Bill Donohue

On September 11, we detailed how Kamala Harris and the media were wrong, and former president Donald Trump was right, in assessing the exchange on abortion during the presidential debate. Their “fact-checking” is abysmal.

The media found fault with Trump for his claim that former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, find “execution after birth” to be acceptable. CBS, Reuters, the Washington Post and Politifact say this is not true.

As I said in my defense of Trump, what he said was “basically true.” In discussing Northam, I pointed out that “while the baby would not be ‘executed,’ per se, he could be put down, or left to die, after he was ‘kept comfortable.’” That is true.

Intentionally allowing a baby to die—it does not matter if the physician and the mother want that to happen—is to effectively kill the child. As governor of Minnesota, Walz revoked legislation that requires lifesaving care for newborns. In practice, this is a backhanded way of permitting infanticide.

Similarly, NBC, CNN, the Associated Press, ABC, NPR, Newsweek and the New York Times claim that Trump cannot be right because infanticide is illegal in every state; the latter two argue that “there is no such thing as abortion after birth.”

Infanticide may be proscribed in law, but as just pointed out, Northam and Walz allowed it to happen. Moreover, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo allowed premature babies who survive a chemical abortion to be denied treatment.

If a baby is born, it is proof that the baby was not aborted. But this skirts the issue. If a baby who survives a botched abortion is allowed to die, unattended by medical staff, the decision-makers are permitting infanticide, however indirectly it may be.

Some in the media are playing games with this issue. Factcheck and ctinsider note that abortions in the ninth month are “exceedingly rare.” But Trump never contested how frequent they are—he simply said that Harris and Walz defend late-term abortions. They do and it is dishonest to pretend otherwise.

USA Today tries to rescue Walz by saying Trump was wrong to say the vice presidential candidate “says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine.” It claims that “There is no evidence that Walz said this, though he signed a bill that removed limits to abortion based on gestational duration.” So who cares if Walz didn’t say he was “absolutely fine” with his decision? He indisputably favors no limits on abortion through term.

Poynter, which prizes itself on being the premier fact-checker, contends that when Northam said it was okay for a physician and the mother to decide not to resuscitate a baby who survived a late-term abortion, “Northam declined to say what that discussion would entail.” So what? It does not change the fact that they may decide not to treat the child, thus passively allowing infanticide to take place.

The media, in general, are so rabid in their defense of abortion rights that they are incapable of accurately reporting on this subject. Either that or they are lying in service to their cause.

Bill Donohue discusses his new book, Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis, on “EWTN Live” with Fr. Mitch Pacwa. To watch, click here.

Bill Donohue

Vice President Kamala Harris and ABC moderators made comments about abortion during the presidential debate that were factually incorrect. Former President Donald Trump was correct. Worse, the media, by and large, are siding with the false narrative.

Harris was asked by Linsey Davis if she supported any restrictions on a woman’s right to an abortion. “I absolutely support reinstating the protections of Roe v. Wade,” she said. She added that “nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion. That is not happening. It’s insulting to women of America.”

Trump responded saying, Harris “would allow abortion in the eighth month, ninth month, seventh month.” She replied, “Come on.” He followed up saying, “You could do abortions in the seventh month, the eighth month, the ninth month.” She answered, “That’s not true.”

Trump won the argument.

Late-term abortions, contrary to what Harris said, are more common than what she contends. In 1995, Dr. George Tiller told his fans, “We have some experience with late terminations; about 10,000 patients between 24 and 36 weeks and something like 800 fetal anomalies between 26 and 36 weeks in the past 5 years.”

Ron Fitzsimmons used to tell the media that partial-birth abortions—where the baby is 80 percent born—were extremely rare. Then in 1995 he went on national TV and admitted that he “lied through [his] teeth,” saying he was just spouting “the party line.”

In 2019, the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute admitted that at least 12,000 late-term abortions take place annually in the U.S. In 2023, fact checkers at the Washington Post conceded that at least 10,000 late-term abortions take place each year.

Quite frankly, under Roe v. Wade, abortion-on-demand, while not a de jure right (it was not permitted after viability except in limited cases), was a de facto right. For proof, consider Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe; it opened the door to abortion-on-demand.

In Roe, the high court said the states may outlaw abortion “except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.” The ruling in Doe defined what an “appropriate medical judgment” was. It entailed the “physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the women’s age—relevant to the well-being of the patient.”

Not surprisingly, every state law that attempted to limit post-viability abortions to those necessary for the physical health of the women failed in court when challenged. In effect, the joint decisions in Roe and Doe legalized abortion up until birth. So when Harris says she accepts Roe, that means she wants to make all abortions legal, at any time during pregnancy.

Moreover, Harris voted against the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” that would protect unborn children by prohibiting abortion at 20 weeks, a point where the child is able to feel great pain.

Then there is the matter of governors allowing babies to die after a botched abortion.

Trump addressed this issue by initially misidentifying the culpable governor as being from West Virginia—he later corrected his mistake saying the governor was from Virginia (he was referring to Ralph Northam). Substantively, what Trump said was basically right. He accused the governor of contending that “the baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby. In other words, we’ll execute the baby.”

Here is what Virginia Gov. Northam opined in 2019. If a baby survived an abortion, he said, “The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.” So while the baby would not be “executed,” per se, he could be put down, or left to die, after he was “kept comfortable.” That’s infanticide. There is no other word for it.

Northam is not alone among Democrats on this issue. Just prior to his stunning admission, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation that allowed premature babies who survive a chemical abortion to be denied treatment.

At the federal level in 2019, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act was blocked by Senate Democrats. It would require that a baby born alive during an abortion must be afforded the same care that would apply to all babies delivered at the same gestational age. Harris was one of the senators who voted to kill the bill. On January 11, 2023, all but two congressional Democrats voted against this same bill.

It is one thing for Harris to be wrong—candidates for public office frequently misrepresent their record—but it is quite another when the media misrepresent the truth. And it is infuriating when they set themselves up as “fact checkers” during a presidential debate and are later proven wrong. ABC disgraced itself.

Moderators should moderate. They are not paid to be commentators.

Bill Donohue

Those who scream the loudest about helping minorities are almost always the same ones who are doing everything they can to keep them in their place.

Proof: It is mostly Democrats who champion minority rights, and it is mostly Democrats who want to force minorities to attend schools they wouldn’t send their own children to (the Democratic Platform explicitly rejects school choice). That’s because Democrats are owned by the National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union in the nation. Almost all their funding goes to the Democrats.

In short, no advocate of the poor should be taken seriously if he is opposed to school choice. They are the enemy of the poor.

The good news is that the march for school choice cannot be stopped. In fact, there are some 80 education choice programs available in at least 30 states, and the push for more is relentless. Here are some examples.

• In 2011, Arizona was the first state to offer an ESA, education savings account. It provides a fund for students to pay for various forms of education.
• No state has pioneered school choice more than Florida. We are talking about tens of thousands more children enrolling in private or charter schools or homeschooling.
• In March, Alabama joined 10 other states in enacting universal or near universal education freedom legislation.
• In November, Colorado voters will decide whether to encode school choice in its state constitution.
• Georgia offers a variety of school choice programs, including two private school choice ones, charter schools, magnet schools, homeschooling and inter and intra-district public school choice.
• Iowa has essentially what Georgia has.
• Indiana has four private school choice programs: ESA, school voucher, tax-credit scholarship and individual tax deduction.
• Voters in Kentucky will decide in November whether they want school choice. One school district, Pulaski County, has been accused of violating the law by using social media to tell voters to vote “no” on the ballot initiative.
• School choice advocates are lobbying lawmakers in North Carolina to clear the waitlist for families seeking scholarships under the state’s school voucher program. Roughly 55,000 are on the list.
• Texans are strongly in favor of school choice, and so is Gov. Greg Abbott, but lawmakers are mostly opposed. In the spring, Abbott succeeded in persuading voters to dump six incumbent Republican opponents of school choice.
• In March, Utah expanded its ESA program, essentially doubling the number of students who qualify.
• Also in March, Wyoming adopted its first school choice program, though Gov. Mark Gordon used his line-item veto to narrow the eligibility of the ESA initiative.

Those opposed to school choice allege that funds for these alternative schools effectively siphons money away from traditional public schools. This is inaccurate.

First, it is a fundamental right of parents to decide which school their children should attend, not school unions. Second, it is a myth that public schools suffer a financial hit when school choice programs are instituted.

A few decades ago, economist Milton Friedman surveyed this argument by discussing the situation in the District of Columbia. At that time D.C. was spending more than $11,000 per year per student in public schools (today the figure is more than double that). The D.C. voucher plan at that time called for a maximum of $7,500.

Therefore, Friedman argued, “For every voucher student who leaves the public school for a private school, the system would gain more than $3,500. Far from taking money away from public schools, vouchers increase the funds available per remaining student.”

On this issue, the Democrats are on the wrong side of history. Beholden to their benefactors at the NEA, they are willing to put their heel in the face of black Americans who simply want the same right to select the school of their choice as afforded most Americans. They should not be denied.

Bill Donohue

Minnesota Gov. and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz has some very bizarre, even repugnant, ideas about education. He has been reluctant to talk about them, and the media have shown no interest in pressing him on this issue.

Walz has had little to say about the rigors of the curriculum, but he has addressed a variety of side issues. One of them involves equity, diversity and inclusion, code words for combating racism by promoting more of it. He is responsible for launching a center at the Minnesota Department of Education to further this cause.

The education gurus who are the key contributors to this radical agenda include Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi—he believes all white people are inveterate racists—and Robin DiAngelo, the disgraced author accused of plagiarizing her University of Washington 2004 Ph.D. dissertation. Both have made millions hawking their ideology.

Walz is also responsible for making Ethnic Studies a requirement for graduation.

When I taught a college course on Ethnic Studies, I had the students learn about the Irish (the European example), Puerto Ricans (the Latino example), African Americans (the African example), the Japanese (the Asian example) and Jews (the Middle Eastern example).

This is not Walz’s idea of Ethnic Studies. His notion involves introducing students to lectures on oppression and “cisheteropatriarchy,” which roughly means the study of successful heterosexual males, though in the courses Walz favors it means these guys are responsible for oppressing the world.

Walz is also interested in advancing the LGBTQ agenda, which has no intrinsic bearing on education. He earned the tag “Tampon Tim” when he ordered tampons be made available in every men’s bathroom in the state. Men cannot menstruate, which explains why tampons have never been placed in men’s bathrooms. But this doesn’t matter to Walz.

His anti-science view is shared by Hillary Clinton; she commended him for his “compassionate and common-sense policy.” Also, Minnesota State Rep. Sandra Feist defended Walz by saying, “Not all students who menstruate are female.” She did not identify one person who has a penis, scrotum and testicles who menstruates. He doesn’t exist, except in their heads.

Walz is so passionate about the LGBTQ agenda that effective in July 2025 he is going to mandate that all teachers affirm the sex of a student who falsely maintains that he is of the opposite sex. In other words, if Johnny thinks he is Jane and wants to be called she/her, or even they/them, then the teachers must oblige.

As Joy Pullman, the executive editor of The Federalist, notes, this would effectively “ban practicing Christians, Jews, and Muslims from teaching in public schools.” They do not accept the anti-science view that one’s sex is a subjective determination.

What makes Walz so dangerous is that he refuses to promote school choice, thus ensuring that most students are indoctrinated with his left-wing ideas about race and sex.

Every poll taken in Minnesota on school choice shows that more than 70 percent favor it, and this includes a majority of Democrats. Moreover, 26 states have some form of school choice program—21 run by Republicans and 5 by Democrats—but Walz refuses to offer minorities (whom he claims to champion) the same opportunity to select the school of their choice that those who are more affluent already enjoy.

The media are delinquent in not telling the truth about Walz’s education record. It’s a disaster, and so is the cover up.

Bill in the News (LifeNews): Catholic League President Bill Donohue explained, “Most practicing Catholics are pro-life (the non-practicing ones are more in tune with the secular pro-abortion side), but they also want to win, and that means we need to be pragmatic.” READ MORE HERE

Bill in the News (Fox News): “Since Dobbs, abortion has been more of a monkey on the back of Republicans. They’ve lost because some of the pro-life extremists in the Republican Party tried to go for all or nothing, but that’s a fool’s proposition. We always lose on that. You have to make exceptions, the proverbial exceptions everybody accepts. And you know, later into the term, there’s less tolerance for abortion. So you have to play off of that. So Trump was advised, I think correctly, to get the abortion issue off your back, because it’s a loser for Republicans. And just simply say, ‘Listen, the goal was to get rid of Roe v. Wade so that it’s up to the states to decide what they want to do,'” Donohue said. READ MORE HERE

Bill in the News (Carolina Catholic Radio Show): Bill Donohue discusses his new book, Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis, on Wilimington Catholic Radio’s “Carolina Catholic Radio Show.” To listen, click here.

Bill Donohue

“I want to be unequivocally clear that this continued decline in e-cigarette use among our nation’s youth is a monumental public health win,” said Brian King, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s tobacco division. He was celebrating the news that fewer than 8 percent of teenagers are using e-cigarettes, a 10-year low.

That’s good news but why isn’t the federal government as concerned about the growing use of marijuana among teens? Last year it was reported that teen marijuana use was at its highest level in 30 years.

It’s easy for young people to use marijuana undetected by adults. They can smoke it in a rolled cigarette joint, pipe or bong; they can smoke liquid or wax marijuana by vaping; “edibles” are available; drinking beverages with marijuana products is another option; and oils and tinctures can be applied to the skin.

According to the CDC, the negative effects of marijuana are: difficulty thinking and problem-solving; memory and learning issues: reduced coordination; and difficulty maintaining attention. The increase in traffic accidents since the widespread use of marijuana is another serious problem; unlike alcohol, the police have no way of determining marijuana use.

Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in favor of legalizing marijuana. She took that position in 2018 and Trump endorsed legalization this past week. Both should be asked how they can justify their position given what we know about the psychological and physical problems associated with marijuana use, especially among young people. It is much more harmful than previously thought.

Harris and Trump should also be asked why the black market in marijuana and other more lethal drugs has spiked since weed was legalized in many cities and states. What did they think would happen when Uncle Sam got into the act? Street drug dealers never go away: they don’t charge tax and they can be depended on to sell an unlimited quantity of unregulated drugs.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Mr. Science, has said next to nothing about marijuana use. He is in a position to start a national conversation about this issue, but he appears not to have any interest in doing so. Perhaps he should ask those who work in ER facilities about this.

Only 1.6 percent of teens are smoking traditional cigarettes. The percent who experiment each year with marijuana ranges from 32 to 37 percent.

There is something terribly screwed up about our priorities. Why is Marlboro unacceptable but marijuana is? And aren’t we having serious respiratory issues since Covid? The disconnect is startling.

Bill Donohue

On March 27, 2023, Audrey Elizabeth Hale, murdered three adults and three 9-year-old children at Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. A transgender person, who mistakenly thought she was a boy, Hale had been treated at the time for “emotional disorder.” She kept a log of her problems, detailing how she was planning a mass shooting. Thanks to a lawsuit brought by the Tennessee Star, her manifesto has been made public.

[The quotes are as written by Hale. No corrections were made.]

Hale, who sometimes referred to herself as Aiden, was a terribly despondent person who saw little reason to live. “Nothing on Earth can save me,” she wrote in her diary. Other times she would say things like, “Everything Hurts” and “I hurt bad enough & long enough that I Need to DIE.” She confessed, “Everything makes me sad. I’m sad about everything.” “Being Me Sucks.”

If there was one person she said she loved, it was Paige Patton, whom she referred to as P.A.P., or the “brown girl.” She was a radio host. They played basketball together in the eighth grade and remained in occasional contact thereafter. Hale referenced Paige in her diary, saying, “If I cry all day, it’s cause I need your love.”

She was also fond of Nikki Tidwell, whom she met at the Nossi College of Art. On January 16, 2023, just over two months before Hale went on her shooting spree, she let her know of her plans. “I’m so sorry, Nikki. I didn’t plan my massacre on the 17th, I’m going to be in terrible s*** for leaving you. How bad my heart hurts. Tomorrow is my last day on Earth. I love you, I am so sorry. Audrey (Aiden).”

Then she had second thoughts: “(P.S. Not leaving yet. I couldn’t do it. I don’t want to ruin your day. I’ll wait as planned. Audrey.” It was even more bizarre to learn that literally two days before the shooting began, Hale showed up at a birthday party for Nikki.

If there was one factor that accounted for Hale’s profound unhappiness it was her adamant rejection of her nature. She hated the fact that she was not a male. “Why does my brain not work right?? Cause I was Born Wrong!!!” She opined, “A terrible feeling to know I am nothing of the gender I was born of. I am the most unhappy boy alive. I wish to be dead.”

She took out her internal problems on society. “Everything hurts. And I hate society b/c society ignores to see me. I’m a queer; I am meant to die.” She even wrote a statement titled, My Imaginary Penis wherein she said, “My penis exists in my head. I swear to god I’m a male.”

Hale was angry that she somehow let girls down. “Major blow to girls; I am a boy that has no penis.” She was also angry at God. “If God won’t give me a boy body in heaven, then Jesus is a faggot.”

She hated her father. In a post titled, “Dad problems,” she wrote, “He never once loved me for years, maybe like ever.” She declared, “You’re a loser. I hate you…I don’t care if you die. I want to kill you.” She even condemned him on the day of the mass murder.

Days before she went on her rampage, Hale spoke of her darkness. “Soon I will leave this world…I will regret nothing…No regrets by the gun!!!” She was mentally ready. “For 5 years I planned to die. Now I am finally ready to go.”

Then, in a clear reference to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the high school seniors who killed 12 students and one teacher in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, she wrote, “I want my massacre to end in a way that Eric & Dylan would be proud of.”

On the day of the killing, Hale boasted, “Nature needs enigmas…I am one, Thank God.” More ominously, she scribbled, “DEATH. Today is the day. The day has finally come!”

She gave a shout-out to Paige, saying she was ready to roll. “Please don’t be mad….” She added, “P.S. I think God will enter me in heaven. If I do go there, I’ll be waiting for you. All our pain will leave us.”

She really did believe in God. Much earlier she had written, “God is love, so are you.” But on that fateful day, she begged forgiveness. “Forgive me God, This act will be inglorious.”

Hale gave Paige a heads up just before she pulled the trigger. She contacted her and said, “I’m planning to die today. This is not a joke. You will probably hear about me on the news after I die.” Thirteen minutes later the shooting began.

Transgender persons are not normal and it is cruel to pretend otherwise. They need help. That does not mean affirming their sick status—it means getting to the source of their troubles. If that means anything, it means not treating conditions like Hale’s as if they were merely an “emotional disorder.” What she suffered from was much more serious.