In This Issue:
- PRI in the Media
- No Sino-Vatican Agreement
- Rejecting Communism
- Lowest Tally Since 1979
- Deepening Depopulation
- Reproduction is “Far Right”
- Changing Culture
- Communist China
- Hurting Hong Kong
- UN Misdeeds
- Latest Draft Revealed
- Science Gone Mad
- Egg Freezing Flops
- Pro-Life Around the World
- Leading Cause of Death
- Pro-Life on the Home Front
- Hijacking the PWFA
- Political Witch Hunt Continues
- The Weakest Defense
- Good News
- Community for Mothers
PRI in the Media
No Sino-Vatican Agreement: As mentioned in the previous PRI Insider, the Vatican intends to renew the secret Sino-Vatican agreement with China. In 2020 and 2022, the Vatican unilaterally “renewed” the agreement, and is now poised to do so again. As PRI President Steven Mosher explains in his recent LifeSite News article, the only problem is that there is no “agreement,” at least not in the commonly understood sense of the term. The Vatican has certainly proposed terms to the lower-ranking officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that it has met with over the years, but the Chinese side has never signed on. In 2018, Cardinal Parolin told Mr. Mosher, “We are just waiting for the Chinese side to sign.” Six years later, the Vatican is still hoping against hope that the CCP will one day sign. We know it hasn’t yet, as Parolin admitted just last year when asked why the agreement is still secret, saying “The text [of the deal] is confidential because it has not yet been finally approved.”
Rejecting Communism: This week a survivor of the cultural revolution in China, Chenyuan Snider, reviewed Mr. Mosher’s latest book, The Devil and Communist China. According to Snider’s review, she immediately saw his book’s value for today’s America. Our culture in America today disregards demons and the reality of evil. It leaves the nation susceptible to ideologies like Marxism and Communism. Snider states, “The supernatural darkness of Marxism and Communism can penetrate any society if we do not recognize and resist those ideologies with a vigor that matches their viciousness.” Mr. Mosher addresses this in his book, concluding with the following:
“Mao began his journey to Communism by rejecting God. America needs to begin its journey back to Christian civilization by rejecting Communism, under whatever seductive guises it is presented to us.”
Lowest Tally Since 1979: The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has released the provisional birth rate data for 2023 and the U.S. was once again in decline. The statistics revealed that a little under 3.6 million babies were born last year, which is 76,000 fewer than the year before. It is also the lowest one-year tally since 1979. American Family News cited Mr. Mosher for reasons why the U.S. birth rate has generally been in decline for years. Overall, the cost of living and lack of family support in our culture today contributes to smaller families.
“Housing prices are at historic highs,” Mr. Mosher stated. “It may be the case that few young couples now will ever be able to afford to buy a home unless we increase in the number of homes being built or [see] a decline in the price of those homes. Without a home, without job security, young couples are reluctant to get married – and even more reluctant to have children.”
Deepening Depopulation
Reproduction is “Far-Right”: According to Politico, being pro-natalist now makes you “far-right.” This opinion came out in a Politico piece reporting on the first “NatalCon.” The objective of last year’s Natal Conference was to address falling birth rates around the world and come up with solutions. But to left-wing media, including Politico, these aims are twisted into a “far right campaign to explode the population” and “breeding a new majority — one that looks and sounds just like them.” The individuals who led the Natal Conference are trying to address the real-world issue of depopulation that the world is facing, which is caused by a multitude of biological, economic, and cultural reasons. But the left prefers to demonize reproduction and dismiss valid concerns related to depopulation.
“Marxist radicals–which describes a good percentage of today’s college professors at elite universities–have always had a disdain for human life,” says Mr. Mosher. “That’s why there are staggering death tolls every time they are able to seize power. As atheists, they regard their fellow human beings not as children of God but as mere animals, and are more than ready to thin the herd or dictate to others how many children they should have.”
Changing Culture: In his new book, Family Unfriendly, Tim Carney described all the ways that the nation’s laws and culture affect family size. While Carney is spot on in his criticisms and offers some positive solutions, the question remains: Can our culture, which is so hostile to bearing and raising children, be changed? Today, we are seeing the rise of “Dual Income No Kids” (DINK) couples. Many of these couples aren’t choosing not to have children because of the expense or lack of support, but because they genuinely have no interest in having children. For couples who want to have children, but fear the expense, then incentives will work. But how do you incentivize a couple who has completely bought into the current societal belief that children are unnecessary? How can we change the culture and bring back a Culture of Life that embraces the blessings of marriage and family?
Communist China
Hurting Hong Kong: For many years, Hong Kong has been a global financial hub for China as a whole. However, in the last five years, the Chinese Communist Party has sacrificed economic success in order to exercise control over Hong Kong. In March, this control of civil liberties peaked with the passing of the updated national security legislation. The so-called Safeguarding National Security Ordinance builds on the pre-existing National Security Law, which was put in place to crack down on dissent following mass protests in 2019. This updated law adds ridiculous, new offenses, such as mandating up to 10-year jail sentences for criticizing the government. Though these actions are actively hurting the country’s economic and financial interests, the CCP continues to double down on this suppression.
UN Misdeeds
Latest Draft Revealed: The latest draft of the World Health Organization’s pandemic treaty has been revealed. The Biden administration failed to get an explicit reference to abortion or “sexual and reproductive health” in this draft. However, they added “equity” as a goal of the entire treaty, which has previously been used by the U.S. State Department and Western government agencies to promote abortion and gender ideology. It is once again clear that, if passed, the treaty will be binding in the United States, as the phrase “States Parties shall” appears over forty times. If the Pandemic Treaty fails, the groups behind it will turn to their backup plan of amending the 2005 International Health Regulations to advance the same aims of the treaty.
According to the Center for Family and Human Rights, “The amendments make it a requirement for national governments to follow the directions of the World Health Organization during a pandemic, including giving power to the Director-General of the international health agency to declare a pandemic emergency. They are specifically designed to prevent countries from taking different courses of action, as happened during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, when the Trump administration openly feuded with the World Health Organization.”
“I opposed the WHO power grab because it would be a violation of U.S. sovereignty,” says Mr. Mosher. “But also because it would do nothing to prevent a future outbreak. The question people should be asking is this: If the treaty had been in place in 2019, would it have prevented the 2020-21 coronavirus pandemic? The answer is clearly no, since China would have still refused to be transparent about the epidemic within its borders, and would have gone on–as it has now four times–to spread the virus beyond its borders. So even on a practical level, it is useless.”
Science Gone Mad
Egg-Freezing Flops: When egg-freezing was first introduced, it was marketed as the perfect pause button on fertility for women who wanted to postpone childbearing. Companies pushed the idea that it would “usher in a new era of gender equality and career advancement for women.” Now, researchers actually have enough data to know that it is a far from perfect system. Thousands of women have paid exorbitant prices to freeze their eggs and find relief from the pressure of running out of time to have children. But only 12% of the women who freeze their eggs will ever come back to use them. Of that minority, one study found that there is only a 39% chance of having a successful pregnancy and birth. Women are being pressured into postponing marriage and children, then paying tens of thousands to undergo dangerous medical procedures to produce between 10-20 eggs. After that, if they come back for their eggs, they participate in IVF (which involves more medical risks for women), all to have a low chance of birthing the baby they were promised. Not only is it immoral, but it is also unfair to the women affected by empty promises and experimental procedures.
Pro-Life Around the World
Leading Cause of Death: According to Worldometer estimates, abortion was the leading cause of death in 2022. Around the world, an estimated total of four million elective abortions were performed. Not only was abortion the leading cause, but it had a lead of nearly four times the amount of the second leading cause, communicable disease. There were more deaths caused by abortion than by communicable diseases, infectious diseases, cancer, smoking, alcohol, and AIDS combined. Americans United for Life does address that these figures may be inflated by pro-abortion organizations that want to prove the necessity of abortion. This means we need to combat this figure in two ways moving forward: reducing elective abortions by assisting mothers around the world and ensuring the accurate collection of abortion figures from around the world.
<h4 “prolifeonthehomefront”>Pro-Life on the Home Front
Hijacking the PWFA: As Mr. Mosher pointed out in this week’s Weekly Briefing, the focus of Biden’s re-election campaign is abortion. This was made evident in Biden’s recent push to include abortion in the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. In mid-April, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced that it was adding a rule that would allow employees to “ask for time off to obtain an abortion and recover from the procedure” to the act. In response, a coalition of 17 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit last week against the EEOC, claiming that the agency’s abortion rule is unconstitutional. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was designed to allow for the following: “commonsense accommodations in the workplace, including time off for medical appointments; options to sit down and stand up while working; exemptions from heavy lifting; time off for postpartum recovery; bathroom, breastfeeding, food, and water breaks; considerations for morning sickness, and more.” It was not designed to be a vehicle for abortion accommodation.
Political Witch Hunt Continues: Pro-life pregnancy resource centers are once again under attack, but this time it’s a battle in the courtroom. Two weeks ago, New York Attorney General Letitia James sent “Notices of Intention to Sue” to pro-life centers for allegedly making “misleading statements and omissions in the advertising of the Abortion Pill Reversal (‘ARP’) protocol.” James gave no “specific lie or medical error,” but the targeted centers were still given only five days to respond and explain why this case should not go forward. A dozen centers grouped together to respond to James in court, and have since started sharing their persecution with the media. This is part of pro-abortion advocates’ “political witch hunt” against pro-life organizations. These organizations help women and one way of helping women is to offer them the Abortion Pill Reversal if they regret taking the first abortion drug, mifepristone.
For more information on how the abortion pill works, read our abortion pill fact sheet.
The Weakest Defense: In mid-April, TV host Bill Maher admitted that abortion is murder on HBO’s “Real Time.” This week, PRI’s New Media Specialist Chiara McKenna addressed the weakness of Maher’s argument on Mercator Net. Abortion is murder, but Maher tried to justify this by saying no one will miss the baby aborted. There are two major issues with this weak defense. First, the unborn child will be missed as the mother faces physical, psychological, and emotional effects from the procedure and loss of her child. Second, even if someone were to have no one missing them after they die, this still isn’t a justification for murder. As Chiara McKenna pointed out, “All pro-abortion arguments fall apart with enough prodding, but Maher chose to use one of the worst ones.”
Good News
Community for Mothers: In 2023, the University of Mary in North Dakota launched a program to assist pregnant and parenting students. Now, the first mother to be assisted by the St. Teresa of Calcutta Community for Mothers has graduated with her eighteen-month-old daughter by her side. Programs like these have been popping up at Catholic universities around the country. In a society that tells young mothers they must abort their babies to be successful, it offers a beautiful alternative. These programs also give students and faculty an opportunity to serve a young mother (or young couple) and appreciate the beauty of motherhood on campus. These programs save unborn lives and give young mothers their best chance at a successful future.
Quote of the Week
“Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents. The God Himself Who said, ‘it is not good for man to be alone’ (Gen. 2:18) and ‘Who made man from the beginning male and female’ (Matt. 19:4), wishing to share with man a certain special participation in His own creative work, blessed male and female, saying: ‘Increase and multiply’ (Gen. 1:28).”
~Pope Saint Paul VI, Gaudium Et Spes
