This Week‘s Featured Article

Marriage/Family

Cubans to vote on law recognizing families, regardless of sex or gender identity.

If approved by Cuban voters next month, the country’s new Family Code will stand as a social revolution, enshrining the right of all people to form a family regardless of sex or gender identity and recognizing a variety of family forms.

The Family Code, as explained by a young Cuban activist, “protects vulnerable people more, brings together a number of measures to help society, [and] enables new opportunities since it recognizes…the family bond of people.” Read more

Family Breakdown and the Ohio Abortion Story.

The furor that ensued after the story of an impregnated, 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio broke last month has been framed largely by those determined to enshrine access to abortion. How, they asked, could pro-life advocates defend the right to life when the body of a young girl was so clearly violated in this heinous crime?Here’s what they don’t want to tell you: rape, especially where minors are involved, is rarely an isolated incident following a late-night attack in a club, college dorm room, or park. Instead, when minors are the victims of abuse, the first place you look is the home.This is the dirty little secret that the media often fail to report: children face the greatest risk of sexual or physical abuse when any male other than their biological father frequents the home. Read more

LGBT group ‘Men Having Babies’ backs Democrat bill funding surrogate children for same-sex couples.

Representative Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) and Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) put forward a bill called the Equal Access to Reproductive Care Act on June 22, but it hasn’t received much attention until now. H.R. 8190 makes “assisted reproduction as a tax deductible medical expense” and “defines assisted reproduction as any methods, treatments, procedures, and services for effectuating a pregnancy and bringing it to term, and treats it as medical care of the taxpayer, the taxpayer’s spouse, or dependent to the extent that they intend to take legal custody or responsibility for any children born as a result of such assisted reproduction.” The primary intent of the bill is to ensure that same-sex couples can purchase children. Read more

Parenting/Parental Rights

Biden’s new Title IX rules deputize teachers to override parents on gender identity.

Team Biden’s proposed new Title IX regulations make it clear: They’re coming for your children.

The administration ostensibly drafted the rules to protect gay and transgender students from bullying and harassment, but they do nothing of the sort. In reality, President Biden is handing teachers a weapon to subvert parental prerogatives. Read more

PUTTING PARENTS BACK IN CHARGE.

AZ Governor Ducey: We have to break up the cartel that is not teaching our kids things of value around math, reading, and science, or the actual skills of being a good future citizen. That was the real genesis in terms of what can be different in education. And that’s why I’m a huge fan of the educational savings accounts. It puts parents in charge of their child’s education, and it brings some of the market principles to bear that provide higher quality at lower cost, with greater return on investment. Read more

Strong Families, Better Student Performance.

As single-parent and stepparent families have become more common in the U.S., is it the case that children from these families have fewer problems than they used to? Many scholars believed that as alternative family types became more accepted and less stigmatized, children from non-intact families would be less apt to exhibit learning, emotional, and behavior problems in school and elsewhere. Moreover, as government programs aimed at ameliorating the economic consequences of family instability (i.e., Food Stamps,1 Medicaid, WIC,2 public housing, and child support enforcement) have grown, so has the expectation that greater public support for vulnerable families would improve the life chances of children in single-parent families. Read more

Sanctity of Life

UN General Assembly Poised to Declare Abortion a Human Right.

Delegates are in the final phases of negotiating a General Assembly resolution that declares “access to safe abortion” as a policy that governments should pursue to “ensure the promotion and protection of the human rights of all women and their sexual and reproductive health.”

Despite repeated objections from countries that protect the life of children in the womb or have restrictive abortion laws, the resolution is being considered with the controversial new language for adoption by the end of the month. Read more

Indian doctors are removing the wombs of cane-cutters to increase productivity.

This is a horror story from India about the intersection of poverty, sexism, exploitation, gender norms, and medical ethics. Investigative reporting in BehanBox, a feminist website based in India, describes the appalling conditions in which women work as cane-cutters in the state of Maharashtra.

The report focuses on women’s menstrual hygiene. Because of recurrent infections and pain, 17% of women cane-cutters in the district of Beed have had hysterectomies. Read more

Georgia declares unborn babies ‘natural persons’ who can be claimed as dependents on state taxes.

“Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Org., makes clear that no right to abortion exists under the Constitution, so Georgia may prohibit them,” the court ruled.

“Georgia’s prohibition on abortions after detectable human heartbeat is rational,” the decision added. “‘Respect for and preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development’ is a legitimate interest.”

Georgia’s “Living Infants and Fairness Equality” (LIFE) Act recognizes unborn babies as “natural persons” with “full legal recognition” that “shall be included in certain population-based determinations.” The law bans abortion after the heartbeat is detected, which is at about six weeks. Read more

Religion

Is religious liberty ‘hanging by a thread?’

A number of political trends and Supreme Court rulings have diminished the legal stature of religious liberty. Chief among these threats is the effort to redefine religious liberty itself. Progressives have made a concerted effort to reduce the “free exercise” of religion either to private piety or the semi-public worship which takes place within the four walls of a church building.

In fact, this progressive trend can be seen in Supreme Court rulings such as Obergefell v. Hodges (June 2015). In this decision, the Supreme Court not only altered the definition and nature of marriage, but also exacerbated the trend toward restricting religious liberty. Read more

Botswana to Become Latest Target of Biden State Department’s Ideological Colonialism.

The State Department announced a new grant to “promote greater social acceptance of LGBTQI+ persons” in a small African country using U.S. tax dollars. The grant is advertised as “Beyond Decriminalization: Expanding LGBTQI+ Rights in Botswana,” and identifies “influential religious groups” as targets to lobby in its campaign. Read more

The Dobbs and Kennedy Rulings Intensify the Left’s War on Religion.

The Supreme Court’s affirmation of the states’ power to settle controversial issues upon which the Constitution is silent has the usual “woke” suspects hyperventilating over religion’s dangerous power to undermine “our democracy.” This war on religion, now in its third century, is predicated on dubious ideologies, ignorance of the role of faith in the Constitution and America’s Founding, and an evangelical faith in the power of “science” that lies at the heart of our progressive technocracy.

As such, the hysteria over Dobbs is really about the power and authority of progressives who are threatened by religion and institutions of civil society. Read more

Sexuality

UK cracks down while US doubles down on ‘gender affirming’ care.

American lawmakers need to follow the lead of another country and put the brakes on “gender affirming” procedures for children.

Health officials in the United Kingdom are acknowledging the damage being done by pushing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones onto children at exactly the same time as the Biden administration is demanding that education and health professionals endorse these “affirmative” treatments or face penalties. Read more

50,000 March in Protest Against Pride Parade in Belgrade, Serbia.

Some fifty thousand protesters took to the streets of the Serbian capital of Belgrade on Sunday, calling for the cancellation of an upcoming EuroPride event scheduled for September 12-18, chanting slogans such as “Hands off our children!” and “Stop the parade of shame!” Belgrade residents rallied in support of traditional family values and against LGBT indoctrination. Read more

On ‘Gender’ the AAP Has Chosen Ideology Over Science.

On Wednesday, AAP president Dr. Moira Szilagyi published a press release explaining why her organization has thus far been unwilling to conduct a thorough “systematic review” of the evidence for “gender-affirming care”—a gold standard review methodology which assesses the entire body of the evidence instead of cherry-picking individual studies that are often deeply flawed and unreliable. A systematic review hasn’t been necessary, Szilagyi told pediatrician members frustrated with the organization’s lack of transparency on this issue, because critics of the AAP’s current stance are operating from the false assumption that “gender-affirming care” involves “pushing medical or surgical treatments on youth.” What it really means, Szilagyi insists, is “the opposite: a holistic, collaborative, compassionate approach to care with no end goal or agenda.” Read more