Wednesday, June 17, 2026
6/17/202628 min
This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.
On today’s edition of The Briefing, Dr. Mohler discusses the Democrats who claim to want their party to move to the ‘middle’ on abortion (but no middle ground exists), the debate over designer babies in the scientific community, and the UFC fights at The White House.
Part I (00:14 – 12:48)
There is No Middle Ground on the Evil of Abortion: Democrats Who Want to Move to the ‘Middle’ Do Not Truly Want Less Abortions
- The Missing Middle in the Abortion Debate by The New York Times (Zaid Jilani)
Part II (12:48 – 19:32)
‘Where Does Medicine End and Eugenics Begin?’: The Debate Over Designer Babies in the Scientific Community is Ablaze
- Medical Cure or Designer Baby? A New Approach to Editing Embryos Ignites Debate. by The New York Times (Emily Baumgaertner Nunn)
Part III (19:32 – 27:49)
Martial Arts and the Dignity of the White House: The Cage Match at The White House is Not a Cultural Step Forward – Nor Is It the Fall of a Great Civilization
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAlbert Mohler· Host0:00
[intro music] It's Wednesday, June 17, 2026. I'm Albert Mohler, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. We're living in one of those moments in which it seems that the headlines are coming to us with huge worldview issues in a rush, and the reason it seems that way is because it, that is exactly what's happening. We are living in precisely such a time. So consider the fact that we're looking at these giant tectonic plates i- in terms of the moral superstructure now moving on so many different issues. We're looking at embryo experimentation, big headline news. We're look at the abortion issue exploding again. We are looking at huge questions related to the larger culture, to, uh, what it means to, quote, "have a baby" and, and what it means to be human. These, these are just giant things coming at us. Generative artificial intelligence is another entire field in which all of a sudden people are warning this could be disaster right around the corner, as we're going to see today. Reports coming out in the field of embryo experimentation, very, very troubling to Christians. And you're talking about something that even some secular people acknowledge could lead to a redefinition of what it means to be human. But I want us to start with an opinion piece that ran in The New York Times. It's by Zaid Jilani, identified as a journalist based in Georgia who writes the newsletter The American Saga. In this case, writing from Georgia, which is right now in the midst