By: Beth Brelje – November 06, 2024 – 3 min read – The Federalist

Voters in two Midwest states, Nebraska and South Dakota, defeated measures to expand abortion.

My cmnt: Last nite, Nov. 5th, 2024, will go down in history as a miracle from God. How nearly half the country and a majority of women could even consider voting for the bubble-headed, word-salad producing moron known as Kamala when paired against a proven, competent, high-energy, talented, intelligent person known as The Donald – is beyond my comprehension. Essentially the arrogant and evil democrats who run their party (and mostly ignore their own voters) believed they could put up a head of cabbage and their sycophant lemming voters would elect her anyway. Thank God, literally I really do, He miraculously spared Trump’s life – Twice!! – and prevented the dems from cheating their way to victory as they did in four dem-run cities (Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta) with illegal and unverifiable mass mail-in ballots produced in the dead of night AFTER the election and caused a senile, decrepit, old POS to become our first (if you don’t count the 3rd and 4th terms of FDR) puppet president.

My cmnt: And the same people who just put President Trump back into the office stolen from him in 2020 are the very ones who saved Nebraska and South Dakota from enshrining into their constitutions the right to murder your babies. And the very same people who voted for Harris are the very same people who vote for abortion anytime up to and including after the baby is born~!

Several abortion initiatives were on state ballots for the Nov. 5 election, and by a narrow margin, voters in two Midwest states, Nebraska and South Dakota, chose the pro-life options.

The Nebraska ballot had two competing questions.

Voters defeated a plan to enshrine the right to kill an unborn baby into the state constitution. The proposal, Nebraska Initiative 439, was opposed by 51 percent of voters, while 49 percent supported it. The initiative called for an amendment to the Nebraska Constitution giving “all persons,” not just women, “a fundamental right to abortion until fetal viability, or when needed to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient, without interference from the state or its political subdivisions.”

The language of the measure did grammar gymnastics to avoid using the words “women” or “mother,” or “baby.”

The amendment defined “fetal viability” as the point in pregnancy when a doctor says the child could survive “outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.”

While that was struck down, a life-affirming measure passed with 55 percent of the vote. Nebraska Initiative 434, the Prohibit Abortions After the First Trimester Amendment, amends the state constitution to say, “unborn children shall be protected from abortion in the second and third trimesters” except in cases of medical emergencies or pregnancies resulting from sexual assault or incest.

“Thanks to leadership from Sen. Pete Ricketts, Gov. Jim Pillen and GOP leaders, abortion industry lies were challenged and the radical implications of Initiative 439 were exposed while a reasonable alternative was advanced,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement.

In South Dakota, Amendment G attempted to enshrine a right to abortion into the state constitution. Roughly 60 percent of voters voted against the measure. The plan would have allowed for abortions through birth, with certain restrictions. In the first trimester, there would be no restrictions. In the second trimester, regulations of abortion decisions would be allowed. In the third trimester, abortion would be regulated or prohibited except when medically necessary to save the life of the mother.

The pro-abortion people have attempted to make abortion an undisputed right through state constitutional amendments in numerous states.

“The demise of pro-abortion Amendment G is an enormous victory for life,” Dannenfelser said. “When we wake up tomorrow, unborn children will still be protected in the great state of South Dakota thanks to leadership from Sen. John Thune, Rep. Dusty Johnson and Gov. Kristi Noem. Precious boys and girls will live as a result of this vote, and the state will be immensely better off as they grow to fulfill their God-given purposes.”

“South Dakota is a beacon for how the pro-life movement can win future ballot measure fights. When the pro-life leaders speak up and expose the lies of the abortion industry, life wins.”

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Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.

Couple Who Rented A Womb Forces Surrogate To Abort In Case The Baby Is Imperfect

By: Anna Kaladish Reynolds – November 01, 2024 – 4 min read- The Federalist

Chilling stories like Marty and Melinda Rangers’ aborted baby should cause more people to question the surrogacy industry.

Anna Kaladish Reynolds

What do you do with a defective product? Return it. What about when the product is a baby? Because babies are harder to “return,” one couple decided to abort the baby after becoming concerned that the “product” would not be up to their standards. 

The Daily Mail shared the story of Marty and Melinda Rangers, an American couple who had two children via surrogate mothers. As the article reveals, Marty and Melinda also had a third child through a surrogate, but they opted to terminate the contract — and terminate the baby’s life along with it.

Because of “busy careers,” the Rangerses put off having children. After early retirement and a move out of the country, they did not think medical resources were reliable enough to try in-vitro fertilization, a reproductive technology that could increase the likelihood of conception in the waning years of fertility. Instead, they opted to have an embryo transferred to a surrogate. 

The surrogacy industry is largely unregulated, a veritable Wild West of business ethics and human moral standards, as the Rangerses soon discovered. They went through an agency in California and interviewed a potential surrogate who “seemed reliable on paper and good to talk to over the phone.” The surrogate then underwent a psychological and medical screening, after which she began to carry Marty and Melinda’s child. 

Excited at the prospect of their child being born and deeply financially invested (Marty and Melinda say the surrogacy costs about $100,000 — “$30,000 going to the agency, $65,000 going to the surrogate, and another $5,000 in legal fees”), they kept in contact with the gestational mother through phone calls. Additionally, for “peace of mind,” Melinda liked to monitor the woman on social media. 

Through Instagram, Melinda saw the surrogate drinking what appeared to be a shot of alcohol. The couple confronted the surrogate, who claimed the drink was only water. Unsatisfied with the explanation, Marty and Melinda requested that the surrogate undergo an elective abortion around 20 weeks of pregnancy. For context, 20 weeks is the midpoint of pregnancy, at which point the child is fully formed, the mother often looks visibly pregnant, and studies show the baby can feel pain (such as would result from being dismembered in an abortion). 

Reflecting on the experience, Marty said, “It was a very tough decision, but the trust had been broken and we were unsure what else this woman was capable of.” Thanks to reporting in the Daily Mail, we, the readers, now know that Marty is a man capable of ordering the death of his own child feared to be less than perfect. 

Things could have ended differently for Marty and Melinda, as other parents who have paid for a surrogate can attest. For the past decade, stories have been coming out of surrogate mothers pressured to abort babies for genetic abnormalities or because of multiples in the pregnancy. Several surrogates have refused to end the life of an innocent child and gone public with their stories.

Marty continued, “For our second child, we focused on judgement of the surrogate more intensely and we got them to commit more explicitly that they would follow medical advice on pregnancy, be it vaccines, bed rest, diet, or whatever it may be.” To ensure a good end product, the couple shelled out for organic food and lifestyle amenities for the surrogate.

Our culture has rejected the original premise of marriage, yet we wonder why our institutions do not make sense. Marriage was not historically about the happiness of the married couple but about the stability of the family unit, a legal means of tying the children to their biological mother and father. Of course, there have always been deaths, tragedies, and complex situations that meant children were not always born into the home of their biological parents. Adoption and infidelity are likely as old as the institution of marriage itself. Yet, until just recently, there was coherence in the marriage contract: Two people assumed responsibility for the children of that union. 

Just as marriage was not until recently thought of in terms of adults’ happiness, so having children was not until now generally considered in terms of adults’ fulfillment. Many people struggle to question the ethics of surrogacy because they see it as a good desire on the part of parents to bring new life into the world. But is it in the best interest of the child?

Perhaps chilling stories like the Rangerses’ aborted baby will cause more people to question the surrogacy industry and the real and heavy toll it takes on human lives. For their part, Marty and Melinda Rangers advise couples considering surrogacy to do “lots of research and think[] of things that could come up down the line.” First, let’s ask if this is the line we want to go down.

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Anna Kaladish Reynolds is a wife and mother in the great state of Texas. She writes at InspireVirtue.com and is interested in books and living the examined life.