In This Issue:
- PRI in the Media
- PRI Recognized in Peru
- Deepening Depopulation
- U.S. Schools Confront Major Declines
- War Pushes Ukraine into Fertility Crisis
- Communist China
- China Offers Marriage Incentives
- Shenzhen Intensifies Religious Crackdown
- UN Misdeeds
- U.S. Rejects UN Rights System
- Pro-Life Around the World
- Scotland Considering Abortion Until Birth
- Late-Term Abortions Common in Canada
- Bill to Protect Viable Babies Defeated
- EU Faces Pro-Life Pushback
- Pro-Life on the Home Front
- South Carolina Abortion Bill Stalls
- Pro-Life Centers See Client Surge
- Missouri Town Resumes Abortions
- Good News
- Pregnancy Center Saves Baby’s Life
PRI in the Media
PRI Recognized in Peru: Recently, PRI’s Ibero-America Director, Carlos Polo, appeared at the First National Summit of Christian Political Youth in Lima, addressing more than 100 young leaders gathered to defend life, family, and freedom. Polo also spoke at an event supporting a pro-life bill introduced by Congresswoman Rosangella Barbarán, who formally recognized PRI’s ongoing work in Congress. In a telling sign of impact, a left-wing outlet criticized Polo as the “main lobbyist” behind advancing pro-life legislation and blocking pro-abortion proposals, an acknowledgment he called a “gold medal.”
Deepening Depopulation
U.S. Schools Confront Major Declines: A new report shows that public school enrollment is collapsing nationwide as a result of falling birthrates and expanding school-choice programs. Alabama saw a 0.8% drop between 2024–25 and 2025–26, its largest in 40 years. While West Virginia enrollment fell by 1.7% in a single year. Wisconsin’s public school population has plunged nearly 6%, prompting warnings of forced district consolidations. In Chicago, one in three desks now sits empty amid a $734 million deficit. Maryland’s Montgomery County schools also recorded a 1.7% decline, with steeper losses expected ahead.
“The teacher’s unions ought to rethink their support for radical abortion policies, their unscientific promotion of apocalyptic ‘global warming’ scenarios, and a host of other issues that depress marriage and birth rates in the U.S.,” says Mr. Mosher. “That is, if they want to keep their jobs in the face of shrinking enrollments. But of course they won’t. The self-destructive nature of their ideology is completely opaque to them.”
War Pushes Ukraine into Fertility Crisis: Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska warned that the nation’s birth rate has collapsed to 0.8–0.9 children per woman, the lowest in its history, as war with Russia drives families into fear and instability. She told the Growing Europe 2025 summit that security is now the biggest factor in whether Ukrainians feel able to welcome children. Premature births have also risen due to the stress of war. In the first half of 2025, Ukraine saw 86,800 births but 249,000 deaths, deepening its demographic crisis. Zelenska highlighted new family-support initiatives, including Ukraine’s entry into the European Child Guarantee program.
Communist China
China Offers Marriage Incentives: The CCP is scrambling to reverse China’s fertility collapse, with birth rates plummeting after decades of the one-child policy. The current population is projected to fall to just 700 million by 2100, half its size today. Cities in Zhejiang province, including Ningbo and Hangzhou, now offer 1,000 yuan (about $140) wedding vouchers, while “baby cities” like Tianmen provide subsidies reaching 220,000 yuan (nearly $31,000) for families with three children, helping drive a 17% rise in births this year. Yet marriage rates continue to fall—from 13 million a decade ago to just 6.1 million last year—and surveys show that nearly 40% of young women do not want children.
Shenzhen Intensifies Religious Crackdown: Shenzhen has launched one of its most aggressive anti-religious propaganda drives to date, using its annual “Anti-Xie Jiao Propaganda Week” to brand any unsanctioned religious group as xie jiao (“heterodox teachings”). This year’s campaign blended ideology with entertainment, including VR simulations, children’s touchscreen games, tourist “treasure hunts,” and anti-cult video warnings, all reinforcing state messaging. Even delivery drivers are now trained as “mobile sentinels” to report unauthorized religious activity. Increasingly, these campaigns target unregistered Christian communities, revealing Beijing’s intensifying use of cultural and technological tools to suppress independent religious belief.
UN Misdeeds
U.S. Rejects UN Rights System: The United States declined to appear for its scheduled Universal Periodic Review (UPR), raising speculation that the Trump administration may fully withdraw from the UN human rights system. The State Department said participation would legitimize a Human Rights Council stacked with abusers such as China, Venezuela, and Sudan. The move comes amid growing frustration that UN bodies routinely exceed their mandates by pressuring nations to liberalize abortion laws and adopt LGBT ideology, despite neither appearing in binding human rights treaties. The UPR has been postponed to next year, though U.S. participation remains unlikely.
Pro-Life Around the World
Scotland Considering Abortion Until Birth: A Scottish Government-commissioned review—led by a former trustee of the UK’s largest abortion provider—is advocating for the scrapping of Scotland’s 24-week abortion limit. This would allow abortions on “social grounds,” including sex-selective abortions, up to birth. In 2024, 98% of Scotland’s 18,710 abortions were performed under a clause interpreted to allow abortion for social reasons. The report also proposes removing the two-doctor safeguard, permitting any healthcare worker to perform abortions. Polling shows only 1% of women support abortion up to birth, and 91% oppose sex-selective abortion. This recommendation would give Scotland one of the most extreme abortion laws in the world.
“It is sad to see that Scotland, which has one of the lowest birthrates in the world, is intent upon depopulating the country even faster by allowing abortion up to birth,” says Mr. Mosher. “The remaining Scots better decide who they want to give their country to, since they obviously don’t want it enough to populate it themselves.”
Late-Term Abortions Common in Canada: A new undercover investigation by Right Now Canada revealed that late-term abortions past 20 weeks are being performed in Canada without medical reasons, directly contradicting federal claims that such procedures are “rare” and only for “serious medical issues.” At four Toronto abortion businesses, staff told the investigator that no medical reason was required to abort 22-week pregnant women, with some facilities performing abortions up to eight months and charging around $2,137 cash. Right Now has launched a petition urging Parliament to ban abortions after 20 weeks, noting most Canadians support such restrictions.
Bill to Protect Viable Babies Defeated: South Australia’s Upper House has defeated a bill that would have protected viable unborn children, rejecting Independent MLC Sarah Game’s proposal 11–8. The measure sought to bar abortions after 22 weeks and 6 days, except to save the mother’s life. State data show that between 2022 and 2024, 79 healthy, viable babies were aborted past that point under broad “mental health” exceptions. The bill sparked major public interest: over 16,000 South Australians signed a petition supporting it, compared with 4,000 signatures opposing it, and thousands rallied outside Parliament. Despite the defeat, Game vowed to continue fighting to protect late-term unborn children.
EU Faces Pro-Life Pushback: A historic pro-life conference was held inside the European Parliament on Oct. 15, the largest pro-life gathering in the Parliament in more than a decade. Organized by the European Centre for Law and Justice and the One of Us federation, the event brought together 300 participants, eight Members of Parliament, former EU Health Commissioner Tonio Borg, and former Slovenian Prime Minister Alojz Peterle. The conference aimed to challenge the EU initiative seeking EU-funded cross-border abortion access. Six women shared powerful testimonies of abortion regret and trauma. Despite the strong pro-life showing, the Parliament’s Women’s Rights Committee voted 26–12 to advance the pro-abortion “My Voice, My Choice” proposal.
Pro-Life on the Home Front
South Carolina Abortion Bill Stalls: South Carolina lawmakers held a second hearing on Senate Bill 323, which would protect most preborn children by removing exceptions for rape, incest, and fetal diagnosis and allowing abortion only to save the mother’s life. The measure would also allow civil and criminal action against abortionists and require prenatal development education in public schools. According to FOX 4, the bill failed to advance after four of six Republican senators refused to vote, enabling Democrats on the subcommittee to block it.
Pro-Life Centers See Client Surge: A new report from the Charlotte Lozier Institute found that pregnancy resource centers served over 1 million women in 2024, the highest number ever recorded and up from 974,965 in 2022, the year of the Dobbs ruling. The study examined roughly 3,000 centers nationwide, which together provided nearly $500 million in services and material support. SBA Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser noted that the centers have become even more essential as abortions rise to around 1.1 million, driven in part by mail-order abortion pills. The report also found that over 60% of women who had abortions say they would have chosen life if they’d had more emotional and financial support.
“You can add to this number the hundreds of thousands of women who are helped in other countries by pro-life pregnancy centers, several dozen of which we have helped provide ultrasound machines to,” says Mr. Mosher. “Just as in the U.S., when women in crisis pregnancies are provided support, very, very few choose to end the lives of their unborn children.”
Missouri Town Resumes Abortions: Abortions have resumed in Columbia, Missouri, for the first time in nearly seven years after voters passed Amendment 3 in 2024, a ballot measure that overturned the state’s strong 2017 pro-life safeguards. Those laws, such as hospital privilege requirements that once shut down the Columbia clinic over serious safety violations, had helped make Missouri one of the first abortion-free states after Dobbs. With those protections nullified, out-of-state “circuit rider” abortionists are again traveling in to perform surgeries. Pro-lifers are now backing a 2026 referendum to repeal Amendment 3 and restore Missouri’s life-saving protections.
Good News
Pregnancy Center Saves Baby’s Life: A Nevada mother says a Las Vegas pregnancy center saved her baby’s life after she took the abortion pill under pressure from her husband. Jessica Williams, nine weeks pregnant, took mifepristone but immediately feared her child was still alive and realized the second pill, misoprostol, would expel a living baby. Desperate, she searched for help and found First Choice Pregnancy Services, which provided a free ultrasound, abortion pill reversal treatment, along with emotional, spiritual, and material support. Her daughter is now a healthy three-year-old, and a testament to the life-saving work of pregnancy centers.
Quote of the Week
“We are joyful to march for life. We are joyful to know that that picture on an ultrasound, that is a picture of a baby with hopes and dreams and potential to come.”
~ Vice President J.D. Vance
