A group of Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill to protect parents’ right to direct the upbringing, education and health care of their children.

Senators Tim Scott, R-S.C., and James Lankford, R-Okla., along with Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., introduced the Families’ Rights and Responsibilities Act this week, which protects several basic rights. The bill:

• Affirms that parents have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing, education, and health care of their children;
  
• Prevents the federal government from substantially burdening this fundamental right, without first passing the strict scrutiny test; and,
  
• Allows parents to raise a violation of the bill as a claim or defense in judicial or administrative proceedings at the federal and state levels.
  

“Parents have a fundamental right to control the upbringing of their child, whether it’s in the classroom or at home,” said Senator Scott in a statement, adding,

“Far too often, parents are being pushed out of their child’s lives, and kids are paying the price. I will always fight to put parents back in the driver’s seat and ensure they remain the lead decision maker in their child’s life. Indeed, protecting parental rights is commonsense; it shouldn’t be controversial.”

Unfortunately, it is.

Shortly after addressing last Friday’s March for Life via video, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order enforcing the Hyde Amendment and a presidential memorandum reinstating the Mexico City Policy, both of which limit taxpayer funding for abortion.

The Hyde Amendment was passed in 1976, forbidding any federal funding for abortion. It was later amended to include exceptions to save the life of the mother and to allow for cases of incest and rape.

The Mexico City policy prohibits funds from federal departments going to organizations or programs that perform or promote abortions. The policy was first enacted by in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan.

In his video address last Friday, the President thanked marchers “for turning out once again to show your extraordinary love and compassion for the unborn.”

He added, “To all of the very special people marching today in this bitter cold, I know your hearts are warm and your spirits are strong because your mission is just very, very pure: to forge a society that welcomes and protects every child as a beautiful gift from the hand of our Creator.”

The executive order Enforcing the Hyde Amendment states, “For nearly five decades, the Congress has annually enacted the Hyde Amendment and similar laws that prevent Federal funding of elective abortion, reflecting a longstanding consensus…”

Eighty years ago on January 27, 1945, Soviet forces overran a section of German-occupied Poland. The Nazis had been on the run for a couple of years by this point near the end of World War II, so it was not the retreat that shocked the Soviets.

In the neighborhood of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Soviets discovered 600 corpses and 7000 live, emaciated prisoners. It was only the beginning of the discovery of the horrors of the Holocaust, a word now used as a synonym for evil.

In 12 years of Nazi power, and particularly after the 1942 start of the “Final Solution,” some six million Jews, along with five million Slavs, Roma, dissidents and other prisoners were worked, shot, or gassed to death.

The bulk were taken from modern day Poland, Belarus and Ukraine, but Hitler’s odious apparatus netted victims from across Europe, sometimes with complicity of local governments.

The Nazis claimed Jews were being resettled in newly conquered areas of the USSR, but they were instead systematically executed. Those who could work were worked to death. Those who couldn’t work, including children and the elderly, were killed with all the industrial genius of the German nation.

What should be a source of shock for today is the increasing number of young Americans who doubt that the Holocaust, one of the most well-attested events in all history, even happened. The records are there, as were a number of eyewitnesses. The Nazis said they were going to do it, and Germans today admit they did. This evil happened. 

It’s a captivating image, a young man carrying a 12-foot high and 6-foot wide, 110-pound cross up Fifth Avenue in New York City, pausing just in front of Hallmark’s Gotham office.

As he makes his way, he’s handing out Bible tracts.

His name was Arthur Owen Blessitt (his real name) and he held the distinction, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, of taking the “longest walk” of anyone in recorded history.

Arthur Blessit died earlier this month at the age of 84.

A Southern Baptist street preacher and pastor, Arthur began walking from his church in Hollywood, California across America on Christmas Day in 1969. He didn’t stop walking for two years, arriving in New York City in 1970.

Pastor Blessitt wasn’t walking for the publicity, wasn’t trying to glorify his own ego or garner notoriety to land a book and movie contract.

Simply put, he began walking because he heard (not audibly) God tell him to “Go!” — and so that’s what he did.

Only Arthur Blessitt didn’t stop walking when he reached New York. All told, Arthur covered 43,340 miles across all seven continents. He was arrested 24 times. Weather never deterred him. He carried the cross when it was 20 degrees below zero in Nova Scotia and 135 degrees in Yemen and Iraq. Arthur even carried the cross up Bronzal Pass on the Pakistan and Afghanistan border (18,200 feet) and down into Carlsbad Cavern in New Mexico (850 feet below sea level).