All posts by Wintery Knight

https://winteryknight.com/

Walgreens and CVS have decided to sell abortion pills

The title says it all. Walgreens and CVS are selling abortion drugs, and there is a connection to the Biden administration. Let’s see the story and then take a look at what you should know about these drugs. After all, you might get into a conversation about this story, and I want you to have the facts.

Here’s the story from Daily Wire:

Pro-life advocates slammed a decision on Friday from pharmacy giants Walgreens and CVS to begin selling abortion pills.

Both retailers announced that they would start selling mifepristone, the pill that is used in over half of all abortions, at certain locations. The announcement, which was applauded by the Biden administration, comes ahead of a Supreme Court hearing on whether the FDA improperly approved mifepristone and other restrictions on the pill.

“As two of the world’s largest, most trusted ‘health’ brands, the decision by CVS and Walgreens to sell dangerous abortion drugs is shameful, and the harm to unborn babies and their mothers incalculable,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s State Policy Director Katie Daniel said in a statement shared with The Daily Wire. “This reckless policy was made possible by the Biden administration, which is pushing to turn every pharmacy and post office in America into an abortion center for the sake of abortion industry greed.”

[…]President Joe Biden called the decision a “major milestone” in a statement praising the move.

Why is this important? Well, after the repeal of abortion on demand through all 9 months of pregnancy at the Supreme Court, abortion activists like Joe Biden have been looking for a way around the ruling. And shipping abortion drugs across state lines is one way for them to do it:

Medication abortion has increasingly become a more common form of abortion, especially in states that have sought to ban abortion. Activist networks have been shipping foreign-made abortion drugs in red states to bypass state laws protecting the unborn.

So, when it comes to this issue, I like to look for the peer-reviewed research. What is this drug? Should they be selling it? Are they liable if something bad happens to the mother?

Well, I have good news, and bad news. The good news is that there is published journal articles that discuss the risks of this drug. The bad news is that the journals decided – right before they went on sale – that these papers were very, very bad.

Daily Wire has that story as well:

Major scientific studies on the potential harm of abortion pills were retracted on Monday by their publisher, just weeks before the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on the availability of such drugs.

Three studies, including two on the potential harms of the abortion pill just, were retracted on Monday by Sage Publishing, an independent academic publishing company.

[…]The authors of the studies say the retractions are a politically-motivated effort to discredit research that was cited in U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s April 2023 decision to suspend approval of mifepristone, the drug used in roughly half of all abortions in the United States. The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in March on the legality of restricting the abortion pill based on Kacsmaryk’s ruling, proceedings that will certainly be impacted by the retractions.

Dr. James Studnicki, a listed author on all three studies in question, told The Daily Wire that the retractions were “completely unjustified” and that the retractions were meant to discredit scientific research that challenged the pro-abortion bias engrained in academia.

Studnicki, who trained at Johns Hopkins University and has spent decades conducting scientific research, said that he and his fellow researchers were targeted “because of the visibility of our work, because of the fact that our work was having such an influence on the discussion about abortion that was occurring in the states and in the courts at the highest levels.”

OK, great. Show me the numbers.

One of the now-retracted studies, published November 9, 2021, found that the rate of emergency room visits following chemical abortions had spiked 500% from 2002-2015, according to Medicaid claims data. Another one of the studies, published May 20, 2022, analyzed the likelihood of recurring emergency room visits for women who did not disclose to doctors that they had a chemical abortion.

These two studies were cited in Kacsmaryk’s decision to suspend FDA approval of mifepristone.

So what should happen?

Well, red states should just pass laws that allow people who take these drugs to sue the companies if there are complications. Or, they can just go after the businesses, if they choose to ship drugs into states that have banned late-term abortions. I would expect that states like Florida and Oklahoma will take the lead on this. Ron DeSantis has shown that he’s been willing to go after companies that try to mess with Florida’s conservative laws. He’ll probably go first. I’ll keep an eye out, and update you if anything happens.

In the meantime, stop shopping at CVS and Walgreens. I already have. They don’t deserve your business. Just keep driving and go somewhere else.

Woman who embraced feminism rejects it for Christianity

I’ve been busy making a new friend on Twitter recently, Kelley Keller. Kelley is interesting because she has a neat story of going pretty far down a feminist road, and then coming back out of it to return to Christianity. What’s interesting about her story is that she is using her experience to advise young women on what does and doesn’t work for them in the long term. Let’s take a look.

So, here is her article in Christian Post:

After high school, I bumped around a bit, ultimately landing in Erie, Pennsylvania, with my parents who’d relocated from my hometown in Florida. Penn State Erie was local, so I began classes in the Spring of 1993, a decision that changed my life forever.

Just two semesters in, I had been radicalized in the critical theories and loved every minute of it … until I didn’t.

Marxism had been mainstreamed on university campuses just a few years before I enrolled. Critical theory had replaced traditional theory, the gender sameness/difference debate was in full swing, and the newly organized LGBT movement had secured political power.

The gospel of Freud, Marx, Hegel, and Darwin replaced Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The salvation message of Jesus Christ was mere mythology invented by men to subordinate women. Christianity was a patriarchal discourse keeping women from escaping the evil prisons of the Gnostic demiurge who was blocking their access to the divine within.

Radical feminist Mary Daly wrote: “‘God’s plan’ is often a front for men’s plans and a cover for inadequacy, ignorance, and evil.” Her claim seemed far-fetched, but maybe it had a kernel of truth? I started to believe her. I had no clue how to defend my anemic Christianity against these critics or their claims, so I was a sitting duck, a ripe recruit for the consciousness-raising cadres on campus.

Waking up to my own oppression as a woman whose body had been ill-considered and whose sexuality had been condemned to monogamy felt like the most honest thing I’d done in all of my life. I was laying bare the contradictions of my soul and asking anyone and everyone to help me make sense of them. The church was ineffective, the feminists took me in. Their position was well-articulated by Susie Bright: “When a young woman discovers her power, both sexual and intellectual, she unleashes her own voice, her righteousness.” I woke up to my voice and my victimhood and things were beginning to make sense. I became “woke.”

The next several years saw the exploration of intellectually seductive, albeit highly manipulative, thought forms that challenged me to examine the belief systems on which I was raised and that I’d trusted without question. I needed to test my newly acquired knowledge before self-amputating from everything, and possibly everyone, I knew.

Slowly, I began to resist Christianity, or at least what I understood Christianity to be, primarily on the grounds the moral straight jacket it required cramped my ability to break free from years of abusive oppression. I was finally on a path to self-righteousness. My liberation would come from leveraging my sexual and intellectual power in spite of the dominant ideologies (aka Christianity) that say women should stay home and make babies (even though they don’t say that at all). Freedom for women comes not from Christ’s atoning work on the cross, but through the grandiose release of collective libidinal energy from all of the whores next door.

Wow. I messaged Kelley a bit, and she mentioned that she was following Kate Millett. If you know who that is, then you know that you can’t go any further to the left than Kate Millett. She’s the far left feminist edge!

So here’s how she got out of it. She studied, and she found her views changing:

While studying, I learned the concept of worldview and its epic usefulness in understanding why we think the way we do. It was exactly what I needed to comprehend the hivemind infiltrating my inbox. It was also what I needed to finally understand the full story of Christianity, that is, historic biblical Christianity, not the littered mess of modern-day Christendom promoting counterfeit Christ throughout the culture.

By reverse engineering the range of worldviews underlying our modern ideas, I was able to work meticulously through the logical consequences that flow from their systematic implementation, from the beginning of time to the end of time. It wasn’t long before I realized that the biblical worldview, not a Marxist, Postmodernist, New Age, or another worldview, was the only internally consistent, sufficient, coherent, and complete one on the menu. Nothing else even came close, at least not without borrowing from the biblical worldview to fill in the missing parts, such as an inalienable pre-political right to life.

I was utterly dumbfounded. Not only was biblical Christianity true, it provided a comprehensive explanation for the world and everything in it. It provided rational answers to every question I could find about the nature and purpose of life. All I had to do was believe it.

This is the interesting part:

I’d never heard Christianity described this way, and I’m a little bummed it took so many years for me to hear it.

If you read the article, she had grown up in a church-going home. But, I don’t think she had ever been told that Christianity is a worldview, and you can have a lot of fun thinking about it and testing it and comparing it to other worldviews, using reason and evidence. And I think that’s why the feminism was so compelling to her. Christianity wasn’t presented to her in a way that engaged her mind. Then she got to college, and her mind was engaged by Marxism and feminism. It would have been wonderful if her parents had presented some thoughts about economics from say, Thomas Sowell, and then some thoughts on feminism from say, Jennifer Roback Morse. But they didn’t do that, and so she had to go the long way around.

And at the very bottom of the article, there’s this: “Kelley holds a J.D. from The Catholic University of America and is a D.Min. candidate in Christian Apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary. ” That’s a really good school. So, her change of mind resulted in a deep study of Christian apologetics. They take an evidential approach, so she will have fun doing that degree.

What I like about this experience of getting to know Kelley is that I was sort of tip-toeing around her, worrying what she would think of my tweets disagreeing with feminism. And I am delighted to report that she was fine with them. I get scared about people getting upset with me when I try to stick with the Bible on controversial issues. I don’t want to get fired or have my house burned down or whatever. I don’t want people to attribute all sorts of motives to me when I say things that make them feel bad.

So, it’s really great when you meet Christians who let you (gently) disagree with things that they’ve done, and are even warning other people based on their experiences. Kelley is going to be a lot more persuasive on these issues than people who have never thought about them, or experienced the limits of these secular left views. Instead of trying to defend her past, and attack people for judging what she did, she’s going to use her experiences to do Kingdom work for the Boss. She’s going to be great for us.

This is great! This is what makes Christianity so amazing. One minute, you are going in your own direction, and then the next minute, you can leverage those pre-Christian experiences to do amazing things in a completely different direction. It helps other people when you teach them how to avoid mistakes. We need people like Kelley to teach what they’ve learned to others.

Are all sins equally bad? Or are there degrees of severity for different sins?

This question came up recently so I did some digging on theology web sites to find what Bible verses applied to the question.

Here’s what Ligonier said:

It’s clear that we have different degrees of sin when we consider the warnings of Scripture. There are at least twenty-two references in the New Testament to degrees of rewards that are given to the saints in heaven. There are different levels, different rewards, and different roles in heaven. The Bible warns us against adding to the severity of our judgment. Jesus said to Pontius Pilate, “He who delivered me over to you has the greater sin” (John 19:11). Jesus measures and evaluates guilt, and with the greater guilt and greater responsibility comes the greater judgment. It’s a motif that permeates the New Testament.

The idea of gradation of sin and reward is based upon God’s justice. If I commit twice as many sins as another person, justice demands that the punishment fits the crime. If I’ve been twice as virtuous as another person, justice demands that I get more of a reward. God tells us that entrance into heaven will be only on the basis of the merit of Christ, but once we get to heaven, rewards will be dispensed according to works. Those who have been abundant in good works will receive an abundant reward. Those who have been derelict and negligent in good works will have a small reward in heaven. By the same token, those who have been grievous enemies of God will have severe torments in hell. Those who have been less hostile will have a lesser punishment at the hands of God. He is perfectly just, and when He judges, He will take into account all of the extenuating circumstances. Jesus said, “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Matt. 12:36).

A while back, my friend Dina sent me a sermon where that exact passage (John 19) was brought up by the pastor.

I think the correct position is that any sin is enough to separate you from God, but some sins are more severe than others in God’s objective standard of right and wrong.

OK, that was fine and good, but then I noticed a few days later that Michael Krueger had also blogged about this “all sin are equal” view, too.

Krueger says this:

First, to say all sins are the same is to confuse the effect of sin with the heinousness of sin.  While all sins are equal in their effect (they separate us from God), they are not all equally heinous.

Second, the Bible differentiates between sins. Some sins are more severe in terms of impact (1 Cor 6:18), in terms of culpability (Rom 1:21-32), and in terms of the judgment warranted (2 Pet 2:17;  Mark 9:42; James 3:1).

Even more Bible references, so we’re not on the wrong track.

So then why do some people insist that all sins are equal? It turns out that it is coming from the secular ideal of non-judgementalism.

Regarding the “all sin are equal” view, Krueger explains:

We should begin by observing that this phrase does not come from Scripture.  People do not use it because it appears in the Bible. Why then do they use it?

One reason, as noted above, is that some Christians use this phrase to uphold the seriousness of sin. It is viewed as a way to remind people not to be dismissive about their sin or regard it is a triviality.

Others use this phrase as way to “flatten out” all sins so that they are not distinguishable from each other.  Or, to put it another way, this phrase is used to portray all human beings as precisely the same.  If all sins are equal, and all people sin, then no one is more holy than anyone else.

In a world fascinated with “equality,” this usage of the phrase is particularly attractive to folks. It allows everyone to be lumped together into a single undifferentiated mass.

Such a move is also useful as a way to prevent particular behaviors from being condemned.  If all sins are equal, and everyone is a sinner, then you are not allowed to highlight any particular sin (or sinner).

Needless to say, this usage of the phrase has featured largely in the recent cultural debates over issues like homosexuality.  Yes, homosexuality is a sin, some Christians reluctantly concede.  But, they argue, all sins are equal in God’s sight and therefore it is no different than anything else.  Therefore, Christians ought to stop talking about homosexuality unless they are also willing to talk about impatience, anger, gluttony, and so on.

Krueger also posted this fascinating follow up post, where he looks at how the phrase is being used by people on Twitter.

Look at these tweets:

  • All sins are equal. People tend to forget that. There is no bigger or smaller sin. Being gay and lying, very equal.

  • all sins are equal in God’s eyes. whatever you’re doing, is no better than what someone else is doing.

  • If you have sex before marriage please don’t come on social media preaching about the wrongs of homosexuality. All sins are equal

  • Need people to realize that all sins are equal… don’t try to look down on me or question my faith just cuz you sin differently than I do.

  • Don’t understand why you’re so quick to judge me, when all sins are equal. So much for family..

  • if you think being gay is a sin, let me ask you something, have you not done anything wrong in your life? all sins are equal. we’re sinners

  • Nope no difference at all. All sins are equal no matter what you’re running for. The bible says do not judge lest ye be judged

  • A huge problem I have with religion is the notion that all sins are equal. Like pre-martial sex and murder are the same amount t of bad.

  • people do bad things because they believe that all sins are equal and ~god~ loves y’all equally so he’s going to forgive you naman ha ha ha

  • It a sin to condemn another sinner and their actions. All sins are equal. So what makes you better than the person you’re condemning?

  • I think so b/c having sex before marriage doesn’t make you less of a women then if you waited until marriage.. all sins are equal soo

  • friendly reminder, all sins are equal in gods eyes so you’re not better than I am in any way. please worry about your own sins before mine.

  • People don’t like when I suggest abortion as an option. This is a free country and all sins are equal so mind your business!!!

  • What I do is no worse than wat you do… all sins are equal no matter what it is… a sin is a sin

  • to god all sins are equal so you have no right to compare your sins to someone else’s bc in the end it doesn’t matter

The first thing that I noticed is that premarital sex and homosexuality are the most popular sins. I would think that divorce and abortion would be up there in the rankings, as well.

Something strange has happened in our society such that more and more people want to be led by their feelings, rather than be bounded by rules or standards. When people get caught breaking moral rules, rather than be accountable, they attack the person judging them. They would rather escape the judgment of their peers than admit fault and try to fix the mistake, and do better next time.

It’s so bad now, that the people who have morals and who make moral judgments are seen as the real bad people. The immoral people are on the offense, and even trying to ban people from being able to disagree with them. We’re seeing that with people who are being attacked for defending natural marriage against divorce and redefinition of marriage. In France, they want to make speech critical of abortion a criminal offense. And in Canada, they’ve now made speech critical of the gay agenda a criminal offense. (It’s already a human rights tribunal offense)

What is even more interesting is when the people who push the “don’t judge me” line try to justify it from the Bible. Very strange, but we seem to have forgotten the value of setting moral boundaries. Now moral boundaries are “evil”. Instead, having compassion for people who break the moral boundaries and harm themselves and others is “good”.