In This Issue:
- Breaking News
- PRI’s Response
- PRI in the Media
- The 20th Anniversary
- The CCP is Done
- Fulton Sheen vs. Mao
- Gallagher Defends Agreement
- Deepening Depopulation
- Tipping Point in 2030
- UN Misdeeds
- Annual Agreement Passes
- Science Gone Mad
- Suicide Contagion
- Pro-Life Around the World
- Negligence Kills
- Pro-Life on the Home Front
- Heartbeat Victory in Florida
- Paid Surrogacy Legalized
- Good News
- Living Past 30 Minutes
Christ is Risen! Alleluia! Happy Easter!
Breaking News
PRI’s Response: We were recently attacked on Facebook by an anti-natalist, pro-abortion group called Population Counts. The group took issue with a social media post of ours denouncing Mao Zedong and Communism. Most hate groups put limits on the people that they target, but this group targets everyone; They target human existence itself. The impending global population collapse is not enough for these extremists. They refer to humans as “the worst creatures to ever walk the earth.” They have shamed women for giving birth, denounced Mother’s Day, and even called out Joe Biden for showing respect to a mother. At PRI, we believe in showing charity toward all, and we denounce hate in all its forms.
PRI in the Media
The 20th Anniversary: This week, the political network for values celebrated our Ibero-American office’s 20th anniversary on social media, stating the following:
“Congratulations to the Population Research Institute for their 20 years of service in Ibero-America. We join them in the celebration and look forward to continuing to work together to defend life, family, and liberties.”
The CCP is Done: The Chinese Communist Party is doomed. How do we know this? Here are a few pieces of key evidence:
- 65 million homes — one-fifth of the nation’s total — are vacant and real-estate prices have collapsed.
- The official youth unemployment rate has hit double digits.
- The Ministry of Finance reports a 16% drop in personal income tax collected year over year
- Both capital and people are rushing to leave the country with an estimated 500 billion gone in 2023 alone.
But why is this happening? As Mr. Mosher points out in this article, “Whenever a Chairman Mao or a President Xi decides that producing tyranny is more important than producing the goods — as they all do sooner or later — economic collapse follows.”
Fulton Sheen vs. Mao: In this excerpt from The Devil and Communist China, PRI President Steven Mosher details the one thing that Chairman Mao and Bishop Fulton Sheen agreed upon regarding communism.
“It is hard to imagine two men who had less in common than Chairman Mao Zedong and Archbishop Fulton Sheen. The distance between the thoughts, words, and deeds of these two towering twentieth-century figures, one the leading Chinese Communist and the other the saintly archbishop, spans the distance between heaven and hell. Yet they strongly agreed on one thing. Communism, they both insisted, was inspired not by love but by hate, and that it was precisely that hate that gave it its terrible power to destroy.”
Get your copy of The Devil and Communist China here!
Gallagher Defends Agreement: With the renewal of the Sino-Vatican agreement looming ahead, the Vatican’s foreign minister has described the arrangement as “a useful means” to appoint bishops. Though he conceded that there were limitations, Archbishop Paul Gallagher expressed hope for the third renewal of the so-called “temporary” deal made between Communist China and the Vatican. Gallagher has been united with Pope Francis and Cardinal Parolin in their defense of the agreement. Early on in the agreement’s existence, Pope Francis claimed it would form a “new chapter of the Catholic Church in China.” Meanwhile, China observers, religious freedom watchdogs, and former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vocally critiqued the agreement. Mr. Mosher went so far as to call it “perhaps the most controversial of a papacy dogged by controversy.”
Read PRI’s original report on the Sino-Vatican Agreement here.
Deepening Depopulation
Tipping Point in 2030: At some point in time, the world population will peak and begin to decrease. PRI has been warning the world of this coming decline for years in light of falling birth rates, some forced down by population control and others organically falling in developed nations. A new report from The Lancet believes this tipping point will occur as soon as 2030. This is the soonest it has ever been predicted. The United Nations Population Division, in a 2022 report, believed the tipping point would occur in 2056, while, earlier this year, the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital forecasted 2040. However, as one researcher pointed out, “With each passing year … it’s becoming clearer that fertility is dropping faster than we expect.”
UN Misdeeds
Annual Agreement Passes: At the end of March, the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) ended dramatically as Nigeria almost tried to block the adoption of the commission’s annual agreement. In the last eight minutes of the conference, Nigeria started to protest sneaky language referencing abortion and LGBT issues, but ultimately gave in. After this brief hold-up, the agreement, which includes funding for the “gender perspective,” was passed. This means the push for gender ideology around the world will continue, as the “gender perspective” includes funding for organizations that promote controversial issues like abortion, homosexual/transgender issues, as well as sexual autonomy for children.
Science Gone Mad
Suicide Contagion: Pro-euthanasia activists want everyone to have the “right to die,” even individuals dealing with mental illness. The latest rush of people trying to access assisted death includes those “suffering from… depression or anxiety exacerbated, they say, by economic uncertainty, the climate, social media, and a seemingly limitless array of fears and disappointments.” As this writer questions, by making death more accessible and socially acceptable are we also making it socially contagious? As one professor observed in the Netherlands, the first country to make euthanasia legal, medical care there has changed “from death being a last resort to death being a default option.”
Pro-Life Around the World
Negligence Kills: Medical professionals at a Prague hospital are being investigated for carrying out an abortion on the “wrong” child. On March 25th, a woman, four months pregnant, went in for a routine checkup on her pregnancy. Instead, the medical staff carried out a D&C abortion without the woman’s knowledge or consent, killing her wanted child. The nurses and doctors all failed to realize that this woman was not there for an abortion and put her under anesthesia meant for another woman. The hospital blamed this tragic mistake on the language barrier, as both women, one present for a checkup and the other for an abortion, were foreigners. The staff involved have been suspended and the investigation of the hospital continues. A spokesperson for the health ministry shared that the hospital has apologized and is ready to offer compensation, but as Live Action points out, “Money can’t replace a child’s life.”
Pro-Life on the Home Front
Heartbeat Victory in Florida: Florida’s Heartbeat Law will take effect at the end of April, state supreme court rules, but the November election raises a new challenge: a ballot initiative that would legalize abortion up to birth. The Heartbeat Law was held up in court for a year, while a 2022 law protecting the lives of unborn children at 15 weeks gestation made its way through the court system. This law, the Heartbeat Protection Act (SB 300), was signed into law on April 14, 2023. It was written so that, if and when the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the previously enacted 15-week law was not in violation of the state constitution, the even more pro-life Heartbill Bill would come into force. With the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling that the state constitution provides a right to abortion under its privacy amendment, the Heartbeat Protection Act will now take effect in 30 days.
“But another challenge now looms,” says PRI President Steven Mosher. “There is an initiative on the November ballot that, if it were to pass, would legalize abortion up to birth. We say to the voters of Florida, ‘Choose life, so that you and your descendants may live.’”
Paid Surrogacy Legalized: Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer has signed a bill legalizing paid surrogacy. She argued for the immoral practice claiming that it “enables people to start families more easily.” However, surrogacy takes advantage of vulnerable, impoverished women. The practice also robs a child of the mother who carried them and bonded with them throughout the pregnancy. The new law also added protections for IVF, which comes with its own immoral and unethical aspects. With this new legislation in place, there are now only two states in the U.S. where paid surrogacy is illegal: Nebraska and Louisiana.
Good News
Living Past 30 Minutes: When Lily Rudd was born, doctors expected her to live for only 30 minutes. While in-utero, Lily had developed a large tumor in her chest that was crushing her heart and lungs. The condition she suffered from is so rare that there have only been around thirty cases worldwide. The doctors didn’t give up on Lily after birth though. After birth, she was immediately taken to The Royal Children’s Hospital for emergency surgery, which lasted eight hours. Even after that, she wasn’t out of the woods. She spent two months on life support and 97 total days in the NICU. But this story has a happy ending! Lily and her twin sister Frances are both happy and healthy, having recently celebrated their first birthday.
Quote of the Week
“The issues of life begin at the very beginning. And they conclude at natural death,” he argued. “And you can’t pick and choose. You’re either one who respects life in all of its dimensions, or you have to step aside and say, ‘I’m not pro-life.’”
~ Cardinal Wilton Gregory, source
