In This Issue:
- PRI in the Media
- China turns to U.S. Allies for Help
- PRI Report Exposes CRS Ties
- Pope Leo Misreads Trump
- Deepening Depopulation
- Study Links Inflation to Lower Births
- Russia Marks Decade of Decline
- Many Canadian Women Go Childless
- Communist China
- Pets Replace Babies in China
- UN Misdeeds
- Kenya Rejects Cultural Imperialism
- Pro-Life Around the World
- Denmark’s Population Control Abuses
- Italian Bishop Defends Unborn
- Pro-Life on the Home Front
- Texas Sues Abortion-by-Mail Provider
- Conscience Protections Restored at HHS
- FDA Seeks Pause in Abortion Pill Case
- Good News
- Poll Shows Pro-Life Support
PRI in the Media
China turns to U.S. Allies for Help: PRI President Steven Mosher appeared on Fox News this week to discuss China’s weakening global position and its strained relationships with U.S. allies, including Canada and Argentina. Mr. Mosher warned that China’s long record of intellectual property theft and lack of free trade make it an unreliable partner. He argued U.S. allies are unlikely to come to Beijing’s aid as China faces mounting pressure. Mr. Mosher also noted that Iran and Venezuela together supply roughly one-third of China’s oil imports, and pointed out that their instability is pushing China “back on its heels.”
PRI Report Exposes CRS Ties: An article published by the Catholic Stand, featured a PRI 2024 investigative report, in collaboration with the Lepanto Institute, examining Catholic Relief Services programs in Africa. Based on field investigations in Cameroon, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho, the report documents CRS partnerships and materials promoting contraceptives, condoms, and sexual content to minors. The article highlights PRI’s findings on CRS’s deep reliance on U.S. government funding, arguing this entanglement has compromised Catholic moral teaching, though Catholic bishops in the U.S. have largely remained silent, despite extensive evidence.
Pope Leo Misreads Trump: Mr. Mosher’s recent article, featured on LifeSiteNews, argues that Pope Leo XIV and several U.S. cardinals misunderstand the Trump administration’s foreign policy, particularly the “Donroe Doctrine.” Mr. Mosher contends that America best promotes democracy and human rights by practicing them at home, noting that roughly 160 of 170 national constitutions draw from the U.S. model. He argues that multilateralism has failed and that the UN no longer defends human rights. While Trump has ended eight wars without firing a shot, aligning U.S. policy with Christian principles in practice, not theory.
Deepening Depopulation
Study Links Inflation to Lower Births: New research reveals that unexpected inflation significantly reduces U.S. fertility, especially among young women. Analyzing data from 2004–2023, the study shows that a five percentage-point rise in unexpected inflation leads to 15–25 fewer births per 1,000 reproductive-age women. After 2020, inflation averaged 4.52% while fertility fell 15%, from 1.94 to 1.66. The findings conclude that economic uncertainty—rather than inflation alone—discourages family formation, demonstrating the link between sound monetary policy and stable family life.
Russia Marks Decade of Decline: Russia’s demographic crisis has deepened, with the country’s total fertility rate falling for the 10th straight year to 1.3 children per woman in 2025, the lowest level since 2006, according to Rosstat. Births dropped to 1.22 million in 2024, the fewest since 1999, and just 288,000 births were recorded in early 2025. Despite incentives for large families, Russia lost over 3 million people between 2018 and 2024, with natural population decline accelerating 20% in 2024 alone.
Many Canadian Women Go Childless: Canada’s fertility crisis continues to deepen, with new Statistics Canada data showing that 51.1% of women ages 20–49 are not mothers, including nearly one in four women over 40. The average age of women at the birth of their first child is 31.8 years, an all-time high for the country. Canada’s total fertility rate fell to a record low of 1.25 children per woman in 2024, placing it among the world’s “ultra-low fertility” countries. The report attributes declining childbearing to higher education levels, expanded workforce participation, shifting social norms, and widespread contraceptive use.
Communist China
Pets Replace Babies in China: China’s demographic decline is accelerating as young adults increasingly choose pets over parenthood, according to NBC News. Government data show China’s population fell for a fourth straight year, dropping 3.39 million in 2025, while births plunged 17% to a record-low 7.92 million—less than half the 16.55 million born in 2015. Marriages fell 20% in 2024, the steepest drop on record. Meanwhile, pets now outnumber children under age four, with projections showing 70 million pets vs. 40 million toddlers by 2030.
UN Misdeeds
Kenya Rejects Cultural Imperialism: Growing pushback against UN-backed abortion and gender ideology is circulating worldwide. In Kenya, a national survey found 83% oppose abortion for convenience in a country that is 85.5% Christian, despite pressure from international NGOs using WHO guidelines to reshape public opinion. In Europe, Hungary’s pro-family policies helped raise fertility from 1.23 in 2011 to about 1.6. The briefing also exposes Denmark’s forced sterilization of Greenlandic women and warns that a proposed UN treaty could redefine “gender,” expanding ideological enforcement through international law.
Pro-Life Around the World
Denmark’s Population Control Abuses: A new report from the Center for Family and Human Rights details Denmark’s abuse of women through coercive population-control policies. Hundreds of Greenlandic women and girls were forcibly sterilized through IUD insertion and hormonal injections, with cases spanning from the 1960s into the 1990s. Victims suffered lasting injuries and infertility. Denmark and Greenland have since issued a joint apology, and survivors received monetary compensation in late 2025. The report also highlights Denmark’s broader record, including UN-cited laws allowing the sterilization of disabled women without consent, 98–99% Down syndrome abortion rates, expanded abortion limits, and ongoing pressure on other nations to liberalize abortion laws.
“A despised minority is subjected to a secret sterilization campaign,” says Mr. Mosher. “Such campaigns are not uncommon; PRI has documented them in dozens of countries. Moreover, such targeted sterilization campaigns continue in China today, where they target Tibetan and Uyghur minorities. Denmark has apologized to its Inuit victims in Greenland. The Chinese Communist Party never does.”
Italian Bishop Defends Unborn: An Italian bishop is drawing national attention after rejecting claims that abortion is a “civil right.” Bishop Antonio Suetta of Ventimiglia–San Remo defended a daily bell toll honoring unborn children lost to abortion, dismissing criticism that the gesture is “patriarchal” or shaming women. Suetta stressed that abortion is “not a right; it is a crime,” and that treating it as a symbol of emancipation reflects a moral and cultural collapse. He emphasized that compassion means protecting innocent human life while helping women facing crisis or post-abortion trauma.
Pro-Life on the Home Front
Texas Sues Abortion-by-Mail Provider: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against a Delaware nurse practitioner accused of illegally sending abortion pills to women in Texas. The suit alleges violations of Texas’s Human Life Protection Act and practicing medicine without a license. The case tests Delaware’s expanded “shield laws,” following a similar 2024 lawsuit against a New York provider. Reports cited in the case claim the defendant facilitated up to 162 abortions per week, as Texas continues legal efforts to curb abortion-by-mail.
Conscience Protections Restored at HHS: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has rescinded its 2023 pharmacy guidance that would have forced pharmacists to participate in abortion. Effective January 27, 2026, HHS said the guidance conflicted with the Hyde Amendment, violated conscience protections, and promoted abortion after Dobbs. The policy had pressured pharmacies to stock and dispense abortion-related drugs such as misoprostol and methotrexate, even if they had moral objections. HHS concluded the guidance was legally unsound, misleading, and incompatible with protecting unborn life and conscience rights.
“The Biden administration tried to force pharmacists across the U.S. to stock and fill prescriptions for the abortion pill,” says Mr. Mosher. “If they didn’t do so, they were warned that they would be violating federal civil rights laws. That ‘guidance,’ as it was called, has now been withdrawn, HHS announced on January 27. The Trump administration is continuing its efforts, it explained ‘to end the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion.’”
FDA Seeks Pause in Abortion Pill Case: The Trump administration’s FDA has asked a federal court to pause Louisiana’s lawsuit challenging abortion pill regulations while it conducts its own safety review of mifepristone. The case targets the 2023 REMS changes that removed the in-person dispensing requirement and enabled mail-order abortions, which has fueled coercion and medical harm. Louisiana argues the changes increased Medicaid costs and endangered women, while pro-life advocates warn that delaying court action leaves dangerous policies in place.
Good News
Poll Shows Pro-Life Support: A new Knights of Columbus/Marist poll finds strong public support for many pro-life policies. The survey of 1,408 adults shows majorities oppose taxpayer-funded abortion, including 67% against funding abortions overseas, while 63% support conscience protections for health care workers. Support for pregnancy resource centers is especially high at 84%. Notably, 59% favor requiring an in-person medical visit before a chemical abortion, a safeguard the FDA removed when it permitted abortion pills to be prescribed via telehealth and mailed to women.
“I am encouraged that 59 percent of those polled thought that an in-person visit with a health care professional should be required before someone can obtain an abortion pill,” says Mr. Mosher. “I am only surprised that it is not higher. If people knew that over one in ten women suffer a serious health effect from ingesting this poison, they would insist—at a minimum—that this dangerous drug be restricted. Biden is responsible for this carnage, and it needs to end.”
Quote of the Week
“We categorically reject any practice that denies or exploits the origin of life and its development. Among these is abortion, which cuts short a growing life and refuses to welcome the gift of life. In this regard, the Holy See expresses deep concern about projects aimed at financing cross-border mobility for the purpose of accessing the so-called ‘right to safe abortion.’”
~ Pope Leo XIV
