California’s Proposition 38 asks voters to authorize $8.4 billion in government bonds for immunology research. Add interest, and taxpayers could be handed a bill exceeding $12 billion: roughly $500 million annually for 25 years.

Let’s dispense with the perfumed language. This is taxpayer-authorized debt. A yes vote does not merely applaud medical research. It authorizes the government to take your money—and your children’s money—to finance specific experiments. That makes the ethical responsibility yours.

Supporters dangle the customary magic words: cures, cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease and, of course, beneficial. But beneficial is not a scientific conclusion. It is an interested party’s prediction of some hoped-for future outcome. The promised benefits are speculative. The debt is guaranteed.

Then there is the $4 billion question. More than half the proceeds would be steered toward one unnamed nonprofit. Why unnamed? Because the measure hides its apparent beneficiary behind oddly specific qualifications that reportedly fit just one organization: the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy.

That is not open competition. It is a legislative glass slipper, manufactured to fit one very well-connected foot.

The institute’s billionaire co-founder, Gary Michelson, is also a principal financial backer of the ballot campaign. Another co-founder contributed millions as well. Apparently, when ordinary Californians are asked to assume 25 years of debt, full disclosure is considered optional.

But the financial favoritism is only part of the problem. What ethical boundaries govern the experimentation we are being asked to authorize? Which practices are prohibited? Who provides truly independent oversight? And what happens when scientific ambition collides with ordinary moral restraint?

After Wuhan, the controversies over risky pathogen research and federal funding, and Dr. Anthony Fauci’s endlessly disputed assurances, Americans should know better than to treat a white lab coat as a certificate of moral infallibility. Research may produce remarkable cures. It may also produce consequences nobody intended and nobody can undo.

A hoped-for benefit does not guarantee a beneficial result. And its hellish opposite is not magically excluded because somebody wrote “beneficial” into a ballot measure.

If we authorize the debt, we authorize the work—and we own the consequences. Vote “No” on Prop. 38.

Brian Johnston writes from Sacramento. He is an author and former California Commissioner on Aging. A Linguist by training, he has frequently witnessed the twisting of language by government to the demise of those it promises to help.

But there is another election happening beneath all that noise—and it may be the election that most directly affects your community.

The lesser-known, down-ballot offices are critically important because the closer an elected office is to you, the more powerful your individual vote becomes.

Think about it. In a statewide race, your single vote is one among millions. In a congressional race, it is one among hundreds of thousands. But a school board race, city council race, county office, or other local contest can be decided by a surprisingly small number of votes. Sometimes a handful of informed voters can determine who holds the office.

And yet these are precisely the races where voters are most likely to become disengaged.

Research into voter behavior has repeatedly shown that as ballots become longer and candidates become less familiar, voters are increasingly likely either to skip offices altogether or to vote based on whatever faint recognition they have of a candidate’s name. In other words, when voters don’t know the candidates, name recognition can substitute for knowledge.

Please don’t vote like that.

The tragedy is that the person you barely noticed on the bottom half of your ballot may have far more immediate influence over your community than the candidate whose television advertisements you’ve been watching for six months.

Consider Planned Parenthood and the broader abortion industry. A governor or member of Congress may establish important statewide or federal policy, but they cannot personally control what happens at your local school board or city council. Organizations seeking public funding, facilities, educational partnerships, or institutional support will often engage local government.

That means the person sitting on your school board may face a policy question that directly affects your children—and your governor cannot cast that vote for you.

Only the local officials you elect can do it.

This is why the ProLife-Right To Life Federation believes that voter education must go all the way down the ballot. We cannot afford a movement that knows everything about the presidential candidates and almost nothing about the people who will actually govern their own communities.

And for pro-life voters, there is an additional danger: the tragedy of simplicity.

We sometimes substitute slogans for policy. “I’m pro-life.” “I’m Catholic.” “I’m a Christian.” “I’m conservative.” Those statements may tell us something about a candidate, but they don’t answer the questions that matter.

What policies will the candidate support?

Do they understand the specific issues facing the community?

Will they recognize the difference between symbolic statements and effective public policy?

Will they know what authority their particular office actually possesses—and be prepared to use that authority to protect human life?

That is why our questionnaire matters. It is not designed to tell you whom to vote for. It is designed to help you understand what you are voting for.

Use it for every office. Read the answers. Ask the questions. Learn the issues.

The greatest power you possess in our republic may not be exercised in the most famous race on your ballot.

It may be exercised in the race at the very bottom.

Know before you vote. Understand before you choose. And please—don’t vote like the television set.

USE THE ProLife/RighttoLife questionnaire. Save your community as well as your state and nation.

Many well-meaning people insist the abortion debate is behind us. “The Court has resolved it.” They are deeply mistaken. Worse, many are deceived by slogans, headlines, and a media culture that has spent decades obscuring what actually happened to American law and medicine.

While Roe had struck down every state’s laws protecting children in the womb, and every single states’ medical regulations on same - drawn from the Hippocratic Oath’s protection of vulnerable human lives - the Dobbs decision sidestepped this essential ethical question entirely. Dobbs simply admitted that the Court’s procedure in Roe v. Wade had been off. Courts shouldn’t make laws for states.

In Roe, in order to freely have human babies killed, the Court first had to kill ethical medicine.

But Dobbs did not restore the ancient medical ethic against intentionally killing these babies. Nope. In fact, after 50 years of medicine being without moorings regarding human killing, what Dobbs did was far narrower. It merely said that for fifty years the Court had improperly forced every state in America to permit abortion-on-demand under a fabricated constitutional right. ‘But if your state wants to go on killing those same kids, we’re ok with that.’

That distinction matters enormously.

For half a century, Roe v. Wade and its companion decisions imposed a radical regime upon the entire nation. Every state, whether its citizens wanted it or not, had to allow doctors to intentionally destroy young human beings in the womb. In the name of ‘choice’ and the choice was to be the doctor’s, any baby could be killed at any time if the physician personally was inclined. State legislatures were stripped of their normal authority. Citizens were told the issue was settled. Judges, not voters, would decide the fate of the unborn.

Even many Americans who support abortion do not realize how extreme Roe was. Under its framework, states were severely restricted from protecting unborn children, even late in pregnancy. The Court repeatedly elevated abortion above ordinary democratic oversight. It constitutionalized medical killing.

Dobbs did not correct that moral wrong. It merely addressed the Court’s institutional overreach.

The Justices essentially admitted that the Constitution never contained a national abortion mandate in the first place. In other words, the Court apologized for forcing every state to participate.

But it left the underlying practice untouched.

If states wish to continue abortion, at any time for any reason or even no reason at all – ‘Just for Choice” - Dobbs says they may do so. And many states enthusiastically have. California remains one of the clearest examples. Political leaders there openly subsidize abortion with taxpayer money. The state promotes itself as an “abortion sanctuary.” Abortions are permitted deep into pregnancy, including cases involving healthy children within healthy mothers. The public is reassured with euphemisms and abstractions, while the basic biological reality is avoided.

The tragedy is not only legal but cultural. Language itself has been manipulated.

We are told abortion is merely “reproductive healthcare.” Yet no disease is being cured. No infection is being removed. The developing child is not a tumor or foreign invader. Modern embryology makes plain that from conception onward a distinct living human organism exists, genetically unique and internally directed in growth.

The debate has never truly been about whether human life exists in the womb. The debate is about whether some human beings may be intentionally killed because they are unwanted, burdensome, inconvenient, disabled, or dependent.

That is why the Hippocratic tradition matters.

For centuries, physicians were understood to have a duty to never intentionally kill innocent human beings. The ancient Hippocratic Oath specifically prohibited giving deadly drugs and prohibited abortion. Medicine exists to heal, protect, and comfort — not to destroy vulnerable patients. Today that ethic has been inverted. Increasingly, doctors are asked not merely to heal but to decide whose lives are worth continuing.

And abortion is only the beginning.

Once society accepts the principle that some innocent human lives may be deliberately ended for reasons of autonomy, suffering, dependency, or social utility, the logic inevitably expands. We already see it in euthanasia movements across Europe and Canada. Voluntary euthanasia is practiced in many states. Medical killing spreads from the unborn to the disabled, the elderly, the depressed, and the medically dependent.

What was once called unthinkable gradually becomes normalized through repetition, sentiment, and carefully managed language.

So no, the abortion debate is not behind us.

It has, in fact, metastasized.

Roe was always about the practice of medicine. It specifically spelled out for an entire nation, that medical killing was to be openly embraced. For those babies to be killed, first ethical medicine must be killed. And that wound to the body politic and our cultural values has struck much deeper than the simplistic media will admit.

The deeper question is whether our culture will continue abandoning the foundational principle that every innocent human life possesses intrinsic value and deserves protection under law.

That debate is far from over.

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Brian Johnston is a best-selling author and Chairman of the California ProLife and Right to Life Federation. He can be reached at brian@californiaprolife.org

Today, under the gentle‑sounding label MAID—Medical Assistance in Dying—(that verbal chameleon formerly known as ‘PAS’, “Physician-assisted suicide”), our state now faces one of the most serious medical‑ethics questions since the adoption of the Hippocratic Oath.

Those who have studied medical ethics for years recognize the pattern. Once physicians are encouraged to act against the ancient command to “do no harm,” the logic does not stop. It expands. What begins as rare cases of terminal suffering soon becomes a broader category of despair, disability, loneliness, poverty, or depression.

California has already loosened its assisted‑suicide law repeatedly. Waiting periods have shortened. Eligibility has widened. Euphemisms multiply. Meanwhile, citizens are told not to worry.

But Californians should look north.

In Canada, MAID was introduced with promises of strict limits. Within a few years, thousands of deaths were occurring annually, and the program is being employed even for non‑terminal patients. Provinces like Alberta are now debating stronger regulations after recognizing the dangers of expansion and the pressure placed on vulnerable citizens. The government will NOT pay for many types of beneficial or even ameliorative care. But it will swiftly pay for the death dose.

Even those sympathetic to assisted suicide increasingly admit what many ethicists predicted decades ago: once killing becomes a medical option, it becomes a medical solution.

The deepest issue is not legal technicalities. It is medical ethics.

When Roe v. Wade instructed physicians to disregard the Hippocratic tradition and perform abortions based on personal judgment rather than objective medical necessity, medicine took a catastrophic turn. The same logic now appears in MAID. Doctors are asked not merely to relieve suffering—but to eliminate the sufferer.

This is not medicine. It is a philosophical revolution.

A physician’s authority exists because society trusts doctors to protect life, especially when patients are weak, frightened, or confused. When that trust is compromised, every patient becomes uncertain: Is my doctor trying to heal me, or quietly deciding my life is no longer worth the effort?

Assisted‑suicide laws assume safeguards will protect the vulnerable. But safeguards are fragile. When loneliness, depression, or economic hardship drive requests for MAID—as critics in Canada warn—we are seeing not compassionate care, but abandonment disguised as autonomy.

A society that offers death faster than it offers care is not compassionate—it is efficient.

Californians should not pretend immunity. Our health‑care system already struggles with access, cost, and staffing shortages. Insurance companies calculate expenses. Families face crushing bills. Elderly patients fear becoming burdens. In such a climate, assisted suicide is not neutral. It quietly becomes the cheapest option.

If California continues to permit assisted suicide at all, strict regulations are essential:

1. Require independent medical review boards before approval.

2. Prohibit MAID for mental illness, disability, or economic distress.

3. Mandate palliative‑care consultation and meaningful waiting periods.

4. Protect conscience rights for physicians.

5. Publish transparent data on every MAID case.

California voters and legislators must act now. Study the experience of Canada and Alberta. Insist on regulations that defend life, not merely manage death.

Ask your physician whether they uphold the Hippocratic tradition. Speak to your representatives in Sacramento. Demand hearings, safeguards, and transparency.

Ask the current batch of candidates, there are lot of them, at every level of office, if they will advocate for or against such policies.

Because the real test of a civilization is not how it treats the strong—but how it protects those who feel weak, unwanted, or afraid.

California can still choose compassion without killing. But only if its citizens stand and speak now.

A Life Lived Forward: Roger Canfield’s Die Laughing

There is a particular authority that comes not from theory, but from life lived—worked, endured, argued over, and ultimately understood the hard way. Roger Canfield’s memoir, Die Laughing, draws its quiet strength from precisely this source. It is not the story of a man formed in seminar rooms or ideological salons, but of one shaped by labor, responsibility, conflict, and prolonged exposure to the real consequences of ideas when they are imposed on real people.

Canfield’s working-class background is not a decorative biographical detail; it is the bedrock of his worldview. Know that he is indeed an erudite man, a Claremont Graduate School PhD. and long standing political bulwark based out of Sacramento. But long before he became one of America’s most prolific and persistent critics of collectivist ideology—author of nearly thirty books—he knew the texture of work, the dignity of earning one’s way, and the fragile social trust that holds ordinary communities together. That grounding matters, because Die Laughing is ultimately a memoir about contact with reality: about what survives when abstractions fail.

Throughout the book, Canfield recounts a life marked by wide-ranging real-world experience—entrepreneurship, family life, institutional battles, travel, and direct encounters with political movements that promised justice and delivered decay. These experiences did not push him toward conservatism as a slogan or partisan identity; they pushed him toward conservatism as a conclusion. The conservatism that emerges here is empirical rather than doctrinal: a posture shaped by observing what consistently works, and what reliably breaks human beings and institutions.

This perspective explains Canfield’s long-standing prominence as an author exposing communist ideology not as a historical relic, but as a living, adaptive force in contemporary American culture. Across decades of writing, he has traced how this ideology entered the mainstream not by tanks or coups, but through culture, academia, media, and political activism—often under the softer disguises of compassion, equity, and progress.

Among Canfield’s most influential work is his meticulous exposure of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden as not merely misguided protestors, but as willing collaborators in an enemy propaganda effort during the Vietnam War—America-Cong agitators whose actions materially aided a totalitarian regime at war with their own country. Canfield did not treat this as gossip or cultural grievance; he treated it as evidence. He documented how ideological loyalty eclipsed national loyalty, and how celebrity and academic prestige were weaponized to launder totalitarian narratives into American life.

More importantly, his work did not stop with Fonda and Hayden. He followed the trail forward—mapping the network of fellow travelers who carried the same resentments and dogmas into universities, newsrooms, foundations, churches, and political institutions. Again and again, Canfield demonstrated that communism’s enduring appeal lies not in its accuracy, but in its moral shortcuts: it replaces gratitude with grievance, responsibility with blame, and human complexity with rigid, didactic maxims that collapse under contact with reality.

Die Laughing supplies the personal foundation beneath this vast body of work. It makes clear that Canfield’s critique is not animated by bitterness or nostalgia, but by memory and moral accounting. He has seen systems fail people at ground level. He has watched abstraction override humanity. And he has seen how resentment—when elevated to an organizing principle—inevitably turns destructive.

The memoir’s title signals its temperament. Die Laughing is neither a lamentation nor a victory lap. It is a humane book, often quietly funny, marked by perspective rather than outrage. Canfield understands that laughter is not a denial of seriousness, but a refusal to surrender to despair. It is the emotional posture of someone who has outlived illusions without losing affection for people.

Importantly, in this memoir Canfield does not cast himself as infallible. Errors are acknowledged. Lessons are learned rather than preached. This restraint keeps the book from becoming ideological autobiography. Instead, it reads as a record of formation—how a man becomes capable of seeing clearly without becoming hard.

In an age when political writing is increasingly detached from lived experience, Die Laughing feels almost radical in its insistence that ideas must answer to reality. Read on its own, it is an engaging and thoughtful memoir. Read alongside Roger Canfield’s nearly thirty books exposing the corrosive effects of communist ideology in American culture, it becomes something more: the missing key to a lifetime of moral clarity, cultural courage, and intellectual persistence.

It is, finally, a reminder that the strongest arguments are not invented. They are lived.

The Real Wound Roe Inflicted — and Why It Still Bleeds

Heidi Klessig MD is a retired anesthesiologist who writes and speaks on the ethics of organ donation and transplant. Her new book is “The Brain Death Fallacy.” It’s a confessional. She candidly admits that she had been brainwashed by the organ-donation medical culture into anesthesizing and even silencing, through medicinal paralysis, healthy individuals, so that their vital organs could be then sold into the organ donation chain. They need not have died.

How could the medical profession have come to this? This departure from medical ethics in the United States came more than fifty years ago. Roe v. Wade and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton, had explicitly granted individual physicians the authority to disregard their oath to never intentionally harm a patient in their care.

Despite the simplistic chatter of the media, and even many pro-life individuals influenced by the media, The real offense of Roe was not that it overrode the Tenth Amendment. The great and mortal wound was far more profound: the Court instructed physicians that they were no longer bound—legally or ethically—by the ancient prohibition against killing their patients.

Before 1973, every state regulated medicine on the same foundational assumption: doctors exist to heal, not to kill—even if asked. This was not a religious doctrine or a quaint tradition. It was the moral boundary that distinguished medicine from violence. The Hippocratic Oath’s command—“I will give no deadly medicine, even if asked”—was not symbolic. It was operative.

Roe dismantled that boundary.

The Court did not merely legalize abortion. It medicalized killing. By insisting that abortion be performed by licensed physicians while simultaneously dismissing the Hippocratic Oath as “dated,” the Court severed medical law from moral law. Medical care was redefined as morally neutral technique. The physician became a technician of desired outcomes rather than a guardian of life.

After Roe, medical science could be used to intentionally harm—yes, and to kill.

And it is eagerly doing so.

This ethical revolution did not end with abortion. Once killing is reclassified as care, consent replaces conscience. Procedure replaces judgment. Vulnerability becomes opportunity.

That is why the 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, while significant, did not in any way heal the wound. Dobbs simply corrected a jurisdictional error. It returned abortion policy to the states. But it explicitly declined to address the ethical premise Roe imposed on medicine itself. It said nothing about Roe’s deepest wound to American culture, to the body politic and to the continued fog over individual’s consciences: whether physicians may intentionally kill. Dobbs was silent on whether “do no harm” still has legal meaning.

The Roe ethic remains intact.

And nowhere is that ethic more visible—or more terrifying—than in the modern organ procurement system.

Consider the recent Kentucky case of TJ Hoover. Protesting and even looking around as he was being prepared for ‘donating’, he was a man who still lived and wanted to continue doing so. This is one of many stories related by Dr.Klessig. It should haunt anyone who still believes medicine is unambiguously on the side of life. A young man, declared “brain dead,” was being prepared for organ harvesting. He was moving so much en route to cardiac catheterization that staff administered a paralyzing drug. When the drug wore off, he was looking around. A whistleblower reported that he was thrashing and visibly crying. His family was told these were “reflexes.”

Two physicians refused to proceed with the surgery.

The response was not moral pause or reevaluation. According to reports, an organ procurement supervisor told staff to find another doctor and carry on.

Thankfully, that did not happen. The man survived. He later danced—joyfully—at his sister’s wedding.

That image matters.

A man once classified as medically dead, treated as a collection of usable parts, (for market) stood upright and danced at a family celebration. He was not a reflex. He was not a protocol failure. He was a living human being who narrowly escaped being killed by a system that had defined him as expendable. And of course, profitable.

This is not an anomaly. It is Roe’s logic brought to its logical conclusion.

“Brain death” itself is not death; it is a social construct designed to permit organ harvesting while circulation vitally continues. And the uncomfortable truth is this: every so-called brain-dead patient is biologically alive. That is why organs can be harvested in the first place.

Once medicine is authorized to kill in one category of cases, the categories expand. The language becomes softer—autonomy, dignity, quality of life—but the act remains the same. The physician becomes the agent of death, shielded by law and protocol.

This is the real unfinished business of the Right to Life.

The central question is not merely who writes abortion statutes. It is whether medicine will remain a healing art or become a managed killing service. Until the law once again affirms that no physician may intentionally kill, or harm, a fellow human being—even if asked—the Roe regime persists, regardless of court rulings about jurisdiction.

So what can you do? This is just not another, inapplicable ‘egg-headed essay.’ There are things which must be done - if you actually care.

• First, do not casually sign—or allow loved ones to sign—the now routine “organ donor” authorizations without serious understanding that it may throw you into the medical industrial complex. In a medical culture that increasingly blurs the line between death and convenience, such permissions are not morally neutral paperwork. They are consent forms written for a system under pressure to procure organs quickly and efficiently.

• Second, study what is happening in medicine right now. Do not rely on slogans or assurances. Ask hard questions. Ask whether killing has been normalized under the language of care.

1. And finally, ask your personal physicians directly: Do they abide by the ethical strictures of the Hippocratic Oath? Are they willing to refuse—not merely perform, but refuse to refer—patients to specialists whose purpose is to end life? I’ve done so and gladly found another doctor. Many are simply walking through the profession unawares.

The man dancing at his sister’s wedding is not a sentimental image. He is living evidence that this debate is not abstract. Lives quite literally depend on whether medicine remembers what it is for.

Until that question is answered rightly, the wound Roe inflicted remains very much open and seething.

BUT Roe literally forced EVERY State to then allow unlimited and unregulated medical killing of human babies. This was our culture for 50 years.

IMPORTANT:

The Dobbs Decision of 2022 DID NOT take a position on medical killing, and instead the Court simply apologized for its methods: the forceful overreach against state governments. It improperly had turned itself into a national law-making body for the entire nation.

In Dobbs it then offered, after 50 years, that states could protect human babies or not, however they might be inclined, but the Court itself did not repudiate its decision to alter the nature of medicine, to make doctors into licensed killers nationwide. In Dobbs, It now had no inclination to protect those kids, though federal legal protection has indeed been practiced in the past, via the Hyde Amendment and in federal territories and statutes.

If you care about protecting life, know that the Dobbs decision did NOT end Roe, it actually has confused and confounded the issue; resulting in even more abortions.

The legal protection of babies, which they had enjoyed prior to Roe, has in NO WAY been restored.

As with the despised Dred Scott decision (1857) even anti-slavery (pro-life states), can still be invaded by pro-abortion advocates, young mothers transported out for free abortions or even sent abortifacient drugs via the US Mail. Most abortions today are in fact performed on these young mothers with chemical abortion. It is happening nationwide. These mothers are alone as they must suddenly expel the often squirming child into the nearest receptacle or toilet.

Roe is not ‘dead.’ Listen to more here

Minelli’s own life contained no great tragedy to explain his obsession with ending lives of others. He wasn’t shaped at a funeral bed or by some impossible caregiving burden. What formed him was ideology—cold, elegant, and utterly confident. It told him that the law’s ancient duty to protect the innocent could be suspended, that due process could be skipped, that despair itself was grounds for death on demand.

Most who entered his clinic weren’t terminal or even disablingly ill. Many were simply depressed, isolated, or frightened. They were not ad extremis; they were adrift. Yet the apparatus Minelli built treated their despair as a medical condition curable by poison. No investigation, no judicial oversight, no safeguard worthy of the name—just a notarized wish and a technician with a cup. And a payment. Many were disaffected from family and at his request, remembered him ‘and his cause.’ in their will. This had made Minelli wealthy.

This is the true significance of Minelli’s death. He didn’t just normalize suicide; he industrialized it. He made the elimination of troubled human beings seem clinical, even compassionate. He encouraged us to ignore those who are challenged to live and fight for their own lives.

Before Christmas of 2025 both Governor Hochul of New York and Governor Pritzker of Illinois must decide if they will authorize the medical killing of physically and emotionally vulnerable individuals in their states. These laws are exactly what were initiated in Switzerland. Then Minelli and other lawyers, in the name of choice, implemented methods to make the new freedom more available to all.

We are talking about millions of individuals currently protected by law in New York and Illinois. People that we don’t know. People that may feel alone. Many today that may feel fine. But an accident, a diagnosis, an unforeseen turn of events may leave them much more emotionally susceptible than they ever imagined. The underlying reasoning of Mr. Minelli’s business is the comfort that many will then be offered: “Who would want to live like that?” Remember, this is not about just ‘accepting a natural death.’

No. It is about initiating it. Causing it. Bringing it - via poison onto others; Killing them.

We are talking about killing those who are clearly alive, but need genuine emotional comfort at that time.

All of history is full of those who fought despair to then find their own humanness deep inside. Some were encouraged by third-parties to resist despairing. Others bravely did so on their own. They then understood that THAT, the actual gift of life, is a deeply personal gift. Many then find a way to give it back to others. People like Nick Vujicic, my disarming friend, a public speaker who without limbs, swims, and laughs, writes and performs music. He will help you see real life. Many others shine throughout history, from deaf Beethoven to the dynamic and beautiful quadriplegic , Joni Eareckson-Tada; to the dyslexic billionaire Branson, to ALS-impaired physicist Stephen Hawking. These were supposed human ‘tragedies’ who created and gave - and gave despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles of life.

In 2024 I had a sudden heart episode. Every possible intervention was introduced to repair my heart and keep it pumping. The most powerful onotropic heart drugs proved ineffective. My family was told it was over. The heart was simply done working. Yes, California has assisted suicide laws and many have been killed.

During my seemingly hopeless, long and lugubrious recovery a surgically-masked caring physician visited me one night. “Let me ask how you’re feeling. Do you still want to live? Are you afraid of death?”

His artifice of soothing, dulcid questions suddenly snapped me awake. Fortunately I have studied what is happening to medicine and to our culture. And fortunately I was not, for the moment, under the usual cloud of my overwhelming battery of medicines.

“I am a Christian. I am always ready to die, because I know that we will all die. But I certainly do not want to die.” I was pissed with this man.

“You seem confused. If you are ready to die, you aren’t really making sense,” was his response.

“I am being more cogent than you sir. Don’t ever ask me that again!”

I was lucky. But only because I was not then under a medical cloud of confusion, or accepting social pressures of an expectant society. I understood the subtle seduction of ‘compassion’ and choice when applied by the agents of killing. And I could talk about it.

Today, just over a year later, I do wind sprints.

We can all easily surrender to despair, especially if encouraged to do so. Instead we live, and the best of us then give of their lives to others.

But Minelli, a black sheep - a bellwether of despair - used his sharp legal skills to invite people and society itself to forget its most basic obligation: that before an individual is intentionally killed, there must be a compelling legal reason, publicly examined, and restrained by law. It is not a private transaction. Not an indulgence to panic. Not the whim of an ideology or a surrender to emotions.

Minelli swallowed his own formula as if to confirm his creed. But his final act reveals the danger he left behind: a world in which those who most need protection are quietly ushered to the exit—no trial, no diagnosis, no defense—just the fatal convenience of a system built to dispose of the vulnerable.

In this episode of Life Matters, Commissioner Johnston drives home the importance of understanding that Roe vs. Wade has not been “overturned“. Those who focus on using that language have misunderstood and can best be described as only supporters of the 10th Amendment - States’ Rights.

The Dobbs Decision, which was hailed by the media for two months before it’ release as “overturning“ Roe v s.Wade, did no such thing. It is actually completely silent on the use of medicine to kill, and specifically the killing of unborn human babies. This is why the pro-life movement was opposed to Roe, because it violated Western Civilization’s three millennia prohibition against intentional medical killing - the Hippocratic Oath.

Because of the influence of the media on the thinking of the pro-life movement, and even some of its leaders, both religious and secular, the pro-life movement has failed to express or understand the need to address the destruction of medicine which began for the United States on January 22, 1973.

In this episode, Brian uses the comments of United States Senator Steve Danes of Montana as Danes explains the continued use across the nation of the very powerful abortion medication mifepristone. Mifepristone is the killing element of the now famous drug, RU486. Simple people confuse this medication with the so-called “morning after pill.“ It is no such thing. Mifepristone can only be taken if the woman is at least 10 weeks pregnant. She must miss at least two periods for it to have the desired effect of altering her body‘s ability to carry a child and of dehydrating and then expelling the baby from her womb. It is clearly an abortifacient and has no, absolutely no contraceptive qualities.

Brian also includes the statement of Tony Perkins, who agrees that the Dobbs Decision is not what the media proclaimed and what many pro-life “leaders” have mistakenly called the overturn of Roe. Perkins explains that there are, in fact, more abortions being done now in the wake of Dobbs, than were done prior to Dobbs.

It is imperative to understand that Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton, the companion decisions of 1973, are very much alive and with us in the United States. And the Right To Life movement must understand its job right now to secure these rights which were promised and committed to in our foundational government documents - the first and preeminent of which is the right to life.

Secretary Kennedy stands out precisely because he recognizes this drift and is willing to use his position to push back on behalf of the vulnerable. But the pushback must be rigorous, not merely rhetorical. A fresh, transparent, scientific evaluation of mifepristone’s safety, distribution controls, ‘undoctored’ results, and moral implications is precisely the kind of reckoning that industrialized medicine needs.

You should bear in mind that this powerful, artificial hormone is not a ‘morning after pill, with which it is often confused. Mifepristone can only be ‘effective’ once the woman has missed her second period and can be prescribed up to 70 days gestation but has been used even later. The young mother will see the child expelled when she unexpectedly rushes to the bathroom or nearest quiet place. Some have reported seeing her baby still squirming as it is expelled.

Some may see this as just one more abortion debate. History is instructive. The Hippocratic Oath is often distilled (both in its classical or modernized form) to enjoin physicians to “do no harm.” But in American jurisprudence, that commitment was summarily dismissed, overridden in the landmark cases of Roe v. Wade (1973) and Doe v. Bolton (1973). Human abortion, like all other taking of the vulnerable, is expressly prohibited by the Oath. For Roe to stand then, the Oath must die.

Together, these decisions, Roe and Doe, redefined abortion as a constitutional right and granted protection and ennoblement to medical killing under the banner of privacy. In effect, the Court that day displaced the moral boundary lines that had for centuries tethered medicine to caring for human lives.

In my book Evil Twins- Roe and Doe, I traced how the Supreme Court inverted both the law and medical history, unleashing a radical redefinition of medicine: from healing profession to managerial overseer of life and death. Under Roe, a preborn human would now have no inherent human rights, and could be indiscriminately dismembered and dismissed by the attending physician, acting on their own inclinations, without any outside consultation or accountability. (Roe, 410 US @163). An arbitrary and ambiguous threshold was now cemented into the nation’s law and psyche.

The result was profound: medicine ceased being a steward of life and now became useful as an instrument of human termination.

This was the American genesis of what is now an open medical perversion—the notion that doctors or pharmaceutical medical regimes might be free to kill and/or intentionally harm patients in the name of ‘freedom,’ rather than heal in the name of life. With that door opened, it has become easier to justify many questionable and dangerous tools like mifepristone, all in the name of “health.” Both language and medicine had lost their meaning. George Orwell saw this coming.

Conclusion
Mifepristone is not a benign pill. It is a chemical weapon against human life, and women themselves, delivered through attacking and dramatically altering the hormonal machinery of the mother, often harming her in the process. (Ethics in Public Policy Center, April, 2025) The fact that it is now the most common abortion method in America is proof not of some neutral medical advance, but of a transformation in how we conceive of medicine, human life, and moral boundaries.

RFK Jr.’s call for review is more than some political posturing—it is a challenge to reclaim medicine’s true purpose: caring, healing, and never intending harm.

When the Supreme Court handed down Roe v. Wade in 1973, most Americans were told that the decision merely created a new “right.” What was not explained was that Roe, together with its companion case Doe v. Bolton, profoundly altered the practice of medicine itself.

Until that moment, every state in the Union regulated medicine according to a common ethical framework: the Hippocratic Oath. This ancient pledge, binding physicians for millennia, declared in unambiguous terms that medicine must not be used to kill. The Oath prohibited both abortion and euthanasia. It recognized that the physician’s role was to heal, to comfort, to preserve life—not to deliberately end it.

All fifty states had laws built upon this understanding. A doctor’s license to practice medicine was conditioned on abiding by the Hippocratic ethic. Legislators, courts, and medical boards upheld it as the essential boundary of the healing arts. Roe abruptly swept all of that aside.

By declaring abortion a constitutional right, the Court forced the medical profession into an entirely new role: licensed executioner. The very men and women sworn to protect life were ordered to set aside the most ancient prohibition in their craft. A practice once understood as ethically unthinkable—using the tools of healing to take innocent life—was suddenly not only permitted but mandated under the protection of “choice.”

This is rarely acknowledged, yet it is the true radicalism of Roe. The doctor was to make their own determination, without any outside rules, guidance or stricture. The decision was not merely a matter of “women’s rights” or “privacy.” It was a judicial dismissal of the Hippocratic Oath and the legal structures that had always guarded it. From that day forward, the state no longer defended the physician’s promise to do no harm. Instead, it compelled medicine to serve the intentional destruction of human beings in their earliest stages. And the physician was now free to harm if that were an obvious by-product of their decision.

The Dobbs decision in 2022 did nothing to restore this moral foundation. By returning abortion laws to the states, Dobbs simply addressed federal overreach, but it entirely ignored the deeper question: Should medicine itself ever be perverted into a tool of killing? Is medicine a business that views humans as objects of its gain? That question, the true, central ethical issue introduced by Roe, still remains unanswered in our law and culture. Are you surprised that ‘professional’ medical entities wish to see ALL of their pursuits protected from scrutiny, and loudly justified by their pharmaceutical and other conjoined business interests. With the industrialization of medicine, doctors no longer need to care for patients, they merely need patients as their financial objects. RFK Jr. and the President, are taking on a faceless and wealthy Goliath.

The dismissal of the Hippocratic Oath was not just an attack on the unborn—it was a wound inflicted on medicine itself. It blurred the distinction between healer and killer, undermining public trust in doctors and distorting the very purpose of their profession. Until that wrong is acknowledged and corrected, our medical system will remain compromised, and our society will continue to suffer the consequences.

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In January of 1973, the United States Supreme Court handed down not one, but two decisions that changed the course of medicine, law, and ethics: Roe v. Wade and its lesser-known twin, Doe v. Bolton. To understand our present confusion, we must see them not as isolated rulings but as a pair—“Evil Twins”—that together reshaped the nation.

Roe alone is often remembered as the “abortion case.” But without Doe, Roe would have had little effect. In Roe, the Court declared abortion a constitutional “right.” In Doe, it defined the conditions under which this right would be exercised—striking down every meaningful state medical regulation. The “health” exception in Doe was written so broadly that it meant abortion on demand, for any reason, through all nine months. Together, these two cases dismantled the historic framework of medical ethics in every state.

Most Americans, including many pro-life leaders, never grasped this. The public was told Roe legalized abortion, but few were told Doe made it unlimited. Even fewer understood the deeper implication: the Court had deliberately dismissed the Hippocratic Oath, the very foundation of medical ethics for millennia. Before 1973, state laws regulating doctors were rooted in the Oath’s prohibition: “I will not give a deadly drug… nor will I give a woman a pessary to cause abortion.” By striking down these protections, the Court redefined medicine itself—not as healing, but as a profession that could be enlisted to kill.

This is why Dobbs did not and could not “overturn” Roe. Dobbs apologized for judicial activism, admitting the Court had gone beyond its role by inventing a constitutional right to abortion. But Dobbs was silent on the far more profound issue: the ethical mutilation of medicine. It did not restore the Hippocratic Oath. It did not undo Doe’s definition of “health.” It simply retreated, leaving states free to legislate but still bound by the medical redefinition that Roe and Doe had unleashed.

To celebrate Dobbs as the “end of Roe” is to fall for a dangerous illusion. The twins still haunt us. Until we name what they truly did—corrupt the very meaning of medicine—we will continue to fight shadows instead of substance.

What we must do is fight the ongoing presence of an evil ‘science’, corrupted ‘medicine.’

For Immediate Release

Sacramento Republicans Stump for Democrat Process, Back Trump’s Call for Same-Day Paper Ballot Voting

Sacramento, CA – On September 10, the Sacramento County Republican Party Central Committee passed a resolution supporting President Trump’s push to restore election integrity through same-day, in-person paper ballot voting with ID verification. The measure, authored by Brian Johnston and dedicated to Charlie Kirk, underscores the party’s call for secure, transparent, and accountable elections.

Johnston explained, “Charlie understood that Republicans must explain what they believe, and why they believe it. The statements of this resolution are, in fact, a call to restore the Democratic Party, and Democracy itself.”

Key Statements of the Resolution:

· The foundation of democratic freedoms rests on the principle of one citizen, one vote, cast freely, counted honestly, and weighed equally.

· California, from its founding and through its history, relied on same-day, in-person paper ballot voting, ensuring both participation and integrity.

· Very recent practices, now enforced by Gavin Newsom’s Democrat Party, such as ‘motor voter’, universal mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, post-election extended voting periods, and unsecured drop boxes have weakened transparency and accountability.

· The lack of strict chain-of-custody protections enables the potential for duplicate ballots, outdated voter rolls, coercion, and unverifiable submissions.

· Ballot harvesting undermines trust by breaking the direct link between the voter and the ballot box.

· Such practices dilute the weight of legally cast votes and erode public trust in election outcomes.

Resolution Adopted:
The Sacramento County Republican Party Central Committee formally supports President Trump’s call to re-implement paper ballots, in-person citizen verification, and same-day voting.

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For more information contact: Brian Johnston, 916-952-3656

As the author of Death As A Salesman, What's Wrong With Assisted Suicide, I am frequently called on to explain the inherent dangers of legalizing the practice of assisted suicide.

I have been on Dr.Phil's show twice. Each time as his guest, I was the only advocate for caring for, and comforting the patient instead of killing them. Each time, Phil and his producers stacked the other participants with advocates from the Death With Dignity crowd.

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In the most recent show, a woman with a disabling illness was seeking suicide. Sadly, instead of counseling her, Phil instead promoted and affirmed her depression. I felt Phil was violating the duty of a psychologist. Instead of redirecting her suicidal feelings, he affirmed her suicidal ideation, as did his other 'guests'." And yes, she then went to Switzerland and was killed there, by very dangerous and questionable death practitioners. The man who supervised her killing was then indicted by Swiss authorities.

Personally, I find Phil McGraw to be an affable man. Yep, I like him. Affable but deeply mistaken, and therefore deeply dangerous. He likes being popular. He loves polling, he even took an audience poll that day. But it was very clear to me that his purpose was to position himself as a 'leader of the majority', a media icon. Like Oprah, his mentor, he loves emotional stories. They sell. He appears to follow polls and popularity rather than sound safety and protection of patients. And for a psychologist, especially a ‘public practice’ psych, that is truly shameful.

What many fail to understand is that in promoting and affirming such suicides, isolated and vulnerable viewers can easily be seduced by death's lure. Copy-cat suicide and suicide clusters are often directly linked to the errant promotion and commentary of suicide as a 'benefit.' Individuals who may view themselves as similarly situated, see the acceptance of suicide for that individual, and then justify suicide for themselves.

Promotion on media talk shows is bad enough. As early as 1989, the Center for Disease Control warned against even the reporting of suicides and how the article placement itself could cause suicide clusters and contagion. See Center for Disease Control, Suicide Contagion and the Reporting of Suicide. Recommendations from a National workshop, June 1, 1997.

If you or a loved one are facing a difficult, seemingly insurmountable situation, suicide is never the answer. Good, ethical medical care can address the deeper emotional issues that lead to suicidal ideation. Depression can be treated, and treated effectively, even if an underlying physical condition may linger.

See good doctors. Counsel with good counselors. Don't get your values from the television set.

Unethical medicine and abuse of vulnerable patients has now become very common in our culture. Don’t be silent. Lives depend on us speaking up. Even if the “doctor” seems affable.

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It was only dressed-up as ‘economic theory’ for special occasions. To be acceptable in polite society and academic soirees, titled professors cannot be seen as grubby and ranting subversives. “Economics” gives marxian thinking that certain smarty vibe. But nope.

It may dress in toney tweeds. But it has always been just a very simplistic, even childish belief system, and it continues its downward march under different disguises and uniforms.

Marx and Engels were very clear; their true goal was direct - the destruction of Western Civilization. Rebuilding would not even be necessary. Without civilizational restraints, a promised new paradise of unlimited personal freedom would be upon us. Have faith.

For Marx and Engels, society’s structure, including its prosperity, was built on the Family. Hence their call from 1848 (The Communist Manifesto) to Marx’s death in 1884 (The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State): “The Family must be destroyed.”

Marxism is a belief, not in a god, but in human effort and constant action. It is supposedly ‘deserved action.’ But it is animated by only resentment.

The use of “class” differences is, and was, merely the first and easiest rung on this ladder of faith. There are many rungs for others to “join” in tearing down the status quo. Everyone wants, desires, even aspires, for what they do not have. “You deserve respect. Come and join us. You don’t have enough money. You were unjustly held back. Tear down your oppressors! This is YOUR revolution.”

There are now too many rungs to count … every imaginable cause can be considered ‘just’ by simply inverting rational thought. Every slight is an oppressors hand. Your failure in sport? You were misidentified as a male. No assertion is to be discounted if it means we can tear down society and hence bring freedom for all. Logic, morality, structure, are simply to be challenged. And it is that challenge, in itself, that is declared a new virtue. Madness is the new sanity; dysfunction the new order.

It is a ladder only leading downward… ever downward. And resentment is its animating principle. It is not academic. It is not even pseudo-economics. It is simply the open call to destroy Civilization.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the most destructive neo-Marxist judge to ever serve on an American Court.

Truth about Ginsburg (click to read more)

• She was known for her unalloyed exaltation of abortion and her open antipathy to the traditional family,

• She hated Roe v Wade because it didn't allow mothers to do their own abortions. Roe only authorized 'patriarchal doctors' to do abortions. Women needed to 'ask permission'.

• Because of RBG's intentional semantic twist -now inserted into law- gender dysphoria was established ("Don't refer to "Sex" in the law, instead refer to "Gender". ) Gender Confusion is now an enforced principle of law.

• In the Obergefell Case, RBG in open anger from the bench, directly summed up Karl Marx's definition of Family: "Marriage was a relationship of a dominant male over a subordinate female...No state is allowed to have such a marriage anymore."

Yes, many people can embrace bad ideas. But very few are situated to implement them.

Through RBG’s position, influence, and in particular, her legal impact, individual American’s personal identities have been assaulted and twisted by a bizarrely corrupted sense of self and ‘gender.’ Many lives have been traduced into their own private hell. The case can easily be made, RUTH BADER Ginsburg is the single, most carcinogenic American individual of the last century. (article). An icon for women? She has rendered only bitterness and confusion on life, society and women.

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For many of these same celebrants, the term ‘woman’ has now lost any definition or meaning. Remember, this is not just in the culture, but at the highest level of American law. Who is responsible for implementing this cultural and legal madness? The iconic RBG.

Even many naive conservatives see her as merely an opinionated feminist, a public commentator with which they might have disagreed, but not a person to actually look into deeply.

But they should. They actually have an obligation to look into what she has wrought into law, if they ever want to undo its madness.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the most destructive neo-Marxist judge to ever serve on an American Court.

Truth about Ginsburg

• She was principally known for her unalloyed exaltation of unlimited, government sponsored abortion; abortion for any reason, or no reason in particular- just for “choice.” This was foundational to her antipathy to the traditional family. Others, of course believe in this, but she was its chief legal advocate, mouthpiece and enforcer.

• She hated Roe v Wade because it didn't allow mothers to do their own abortions. Roe only authorized 'patriarchal doctors' to do abortions. Women needed to 'ask permission'.

• Because of RBG's intentional semantic game - now inserted into law - gender dysphoria was established ( Her maxim: "Never refer to "Sex" in the law, instead always refer to "Gender". ) Gender Confusion is now an enforced principle of law. Thanks RBG!

• Her record as an ACLU litigator placed her far outside the mainstream of American law. She had argued for legalizing prostitution, against separate prisons for men and women, and had speculated that there could be a constitutional right to polygamy.

• In the Obergefell Case (authorizing gay marriage), RBG, in open anger from the bench, directly summed up Marx and Engel’s definition of “family” (from The Origin of the Family … 1884): "Marriage was a relationship of a dominant male over a subordinate female...No state is allowed to have such a marriage anymore."

Because of her position, influence, and legal impact RUTH BADER Ginsburg is the single, most carcinogenic American individual of the last century.(article).

‘The Notorious RBG’ openly warred against human life, the family and the Constitution.

Former leader of the ACLU, and open student of Marx, there could be NO more heinous ‘thought leader’ and legal solon.

Warmth. Morning. Sipping.

Grab a “Bickie” (a ‘biscuit;’ a cookie). Most importantly, chew some thoughts about the day to come… What’s ahead, what matters. Coffee is for clarity. As is talking.

But writing is tougher. It means you leave leisure time behind you.

You hammer. Then bend - you rework words. They must work. Together. And if they don’t… you start over. Some writers, to help get by, invite you to ‘treat them to coffee’. I get that. It’s a great metaphor. And if you drink Starbucks Coffee, or even Dunkin Donuts or Tim Horton’s, (that’s Tim’s, Canada’s favorite), it’s a few bucks once every while.

I’m now making my way - buying my groceries - helping my friends - via my writing. So buying me some coffee is a great metaphor.

But first: Don’t do it ‘cause you have to…’ I’m fine if you just hang out with me for free… I prefer my coffee at home, as you probably do to. But if you want to join in, I hope to make it worth the read.

So yep, this is my work.

And Many Thanks!

So if my writing is useful to you, give subscribing a shot.

Some secrets for penny-pinchers: Annual it’s 4.17per month. That’s nearly half the normal monthly pledge! Buy me a Tim’s, or a “Cuppa”. Or just go in for “free.” I don’t mind.

You are appreciated.

Another hint: Even the Founder’s has a sliding scale!

Karen Bass, Mayor of Los Angeles, is not merely a typical progressive. She is documented to be a committed and active Marxist (read more here.). Marxism is expressly antithetical to the values and ‘policies’ of Western Civilization. It calls for cultural and moral change, by abandoning those previously cherished cultural and moral principles. It believes in creating a Brave New World by seizing government; forcing it into its ‘progressive’ mold, and then using that government to force citizens to accept that mold.

What could go wrong?

Last week many Californians slowly recognized that things can indeed go wrong.

When intentionally “de-constructed” ideas are the basis of your government’s policies, then deconstruction you shall have.

I grew up in LA.

Angelenos know well the warm winds that annually whip the region. Previous generations were prepared. The regular Santa Ana conditions are not the ultimate culprit in the astounding moonscape that had been Pacific Palisades, and elsewhere. That smoke you smell indicates more sinister embers beneath the media’s reportage.

Raising compassionate funds at the Grammys feels noble, and I have personally aided those who are helping burned-out families. But this can be a distraction and meaningless if the actual problems of California aren’t recognized.

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Something is clearly not quite right in California politics. Perhaps Californians will now awaken from the their slumber while the smoke alarms are still ringing.

Marxist Mayor Bass was already alienating Angelenos before the historic fires. Her decision to prioritize DEI issues, paying vast sums of limited government money for sexually-focused hires, rather than focusing on hiring qualified candidates to key departments; cutting funds for practical common-sense government services; working with the most ‘progressive’ governor in California history to ‘save nature,’ while they ignored nature itself, and the laws of nature.

Confused Marxist ideologues currently ‘govern’ California. And things won’t change until we replace them.

Did you know that Trotsky demanded unlimited, government-provided abortions in order for the Revolution to be fully realized? But you certainly know the California Democrat Party does.

Questioning and destroying the natural family is an essential predicate of Marxist agitation. The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884) is the final ‘capstone’ to the Marx/Engels body of work. “The family must be destroyed,” is its essential refrain.

Declaring government-sponsored war on the natural family is a central premise of our current California government and the current regurgitation of ‘the feminist mystique’.

In California, the Democrat-controlled Government’s job is no longer to protect and to serve, but to direct and control your ideology and family.

Hopefully, startled Californians voters will take definitive action as the smoke clears. “Democrat” ideology, is actually just neo-marxist agitation. A becalmed, ‘moderate Republican Party’ unwilling to fight for its own principles, will never win the day. California needs another Reagan.

Yes, the fires of Los Angeles call for a lot more than ‘access to water.’ The call to restore civilization’s essential foundations has never been clearer. But will Californians listen?

Plato put it this way, “If the wise refuse to attend to politics, then they will be ruled over by their inferiors.”

History has proved this time and again. But given the rubble of culture we now have in California, unless there is a dramatic change of policy, there may not be much left to ‘rule over’ at all.

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In order to legalize abortion, the United States Supreme Court had to first remove the ethical prohibitions of the Hippocratic Oath. It did so. And that issue has not been redressed.

It is again the Anniversary of Roe. But Roe was and still is, deeply misunderstood,

Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously rebuked the feminist movement about misunderstanding the Roe decision at a University of Chicago symposium, on May 11, 2013. (Listen to her at this link, “ Roe is about a doctor’s freedom to practice his profession as he thinks best. It wasn’t women centered - it was physician centered.” Most feminists still don’t get that and I must say, most pro-lifers don’t either.

And now, across the nation and around the world, failure to address intentional medical killing is our greatest threat to us as a culture.