In This Issue:
- Deepening Depopulation
- Year of the Family
- Sex-Selective Abortion Epidemic
- Communist China
- Investing in Children
- Economic Propaganda
- Science Gone Mad
- Abortion Survivors
- The Sperm-Injecting Robot
- Pro-life Around the World
- 100,000 Signatures
- Radical Buffer Zones
- Pro-Life on the Home Front
- A Revealing Report
- Abortion Pill Approval
- An Update on Texas
- Good News
- Pregnancy Center Victory
Deepening Depopulation
Year of the Family: At the end of November, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the “Year of the Family” decree for 2024. The decree’s mission is to “promote state policy in the field of family protection and the preservation of traditional family values.” This pro-family move adds to the country’s proposed pro-life measures which would provide assistance to young families and ban the sale of abortion drugs. The latter is especially important in Russia as the country has the highest abortion rate in the world. The country’s leaders, including Putin, are looking to reverse the demographic crisis while they still can.
“Whatever Putin’s motivations in wanting to raise the Russian birth rate, he is doing the right thing,” says Mr. Mosher. “Russia’s demographic collapse is emptying out that vast country. He wants to raise the average birth rate from its current 1.5 per woman to 1.7 or more. Bigger families get tax breaks, and low-income families get benefits for children aged three to seven. Will it be enough? Probably not.”
Sex-Selective Abortion Epidemic: Vietnam has the second highest abortion rate in the world, and the cultural preference for sons is a major contributor to this issue. Sex-selective abortion is illegal in the country, but that doesn’t stop parents hell-bent on having sons, not daughters. Rather than having many children while trying for a boy, women will have many abortions if determined that they are carrying baby girls. The average Vietnamese woman has 2.5 abortions during her lifetime. This contributed to a whopping 44% of pregnancies ending in abortion between 2015 and 2019, not including procedures provided at private clinics. Because of this, even institutions that are dedicated to pushing abortion around the globe, such as the UNFPA, are pumping the brakes on abortion in places like Vietnam.
Communist China
Investing in Children: A Beijing think tank has stated that children are the most worthy investment Chinese couples can make in the economy. In a policy statement, Yuwa Population Research Institute (no relation to PRI) said an increase in children would “stimulate consumption and expand domestic demand.” It is true that children are society’s key to building a better future. But they should not be compared to investments in infrastructure and manufacturing, nor brought into this world simply for economic purposes. The Yuwa Institute recommends maternity subsidies at the national level to replace the current piecemeal measures in place around the country, with the ultimate goal of boosting the economy with growing families.
Economic Propaganda: The CCP has decided to ramp up propaganda in an attempt to motivate consumers to kickstart economic recovery. The Party’s Economic Work Conference believes that if they “step up economic propaganda and public opinion guidance, spreading the idea that there is a bright future for the Chinese economy,” the public will respond positively. Theoretically, citizens will be “cultivated” to spend more money on products related to their homes, entertainment, and tourism. Articles are already appearing on Chinese media platforms with claims of “economic recovery” that the country has not actually accomplished post-pandemic. In reality, Chinese incomes are falling and other benefits, such as insurance, are dwindling. It is unlikely that propaganda will make much of a difference in the country’s economic well-being in light of this reality.
Science Gone Mad
Abortion Survivors: There are no federal abortion reporting requirements, and due to this, we cannot know the exact number of babies who are abortion survivors. The numbers that Live Action News has uncovered are likely to be severely underreported. Only eight states provided data on abortion survivors when queried by the Charlotte Lozier Institute. In those states, since 1999, there have been at least 220 cases involving babies who survived abortion. This is less than a quarter of the United States and does not include any infants who went unreported. Live Action has documented many cases of doctors and nurses passively allowing infants born alive to die, and even some cases of abortionists actively killing babies who survived the abortion. We will never know the exact number of precious babies who survived the abortion but did not make it to adulthood to share their stories.
“PRI in years past has reported on what is apparently an ironclad rule among abortionists: Never let a baby that survived an attempted abortion survive,” says Mr. Mosher. “These babies–burned by saline abortions, poisoned by abortifacient drugs, or even partially dismembered–are simply thrown into the garbage like so much trash and allowed to expire, unheld and unloved.”
The Sperm-Injecting Robot: Last year, inventors from Barcelona, Spain, designed a “sperm-injecting robot” to aid in the creation of embryos in a lab. The inventors, part of a start-up called Overture Life, sent their machine to the New Hope Fertility Center in New York. In the Spring of this year, two baby girls were born who were conceived with the help of this robot. While this is an unnatural distortion of how humans were supposed to be conceived and born, the story gets even stranger. The scientists from Overture Life are claiming that this success is a step towards the “automation of in vitro fertilization, or human fertilization on an industrial scale.” Every year, 500,000 babies are born through IVF, but Overture Life’s goal is to pump those numbers up to 30 million through the further automation of the process. This is the start of an immoral dystopia, where scientists attempt to remove man and woman from the process of reproduction. Welcome to Brave New World.
Pro-life Around the World
100,000 Signatures: Italy’s pro-life organization, Pro-Vita e Famiglia, is on a mission to change abortion law in the country. Their current proposal aims to require pregnant women to have an ultrasound prior to proceeding with an abortion. This would give mothers an opportunity to see their growing baby and hear the heartbeat. Fifty groups are in support of this change and have gathered 100,000 signatures from public supporters as well. Abortion is legal within the first 90 days of a pregnancy in Italy. Until abortion is further limited, requiring an ultrasound may turn more women away from the procedure toward a choice for life. Here at PRI, we know that 4-in-5 women who see their baby on an ultrasound turn away from abortion. This is why we send ultrasound machines around the world and fully support Pro-Vita e Famiglia’s efforts to put in place an ultrasound requirement.
Radical Buffer Zones: The Scottish Parliament is considering the implementation of buffer zones around abortion clinics in the country. Scottish Catholics are concerned over these “safe access zones” as it infringes on religious freedom. The law would criminalize audible prayer and silent vigils anywhere within 200 meters of the facility if construed as attempts to influence a mother going in for an abortion. It would also give the government the power to expand the zone coverage to any building where “treatments or services relating to abortion services are provided.” If an individual’s home were to be within the buffer zone, it would be criminal to even put a pro-life sign in the window. This potential law is a way of controlling Catholics in Scotland. It also steals the last possible moments that a mother and baby could be saved from the pain of abortion.
Pro-Life on the Home Front
A Revealing Report: A new report has revealed that billions of taxpayer dollars went to the abortion industry, despite federal regulations prohibiting taxpayer-funded abortion. The GAO report was requested by 150 Congressional Republicans in January 2022. It showed that abortion organizations, such as Planned Parenthood, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), MSI Reproductive Choices, and at least four U.S. abortion facilities, received 1.89 billion grants, agreements, loans, and programs between 2019 and 2021. Of that sum, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) alone received $1.78 billion and committed 1.11 million abortions, in the same time period. Much of the remaining funds helped keep abortion businesses afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic. These horrendous findings are shocking to say the least, as Americans are funding the death of the unborn, many unwillingly or unknowingly.
“The next time you do your taxes, think about the fact that the Biden administration is sending $2 billion to abortion providers,” says Mr. Mosher. “Given that there are about 930,000 abortions each year in the U.S., that works out to about $2150 per child killed. The next time you wonder why there are so many abortions in our country, despite the end of Roe v. Wade, understand that we are subsidizing this barbarity with dollars we pay in taxes to the federal government.”
Abortion Pill Approval: This week, the Supreme Court officially announces that it is taking on the case on the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug, mifepristone. It has been over a year since the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Pediatricians, and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations initially filed the lawsuit. These groups argue that the FDA ignored safety protocols in order to approve this abortion drug. This is the biggest abortion case the Court has taken on since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. It has the potential to majorly change the landscape of abortion access in the states again. This case could end the era of dangerous, unmonitored chemical abortions in the United States, and save the lives of unborn babies in the process.
“Like the Manual Vacuum Aspirator, the FDA’s approval of mifepristone seems to have more to do with anti-natal ideology than with ‘science’,” says Mr. Mosher. “Post-Covid, Americans are awake to the fact that government employees–don’t call them scientists–at the FDA and elsewhere are no more ethical than the average drug representative, and in many cases much less so.”
An Update on Texas: A Texas Supreme Court case involving a mother who requested permission for abortion is being used by the Left as a “flashpoint” for abortion rights. Kate Cox began seeking an abortion for her third child after her baby was diagnosed with Trisomy-18 at 20 weeks. Babies with Trisomy-18 often do not survive long after birth, but that is not always the case. Nevertheless, Ms. Cox sought legal representation to fight for an abortion and her lawyers argued that without an abortion, Cox’s health and future fertility were in jeopardy. Ultimately, her lawyers announced Cox would travel to another state to abort her child. However, according to the Texas court’s final verdict, Cox need not have come to the court at all. Only a doctor can “decide that a woman is suffering from a life-threatening condition during a pregnancy, raising the necessity for an abortion to save her life or to prevent impairment of a major bodily function.” But this unnecessary lawsuit succeeded in creating chaos around Texas’s pro-life law, which is exactly what the pro-abortion lobby wants.
Good News
Pregnant Center Victory: The Thomas More Society won a victory against the State of Illinois on behalf of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers. The lawsuit involved Senate Bill 1909, which would have allowed the Illinois Attorney General’s Office to shut down pro-life pregnancy centers in Illinois the office concluded they were employing deceptive practices. After months in this case, the Thomas More Society managed to achieve an agreement that permanently prevents this law from going into effect. This was possible through the Society’s successful defense of centers’ right to free speech. Now a law that is obviously unconstitutional and pro-abortion will never become a law in Illinois.
Quote of the Week
“The socially responsible thing to do, to provide for the future, is to get married and have children.”
~ Mr. Mosher
