Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Part I

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Europe Has a Huge Free Speech Problem: Europe is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Saving Democracy

Europe has a huge free speech problem, and at least increasingly some Europeans are beginning to admit the problem. Now, just remember that it was a matter of a few months ago that US Vice President, JD Vance, in Europe accused the Europeans of having a free speech problem and he expanded that to many European nations having a democracy problem. We discussed this yesterday on The Briefing, the attempt to try to shut out, so-called far right parties basically compromising democracy in the name of some higher goal. And here’s one of the ironies. You have so many European governments saying that they are basically compromising democracy in order to save democracy. And you also see the cultural and intellectual elites in the United States circling the wagons to try to do exactly the same thing, to try to curtail democratic freedoms supposedly in defense of preserving democracy.

Now, the irony in all that is thick and it turns out to be really instructive as well. So let’s look at the European situation. What was the vice president talking about when he accused Europe of having a free speech problem? Well, many Europeans were up in arms. How can you accuse us of having a free speech problem? All of our nations offer some guarantee of free speech. Just a little footnote here. Free speech in the American tradition is a matter of a constitutional right. It is in the Bill of Rights. It’s actually in the First Amendment. It is so important that the founding fathers couldn’t pass what became the United States Constitution, they couldn’t do so without qualifying it with the Bill of Rights and free speech had to be in there.

So when it comes to the United States, it’s almost, almost is an important conditional here. It’s an almost unconditional guarantee of free speech rights. In the United States, free speech is so fundamental as a right. It’s tied to freedom of religion. It’s tied to freedom of assembly. It is also in American jurisprudence and in Supreme Court decisions, it is so protected that you have to come up with something like the famous case in which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “You can’t cry fire in a crowded theater.” Other than that, you can say just about anything. You can publish just about anything. Free speech is an incredibly expansive right, constitutionally guaranteed in the United States. And the reason for that, is that the American experiment in self-government, the American experiment in constitutional self-government, and yes, you can use the word democratic in this, it requires freedom of speech. Because without freedom of speech, all the other so-called rights become artificial.

So we really do need to pay some attention to what’s going on here in Europe. The Economist, and remember that is one of the most authoritative press sources in Europe. It is one of the most important news sources in the United Kingdom responding to Vice President Vance’s comments, they came back with an editorial statement and a full analysis article. The editorial statement is entitled “Europe’s Free Speech Problem,” the subhead, “The Continent that Gave the World the Enlightenment has Forgotten How to Nurture Free Expression.” Okay. So something important’s going on there. The European elites recoiled in horror when the American Vice President made the statement about Europe violating free speech. But now The Economist, one of the most authoritative news sources in Europe comes back and says, “Well, that is actually true. Come to think of it, it’s profoundly true.” 

As a matter of fact, you have other articles such as one that appeared in The Spectator, another British Journal. The headline of this one is “JD Vance Didn’t Go Far Enough on Europe.” This article by Rod Liddle, The Spectator, makes the very point we just made. That free speech is fundamental to democratic self-government. And Liddle writes, “The only problem with the Vance speech is that it didn’t go far enough and contained insufficient examples of the EU, that’s the European Union’s, warped concept of democracy.” He goes on to say, “The truth is that populist parties have both the right and the left have been persecuted by the EU for at least 25 years and continue to be.” Liddle says in the next statement, “If they somehow hoist themselves into power, they are warned that their country will be fined or suspended if they dare to enact policies on which they were elected.”

So in the American media, there was the immediate response that the Vice President had stepped over some line, but now you have authoritative sources in Europe coming back to say, “No. The problem is the American Vice President didn’t press the case hard enough.” The lead opinion piece recently in The Economist includes these words, “All European countries guarantee a right to free expression. However, most also try to limit the harms they fear it may cause. This goes well beyond the kinds of speech that even classical liberals agree should be banned such as child pornography, leaks of national secrets or the deliberate incitement of physical violence.” It often extends says The Economist, “to speech that hurts people’s feelings or is in some officials view, false.” You see the huge problem here, there is the assurance of a freedom of speech, but that freedom of speech is often construed by legal authorities to mean that that particular speech is not free. Notice the examples given here, speech that hurts people’s feelings. Now understand just how much speech that might shut down, and that’s because people’s feelings can be hurt over just about anything.

And then you’ll notice that statement, “Or is in some officials view false.” So this makes very clear that some European governments and some European supergovernmental agencies claim the ability to say, “No, that’s false.” Now, you hear that in the United States also as well. The mainstream media tries to do what they call fact checking, that often goes well beyond anything that could be called the rational explication of a fact. It really is an official interpretation. And you know what? The mainstream media and the United States got away for decades with being the authoritative voice, getting to interpret all these issues. They lost that franchise particularly in the digital revolution.

But you’ll notice in Europe there is an attempt to clamp down on that kind of speech. The Economist acknowledges this. They give examples, “France fined a conservative TV channel 100,000 Euro, that’s $112,000, for calling abortion the world’s leading cause of death.” And The Economist then says, “That’s a commonplace view among pro-lifers from which the public must apparently be shielded.” The paper goes on to say, “Online safety laws that slap big fines on social media firms for tolerating illegal content have encouraged them to take down plenty that is merely questionable, infuriating those whose posts are suppressed.” They go on to say things may get worse. “Vaguely drafted laws that give vast discretion to officials are an invitation for abuse. Countries where such abuse is not yet common should learn from the British example. Its crackdown was not planned from above but arose when police discovered they rather liked the powers speech laws gave them. It is much easier,” says The Economist, “To catch Instagram posters than thieves. The evidence is only a mouse click away.” But there’s something more fundamental going on here and The Economist knows it.

Later in this article, they state this openly, “European liberals have grown queasy about defending free speech.” The paper then asserts, “This is foolish. Not only because laws that can be used to gag one side can also be used to gag the other, as can be seen in draconian responses to Gaza protests in Germany.” The paper goes on to say, “But also because believing in free speech means defending speech you don’t like. If democracies fail to do that,” says The Economist, “They lose credibility to the benefit of autocracies such as China and Russia, which are waging a global struggle for soft power.” I like the way The Economist editorial board ends their statement. “Europeans are free to say what they like about Mr. Vance, but they should not ignore his warning. When states have too many powers over speech, sooner or later they will use them.”

Part II

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What is Happening in Finland Will Not Stay in Finland: Americans Need to Closely Watch the Free Speech Case of Paivi Rasanen in Finland

Now, I said that The Economist is offering a cover story here, a full page editorial statement and a much longer analysis, and in that investigative report, there is something that Christians in the United States need to know about and think about very carefully. The investigative report is very thorough and it begins with an example that’s absolutely chilling and should have the attention of Christians everywhere. Listen to this: “Should the Finnish Lutheran Church sponsor the Pride Parade, a festival of rainbow flags and sexual inclusivity?” Many might argue that a state institution would do well to show prospective parishioners that it has kept up with the Times. Päivi Räsänen is not among them. A staunch conservative, mother of five, and member of parliament since 1995, she questioned on social media whether the church’s endorsing pride was compatible with the Bible’s teachings on sin and shame? 

Räsänen then offered a photograph of some scriptural texts. The Economist says, “An accompanying picture of some of the book’s [that’s the Bible’s] less tolerant passages may clear her own conclusions.” This was in 2019. “The temerity of her questioning has resulted in six years of police investigations, prosecution trials, and the threat of a hefty fine.” The Economist continues, “As Finland’s interior minister. In the early 2000 tens, Ms. Räsänen had overseen the police. Soon she was sitting in their interrogation rooms for 13 hours and all she says, ultimately a court in 2022 found that her views offensive as some may have found them, were no crime under Finnish law. An appeal also went her way, but the ordeal is not over. The Supreme Court will soon announce whether prosecutors wish for a judicial rematch will be granted.”

Now, I was with Päivi Räsänen in a meeting in Berlin just days ago, and I can tell you this is a very live issue. She’s a very brave woman, a very brave Christian, and she’s facing what could be, still could be, a criminal action against her for citing scriptural verses. As a member of parliament, as a former interior minister, as someone who wants to be in charge of the police, she’s now being hounded by the police and interrogated for citing Bible verses. I can tell you that she’s a very tough lady, but I can also tell you this is a very tough situation and it is one that now involves her, but making a mistake, if this pattern continues, it could involve you or your pastor or your member of Congress as well.

Looking at several violations country by country, The Economist then raises the question: What happened? They answer, “On paper, Europeans from Ireland to Greece enjoy free speech rights similar to the First Amendment protections offered to their American cousins. The European Convention on Human Rights that applies across the continent states that everyone has the right to freedom of expression. With a nuance, exercising that freedom comes with duties and responsibilities, the convention adds.” And of course, what government bureaucrats and sometimes government officials themselves try to do is to step in and say exactly what comes with those duties and responsibilities. Increasingly in Europe, that means you have absolute free speech until you absolutely do not.

The Economist points out that some nations have laws against making critical statements of elected officials. Now, wouldn’t that be convenient? What Congress wouldn’t decide that that would be in the member’s best interest? It may well be that the most important part of this package in The Economist, a big cover story is the acknowledgement that liberals in so many nations are losing confidence in free speech. They are going to say they are trying to protect liberty by conscribing liberty, but you’ll notice it’s conscribing liberty for certain persons with whom they disagree. That is always the problem with censorship. It’s just like what George Orwell discussed in Animal Farm. Everybody’s equal, but some are more equal than others.

We will continue to track this issue and I just can’t emphasize enough that Christians have a particular stake in this, and it’s not an accident that so many of the cases in which free speech rights are being violated have to do with Christian speech. It won’t stop with one legislator in Finland. I think you know that. We need to speak up about it while there’s time.

Part III

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A Dark and Deadly Legacy: Étienne-Émile Baulieu, the Creator of the Abortion Pill, Dies at 98

But next I want to go to a major obituary published in the New York Times about a death of a physician in France. Scott Veale wrote the report, and it is about the death of the man who invented the abortion pill.

As the obituary begins, “Dr. Étienne-Émile Baulieu, the French biochemist and physician who was often called the father of the abortion pill, and who was also known for his pioneering studies on the role of steroid hormones and human reproduction and aging, died last Friday at his home in Paris. He was 98 years old. Dr. Baulieu was a researcher very interested in the effects of hormones and that led to,” as the New York Times tells us, “Groundbreaking work on estrogen and progesterone and the development in the early-1980s of the synthetic steroid RU-486 or Mifepristone that thrust him onto the world stage.” “Unlike the morning after pill, which is used after sex to delay ovulation, RU-486 works as a anti-hormone,” and that’s in Dr. Baulieu’s words, “By blocking the uterus from receiving progesterone, thus preventing a fertilized egg from implanting.” The two-dose treatment as the obituary notes in terms of the pill, “Has been proved safe and highly effective with a success rate of about 95% and is commonly used in many countries. In the United States, medication abortions accounted for more than 50% of all abortions in 2020.”

Well, that is another example of the elite media ignoring data they do not find acceptable. You’ll notice the New York Times said that this pill has proved both safe and highly effective. Well, it’s highly effective, but remember, it’s effective at preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus and growing to maturity and then being born, and so it is a death pill when it comes to the unborn and it’s a highly effective death pill. Not only that, we are told that over half of all abortions in the United States now come by the pill, so-called medication abortion, rather than by surgical abortion. But you’ll notice the Times also said just as an offhand comment in this obituary that the pill has proved to be safe. 

Just days ago, I reported on the fact that the Ethics and Public Policy Center has released a massive report demonstrating that this is a false claim, and it is something that the press just ignores. The data showing deep problems with RU-486 or Mifepristone as it is now commonly known, the press just suppresses them and that’s exactly what’s going on here.

The obituary cites the fact that there was much controversy around Dr. Baulieu and his research, “Controversy over RU-486 began as soon as its release in the 1980s. Dr. Baulieu developed the drug and partnership with a French drug company, Roussel Uclaf, where he was an independent consultant. After RU-486 was approved for sale in France in 1988, Roussel Uclaf was briefly forced to pull it from the market after protests from the Catholic Church, and the threat of boycotts, before the French government persuaded the company to reverse its decision.” Notice what took place there. The French government stepped in to demand the continued sale of the abortion pill. That tells you a lot about how these things work in this case, particularly in France and more generally in Europe.

The obituary does cite the opposition, “Opponents of abortion assailed RU-486 as dangerous and immoral, calling it a death pill and a chemical coat hanger.” As recently as 1996, 4 years before the pill was officially approved for use in the United States, the Vatican called it a serious threat to human life. The article points out the fact that Dr. Baulieu was not only a researcher, he was an activist for abortion, and before that he was an activist for contraception and birth control pills. He was, as the paper says, “A vociferous public presence in the crusade for acceptance of the abortion pill.” At one point we are told he held an impassioned news conference at the World Congress of Gynecology and Obstetrics in Rio to condemn Roussel Uclaf after its decision to pull RU 4 86 from the market.

Now, the paper says that he had no financial stake in the abortion pill’s success. He saw it as a medical issue, an ethical issue, and once again, I’ll just take that as a truthful statement. It may be that he had no financial statement. That doesn’t change the effect of RU-486. It doesn’t change the deadly effect of this pill. It doesn’t change the fact that it is a life termination pill regardless of who profits. Sometimes a major obituary like this makes some interesting connections in this case. Here’s one, “As a young scientist on a fellowship at Columbia University in New York in the 1950s, he met Gregory G. Pincus, the inventor of the birth control pill who became a mentor and who inspired Dr. Baulieu to pursue research into contraception and pregnancy regulation.” That’s an interesting way to put it, pregnancy regulation.

Anyone who knows the history of the sexual revolution and the contraception pill in the United States knows the name of Gregory G. Pincus, and once again, you’re talking about someone who claimed the high mantle of medicine and medical research, but who was ideologically committed to the sexual revolution and to what became the hormonal revolution in the contraceptive pill. Also, I would argue, with very serious ethical complications. 

Nowhere in this obituary do you find a line acknowledging that Dr. Baulieu’s development of this pill has led to the deaths of millions of unborn human beings.

Part IV

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A Prominent NT Scholar Justifies an Abortion in the Case of Rape and Incest? The Big Issues with NT Wright’s Recent Comments on Abortion

Finally, for today, there has been some interesting conversation about a podcast. It’s the Ask NT Wright Anything podcast, and in this particular edition of the podcast, Bishop Wright also addressed the issue of abortion, and he did so in a way that I think points out some general patterns of thought that we as Christians need to recognize. We’re talking about NT Wright, very famous New Testament scholar, already very controversial in many circles for his redefinition of justification, his reordering of biblical theology, his teachings on eschatology. He is a proponent of the so-called New Perspective on Paul, which many of us find deeply problematic. He has also offered some very important defenses of the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He has been a very well-known New Testament scholar for a matter of decades. He is also a churchman in the Church of England between the years 2003 and 2010 NT Wright served as the Bishop of Durham there in northern England. He’s held academic posts at the University of St. Andrews, and at Oxford University, where he now serves as a senior research fellow.

This particular podcast is moderated by another figure, well-known to evangelicals, Michael Bird, and in the edition of the podcast released on June the 1st of this year, the bishop is asked the question, “Is abortion ever justified?” In his answer, he began saying, “It is obviously hugely sensitive and difficult and I know it’s become a political hot potato as well as an ethical hot potato, particularly in America.” Okay. Stop for a moment, particularly in America? You hear some condescension there, but there is also the suggestion that America is just the odd case here, and I find that particularly irritating. I want to say if this is not a controversy in the United Kingdom or elsewhere, it is the failure of those in the United Kingdom to make it an issue.

Wright makes some good statements about abortion being a part of the fruit of the sexual revolution, but he then goes on and says, “There must be some exceptions.” He says, “I do think we have to be very careful, and I’ve had personal experience of this with a close family member,” he says, “Where soon after the couple discovered that they were pregnant or the wife was pregnant, then it also became apparent that the wife had been accidentally exposed to German measles, rubella.” He goes on, “Now, as we know that exposure to German measles can result in serious deformities in the womb, et cetera, et cetera, and the GP, that’s general practitioner in that case was a devout Christian,” and then Wright says, The doctor said, “we are going to do the test and if she’s been exposed to rubella, if there’s a threat of serious deformation or whatever, then will recommend termination.” Wright then says, “And I remember my heart and my mouth when I heard that in thinking, do I really agree with that?”

He then says this, “But at the time it was absolutely clear for the mental health, never mind anything else of the mother and the potential father as well that this was the way to go. In fact, always, well, the rubella had not actually done what it sometimes might do, and that child was born perfectly healthy and has grown up now, et cetera. This was a long time ago,” he says, “That has made me very sensitive about the fact that there are many, many cases where it is about the mother’s health versus the health of the child or whatever, and particularly,” he says, “Cases of rape or cases of incest, there may be a very, very strong argument for saying this ought never to have happened and with sorrow, because we do not want to do this in principle, but with sorrow and a bit of shame, the best thing to do is as soon as possible to terminate this pregnancy.”

So you’ll notice he appears to be going in a rather good direction about the fact that we should not feel good about this, but then he basically turns it into something that’s less ethical and more emotional, and then he rushes on to say that if there’s sufficient evidence, then you should terminate the pregnancy as soon as possible. Later in his answer, Wright goes on to say he doesn’t support abortion right up until the moment of birth. He says, “That’s clearly wrong.” He compares it with the ancient infanticide practices of the Greeks and the Romans, but then he goes on to say, basically that we’re not for that. We must be against that, but he won’t draw the line about where abortion in his view is ethically right or ethically wrong. It seems to have something to do with the pattern of development of the fetus, but nonetheless, what we have here is a very classical non-answer to a question that demands a very specific answer. Is abortion ever justified?

The Christian perspective is that abortion is never justified, and I will just make that argument. It’s never justified. As a matter of fact, even the Roman Catholic Church teaches that it’s never justified. That doesn’t mean that if the mother’s life is in danger, surgery cannot do what it must, that medical intervention cannot be done, even if that means the death of the unborn child, but the death of the unborn child can never be the strategic intention of even an effort to try to save the mother’s life. Speaking about that abortion in the ancient world, even in infanticide, he says, “That Christians wouldn’t have anything to do with it.” Thank you very much. He said, “And I think that shows us the way in principle, this is not something which we should welcome. It’s not something which we should collude with.”

Well, what exactly does that mean? Not something we should welcome? Not something we should collude with? Anglicanism is famous for its claim of comprehensiveness, and NT Wright, who has identified as a conservative on many issues, he is nonetheless and has been a bishop in the Church of England. He was a member of the group that brought the Windsor report out on LGBTQ issues a generation ago, and even as said, some very right things, it didn’t require right action. In the Anglican Communion, you have some very liberal bodies such as the Episcopal Church in the United States, that is all for just about every dimension imaginable of the LGBTQ revolution.

You have some Anglican churches in Africa who are decidedly not going with that program. And there are many Anglicans who want to say, “Well, I’m on this side of the issue or that side of the issue,” but you also have the example of many who are saying things that are so complicated and indirect. It’s not exactly sure how any of this will be translated into an absolute policy. I have to say that’s absolutely the case about NT Wright’s statement here on abortion. We also see an extreme effort to try to talk about this issue with what is defined as sensitivity. He says at one point that it’s awkward when, for instance, in the Roman Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic hierarchy, which is all male, tells a woman what she can and can’t do. He says the optics of that are pretty bad. He says, and I quote, “That’s part of the same system of male bullying which we have to avoid like the plague.” So in other words, Catholic priests shouldn’t say what is true about abortion, for that matter, evangelical men shouldn’t.

I want to make another point here, and that is that the pro-life movement in the United States among evangelicals is in my view, not primarily driven by men. It is driven by Christian women, and so that argument really falls pretty flat here in the United States. There’s just no getting around the fact that NT Wright is here suggested that at least in some cases an abortion as soon as possible appears to be the least worst answer, and that’s actually language he uses himself. He states this, “Even if we then have to say with sorrow and a certain sense of this is the least worst option in this situation, that there may be some cases of exceptions that that’s about as far as I can get at the moment.” He says, “And as I say, I’m very much aware of just how sensitive this topic is politically, sociologically, as well as ethically.”

Well, no doubt it is a sensitive subject. It is also a matter of life and death. I think it requires some pretty clear answers, and I believe the most important Christian answer to this is that the scriptural teaching is that every life is precious and that life begins the moment God says, “Let there be life,” and the two cells come together and fertilization takes place. Everything from that point onward is an unfolding of the life that is already there. That’s now being presented as an insensitive, extreme, radical statement, but I dare you to come up with anything ethically sustainable that isn’t that clear, and doesn’t have fertilization as the starting point. You can try to carve out some kind of third way between the pro-life and the pro-abortion position, but I don’t believe any such way in truth exists.

And you’ll notice one sign of that is the fact that some of the people who either argue for or hint at that kind of third way aren’t willing to say, “All right. Well, here’s the line in pregnancy that I would draw, and here is the ethical foundation of the argument that I am making.” You just don’t hear that argument taken to its logical conclusion, and that ought to tell you something. Human life begins at fertilization. Every single human person begins at fertilization. I think we have to make that statement. We have to make it clearly. We have to make it sensitively. Yes, but we better make the point with clarity and conviction because honestly, there’s no other choice.