The Presidential Medal of Freedom was once considered the nation’s highest civilian honor, but this is no longer the case.

President Joe Biden rendered the award evil this week in a private ceremony to honor Cecile Richards, who served from 2006 to 2018 as president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

Established by John F. Kennedy in 1963 to honor civilian service, the award took the place of Harry S. Truman’s Medal of Freedom and was intended to honor “any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to (1) the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

It is fair to say that Richards helped change American culture. Without her work, there would be so many more people creating art, inventing gadgets, falling in love, and making even more babies, as God intended.  

On her watch, more than 13.3 million babies were killed before their births in the United States during the 13 years she led the organization, according to the Guttmacher Institute. And, although most of those babies were killed through Planned Parenthood abortion mills, Richards has boosted the entire industry through her advocacy for laws allowing more abortions, or, as she would say it, “access to women’s health care.”

One hint your life’s work is evil is when you soften your job description to help people forget the grim, limb-by-dismembered-limb reality.    

Consider the 13 million discarded humans. That is roughly the equivalent of every man, woman, and child in the states of Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Rhode Island, Montana, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, and West Virginia.   

Or if you prefer cities, imagine the entire populations of New York City, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia wiped out.

During her reign, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Richards facilitated more deaths than there were in the Holocaust and was well paid, earning more than $500,000 a year.  

Last year Richards was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a brain cancer. She told Anderson Cooper that she had a brain tumor removed and was undergoing cancer treatment. She spoke about the joy she receives from daily video calls with her baby grandson, born the same day she had surgery to have a brain tumor removed.  

With brain cancer, perhaps Richards is learning something she has been helping people run from her entire career.

God is in control.

That’s not to say God gave her a brain tumor because of her ghoulish life’s work. No. A lot of kind, life-affirming people get cancer or other sickness, too.

But there comes a time in all of our limited lives when we must acknowledge that some things are out of our control. Health is in that realm.

God decides when we are born and when we die. Abortion gets in the way of God’s perfect plan.

Richards has had a hand in running interference in millions of stories that could have had happy endings. People who would have changed the world were never born, because of her.

Unexpected pregnancy feels like life has gone out of control. Evil says an abortion will put you back on the path you planned.

God says you can’t imagine the path He has planned for you; walk with Him anyway.

Evil says that women are not strong enough to bring forth a child before they think they are ready. God says to be courageous, He’s working for good.  

President Biden says to hang this medal around your neck and take a bow.

God says that babies are more precious than that hunk of medal, and He is still in control.