President Biden has condemned the firebombing of a Christian pro-life office in Madison, Wisconsin, but he did not address this crime as the work of pro-abortion arsonists. They left graffiti outside the building that said, “If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either.”

Biden should’ve been as pointed in his condemnation of this hate crime as he is when he talks about right-wing violence. He has no problem blaming all “MAGA” people when right-wing extremists act up, yet he resorts to generic statements when left-wing extremists act up.

Worse, Biden has said nothing about the wave of anti-Catholic incidents that have occurred recently. In doing so, he is giving succor to bigots. Here are some examples.

• Outside the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in New York pro-abortion activists held signs and banners that taunted Catholics.
—”I’m killing the babies!”
—”Abortion is a Gift”
—”RIP Jesus, Killed by a ‘Woke’ Deadbeat Dad”
—”We Love Abortion”
—”Help Me Abort My Babies”
—”God Killed His Son, Why Can’t I?”

• In Chicago, pro-abortion activists assembled in a public square holding signs that read “End Catholic Tyranny” and “Abortion On Demand.”
• In Denton, Texas, vandals defaced a Catholic pro-life pregnancy center, leaving graffiti that read, “Forced Pregnancy is Murder.”
• The pro-abortion group “Ruth Sent Us” tweeted a message to Catholics vowing to “Burn the Eucharist.”
• In Boulder, Colorado, pro-abortion vandals struck Saint Mary’s Church, smashing windows and spray painting the church.
• In Los Angeles, pro-abortion fascists interrupted Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. They shouted at the parishioners and unfurled a large green banner. Disrupting religious services is a federal offense.

It is shameful that our “devout Catholic” president has not said a word about any of these anti-Catholic incidents. Not to comment on what happened in Los Angeles, in particular, is outrageous.

Moreover, Catholics on the Supreme Court are being singled out for harassment. The pro-abortion group, “Ruth Sent Us,” has explicitly called on activists to confront Catholic Supreme Court Justices: they encourage them to invade their privacy by demonstrating in front of their homes, seeking to intimidate them and their families.

This is another example of bigotry, yet Biden can’t bring himself to call it for what it is—rank anti-Catholicism. We Catholics would get more outrage from a non-Catholic president.

On May 11, Senator Chuck Schumer introduced the Women’s Health Protection Act, the most radical pro-abortion bill ever written. It would effectively guarantee abortion-on-demand. It would also gut First Amendment protections for religious liberty by exempting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

Schumer’s actions epitomize the Democratic Party on abortion and religious liberty. Not too long ago, the Democratic Party was cautiously pro-abortion. Two days after becoming president in 1993, Bill Clinton said, “Our vision should be of an America where abortion is safe and legal but rare.” When Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2008, she repeated this line, adding, “By rare, I mean rare.”

Rare no more. There is not an abortion today that most Democrats wouldn’t support. Worse, they went from being pro-religious liberty to anti-religious liberty.

On March 11, 1993, less than two months after President Clinton carved out a relatively moderate stance on abortion, Rep. Chuck Schumer introduced RFRA in the House; Senator Ted Kennedy broached it in the Senate. The final vote: it passed unanimously in the House and the vote in the Senate was 97-3.

Schumer spoke from the floor of the House on May 11, 1993, saying that “We all know that the First Amendment guarantees the right of the free exercise of religion. Traditionally the Supreme Court interpreted that guarantee to mean religious freedom can be infringed only when the government has a compelling interest in doing so.”

He went on to say that a 1990 decision, Employment Division v. Smith, changed that tradition, promulgating a new standard where “government only has to show a legitimate interest in order to burden religion.” It was this relatively weak protection that RFRA rectified.

Schumer now thinks that he went too far in promoting religious liberty. In particular, he has a problem with religious liberty whenever it collides with issues of sexuality. His strong interest in abortion and gay rights clearly supersedes his interest in religious liberty, notwithstanding the fact that the Constitution explicitly mentions the free exercise of religion while saying nothing about abortion and gay rights.

The evolution of Schumer, and the Democratic Party that he epitomizes, has radically turned against life and liberty. It is no longer even a figment of its former self.

There are only two sexes: male or female.

That is what Bill Donohue said to the graduating class at Ave Maria Law School on May 14; his comments were well received. The same day, Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis spoke to the graduates at the University of Wyoming and she said the same thing. She was booed and later apologized for “disrespecting” people.

Sen. Lummis should never have apologized. She told the truth.
We will never beat those who deny the existence of nature, and nature’s God—which is what this madness is all about—if we yield to ideological maniacs who refuse to acknowledge the existence of truth.

There is a dangerous movement afoot seeking to punish anyone who refuses to bow to the thought-control police, namely those in education, government and the media who are telling everyone, especially students and employees, what pronouns they must use when addressing a man or a woman who claims to be something other than a man or a woman.

It doesn’t help when a sitting U.S. senator apologizes for merely telling the truth, and it is particularly wrong when the offenders are the administration, faculty and students at a state university.

Our side needs to be disobedient. There is no virtue in kowtowing to ideological zealots who live in a state of delusion.

Following the leak of the draft decision on Roe v. Wade, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a joint statement condemning those Justices who regard Roe to be wrongly decided. They said they “have lied to the United States Senate.” They cited not a single lie. The truth is that they lied about the Justices. In fact, from the very beginning, Roe has been based on lies.

Prior to the 1973 decision legalizing abortion, pro-abortion activists told the media that there were five thousand to ten thousand deaths a year owing to abortion. But it was a lie. We know it was a lie because the man who broadcasted about it at the time, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a practicing abortionist and activist, later admitted that he lied. By the way, the actual number of women who died of an abortion the year before Roe was thirty-nine; the figure was published by the Centers for Disease Control.

The pro-abortion industry loves to say that prior to Roe, women were prosecuted all over the country for having an abortion. This is another lie.

There are only two cases in which a woman was charged in any state for having an abortion: Pennsylvania in 1911 and Texas in 1922. Since 1922, there have been zero documented cases in which a woman has been charged in an abortion case.

The woman in Roe, Jane Roe (whose actual name is Norma McCorvey), was 21 when she became pregnant for the third time. She sought an abortion in Texas. But there was one problem: Texas did not allow for abortions except if the mother’s life was endangered. So she lied. On the advice of her female lawyers, she said she was raped.

Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the decision in Roe arguing that “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.” This was a remarkable admission. Did he not understand that this question was central to this issue? The reason why this ruling has proven to be so controversial has everything to do with this question. Moreover, if Blackmun—or anyone else—is unsure when life begins, why not err on the side of caution? Why assume life is not present at conception?

In fact, well before 1973 there was scientific evidence that life begins at conception. Indeed, twenty years earlier James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA, the very material that makes all of us unique human beings. It is present at the moment of fertilization—not a day later. Additionally, ultrasound technology was frequently being used when Roe was decided.

As important as anything, even distinguished pro-abortion jurists have slammed the decision in Roe for being without constitutional foundation.

Those who claim it is constitutionally sound are either ignorant or lying.

Harvard Law School professors Archibald Cox, Alan Dershowitz and Laurence Tribe have said the decision was fatally flawed. Even Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said it was lawmakers, not judges, who should decide this issue.

The New Republic, a staunch supporter of abortion rights, said at the time that it was not the provenance of the courts to rule on abortion. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, another advocate of abortion-on-demand, said that inventing a right to privacy was irresponsible. “Whatever abortion may be,” he said, “it cannot simply be a matter of privacy.”

The biggest lie of all is the claim that abortion doesn’t kill an innocent human being. The Catholic Church has been on the right side of science on this matter all along. We welcome others to the fold.

Women exist. It’s true. The controversy is over. Anatomy texts settle the issue.

“Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?” This question was asked of Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during the confirmation hearings. She could not. “I’m not a biologist,” she said.

It is hard to believe that as recently as a decade or two ago that this question would even be raised. But we live in strange times. Not only is our newest Supreme Court Justice not sure what a woman is—ironically she was chosen partly because the president thinks she is a woman—lots of well-educated persons are puzzled.

Alia E. Dastagir is a reporter for USA Today. “Scientists, gender law scholars and philosophers of biology said Jackson’s response was commendable, though perhaps misleading.” They “note that a competent biologist would not be able to offer a definitive answer either.”

So who are these people? Rebecca Jordan-Young teaches at Barnard College and claims to be a scientist. She says Jackson was not nuanced enough. “I don’t want to see this question punted to biology as if science can offer a simple, definitive answer.” But wouldn’t we punt to a dentist to explain what a root canal is? For that matter, wouldn’t we punt to an auto mechanic to explain what a car is?

Sarah Richardson is a Harvard historian and philosopher of biology, and she believes that science is not best suited to define what a women is. “As is often the case,” she says, “science cannot settle what are really social questions.” That’s funny. When Bill Donohue was studying for his doctorate in sociology at NYU, he was never taught that sociology was the best suited to know what a woman is. Maybe he missed that class.

Sometimes this issue gets very messy. St. Louis University identifies as a Catholic school, yet last year a student group was investigated by the Office of Student Responsibility and Community Standards because it raised the question in a social media video, “What is a woman?” Why they weren’t expelled remains a mystery.

So what do they teach in medical school? Surely no one wants to go to a doctor who doesn’t know the difference between a man and a woman. Donohue hates to get technical about this, but guys being treated for prostate cancer don’t want to go to a gynecologist.

Anne M. Gilroy is the author of Anatomy: An Essential Textbook, Third Edition, published in 2021 by Thieme Medical Publishers. Richard L. Drake, A. Wayne Vogl and Adam W.M. Mitchell are the authors of Gray’s Anatomy for Students, Fourth Edition, published in 2020 by Elsevier.

These textbooks are among the most widely used by medical students in the United States and abroad. Both clearly identify what a male and female are and what constitutes their biological status. Those who claim that there are sexes other than male and female find no support in these books. Here is what we found.

Thieme’s Anatomy: An Essential Text Book, Third Edition

• References to Female: 40
• References to Male: 25
• References to Transgender: ZERO
• References to Intersex: ZERO
• References to Other Sexes or Genders: ZERO

Gray’s Anatomy for Students, Fourth Edition

• References to Female: 8
• References to Male: 10
• References to Transgender: ZERO
• References to Intersex: ZERO
• References to Other Sexes or Genders: ZERO

Both books make it clear that there are female bodies and male bodies, and that’s it. There is no special transgender body or any of the other pantheon of sexualities or gender identities.

The loose term intersex is used to describe a medical condition where an individual is born with irregular chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals. In the wake of the passage of the Florida Parental Rights in Education law, left-wing activists and teachers quickly latched on to the notion that young children need to know about intersex because some of the students might have this anatomical anomaly. However, the textbooks did not offer a section on this category, so unusual is this condition.

In other words, those elites who are not sure what a woman is made the right decision not to pursue medicine. They would’ve flunked out of medical school.

There is no such person as a transgender—you are either male or female—but there is such a thing as transgenderism: it is an ideology that promotes the fiction that the sexes are interchangeable.

To win, proponents are bent on getting to children, prompting little kids to question whether they are satisfied being a boy or a girl. If they are in doubt, they should be advised to at least consider making the switch.

There is no more rabid advocate of transgenderism in America than the President of the United States. Indeed, transgender mania has gripped the White House.

Within months, the Biden administration will finalize changes to Obamacare that will make it easier for persons seeking to transition to the opposite sex. The Department of Health and Human Services is leading the way, treating gender identity as a status worthy of being covered by laws against sex discrimination. Changes will also be made to healthcare plans, so that sex-transition procedures can be covered.

This is a classic case of top-down politics. There is no national outcry demanding that those who want to flip their sex should be given the green light. If anything, there is a growing consensus that we need to hit the pause button on this subject.

When White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki recently said that “Gender affirming healthcare for transgender kids is the best practice and potentially lifesaving,” she offered no evidence to support this outlandish claim. But she did make plain that gender-affirming care meant a) social affirmation b) puberty blockers c) hormone therapy and d) gender-affirming surgery.

This four-step approach is a sanitized way of saying that the White House is committed to encouraging the sexually confused to transition to the opposite sex, and that chemical castration and genital mutilation will follow.

Psaki also warned lawmakers who work against them that they have been “put on notice” not to mess with the president. She specifically said the White House will go after states that resist their agenda. She was supported by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra who said he wants taxpayers to pay for the drugs, incisions and genital reconstructions.

The White House says that gender-affirming care will help transgender adolescents who are suffering from mental health problems, drugs and suicidal thoughts. They should first inquire why these young people are so messed up in the first place and then seek to give them the help they need. It is nonsense to argue that their problems are due to social rejection—their maladies are a function of their mental state.

Dr. Paul McHugh is a noted psychiatrist who has studied this issue as well as anyone. The Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital maintains that transgender people suffer from a “mental disorder” and that “the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality.”

Undeterred, the Biden administration cites a Trevor Project survey to support its conclusion, never mentioning that two of the organization’s donors, AbbVie and Allergan, make drugs and medical products that facilitate sex transitions.

Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis apparently was not “put on notice,” or he is simply recalcitrant. His Department of Health has issued its own guidelines on this subject. It declared that because the evidence is inconclusive regarding sex-transition procedures, and could, in fact have “long-term, irreversible effects,” the best way forward is to recommend against treating children and adolescents at this time.

To back up its stance, the Florida agency cited evidence that 80% of those seeking to transition lose their desire to do so over time. It also cited the serious health effects of making the change. There is good reason to support this position.

We could learn a thing or two from the Europeans; they have a richer history of dealing with those who are in rebellion against their nature.

The Amsterdam University Medical Center surveyed 4,600 transgender men and women between 1972 and 2018. It found that transgender medical treatment shortened the lifespan of patients by 50%. This is an astounding finding, one that should make everyone reconsider the conventional wisdom on this subject.

After allowing cross-sex hormone treatment in children for 22 years, Sweden slammed on the brakes and made the practice illegal. Its health officials said these procedures are “potentially fraught with extensive and irreversible adverse consequences such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, infertility, increased cancer risk, and thrombosis.” Denmark and France did the same thing.

It must also be said that the psychological problems these people have are every bit as serious as their physical condition.

We look back today at controversial medical treatments that have proven to be a disaster and wonder why we went down this road. Some day we will do the same with regard to sex-transition treatments, but by that time the psychological and physiological damage will have been done, thanks in large part to our “devout Catholic” president.

There is a reason why Pope Francis calls gender ideology “demonic.” This mania has got to stop.

It is not the misogynists who are working hard to destroy the rights of women these days, it is those who fancy themselves as their greatest champions. They are not only placing women in danger, they are allowing men to eviscerate their hard-won freedoms, all in the name of women’s rights.

Having non-doctors perform abortions places women’s lives in danger, yet that is permitted in many states. They are not trained to deal with problems such as hemorrhaging, infection, uterine perforation, heart attacks, strokes, etc. By contrast, we don’t allow dental assistants to do many things that dentists are trained to do (e.g., root canals)—and these procedures are a whole lot less dangerous than performing an abortion—so why do we cut corners for pregnant women?

There are 15 states, plus the District of Columbia, that allow non-physicians to perform an abortion: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginian, and D.C.

Only two of the 16—Montana and West Virginia—voted for Trump. All of the others are known for championing women’s rights. But not when it comes to safeguarding their health.

Another measure of women’s rights is whether women, and women alone, are permitted to compete in women’s sports. We don’t allow adults to compete with children in sports—that would mean the end of Little League—yet it is fashionable in some places to allow men to participate in women’s sports.

Allowing males to compete against females in girls and women’s sports is the surest way to destroy women’s rights in athletics. Moreover, allowing men to share the same showers and locker rooms compromises the privacy rights of women.

Yet only two of the 15 states that allow non-doctors to perform abortions has a ban on males from competing in women’s sports (Montana and West Virginia); D.C. is with the majority. The others either mandate that men can compete—California, Washington, Massachusetts, and Oregon—or allow them to do so. Lawmakers in four states (Maine, Hawaii, Illinois and Connecticut) introduced legislation to ban men, but they failed.

It should also be known that the Women’s Sports Foundation, the National Organization for Women, Ms. Magazine and female athletes such as Billie Jean King, Megan Rapinoe and Candace Parker have all taken the side of biological men against women.

We have long known that single men are the greatest advocates of abortion-on-demand (they get what they want minus the baggage), and now they don’t have to worry about a shortage of abortion doctors to finish the job—midwives can do it. Better yet, they can crash women’s sports and walk away as champions, thanks to those who champion women’s rights.

For these guys, it just doesn’t get any better than this.

Former White House Press Secretary and MSNBC host-in-waiting Jen Psaki broke down in tears recently when discussing parental rights legislation in the schools. She should instead save her tears for the real victims of transgenderism in the schools—parents and their children.

In her April 19 podcast, Psaki bemoaned the right of states like Florida to pass laws which prohibit teachers from engaging little kids—pre-kindergarten through third grade—in discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity. She thinks it is A-OK for teachers to ask children 5-8 if they are satisfied being a boy or a girl. This is the first step toward “assisting” them to switch sexes. Next come the puberty blockers, the chemical castration and the genital mutilation.

Psaki’s endorsement of this practice is obscene. She calls attempts to protect parental rights and stop the sexual engineering of children “harsh and cruel.” Worse, she is claiming that the victimizers are the victims.

Here is what she said about responsible parents who want an end to child abuse in the classroom.

“They’re doing that in a way that is harsh and cruel to a community of kids, especially. I’m going to get emotional about this issue [that is when she started bawling] because it’s horrible! But it’s kids who are bullied, and all these leaders are taking steps to hurt them, and hurt their lives and their families!”

This is a bald-face lie. No kids are being bullied by legislation designed to safeguard the rights of parents and protect kids from being groomed by irresponsible teachers. She has it backwards—it’s parents and their kids who are being bullied by the ruling class.

Psaki is right about one thing. This is “an attempt to win the culture war.” She and her ilk, including her “devout Catholic” former boss, started this latest chapter in the culture war. Now our side is going to finish it.

We can tell a lot about a president just by knowing something about his Cabinet picks. This takes on special significance for Catholics when we have a Catholic president.

To begin with, we would expect a Catholic president to be faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church, especially on life and death matters. We would also expect that any Catholics who are chosen to be in his Cabinet would also be loyal sons and daughters of the Church.

Biden fails these tests. He is the most ardent defender of abortion rights ever to become president of the United States. That obviously means that his policies are in direct contradiction to the teachings of the Catholic Church. For the most part, his Catholic Cabinet picks also reflect badly on him. He has eight Catholics in his Cabinet.

Lloyd Austin is Secretary of Defense. He has no public record on the subject of abortion. Denis McDonough is Secretary of Veterans Affairs. He has an uneven record on abortion. The other six are all off-the-charts supporters of abortion rights.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services is Xavier Becerra; Jennifer Granholm is Secretary of Energy; Samantha Power heads the U.S. Agency for International Development; Gina Raimondo is Secretary of Commerce; Tom Vilsack is Secretary of Agriculture; and the Secretary of Labor is Marty Walsh. All of them are abortion-rights extremists.

These are the Catholics who serve in Biden’s Cabinet. Most of them work to reinforce each other’s animus against the Church’s pro-life heritage.

All abortions are tragic, both for the pregnant woman and her baby, but most pro-life people do not lump all women who have had an abortion together, treating them all the same. For example, while we cannot condone it, most understand that a 15-year-old girl who becomes pregnant, and is fearful of telling her drunken and violent dad about it, may elect to have an abortion. They are less understanding of women who have had multiple abortions.

On “The View,” recently, Whoopi Goldberg said, “Getting an abortion is not easy. Making the decision is not easy. It’s not something people do lightly.” Who can argue with that? What’s strange about her comment, however, is that she has admitted to having six or seven abortions by the age of 25. Six or seven—she’s not sure.

If the decision to abort a baby is “not easy,” it appears to become easier for those who have another. That’s a serious problem which the media do not cover.

In 2008, 50% of all abortions were done on women who had a prior one. The most recent figure is 45%. This is an enigma. Why would approximately half of all women who have had an abortion go to a clinic again and again?

Abby Johnson, who was a director at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas, described how “Angie,” a recidivist, spoke to clinic personnel. “‘Could y’all just Xerox my chart and I’ll fill in the dates?’ She would jest. Once the paperwork was in order, Angie would attempt to banter with the girls in the waiting room. ‘It’s no big thing,’ she assured them. ‘I’ve done it eight times before, and I have no regrets.'”

Irene Vilar’s mother committed suicide when she was eight-years-old; her brothers were heroin addicts. When she was a teenager she married a tyrannical 50-year-old professor. She wound up having 15 abortions in 16 years, admitting that women who have had multiple abortions show a certain “recklessness.” She was 15 times reckless.

“Mary” had three abortions when she was in her early twenties. After she was pregnant the third time, she wanted to have the baby but her boyfriend did not, so she had an abortion. “I felt like we were committing murder, that I was killing something I wanted.”

Dr. E. Joanne Angelo knows what Mary was going through. She is associated with Project Rachel, a Catholic support group that ministers to women—of any faith—who have had an abortion, and are seeking reconciliation. “When a woman finds herself pregnant in a crisis situation, she immediately calculates the date when her child would be born,” she says.

“After the abortion she may feel numb, her grief over the death of her child being blunted by her strong ambivalent feelings—her tender feelings for her child, and the defensive denial of these feelings which enabled her to submit to the abortion procedure,” Angelo writes. She further observes that “her inner life is often plagued by guilt and shame, nightmares of babies being sucked down tubes or dying in horrific accidents or violent crimes….Some may become seriously depressed and even suicidal.”

If this condition is commonplace among women who have had one abortion, why is it that at least some women who have had multiple abortions take it in stride?

If, as it appears likely, Roe v. Wade will be overturned, the problem of women having multiple abortions will not go away. There needs to be more aggressive intervention on the part of the medical community and the clergy after a woman has had an abortion for the first time.

We need to end the enigma of multiple abortions. That also means we need to be just as aggressive in dealing with the impregnating men. They’ve gotten away with their irresponsible behavior for too long.