The Trump administration will pay seven-figures to a Christian father whose home was raided nearly four years ago by heavily armed FBI agents as part of former President Joe Biden’s crackdown on peaceful pro-life protesters. 
The settlement between pro-life advocate Paul Vaughn and the Justice Department is a remarkable reversal after the father of 11 once faced over a decade in prison due to the charges brought by Biden&#8217;s DOJ. The settlement was announced Tuesday by the Thomas More Society, a religious liberty law firm that represented Vaughn throughout his battle with the federal government. 
Vaughn’s Centerville, Tennessee, home was raided by gun-toting FBI agents in October 2022 over his involvement in a March 2021 protest that included praying and hymn singing at a local abortion facility. As several FBI agents corralled his children getting ready for school, other agents took Vaughn into custody in a dramatic show of force. 
“From the very moment that I was handcuffed and put in the back of the car, they showed me on their screen that it was a FACE Act violation, I knew from that moment on that it was political. But I knew something more than that,” Vaughn told The Daily Wire in an interview. “I knew that it was God telling a story, and that it wasn&#8217;t my story, and therefore, the responsibility wasn&#8217;t me. And so I trusted in Him.”
The FACE Act is a Clinton-era law used overwhelmingly against pro-life protesters if they are seen as impeding access to an abortion facility. Under Biden, prosecutors paired it with the hefty conspiracy against civil rights charge that could bring a prison term of more than 10 years. 
Pardoned alongside nearly two dozen other pro-life advocates by President Donald Trump in January 2025, Vaughn sued the government for its heavy-handed prosecution of him. The settlement includes the DOJ admitting it abused its power and concludes the suit. 
Documents <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-lifer-imprisoned-by-biden-responds-to-doj-shakeup-i-want-to-come-to-some-firing-parties?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Pro-Lifer+Imprisoned+By+Biden+Responds+To+DOJ+Shakeup%3A+%E2%80%98I+Want+To+Come+To+Some+Firing+Parties%E2%80%99">recently released</a> by the DOJ showed officials discussing the optics of arresting the defendants rather than allowing self-surrender. In one email, Biden official Sanjay Patel wrote that the “unspoken reason” the FBI was going to stage dramatic arrests rather than allow self-surrender was because “the FBI really likes to make arrests.”
Vaughn, who ended up being sentenced to six months of house arrest, said the ordeal strengthened his faith and Christian convictions. 
“The important thing that we have is we have a duty to walk humbly, to love justice, and to seek mercy,” he told The Daily Wire. “Regardless of whether there&#8217;s people trying to write injustices or whether people that are trying to persecute and cause more injustice are Christian responsibilities the same.”
Steve Crampton, a lawyer with the Thomas More Society who defended Vaughn, praised the Trump administration&#8217;s handling of Biden’s pro-life prosecutions. He noted that it would not surprise him if other settlements between pro-lifers and the Justice Department were announced in the coming months. 
He told The Daily Wire that the DOJ under Trump was “genuinely interested in trying to right the wrongs of previous administrations” and “trying to do what they can to restore some respect for the rule of law.”
The DOJ <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-biden-partnered-with-abortion-activists-to-track-and-imprison-pro-lifers?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=BREAKING%3A+How+Biden+Partnered+With+Abortion+Activists+To+Track+And+Imprison+Pro-Lifers">released emails</a> earlier this year showing how closely Biden officials worked with abortion activists to snoop on and prosecute pro-life advocates. Pro-abortion organizations provided dossiers to the Biden DOJ with personal information and pictures of pro-life activists who were not yet charged with any crimes, but were later arrested by the FBI.
&#8220;I think there&#8217;s no question that this was a politicized prosecution of Paul and the others,” Crampton added. “This was a vindictive set of prosecutions meant purely to punish and deter pro-lifers from ever going back out again.”
Crampton said that Congress needed to act to repeal the FACE Act. The House Judiciary Committee approved a repeal of the FACE Act last year, but the legislation has stalled out. 
“That is an abhorrent law, it is without constitutional support for its passage in the first place,” he said. “And it is a horrific weapon that can and probably will be used again to cudgel pro-lifers in the future if we don&#8217;t take care of it now.”
While noting that the settlement was a big win, Crampton said the Biden prosecutions reminded Americans of their need to stay vigilant about government overreach. 
“We can never go to sleep,” he said. “If we don&#8217;t watch the ones that are watching us effectively, our federal overseers, then we have no one to blame but ourselves.”

MixCollage-30-Jul-2026-06-19-AM-4498

Christian Father Who Faced Armed FBI Raid Gets Big Payout From Trump Admin

Abortion

Department of Justice

FACE Act

Joe Biden

Pro-Life Movement

Religious Liberty

Trump Administration

Despite countless red flags, leftist activists continue to send out abortion pills indiscriminately all across the country. 
An <a href="https://aaplog.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.06.05-INVESTIGATIVE-REPORT-June-22-2026-at-16.18.01.pdf">investigation</a> shared with The Daily Wire by the American Association of Pro-Life OB/GYNs found that activist group Aid Access shipped pills to an investigator from the group posing as a 13-year-old girl who had three prior C-section births. The pills arrived in Indiana after investigator Dr. Christina Francis ordered the pills for a patient with a complicated medical history to see how the organization would respond. 
“What this investigation uncovered is far from anything that could be called healthcare,” the American Association of Pro-Life OB/GYNs (AAPLOG) wrote in a letter obtained by The Daily Wire Thursday, sent to top Republican lawmakers. “In fact, it should be considered medical malpractice.”
Restrictions around the mailing of the abortion pill mifepristone were loosened during the Biden administration, meaning pills can be sent out without an in-person appointment. That decision, still in place, occurred as abortion via pill cemented itself as the most common method to end the life of an unborn child. Pro-life activists have urged the Food and Drug Administration to reinstate those guidelines. 
While filling out an Aid Access pill intake form, Francis listed several conditions, including being on blood thinners, having an intrauterine device, and a history of ectopic pregnancy. Those conditions did not deter Aid Access, and pills arrived four days after Francis ordered them. 
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Undercover Online Abortion Pill Investigation" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ls9V29J-qqU?start=84&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Francis found that Aid Access sent her the pills with no identity verification, confirmation of pregnancy, or any medical consultation despite <a href="https://aidaccess.org/en/">claims</a> on its website that it would have a medical professional review a medical questionnaire answered by those looking for pills. 
“To test the level of medical review and due diligence, we intentionally put red flags in our answers with several contraindications so ridiculous any one of them should have been a hard stop for a physician conducting an in-person screening and informed consent. However, we were shockingly allowed to complete the process,” AAPLOG told lawmakers. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1136671" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-15-at-2.06.44-PM.png" alt="" width="822" height="525" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-15-at-2.06.44-PM.png 822w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-15-at-2.06.44-PM-300x192.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-15-at-2.06.44-PM-768x491.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 822px) 100vw, 822px" />Within minutes of filling out her form, Francis received a follow-up email with payment information and no indication that anyone had reviewed the medical information. 
“The intake process did not include a live consultation with a medical professional (such as what would happen with a telehealth visit). Even an asynchronous review of the user’s health information did not occur as the payment link was emailed less than 2 minutes after request submitted,” the investigation found. 
The pills were sent from a generic address in California to Indiana, where medication abortions are technically against the law. Aid Access, which says it ships abortion pills into all 50 states, did not respond to a request for comment. 
AAPLOG warned that the process enabled young children to easily access the deadly pills as well as those who might want to secretly coerce abortions. Several men across the country have been charged with forced abortions via abortion pills they ordered online. 
The investigation was sent Thursday to Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, as well as Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID), Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and Rep. James Comer (R-KY). 
AAPLOG urged them to use their “power and purview to restore common sense and basic safeguards for abortion pill distribution as a first step to protect our maternal and fetal patients.”

US-JUSTICE-RIGHTS

‘Medical Malpractice’: The Glaring Red Flags Abortion Activists Ignore

Abortion Drug

For my entire life, my birth mom was an idea. I knew the outline of her story since I was 13: a young woman, alone, far from home, who made an impossibly hard decision so that I could exist. I didn&#8217;t know her face. I didn&#8217;t know her voice. I didn&#8217;t know if she was still alive to ask.
Last October, recovering from a health scare and finally forced to slow down, I sat down with my laptop and went looking for my biological family again. My wife found an old obituary — one of my birth mom&#8217;s sisters — which led to more names, and eventually a phone number for her last surviving sister, Carol. I waited nearly a week before I found the nerve to call.
She picked up. I introduced myself – heart pounding – and the call ended abruptly before I&#8217;d even finished the question. The cellphone call failed, so I called back. This time, she stayed on the line.
I confirmed with her that my birth mom had passed away years earlier, but that in 1971, she had a baby. That baby was me.
What followed was an hour I&#8217;ll never forget. My birth aunt had raised my birth mom herself, as a teenager, taking in her own younger sisters when their home fell apart. She told me my birth mom had grown up 20 minutes from my childhood home, went to my rival high school, ran track, and sang in chorus. We had many things in common.
Carol told me my birth mom had left Pennsylvania lonely and joined the military. And she told me, finally, what actually happened there: my birth mom had been raped, and weeks later, was certain she was pregnant. She&#8217;d already decided, long before she came home, that she would place me for adoption rather than raise me — not because she didn&#8217;t want a child, but because she was afraid the circumstances of my conception would keep her from loving me the way she believed I deserved to be loved.
She never would have aborted me, I was told. She loved children too much for that.
It took decades, plus a one-hour-long phone call, to finally confirm the story I&#8217;d carried in fragments since I was a kid. Later that same night, I pulled up an old archive of high school yearbooks and started narrowing down the years she might have graduated. Two years came up empty. The third didn&#8217;t. And there she was — a senior portrait of the beautiful and resilient woman who had been faceless and nameless to me for my entire life.
I&#8217;ve spent years standing in front of audiences insisting that every unplanned life has purpose, that circumstances of conception don&#8217;t get to determine anyone&#8217;s worth. It&#8217;s a different thing to turn that lens inward, and after a lifetime, look at the actual face of the woman who proved it true about my own life. Nobody handed her an easy version of that choice. She made it alone, in circumstances no one would ever want, and it reshaped a family she’d never get to meet and grandchildren she’d never know.
Through Carol and subsequent miraculous moments, I gained a lot more family in a matter of a single weekend.
There&#8217;s always room for more. Love doesn&#8217;t have a max quota. I used to think my family&#8217;s story ended with the 13 kids I grew up with, biological and adopted, woven into one home. I know now it just keeps expanding. And because of the love my birth mom gave me by rejecting abortion, that expansion never really stopped. It just kept happening quietly, out of view, until one phone call brought it forward.
I don&#8217;t know how many more women are out there like my birth mom, women who made a devastating yet courageous decision decades ago and never got to see what became of their child. I’m a living testament to my birth mom’s resilience. It became a marriage, four kids, and a ministry built on the conviction that every life has inherent and equal worth. It also resulted in an unexpected phone call that would finally illuminate a life slogan in real time: everyone is wanted by someone.
***
This is an adaptation from Ryan Bomberger’s new memoir, <a href="https://shouldhavebeenaborted.com/portfolio/thebook/">Should Have Been Aborted</a>.
Ryan Bomberger, co-founder of The Radiance Foundation, is an Emmy Award-winning creative professional, public speaker, and columnist. He was the first of 10 adopted in a diverse family of 15. Ryan is the author of the brand new autobiography, “<a href="https://shouldhavebeenaborted.com/portfolio/thebook/">Should Have Been Aborted</a>.” His books also include “Not Equal: Civil Rights Gone Wrong,” and the children’s books, “He is He” and &#8220;She is She.”

Mother holding hands with child and illustration of house on blue background, top view. Adoption concept

My Birth Mom Was Raped But Didn’t Abort Me. It Took Decades To Hear Why.

Adoption

DW Opinion

Four years after the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling ending the bloody legacy of Roe v. Wade, pro-life activists struggle to confront a new challenge that has proved just as difficult: mail-order abortion pills.
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe, many activists believed that states would be empowered to end abortion without the interference of the federal government. Now pro-life leaders say federal regulations and state shield laws are allowing leftist activists and organizations to flood states — where medication abortion is technically illegal — with abortion pills. 
&#8220;We find that the abortion drug has usurped the sovereignty of those states, and that people like Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, and Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, are determining policy for pro-life states, to the extent that now 15,000 children a month are dying, in pro-life states that have strong pro life protections,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said during a Tuesday call attended by The Daily Wire. 
“That is the definition of failure,” she added. 
While red states responded to Roe with trigger laws prohibiting doctors from administering abortions, blue states enacted so-called “shield laws” designed to protect those who illegally ship abortion pills across the country from prosecution. 
Medication abortions, which are the most common abortion method, are facilitated by a woman taking mifepristone and misoprostol. After a pregnant woman takes mifepristone, the unborn child is cut off from the nutrients it needs to survive and is effectively starved to death. Misoprostol is then taken to induce labor and expel the deceased baby from the mother. 
A previous Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-leftist-networks-flood-red-states-with-risky-abortion-pills-with-no-consequences">investigation</a> found that leftist activist groups send foreign-made abortion pills into states with the only requirements being an address and some form of payment online. One <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ordering-abortion-drugs-is-as-easy-shopping-on-amazon?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Abortion+Drugs+Now+Arrive+As+Fast+As+An+Amazon+Package">recent study</a> from the Charlotte Lozier Institute identified eight online pill providers that use so-called shield laws to ship pills into states where medication abortion is technically illegal. 
Many pro-life leaders say the problem could be greatly addressed if the FDA rescinded a Biden-era policy that allowed abortion pills to be dispensed through the mail. The FDA is currently conducting a safety study of the abortion pill and said it won’t adjust policy while the study takes place
Dannenfelser has urged the Justice Department to settle a lawsuit filed by the state of Louisiana against the FDA’s abortion policy. The suit says that the FDA&#8217;s policy prevents Louisiana from enforcing its restrictions on medication abortions. 
“There is a record of this administration certainly challenging injustice, and running straight towards the battle,” she said. “That&#8217;s the kind of courage that we&#8217;ve come to see and desire.”
A spokesman for the Justice Department told The Daily Wire that it asked the judge to give the FDA more time to review its Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy for the abortion drug. 
“On behalf of the FDA, the Justice Department has requested more time from the court for the FDA to complete its review of mifepristone REMS, ensuring our federal health agencies can change their policies without judicial interference,” the spokesman said. “As the Supreme Court recognized in a unanimous ruling less than two years ago, it is the role of the FDA — not the federal courts — to evaluate drug safety data and impose appropriate precautions.”
Largely fueled by the availability of the abortion pill, some estimates indicate that abortions have actually <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/despite-dobbs-more-babies-are-still-being-aborted-in-the-united-states">increased</a> since Dobbs. 
“No, we&#8217;re killing more babies today,” said Bob Vander Plaats, president of the Iowa-based Family Leader, when asked if the pro-life movement is better off than it was four years ago. “We&#8217;re being more creative in how we kill more babies than they were.”
He said that they used to be worried about people traveling out of state to Illinois for abortion but that now the “abortion destinations [are] in your mailbox.”
Grappling with the problems of the abortion pill, some pro-life leaders say the overturn of Roe also created problems for the Left that should not be ignored. 
Shawn Carney, the CEO of 40 Days for Life, said that pro-abortion activists now have to make the case for abortion as a positive good and cannot hide behind Supreme Court precedent.  
“They just had to say, ‘It&#8217;s the Supreme Court, it&#8217;s the law of the land, and that&#8217;s it,’” he told The Daily Wire. “So when Dobbs got rid of Roe, they had to start talking about abortion, and that hasn&#8217;t gone well because they&#8217;ve never had to do that. They never had to have any kind of basic talking points on why abortion is good, what it is as a surgery, how it operates.”
Recently, Rep. Brandon Gill <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rising-gop-star-presses-abortion-advocate-to-name-favorite-method-of-murdering-babies">went viral</a> for exposing the brutal nature of abortion during an exchange with a pro-abortion advocate who repeatedly refused to answer when asked about her preferred method of abortion. 
“The left has never had to articulate why abortion&#8217;s good, and now that they have to, because it&#8217;s state by state, they can&#8217;t,” Carney said.
Carney did say that the mail-order abortion was the largest challenge for the pro-life movement. 
“The mail order abortions, which was started under Biden during COVID, that is the biggest problem right now that we face &#8230; because we don&#8217;t know who&#8217;s getting these pills. We don&#8217;t know how they&#8217;re using them,” he said. 
“We&#8217;re sending these two pills that are designed to kill a baby to just some random apartment. We have no idea who gets it. They don&#8217;t have to sign for it,” he added. 
He also said that the pro-life movement should not underestimate the opportunities to work in deep blue states. While they can’t change laws on the ground, they can change minds and hearts, Carney said. 
Carney also praised President Donald Trump as the most “pro-life president ever” and said he thought criticism of the president’s approach to the issue was “over the top” and “unprofessional.” 
Trump appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned Dobbs and has taken numerous actions to cut off federal funding for abortions. During his first week back in office, Trump issued pardons to nearly two dozen pro-life activists who were targeted by the Biden administration. 
“This Department of Justice remains committed to advancing President Trump’s pro-life agenda, including through dismissing criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits against peaceful pro-life advocates targeted by the previous administration, and using the FACE Act to protect pro-life pregnancy centers,” a DOJ spokesman told The Daily Wire. 
Some elected Republicans at the state level are embracing a new approach that involves criminalizing abortion for all involved, including the mother. Laws in states like <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tennessee-bill-would-classify-abortion-as-murder">Tennessee</a> and South Carolina were proposed this past legislative cycle that would treat abortion as murder.
These kinds of laws, which are opposed by traditional pro-life groups, are supported by groups like the Foundation to Abolish Abortion which says they are the only guaranteed way to end abortion. Foundation to Abolish Abortion President Bradley Pierce told The Daily Wire that laws aimed at going after suppliers were not enough. 
“These abortion regulations cannot be enforced against the established supply chain of abortion pills from overseas, and cannot be reliably enforced domestically unless and until the Supreme Court makes a decision regarding shield laws,” he said. “That is why lawmakers must establish equal protection for preborn babies, applying the laws against homicide within their own jurisdictions against every willful participant in abortion.”
Pierce said that “abolition” bills “deter both the supply and demand of abortions” and are the Christian approach to ending abortion. He says his group will continue to work with state lawmakers on drafting similar legislation. 
“In order to advance abolition bills, we are recruiting and educating state lawmakers, providing them assistance as they draft and introduce equal protection legislation, and making the case for abolition in the public square,” he said. “Other abolitionists across the country are also launching and growing grassroots efforts to elect more Christian lawmakers who champion equal protection.”
While Democrats campaigned heavily on restoring Roe in 2022 and 2024, public opinion is roughly unmoved, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/711401/dobbs-lasting-impact-abortion.aspx">according</a> to Gallup polling. Recent numbers show that roughly 49% of Americans want abortion to be legal in only a few cases (32%) or illegal in all (17%) cases while 48% say abortion should be legal in all (33%) or most (15%) circumstances. 
In 2025, over half of Americans (51%) identified as pro-choice, including 61% of women and 41% of men. In comparison, 43% of Americans said they were pro-life, including 54% of men and 32% of women.

US-HUMAN RIGHTS-RIGHTS-ABORTION

Four Years After Dobbs, Pro-Life Movement Grapples With Biggest Challenge Yet

Roe v. Wade's Long And Brutal Legacy

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
After hearing about the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/he-thought-he-was-defending-abortion-instead-he-exposed-it">infamous couple</a> who just aborted their unborn baby with Down syndrome, some pro-lifers are turning against genetic testing. The argument goes something like this: Prenatal testing enables eugenics, so conservatives and Christians shouldn’t do it.
&#8220;Fetal genetic testing and tests to ensure a &#8216;perfect&#8217; baby are doing more harm than good,&#8221; <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DZNR_NlocKL/?hl=en">concluded</a> Sadie Gannett, a registered nurse with over half a million followers on Instagram.
&#8220;Both my pregnancies I’ve denied the genetic [test] because to me it wouldn’t make a difference. Baby will still be loved, baby will still be carried to full term and given a chance of life,&#8221; <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DZNlYOvRKaO/?hl=en">said</a> another influencer.
One Gospel Coalition article from 2022 similarly discouraged prenatal testing, <a href="https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christian-prenatal-genetic-testing/">arguing</a> &#8220;we should carefully weigh our motives and consider if such testing is truly prudent.&#8221;
I understand exactly where this response comes from. I, like many pro-life conservatives, was outraged by the termination of YouTubers Jesse and Ashley Ridgway’s unborn child. The Ridgways decided to end the life of their child because he, diagnosed with Down syndrome in utero, was not the healthy, normal child for which they had hoped. Eugenics, yes. Terrible, absolutely.
But is prenatal testing the culprit? No.
Prenatal, newborn, or maternal genetic screening should not be held responsible for the evil that is eugenics and which is enabled by the pro-choice ideology. The pro-choice movement has turned what should be a lifesaving tool for parents into a deadly litmus test for babies “perfect enough” to be allowed to continue to live. It is vital that we reclaim genetic testing, whether prenatal, maternal, or newborn genetic screening, and bring it back within the rightful umbrella of life-affirming medical practices as all medical care should be. 
My reasons for this are personal. Last November, our neighbors’ two-year-old daughter, Rosie, stopped walking unassisted and began waking up with pain in her legs at night. After rounds of testing, our neighbors received the news that is every parent’s worst fear. Their daughter is suffering from a rare genetic disease called Metachromatic leukodystrophy, or MLD, which is always fatal after symptoms began to manifest. 
<a href="https://www.instagram.com/cheering4rosie?igsh=OTFpbGl1cXp1OGxl">Rosie</a>, who met all of her developmental milestones up until about 18 months old, will be robbed of everything in mere months&#8217; time. It is difficult for me even to catalogue what will happen to their sweet child: Her muscles will slowly stop working, and she will lose the ability to move. At the time of writing this, she can no longer walk, and she had a feeding tube put in three weeks ago. Then she will lose her ability to speak. Her memories will go, and she will suffer from childhood dementia. She will eventually slip into a vegetative state, and, depending on how long it takes for a significant bodily system to give out, she will remain in a vegetative state until she dies. 
She will suffer the unimaginable. And for her parents and siblings, well, it&#8217;s an understatement to say that this will change them forever. 
But here’s the thing: Genetic testing would have spared Rosie this terrible suffering and would have saved her life. 
MLD is caused by a gene mutation that can only be meaningfully corrected with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gene-editing-can-save-your-life-and-countless-babies">gene therapy</a> if the disease is caught before nerve damage begins to manifest. Unfortunately, by the time children like Rosie begin showing symptoms, the nerve damage is already too far along, and treatment is not lifesaving. Gene therapy involves high-intensity chemotherapy, which can accelerate disease progression and death in symptomatic kids. Comprehensive genetic testing is vital in catching MLD and diseases like it and treating them in early infancy before it’s too late.
Though the treatment process is arduous, it is nothing compared to the terrible progression of the disease, and there are now many children living normal, healthy lives with MLD thanks to stem cell gene therapy administered as soon as possible. Currently, MLD is not included in routine prenatal screening, but an extra comprehensive genetic panel can be requested and taken by the mother to determine if the baby is at risk of inheriting the disorder and others like it, or the newborn can be screened for MLD immediately post birth. In fact, last year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/secretary-kennedy-adds-duchenne-muscular-dystrophy-metachromatic-leukodystrophy-to-newborn-screenings.html">recommended</a> that MLD be added to newborn screenings.
According to Rosie’s mother, “The regret of our lives will always be that we didn’t realize it was important to do extra genetic testing.” 
My heart breaks with her because I also did not understand how lifesaving genetic testing can be. Our neighbors’ little girl would be running around with her peers right now if her parents had known that she carried the deadly gene mutation. She’d be facing a long road of treatment, not slow physical and cognitive degeneration and death. This comes back to the fact that most parents don’t see genetic testing, especially non-routine or extra testing, as potentially lifesaving for their children. Rosie’s parents didn’t realize this, or they’d have done it in a heartbeat. 
And that’s often the case with pro-life moms like myself. I also did not understand how valuable genetic testing can be until our neighborhood was rocked by this little girl’s diagnosis. When I explained to my midwife why I wanted to do extra comprehensive genetic testing during my current pregnancy (specifically stressing that it would not change the outcome of the pregnancy), she told me that there are many such diseases like MLD, that new gene therapies are continually being developed to combat the diseases, and that, like with our neighbor, most rely on immediate diagnosis in order to save the baby’s life.
I am carrying my fourth baby, and I only just understood how lifesaving genetic testing can be because of our neighbor’s situation. Had I not known to ask my midwife because of our neighbor, I never would have known how cruel some of these genetic diseases are, the evolving breakthroughs in medical treatments, or that the earlier the diseases are caught the higher the chance of a cure is.
But in the pro-life camp, we are not only largely unaware of how important these kinds of tests can be, but pro-life mothers are particularly wary of genetic screening for multiple reasons. According to one mom in my mother’s group, made up of like-minded pro-life women, she refused genetic testing because she was under the mindset that it “wouldn’t change anything” and that she would cherish her baby regardless of genetic condition. Another mom said she avoided it because she wanted to avoid unwanted stress and to trust God with her pregnancy. 
The crunchy movement is at play here as well. Some mothers would rather have an all “natural” pregnancy and birth experience, so they do not do any kind of genetic testing to maintain as natural of a pregnancy and postpartum experience as possible. And then there are the more sinister reasons that pro-life mothers avoid genetic testing; one mom said she avoided genetic testing because, shockingly, her doctor told her that they would not attempt to stop early labor if it resulted from certain genetic conditions.
Pro-life parents see genetic testing as, at best, a tool to help inform parents of how to care for their child, or, at worst, a litmus test for selective abortions, which rightfully generates their animosity toward it. Too often genetic screening is a tool of eugenics and not advertised in the lifesaving manner that it should be. 
That needs to change. When used to help prepare birth experiences or enhance newborn care, genetic testing appeals to most pro-life parents. But almost all mothers I spoke with did not understand, as I didn’t, that genetic testing can allow families to diagnose diseases that would otherwise go unnoticed until it is too late, and that the earlier the diagnosis the better the outcome. We cannot let genetic testing, which can save the lives of precious children like my neighbor’s child, become the scapegoat for the real culprit: a disregard for human life that is larger than, but certainly encompasses, ableism.  
Consider the mother who was told that care would be withheld should her baby test positive for certain genetic conditions. We as mothers must hold doctors accountable for this kind of blatant disregard for human life. We should seek out pro-life minded medical professionals (I have had a lot more luck with finding like-minded midwives vs. obstetricians) who we feel assured would do anything in their power to save babies regardless of how grim their prognosis. We need to demand that doctors promote genetic testing as the lifesaving tool that it can be, not as a litmus test for the “normal” baby.
We as pro-life mothers need to continue to speak out over its misuse (the rightful outrage over Ridgways, for instance). Our goal should always be that the sacredness of all persons, regardless of gestational age, dependency, health, socioeconomic status, disability, or any other qualifier, be promoted and safeguarded through life-affirming healthcare, whether that be fertility, midwifery, OBGYN, or newborn care.
And if the pro-life movement is to apply this kind of comprehensive, life-affirming approach to maternal-fetal medicine, we cannot shy away from the new advancements in genetic disease testing and treatment. Because lives like Rosie’s are way too precious not to fight for. 
***
Rebekah Bills is a freelance writer and mother of three. She previously served as a civilian intelligence officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency.

GettyImages-2267386810

Why Pro-Life Parents Should Think Twice Before Skipping Genetic Testing

Genetic Screening

Upstream

In a historic address to Spain’s Parliament on June 8, Pope Leo XIV received a standing ovation after declaring that “the defense of human life is neither a partisan issue nor a confessional interest: it is a goal of civilization.”
“If life ceases to be recognized as a fundamental value, what future can our societies have?” he asked lawmakers, many of whom support abortion and euthanasia. The pope continued: “Can a community that casts into the shadows the unborn child, the elderly, the sick, those who suffer in silence, or those who depend entirely on the care of others be called fully just? Every human life must be recognized and safeguarded from conception to its natural end, in every circumstance of its existence.”
Leo’s words, echoing themes in his first encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, cut to the heart of what sustains just societies. Yet they also expose a critical weakness in our public discourse: Most people do not know that we can answer the question of when a human life starts with an objective scientific fact. Without this foundational knowledge, we lack the intellectual equipment to fully defend individual human lives or the civilization built upon them.
The biological science of human embryology, the specialized branch of biology that studies when human life begins and its early development, has been unequivocal for more than 80 years. Since 1942, the Carnegie Stages of Human Embryonic Development — the international gold standard, akin to the periodic table in chemistry — have documented this moment with precision.
At Carnegie Stage 1, fertilization begins with first contact between sperm and oocyte, marking the beginning of a new, whole, individual, and living human being. This new organism directs its own continuous, coordinated development from that moment forward. Ronan O’Rahilly, one of the world’s authorities on human embryology, states it simply: “Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.” Human embryologist C. Ward Kischer similarly affirms that from this initial contact, “all subsequent development to birth of a living newborn is a fait accompli.”
In other words, we are talking about a seamless process in which stages overlap and blend, with no upgrade or second trigger required at implantation, the onset of the heartbeat, “viability,” birth, or any other milestone.
Human embryology assigns no reduced status to the unborn (the disabled, the sick, or the elderly). The embryo, fetus, infant, toddler, and so on, is the same human organism progressing through the natural stages of development along the continuum of human life.
Every human being is a human person by virtue of existing as a member of our species — not by achieving certain developmental milestones such as size, location, consciousness, sentience, or “independence.” This intrinsic reality applies equally from the tiny beginnings of one’s biological existence to natural death. The claim that biomarkers somehow change the essence of a human being (rendering someone “more fully human” later) is not science. It is a politically charged fabrication.
Many people today nevertheless embrace this destructive myth, dehumanizing the vulnerable at every stage. The comedian Bill Maher captured this mindset in 2024 when he acknowledged that pro-lifers view abortion as murder “and it kind of is,” while admitting he is “OK with that,” a casual acceptance of ending what he and others frame as a less-than-fully-human life. (Maher is the most intellectually honest of today’s talk-show hosts, and it’s therefore all the more disturbing that he should hold these sinister views.)
Our inhumanity is seen at its most stark and shameless in the case of abortion. Decades of treating the unborn as disposable “potential” humans, mere tissue, or “pre-embryos” have led to the deaths of more than 65 million unborn children in the United States alone since 1973. Many Americans shy away from the issue precisely because this dehumanization has made the unborn seem subhuman.
Consider people with Down syndrome: In the United States, an estimated 67-74% of pregnancies prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome end in abortion. Rates climb even higher in Europe, with Iceland close to 100% and Denmark reaching 98%. The same flawed thinking underlies assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) such as IVF, in which millions of embryonic human beings are created, often frozen indefinitely, discarded as “surplus,” or used in research, further severing early human life from its rightful place among humankind.
Not surprisingly, this horrifying, conditional view of humanity and personhood also extends to the elderly and disabled, fueling growing enthusiasm for euthanasia.
This ideology of pre- and post-human personhood is not science. It is a narrative that justifies discarding the fragile. As Pope Leo warned, when this certainty is obscured, “the most vulnerable are the first victims, and the law loses its deepest meaning: to serve and protect every person.”
How did we reach this grave place? Public perception lags badly behind scientific consensus. Many Americans still believe that the status of a human life is a subjective political, religious, or personal matter. Younger Americans are especially uninformed; nearly 40% think that a new human life begins at birth.
But people cannot think about what they do not know. Our public policies and laws must be anchored in objective truth. Recognizing all human beings as human persons from the very beginning of their biological existence is not an imposition of ideology: it is the foundation of equality and justice. It aligns faith’s witness with reason’s clearest evidence, building the “civilization of love” the pope offers us as an alternative to throwaway culture and technological reductionism.
In an era of profound bioethical challenges, from chemical abortion to advances in artificial intelligence and biotechnology, Pope Leo XIV reminds us that protecting human life at every stage is civilization’s litmus test. Until we stop ignoring the objective scientific (embryological) reality of human reproduction and human development, we will fail.
***
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.

third month fetus

The Pope, Science, And The Foundation Of Civilization

Euthanasia

Human Dignity

personhood

Pope Leo

pre-born

A popular YouTube star sparked backlash after making a disturbing announcement on social media that he and his wife ended the life of their unborn child after finding out the child may be born with Down syndrome. 
Jesse Ridgway, who has over four million subscribers on YouTube, made the announcement on Wednesday that he and his wife aborted their baby because of the Down syndrome diagnosis. The post prompted a strong response from pro-life activists and even House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who said the child&#8217;s life had value despite the medical diagnosis. 
“This week, my wife and I made the very difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy due to Trisomy 21,” Ridgway <a href="https://x.com/McJuggerNuggets/status/2062315803177881822">posted</a> on X. “The choice was not made lightly. We really appreciate all of the personal stories that you guys shared with us, especially the unconditional support we received from fans with no matter what we decided.”
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When learning the child may be born with Down syndrome, Ridgway said he first was &#8220;optimistic&#8221; that they could “make it work” if the child was just “a little slow intellectually.” 
“But I just didn’t fully understand what Down syndrome entailed,” he said. “I didn’t realize just how rough it is for the child, let alone the family … more often than not, they would be fully dependent on others for the rest of their life.”
Between 350,000 and 400,000 Americans have Down syndrome, meaning they were born with an extra chromosome. When polled, these individuals <a href="https://lozierinstitute.org/improving-joyful-lives-societys-response-to-difference-and-disability/">consistently say</a> they are satisfied with their life and were happy they were born. 
Studies generally show that at least 67% of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome in the United States are aborted. In Iceland, there are almost no cases of Down syndrome because all those who would have been born with it were killed in the womb. Some Republicans <a href="https://estes.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=5906">have pushed</a> for protections to prohibit Down syndrome-based abortions. 
Back in April, Ridgway posted an ultrasound picture of his child, writing, “first look at the little nugget.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
first look at the little nugget. 😱 <a href="https://t.co/yjtVWzbyhh">pic.twitter.com/yjtVWzbyhh</a>
— Jesse Ridgway (@McJuggerNuggets) <a href="https://x.com/McJuggerNuggets/status/2041974939767480735?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 8, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Ridgway referred to the death of his unborn child as a “difficult decision that we believe in the long-run will be beneficial for our family&#8221; and appeared to make a political statement by adding, &#8220;Thankfully, we had a choice.&#8221; 
In response to that post, many pro-life advocates pointed out the wonderful lives that many of those with Down syndrome live. 
“Because God made us all in His image, it means EVERY SINGLE PERSON has inestimable DIGNITY and VALUE — and our value is not related in any way to the color of our skin, what zip code we live in, what our talents are, our health condition, or any other factor,” Speaker Johnson <a href="https://x.com/SpeakerJohnson/status/2062864877471797445">said</a>. “Our value is inherent, because it is given to us by our loving Heavenly Father.”
“When a culture devolves to the point of depravity where ‘influencers’ can go online and so casually dismiss the deliberate murder of their own precious child, the survival of that culture itself is at risk,” he added. 
Kelsey Pritchard, the communications director for SBA Pro-Life America, told The Daily Wire that she hoped Ridgway and his wife would realize the value of all human life.
&#8220;I hope someday they wake up and realize, and the humanity of the unborn children and the humanity of people who have Down syndrome, because, honestly, we should feel bad for them, because they just robbed themselves of a lot of joy that they otherwise would have had they allowed this child to live,&#8221; she said.
She said that the cultural acceptance of targeting people with disabilities was a result of an abortion-saturated culture.
&#8220;I think it&#8217;s just evidence too of how stripping away the right to life for the unborn, it leads to this stripping away of the dignity of the human being, and bleeds into these other areas, like people with disabilities,&#8221; Pritchard said. &#8220;We know the slippery slope that exists when you start taking people&#8217;s rights away, and you dehumanize a whole class of humans.&#8221;
After the negative response to his announcement, Ridgway <a href="https://x.com/McJuggerNuggets/status/2062706211787571502">said</a> that he had “never seen such hate and vitriol for two people grieving the loss of their unborn child and making an impossible decision” and claimed he had received death threats. 
He also said he was surprised that his announcement of ending the life of his unborn child to his 345,000 followers on X was “newsworthy.”
Many pro-life advocates responded by noting that Ridgway and his wife decided to end the life of their child. 
“My God. You two didn’t suffer a miscarriage or a stillbirth like millions of couples do every year,” <a href="https://x.com/sagesteele/status/2062743081602990214">said</a> former ESPN anchor Sage Steele. “You CHOSE to abort your baby. And then you CHOSE to announce it publicly. YOU ARE NOT A VICTIM. This is narcissism at its finest.”

Foetus ultrasound

YouTube Star Ends Life Of Unborn Child After Down Syndrome Diagnosis

Down Syndrome

Mike Johnson

Abortion pills can be obtained &#8220;as quickly as an Amazon transaction&#8221; thanks to a massive network of foreign and domestic pill sellers that routinely flout federal law.
A <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/1043490291/An-Overview-of-Online-Abortion-Drug-Access-in-Post-Dobbs-America-ARS-42?_gl=1*1kyfs09*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTg2MzY1OTg1Mi4xNzc5ODAwOTUy*_ga_Z4ZC50DED6*czE3Nzk4MDA5NTEkbzEkZzAkdDE3Nzk4MDA5NTEkajYwJGwwJGgw*_ga_8KZ8BV0P5W*czE3Nzk4MDA5NTEkbzEkZzAkdDE3Nzk4MDA5NTEkajYwJGwwJGgw">new study</a> from the Charlotte Lozier Institute, first shared with The Daily Wire, found the distribution of abortion pills largely “uncontrolled” and available across the country despite pro-life laws. The study noted that the majority of abortion pill sellers ignore FDA regulations and identified at least eight online pill providers that use so-called shield laws to ship pills into states where medication abortion is technically illegal. 
Researcher Mia Steupert found that an “increase in the proliferation of foreign and domestic online providers of abortion drugs&#8221; and &#8220;the enactment of shield laws all contributed to a post-Dobbs landscape where abortion drugs are readily available on all corners of the internet to women in all 50 states and D.C.”
The Charlotte Lozier Institute is the research arm of the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America organization. 
The release of the study comes as pro-life groups have put pressure on the Trump administration to reverse Biden-era regulations that allowed abortion pills to be sent to women without in-person doctor visits. The Supreme Court ruled earlier this month to allow mail-order abortions to continue as the FDA faces lawsuits over the removal of the in-person requirement. The FDA says it is conducting a safety review of the deadly drug. 
“The Joe Biden rule stripping away in-person doctor visits allows the online abortion drug industry to send mifepristone to kill unborn children far beyond the 10-week timeframe the FDA has established — putting women at increased risk for life-threatening complications,” SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser told The Daily Wire. 
“Anyone can get these drugs with a few taps on their phone. You don’t have to prove how far along you are, that you’re pregnant, or even that you’re a woman to obtain these drugs,” she added. 
<div id="attachment_1101657" style="width: 931px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1101657" class="size-full wp-image-1101657" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-12.23.33-PM.png" alt="" width="921" height="400" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-12.23.33-PM.png 921w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-12.23.33-PM-300x130.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-12.23.33-PM-768x334.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 921px) 100vw, 921px" />Charlotte Lozier Institute Graphic on the online world of abortion pill sellers.</div>
Shield laws have been adopted in Democrat-controlled states like New York and Massachusetts, which state officials say gives people who ship illegal abortion pills into states like Tennessee or Texas immunity from prosecution. Pro-life advocates have argued that shield laws effectively nullify states that have prohibited doctors from administering medication abortions.  
Domestic groups operating under shield laws include the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project, We Take Care of Us, Aid Access, and several others, <a href="https://lozierinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/American-Reports-42-Appendices.pdf">according</a> to the study, which includes an appendix listing dozens of online pill sellers. 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-leftist-networks-flood-red-states-with-risky-abortion-pills-with-no-consequences">RELATED: How A Leftist Network Of Websites Floods Red States With Abortion Pills With No Consequences</a>
One reviewer wrote on the We Take Care of Us <a href="https://www.wetakecareof.us/">website</a> said she came from “a state where abortion is not allowed,” while another referred to getting the abortion pill, which ends the life of an unborn child, as “literally a life safer [sic].”
“There are no laws directly criminalizing the ingestion of abortion pills in any state, however there can be legal risk associated with abortion care,” the We Take Care of Us website <a href="https://www.wetakecareof.us/faqs">says</a>. 
We Take Care of Us will send women abortion pills “in advance” before they become pregnant. 
<div id="attachment_1101647" style="width: 1449px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1101647" class="wp-image-1101647 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-1.01.27-PM.png" alt="" width="1439" height="865" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-1.01.27-PM.png 1439w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-1.01.27-PM-300x180.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-1.01.27-PM-958x576.png 958w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-1.01.27-PM-768x462.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1439px) 100vw, 1439px" />We Take Care of Us.</div>
Aid Access <a href="https://aidaccess.org/en/about-us">says</a> it provides abortion pills &#8220;to people in all 50 states&#8221; and boasts it has facilitated the deaths of over 200,000 unborn babies.
Multiple foreign pill providers were also scrutinized in the study. 
“These are typically foreign websites that allow anyone to buy abortion drugs, oftentimes as quickly as an Amazon transaction,” Steupert wrote. “These e-commerce websites obtain abortion drugs from international manufacturers and then either ship the drugs directly to the customer or to a U.S. middleman who mails them around the country.”
The study identified Telefem Mexico, Abortion Pills in Private, and Women on Web as three of the organizations that sell pills to Americans. Pills purchased from <a href="https://telefem.org/en/frequent-questions/">Telefem Mexico</a> are picked up on the Mexico side of the southern border, while the other two websites purport to ship pills into the United States. 
Abortions Pills in Private is based in a business park in the United Arab Emirates that says it ships to “anywhere” in the United States. In a drop-down menu, visitors can select from a variety of states with the strongest pro-life protections, including Tennessee. 
The pill provider says that it offers “confidential, medically reviewed services that ships abortion pill kits discreetly to addresses across Tennessee.” 
Women on the Web <a href="https://www.womenonweb.org/en/order-abortion-pill-online/usa/">says</a> that it provides abortion pills “in all 50 states, supporting pregnancies up to 14 weeks.”
<div id="attachment_1101653" style="width: 1475px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1101653" class="wp-image-1101653 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-1.33.38-PM.png" alt="" width="1465" height="770" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-1.33.38-PM.png 1465w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-1.33.38-PM-300x158.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-1.33.38-PM-1024x538.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-1.33.38-PM-768x404.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1465px) 100vw, 1465px" />Women on the Web.</div>
The pill seller describes itself as a “Canadian feminist non-profit organization” and brags that it has facilitated the deaths of more than 130,000 unborn babies. 
Of the foreign pill sellers scrutinized in the study, 18 did not require any kind of ID, and 17 shipped abortion drugs not approved by the FDA, the study found.
Even if the providers do not purport to send pills into states with pro-life protections, most appear to completely ignore FDA regulations. The study also found that 81% of online pill sellers do not follow the FDA restrictions for abortion, including that the pill be taken within ten weeks of conception. 
“Of online abortion drug sellers within the formal U.S. healthcare system that publicly report the gestational age at which they will ship abortion drugs, only 19% complied with the FDA’s requirement to not ship the drugs after 70 days’ gestation. This means 64 sellers violated the FDA’s safety limit,” Steupert wrote. 
Additionally, the majority of pill providers also do not follow the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy requirements outlined by the FDA for the abortion drug. These requirements include things like prescriber and dispenser guidelines. 
Back in 2019, the FDA sent a letter to 28 online pill sellers who were accused of violating abortion pill regulations. Steupert said that 10 of these pill sellers were still violating federal regulations despite the warning. 
“Of the 28 websites implicated in the FDA’s 2019 abuse letters, 10 are still actively breaking U.S. federal law by selling unapproved and unbranded abortion drugs they claim are FDA-approved,” she wrote.  
The report identified sites like <a href="https://www.abortionrx.com/contact.html">Abortionrx</a> and <a href="https://www.nopregnancy.com/contact.html">Nopregnancy</a> as two of the websites that were ignoring the FDA’s warnings. Both pill sellers have alleged &#8220;FDA approved&#8221; stamps on the bottom of their webpages. 
<div id="attachment_1101663" style="width: 2434px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1101663" class="wp-image-1101663 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-25-at-9.14.51-AM.png" alt="" width="2424" height="366" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-25-at-9.14.51-AM.png 2424w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-25-at-9.14.51-AM-300x45.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-25-at-9.14.51-AM-1024x155.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-25-at-9.14.51-AM-768x116.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-25-at-9.14.51-AM-1536x232.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-25-at-9.14.51-AM-2048x309.png 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2424px) 100vw, 2424px" />Abortionrx.</div>
Steupert told The Daily Wire her paper should serve as a wake-up call to federal policymakers. 
“No one should be able to obtain abortion drugs as easily as purchasing something off Amazon,” she said. “The egregious findings of this paper should serve as a wake-up call to policymakers that a wild west of online abortion drug access only serves to end unborn life at all costs, even at the expense of women’s safety.”

Abortion Drugs Now Arrive As Fast As An Amazon Package

Ordering Abortion Drugs Is As Easy Shopping On Amazon

Abortion drugs

Sadly, the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 revealed how woefully unprepared the pro-life movement was to engage and win at the state level. Decades of focus on advocacy at the federal level left the movement flat-footed and unequipped for the post-Roe landscape. While conservatives celebrated the Dobbs decision and disengaged, progressive activists got to work enacting their social policies in state capitols across the United States.
Missouri represents the first real chance for the pro-life movement, and social conservatism writ large, to find its footing in the post-Roe world. A victory in Missouri would show pro-family activists and donors in states like Kansas and Ohio that radical progressive amendments can be repealed and replaced. Polling shows that <a href="https://www.searchlightinstitute.org/research/the-path-forward-for-transgender-rights/">over 70% of Americans</a> oppose transgender surgeries for minors, and <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/321143/americans-stand-abortion.aspx">approximately the same amount oppose late-term abortion</a>. Missouri now stands as Ground Zero in the fight to protect the unborn and safeguard minors from irreversible harm.
In the coming months, Missourians will vote on a proposed constitutional amendment to protect the unborn and ban transgender surgeries for minors. If <a href="https://documents.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills251/hlrbillspdf/2454H.05T.pdf">Amendment 3</a> passes, it will be a watershed moment for the pro-family movement and provide a roadmap for other states across the country.
In 2024, Missouri passed a constitutional amendment to guarantee <a href="https://www.sos.mo.gov/cmsimages/Elections/Petitions/2024-086.pdf">nearly unlimited access to abortion</a> in a state that Donald Trump won by almost 18%. Not only that, but the amendment expressly prohibited the government from interfering with any “reproductive health care,” opening a Pandora&#8217;s box to nightmares such as transgender surgeries and puberty blockers for minors without the consent of their parents.
The risks that the procedures pose to minors are well-documented. According to a peer-reviewed <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/hhs-releases-peer-reviewed-report-discrediting-pediatric-sex-rejecting-procedures.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com">study released by the Department of HHS</a>: &#8220;The risks of pediatric medical transition include infertility/sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone density accrual, adverse cognitive impacts, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders, psychiatric disorders, surgical complications, and regret.” Even the <a href="https://www.plasticsurgery.org/for-medical-professionals/health-policy/position-statements">American Society of Plastic Surgeons recommends</a> that “surgeons delay gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old.&#8221;
Due to several factors, including misleading ballot language, disjointed opposition, and fundraising disparities, the amendment narrowly passed the required 50% threshold with 51.6% of the vote. Almost overnight, one of the most conservative states in the union suddenly looked more like California or New York.
Amendment 3 would repeal the destructive 2024 law and replace it with constitutional protections for the unborn, and explicitly ban transgender surgeries and puberty blockers for minors. If the amendment passes, Missouri will become the first state in the union to repeal a pro-abortion constitutional amendment and the first state to constitutionally ban transgender surgeries and puberty blockers for minors.
Recognizing the importance of protecting Missouri’s women and children, groups such as the <a href="https://www.herhealthherfuture.com/">Her Health Her Future PAC</a> have worked diligently to set the record straight on the dangers of the 2024 amendment and replace it with protections for mothers, minors, and babies. With the full backing of Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe and First Lady Claudia Kehoe, who serves as the organization’s treasurer, the group has seen early success in its efforts. According to a <a href="https://www.slu.edu/news/2026/march/slu-poll.php">February poll by St. Louis University and YouGov</a>, a plurality of Missouri voters (47%) support the new Amendment 3, while 40% oppose it.
A victory in Missouri would provide a much-needed roadmap for other conservative states that have seen progressive activists rewrite and reinterpret their state constitutions. In 2022, <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/08/the-lessons-of-kansas/">Kansas affirmed the state supreme court’s determination</a> that the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness includes the right to abortion. Similarly, in 2023, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pro-life-group-what-went-wrong-ohio-abortion-vote-how-to-respond-2024">Ohio voters approved an amendment</a> to create a right to abortion in the state constitution. These are states that Donald Trump won in 2024 by 16% and 11%, respectively.
A victory for Amendment 3 would not only reverse a radical mistake but energize the pro-family movement across the heartland and beyond.
***
Dan Harre serves as the community engagement manager for Coalition Life, a St. Louis-based nonprofit dedicated to ending abortion in the U.S. peacefully and prayerfully.
Michael Hafner serves as general consultant to Her Health, Her Future PAC, and is president of Parabellum Strategies, a Missouri-based political consulting firm specializing in campaign management, issue advocacy, and strategic communications.

US-NEWS-ELN-MO-ABORTION-KC

The Show Me State Could Set A Pro-Life, Pro-Kids Precedent For The Nation

Amendment 3

Missouri

The resignation of FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary creates an opportunity for the agency to return to its mission of protecting the public by ensuring drugs are safe. Whether Kyle Diamantas is running the agency long-term or the administration expediently appoints someone new, now is the time to address the most significant public health crisis of our time: the widespread distribution of mail-order abortion drugs.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration recklessly stripped away basic requirements for the abortion drug mifepristone, such as in-person doctor&#8217;s visits. The intention was to expand abortion nationwide if Roe v. Wade was overturned. This mail-order policy has pushed abortion drugs into pro-life states, violating their laws, ending lives, and endangering women and girls. And it’s still in place.
This Biden policy is the reason abortions have risen, not fallen, in the post-Dobbs era, with more than <a href="https://lozierinstitute.org/new-report-confirms-abortions-continue-to-rise-after-dobbs/">one million</a> unborn children dying annually. Even in states with strong pro-life protections, tens of thousands of abortions persist each year, driven in large part by this unchecked spread of mail-order abortion drugs. We know 90,000 abortions are occurring annually just in the states that protect life all throughout pregnancy.
Mifepristone is manufactured and distributed to kill unborn children, but it is also highly dangerous for women. In September, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. confirmed that the Biden administration <a href="https://x.com/sbaprolife/status/1963633771908874327">&#8220;twisted&#8221;</a> data on abortion drug safety and there would be a necessary review. Studies indicate that even when these drugs are given in person with oversight, as many as <a href="https://eppc.org/publication/insurance-data-reveals-one-in-ten-patients-experiences-a-serious-adverse-event/">11%</a> of women who take these drugs experience serious adverse effects, including hemorrhaging, infection, and sepsis. Peer-reviewed research further shows that roughly <a href="https://aditum.org/journals/international-journal-of-epidemiology-and-public-health-research/current-issue/1111">three-quarters</a> of emergency room visits following abortion drug use are classified as severe or critical. According to the <a href="https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2023/020687Orig1s026lbl.pdf">FDA’s own label</a>, abortion drugs send approximately one in 25 women to the ER.
This policy shift has also created fertile ground for abuse. Without in-person screening, there is little to prevent <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/mifepristone-as-a-tool-of-coercion-a00edf87">coercion</a> or forced abortions. Cases like that of <a href="https://adflegal.org/article/rosalie-markezich-story/">Rosalie Markezich</a> – whose boyfriend allegedly ordered abortion drugs online from California and pressured her to take them against her will – highlight a disturbing reality. When you peddle drugs online to anyone, vulnerable women and their children are left exposed to manipulation, violence, and irreversible harm.
Thankfully, Republican attorneys general have challenged the Biden policy, with one case brought by Louisiana rising to the top. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently moved to halt the FDA’s mail-order abortion drug policy, signaling that challenges to this regulatory framework have substantial merit. The court called the Biden policy “federal interference” that nullifies Louisiana’s pro-life law and said the policy “lacked a basis in data and scientific literature.” The court said, “FDA’s own documents prove that emergency room care is statistically certain in hundreds of thousands of cases.”
Looking ahead, the path forward is clear. It is time for the FDA to return to the standard of in-person doctor visits that was in place during the first Trump administration and to fully study mifepristone. While it is my hope that mifepristone will be completely taken off the market someday, going back to basic safety standards will allow pro-life laws to take effect and add a critical layer of protection for women. Face-to-face evaluations allow for screening of ectopic pregnancies, to assess gestational age, to identify risk factors, and to detect signs of coercion.
Public opinion strongly supports this approach. <a href="https://sbaprolife.org/polling#abortion-drugs">Polling</a> consistently shows that 71% of Americans – including majorities of Independents, Democrats, and even self-identified liberals – favor reinstating in-person medical oversight for abortion drugs.
Now is the time for the FDA to do the right – and the politically smart – thing. Return to the Trump administration policy of in-person doctor visits to save lives.
***
Marjorie Dannenfelser serves as president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. She has been called “the woman who brought down Roe.”

Gender – unborn child

Makary’s Resignation Brings Renewed Hope For Banning Mail Order Abortion Drugs

Marty Makary

Mifepristone

At the recent Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America gala in Washington, D.C., organization president Marjorie Dannenfelser <a href="https://sbaprolife.org/latest-news/marjorie-dannenfelsers-speech-at-the-2026-sba-pro-life-america-gala">issued</a> a stark warning: either the pro-life movement will place abortion “on the path to extinction,” or abortion proponents will push until it is legal in all fifty states.
She is right. And the most uncomfortable fact in American pro-life politics today proves it. According to the abortion industry’s <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/report/full-year-estimates-show-overall-stability-abortion-incidence-decreased-travel-increased-telehealth-provision">Guttmacher Institute</a>, more than 1.12 million abortions were performed in 2025 — a 21% increase over 2020, the last full year before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Women are traveling from protective states to permissive ones. Abortionists are mailing abortion pills across state lines, undermining laws meant to protect mothers and children. State after state has enshrined abortion in its constitution by ballot initiative.
The legal victory the movement fought 50 years to achieve has not produced the cultural victory we assumed would follow. That is the lesson buried inside Dannenfelser’s warning, and the pro-life movement cannot afford to miss it.
In 1998, Planned Parenthood announced plans to build an abortion facility in my hometown of Bryan/College Station, Texas. We didn’t try to out-shout Planned Parenthood. We decided to out-build them.
We organized 60 local churches and thousands of volunteers into a sustained, peaceful witness of prayer and sidewalk counseling outside the facility. But the harder, more decisive work happened where the public didn’t see it. The nearest pregnancy resource center kept hours that didn’t overlap with Planned Parenthood’s, meaning a woman in crisis on a Saturday morning had nowhere else to turn. So we worked with the center to synchronize its hours. Then we helped a second resource center relocate directly across the street from Planned Parenthood, so the moment a woman considered walking in, an alternative was visible from the curb. We fortified supply networks for diapers, formula, medical care, legal help, and practical assistance so that no mother facing an unexpected pregnancy felt abortion was her only option.
We didn’t just protest the problem. We built the infrastructure to solve it.
The results compounded. Planned Parenthood was removed from local schools and stripped of state taxpayer funding. Abortions at the facility fell year after year (2%, 15%, then 28%, according to Texas state health data) as the new infrastructure took hold. Eventually, that abortion center closed for good.
We didn’t win because we won arguments or cared more. Plenty of people elsewhere made good arguments and cared deeply, yet still lost. We won because we built the infrastructure that made choosing life not just morally compelling but practically possible.
That is the lesson Washington must learn.
The pro-life movement has, rightly, invested enormous energy in legal and political strategy. Stripping roughly half a billion dollars in federal funding from Planned Parenthood was a significant achievement. Leaders like Senator Bill Cassidy and House Speaker Mike Johnson have shown that principled, strategic pro-life leadership in Washington is alive. The Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America team’s political work ahead of 2028 is essential.
But politics alone will not produce a pro-life America. Neither did overturning Roe. The <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states#:~:text=abortion%20policy%20map.-,Numbers%20and%20Rates,comprehensive%20national%20estimates%20before%20Dobbs.">21% abortion increase</a> is not a referendum on the Dobbs decision. It is a referendum on the assumption that legal change drives cultural change. It does not. Cultural change drives legal change. And only when cultural change is supported by real infrastructure does the law hold.
What the other side taught us over the last 50 years is painful but unmistakable. They didn’t just win court cases. They built the architecture — clinic networks, professional standards, medical curricula, entertainment narratives, corporate policies — that made their vision the path of least resistance for ordinary Americans. The law followed. And when the law eventually moved against them at Dobbs, the cultural architecture they had built held.
We can do the same, but for life and grounded in truth. Nearly <a href="https://lozierinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/A-Legacy-of-Life-Love-2025-Rising-to-the-Occasion-with-Unwavering-Care.pdf">3,000</a> pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes are quietly outperforming Planned Parenthood on the metric that matters: women genuinely served and supported. The recent launch of <a href="https://www.moms.gov/">moms.gov</a> uses Heartbeat International’s Option Line to help women locate their closest life-affirming pregnancy center. The American Association of Pro-Life OB/GYNs is building a credible medical alternative to the establishment that gave us abortion on demand. Live Action and Students for Life are forming a generation to carry this work for decades. The 40 Days for Life movement I started has mobilized more than 1 million volunteers across 60 nations and helped save more than 26,000 lives. The latest science-backed research about life in the womb illuminates the undeniable humanity of unborn children through resources like Charlotte Lozier Institute’s Voyage of Life platform.
These are not mere campaigns or protests. These are institutions and infrastructure. And their growth is the real reason the pro-life cause has a future.
Dannenfelser said the abortion fight will be decided by whoever cares more. She is right. But caring is only the precondition. History shows what comes next: take that caring and build with it.
That is what it will take to make America the most pro-life country in the world.
***
David Bereit founded 40 Days for Life and serves as executive director of the Life Leadership Conference. He has spent three decades studying social movements and cultural change.

In new motherhood, fetal health monitoring through regular ultrasounds and check-ups enables constant monitoring of the fetus’s growth and development.

What Needs To Change To Make America Pro-Life

As a Catholic who believes every life is sacred from conception, I&#8217;ve grown weary of a pro-abortion leftist&#8217;s favorite talking point: &#8220;You pro-lifers only care about babies before they&#8217;re born.&#8221;
It&#8217;s a lie, and it&#8217;s lazy.
The real scandal is that the Left treats abortion as the default &#8220;solution&#8221; for struggling mothers while ignoring the practical barriers, like unaffordable, inflexible childcare, that push so many women toward it.
Childcare, though increasingly abused by foreign fraudsters, could be the untold pro-life issue. If we can fix the exploitation of these services with conservative principles and necessary guardrails, we could save far more babies than most people realize.
I sat down with Clare Ath, senior policy analyst at Human Coalition, one of the most effective pro-life organizations in the country. What she described was the daily reality of the women they serve: the average mom is 29, single, already raising one child, and has limited family or friends to lean on. Often, she&#8217;s not choosing abortion out of zeal, but because she’s terrified about making ends meet, and childcare feels fiscally impossible.
According to Human Coalition, 76% of the abortion-determined mothers they reach online say they would choose life if their circumstances were different.
A million abortions a year in America, many now via mail-order chemical pills that flooded the market under Biden-era rules. Post-Dobbs, some pro-life lawmakers patted themselves on the back while chemical abortions surged because the Left made them as easy as ordering takeout.
The abortion industry doesn&#8217;t want to talk about sepsis cases, lost fallopian tubes, or the flight attendant Human Coalition helped who nearly died after Planned Parenthood dismissed her symptoms as &#8220;just cramps.&#8221; They want to keep the pipeline open, not for empowerment, but for exploitation.
The pro-life movement has long championed the ideal: two-parent homes and moms who can stay home if they want. That’s still the gold standard, but reality demands we meet mothers where they are. Human Coalition does just that. Digital ads appear when a desperate woman googles “how do I get an abortion.” Social workers help build a customized stability plan, they partner with churches and other organizations to create a “pro-life safety net,” and they never abandon moms after birth.
This is where conservatives can lead, and where the Left keeps failing. Childcare is the single biggest pressure point for the single moms Human Coalition serves. These women must work, and they don&#8217;t want handouts.
Remote and hybrid jobs are one of the most realistic fixes: call-center roles where moms can earn while the baby naps, large corporations offering on-site care incentivized by stronger federal tax credits, and flexible subsidies that match non-traditional hours — all of which beat rigid state daycare that closes at 5 p.m. when your Walmart shift doesn’t end until 11.
Contrast all that with the Left’s one-size-fits-all, universal free fluff obsession. Remember Bill de Blasio&#8217;s universal pre-K push in New York, backed by then-Gov. Cuomo&#8217;s state funding? The flagship program limped along, but its 3-K expansion flopped spectacularly. Wealthier, whiter neighborhoods filled the seats, while low-income and minority families left one-third of the seats empty. Why? The hours didn’t match night shifts and irregular work. The program was expensive, impractical, and ultimately scrapped by Mayor Eric Adams.
Mamdani wants more of the same, yet recent data on New York&#8217;s pre-K and 3-K expansions show an identical pattern: empty seats in the poorest neighborhoods, waitlists in the richest.
Socialism&#8217;s &#8220;free&#8221; care isn&#8217;t free when it ignores how real families actually live.
Though the word &#8220;childcare&#8221; has nearly become synonymous with socialist promises and fraudulent Minnesota billing schemes, Republicans shouldn&#8217;t cede the issue. West Virginia congressman Riley Moore&#8217;s proposal to make childcare dollars flexible for family care (grandma watching the grandkids, for example) is smart, provided it&#8217;s paired with real guardrails against the kind of fraud we saw in Minnesota.
Younger conservatives understand this: women are working, and that&#8217;s not slowing down. But more remote work could boost birth rates, especially when we remember that life seasons matter. Motherhood is not a career penalty; it&#8217;s a beautiful vocation worth supporting, and it goes by fast.
Addressing childcare doesn&#8217;t have to mean big government or a socialist fantasy. It&#8217;s pro-family realism, and it undercuts the abortion lobby&#8217;s entire grift.
If we want our birth rate to rise, we have to stop killing the babies we already have and start supporting mothers after birth through pregnancy resource centers, long-term accountability, and practical help that the Left only pretends to offer. Their solution is a pill in the mail and a shrug. Ours is nurses, social workers, churches, and policies that make choosing life feel possible instead of punishing.
Conservatives should stop treating childcare as a third-rail issue and start treating it as the frontline of the pro-life fight. Human Coalition is already there. The rest of us should follow their lead because the future of this country depends on it!

Kindergarten, Child playing with brick toys at daycare nursery. Education development games for school toddlers kids

‘Pro-Life’ Must Continue Beyond Birth — Millions Of Lives Depend On It

childcare

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