The 3 - July 6, 2025

One Big, Beautiful Bill contains beautiful protection of life

Last Thursday, for a second time, the U.S. House passed what President Trump had affectionately named the "One Big, Beautiful Bill," after the original version passed by the House had been amended by the Senate.

In addition to the extension of the 2017 tax cuts by the first Trump Administration, Medicaid reform, border enforcement, and defense spending were some of the headline-grabbing aspects of the bill.

But, there was an element that was gratifying to some in the pro-life community - for the first time in history, Congress had removed Planned Parenthood from receiving taxpayer funds. As The Daily Citizen put it:

The bill defunds Planned Parenthood, our nation’s largest abortion seller, of roughly $500 million in taxpayer dollars.

Despite demands from pro-life supporters for years, Congress has continually permitted Planned Parenthood to receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars annually in the form of government grants, contracts and Medicaid reimbursements. But no longer.

The abortion giant has warned H.R. 1 could lead to the closure of nearly half of abortion-providing Planned Parenthood centers. Such a result would be a truly monumental win for life.

But there was some disappointment in the pro-life community.  Live Action News spells it out:

The reconciliation bill, which originally defunded Planned Parenthood of Medicaid payments for 10 years when the House first passed it in May, will now defund the abortion giant for just one year due to changes made in the Senate before its passage on July 1.

The piece included comments from Live Action Founder and President Lila Rose, who said in a statement: “For years, Americans have been forced to subsidize the killing of innocent children and the exploitation of vulnerable women. Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion chain, ending over 400,000 lives annually while masking their business as healthcare. This defunding victory is a crucial step toward ending that injustice,” adding, “But this is only the beginning. Every dollar stripped from the abortion giant is a win for life, but the goal is total and permanent defunding and the closing of every abortion facility’s doors. No taxpayer should ever be complicit in violence. Every mother deserves real support, and every child deserves the chance to live.”

Developments regarding the issue of males participating in female sports: UPenn reverses course, high court announces it will hear case

One of the symbolic individuals regarding the unfairness of males competing in women's sports is a former University of Pennsylvania swimmer named Will Thomas, who identified as a female named, Lia.  The victories that Thomas "won" in his cosplay scheme will now be coming off the board. According to Newsweek: "The University of Pennsylvania has agreed to ban transgender women from its women's sports teams, resolving a federal civil rights investigation centered on former swimmer Lia Thomas."  Just to be clear, when you hear the term, "transgender woman," it actually means a biological male presenting as a woman.  The article continues:

The U.S. Department of Education announced the voluntary agreement Tuesday, stating that Penn violated Title IX by allowing Thomas to compete in women's events during the 2021–2022 season.

As part of the resolution, Penn will reinstate Division I swimming records and titles to athletes displaced by Thomas's victories and issue personalized apology letters to each of them, per the Department of Education. The university must adopt "biology-based" definitions of male and female in athletics and publicly commit to barring "males from competing in female athletic programs." 

Riley Gaines, who has become a leading spokesperson for the integrity of female sports, who actually tied Thomas in a swim meet, but who was did not receive the trophy to recognize it, is quoted in the Newsweek article as saying, "This Administration isn't just talking about women's equality, but instead actively defending it. I hope this sends a clear message to educational institutions: you can no longer disregard women's civil rights. And to every female athlete, know this: your dignity, safety, and fairness matter, and our nation's leaders will not stop fighting for them."

Meanwhile, the issue, at last, will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Alliance Defending Freedom reported: "The U.S. Supreme Court agreed...to hear two cases concerning state laws that protect women’s sports. The states of West Virginia and Idaho, together with attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom, asked the high court to take the cases." The ADF website website stated:

In State of West Virginia v. B.P.J., West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey, supported by ADF attorneys who serve as co-counsel and also as counsel to former college soccer player Lainey Armistead, asked the Supreme Court to hear their case after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled against West Virginia’s law protecting fairness in women’s sports. In Little v. Hecox, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, also supported by ADF attorneys as co-counsel, is asking the high court to uphold his state’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit stopped the law from going into effect.

Eight evangelical Church leaders in Colombia slain

From time to time, we learn about unfortunate occurrences somewhere around the world where Christians experience death and other forms of punishment for the practice of their faith. The Christian Post reported last week:

In an event that has shaken the country, Colombian authorities located on Tuesday a mass grave in a rural area of the municipality of Calamar, department of Guaviare, which contained the bodies of eight Christian religious leaders.

The victims, natives of Arauca, were carrying out humanitarian and spiritual work in that region when they were disappeared.

The article related: "The discovery was made possible by the capture of a guerrilla in May, whose mobile phone contained photographs of the detained leaders and, subsequently, of the crime, which made it possible to locate the grave and proceed with its exhumation."

A statement by the Evangelical Confederation of Colombia said:

"We ask for prayer for peace and consolation to these families; We raise a firm voice of clamor and demand to the authorities so that these crimes do not go unpunished, that progress is made quickly in the investigations and that real guarantees are provided for the protection of the life and integrity of those who exercise spiritual leadership in the most vulnerable regions of the country...

While President Gustavo Petro decried the mass murder, the article said that his government's involvement is insufficient, according to the daughter of one of those losing their lives in this incident. She told the newspaper, SEMANA, that they are calling on the Petro government "to be present and to avoid this type of situation, because two armed groups are disputing the territory and the one that is in the middle is the peasantry and there is no response from the State. There is no protection from the State. In other words, here we are really alone in a war between two armed groups..."