments provide a more detailed picture of Gendebien’s policy positions as he tries to win a seat that has long favored Republicans. The Democrat has emphasized his background as a dairy farmer and argued that economic problems facing the North Country — including energy costs, trade with Canada and rural health care — transcend traditional party divisions.
He has also publicly distanced himself from New York City Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) while stressing his willingness to work with Republicans in Congress, according to the <a href="https://www.timesunion.com/capitol/article/ny-21-gendebien-balances-party-support-moderate-22407740.php">Times Union</a>. That strategy reflects the reality of running as a Democrat in a district that backed Trump decisively, but Gendebien’s comments on abortion, guns, and vaccines undermine the moderate label Gendebien has worked hard to curate.
The race has drawn attention from national Democrats. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has campaigned with Gendebien, while the Blue Dog PAC has <a href="https://bluedogdems.com/blue-dog-pac-endorses-six-new-candidates-built-to-win-in-competitive-districts/">endorsed</a> him.
Gendebien has had to readjust his rhetoric for Democratic leadership before. In August, his campaign aired a television ad promising voters that he would “stand up to Kathy Hochul or work with Donald Trump, anything to do what’s right for upstate.”
According to two people familiar with the situation who spoke to <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/new-york-playbook/2026/08/21/running-with-hochul-at-arms-length-01045147">Politico’s New York Playbook</a>, Gendebien was subsequently told that the ad needed to come down and that he would be suspended from the New York Democratic Party’s statewide coordinated campaign while it remained on the air.
The 30-second ad aired for roughly 10 days in the Albany television market, according to AdImpact. Gendebien’s campaign disputed that characterization, saying the spot had simply reached the end of its planned run.
Gendebien nonetheless appeared at the opening of a Democratic coordinated-campaign office shortly afterward, and state Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs said the party remained committed to supporting his campaign.
Republicans have seized on that tension to argue that Gendebien’s moderate presentation is primarily a campaign strategy. “Partisan Democrat Blake Gendebien” is how the National Republican Congressional Committee has described him, while Anthony Constantino’s campaign has sought to portray him as aligned with the national Democratic Party.

Undercover Recordings Blow Up Dem’s ‘Moderate’ Pitch To Voters

2026 midterm election

blake gendebien

covid-19 vaccine mandate

gun control

new york 21st congressional district

I had to read this sentence twice:
“A lot of early miscarriages happen as part of a natural process of discarding ‘errors.’”
Discarding &#8220;errors.&#8221;
We&#8217;re talking about unborn babies. A life created by God.
I’m a mom of two, and maybe that’s why I was honestly disgusted when I read it.
I’ve taken the pregnancy tests. I’ve stared at the faint line, wondering if it was actually there or if I was imagining it. And then took about 20 more tests after the first one. I’ve sat through the early ultrasounds waiting to hear a heartbeat. I know the excitement. I also know the fear that comes with realizing how much can go wrong and how little control you actually have, especially for someone who has a type A personality like me.
But at no point did I think of what was growing inside of me as some potential &#8216;error&#8217; my body might need to &#8220;discard.&#8221;
That was my baby.
And I think it says a lot about how we’ve gotten to a place where writing about unborn human life this way can be passed off as clinical or scientific. DISGUSTING.
The <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-unsettling-ambiguity-of-early-pregnancy?_sp=de48b8af-cff3-4a8b-937a-5042a9ce6cc6.1789661986742">New Yorker piece</a>, which discusses anthropologist Kate Clancy’s book “Pregnancy Interrupted,” spends a lot of time talking about the uncertainty of early pregnancy.
Yes, there is a ton of uncertainty!!!
Doctors can get gestational age wrong. I know that firsthand. I had two different doctors give me due dates that were two weeks apart. Measurements can differ. Standards for diagnosing a miscarriage can even differ depending on where a woman lives.
The article itself points to research involving pregnancies classified as having “unknown viability.” About one-fifth of those pregnancies eventually turned out to be viable.
So doctors don&#8217;t always know.
Which is one of the main points of the article.
And then, somehow, we go from acknowledging how much we don&#8217;t know about an unborn child&#8217;s future to describing embryos as &#8220;errors&#8221; that can be &#8220;discarded.&#8221;
I&#8217;m sorry, but that&#8217;s sick. Yes, SICK. Actually, I’m not sorry.
And I think there&#8217;s something much bigger going on here than a couple of gross words.
The more I read, the more the baby seemed to disappear altogether. Pregnancy became something happening to a woman’s body. A medical condition.
Where did the baby go?
Because ask basically any woman who desperately wants a baby what happens when she sees two lines on a pregnancy test.
She doesn&#8217;t wait for somebody to officially declare the pregnancy “viable” before she starts imagining a future.
First, I thanked God. Try calculating my due date. Of course, I wondered if it&#8217;s a boy or a girl and didn&#8217;t know how I could possibly wait another day without knowing. Then came the names. How old will my baby be at his or her first Christmas?
Then, I start worrying about everything I ate, drank, lifted, touched, or even looked at in the past two weeks.
Maybe the woman comes up with some elaborate way to tell her husband. Or maybe she&#8217;s like me and has absolutely no ability to keep something like that to herself. I start screaming with excitement, blurt it out loud, and then tell everyone and anyone. And I mean anyone. I’d probably roll down my window and tell the random driver next to me if given the chance.
The relationship has already started.
I am my baby&#8217;s mother.
And God forbid the woman miscarries, nobody needs to sit her down and explain to her that she lost something.
She knows exactly who she lost.
Nobody would dream of telling a grieving mother that her body successfully “discarded an error.” And if you do, you are a psychopath.
But use basically the same language inside a discussion about reproductive biology and suddenly we&#8217;re supposed to nod along because it sounds scientific.
No! Words matter.
And there was another line in the piece that was also vile.
After going through the biological and environmental reasons a pregnancy might end, the author writes that pregnancy can also be interrupted “by a woman’s choice.”
Just like that, miscarriage and abortion wrapped up in the same word.
“Interrupted.”
A woman losing a baby she desperately wanted did not “interrupt” her pregnancy in the same way another person intentionally murdered an innocent human being God created.
And pretending they fall under the same language doesn&#8217;t make them the same thing.
It’s just trying to make abortion sound, what? Nicer? Sick.
And have you ever noticed how fast the language changes depending on whether the baby is wanted?
Think about how normal people talk about desperately wanting to get pregnant: We throw baby showers. We post ultrasound pictures. We decorate a nursery. We talk to the baby, my baby.
We put our hands on our stomachs when the baby kicks. I actually had my hand on my stomach 24/7 — you know, the same way, dare I say it, narcissist Meghan Markle was ridiculed for doing. It’s probably the only thing I can relate to her about. Sue me, but I loved it.
Nobody walks up to an excited pregnant woman and says, “Actually, you&#8217;re experiencing a developing medical condition of uncertain viability.”
Why? Um, because that would be INSANE.
We know what she means when she says, “my baby.”
But suddenly, when abortion enters the conversation, nobody wants to say “baby” anymore. It&#8217;s an embryo or a fetus. Abortion is a “choice.” Now apparently it&#8217;s an “interruption.” Funny how that works&#8230; right?! Actually, it&#8217;s anything but funny.
And yes, I know that miscarriage is natural. I know chromosomal abnormalities are a major reason miscarriages happen. I know there are pregnancies that, tragically, will never result in a healthy baby being born.
None of that means we have to talk about the child who dies as if he or she were a defective product.
If doctors themselves don’t always know what’s going to happen, you’d think we’d be a little more careful with the way we talk about the baby.
Maybe a little humility is warranted.
We might not know whether that baby is going to survive. That doesn&#8217;t mean the baby isn&#8217;t there. I don&#8217;t understand why we&#8217;re acting like those are the same thing.
Like every woman, I didn’t know anything about either of my children when I first found out I was pregnant.
I didn&#8217;t know what they would look like. What their personalities would be. Whether they would be healthy. Would I make it through nine months without something going terribly wrong? I didn&#8217;t even know if I&#8217;d make it through the first trimester.
But here&#8217;s what I did know. I knew they were THERE.
And from that moment on, I wasn&#8217;t the only person involved anymore.
That’s the part that disappears when pregnancy becomes nothing more than a condition happening to a woman’s body.
The baby disappears from the language. And once the baby is gone, I guess you can call what happens next whatever you want.
And suddenly we’re back to talking about “errors” being “discarded” and pregnancies being “interrupted.”
Motherhood does begin with uncertainty. And it doesn&#8217;t exactly get better from there.
First you&#8217;re worried about every little thing during pregnancy. Then the baby arrives and you’ve got 10,000 new things that can terrify you. Then they&#8217;re toddlers and climbing on things they absolutely should not be climbing on while you&#8217;re yelling, “GET DOWN,” for the 47th time that day.
The fear about what you’re worried about changes as they get older. But they&#8217;re still your kid and always will be.
That&#8217;s why that sentence about &#8216;discarding errors&#8217; makes me so angry.
An unborn child is NOT an error.
A miscarriage is NOT a successful disposal of defective material.
And a woman who loses her baby didn&#8217;t simply have a pregnancy that was ‘interrupted.’
We’re talking about an innocent human life that God created.
So&#8230; start talking like it!

I Read Two Words About Unborn Babies That Stopped Me Cold

miscarriage

motherhood

WASHINGTON—A nonpartisan federal watchdog on Tuesday revealed that Obamacare subsidizes abortions, upending a longtime Democrat talking point, The Daily Wire can first report.
Nearly a quarter of Affordable Care Act plans cover abortions, the Government Accountability Office found. Of the 6,655 qualified health plans offered on Obamacare exchanges, 1,719 cover &#8220;non-excepted abortion services,&#8221; meaning elective abortions that are not the result of rape, incest, or danger to the mother&#8217;s life. States that have banned abortion prohibit exchange plans from covering these services.
About 4.4 million Americans are enrolled in Obamacare plans that cover abortions, the report found.
&#8220;As a strong defender of life, I find the results of today&#8217;s GAO report deeply concerning,&#8221; Senate Majority Leader John Thune told The Daily Wire. &#8220;American taxpayer dollars should not be used to subsidize elective abortions in violation of the longstanding Hyde Amendment.”
<div id="attachment_1178719" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-obamacare-plans-use-taxpayer-dollars-for-abortions-watchdog-finds/senate-passage-of-government-spending-package-in-doubt-as-democrats-seek-changes-to-dhs-funding-2" target="_blank" rel="attachment noopener wp-att-1178719"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1178719" class="wp-image-1178719 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/GettyImages-2258725703-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/GettyImages-2258725703-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/GettyImages-2258725703-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/GettyImages-2258725703-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/GettyImages-2258725703.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a>Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)</div>
Republicans have long said that the Hyde Amendment — which bans the use of federal funds to pay for abortions except in cases where the unborn baby is conceived through rape or incest, or when the mother&#8217;s life is in danger — should apply to Obamacare plans. Critics say that Democrats have misled the public about when Obamacare plans are subject to Hyde rules.
&#8220;Today’s GAO report confirms the very concerns that Republicans have raised for over fifteen years,&#8221; New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith told The Daily Wire. &#8220;The ACA fails to apply the longstanding and bipartisan Hyde Amendment law, which protects taxpayer dollars from funding abortion, both directly and through federal health plans.&#8221;
Earlier this year, some Republicans pushed back strongly when President Donald Trump suggested that they should be flexible on the Hyde Amendment. Smith, who leads the congressional Pro-Life Caucus, is urging the president to sound the alarm over Obamacare coverage of abortion unless and until Congress can pass legislation that mandates full Hyde protections for all ACA plans.
&#8220;American taxpayers deserve complete transparency and truthfulness as to where their hard-earned dollars are going — and under the ACA as it currently stands, that’s just not possible,&#8221; Smith said.
Smith is calling on President Trump to reissue the Exchange Program Integrity Final Rule, which would ensure that &#8220;consumers understand whether a plan subsidizes elective abortion.&#8221; The congressman argues that Democrats have for years deceived pro-life Americans for years about whether ACA plans cover abortions, and that, as a result, Obamacare has &#8220;strong-armed&#8221; Americans into &#8220;paying for health plans that do not respect the sanctity of life.&#8221;
“The ACA allows premium tax credits to be directed towards health insurance coverage that includes elective abortion,&#8221; Smith says. &#8220;Federal taxpayer dollars — even from individuals living in pro-life states — are subsidizing plans that include elective abortion coverage for over 4.4 million people. The report also found that some insurance issuers failed to comply with the ACA’s consumer transparency provision, which requires plans to prominently disclose abortion coverage.&#8221;
Several pieces of legislation floating around Capitol Hill could subject Obamacare plans to the Hyde Ammendment, a Senate aide told The Daily Wire. One is the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act</a>, which would codify Hyde across the federal government. That legislation is led by Smith in the House of Representatives and Roger Wicker in the Senate, with 125 cosponsors in the House and 50 cosponsors in the Senate.
Republican leadership under Senator Mitch McConnell first requested that the GAO review Obamacare&#8217;s coverage of abortion in 2014. A 2014 report found that 1,036 qualified health plans in 28 states covered abortions, while 1,062 did not. The 2026 report found that 1,719 of 6,655 qualified health plans in the 50 states and the District of Columbia covered abortions.
“As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Hyde Amendment on September 30th,&#8221; Smith said, &#8220;we renew the call to enforce this critical, lifesaving protection within the ACA without further delay.&#8221;
&#8220;Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize plans that cover the elective killing of an unborn child by dismemberment or baby poison pills.&#8221;

(Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP) (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images)

EXCLUSIVE: Obamacare Plans Use Taxpayer Dollars For Abortions, Watchdog Finds

chris smith

government accountability

hyde amendment

john thune

obamacare

So we are calling abortion an act of mercy now?
According to actress Anne Hathaway in an interview on “The View,” “abortion can be another word for mercy.”
We are all used to the euphemisms that surround abortion; they’ve been an essential part of keeping it a socially acceptable practice despite its gruesome realities.
“Mercy” felt like a new one; it turns out it was a recently resurfaced remark made years ago. But it caught my attention in the wake of the Lindsay Clancy trial. One of the theories put forth by the many mental health and medical professionals who testified in her case argued that she believed she was committing an “altruistic filicide.” That is a medical term for when a parent kills their child in what they believe, in an altered mental state, that their child will be better off dead than alive.
It is by definition a textbook act of an insane person, and yet here in America, glossy-lipped celebrities like Anne Hathaway are trotting it out with a big-toothed grin on morning television to be consumed by an almost entirely female audience. As if it’s a completely normal concept.
And then a look to the north finds our neighbors in Canada have recently revived a discussion about whether or not Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) — yet another euphemism, this time for assisted suicide — can be used on certain disabled newborns. Or, in the euphemistic terms of the medical body — the Quebec College of Physicians — arguing it can, and should be, used on babies up to a year old who, in their words, “are born with severe deformations, very grave and severe medical syndromes, whose life expectancy and level of suffering are such that it would make sense to ensure that they do not suffer.”
Mercy.
More like, “Lord have mercy!”
What are we even doing here? I don’t know if Lindsay Clancy lost her mind. But it certainly feels as though we are collectively losing ours as a society. Late-term abortion for “fetal abnormalities” has long been framed as a moral choice, supposedly sparing the baby a life of suffering.
There is nothing merciful about killing an innocent child. Ever. And yet this is the very basis of the abortion industry’s argument in support of legal late-term abortion for babies with disabilities. Just look at the case of McKenna West, the surrogate mother who had to flee the couple that hired her for her womb and pressured her to abort as soon as they learned that the baby had a heart condition. And a treatable one at that. Their argument, after they then sued her when she refused, according to one major media outlet? That “the biological parents insist they only want what’s best for their child.”
Sparing an unborn baby a life of suffering is, in reality, sparing a baby its actual life, and the parents, and society by extension, of the obligation to care for that life.
But the “mercy” argument is seeping into the abortion debate more broadly. Just last week, a woman went viral on X for saying on The Postpartum Podcast about her abortion, “I got the abortion because I loved my baby, and I could not see a better way to love my baby and to protect my baby&#8230;&#8221;
The clip went viral during the peak of Clancy trial fever, as women lined the streets in pink to show their support for a woman who had purportedly done that very thing, in a postpartum state no less.
In the middle of all of this, Gloria Steinem dies. A woman who perhaps more than any other helped to normalize and even glorify abortion. She herself aborted her only child, something she called an “ethical act,” “a profoundly moral decision,” and “positive.” Just weeks after the governor of Massachusetts signed a late-term abortion bill, surrounded by beaming, clapping women.
I didn’t sit on Lindsay Clancy’s jury. I don’t know whether she is guilty.
What I know is that I do sit on the jury of our society; we all do. And we have long been conditioning the waters for a world where we accept the murder of innocent children, be they in the womb, on a doctor’s table, or in the basement of their home.
Our claim to civilizational sanity depends on our conviction that it is never, ever merciful.
***
Ashley McGuire is a senior fellow at The Catholic Association.

“The Odyssey” New York Premiere

Anne Hathaway Calls Abortion ‘Mercy.’ The Bigger Question Is Chilling.

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The American university is in trouble. The Wall Street Journal recently <a href="https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/syracuse-student-application-enrollment-crisis-budget-ff142896">highlighted</a> the struggles of one of the large and reputable American universities, Syracuse. Its feature notes in somewhat staggering detail just how much the institution is suffering, further arguing that what many thought would only hit small private schools has now hit major centers of learning. (Let me note here that I use “centers of learning” advisedly.)
To be sure, the crisis is real, and it speaks volumes about the current state of culture in Western civilization. If estimates are to be believed, roughly 300 institutions of higher learning have become defunct since the 2008 financial collapse. Further, as the Huron Consulting Group claims, another 370 schools may close over the next decade, with many of the surviving institutions being hit hard financially and struggling. The hardest hit have been private liberal arts colleges. In 1960, they numbered nearly 570 in the U.S. Today, there are only around 200. While not all 200 will close, of course, the next decade will see dramatic changes in these institutions, even for those that survive the coming years.
What went wrong
There are, naturally, several causes of this decline. First, beginning in the 1960s, large state schools and systems intentionally created immense numbers of smaller regional campuses with the intention of driving private schools out of business.  
Second, many schools have become too dependent upon tuition and federal funding (especially federal funding of student loans), and prices have been driven up artificially because of public interference in the marketplace. Many colleges have shot themselves in the foot, pricing themselves out of the market.  
Third, something that few like to talk about in polite society: We face a demographic crisis not only because of falling birth rates, but, especially, because of legalized abortion since 1973. While no one knows for sure, abortions probably account for the loss of about 66 million Americans, with nearly one out of four women under the age of 50 having had at least one abortion. Putting aside the question of abortion’s morality, these numbers are staggering and telling, and we’re simply not replacing population like we once did through procreation.  
Fourth, all institutions of higher learning should be mission-driven, and almost none are; thus each one becomes essentially replaceable by every other college. Small private schools have especially become part of a vanilla tapioca over the last 50 years, bowing only to the heretical gods of race, class, and gender. 
Fifth, liberal arts schools, especially, have forgotten the meaning of the liberal arts, substituting a serious education in the classics for ridiculous novelty classes and courses driven only by hateful ideologies.  
Not surprisingly, those claiming to be the most anti-racist are, indeed, the most racist and hostile to majorities of student bodies. All of this results from the very crafty and insidious New Left playing the long game in the late 1960s, and entering in mass numbers the field of education and the institutions of culture. Unlike their parents, the Old Left, who embraced an economic form of Marxism, their children — red diaper babies — stood firm on a cultural form of Marxism. What was essentially Maoist in 1968 became political correctness in the early 1990s, and wokeness and DEI over the last 20 years.  
Most colleges hold a freshman orientation that serves as nothing more than a reworked consciousness-raising session and a left-wing struggle session. The radical Left seeks nothing less than the eradication of individuality. Though more gentle in their implementation, these college introductory sessions closely resemble China during the Cultural Revolution or Cambodia under Pol Pot. Further, some schools also have sexual exploration tents, introducing many students to the most depraved things possible.
In other words, many colleges subvert everything noble about Western civilization and human dignity and deserve a quick death.  
So, how can we recover one of the most important institutions of our civilization and prevent an even further decline into a moral and ethical dark age (even as our technology advances beyond our wildest imaginations)? To be sure, several institutions will fail, and given their own leanings toward totalitarian and inhumane ideologies — in thought and in practice — they deserve to die. But those that might return to first principles should have a fighting chance. How to give them one?
The better vision
First, we need to have more babies. Lots and lots of babies. As the economist Julian Simon so brilliantly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/population-panic-pushed-deadly-policies-the-truth-finally-comes-out">noted</a>, they are our ultimate resource. Not only are we missing 66 million Americans, but we’re also missing their creativity, their uniqueness, their talents, their personalities, and their artistry. We need stable families, too.
Second, colleges absolutely must return to first principles, especially in exploring and promoting their individual missions. It is impossible to attract students and donors without a comprehensive, telling, and fetching mission. Whether that mission is intellectual or religious or artistic, or some combination of all three, it is the only way an institution can weather the storms of society. A mission statement not only gives coherence to the college or university, but it also allows for distinctive and deep fundraising, and, equally important, it ties all students of a particular institution together across the generations. Otherwise, one institution easily blends into another institution, all a form of conformist homogeneity, conducive neither to excellence nor virtue.
Third, we must return to the proper understanding of education. For centuries over the course of Western civilization, education meant one thing: a proper understanding of the seven liberal arts, an understanding of the classical languages, with either philosophy or theology holding it all together. In other words, all education was liberal education, and everything else was a form of training. It was liberal in the sense of being “liberated from the immediate cares of the world.”  It focused on man, God, and man’s relationship to God. Its most important question was, “What is man?”
There’s nothing wrong with training, of course. Indeed, it’s extremely important in a complex society — such as with law and engineering — but it’s not the same thing as education. While it would be absurd and unrealistic for us to expect that major research universities will suddenly embrace the primacy of the liberal arts, we have every right to expect our major institutions to treat education and liberal education seriously. Before we do anything, we must first learn what it means to be human. After all, if we’re searching for profit in the business school or seeking the newest research on genetic modifications, we need an ethical and moral basis by which to decide such things, exaggerate our excellences, and temper our failings. We learn such things from Socrates, Cicero, St. Augustine, and Sir Thomas More.  
Fourth, colleges and universities must absolutely wean themselves from federal and state monies. With such strings come too many obligations that, again, drive us toward a reckless conformity. Our institutions, while rooted in the true, the good, and the beautiful, must be allowed to explore the limits of human creativity, tempered only by our ethics and morality. Governments can and do provide nothing healthy for a society of learning. While it is obvious that Harvard, with a $57 billion endowment, has absolutely no business taking public monies, it is equally important for smaller institutions to find alternative ways to pay for their campuses than by taking public monies. Such monies are healthy neither for the institution nor for the public.
A model institution
In all four of these things, my own institution, Hillsdale College, has led the way. Our acceptance rate is around 20%, and we can compete — in terms of standardized testing and scores — with the Ivy League.
First, we love life. Everywhere around town, around campus, and in my local Catholic parish, there are kids and kids and more kids. We seem to be having — and have had ever since I arrived in 1999 — a major baby boom. Yeah, it’s loud, and it’s messy, but it’s also brilliant and beautiful. That love of life extends to the way we treat our students and to the ways in which we treat our colleagues. We truly love one another.
Second, our mission statement defines every single thing we do at the college. Since our founding in 1844 by abolitionists, we have been absolutely and utterly colorblind. As such, we were the first college to integrate those of European and those of African descent. We were also the second college to allow women to study, though we were the first college to allow them to earn a liberal arts degree. During the American Civil War, we sent more men to the Union army than any other Northern college, and our men sacrificed themselves in vast numbers in the 24th Michigan infantry Regiment on the first day of Gettysburg, and in the 4th Michigan on the second day of Gettysburg.
In other words, we defied American culture and certainly governmental and political norms long before anyone else. Our mission statement notes that we are custodians of the Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian inheritance and that we see America as an experiment of liberty under law. While I would exaggerate to claim that I remind myself of these things before every single class I teach, I wouldn’t be exaggerating by much. I have no problem reminding students, my colleagues, visitors, and donors of our mission. I am immensely proud to teach at such an institution. Frankly, every professor in America should feel such pride in their respective institutions. That can only happen with a distinctive mission statement.
Third, half of our courses are core courses at Hillsdale. In this, we are not alone. Christendom, Wyoming Catholic, and the University of Dallas are similar, as are programs at the University of Notre Dame, Faulkner University, and the University of Louisville (McConnell Center). St. John’s College and Thomas Aquinas College have even stricter core requirements. At Hillsdale, on day one of Western Heritage, required of all incoming freshmen, I have the grand privilege of teaching them Socrates and the Socratic ethic of never doing evil, even in the name of good. It is always challenging. At Hillsdale, we teach them not only Socrates, but also Cicero, St. John the Beloved, St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Petrarch, Martin Luther, and Sir Thomas More. We teach Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Tolkien, and Dostoevsky as well as Strauss, Jaffa, Voegelin, Hayek, Kirk, and Solzhenitsyn.   
Fourth, we take absolutely no federal funding, either through direct aid or indirect student loans. Yet, we keep our tuition very low, and last academic year, fewer than 10 students (not 10% but 10 total students) paid full tuition at the college. Few students pay much at all, as our donors cover their expenses. Almost all the credit for this goes to President Larry Arnn for his extraordinary vision, though it has been the tradition of the college going back to the earliest years to refuse government funding. We are fiercely independent, and we are financially very solid because of our independence. And it should be remembered, we were colorblind decades and decades before the government became so. It have nothing to teach us, nor should the government be in the position to teach anything to any institution of higher learning.
As we contemplate the future of higher education, we could do no better than to turn to the excellent advice of the late Russell Kirk, the founder of post-war conservatism and a wonderfully humane man, as well as a Hillsdale College professor.
&#8220;To what truths, then, ought the Academy to be dedicated? To the proposition that the end of education is the elevation of reason of the human person, for the human person&#8217;s own sake. To the proposition that the higher imagination is better than the sensate triumph. To the proposition that the fear of God, and not the mastery over man and nature, is the object of learning. To the proposition that equality is worth more than quantity. To the proposition that justice takes precedence over power. To the proposition that order is more lovable than egoism. To the proposition that to believe all things, if the choice must be made, is nobler than to doubt all things. To the proposition that honor outweighs success. To the proposition that tolerance is wiser than ideology. To the proposition, Socratic and Christian, that the unexamined life is not worth living. If the Academy holds by these propositions, not all the force of Caesar can break down its walls; but if the Academy is bent upon sneering at everything in heaven and earth, or upon reforming itself after the model of the market-place, not all the eloquence of the prophets can save it.&#8221;
***
Bradley J. Birzer is the Russell Amos Kirk chair in American studies and a professor of history at Hillsdale College. He is the author of 13 books, including his most recent book, “The Declaration of Independence: A Radical Experiment in Liberty.”
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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Why Western Higher Education Deserves To Fail — And How To Save It

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The surrogate mother who refused a California couple’s demand to abort a baby after he was diagnosed with a heart defect is taking her extraordinary custody battle to the U.S. Supreme Court.
McKenna West, an Alaska nurse who carried and gave birth to the baby in Texas, <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/mw-california-surrogate-custody-fight.pdf">filed an emergency application</a> Wednesday asking the Supreme Court to block a California ruling recognizing the biological parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed, as the child’s legal parents. West’s attorneys have asked Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees urgent matters from the Ninth Circuit, to block the California ruling temporarily. 
Kagan has not yet ruled on the request. In most cases on the court’s emergency docket, justices will refer the matter to the full court for review. An order in West&#8217;s favor would not resolve the custody issue, but rather hit the brakes on the California ruling and bring the surrogate mother back into the fold as the infant child fights for his life. 
The remarkable custody battle case centers around a bitter dispute over abortion, surrogacy, and parental rights. West says the California ruling has left her unable to advocate for the medically fragile newborn, whom she calls Gabriel. His genetic parents named him Rumi.
West’s attorneys argue that the existing court orders are inflicting “irreparable harm” — a legal term for damage or injury that cannot be remedied without immediate intervention from the high court.
“The child could be removed from the Texas hospital and taken to California for hospice — despite his treatable condition — around September 17, if not sooner,” the filing reads. “Without a stay, the Commissioning Parties may halt life-saving care for Baby G. before this Court can even consider a petition for certiorari, much less rule on the merits.”
At 20 weeks, the baby was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a serious congenital heart defect that typically requires three staged surgeries. With treatment, babies with HLHS can survive into adulthood, according to <a href="https://www.nyp.org/pediatrics/heart/hypoplastic-left-heart-syndrome-hlhs/treatment">NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital</a>. The diagnosis prompted the biological parents to seek an abortion. West initially agreed but changed her mind and fled to Texas, where she sought medical care in a state with sweeping abortion restrictions. 
“This is my body, and I absolutely don’t want to go through this. Nothing was scarier than questioning my own soul and knowing what would happen to this baby boy,” she previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/red-state-comes-to-rescue-of-surrogate-mom-facing-pressure-to-kill-baby?author=Jacob+Wheeler&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=12&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Red+State+Comes+To+Rescue+Of+Surrogate+Mom+Facing+Pressure+To+Kill+Baby">told</a> Live Action. “His life doesn’t have a price tag on it. There’s nothing that they could try to come after me for that would be worth his life.”
The baby was born on August 12 and has undergone at least one complex life-saving surgery to treat his heart condition, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/baby-fights-for-life-as-genetic-parents-battle-surrogate-who-refused-abortion">The Daily Wire reported</a>. 
In a Dallas courtroom last month, the genetic parents Gilkar and Ahmed told a judge they were reeling after West defied their demand to get an abortion. 
“He’s our child,” Gilkar said, according to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/baby-surrogacy-mckenna-ivf-texas-heart-surgery-3df649dd00acd9fec8324687be557044">the Associated Press</a>, which reported that the California woman wiped away tears on the witness stand. Referring to the surrogate sitting across the courtroom, Gilkar added, “She’s unstable. She’s trying to take him from us.”
Jeff Domen, an attorney for West, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/baby-surrogacy-mckenna-ivf-texas-heart-surgery-3df649dd00acd9fec8324687be557044">repeatedly pressed</a> Gilkar about her desire to terminate the pregnancy after the baby heart defect diagnosis. 
“Would you trust somebody to care for your child that wanted your child dead?” Domen asked.
Gilkar said she did not know how to answer.
In earlier court filings, the biological parents accused West of initially agreeing to terminate the pregnancy before reversing course, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/couple-surrogate-claims-wanted-baby-aborted-break-silence-as-red-state-steps-in?author=Amanda+Harding&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=11&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Couple+Surrogate+Claims+Wanted+Baby+Aborted+Break+Silence+As+Red+State+Steps+In">The Daily Wire</a> reported. They have also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/surrogate-baby-saga-takes-dark-new-turn-after-mom-chose-life">sued West for more than $100,000</a>, alleging she violated a <a href="https://dam.tmz.com/document/3f/o/2026/08/14/3fb808514e0747bca9785de19a7b2472.pdf">surrogacy agreement</a> that included an abortion provision.
“It is undisputed that West initially agreed and that she herself made the initial appointment. She then unilaterally changed her mind, cut off all contact with A.B. and C.D., and withdrew medical releases allowing A.B. and C.D. to have contact with all medical providers,” the filing said.
In August, a Dallas judge granted the biological couple’s request for a temporary restraining order against West and blocked her from making any medical decisions for the child she was carrying. On September 2, the Texas judge upheld the California ruling and removed West from the case, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/surrogate-refused-abortion-takes-fight-supreme-court-babys-life-hangs-balance">Fox News reported</a>.
West is now shut out of the baby’s life and largely in the dark about his medical care and prognosis as the appeals process unfolds. Her attorneys allege the biological parents have begun challenging the medical-care order, despite previously agreeing to the baby’s first round of life-saving surgery.
Now, West’s attorneys are pleading with the nation’s highest court to intervene and restore her ability to advocate for the child.
“Unless this Court provides relief from that judgment, M.W. will have no access to information about Baby G.’s condition as the Commissioning Parties seek to overturn the Texas order requiring him to receive ongoing life-saving care,” West’s attorneys said.

Surrogate Who Refused Abortion Takes Nasty Custody Battle To Supreme Court

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Gloria Steinem shaped the way America thought about women and sometimes how women thought about themselves. After her death, it is worth considering whether her vision delivered the liberty for women that she promised.
She was an icon to many women, remarkable in many ways for coolly championing women’s rights. I appreciate her work to fight sexual harassment and discrimination against women in the workplace and for equal pay. Steinem and Concerned Women for America Founder Beverly LaHaye, though completely different in their worldviews, contemporaneously blazed a trail for women to stand on the national stage of public policy.
However, Steinem was greatly misguided on the matter of abortion and tragically misled women into believing that their unique capacity to bear life is something to be feared, not celebrated.
Gloria herself admitted to having one abortion, saying, “It gave me my life. I mean, I wouldn’t have been able to live my life otherwise.” Her worldview led women to believe the lie that they cannot have a successful career or live the lives they want if they have children. It is tragic that this pervasive worldview helped to enable 63 million abortions from Roe v. Wade through 2022, when it was overturned. Today, we finally have the ability to fight for life on a state-by-state basis.
But she was wrong, dead wrong. The reality is that millions of women have successful and fulfilling careers while bringing new life into this world. Athletes like Allyson Felix, Serena Williams, Kerri Walsh Jennings, or influencers like Meghan McCain and Allie Beth Stuckey. Most notably, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, mother of seven, has laid to rest that lie, and more will follow.
Women should not feel they must choose between motherhood and their careers. Our society should help women embrace the gift of motherhood and flourish in whatever occupation they want. A <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10257365/">study</a> from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that 60% of women who had abortions would have preferred to carry their pregnancies to term if they had received greater support, resources, or assistance.
She was also wrong about marriage. She viewed marriage as “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” a phrase she popularized. It was certainly misguided and has also led women to needlessly choose between career and marriage. Even she realized her error on this front. An <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/gloria-steinems-forthcoming-memoir">excerpt</a> from her forthcoming memoir is revealing: “Given my generation, I also grew up assuming that I would have to marry my identity, not become it. This scary idea caused me to put off marriage, and to live a temporary life. Not until my forties did I begin to see that a different kind of life was possible, one where I wasn’t bound to fulfill my husband&#8217;s dreams and depend on him financially. I learned that the work I loved could also create the future I wanted.” This is problematic both from the idea that a woman cannot flourish in her own God-given calling as a married woman and from shaming other women who want to live their lives forging a paycheck to serve their families. That too is changing.
I am glad she eventually embraced marriage, a trusted partnership that can provide love and stability, mutual satisfaction, and a solid foundation to raise children. Sadly, she was only married for three years before the love of her life, David Bale, tragically died of brain lymphoma.
Correctly, Gloria fought for women to be seen and recognized for their unique qualities and contributions. Today we are going in a completely different direction in which the unique dignity of women is being cast aside in favor of men and of gender identity politics. We see this most recently in the California ruling that undermined fairness in women’s sports. Women should defend women when biological sex is at stake.
The women’s movement that Gloria helped to lead ultimately wanted women to be equal to men, but her definition of equality trampled on the unique role of women to bear life, to be a mother, to desire marriage, to create a family, but in the end did not satisfy. A <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/why-so-blue-liberal-women-are-less-happy-more-lonely-but-why">recent study</a> found that only 12% of leftist women describe themselves as “completely satisfied with life,” but their conservative peers were three times more likely to be happy.
Today, young women are forging their own path again. A cooler version of conservative women are stepping up to the microphone and standing up for God’s unique design. Their workplace struggles continue, but they have seen through the propaganda and have found identity and liberty in the things of God rather than the world, truly choosing a path for themselves, not one that the Left has chosen for them. And for this I say, “you’ve come a long way, Baby!”
*** 
Penny Young Nance is CEO and President of Concerned Women for America (CWA), the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization, and author of “7 Rules for Success in Business and Life: A Woman’s Guide.” <a href="https://concernedwomen.org/">https://concernedwomen.org/</a>

The Feminist Press 35th Anniversary Gala Dinner

Gloria Steinem’s Legacy Was Largely Anti-Woman

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One of the things that I find very interesting about the Lindsay Clancy case is that it&#8217;s a complex fact pattern.
There&#8217;s a fake thing that happens in psychiatry in which it&#8217;s assumed that people are capable of pure, easy diagnoses and that drugs are extremely effective. Neither one is true. If you spend any time with psychiatrists or with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) — or people who have dealt with psychiatrists, the DSM, or medication — you would know it&#8217;s probably the least-developed area of all medicine.
Psychiatry is incredibly vague. Basically, these things are diagnosed based on checklists and a person&#8217;s self-reported symptoms. And then when it comes to psychiatric drugs, very often it&#8217;s basically trying different combinations. It is virtually that basic: see what works, then adjust medication based on the symptoms.
It&#8217;s really complex. In this particular case, it basically comes down to: Was she psychotic enough not to recognize the difference between right and wrong at the time of the murders? That is the essence of the case. And there’s the fact that Massachusetts law is incredibly biased in favor of the defendant when it comes to the insanity defense.
I know a lot of people are very agitated on the Right, saying, “It’s a clear-cut case; she’s absolutely guilty.” Meanwhile, a lot of people on the Left are agitated, saying, “It&#8217;s a clear-cut case; she’s absolutely innocent.”
I&#8217;m not all that surprised there’s a hung jury, although I&#8217;m surprised it was 11-1 in favor of acquittal. I would have thought it would have been six on one side and six on the other.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-show-ep-2500?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
The “beyond a reasonable doubt” provision of the law, combined with the insanity defense in Massachusetts, which puts the burden of proof on the prosecution to prove sanity rather than the burden of proof on the defense to prove insanity, makes it a very, very high bar for the prosecution to pass.
This is one of the reasons why I think it&#8217;s such a sin for people to conflate their own personal issues with those of Lindsay Clancy. The reality is that in the United States, every year you have probably 15 multiple homicides of children by women in circumstances similar to Lindsay Clancy’s.
But there are many women claiming they are suffering the same thing Lindsay Clancy supposedly suffered from, which is totally insane and really, really damaging for society at large.
I would say the defense has three basic arguments in favor of the idea that she was truly psychotic at the point at which she committed the murders. The most obvious one, the one that the prosecution had the hardest time with, was the fact that she tried to kill herself. If she just killed the kids and then didn’t try to kill herself, I would have said to give her the death penalty.
Her hearing voices? That is the most difficult part of this case because there&#8217;s literally no way to determine whether that happened, since it&#8217;s purely subjective. She&#8217;s going to say she heard a voice. Everybody else is going to say, “There&#8217;s no way you heard a voice.”
I always thought that was the weakest part of her defense — and also the one her case largely rested on.
And then there was the basic idea that she was worried about the medication interactions. I thought that was pretty weak for the defense: she didn&#8217;t give evidence that she thought she was being poisoned. She worried that the medications were interacting poorly and weren&#8217;t working for her, which is really, really common in psychiatric circles.
But when you put all that together, and then you add that the burden of proof is on the prosecution, I can see how people would arrive at reasonable doubt. It will be interesting to hear from the jurors afterward about how these deliberations actually went.
There&#8217;s something else that is even more disturbing, and that is turning everything into a societal problem. Let&#8217;s say that you are an advocate for Lindsay Clancy. You truly believe she went through a psychotic episode. Why in the world does that implicate all of human society?
Why are you protesting? What are you protesting against? That bewildered me when I first saw these protesters outside the courtroom. Normally, when you have protesters outside a courtroom, they are arguing that a fundamental miscarriage of justice is being done because society is corrupt in some way.
For example, if there&#8217;s a highly polarized racial trial, people show up outside the courtroom to suggest that America&#8217;s racial past is impacting the verdict. In this case, there was no implication that anything remotely like that was happening. It just seemed like a cry against the world that somehow all of society is responsible for Lindsay Clancy&#8217;s psychotic behavior.
The most controversial aspect of the trial is everything that was happening outside the trial. When it comes to the actual people outside who were saying, “It&#8217;s absolutely clear that not only was she innocent, her lawyer is a hero on behalf of women everywhere,” what the hell is that?
You have to tie that into the broader left-wing belief that somehow abortion is a sacrament. Clearly, this crazy behavior comes from the same sort of philosophy that suggests that the only important thing in life is a “woman&#8217;s right to choose.”
This underscores something that pro-life people have been saying for quite a while, which is that there&#8217;s no distinction between the pre-born and the post-born.
The case is horrific enough, but this reaction outside the trial is truly appalling.

Lindsay Clancy ‘said that she heard a male voice ordering her … to kill her children,’ psychologist tells jurors

What Everyone Is Missing About Lindsay Clancy

insanity defense

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Since the 20th century, American women have, sometimes admirably and other times viciously, clawed their way into every crevice of life. They fought for the right to vote, own property, and get an education. Then they fought for the right to equal pay and to divorce their husbands at will. Then they fought to legally abort their unborn children. Then they fought to become the girl boss in every workplace. Then they fought to end harassment and male misconduct by mandating that their word against the opposite sex was Godlike and final. 

And they won.
More women go to college and receive bachelor&#8217;s degrees than men. Women live longer and have lower rates of suicide, drug abuse, and alcoholism. Women almost always get custody of the child, and divorce is no-fault. We control their fertility at will, serve in the military, wear what we want, operate fighter planes, and make more money than we ever have.
I&#8217;ve yet to hear a single celebratory cry.
Instead, over half of liberal women under 30 reportedly have a mental health condition, over a quarter of unmarried, childless girlbosses are unhappy, and a historically low number of women believe they are <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/657707/gender-gaps-respect-women-worldwide.aspx">treated with respect</a>.
Why is this? Because the modern-day feminist is a fastidious one, and she&#8217;s only getting more aggravated by her make-believe misfortunes by the minute.
The unimpressive, corrupt, feckless Hillary Clinton lost her election to an egocentric billionaire in Donald Trump. Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court despite Christine Blasey Ford wrongfully accusing the nominee of sexual assault, in a messy and ruthless scandal that publicly humiliated the innocent man and sparked a #MeToo movement we never really recovered from. Social media caught fire, siloing us into corners of the internet based on our whims, wants, and wishes, where we could either be affirmed or tricked into thinking we were not enough — sparking unprecedented rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, self-esteem issues, and body dysmorphia.
A liberal media, still reeling from the induction of their manufactured pariah to the Supreme Court, spent the better part of a decade convincing the female public that the president wasn&#8217;t just &#8220;orange&#8221; and &#8220;bad,&#8221; but that he was stripping away every right their foremothers had toiled to gain. The mentally unstable cried in the streets when Roe v. Wade — a terribly written Supreme Court opinion that said the right to an abortion was in the Constitution — was overturned so that states could decide whether to permit, restrict, or ban the act.
The Left decided Americans were racist and shoved Woke 1 onto our culture with the force of Lizzo, blurring the lines of what it even meant to be a woman, because suddenly men were women, women were men, pregnant mothers were birthing people, and men were doing Tampax commercials for a menstrual cycle that, luckily for them, was never going to come.
I blame Obama. But that’s a story for another time.
The reality is, life got really messy, confusing, and culturally cruel and unusual from around 2010 onward.
Since then, especially for conservatives, who innately wish to &#8220;conserve&#8221; traditions, norms, moral virtue, small government, and normalcy, it feels like the rug is constantly getting ripped from beneath us.
Up is down, right is left, prostitutes are being renamed &#8220;sex workers&#8221; as though it&#8217;s cool and totally inconsequential to be one. Having an OnlyFans is more than respected; it&#8217;s encouraged. Hookup culture is preferred to matrimony. #MyBodyMyChoice is now #MyHormonesMadeMeDoIt.
It&#8217;s no wonder we don&#8217;t believe men respect us. Why would they, when we don&#8217;t even respect ourselves?
In 2026, women are rallying behind a murderer who strangled her three babies to death because &#8220;she was a working mom.&#8221; She hadn&#8217;t been working for at least eight months, by the way, but did we just admit that women can&#8217;t have an intense career, a marriage, and children simultaneously, or our hormones might marionette our hands to sling an exercise band around our baby&#8217;s neck?
In 2026, women are donning hijabs left and right in solidarity with the religion that forces little girls to cover their bodies so that men aren’t turned on by them. The same women who claimed Republicans looked like the ladies of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” They’re posting on TikTok that Osama Bin Laden had a point.
In 2026, women are celebrating the murder of a young mother who was randomly stabbed on the streets of New York because she was a wealthy bank executive — essentially inducting the killer into their &#8220;murdering hall of fame&#8221; alongside Luigi Mangione, Karmelo Anthony, Tyler Robinson, and Lindsay Clancy.
In 2026, women in America have it all, yet have lost our ever-loving minds in the process.
Inspired by the satanic works of Margaret Sanger, Gloria Steinem, and Judith Butler, liberal feminists have helped to destroy society in a megalomaniac pursuit of their man-crushing power disguised as freedoms.
The only thing left for them to get away with is murder. And they’re pretty darn close.

US-CRIME-TRIAL-CLANCY

The Only Thing Left For Women To Do Is Literally Get Away With Murder

hijab

me too movement

Kentucky Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman sued a radical Left-wing organization that pushes abortion pills to women in states where the deadly drugs are banned. 
The civil <a href="https://www.ag.ky.gov/Press%20Release%20Attachments/DN%201_Complaint.pdf">lawsuit</a> accuses New York-based Mayday Health, founded by a former Biden official, of violating Kentucky consumer protection laws by promoting access to abortion pills that state law prohibits from being mailed or delivered into the Bluegrass State. 
The move comes after Mayday Health chartered a plane that flew over the Kentucky State Fair in Louisville last weekend, displaying a banner reading “Abortion Pills By Mail.” The group previously sponsored ads at gas stations across the state reading, &#8220;Pregnant? Don&#8217;t want to be? Learn more at Mayday Health.&#8221;
“These out-of-state activists are not only breaking Kentucky law, they seem to delight in rubbing our faces in it,&#8221; Coleman said. “The State Fair is a beloved Kentucky tradition for families and children to celebrate our Commonwealth. We refuse to allow Mayday to taint our values and put our people at risk.”
Coleman&#8217;s lawsuit argues that Mayday&#8217;s advertisements violate state consumer-protection laws by directing residents to providers that will covertly ship the drugs into Kentucky.
&#8220;These advertisements and the Mayday.health website furthers and is integral to the criminal conduct of distributing these drugs in an illegal manner at least in part because it connects, directs, and funnels consumers to distributors who ship these drugs illegally,&#8221; the lawsuit says. &#8220;These distributors would not have shipped those drugs to the consumer but for Mayday.health’s website and advertisements directing the consumer to them.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_1172057" style="width: 1282px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1172057" class="size-full wp-image-1172057" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-03-at-2.42.41-PM.png" alt="" width="1272" height="1032" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-03-at-2.42.41-PM.png 1272w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-03-at-2.42.41-PM-300x243.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-03-at-2.42.41-PM-710x576.png 710w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-03-at-2.42.41-PM-768x623.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1272px) 100vw, 1272px" />KY AG lawsuit.</div>
The suit asks a judge to permanently block Mayday from running similar promotions in the state and impose fines on the organization.
Coleman&#8217;s office has investigated the radical organization since January, when the group sponsored advertisements at gas stations in Christian, Simpson, and Logan counties.
The pro-abortion group does not distribute abortion pills itself, but its website directs women to outside providers and offers instructions for obtaining the pills through telehealth appointments and mail-forwarding services. The site also provides information about minimizing users&#8217; digital footprints.
<div id="attachment_1171855" style="width: 2570px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1171855" class="size-full wp-image-1171855" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/MixCollage-01-Sep-2026-03-11-PM-9201.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1440" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/MixCollage-01-Sep-2026-03-11-PM-9201.jpg 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/MixCollage-01-Sep-2026-03-11-PM-9201-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/MixCollage-01-Sep-2026-03-11-PM-9201-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/MixCollage-01-Sep-2026-03-11-PM-9201-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/MixCollage-01-Sep-2026-03-11-PM-9201-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/MixCollage-01-Sep-2026-03-11-PM-9201-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />KY Right to Life.</div>
The leftist group argues that it shares constitutionally protected information about abortion pills rather than selling or distributing them.
“We look forward to defending our First Amendment protected work in court — and winning, like we have against similar efforts to suppress our speech. Abortion pills are safe, effective and FDA-approved, and everyone deserves access to that information,&#8221; Mayday co-founder Leo Raisner told The Daily Wire. 
Raisner previously worked as traveling content director for President Joe Biden’s Office of Digital Strategy. 
In addition to directing women to abortion-pill providers, Mayday&#8217;s website promotes other Left-wing organizations that facilitate so-called &#8220;gender-affirming care.&#8221;
The pro-life organization Kentucky Right to Life spotted Mayday&#8217;s airplane banner.
“Mayday Health is back at it — flying their abortion pushing-pill-propaganda over Kentucky. Kentuckians deserve better than out-of-state activists pushing dangerous abortion drugs into our Commonwealth,” said Addia Wuchner, the group’s executive director. “We will continue to stand firm and protect life!”

Doctor used an Ultrasound  3d sonogram  monitor for  the fetus 22 weeks young adult patient pregnant

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