This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** Pro-lifers face a crossroads. The number of abortions is slightly up since the defeat of Roe v. Wade, and pro-choice sentiment has risen, reversing a 2010s trend that had the issue evenly split among Americans. Major media organizations continue to cover the pro-life position in a biased way. And the conservative electoral coalition is wavering on the importance of the issue. This is how even red states such as Ohio, Kentucky, and others adopted largely unrestricted abortion access via referendum. The blue-collar, working class populists who now form a coalition with social conservatives will vote for pro-life candidates, but they do not prioritize the issue. Even the Trump administration, which should be credited for many pro-life victories in the first term, including the appointment of Supreme Court judges who overturned Roe, has become less committed to the issue. The Trump Health and Human Services has been slow to reverse the Biden administration’s actions to make the abortion drug, mifepristone, which is responsible for a majority of abortions, easily available by mail without prescription. The Trump Justice Department revealed last month that it is defending the pill’s efficacy in court, against Republican attorneys general.  Pro-life activist groups should continue to press the administration to reverse these policies, and faithful Christians should continue to urge their legislators to uphold pro-life principles. But it’s time to return to the strong moral language that awakened the American conscience on this issue. Those of us who have grown up in the movement might wrongly assume that our fellow Americans understand the moral gravity of the issue of abortion. We are so often bogged down in talk of strategy and prudence — important and vital conversations in a complicated political environment — that we forget to explain to the public why it is we are pro-life.  When the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision was announced, conservative Christians were divided on its morality. The Catholic Church was opposed, and lay leaders such as Nellie Gray, founder of the March for Life, began to organize. Perhaps the most prominent pastor in America, W.A. Criswell from First Baptist Dallas, commended the ruling: “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had life separate from its mother that it became an individual person, and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.” At the convention following the ruling, in 1974, the messengers overwhelmingly approved a pro-abortion resolution. A 1970 poll showed that 70% of Baptist pastors supported abortion. In a 1968 Christian Medical and Dental Association meeting, the participants released a statement saying, “Whether the performance of an induced abortion is sinful we are not agreed, but about the necessity of it and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord.” At the same time, Christianity Today and the National Association for Evangelicals condemned Roe. Most evangelicals, either ignorant or dismissive of early church teaching condemning abortion, largely considered the practice to be a primarily Catholic concern. Yet, only a few years later, abortion became a major concern not only for Catholics but for conservative evangelicals as well. Jerry Falwell, in 1979, declared it to be one of the key issues that characterized a nation in decline: “The Roman Catholic Church for many years has stood virtually alone against abortion. I think it’s an indictment against the rest of us that we’ve allowed them to stand alone.” Southern Baptists, led by Richard Land (who would later go on to lead their public policy arm), organized a group of Baptists for life who pushed for a strong resolution at the 1982 convention declaring that human life begins at conception. Many other evangelical organizations followed. Ronald Reagan, who had signed a permissive abortion law in the late 1960s as California governor, changed his position and by 1980 pledged to be a pro-life president. He wrote a book, “Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation,” explaining his newfound convictions.   Credit: Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images. What changed opinion and brought evangelicals and Catholics together to champion unborn life? There are many factors, of course, including the tragic rise in the number of abortions that took place after Roe. But perhaps the most influential voice was a Presbyterian pastor named Francis Schaeffer, who barnstormed the country in 1979 with both a book and video series, “What Ever Happened to the Human Race,” explaining the abortion practice in detail and how this practice both devalued human life and was an attack on the Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded. Schaeffer teamed up with Boston pediatric surgeon and future U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. If Schaeffer’s bestseller “How Shall We Then Live,” published in 1976, moved Christians to get off the sidelines and resist the moral relativism that was eating away at the nation’s moral fabric, “What Ever Happened to the Human Race” gave conservative Christians an issue that stood at the center of this worldview clash. Jerry Falwell, writing in his memoir, admitted that Schaeffer’s work moved him from a pietistic fundamentalism to a more socially active position. It was not long after reading Schaeffer that Falwell launched the Moral Majority. Richard Land said, “Schaeffer had enormous influence on a whole generation of baby-boomer evangelicals, calling us to engagement with society and inspiring us to be the salt and light that Jesus commanded.” Chuck Colson, the Nixon hatchet-man turned Christian leader, dedicated his book “How Now Shall We Live” to Schaeffer, whom he called a mentor. The consistent Catholic conviction and the work of men such as Schaeffer birthed the enduring and effective pro-life movement. Today, nearly a half-century later, it is one of the most powerful movements in American politics. Roe is gone, many states outlaw abortion, and pregnancy resource centers dot the American landscape, offering help and hope to young mothers in crisis. This justice movement has introduced a moral vocabulary into American life — that even the most vulnerable Americans are worthy of dignity and respect — to the point that its most bitter foes co-opt this language to accuse us of being inconsistently pro-life. So often the pro-life position is on the defensive. We are told that our position is anti-women. We are asked for our five-point plans on poverty reduction and health care. Pro-life champions should have thoughtful answers on these important issues. And yet we should also be willing to ask the question of those who oppose the sanctity of life: Do you believe in the humanity of the unborn child? Do you believe there is a baby there? If so, why would you be in favor of ending that life for the crime of existing?  Pro-lifers must return to the art of persuasion. We cannot assume our fellow Americans and even many of our fellow Christians understand the issue. And we should do it in a way designed to generate converts, not in ways that push folks away from our side. The small but loud cohort of internet activists who fantasize about throwing women in jail and repealing the 19th Amendment may seem courageous to their text threads, but they are not moving public opinion and in fact may be doing the work of those who seek to expand abortion. Courage requires the fortitude to stand up for what is right, even when it’s unpopular. But it also requires the wisdom to make arguments that expand the movement. In a democracy, this is the only way to make change. Many of the activists in the movement use moral language, but we need to urge our political leaders to do this as well. Too often, with the exception of folks such as Senator James Lankford, who routinely speaks on the Senate floor about the value of human life, many of our pro-life politicians, when asked about the issue, either mumble about exceptions or stare at their shoes. They rarely give an eloquent defense of the unborn.  We should defend the sanctity of life in the public square by appealing both to America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and to our founding principles in the Declaration. This is how successful social activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. helped build a movement that saw real civil rights victories in the 20th century. He appealed to America’s uniquely Christian character by talking about the God-given dignity of black people. And he appealed to the words in our founding documents that declare “all men are created equal.”  Two hundred and fifty years after this grand experiment in human government was formed, we have come much closer to realizing the reality of those words. And yet, as long as unborn children are treated as less than human, we have so much further to go. While we strategize and support pro-life candidates as we should, let’s return once again to appealing to the moral imagination of our fellow citizens. And perhaps, several decades from now, we might look back at this moment as the influential second chapter in the long pro-life struggle. *** Daniel Darling is the director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Seminary, a columnist for World, and the author of several books, including his latest, “In Defense of Christian Patriotism.”

Ordinarily, when a man affirms that American culture and Islam are mutually exclusive, that Muslims cannot assimilate because their allegiance to Sharia law trumps everything else, and that their religion will “make people feel uncomfortable,” you can assume he’s making a case for immigration restrictions. Then along comes Shadi Hamid, a Muslim Washington Post columnist who happily asserts all these things in an ostensible effort to make the opposite case: reassure Americans that these are qualities they should embrace. In reality, of course, Hamid’s arguments are likely to have the opposite effect, repel even those who harbored hopes that Muslim immigrants and their descendants would be assimilable. Indeed, he spent a great part of Wednesday dealing with the hornet’s nest that his op-ed kicked off online. But there is a clue that Hamid must have known he was being disingenuous. He made sure to throw in a caveat: his co-religionists are American now, at least in what he claims is a vague “constitutional” sense, and aren’t going anywhere anyway. Hamid, it is important to add, is not just anyone. He is a bona fide member of the establishment. He is not just a columnist at the Post, where he published the piece; he is also a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, a former fellow at Stanford University, a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and the director of research at its Doha Center. In other words, Hamid has shaped the thinking on Islam’s place in America from the highest of ivory towers and now popularizes it through a regular gig at one of the country’s most prominent newspapers. And yet, rebutting his claims is not hard. Some are untrue (he wrote that most American Muslims were “born and raised here,” earning an X community note showing that 58% are actually immigrants), other claims are only partly so, and still others are just downright specious. Among the main arguments were the following: America no longer has a unifying culture to conserve; assimilation means secularization, and thus degradation; and Republicans should ally themselves with unassimilated Muslims because they have anti-gay views (yes, he really makes this argument). In his piece, Hamid writes that “America was not founded on the assumption that its citizens would eventually come to agree on foundational questions.” The Founders would like to have a word. They created the new country precisely on the premise that, if it took in immigrants, they would have to, as Alexander Hamilton put it, “get rid of foreign and acquire American attachments.” Not for nothing did they make E Pluribus Unum — out of many, one — the country’s motto. The evidence is far too large to go through in a piece of this size, but numerous quotes from many of the Founders to this effect can be found in this comprehensive study I authored more than a decade ago. But let’s quote at least George Washington, who wrote to John Adams that his hope with immigrants was that “by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws: in a word, soon become one people.” On the question of Sharia, Hamid avers that “practicing Muslims — despite being repeatedly asked to — can’t disavow ‘sharia’ even if they wanted to,” because it “includes guidelines on how to pray, fast and otherwise observe what it means to submit to God.” But Sharia is a large system derived from Muslim sacred texts and their interpretation. Many Muslim countries and clerics have interpreted things in ways that severely disadvantage more than 50% of society, women. Sharia is invoked to impose oppressive rules from dress codes to rules on inheritance, testimony, mobility, etc. I dare Hamid to show any evidence of conservative support for any of this. Sharia is even invoked by some Muslim states in the punishment of homosexuality. Some American conservatives will rail against LGBTQ ideology when pushed on minors. But all conservatives would find the notion of throwing gays off buildings stomach-churning. Thus, though Hamid is disingenuous throughout his arguments, he is particularly so when he says that “You’d think Republicans would sense an electoral opportunity.” I don’t know about Republicans, but the conservative “crusade” as I understand it — and as President Donald Trump has pursued it, with universities, museums, etc. — is to conserve the unified American culture that Hamid not only repudiates but claims no longer exists (he writes in a tweet “There is no longer any unified culture or set of supreme values that enjoy a consensus. We can lament this, but it’s a fact”). First, as the X poster Noah Smith pointed out, there is plenty of evidence that “we actually agree on a lot more than politics suggests.” But it is the Left — which denigrates this culture as much as Hamid — that has made a wartime alliance with political Islam. They sense that they both seek to deconstruct Western culture. In Europe, this is called “the Red-Green Alliance.” To be sure, each side senses they will fall out with each other as soon as they destroy the unified culture. But medium-term alliances win wars, as World War II attests. (My money is on the Islamists crushing the silly Leftists if this dystopia ever came to pass). The fight to save the West — against secularism, family breakdown, and the atomized individual — is real. But it presupposes that we save the unifying culture, which may be on life support yet still redeemable. And for that I can quote evidence from one Shadi Hamid, who left no doubt in a 2016 Atlantic piece on the Ottoman Empire that he understands that “spiritual unity” was foundational if there is a hope of establishing a legitimate political order. That is why assimilation remains an indispensable condition in any land that takes in immigrants. Islam is one of the world’s great religions, but its practitioners don’t get a pass. *** Mike Gonzalez is the Angeles T. Arredondo Senior Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. His book “BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution” is now available. 

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** In case you’ve missed it, ’90s culture is trending big time. And not just the Y2K fashion that’s been gracing the runway for some time now. We’re talking Furbies, Tamagotchi toys, waterbeds, and resurrected ’90s kids’ bedrooms; basically, all things ’90s childhood are trending. And while millennials are certainly on board, the ’90s resurgence is being driven in large part by Gen Z. Why is a generation of young people obsessed with a decade they never even lived in or, for the few born in the late ’90s, are too young to remember? As a mom right on the cusp of Gen Z myself, I think Gen Z’s fascination with ’90s childhoods offers some warnings about the way that we’re raising children in the new millennium. I don’t believe Gen Z’s ’90s obsession is random; I believe it’s because young adults are yearning for something they never had: a full childhood, filled with play and adventure, and a meaningful transition into adulthood, embracing all the responsibilities that growing up should entail. Several months ago, the New York Times published an op-ed suggesting that the obsession with ’90s nostalgia is the result of Gen Z wrestling with technological overreach in their lives. And this is indeed part of the ’90s allure. Though Gen Z youth may be the most phone-savvy and online generation ever, they are weary of the digital era, and the resurrected ’90s trends offer just that screen-free safe haven. But I think Gen Z’s fascination with all things ’90s is more than just a response to tech overreach, especially considering many Gen Z youth were robbed of the full childhoods that they envision millennials enjoyed. The permanence of what kids now post online, as well as the dangers that come along with the internet, have forced Gen Z children to grow up too fast, demanding a maturity that millennials did not have to worry about as acutely. Social media “likes” and “followers” make popularity hierarchies all the more oppressive at younger and younger ages. The digital weight of the modern world, which Gen Z shouldered at a far younger age than millennials, is compounded by less time spent playing and more time scrolling. Gen Z spends less time outdoors than previous generations, to the detriment of childhood exploration and adventuring. Another factor, and one that poses a significant deviation from most millennial upbringings, is the breakout of helicopter parenting. The impression that young people are ill-prepared for real life is an unfortunate stereotype that helicopter parenting has bequeathed Gen Z. One of the more revealing illustrations of this over-involved parenting is the number of Gen Z young adults who are bringing their parents to job interviews and having them negotiate salaries on their behalf. Yes, you read that right: Gen Z young adults are bringing their parents along for job interviews and salary negotiations, and this interference of parents in their children’s workplaces is common enough that it has been given the term “career co-piloting.” With overbearing parenting like that, the trial, error, and adventure that should constitute a healthy adolescence are absent in many Gen Z upbringings, and it’s no surprise they look at the dawn-till-dusk bike riding escapades of ’90s kids with a mix of wonder and nostalgia. It makes sense that Gen Z would romanticize a childhood with the independence, adventure, and screen-free play they did not get to enjoy. But there’s an important flip side to the coin: while in many ways robbed of the fullness of childhood adventuring and play, Gen Z is simultaneously reticent to embrace adulthood responsibilities. Members of Gen Z, by and large, are taking less responsibility than millennials and previous generations. They are more likely to defer obtaining a driver’s license or not apply for one at all. They are prone to avoiding social obligations and are notoriously non-committal. And more Gen Z young adults are still living at home than in previous generations. Recall that Gen Zers are willingly bringing their parents to job interviews. Parents are micromanaging the lives of Gen Z through adulthood and into the workplace, and Gen Z is complicit. Gen Z’s reticence to assume adult responsibility is no doubt connected to helicopter parenting, which not only robs children of childhood escapades and adventure but also stunts their maturity and handicaps their self-agency into adulthood. While I’m no psychologist, I don’t think it’s coincidental that a generation reluctant to grow up has found solace in ’90s toys and childhood memorabilia. Gen Z’s fascination with ’90s nostalgia may be flattering to millennials, but it’s also a sad echo of Gen Z’s apathy toward their own coming of age. While there is nothing wrong with ’90s nostalgia, its popularity among young people harbors a subtle warning about the importance of a distinct childhood and adulthood, of both letting kids have gratifying childhoods and shepherding children as they come of age to understand and embrace the full responsibilities of adulthood. Children deserve childhoods filled with plenty of play and adventuring, liberated from the bondage of social media and bottomless online distractions, and they deserve more than helicopter parenting that instills fear and unhealthy dependence as they become adults. As children mature, they benefit greatly from the transfer of more responsibility, allowing for failure, hardship, and difficulty. Rather than assure them that mom and dad are ready to assume any and all of life’s hurdles (like an intimidating job interview), we need to do a better job at instilling young adults with the awareness that their life is theirs, and theirs alone, to direct. The lack of agency in today’s young people is not an inconsequential issue, either; personal responsibility is integral to good citizenship, and our democracy depends on youth becoming productive, self-driven adults. So let Gen Z’s fascination with all things ’90s be a gentle reminder of the truth behind the maxim “let kids be kids” — to which I would also add that adults ought to be adults, too. *** Rebekah Bills is a freelance writer and mother of three. She previously served as a civilian intelligence officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Mass amnesty would be a slap in the face to the American people — and a betrayal of the mandate voters delivered in 2024. The American people sent Republicans to Washington to secure the border, enforce our laws, and put American workers and families first. Yet some in our own party are attempting to resurrect the deeply flawed DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act. This bill must die in the cradle. It is not “commonsense reform.” It is mass amnesty dressed up in deceptive language, and it undermines the agenda Americans demanded. Sponsors of the legislation, led by Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, insist the bill is not amnesty. They claim it merely brings people “out of the shadows” with earned legal status while securing the border and protecting American workers. Rep. Mike Lawler, a vocal co-sponsor, has even touted it as a bipartisan fix that codifies tough immigration policies. Salazar has pushed back against critics of the bill, suggesting opponents simply haven’t read the text. So let’s examine the legislation’s own provisions. The bill’s Sections 2102-2104 establish a version of the Dream Act that grants conditional lawful permanent resident status to illegal aliens who entered the United States before age 18, have been continuously present since January 1, 2021, meet education, employment, or military service requirements, and pass background checks. DACA recipients receive an accelerated track to conditional green cards. This is a direct path to citizenship for an estimated 2.5 million “Dreamers” who entered unlawfully as minors, eventually making them eligible for U.S. citizenship and sponsor their lawbreaking parents. The bottom line is the Dignity Act rewards breaking our laws with a clear pathway deeper into the American system. The bill goes much further, though, in Sections 2301-2305 by creating the Dignity Program, a separate track for the estimated 10.5 million illegal aliens here prior to 2021 who do not qualify for the “Dreamer” provisions. If they pay a simple $1,000 “restitution” fee, submit biometrics, pass a background check, and have no felony convictions, they receive a 7-year renewable “Dignity status” with work and travel authorizations, which they can use existing pathways to adjust to a green card (and therefore a pathway to citizenship). Sponsors emphasize that there is no path to citizenship and no access to most federal benefits. This is false, and the critical detail they downplay is this: qualifying for the program suspends deportation for anyone who applies and meets the basic criteria, including certain criminals. In practice, this effectively halts mass deportations for the overwhelming majority of the illegal alien population already here. In fact, Section 2204 of the bill explicitly allows illegal aliens deported on or after January 20, 2017 – the day President Trump was first inaugurated – to apply for the bill’s permanent resident status (the “dignity status” outlined above) directly from their home country and, if approved, to return to the United States as lawful permanent residents. This bill seeks to unwind the tremendous successes of President Trump in enforcing our nation’s immigration laws. Estimates of the unauthorized population have ranged between 12 million and 20 million. The bill’s cutoffs capture nearly all long-term illegal residents, effectively legalizing their presence and shielding them from removal. Proponents call this “earned” status. Conservatives recognize it for what it is: a de facto amnesty that signals to the world that entering illegally carries little permanent consequence once you settle in. This is unacceptable. American voters did not elect us to rubber-stamp the Biden-era border crisis or to create new legal protections that make large-scale enforcement impossible. Granting work authorization and deferred removal to millions rewards lawbreakers, undercuts wages for American blue-collar workers, and shifts enormous costs onto taxpayers for education, emergency healthcare, housing, and law enforcement. Even if the bill claims “no federal benefits,” indirect costs remain substantial, and local governments bear much of the burden. Republicans should be expanding detention capacity and streamlining deportations — not creating new protected classes of illegal aliens. The solution is not to legalize the problem; it is to enforce the law consistently and deter future illegal immigration. The American people understand this. Polling consistently shows strong support for enforcement first, not amnesty-first “compromises.” As members of the House Freedom Caucus, we stand with the voters who rejected open borders and demanded accountability. We will oppose any legislation that grants mass legal status to illegal aliens, suspends deportations on this scale, or weakens our resolve to restore the rule of law. The DIGNIDAD Act is not a solution — it is a surrender. It must be rejected outright. No amnesty. No amnesty-lite. No DIGNIDAD Act. That’s our red line. * * * Keith Self represents Texas’s 3rd Congressional District and serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Andrew Clyde represents Georgia’s Ninth Congressional District and serves on the House Appropriations and Budget Committees. Sheri Biggs represents South Carolina’s Third District and serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Randy Fine represents Florida’s Sixth District and serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton delivered an op-ed for The New York Times on Thursday, offering her advice to Democrats on how to win against “brain-dead” Republicans in the future. Clinton, who served as Secretary of State after losing the 2012 Democratic primary to former President Barack Obama, criticized Republicans generally — and President Donald Trump specifically — for requesting an increase to the military budget, complaining that the administration was ignoring working families to do so. Questioning those concerned with America’s falling birth rate — which is well below the replacement rate and predicts an imminent population drop-off — she added, “Their answer is too often nostalgia and misogyny: If we could turn back the clock to a time when women didn’t work (and knew their place), the economy would thrive and families would flourish. This is substantively and politically brain-dead.” Clinton then proceeded to tick off a list of priorities she believed Democrats should focus on if they wanted to succeed in the future — but most of her proposed solutions were either already well-entrenched in the Democratic Party’s platform or had already been tried, with varying degrees of success or failure, by one or both parties. One such solution, according to Clinton, was an increase in child tax credits — specifically refundable tax credits. The IRS describes a refundable tax credit as “a credit you can get as a refund even if you don’t owe any tax.” The end result of a refundable child tax credit would be a redistribution of wealth based on number of dependents — and in past years, this has been accomplished through the Earned Income Credit. Another solution — one that has already been embraced by both parties to some degree — is paid family leave. Clinton also focused on early education, childcare, and health care — all of which have been key elements of her party’s platform for years, if not decades. The key driver in all of those suggestions was her insistence that those programs be delivered at the national level rather than by individual employers looking for a competitive advantage or even by more local jurisdictions where the specific needs of the people in that area could be addressed. Her final suggestion was a national baseline for artificial intelligence safeguards — again, something that both parties and the White House have expressed an interest in exploring.