The Misadventures of a Pro-life Senator, by Hadley Arkes
Catholic University Cancels Abby Johnson, by Renee Rasmussen
February 9, 2021
Pope Francis (Again) Skips China in Litany of Global Injustices, by Thomas D. Williams
February 9, 2021
Image: Sen. Sasse (Photo: Gwyneth Roberts, Journal Star [Lincoln, NE])
By Hadley Arkes, The Catholic Thing, Feb. 9, 2021
Hadley Arkes is the Ney Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at Amherst College and the Founder/Director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights & the American Founding. …
In the British comic Review in the 1960s, Beyond the Fringe, a commanding officer in the Royal Air Force sought to persuade a pilot to go on a kamikaze mission. “Smedley,” he said, “we need someone at this moment to make a [Grand] Futile Gesture.”
Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska has made his career with Grand Futile Gestures, not because his policies have been wanting in merit, but because he has shown little interest in doing the grinding work of a legislator in working out bills in committee and persuading his colleagues.
When he landed in the Senate in 2015, he quickly took hold of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. That is the sequel to our Born-Alive Infants’ Protection Act (2002), the bill that sought to protect the child who survived an abortion. The new bill would restore the serious penalties that had been stripped from the original Act. …
