In This Issue:
- PRI in the Media
- No Compliance for COVID
- The Third Opium War
- Pro-Life Lawyer Targeted
- Deepening Depopulation
- Japan’s Miracle Town
- South Korean Children
- Obstacles to Having Kids
- Communist China
- New Rules Against Religion
- Rewards for Young Brides
- Science Gone Mad
- Uterus Transplant Succeeds
- Climate Crisis Decried
- Pro-Life Around the World
- Malta’s Success
- YouTube’s Censorship
- Pro-Life on the Home Front
- Post-Roe Action
- Attempts to Hijack Heartbeat
- Telehealth Abortions Skyrocket
- Good News
- A Serendipitous Marriage
PRI in the Media
No Compliance for Covid: There are ominous signs emerging that the Biden administration is gearing up for another lockdown. Whistleblowers report that COVID restrictions could return as early as September. “Experts” are back to fearmongering over the emergence of new variants, despite nationwide COVID cases remaining low. As discussed in a follow-up LifesiteNews piece, media outlets, such as CNN, are pushing Americans to prepare for the return of masking. But would Americans comply with the reinstatement of ineffective policies? PRI President Steven Mosher thinks not.
“After all, they’ve seen this movie before, and they know how it ends,” says Mr. Mosher. “They know that masks (aka face diapers) don’t work and that school closures only succeeded in costing our kids a year of education – and in some cases their lives. They know that lockdowns had the same effect, denying some people vital medical care while subjecting others to ventilators and drugs that only served to hasten their death.”
The Third Opium War: Many people know that America is in the midst of a fentanyl crisis. However, while the blame is placed solely on drug cartels and an insecure border, one major player is left unmentioned: the CCP. It provides the “ammunition and funding” for this Third Opium War against the United States. China sends the raw ingredients for fentanyl to the Mexican cartels, and channels the cartel’s profits back into legitimate enterprises. The CCP makes a healthy profit from this arrangement. The Chinese government is essentially paid to help kill Americans. In fact, in 2022, 109,000 American lives were lost to fentanyl. But with the Biden administration in power, there is no end in sight to this crisis.
Pro-Life Lawyer Targeted: Leonard Leo, a Catholic lawyer who was instrumental in overturning Roe v. Wade, is the latest target of the Democratic D.C. Attorney General of Washington D.C. Brian Schwalb. Last week, Mr. Schwalb announced that he is investigating Leo, along with several of the conservative non-profit organizations with which Leo has worked. The purpose of this investigation is unclear, though the blatant targeting of prominent pro-life individuals and organizations is obvious. Dr. Christopher Manion, a PRI board member, pointed out the double standard of this situation. “No one wanted an investigation of the oligarchs at Black Lives Matter (one of whom, Susan Rosenberg, tried to blew [sic] me up in the Senate GOP Cloakroom in 1983),” Dr. Manion shared on social media. “But those danged Catholics? Fire away! BLM’ers grifted millions. None are in jail.”
Deepening Depopulation
Japan’s Miracle Town: Most of Japan has a fertility rate that is below replacement, but one “miracle town” is untouched by this issue. As of 2019, the mountain town of Nagi was averaging 2.95 children per woman. One local mother shared, “I can’t really feel the birth rate issue. Many mothers here even have four children.” But this fertility success can be attributed to actions that were taken twenty years ago. In 2004, the local government cut funding for traffic safety, administrative reform, and some health and fitness activities in order to allocate more money for helping families. This help included free medical services for children through junior high school and one-time payments of 100,000 yen ($1,000) for every child born after their second. Since then, these benefits have only improved, continuing to naturally motivate parents to have larger families.
“What the article doesn’t say is that many of the mothers of three or four children are stay-at-home moms,” says Mr. Mosher. “A society that enables mothers to stay home with their children gets more of them. While a society that pushes all women into the workforce gets fewer.”
South Korean Children: According to a recent analysis, the number of infants aged 0 to 4 in South Korea is unusually small compared to those of other East Asian countries. This is the reality of South Korea’s long-term low fertility rate. In 2021, there were only 1.65 million children four years old or younger in South Korea. For comparison, this is less than half of Japan’s value for the same age group. This age group was even smaller than the same age group in North Korea, despite their Northern neighbor’s population being half the size of South Korea’s.
“South Korean women indicate a desire for 1.91 children, but their actual completed fertility rate is only half that,” says Mr. Mosher. “And the younger the cohort of women that you sample, the lower both numbers go. South Korea, like many other Asian countries, is dying.”
Obstacles to Having Kids: In 2021, demographic experts hoped that the American birth rate was beginning an upward trend. But these hopes were dashed in 2022 when there were only 56 births per 1,000 females of prime childbearing age. According to new CDC data, the American fertility rate fell to 1.66 last year as well. Wendy Wang, director of research for The Institute for Family Studies, shared, “I think naturally most people want to have kids. There are just a lot of obstacles there. Marriage is a big one. Married women have a much higher fertility rate than single women — and with fewer married, we naturally see a lower fertility rate.”
Communist China
New Rules Against Religion: The CCP has been on a mission to suffocate religion in China for decades. Now, new measures are set to go in place today that further this terrible mission. All religious venues will have to uphold the Chinese Communist Party. All Christian sermons will have to reflect China’s political situation and the core values advocated by Chairman Xi Jinping. Official religious groups will be further monitored and restricted, while underground churches continue to be persecuted.
“The atheistic communists who control China want no public display of religious symbols,” says Mr. Mosher. “So crosses ripped off the top of churches, and statues outside of Catholic Churches are being torn down. Their end game: The complete eradication of all faiths in China except the pagan cult known as Communism.”
Rewards for Young Brides: A county in eastern China is offering couples a “reward” of 1,000 yuan ($137) if the bride is aged 25 or younger. This is the latest of the incentives popping up around the country, designed to help slow China’s demographic collapse. The notice, which was published on Changshan County’s official WeChat account last week, said the reward was to promote “age-appropriate marriage and childbearing” for first marriages. The county will also be offering a series of childcare, fertility, and education subsidies for couples who have children.
“This pittance will do nothing to encourage early marriage,” says Mr. Mosher. “And it comes after four decades of forbidding both men and women to marry in their early twenties, which was a key part of the one-child policy.”
Science Gone Mad
Uterus Transplant Succeeds: The UK’s first living uterine transplant, between two sisters, was successfully completed by a team co-led by surgeons. The two procedures, donor retrieval and transplantation, took 18 hours altogether. The recipient had two menstrual cycles within the following ten weeks post-operation. She plans to undergo embryo transfer of previously cryopreserved blastocysts, from earlier IVF, by the end of this year. While organ donation in itself is not immoral, the transfer of reproductive organs with the intention of undergoing IVF changes the morality of the action. The Catholic Church is staunchly against IVF, which involves the artificial creation, and destruction, of little human lives.
Climate Crisis Decried: International scientists have jointly signed a declaration dismissing the existence of a climate crisis and insisting that carbon dioxide is beneficial to Earth, contrary to the popular alarmist narrative. This was recently made public in the World Climate Declaration, released by the Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL). A total of 1,609 scientists and professionals from around the world have signed the declaration, including PRI President Steven Mosher. The coalition pointed out the historical evidence of Earth’s climate changing, and voiced opposition to “the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050.”
“There is no ‘climate emergency,’” says Mr. Mosher. “The climate cult is promoted and funded by those who hope to profit financially or politically from it. The global warming hoax is one of the chief drivers of the ongoing war on population and babies that we fight every day.”
Pro-Life Around the World
Malta’s Success: Last year, while the U.S. celebrated the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Malta had its own abortion battle. The abortion debate started in mid-2022 when a pregnant American tourist’s membranes ruptured at 16 weeks. The baby survived, but the mother still chose to be airlifted to Spain to terminate her pregnancy, an action that was illegal to do in Malta. Using this case, pro-abortion lobbyists almost succeeded in pressuring the government into passing an abortion bill. But pro-life backlash, including a massive protest, arranged by the Life Network Foundation proved support for Malta’s pro-life stance. In June, the government adopted clear pro-life amendments to the bill instead, which was signed into law at the end of that month.
YouTube’s Censorship: YouTube’s new medical misinformation policy will censor any video that runs against the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) on abortion. This new policy specifically used abortion as an example of content that the platform would censor, especially “claims that abortion commonly results in or carries a high risk of infertility or future miscarriage” and “claims that abortion causes breast cancer.” Given the WHO’s clear pro-abortion stance, it is to be assumed that YouTube will perpetuate this bias in its censorship as well.
Pro-Life on the Home Front
Post-Roe Action: Last month, Congresswoman Ashley Hinson introduced a pro-life, pro-family bill to adapt to the needs of the post-Roe era. The Providing for Life Act focuses on building a culture of life by providing comprehensive support to mothers and children at all stages, including after birth. Hinson’s bill aims to reach women who feel abortion is the only option by ensuring that they have access to the resources and assistance they need. Key components of the bill include the establishment of a federal website called Life.gov, as well as enhanced parental leave, tax credits, expanded eligibility for low-income mothers, and programs offering mentoring, peer support, and adoption services.
Attempts to Hijack Heartbeat: Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers on Thursday asked South Carolina’s top court to reconsider its Wednesday ruling upholding the state’s recent ban on abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected. In its petition, the pro-abortion organization said that the SC Supreme Court was undecided on whether fetal cardiac activity refers to the first regular contractions of heart tissue, which usually occurs around six weeks of pregnancy, or whether it requires the four chambers of the heart to be fully formed – which is usually not until 17 to 20 weeks. Planned Parenthood is pushing for the latter, which would allow the organization to kill unborn children up to the twenty-week mark in some cases.
Telehealth Abortions Skyrocket: Colorado has earned its spot as one of the most pro-abortion states in America. According to a recent report, it is “a leading provider nationwide of abortions through telehealth clinics.” The share of abortion pills provided via telehealth in Colorado increased from 14% to 20% in less than a year. The proportion of telehealth abortions in the state is three times the national average of 7.4%. Pro-abortion activists claim that these percentages will increase even further in the coming months.
Good News
A Serendipitous Marriage: In 2001, a nurse named Mary Ann delivered a baby girl named Kelsey to a young, cute couple. Twenty-two years later, almost to the day, that baby girl married Mary Ann’s son, Tyler. Kelsey and Tyler had no idea of their connection from birth until they found a picture of Mary Ann in Tyler’s family photo album. Tyler’s mother had felt such a connection with Mary Ann, that she had included a picture of the nurse with her newborn daughter. “I thought it was really cool — it made me feel grateful to know I had this tie to my new family,” Kelsey said. “I always wanted to have a good relationship with my future parents, and it also confirmed that I want to be with Tyler for the rest of my life.”
Quote of the Week
“Even in the one who is difficult to love, our challenge is to allow ourselves to discover that something within the person that can move our hearts. I promise you: it’s possible to find that something, if we allow our hearts to search for the good, for that which is delightful within the other. Because we know that over each person, God has said, ‘You are very good and I love you.’”
~ Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, source
