In This Issue:
- PRI in the Media
- Ignoring Best Interests
- Deepening Depopulation
- Education & Children
- Communist China
- Dragon Babies
- The AI Backup Plan
- UN Misdeeds
- Alliance Dashed
- Pro-Life Around the World
- MAiD Put on Pause
- Catholics Appeal to PM
- Extreme Amendments Withdrawn
- Pro-Life on the Home Front
- Chemical Abortion Q&A
- Abortion Doula at CUA
- A Win for Idaho
- Good News
- Preemie Turns Five
PRI in the Media
Ignoring Best Interests: Roughly 1 percent of the U.S. population is made up of young “elites.” This group is defined as those who have at least one postgraduate degree, earn more than $150,000 a year, and live in or near cities. These elites share a worldview so radically different from the average American that PRI President Steven Mosher claimed, “They inhabit an alternate reality — an alternate reality dominated by fear and loathing.” A recent Rasmussen survey collected a thousand responses from elites, focusing on those who attended elite schools such as Harvard or Stanford, on contemporary issues. Their fear over climate change, for example, is so great that the majority of these elites are in favor of completely banning gas vehicles, non-essential travel, and meat consumption. Perhaps even more ludicrous is the report’s finding that 70 percent of these elites believe that Washington “does the right thing most of the time,” despite the mishandling of the pandemic, the border, the economy, and foreign policy under the Biden administration.
Deepening Depopulation
Education & Children: The popular narrative that “the more education a woman has the fewer children she wants” has been debunked. The desire for children is affected by so many factors that it cannot be boiled down to education level only; In the United States, the most educated women are not the women with the least children. Women with Master’s degrees or Ph.D.s are statistically likely to have more children than women with Bachelor’s degrees. Beyond this, education level makes very little difference in desire for children. Ninety percent of women who have not completed high school by age 19 desire to have a child at some point, compared to 92 percent of women who have a Bachelor’s degree. To answer the question of falling fertility rates, looking at education levels alone is not the solution.
Communist China
Dragon Babies: For the Chinese, 2024 is the year of the dragon. Historically, births spike during the year of the dragon as parents time their newborns with this auspicious zodiac sign. Parents hope that giving birth this year will bring their “Dragon Babies” good fortune. Meanwhile, the CCP hopes the Year of the Dragon will cause a birth boost to turn around the country’s demographic decline. But according to the Financial Times, the CCP is unlikely to get its wish. The birth rate has been on the decline for years, as have the numbers of childbearing women. In a country where the deaths exceeded births by 2 million in 2023, it would take an enormous reproductive increase to reverse the declining population trend.
“Births have traditionally spiked during the Year of the Dragon, which comes around on the Chinese Zodiac every dozen years,” says Mr. Mosher. “But what the report fails to mention is that the Chinese only want Dragon Sons, not Dragon Daughters. Also, it is ironic that the Chinese Communist Party, which has done its best to destroy Chinese traditions such as this one, should now be hoping that it offsets the birth dearth that it caused by its one-child policy.”
The AI Backup Plan: If the CCP cannot undo its depopulation issue, Xi Jinping has a backup plan. Xi and his cronies are looking at artificial intelligence (AI) to ease the effects of a decreasing workforce. They aim to dominate the AI market by 2030 and outdo the United States in the process. The largest Chinese tech companies, Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu, all have their own AI research departments funded by the state. Ironically, China’s main advantage is the sheer number of people in the country. There are 700 million smartphone users, which, combined with unrestricted digital surveillance, gives the CCP practically unlimited data to work with. This gives the CCP an edge in the development and improvement of AI, but whether this will be able to make up for a shrinking workforce is debatable.
UN Misdeeds
Alliance Dashed: Pro-life groups, led by the Center for Family and Human Rights(C-Fam), temporarily prevented an alliance between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Center for Reproductive Rights. The two were poised to enter into official relations and a three-year agreement until the pro-life movement intervened. C-Fam sent a letter to the WHO Director-General to reconsider the alliance. The letter highlighted that partnering with the pro-abortion group would compromise the WHO’s integrity and increase the risk of the United States withdrawing funding under a future pro-life administration.
Pro-Life Around the World
MAiD Put on Pause: The Canadian government has temporarily paused its Medical Assistance in Dying program for individuals suffering from mental illness. While Catholic leaders welcome this decision, concerns remain over the future expansion of the program. Allegedly, the pause is not because of the dangers of offering death as a solution to mental issues, but simply a postponement until assisted dying can be “safely and adequately provided” to mentally distressed individuals. The upcoming expansion is not only opposed by Catholic leaders. Only 28 percent of Canadians actually support the expansion, and 82 percent said any expansion should include improved mental health care. Euthanasia is an immoral “solution” to physical or mental conditions that require long-term care and compassion. If the solution to a struggling individual is to kill them, that is no solution at all.
“You would think that eugenics would have been discredited forever by the horrors of the Nazi regime,” says Mr. Mosher. “Upon taking power, the Nazis killed hundreds of thousands of children and adults whom they judged were living ‘lives unworthy of living.’ But in Trudeau’s Canada it is now back, bigger and bolder than ever.”
Catholics Appeal to PM: Last weekend, a Catholic medical association appealed to Poland’s new prime minister to ask that he abandon plans to allow abortion on demand through the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The message sent to Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who took office in December 2023, described the potential expansion of Poland’s abortion access as “an attack on the lives of innocent children, the health of women and the dignity of families, the well-being of our country, and the physical and moral health of future generations.” Currently, Poland has one of Europe’s strongest pro-life laws. The new administration in power, however, wishes to undo this pro-life foundation, which would further the “rapid secularization” occurring in Poland.
“Poland’s new leader is a card-carrying member of the globalist elite who wants to transform Poland into another France or West Germany,” says Mr. Mosher. “Abortion on demand during the first trimester will only be the first of his initiatives to ‘fundamentally transform’ this Catholic country.”
Extreme Amendments Withdrawn: Two extreme abortion up-to-birth amendments, added to the U.K.’s Criminal Justice Bill late last year, have been withdrawn without going to vote. The amendments aimed to remove the legal ramifications for performing a self-abortion at any point in pregnancy, even up to birth. The MPs behind the amendments claimed it wouldn’t change the current 24-week abortion time limit, but did not address the potential consequences if the amendments were passed. There would have been no deterrent for vulnerable women who obtain abortion pills, from an abortion provider or other source, that would prevent them from taking the drugs even at full-term. Thankfully, these amendments did not make it past the debate at the committee stage.
Pro-Life on the Home Front
Chemical Abortion Q&A: This month, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released, “Just the Facts: Q&A on Chemical Abortion.” The first half of this concise fact sheet looks at how chemical abortions work and what the risks are. The second half focuses on the FDA’s involvement with the two abortion drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol. This release of this Q&A sheet is timely, as the Supreme Court will be hearing arguments for the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine’s case against the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill one month from now.
For more information, check out our fact sheet on the abortion pill.
Abortion Doula at CUA: A so-called “abortion doula” was invited to be a guest speaker for a Lifespan Development course at the Catholic University of America (CUA). Rachel Carbonneau is a pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQ activist, who was invited by the CUA faculty member, Melissa Goldberg. Carbonneau made several controversial statements in her presentation, including the claim that men can give “birth” as seahorses do. The university administration condemned the lecture, reaffirming that CUA’s mission and values include a commitment to honoring the dignity of life at all stages. Melissa Goldberg has since been fired for her extremely poor choice of guest speaker.
“I was glad to learn that the lecturer who invited the pro-abortion, pro-trans activist to speak has now been fired,” says Mr. Mosher. “The mystery is why she would have been hired by a Catholic university in the first place. And what in the world is a ‘Lifespan Development’ class? The very name suggests that it is nothing more than a mishmash of leftist indoctrination.”
A Win for Idaho: On February 1st, Idaho’s Attorney General’s office successfully defeated The Satanic Temple’s challenge to the state’s Defense of Life Act. The Satanic Temple had claimed a constitutionally protected right for its female members to ceremonially abort their babies as part of a Satanic ritual. But a federal court saw straight through this ruse and dismissed The Satanic Temple’s entire lawsuit with prejudice and without leave to amend. Idaho Attorney General Labrador shared, “The district court rejected every claim The Satanic Temple asserted and dismissed the case with prejudice. The court held that each claim lacked merit, even describing one of The Satanic Temple’s positions as producing a ‘blatantly absurd’ result. My office will continue to defend the lives of the unborn at every turn.”
Good News
Preemie Turns Five: Singapore’s youngest surviving premature baby just turned five years old. In 2018, the baby girl, Chelsea, was born at only 22 weeks and weighed only 1lb 12oz. At birth, her doctor shared that her chances of survival were close to zero. But Chelsea survived. She spent 166 days, about five months, at the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and required breathing support for nine months after being discharged. Today, she is perfectly healthy, though petite. Chelsea’s favorite things are legos, cheese sticks, and visits to the zoo!
Quote of the Week
“In reaction to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, some areas of the country now protect the child in the womb, while others are doing all they can to increase access to abortion. At this critical moment, we have been entrusted with new opportunities and new responsibilities to build a civilization of authentic love.”
~ USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, source
