Welcome to the Friday Five! Every Friday we share our top five articles, stories, and quotes for you to read and share with your friends and church families.
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1. 👣 Our pro-life post-Dobbs future
On Monday, we marked the occasion by holding a press conference where we featured several pro-life stories from women.You can click to hear their stories for yourself here, as well as check out this article from Carolina Journal to learn more about the event.
In addition to the press conference, Tuesday evening we were honored to host leaders and legislators in Raleigh for a reception celebrating life. Not only was this an opportunity to mark the 2nd anniversary of the Dobbs decision, but we were honored to be joined by a number of women who gave moving testimonies about the impact abortion has had on the lives of mothers, their babies, and families across the state.
Read more: https://ncvalues.org/our-pro-life-post-dobbs-future/
2. CAROLINA JOURNAL: NC Values Coalition marks 2nd anniversary of Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade
“NC Values Coalition held a pro-life press conference Monday to mark the 2nd anniversary of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court’s decision ending the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion, giving the discretion back to individual states, came with its ruling in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which centered on a Mississippi law that banned abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of NC Values, said that there are 1.7 million people who are known to have lost their lives to abortion in North Carolina, but there may be many more. She also remarked that North Carolina is a destination state for abortions, with the state having the most liberal abortion law in the Southeast, despite recent changes to the law to restrict elective abortions from 20 to 12 weeks of fetal development.”
3. NEWS & OBSERVER: Robert Luebke Op-Ed: A message from parents: Stop slow-walking NC voucher money, Republicans
“In March, 72,000 new applicants crashed the website of the state organization that administers the program. Responding to this demand, the Senate voted in May to appropriate $248 million for additional Opportunity Scholarships and approximately $25 million to eliminate the backlog for ESA+ Scholarships, which help meet the needs of students with disabilities. Many hoped the House would do the same. That didn’t happen. Instead, the House included Opportunity Scholarship expansion as part of the budget bill. The slowdown has made a train wreck of fall plans for families and schools. Families don’t know if they have funds for school tuition. Schools don’t know how many new teachers to hire. All that is certain now is the uncertainty. The latest reports suggest a budget bill won’t be finalized until this fall — if at all — which means the only hope for children on the Opportunity Scholarship waitlist looks to be immediate action by the legislature.”
Read more: https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article289545224.html
4. CAROLINA JOURNAL: Payton McNabb Op-Ed: After being injured by male competitor, I’m traveling the nation to rally for Title IX
“On June 20, I joined dozens of current and former female athletes and prominent women’s advocates in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Part of the “Take Back Title IX” summer 2024 bus tour, the event was one of many I’ve attended across the nation throughout the month of June. So why did I — and numerous others — give up our summer, rearrange our schedules, and live on a bus for weeks? I was a three-sport female athlete throughout high school. Unfortunately, my athletic career came to an abrupt end at the beginning of my senior year, when I was severely injured in a volleyball game. A male playing on an opposing women’s team spiked a ball into my head, rendering me unconscious for about 30 seconds in a fencing position. As a result, I suffered from a concussion, permanent whiplash, and a brain bleed. Even now, the effects are tangible; with vision impairment, cognitive issues, partial paralysis on my right side, and more, my doctors aren’t sure if I will ever be the same.”
5. NBC NEWS: Three female GOP state senators who filibustered S.C. abortion ban lost their primaries
“Three Republican state senators in South Carolina who filibustered an abortion ban in the state have lost in their primary elections this month.
Katrina Shealy, Sandy Senn and Penry Gustafson lost to three male candidates and were among a bipartisan group of five women state senators who filibustered a near-total abortion ban. They were nicknamed the ‘sister senators.'”
Weekly Prayer: NC Officials
LORD, you also have instructed us to pray for our governing officials, and we come to you in the spirit of this petition. We pray for our state government and its executive, legislative, and judicial servants. May they indeed be servants unto the people, and govern in a manner that protects liberty and virtue. In the same spirit, we pray for public servants across our local governments. May they all heed your mandate in Romans 13:4 to be in positions of authority as “God’s servant” and for the “good” of the public. They govern in what we confess are difficult times. May they plead with you to give them wisdom, and may your grace to govern wisely be poured out on them.
Protect us from the oppression and loss of freedoms that other countries have experienced, and help us to value and preserve freedom, which we know comes only from You.
“I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free.” Acts 7:34
Amen
NC Values
