An Embryologist, an Embryo and National Adoption Month

Dr. Maureen Condic, a University of Utah bioethicist, was recently appointed to the National Science Board. Appointments are made based on leadership in research, education and distinguished service. She is the first board member from the University of Utah in 50 years and only the second ever.

In a November 8 press release, the associate professor of neurobiology and anatomy and adjunct professor of pediatrics said, “Being appointed to the National Science Board is a tremendous honor for me and for the University of Utah. I am excited to be of service to our country and to the scientific community by bringing a focus on bioethics and biomedical research to this eminent body of scholars.”

Add caption

By sheer coincidence, this columnist was privileged to hear Dr. Condic just last week. She was in Casper to deliver two lectures on human embryology. In the first, she detailed the development of the human embryo for the first week of life. Over the course of this lecture, she explained why all the scientific literature on the subject has concluded that the life of a human being begins at the moment of egg-sperm fusion.

That’s not an exaggeration. Thousands of independent, peer-reviewed publications support this uncontested conclusion. Not a single published study concludes anything other than that human life begins the very second the sperm meets the egg.

Condic’s second presentation built on these basic facts of embryology to examine several of the cutting-edge embryo technologies of our day. She took her audience through In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), “three-parent embryos,” CRISPR gene editing and the like. Her aim was to distinguish between ethical experimentation for healing and repairing human pathologies and unethical experimentation involving injury to and the destruction of human beings.

Only days after her Casper lectures, a baby was brought home to southwest Wyoming who spotlighted the practical implications of what Condic said. Out of respect for her privacy, I will call her Mary.

Mary came into being in July 2014. Her biological parents donated sperm and egg to an IVF clinic. These were brought together in a laboratory where Mary was conceived along with numerous congenital brothers and sisters. Sadly, more children were conceived than were transferred into the womb of a waiting mother. So Mary was frozen at -320 degrees Fahrenheit--along with about a dozen of her siblings.

In a story that repeats itself all too often in IVF clinics around the country, the parents, for whatever reason, never gave Mary the opportunity for birth that they granted to some of her siblings. For more than three years she was in suspended animation, cryogenically frozen in liquid nitrogen.

In the United States alone, there are over 700,000 people indefinitely frozen as the “leftover” results of IVF procedures. Many of these children did not survive the freezing process, but we cannot know which ones until they are thawed. Those who did survive the freezing may die in the cold before ever feeling the warmth of a mother’s womb.

People are in general agreement that adults should never be frozen against their will. It is strange that this basic courtesy is not offered to the youngest and smallest. Countries as diverse as Bulgaria, Spain and Finland regulate the limits of IVF in various ways—including the number of embryos that can be transferred at one time. Similar limits that stem the out-of-control production of frozen embryos are not a perfect solution, but they could mitigate one of the most glaring ethical problems of IVF. There are others as well.

America’s IVF industry has virtually no regulation. The $4 billion industry lobbies incessantly against even the most common-sense laws. Meanwhile, the average citizen has no idea that the IVF industry has become such a powerful, unregulated and unethical creator of embryonic people with a bleak future. This is a scandal of epidemic proportions.

Besides passing laws to prevent or slow the freezing of still more embryos, many are wondering what to do with hundreds of thousands of abandoned children. Unethical scientists are eager to destroy them in various kinds of human experimentation. But others are looking to give them mercy.

One such organization is the Nightlight adoption agency. In 1997, it pioneered the very first adoption of a cryopreserved embryonic child. Considering the uniqueness of each frozen embryo, the agency dubbed its service “Snowflake adoption.” The adoptive parents of this first-ever “Snowflake baby” called her “Hannah,” which means “gift of God.” She turns 21 this year, and there have been more than 600 Snowflake babies since.

Hannah Strege

Embryo adoption begins with parents of frozen IVF embryos who are experiencing regrets and want to do something for their children. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that there are as many as 60,000 such embryos. These are painstakingly matched with parents who are willing to adopt the embryos and care for them in the best way they can.

Embryo adoption is not simply an alternate and cheaper route to IVF. Embryo adoption begins with a courageous and unqualified love for those adopted. Adoptive parents are not focused on “achieving a pregnancy.” They are focused on the frozen children themselves and doing whatever is in their best interest.

There are plenty of risks and heartaches along the way. The transfer process is an emotional roller-coaster, fraught with uncertainties. Adoptive parents may grieve to find that some of the children did not survive the freezing process. Others, unwilling to refreeze multiple living embryos, may risk multiple births in order to give their adopted children the best chance.

Those children brought to birth have an elevated chance of genetic abnormalities later in life. That’s the reality of any IVF process. Adoptive parents have been facing unknown risks alongside their children since adoption began. Embryo adoption is no exception.

Another injustice of the IVF industry is that embryos are not covered by current adoption laws. Rather, frozen embryos are treated as property by the state. They can be bought and sold, created and destroyed without any regard to their humanity at all.

Adoption agencies that value human life refuse to limit themselves to property law. They insist that applicants for embryo adoption be subjected to the same rigorous standards that any other husband and wife would go through before adopting a child. This process gives assurance to the parents of the embryo that their child will be well cared for. It also treats the child with the human dignity he or she deserves.

Not all Christian ethicists agree with embryo adoption. They wonder whether the practice will encourage unethical IVF profiteers to create even more frozen embryos. They worry that adoptive couples will focus more on the achievement of pregnancy than on the well-being of the child. Some have even compared embryo adoption to surrogacy, which creates a nine-month bond between mother and child only to break the bond in fulfillment of a monetary contract.

Embryo adoption is the very opposite of surrogacy. It is a gift to the child, not child abuse. Moreover, those who act unethically can be answered by sound, child-centered laws and clear pastoral counseling. Most of all, the concrete and compassionate care of the actual people who are literally frozen in time should not be denied because of the potential wrong doing of some.

November is National Adoption Month and the Saturday after Thanksgiving was National Adoption Day. In his Oct. 31, proclamation, the President said, “Adoption affirms the inherent value of human life and signals that every child—born or unborn—is wanted and loved.  Children, regardless of race, sex, age, or disability, deserve a loving embrace by families they can call their own.” Snowflake adoption is no different. It ought to be recognized in adoption law.

Statistically, the number of children rescued from the frozen state is negligible. Even after more than 600 live births, that still represents less than one tenth of a percent of America’s frozen embryos. But in the face of overwhelming numbers, the story cannot be told with statistics. True proportion is found in individual lives. For the people whose lives have been rescued, this is undisputable.  Watch Hannah’s uplifting video to see for yourself.

I had the privilege to ask Mary, too. Holding the six-pound, eleven-ounce newborn in my arms, I looked into her laughing eyes. Her big smile and soft coos lit up the room. Not only was her own joy at life obvious to all, she also brought joy to parents, grandparents, aunts and her nephew. With her entire being she told me that she was no longer a faceless statistic. She is a real person who has been freed from years in a frozen prison. Her life was God’s gift to the world over four years ago. Now that gift is unleashed to bless us all.

WTE: The Management Council should update policy to make your vote count

Wyomingites recently elected 90 honorable men and women to represent them at the capital. Representation is not only for voting, it is also for arguing, compromising and persuading. Our representative republic is designed for thoughtful and respectful discussion. This means free and unfettered speech.

Any encumbrances on the free speech of our representatives inhibits them from doing the job that you sent them to do. That’s why Management Council Policy 02-02 needs to be fixed.

It is not a state law, but an in-house employment policy created 16 years ago to address sexual harassment among employees in the Legislative Services Office (LSO). But this policy meant to govern at will employees now threatens the free speech of our elected representatives.

There is already a Permanent Joint Rule (22-1) that holds all elected officials accountable to established ethics rules as well as the same state laws that govern all Wyoming citizens. This rule has procedures that honor the electoral process and treat members of the Legislature differently from their hired help, Policy 02-02 lists your elected representatives right along-side LSO staff, interns and pages.

Under this umbrella, that Policy sets up a different set of rules, and a different way to investigate and punish them. Not only so, but it gives the accuser the option to set aside Joint Rule 22-1 and subject a legislator to Policy 02-02, instead. The accused gets no voice in the matter.

Joel Funk, a reporter for the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, wrote, in a December 22, 2017 article, that LSO Director, Matt Obrecht, doesn’t think Joint Rule 22-1 is adequate. Even though it covers “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature,” including “sexual assault or a pattern of behavior.” He doesn’t think it is able to deal with an “inappropriate comment.”

Obrecht told Funk, “I don’t think that one comment should trigger a 22-1 investigation.” Instead, a single comment can trigger an investigation under Management Council Policy 02-02.

What kind of comments are we talking about? What could merit “written reprimand, mandatory increased anti-discrimination or sexual harassment training, reassignment of duties, loss of legislative responsibilities or assignments, censure, expulsion or other corrective action”?

As we have seen elsewhere, these are not blasphemies against God or disgusting, profanity-laced outbursts. Rather, comments punishable by Policy 02-02 could include comments like: “Children have a right to know their natural mother and father and to be raised by them.” “Nobody has the right to surrogacy, or the buying and selling of human eggs.” “Sex is an objective fact, discoverable by biological science.” “Men should not compete in women’s sports or be allowed entry into women-only facilities.”

Such reasonable and scientifically defensible statements are respectful and true. But new language added to Policy 02-02 subjects people to the charge of harassment or discrimination just for speaking them. Last February the Management Council inserted the language of “sexual orientation and gender identity” (SOGI) as “protected characteristics.”

Language like this has been used across the nation to restrict free speech. It is often approved by people of good heart who have no desire to discriminate against anybody, but who have no idea that this language labels normal, everyday speech “discrimination.”

Ruth Neely of Pinedale was one of those good-hearted people. She served on the committee that added SOGI language to Wyoming rules for judicial ethics. Three years later she learned the consequences of such language. Suddenly common-sense words suitable for her Sunday school classroom were labeled “discrimination” and she was removed from her magistracy.

Her case is one of hundreds across the country. SOGI language, once inserted into policy, becomes a trap that can be sprung at any time. Washington state enacted its own SOGI law in 2006. But the state never prosecuted itself for failing to recognize same-sex unions. Instead, it waited seven years before prosecuting a grandmotherly florist, Baronelle Stutzman, for this new “crime” that nobody knew existed.

Since 2011 the Wyoming Legislature has repeatedly declined to enact such unjust laws that make the very same action or comment acceptable today and punishable tomorrow. Nobody can live and work in such a toxic environment.

Our Management Council should not subject the legislators to laws that they, themselves have found unjust. The Wyoming legislature should be a place where robust and honest searching for the truth is encouraged. Timeless truths should not be punishable by reprimand, reindoctrination, and reassignment of duties.

Thankfully, Policy 02-02 is on the agenda for the December meeting of the Management Council. Every duly elected legislator should want to right these wrongs. And all voters have a vested interest in making sure that it no longer stifles the voice of their elected representatives.

The Federalist: Why Parents Should Be Able To Adopt The 700,000 Frozen Embryos IVF Has Left Behind

 

With her entire being, she told me that she was no longer a faceless statistic. She is a real person who has been freed from years in a frozen prison.

University of Utah bioethicist Maureen Condic was recently appointed to the National Science Board. Appointments are made based on leadership in research, education, and distinguished service. She is the first board member from the University of Utah in 50 years and only the second ever.

Continue reading on the Federalist.

Reflections on the human face

The human face has 42 muscles. Some of these let you perform the basic functions of life, like chewing and breathing. But far more of what they do has nothing to do with life-sustaining functions. Facial muscles are so arranged that human beings can also create an incredible variety of expressions.

We can furrow our eyebrows, purse our lips, grin like a Cheshire cat or frown like the Grinch. We talk with our faces. In fact, human facial muscles are as important to human communication as are words. If you have ever tried to have an important conversation by email, text, or social media you know the inadequacy of non-facial communication.

No matter how many words we type and text, print and publish, our most important communications will always take place face to face. That’s why proposals of marriage are not done by email. That’s why we go to church and don’t only read the Bible. That’s why people gather in family rooms and travel to business meetings. Nations even spend millions of dollars to send ambassadors, secretaries and heads of state all over the world to speak face to face.

Our bodies declare that we were meant to communicate face to face. It’s literally in our DNA. We have muscles, skin and skeletal features that serve no other purpose.

Some would say that this is a remarkable product of evolution. I think that’s hogwash. Such theories assume that everything can be boiled down to pragmatism. Evolutionists will theorize that somehow people who had the special muscles which enabled them to smile were more fit to survive than those who didn’t.

Evolutionary theory cannot find purpose in anything. It can only see random developments either surviving or dying in the meat-grinder of nature. What a purposeless world! No wonder that decades of teaching it to our school children has created so many pessimistic people.

For my part, I am quite certain that we could survive just as well without faces. We would just have a lot less joy. Faces are for fun, not survival. Evolutionary theory is the most joyless and bleak worldview that anyone can have.

That’s why I have never met an evolutionist that believes their own theory 100 percent. Purposelessness is its soft underbelly. Committed evolutionists like Neil Degrasse Tyson try to cheer you up by telling you that you are made of stardust. But so is a cockroach. Big deal. Without purpose life has no meaning.

The more thoughtful evolutionists generally seek purpose by talking about “saving the human race.” But this doesn’t stand up to evolutionary standards. If human beings evolved from a meaningless single-cell organism and are evolving into something better still, saving the human race has about as much meaning as saving a strain of pneumonia cells.

But where evolutionary theory has no place for play, joyful exuberance is at the center of God’s creation. Creation tells about a God who did something that He didn’t have to do—something that wasn’t necessary for his survival. He made things and people for the sheer joy of making them.

You don’t get more optimistic than that. Who would literally move heaven and earth just to express his eternal love? God would. Not only does this account of the world make loads more scientific sense than any of the current evolutionary theories, it is also way more joyful.

It also helps to explain how we got faces.

What if I told you that God put 42 muscles into your face because he delights in your delight? When we talk to one another face to face, we use muscles and make expressions which have nothing to do with our survival. They have everything to do with our joy.

Those muscles have meaning. They didn’t just evolve and survive the meat grinder. They have been there all along. They are characteristic of being human. They make us uniquely suited for community. They make us not just a community of minds, but a community of bodies.

All of this also means that faces are forever. If having faces means anything, it means that we are not going to evolve away from having faces. Your face is an integral part of who you are. When you fully communicate yourself to others, you are not just projecting bodiless thoughts. But your very skin and muscles are an inseparable part of communicating yourself. That’s not going to change with time.

Knowing all this, we know ourselves better. Human beings are not just minds haphazardly encased in randomized bodies. Your face is an integral part of who you are; without it, you cannot fully communicate yourself to others. What is more, it’s not just your face that is integral to who you are, so is your entire body.

This observation is a corrective to one of the strangest phenomena of our day. Among those encumbered by an evolutionary worldview there are many who are estranged from their own body. They drive a wedge between the mind and the body, as though these are not only separable from one another, but at war with one another.

That’s tragic and it leads to much suffering and death. This suffering and death is both self-inflicted and inflicted on others. Whenever human beings have come to think that certain bodies don’t matter, they have done the most terrible things to those bodies—and therefore, to those people.

Such a tragic worldview cannot arise in a mind that reflects on its own face. If your face is an integral part of who you are, so is the rest of your body. And who you are is not a tragedy, but an exuberant and joyful work of God.

One of the great ironies of our day is the phenomenon called “Facebook.” There in cyberspace 2.6 billion people are trying to communicate without using their faces. Through a flurry of fingers on the keyboard, people try to communicate more and more content to more and more “friends.”

Has this project improved the human race? I think not. It has not helped to unify us, but only to polarize. It has not helped us to love one another, but it sure adds to the hate. It has not enhanced the discussion of the most important things but made such discussion nearly impossible. In short, it has created far more enemies than friends.

You are not just a mind with a bundle of thoughts. You are a person—body and soul. The very concept of “person” came from the Greek word for “face”. The most important things that you will ever do in your life involve your body.

So, don’t sell it short. Let’s spend more time using our faces again. It’s one of your most God-like features. It enables you to spread joy and love that is not necessary for your survival. It is totally exuberant and unnecessary. It is what makes life worth living, and what makes you most human.

Fourth Annual WPN Conference

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

10:00 am Dr. William C. Weinrich, Gnosticism--Ancient and Modern: an overview of the Gnostic worldview and gnostic writings concluding with a summary of how this heresy is appearing in modern discourse.

11:25 am Rev. Jonathan G. Lange, WPN, the Pastor in the Public Square: tells the history of the Wyoming Pastor's Network and breaks down the reason for the name. He concludes with some reflections on the pastor in the public square.

1:30 pm Dr. Maureen L. Condic, Embryology 101: presents an overview of the first week of embryonic development, centering on the unanimous scientific conclusion that a new and unique human life begins at the moment of egg-sperm fusion.

2:45 pm Dr. Weinrich, Transhumanism: introduces us to the fascinating and troubling movement which aims to evolve the human species past all bodily limitations.

4:00 pm Dr. Gregory G. Marino, Palliative Care as Pro-Life Strategy: gives an overview on the challenges of palliative care and demonstrates how it is best used to enhance not only the quality, but the length of life.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

9:15 am Dr. Maureen L. Condic, Embryonic Ethics: Explains the details of hormonal contraceptives, cloning, three-parent embryos and gene editing, helping us discern between useful science and unethical human experimentation.

10:50 am Dr. William C. Weinrich, Theology of the Body: gives an overview of the Theology of the Body and its importance for human thriving. He concludes the conference with several points that they Church should be emphasizing today.

• Note: Files are linked on Dropbox. The opening screen invites you to sign up for an account, but this is not necessary to downloading the files. Simply decline and move to the file.

PRESENTERS

William C. Weinrich, D. Theol. 
is professor of early church and patristic studies at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind., where he has taught since 1975. During his tenure at the seminary, he has served as supervisor of the STM program (1986–1989), dean of the graduate school (1989–1995), and academic dean (1995–2006). He also served the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia as rector of its theological school, the Luther Academy, in Riga, Latvia (2007–2010). He served The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod as third vice-president (1998–2001) and as fifth vice-president (2001–2004). He retired at the rank of lieutenant colonel from the Indiana Air National Guard after serving as chaplain (1978–2004).
 
Dr. Weinrich received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Oklahoma (1967; Phi Beta Kappa) and his Master of Divinity degree from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Mo. (1972). He studied under Bo Reicke and Oscar Cullmann at the University of Basel, Switzerland, receiving the degree of Doctor of Theology in 1977. He edited the volume on Revelation for the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series and translated two ancient Greek commentaries (Oecumenius, Andrew of Caesarea) and four Latin commentaries (Victorinus, Apringius, Caesarius of Arles, Bede) on Revelation for the Ancient Christian Texts series. Dr. Weinrich has published many articles and has lectured frequently for pastors and laity.

Maureen L. Condic, PhD
is an Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah, School of Medicine, with an adjunct appointment in the Department of Pediatrics. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago, her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley, and postdoctoral training at the University of Minnesota.

Since her appointment at the University of Utah in 1997, Dr. Condic's primary research focus has been the development and regeneration of the nervous system. In 1999, she was awarded the Basil O'Connor Young Investigator Award for her studies of peripheral nervous system development. In 2002, she was named a McKnight Neuroscience of Brain Disorders Investigator, in recognition of her research in the field of spinal cord repair and regeneration. Her current research involves the control of human stem cell potency and differentiation.

In addition to her scientific research, Dr. Condic teaches both graduate and medical students. Her teaching focuses primarily on embryonic development, and she is Director for Human embryology in the University of Utah, School of Medicine’s curriculum. Dr. Condic has a strong commitment to public education and science literacy. She has published and presented seminars nationally and internationally on science policy and bioethics, with recent presentations at Boston University (LaBrecque Lecture in Medical Ethics), The Social Trends Institute, Barcelona, Spain, Princeton University, The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity, Notre Dame University, Belmont Abbey College (Cuthbert Allen lecturer), Vanderbilt University, Human Life International, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, and the Council of the European Union, Kaunas, Lithuania. Dr. Condic currently resides in Salt Lake City with her husband and four children.

Dr. Gregory Marino, DO
Dr. Gregory Marino joined the Welch Cancer Center in Sheridan, WY as its hematology oncology specialist in August 2012. He moved here from Anchorage, Alaska where he had been directing a successful hematology oncology program exclusively for the native populations for the past 11 years. He worked with 229 native Alaskan villages in the 600,000 square miles throughout the state.

Dr. Marino completed medical school in Chicago and his internal medicine residency and hematology/oncology fellowship in San Diego. He is board certified in internal medicine, hematology and medical oncology and he has appointments with eight medical schools. He is passionate about his patients and has special interests in palliative care and medical education.

The Management Council can improve the atmosphere at the capital

Wyoming State Capital Building

Congratulations, Wyoming! You just elected 90 honorable men and women to represent you at the capital. There they will join in a grand scrum of ideas for the next several years. That’s the republican form of government.

Having a representative republic means that instead of every law or policy being voted on directly by the entire populace, the people elect representatives to do the actual voting, arguing, compromising and persuading.

We do this because it would be impractical to have all 563,000 of Wyoming’s citizens participate in every vote, but not only so. It is also because populism doesn’t allow for thoughtful and respectful discussion.

That means our elected representatives are more than just votes, they are voices. We want them to listen to us, but we also want them to speak for us. With no way of knowing what laws and spending proposals will come up in the next few years, we want them to be able to process information, think things through, ferret out the truth and persuade one another of the best course of action.

With such a mandate, it is extremely important that they be able to speak freely—especially that they be able to articulate the truth on the most important topics of our day. Any encumbrances on their free speech, inhibits them from doing the job that you have asked them to do.

That’s why Management Council Policy 02-02 needs to be fixed. It was originally adopted 16 years ago to address sexual harassment in the Legislative Services Office (LSO). It is not even a state law, but an in-house employment policy. That’s why you have probably never heard of it. But it has metastasized beyond its original intent.

Now, it gives a subgroup of legislators the power to control what your elected representative can say. It asserts the authority to receive allegations, to investigate them and to punish them merely for speaking the wrong thing—however that might be defined. That clearly infringes not only on your legislator’s right to free speech, but also on your constitutional right to have a duly elected representative in the capital.

Mind you, Wyoming’s legislature already has a Permanent Joint Rule (22-1) that holds all elected officials accountable to the law and to the agreed-upon rules of ethics. Besides this rule, all legislators are already subject to the same state laws—including sexual harassment and discrimination—that govern all Wyoming citizens.

Management Council Policy 02-02 sets up a different set of rules, and a different way to investigate and punish them. While Joint Rule 22-1 has procedures that honor the electoral process and treat members of the Legislature differently from their hired help, Policy 02-02 lists your elected representatives right along-side LSO staff, interns and pages.

Not only this, but if an allegation is made against your elected representative, Policy 02-02(V.A.1-2) allows the accuser to choose whether he or she wants to follow the Permanent Joint Rule, or the Management Council Policy. The accused member of the legislature gets no say in the matter.

So why does the policy treat elected representatives as employees of the Management Council? Joel Funk, a reporter for the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, published an article last December answering that question. He explained that LSO Director, Matt Obrecht, doesn’t think Joint Rule 22-1 is adequate to address every form of sexual harassment.

According to the Joint Rule “sexual harassment means unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.” This would cover “sexual assault or a pattern of behavior.”

But Obrecht thinks the joint rule is not able to deal with an “inappropriate comment.” He told Funk, “I don’t think that one comment should trigger a 22-1 investigation.” Instead, Obrecht apparently thinks that one comment should trigger an investigation under Management Council Policy 02-02.

What kind of comments are we talking about, here? What could merit “written reprimand, mandatory increased anti-discrimination or sexual harassment training, reassignment of duties, loss of legislative responsibilities or assignments, censure, expulsion or other corrective action”?

Are we talking about blasphemies against God or disgusting, profanity-laced outbursts? No, the comments proscribed by Policy 02-02 could include comments like the following:

• “Children have a right to be raised by their natural mother and father.”
• “We should not change Wyoming law to allow rental of women’s wombs for surrogacy, or the buying and selling of human eggs.”
• “Every child born should have the right to have his or her natural mother and father listed on the birth certificate.”
• “Sex is a fact that is objectively discoverable by biological science.”
• “We should not allow biological males to compete in women’s sports.”
• “I’m sorry, we cannot permit you, a male, go into the women’s restroom.”

These are all reasonable and scientifically defensible statements which are both respectful and true. But since Policy 02-02 was revised last February, anybody who says such things in a legislative setting may, at the caprice of an offended party, be charged with harassment or discrimination just for speaking them.

You see, not only does the Management Council Policy assert authority over elected representatives, it also recently inserted the language of “sexual orientation and gender identity” (SOGI) as “protected characteristics.” Language like this gets inserted by special interests that want to restrict free speech. It is often rubber-stamped by people of good heart who have no desire to discriminate against anybody, but who have no idea that this language calls normal, everyday speech “discrimination.”

Baronelle Stutzman

Ruth Neely of Pinedale was one of those good-hearted people. She served on the committee that added SOGI language to Wyoming rules for judicial ethics. Three years later she learned the dire consequences of such language. Suddenly common-sense words that she had spoken openly all her life were labeled “discrimination” and she was removed from her circuit magistracy.

Her case is one of hundreds across the country. Once SOGI language is inserted into policy it becomes a ticking bomb that can be applied arbitrarily to prosecute new “crimes” at any time. Washington state enacted its own SOGI law in 2006. But the state never prosecuted itself for failing to recognize same-sex unions. Instead, it waited seven years before prosecuting a grandmotherly florist, Baronelle Stutzman, for this new “crime” that nobody knew existed.

Since 2011 the Wyoming Legislature has debated and voted down the insertion of SOGI language into state law. It has done so for good reason. Current laws prevent discrimination based on “race, religion, color, sex, national origin, age or disability.” These are all objectively known facts that can be enforced without delving into the anyone’s inner thoughts.

SOGI language, on the other hand, bases the difference between legality and criminality on factors that can only be known to the mind of one person. What was legal yesterday may be illegal today just because I changed my mind. The law becomes a moving target wherein the very same action or comment may be acceptable today and punishable tomorrow.

Jonah Bldg. Temporary Legislature

Nobody can live and work in such a toxic environment. Our Management Council should be interested in making the Wyoming legislature the place where a robust and honest searching for the truth is encouraged. It should not be a place where timeless truths can be suddenly punishable by reprimand, reindoctrination, and reassignment of duties.

Thankfully, Policy 02-02 is on the agenda for the Management Council’s Cheyenne meeting on December 4-5, 2018. Every duly elected legislator should want to right these wrongs. And all voters have a vested interest in making sure that it no longer stifles the voice of their representatives.

WTE: UW Student Health Plan exposes widespread lack of transparency

The College Fix recently reported that elective abortions are covered by the University of Wyoming student health plan. Since this is the default plan for foreign students, over 600 have been automatically enrolled in it this year.

In a state where the last Planned Parenthood clinic shuttered its operation in 2017, one might assume that abortion just isn’t an issue. After all, Wyoming’s department of health “has received fewer than five [abortion] reports over the last five years,” according to Mariah Storey, a vital services unit supervisor, quoted in Rewire News.

But this isn’t the whole story. The Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm, reported 380 abortions in the years 2011, 2013 and 2014, more than 75 times the reported number! Why is there such a huge disparity between the official tally and Planned Parenthood’s own data?

Wyoming’s two most prominent abortionists provide the answer. Dr. Brent Blue, who performs surgical abortions out of Emerg-A-Care in Jackson, told Rewire News, “I do not report to the state because it is none of their business.” While Blue refuses to report to the state of Wyoming, he does diligently report to the Guttmacher Institute.

Dr. Giovannina Anthony, who performs medical abortions about a block away from Blue, agrees. The same article quotes her as saying, “If you are looking for numbers, that [the Guttmacher Institute] is where you should focus your efforts. Their stats appropriately assess the need for reproductive services.”

This open flaunting of Wyoming law sounds eerily similar to Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who is currently spending the rest of his life in a Pennsylvania prison. That monster considered any and every health regulation to be an unnecessary annoyance that he was free to ignore in “service” of his patients. At least that’s how he justified his disease-ridden practice and murderous methods.

If Blue and Anthony openly ignore Wyoming’s reporting laws, I wonder what other Wyoming health laws they feel free to break? State law forbids abortion once the child is developed enough to survive outside the womb. Do they care about that one, or do they think it’s “none of our business”?

In 2017 Governor Mead signed into law a requirement that abortionists must offer an ultrasound picture to the mother. Blue responded to this by writing, “It’s a law that has no teeth, and there’s no way to enforce it. It won’t change one thing for us” (The Last Clinics, Vice News, May 23, 2017).

These admissions demonstrate why Wyoming should add some teeth to our defanged health laws.

Not only does Wyoming have way more abortions happening within her borders than are ever reported, there are also many abortions happening just across state lines. The Centers for Disease Control reported that in 2014 (the most recent data available) 642 Wyoming residents procured abortions in Colorado, Montana and Utah.

This fact highlights the real-world consequences of our UW student insurance plan. Less than sixty miles from campus is a Planned Parenthood clinic in Fort Collins. On-sight observers estimate three dozen surgical abortions each weekend of the school year. This is an “in-network” facility for United Health Care, the plan offered to UW students. Students who do not read the fine print are likely subsidizing Planned Parenthood by their insurance premiums.

How many of the students who sign up for this plan know about the abortion coverage? When Betzold was asked this question, she replied: “Students are provided electronic access to a summary brochure and a detailed policy document with all policy terms, including coverages and exclusions.”

That is true. I was able to go onto the UW website and find the Insurance Certificate listing “elective abortion” coverage. However, even knowing what I was looking for, it took me about half an hour of searching. One wonders how many get that far.

Why has the University of Wyoming chosen to weigh in on such a loaded issue? After all, there are only a handful of Universities in the nation that have such a draconian student health plan.

The governor’s office told the College Fix that it is merely because the United Health Plan submitted the most competitive bid to the University. There is no reason to dispute that fact. Abortions are probably cheaper than live births. But money is not the only consideration when it comes to proper health care.

We must consider the well-being of our students first and foremost. Numerous studies show how abortion can harm women. None exist that document any health benefits. Before offering students a plan that pays for abortion, we should at least be assured that it is proper “health care.”

University of Wyoming Student Health Plan pays for elective abortions

The College Fix recently reported that elective abortions are covered by the University of Wyoming student health plan. Since this is the default plan for foreign students, over 600 have been automatically enrolled in it this year.

In a state where the last Planned Parenthood clinic shuttered its operation in 2017, one might assume that abortion just isn’t an issue. After all, Wyoming’s department of health “has received fewer than five [abortion] reports over the last five years,” according to Mariah Storey, a vital services unit supervisor, quoted in Rewire News.

But this isn’t the whole story. The Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm, reported 380 abortions in the years 2011, 2013 and 2014, more than 75 times the reported number! Why is there such a huge disparity between the official tally and Planned Parenthood’s own data?

Wyoming’s two most prominent abortionists provide the answer. Dr. Brent Blue, who performs surgical abortions out of Emerg-A-Care in Jackson, told Rewire News, “I do not report to the state because it is none of their business.” While Blue refuses to report to the state of Wyoming, he does diligently report to the Guttmacher Institute.

Dr. Giovannina Anthony, who performs medical abortions about a block away from Blue, agrees. The same article quotes her as saying, “If you are looking for numbers, that [the Guttmacher Institute] is where you should focus your efforts. Their stats appropriately assess the need for reproductive services.”

This open flaunting of Wyoming law sounds eerily similar to Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who is currently spending the rest of his life in a Pennsylvania prison. That monster considered any and every health regulation to be an unnecessary annoyance that he was free to ignore in “service” of his patients. At least that’s how he justified his disease-ridden practice and murderous methods.

If Blue and Anthony openly ignore Wyoming’s reporting laws, I wonder what other Wyoming health laws they feel free to break? State law forbids abortion once the child is developed enough to survive outside the womb. Do they care about that one, or do they think it’s “none of our business”?

In 2017 Governor Mead signed into law a requirement that abortionists must offer an ultrasound picture to the mother. Blue responded to this by writing, “It’s a law that has no teeth, and there’s no way to enforce it. It won’t change one thing for us” (The Last Clinics, Vice News, May 23, 2017).

These admissions demonstrate why Wyoming should add some teeth to our defanged health laws.

Not only does Wyoming have way more abortions happening within her borders than are ever reported, there are also many abortions happening just across state lines. The Centers for Disease Control reported that in 2014 (the most recent data available) 642 Wyoming residents procured abortions in Colorado, Montana and Utah.

This fact highlights the real-world consequences of our UW student insurance plan. Less than sixty miles from campus is a Planned Parenthood clinic in Fort Collins. On-sight observers estimate three dozen surgical abortions each weekend of the school year. This is an “in-network” facility for United Health Care, the plan offered to UW students. Students who do not read the fine print are likely subsidizing Planned Parenthood by their insurance premiums.

How many of the students who sign up for this plan know about the abortion coverage? When Betzold was asked this question, she replied: “Students are provided electronic access to a summary brochure and a detailed policy document with all policy terms, including coverages and exclusions.”

That is true. I was able to go onto the UW website and find the Insurance Certificate listing “elective abortion” coverage. However, even knowing what I was looking for, it took me about half an hour of searching. One wonders how many get that far.

Why has the University of Wyoming chosen to weigh in on such a loaded issue? After all, there are only a handful of Universities in the nation that have such a draconian student health plan.

The governor’s office told the College Fix that it is merely because the United Health Plan submitted the most competitive bid to the University. There is no reason to dispute that fact. Abortions are probably cheaper than live births. But money is not the only consideration when it comes to proper health care.

We must consider the well-being of our students first and foremost. Numerous studies show how abortion can harm women. None exist that document any health benefits. Before offering students a plan that pays for abortion, we should at least be assured that it is proper “health care.”

--------------

Published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, November 9, 2018
Lange: Few know UW health plan covers abortions

Dominionism, the Ten Commandments, and Christianity

 

From the start Only Human has been a column that views current events through a Christian worldview intent on exploring the vast common ground between religions. It seeks neither to downplay the differences between Christianity and other religions, nor spend much time drawing out the differences.

Such a project, however, lends itself to a major misunderstanding that troubles both friend and foe alike. The misunderstanding is that Christianity is one vast and vague religion. This rankles believers who clearly see important differences in doctrine among various religions. It also invites nonbelievers to misunderstand the true nature of Christianity.

As an example of the latter, I recently came across an article titled, “Dominionism Rising: A Theocratic Movement Hiding in Plain Sight.” It was published in the summer 2016 issue of The Public Eye, a magazine devoted to “Challenging the Right, [and] Advancing Social Justice.”

If you have never heard of “Dominionism” that is because the word did not exist until the author of the article coined it, along with a like-minded friend. He coined it to put a label on the idea “that Christians have a mandate to take dominion over every area of life.”

That sounds scary. It’s supposed to. But it expresses nothing more and nothing less than the idea common to every human being that our entire life—and not just a few hours a week—should be lived in accordance with our fundamental understanding of the world. We should both speak the truth and listen to the truth.

Whether you are a Lutheran, Mormon, Catholic or Atheist, I assume that you want to do these things. Progressives want to “take dominion over every area of life” just as much as Buddhists do. That’s usually not a problem because differences in religion mostly have to do with our understanding of the truth about God, salvation, and the afterlife. These differences usually don’t deny the basic rules of life in this world.

Almost everybody agrees that children should obey parents and citizens should obey lawful authorities. We all agree that murder is a bad thing. Spouses across the board feel hurt if they are cheated on. Nobody likes to be robbed or slandered or envied.

You should recognize this laundry list of evils as simply what is commonly called the Second Table of the Law, expressed in Exodus 20:12-17: “Honor your father and your mother, etc. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet, etc.”

You should also recognize that to live according to the truth, to speak it and to hear it, constitute a pretty good summary of the First Table of the Law: “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, etc. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:3-8).

Every religious person who counts Exodus as an authoritative book agrees—whether Christian or not. Even those who don’t care about the Bible generally agree on these principles. Free speech and free exercise protections allow each person the space to live out the First Table of the Law. Laws against insurrection, murder, rape, stealing and slander are the natural result of our agreement on the Second Table.

The Ten Commandments are not distinctively Christian. They are not even “religious.” They are only human. Even if they were not found in the Bible, we should all agree on them. That’s why the article about “Dominionism” really got my attention. In defining “Christian Dominionists,” Chip Berlet and Frederick Clarkson write: “they believe that the Ten Commandments, or ‘biblical law,’ should be the foundation of American law.” For them, that's a very bad thing.

Let that sink in. At first reading, it sounds like a swipe against Christian fundamentalism—as it is intended to be. But on a more fundamental level, it is making two huge assumptions that need to be called out.

First, it assumes that anyone who agrees with the Ten Commandments is a “Christian Dominionist.” Second, it seems to assume that American law would be just as good if insurrection, murder, rape, thievery, slander and envy were the law of the land.

It boggles my mind that a magazine advocating for “social justice” would take such a stand. But that is the logical outcome of opposition to the Ten Commandments. I am not exaggerating. It is simply a cold, hard fact that if you oppose some law, you are advocating for its opposite.

If you don’t think children should honor their father and mother, you think instead that children should dishonor them. Do we really think America would be better off if people were encouraged to disobey every law and authority that they didn’t like?

Again, if you oppose the commandment, “You shall not murder,” you are embracing a principle that allows murder. If you oppose restraints on adultery, you are encouraging parents to break up families. If you throw out laws against stealing, you are breaking down the doors of every home on the block.

I sincerely hope that my progressive friends will think this through. I understand that those who oppose Christianity don’t recognize the Bible as an authority and don’t want American law to be based on the Bible as such. I can respect this. I certainly would not want American law to be based on the Koran or the Bhagavad Gita.

But neither would I want to rule out good laws just because they may be found in these books. Let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. You don’t need biblical authority to tell you what every society in the history of the world has figured out by common sense.

In his excellent book, “What We Can’t Not Know,” J. Budziszewski explores which basic principles can be known by pure human reason, apart from any religious revelation. It’s a tour de force into the arena that many call the “natural law.”

Budziszewski is a professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas. He argues powerfully that the Ten Commandments are in the minds of all mankind quite apart from the tablets of stone brought down from Mount Sinai.

In the process, he demonstrates another point that we would all do well to grasp. The Ten Commandments do not define Christianity. Just because various religious people can agree on the Ten Commandments, doesn’t mean that they are Christian.

Christ did not come to reveal what can be known and understood by anybody. Christ came because our common knowledge of the natural law cannot save us from our own propensity to break it. That’s the human dilemma. We know how we should act and speak and think, but can’t do it.

The distinctly Christian Truth is that God came to earth as a man to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. Jesus not only knew the natural law but lived it. He is the only person who ever has. By living it, He fulfilled it for you and invites you to believe in Him to save you from yourself.

That is Christianity. You will never come to know this by philosophy or natural law. You can only learn this news from Christ in His Bible and His Church.