Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look in an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. President Trump enthusiastically promoted in vitro fertilization during his campaign and early in his second term.
However, the administration's policy, which was unveiled in late October, was rightly described by Ryan Anderson, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, as, and I quote, perhaps the least bad we could have hoped for. But he then added, least bad is still bad. In a follow-up to an earlier executive order, the president announced a plan to dramatically reduce the cost of IVF to provide insurance coverage for fertility treatments, including IVF, and to increase overall access to IVF. According to Trump, and I quote, you can't get more pro-life than this. But IVF is not pro-life.
In fact, it's not even pro-fertility, as he sometimes claims. While born children do certainly result from IVF, the way it's most often practiced results in far more lives being lost than who survive. As Students for Life President Kristen Hawkins posted on X in response to Trump's announcement, and I quote, the IBF industry kills more preborn babies than the abortion industry. It doesn't cure infertility and practices eugenics, end quote. Also in October, in the wee hours of Halloween morning, the Illinois State Senate passed a bill to legalize assisted suicide, adding the lethal practice to an unrelated measure about food sanitation.
And it was signed into law by Illinois Governor Pritzker earlier this month. The decision makes the land of Lincoln the twelfth state to legalize euthanasia. The law will allow patients with six months or less to live to be granted access to life-ending medicine if determined by a physician and a mental health professional to be of sound mind after a series of oral and written requests. With witnesses attesting to the results. Doctors are also required to explain to patients other end-of-life care options like hospice.
If prescribed a life-ending drug, patients would administer it themselves. Healthcare providers would not be required to participate. But of course, assisted suicide is the very best example in our world right now of what could be called a cultural slippery slope. Any safeguards inevitably fail. Patients are always left susceptible to cultural and financial pressures.
For example, in 2016, Colorado voters approved the End of Life Options Act. Last year, the governor signed legislation that would now allow some registered nurses to prescribe the lethal drugs, not just doctors, and to reduce the waiting period from 15 days to 7. A pending lawsuit would also eliminate other restrictions, such as those that prevent out-of-state residents from receiving drugs for assisted suicide. If that lawsuit is successful, Colorado will become a suicide tourism destination. allowing individuals from anywhere in the U.S.
to shop for death. Colorado doctors already prescribe lethal doses to patients with severe eating disorders.
Now the major bright spot on the whole life front in 2025 came from the Supreme Court, which ruled that states can defund Planned Parenthood. As a result, more than 20 states now exclude abortion groups from Medicaid funding. And there are three cases with implications for life currently on the High Court docket. including allowing states to require doctors to tell women that chemical abortion can be reversed. They'll also consider the force coverage of elective abortions and insurance plans.
Perhaps the most significant case is First Choice Women's Resource Center v. Platkin, which will address whether crisis pregnancy centers can fight state harassment. Specifically, in how they advertise their services. Even as the court has taken clear steps to defend its most vulnerable citizens, the wider American culture continues to embrace and advance a dangerous view about human dignity and value. That view continues to be centered around false notions of autonomy and sexual freedom.
It's left the most vulnerable among us even more vulnerable.
So, even as we applaud any laws that protect vulnerable lives, we must also pray that God continues to intervene on their behalf. And we must act. Theologian Stanley Hauerwass said that in 100 years, if Christians are people identified as those who do not kill their children or their elderly, we will have been doing something right. In short, Christians must love and serve those who are the most vulnerable among us. We have to seek to persuade as many people as we can that every person is made in the image and likeness of God.
And we have to live differently than the world around us lives. And Breakpoint serves that mission. Each and every day, these commentaries point people to the clarity they need about the issues that matter most. A Christian worldview means stronger churches. It means better equipped families.
It means flourishing Christian schools. If Breakpoint has helped you in any of these ways, would you please consider making a year-end gift to support and expand its reach? Thanks to a generous $500,000 challenge, every gift before the end of the year will have double the impact.
So please give today at colsoncenter.org slash December. That's colsoncenter.org slash December. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. For a version of this commentary that you can download and share with others, go to breakpoint.org. At the Colson Center, we're committed to strengthening families, churches, and schools to be faithful influences for Christ.
Because in a culture severed from truth, the question isn't how do we fix everything, but how can we be faithful where God has placed us? In 2026, we want to help families, educators, and church leaders answer that question with courageous faith. But we need your help. Make your best gift to the Colson Center by December 31st. Thanks to a generous $500,000 challenge grant, your gift will have double the impact.
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