Twelve Things That Caught My Eye: A Pro-Life Woman for President, Better Mental-Health Help for Children & More

1. Father Roger Landry in the Wall Street Journal: A 6,500-Mile Walk With Christ

We brought Jesus into prison at the Pickaway Correctional Institute in Ohio, where men lined up for confession to receive communion at Mass and then courageously processed with us on prison grounds. We invited homeless, unemployed young people to walk with us in Xenia, Ohio, and they invited us to process to a trash can where they emptied their pockets of drugs and committed to live new lives.

We’ve processed through nursing homes with seniors joining us in wheelchairs, teary-eyed as they gripped the monstrance holding the consecrated host. We’ve traveled along the Hudson and Ohio rivers, blessing those assembled on Liberty Island, bridges and river banks. In many towns we saw people traveling in opposite directions stop their cars and get down on their knees in the middle of the street as the Eucharist passed by. Many have asked us what we’re protesting, why we were parading, or simply what we were doing. When we say, “We’re walking with Jesus across the country,” the vast majority, Catholic or not, honk in support.

2. Carolyn D. Gorman & Scott Dziengelski: A Better Youth Mental Health Policy

Decades of research have found little rigorous evidence that universal school-based mental-health programs prevent youth mental illness or suicide. These programs do not direct clinical resources based on the severity of a child’s condition. Instead, students least in need of mental-health services get outsized attention, while those who most need psychiatric care fall through the cracks.

“All sorts of so-called universal interventions, in which a big group of teens are subjected to ‘healthy’ messaging from adults, have failed,” writes Olga Khazan in The Atlantic. In fact, she highlights, some studies find that such interventions result in worse outcomes, even when the programs were developed from evidence-based approaches like dialectical behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy.

3. Conn Carroll: The Pro-Life Movement Needs a New Playbook

Just as the solution to the birth dearth is marriage, the path to a culture of life with far fewer abortions also goes through marriage. Approximately 85% of all abortions are to unmarried women. Anyone who wants to drastically reduce the number of abortions in the United States should be focusing like a laser on helping young men and women get and stay married.

No young woman wants to be in a situation where she is considering abortion. The vast majority of them do want to be married someday. Instead of telling women what they can’t do, let’s help women achieve the lives they already want.

4. Charles Camosy: The pro-life movement’s turn to women and families is complete

As Patrick Brown of the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Life and Family Initiative has also shown in a new report, confirms that states with significant laws protecting prenatal justice (that would have not been possible before Dobbs) have moved to pass significant legislation supporting women and families. Read the report for yourself, but consider these significant developments:

• 22 of these 23 states have extended Medicaid coverage, increasing the length of time a postpartum woman receives medical care from 60 days to one year.
• 16 states took direct action to expand child-care choices, from expanding subsidies to streamlining regulatory barriers for child-care providers.
• 14 states introduced or expanded programs that provide targeted, material assistance to pregnant women, whether directly or by working through pregnancy resource centers.
• 13 states increased eligibility for safety-net services, from expanding income eligibility thresholds for assistance to eliminating benefit caps based on family size.
• Eleven states acted to expand access to or coverage of health services for women, such as mammograms or screening for postpartum depression.
• Nine states introduced or expanded paid parental leave for state employees, on top of the many states that had already done so before the Dobbs decision.

5. John Murdock in First Things: A Pro-Life Woman for President

[Terrisa] Bukovinac is a real Democrat and her activism is not wrapped in religion. Instead, she took up the cause of the unborn after losing her faith in God. Her well-produced campaign spot forces those who come upon it to face the brutal realities of abortion, realities that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump seem eager to evade. 

Trump wants pro-life votes based on his role in overturning Roe, but the GOP is poised to endorse a platform at the upcoming Republican National Convention that does not include pro-life planks that have been standard since the days of Ford and Reagan—such as support for a constitutional amendment against abortion. The draft platform is more clear about “defend[ing] the right to mine Bitcoin” than defending the unborn. The GOP’s marginalization of pro-lifers is similar in some ways to what Democrats did in the 1970s, and a single-issue champion like McCormack or Bukovinac may soon be needed to keep the unborn in clear view. 

6. Pamela Paul in the New York Times: Why Is the U.S. Still Pretending We Know Gender-Affirming Care Works?

Imagine a comprehensive review of research on a treatment for children found “remarkably weak evidence” that it was effective. Now imagine the medical establishment shrugged off the conclusions and continued providing the same unproven and life-altering treatment to its young patients.

This is where we are with gender medicine in the United States.

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8. Elliott Abrams on What Was Different about His Third Visit to Israel Since October 7

9. Cheering on the bravest: the 2024 Refugee Paralympic Team

10. Marlo Slayback: Barbie’s Girls and Hannah’s Children

The hit film and Catherine Pakaluk’s new book reveal deep truths about motherhood.

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12. Q&A: Poet Leslie Williams and a spiritual exploration of friendship