Tag Archives: John Kasich

News

Republican governor of Ohio signs bill banning abortions when babies feel pain

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I'm Scheming Unborn Baby, and I approve this study
I’m Scheming Unborn Baby, and my sneaky plan worked perfectly! Excellent!

Wow, I’m so shocked and surprised by this – John Kasich is barely a Republican.

Life News reports:

Today, Governor John Kasich signed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (Sub. S.B. 127), landmark legislation which would ban late-term abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.  And, citing concerns it would be overturned in court, Kasich vetoed a ban on all abortions after the heart of an unborn baby begins to beat.

“I agree with Ohio Right to Life and other leading, pro-life advocates that SB 127 (a 20-week ban) is the best, most legally sound and sustainable approach to protecting the sanctity of human life,” Kasich said in a statement.

Because the heartbeat-based abortion ban will not likely survive a legal challenge in court, pro-life legislators approved the 20-week abortion ban with the hope of saving as many babies as possible under Roe v. Wade.

Why is this “20-week” legislation important? It’s important because when the national news media cover this law, they are going to put the focus where it belongs – on the unborn baby:

“On behalf of Ohio Right to Life and our statewide members, we sincerely thank Governor Kasich for his unwavering support for the unborn and our pro-life mission. By signing S.B. 127, the 20-week ban, Governor Kasich will save hundreds of unborn lives each year and he positioned the state of Ohio to directly challenge Roe v. Wade,” it told LifeNews. “The 20-week ban was nationally designed to be the vehicle to end abortion in America. It challenges the current national abortion standard and properly moves the legal needle from viability to the baby’s ability to feel pain.”

The incremental approach is realistic, and effective. In no way is the pro-life movement required to settle for this victory, either. They will take down the pro-abortion status quo one piece at a time if they have to.

So what about that premise – unborn babies feeling pain at 20 weeks. Is it really true?

Yes – this is another case where the science is all on the side of the Team Pro-Life:

One leading expert in the field of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand at the University of Tennessee, stated in his expert report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice, “It is my opinion that the human fetus possesses the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks of gestation, if not earlier, and the pain perceived by a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by term newborns or older children.”

“The neural pathways are present for pain to be experienced quite early by unborn babies,” explains Steven Calvin, M.D., perinatologist, chair of the Program in Human Rights Medicine, University of Minnesota, where he teaches obstetrics.

Indeed, that’s why the line is set at 20 weeks, and now we can ask the Democrats why they want to hurt babies. That’s what this is really about. I have lived a long time on this planet, and I have never, ever hurt a baby. It’s not hard, you just avoid getting drunk, and chose relationships based on reason instead of feelings. Then you will never be in a position where you are tempted to hurt a baby to preserve your own happiness.

Here’s what a baby is like at 20 weeks:

You are 20 weeks pregnant. (fetal age 18 weeks)

  • Baby now weighs about 11 ounces and is roughly 7 inches long.
  • Baby is 17 cm long crown to rump, and weighs about 310 grams.
  • The baby can hear and recognize the mother’s voice.
  • The mother will probably start feeling the first fetal movements.
  • The toenails and fingernails are growing.
  • The growth of hair on the rest of the body has started.
  • The skin is getting thicker.
  • The heart can now be heard with a stethoscope.

Your baby may react to loud sounds. Baby can actually hear noises outside of the womb. Familiar voices, music, and sounds that baby becomes accustomed to during their development stages often are calming after birth. This is an important time for sensory development since nerve cells serving each of the senses; taste, smell, hearing, sight, and touch are now developing into their specialized area of the brain.

Your baby now weighs about 11 ounces and at roughly 7 inches long they are filling up more and more of the womb. Though still small and fragile, the baby is growing rapidly and could possibly survive if born at this stage.

I understand why Democrats would vote to allow abortions on unborn children at this age. The abortionists make money off of these procedures, and they make more money off of the sale of organs, sometimes cut from babies who are still alive. Some of that money makes it’s way back to the Democrats in the form of political contributions. It’s similar to the way that slavers made money off of slaves… except they didn’t torture the slaves and cut the organs out of them to sell. I guess someone standing in a slave plantation might have said to a slaver “you can’t do that, they can feel pain”. And Republicans are standing outside abortion clinics and saying “you can’t do that, they can feel pain”. But in both cases, the slavers and the abortionists are making money from their barbarism. So it doesn’t make a difference to them whether they unborn can feel pain. The important thing to them is that they are making money. And the money being made by abortionists makes its way into the coffers of Democrat politicians running for re-election. This is working as designed, according to Democrats.

Just for completeness, I must mention that even the radically leftist New York Times admits that unborn children are viable at 22 weeks. Democrats are not in favor of limits on abortion at any number of weeks. And the later the better, as far as they’re concerned – more developed babies have parts that can be sold for big money.

Commentary

Conservatives in Ohio don’t support John Kasich

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John Kasich: dependency on big government is "compassionate"
John Kasich: dependency on big government is “compassionate”

I see that some people are voting for John Kasich, and I just thought that I should let people know that John Kasich is very far to the left on fiscal, social and foreign policy issues – the left of someone like Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush across the board.

I was going to write something about it, but then I found this article by a leader of the conservatives of Ohio.

The thing that everyone knows about Kasich is that he is a huge proponent of spending taxpayer money to “help” poor people. He’s never met a big government solution to a problem that he didn’t heartily embrace. He thinks that the right way to help the poor is not to use his own money to do it, it’s to take money from the private sector and redistribute it to others, after the unionized government workers take their cut out first.

Here’s an example, John Kasich supports expanding the role of government in providing health care:

  1. Governor Kasich on Obamacare: You advanced Obamacare in Ohio, turning over 600,000 healthy, working age adults into government dependents, costing taxpayers billions of dollars and expanding the largest long term obligation in Ohio history – all against the will of the Republican controlled Ohio House and Senate.

Given that these 600,000 Ohioans would not be government dependents had you not bypassed the legislature and vetoed their wishes so you could accept Obamacare funding and conditions – how can you say you oppose Obamacare while unilaterally championing its single biggest component?

[…]Ohioans, let’s be brutally honest about this Kasich decision to expand Obamacare in Ohio. You and your children are being indebted by billions of dollars all to redistribute this money to healthy, working age adults. Not children, pregnant mothers or truly medically fragile people, no. The people Kasich added as government dependents were healthy adults.

Kasich likes to talk a lot about helping the poor through big government, and he does that by increasing spending:

2. Governor Kasich on Spending: You talk about balancing the state budget, but every Ohio Governor balances the budget every year as it’s a Constitutional requirement in your state. Democrat or Republican – every Ohio Governor does this, as it is regular and expected. This is not a unique accomplishment.

Of greater interest is that Ohio’s job and economic growth has lagged behind the national average during your time in office. As we all know, the national economy has improved since the crash of 2008, so tax revenues have increased in both Ohio and across the US. But, as Ohio state tax revenues increased, curiously, so did your spending at a much faster pace.

Governor Kasich, how can you justify increasing spending by greater amounts than any Ohio Democrat or Republican Governor since 1990, outpacing both inflation and population growth, but still call yourself fiscally responsible?

If there is one thing that conservatives stand for, it’s limiting the power of the liberal labor unions to influence government. But John Kasich loves unions, and opposes right-to-work legislation:

3. Governor Kasich on Unions and Big Labor: Every US state with a Republican Governor and Republican controlled Legislature has ended compulsory payment of fees to unions and become a “right to work” state with the exception of Ohio.

As the Ohio border states of Indiana, Michigan and West Virginia have all become “right to work” states during your time as Ohio Governor, not only have you failed to make Ohio a “right to work” state, but you actively pushed Michigan’s Governor Snyder to oppose right to work legislation, you have killed Ohio right to work legislation in committees multiple times and you proactively worked to stop Ohio donors from funding a citizen’s initiative to make Ohio a right to work state through a vote of the people at the ballot.

Ohio’s current ranking is a dismal 38Th in job creation, so while you fought against ending forced union dues payments, right to work states dominated job growth across the country. How can you call yourself someone committed to an environment conducive to job creation when your actions and results  in Ohio have protected unions and inhibited job growth?

The rest of the article talks about many other minor problems with Kasich. Initially, it seemed to me that he was going to champion the same kinds of things that Governor Walker championed in Wisconsin, or that Governor Pence championed in Indiana, or that Governor Bevan championed in Kentucky, or that Governor Snyder championed in Michigan. But he’s been nothing like them – he’s been more like a big-spending, pro-dependency Democrat.

Religious liberty

Kasich considers same-sex marriage to be the law of the land, and he opposes legal protections for Christians who are sued by gay activists.

He gets an F on marriage from pro-marriage activist Maggie Gallagher for his stance on same-sex marriage:

The Supreme Court overturns the marriage laws of your state and many others by inventing a new right?  That gets a big yawn from John Kasich: “I do believe in the traditional sense of marriage—that marriage is between a man and a woman.  But I also respect the Supreme Court of the United States.  The Supreme Court of the United States made the decision, and as I have said repeatedly we’ll honor what the Supreme Court does—it’s the law of the land.”

And he opposes protections for Christians who are sued by gay activists:

What will you do, Gov. Kasich, to protect the rights of gay marriage dissenters?

The other three men on the stage have all indicated support for the First Amendment Defense Act, which protects gay marriage dissenters from discrimination by the federal government, including by the IRS (Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio strongly, Donald Trump half-heartedly).

Gov. Kasich has refused to say whether he would support FADA.

And while we can all applaud the fact that at last night’s debate Kasich no longer actively sided with those stripping Christians (and other traditional believers) of their family’s livelihoods, he also refused to commit to doing anything about it.

No wonder, as he said last night, he’s the Democrats’ favorite Republican.

I do have to say that the one issue where Kasich does perform as expected is on the pro-life issue. There, he has a moderate record of pro-life actions. Nothing as good as people like Rubio or Cruz, though. We can do better than John Kasich.

News

In Ohio, faithful Jews and Christians can no longer serve as judges

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Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign
Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign

For the past few decades, we have been able to see what happens when the Christian church decides that piety and feelings are more important than truth and evidence. Gradually, pastors decided to eliminate any discussion of apologetics as well as any integration between the Christian worldview and other areas of knowledge, e.g. – economics, politics, science. What were the consequences of this emotionalization of Christianity? Well, we basically handed the commanding heights of the culture to the secular left – including furnishing them with new soldiers from our own pious families.

Consider this article in The Stream about a recent decision by the Ohio Supreme Court.

It says:

The court’s Board of Professional Conduct was responding to a request submitted by several lawyers and judges, including C. Allen McConnell, a municipal court Judge whose predicament we addressedin “The ‘Soft’ Beginning of the Post-Obergefell Persecution.”

Judge McConnell said that as a Christian, he could not officiate at same-sex weddings. The Board of Professional Conduct of the Ohio Supreme Court said he must. In other words: Christians, check your faith at the bench or you may not serve as a judge in the state of Ohio.

It is helpful to go through the board’s opinion because it reveals how they will treat complaints filed against judges in the future. If a judge is the subject of a complaint filed by a lawyer, fellow judge or member of the public, the board reviews the complaint. They will apply the strained analysis of this opinion in determining whether to sanction, suspend or remove the judge from the bench.

In Ohio, judges are elected by the people, at every level, municipal, circuit court, appeals court or state Supreme Court. In many other states they are appointed. Where they are appointed there are growing efforts to weed out Christians. This advisory opinion presents a new way of removing Christians from the bench after the people have elected them to office.

In this seven-page opinion the Board claimed that there is a “self-evident principle that the personal, moral and religious beliefs of a judicial officer should never factor into the performance of any judicial duty.” In other words, Christians must check their faith at the bench if they serve as a judge in the state of Ohio.

So what we have now is a kind of “religious test” for judges. If you are a devout Christian or a devout Jew, then you can’t be a judge in Ohio. Only people reject the Judeo-Christian ethics that founded this country can be judges.

So, if we go back 50 years, what were the churches doing to stop this? Were they educating people in apologetics? Were they encouraging people to stay married? Were they educating people about feminism, the sexual revolution and no-fault divorce? Were they paying attention to cosmology and fine-tuning discoveries and making them known to the flock? Were they teaching people about how to think Christianly about economics, foreign policy, free enterprise, and so on? Were they steering young people towards areas that are related to apologetics? Were they steering young people towards careers that would place them in positions of influence? No. We had other priorities – making people feel good, and avoid controversy and conflict.

Brett Kunkle, who works for Stand to Reason, posted an interesting commentary that I tweeted earlier this week. He talks about grilling a bunch of Christian parents by pretending to be an atheist professor.

He writes this:

There was no surprise factor. The parents knew who I was and the Christian organization I represented. Indeed, I told the audience what I was about to do, turned my back on them for just a moment, and then turned round again in full atheist character. I jumped into my role and they jumped into theirs, attempting to defend the faith against atheist professor “Dr. Kunkle.” Sadly, they were ill-equipped to handle my challenges. I was glad to see their fighting spirit, but their responses were only vigorous in style, not substance. After half an hour, many parents were exasperated and I ended the role-play.

“How was that for you?” I asked. “Extremely frustrating,” was the immediate parental consensus.

“Why was it so frustrating?” I pressed. One mom blurted out, “Because I didn’t have any good answers.” As soon as the words left her mouth, tears began streaming down her cheeks. It was a painful recognition of her own inadequacy and she knew what was at stake. As I glanced around the room, other parents were nodding in agreement, eyes moist with their own tears.

Caught off guard, I began to tear up, too. I felt such compassion for these good-hearted yet unequipped parents. Quickly gathering my emotions, I looked that mom in the eyes and gently replied, “I know exactly how you feel. I felt that way, too, when Dr. David Lane was dismantling my Christianity in front of my peers, in my college philosophy class.” I told the parents my story and encouraged them to prepare themselves so, in turn, they can prepare their own kids.

Afterward, parent after parent thanked me. They expressed their deep appreciation for the wake-up call, despite the accompanying painful realizations. And the mom who burst into tears? She walked up and gave me a big hug. Then she shared how her 21-year-old son, a student at Duke University, had turned his back on Christ while at college. She was convicted to begin a dialogue with him, as well as with her second son, a junior at Village Academy. I encouraged her, shared some resources, and gave her my email address with an open invitation to contact me anytime.

Christian parents: we need to do what it takes so that OUR sons and daughters get on the Ohio Supreme Court. We need to be the ones making these decisions, not the people on the secular left. If you send your kid off to Duke University unprepared, you’re not doing a good job at parenting.