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It's Thursday, November 13, 2025. I'm Albert Moeller, and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. As you know, we're living through a collision of worldviews. We're also living through a revolution in morality. And one of the ways that revolution moves forward is by changing an argument. So when a major argument changes, we need to pay attention. And we now see the argum for abortion rights changing before our eyes. It appears in what was released just in the last few hours by the editorial board of the New York Times. It's an official editorial board statement entitled Abortion has remained mostly accessible. That May soon change. So that is intended to get the attention of the liberal readers of the New York Times, which is itself a very liberal newspaper, which is situated in a very liberal city. And so when we talk about social liberalism and liberal worldviews being concentrated on the coast, being concentrated in cities, in cosmopolitan centers, well, that defines New York City. So here's where we should expect this kind of argument to emerge. But when it does emerge, we had better pay attention to it. The editors of the New York Times look back to the reversal of the roe decision in 2022's Dobbs decision, and they say, even though lamentably, this reversed the nationwide ruling for abortion by the Supreme Court in the Roe v. WADE Decision of 1973, even so, abortion has basically remained accessible. And they say there are two reasons for that. One is that there is still a network nationwide of abortion access. And that means that even if you're in a pro life state, you can probably get to a pro abortion state in order to get an abortion. But the biggest game changer has been so called medication abortion. That is the abortion pill. And the newspaper is warning here that it just might be that the Trump administration would try to restrict the abortion pill. And it is important to note that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy, Jr. Has announced that there will be an investigation into the health effects of mifepristone, the major drug used as an abortion pill. And so using that as the backdrop, the Dobbs decision and then the announcement of a review of the abortion pill. And added to that, you still have in the books the Comstock act, passed in the 19th century, that explicitly prohibits the interstate mailing or transfer of contraceptive devices or abortifacient devices. So you put all that together and you can understand that the New York Times wants to see abortion accessible, and it sees there is now a need for further action. This is where the argument changes why this article in the New York Times, this particular editorial board statement. The editors go on to say, quote, it would be a mistake to assume that this status quo will continue. Republican politicians are working hard to restrict telehealth abortion through a combination of state and federal action for abortions to remain as accessible as they have been in the past three years. That means post Dobbs defenders of reproductive health and freedom will need to fight back. They can do so confident the public opinion is on their side. Americans think medication abortion should be legal by a margin of about 2 to 1, end of quote. Now, that may or may not be true. In other words, it may be true that two out of three Americans say that medication abortion should be legal, especially in the early term of a pregnancy. But we don't do morality on the basis of polling. If anything, that just means to pro lifers that we have to work harder in making the argument. But this is not coming from a pro life position. This is coming from an avowedly pro abortion position. The editorial statement goes on to warn that continued access to abortion pills thus may be endangered. They go on to say that there is another threat, and this is a threat to telehealth shield laws. Those are laws adopted in pro abortion states that say that, for instance, a prosecutor in Texas can't file charges against an abortion provider, a telehealth abortion provider in New York State, that instead the shield laws would protect them. The editorial board says, we're just not sure you can count on those shield laws continuing. And a part of the problem, as they see it, is that the states generally cooperate with one another in terms of prosecution. When a state law in one state has been violated or there's a charge of a violation, the states generally cooperate. And so the editorial board says we could be looking at an emergency, even though after Dobbs abortion has continued to be generally accessible one way or the other. They say that could be coming to an end. They then write, and here's where the argument changes. We need to pay attention. That brings us to the more enduring solution to this problem. Congress should set a floor that allows for basic access to abortion in every state. Such a law would return the country to a version of the legal landscape.
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Before the Supreme Court allowed burdensome restrictions.
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In the 1990s and then reversed Roe v. Wade entirely in 2022 with Dobbs. Okay, wow, this is really big. It's bigger than I think most people may hear it to be.
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For instance, this is an outright call for federal legislation ensuring abortion rights in Every state.
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So in other words, even as Dobbs returned the abortion question to the states, this is an editorial board call for Congress to act, to take it back.
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From the states and to enact a federal law. And this is what they did, by the way, on the same sex marriage issue. There is now a federal act subsequent to the Supreme Court decision, legislating in all 50 states the recognition of same sex marriage. And now you would have a similar kind of logic applied to abortion, in which case the Supreme Court's ruling would just be overcome by this federal legislation. Would Congress have the authority to do this? Yes, Congress would, arguably. But the problem is that that would be an egregious assault upon the dignity and sanctity of human life. And that is what Congress must not do. But the editorial board of the New York Times will wants Congress to take this action. And you'll notice they say such a law that they propose, quote, would return the country to a version of the legal landscape before the Dobbs decision in 2022. No, they don't start there. They say that would go back to the legal landscape before the Supreme Court allowed burdensome restrictions in the 1990s. That's the Casey decision. And so you'll notice that they're not even trying to go back to just the reinstatement of Roe and Casey as was the law of the land before the supreme court reversal in 2022. No, they want to go back before even the Casey decision allowed some meaningful restrictions on abortion at the state level. It is an outright argument for federal legislation that would allow for abortion certainly in the beginning stages of the pregnancy, without any restriction in all 50 states. This is a truly radical argument. Of course we knew it was coming, but the important thing for us to recognize is that it has now come.
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The editorial statement goes on to say that this would be the clear national preference after Dobbs. Nearly every other high income country in the world, including European countries with large Catholic populations, provides this access, often with public funding. Blue states would continue to provide broader access, end quote. So again, they're calling at this stage for a floor and thus something perhaps like the Roe decision, that would allow states greater opportunity to restrict abortion in the latter parts of pregnancy. But you know, this is really an insidious argument and that it appears as it appears right now, it tells you that this is an argument that's building. And it's especially going to be building when you consider the 2026 congressional elections. This is going to be huge. The New York Times is sending a very clear Signal here, you'll notice that the United States is compared unfavorably here with every other high income country. Shame, shame. And it goes on to say that even large European countries that have significant Catholic populations provide this access. Okay, so there it gets to who would be opposed to this. And they put Catholics at the top of that list, very large Catholic populations. You know, that is true. It's true, lamentably, that countries such as Spain, for example, with very large Catholic populations nonetheless have adopted rather liberal abortion laws. Now, Ireland would be added to that list. But the fact is that that's constitutionally meaningless. It's a political argument that's being used here. They go on to say, again, that means often abortion is accessible in those countries with public funding. Okay, we need to understand that's going to be a part of the arguments. Not only that in all 50 states, abortion must be legal and eventually that's going to be without restrictions. And we know that because they've already complained about the 1990s court allowable restrictions. So I'm not just saying that's going to be the argument. It's the argument right now. And even though they didn't say it should come with public funding by putting it in this paragraph, that's clearly where the argument is going. No one should be surprised by this. The Democratic Party's absolutely committed to this and has been for a very long time. The pro abortion movement won't be satisfied, by the way, with just having abortion legally available everywhere all the time. They are going to demand that it be paid for by the American taxpayer. All right, they say this, a national law should also repeal the Comstock act, which passed in 1873. As I said, that 19th century law. They say it hasn't been enforced for nearly a century, but quote, on paper still criminalizes the mailing of any item used for abortion. That's an amazing admission right there. Yes, that's exactly what the words say. And it is still in the books. And there is no excuse for the federal government not abiding by the law. That has been on the books and is still on the books. And the New York Times strangely just verified that argument by saying that the Comstock act must be repealed. They go on to say, quote, a national law should fund high quality sex education and birth control. Wow. Here we had it all. And just notice, it's all going to come. It's going to be like a tidal wave. It's going to be a giant flood because you can't just have legal access to abortion. You're going to demand taxpayer payment for abortion. And it's not just that. You're going to demand ideology to go along with it. And that means the ideology that would be taught to school children. When they say sex education and birth control, again, you know exactly where this is headed. Ultimately, reproductive health care should be integrated into mainstream medicine. Again, there is a moral revolution in just a few words. I want to repeat the words. Listen, quote, ultimately reproductive healthcare, and they mean abortion. That's the whole point of the article. Should be integrated into mainstream medicine, end quote. In other words, it's no more ethically, morally, or medically significant than a tonsillectomy. Indeed, probably less so. It's just a minor surgical procedure or a minor medical procedure by drugs, they might argue, and thus it's of no particular moral importance. It should be just mainstream medicine. Okay? Moral revolutions happen when this kind of argument begins to gain traction. And you just need to understand fully that the New York Times editorial board didn't do this by accident. And the timing is not by accident. And you say, well, what's the timing? I think the timing is just after.
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Election Day, looking at the first week.
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In November, with everyone now looking at the congressional elections in particular in 2026, let's face it, the editorial board of the New York Times, of course, wants to see Democratic majorities in both the Senate and the House. And this is just a staking out of territory. It's a staking out of an argument. But you know what? Now that the editorial board of the New York Times has made this argument, you can count on the fact that Democratic politicians at every state level, and certainly running for Congress, running for the House and for the Senate, they're going to have to make reference to this kind of argument because it's going to be thrown at them. And you can see how, in this case, the editorial board of the nation's most influential newspaper wants to cast the terms of the debate. This is where we as Christians need to pay close attention. This is how major arguments shift in the culture. And here we're given not only the general shape of the argument, we're given many of the specific phrases and specific words. We're told the terms here. All right, we're going to have to shift to some other things, but I can't think of anything more important than this in worldview terms. I also want to make a prediction. This is going to have an effect. I think you might want to just kind of bookmark in your mind this editorial statement by the editors of the New York Times and understand that this is an argument you're now going to hear over and over again, particularly from pro abortion candidates and figures in the cultural elites, and in particular from Democratic candidates. This is a way of establishing the terms of the debate. And it's not just a matter of interest to us. Remember, it's a matter of interest that should lead to action. We've got to identify this argument, take it apart, and we have to provide an even stronger argument in defense of unborn human life, or, let's face it, all will be lost. Okay, Speaking of other big headline news, it's very interesting that of course there's a lot of controversy over higher education in the United States. And let me just say, as a Christian, if there's anything worth having an argument over, it's higher education. It's education in general. Remember that even in that prior statement about abortion, the editorial board of the New York Times is calling for sex education and contraception access in the schools. So just understand that the schools are ground zero. That includes higher education. It includes recent headlines given action undertaken by the Trump administration and an agreement the Trump administration has forced on several institutions that have been targeted for particularly egregious action. The University of Virginia is one of those institutions. The University of Virginia is now in trouble in terms of its liberal students and its liberal faculty for what they accuse is buckling to the Trump administration's intimidation. Listen to this. This is from the Hill. Quote, the University of Virginia's interim president and Board of Visitors have been widely criticized by the left for their standstill agreement. That's a term that just means that there will not be further federal action if they abide by this agreement with the Justice Department, in which the university agreed most notably not to take race into account in admissions and employment decisions. In exchange, the Justice Department is suspending a handful of civil rights investigations of the university. That's the standstill agreement. That doesn't mean that the threat forever goes away. It means that for now, the Justice Department says if the University of Virginia abides by this agreement, they will not push forward on these investigations. Okay. The student newspaper, and it's interesting, the Hill refers to it as notoriously left leaning. It criticized the administration of the university for taking this action, and that includes, most importantly, interim President Paul Mahoney. The previous president, Jim Ryan, very popular, was pushed out by political pressure because, frankly, he was a big advocate of DEI and that agenda. We're also told that Virginia that mean the University of Virginia's, quote, similarly left leaning Faculty. That's very interesting that the Hill acknowledges the student newspaper and the faculty left leaning. Let's just say they're not wrong. The faculty shamed the interim president and board for, quote, training the university's independence for federal favor. They criticized the administration and trustees for signing a deal that would, quote, increase the likelihood that there's a climate of fear on campus. They go on and make other complaints. The bottom line is they don't think the administration, the interim president and the board should have agreed to this at all. The left leaning students and left leaning faculty are crying foul. The important thing for us to recognize, and many people are now recognizing this fact, is that the university has basically admitted that it was using race as a category in ways that are improper and perhaps even illegal. The interim president's statement was. Well, it took concrete form in a letter that was released to the public. And in the letter we are told the UVA University of Virginia guidance also commits us to cease using race as a criterion for employment. Okay, well, if you have to agree to cease, that means that you've got to stop doing something, which means you admit that you were doing it before you agreed to stop doing it. That's very different than saying we never did it. This is a statement saying, we agree, we will cease doing it. Okay, well, proverbially, the cat is out of the bag. So all of this turns out to be very, very interesting, incredibly revealing. When you see this kind of controversy, it shows you that even on the left, there's a left, there's a further left, even further left, further even than that left. And it is very interesting that the University of Virginia Cavalier, the student newspaper, is identified by a relatively liberal media class as a very liberal student newspaper. Now, honestly, if you've got this kind of labeling in this kind of article from this kind of source that tells you that liberal in this case means liberal and similarly the faculty, no great surprise there. But it is interesting that this media release in this case is written as if, you know, everyone knows that the university's faculty is liberal. So that's not even news. That's just what the faculty is. And I hope Christians understand that in most cases that's just what faculty are in these elite universities. All right, I want us to look at something else, and I want us to look at a statement made election night by Zoran Mamdani, who is now the mayor elect of New York City. So in just a matter of days, something like 50 days, he's going to become the youngest mayor of the Nation's largest city and a democratic socialist. Islamic mayor of the nation's largest city. Very, very liberal. And I mean very, very liberal. I mean democratic socialist. He leaned in on that in his speech that was given on election night. But he made a couple of statements that I think really deserve our attention. One in particular really stands out. This is a man who really does believe in big government. He believes in big government in every single way. He also believes in his own historical significance. He cited Nehru of India saying, a moment comes, but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. End quote. Okay, I'll just say you got to have a certain amount of self confidence to announce that with your election, the old age has come to an end and a new age has come. You know, I think even Roman emperors would have been at least partly reluctant to have made that kind of claim. But Zorah Mandani went further. That's not even close to being the most troubling part of his speech. And we've talked about him already. And so if I'm coming back to him today, it's because he said something that really does demand our attention. Speaking about New York, he made many statements. He's all for trans rights, abortion rights. You just go down the list. But here's the sentence I want us to hear. No more. He said, will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election? This new age will be defined by a competence and a compassion that have too long been placed at odds with one another. Now listen to this. These are some of the scariest words I've ever heard from an elected official. And I say it that way intentionally. These are genuinely some of the scariest words I have ever heard. Here's what he said. We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve and no concern too small for it, meaning government, to care about. End quote. Just listen again. We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about. Okay? Now, there are promises and there are promises. There's an expansive view of government, and then there's an insanely expansive view of government. This is off even those charts. He says right out loud, there is no problem too large for government to solve. Oh, my goodness. President Ronald Reagan, a generation ago, a half century ago, almost made the statement that the scariest words in the English language were, I'm from the government and I'm here to help you. And he meant that one of the greatest dangers to human liberty and to human flourishing is the belief that government is the competent agent to do everything. But I don't think Ronald Reagan had ever met anyone like Zoram Mandani. I don't think even the most wild eyed, liberal, big city politician of the 1960s would have said something like this. We will prove that there is no, no problem too large for government to solve. I mean, that really is scary. Just let those words sink in. Government is competent to solve every problem. It's just a matter of will. It's just a matter of attention, just a matter of money, just a matter of political influence. And we'll solve every problem. That is utopianism. It is the argument for totalitarianism. It is the argument for government being the answer to every question. And if there's a Christian impulse, it had better be that there is a role for government. Paul deals with that in Romans 13. But there is no biblical justification for any belief that government is supposed to raise your children. Government is supposed to put food on your table. Government is supposed to resolve all the great problems of world affairs. Government can't. Governments can't. And one of the greatest dangers is a government that thinks it can. And especially when you have a government. I mean, after all, New York City is not quite the world, even though it may see itself that way. And one of the greatest dangers is confronting a government that thinks it can. It's far more dangerous to have a government that says, yeah, we can solve all the problems than one that says, no, we can't. Certainly there could be a government that isn't living up to its biblical expectations, for instance, in maintaining order and executing justice. But in terms of meeting all human needs, in terms of resolving all human problems, let's just say the greatest danger here is a government that thinks it can do that. But when you're looking at the mayor elected in New York City, he says these are his words, there is no problem, no problem, not a single one too large for government to solve. But he didn't just stop there. He said, there's no concern too small for it to care about. Okay? In practical terms, New Yorkers had better brace themselves for a mayor at the head of a city government that believes no concern is too small for government to care about. I hope in New York you like even more rules. You must want a lot more rules. Rules about this and rules about that, regulations about this and regulations about that. We've just been told by your mayor elect there is no concern too small. Remember, keep all those recycling boxes absolutely straight. There is nothing too small for government to be concerned about in New York. You transgress this. Guess what? Mayor Mondani may show up and say, hey, it may look like a small thing, but I'm going to quote him here, there's no concern too small for government to care about.
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All right.
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But once again, the big danger is in this case, what happens in New York doesn't stay in New York. Big worldview issues. Wow, they're coming at us fast. It's our responsibility to deal with them as Christians as they come. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website@albertmuller.com you can follow me at x or Twitter by going to x.com for information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. for information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.