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Life Matters

Life Matters

By: Brian Johnston
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Hosted by Commissioner Brian Johnston, a weekly program examining the right to life, culture and the battle of ideas. With various guests and experts he examines the arts, the nature of the law, the practice of medicine, ethics, and personal accountability for our own lives as well as the lives of others.@2023 Politics & Government Social Sciences
Episodes
  • 329: Why the Fight for the Department of Health
    Oct 7 2025

    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 pr-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.

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    28 mins
  • 328: What to Ask Local Candidates
    Sep 30 2025

    Sadly, many haven't seen the depths to which the violation of the right to life has altered our culture and society. Today on Life Matters, we dive into the idea that support this right, the idea that innocent human lives should be protected.

    We have to engage in the realm of ideas. There's a lot of misunderstanding right now in the pro-life movement. Many people have said after 2022 and the Dobbs Decision that Roe v. Wade is overturned, that we’ve won, we've got our goals.

    This is a gross misunderstanding and it is a manipulation by the media to get people to say, “Oh,

    the pro-lifers have won, so now we’ve got to beat them at the polls.” They lied about the decision. It was illegally released. And the media took seven weeks and pounded a message home that many people repeated. And when it was finally released, they simply repeated what the media had trained them like barking seals. “Roe is overturned.” Roe vs. Wade was not actually overturned. And you're going to find out today that what was impacted was another decision and the principles of judicial review and judicial activism that indeed were challenged in the Dobbs Decision. But Dobbs, intentionally, was silent.

    It said nothing about the moral or legal propriety of abortion. It said nothing about what Roe actually did to instruct doctors to kill. Because that's what Roe and its companion decision in 1973, Doe vs. Bolton, actually did. They attacked the ideas that doctors should always protect and care for patients and they were directly assaulted by the highest and most powerful tribunal in your nation. That is what Roe v.s Wade did. And the Dobbs Decision sidesteps and ignores it. The Dobbs Decision says, "Oh, you guys want to do abortion, that's fine, we don't care." If you read the Dobbs Decision, you're going to be alarmed. Even if you read the concurring decision by Justice Kavanaugh, he's rather clear that the court is just going to sidestep. They’re going to leave it to the states, this whole abortion thing. They would not be ruling on abortion."

    That's what the Dobbs Decision really did.

    People don't understand the implications of that. They're ill-prepared now for what we're living in and to do battle in this culture, both in explaining to lawmakers and explaining to candidates. We're going to equip you to talk about the current laws and the current practices, not only on abortion, but the practice of medicine, because medicine is being used to kill. Medicine is being used to intentionally harm, for ideological reasons, the patients that have been entrusted to their care.

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    28 mins
  • 327: Reductionism - The Enemy of Clear Thinking
    Sep 23 2025

    Roe vs. Wade has not been overturned. The media has repeated it, but it’s really not true.

    In today’s episode of Life Matters, we’re going to spend some time talking about the meaning of the word ‘overturned’. What does that really mean?

    But to answer that, you have to understand what Roe vs. Wade really did. Many people think that Roe vs. Wade simply gave women the right to choose.

    We're going to talk about what the Supreme Court really did do in Roe, what it's doing now through the Dobbs Decision and the subsequent decisions which are limiting the power of the judiciary, because that's really what the Dobbs Decision is about. The Dobbs Decision doesn't even talk about protecting life. The Dobbs Decision ignores what Roe vs. Wade actually did. The Dobbs Decision basically said the Supreme Court shouldn't make any laws whatsoever, that the Supreme Court should not have interfered in the states’ decisions and laws.

    Dobbs ruled on judicial review, and judicial activism. It is silent on abortion's propriety. But in Roe, The Court had MANDATED that doctors now be killers... this subject is ignored!

    And they're continuing to make that assertion. In essence, what the Supreme Court has

    done is, not only skirt the ethical issue in Roe v. Wade, but actually ignores the legal and ethical question of abortion. It does address a previous issue that goes all the way back towards America's founding, a case called Marbury vs. Madison. That's where the Court was perceived to have supreme authority over everything.

    The idea of judicial review, that there's three co-equal parts of government and it was going to be the

    Court. The Court gets to rule over the entire nation. But that's not in the Constitution. Marbury vs. Madison was wrongly decided.

    The Supreme Court is not the king of the world. It is not the king of all laws. It is not Congress or the Senate. It cannot make laws. It is not more powerful than the executive branch.

    And yet that notion is deeply, deeply rooted in the minds of many Americans.

    Please have a deeper understanding of this battle. Understand the battle of ideas. Laws are basically ideas that are enforced. You must master the world of ideas. It's not hard, but you do have to apply yourself, rightly handling these ideas, rightly knowing and understanding the word of truth so that you can apply it to the culture right around you. You need to have an in-depth understanding of this battle if you're going to win. If you want to defend the defenseless, you must be prepared to fight in this battle of ideas because lives really are at stake.

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    28 mins
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