The World and Everything in It: February 7, 2023

 MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The Biden administration expands access to the abortion pill and now that’s a new front in the fight to save the unborn.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also school choice arrives in Iowa. It allows the money to follow the child instead of his or her zip code.

Plus our Classic Book of the Month for February.

And the joy of just wandering around.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, February 7th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Turkey/Syria Quakes » Rescuers across Turkey and Syria are digging through piles of shattered lumber and twisted steel where buildings once stood. They’re still hoping to find more survivors after a series of powerful earthquakes devastated the region.

Nearly 4,000 people were killed and thousands more injured.

University College London Seismologist Stephen Hicks says the earthquake was particularly devastating because it happened close to the Earth’s surface.

HICKS: We can safely say that there will be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of aftershocks.

A 7.8 magnitude quake was followed by another magnitude 7.4 earthquake hours later.

The European Union, United Nations, and at least a dozen countries have committed to send rescue teams and relief supplies to the area.

Balloon latest » Top U.S. officials are defending the decision to let a Chinese spy balloon travel across the United States last week before shooting it down off the Atlantic coast.

General Glen VanHerck is commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command—or NORAD. He told reporters:

VANHERCK: We took maximum precaution to prevent any intel collection. And we provided counterintelligence messages out of our intelligence shop so that we could take maximum protective measures.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that allowing the balloon to travel across the country gave the U.S. officials more intelligence data than if it had been shot down immediately.

KIRBY: Will give us a lot more clarity, not only on the capabilities these balloons have but what China’s trying to do with them.

Republicans have been critical of President Biden’s decision not to shoot it down earlier.

The White House also says similar incidents occurred during the Trump administration. Several former Trump administration officials have said they’re unaware of anything like this happening in the past.

Russian attack in Kharkiv » Russian forces are keeping Ukrainian troops tied down with attacks in the eastern Donbas region as Moscow piles up additional firepower there.WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

ZELENSKYY: [Ukrainian]

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his troops have so far been able to fend off a Russian offensive in the region.

But Russian forces are keeping Ukrainian troops tied down with constant attacks as Moscow piles up more firepower in the region.

Military analysts say Russian generals are likely probing Ukrainian defenses for weak points before launching a major military offensive in the spring.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

UK health strike » AUDIO: [Chanting]

Thousands of nurses and ambulance staff across Britain walked off the job Monday over pay disputes.

England’s National Health Service said it was the largest round of strikes the agency has ever seen.

Workers from a variety of industries are calling for pay raises amid persistent inflation. A teacher strike last week was the largest in over a decade.

Ethna Vaughan was one of the nurses on strike.

VAUGHAN: The government needs to listen and discuss pay rather than just saying the NHS doesn’t have money.

Government officials have said they will only negotiate pay rates for next year, while union leaders want raises for the current year.

Poll: Most Dems don’t want Biden to run » The majority of Democrats say they don’t want President Biden to run for reelection. That according to a new poll from the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Research .

The poll of more than a thousand people found found that only 37 percent of Democratic voters and just 22% of adults overall want Biden to run again.

But White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president isn’t worried. She cited better-than-expected results for Democrats in the midterms.

BIDEN: And that’s because the president went out there, spoke directly to the American people, and laid out what it is that we have done the last two years.

Many voters say the 80-year-old Biden is simply too old to run again. His low national approval rating of about 44% is also a factor. 

State of the Union Address Preview » But the president will have a chance to change a few minds tonight when he delivers his second State of the Union address.

Some have speculated that he could seize the moment to announce his reelection bid.

Democratic Congressman James Clyburn said Monday:

CLYBURN: He is deserving of this party’s support. He has not announced yet, but when he does I’ll be there with him.

Biden tonight is expected to tackle tensions with China and the war in Ukraine.

On the home front, he’ll touch on issues like gun violence, inflation, and the ongoing standoff over raising the debt ceiling.

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders will deliver the Republican response. 

Debt Ceiling » Ahead of the president’s speech, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy blasted Biden’s economic policies and Washington spending that he says is out of control.

McCARTHY: We are now $31 trillion in debt. That is more than the size of the entire American economy. 20% more.

McCarthy called out President Biden specifically—saying that he ought to negotiate with Republicans and agree to balance the budget and spend responsibly.

McCarthy clarified that Republicans wouldn’t cut Social Security and Medicare and that they also wouldn’t default on the national debt.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: protesting the abortion pill.

Plus, the Classic Book of the Month for February.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 7th of February, 2023.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up: The abortion pill. It’s become ground zero for the abortion debate in this country.

The most recent numbers show that chemical abortions made up more than half of all abortions recorded in the U-S. That percentage will likely go even higher as the Biden administration this year gave the green light to abortion pills by mail. The White House also invited brick-and-mortar pharmacies to get involved.

REICHARD: But pro-life groups are pushing back. WORLD’s life beat reporter Leah Savas has our story.

LEAH SAVAS, REPORTER: It’s a quarter till noon on Saturday, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. About 17 people wearing puffy winter coats in the 25-degree weather line a stretch of sidewalk outside of a Walgreens. Anne Adamczyk wears a purple coat and holds a white sign with black capital letters that read “WALGREENS PLANS TO KILL BABIES.”

ADAMCZYK: We're here because Walgreens, along with CVS and Rite Aid, have announced that they plan to offer the abortion pill. And not only is that not healthcare because it's killing babies, and not saving lives. It's also dangerous for women to be dispensed in this manner. There are a lot of dangers like an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy and other problems with women not having a doctor available.

Other signs say things like “Keep abortion out of pharmacies” and “Boycott Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid.” Some drivers give a thumbs up or wave as they pass the group. Others do the opposite. Occasionally, someone rolls down a window to call out.

AUDIO: That doesn’t solve the problem!

This protest in Grand Rapids was just one of dozens of similar protests Saturday at pharmacies all across the country.

Pro-life groups started planning these protests in early January. That’s when news broke that the Food and Drug Administration would begin certifying brick and mortar pharmacies to fill prescriptions for the abortion pill. In the past, only certified medical professionals could distribute the drug.

Walgreens is one of the pharmacy chains that has already announced plans to become certified to dispense abortion pills.

AUDIO: [Sound from Walgreens]

But the company has said that becoming certified does not mean it’ll put the abortion pill in every store. Here’s Caroline Taylor Smith, director of public relations for the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, or PAAU—the group that organized the protests.

SMITH: As far as we know, they will be looking at the specific stores and locations to decide which ones will be eligible and which ones they want to actually move forward with stocking with the abortion pill. If you are consistently protesting at one specific location, it's very possible that the corporation as a whole will decide that that location isn't eligible, and they don't want to move forward with it. Because there are so many people in the city that don't want it at that location.

PAAU partnered with several organizations in these events, including the Pro-Life Action League. Executive director Eric Scheidler explained another purpose of the protests.

SCHEIDLER: We want to alert the public of the fact that these pharmacies are going to be dispensing these drugs because many pro-life Americans may prefer to shop somewhere else for their prescription drugs and other pharmacy and drugstore needs.

Students for Life is planning a protest at the Walgreens headquarters in Deerfield, Illinois, on Valentine’s Day and another nationwide protest on March 4. The pro-life organization 40 Days for Life will hold its prayer campaigns outside some pharmacies later this month. On January 26, pro-lifers in California crashed the annual shareholders meeting of Walgreens' parent company to protest the move.

AUDIO: Walgreens, the abortion pill needs to stop!

Meanwhile, pro-abortion groups are still pushing to expand access to the abortion pill. Two lawsuits filed in January challenge state laws that protect unborn babies from drug-induced abortions. And on the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Joe Biden released a memo instructing his administration to look for more ways to help women get access to the abortion pill.

WHELAN: One of the obstacles that the administration faces is that in various states, there are state laws that criminalize the use of the abortion pill.

That’s Ed Whelan. He’s a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a former staffer at the Justice Department.

WHELAN: The administration is going to try to override those, it's going to try to claim that the FDA rule permitting the abortion pill overrides the state laws. And indeed, there are some lawsuits that manufacturers have filed. To try to get such a ruling. I think that's a remarkable stretch, but there will be judges who will be eager to accommodate claims like that.

Pro-life groups also have their own plans in the works. Back in November, Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit on behalf of a group of pro-life doctors challenging the federal government’s initial approval of the abortion pill in 2000. Julie Blake is senior counsel for ADF and is a part of the team representing the doctors.

BLAKE: These drugs were never proven safe, the FDA never had the legal authority to allow them onto the market. So our lawsuit asks the judge to order the FDA to remove the drugs from the market, or in the alternative, at least restore some of the safeguards on these drugs so that women and girls are protected from them in the meantime.

Blake said the federal judge over this case could technically issue an initial ruling as soon as February 10. But he'll probably take some time to read the paperwork all the parties have submitted before he issues a decision. And that will just be the beginning of the legal fight, which could drag on for months.

In the meantime, abortion advocates have encouraged people to stock up on abortion pills now while they still can. And pro-lifers continue to make their voices heard.

AUDIO: Stop the pill! It will kill! We will ban it yes we will!

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leah Savas in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: School choice.

Last month, Iowa passed a school choice bill into law. It lets parents use Education Savings Accounts for school expenses like tuition and books. Only six other states have laws like this and WORLD’s Mary Muncy has the story.

MARY MUNCY, REPORTER: Tom DeJong and his family have participated in all kinds of fundraisers for their Christian schools.

DEJONG: I'm married and have five wonderful kids. One in high school, and four in elementary school who all attend private religious schools here in northwest Iowa.

One of the fall fundraisers is covering silage piles for farmers. Silage is like pickled hay. It’s ground up and put into giant piles during harvest time. Then, people put a white tarp over it and weigh it down with tires so the tarp doesn’t blow off.

DEJONG: There certainly are some, especially bad days, or things that you remember about certain silage piles that, hey, let's not do that again.

In Iowa, there’s a program that gathers churches to donate money to Christian schools in the area. So whole congregations will help with fundraisers, including covering the silage piles.

DEJONG: We've had congregation members, you know, in their 70s on the silage pile, sometimes you have to know, tell them, hey, maybe it's maybe it's time to let some of the younger folks just do the work.

But the new Iowa school choice bill is going to give these churches and parents a little cushion.

TAYLOR: I'm Jeff Taylor. I am an Iowa State Senator. I represent district two. And I am also a professor of political science at Dordt University in Sioux Center, Iowa.

Taylor voted for the school choice bill, the Students First Act. It allows parents of children in private schools to apply to use state funds that would normally go to public schools.

This year, each student approved for the program will get a $7,600 Education Savings Account, or ESA. The amount can fluctuate from year to year depending on state funding.

Parents of children in private schools can use the funds for expenses such as tuition, test fees, and school books.

It’s giving parents a bit more control over where their tax money is going.

TAYLOR: The funding follows the child. So there's a certain amount of state aid that goes into public schools for every child that enrolls. If a child isn't there, they're not going to need as much money per pupil.

Some critics worry ESAs could take funding from public schools. But public schools aren’t being cut out entirely.

Public schools will still get money from local property taxes and federal funding and for every student that goes to a private school, the public school in that student’s district gets $1,200.

TAYLOR: I think there's actually a net increase in funding to the public schools as a result of that.

Taylor says this may encourage public schools to get better. If a school isn’t listening to parents, they have the option to put their kids somewhere else.

Others worry that this bill will lead to discrimination because public schools accept everyone while students have to be accepted into private schools.

TAYLOR: So I think that actually is a reasonable objection to this bill. And so several of us on the Education Committee, in a leadership role have talked about this.

This bill also has the potential to increase attendance at private Christian schools.

SOELEN: My name is Tim van Soelen and I serve as the Executive Director for the Center for the Advancement of Education.

Van Soelen is also on the board of the Iowa Association of Christian Schools. He says Christian schools do their best to make education affordable.

SOELEN: But at the end of the day, there's always a real cost for education. These Educational Savings accounts provide families with another way of paying for Christian education.

He says there are more than 150 Christian and Catholic schools in Iowa that serve almost 40,000 students.

Now those schools are getting ready for what could be a flood of new applications.

SOELEN: We're kind of in the starting blocks, but it's going to go fast. So we have to do this really well because we probably won't get another chance to run this one.

Right now, only six other states have ESA programs. Utah just passed its own school choice bill with an ESA program last week. Several other states have vouchers, and more have broad school choice bills.

Here’s DeJong again.

DEJONG: So for more families to have choice in education, as opposed to only the families who have the financial means to have choice in education, again, we believe, is a win for Iowa.

Iowa’s program is being implemented gradually over the next three years. Iowans closest to the poverty line can apply this year once Iowa chooses someone to manage the ESAs.

By 2026, everyone will be able to apply.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Recently a Japanese telescope recorded a bright shape in the night sky. The time-lapse video posted to YouTube shows a small white sphere that widens into a very clear, blue spiral.

CONTACT: …I must have gone through a wormhole…

Sorry to say, it’s not a wormhole.

But it is quite an interesting phenomenon. How it works is the sun lights up gasses that come from the rockets during launch at twilight. That’s when observers on earth are able to see the light display, in darkness below.

Typically these formations look like comet tails or often just blobs of gas that seem to hang in place—and that’s why people are calling these things rocket jellyfish.

What’s different this time is the Space X Falcon 9 must be twisting while venting the gas, creating the spiral shape.

REICHARD: I looked it up. It’s amazing!

EICHER: Given that Elon Musk’s behind this, I would’ve guessed he’d have fashioned the blue spiral into a Twitter logo.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, February 7th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD’s Classic Book of the Month.

The book is called Things Fall Apart, by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe and published in 1958. The book contains some concerning aspects, but Christians can benefit from his insights—especially when paired with a new Nigerian author who shines a light on Achebe’s blind spots.

AUDIOBOOK: Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat.

EMILY WHITTEN, REVIEWER: That’s Peter Francis James reading the first sentences of Things Fall Apart. It’s Chinua Achebe’s 1958 novel, and our Classic Book of the Month for February. If most of what you know about African culture comes from Marvel’s Black Panther, Achebe’s book will be an eye-opener.

For one thing, the hero, Okonkwo, is no Prince T’Challa. Yes, he is hard working, skilled, and strong. But he’s also a brutal warrior who beats his wives and children. The narrator tells us:

AUDIOBOOK: Okonkwo never showed any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger. To show affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength.

The book also shows us the strengths and weaknesses of Okonkwo’s culture. The Igbo people honor wisdom, age, and a strong work ethic. The clan’s pagan beliefs also lead to horrible sin, even murder at times. In this clip, one of Okonkwo’s friends reflects on the earth goddess’s requirement that all twins be killed.

AUDIOBOOK: The earth had decreed that they were an offense on the land and must be destroyed. And if the clan did not exact punishment for an offense to the goddess, her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just the offender.

The main plot follows Okonkwo’s goal to become a great man in his home country. In the last third of the book, ultimately “things fall apart” for Okonkwo because of British aggression. In this clip, British colonizers brutally imprison Okonkwo and several other leaders, withholding food and water until they submit to British authority.

AUDIOBOOK: As soon as the district commissioner left, the head messenger who was also the prisoners’ barber, took down his razor and shaved off all the hair on the men’s heads. They were still hand-cuffed, and they just sat, and moped. Who is the chief among you? The court messengers asked in jest.

Christians should be aware that many today embrace the book for its anti-colonial stance. It fits with critical theories about race that always see white men as oppressors.

That said, the book contains more than liberal propaganda. In 2008, Achebe told Jeremy Brown of PBS that he wanted to speak for his culture, but he also wanted to present Africa honestly.

ACHEBE: Young as I was, I knew that I wanted the story to be true. I wanted it to be seen in all its grandeur and all its weakness.

Achebe gives us an insider’s look at pagan Africans cut off from God, plagued by real demons, but still reflecting the image of their Creator in many ways. Still, he gets some things wrong about British colonialism—especially missionaries.

An upcoming book called Darwin Comes to Africa offers a clearer view. Sadly, its author, Olufemi Oluniyi, died last year. But John West of the Discovery Institute is helping to publish Oluniyi’s book later this month.

WEST: So the key thrust of Olufemi's book is that the colonial policies in Nigeria, but also more widely in Africa, were driven by this scientific racism that viewed black Africans as lower on the evolutionary scale than whites.

Achebe wrestles with the role of missionaries, portraying some of them as harmful and others as harmless. But he completely ignores the role of Darwinian evolution. In contrast, Olufemi Oluniyi documents the critical ways missionaries and African Christians fought against the Darwinian racism of British leaders.

WEST: Many of the most active christian missionaries were the only white Westerners who were standing against this sort of vile social darwinism and advocating for human equality and advocating for well, things like school and education for, for all Nigerians, let alone hospitals and other things.

Like Achebe, Oluniyi lived under colonialism and encountered racism in his life. But he also knew that an evolutionary worldview can’t provide the solution for racism. Here’s West reading from Darwin Comes to Africa.

WEST: Darwin's theory of evolution posited the natural world as a place where the fittest survive and the less fit, decline and die. If this is indeed the case, thought Darwin's contemporaries and indeed many of our own, then who are we to battle nature herself? Why should the Britain not manipulate, oppress, and exploit the Nigerian? After all, the fact that he can do so surely proved that he is right to do so. He is fulfilling his very destiny as decreed by nature herself.

Our Classic Book of the Month, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe isn’t perfect. Besides a non-Christian worldview, it contains violence and pagan religious practices. But the question implied in Achebe’s story is well worth savoring: Why do things “fall apart” in our lives—and our culture? And when they do, how can we put them back together again?

These are complex questions that God’s people wrestle with throughout Scripture. But I’m reminded of Jeremiah’s words to Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian: “...you shall have your life as a prize of war, because you have put your trust in me, declares the Lord.”

I’m Emily Whitten.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, February 7th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Here’s WORLD commentator Steve West now on the benefits of just wandering around.

STEVE WEST, COMMENTATOR: No one I know uses the word "perambulatory" in ordinary conversation. If someone is walking we might say they are ambulatory. But perambulatory means to walk about or travel around. And that's what we do in life. We even wander at times. That's how we discover and learn.

Scripture is full of perambulators. The Israelites walked from Egypt to the Promised Land. Nehemiah walked from Babylon to a Jerusalem in ruins. Jesus walked the hills and valleys of Galilee. The Apostle Paul journeyed throughout much of the known world— mostly by foot. Everywhere, the people of the Book walked.

Not only that, scripture has much to say about how we walk. Walk in Christ, in the light, by faith and not sight, in truth, by the Spirit. The Christian life is described as a sojourn in which we are aliens and strangers in the world, one in which we often wander, knowing the object of our faith-walk, Christ, yet not always knowing where to take the next step.

In Colossians 2:6 (ESV), Paul says that "as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith.” Yet walking in Him can involve a fair amount of wandering; we know our destination but don't know quite how we will get there. We have the means of grace… like scripture and prayer … but no step-by-step instruction manual.

Even driving suggests this kind of wandering. On my drive home from my former job, I knew my destination. I usually followed the same set of roads. Yet occasionally, I took a different route, one that carried me down a labyrinth of less familiar streets, through neighborhoods, by streams, and under canopies of trees. One in which I was always slightly lost, letting my route unfold before me.

That wandering allowed me to see things I hadn’t seen before. I was sometimes surprised by the sounds of birds, children playing on a lawn, a brilliantly blooming tree. I was not lost or, at least, was only a little lost. I was wandering home.

In his book, Dusty Ones: Why Wandering Deepens Your Faith, A.J. Swoboda says that "Our efforts to learn to love and follow Jesus must meander through wherever we are as we wander our way through life." For Swoboda, wandering and discipleship are linked. He says, "One can wander and be right on track, just as being in the desert doesn't necessarily mean we are deserted." Wandering doesn't mean we're lost, just figuring things out.

To be sure, Scripture speaks often of those who wander away from the commandments, from truth, who seek their own way. But "not all who wander are lost," reminds J.R.R. Tolkien, in a poem from his Fellowship of the Ring.

That's worth remembering. If we know those who seem off track, who are perambulating, they may not be lost. And they are never deserted. Pray for them. Point them to Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith. All who belong to Him will yet come home.

I’m Steve West.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow on Washington Wednesday, what’s really going on with the U.S. House committee assignments.

Plus, coping with the shift from print news to digital news.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says, “Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Matthew 16:21-23 ESV)

Go now in grace and peace.

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