In This Issue:
- PRI in the Media
- China vs. America
- Panama to Greenland
- The Death Spiral
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- Big Shift in 2033
- DOT to Prioritize Families
- Marriage Still Matters
- Blessings for “Big” Families
- Communist China
- CCP’s Desperate Measures
- UN Misdeeds
- Trump vs. the UN
- Pro-Life Around the World
- Coercion in Sierra Leone
- Pro-Life on the Home Front
- SC to Defund Planned Parenthood
- Ban Chemical Abortions
- Hochul Backs Abortion Pill
- Regulate Mifepristone
- Good News
- Life at Conception
PRI in the Media
China vs. America: The Mackinder Forum hosted PRI President Steven Mosher to answer the question: Will China or America take the lead as the global superpower by 2100? Over the past thirty years, China’s rapid gain in world power gave rise to a wave of predictions that the country would soon surpass the United States in both economic power and military strength. Many experts claimed the 21st Century would be China’s, just as the 20th had been America’s. However, in recent years, demographic shifts, poor resource management, and internal issues like corruption and infighting within the Chinese Communist Party have cast doubt on the country’s future. Meanwhile, President Trump seems ready to revitalize American energy, spur innovation, restore the industrial base, and shrink government.
Panama to Greenland: Mr. Mosher’s latest was shared in the New York Post last week: “From Panama to Greenland — all of Trump’s problems lead to China.” A Chinese company controls the container ports at both ends of the waterway, and a Chinese construction team is building a bridge across the middle, expected to be completed by 2027. Senator Ted Cruz has raised alarms on how this could pose a significant national security risk to the United States. But that’s not all China is doing. China has engaged in “grey zone warfare” in the Baltic Sea, expanded its influence in the South Pacific, and built a fleet of Arctic icebreakers, with its sights set on Greenland. The Biden administration may have turned a blind eye to China’s advances, but the new administration will not.
The Death Spiral: LifeSiteNews is helping PRI sound the alarm on falling birth rates. The decline in birth rates that started in post-war Europe has, over the decades, spread to all parts of the world. Many countries are experiencing this demographic downturn, with more people passing away than being born each year. As a result of this widespread decline in birth rates, humanity has reached a significant milestone—though not one to celebrate. For the first time in the roughly 60,000 years since humans first appeared on Earth, we are failing to have enough children to replace ourselves. Thanks to longer life spans, the population will continue to grow until mid-century, but once this momentum fades, we will face a second sobering milestone: human numbers will begin to shrink, marking the first such decline since the Black Death in the Middle Ages.
Deepening Depopulation
Big Shift in 2033: A new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reveals that, in about eight years, deaths will outnumber births in the United States. This new estimation is seven years sooner than the estimation released by the CBO just last year. In January 2024, the CBO had forecasted this milestone to happen by 2040. The country’s growth rate is also expected to slow significantly, dropping from 0.9% annually over the past five decades to just 0.2% over the next 30 years. From 2025 to 2035, growth is projected at 0.4% per year, and from 2036 to 2055, it will further decrease to 0.1%. This decline is largely driven by factors such as lower fertility rates, an aging population, and reduced immigration.
“The Congressional Budget Office, the research arm of the U.S. Congress, believes that America will soon be filling more coffins than cradles”, says PRI President Steven Mosher. “If birth rates remain at their current low levels of 1.6 children per woman over her reproductive lifetime, they believe that by the year 2033, annual deaths will exceed annual births in the United States. Declining fertility rates bring all kinds of challenges, not least of which is civilizational collapse. It has never been more important for us to work together to build a Culture of Life, encouraging family formation and childbearing.
DOT to Prioritize Families: Moving forward, the Department of Transportation (DOT) will be prioritizing communities that have higher birth and marriage rates. In a memo to the DOT, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated the following:
“To the maximum extent permitted by law, DOT-supported or -assisted programs and activities… shall prioritize projects and goals that … mitigate the unique impacts of DOT programs, policies, and activities on families and family-specific difficulties, such as the accessibility of transportation to families with young children, and give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.”
Marriage Still Matters: A recent Financial Times article, referencing work from the Institute of Family Studies, highlighted the main cause of declining fertility rates: falling marriage rates. While the public perceives that unmarried births are increasing and marriage is fading, in reality, the share of births to unmarried parents in the U.S. is slowly decreasing. Marriage, still a strong predictor of fertility behavior globally, remains important for having children. Although encouraging earlier marriages may be challenging in today’s culture, it could help reverse the decline in fertility by providing better economic and social support for young people, making it easier for them to marry and start families. This would help couples have the number of children they want. However, the solution to fertility decline will require more than just promoting marriage—it needs significant policy and social changes.
“If we increase marriage rates, increased fertility rates will follow, the latest data tell us,” says PRI President Steven Mosher. “If that sounds like common sense, it’s because it is. (Much social science research has always been dedicated to proving the obvious.) Who wants to chance having a baby with a partner who is unwilling to commit to a long-term relationship? So, to solve the baby bust, we need to encourage marriage.”
Blessings for “Big” Families: This past Sunday, Bishop Sang-beom of the Military Ordinariate of South Korea offered a special blessing to seven families at Seonbongdae Parish. Each family had three or more children, and the blessing was part of a Church initiative aimed at addressing the declining birth rates in Korea.
“If the Catholic Church is truly pro-life, it has to do much more to celebrate marriage, family, and childbearing,” says Mr. Mosher. “Right now some of the bishops seem more focused on immigration, ‘climate change,’ and other ‘social justice’ issues. Maybe when the federal money goes away, they will be able to focus on what’s truly important: encouraging couples to be generous in cooperating with God to bring souls into existence, and then getting those souls home to heaven. Everything else, however lucrative, is just a passing fancy.”
Communist China
CCP’s Desperate Measures: China’s population has declined for the third consecutive year, with a drop of over one million people last year alone. The government, which previously enforced the One Child Policy, is now pressuring women to have more children through invasive tactics. These include phone calls urging women to have children, tracking menstrual cycles, and even unannounced home visits. Once pregnant, women are required to register their pregnancies at government-run community health centers, and government officials continue to contact them throughout their pregnancies. The population is aging rapidly, with one-fifth of people over 60 years old, putting a strain on healthcare and pension systems. In response, the government has resorted to desperate efforts like subsidizing IVF and collaborating with universities to promote childbearing. President Xi Jinping has made increasing the birthrate a national priority, claiming it is a way for women to “always walk with the party.”
UN Misdeeds
Trump vs. the UN: This week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the UN Human Rights Council. This pro-abortion group has previously–and incorrectly–claimed that criminalizing abortion violates human rights. In addressing the UN at large the president stated, “It’s got great potential and based on the potential we’ll continue to go along with it, but they got to get their act together. It’s not being well run, to be honest and they’re not doing the job.” Unsurprisingly, UN officials pushed back against the president’s statements. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric claimed that U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “has worked tirelessly to implement many reforms … to increase efficiency and innovation.”
Pro-Life Around the World
Coercion in Sierra Leone: Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., has sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging an investigation into reports that a U.S. foreign aid agency pressured Sierra Leone to pass a pro-abortion bill under the Biden administration. The letter references a report claiming that the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) threatened to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars from a U.S. agreement unless Sierra Leone’s parliament passed the Safe Motherhood Act. This so-called “Safe Motherhood” Act would legalize abortion up to 14 weeks for any reason and up to birth to protect a woman’s mental health. The MCC has denied these claims so far.
Pro-Life on the Home Front
SC to Defund Planned Parenthood: Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorneys have filed an opening brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. The case could determine whether pro-life states, like South Carolina, can redirect Medicaid funds—intended for low-income individuals—away from abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. Representing the director of South Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services, ADF attorneys are appealing a ruling by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Taxpayer dollars should never be used to fund facilities that make a profit off abortion,” said ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch, adding:
“State officials should be free to determine that Planned Parenthood and other entities that peddle abortion are not qualified to receive taxpayer funding through Medicaid. Congress did not create a right for Medicaid recipients to drag states into federal court to challenge those decisions. Nor did Congress intend for federal courts to second guess states’ decisions about which providers are qualified to receive Medicaid funding.”
Ban Chemical Abortions: Congressman Andy Ogles (TN-05) has reintroduced the Ending Chemical Abortions Act of 2025, which aims to federally block the use of chemical abortions in the United States. Originally introduced in September 2023, the bill addresses concerns about the risks posed to both women and unborn children by chemical abortions. Ogles has criticized the FDA for eliminating the in-person dispensing requirement in 2021, which has led to increased emergency room visits, health complications, and even deaths. He has condemned the Biden Administration and the FDA for prioritizing a pro-choice agenda over women’s safety and reaffirmed his commitment to protecting life and safeguarding women and girls.
For more information on chemical abortions, read our Abortion Pill Fact Sheet.
Hochul Backs Abortion Pill: On Monday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill to protect the identities of doctors who prescribe abortion medications, following the indictment of Dr. Margaret Carpenter. Dr. Carpenter was charged for prescribing abortion pills to a pregnant minor in Louisiana, who experienced a medical emergency after taking the dangerous drugs and had to be transported to the hospital. Hochul’s new law allows doctors in New York to request their names be removed from abortion pill labels and replaced with the name of their health care practices. This will protect abortion-enabling doctors who send abortion pills across state lines to states with pro-life legislation, putting women and their unborn babies at risk.
Regulate Mifepristone: Pro-life leaders are urging President Donald Trump and lawmakers to regulate the abortion pill regimen and pass legislation to support American families. A coalition of pro-life organizations, including Live Action, the James Wilson Institute, and Americans United for Life (AUL), sent letters to the FDA and DOJ, calling for the reinstatement of safety regulations on mifepristone, the first drug in the two-drug abortion pill regimen, and enforcement of the Comstock Act to prevent abortion pill trafficking. AUL is also encouraging pro-life Americans to sign a petition urging the Trump administration to impose these regulations. Additionally, AUL, Live Action, and the James Wilson Institute released a policy paper addressing the risks of the unregulated abortion pill regimen and proposing a national strategy to combat abortion pill trafficking.
Good News
Life at Conception: Congressman Eric Burlison has introduced the Life at Conception Act, a landmark bill that affirms the right to life for all human beings, both born and unborn. The legislation declares the truth that unborn children are “persons” under the 14th Amendment, ensuring their right to life is legally recognized and protected. Burlison emphasized that every life is a sacred gift and that the Act uses Congress’ constitutional authority to define personhood, fulfilling a moral and legal obligation to safeguard unborn lives. The Act addresses the gap left by the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade but did not resolve the question of personhood. The bill has received support from legal experts, medical professionals, and pro-life advocates, with medical advancements reinforcing the belief that life begins at conception.
Quote of the Week
“So let me say very simply: I want more babies in the United States of America. I want more happy children in our country, and I want beautiful young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them.”
~ Vice President J. D. Vance
