When Do Babies Get Rights?

During a recent interview with an Iowa radio station, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards was asked a really tough question -- at least for her. Host Doug Wagner asked, "At what point does that child -- or that unborn person, fetus -- whatever you want to call it -- at what point does that baby get the constitutional rights?"

Richards said, "Well, I don't really, actually -- I don't know that there's an exact answer for that." Let that sink in for a moment.

After stumbling around a bit, Richards concluded, "Honestly that's not the problem we are facing in America. What we are facing in America is the fact that women in many states have fewer rights to access basic health care. . . I think it's really important that we be honest here about birth control."

What "rights" is she talking about? Besides, I thought Obamacare made birth control free. So what is Richards worried about?

Of course, Richards isn't worried about birth control which is widely available all over America. She's worried about the growing efforts at the state level to limit abortion-on-demand and cut off taxpayer-funding to Planned Parenthood's abortion mills. The "problem facing America," according to Richards, is that there are too few abortions.

For pro-life Americans, Doug Wagner's question is easy to answer. As Ronald Reagan famously put it, "If there's even a question about when human life begins, isn't it our duty to err on the side of life?"

Eight years ago, Pastor Rick Warren asked then-presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain a similar question, "At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?" I hope this year's presidential candidates are asked the same question. There's plenty of time and two more debates to go.

Government Run Amok

Yesterday, President Obama issued orders to all 17 of America's intelligence agencies, offices spanning the entire federal bureaucracy from the Pentagon to the Department of Homeland Security and State Department. Wow! This must be serious.

There are enormous national security issues confronting America today. Somebody, maybe Russia, is hacking state elections offices. North Korea is testing nuclear weapons. China is fortifying artificial islands. Iran is still the world's leading state-sponsor of terrorism. Radical Islamic supremacists are still attacking us.

So, what was the urgent issue at the top of the president's agenda yesterday?

According to the Washington Free Beacon, yesterday's presidential memorandum ordered our intelligence agencies to "expand their provision of training on implicit or unconscious bias . . . and make implicit or unconscious bias training mandatory for senior leadership and management positions, as well as for those responsible for . . . security clearance adjudication."

In other words, for government officials to get a security clearance in the future, they are going to have learn about how bigoted they are.

Feel safer now?

Obama reportedly instructed our spy and security operations to "report back in four months on their progress in collecting information about diversity in their workforces, such as employees' sexual orientation and gender identity."

Rather than collecting information on the bedroom behaviors and imagined bigotry of government workers, I'd prefer our spies and security professionals to be focused on our enemies!

My friends, your tax dollars are paying for this politically correct nonsense, which is going to get people killed.

Poverty Does NOT Breed Terrorism

Whenever the topic of terrorism comes up, some leftist inevitably trots out the absurd claim that poverty breeds terrorism. It is a ridiculous assertion that defies common sense.

Even the World Bank agrees. The World Bank commissioned a study, titled "Economic and Social Inclusion to Prevent Violent Extremism," to figure out the appeal of the Islamic State. It concluded that "poverty is not a driver of radicalization into violent extremism."

The study examined hundreds of ISIS recruits and found that only 17% failed to finish high school. The report stated that "these individuals are far from being uneducated or illiterate. Most claim to have attended secondary school and a large fraction have gone on to study at university."

Now here is a particularly chilling finding: "Foreign recruits from the Middle East, North Africa and South and East Asia are significantly more educated than what is typical in their region." And those jihadis volunteering to be suicide bombers were more educated than the average ISIS fighter.

So if poverty or economic despair and frustration is not driving their rage and their desire to kill infidels, what is? The fact that many were educated should tip off our clueless elites. Other motivation for jihad could well be religion.

I know -- Islam is a religion of peace. Right. Got it. Heard it a thousand times.

But what are the Islamic supremacists telling us? ISIS calls itself the "Islamic State" for a reason. The world's leading state sponsor of terrorism calls itself the "Islamic Republic of Iran." It seems like that word just keeps popping up.

Last year, as many of you may recall, there was an incredible article published in The Atlantic entitled "What ISIS Really Wants." I encourage everyone to read it. But here is a key excerpt:
 

"The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam."

It is easy to blame poverty. But discussions about income inequality and redistribution of wealth won't make the attacks on our civilization go away. The evil that motivates men to commit mass murder runs much deeper than poverty. Perhaps now that the World Bank is at least willing to acknowledge that poverty isn't the problem, we can begin to have a real debate about what is.