Welcome to G3 Weekly—a summary of this week’s top news stories on Christianity and the public square.
This week, the states of California and New York exerted pressure on pharmacy chains to offer abortion pills across the entire country. A government school district canceled a contract with a Christian university due to its embrace of biblical sexual ethics. Meanwhile, whistleblower testimony from an FBI agent warned that employees were ordered to target pregnancy centers.
California and New York Push for Nationwide Abortion Pills
“I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech” (Leviticus 20:3).
Officials in California and New York called upon Walgreens, CVS, and RiteAid to continue offering mifepristone, a substance which mothers and fathers use to murder preborn babies, even in states where abortion is more heavily regulated.
Walgreens ceased distributing abortion pills in twenty-one states after their Republican attorneys general warned that offering the chemicals to mothers would interfere with local laws. California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, therefore immediately ended a $54 million state contract with Walgreens. “California will not stand by as corporations cave to extremists and cut off critical access to reproductive care and freedom,” he said in a statement. “California is on track to be the fourth largest economy in the world and we will leverage our market power to defend the right to choose.”
The state of New York reassured the three pharmacy chains that policymakers welcome the continued distribution of mifepristone, which blocks a pregnancy hormone called progesterone and thereby results in the death of preborn babies. Mothers later consume a second substance named misoprostol to deliver the murdered child.
“We urge you not to allow these tactics to intimidate you, and to commit to making this critical medication available as widely as possible, based on a fair and unbiased interpretation of state and federal law,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James, both of whom are Democrats, said in a letter to executives.
Many conservative-leaning states have introduced new regulations on abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court last year, although no states have enacted laws that would prosecute abortion as murder. Democratic officials have meanwhile welcomed residents of neighboring states to continue receiving surgical abortions in their jurisdictions.
School District Blocks Christian University Attendees from Working as Student Teachers
“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Matthew 12:30).
Washington Elementary School District ended an eleven-year contract that allowed education majors from nearby Arizona Christian University to work as student teachers.
Tamillia Valenzuela, a board member for the government school district, asserted that the university’s mission to “influence, engage and transform the culture with truth by promoting the biblically informed values that are foundational to Western civilization” would conflict with the wellbeing of students who purportedly identify with the LGBTQ movement.
“At some point we need to get real with ourselves and take a look at who we are making legal contracts with and the message that that is sending to our community because that makes me feel like I could not be safe in this school district,” Valenzuela told her fellow board members, according to a report from the Arizona Republic. “That makes queer kids who are already facing attack from our lawmakers feel that they could not be safe in this community.”
Arizona Christian University also upholds “traditional sexual morality and lifelong marriage between one man and one woman.” The school has filed a lawsuit against Washington Elementary School District over the nixed contract.
FBI Whistleblower Says Agency Targeted Pro-Life Activists
“Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood” (Deuteronomy 27:25).
FBI Special Agent Garret O’Boyle informed lawmakers that employees of the law enforcement agency were told to examine crisis pregnancy centers in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
O’Boyle, who works at the Kansas City Field Office, testified last month before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government that the FBI initially examined threats to Supreme Court Justices who overturned the landmark case. The agency’s emphasis later “shifted and began focusing in on pro-life adherence,” according to a transcript of an interview with O’Boyle and lawmakers obtained by Fox News.
The whistleblower added that the FBI told staff members to “look into” pregnancy centers, which are often run by Christians and provide resources to mothers tempted to seek abortions. “If somebody is going to be getting threatened,” O’Boyle remarked, “it would be them, because people thought that abortion was suddenly outlawed.”
