WORLD Magazine, January 19, 2019 Vol. 34, No. 1 by God's World Publications

OVER 750,000 MEN ARE IN TRAINING TO CONQUER PORN AND WALK IN FREEDOM We’ve all made new year resolutions that we quickly break. With 68% of men in the church viewing porn on a regular basis, the dominant cry in their hearts is “I will never do this again, I won’t let porn control me anymore!” Most men who make a new year resolution to never watch porn again nd themselves back on the same websites in no time. Willpower won’t x it! we

You must renew your mind. Dr. Ted Roberts in the Conquer Series will teach you how to biblically renew your mind and nd freedom. Dr. Ted has a 90% success rate in helping men nd freedom.

THOUSANDS OF CHURCHES ARE STEPPING FORWARD AND OFFERING THE CONQUER SERIES TO GIVE THEIR MEN A FIGHTING CHANCE IN PURSUING SEXUAL INTEGRITY.

DO IT THE RIGHT WAY IN 2019 - START A PROCESS Trying harder only tightens the noose around your neck. Each time you fail you increase the shame you carry, which perpetuates the cycle you go back to porn to medicate the shame you’re feeling. Committing to a process takes time because there’s no quick x. It’s more than just saying “I will no longer watch porn” because it’s really not about porn. You’re using porn to it medicate anxiety and stress in your life. You do this by accessing the internal pharmacy that you have in your brain.

The Conquer Series is a cinematic 6-disc DVD set featuring in-depth teaching from former Marine Fighter Pilot and Pastor, Dr. Ted Roberts, who shares powerful tools and bible-based strategies that he has used to help thousands of men renew their mind and nd freedom from porn. START 2019 THE RIGHT WAY AND ORDER THE CONQUER SERIES TODAY.

Your brain has powerful chemicals that you can access when you’re feeling low. Most likely, you’ve learned to rely on these chemicals from a very early age. When you watch porn, powerful neurotransmitters such as dopamine are released, which bond you to those images. According to neuropsychologist Dr. Tim Jennings, “Any type of repetitive behavior will create trails in our brain that are going to re on an automatic sequence.” The result is years of bondage. This is how you can love the Lord, but still be trapped in bondage to porn.

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CONTENTS |

January 19, 2019 • Volume 34 • Number 1

F E AT U R E S

D I S PA T C H E S

S P E C I A L S E C T I O N : R O E V. WA D E

11 News Analysis • Human Race Quotables • Quick Takes

36 Against the tide

Abortion still devastates the African-American community at an alarming and disproportionate rate, but black pro-life activists are fighting for lives

42 Living pro-vida

Shame and family silence lead many Hispanic women to abortionists, but a pro-life message may be making strides

46 Lost by choice

Despite a history of concerns about population growth, Israel has some of the most permissive abortion laws in the world

50 A question of ethics

A conversation with bioethicist William Hurlbut about controversial gene-editing scientist He Jiankui

54 Unsafe spaces

Often victims of violence and sexual abuse, homeless women have particular needs and vulnerabilities

Give the gift of clarity: wng.org/giftofclarity

C U LT U R E

23 Movies & TV • Books Children’s Books • Q&A • Music NOTEBOOK

59 Lifestyle • Politics Religion • Science VOICE S

8 Joel Belz 20 Janie B. Cheaney 34 Mindy Belz 65 Mailbag 67 Andrée Seu Peterson 68 Marvin Olasky ON THE COVER: Photo by Jeff Wales January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 3

Notes from the CEO The new year is a common time to look forward, look back, resolve, assess, pray, plan, prepare, and hope. It is also a good time to thank. When we consider the year just ended, we can see that not one day passed without God’s work on our behalf. We observe in retrospect that God provided everything we needed, and when we were in distress, God comforted us. He displayed his wisdom and goodness in giving us both times of great joy and times of great sorrow. There were moments during which we were keenly aware of God’s hand on our lives, and days when we foolishly thought we were making it on our own. Through both God was faithful to us. Even with the perspective of a little time, though, we do not begin to understand all God did for us in the past year. Yes, this is a good time to thank. All of this is true for the WORLD family, too, of course. As we literally still are counting our blessings from last year (in the form of your contributions which we continue to receive in the mail on the day we go to press), we thank God for his great goodness to us through all of 2018. Also, we’re thankful that God is using our work at WORLD to help so many of you. It is no small thing that God chooses to use our humble service to benefit others, and we recognize that blessing daily, not only as we reflect on the past year. So, as we look forward and assess, pray, plan, prepare, and hope, we do all of those things in thankfulness for God’s faithfulness to us—past, present, and future.

Kevin Martin kevin@wng.org

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“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein.” —Psalm 24:1

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Editor Timothy Lamer National Editor Jamie Dean Managing Editor Daniel James Devine Art Director David K. Freeland Associate Art Director Robert L. Patete Reporters Emily Belz, Charissa Crotts, Sophia Lee, Jim Long, Harvest Prude East Asia Bureau June Cheng, Angela Lu Fulton Story Coach Susan Olasky Senior Writers Janie B. Cheaney, Andrée Seu Peterson, John Piper, Edward E. Plowman, Lynn Vincent Correspondents Sandy Barwick, Megan Basham, Julie Borg, Anthony Bradley, Bob Brown, Michael Cochrane, John Dawson, Juliana Chan Erikson, Katie Gaultney, Charles Horton, Mary Jackson, Sharla Megilligan, Jill Nelson, Henry Olsen, Arsenio Orteza, Jenny Lind Schmitt, Russell St. John, Marty VanDriel, Jae Wasson Mailbag Editor Les Sillars Executive Assistant June McGraw Editorial Assistants Kristin Chapman, Amy Derrick, Mary Ruth Murdoch Graphic Designer Rachel Beatty Illustrator Krieg Barrie Digital Production Assistants Arla J. Eicher, Dan Perkins

Website wng.org Executive Editor Mickey McLean Managing Editor Lynde Langdon Assistant Editor Kiley Crossland Reporter Onize Ohikere Correspondents Rachel Lynn Aldrich, Anne Walters Custer, Laura Edghill, Samantha Gobba, Rob Holmes, Bonnie Pritchett, Julia A. Seymour Editorial Assistant Whitney Williams

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Free Church of De Pere

A JUDGE RULES IN FAVOR OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN WISCONSIN

8 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

The city’s attorneys argued that any time a church opens to the public, the city has the right to impose its own values on such a church.

 jbelz@wng.org

WLUK TV

Tired of bad news out of America’s courthouses? Worried that so many judges in those courthouses seem to have lost their way? Concerned that the religious liberty clause in our Bill of Rights means less and less in this terribly secular age? Well, here’s a cheery note as the new year gets under way. A judge in Green Bay, Wis., ruled in December that churches—and other religious organizations as well—are free to preach and teach distinctives of their particular beliefs even if those beliefs might at first appear to be in conflict with local civic ordinances. The specific issue before the court was this: The city of De Pere (a small Green Bay suburb of 23,000) a little more than a year ago had enacted several new nondiscrimination policies, typical of those adopted in recent years by local governments across the country. Most controversial, of course, was the focus on gender issues—addressing gender identity and sexual orientation in housing, employment, advertising, and public accommodation. From the beginning, the city said that its policies applied to all “places of public accommodation”— and claimed that churches and other religious organizations were indeed such “places.” But five De Pere churches, along with a local religious broadcaster, responded with an emphatic dissent. And they were willing to go to court to test the matter. The appealing churches, and the broadcaster, argued that the city ordinance would forbid traditional and Biblical teaching on such issues— and thereby impose on their constitutionally protected freedom of speech. They argued as well that their hiring practices might be unduly restricted, and that they might be penalized in the future for refusing to host homosexual weddings or similar events.

The churches also emphasized that if it had been allowed to stand, the ordinance would be the first in America to deem churches as places of so-called “public accommodation.” The precedent might be enormous. On the other hand, from their point of view, the city’s attorneys argued that any time a church opens to the public, outside its “traditional role as a house of worship,” the city has the right to impose its own values on such a church. So what constituted “opening to the public”? The lawyers proposed a very broad measuring stick. One test, they suggested, might be whether a church allowed its facilities to be used as a polling place. That would stamp it as a “place of public accommodation.” Or if the members of the church got together to offer bottled water to runners in a marathon, that too would suggest they were a “public” outfit—and therefore subject to the controversial ordinance. County Judge William Atkinson ruled otherwise. The judge made it clear that the De Pere city ordinance was Atkinson an unconstitutional violation of the fundamental right of churches to be free from having to compromise their sincerely held religious beliefs due to edicts from government. Lending professional legal counsel to the De Pere churches and broadcaster was the Pacific Justice Institute—a California-based but farreaching organization devoted primarily to issues of religious liberty, parental rights, and the sanctity of human life. PJI’s lead attorney Brad Dacus says it’s possible the case may be appealed by De Pere’s city council—which he told WORLD is an “extraordinarily obstinate body.” “We’ll just take that as it comes,” he said. “I appeared before the De Pere city council, but they didn’t seem much interested.” Whatever happens in Wisconsin’s courts, five churches and one radio broadcaster will enjoy a newfound freedom of speech in the months just ahead. But in today’s legal climate, constitutional freedoms sometimes demand a lot of hard work. A

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DISPATCHES News Analysis / Human Race / Quotables / Quick Takes

The year in preview IDEAL CIRCUMSTANCES AND POLITICAL VICTORIES AREN’T NECESSARY FOR FRUITFUL LIFE IN 2019 by Jamie Dean

A migrant jumps the border fence to get into the U.S. near San Diego, Calif. DANIEL OCHOA DE OLZA/AP

Manage your membership: wng.org/membership

January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 11

D I S PA T C H E S

News Analysis

As 2019 began, the 110 newly elected members of Congress arrived in Washington, D.C., to less of a fresh slate than a fresh slew of problems: A partial government shutdown trudged into its second week, with each party blaming the other for the impasse. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said neither side would win: “We kind of look silly.” But President Donald Trump insisted he was serious about his $5 billion demand for a border wall, even as exiting Chief of Staff John Kelly said the White House long ago abandoned the idea of a literal wall across the entire U.S. border. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the word wall had become a metaphor for border security. If that’s the case, Republicans and Democrats were likely closer to a temporary compromise early on than either side acknowledged, since both sides have said they’re willing to fund border security at some level. The deeper reality is that “wall” is also a metaphor—or at least a symbol— of the 2020 presidential contest that has already begun: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., announced her exploratory bid for the Democratic nomination on New Year’s Eve. Trump wants to build the wall he promised. Democrats want to win the White House. And $5 billion—a gigantic chunk of cash that’s still a relatively small percentage of federal expenditures —became the first O.K. Corral ahead of the 2020 elections. It won’t be the last. Plenty more showdowns await in 2019, including among the Democrats themselves: This year the candidates for president will hash out how far left they’re willing to push their own party in a bid to win the Democratic nomination—a calculation that risks alienating independent or swing voters they might otherwise capture. Republicans will focus on how to advance worthy parts of the president’s agenda that they endorse, while grappling with any investigative revelations—like hush payments to porn stars—that bring shame on a presidency.

Meanwhile, American voters will brace themselves for the beginning of a raucous presidential contest over the next two years, no matter the outcome. If it all seems like a bleak way to begin a new year, it might help to consider the travail—and triumph—of others in lands far away. Over the holidays, Christians at Early Rain Covenant Church in China prayed for their pastor and dozens of church members detained by Chinese authorities during a December raid. Police seized the group’s meeting place in the southwest city of Chengdu, and reportedly asked members to sign a statement disavowing Christianity. The Christians continued to worship. They gathered at a river near the closed church and in the homes of members scattered around the city. They know it’s a risk, but one church member declared, “We will not forfeit our faith.” Such courage didn’t develop overnight. Pastor Wang Yi had prepared his congregation for trouble brewing during one of the harshest crackdowns on Christians in China in years. Forty-eight hours after his detention, a statement he wrote before his arrest appeared online. “All the ugliness of reality, with its political injustices and

‘All the ugliness of reality, with its political injustices and arbitrary application of the law, show that the cross of Jesus Christ is the Chinese people’s sole hope for salvation.’ —Pastor Wang Yi arbitrary application of the law, show that the cross of Jesus Christ is the Chinese people’s sole hope for salvation,” he declared. “It also shows that true hope and perfect human society cannot come about through any change in secular politics or culture—only through the forgiveness of human sin by Jesus Christ can man gain eternal life in heaven.” Christians at Early Rain know that ideal circumstances and political victories aren’t necessary for living fruitful and courageous lives. As their pastor wrote, sometimes the opposite holds true: “If God decides, by way of the [Communist] regime’s persecution

PHILIP FONG/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

12 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

During a church service in Hong Kong, several members of the congregation wear black in support of Early Rain and other underground churches.

B Y

T H E

N U M B E R S

$5.2 billion The amount spent on campaigns during the federal midterm election in 2018, the most ever for a midterm, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

200

The reported number of traffic deaths in New York City in 2018, the lowest level in a century and down from 222 in 2017.

of the church, to lead more Chinese people to a state of despair, make them experience the disillusionment of faith, so that they will come to know Jesus, overcome hardships, and build their own church, then I am very happy to obey God’s arrangements, because His are always loving and perfect.” Trusting God’s loving and perfect ways is the right way to begin 2019, whatever the circumstances. We remember life is short, even if we live to 87 like Ed Plowman, a beloved WORLD writer who died on Dec. 19 (see p. 68). The 1777 edition of the New England Primer reminded children, “While Youth do cheer, death may be near.” Even today reminders surround us: Three days after Christmas, Bre Payton, an accomplished Christian journalist and a graduate of Patrick Henry College, died after a sudden i llness. She was 26. In Psalm 90, Moses asks God to “teach us to number our days,” but he doesn’t stop with a mournful prayer about the brevity of life. He ends with an energetic plea to use all those days to the glory of God: “Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” A  jdean@wng.org  @deanworldmag

3 million

The number of prescription opioid pills Congress says pharmaceutical distributor McKesson Corp. shipped to a single pharmacy in Kermit, W.Va., over 10 months in 2007—about 10,000 pills per day. Kermit has a population of 400.

2.65% The share of single-family homes and condos in Tennessee that are vacant, the highest statewide rate in the nation, according to ATTOM Data Solutions.

5 hours, 48 minutes The amount of time Billy Joel has spent singing “Piano Man” during his five-year residency at Madison Square Garden.

January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 13

D I S PA T C H E S

Human Race

One of the Falkland Islands is up for sale. Pebble Island has been under private ownership since 1869 when the Dean family bought it and some neighboring islands for 400 British pounds. The Falklands, though located near Argentina, are a British overseas territory. Sam Harris, the great-greatgrandson of the buyer, told the BBC that the island produces a great deal of wool but has become hard to manage. The family would like to sell to someone who is interested in farming, but they say the island has much more to offer. Pebble Island has five different species of penguins, 42 species of birds, sea lions, a 4-mile beach, and a historical site from the Falklands War.

Protected

A Colorado federal judge overruled the Obama-era mandate requiring religious organizations to include sterilization 14 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

up to five years in prison. Authorities in Los Angeles are investigating another alleged assault by Spacey in 2016. Spacey lost the role of Frank Underwood on the HBO series House of Cards in 2017 when accusations of sexual assault against the actor first surfaced. On Dec. 24, Spacey posted a YouTube video in which he portrayed the Underwood character. “I’m certainly not going to pay the price for the thing I didn’t do,” Spacey as Underwood said, adding, “Soon enough, you will know the full truth.”

Rescuers say a 12-year-old boy survived 40 minutes under a mass of snow in the French Alps after an avalanche swept him about 110 yards away and buried him during a family ski trip. The boy did not have an avalanche beacon with him, but local police used a dog to sniff out his location. Rescuers say survival after 15 minutes buried in snow is rare. “We can call it a miracle,” Capt. Patrice Ribes told the New York Post. “A day after Christmas, there was another gift in store.”

Demoted

Charged

Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey is facing a charge of indecent assault and battery over an alleged 2016 incident involving an 18-year-old busboy in a Nantucket, Mass., restaurant. If convicted, the sentence for Spacey, 59, could include

Survived

Offered

A hedge fund operated by Sears Chairman Eddie Lampert made a $4.4 billion bid to save Sears Holdings from liquidation. The offer came on Dec. 28—the deadline for bids—and a bankruptcy court must approve the bid for it to go forward. Lampert, the company’s largest creditor, reportedly hopes to keep 425 stores open and 50,000 employees on the job. The retailing giant was founded in 1893 and had 68,000 employees when it filed for bankruptcy in October. It plans to close 80 Sears and Kmart stores by the end of March.

The pope has removed two cardinals from his inner circle of advisers after they faced allegations linked to sexual abuse. Australia’s George Pell and Chile’s Francisco Javier Errazuriz have been demoted, according to a Vatican spokesperson. Pell, who works as the Vatican treasurer, is currently on trial for sexual abuse in his home country. He denies all charges. Errazuriz is under accusations of covering up child abuse when he served as archbishop in Santiago. He also denies the claim. The two were part of the pope’s advisory council, the C9. So far, there appear to be no plans to replace them. A Visit WORLD Digital: wng.org

PEBBLE ISLAND: PETE OXFORD/DANITA DELIMONT PHOTOGRAPHY/NEWSCOM • SPACEY: STAR MAX/AP • SEARS: SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES • RESCUE: UGC VIA AP

Offered

drugs and contraception in the insurance given their employees. Three religious colleges and three religious organizations, including Samaritan Ministries International and the Alliance Defending Freedom, brought the case before Judge Philip Brimmer. They requested a permanent injunction preventing the government from forcing them to include the drugs in their healthcare plans. Brimmer said in his ruling that the groups expressed “sincerely held religious beliefs” and that forcing them to comply would violate their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

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Quotables

U.S. Rep. RAÚL LABRADOR, R-Idaho, on the overwhelming passage of the First Step Act, a sweeping criminal justice reform bill. The bill brought together a rare coalition of supporters that included Prison Fellowship, Southern Baptist leaders, the ACLU, and the NAACP.

TREVOR LAWRENCE, quarterback for Clemson University, on not letting football or opinions about his performance on the field define him. Clemson had just defeated Notre Dame 30-3 to make it to the college football championship game.

‘The government makes lousy parents.’

LYNN JOHNSON, assistant secretary at Health and Human Services, on the Trump administration’s reversal of its policy of requiring background checks on adults who sponsor migrant children. The extra screening caused the number of minors at government-run shelters to grow to a record 14,700 as of Dec. 17 without increasing safety, Johnson said.

‘I advise a lot of people not to quit working. Keep busy. Some retire too soon and they get old fast.’

‘She was eager to learn, to write, and to go places—not because of ambition, but because she wanted to change the world.’ BEN DOMENECH, publisher of The Federalist, on Federalist writer Bre Payton, who died suddenly on Dec. 28 at age 26, reportedly from H1N1 flu and possible meningitis.

ANTHONY MANCINELLI, 107, on working 40 hours a week as a barber in Windsor, N.Y. He began working as a barber when he was 11: “I wanted to help out in the family.” 16 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

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LABRADOR: OTTO KITSINGER/AP • MIGRANT CAMP: ANDRES LEIGHTON/AP • MANCINELLI: ANDREW SENG/THE NEW YORK TIMES • LAWRENCE: TOM PENNINGTON/GETTY IMAGES • PAYTON: FOX NEWS/YOUTUBE

‘One of my proudest moments in Congress.’

‘Just putting my identity in what Christ says and who He thinks I am and who I know that He says I am.’

D I S PA T C H E S

Quick Takes

Right to swing arms

A federal district court judge has overturned a New York state ban on nunchucks, citing the Second Amendment. From her courthouse in Brooklyn, Judge Pamela Chen issued the ruling Dec. 14, saying the 1974 New York law violated the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. State lawmakers passed the nunchuck prohibition out of fear that the proliferation of kung fu movies of the early 1970s would make nunchucks a popular street weapon.

Lunch money debt

Auto return

An accidental car thief demonstrated Canadian politeness after discovering he’d broken the law. Apparently confused by identical cars parked side-by-side in a Nova Scotia, Canada, parking lot on Dec. 9, the man managed to use his own key fob to open and start the wrong car. The man only discovered the mistake after driving down the road several miles. To rectify the situation, the unidentified man returned the vehicle—but not before filling it up with gasoline.

18 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

Fashioning himself a modern Themistocles, Greek defense minister Panos Kammenos has turned to the demos for help funding a new navy. With government coffers dry, Kammenos has promised to donate a portion of his salary to building “new frigates and a flagship.” He’s hoping Greek citizens do the same. Kammenos said he plans to open a bank account on Jan. 1 for Greeks to donate toward the specific purpose of building war vessels.

Useful roaches

A Chinese city is experimenting with using cockroaches to solve a burgeoning waste management problem. Jinan, which reported a population of 6.8 million during the 2010 census, has been feeding colonies of roaches up to 50 tons of food waste daily in efforts to cut down on mounting concerns about waste management. At the end of the roaches’ life cycle, the insects are gathered up and fed to pigs. “It’s like turning trash into resources,” one local official told the Reuters news service. Cockroaches at a breeding facility in Xichang

NUNCHUCKS, SCHOOL LUNCH: ISTOCK • KAMMENOS: LEFTERIS PITARAKIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE

There will be no more free lunches in Cranston, R.I. In a letter to parents in December, Cranston Public Schools Chief Operating Officer Raymond Votto announced he planned on handing $45,859 worth of unpaid school lunch bills over to a collection agency. Elementary-age students can eat for $2.50 per day while middle- and high-school students get charged $3.25. Since September 2016, the school district has forgiven over $95,000 of student lunch debt. Now, if parents owe more than $20 and haven’t paid down the balance within 60 days, they can expect a call from collections agency Transworld Systems.

Spare a dime?

BERRY: LAWERENCE COUNTY SHERIFF/AP • BAMBI: HANDOUT • OYSTER: GRAND CENTRAL OYSTER BAR • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • FARMER AND LINEBAUGH: ANDREA MORALES/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

Cinematic solution

One Missouri judge devised a creative punishment for a Missouri resident convicted of poaching deer. After pleading guilty to taking deer heads and leaving bodies to rot, David Berry was sentenced to one year in the Lawrence County jail and ordered to watch the 1942 animated classic Bambi once a month for the duration of his sentence. The movie depicts the story of a young deer whose mother is killed by hunters.

Thumbing a ride

Kentucky inmate Allen Lewis managed to escape custody while being transported between county jails on Dec. 18 and then run to a nearby highway. At the highway, he attempted to thumb a ride to freedom. The attempt was both a success and a failure: A motorist stopped for him—but the motorist happened to be a campus officer at nearby Morehead State University. The officer saw the handcuffs on Lewis’ wrists and promptly drove the escaped man back to jail.

Momentous abstention

If only Cliff Farmer had voted. The Hoxie, Ark., City Council candidate had planned on voting in the December runoff between himself and incumbent Alderwoman Becky Linebaugh, but a trip kept him from the polls. As it turned out, he and Linebaugh tied at 223 votes apiece in the runoff election. That meant Farmer and Linebaugh needed to break the tie, according to local law, by rolling dice at the Lawrence County Courthouse on Dec. 13. The incumbent Linebaugh rolled a six, while Farmer tossed a four, handing the race to the incumbent.

High-class meal

A New Jersey man’s lunch in New York ended up paying for itself when he found some expensive detritus in his food. Digging into his oyster pan roast at a restaurant inside Grand Central Terminal, Rick Antosh felt something funny in his mouth. “I didn’t bite on it, but I sensed something was odd,” Antosh told CBS New York. “I thought maybe it was a filling or a tooth.” Instead, the stray chunk was a large pearl worth thousands of dollars. According to the restaurant’s chef, it was only the second time in his 28-year career one of his restaurant’s oysters contained a pearl. For his part, Antosh said he plans on keeping the pearl rather than selling it.

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January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 19

VOICE S

Janie B. Cheaney

A call for boundaries SCIENTISTS NEED MORAL GUIDELINES, NOT JUST RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

20 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

Absent an authoritative set of guidelines, scientists who are horrified by He Jiankui’s experiments can only sputter indignantly.

 jcheaney@wng.org  @jbcheaney

ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

It’s a story worthy of a tech-thriller screenplay: A brilliant young scientist cuts through red tape and brushes aside the cautions of his tradition-bound peers to perfect a lifesaving technique. Under a cloak of secrecy he defies the odds and presents the world with its first gene-edited babies, twins who are immune to the ravages of AIDS. Or, from another perspective, an opportunistic young researcher lies to his experimental subjects, skirts the gatekeepers, forges documents, misleads authorities, and launches a PR campaign to announce his achievement— shortly before disappearing from public view. Who is this International Man of Mystery? He Jiankui (Ph.D., Rice University) announced at an international genetics summit in Hong Kong in November that he had successfully altered the genome of twin girls in China using the CRISPR method. CRISPR is a revolutionary technique used on lab animals since 2013 as a means of removing supposedly harmful genes from an individual’s DNA. If practiced on differentiated cells (such as those specific to liver, skin, or muscle), it will affect only the individual. But when used to alter a sperm, egg, or embryo, a CRISPR change will become a permanent part of the subject’s genome, replicated in every cell of the body and passed on to the subject’s descendants. This is what He Jiankui claims to have done on human subjects: extracted twin embryos with one HIV-positive parent, “snipped” the embryos’ CCR5 gene that can serve as a gateway to HIV infection, and implanted the tiny babies in an unidentified woman who gestated normally and delivered them last fall. After the fact, the young scientist stunned the world with his summit announcement and a series of YouTube videos. But since he did not simultaneously publish his research in any scientific journals, conducted the entire experiment in secrecy, and followed few if any of the accepted protocols, his peers

are both skeptical and furious. Ed Yong, a science correspondent for The Atlantic, lists 15 ethical and technical problems with the research. A handful of He’s peers have defended him on pragmatic grounds—if the twins grow up healthy and happy, what’s the problem? “But unethical actions are still unethical, even if nothing goes wrong,” writes Yong. “Arguing otherwise gives a pass to scientists who blow past ethical norms, provided that they find something interesting.” Writing in Popular Mechanics, Jacqueline Detwiler notes, “The National Institutes of Health have been worried about this sort of thing for at least 20 years.” But no one has taken responsibility for it. Who could? Western science grew out of community, the ability to freely share information and build on previous successes. The quickest way to shut down innovation would be an ironclad “Ministry of Innovation.” Ominously, He Jiankui disappeared in early December, possibly placed under house arrest in China. Short of criminal activity, governments should not police science. But absent an authoritative set of guidelines, scientists who are horrified by He’s experiments can only sputter indignantly. Fresh upon He’s announcement (but unrelated to it), the Trump administration unveiled an educational initiative to “promote STEM literacy” (science, technology, engineering, and math). STEM—the acronym itself—suggests something essential and foundational, and to STEM advocates that’s exactly right. Parts of the plan sound promising, such as providing more real-work experience for high-school students and sparing more resources for technical education aimed at kids who may not be college-bound. Most of the plan’s executive summary, though, has the hollow ring of boilerplate: “Preparation for the evolving workplace,” “computational thinking,” and, of course, “diversity, equity, and inclusion” scroll past the brain with familiar echoes. What about moral responsibility? Not one word, in the entire 1,132-word summary. The abstract entity we call “science” can’t police itself, but scientists could police their own consciences if, along with their STEM classes, they learn that life is more than the evolving workplace and the body more than computational thinking, and that data are not the only tools for problem-solving. A coherent philosophy of the limits and responsibilities of science won’t stop a renegade researcher, but it could set some useful guidelines. Who will launch that initiative? A

CULTURE Movies & TV / Books / Children’s Books / Q&A / Music

Bale (left) and Rockwell

Movie

Bad beyond belief

IN NEW FILM VICE, THE EFFORT TO VILIFY DICK CHENEY BENDS CREDULITY TO BREAKING POINT by Megan Basham In one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes, a young, unfunny comedienne named Sally Weaver breaks into the big-time with an act called simply, “Jerry Seinfeld Is the Devil.” There aren’t any jokes in Sally’s cable special in the sense of setup and payoff: She just mocks Jerry with juvenile impersonations that have almost

MATT KENNEDY/ANNAPURNA PICTURES

nothing to do with the way he actually speaks, acts, or thinks. And she ends her set by saying, “That’s why Jerry Seinfeld is the devil.” Writer/director Adam McKay’s new movie Vice is the same thing. Only instead of Jerry Seinfeld, Dick Cheney is the devil. Consider that one of the first things McKay asks us to believe is that 28-year-

 mbasham@wng.org  @megbasham

old Cheney (Christian Bale), having earned both a bachelor’s and master’s in political science, arrives in D.C. not knowing whether he is a Republican or a Democrat. He only decides to sign up with a Republican congressman because he likes the profane, misogynistic way Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell) addresses the

incoming intern class. As if this by itself weren’t already eye-roll worthy, we shortly learn that Cheney doesn’t even possess a basic understanding of the two parties’ respective philosophies. He later corners Rumsfeld, who is quickly becoming his mentor, in the hall to ask him what Republicans believe. After a beat, Rumsfeld bursts out laughing. The implication is that they believe in nothing but amassing power, an agenda young Richard Cheney can’t sign up for fast enough. Because he’s the devil, get it? January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 23

C U LT U R E

Movies & TV

24 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

times,” The New York Times claims it “transforms gaudy pop-cultural toys into tools of polemic and explanation,” and it’s leading the count for Golden Globe nominations. As a bookend to the early, credulity-busting scenes, McKay ends with a montage that lays every recent national ill, from heroin overdoses in the suburbs of Ohio to forest fires in California, at Cheney’s feet. McKay even blames the former vice president for the undignified, infantile state of our current political dialogue. And he does it while having a high time making jokes about Cheney’s multiple heart attacks and eventual transplant being a result of his heart being so dark (har har). Vice is a screed no more illuminating or informative than a Stephen Colbert monologue or an SNL skit. It is nasty, graceless, self- congratulatory stuff. As such, you can look for it to keep racking up wins and nominations this awards season. A

Movie

Bird Box R

BOX OFFICE TOP 10 FOR THE WEEKEND OF DEC. 28-30

according to Box Office Mojo

CAUTIONS: Quantity of sexual (S), violent (V), and foul-language (L) content on a 0-10 scale, with 10 high, from kids-in-mind.com

S V L

1̀ Aquaman* PG-13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 5 4 2̀ Mary Poppins Returns* PG. . . 1 2 1 3̀ Bumblebee* PG-13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5 4 4̀ Spider-Man: Into

the Spider-Verse* PG . . . . . . . . . 2 4 2

5̀ The Mule R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 5 8 6̀ Vice R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6 7 7̀ Holmes & Watson PG-13. . . . . . 4 5 5 8̀ Second Act PG-13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3 5 9̀ Ralph Breaks the

Internet PG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 2 10 The Grinch* PG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 1 ` *Reviewed by WORLD

Netflix’s thriller Bird Box drew so many eyes over the Christmas holiday, the streaming giant took the unprecedented step of revealing how many people checked out one of its original films—45 million. The company says this marks its highest sevenday viewing total ever. Along with Sandra Bullock’s charisma as a leading lady, the movie boasts a riveting premise that feels like a cross between Lost and M. Night Shyamalan’s better efforts. Malorie (Bullock) is a single, selfish artist who feels deeply ambivalent about the baby she’s carrying. Malorie’s sister counsels her that she should be more afraid of loneliness and isolation than motherhood. Her OB-GYN gently reprimands her that what’s causing the bulge in her belly is not a medical condition but a person. Once the apocalypse appears to dawn, motherhood becomes her driving reason to survive. When mysterious beings suddenly arrive on earth, most people who see them commit suicide. A

few others fall to crazed worship that they try violently to force others to join. The only way to avoid either fate is to shield your eyes. Throughout, Bird Box offers fascinating, if extreme, application of Christ’s teaching that it is better to pluck out your eyes if they cause you to stumble than to perish. Malorie’s transformation into a loving if stern parent willing to die to keep both of her children—one biological, one adopted— safe is also a beautiful illustration that true significance comes through serving others. Unfortunately, Bird Box’s crackerjack story comes with an R-rated price that it easily could have avoided. Stripping out the frequent profanity and axing one glimpse of an unclothed couple (significant bits are blocked by limbs) and a few scenes of survival brutality is all it would have taken to make Bird Box something that could air on broadcast TV. As Malorie observes early on, images have power. So do sounds. So like her, viewers should consult their consciences to decide whether seeing is worth the risk. —by MEGAN BASHAM

NETFLIX

The film portrays as satellite demons all those who rise to power with Cheney in the Bush administration, both enabling and furthering Cheney’s attempts to seize every bit of government control he can. Not one serious conservative the movie portrays, including Antonin Scalia, expresses a motive deeper or more thoughtful than a finger-tenting Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. Why argue for the validity of enhanced interrogation techniques? Not because anyone actually believes they might yield information that would make Americans safer, but because advocates simply want the power to torture. I could go on and on about all the scenes that beggar belief and could be dispelled with even a brief perusal of reputable sources. Example: Is there really evidence Lynne Cheney’s father murdered her mother? Answer: No. Did George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell) and Cheney really cook up the idea to initiate the Iraq War because a focus group conducted by Frank Luntz suggested it would be a good way to goose their approval numbers? Only if you’re as eager as Seinfeld’s Newman was to believe whatever implausible antiJerry line Sally threw out. What Vice—rated R for the F-bombs Cheney and his cronies frequently drop—is trying to sell is Pizzagate-level paranoia. It ought to be shunned by any but the most notorious ranters in the fringiest corners of the Web. Instead the Los Angeles Times calls it a “tonic for troubled

Movie

A society’s secrets NETFLIX FILM OFFERS DRAMA, HUMOR, AND FAMILIAR FACES by Marty VanDriel The Nazi occupation of British territory during World War II might seem an unlikely setting for a feel-good, heartwarming story. But The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Netflix) is a delightful twohour escape, with drama, humor, and a cast that will be familiar to many. The movie is based on a 2008 book written by Mary Ann Shaffer after a brief visit to Guernsey, an English Channel island near the French mainland. The author was intrigued to learn about the island’s occupation from 1940 to 1945. Despite the chance to evacuate, Guernsey’s residents largely stayed put, with the exception of most of the children, who were shipped off to England. The Germans fortified the island with stout defenses, bringing in slave labor from Poland and Russia to build watchtowers along the shoreline. The opening scene is set in London in 1946. Juliet Ashton (played by Lily James) seems to have it all. Her career as an author is beginning to take off. Life in England after the Allied victory is full of joy, and her rich, handsome American boyfriend has just proposed, with the promise of a fabulous future life together in New York City. In the midst of all this, a letter arrives from Dawsey Adams (Michiel Huisman), a pig farmer living on Guernsey.

NETFLIX

See all our movie reviews at wng.org/movies

Dawsey had found Juliet’s address in a copy of a book by Charles Lamb that was a comfort to him during the occupation. In these pre-Amazon, pre-internet days, he asks if Juliet can help him to find more books by the same author, to be shared with the members of the intriguingly named Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Juliet is happy to help, and in a series of letters, learns enough about the society to tantalize her: She must visit Guernsey and find out more about how this book club came to be, and how its members used literature and the bonds of friendship to help get them through dark and difficult days. Juliet decides that this would make the perfect subject for a London Times article. The first meeting of the literary society that Juliet attends makes clear that she will need to earn the trust Glen Powell and Lily James

of the members before she can learn more. What secrets are they hiding, and why can’t they talk about them now that the war is over? Why won’t they allow her to write about them for the newspaper? Gradually, the Society members open up to Juliet, and she learns about one of their founders, Elizabeth, an inspirational figure and an outspoken friend to the downtrodden. Elizabeth was indignant at the mistreatment of prisoners of war by the Nazis and showed great courage to help those under that yoke. Yet she did not judge the occupiers as a whole: Her friendship with one young soldier blossomed into romance. Juliet wonders: Where is Elizabeth, and what will become of the daughter she left behind? This is not the kind of movie one watches for its twists and turns: It has a fairly predictable plot. Nevertheless, the story is well-told, and the costumes and scenery of 1940s London and Guernsey are beautifully filmed. How different life was just a few generations ago is brought out again and again, in both civilized London, and even more so on the more idyllic Guernsey. Consider the words of Juliet’s landlady as she makes her way up the stairs: “No more typing now, Ms. Ashton. It’s well after 10!” Fans of Downton Abbey will find familiar faces among the cast. Leading actress Lily James played Lady Rose MacClare on the popular series. Viewers will also see Jessica Brown Findlay (Lady Sybil), and Penelope Wilton (Isobel Crawley), along with other familiar faces and voices. The movie will not win any Oscars and did not break any new ground in the art of moviemaking. Yet it makes for an enjoyable evening of entertainment, with a few tugs at the heartstrings. A few references to extramarital relations make it less suitable for younger viewers. A January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 25

C U LT U R E

Books

Bible basics

TRUSTING THE BIBLE, AND APPLYING IT by Marvin Olasky

Joel Beeke in Reformed Preaching (Crossway, 2018) shows how to preach to both minds and hearts, and illustrates his contentions with good analysis of preaching from the Reformation to Martyn LloydJones. Beeke criticizes sermons filled with subjective storytelling divorced from Biblical truth: Ideally, they should explain “how a sinner must be stripped of his self-righteousness, driven to Christ alone for salvation, and led to the joy of simple reliance on Christ.” A Legacy of Preaching (Zondervan, 2018, two volumes), edited by Benjamin Forrest and three others, casts a wider net and hauls in five dozen preachers, including Basil of Caesarea, Gregory the Great, Girolamo Savonarola, Balthasar Hubmaier, Matthew Henry, Charles

Spurgeon, D.L. Moody, Billy Sunday, Billy Graham, E.V. Hill, and Jerry Falwell. Can We Trust the Gospels? by Peter Williams (Crossway, 2018) succinctly conveys the great amount of evidence for the trustworthiness of the Gospels: He shows the authors were accurate, the histories support each other, the transmission had been faithful, and the discrepancies are minor. At greater length, Introduction to Bibliology by Jefrey Breshears (Wipf & Stock, 2017) clearly conveys basics about Bible origins, composition, canonicity, and transmission. Is the Bible at Fault? by Jerry Pattengale (Worthy, 2018) gives examples of misusing the Bible to justify evil, suffering, and bizarre behavior. He succeeds with chapters on self-mutilation, snake

BEAUTIFUL BOOKS

andling, sex scandals, h apocalyptic messages, and Ku Klux Klan propagandizing. Michael Heiser’s Angels: What the Bible Really Says About God’s Heavenly Host (Lexham, 2018) includes detailed analysis. The title of Stephen Patterson’s The Forgotten Creed: Christianity’s Original Struggle Against Bigotry, Slavery, and Sexism (Oxford, 2018) is misleading. I thought it might be a useful correction to those who equate Christianity with bad stuff—but Patterson downgrades Colossians, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, and Titus, arguing that “every beginning student of the Bible learns that these letters are pseudonymous, forgeries. Paul did not write them.” Oh really? He takes seriously much later cultist texts like the Acts of Judas Thomas. Result: a useless mess. Paula Fredriksen’s When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation (Yale, 2018) also suffers from theological liberalism. Clay Routledge’s Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the

The Oxford Atlas of the World, 25th edition (Oxford, 2018), is a gorgeous book perfect to dive into and to decorate a coffee table. Its 448 large pages include color maps, images of the earth as seen from above, maps of cities, a “gazetteer of nations” with succinct information about each, and a copious index. Warning: It could awaken a child’s interest in traveling to far places and perhaps moving far away from parents, but that’s a risk worth taking. Also beautiful: The Jewish Publication Society edition of The Commentators’ Bible translation of Genesis, with exegesis by Jewish sages such as Rashi, Nahmanides, Ibn Ezra, Abarbanel, and others (JPS, 2018). —M.O.

26 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

Power of the Invisible World (Oxford, 2018) has a promising title but a naturalistic bias that makes it less interesting than the cover suggests. At least Routledge sees how everyone believes in something that science usually cannot prove or disprove. Turning to better books: Sinclair Ferguson’s In the Year of Our Lord (Reformation Trust, 2018) is a fast-moving and wellwritten overview of 20 centuries of church history in 210 pages. What Is Man? Adam, Alien, or Ape? by Edgar Andrews (HarperCollins, 2018) gives the Biblical answer. Gary Smith’s The AI Delusion (Oxford, 2018) suggests that many would now give a fourth choice: Man as an almost-outmoded machine. Smith, though, supplies an excellent, brief antidote to triumphalism about artificial intelligence becoming our future monarchs. He also fights technophobic hysteria about jobs disappearing. Kate Bowler’s Blessed (Oxford, 2018 paperback) explains the prosperity gospel’s Pentecostal roots. Always Be Ready by Hugh Ross with Kathy Ross (RTB, 2018) is the memoir of the astronomer and pastor who counters depression and anxiety by presenting evidence for God’s handiwork. John Wyatt’s Dying Well (IVP, 2018) is a good introduction to how to die Christianly.

Four recent memoirs reviewed by Susan Olasky

EDUCATED Tara Westover Book critics love this well-written memoir by Tara Westover. That’s probably because it fits their idea of how conservative, homeschooling Mormons live. Her junkyard-owning father distrusted the government. He stockpiled food, water, and weapons for the coming apocalypse. Instead of homeschooling, Tara often worked at the salvage yard, running dangerous equipment that frequently hurt her, her brothers, and her father. Though one brother escaped to attend college, another terrorized Tara. Caution: Westover vividly describes emotional and physical violence. Nonetheless, the book is a page-turner that shows the obstacles Westover overcame on her way to earning a Ph.D.

KITCHEN YARNS Ann Hood The child of an Italian mother from Rhode Island and a Navy man from Indiana, writer Ann Hood grew up in two food cultures— and this memoir includes recipes from both. It’s through food that Hood recalls her childhood, early adulthood, and marriages. And it’s through food that she processes the grief of failed marriages and the deaths of her older brother, father, and 5-year-old daughter. Although Hood appreciates good cooking (and is currently married to a chef), she’s also a fan of lessexalted foods, understanding how much emotional power each can evoke. Caution: at least one obscenity.

LITTLE DANCER AGED FOURTEEN Camille Laurens

Critics hated Edgar Degas’ 3-foot sculpture Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. The work scandalized the Paris art world in 1881, yet it fascinated Laurens. This nonfiction/memoir delves into the world of the Paris Opera at the end of the 19th century and asks hard questions about Degas’ reasons for portraying the dancer as he did. Long paragraphs and some repetition hurt the book’s flow, but Laurens provides a thoughtful portrayal of Degas, the life of the “little rat” (the name for members of the corps de ballet), and her reasons for feeling connected to the sculpture.

HANDOUT

INHERITANCE: A MEMOIR OF GENEALOGY, PATERNITY, AND LOVE Dani Shapiro

AFTERWORD Lisa Scottoline’s most

recent thrillers still feature the partners of an allwoman law firm in Philadelphia, but the stories are faster-paced and more likely to end with gunshots than courtroom gavels. In Feared (St. Martin’s, 2018), the partners must defend themselves from a claim of sex discrimination against male attorneys. Ultimately the story turns on whether the suing attorney has forgotten his South Philly roots—and whether his mother can still shame him into doing what’s right. That emphasis on family appears also in Exposed (St. Martin’s, 2017). Here Scottoline pits two of the partners against each other. Mary DiNunzio wants to take the case of a longtime South Philly friend who claims he was wrongly fired. Founding partner Bennie Rosato says the firm can’t because it already represents the corporate parent—and that would be a conflict. Only Scottoline’s skill can make that storyline into a page-turner. —S.O.

Shapiro begins this memoir with stories about her deeply rooted identity as the daughter, granddaughter, and greatgranddaughter of prominent Orthodox Jews. Photographs of her family fill her home. Yet an Ancestry DNA test, which she took on a whim, upends her previous assumptions about her parents. Once Shapiro recovers from the shock of her discovery, she sets out to discover her biological father. The story of that search, the eventual reunion with a bio family of whom she’d known nothing, and her new understanding of her identity make this a compelling story. Caution: a few obscenities.

To see more book news and reviews, go to wng.org/books

January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 27

C U LT U R E

Children’s Books

Quiet times

FOUR DEVOTIONAL BOOKS FOR THE FAMILY reviewed by Kristin Chapman

INDESCRIBABLE Louie Giglio In Indescribable, Giglio explores God’s creation through 100 devotionals related to space, earth, animals, and people. Giglio writes that it’s important for children to learn about what God has created because it helps them also learn more about Him: “The stars don’t speak in words like we do, but how big they are and the way they shine so bright tell us that the God who created them is amazing and powerful.” Each short devotional in this fully illustrated book begins with a science concept and then relates it to a simple Biblical principle. Kids will enjoy each day’s “Be Amazed” factoid that further highlights a piece of God’s amazing world. (Ages 5-9)

EXPLORING GRACE TOGETHER Jessica Thompson Thompson and her mother Elyse Fitzpatrick co-authored in 2011 Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus (see “Notable books,” Aug. 27, 2011). Exploring Grace Together is Thompson’s 2014 follow-up of short, family devotionals centered on gospel concepts. Each of the 40 entries offers a Bible verse, a vignette, and then questions for discussion. The vignettes center on scenarios elementary children may encounter in school or home, identifying root sins and then pointing to Biblical truths and our need for Jesus. Older children will find the devotionals overly simplistic, but their concise format will appeal to parents managing short attention spans. (Ages 5-10)

LISTEN UP Marty Machowski Machowski’s latest book of 10-minute family devotionals spends 13 weeks studying 13 parables aimed at fulfilling Psalm 78:4’s exhortation to “tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord.” Each chapter begins by introducing an action word of the week and providing a hands-on family activity intended to get kids thinking about the week’s parable study. Five days of devotionals follow, each with a Bible passage, short commentary, and questions for discussion that make this book well-suited for older school children. Sprinkled throughout the weeks’ lessons are “Fun Fact” boxes and opportunities for “Going Deeper.” (Ages 8-13)

FEARLESS FAITH Melanie Shankle

28 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

In Secret Keeper Girl: The Power of Modesty for Tweens (Moody, 2017), Dannah Gresh helps girls discover seven Biblical secrets to true beauty and modesty. The book features visually appealing text and illustrations that combine Scripture lessons with practical application. For deeper discussion, moms may want to pair Gresh’s book with her Mom-Daughter Devos with Coloring Experience (Moody, 2017). Its seven weeks of devotionals supplement The Power of Modesty for Tweens. Each week concludes with a coloring page moms and daughters can complete while discussing a take-away message. In Forensic Faith For Kids (David C Cook, 2018), J. Warner and Susie Wallace invite middle schoolers to help solve a mystery as they learn how to apply investigative skills to defending their faith. The plot lacks engaging storytelling, but the corresponding free online resources—including videos, printable activity sheets, and leader’s guide—make it a helpful resource for teaching thinking skills. —K.C.

To see more book news and reviews, go to wng.org/books

HANDOUT

Through 100 brief devotionals, Shankle sets out to encourage girls on the cusp of womanhood to be brave in their walk with God and to cultivate the kind of faith that makes them fearless. Shankle addresses a variety of concerns tweens and teens may encounter in their faith journey while using Scripture and vignettes to instruct them in Biblical truth. The entries in this beautiful gift book each conclude with a take-away point and space to answer reflection questions. Every five days, Shankle includes an activity designed to help girls serve others or learn more about who they are in Christ. (Ages 8-13)

AFTERWORD

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C U LT U R E

Q&A

BILL CASSIDY

Ally to the unborn A SENATOR SPEAKS FOR BABY CARE AND HEALTHCARE by J.C. Derrick Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., is a husband, father, grandfather, and evangelical Christian. He’s also one of three physicians in the U.S. Senate. That makes him a leading voice on pro-life and healthcare issues. Here are edited excerpts of an interview that took place at the U.S. Capitol. How did you become pro-life? I prayed to receive Christ when I was in ninth grade, but I cannot say that’s when I became pro-life. I’m not sure I particularly thought about it, but we are constantly commanded throughout the Old and New Testaments to be concerned with those who are most vulnerable. Then you go to medical school and start realizing the unborn child is an unborn child, not just a clump of cells. Now folks talk about the ultrasound showing the child’s got a face and a thumb and a toe and all the body parts, even when it’s so small. When you’re in medical school, you know that. You don’t need an ultrasound.

How do the dramatic advancements in technology since Roe v. Wade affect the debate? Before, people were told

it’s just a clump of tissue, and now, it’s an individual that, if born at 20 weeks, can then survive, even though a normal pregnancy is 40 weeks. I think that’s why we’re seeing attitudes toward life continue to improve.

Recently we’ve seen reports of urportedly pro-life lawmakers who p did not live that out in their personal situations. Some have encouraged someone close to them to have an abortion. What’s the difference between being pro-life by conviction and simply holding a political position?

If this is truly a life—and it is—that 30 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

should trump other issues. Even a situation that seems at first fearful turns out to be joyful. Anyone that’s gone to a crisis pregnancy center will hear story after story about that. Anyone who has seen adoption—the child may have been conceived in circumstances not ideal and not planned, but the adoption of that child brings so much joy to so many people. The left frequently criticizes ro-lifers for being only anti-abortion p but not necessarily pro-life beyond birth. How important is a holistic approach? It’s important, but we

shouldn’t let the left define what that means. Being pro-life means caring for the child and caring for the mother as she delivers, and then bringing that child and mother through childhood into reaching the potential that we’d all wish to have. Creating dependency is not how people reach their fullest potential. Creating educational opportunity is. So we need to be pro-life but also stick to our conservative principles and not rob the taxpayer to take somebody from birth until adulthood. The better way is to promote policies that encourage intact families and not promote policies that discourage them. You were involved in pressuring the Trump administration to cut Title X funding for abortion providers, which is one of the prime funding sources for Planned Parenthood. What’s next on that? Technically, Title X says Planned

Parenthood is not supposed to be able to say abortion is family planning. In reality, it’s been allowed to co-locate: “You have an unplanned pregnancy? Walk down the hall.” We should push to end that co-location. If you’re truly not going to link family planning with

referring somebody for abortion, let’s move the one out of the building so that there’s no confusion. President Trump ran on a pro-life platform, but so far we’ve seen administrative action and no legislative wins, like a conscience-protection bill or a 20-week abortion ban—those permanent victories have not been there. Has that surprised you, and do you hold out much hope that that will change? It doesn’t surprise me because

it takes 60 Senate votes to pass some legislation. On the other hand, if something gets to Washington, D.C., that means it has already worked its way through the culture. I see evidence that the value of life is increasing, especially among young people, so I don’t judge our progress only by laws that are passed, but also by how our culture is moving, and I do see evidence that our culture is moving more to value life. If that’s the case, then ultimately we will pass laws because Washington, D.C., is merely the end expression of what the culture feels. You were in the middle of efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, but that didn’t get done either. Until you

have the votes, you can’t go forward. It’s ironic: Democrats opposed any effort to make Obamacare more affordable and more sustainable for the average American, but now they say it’s so broken that we have to put everybody into Medicare. They call it “Medicare for all,” but that means Medicare for none: It’s going bankrupt in eight years, but now they want to put another 180 million Americans on it? Can you forge some compromises on individual issues with Democrats?

I sure hope so, but every time I’ve tried to find middle ground it’s been rejected.

‘I don’t judge our progress only by laws that are passed, but also by how our culture is moving, and I do see evidence that our culture is moving more to value life.’

BILL CLARK/CQ ROLL CALL/GETTY IMAGES

What’s an example of something that’s been rejected? We first came up

with something called Cassidy-Collins: If you think Obamacare is working well for your state, you can keep it for your state, but for all of our states where it’s not working and premiums are going through the roof, as in Louisiana, let that state do something different. States should be able to come up with a better solution for the people in their state. Chuck Schumer rejected that. You want patients to have more power? I worked in a public hospital

system for 25 years and found if the patient has the power, the system lines up to serve the patient. The power of

 molasky@wng.org  @MarvinOlasky

knowledge: Wouldn’t it be great if you knew the price of something before you had it done, as opposed to getting the bill six weeks later and being shocked by how much it cost? Some urgent care centers are free-standing and will actually publish their prices. You have an earache? That’ll cost you 50 bucks. You need stitches? One hundred and fifty bucks. But others—that under law can serve as an extension of a hospital’s emergency room even if that hospital is 30 miles away—can charge you what the hospital does. So instead of $50 for an earache, it’s $550. Instead of $150 for getting something sewed up, it might be $750. The patient should be able to say,

“Huh, this is $550, but across the street— it literally might be across the street— it’s $50. Guess where I’m going?” You’re working on price transparency for drugs as well? If in a town hall

meeting I ask, “Wouldn’t it be great if your pharmacist could tell you it’s cheaper to pay cash for that generic medication as opposed to paying the deductible? Shouldn’t the pharmacist be able to tell you that?” everybody says yes. In many cases that pharmacist is banned from telling the patient that it’s cheaper to pay cash than the deductible because a contract forbids them from doing so. We need to make it so the pharmacist can act in the patient’s best interest. A January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 31

C U LT U R E

Music

Classical Good Book MUSIC AND DICTION WORK WELL TOGETHER IN PRESENTATION OF SCRIPTURE by Arsenio Orteza Decca’s two-disc The Good Book: Stories from the Holy Bible in Words and Music contains 54 thematically arranged Scripture passages read by the actors David Harewood (Supergirl, Doctor Who) and Anton Lesser (Endeavour, Dickensian), the actress Imelda Staunton (Psychoville, Vera Drake), and the TV presenter Diane Louise Jordan (Songs of Praise, Blue Peter). All four hail from England, and to listen to them is to understand what the critic John Simon meant when he wrote, “British English is like classical music; American English is like a marching band.” It’s a distinction that the melodies of the 16 well-known hymns accompanying the readings bring out nicely. Played primarily on acoustic guitar or piano, they reinforce both the “classical musicality” of the oral performances and the themes of

the Scripture passages themselves. Sometimes the melodies do so directly. John Stainer’s “God So Loved the World,” for instance, plays during Lesser’s reading of John 3:1-16 and Staunton’s reading of John 19:25-42, while “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today” plays during Harewood’s reading of 1 Corinthians 15:20-26. But at other times—“Jesus, Lover of My Soul” playing throughout Harewood’s Genesis 15 (God’s

CHOIR ENTHUSIASM

The Kingdom Choir grabbed headlines last summer by performing “Stand by Me” at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Now, some 20 years after its founding, the London-based, Karen Gibson–led 31-voice soprano-alto-tenor ensemble has released its first album. The tracks on Stand by Me: 15 Songs of Love, Hope and Inspiration (Sony) toggle from pop (John Legend’s “All of Me,” John Farnham’s “You’re the Voice,” Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love”) to gospelly pop (Beyoncé’s “Halo,” Dionne Warwick’s “I Say a Little Prayer,” the Isley Brothers’ “Harvest for the World”) to gospel with a capi-

32 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

c ovenant with Abraham) and Jordan’s Exodus 3:1-15 (Moses and the burning bush), and “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” playing throughout Lesser’s 1 Samuel 17:38-51 (David and Goliath) and 2 Samuel 7:8-16 (God’s promise to David via Nathan)—the connection between music and word presupposes a distinctly Christian hermeneutic. So do the 17 headings under which the readings are grouped, which include “God’s Covenants,” “Baptism,” “Forgiveness and Salvation,” “Crucifixion and Resurrection,” “Miracles,” and “Pentecost.” Were copies of The Good Book to be tucked away in the drawers of motel- and hotel-room nightstands, the Gideons International might soon find itself out of business. The sole drawback is that the translation of the Good Book that The Good Book employs is the gender- neutral New International Version, a choice that afflicts several passages, none more so than Matthew 4:19: Even Harewood’s dignified diction can’t keep “and I will send you out to fish for people” from sounding acutely contrived. That objection aside, the overall attention to detail is impressive. In a “marching band” world, Jordan’s correct, two-syllable pronunciation of “blessed” in her reading of the Beatitudes is classical music to the ears.

tal G (a Christianized rewrite of Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day,” Stormzy’s “Blinded by Your Grace, Pt. 2,” “Amazing Grace,” the original “Chases”). And although neither the vocals nor the instrumentation stray beyond the genteel, the more imaginative of the arrangements and the enthusiasm with which the Choir executes them could give “positive uplift” a good name. That the album ends with “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” suggests that someone at Sony thought a tackedon carol would improve sales in late December. But if ever a fourth-quarter release didn’t need any “seasoning,” Stand by Me is it. —A.O.

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Pro-life playlist reviewed by Jeff Koch

‘BROKEN PEOPLE’ KJ-52 An unusually laid-back song for the pugilistic rapper that includes tasty bongo licks and a tale of teen pregnancy, which “ain’t the way she went and planned it / … Another story on our little planet / A little compromise, break a few commandments / So the baby’s coming, she starts to panic.” Some of the other lyrics are too generic, but KJ gets credit for refusing a saccharine picture after the choice for life. Amid ongoing moments of fear and despair, the young mother grounds herself by looking at her son’s “fingers and the little handprints / She might be broken but she’s gonna manage.” (From the album Five-Two Television)

‘LIFE INSIDE YOU’ Matthew West The unborn life is an image of the nascent spiritual life inside every human heart, requiring another kind of intervention to survive: “That’s why God sent His only son to die / So that every broken heart could have a life inside.” West’s pop-anthem mastery appeals across genre, with solid drums, keys, and guitar building to a big, singable chorus: “Life inside you / There’s a beating heart / There’s a child of wonder / Shining like a star.” (From the album Something to Say)

HILL: THEO WARGO/GETTY IMAGES FOR CBGB • COMMON: EVAN AGOSTINI/INVISION/AP

‘PROTESTORS’ Christafari Christafari’s laid-back reggae style makes it all the more surprising when they pull no punches to decry abortion in blunt terms: “Them put a knife in your womb and make a crime scene / But this life inna you is a human being!” Abortion doesn’t merely extinguish a human life but cuts off all future beauty and healing from that life, since “you really don’t know who’s life you abort / Could be a lawyer, doctor, preacher, or priest.” Hypnotic bass and communal vocals lend the feel of a movement song: “We’re fighting for the lives of those without a voice /… Fighting for the rights of those without a choice.” (From the album No Compromise)

‘THIS TIME’ John Elefante Former Kansas lead singer John Elefante retells the events surrounding his daughter’s birth mother, a 13-yearold girl seconds away from aborting Elefante’s daughter. In the song, abortion workers escort the girl to the procedure room with meaningless reassurances, sung by Elefante with haunting nihilism: “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine / You’re still young, we see this all the time.” Ascending violins, guitars, and drums frame the chorus around God’s declaration: “You’re not taking this one! She’s mine! / She’ll grow up and seek My name / … You’re not taking her this time.” High production value and artful composition humanizes the girl, her struggle, and the life in her womb. (From the album On My Way to the Sun)

To see more music news and reviews, go to wng.org/music

ENCORE Some pro-life songs come from real-world surprises. Lauryn Hill received the shocking news of pregnancy in the middle of burgeoning superstardom. In “To Zion,” she recounts, “Everybody told me to be smart / Look at your career, they said / Lauryn, baby, use your head / But instead I chose to use my heart.” Hill’s soulful, poetic rhymes combine with Santana’s guitar wizardry for a deep, shuffling groove. But Hill’s soaring voice in the chorus, celebrating son Zion as the “joy of my world,” is the best apologetic of all. With a tight beat and fluent rap flow, Common

wrestles through his own unplanned pregnancy in “Retrospect for life” (featuring Lauryn Hill). He and his girlfriend agreed: “a seed we don’t need.” But he sees the jarring irony of “turnin’ this woman’s womb into a tomb.” He sees his own hypocrisy criticizing gangbangers with a gun, while “I … must have really thought I was God to take the life of my son.” In the end Common chose life, and his daughter was born soon after the song’s release. —J.K. January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 33

VOICE S

Mindy Belz

Loss of faith

TRUMP’S SYRIA TURNABOUT IS A TRUST-BREAKER AND A DEATH SENTENCE FOR U.S. ALLIES

34 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

For months local residents have told me they fear Turkey more than ISIS.

Turkish-backed Syrian fighters near Aleppo

—How to help Syria’s Christians and other religious minorities? Write your own representative in Congress, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, or U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback. Visit our website for faith-based groups working in Syria and Iraq: wng.org/iraqaid.

 mbelz@wng.org  @mcbelz

NAZEER AL-KHATIB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

If anyone at Church of the Good Shepherd in Afrin celebrated President Donald Trump’s decision to pull troops from Syria, they weren’t Christians. The church was emptied of its regular worshippers when a militia backed by Turkey invaded a year ago, setting fire to the church in a once-multiethnic and peaceful city barely 70 miles from the U.S. base at Manbij. The church became a jihadist war room, as Sharia law and the Turkish language took over in Afrin. Turkey, using Islamist militias, controls border areas in some places extending 60 miles into Syria—a blatant NATO violation the United States seemed to OK. The January 2018 Turkish offensive displaced about 167,000 Kurds, Yazidis, and Christians. It also began a new phase of incoherent U.S. policy in Syria many hoped had ended with the Obama era. It culminated in Trump’s Dec. 19 tweet announcing a U.S. pullout. The pullout, while much smaller than the president’s Afghanistan withdrawal plan, represents a strategic shift in a fragile country still at war. Besides handing the Turkey-Syria border to Turkey, it means withdrawing about 200 U.S. troops from Tanf, a garrison in southern Syria straddling what will likely become a critical supply route for Iran. Trump’s sudden move represents in its small footprint a catastrophic loss of U.S. objectives in the Middle East—where there is ample agreement that ISIS is not defeated; where Turkey with Russia and Iran could launch a new war over Syrian territory and control of the Assad government; and where key allies Israel and Jordan now find themselves open to renewed threats. Beyond the internal battles in the Trump administration, those are the reasons for the swift resignations last month from Defense Secretary James Mattis and diplomat Brett McGurk—who since 2015 served as the presidential envoy for the coalition to defeat

ISIS. Perhaps no two U.S. officials understand the terrain better and the dire implications. But lost in much of the reporting and punditry have been the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) allied with the United States and controlling Syria’s northeast. A multiethnic, nonsectarian movement of Kurds, Arabs, Assyrian Christians, and others, the SDF fought under U.S. air cover to win back from ISIS key cities like Kobani and Raqqa. The SDF controls northeastern Syria to the Iraq border and north to the Turkish border, including areas where U.S. troops have been stationed. Its political wing, the Syrian Democratic Council, is an anti-ISIS, pro-democracy civilian coalition on its way to governing a self-administration zone that could become a safe haven for brutalized Christians and Yazidis. It also portends an alternative to authoritarianism in a region desperately needing just that. Yet with Turkey, Iran, and Russia all vying for control of the zone’s oil-rich breadbasket, the SDF depends on U.S. presence to survive. For months local residents have told me they fear Turkey more than ISIS. Sanharib Barsoum, the deputy head of the Syriac Union Party, told a Kurdish newscast that a takeover of U.S. positions by Turkey “is a threat against this democratic project, and all the people who live east of the Euphrates, including Christians.” Keeping a small footprint in Syria while upping U.S. demands is possible, starting with a demand that Turkey withdraw to its own border or forfeit U.S. armaments and bases. The United States could impose a coalition no-fly zone over the northern self-administration zone, inviting Turkey and perhaps even Russia to join such an effort or get lost. And it could become a vocal supporter for the Syrian Democratic Council and its forces in peace negotiations already lurching forward in Moscow and Damascus without the United States. Each of these holds the possibility of building on hard-won achievements rather than watching them crumble in a landscape drenched in human suffering. A

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Against the tide Abortion still devastates the AfricanAmerican community at an alarming and disproportionate rate, but black pro-life activists are fighting for lives by JAMIE DEAN

yan Bomberger isn’t unaccustomed to criticism when it comes to talking about race or abortion. As president of the pro-life Radiance Foundation, he meets hard pushback against his blunt media campaigns spotlighting the tragically high abortion rate in the African-American community. It’s not that abortion is a minority problem: A Pew Research Center survey in 2018 reported that 60 percent of black adults and 61 percent of white adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Forty-nine percent of Hispanics agreed. Support remains high across the spectrum, even as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports abortion rates fell 24 percent over the last decade. Still, abortion numbers remain tragically high, and they remain particularly steep among AfricanAmericans: The CDC reported black women had an abortion rate of 25.1 abortions per 1,000 women. (White women had a rate of 6.8 per 1,000.) In New York City, hundreds more black babies died from abortion than were born alive in 2016. In years past, that number has been in the thousands. That makes pro-abortion propaganda in minority communities even more alarming. In 2017, Planned 36 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

Parenthood tweeted, “If you’re a Black woman in America, it’s statistically safer to have an abortion than to carry a pregnancy to term or give birth.” While it’s true that rates of infant and maternal mortality are much higher in the African-American community, it’s also insidious to imply abortion is a safe alternative for vulnerable women. In his presentation at Wheaton College (see sidebar), Bomberger noted former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards tweeted outrage about violence against African-Americans in U.S. cities when she said, “There are no words adequate to express the outrage and grief—stop killing Black people.” Bomberger agreed the loss of any life is tragic, but he noted the irony of Richards’ dismay: “She is the abortion mogul of the nation, leading the organization that is the leading killer of black people.” Outrage is understandable, but Tami Dalger, an African-American pro-life supporter in Montclair, N.J., also tells vulnerable women about sorrow. Dalger, 53, is now a married mother of six, but decades ago she had multiple abortions. During her last abortion, the realization she was taking a life nearly crushed her. “I was almost in hysterics on the table,” she says. “The doctor assured me it would be OK. And I went ahead.”

A pro-life march in Birmingham, Ala. KRIEG BARRIE; GARY TRAMONTINA/GETTY IMAGES

Now she thinks about her unborn children the way King David spoke about losing his own son shortly after birth. “The child cannot come back to me,” Dalger says. “But I will go to him.” Many African-American leaders were once solidly pro-life. Today, black pro-lifers swim against a tide of pro-abortion activism and entrenched difficulties in some of their communities, but they’re also finding truth and compassion can make headway.

38 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

Dalger

Pro-lifers know women need material help to care for children both before and after birth, and a network of pregnancy care centers and maternity homes help meet many such material needs each year. Roland Warren, an AfricanAmerican and the president of Care Net, a network of 1,100 pregnancy care centers around the United States, says communities with high abortion rates also have deeper needs. “I never talk about the sanctity of life issue without talking about the sanctity of marriage,” he says. “Those two things are linked together, and you can’t have one without the other.” Noting the high rate of unmarried mothers in African-American and other communities, Warren says a key to helping women decide to keep their children is helping couples pursue marriage, so a mother and a father can be in the home. In the cases where that doesn’t happen, mothers need to know they have a network of relational support beyond childbirth. That takes discipleship, Warren says, and Care Net has launched a

rogram (called Making Life Disciples) p to train small groups in churches to mentor and support women and families facing unplanned pregnancies. The goal: to more intentionally partner local churches with local pregnancy centers to offer help beyond the center’s walls. Warren thinks this is an area where pro-life Christians need to grow: “Christians have been viewing the life issue as a material issue or a political issue. The church hasn’t been viewing the life issue as a discipleship issue.” Back in Ohio, Preterm continues with its campaign to disciple women toward abortions, despite the loss involved. Those losses include at least one mother: In 2014, Lakisha Wilson, a 22-year-old black woman, died of medical complications related to her abortion at Preterm. A county medical examiner ruled the abortion center wasn’t at fault. A year later the group Physicians for Reproductive Choice gave Preterm abortionist Lisa Perriera its “George Tiller, MD, Abortion Provider Award”—which recognizes abortionists who have “overcome opposition” and

FRANKIE ALDUINO/GENESIS

he messages on billboards and signs that popped up around Cleveland in early 2018 purported to offer compassion and truth from Preterm, Ohio’s largest abortion center, but instead announced tragic messages: “Abortion is sacred.” “Abortion is a family value.” “Abortion is a blessing.” They also proclaimed: “Abortion saved my career.” “Abortion saved my future.” “Abortion saved my children.” Pro-lifers noticed the signs. They also noticed something else: Many of the billboards popped up in predominantly black neighborhoods. Preterm’s own website declares: “Because of racial injustice, women of color are more likely to need abortions. … For us, reproductive justice includes racial justice.” Ryan Bomberger’s group, the Radiance Foundation, joined local pastors and pro-life groups around Ohio to respond to the signs. They set up their own billboards: “Abortion is big business.” “Abortion is regret.” “Abortion is systemic racism.” Pro-abortion groups reject the idea of abortion as a form of racism, but pro-life advocates have noted a high percentage of Planned Parenthood centers operate within walking distance of black or Hispanic communities. Planned Parenthood disputes how high that percentage reaches, but no one disputes African-American mothers obtain abortions at a higher rate than other groups of women. Whatever the motives, abortion centers cultivate a substantial customer base in African-American communities and raise funds to make abortions cheap or free for women who can’t afford them. Groups like Preterm say some black women can’t afford to parent children.

taken “courageous action to protect and expand abortion in their state.”

BENNETT: HANDOUT • CHILDRESS: DINO VOURNAS/AP

n the 1970s, African-Americans were among the first courageous voices decrying legalized abortion. Mildred Jefferson, a surgeon and the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, helped start the National Right to Life Committee in the 1970s. In a Jet magazine article about black abortion in 1973, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson (who is now proabortion) called abortion “genocide.” African-American Pastor Clenard Childress came to pro-life activism in the 1990s, and also calls abortion “black genocide.” Childress, the New Jersey director for the Life Education and Resource Network, was one of several black pastors who called for the Smithsonian Institution to remove a bust of Margaret Sanger in 2015. The pastors noted Sanger’s founding of Planned Parenthood and her eugenic views, as well as her Negro Project that focused on birth control for African-Americans. In 2016, some pro-life activists began using the phrase “all lives matter” in

Childress

response to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. BLM leaders responded by announcing solidarity with pro-abortion groups. At New Calvary Baptist Church in Montclair, N.J., where Childress has served as pastor for 40 years, member Tami Dalger, the woman who talks about regretting her abortions, says she shares the hope of Christ’s forgiveness with other women who have already obtained abortions. But she also focuses on helping expectant mothers to know: “This is a life and life is precious.” Alicia Chambers, 43, has also joined Childress’ work, and she tells women about the sorrow of undergoing four abortions in the past. After one abortion for a baby due during the month of May, she didn’t recover for years. “Every May would come and I would be so depressed Bennett the whole month,” she says. “I would think: ‘This would be my child’s first birthday, this would be my child’s third birthday. … It just tore me up emotionally.” Chambers says she understands from experience the reasons many women in the AfricanAmerican community pursue abortion, and says she received little counseling or encouragement about parenting options before aborting. When she asked for a pregnancy test from a Planned Parenthood center, she says, workers gave her the positive result— and a list of places to seek an abortion. She says if a woman doesn’t have a support system, abortion is very tempting. “You go to the clinic and you may see a few people protesting outside, but you’re thinking: OK, what other options do I have?” she says.

Chambers doesn’t tell women raising a child will be easy, but she does tell them, “You’ve got to think of that child’s life as well as your own.”

wo states over, in Connecticut, Christina Bennett has spent years sharing the same message with women. Bennett grew up in the church, but says she never thought much about abortion until meeting pro-life leaders in college. She was also compelled by a story she learned about her own birth: When Bennett was in her 20s, her mother told her she nearly aborted her. Her mother says she was weeping in a hospital hallway when a kind janitor encouraged her to keep her child. She canceled the abortion. Bennett went on to work at the Justice House of Prayer in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, praying and working for an end to abortion. Later, she moved to Connecticut and worked for a local pregnancy center, and now serves as communications director for the Family Institute of Connecticut. She says it’s critical to speak with compassion and care about abortion January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 39

white pro-life groups, she says, it’s important to connect with AfricanAmericans and build relationships as a foundation for expressing concern about black abortion. “It’s not like African-Americans are like ‘Save the Pandas,’” she says. “We’re human beings with dignity.” A few years ago, Bennett cultivated a relationship with Joy Adedokun, a student at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.

Adedokun is now a senior and the leader of a pro-life group on the predominantly white and liberal campus. She says most of the members of the group (including her) are women of color—something she says is an advantage when trying to talk to others about abortion: “They can’t say we’re white Republican men who want to take away their choice.” Though she grew up in a Christian home, Adedokun says she didn’t have a

Scare stories WHEATON STUDENT LEADERS DEEM A TALK BY A BLACK PRO-LIFE ACTIVIST ‘OFFENSIVE’ AND ‘UNSAFE’ by JAMIE DEAN

Bomberger

40 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

When pro-life advocate Ryan Bomberger opened his email on Nov. 20, he discovered a message accusing him of using “offensive rhetoric” about race and making “many students, faculty, and staff of color” feel “unsafe” during his visit to Wheaton College on Nov. 14. Bomberger was stunned. He remembered the atmosphere had grown emotionally charged after about 20 students stayed behind for an informal discussion with him after his 90-minute presentation called “Black Lives Matter In and Out of the Womb.” But Bomberger didn’t know that a few days later an email would land in the inboxes of all 2,400 undergraduate s tudents at Wheaton, accusing him of compromising the school’s mission to promote programming that “pursues unity, embraces ethnic diversity, and practices racial reconciliation.” The student leaders writing the email didn’t offer examples of the comments they considered racially offensive. And they didn’t mention Bomberger is a biracial man who was adopted after he was conceived in rape. Bomberger’s talk largely focused on the disproportionately high abortion rate among African-Americans, and decried leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement for declaring solidarity with pro-abortion groups—especially considering abortion’s particularly devastating effects on the black community. His recorded presentation went forward without incident, but the unrecorded interaction with the students who stayed afterward grew tense as they asked broader questions about race and politics and challenged some of his answers. In their email to the student body, the student leaders didn’t offer any details on Bomberger’s statements during or after the presentation, but they said the Wheaton community affirms "the worth of all human beings as unique image-bearers of God. We also look to recognize and challenge any situations that may hinder this mission.” Bomberger wasn’t happy with the accusations. He told WORLD he was especially troubled by the accusation that he

PHOTO COURTESY OF TODAY’S CATHOLIC

and the high rate in African-American communities. “I’m not the person that if we’re talking about police brutality, I’m always going to pivot to abortion,” she says. “I’m not that person when you’re talking about gun control, I’m going to say: How about the black babies who are dying?” Instead, Bennett says she tries to build bridges and show concern for all the issues affecting the community, including abortion. For predominantly

clear pro-life understanding until she went to college. She reached out to Bennett and visited the pregnancy care center: “I absolutely fell in love with the place.” Today, her pro-life group, Wesleyan Women and Children, is a chapter of Students for Life and encourages pro-life dialogue on campus. She attends some of a pro-abortion group’s events to hear what they discuss and to ask questions.

One of those groups, the Wesleyan Doula Project, sends student volunteers to local abortion centers to support women through the process of having abortions. They might watch children mothers brought along or hold their hand through an abortion. “It’s very sad,” says Adedokun. Adedokun says students in her group volunteer at the local pregnancy center, and they show pro-life films on campus. When a health center email

made people feel “unsafe,” particularly since he speaks out about the dangers of abortion for unborn children. He wrote to the student leaders at the Student Activities email address (and copied school o fficials), saying he believed their campuswide message demonized him and didn’t offer support for their claims. He said he would be talking with an attorney and with school officials to decide whether to take action against what he called defamation. Paul Chelsen, Wheaton’s vice president for student development, told WORLD that an email sent by elected student leaders to the student body is not an official message from the college. But he also confirmed the student leaders incorporated “advisor feedback” before sending the message from the email address of the Student Activities Office (SAO). Advisers became involved the day after Bomberger’s visit, as SAO staffers invited student leaders to come and “process” the event. Five days later, the three student leaders sent the campuswide email. Bomberger publicly questioned whether all three student leaders writing the email and the advisors attended his event. (It appears at least one of the student leaders did attend.) Chelsen didn’t answer that question directly, but he said student leaders could respond to students’ concerns, even if they don’t attend every event. When it comes to responding to Bomberger’s complaints about the email and its lack of details on what the students found offensive, Chelsen said the school wouldn’t respond via the media because of “the serious legal implications for undergraduate students accused of defamation.” Bomberger said when he mentioned the possibility of legal action, he meant possible action against the school, not the students. Either way, he said he didn’t have immediate legal plans, and he had hoped the situation could be resolved with an apology from the school. That didn’t appear imminent. Chelsen said student leaders have the latitude to respond to student concerns, and “we affirm their right and responsibility as elected student leaders to do so.” But both Chelsen and Bomberger said they were open to pursuing talks. The goal for the Christian parties should be a resolution without legal action. Other students had different concerns. Members of the College Republicans, the student group that invited Bomberger to campus, said they didn’t object to Bomberger’s comments during or after the presentation, and they were surprised the students sent the campuswide email.

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last year welcomed students who obtain an abortion to drop by the health center for a post-abortion kit of tea, cookies, and other items, Adedokun and other students objected. Workers in the health center wrote another email, clarifying they weren’t trying to t rivialize abortion. Working in such an environment isn’t easy. “It took a leap of faith,” she says. “But my faith in Christ has grown.” A

Alexis Kent, a Wheaton senior and a founding member of the Republican club, said she was “shocked” to receive the message. “I do not believe that anything that was said by Ryan Bomberger was cause for student government or school administration to get involved,” she wrote in an email. She said the episode made her concerned about freedom of expression at Wheaton. “I do not wish to invalidate the feelings of a certain group of students that may feel marginalized or oppressed,” Kent continued. “Rather, I desire to see a campus in which thoughtful dialogue and conversation can occur without the claim that a student is being personally attacked because they are being disagreed with.” Indeed, Wheaton has shown a willingness to host speakers some students might disagree with. In 2017, Emory University philosophy professor George Yancy spoke at an event held in Wheaton’s Billy Graham Center. Yancy is well-known for his provocative language about issues surrounding race, and he told students from the outset his talk might be upsetting. The speech was painful, no matter how one received it. Yancy contended all white people are racist because they live as the majority in a racist society. He used offensive language (including the F-word), and after he described the horrific lynching of a black woman in 1918, he told the audience, “That’s white America.” Yancy also said that given the history of white supremacy in the United States, it’s black people who should be afraid of white people: “If you’re black, you should be scared as hell here at Wheaton College.” Given Yancy’s provocative speech, why did Bomberger’s discussion of race—which included challenging the idea that all white people are racist—trigger a campuswide email? Chelsen responded by saying, in Yancy’s case, faculty members invited him to campus, and were responsible for any follow-up. Since a student group invited Bomberger to the school, student leaders responded. Bomberger said the response was disappointing, particularly from a Christian school: “It’s one thing to have a different opinion about something but to so clearly demonize me … and then to send it out to the entire school with no other perspectives provided … I was really thrown.” It does offer a stark contrast to the school’s reception of Yancy. Before his controversial talk at Wheaton last year, Yancy told students: “This talk is candid. … So if the language is too much I apologize in advance. But then again: Why should I apologize for telling the truth?”

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Living pro-vida Shame and family silence lead many Hispanic women to abortionists, but a pro-life message may be making strides by MARY JACKSON

42 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

Latinos and spoke little English. She grew accustomed to a waiting room filled with 13- and 14-year-old Hispanic girls. Hispanic women and their unborn babies account for more than 25 percent of all abortions in the United States, according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute. More than a quarter of the nation’s Hispanic population lives in California, where 17 percent of the nation’s abortions occur with little restriction and in many cases with taxpayer funding. Pro-life voices are routinely snuffed by the media and pro-abortion advocates with a firm grip on state politics. But the silence is breaking. In recent years, “pro-vida” Hispanics in California and elsewhere are becoming more vocal and organized. What started small, like pregnancy centers offering Spanish brochures and bilingual staff, is turning into growing outreaches aimed at educating and emboldening Hispanic families and communities. Meanwhile, some Hispanic women are telling their abortion stories. They are breaking cultural taboos and exposing truth, even as they often face shaming and backlash from their families. At Planned Parenthood, supervisors instructed Sandoval to keep girls from seeing ultrasound screens and, if they seemed hesitant, to tell them about her three abortions. She says they also told her to call the babies “it.” Within a few weeks, Sandoval began assisting during abortion procedures. In the back room, for the first time, she saw dismembered arms and legs, bodies with genitalia, and heads with hair and

mouths still open. She witnessed biohazard freezers full of bagged body parts. On her last day, one month after starting, she says she saw a giant petri dish filled with aborted parts of unborn 6-month-old twin brothers: “That’s when I faced the truth. I didn’t believe in God at that point, but I knew that I killed my three children.” Facing the truth about abortion led Sandoval into three years of drug addiction, homelessness, and anorexia. At her lowest point, she sat on a curb sobbing. She remembers looking up at the sky, recalling her love letters to God and praying. Minutes later, a woman came out of a nearby restaurant, hugging her and telling her about Christ’s love and forgiveness. She gave Sandoval a meal and a ride to her father’s house. Soon after, Sandoval attended a post-abortion healing retreat, where she experienced Christ’s forgiveness. She also made a promise to be a voice for the unborn. In 2007, Sandoval began telling her story. She has since written a book and shared her testimony more than 400 times across the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Last year, she traveled several times to Argentina and El Salvador and participated in media campaigns as these countries battled attempts to legalize abortion. In January, she’s slated to speak in both Spanish and English at the West Coast Walk for Life in San Francisco. But Sandoval has paid a price for speaking out. She often has people walk out of her presentations, or call her a murderer. Family members have cut her off, even those who initially encouraged her abortion healing process. Sandoval

JEFF WALES

hen Patricia Sandoval was a little girl, she used to sit in her Petaluma, Calif., backyard and write love letters to God, tying them onto a balloon and sending them into the sky. But at age 12, life grew difficult when her parents divorced. She also had her first ever “sex talk,” but not with her mom or dad. One day, Planned Parenthood visited Sandoval’s sixth-grade class. After a graphic presentation about sex, Sandoval remembers a female representative told the class, “If you ever need anything, we are here for you.” Sandoval’s parents immigrated from Mexico before she was born, and they only spoke Spanish. She was raised Catholic, the middle of three children, her father’s “princess.” Like many immigrant Hispanic parents, Sandoval’s father pushed the children to attend college and pursue the American dream. But when it came to discussing puberty, relationships, sex, or abortion, all Sandoval remembers is silence. This same silence and pressure permeates many Hispanic households, even those with deep-rooted cultural or religious pro-life values. Among other things, Sandoval learned from Planned Parenthood’s presentation at school how to have “safe sex.” But at 19 safe sex failed her, and she had her first abortion. Before the procedure, she says, she remembers a nurse telling her, “It’s not a baby … it’s a sac of tissue.” Sandoval believed her, and after two more abortions, she began working as a Spanish-speaking backoffice nurse at Planned Parenthood in Sacramento. She says supervisors told her 90 percent of the clients were

Sandoval

January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 43

says, “It is a very shameful thing in Hispanic culture to have an abortion, but it is even more shameful to talk about it. I’m known in my family as the girl who had three abortions.” For this reason, many Hispanic women stay silent about their abortions, or they only share anonymously. Two post-abortive Hispanic women I interviewed said they have experienced healing and even engage in pro-life activism, but they still have not told family members about their abortions. Hispanics have long-held cultural and religious opposition to abortion. More than 60 percent of Hispanics, and 54 percent of Latino millennials, think it is “morally wrong,” according to two recent Public Religion Research Institute studies. More than 50 percent think it should be illegal in “all or most cases,” a 2014 Pew Research Center study found. For this reason, some refer to Hispanics as “the sleeping giant” of the pro-life movement. But pundits err in referring to Hispanics as a “monolithic voting

bloc,” said Tim Edson, the national field director for the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA). In the 2016 elections, SBA successfully targeted Latinos in states like Florida and Arizona with paid advertising and door-to-door campaigning, Edson said. The group surveyed Hispanic voters before and after engagement and saw an 11-point voter preference shift in favor of pro-life candidates in these states. But in California, even as pro- abortion groups maintain a tight hold on state politics, many see emerging pro-life support, especially in conservative areas like the Central Valley. “The sleeping giant is waking up,” said Samuel Rodriguez, a Sacramento pastor and president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. He predicts, “There’s about to be a significant pushback against California’s abortion-ondemand, and it’s coming from the Hispanic community.” Within the last decade, pro-life groups and crisis pregnancy centers have made a concerted effort to reach

‘There’s about to be a significant pushback against California’s abortion-on-demand, and it’s coming from the Hispanic community.’ —Samuel Rodriguez

B CHRISTOPHER/ALAMY LIVE NEWS

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Spanish-speaking women. Many now have bilingual staff, “Español” website tabs, and Spanish-language resources. In 2008, a Hispanic pro-life group and Mexican actor Eduardo Verástegui reproduced a widely circulated Spanish video originally made in the late 1980s titled “Dura Realidad,” or “Hard Truth,” which depicts fetal formation and contains graphic abortion images. Some see a correlation with these efforts and a declining abortion rate among Hispanic women. Between 2007 and 2015, the abortion rate dropped by 30 percent, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the battle is still raging. In Los Angeles, nine Planned Parenthood centers operate within a 1-mile radius of a predominantly poor Hispanic neighborhood. Astrid Bennett Gutierrez grew up in this neighborhood, and in 2006 she opened the first pro-life clinic within that radius, called Los Angeles Pregnancy Services. She says the abortion industry “targets poor, vulnerable Latino women who feel pressured and shamed into abortion.” Gutierrez has become a key Latino pro-life voice, speaking regularly on the Catholic television network EWTN and at pro-life gatherings. Two years ago, Gutierrez launched the Vida Initiative outreach. The group is targeting second- or third-generation Hispanic millennials with pro-life messaging, mentoring, and workshops on public speaking and sidewalk counseling. Gutierrez said the greatest challenge is “undoing the indoctrination that happens in schools and in mainstream media.” Much of California’s Hispanic population lives within the Central Valley’s 450-mile stretch of flat and agriculture-rich land. In Visalia, one of the valley’s major farming outposts, Maricela Lupercio, 36, runs Latinos4Life, a Hispanic outreach of the Tulare-Kings [Counties] Right to Life (TKRL), with the goal of helping families “communicate about important topics like dating, sex and abortion.” Lupercio Pro-life knows from demonstrators experience the rally outside the Supreme Court. challenges

‘Our cultural roots are incredibly pro-life, but with no education, no communication, and no support, abortion becomes a solution.’

TOMAS OVALLE/GENESIS

Lupercio

Hispanic families face. Her parents immigrated from Mexico to the Central Valley, raising her and her four siblings in a traditional Catholic household, but “never any conversation about our bodies, sexuality, or how to have healthy relationships.” Lupercio began sneaking out of the house to have sex with her boyfriend at age 14, and from there, she says, she experienced a “downward spiral of unhealthy decisions and relationships.”

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Lupercio started Latinos4Life as a 21-year-old newlywed and new mother with a passion to help Hispanic families. In 2006, she began making her own Spanish-language materials, attending community meetings, teaching parenting workshops, and setting up booths at local events. Lupercio told me about one such event in November. Hundreds of Hispanic women filled a Visalia, Calif., convention center for an annual

l uncheon for female farmworkers. Dozens of vendor booths advertised everything from jewelry to funeral homes. Lupercio’s table was covered with babies—different-sized fetal and womb replicas and a basket filled with tiny doll-like babies marked “12 weeks.” “Little children always want to hold the babies,” she told me. The booth also had stacks of Spanish brochures and posters that explain in utero development and reproductive “Biology 101.” The Latinos4Life booth is now a familiar scene at farmers markets, festivals, health fairs, churches, and schools. Lupercio has focused on making connections and educating Hispanics about pregnancy, fetal development, and sexual exposure risks. Her group works closely with churches and local pregnancy centers. “Our cultural roots are incredibly prolife,” she says. “But with no education, no communication, and no support, abortion becomes a solution.” Maricela Silva, 46, saw a Latinos4Life display at her community college before she had told anyone about her three abortions. After this, she attended a post-abortion retreat and began sharing her story. At first, it was “painful,” and some of her family rejected her, but she says, “Every time I share it, it brings me more freedom.” Silva now runs TKRL’s “I Regret My Abortion” outreach and has joined Lupercio at Latinos4Life outreach events, offering post-abortive support. Next year, a second Latinos4Life is slated to open in Bakersfield, Calif. Meanwhile, Patricia Sandoval said the most rewarding part of sharing her story is when women tell her that she helped change their perspective on abortion. Sometimes she gets to hold a baby that she helped save. Last year, Sandoval married, and in May she will hold one of her own children for the first time. A January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 45

ROE V. WADE › 1973-2019

Lost by choice Despite a history of concerns about population growth, Israel has some of the most permissive abortion laws in the world by CHARISSA CROTTS in Jerusalem

f the Holocaust had not happened in the mid-20th century, scholars estimate 26 to 32 million Jews would be alive worldwide today. Instead, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics reported in April that there are 14.5 million Jews in the world— still 2 million less than before the Holocaust. Most of these live in the United States or Israel. Rebuilding the Jewish population has always been important to the country: Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, once said, “Any Jewish woman who does not bring into the world at least four healthy children is shirking her duty to the nation, like a soldier who evades military service.” Wars, terrorism, and a competing Arab population constantly threaten their efforts. Valuing family is ingrained in Jewish culture, and government laws and funding for prenatal care reflect it. Artificial reproductive technologies are also popular: Israel has the highest rate of in vitro fertilization per capita of anywhere in the world, and the government funds the procedure for women up to 45 years old, up to two children. But a large, invisible enemy takes 40,000 babies from the country of 8.8 million every year with hardly any objections. In 2014, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency declared Israel’s abortion laws “among the world’s most liberal.” The same year, Israel declared the government would fund abortions under certain conditions for women ages 20 to 33. Abortion is one of the only medical procedures a minor does not 46 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

need parental permission to procure. A mother is eligible for an abortion up to the 40th week of her pregnancy. The baby has no rights until his or her head emerges from the mother. In Israel, women have about 15,000 to 20,000 legal abortions per year, and activists estimate at least the same number happen illegally. (A woman must go through a process to obtain permission for a legal abortion.) Jewish women make up the most of these. Palestinian women from the West Bank sometimes take advantage of Israel’s accessible abortion laws because the Palestinian Authority severely restricts the procedure. This puts the country’s official abortion rate lower than most Western countries, including the United States. Israel’s yearly abortion rate is also lower than in the past. The country has received fewer Soviet immigrants, who tend to abort pregnancies more frequently. Experts say increased access to birth control also accounts for the drop. But while Israel has fewer abortions than the United States, it also has fewer voices speaking out against abortion. In a sparsely furnished apartment in northeast Jerusalem, Ruth Tidhar works to convince expectant mothers to keep their unborn children. Tidhar is the chief social worker at Efrat, the largest group combating abortion in Israel. About 20 workers are on staff part time, with a budget provided solely from donations. The group takes its name from Miriam, Moses’ sister who helped preserve the Jewish people by

Volunteers at the Efrat office prepare letters to be delivered to new mothers considering aborting their babies. EDDIE GERALD/LAIF/REDUX

rescuing a baby. (Efrat is an additional name given to Miriam in Jewish tradition.) With her frizzy brown hair, nose ring, and warm smile, Tidhar seems approachable and open. “Our job is to connect with that woman where she is at and let her know that she’s going to be OK,” she said. Holocaust survivor Herschel Feigenbaum founded Efrat in the 1950s after deciding the best way to increase the Jewish population was to stop Jewish abortions. Abortion was illegal under the British-based law Israel adopted in 1948, but an estimated 60,000 abortions happened illegally each year. Eliyahu Schussheim, a medical doctor, has been director and president of Efrat since 1977, and he gave Efrat the focus and practical mission it has today. Also in 1977, Israel legalized abortion, though women must appear before a medical committee to obtain permission. The committees—made up of a gynecologist, another doctor, and a social worker—may legally approve abortions for one of several reasons: if a woman is unmarried, if a woman is

under 17 or over 40, or if the unborn baby is disabled or poses a risk to the mother’s physical or mental health. In 2017, Israeli committees reviewed 19,283 applications for abortions. They only rejected 29. Efrat staffers work to combat the two reasons they say most Israeli women get abortions. One reason is misinformation about the medical risks and options for pregnancy. Schussheim tells about one incident at his private clinic that sparked his interest to work with Efrat: A patient told him she was pregnant, but her doctors had recommended abortion. They warned that an X-ray she’d undergone before discovering her pregnancy would cause deformities in her baby. Schussheim told her the latest medical research showed that particular X-ray would not be dangerous and she could continue her pregnancy. She chose to keep the baby, and Schussheim realized the difference proper medical information could make. The other main reason is financial pressure. If a woman mentions financial challenges, Efrat volunteers assess her situation and verify her story. If she

qualifies, staff members deliver supplies like clothes, a crib, and a stroller when the baby is born and monthly packages of diapers and wipes for two years. Some U.S. officials have recognized Efrat’s work: Photos on one wall in the Jerusalem office show Schussheim in Washington, D.C., shaking hands with former U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and others. On another wall, a poster displays small pictures of babies with the Hebrew words: “For the sake of the children.” But though Schussheim has met with U.S. politicians, Efrat doesn’t identify with the U.S. pro-life movement. The group avoids politics and doesn’t lobby Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to change laws. Its workers avoid protesting and using graphic images. (Tidhar says those kinds of associations hurt their work more than help it.) They also avoid talking about religion, even though religious Jews tend to oppose abortion. “Our faith places primacy on life (almost) above all else,” said Rabbi Bini Maryles, director of another abortion-fighting group, Just One Life. “‘And you shall live by them’ is a value

Life around the world

Buenos Aires

48 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

DUBLIN: JEFF J. MITCHELL/GETTY IMAGES • BUENOS AIRES: EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Dublin

Irish voters overwhelmingly approved stripping the eighth amendment from their constitution in May, opening the way for legal abortion up to 12 weeks of a mother’s pregnancy, and upending the nation’s near-total ban on abortion. Seven months later Irish lawmakers alarmed pro-life doctors and nurses by passing legislation that would require medical professionals to refer patients to abortionists if they ask for abortions. Religiously affiliated hospitals wouldn’t be able to opt out of offering abortions under the new law. In Argentina, House members passed a bill to legalize abortion up to 14 weeks of gestation, but the Senate later struck down the measure. The defeat sparked violent protests from some pro-abortion demonstrators in the streets of Buenos Aires. The Australian state of Queensland removed protections for the unborn in October, joining six other Australian states and territories that have removed criminal penalties for abortion. In November, the Australian district of New South Wales rejected legislation to legalize euthanasia. A month later, the state of Victoria legalized euthanasia for terminally ill adults. Belgium has long allowed euthanasia, but Belgian officials launched a criminal investigation into three doctors who approved the assisted suicide of a woman who had Asperger’s syndrome—a mild form of autism. Tine Nys, 38, wasn’t suffering from a terminal illness, and her family filed a complaint against the doctors who approved her request to end her own life because of mental distress. Going into 2019, Canadian authorities will be watching the Belgium case unfold, as they consider extending Canada’s euthanasia law to allow assisted suicide for children, people with mental disorders, and those who request euthanasia in advance directives. —Samantha Gobba

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of ours with regard to appreciating and giving value to life each day.” Jewish law generally discourages abortion or restricts it to the first 40 days of pregnancy or cases in which the pregnancy threatens the mother’s life. But Maryles said, “In general, the Jewish community runs the spectrum of opinions on this matter.” Instead of persuading people abortion is wrong, Efrat staff members try to show women other options. Tidhar said they don’t consider the question of morality relevant to their work, and they don’t tell women they shouldn’t have abortions based on religious reasons. Tidhar said the Jewish culture involves more than the religion, and Efrat opposes abortion because of the demographics involved. When non-Jewish women come to Efrat for help, Efrat refers them to Be’ad Chaim, a Christian pro-life group in Israel. “Most Christians in Israel oppose abortion on the grounds of the conviction that the unborn are human persons,” said Pastor Baruch Maoz. But the pastor clarified that Israeli Christians often do not know how to use Scripture to defend this conviction. Maoz pastored in Israel for over 30 years, and he remembers having to inform a couple that if they chose to abort their child, they would face church discipline. He said Israeli Christians tend to oppose abortion “as a knee-jerk reaction,” not because they have thought deeply about the issue. He said he has never heard an Israeli Christian describe abortion as murder. Sandy Shoshani, Be’ad Chaim’s national director, is an example of this. She became the group’s director in 2005, 17 years after the Messianic Jewish group was founded. When the board’s chairman initially offered Shoshani the position, she turned it down. “Like most believers, I thought abortion was wrong but didn’t want anything to do with it,” she said later. The chairman sent Shoshani home with books and videos about abortion and told her to come back in a month and see what God showed her. The resources convinced her that she could not ignore the 20,000 governmentfunded abortions in Israel each year. She decided her only choice was to take the position.

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So far, Shoshani says, Be’ad Chaim has helped save 2,500 babies. The group’s motivation is not rebuilding a threatened demographic but saving children made in God’s image. Shoshani said she knew 2,500 babies is a relatively small number but, “Thank God, it’s something.” The organization’s Operation Moses program provides diapers and other supplies to expectant mothers who are considering abortions because of finances. Be’ad Chaim also offers post-abortion counseling and the chance to plant a tree in memory of aborted, miscarried, or stillborn babies. Its “Garden of Life” is a plot of land between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv with places for prayer, Bible-verse-inscribed benches, and close to 2,000 trees. Shoshani has written to and met with members of the Knesset to discuss the abortion laws. But she said the Knesset members who are personally

pro-life tend to believe abortion should be a woman’s choice. Occasionally, legal challenges to abortion arise. In 2012, Knesset member Nissim Ze’ev tried to ban abortion after 22 weeks, except for danger to the mother’s life or fatal birth defects. Two Knesset members unsuccessfully tried in January 2017 to get a religious figure (rabbi, priest, or qadi) added to the termination of pregnancy committees. But in 2014, the Israeli Cabinet approved a measure to fund abortions for women ages 20-33 as part of the country’s subsidized “health basket” of coverage. It remains a tragic conundrum: Though the country has deeply religious people and extremely pro-family values, Israel’s abortion laws remain in practice some of the world’s most liberal. A Shoshani (right) and a Be’ad Chaim employee holding donated items.

January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 49

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ROE V. WADE › 1973-2019

A question of ethics A conversation with bioethicist WILLIAM HURLBUT about controversial gene-editing scientist He Jiankui by SOPHIA LEE

Hurlbut speaks to reporters during the Human Genome Editing Conference in Hong Kong. VINCENT YU/AP

hen Chinese scientist He Jiankui appeared onstage at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong, the news of what he would say had already zipped across the world. Two days earlier, on Nov. 25, He had told an organizer of the conference that he had helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies—twin girls by the pseudonyms Lulu and Nana—by altering their DNA while they were embryos to become resistant to future HIV infection. He’s study has not yet been published or peer-reviewed, so the details about the birth of Lulu and Nana remain unclear and unverified. But response from the scientific community was immediate and censorious. Leading figures in the community called his work “unconscionable,” “not morally or ethically defensible,” “deeply disturbing,” “monstrous.” People questioned He’s motives for the experiment and accused him of seeking fame and fortune—particularly when the Chinese researcher enlisted an American PR company to help release YouTube videos explaining his work. Since He's announcement, Chinese officials have placed him under house arrest in Shenzhen. The buzz over gene-edited babies is nothing new: Scientists had discovered CRISPR-Cas9, the genome editing tool that He used, in 2012. Scientists have been testing it on living cells and

a nimals and more recently have even tried it on adults to treat deadly genetic diseases. But He broke international ethical boundaries when he implanted edited embryos into a woman and let her deliver them, which means any DNA changes to those twin babies can be inherited by their children. Because such gene-editing technology is still relatively new, nobody knows about the potential long-term health consequences on humans. He admitted that his university in China was unaware of his experiment, and though he says he received approval from Shenzhen HarMoniCare Hospital, the hospital later released a statement denying any discussion with He about such a project. For better or worse, He—also known as “JK” to many—has opened a door to the future that can no longer be closed, and he has forced a conversation that grabs the attention even of laymen: What are the ethical questions surrounding human gene editing, and how should we address them moving forward? In fact, He had been having such discussions with American scientists and bioethicists. (He earned a Ph.D. in biophysics at Rice University, then worked as a postdoc fellow at Stanford University before being wooed back to China.) One bioethicist in particular, William Hurlbut of Stanford University, spent many, many hours January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 51

with He discussing the ethics of biotechnology over the course of two years. Hurlbut, who says he did not know about He’s experiments and had made clear to He his moral objections to human embryo research, was not ultimately able to convince the scientist to hold off his plans. Hurlbut has been the lone scientist unwilling to peg He as a fame-chaser or money-hogger. When I spoke to Hurlbut, he said he strongly disapproved of He’s experiment, but he was also worried about the repercussions that He may face. Here is the condensed and edited version of my interview with Hurlbut. Tell me about the atmosphere at the Hong Kong summit. Even before

we got to the hotel, people were talking about it. When we got there, it was the major thing in everybody’s conversations. The conference was supposed to be about a lot of things, but everybody talked about this the whole time. It was just really powerful to be there. I’ve done some interesting things in my life, but this was among the most interesting so far. It was like being in the very epicenter of the human story. A collection of people from all over the world was talking about one of the most important moments in human history, one with great significance for the human future. For you, the news must not have been all that shocking. No, because I

had talked to JK over the last two years, and I had consistently cautioned him not to do this independently. I was in no way advising him in any kind of official capacity, and I didn’t know that he was implanting embryos. One question JK specifically asked me was, “Why is there such a concern in America over experimenting on human embryos?” He wanted to know if it’s just a fringe of fanaticism, or if it was a more mainstream concern. And I told him that during the debates over embryonic stem cell research, approximately half the nation—and not just religious people—opposed the use of human embryos in research, that even thenPresident George W. Bush opposed it. Because scientifically, the embryo is the earliest stage of human life, something seems wrong in using it for a research project, to use it as raw material. 52 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

And how did he respond? He didn’t feel the intuitive force of what I was saying. At one point he put his forefinger and thumb together and said, “How can something so small count as a child?” I tried to explain to him that there is value in that small thing because that’s still the beginning of human life. At that point he had one child, so I told him, “That’s how your little girl started out as.” I didn’t find him insensitive or anything. In China, I was told that there’s a basic belief that you’re not a full human being until you’re born. There’s much more openness to using human embryos in certain countries, and China is one of them.

wanted to prevent this. At one point I said to him, “JK, you have to be very careful. You have a young family, you have a promising career, and you might be criticized deeply for this.” And he said, “I’m willing to do this because I know there are many patients with great need out there, and there can be a great good from this.” He had an idealistic view. He thought people would at first be negative about it, but then come to realize that the door has been opened to something good. You were already suspecting that he might go ahead and do it. Yes. When

I met with him in mid-October, he told

What else did you guys talk about?

Our conversations broadened into deeper and more profound issues about the whole relationship between human beings and the natural world. At one point I talked to him about how beautiful, how mysterious nature is, because although there’s suffering and death, we also see beauty in the natural world, so we know there’s some kind of mystery operating through nature. Then I mentioned the beautiful redwood trees that grow in my backyard on the edge of a creek, and that was when I realized he had never seen a redwood tree, even while working at Stanford, 10 minutes away from the trees. So I said, “Let’s go for a walk,” and I took him out to a very beautiful nature preserve behind my house where there are miles of redwood trees. And he just loved it. The next time he wrote me, he said, “Can we take another walk when I come?” He knew where you stood on the ethics of human gene editing and the use of human embryos, yet he constantly sought you out? Yes, and I

was really happy to meet with him. I like him. He’s a nice guy. People say he did this for fortune and fame, and well, nobody is immune to those things, but I really got the sense that he wanted to make his scientific knowledge count for something good. So I was hoping to explain to him the landscape of the social and ethical issues of his work, so that he would proceed morally and not rush into things. I knew he was exploring the boundaries of science, and I enjoyed talking to him, but I also worried about him. I wanted to help him, and I

‘I knew he was exploring the boundaries of science, and I enjoyed talking to him, but I also worried about him. I wanted to help him, and I wanted to prevent this.’ —Hurlbut

me that an important paper was coming out, but he wouldn’t tell me the details. I started suspecting that he had implanted the embryos or maybe even had birth, and I was very worried about it, so I had strong conversations with him about it. Could you have contacted the authorities? Well, I didn’t know

a nything for sure. Also, I knew he had talked to one of my colleagues about it in February. I knew they had an argument about it, and we believed he had stopped JK from doing this.

How did you feel when you heard what He did? I was disappointed and

sad, because I knew it was not going to end well, in three ways: First, JK is a very promising scientist, well-educated, and a very nice person, and his career is never going to be the same. He might have damaged his future. Second, he put children in danger with his experiments, and that’s not right. Third, the whole field of gene editing science got a bad reputation because of this. How does this incident affect the future of biotechnology? Like

everything, there’s always something

t echnologies will be misused with tragic consequences. Has there been such a conversation taking place? There have been some

discussions taking place, but it’s not been easy to have them because it’s such a complicated subject and the average person doesn’t understand the subtleties of the genetics involved. I have been trying to organize these kinds of conversations. Jennifer Doudna, who discovered CRISPR-Cas9, and I are co-leaders in a project to increase discussion and deliberation and education on this. Human gene editing is not just a scientific tool to help treat diseases. It

KIN CHEUNG

He Jiankui speaks during the Human Genome Editing Conference in Hong Kong.

good to be made out of the situation, and I think in the end, JK will have done at least one favor for the human species. He put everybody in the world on notice that the future is coming faster than we thought, that there are serious and powerful challenges emerging with the power of our advancing technologies. We need a broader, deeper conversation collectively as a human species as we enter into this very significant arena of intervention in human life. Otherwise, these new  slee@wng.org  @sophialeehyun

carries many implications—people might want to filter through embryos and take out ones that they think are better than others and manipulate embryos to produce children to their liking, and that changes the whole relationship with having children. It turns what should be procreation and love into production. And that production will never be perfect. They’re going to end up with mistakes and disappointments. If your attitude to having children is one of production,

then it changes the way you see the child. You see? This has so many dimensions to it—it’s not just a simple matter of treating a disease. It sure is complicated, but it sounds like a discussion we ought to have. I’m

hopeful that now these conversations will increase. One of the ideas Jennifer Doudna and I agreed on when we started our project is that the average citizen needs a voice in these matters. These are not just decisions to be made by leading scientists or social planners. These are matters for the whole human family. This is a species issue. It’s not just a matter of personal choice, or an issue of social policy at a national level. We’re talking about the collective genetics of our entire species. What are the ethical boundaries we shouldn’t cross? A line that should

not be crossed, not just in genetics but in all of life, is doing things with idealized intentions, but in the process violating the very fundamental coherence of love. Love, for me, is the judge of what makes something right or wrong. The ends don’t justify the process; you have to look at both the means and the ends. And the means always should involve love. Love is hard to define, but easy to know when you see it. It’s one of those mysterious things where you can never exactly say why something was unloving, but you can feel it. Love should honor and respect every individual. You should never treat human beings as raw material or regard them instrumentally toward some other end. It really comes down to the Golden Rule: Do to other people what you would want done to yourself. The greatest temptation is the temptation to compromise individual human dignity in order to arrive at some future utopian vision of greater human happiness. Utopia will never arrive, and you don’t use human beings as stepping stones to get there. What would you say to He Jiankui should you see him again? I would tell

him, “Your life has not ended.” I’d say something to encourage him going forward, because he can still have a very good and useful contribution through his work, and through his love for his wife and his children—and he shouldn’t let this incident cause him despair. There is reason to pray for him. This story is far from over. A January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 53

F E AT U R E S

UNSAFE OFTEN VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL ABUSE,

WOMEN TRAPPED IN THE NATION’S HOMELESSNESS CRISIS HAVE PARTICULAR NEEDS AND VULNERABILITIES BY SOPHIA LEE

ary Nolan was having a wonderful 10th birthday. She had two parties that day and was walking home from the second one when a man grabbed her, slammed her onto a snowbank, and raped her. Nolan didn’t understand exactly what was happening: All she knew was that this man was hurting her, and she couldn’t stop him. Nolan says that was Dec. 22, 1964, in Moquah, Wis.—the day she learned about evil. Evil met her again on the streets of Hollywood on April 12, 1994. Nolan says she was walking home from her telecommunications job at Warner Bros. when six young men dragged her into their car at gunpoint. They brutalized her for 14 hours, then tossed her into a dark alley, bleeding and broken. Two homeless men living behind dumpsters saw her roll out onto the gravel. They immediately wheeled her on their shopping cart to the nearest hospital. She survived, but had crushed cheekbones, a broken jaw, no upper teeth, and a tear in her perineum wall that required 247 stitches. Since then, Nolan’s life has not been the same. Frequent panic attacks from PTSD led Nolan to quit her job and stick to a low-paying inventory job where she had less risk of triggers. Today, Nolan is 64 with sun-browned hands, determined hazel eyes, and a round face lined from sun rays and grief and throaty laughter. She is also homeless. She lost her last job 10 years ago and hasn’t found a new one since. She had been sleeping in a tent at an alley on Venice Beach until five days before Christmas, when a local homeless service provider found her a temporary bed at a transitional shelter in Santa Monica. Ever since the 1994 gang rape, she has vowed, “I won’t let a man ever touch me like that again. I’d rather die first.” She

54 WORLD Magazine • January Magazine • January 19, 19, 2019 2019

photos by Greg Schneider/ Genesis

gave two black eyes and a broken nose to the last boyfriend who raised his fist at her. Today she carries a can of pepper gel and a baton wherever she goes. But some nights, she still has nightmares and wakes up screaming. Nolan is one of thousands of women who are homeless partly or mainly due to experience with violence. Studies show that a majority of homeless women are victims of violence: Women who finally leave abusive relationships often have nowhere to go, and many resort to trading sex for shelter, food, money, alcohol, or drugs. Alone on the streets, homeless women become especially vulnerable to abuse, manipulation, and murder. In Los Angeles and Orange County, advocates are raising awareness for the plight of homeless women and pushing leaders to create more shelters for women. One of those advocates is Mel Tillekeratne of Monday Night Mission, a nonprofit that feeds the homeless. Tillekeratne, who immigrated from Sri Lanka, founded the organization in 2011 after making a wrong turn into the heart of Skid Row, a 54-block area with the most concentrated homelessness in the nation. There he encountered streets clotted with tents, cardboard beds, litter, and the stench of human excrement—the scene was so bad he at first thought he’d Mary Nolan driven onto a movie set. outside her After meeting homeless individuals tent in Venice night after night for more than seven Beach years, Tillekeratne now understands that the problem is more than hunger. His list of services has grown to include Shower of Hope, a mobile service that provides showers, laundry, food, clothing, and haircuts to the homeless, but none of the food donations and showers matter, he says, if women are still going back to a life of abuse and despair.

S PA C E S

Homeless women are the most vulnerable and abused population, yet not enough resources and help are available for them. According to the last official count, Los Angeles County has 11,000 unsheltered homeless women, and the city has 7,000 more. (Tillekeratne and other social workers say the actual number of unsheltered women is probably much higher.) Even so, very few year-round shelter beds are available to women. One night at the Monday Night Mission, a petite 56-yearold whom Tillekeratne had befriended approached him with tear-glistening eyes. “Don’t say nothing,” she warned him. Tillekeratne was alarmed: “Tell me. Tell me what happened.” After some coaxing, the woman finally told him she had just been raped. Tillekeratne jumped up: “There’s a police station a block away. Let’s go. They’ll take care of you.” The woman let out a laugh: “What do you think will happen when I go to the police? I sleep in a tent. If I snitch, they’ll kill me or rape me worse than before.” Last January, tens of thousands of people thronged downtown LA to participate in the Women’s March, where celebrity speakers urged fellow women to fight for their rights. These demonstrators were screaming about empowering women three blocks away from Skid Row—where 9 out of 10 women say they’ve experienced physical or sexual violence—yet nobody was speaking for the homeless women there. Tillekeratne was aghast: “How can you talk about #MeToo and completely ignore the most vulnerable and exposed population?” That was when Tillekeratne realized he could use this throbbing social energy for a more specific cause. Playing off the #MeToo hashtag, Tillekeratne came up with #SheDoes (short for “Yes, she does deserve shelter”) and peppered it across social media. The message: Let’s focus on placing homeless women into shelters until they can move into more stable housing. The movement took off. More than 7,000 Angelenos signed a #SheDoes petition. People waved #SheDoes signs at the steps of LA City Hall and showed up at budget meetings to lobby for more women-only shelters. LA Mayor Eric Garcetti declared a “shelter crisis” and announced the city would set aside $20 million to build more emergency shelters, plus an additional $10 million for related costs. Garcetti promised to reserve six shelters for women, and publicly thanked the #SheDoes group for its advocacy. The first shelter, called “bridge housing,” opened in September in downtown LA. As the need for shelters became more visibly dire, the state granted LA County another $80 million-plus to fund shelters and other emergency aid. Advocates rejoiced—but realized the battle still ahead when hundreds of residents in various neighborhoods marched to protest planned temporary shelters in their region, stalling progress on the project. hat battle for shelters is also hostile in Orange County, where a federal judge recently ordered officials to provide beds for the county’s growing homeless population before enforcing anti-camping laws. The judge expressed particular concern for women who were abuse victims, or who might become one. Even local resi-

56 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

Mel Tillekeratne (above); a homeless woman (right) enjoys coffee from Tillekeratne’s outreach.

dents who protested the county’s shelter proposal told me they were more open to specific shelters for homeless women. According to the last count, half of the 4,800 homeless people in Orange County are unsheltered, and about 20 percent of the unsheltered are unaccompanied women— meaning no spouse or children. Yet only one women-only transitional housing shelter in the entire county takes in unaccompanied women—WISEPlace—and it has just 30 beds. Kathi Bowman, who retired as the shelter’s executive director this year, told me she’s seen the number of homeless women balloon over her 22 years at WISEPlace (short for “Women, Inspired, Supported, Empowered”). Back in March, the organization temporarily opened up its gym for 60 additional women. Bowman said she still had to turn some women away due to lack of space: “We just don’t have enough women-only shelters.” Many of these women had refused to go to coed shelters but agreed to WISEPlace because they felt safer among women. Most were in their 50s, and one woman was 83. Sitting in the waiting room, I met Cyndi Utzman-Griffin, a 53-year-old spunky brunette who had just gotten her first haircut in a long time. She fluffed out her freshly shampooed curls. “Can you believe it?” she chirped. “I have hair spray to fix my hair! I have lipstick!” Homeless for the past year, Utzman-Griffin said she was once a wife, mother, and businesswoman in San Juan Capistrano. She ran an electrical contracting business and lived in a big house. Her husband was a deacon, and she served in various ministries at church. “But we were living in sin and drinking all the time,” she recalled. “We weren’t obedient to God, though we sure looked like it.” In 2014, her son died by suicide, and Utzman-Griffin turned to meth: “When you wake up in the morning and you’re so hopeless and things are so hard, dope is the only thing that takes your mind off things.” Her husband left her

Utzman-Griffin had just landed a new office job the day I met her. WISEPlace was paying for her grief counseling, meant to help her process the trauma of her son’s suicide and her abuse. She no longer had to fret about not having clean underwear, about finding a place to relieve herself, or about how she looked. For once, she felt hope. “I used to think that hymn ‘It Is Well with My Soul’ was the dumbest song ever. Now I get that song. I see through Proverbs that I’ve been very foolish. God has completely changed who I am,” she said. “He must love me. … You can’t go through what I’ve been through and not know it’s love.” ack at the Santa Monica shelter, Mary Nolan is applying for a housing voucher, but knows it may take her months or years to find housing. So she waits. Meanwhile, she’s determined to live with hope. Life’s an adventure, she told me: “I’ve had as many good times as I have had bad times.” On her 64th birthday, she took the three-hour metro ride to Buena Park to attend Medieval Times, a dinner show that involves jousting, horses, and falcons. She might be homeless, but she still finds ways to enjoy life and bristles when people call her old. “Excuse me!” she exclaims. “I’m not old!” But fear is ever-present: Weeks before I first spoke to her, a hit-and-run driver ran over a homeless man who was sleeping on the sidewalk near her tent. Eddie Davis was a 35-year-old father of two young girls. He had just jackpotted on subsidized housing and was spending his last night as a homeless man when an SUV struck him at 1:30 a.m. and charged off. Nolan was sleeping in a tent only a few feet away and tried to save him with CPR, but his lungs were crushed and all she got was blood in her mouth—and the reminder that all it takes is a reckless driver to pluck her from this world. Her baton and mace can’t protect her from all the terrible dangers of life on the streets. “Eddie was my friend,” she said, still looking dazed weeks later. “I breathed the last breath into him.”

and cut her off. She eventually found herself camping near a riverbed. To avoid bumping into people she knew, she rummaged through trash cans for food only after sundown. When she met a man who showed her attention, she clung to him, even when he took her money and choked her so hard that he left marks around her neck. She tried to leave him, but had nowhere else to go and kept returning, still desiring his approval, still craving his touch. One day, she read in her Bible, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God,” and something hit her. She resolved to quit meth and seek help, and ended up at an emergency shelter in

‘God has completely changed who I am. He must love me. … You can’t go through what I’ve been through and not know it’s love.’ —Cyndi Utzman-Griffin Santa Ana. There she had a hot meal and a mat to lie on in a room packed with 150 people who didn’t wash and screamed foul words throughout the night. When she heard about WISEPlace and its women-only program, she borrowed a razor to shave, tried to do her hair, and showed up for her interview nervous, excited, and desperate. When WISEPlace accepted her, she felt like doing cartwheels.  slee@wng.org  @sophialeehyun

Nolan has endured her share of suffering but says she still believes in God: “Hey, it’s not His fault.” She shudders to think about that night in 1994 when she was assaulted, but marvels, “God put those two homeless men behind the dumpster to save me. Don’t know why! But He knows.” So she prays every day that she will live another day, because life even as a homeless woman is worth living. A January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 57

NOTEBOOK Lifestyle / Politics / Religion / Science

Lifestyle

Keeping abortions out of Birmingham

PRO-LIFERS SEEK TO STALL PLANNED PARENTHOOD CONSTRUCTION AND BUILD A HOPEFUL, PRO-LIFE COMMUNITY by Kim Henderson in Birmingham, Ala. The undeveloped lot cornering Birmingham’s First Avenue North and I-65 is empty, save for fastfood wrappers, neglected grass, and a few “No Trespassing” signs. From a nearby overpass, commuters eying the skyline of Alabama’s Magic

KIM HENDERSON

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City probably wouldn’t notice the lot, but they may soon if proposed construction materializes. Planned Parenthood Southeast has spent $430,600 to secure the spot with the intent to relocate its current Birmingham center to the downtown property.

Undeveloped lot now owned by Planned Parenthood

The possibility of the abortion industry kingpin occupying such a visible piece of Alabama real estate has set pro-lifers on edge. “When people drive into our city, they can see all these cool things from the interstate—Vulcan [Park], Regions Field, Railroad Park,” Pastor Terry Gensemer of CEC for Life told a crowd in June. (CEC is an acronym for Charismatic Episcopal Church.) “Imagine a huge Planned Parenthood sitting front and center to all of that. It could become the symbol of Birmingham.” High visibility isn’t the only concern. Gensemer says his group January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 59

NOTEBOOK

Lifestyle

60 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

Top: Terry Gensemer and other pro-life advocates call on the state to shut down New Woman All Women Health Care in 2012; bottom: Matthew and Natalie Brumfield.

video depicts the 6-year-old sporting his favorite light red blazer and his new mom in red pumps. The Brumfields’ pro-life efforts have attracted the attention of French documentary makers. A journalist and a cameraman in July flew from Paris to watch the family cook lunch, go to church, and say grace. “They wanted to know what being pro-life had to do with our faith,” Natalie recalled. “They couldn’t believe the kids had Bibles and actually read them.”

Natalie traces her concern for the unborn to age 7, when she accompanied her dad to pray outside a Jackson, Miss., abortion center. The pair became a fixture on the sidewalks, so much so that someone inside the facility notified them when a family friend made an appointment to terminate her secret pregnancy. “To this day, we don’t know who called, but we reached out to the young woman and she chose the gift of adoption. I experienced the difference loving on someone can make, and it put a passion in me,” Brumfield remembers. The passion continued during her years at the University of Georgia. “I was around girls making these kinds of choices, and I spoke about it as chaplain of my sorority. I spoke life into girls.” Speaking life into girls is a goal of her work in Alabama, too. As she counsels at a local crisis pregnancy center, Brumfield sees new hope: Alabama voters in November decided to add language to their state constitution that recognizes the rights of unborn children. Meanwhile, the lot at First Avenue North and I-65 remains much as it was. Garbage collects in mud puddles. Mourning doves, with their sorrowful calls, light and leave. Still, Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Barbara Ann Luttrell said a 2019 groundbreaking is imminent. For his part, pastor Gensemer predicts the organization will have a hard time finding building contractors in Birmingham: “We’ve already contacted some by registered letter. We’re going to fight this prayerfully, legally, and peacefully.” A

GENSEMER: JAY REEVES/AP • BRUMFIELDS: KIM HENDERSON

believes, based on public records and their own investigations, that the last abortion at a Planned Parenthood in Birmingham happened over a year ago. He hopes the new location doesn’t change that: “Birmingham is virtually abortion free, and we want to keep it that way.” It isn’t that Planned Parenthood hasn’t tried to facilitate more abortions. The Alabama Department of Public Health in 2010 put the Birmingham location on probation after a Live Action sting revealed the center failed to report a claim of statutory rape. The felonious undertow continued in 2014, when officials shuttered the facility for 10 months. This time employees were selling drugs in the parking lot. As director of Birmingham Bound4Life, Natalie Brumfield knows from public records that her city’s Planned Parenthood branch has a laundry list of other, less-publicized violations—improper hand washing, poor records management, botched abortions, failure to sterilize medical instruments. For more than 10 years, she’s been a regular on the sidewalks outside Planned Parenthood’s aging building. She’s prayed, counseled, and worn Bound4Life’s trademark red mouth tape. “The idea is to show we’re praying, not protesting. We’re pleading with a higher court and displaying solidarity with the voiceless,” Brumfield explains. “I’ve had women and boyfriends come pray with me. Sometimes they change their minds.” The 35-year-old blogger is also true to Bound4Life’s adoption emphasis. She and her husband, Matthew, began fostering within 14 months of saying “I do” and have since adopted three children. The oldest was on his way to a special facility before they stepped in. “We were his fifth, and last, chance,” Natalie recalls. “At the time, we were the only foster family in Alabama that didn’t have other children in the home, and that’s what Braxton had to have.” The court action decreeing Braxton a Brumfield has been posted on YouTube. Featuring Mandi Mapes’ adoption theme song, “This Love,” the

NOTEBOOK

Politics

Leftward shift

THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS SHOWED LESS-CHURCHED AMERICANS ARE TRENDING DEMOCRATIC by Henry Olsen Much post-midterm election analysis focused on the role education and place of residence played in the outcome. It’s true that educated suburbanites moved toward the Democrats and less-educated whites in rural areas or small towns stuck with the Republicans. But another, less-recognized shift took place among America’s less-observant but religious voters, and it could have important implications for the two parties’ political prospects. Our ongoing culture wars have long meant that religious extremes are sharply aligned by political party. White evangelical Protestants have been the Republican Party’s mainstay for nearly 15 years, voting for the GOP by a 50- to 70-point margin. Those without religious affiliation have long been the Democratic Party’s bastion, regularly giving it 40- to 50-point margins. These patterns did not change much in the midterms. Opposite poles regarding religious observance also have long shaped our politics, and those patterns also remained largely unchanged in 2018. The one-third of Americans who attend services at least weekly offered Republican House candidates a 20-percentage-point advantage in 2016 and an 18-point advantage in 2018. The share of those who never attend religious services rose from 22 percent of the electorate in 2016 to 27 percent in 2018, but the Democratic advantage among this group rose only slightly, from 35 points to 38 points. Had the rest of the electorate behaved like the poles in each measure of religious belief and practice, Republicans would not have lost 40 seats in the House. Their large losses were mainly due to much larger shifts among America’s mushy religious middle. Catholics, non-Protestant Christians, and religious non-Christians

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all shifted away from Republicans by significant margins in 2018. Catholics increased their share of the electorate to 26 percent (up from 23 percent) and went from a 7-point Republican advantage in 2016 to a 1-point Democratic lead in 2018. Adherents of non-Christian faiths, about 10 percent of the electorate, moved even more decisively in favor of Democrats, increasing Democratic leads among them by 15 percentage points. “Other Christians”—a group that includes Mormons, Orthodox, and Christians who do not call themselves Protestant or Catholic—moved 9 points in the Democrats’ favor. Together these groups constituted 60 percent of the total electorate in 2018. That means most of the shift to the Democrats occurred in these less-studied Voters cast their groups. ballots for the 2018 The shift to midterm elections the Democrats at the Government is even more and Judicial Center in Noblesville, Ind. pronounced

when one examines frequency of worship. Voters who attend religious services a few times a month moved from a 9-point Republican advantage to a 6-point Democratic lead. And those who attend only a few times a year—perhaps for Easter and Christmas—moved leftward even more dramatically. In 2016 they voted Republican by a 4-point margin. In 2018, they voted Democratic by a whopping 24-point margin. This statistic helps us make sense of another finding, the drop in Republican support among white evangelicals. While this is still a strongly Republican group, the GOP’s lead here dropped from 69 percent in 2016 to 53 percent in 2018. Since we know that the Republican lead among regular churchgoers barely budged, the logical conclusion is that Republicans lost a lot of ground among evangelicals who rarely practice their faith. The conclusion for 2020 is clear. If Trump and Republicans want to win the election, they must improve their level of support among the weakly churched segments of America. How they can do so is less clear, but the president and his party ignore these findings at their peril. A

January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 61

NOTEBOOK

Religion

Transgender eschatology? BIOLA SCHOLAR RAISES CONTROVERSY AT ETS CONFERENCE by Russell St. John Andy Draycott’s theology is the evangelical equivalent of vanilla ice cream—conservative and widely palatable—but his presentation on transgenderism at the annual Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) conference in November left listeners wondering if Draycott was promoting more exotic flavors. ETS is a society of theologians and Biblical scholars committed to Biblical inerrancy and a belief in the Trinity. Some listeners were therefore surprised to hear Draycott, who teaches at the Talbot School of Theology of Biola University, propose that churches might view “the transgender Christian” as “dying to that old confor-

mity to self and living in newness, without the church being desperately concerned with … genitalia.” Draycott argued that Christians must “prophetically test each other’s word and testimony,” urging churches to welcome those who identify as transgender Christians but also to challenge their testimony. Nevertheless, he left several questions unanswered. Is transgenderism a legitimate identity for a Christian? Is gender dysphoria a result of fallenness? Where do repentance and obedience stand in the life of a self-identifying transgender Christian? Draycott’s 2017 ETS presentation explored

s imilar themes, asking if a person who currently identifies as transgender might receive, at the resurrection, a differently sexed body, such that the sex of the body conforms to the perceived identity of the soul. Biola has fielded questions from theologians and reporters. Draycott recently issued an apology and explanation: “I wish to publicly apologize for the lack of clarity with which I expressed my thinking. … By its nature this eschatological speculation is unverifiable.” Draycott reaffirmed basic evangelical convictions, including

“the goodness of created humans as male and female,” while maintaining that “gender dysphoria or transgender identification are a manifestation of human fallenness.” Draycott acknowledged that repentance and obedience must mark the life of every Christian: “The burden of the paper was on what it must mean for the church to bear with the transgender identifying or gender dysphoric person who turns to or belongs to Christ.” But speculation is not theology, and the Bible does not answer every question a theologian might ask.

PROSPERITY GOSPEL CARS

62 WORLD Magazine • January 19, 2019

ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • GRAYS, LAMBORGHINI: HANDOUT

John Gray, recently installed as pastor of a 22,000-member megachurch in South Carolina, bought his wife a $200,000 Lamborghini Urus SUV for their eighth anniversary. After drawing criticism, Gray defended the purchase, claiming that “not a nickel” of his church salary contributed to the vehicle. Gray, who continues to serve as associate pastor at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston, insisted that his most recent book deal, along with earnings from his Oprah Winfrey Network reality-TV show, financed the purchase. Gray’s wife, Aventer, took to Instagram to defend her husband, writing, “I don’t see anyone screaming about how basketball players drive what they do while you paying $$$ to see them play in arenas and on fields.” Pastor Gray added, “God helped me to make my wife’s dream come true,” asking, “Why not?” Gray said that as long as he behaves in “honorable, ethical and not illegal” ways, no one has the right to question how he chooses to express his love for his wife. But does that reduce Jesus’ ethical teachings to “Don’t do anything illegal”? And, since not everything that is legal is moral, shouldn’t those who serve in ministry stand “above reproach”? Where your Lamborghini is, there your heart will be also. —R.S.J.

NOTEBOOK

Science

Pro-life in the lab PRO-LIFE ADVOCATES PRAISE THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S AGENCY-LEVEL BAN ON FETAL TISSUE RESEARCH by Julie Borg In September, the Trump administration quietly banned scientists employed by the National Institutes of Health from acquiring new human fetal tissue for research. As effects of

PREGNANT: ISTOCK • CHANG’E-4: IMAGINECHINA VIA AP • SUN IN A BOX: DUNCAN MACGRUER/MIT

the ban began to reach research labs later in the year, outraged critics claimed the restraint would impede necessary medical research, such as studies to find a cure for HIV and the Zika virus. But pro-life advocates greeted the measure as a much-needed move to protect the unborn: Fetal tissue for research is usually obtained from aborted fetuses. Congress approved the use of federal funds for fetal tissue research in 1993, during the Clinton presidency. In 2015, following the release of undercover videos that showed the sale of human fetal body parts by Planned Parenthood, the congressional Energy and Commerce Committee formed a panel to investigate human fetal tissue research. Give the gift of clarity: wng.org/giftofclarity

The panel released a report in 2017 describing such research as unproductive and unnecessary for producing medical treatments. The panel’s investigators found that the overwhelming majority of current studies do not require fetal t issue, including studies of the Zika virus. The report advocated the use of other tissue types whenever possible, including adult tissue, stem cells obtained in an ethically uncontroversial manner, and fetal cells procured from the cadavers of stillborn or preborn babies who died naturally. The NIH plans to invest $20 million toward the development of research alternatives to human fetal tissue, Science magazine reported. David Prentice, research director at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, believes this is a good first step and told me there are many ways scientists can accomplish current research goals without the use of fetal tissue. Molecular and cell biologist Tara Sander Lee says ethical standards must always forbid the exploitation of one group of humans, such as unborn babies, for the benefit of another group. “Using the preborn as objects or means of experimentation, no matter what the outcome might prove or promise to be, constitutes an assault against their dignity as human beings created by God,” she told the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

‘SUN IN A BOX’ Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers have developed a new design for storing renewable energy. The system, which they call “sun in a box,” could power a small city around the clock—not just when the sun shines or the wind blows. The system would take heat generated by excess electricity from solar or wind power and store it in tanks of white-hot molten silicon, an abundant element that can withstand temperatures of over 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It would then convert light produced by the glowing silicon back into electricity when needed. The researchers estimate their design would cost half as much as pumped hydroelectric storage, which is currently the cheapest form of gridscale energy storage. A single silicon storage system could power 100,000 homes with renewable energy. —J.B.

INTO THE FAR SIDE In December, China launched a groundbreaking mission to land a spacecraft, the Chang’e 4, on the largely unexplored side of the moon that faces away from Earth. The lander-rover combo will study the composition of the far side and conduct radioastronomy research there, shielded from the radio noise coming from our planet. China also plans to establish a 60-ton space station in 2022 and to launch a Mars rover by the mid-2020s. China’s space program works in cooperation with Russia and European nations but was excluded from the International Space Station. —J.B. January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 63

guage to give us a fresh, unique, yet thoroughly evangelical commentary on the book of Esther. There are few books in the Bible, maybe no other book in the Bible, more relevant to Christian life in a dominant post-Christian culture, hostile to Christianity and powerful enough to enforce its hostility, than the book of Esther. The book of Esther was written to give God’s people hope during periods of hostility by showing God’s faithfulness even when overwhelming odds are arrayed against them. Esther, the displaced Persian teenager, typifies for us American Christians the possibility of living a consequential life in a foreign and hostile environment as part of the social, political and economic dynamics of the unbelieving world.

There are few books in the Bible, maybe no other book in the Bible, more relevant to Christian life in a dominant post-Christian culture, hostile to Christianity and powerful enough to enforce its hostility, than the book of Esther.

ESTHER

TRUMP

A New Political C o m m e n ta r y

Thank goodness Bob Case has broken Queen Esther out of her Sunday school prison! In Esther and Trump, we meet a woman who was flawed and not always brave . . . not a perfect believer and yet, in the providence of God, uniquely positioned to save her people. She faced the challenge, Dr. Case writes, ‘of living a consequential life in a foreign and hostile environment as part of the social, political and economic dynamics of the unbelieving world.’ That makes Esther’s life searingly relevant for Christians in America today. Let us hope we can acquit ourselves as well as the compassionate young queen portrayed here—who, when it mattered, found her courage.

A N e w P o l i t i c a l C o m m e n ta r y

“Thank goodness Bob Case has broken Queen Esther out of her Sunday school prison! In Esther and Trump, we meet a woman who was flawed and not always brave . . . not a perfect believer and yet, in has earned degrees from the University of Washington, European the providence of God, uniquely to(Cologne), saveLondon herSchool people. School ofpositioned Speech and Education Center of Journalism, She Covenant Theological Seminary, Central Washington University and Fuller Theological Seminary. His articles have been published in the Presbyterian Journal, Chrisfaced the challenge, Dr. Case writes, ‘of living a consequential life in tianity Today, WORLD, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, and other magazines and journals. He attends Faith Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, Washington, and a foreign and hostile environment as part of the social, political with his wife of 50 years, Katherine. Bob and Kathy have two married daughters, Karissa and Angela, and four grandchildren. economic dynamics of the unbelieving world.’ That makes Esther’s life searingly relevant for Christians in America today. Let us hope we can acquit ourselves as well as the compassionate young queen portrayed here—who, when it mattered, found her courage.” ~LYNN VINCENT, #1 New York Times bestselling author and Senior Writer, WORLD Magazine Lynn Vincent, #1 New York Times bestselling author and Senior Writer, WORLD Magazine

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ROBERT CASE

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ESTHER & TRUMP

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ESTHER in the AGE of TRUMP

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‘A living martyr’

[ Nov. 24, p. 36 ] Andrew Brunson is a great choice for Daniel of the Year. He has an inspiring story of faith and faithfulness. He is an example and hero to honor. —JEFF DICKERSON / Bloomington, Ill. Thanks for putting out this very inspiring story. Good journalism is a treasure. —WAYNE DeWITT on wng.org

Brunson deserves to be Daniel of the Year, but it helps that President Trump understands what it takes to motivate world leaders to do the right thing. —IGOR SHPUDEJKO / Goodyear, Ariz.

What a powerful and amazing story of God’s grace. Mindy Belz, as always, delivered an excellent article. —BILL MacDONALD on Facebook

Thank God for men

[ Nov. 24, p. 63 ] Thank you to Andrée Seu Peterson for this column. Our culture has become so saturated with man-hate that it was refreshing to be reminded of all the great qualities of men that we take for granted. —ANNE BROWN / Hillsboro, Ore.

This column was frustrating and disappointing. Celebrating men should not happen at the expense of women, by drawing false equivalencies or by ignoring the challenges women face. —ANDREA BENNETT / Franklin Lakes, N.J.

I am so tired of men being trashed. Yes, there are “bad” men out there, but let’s hear it for godly men who treat their wives as Christ cares for His bride. I love having a man open the door for me, carry heavy things for me, and treat me with respect. —ELIZABETH GILMAN / Northfield, Minn.

Generalized statements about men’s superiority are not helpful. Not all of the best composers, writers, or chefs Visit WORLD Digital: wng.org

are men. I wish the article would have spent more time celebrating the unique design of men instead of falling into comparisons. —HANNAH GERRITY / North Hollywood, Calif.

I appreciate so much the hard-working men who come to my house to fix things that are Greek to me: the leaking windows, the broken dishwasher, and the plugged sink. Feminism (of which I am not a fan) has done men such a disservice. —SUSAN FAIN on wng.org

Whether men are the best writers and so on is debatable, but I’ll add a few more of my own. Men are also the best dictators, sex traffickers, pimps, hitmen, torturers, mass murderers, thieves, rapists, exploiters of the poor, and child molesters. Everything that lifts the dreariness of life is anchored not in men but in the hope of the gospel. —ANDREA KIMBER-LOCKE / Wall Township, N.J.

This column made my day. As a man, husband, and father I am concerned that the prevailing belief in our society is that men and women are interchangeable parts. Perhaps Peterson could write a follow-up with her husband: “Thank God for women.” —PAUL JAEDICKE on wng.org

Give women a little credit. I recently led a team that saved a 14-year-old girl from certain death when she nearly hemorrhaged her entire blood volume after delivering a baby. Women can do some pretty tough things too, and probably could even build a house in a pinch. —KERRI BRACKNEY on Facebook

Heaven to pay

[ Nov. 24, p. 14 ] Janie B. Cheaney’s column is a good reminder that all believers will certainly suffer by living righteously. As Jesus clearly told us, it comes with the territory. —STEPHEN LEONARD / Vidalia, Ga.

When the Adversary is trying to destroy all that you and your faith hold dear, there is no room for niceties or pretending both sides are at fault. They are truly the enemy of the gospel. The incivility comes from those who become vicious in the face of even gentle opposition. —TOM BURLEY / Alto, Mich.

It’s better to plant the seeds of ideas than to argue a point to the end; asking questions and planting seeds helps me avoid saying things I later regret. I love this country, but when it is my time to depart I want to have been the fragrance of Christ. —DON SEDERDAHL on wng.org

Whom to believe?

[ Nov. 24, p. 3 ] Most people do not make the effort to investigate news stories properly. As one of my former professors said, read sources from the right, the center, and the left, “and then draw your own conclusion with the mind God gave you.” —RANDY CREWS on wng.org

Silenced speech

[ Nov. 24, p. 28 ] This piece on the European Court of Human Rights has January 19, 2019 • WORLD Magazine 65

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Mailbag

great factual reporting showing the contradictions and relevance of these “court” decisions. —ED SCHICK on wng.org

This column inspires me to keep sounding a sober warning among my countrymen who would sacrifice sacred freedoms on the altar of multiculturalism. —JEFF DANCO / Bridgewater, N.J.

Wit and wisdom

[ Nov. 24 p. 64 ] Marvin Olasky’s column elicited a chortle from this 75-year-old Vietnam vet. That’s a rare event for a self-acknowledged curmudgeon. —JIM HARTMAN on wng.org

Happy fostering

[ Nov. 24, p. 17 ] I recommended Instant Family for family movie night after reading your review, and the

trailer looked engaging and clean. But we weren’t prepared for the language or inappropriate sexual references. Please warn your audience even more strongly about these things when it comes to worthwhile films with a good theme. —DAN LUBBERS / Bozeman, Mont.

The upshot of pot

[ Oct. 27, p. 42 ] Thank you for your excellent articles about marijuana. Corporate America has rammed the gay agenda down our throats, and now, apparently, it is getting ready to ram marijuana down our throats too. I am in favor of America’s version of capitalism, but corporate boards of directors need to take a hard look in the mirror because one day they will be standing before Jesus to give an accounting. For many, I’m guessing, it will not be a happy occasion. —JIM RICHARDSON / Oro Valley, Ariz.

Mere sponge cake

[ Oct. 27, p. 64 ] We see in the Ten Commandments the very essence of our relationship with God and with others. Pandering to seekers’ feelings only reinforces the notion that their feelings are the ultimate measure of all things. I don’t know how you then get to the personal brokenness of a sinner standing before a God and Redeemer worthy of all our focus and love. —RICH ASPER on wng.org