Culture Friday: Drawing moral lines

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 4th of April. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

It’s Culture Friday. Joining us now is author and speaker Katie McCoy. Good morning!

KATIE MCCOY: Good morning Nick and Myrna. How are you both?

EICHER: At the Supreme Court this week, the justices heard arguments in a case out of South Carolina. At the center of it is a big question: Can a state cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood—not strictly money for abortions, but money for its other services, like STI testing and cancer screenings?

The case goes back to a 2018 executive order from South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster. He said taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to support any group that provides abortions—even if the Medicaid dollars aren’t paying for the procedures directly.

Planned Parenthood sued, saying Medicaid patients have a federal right to choose their own qualified provider. But during oral arguments, justices focused on whether that right is enforceable in court. Justice Kagan called it a clear right; Justice Barrett seemed concerned about leaving patients with no way to appeal.

So Katie, while this may look like a technical Medicaid case, isn’t it really about whether states can draw moral lines when it comes to healthcare spending?

MCCOY: Well Nick, I’m not a lawyer and I don’t even play one on TV—but I’ll just tell you from my perspective what I have heard and gleaned about this case.

First of all, you will have to forgive me for laughing. I’m old enough to remember when this whole “you-get-to-choose-your-own-doctor” thing was a big joke. So when we’re hearing this case, wait a second. I thought individuals could choose their own doctor. Everyone who lived through Obamacare said, “Yeah, we did too.”

So I’m not sure in terms of the legal ease why this would be the one impediment. The attorney from our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom, representing South Carolina, said this: “Taxpayer dollars should never be used to fund facilities that profit off abortion and distribute dangerous gender transition drugs to minors.”

This is the real issue, and we need only hear the testimonies from past Planned Parenthood clinic directors to understand that these lines are not clear. The line between funding abortions and funding other forms of health care are blurred at best.

In fact, there was one former Planned Parenthood center director who described how there’s just outright illegality that took place. She saw the way things were coded, the way Title X was not enforced. All of this seems to come down to whether states have the right not to be funding facilities that are performing abortions, knowing that the line between abortion services and other medical services are not clear.

I hope that what we see is a sound ruling.

I’m also old enough, by the way, to have taken a civics class and remember things like the 10th Amendment. I just don’t know if we even have that anymore on things like this—but that’s probably for another day.

EICHER: Now, Katie, before we move on from Planned Parenthood, there’s one other front in this battle, and that is public schools.

WORLD reported the state of Idaho just passed a new law that requires schools to teach students about prenatal development. This is for 5th grade all throughout high school. And we’re not talking vague textbook diagrams here. The curriculum includes high-definition ultrasound footage as well as videos showing fetal growth, week by week, from fertilization to birth.

Idaho becomes the third state to do this, following North Dakota and Tennessee, and one of the options for schools is a video from the pro-life group Live Action. Let’s hear a little bit from that video.

AUDIO: She begins to move between five and six weeks with both spontaneous and reflexive movements. At six weeks from fertilization, her brain activity can be recorded and bone-formation begins...

We will link to the “Baby Olivia” video in the transcript so the listener can have a look. But there was, of course, criticism of this, and the complaint was telling: Opponents say it’s anti-abortion propaganda that could “stigmatize” abortion.

Proponents say it’s just good science—helping kids understand what human life in the womb really looks like.

Katie, how do you see this?

MCCOY: First, like so many other things, “science” becomes politicized, according to whichever side of a partisan issue you want to be on. Sadly, as with so many other things—not least of which is, When does a baby become a human being?—it’s one of those ethical questions circulating around the issue of abortion.

I think this is one of the best stories that I have seen in so long. Here’s why, while we are keeping our eye on Washington—and well we should—state by state, county by county, community by community, if you want to see real cultural change, it’s going to happen in the hearts and minds of individuals. This law in Idaho is starting at that education level.

I’m sure it is age-appropriate, beginning in fifth grade up through middle and high school to help these students understand what gestation is, what the growth and process of a human being in those first nine months looks like. One of the things that we saw from pro-life groups was showing people what happens to a baby in an abortion procedure, and most people who are under 40 had no idea, because this is the “science” that doesn’t get taught. This is the “science” of saying abortion is totally safe, no problem. It’s not actually doing any harm.

But when they see what the procedure entails, they go: “I don’t know if I’m for that after all.” So this is laying that foundation to help students understand in age-appropriate ways, but beginning in childhood, that a baby actually is a human person. They will be able to identify different points in human development that can contradict the rhetoric that we hear from the pro-abortion advocacy group that, you know, this is just a clump of cells.

BROWN: This article highlighting young conservative female voices: Brett Cooper, former Daily Wire contributor and current YouTube sensation, Alex Clark, Turning Point USA influencer. Clark calls her followers “cuteservatives.”

The article suggests that these young conservative, female voices are building alternatives to what has been a conservative media space traditionally built by and for older men.

Here’s what really caught my eye: while these young women are addressing politics on their platforms, they say they’re more interested in the personalities behind politics and its influence on culture. They want to talk about the social scene rather than the nuts and bolts of policy.

Is it possible to pursue both?

MCCOY: Well, first, Myrna, cute-servatives? Oh my word.

This kind of reminds me of kind of the new generation’s Oprah culture.

When I was young, we had Oprah—and she really ruled daytime television. Now, of course, we have social media and we have media decentralization. I mean, you have a lot of personalities that come up to the top, but the market is so saturated.

I think this is just what women do—whether it’s on Instagram, YouTube, whether it’s a podcast or TV. Women are wired to relationally connect. So it doesn’t surprise me that they may say, “Oh, we want to talk about this topic and not that topic.”

That soft influence, you’re listening to someone, you feel like you know them, that’s where a lot of social power comes in—and this is what we saw in the Oprah generation. So I think it’s something to watch for, Myrna. I would be entirely unsurprised if they started wading into issues of the nuts and bolts of policy, because policy, culture, real life, it all blends together.

EICHER: Well Katie, before we go, one more story I’d love to get your thoughts on. And I have to admit—when I saw the date on this piece, April 1st, I had to double-check it wasn’t a joke. But sure enough, the UK Telegraph is reporting on the rumor that Meryl Streep may voice Aslan in the upcoming adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew.

Now, some folks are upset over the idea of an actress, a female, portraying a Christ figure. But beyond casting, I think there’s another concern here: Will the spiritual heart of Narnia survive the Netflix treatment? They’ve said they “understand” that Lewis’s books are based in Christianity—but understanding that is not the same as embracing it.

And given how hard Disney’s Snow White remake flopped when it tampered with the heart of the original, do you think secular studios like Netflix can—or even want to—carry forward the Christian imagination of someone like Lewis? Or is that just asking too much?

MCCOY: I really hope that ends up being an April Fool’s joke, Nick. I hope that the next time we do this, we’re like, “Oh, whew, crisis averted.”

We did not actually have to take this one seriously, but given the number of outlets reporting it, it seems like this is at least being floated, that there’s going to be kind of this gender bending of the casting of a Netflix treatment of The Chronicles of Narnia.

I try to stay away from the word woke, mainly because when you hear it, you’re just importing your definitions of it and not really hearing anything else. So I try not to use that. But all I can say is, “Go woke, go broke.” I think that will be what we see if indeed Netflix decides to go this route.

You’re exactly right. The Snow White movie completely flopped. It was just riddled with controversy that came from its star who wanted to make these progressive political statements.

I think people will vote with their dollars again. If there is some gender bending version of this C.S. Lewis classic, you might have some people watch it out of curiosity. You might have some people “hate-watch” it. But I have a feeling it’s going to flop.

I think people are tired of these classic things that we should be able to just enjoy in our culture, especially something as enduring as The Chronicles of Narnia, being tampered with and infused with these progressive ideas.

I’m not going to go so far as to say that they’re feminist theorizing it. I don’t know enough yet to be able to say that, but it certainly sounds like that, and I think it will flop.

I think people are just really fed up. Like for crying out loud, leave Aslan alone.

EICHER: Author and speaker Katie McCoy enjoyed the visit. Thanks!

MCCOY: Always good to be with you.

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