Marriage/Family

Shrinking American Motherhood: 1-in-6 Women in Their 40s Have Never Given Birth.

More U.S. women are skipping motherhood today. In 2020, 1-in-6 women reaching the end of their childbearing years had never given birth, according to a new Institute for Family Studies analysis of Census data. This share was lower in 2016, when 14% of women ages 40 to 44 had never given birth. At the same time, the share of women who have had two or more children declined from 32% in 2016 to 30% in 2020. Read more

The unsung pro-family heroes of Eastern Europe.

There are those politicians and bureaucrats who are serious when discussion comes round to promoting society’s basic social unit, the beleaguered nuclear family. Some of them operate — under the media radar — in Eastern Europe.

How’s that? For several years, the ministries charged with facilitating family life in four European countries have been cooperating. In fact, their meeting last year was a historically significant event, though practically devoid of coverage in global media. But don’t be fooled — the stunning lack of publicity does not diminish its importance. Read more

The bitter global harvest of outlawing motherhood.

In the days before the one-child policy, the Chinese phrase for announcing “I’m pregnant,” was “I have happiness.” This sentiment changed, however, when becoming pregnant became a crime—a crime you could be socially punished, openly shamed, and physically assaulted for. By targeting and abusing women, the Chinese government got what it wanted: fewer people. But China also got something else it may not have anticipated: a nation of women who do not want children. Read more

Parenting/Parental Rights

Balenciaga Photo Fiasco Just Latest Attempt to Mainstream Sexualization of Children.

The producers of these campaigns either a) didn’t realize exploiting children in this way is wrong or b) they knew it is wrong, but wanted their audience to accept it. Either option is abhorrent.

Whatever the case, in these instances, Balenciaga was participating in a larger push that we have witnessed from far-Left cultural institutions: the attempt to mainstream the sexualization and exploitation of children. Read more

Preserve the innocence of children a little longer with some technological temperance.

When we speak about the burdens that people bear, we tend to reference what they “carry on their backs” or what’s been placed “on their shoulders.” When it comes to the hardships of today’s children and adolescents, we should think instead about what we’re placing in their hands.

Last month, the Institute for Family Studies released a report on the relationship between family structure and teen tech use (specifically gaming, social media, video chat, online shopping and texting). Read more

Entertainment Companies Use Social Media to Reach Minors with Mature-Rated Content, New Study Finds.

New research by the Parents Television and Media Council (PTC) documents how easily 13 to 17-year-olds can access dangerous, explicit and adult-themed content on social media platforms, fueled by Hollywood marketing strategies. Read more

Sanctity of Life

Philippines rejects UN demand to legalize abortion, divorce, and same-sex ‘marriage’.

The Philippines will not allow the United Nations and liberal European countries impose its pro-abortion, pro-divorce, pro-LGBT agenda on the country, the country’s main newspaper reported recently.

United Nations Human Rights Council wanted the country to implement socially liberal policies, but the Catholic country’s leaders told the UN it has no plans to do so. Read more

Biden Uses Your Tax Dollars To Deal Abortions To Pro-Life Countries That Don’t Want Them.

Hungary is currently at the forefront of international pro-life momentum. The government has recently taken on the role of leading the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a coalition of 36 countries that pledges a commitment to authentic women’s health beyond abortion. At the second anniversary of the coalition’s launch on Nov. 17, the Hungarian government articulated its pro-life position with resounding clarity. “Every human being should have the right to life … and fetal life shall be subject to protection from the moment of conception,” stated Szabolcs Takács, the Hungarian ambassador to the United States. Read more

Advertisement Promotes Killing People in Assisted Suicides.

You don’t have to be a cynic to wonder if “The Most Beautiful Exit” is about assisted suicide. Set against waves rolling in on a beach, good times with friends, cellos playing, and the line “last breaths are sacred,” indeed this is about portraying suicide as the “The Most Beautiful Exit.”

Whose three minute ad is it? La Maison Simons—or Simons as it is customarily called—a leading Canadian fashion retailer. Read more

Religion

Senate Passes ‘Disrespect for Marriage’ Act Without Religious Liberty Protections.

On Tuesday night, the U.S. Senate passed the so-called “Respect for Marriage” Act which critics say invites “predatory lawsuits” against people of faith, stigmatizes biblical values, and drives Christians from the public square.

Although nearly all Senate Republicans voted for amendments demanding greater respect for religious liberty, 12 Republicans voted for the unamended bill — and against the interests of their own voters, according to pro-family organizations.

H.R. 8404, which skeptics call the “Disrespect for Marriage” Act, requires all 50 states to recognize any marriage legally recognized by any other state and gives individuals the right to sue if they feel they have been harmed by people who believe in natural marriage. Read more

2021 was one of the worst years ever for religious freedom in China.

In the religious field, the text reports opinions that 2021 was “one of the worst years” for religious liberty in China, and is organized around nine major developments.

The first is the “escalated effort to ‘sanitise’ religion,” a process that is correctly defined as compelling religions to become not more Chinese but more subservient to the Chinese Communist Party and its goals. Read more

Christians are now a minority in England and Wales: census.

For the first time since 1801, when the United Kingdom took its first census, less than half of the population identify as “Christian,” while the share of individuals who say they have no religion has swelled by millions, the latest data from their census show.

The data published Tuesday by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics show that only 46.2% or 27.5 million of the country’s more than 67 million people say they are Christian. In 2011, when the last census was done, 59.3% of the population or 33.3 million, people described themselves as Christian. Read more

Sexuality

San Francisco’s Perverse Incentive to Identify as Transgender.

Imagine that a progressive American city creates a financial incentive for residents to “transition” from man to woman or from woman to man.

The GIFT pilot program “will provide 55 eligible residents with $1,200 per month for 18 months, as well as health care and financial coaching,” the Los Angeles Times explains. Read more

Gender-affirming medicine: what good is evidence anyway?

In another article on the transgender issue, in the blog of The Hastings Center, three academics from NYU Grossman School of Medicine contend that “Absence of Evidence Is Not Absence of Efficacy”.

In short, evidence can be dispensed with when the one fact that we do know, the crucial fact, is that children will commit suicide unless they get gender-affirming treatment.

But where is the evidence for that? Read more

Biden misses legal deadline to revive transgender mandate.

The Biden administration missed a deadline for appealing a judicial rebuke of its so-called transgender mandate, delivering a victory for religious-liberty advocates on the issue.

In May 2021, the administration announced that it would reinterpret Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and Title IX sex discrimination language to encompass sexual orientation and gender identity, ostensibly in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bostock v. Clayton County, which declared that the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s references to biological sex also includes those categories. Read more