In This Issue:
- PRI in the Media
- Walz’s Ties to the CCP
- Deepening Depopulation
- U.S. Hits New Low
- Incorrect Estimations
- Communist China
- One-Child Policy Lives On
- Science Gone Mad
- Fastest Growing Murder Program
- Pro-Life Around the World
- Silent Prayer, Legal or No?
- Pro-Life on the Home Front
- Clash Outside the DNC
- A Win for the Truth
- Heartbeat Heard in Iowa
- Good News
- Beating the Odds
PRI in the Media
Walz’s Ties to the CCP: Tim Walz’s connections to China have come to light. In this piece for Life Site News, PRI President Steven Mosher exposes Walz’s defense of the Chinese Community Party. Since Walz’s first trip to China in 1989, he has publicly defended CCP policy. In his decades as a public school teacher, Walz miseducated his students – both on China trips and in his American classrooms – on the reality of communism. Walz told his students that “communism” in China meant that “everyone is the same and everyone shares.” Walz claimed the CCP provided free food for its citizens, ignoring the worst famine in human history that occurred under the CCP’s watch. Walz even tried to justify the one-child policy by saying that “the Chinese population was so large” and incorrectly claiming that the only consequence for violating it was that “the family pays a tax.”
Deepening Depopulation
U.S. Hits New Low: According to the latest CDC data, the U.S. fertility rate hit a record low in 2023. The fertility rate has generally been trending downward for decades. In 2021, a slight uptick gave demographers hope that a COVID-19 baby bump would start an upward trend, but this wasn’t the case. The birth rate quickly returned to its more consistent downward pattern. In 2023, the U.S. fertility rate fell another 3% from the prior year to a historic low of about 55 births for every 1,000 females ages 15 to 44. Just under 3.6 million babies were born last year, about 68,000 fewer than the year before.
“The birth rate in America is not just falling, it is collapsing,” says Mr. Mosher. “Increasing the Child Tax Credit to $5,000, as J.D. Vance has suggested, is a start, but it is only a start. But it does suggest that the root of the problem, which is that the government, in various and sundry taxes, takes about 40 percent of what the average American earns. That is money that many Americans would otherwise be using to raise children. To put it another way, the government is eating our children.”
Incorrect Estimations: Last year may have been an unfortunate landmark moment in history. According to Professor Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, 2023 may have been the first year that humans stopped producing enough children on average to sustain the current global population. Now, according to the UN World Population Prospects, the global total fertility rate last year was 2.25, which is still above replacement (2.21). However, as Professor Fernandez-Villaverde points out, the UN often inflates its data. Many countries with reliable records show that last year’s birth numbers were 10% to 20% lower than UN estimates. Taking into account the UN’s overestimation, the global total fertility rate may already be at 2.18. This means, in the words of Professor Fernandez-Villaverde, “If you’re 55 or younger, you’re likely to witness something humans haven’t seen for 60,000 years, not during wars or pandemics: a sustained decrease in the world population.”
Communist China
One-Child Policy Lives On: China’s one-child policy may be over, but the trauma it caused both parents and children lives on. Young women who were born during the one-child policy have shared how the CCP’s reproductive reign of terror affected their choice to not have children. Their parents’ struggles and their own sacrifices as children under the one-child policy leave them undeterred in this decision, even as Beijing launches a pro-birth wave of propaganda. Since 2021, Beijing has been running national campaigns to foster a “pro-birth culture,” replacing posters and slogans warning against having more than one child with those that encourage the birth of up to three. Yet these efforts do nothing to raise the birth rate, as the propaganda cannot erase the trauma and abuse of the one-child policy.
“One can understand why a young girl who saw her pregnant mom dragged away screaming by China’s population control police would be reluctant to have children,” says Mr. Mosher. “Especially after her mother returned, womb empty and spirit broken. Such scenes are indelibly inscribed on the minds of tens of millions of young women in China.”
Science Gone Mad
Fastest Growing Murder Program: Euthanasia in Canada has gone from rare to routine, according to a recent study. In 2016, there were 1,018 assisted deaths, but by 2022, this number had skyrocketed to 13,241. It is the fastest-growing euthanasia program in the world. The acronym MAiD–which stands for “medical assistance in dying”– covers up the grisly reality of the state-sanctioned murder of the sick, the weak, the diminished, the elderly, the vulnerable, and the disabled. When initially proposed, MAiD was marketed as a “last resort,” yet it has become routine. Fewer and fewer requests are being deemed “ineligible” for the program. Canada’s euthanasia laws will most likely continue to devolve, allowing for the murder of more and more citizens.
Pro-Life Around the World
Silent Prayer, Legal or No?: Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a British pro-life advocate, has received £13,000 ($16,800) in compensation for being wrongfully arrested twice for silently praying near an abortion facility in Birmingham. Her arrests were deemed violations of her human rights, but proposed U.K. legislation could further restrict such activities. The legislation under consideration would ban protests, including silent prayer, within 150 meters of abortion clinics. However, draft guidance on enforcing the legislation included a provision allowing silent prayer, which it acknowledges is “an absolute right under the Human Rights Act 1998.” Pro-abortion lawmakers and organizations are pushing against the allowance of silent prayer, arguing it could create loopholes.
Pro-Life on the Home Front
Clash Outside the DNC: Planned Parenthood was present outside the Democratic National Convention to offer abortions and vasectomies this week. This solidified the Democrats’ plan to make abortion the central issue of the upcoming election. Thankfully, pro-life leaders and groups gathered outside the DNC as well, to offer alternatives to the women being targeted by Planned Parenthood. As one example, Bridget Van Means, CEO of Thrive Nation, a national network of pro-life health care, brought her team in a van equipped with an ultrasound machine and abortion-reversing medications. John Mize, CEO of Americans United for Life, was present to talk to women going to the Planned Parenthood van for abortions, offering them alternatives that wouldn’t result in harm coming to them or their unborn child.
A Win for the Truth: In a win for the truth, Arizona’s Supreme Court has ruled that an informational pamphlet for voters about a ballot initiative to add a “fundamental right” to abortion in the state may refer to an embryo or fetus as an “unborn human being,” rejecting claims that the term is biased. If passed, the amendment, backed by the “Arizona for Abortion Access” coalition, would allow abortion until fetal viability (~22 weeks) and beyond for certain exceptions. Adding this “right” to the state’s constitution would render future pro-life laws ineffective at limiting abortion before viability. Allowing the truth of an unborn baby’s personhood to be in the informational pamphlet will enable state residents to vote with more knowledge of what they are truly supporting.
“It’s refreshing when at least some of those who sit on the bench recognize reality,” says Mr. Mosher. “And the reality is that unborn babies are, in fact, human beings. We need to stop using dehumanizing terms like ‘embryo’ or ‘fetus’ to describe our unborn.”
Heartbeat Heard in Iowa: On Thursday, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, the ACLU of Iowa, and the Emma Goldman Clinic decided to end their legal fight against Iowa’s heartbeat law after the Iowa Supreme Court upheld the legislation. The law, which bans most abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected at about six weeks gestation, was reinforced by the court’s decision, which declared that abortion is not a constitutional right in Iowa. The ruling, supported by a 4-3 majority, sets the standard for justifying abortion restrictions as requiring only a “rational basis” and allows the law to take effect. Pro-life Gov. Kim Reynolds praised the decision as a significant win for the pro-life cause, and further litigation by the opponents is expected to be unlikely to alter the outcome.
Good News
Beating the Odds: A baby boy given a 1% chance of survival just celebrated his fifth birthday! Deanna Payne’s water broke when she was only 17 weeks pregnant with her son, Rhett. Despite being advised to abort due to the risks of underdeveloped lungs and potential infection, Deanna and her husband chose to continue the pregnancy. After being placed on bed rest and monitored closely, Rhett was born prematurely at 31 weeks but spent 32 days in the neonatal intensive care unit before going home. Today, Rhett is thriving. Deanna continues to emphasize“strength, perseverance, and faith” to him because those are the three key pieces of their story.
Quote of the Week
“The reality is that unborn babies are, in fact, human beings. We need to stop using dehumanizing terms like ‘embryo’ or ‘fetus’ to describe our unborn.”
~ PRI President Steven Mosher
