The World and Everything in It — March 12, 2020

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Evangelical Christians are making a big difference in traditionally Catholic Brazil. We’ll tell you how.

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: Also higher education options are few and far between in some rural states. But students and colleges are finding creative ways to solve the problem.

Plus leprosy and armadillos. The surprising connection between them.

And Cal Thomas on the willful blindness of our time.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, March 12th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BASHAM: And I’m Megan Basham. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Trump declares European travel restrictions, stimulus plans » TRUMP: My fellow Americans, tonight I want to speak with you about our nation’s unprecedented response to the coronavirus outbreak. 

President Trump addressing the nation from the Oval Office last night.

With Europe now becoming a major battleground in the fight to contain the virus, the president announced new travel restrictions. Beginning tomorrow, he is suspending all travel between the United States and Europe for 30 days.

He said the European Union was too slow to act in the earliest weeks of the mounting crisis. Many in Europe were initially critical of his decision to restrict travel from China. 

TRUMP: We made a lifesaving move with early action on China. Now we must take the same action with Europe.

Trump said the restrictions won’t apply to the United Kingdom and U.S. officials would monitor the situation to determine if travel could be reopened earlier.

WHO declares coronavirus crisis a global pandemic » The World Health Organization has declared the global coronavirus crisis a pandemic.

WHO Director General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus explained the move on Wednesday. He said the UN health agency made that declaration because of—quote— “alarming levels of spread and severity,” and because of “the alarming levels of inaction” on the part of some governments. 

GHEBREYESUS: Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly. It’s a word that if misused can cause unreasonable fear or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over. 

He said the fight is not over and it’s not too late to rein in the virus.  

State and local governments move to curb spread of virus » Meantime, in the U.S., more state and local governments, and other organizations are beginning to pull out all the stops. 

Washington state’s governor announced a ban on most gatherings of more than 250 people in virtually the entire Seattle area.

INSLEE: These events that are prohibited are gathering for social, recreational, spiritual, and other matters. 

The ban focuses on three counties, which have seen substantial community spread of the virus. Two dozen people have died in the state. 

Many concerts and events are being canceled, and the NBA announced Wednesday that it was suspending its entire season until further notice after an all-star center for the Utah Jazz tested positive for the virus.

Many other sports teams are poised to play home games on the road or play to empty venues. 

The NCAA announced Wednesday that men’s and women’s Division 1 college basketball teams will allow only essential staff and family to attend tournaments. 

The coronavirus is also hitting Hollywood. Actors Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have tested positive for the virus.

House passes bill reauthorizing FISA program » House lawmakers have passed a bill to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, better known as FISA. 

AUDIO: The yeas are 278. The nays are 136. The bill is passed. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican leader Kevin McCarthy negotiated the bipartisan bill. It would renew several provisions the FBI sees as vital to fighting terrorism. 

But it also adds restrictions and stronger oversight. Republicans demanded those changes after the Justice Department’s inspector general found wrongdoing by FBI officials in obtaining the FISA warrant to surveil a former Trump campaign aide. McCarthy said Wednesday…

MCCARTHY: Well, now we have a check and balance. Even if somebody tries to use it for the wrong manner, it cannot happen again. 

Among those checks and balances: Congress will have an increased role in oversight, and the bill would form a new office of compliance. It also increases punishments for wrongly manipulating the program.

The Senate is poised to pass the bill. President Trump has not said whether he would sign it.

Sanders vows to fight on following election losses » Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is vowing to fight on after suffering another big setback in Tuesday night’s elections. He said he’s counting on the youth vote to help him rebound from recent losses. 

SANDERS: While Joe Biden continues to do very well with older Americans, especially those people over 65, our campaign continues to win the vast majority of the votes of younger people. 

Biden won four of the six states that voted on Tuesday, including the biggest prize, Michigan. Sanders won North Dakota. Still no winner declared in Washington state, where the margin on Wednesday stood at just two-tenths of a percent. 

Weinstein sentenced to 23 years in prison » Harvey Weinstein arrived at a New York courthouse Wednesday in a wheelchair for his sentencing after his conviction on multiple sex crime charges. 

And he received nearly the maximum sentence—23 years behind bars. 

Weinstein attorney Donna Rotunno said that sentence was extreme and—quote—“obscene.” 

ROTUNNO: I’m not here to say that he’s a victim, and I’m not here to say poor Harvey. But what I am here to say is we were looking for fairness, and we didn’t get it. 

After two of his accusers confronted him again in a Manhattan court, the 67-year-old former Hollywood mogul broke his courtroom silence to say he felt—his words—“remorse for this situation.” But he also argued that men are losing due process and are “confused about these issues.”

Weinstein still faces additional charges in California.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: Jill Nelson reports on the rising influence of evangelicalism in Brazil.

Plus, Cal Thomas on the real war on women.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MEGAN BASHAM: It’s Thursday, the 12th of March, 2020. You’re listening to The World and Everything in It and we are glad you are!  Good morning, I’m Megan Basham.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. First up, religious faith in Brazil.

This South American country has long had the most Catholics of any country in the world. But millions of Brazilians are leaving the faith each year. Catholics are projected to be a minority in the country a decade from now.

BASHAM: The reasons for the exodus are complex, but one factor is the rapid rise of evangelicals. They made up only 5 percent of the population in 1970. Now they account for more than 30 percent. 

In fact, some researchers believe the country now has the second or third largest evangelical community in the world. Pentecostals make up the majority of that group.

REICHARD: There are aspects of this movement that are troubling. A few Brazilian churches are in the grip of prosperity gospel teaching. And some politicians with evangelical roots have been involved with scandals. 

But the news isn’t all bleak. WORLD’s Jill Nelson reports on how the Protestant church has also been a force for good.

AUDIO: Brazil is in an awakening! You are the fruit of it and you are the catalyst of it! 

JILL NELSON, REPORTER: Last month about 140,000 people gathered in three soccer stadiums for a Christian revival called The Send Brazil. The 12-hour event drew more than 2 million online viewers. It’s one of many ways Brazil’s social, political, and religious landscape is changing in the wake of rising evangelicalism.

Eric Miller is a professor at Geneva College who studies faith in Brazil. He recently edited a book about the influence of Brazilian evangelicals. 

MILLER: In almost anyplace you go, it’s something you’re going to find some evidence of, whether it’s on a billboard, turning on the television. In fact, one of the largest channels in Brazil is owned by an evangelical church. 

AUDIO: [Sound of TV Record] 

Miller is talking about TV Record, which began producing religious miniseries nearly a decade ago. The network built its own artificial river, temple, and Old Testament set and has become a hit with Brazilian families.

But evangelicals are going beyond revivals and elaborate television sets. Miller says they’re also going to Brazil’s darkest places.

MILLER: There’s some really interesting accounts that you can find of non-evangelical observers, social scientists for instance, who are making studies of poverty in Brazil for instance and they find some moving tributes to the work evangelicals are doing in places no-one else wants to go to, places that are beyond the reaches of the law.

He’s referring to favelas, slums started by squatters and often run by drug cartels.

Evangelicals are also leading disaster response efforts. Ten years ago, massive flooding destroyed the crops of farmers living several hours from Rio de Janeiro. International agencies quickly came in to lend a hand. 

But when Miller visited a year and half after the flood, only one group remained: a charismatic Protestant organization. Its members stayed behind to live among the farmers, helping them rebuild their homes and sell their crops to church communities in nearby cities.

MILLER: And they were just living right there with the people in a very, very sacrificial way. And that’s the kind of thing that’s been sticking out for many people who are watching the scene. I think that’s one of the most remarkable effects. 

Evangelicalism is also penetrating Brazil’s political establishment. Igor Sabino is a Brazilian evangelical and a 24-year-old doctoral student. He’s encouraged by the work of 55-year-old Damares Alves, who heads Brazil’s Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights. 

SABINO: The team who’s working for her is committed to promoting religious freedom not only in Brazil but abroad. Also to protect our children because the numbers of sexual exploitation and human trafficking are very high.

Alves is an evangelical pastor who has a story that resonates with Brazil’s poor communities. She was raped as a young girl and several years later climbed a guava tree, intending to commit suicide. She says Jesus spoke to her at that moment and saved her life. Now she’s on a campaign to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies … by promoting abstinence.

Alves has also criticized schools for encouraging homosexuality, a campaign that has drawn the ire of Brazil’s vocal LGBT activists. Still, she’s the second most popular government minister in Brazil.

But Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is a more controversial figure. He’s an avowed Catholic but has appealed to evangelicals. He even made a surprise appearance at one of the stadiums hosting the February revival. 

BOLSONARO: [Speaking in Portugese]  

Bolsonaro took office last year after winning 69 percent of the evangelical vote. His wife attends a charismatic mega church. But his behavior doesn’t always reflect the faith he proclaims—one reason some call him “Trump of the tropics.” 

Sabino says some of Bolsonaro’s more controversial comments include derogatory statements about women and praise for Brazil’s two decades of dictatorship.

SABINO: So he doesn’t have a Christian behavior, but many people are trying to portray him as a Christian. So some nonbelievers are saying if that’s Christianity, we don’t want to be Christians. 

Miller says the rise of Protestants in politics looks like a big power block to non-evangelicals. In some ways, it mirrors the American political context and the rise of the new right. These are all issues Brazil’s evangelicals will need to reckon  with in order to preserve their integrity. 

But Miller says there’s still much to celebrate, even among the thorns.

MILLER: A lot of the observers and social scientists will say they may not agree with the theology behind it, but they… see families that are healthier, marriage relationships that are more intact, less violence among these communities, and the poor are finding an actual community in an everyday kind of way. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jill Nelson.

MARY REICHARD: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: education deserts. 

We hear a lot from politicians and activists about college affordability—or lack of it. But for some students, cost isn’t as much of a barrier as is geography. Many parts of the country don’t have any institution of higher education within a reasonable driving distance.

MEGAN BASHAM: That leaves millions of students, especially in the wide open ranges of the Plains and Rockies with limited options for higher education. Colleges are doing what they can to make it easier for students to get to class. But high school graduates are also finding creative ways to connect with their future plans.

WORLD reporter Laura Edghill has the story.

LAURA EDGHILL, REPORTER: About 75 students attend Sunshine Bible Academy in Miller, South Dakota. Two-thirds of them live on campus. 

With nothing but farmland as far as the eye can see, students are free to concentrate on their studies and spiritual growth. But the rural setting makes it hard for high schoolers to evaluate prospective colleges. Several universities lie within a four- to five-hour drive. But they’re scattered in different directions.

Jason Watson is Sunshine Bible’s superintendent and principal.

WATSON: It’s not overly convenient for our students to go on college visits, or to have reps from colleges visit us. We get some reps that come through, but they’re mostly from the schools that are in our state and, you know, they kind of tack us on when they’re also visiting the public school which is 13 miles from us.

The academy is in what Nicholas Hillman of the University of Wisconsin calls an “education desert.” The lack of nearby higher education options can put students at a real disadvantage after high school. 

States like the Dakotas, Idaho, and Nevada may be saturated with magnificent sprawling landscapes, but that sprawl means colleges and universities are few and far between. Researchers with the Jain Family Institute recently analyzed the entire nation by ZIP code and plotted the concentration of all types of colleges on an interactive map. 

Their work revealed vast regions of scarcity, particularly across the Plains and Rockies. For example, Nevada students who live outside the hubs of Reno or Las Vegas won’t find even a community college for hundreds of miles, let alone a four-year university. 

But Jason Watson says Sunshine Bible students seem to find their way in the world, even if they don’t opt for the traditional college experience.

WATSON: I would say that probably only 50 to 60 percent of them are pursuing a four-year college. We actually have quite a few that go to technical school, and particularly in the areas of welding or something related to the agricultural field, you know, some kind of animal science type thing. We’ve actually in the last few years had a fair number that also go into the military.

One thing the researchers’ map doesn’t show is how some colleges on the edge of education deserts are trying to bridge that gap. 

Bismarck State College in neighboring North Dakota takes a flexible approach to reach a far-flung population of students. Karen Erickson is dean of enrollment for the community college.

ERICKSON: Knowing that we are in a more rural area, we try to keep our classes as affordable and accessible as possible. So I think that helps a lot with attracting students because we have a lot of classes and programs that can be completed online or on campus.

And Erickson says when students can’t get to classes on campus, the college tries to take the classes to them.

ERICKSON: We offer a lot of programs in more rural areas. So sometimes when we have a community that has a very high demand that they need filled for place-bound workers, we can try to bring that program to their area to help fulfill that need within that community.

Bismarck State also makes it possible for some students to avoid a lengthy commute.

ERICKSON: We do have the luxury, most community colleges don’t have student housing. We don’t have enough by any means, but we do have beds for just over 400 students on our campus.

Dakota Christian School in Corsica, South Dakota, also works hard to bridge the gap between rural education and college. Like similarly sized Sunshine Bible Academy, Dakota Christian sends about half its graduating seniors on to four-year schools. CEO Jeremy Boer says his students also seem to find their way, education desert or not.

BOER: We have a certain number that know exactly what they want to do and they go to a tech school or go right into the workforce. And then we have a few that kind of want to experience something new so they move to, yeah, Sioux Falls or something like that.

He also says that in their neck of the woods, distance is not always as much of a limiting factor as city folk might think.

BOER: Honestly geography’s not really a huge one I don’t think like I said, the mileage looks a lot, but when the speed limit’s 65 everywhere you go, I mean, the mileage really isn’t a huge issue I wouldn’t say. As compared to, I mean, driving through a city, I mean, it takes you what, half an hour to go 20 miles, whereas we can go, well if you go for half an hour you’re going 35, 40 miles pretty easy.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Laura Edghill.

MARY REICHARD: Great white sharks can be deadly, but for a surfer in New Zealand, it’s a good thing sharks don’t care much for fist fights. 

Nick Minogue of Auckland recently was surfing when the shark struck. Minogue told New Zealand’s “1 News”…

MINOGUE: It hit on the side of the arm and the elbow, and I didn’t really know what it was. Next thing I knew there was a shark just chomped over the front section of my board with its big head and eye looking back at me.

Sixty-year-old Minogue screamed, reached back and punched at the shark’s eye. He missed! 

But he connected with a second punch, and the great white didn’t seem to like it.

MINOGUE: And after that punch, it’s eye sort of rolled up a little bit. I think they’ve got a protective coating on their eye, they roll up, and it decided to disengage from the board, thankfully.

Except for a pretty nasty cut on his arm, Minogue came out of it alright. 

And he paddled away safe and sound.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD: Today is Thursday, March 12th. We’re glad you’ve turned to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MEGAN BASHAM: And I’m Megan Basham. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: An unusual type of research.

Many universities encourage excellence outside of the traditional classroom through research. Students can gain experience, and schools earn prestige and extra funding.

REICHARD: These projects have accomplished a lot:  from finding an effective treatment for sickle-cell anemia to confirming the authenticity of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

WORLD reporter Kim Henderson takes us now to a school in the South that’s focused on fighting a specific disease—leprosy. Here’s the story.

AUDIO: [SOUND OF FOOTBALL GAME]

KIM HENDERSON, REPORTER: On January 13th, the Louisiana State University football team won the national championship. 

It’s not unusual for the LSU Tigers to get attention on the field, but it’s the school’s nine-banded armadillos that post victories of scientific consequence.

That’s right. Just a few “Joe Burrow” passes away from Tiger Stadium, researchers care for more than a hundred armadillos. Microbiologist Maria Pena explains why.

PENA: The mom will give birth to four identical twins or identical siblings. So they’re genetically the same. So, eh, and that’s great for research because you know, sometimes you put some animals in one group, the other in another group. So the only difference that you get is a treatment. So that’s excellent. 

The National Hansen’s Disease Programs laboratory is located at LSU, where they maintain the only armadillo colony in the world. Hansen’s disease is another name for leprosy.

Visitors milling around the courtyard at LSU’s School of Veterinary Medicine might be surprised to find out what researchers are studying upstairs. 

The lab chief is Linda Adams, a petite, carefully spoken woman with long hair and blue eyes. She says Hansen’s disease has never been easy to study.  

ADAMS: The thing about the leprosy bacterium, you cannot grow it in the lab. It can’t be, it will not grow on a Petri dish. It doesn’t have the genes necessary to grow independently. It has to be grown in an animal model. We have no choice. 

So finding an animal that could be infected and used for research was a top goal for decades. In this case, temperature was key. 

ADAMS: Most mammals have a body temperature of 37 degrees centigrade. That’s the same as 98.6 Fahrenheit. Armadillos have a core body temperature of about 33 to 34. It’s cool. And the leprosy bacterium likes the cool areas. That’s why, you know, it affects the skin and the mucous membranes. These are cooler areas of the body. So it is a very good host. We can, uh, grow tremendous numbers of bacteria in the armadillo.  

Three scientists and nine technicians make up the program’s staff. They include biologists and immunologists, and new citizens from Argentina and India. 

ADAMS: This is our core lab. We do a variety of things in here, primarily our molecular biology…

One woman is wearing a white lab coat. She’s preparing tissue samples for special staining that will allow visualization of the leprosy bacteria. In another room, two technicians wearing disposable garb have their hands beneath the hood of a biological safety cabinet. They’re performing tests to see if a new drug has killed the bacteria.  

For Adams, the space—with its climate controls, whirring machines, and  camera/microscope combos —is a draw. 

ADAMS: I knew I wanted to work in the lab since I was a child. I loved science, but I never thought I would be doing leprosy research. 

And she acknowledges their program isn’t a fit for all scientists.  

ADAMS: It takes a special personality to do this sort of work just because our experiments can sometimes take a one or two years to run. So it takes a special kind of person to have that sort of patience. Um, you’re not going to get a publication every month if you come and do this type of work. 

In 2011, the Hansen’s Disease Center research team verified a theory long suspected by locals: 

NEWSCASTER: Doctors say they’re 99 percent sure that the patient contracted the disease while making contact with an armadillo on a hunting trip.

Hansen’s disease occurs naturally among some free-ranging armadillos, the kind you find in wooded areas of southern coastal states. Establishing a possible human-to-armadillo contact link was significant.

The laboratory maintains a ready supply of M. leprae bacilli for researchers worldwide, but they’re also doing other studies with their colony. Armadillos can live up to 15 years. That’s long enough for the slow-manifesting effects of Hansen’s disease to emerge. 

ADAMS: They actually develop the disease, and they get the nerve infection. And that’s what causes the damage in most patients. Bacteria infects the nerve and damages the nerves, and that’s what causes the disabilities.

The scientists are constantly testing new drug therapies on the animals.

ADAMS: There are various antibiotics that are being tested for tuberculosis, and TB bacterium and the leprosy bacterium are closely related. So we’re looking at some of those compounds to see if they also work for leprosy.

Much of the research at LSU now is focused on figuring out how Hansen’s disease is transmitted. Staff also published results last year from important trials…for a vaccine.

ADAMS: How it’s going to be actually administered is still a question. Um, leprosy is a rare disease, so there’s a question of who, who would you vaccinate? Everyone? Contacts? Patients who already have leprosy? So, uh, these things are still not fully decided. But if we could treat someone who already has the disease and actually improve and shorten treatment, that would be beneficial. 

Leprosy is rare in the United States, but globally there were more than 200,000 new cases reported in 2018. That means developing a vaccine would be a real breakthrough.

For WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson reporting from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 

REICHARD: To read more about the connection between Louisiana and leprosy, you can look for Kim’s story in the upcoming issue of WORLD Magazine.

MARY REICHARD: Next up on The World and Everything in It: an excerpt from Listening In. This week, Warren Smith visits with author and teacher Steve Arterburn. 

Now, for those of you listening with young children nearby, this is one for which you may want to hit the pause button. The subject is sensitive and perhaps better left for another time, when little ears aren’t listening.

MEGAN BASHAM: Twenty years ago, Arterburn started helping men dealing with pornography and temptation. In two decades of ministry, he’s seen the problem get worse as internet access has made it even easier to fall into addiction. Smith and Arterburn talk frankly about how the church must address this problem to help believers find victory through Christ. Here’s Warren Smith.

WARREN SMITH: Maybe some of us are, you know, church leaders or leaders in our community and maybe we don’t struggle with this personally but we’re all affected by it. I mean this has become so pervasive in our culture. Got any thoughts about that?

STEVE ARTERBURN: Well, a couple of things. One is that the most recent Barna research says 63 (percent) of the men that are there on Sunday morning struggle with pornography. There’s no other problem that so many folks are struggling with. And if they’re struggling with it, then there’s a woman around there: sister, girlfriend, wife, that’s also impacted by that.

SMITH: Yeah, victim of some kind or another, and these are these are men in church.

ARTERBURN: Right. And the sad thing is that it also revealed that only 7 percent of churches are doing anything about it. Where I’m a teaching pastor we’ll have on any given week 300 people in groups for Every Man’s Battle and the wives of them in groups that help them and help them grow. So we got to talk about it.

I was in a city doing a pastor’s appreciation luncheon. And I asked: “Hey, what’s the big problem around this city.?” And they said, “Well, everybody wants to grow, but they don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.” So they don’t talk about these big problems like pornography and all that. I said: “Well, you know I’m a teaching pastor at the third-fastest growing church in America, we’ve got 13 campuses—three in prisons—and our favorite, favorite series that we do are on the real problems: divorce, homosexuality, abortion, things like that.” I said: “You’re  making a big mistake.”

So you need to address it, talk about the problems. But here’s something really important. I didn’t write this book, but when my kids were 6 years old, we got this book called Good Pictures, Bad Pictures. I wish I’d written it, but it helps a young child understand that when something shows something more than you would see at a swimming pool on somebody in their swimsuit. That’s pornography, and to call it out, show it and do something about it, versus have these images and you kind of think well maybe that’s not so. 

So you really got to start working with kids young. You have to talk about this, and the good news is, once you talk to your kids about pornography and other things. You can talk to them about anything.

BASHAM: That’s Steve Arterburn talking to Warren Smith. To hear the whole conversation, look for Listening In wherever you get your podcasts. The episode goes live tomorrow.

MEGAN BASHAM: Today is Thursday, March 12th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Megan Basham.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Here’s WORLD commentator Cal Thomas with some thoughts about that “war on women” we hear about.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: Just when you thought the quality of political rhetoric in Washington could not get any worse, along comes Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to prove otherwise.

At a pro-abortion demonstration outside the Supreme Court last week, Schumer threatened—by name—justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. We’ve already played it for you this week, so I won’t bother doing so again. 

But it was telling that it drew denunciation from Chief Justice John Roberts and even liberals such as Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, who called Schumer’s comments “inexcusable.” 

Well, it might also be illegal. There is a law prohibiting, among other things, verbal threats against federal officials. It is known in the legal community as 18 U.S.C. (United States Code) Section 351. It states that it is a felony to threaten “all Federal employees … when such threat is done with intent to impede, intimidate, or interfere with” such federal employee “while engaged in the performance of official duties, or with intent to retaliate against” such federal employee.

It would seem to me that Schumer’s comments qualify—especially since they did not come on the Senate floor, where senators enjoy immunity. 

Schumer also resurrected the “war on women” label that Democrats have used in the past, hoping, no doubt, to scare suburban women especially into voting for Democratic candidates.

But the real war on women is coming from the abortion industry. Since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, 61 million babies have had their lives snuffed out before taking their first breath. 

Some politicians are fine with allowing babies to be killed when they are fully viable, and even in some cases should they survive an abortion. Forty-one Democratic senators voted against the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.” It’s a bill that “would have required doctors to provide standard medical care to newborn infants who survive abortion procedures,” but it could not get the necessary 60-vote majority in order to pass.

Rarely do we hear about the many women who have regretted their abortions. Those women often say they would have made a different choice had they seen a sonogram of their baby and been given more information about available alternatives.

As Senator James Lankford predicted in a floor speech, “There will be a day we will look back on this season in American history and we will say: what were we thinking?” 

I’m Cal Thomas.

MEGAN BASHAM: Tomorrow on Culture Friday, should we care when politicians use bad language in a public forum? And author Stephen King sounds free speech alarm bells over a book cancellation.

Plus, I’ll review a documentary perfect for St. Patrick’s Day.

That and more tomorrow. 

I’m Megan Basham.

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 Apostle Paul in Colossians says to let your conversation be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. 

I hope you’ll have a great rest of the day. We’ll talk to you tomorrow!

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