University of Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh is facing calls for his termination after he went public with his pro-life views. Harbaugh is a devout Catholic and said that “I believe in having the courage to let the unborn be born.” The response has been overwhelming and furious, but it is unlikely that Harbaugh (who just signed signed a 5-year, $36.7 million contract) will be canned. It is an interesting comparison to the successful campaign recently to force a NFL coach to withdraw his comments about Jan. 6th. Yet, if critics had their way, both coaches would be fired for holding dissenting views on such issues.
Harbaugh spoke at the Plymouth Right to Life dinner on Sunday and reportedly shared his own religious beliefs in favor of life.
“I love life. I believe in having a loving care and respect for life and death. My faith and my science are what drives these beliefs in me. [Quoting Jeremiah 1:5] ‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’
…
There are many things one may hold to be immoral, but the government appropriately allows because of some greater good or personal or constitutional right.
Ultimately, I don’t believe that is the case with abortion. Yes, there are conflicts between the legitimate rights of the mother and the rights of the unborn child. One resolution might involve incredible hardship for the mother, family and society. Another results in the death of an unborn person…
In God’s plan, each unborn human truly has a future filled with potential, talent, dreams and love,” Harbaugh said. “I have living proof in my family, my children, and the many thousands that I’ve coached that the unborn are amazing gifts from God to make this world a better place. To me, the right choice is to have the courage to let the unborn be born.”
Harbaugh is used to calls for “unnecessary roughness” but nothing likely prepared him for what came next. The reaction was immediate and unhinged. Harbaugh was accused of being “full of deep seething hatred of women.” Despite his explanation of his deep-seated religious view in favor of life, various people accused him of “publicly expressing his distaste for women’s rights.”
Others called for Harbaugh to be fired for holding a pro-life view shared by millions of citizens; F**k Jim Harbaugh, may the University of Michigan 86 him before his contract goes full-term.” The liberal Palmer Report posted (with thousands of “likes”):
“No one who actively attempts to deny women their most basic rights should ever be allowed to hold a position of influence at a public university. That incudes (sic) University of Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh and his anti-woman fundraising. He’s a public employee. Fire his a**.
It’s one thing to hold this personal view, if you can keep it separate from your actions. But to use your clout as a public employee go out and do fundraisers for groups that actively seek to deny women their most basic of rights, is a whole different ballgame.”
The ease with which many move to censorship is vividly on display in these statements. Some critics make a passing gesture toward free speech and then say that this is no longer merely a “personal view” because Harbaugh is well-known. Under that approach, any public comment could be viewed as “using your clout as a public employee.” Thus, you can (presumably) speak in favor of life if you are an unknown, but not if you are a known figure.
Of course, the same conditional right to free speech would not apply to Harbaugh if he were to offer pro-choice views or Coach Del Rio if he were to support the J6 Committee. Those views can not only be expressed but will receive widespread acclaim for a coach being a leader and mentor to others.
Fortunately, as a public university, Michigan is subject to the full weight of the First Amendment even if it wanted to tackle the contractual challenges to termination. Yet, the vile rhetoric directed at Harbaugh should, even in this age of rage, give some pause. To label all pro-life supporters as anti-women is unfounded and unfair. Millions of women support limiting or barring abortions. They are not self-haters or anti-feminists.
Harbaugh gave a heartfelt and honest speech about his faith and commitment to the pro-life cause. This is part of a debate that will now unfold in 50 states as voters decide where to draw the line on abortion services. It is a debate that should be passionate on both sides, but we should be able to disagree without such personal attacks or calls for terminations. Indeed, a state employee should be able to hold a pro-life view while holding a job at the University of Michigan.
OT: For all those leftists that believe Trump should release his documents that affect the Presidency and all future Presidents, look at how the left prevents important documents from being released. These documents are proof the left lied for the four years of the Trump Presidency and that they prevented public documents from being released.
Americans need to fight back against those that impose their will and ideology in their attempt to destroy the nation.
—
“Mystery solved: DOJ secretly thwarted release of Russia documents declassified by Trump
Department used last-minute privacy concerns to halt release, then ignored a direct order from the president to make memos public.”
https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/mystery-solved-doj-secretly-thwarted-release-russia?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter
And a video from Rumble since Twitter doesn’t carry the truth.
https://rumble.com/v1cweb7-full-interview-fmr.-white-house-chief-of-staff-mark-meadows.html
The swamp is deep and fights back.
Schiff and the rest of the Democrats had access to all of these documents so when they went on the Sunday shows they were knowingly lying. We have to recognize this. When dealing with the left, we are dealing with known liars that hide their lies under the banner of secrecy.
We need courageous people to fight the fight. Donald Trump with all his faults (not terrible ones like we see from Biden, Pelosi, Schiff, etc.) was willing to fight the fight and give his all for America. Our intelligence services used their agency to illegally enter into domestic politics. Yet, they were unable to tell us much about the wars we had to fight and the war in Ukraine.
We are seeing what big government does under Biden. If you want your standard of living to be reduced along with your salaries while gas, food, and housing costs increase vote for Biden. If you are a multinational corporation that wants low wages and a servile American public, vote for Biden.
If you are a hard-working American who is intent on raising a family and keeping what is yours, DO NOT vote Democrat even if the Democrat is running for dog catcher. Stop the left-wing madness at the lowest level of government.
(PS For those interested in the word, exponentially, listen to how it is used in the video.)
An example of the fruit of Leftists Woke extremism, Seattle’s current demise is exhibit A. Considering the Marxists the people of Seattle elect, maybe they do not deserve protection. Just saying.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-wants-to-be-a-seattle-cop-bruce-harrell-police-recruitment-11657909235?st=3csbil640qoc8u5&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Who Wants to Be a Seattle Cop?
Where police have been vilified, recruiting is proving to be a hard sell.
Overall crime in the city rose 10% last year, and that’s compared to the already elevated 2020 levels. Violent crime rose by 20% as Seattle recorded the most aggravated assaults in a decade. Property crime also increased, with larceny theft up 15% and arson 31%……Fewer officers now work longer hours to deal with more crime, which also makes it hard to recruit and retain police. Mr. Harrell’s report notes that “this reality is contributing to exhaustion and low morale among officers.” It will take years to undo the harm wrought by the defund-the-police movement.
He just beat Ohio State for the first time. He’s safe until November.
If we start firing every public employee who has an opinion that ANYBODY disagrees with, there would be no more public employee’s. Hmmmm….Maybe that would be a good thing!!
The people who constantly warn us about totalitarianism and authoritarianism want you to know that you are not allowed to hold any opinion unless it’s theirs.
All the lights are flashing red, the Stalinists are among us
If someone believes in what they stand for, they are choosing to stand for that position, and what kind of person are you if you don’t fight tooth and nail for what you stand for?
– coach Jim Harbaugh
https://www.detroitcatholic.com/news/michigan-coach-harbaugh-fr-riccardo-urge-courage-in-defending-unborn-life
Americans are seeing that the abortion argument reveals far more about America than they realized. The human sacrificing by the Incas and Aztecs are looking like amateurs right now.
Jonathan: It’s unlikely Harbaugh will lose his lucrative head coach job as a result of his anti-abortion views. What you don’t want to discuss is the more important issue if the GOP in the state is able to reimpose the 1931 abortion ban law–that now is in limbo because of litigation. Women from Texas and Oklahoma are flooding clinics in Michigan but it is unclear how long abortion will be permitted in Michigan. And there are other consequences for the University of Michigan if abortion is banned in the state as a result of the Dobbs decision.
The headline in the LA Times says it all: “As professionals flee anti-abortion policies , red states face a brain drain”. University recruiters are having a hard time attracting people for professorships and other positions in states with anti-abortion laws–particularly in Texas that has the most draconian abortion ban where medical providers can be sued for $10,000 for violations of the abortion ban. According to the Times article these bounty provisions “are going to dissuade the most qualified professionals from accepting jobs in places where they could be prosecuted…”. Texas also has loose gun laws and unfriendly LGBTQ policies. Professionals with teen-age children don’t want their children to be exposed to all these draconian laws and policies if they were to accept a position at a university in Texas.
Student recruitment is also taking a hit. Female high school students with excellent academic credentials are not applying to institutions in states with abortion bans like Texas. Same with LGBTQ students who fear harassment or worse. So there is going to be potentially a large brain drain. Universities in Texas, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc. are going to find it difficult to recruit professionals and students because of the abortion bans .And corporations that have moved to Texas because of low taxes will soon find they cannot attract talented workers.
California has a new ad to recruit professionals and students: “Welcome to California, with stem cell research, a full range of health care benefits and the best beaches!”. I have a granddaughter who will be graduating from a high school here in our red state that just banned abortion. She will be attending university in California. And Afghanistan refugees, I understand, are not immigrating to Texas. They don’t want to exchange one form of Taliban rule for another. The issue for Harbaugh is not his own job or how he will recruit talented players if Michigan’s GOP is able to impose its abortion ban. Not a huge problem since he recruits male players. But what about the University’s women’s basketball team? Again, the law of unintended consequences. We are fast approaching two different countries. One in which half the states protect fundament human rights and those that don’t. No wonder Texas is leading the charge to once again succeed. Texas has its own ad: “Save your Confederate money folks, the South will rise again!”
DM – the essay is about the vitriol directed at a football coach because he dared to voice an opinion contrarian to those of the left. The essay is not about the possible and/or imagined impact of state laws.
Once again, you take an off-ramp to criticize JT’s op-ed piece, make unproveable assertions like “What you don’t want to discuss is…”, and descend to making ridiculous statements such as equating Texas to Taliban rule. You are 100% predictable and impossible to take seriously.
You do understand that JT does not respond to posts? Therefore, may I respectfully recommend your find other blogs to peruse and with which to interact. It will do wonders for your mental health and blood pressure.
So in a round about way, you just don’t want to hear his views. you don’t want to hear anything that does not fit your preconceived opinion. Right, Sirius.
FishWings – you too miss the point. Prof Turley has been warning us of the relentless attacks on free speech. This essay on the reaction to Coach Harbaugh’s personal views on abortion is about the Left’s fascist reaction to any position that does not toe the exact and demanded orthodoxy. Let’s talk about the rapid descent into the inability to listen, much less consider that it might have merit, to another point of view. That is a much greater threat to this Republic than Coach Harbaugh’s view on abortion. Abortion, while obviously related, was not the topic.
And let’s talk about Mr. McIntyre’s absurd comparison to Texas to the Taliban. Let me know when Texan men begin banning girls from schools, begin demand strict religious conformity, start throwing acid in the faces of girls trying to go to school, start throw gay men off buildings, and require genital mutilation of young girls. I’ll wait.
Sirius the Lesser: If you paid attention to some of my other comments you will notice I more frequently comment at length on Turley’s posts. I only digress when I think he has neglected another important issue. When I signed up for this chatroom it said was a “free speech” forum. No restrictions. A free for all. I take this seriously. If you you don’t like what I have to say don’t read my comments. You are free to “peruse” and “interact” with those you feel more comfortable with. In comparing Texas and the Taliban I was being a bit unfair. I should have compared Texas with countries like Russia, North Korea or Iran. Prior to the Dobbs decision the US was a leader among countries in liberalizing abortion laws. The result was fewer abortions and safer abortions when they did occur. Now the US is the out liar. Even our neighbor to the South, a predominantly Catholic country, has decriminalized abortion. Now when women start streaming across the border to get a safe abortion or to purchase an abortion pill in Tijuana you will realize something has gone terribly wrong in the US. Oh, by the way, my blood pressure right now is 127/70. I just love to “interact” with people like you who spew out nonsense.
Dennis McIntyre, there are restrictions here. Read the Civility Code.
I see a lot of supposed ‘facts” here with nothing to support them. In particular I would argue that perhaps the states suffering “brain drain” might be much better off than they are now (assuming the “brain drain charge is even true).
Anyone who chooses to leave a town or county or state (or even country) due to a single issue deserves whatever the consequences might be. The old cliché of the grass always being greener on the other side should make the “buyer beware.”…(did I appropriately mix those metaphors????)
You got that right!
There are always trade offs; sometimes they are not obvious.
So why were businesses moving from California to Texas?
Prof. Turley, you might want to ask his critics what they thought of their “keep your personal thoughts to yourself” line two years ago, when Coach Harbaugh was very outspoken during the summer of 2020 about the mistreatment of blacks in the US. They were, not shockingly, very supportive of him expressing his personal thoughts. Reminds me of the late, great Prof. Yale Kamisar, who got applause from students at UM Law for being anti-death penalty, followed by shock and disgust when he told everyone he was anti-abortion and anti-euthanasia as well.
Where and when did he speak about the mistreatment of blacks in the U.S.?
I admire Harbaugh’s courage to speak out. Many are afraid of the mob and keep their views to themselves.
Being an adult means to have the moral courage to not care what others think or say when expressing their views.
I say to the coach..THE NEXT TIME YOU ARE PREGNANT HAVE COURAGE OLD MAN! But, of course, this decision is not just about abortions, it’s about procedures needed by women when pregnancy goes wrong. Women will die. They will suffer unnecessarily because fanatics want to control the not just what women who agree with them but the lives of those women who don’t agree.
No one should be forced to have an abortion and no one should be prohibited from having the kind of medical care they need just because fanatics think the procedure is related to abortion or is an abortion. If you don’t agree with abortion or related procedures then don’t do it or force your mistress to have one.
If you believe that a woman must have the right to abortion, then the man MUST have the right to say they will not support the child if the woman does not abort.
Any man who gets a woman pregnant is just as morally and financially culpable as the woman. Doesn’t matter which of the two has to carry to term, each is 50% responsible since it took two to tango. To date there hasn’t been a single human pregnancy that is the result of parthenogenesis.
If you hold those views you should be fired!
Amirite?
The United States has about 330 million people with 330 million opinions and vantage points. There will never be complete agreement on any issue. If want your opinion to be respected, you have to respect opinions you might not agree with or support.
The de facto founder of the Republican Party – Abraham Lincoln – warned that America would never be destroyed from the outside by a foreign nation, America would only destroy itself from internal conflicts between our own fellow Americans.
Maybe due to non-stop election cycles, politicians demonize and divide voters against each other. There is no break between elections. Those 330 million that have a different vantage point aren’t wrong but they are evil enemies. This divisive rhetoric is about as unpatriotic as any American can be! Voters need to stop supporting these types of politicians.
I wonder if these people are aware that FJB voted for the Human Life Federalism Amendment.
I wonder if they know Dick Durbin wrote a letter asking that Roe v Wade be overturned.
RE: ” I wonder if they know Dick Durbin wrote….” “Holy ‘set your sails to the prevailing winds’, Batman!”
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3555936-no-2-senate-democrat-explains-his-change-of-heart-on-abortion/
Pro physical autonomy when it comes to abortion; Anti physical autonomy when it comes to Covid vaccines.
Against the death penalty (as it is inhumane); In favor of unrestricted abortions of the unborn.
The so-called progressives show a total lack of moral consistency.
“The so-called progressives show a total lack of moral consistency.”–Double Dutch
Exactly, D.D.—-And that’s because they get to make the rules, which include turning the American English dictionary on its head.
‘It’s one thing to hold this personal view, if you can keep it separate from your actions.’ In other words, you can have a view, but not share it publicly. How more clearly can one express a total misunderstanding of the first amendment?
It is difficult to have a genuine discussion with a pro-choice-er in my experience. Once a female friend of my wife explained that when a woman is pregnant that is not with a human being. I asked her whether, when she was pregnant with her son, she was actually carrying a canine, or whether she was pregnant with a zebra perhaps. You should have seen the look on her face. Then she proclaimed that an embryo is just a sack of cells in an effort to dehumanize the embryo. Honest debate entails properly identifying the issue. Obviously, female human being can only be pregnant with another human being; it is impossible for her to produce anything else. Abortion leads to the killing of an embryotic human being, there is no way around it. And the discussion whether that should be allowed or under what circumstances is a moral one. I agree that a woman has physical autonomy like all of us. But abortion is not only about her body; it affects the body of the unborn. So, abortion constitutes a conflict of interest between the mother and the unborn child. Because of that conflict, the mother’s will cannot be exclusively decisive, and society must step in to ensure that both interests weigh equally in the decision-making process.
I agree with Steve that bodily autonomy begins with the decision to engage in sexual activity. That decision comes with known potential consequences and thus responsibilities. Abortion is not birth control after the fact.
It is an ethics conflict for sure.
Talk about bigots! In the liberal world, it is going to be “No Catholics Need Apply”. What a world it will be if they can carry out their agenda.
I live close to Ann Arbor and have worked at U of M and other places in the city. Ann Arbor was once considered a “Liberal” town where everyone was welcome. So, the fascists took advantaged and moved in. So, here we are…
What the pro-abortion people are doing to anti-abortion people like University of Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh is pure unadulterated persecution, as in hostility and ill-treatment, especially because of race or political or religious beliefs.
Here’s my opinion of the pro-abortion movement; the pro-abortion movement is a brainwashed amoral cult.
The utter absurdity of the arguments and actions coming from the brainwashed amoral pro-abortion cult while they intentionally ignore their civil, ethical and moral responsibilities surrounding the act of sex (the sexual responsibilities of the male and the female are listed here) shows us that they have completely lost touch with morality and reality.
Sex is NOT and never will be a consequence free zone and a woman’s right to “choose” medical treatment doesn’t negate the right to life of a completely helpless human being when that same woman has already made conscious choices. There are real world consequences that can happen when engaging in sex so either accept the consequences or be responsible and do the things that can help prevent pregnancy, of course there is the ultimate choice to not engage in sex until you’re willing to fully accept the real world consequences.
The brainwashed amoral “pro-choice” cult is intentionally lying to the public, this has never been about “choice”, this is and has been about exterminating a helpless human being to cover up a lack of responsibility regarding sexual intercourse in an effort to separate the woman from her responsibilities. The phrase “pro-choice” is a false flag diversion from reality to rationalize an immoral conclusion. Remember, a woman having control of her body doesn’t magically begin at the moment she finds out she’s pregnant, the pregnant woman has already made conscious moral choices prior to the point of knowing she’s pregnant and those choices have consequences! The brainwashed amoral “pro-choice” cult want’s to completely absolve the woman from responsibility regarding the choices that have already been made that led to pregnancy.
Preventing unwanted pregnancies is the moral and right thing to do.
Exterminating unwanted human beings is immoral.
The end result of “pro-life” is literally life.
The end result of “pro-choice” is literally death.
I have absolutely no problem with any form of contraceptive that prevents an egg from being fertilized or prevents a fertilized egg from properly implanting.
Verifiable imminent death of a mother due to pregnancy or serious chances of death of the mother from giving birth to a human being is an entirely different issue, it’s a human right to life of the mother issue and MUST be considered.
TL/DR: “Your bodily autonomy stops at the point where your doctor’s forceps are about to crush my skull.” ~ Unborn child
I just became a fan of Michigan Wolverine football!
Though I don’t personally believe all abortion should be banned, for a great many years I’ve always thought it was deeply ironic these are the same people that deplore the death penalty. ‘But that’s not an embryo!’, they say. Neither is a nine month-old baby. That is quite literally insanity. Sorry for the imagery, but ask these fools if they’d be equally ok stepping on the head of a kitten.
Paid too much.
100,000 fans pack the stadium every week to watch his show. And that’s not including the TV contracts and the wolverine merchandising. He could argue he is not being paid enough, but in fact he is being paid just the right amount – what the market will bear after full and free negotiation.