Page 583 – Family Council

Abortion Facility Owner Found “Not Guilty” of Assault

Jul 7, 2022Jerry CoxAbortionAbortion, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

On Wednesday abortion facility owner Natalie Tvedten was found “not guilty” of First Degree Assault at a trial in Little Rock.

Warrant and arrest reports indicated that Tvedten faced two counts of Assault in the First Degree for allegedly trying to strike pro-lifers with her vehicle while they prayed on the public easement outside Little Rock Family Planning Services on July 13, 2021.

Little Rock Family Planning Services is Arkansas’ only licensed surgical abortion facility. The facility recently stopped performing abortions after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade on June 24.

Family Council has collected Little Rock Police reports documenting multiple close calls that pro-lifers have had with vehicles outside the surgical abortion facility over the years.

Below is video footage of the the July 13 incident that Family Council obtained last year via Arkansas’ Freedom of Information Act.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

The Great Firewall of China

Jul 6, 2022John StonestreetChinaChina

“For many years, the internet in China was seen as a channel for new thinking, or at least greater openness,” writes Human Rights Watch researcher Yaqiu Wang. “Online discussions were relatively free and open, and users, especially younger ones, had an eager appetite for learning and debating big ideas about political systems and how China should be governed.”

That changed when Xi Jinping took power. Explaining what’s known as China’s “Great Firewall,” Wang notes, “the government got savvier, and more aggressive about using its own technology.” For example, dissidents, journalists, and public figures disappear frequently, sometimes often for minor infractions like logging onto Twitter.

The state’s actions have created “a generational split,” says Wang. “[T]hose who experienced a relatively free internet as young people—many strongly resent the Great Firewall. Among people who started college after Xi took power, however, there is a strong impulse to defend it.”

It’s an extreme example of how tools intended and used for good can also be harnessed for evil. The same resource that can promote flourishing can also promote tyranny. That’s true everywhere, not just China.

Should Women Be Prosecuted for Having Illegal Abortions?

Jul 5, 2022Jerry CoxAbortionAbortion, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

On May 12, National Right to Life and Arkansas Right to Life joined more than 70 state, national, and international prolife organizations in issuing an open letter to America’s lawmakers urging them not to impose criminal penalties on women who have abortions.

As states prohibit abortion, lawmakers are facing questions about whether or not to prosecute a woman who breaks the law by having an abortion.

Here are four reasons why Arkansas law should not punish a woman who has an abortion.

Women were not prosecuted for having illegal abortions before Roe.

Before 1973, abortion generally was illegal in Arkansas.

The Arkansas Legislature enacted the state’s first laws against abortion around 1875.

As far as our team can tell, from 1875 to 1973 Arkansas never prosecuted women for having illegal abortions.

The abortionist could be prosecuted for breaking the law, but not the woman. The same was true in many other states that prohibited abortion prior to Roe v. Wade.

Even though Arkansans recognized that abortion was wrong, they also recognized that there were serious problems with prosecuting a woman who has an abortion.

Some women are coerced into having an abortion.

Over the decades, we have heard countless women say that they were pressured into having an abortion against their will.

In some cases it was a parent who told them they had to have an abortion. In other cases it was an abusive boyfriend.

Some pro-lifers have speculated that human traffickers may force their victims to have abortions if they become pregnant.

It isn’t right to prosecute a woman who may have been forced to have an abortion against her will.

How will our state prosecute illegal abortionists if the women face prosecution too?

Now that abortion is prohibited in Arkansas, our authorities need to be able to prosecute abortionists who violate the law.

In order to do that, they may need testimony from women who have gone to those abortionists for illegal abortion procedures.

Will women come forward to testify against abortionists in court if they know that they can be prosecuted too?

Prosecuting women as well as abortionists may make it harder to hold abortionists accountable for breaking the law.

We don’t have to prosecute women to abolish abortion.

We can shut down abortion facilities and prosecute abortionists without putting women in jail, too.

Abortion facilities that violate state laws should be shuttered, and abortionists who break the law should be penalized.

If we do that, we can stop abortion in Arkansas. We don’t have to prosecute women who have had abortions in order to end abortion.