In This Issue:
- PRI in the Media
- Musk Follows Mosher
- Dating Pool Dropouts
- Deepening Depopulation
- Egyptians in Danger
- Women at Work
- Who is Happiest?
- Communist China
- Xi Calls for Harsher Abuse
- UN Misdeeds
- Insane Changes
- Science Gone Mad
- A New Embryonic Experiment
- The Slippery Slope
- Pro-Life Around the World
- A Response from the Bishops
- PEPFAR Subsidizes Abortion
- Pro-Life on the Home Front
- The Leaked Memo
- Harris Has no Limits
- Lee Defends Tuberville
- Good News
- Rescuing Spirit Children
PRI in the Media
Musk Follows Mosher:
Elon Musk has started following PRI President Steven Mosher’s Twitter feed. Of the millions of users on X, previously known as Twitter, Musk follows relatively few with a total of 425. While we at PRI don’t agree with Elon Musk on everything, he does understand that people are the ultimate resource. Musk has been a vocal supporter of the truth that declining populations are a death sentence for economies, countries, and peoples. In his most prominent comment, Musk stated, “I think one of the biggest risks to civilization is the low birthrate and the rapidly declining birthrate. And yet, so many people, including smart people, think that there are too many people in the world and think that the population is growing out of control. It’s completely the opposite. Please look at the numbers — if people don’t have more children, civilization is going to crumble, mark my words.” Now Musk will receive the critical updates he values about global population issues from Mr. Mosher’s feed.
Dating Pool Dropouts: Young men are checking out of the dating scene at a rapid rate, feeling that they don’t measure up to what a modern woman wants. Instead, they turn to the online versions of what they want, finding comfort in AI “girlfriends” and simulated intimacy on OnlyFans. These developments are major contributors to the U.S. marriage rate being the lowest it’s been in over a century. A quarter of adults have never been married, a major increase from 6% in 1980. The Free Press sought Mr. Mosher’s input on this situation, to which he stated, “The expectation 50 years ago was that everyone would eventually get married and have children. Now, that expectation is gone.” Instead of supporting marriage, today’s Americans “discourage commitment.”
Deepening Depopulation
Egyptians in Danger: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has urged Egyptians to have fewer children, claiming that the current birth rate will create a “catastrophe” for the country. Al-Sisi wants the number of births to fall to 400,000 per year. But he may not settle for leaving it in his people’s hands. “I do not agree with your idea that having children is a matter of complete freedom,” the president said. “Leaving their freedom to people who potentially do not know the extent of the challenge? In the end, it is the whole of society and the Egyptian state which will pay the price. We must organize this freedom, otherwise it will create a catastrophe.” Al-Sisi is treading a dangerous path, looking to the CCP’s one-child policy as a guide, despite the crisis China is currently facing as a direct result of their former population policy.
Women at Work: The US Census Bureau reports that in 2022, 65% of women were working full-time. This marks the highest percentage ever, as women who would rather be at home taking care of their families are being forced to take full- or part-time jobs to pay the bills. Even so, US household income is falling, declining from $76,330 in 2021 to $74,580 in 2022. But as incomes were falling by 3.2 percent, inflation was rising by 7.8 percent, adding to the pain. This is the highest annual increase in inflation since the inflation of the Jimmy Carter years, which spilled over into 1981. Falling incomes and inflation are eating away at the well-being of Americans and, not incidentally, causing many to delay marriage and childbearing.
Who is Happiest?: Social media and mainstream media are full of stories suggesting that marriage and parenthood are not fulfilling, especially for women. Many Americans now believe that the path to happiness requires being unencumbered by family life. However, the 2022 General Social Survey (GSS) revealed that marriage and family are strongly associated with happiness. Married mothers were the happiest in comparison to single women, single mothers, and married women without children. The same holds true for married fathers. Of these groups, however, the most unhappy were the single mothers, indicating that marriage and parenthood were meant to go together to create a fulfilling, happy life.
“The U.S. Congress should be encouraging family formation and childbearing,” says Mr. Mosher. “Instead, misbegotten welfare policies encourage mothers to marry the government in return for welfare payments, instead of marrying the father of their child.”
Communist China
Xi Calls for Harsher Abuse: Xi Jinping has finally responded to international criticism about the repression in Xinjiang and the genocide of the Uyghurs. His response was that the repression is not harsh enough and should indeed be increased. Xi called a meeting of the CCP’s top officials at the end of August to get this message across. This meeting included the Xinjiang CCP Committee, the government of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. He complained that “illegal religious activities” have not been eradicated and Uyghurs have not been fully “Sinicized.” But his push for increased abuse is not limited to the Uyghurs. Inspired by Xi, the secretary of the CCP Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, Chen Wenqing, is threatening Tibetans in Gansu with Xinjiang-like repression as well. The CCP’s crimes will continue to spread, heedless of the negative responses from around the world.
“With Uyghur men imprisoned in large numbers, Uyghur children sent to Chinese boarding schools, and Uyghur policemen stationed in the homes of the women and small children left behind, it would be difficult to tighten the screw on the Uyghurs even further,” says Mr. Mosher. “But Xi has now ordered Communist officials to do just that. As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared on his last day in office, this is genocide in real-time.”
UN Misdeeds
Insane Changes: Last month, UN member states began negotiating an international convention to combat cybercrime, intending to increase collaboration among member states. But Western states want to use this opportunity to remove the term “child pornography” from the convention and replace it with “online child sexual abuse” or “child sexual exploitation material.” This new language is the result of a multi-year campaign by advocates and UN agencies to target sexual abuse in the making of pornographic material, and not just the possession and transmission of child pornography. But this is not a change with consequences. By their own admission, UN agencies say the new terminology might exclude certain sexual materials involving children, such as consensual sexting between teens or other sexually suggestive content, in the process making it harder to prosecute some images that would otherwise be considered child pornography.
Science Gone Mad
A New Embryonic Experiment: In a controversial move, Israeli scientists have developed what they call an embryo “model.” This is a synthetic cluster of embryonic stem cells that have been programmed to form the shape of an embryo. This development, which does not include eggs or sperm at any point in the process, is painted as a major development that could facilitate studies on human organs and diseases. This particular experiment was conducted at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, but similar attempts have been made at Cambridge University and the California Institute of Technology. Organizations, such as the National Catholic Bioethics Center, have raised concerns over the ethical issues involved in this process. These kinds of experiments go beyond being unethical to being immoral as well.
“We live in an age where technology advances as morals and ethics decline,” says Mr. Mosher. “I am sure that most Americans find the creation of ‘synthetic humans’ to be abhorrent and believe that it should be banned. If it is not, these ‘experiments’ will continue to see how long these “synthetic humans” can be kept alive in artificial wombs–or rented ones. Will they survive until birth? Will they have souls? Or will we have real-life Zombies walking on our streets? The scientists who are performing these experiments aren’t just playing God, as the saying goes, they are mocking Him.”
In a recent article in the American Journal of Bioethics, several prominent American bioethicists pushed for California to loosen its assisted suicide laws. Currently, California’s assisted suicide law still has some boundaries. There are requirements the individual must meet. The boundary that these bioethicists are rebelling against is the requirement that patients who want to die must administer the lethal drug themselves. They cry “injustice” because this bars some individuals from exercising their “right to die.” To these individuals, this contributes to “inequality” in the world. But this argument, used in other countries for other requirements, contributes to the slippery slope towards euthanasia. There will always be some limit to who can legally be euthanized unless countries give into “assisted dying with no boundaries, an egalitarian dystopia.”
“There is of course another way of achieving true universal equality among all persons regarding assisted dying,” says Dr.Scott Kim, a bioethicist with the National Institutes for Health. “And that is to prohibit all intentional termination of human life, even upon request, by a private citizen. What this conclusion suggests is that it is not some absolute inviolability of human life that need ground arguments against assisted dying. It is about showing equal respect for all human life. An absolute prohibition is the only truly principled basis for treating every human being’s life equally.”
Pro-Life Around the World
A Response from the Bishops: The Mexican Bishops’ Conference (CEM) has responded to the recent pro-abortion ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation. The bishops first reaffirmed that “all human life, from conception to natural death, has worth regardless of its conditions and eventualities.” They then also pointed out that the ruling did not suddenly make abortion-on-demand legal everywhere in Mexico, as PRI directors Carlos Polo and Dr. Carlos Beltramo stated in the Weekly Briefing earlier this week. In conclusion, the bishops pointed out that to “institutionalize violence against the weak with the permission of the law” is ultimately a failure of the society that allows it.
To directly quote the CEM, “The legalization of induced abortion means the recognition that state and organized civil society can do nothing at all in the face of the causes that lead women to consider abortion as a solution without addressing what is the real problem.”
PEPFAR Subsidizes Abortion: Republicans in Congress are standing strong in their fight for protections against abortion funding within “the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief,” known as PEPFAR. But there is backlash from the legacy media, congressional Democrats, and left-wing foreign aid experts. These groups claim that PEPFAR has nothing to do with abortion. However, while PEPFAR funds may not directly be used to promote or perform abortions, it still results in millions being given to organizations that do so. Since its origin, PEPFAR has funneled billions of dollars to abortion groups, such as Family Health International (FHI), Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF), and Population Services International (PSI). Moving forward, protections are necessary to prevent PEPFAR from being used to keep pro-abortion organizations alive and thriving.
Pro-Life on the Home Front
The Leaked Memo: A leaked internal memo obtained by CatholicVote from the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs has exposed the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) for promoting extensive abortion propaganda to veterans and staff. Other evidence of the government’s abortion propaganda included a staff training video that referred to abortions as “opportunities for growth.” It invited the viewers to think of ways to encourage expectant mothers to abort their babies but in a “sensitive, inclusive, and affirming” way. But it didn’t stop at promoting the pro-abortion agenda, but also pushed transgender ideology by instructing that both men and women can get pregnant. In response, Tom McClusky, CatholicVote Director of Government Affairs, commented, “While unsurprising, these materials confirm that the Biden administration’s VA is thumbing its nose at long-standing federal law and not only funding abortions with taxpayer dollars but promoting the murder of American children.”
Harris has no Limits: In a recent interview on CBS, Vice President Kamala Harris refused to clarify what she believes reasonable limits to abortion access are. Instead of answering at what point in pregnancy abortion should stop, Harris simply reiterated her and Biden’s desire to put Roe v. Wade back in place as law. Many believe that Harris’s inability to respond to the question put to her is a clear indicator that she, like many Democrats, doesn’t believe in any limits on abortion. There are Democrats all across the nation who support abortion-on-demand up until birth, and Harris may be one of them.
Lee Defends Tuberville: Senator Tommy Tuberville is under attack for blocking around 300 military promotions until the Pentagon drops its policy of funding travel for women to get abortions. Democrats, the media, and more recently Pentagon officials have criticized his actions. But Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, gave a strong constitutional defense of his colleague.
“The last time I read the Constitution, as I noted earlier, it’s Congress that makes laws, not the Department of Defense,” Senator Lee stated. “Sen. Tuberville is right to oppose this egregious policy. He is well within his rights—as a member of the United States Senate—to take this position. We should commend his courage and applaud his dedication to upholding his oath of office, his commitment to the Constitution, and standing for those who cannot stand, let alone speak, for themselves.”
Good News
Rescuing Spirit Children: One Ghana nun is on a mission to save children from being abandoned. Sister Stan Terese Mario Mumuni returned home to Ghana, after fifteen years in Nigeria, to a small house that has become home to some 130 children she rescued from imminent death. The mission of this Nazareth Home for God’s Children, which she founded, is to offer love to those “cut off from the sunlight of companionship in our large human family.”
Each of the children she rescued was born with some kind of deformity, causing them to be labeled by society as evil for their disabilities.
“My inspiration came as a calling from God to perform this mandate,” said Sister Mumuni. “We give ourselves to God for the service of persons who are poor; we meet the needs of our dehumanized brothers and sisters, the most abandoned, the marginalized, and those cut off from the sunlight of companionship in our large human family. We are called to the vocation of love.”
Quote of the Week
“Not only do fewer children mean a less happy society, but a less happy society produces fewer children. Children are laughing, loving signs of hope in our midst. The unhappy produce few.”
~ PRI President Steven Mosher, source
