Tag: Family

boys

Stories about real heroes can help make heroic boys

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We hear much today about the “boy crisis”, the “trouble with boys”, and a “war against boys”.
These problems are real. The lack of father figures and male mentors, the overwhelming predominance of female teachers in the early school grades, an obsession in many cases with video games, the prejudice of both the classroom and our society at large in favour of girls as opposed to boys — all these are reasons boys are floundering while their female counterparts ride the success wave.

by Jeff Minick
[Reprinted, with permission, from Intellectual Takeout (Bloomington, Minnesota, U.S.)]

But there’s one more explanation for this phenomenon of broken boyhood: a lack of real heroes. In times past, teachers and parents introduced adolescent males to heroic men, whether fictionalised characters like Ulysses, Sir Galahad, and D’Artagnan and his Musketeers, or historical figures like Richard the Lionheart, Winston Churchill, and for that matter, Moses and Jesus Christ.

I was introduced to figures like these through Classics Illustrated, a comics series I found in Weatherwax’s Pharmacy of Boonville, North Carolina, at the age of seven. That series influenced my imagination and developing code of morality and manhood. Add the Childhood of Famous Americans series, the Hardy Boys, some of the Landmark books, and many other assorted juvenile works of history and literature, and by sixth grade the foundation of my notions of the heroic were well-established.

William Jones Jr., author of Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History, had a similar experience with these comics based on historical events and great literature. It was 1956, and the five-year-old William was with his father picking up a prescription at Hall Drug Store. There he spotted a comic book in a spinner rack with a picture of Davy Crockett on the front. His father bought him that comic, and from that moment on William became enamoured with Classics Illustrated, writing, “Nothing else I read as a child had as significant an impact on my developing imagination….”

Unfortunately, we live in a time when heroes are toppled, sometimes literally, from their pedestals, or else are blighted, judged by their flaws rather than their virtues and courage. Men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, and others from the South are, for example, considered first and foremost as drivers of slaves rather than of the nation. Teachers and the so-called “progressives” of our culture point to the evils of colonialism wrought by Columbus, the flaws in Abraham Lincoln’s sometimes ambiguous stances on slavery, and so on.

This debunking of heroes has left boys with two categories of figures for emulation: superheroes and celebrities. Both categories contain their own flaws in serving as examples of heroism. Superheroes, for example, aren’t real. Spiderman may embody virtue, but his power comes from the bite of an arachnid, not from human travail. He’s not even as real a fictional hero as Dickens’ Sydney Carton. As for sports figures and movie stars, they dominate the public square not by their good character, but by their talent.

They frequently make poor exemplars for young boys.

C.S. Lewis was spot-on regarding today’s culture when he wrote, “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise.”

So, what is a hero? The best definition I know comes not from a dictionary, but from the famous 1910 “Man in the Arena” speech by Theodore Roosevelt, who served as U.S. president from 1901 to 1909.

Here is the two-sentence gold nugget that dispenses with today’s cynics and delineates a hero:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or
where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is
actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly;
or who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and
shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the
great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the
triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor
defeat.”

That man in the arena may be a politician sticking up for the truth, a soldier bleeding on a forlorn battlefield, an entrepreneur fighting for all he’s worth to keep his business afloat, a husband and father who gives his all for his wife and children. It might also be that teenager who breaks up a fight rather than filming it on his phone, who refuses to join others in his class in cheating on a test, who defends the good and the true at the risk of mockery.

Instil this “man in the arena” heroism in our sons by way of example and by stories, and they’ll become better students, better workers, better husbands, and better fathers.

In short, they’ll become better men.

About the author
Jeff Minick is an American author, who also teaches Latin, history and literature to home-schoolers. He is a convert to Catholicism and hosts his own website at www.JeffMinick.com. He is a widower of 10 years with four grown children, three of them married, and 12 living grandchildren. He lives in Front Royal, Virginia, the northern gateway to the scenic 150-mile-long Shenandoah Valley. The above article first appeared in Intellectual Takeout (Bloomington, Minnesota), September 30, 2026, and is reproduced by permission.

Geneva Consensus Declaration

Endeavour Forum joins the Geneva Consensus Declaration!

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Endeavour Forum has joined 43 nations and dozens of pro-life organisations in signing the Geneva Consensus Declaration – a pro-life, pro-family manifesto which affirms the dignity of human beings and rejects the so-called “right” to abortion. Click here to find out more and see the other signatories.

by Denise Mountenay

Endeavour Forum Inc., in Special Consultative Status with ECOSOC, is honoured to join the Civil Society Coalition for the Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), standing alongside 43 countries and organisations committed to defending life, family, and national sovereignty.

We signed onto the Geneva Consensus Declaration because:

  • We affirm that there is no international right to abortion. No UN treaty or binding instrument creates such a right, and attempts to claim one distort international law and undermine the protection of unborn life.
  • We believe every nation has the sovereign right to protect life. Laws concerning abortion must be determined by each country’s people, constitution, and moral convictions—not imposed by UN agencies or external pressure.
  • We uphold the family as the fundamental unit of society. Strong families are essential for the well‑being of women, children, and communities. Policies that devalue life ultimately weaken families and nations.
  • We support women’s health without promoting abortion. True care for women includes healthcare, support, protection from violence, and economic opportunity—none of which require abortion as a solution.

In recent years, several UN agencies and aligned NGOs have advanced an agenda to frame abortion as a global human right. Agencies such as UNFPA, WHO, and OHCHR, along with NGOs like International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and MSI Reproductive Choices, have worked to normalize abortion as “essential healthcare” and pressure countries to liberalize their laws.

By joining the Geneva Consensus Declaration, Endeavour Forum Inc. stands with a growing coalition that:

  • Defends the dignity of every human life, born and unborn.
  • Affirms the central role of the family.
  • Protects national sovereignty over life and family policy.
  • Offers a clear, principled alternative to the UN abortion agenda.

We are grateful for this opportunity to add our voice to a global witness for truth and life, and we remain committed to advocating for policies and media that honor both women and their children.

In defense of life and family, 

Endeavour Forum Inc.

LGBTQ+

Principal bullied out of job over LGBTQ+ awareness day concerns

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An Australian public-school principal is taking a stand against LGBTQ+ bullies who’ve forced her out of a 34-year teaching career. Ironically, Janelle Rowe faced disciplinary action for “underperformance” after she proposed replacing LGBTQ+ “Wear It Purple Day” with “Bullying No Way Week.”

by Rod Lampard at The Daily Declaration

Although the punitive measures are being sold as unrelated, Human Rights Law Alliance’s John Steenhof is arguing that the evidence proves otherwise.

Principal the ‘best leader I have ever worked with’

Internal employment documents uncovered through Freedom of Information (FOI) showed Mrs Rowe had been described as “outstanding” and “highly capable.”

The FOI also quoted at least one teacher stating that Rowe is “the best leader I have ever worked with in my 40-year career.”

Furthering the connection, the ACT school’s disciplinary process included Rowe “being placed under supervision and instructed to celebrate” and lead the LGBTQ+ safetyism day on 28 August, while forcing her to wear purple.

So, “this was never about underperformance,” Steenhof exclaimed.

Rowe’s reasons for trying to replace “Wear It Purple Day” were due to “concerns about sexualised content being taught to children as young as four.”

“Wear It Purple Day is not simply a ‘wear purple’ dress-up day,” she said in HRLA’s 7 September press release.

“Its focus is to indoctrinate children with LGBTQ+ ideology from a young age and normalise it every year through this national awareness day.”

“Under the school system’s own codes of conduct, it is inappropriate to expose children to content of a sexual nature.”

“My primary concern was about child protection and our duty of care as educators,” Rowe explained.

This is what drove the haters her way.

Bullying and disregard for child safeguards

After speaking out, complaints were made to the ACT Education Directorate. HRLA argued that this resulted in the disciplinary action.

Rowe “also received threats that the union would be brought in to pressure her to keep Wear It Purple Day.”

She “was then subjected to allegations that Rowe was being motivated by her Christian faith.”

Bullied, Rowe was forced to resign.

In HRLA’s statement regarding the case, Rowe said, “I chose not to go to Fair Work because I wanted to be able to speak freely and help parents understand what was really going on in schools and enable them to protect their children.”

“Talking with primary school-aged children about sexualised content goes against the National Child Safe Standards,” she added.

It also goes against “related procedures, policies, and codes of conduct we are trained on and expected to uphold as educators.”

“Scenarios where sexualised content is shared with children,” Rowe asserted, “are considered Reportable Conduct, Inappropriate Conduct, or Misconduct.”

She called the “entire process procedurally unfair and religiously discriminatory,” adding that it has caused her “significant psychological harm.”

“Wear It Purple Day” concerns

“Wear It Purple Day” began in 2010, and its reach goes far beyond the education system.

The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) warned about it in 2021, saying, “Promoted as a day in which to ‘celebrate diversity and young people from the LGBTQIA+ community’, a darker, very alarming, side has emerged.”

“Wear It Purple is a member organisation of ILGA World (the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association).”

“Under a cloak of ‘gender equality’ speak,” ACL explained, “this influential global federation is currently lobbying for governments to erase child protection policies and to lower the age of consent for minors.”

That lobbying involves the “Feminist Declaration,” which in part demands that governments abolish limitations on age and disability consent to sex laws.

Section 14, for instance, blatantly calls for the removal of age of consent laws that “protect children and young people from sexual exploitation and abuse.”

As ACL’s Wendy Francis noted, “What possible reason is there for us to remove these provisions?”

Referring to Janelle Rowe’s case, The Daily Telegraph described the clash with education bureaucrats as a “bitter dispute”.

Offered column space, DT said the ACT Education Directorate declined to comment, citing “privacy considerations.”

Canavan and Shelton protest

Two high-profile names who did weigh in, though, were Nationals Senator Matt Canavan and Family First’s Lyle Shelton.

Horrified, Canavan protested on X, asking, “What is going on in our schools? A principal with 34 years of teaching experience has left because she was being forced to teach about alternative ‘lifestyles’ to 4-year-olds… 4-year-olds!”

National/State secretary for the Teachers Professional Association of Australia (TPAA), Edward Schuller replied, “It gets so much worse. There is a network of government-funded organisations providing graphic sexual education to students.”

He linked his August interview with Karl Stefanovic and a petition, adding, “These groups have received over $230m in funding in just the last 5 years. Parents and teachers are fighting back — join them.”

You can read more here, although reader discretion is advised.

Lyle Shelton was just as concerned.

He posted a statement online declaring that Rowe “should be LAUDED, not driven from her profession.”

“Australian schools,” Shelton stated, “are no place for promoting radical LGBTQ+ sexual and gender-fluid ideology to children.”

“Janelle Rowe should be regarded as a hero for having the courage to say what countless Australian parents are thinking: four-year-olds do not need LGBTQA+ sexual and gender” training.

Schools should be teaching zero tolerance for bullying, he added, “But that does not require schools to promote harmful ideas about sexuality and gender identity to infants and primary-school children.”

“Wear It Purple Day should be banned from Australian schools, not the brave teachers who call it out.”

By Rod Lampard. Republished with permission from The Daily Declaration. The Daily Declaration is Australia’s largest Christian news site. It is dedicated to providing a voice for Christian values in the public square. Its vision is to see the revitalisation of our Christian values for the common good. 

gender

GenderSpeak: weaponizing gender against sex

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When and why did the word “gender” displace the word “sex?” “Gender” refers to a person’s socially constructed identity of being male, female, or some other category, while “sex” refers to physical characteristics of male or female, such as chromosomes. Gender is a matter of a person’s self-perception; sex is a circumstance of birth.

by Wendy McElroy at the Brownstone Institute

When did sex get pushed to the curb by gender? In his book The Man Who Invented Gender, Terry Goldie claims that the sexologist John Money of Johns Hopkins Medical Center (Baltimore) first used the word “gender” in its modern meaning in 1955. Money pioneered the word to describe his famous John/Joan experiment that was conducted on a young boy named Bruce who’d lost his penis in an accident. To ‘prove’ Money’s theory that sexual identity was learned and not biological, Bruce’s parents raised him as a girl, complete with a surgically constructed vagina. The experiment failed. Bruce ultimately insisted on living as male, but he did not recover from the ordeal Money imposed on him, which he called torture. Bruce committed suicide in his 30s.

By then, however, Money had declared for decades that John/Joan was a complete success; discussions of “gender identity” abounded in ‘60s medical journals and academia. By the ‘70s and ‘80s, feminists brought the term to the streets, with “gender” describing a person’s self-defined sociocultural identity and “sex” meaning biology. Then, the word wedged its way into government. In 1993, for instance, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) replaced “sex” with “gender” in its literature. In 2011, “sex” returned to the FDA to mean biology while “gender” meant “a person’s self-representation.” The term went global. Also in 1993, the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (DEVAW) vaguely defined this aggression as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women.”

Genderspeak became the language of elites, social justice activists, and the government, while average people still spoke of “sex”. But more than elitism lies behind the difference in words. By swapping in their own terms, elitists—especially professional feminists—grabbed the narrative on sexuality and politicized it to dismiss anyone who disagrees. Since the average male generally still uses biology to define his sexuality, he is an opponent; the average male is a living, breathing disagreement.

The ideology of gender faces an obstacle, however. If people can argue effectively against gender, then the narrative is difficult to manage. Those who dissent must be intimidated into silence or otherwise marginalized. The main strategy is to condemn dissenters as hate-filled. If some people cannot be silenced, then their words or opinions can become hate crimes punishable by law. George Orwell’s novel Nineteen-Eighty-Four is about a dystopian society of social control, which is maintained largely through restricting language. Since words are the foundation of thought, this means people cannot form thoughts, let alone articulate them. The villain of Nineteen-Eighty-Four proclaims, “The whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought.” He concludes, “The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.” 

Men’s health researcher James L. Nuzzo highlights an attempt to perfect the language. “In recent years, use of the phrase “gender-based violence” (or “gendered violence”) in the titles and abstracts of papers indexed in PubMed has increased noticeably. Between 2019 and 2025, the phrase “gender-based violence” (or “gendered violence”) appeared in the titles or abstracts of 2,784 articles indexed in PubMed.” [Chart available here.] 

A typical definition of gender-related violence or gendered violence is “any form of physical or non-physical violence or abuse against a person or group of people because of biased or harmful beliefs about gender. It can include things that happen online and that use digital technology.” This definition is typical because it includes non-physical violence (discrimination) and abuse (words) that are motivated by non-specific ”biased or harmful beliefs about gender.” Nineteen-Eighty-Four would refer to such non-physical violence as “crimethink,” with thought itself being an assault. 

Just as “sex” is displaced by “gender,” well-researched and comparatively clear terms such as “domestic violence” are displaced by less-defined ones such as “gender-related violence.” This achieves several goals. For one thing, the confusing definition becomes elastic. Almost any word or act can be stretched to qualify as “gender-related violence,” especially since virtually everything in the politicized feminist universe is gender-related. 

But the most important purpose of swapping in the word “gender” is to introduce a subtle but powerful bias that controls the narrative; it creates Genderspeak. 

The concept of gender comes directly from the twin ideologies of Social Constructionism and Gender Feminism. Social Constructionism tells us that male and female are learned forms of behavior (gender) rather than biology (sex). 

To this, Gender Feminism adds an ideological layer. Male and female are patriarchal learned behaviors; they are social concepts derived from white male capitalistic culture. Thus, approaching violence in a correctly gendered way means rejecting white male capitalism—the economic system that is said to vest power and wealth in the hands of white men at the expense of everyone else. To embrace gender is to reject white male culture and capitalism, with ‘the free market’ usually viewed as a synonym. 

Genderspeak is similar to Orwell’s Newspeak. Both are ambiguous speech that embeds ideology into the language so that every word perpetuates correcthink—officially approved thought. In Orwell’s dystopian world, Newspeak serves the ideological goals of Ingsoc – an abbreviation for English Socialism. It gradually replaces Oldspeak and becomes pivotal in defining politics and culture. Genderspeak has the same ideological goal. If you embed gender ideology into words, then you control how people think and how culture develops.  

The process goes something like this:

  • Embed new ideologically-driven language when possible. For example, substitute the term “gendered violence” for the more research-driven term “domestic violence.” 
  • Eliminate “wrong” words. In Nineteen-Eighty-Four, salvageable literature was rewritten in Newspeak so that authors either disappeared or were reinterpreted to serve Ingsoc. Today, school texts are commonly reviewed to eliminate wrong words. ‘Improper’ ones like “Founding Fathers” are changed to proper ones like “Framers.” 
  • Change the meaning of words. In Nineteen-Eighty-Four, the word “free” is used only in the simple form of ‘my sweater is free of lint.’ The concept of freedom does not exist. The current usage of “diversity” in Genderspeak is similar. It is a diversity that tolerates no deviation. Its conclusions are or can be mandated by law. 
  • Introduce doublethink. Doublethink is when someone accepts two contradictory ideas as being true. A modern example is students who attend “sensitivity training,” which includes publicly ridiculing and humiliating whites and males because of their race and sex. This is sensitivity?
  • Last of all, decry anyone who objects as a hater and oppressor; punish them.

Precise wording provides the incredible benefit of letting people know what they are talking about. It is time to reclaim the richness of precise English…verb by verb, adjective by adjective. Words should not be propaganda that blocks thought; disagreement is no crime. And sex is reality, while gender is not. The concept and the word “gender” should be abandoned by people who respect either accuracy or truth.

Wendy McElroy is a Canadian individualist feminist and voluntaryist writer. McElroy is the editor of the website ifeminists.net. This article first appeared at Brownstone Institute and is reproduced here under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

eugenic

Global effort to shut down eugenic baby mills

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Governments from multiple countries recently signed a political declaration calling for an international moratorium on surrogacy and advocating a complete worldwide ban.

by Diana L. Banister at C-Fam

The declaration warns that women and girls in surrogacy arrangements “face medical risks, coercion, exploitation and loss of agency that fall disproportionally on vulnerable populations with limited access to legal remedies.” It also points to psychological, emotional, and identity-related impacts on children born through surrogacy, along with risks of abandonment and human trafficking.

“Surrogacy is no longer a matter confined to domestic legislation or individual choices,’ said Eugenia Roccella, the Italian Minister for Family, Natality and Equal Opportunities. “ It has become a global phenomenon increasingly shaped by international markets, cross-border arrangements, and profound inequalities within and between societies.”

A $600,000 lawsuit recently filed in Canada against a surrogate mother reveals the legal and moral complications of the practice. Two years after giving birth, the mother was sued by the same-sex couple who hired her because she refused to abort the child after it was diagnosed with a cleft lip and a possible heart defect at 22 weeks of pregnancy.

The child, conceived through in vitro fertilization using a donor egg and sperm from each of the men, has had one reported medical incident, but is otherwise healthy. The lawsuit alleges the mother failed to “follow the direction regarding decisions affecting the fetus’s medical care.”

Research indicates that 33% to 40% of those commissioning surrogates are same-sex couples. Homosexual male couples represent a substantial majority of this group, while heterosexual couples make up about 66% of surrogacy arrangements overall. The “Gayby Boom,” as it is called, represents the largest demographic in gestational surrogacy, which requires an egg donor, an IVF procedure, and a surrogate.

Celebrities who have engaged surrogates, such as Kim Kardashian, Nicole Kidman, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Neil Patrick Harris, have also boosted the popularity of the practice.

According to a UN study on surrogacy published late last year by the UN special rapporteur on violence against women, Reem Alsalem, surrogacy is now worth nearly $14.95 billion a year and is expected to grow to $99.75 billion by 2033.

Alsalem gave a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council during the recent session and again stressed her concern for the women who are most vulnerable to violence because of the surrogacy practice.

“The states that are joining the declaration today recognize that surrogacy raises fundamental concerns relating to human dignity [and] the commodification of women and children,” said Alsalem. “They recognize that these concerns are not only limited to commercial arrangements, but that fragmented national approaches will facilitate the growth of a global cross-border market that transfers harm onto women and children in more vulnerable jurisdictions…This declaration shows that policy action is possible.”

The declaration was released in June, during the 62nd session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, by the Holy See along with Italy, Chile, and Cameroon. It was announced as the first step toward abolishing the practice they believe involves the “commodification of human life and women’s reproductive abilities.”

More than 220 organisations from 40 countries have been working together on a coordinated international strategy to end surrogacy.

by Diana L. Banister at C-Fam. The Centre for Family & Human Rights was founded in the summer of 1997 in order to monitor and affect the social policy debate at the United Nations and other international institutions. C-Fam is a non-partisan, non-profit research institute dedicated to reestablishing a proper understanding of international law, protecting national sovereignty and the dignity of the human person.

Children

Rising costs aren’t stopping young couples from having children

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Despite our assumption, it is not financial concerns that are stopping young couples from having children; rather, it is a lifestyle choice.

By Sarah Wilder at Intellectual Takeout

It’s no secret that rising costs are devastating Americans right now, and that young people are feeling the brunt of it. For the generation currently starting families, these costs are particularly stressful. Undoubtedly, the prospect of pinching pennies to pay for astronomical labor and delivery bills, car seats, formula, and strollers on top of life’s basic necessities is too significant to bear, causing some to forego having children in the first place.

“It’s just crazy right now,” one would-be mother said in a recent New York Times interview. “I have always told my husband, like, if we were rich, I would definitely have kids.”

Why aren’t young couples actually having children?

But do such financial hardships truly account for our plummeting birth rates?

Former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse went viral this week, bemoaning the fact that Americans are foregoing children because they’ve “decided that being distracted by a dopamine hit around Candy Crush might be a good way to spend your time.” Folks were quite angry by this comment. Rising petrol costs, lack of paid parental leave, and expensive childcare are the real reasons adults aren’t having children, they argued.

Yet that’s not what statistics say.

In 2024, Pew Research surveyed childless adults. Infertility, wanting to focus on “other things,” or lack of the right partner were among the reasons for not having children. The cost of children was on the list, but hardly on the top.

Almost 40% of childless adults age 50 or older said the top reason they didn’t have kids was because “it just never happened.” Childless adults under 50 listed their top reason for not planning to have kids as “they just don’t want to.” Indeed, for adults over 50, that reason accounted for 31% of those surveyed, compared to 57% of respondents under 50.

Economic concerns admittedly ranked higher for those under 50 than those over, but didn’t even make it into the top three reasons. Only 12% of adults over 50 chose “couldn’t afford to raise a child” as their reason, and still only 36% of those under 50 chose that reason.

It seems that young people mostly don’t want kids because they don’t see why they should want them. In other words, young people believe the proponents of kids bear the burden of proof, while those over 50 found some tangible reason (however faulty) for their childlessness.

Alleviating the economic hardships of young Americans to encourage childbearing and to ease the burden of those with children is surely a worthwhile cause. But it won’t fix our birth rate.

It’s time to encourage young families

In order to encourage young people to have kids, we must address the real reason they aren’t having them. They’re simply not sure if they’re valuable – economically, socially, or relationally.

Regarding the economic front, young people should realize that more kids were born in worse conditions throughout history. That’s not to dismiss the economic woes of this generation, but they simply aren’t at the level yet that should keep anyone from having children.

Socially speaking, it is true that communities don’t welcome children and the chaos and joy they bring like they once did. Public spaces often shun children and their parents. Child-free spaces are considered the right of every childless adult. But the way to fix that isn’t to reinforce our willfully-barren society in their efforts to avoid having children. Instead, the more children there are in a community, the more that community will have to adapt to their presence.

On the relational aspect, consider that children will love you, and you will love them, in the most selfless and pure way one can be loved by another human. They will show you how fulfilling a life lived for others can be. With each child, your capacity for love will simply expand. In your old age, they will be the living legacy that carries you in your twilight years.

Yes, children are worth every cent.

By Sarah Wilder. The above article first appeared in Intellectual Takeout (Bloomington, Minnesota), and is reproduced by permission.

Jim Hughes

In memoriam: Jim Hughes, Canadian pro-life leader

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Jim Hughes (1943–2026) was a Canadian and international pro-life leader. Below are excerpts from five of the many tributes published in honour of his tireless work on behalf of the unborn.

LifeSiteNews co-founder Steve Jalsevac praises Hughes’ remarkable leadership skills. LifeSiteNews columnist Jonathon Van Maren chronicles the pro-life movement’s titanic battle against the Pierre Trudeau government’s Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which lacked explicit protections for the unborn. Its enactment in the early 1980s “would utterly transform and define Canada for the rest of her history”.

Images courtesy Campaign Life Coalition

Jim Hughes (1943–2026)

Campaign Life Coalition (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada), May 19, 2026.

Excerpt

It is with deep sorrow that we share the passing of Jim Hughes, president emeritus of Canada’s Campaign Life Coalition, who passed away yesterday surrounded by his family.

At home, Jim was a devoted husband, father and grandfather. In the office, he was a mentor and a fatherly presence to so many. Wherever he went, he brought a down-to-earth spirit and a sense of humour that could brighten any room.

Jim’s leadership in the Canadian pro-life movement spanned nearly five decades. His tireless work helped shape, strengthen and mobilize the movement across the country, saving countless lives and inspiring generations of pro-life Canadians. Yet Jim’s impact extended far beyond public leadership. If someone needed help, he would help, often quietly, without recognition, and without ever seeking praise.

Jim Hughes: indefatigable champion

by Quinton Admundson, associate editor
The Catholic Register (Archdiocese of Toronto, Canada), May 20, 2026.

Excerpt

Do not tell Jim Hughes he must be a compromiser who tempers his pro-life beliefs. The national president of Campaign Life Coalition, the political arm of the Canadian pro-life movement, from 1984 to 2018, does not answer to you, lobbyists, corporations or any government. The octogenarian Catholic abides by the law of God, who unambiguously told Moses on Mount Sinai, “Thou shalt not kill.”

“He didn’t say after 14 weeks or talk about any strategy,” said Hughes. “He said ‘do not kill an innocent life.’ ”

Jim Hughes saw Canada’s abortion future in the fight over the Charter

by Jonathon Van Maren
LifeSiteNews (Canada/USA), May 20, 2026.

Excerpt

From a historical perspective, the most consequential fight Hughes was involved in was his very first.
Campaign Life was founded in May 1978; the following month, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau introduced the Constitutional Amendment Bill, which included a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Key pro-life leaders — including Jim Hughes — recognised that a charter which did not include explicit protections for the unborn would inevitably be used to justify a regime of abortion on demand.

We will never know if the efforts of Campaign Life and the pro-life movement to defeat the charter would have succeeded; history tells us that when Cardinal Emmett Carter, with explicit assurances from Justice Minister Jean Chrétien [later to be prime minister of Canada, from 1993 to 2003], published a statement of neutrality on the issue in the Catholic Register, Liberal MPs rejoiced that they could now vote for it in good conscience.

Years later, Jim Hughes said, Carter would tell him that he’d been lied to. That day, a sad scene unfolded at the Campaign Life offices. Pro-life leaders felt that they were close to beating the charter. The effort, right across Canada, had been herculean, but there was a sense that victory was possible. When they heard the news, darkness seemed to descend. “I saw pro-life leaders, many of them, extremely shocked, devastated, grown men and women in tears, crying,” Steve Jalsevac recalled. “That’s what I saw. It’s like someone put a knife in their back. It was that close.”

Although few Canadians understood it at the time, the battle over the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was the most consequential political fight of the 20th century. It would utterly transform and define Canada for the rest of her history. The story of the pro-life movement’s resistance to the charter has been largely ignored by historians, even though the warnings of prominent pro-life groups were prophetic.

The Jim Hughes I remember

by John-Henry Westen, co-founder and CEO of LifeSiteNews.com
LifeSiteNews (Canada/USA), May 19, 2026.

Excerpt

For more than four decades, Jim Hughes stood as the unwavering heart of Canada’s pro-life movement until his death on Monday. I was privileged to have known and worked with him for three of those decades.

From his first involvement with Campaign Life Coalition in October 1978 until long after he stepped down as national president in September 2018, Jim gave his life so that others might live. A successful Toronto businessman at 35, he saw the gruesome reality of abortion at a right-to-life presentation at the Canadian National Exhibition in 1978. That moment changed him forever. He accepted his wife Ginny’s challenge to give “just two years” to the cause. He left his lucrative career and worked full time without a salary in the beginning while the couple lived on Ginny’s income as a registered nurse.

In 1984, he became national president of Campaign Life Coalition, a position he held for 34 years. Under his leadership, CLC became the powerhouse of Canadian pro-life activism. He founded The Interim newspaper in 1983. He served on the founding board of LifeSiteNews when it launched in 1997. He built the annual National March for Life in Ottawa into a major national event and helped bring the Life Chain and 40 Days for Life to Canada.

He played key roles in establishing or advancing Aid to Women, REAL [Realistic, Equal, Active, for Life] Women of Canada, Catholic Insight magazine, the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus, Show the Truth campaigns, and the early Family Coalition Party. He also worked closely with Priests for Life Canada, Silent No More Canada [founded by Endeavour Forum’s Canadian associate, Denise Mountenay], and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition [founded by Alex Schadenberg].

As everyone in the movement knows, Jim often joked that you only retire from this calling being carried out “feet first”. And that’s exactly how he lived — never truly retiring, always in the fight until the Lord called him home.

——————————

‘Well done, good and faithful servant’

Steve Jalsevac on Jim Hughes, Canada’s pro-life patriarch
by Steve Jalsevac, co-founder of LifeSiteNews.com
LifeSiteNews (Canada/USA), May 20, 2026.

Excerpt

Jim Hughes was a truly humble, surprisingly shy, and very caring man. Few people knew that he was uncomfortable being in the limelight and tended to give all the glory for whatever Campaign Life Coalition managed to accomplish to others, above all to God.

Jim was a leader unlike many others I have met over the past 46 years. He had an incredible memory, was a gifted organiser and strategist and a commanding speaker. He managed to build strong, long-term loyalty among CLC volunteers and staff who valued his consensus-based leadership style and personal concern for them and their needs. CLC was never a top-down type of organisation.

Jim was a delegator who much preferred to pass on important and high-visibility tasks to others and help them to grow into a larger pool of competent pro-life leaders.

We were a close-knit team of “ordinary people doing great things for God”, as Mother Teresa of Calcutta told Jim when she was with him in our humble Ottawa lobby office. She also told him that we were “doing the most important work in the world”.

Under Jim, CLC was a precious second family for everyone in CLC. I spent 46 years working closely with this man. He dramatically changed my life when he brought me into the pro-life movement and patiently guided me and many others to be more understanding and patient with those considered our enemies. In many cases, they were instead sinners whom no one took the time to talk to, find out why they did what they did, or reach out with a prayerful, helping hand. I am forever grateful for that guidance.

education

AI robots do not a good education make

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The suggestion that AI robots should be used to educate children is an opportunity for a renewed focus on the real nature of education.

by Sarah Reardon at Intellectual Takeout

Several weeks ago, Melania Trump garnered attention for proposing an innovative educational methodology: robot education. At the “Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition Summit,” she was escorted by a humanoid, “American-made” robot as she presented the potential lustre of AI’s future: humanoid robots could provide a “personalised” education, reminiscent of the tutoring models of centuries gone by.

Melania asked her audience to envision a robot called Plato through whom “access to the classical studies is now instantaneous.” She continued: “Humanity’s entire corpus of information is available in the comfort of your home. Plato will provide a personalised experience, adaptive to the needs of each student. Plato is always patient, and always available.”

Forget about the fact that an “always available” robot sounds somewhat ominous. Instead, Melania appealed to the virtues lauded by the corporate world, “analytic skills and problem solving,” as well as “deep critical thinking and independent reasoning abilities.” Children who learn from such robots, she maintained, could have a “more well-rounded lifestyle,” including more time for play and extracurriculars.

Can robots really teach?

Melania’s proposition sounds similar to programs already in operation, such as homeschooling platforms that utilize AI or the in-person Alpha Schools, where students, under the direction of human guides, spend about two hours daily on schoolwork, thanks to personalised AI tutors. Where her proposition differs is in the use of a three-dimensional humanoid robot, not merely a web-based persona, as tutor. Regardless, Melania’s “Plato” and existing AI education models both spring from a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature and education.

Any education model that tasks AI with teaching or training human beings undermines the fundamentally relational nature of humans. This is merely one aspect of its danger, but a significant one. Human beings require physical interaction and relationship with other humans in order to flourish, whether in spiritual, emotional, or intellectual areas of life.

Without a certain amount of relational input, whether from classmates in a traditional classroom, a homeschooling mother, or a private (human!) tutor, learning becomes an isolating and Sisyphean endeavor. This is one reason why programs of individual “self-education” in the style of “Good Will Hunting” require a rare and precocious personality to be effective.

Nowhere is the need for relational input in education more evident than in research about COVID. When lockdowns and mandates pushed institutions toward online and asynchronous classes, student outcomes suffered. Students simply did not learn as much when their education was mediated by screens, video calls, and online discussion boards as when education was mediated by physical interaction. While students have returned to physical classroom since COVID, student outcomes continue to suffer as “heightened absenteeism” and “educational technology” gain steam. While computer-based learning and educational technology can be utilised for good in some circumstances, as in specialized degree programs, they are not wise pedagogical models when applied broadly.

Education should be communal

Our need for human interaction is not a “bug” that can be fixed by increased exposure to or refinement of computer-based learning or humanoid systems. It is part of our nature: from the Garden of Eden onward, it is clear that “it is not good for man to be alone” – that we are designed for fellowship with each other and God.

We are, after all, not computers ourselves, however much our minds and bodies follow discernible patterns. We are living, breathing, earthly, fleshy creatures. “It is easy for me to imagine,” Wendell Berry famously wrote, “that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.”

AI education requires a mechanistic view of man. It outsources human tasks of teaching, guiding, conversing, and correcting to a non-human entity, thus treating the student as a machine for knowledge accumulation rather than a creature needing formation and direction.

In this way, the faulty pedagogical theory behind AI education is also evident. AI education assumes that the end of education is the mere acquisition of knowledge, which, in this framework is “an inert substance that can be delivered by robots,” as Mary Harrington recently wrote. If the primary aim of education is for students to learn facts, then robots could be useful. They could even, in some cases, make for good teachers, better at least than the forgetful grandfather who worked as a professor for 40 years or the eager but unpracticed recent graduate new to the elementary school.

But knowledge is not an inert substance composed of discrete facts, and education aims at more even than knowledge.

Robots can’t develop the whole person

If the aim of education is wisdom and the shaping of a person, then people will be needed, body and soul. If the aim of education is to, as John Milton wrote, “repair the ruins of our first parents,” or to, as Hugh of St. Victor wrote, “restore within us the divine likeness,” then students will not only need people, but those whose souls seek the true, good, and beautiful and their source in God alone.

“Plato,” however patient he may be, will be no match for a flesh-and-blood human teacher, with all his faults, who loves his students and directs them toward divine wisdom.

by Sarah Reardon. The above article first appeared in Intellectual Takeout (Bloomington, Minnesota), and is reproduced by permission.

Gender

Cancelled child psychiatrist takes gender fight to court

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Child psychiatrist Dr Jillian Spencer faces a November court showdown with Queensland Health after being fired for questioning gender-affirming care protocols for children.

by Rod Lampard for The Daily Declaration

The second showdown between Dr Jillian Spencer and Queensland Health is set for November.

Human Rights Law Alliance (HRLA) announced the date in a recent statement published online.

This will be decisive, they said.

“The Court has allocated a two-week hearing window in the first two weeks of November.”

HRLA then added that the window will mark “a major step in what has become a closely watched case.”

Of special interest is Spencer’s professional protest against “no questions allowed” ideologically based “gender-affirming care.”

Her case, HRLA determined, is “at the intersection of proper care for vulnerable children, professional integrity, and the rapidly evolving debate around gender ideology.”

“Key deadlines have been met, including filing further evidence in February.”

“These court dates allow some certainty going forward,” HRLA explained.

Fired for asking questions

While the November date is welcome, Spencer’s case, they said, is another example of “the process is the punishment.”

A child psychiatrist with over 16 years of experience, and a mother of three, Jillian Spencer has had to endure “four years of legal proceedings.”

Recalling reasons for the legal challenge, HRLA said,

“This all happened because she, as a professional psychiatrist at Queensland Children’s Hospital (QCH), questioned the automatic ‘affirmation’ model of treating gender-confused children.

“Dr Spencer was concerned about untested and unproven treatments, including the use of puberty blockers, and the long-term effects they would have on young patients.”

The QCH suspended, then fired her.

In effect, Spencer wasn’t fired because she spoke disparagingly about those who identify as LGBTQ+. Spencer was fired because she dared to exercise her right to question the legitimacy of the ideology propping them up.

Spencer’s dismissal, HRLA argued, “reveals a failure in protecting fundamental freedoms in this country.”

HRLA’s case directs attention to discrimination against Spencer for freely sharing her views.

Filed by HRLA as a political discrimination case, this is the second of two lawsuits.

Spencer’s first case challenging her unfair dismissal from the Queensland Children’s Hospital went before the Qld Supreme Court in April.

This was a judicial review, Spencer said on X, “of the Termination Letter sent to me by the Queensland Children’s Hospital for speaking up about the harm to children from gender interventions.”

Questions asked, she added, were:

  1. “Did the hospital adequately consider my implied right to freedom of political expression under the Constitution?
  2. Did the hospital adequately consider my right to freedom of expression under the Human Rights Act?”

A judgment is yet to be handed down.

Forcibly removed from psychiatry conference

Spencer is in the free speech fight for the long haul.

She was allegedly assaulted by a security guard at this week’s Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) conference in Melbourne.

The guard appears to have forcibly removed her from the conference on Monday for silently protesting the college for cancelling Queensland Doctor Andrew Amos’ membership.

Her protest was a sign that simply read: “RANZCP kicked out Dr Amos. Why?”

As an AusDoc report recalled, AHPRA banned Amos from clinical practice after he questioned “gender medicine on social media.”

RANZCP booted Amos soon after, which, AusDoc said, is an automatic response whenever a doctor is suspended.

Frustrated about how she was treated, Spencer took to X to further protest RANZCP.

The X post also called out “gender-activist psychiatrist colleagues [for] lying in chat groups, saying: ‘She lay on the floor herself’.”

Responding to claims she was hyping up the incident, Spencer added two screenshots of a statement given to Queensland police about the incident.

In the statement, she testifies to walking up an aisle holding the sign above her head.

This was held for about eight minutes, as she moved to a sitting area.

Spencer said security approached her, declared that the sign was prohibited and told her to leave.

Just over a minute later, the security officer allegedly pulled her to the ground, then apparently dragged her down the stairs.

Spencer said, “he continued dragging me to a flat area near the main stage.”

RANZCP’s CEO, Damian Ferrie, turned up and told Spencer the sign was advertising. He accused her of “disrupting the presentation and ruining it for 2,000 people.”

Rather than offer comfort or understanding, Spencer said Ferrie tried to take the sign from her. This was despite her obvious state of shock and tears.

“I just sat on the ground for the next 5 to 10 minutes crying,” Spencer testified.

Another security guard turned up, who helped Ferrie escort her out the door.

While Spencer was being removed from yet another medical forum, for simply asking questions, RANZCP was patting itself on the back for being “allies” of those who identify as LGBTQ+.

“It was a fantastic turnout this morning at the LGBTIQA+ people and allies morning tea at the RANZCP conference,” they wrote.

“Thanks to everyone who came along to connect and share their support for our LGBTIQA+ community.”

Spencer responded, “They’re smiling, and I’m bruised.”

The pictures, which show Queer flags plastered all over the room like it’s 1930s Nuremberg, only serve to validate Spencer’s protest.

PRIDE activism is harming professionals, the vulnerable and weakening Australia’s healthcare system.

They are not just demanding absolute, unquestioning allegiance in every aspect of life; they are cancelling evidence-based dissenters.

With the help of HRLA, Dr Jillian Spencer is holding the line.

Please consider actively praying for Dr Spencer and her family.

Also consider supporting the Human Rights Alliance’s important work here.

You can read The Daily Declaration’s ongoing and extensive coverage of Spencer’s fight for free speech here.

By Rod Lampard. Republished with permission from The Daily Declaration. The Daily Declaration is Australia’s largest Christian news site. It is dedicated to providing a voice for Christian values in the public square. Its vision is to see the revitalisation of our Christian values for the common good. 

gender equality

Younger generation lacks its mothers’ enthusiasm for gender equality

Published on by EF TeamLeave a comment

This report is based on a side-event at the UN’s 70th Commission on the Status of Women, held in
New York during March 9–19, 2026. The topic of the event was “Gender equality makes families
thrive” and was presented by a panel of Nordic ministers for gender equality. The video of this talk
can be accessed here at UN web TV. For more about Endeavour Forum’s work at the UN, please click here.

by Kathy Clubb

In their presentation, a panel of ministers for gender equality from several Nordic nations, including
Iceland, Denmark and Norway, examined how their policies have contributed to the well-being of
families in their respective countries. Specifically, the benefits of parental leave for both mothers
and fathers were explained. Additionally, the ministers expressed their surprise at the younger
generations’ failure to support their policies regarding gender equality, despite their claims that
their policies have been successful.

According to the ministers, gender equality is a form of justice for women, in keeping with the
theme of this year’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) held at the United Nations
headquarters in New York. The attendees were polled by a show of hands which revealed that
most women in the room believe there is only a moderate access to justice currently available for
women around the world. Thus the context for the discussion was the so-called oppression of
women and “barriers” to justice.

Nordic prosperity due to gender equality?

The ministers claim that the prosperity enjoyed by their countries is due to their governments’
policies which promote equality between men and women. They especially gave credit to the
women who entered the workforce during the 1950s to 1970s for setting up their nations for
economic success.

During the Second World War, women by necessity had to take over many men’s roles, and in the
Nordic countries, as in other parts of Europe, women were loath to give up their incomes and
independence once the men returned from war to the civilian workforce. The ministers claim that
the post-war women workers benefitted the workforce by giving employers more choice in an
expanded worker pool. Along with advantages for employers, so the argument goes, the
independent income to which women now had access gave them the ability to divorce their
husbands when desired.

These government ministers — all career women — sought to debunk claims by conservatives
that gender equality policies undermine the family, claiming instead that such policies actually
strengthen families by providing economic resilience and safety for children. This is a claim that
was to be repeated over the course of the CSW events by many of the speakers in various
contexts.

Central to the Nordic family policies is affordable childcare as well as leave for both parents after
the birth of a baby. In Norway, for example, the government’s policy is one-year paid parental
leave for both mother and father. These policies enable mothers to re-enter the workforce, allowing
couples to maintain their income levels.

Proponents claim that this policy gives women an advantage when applying for jobs as they will no
longer be discriminated against for their potential need for maternity leave. Since men have
parental leave, employers are forced to treat men and women the same when screening them for a
position.

The ministers claim that their policies are based on practical needs and are not driven by ideology,
however, any policies applied to traditional families are also applied to what has become known as
“diverse” families — that is, those parents who identify as members of the LGBTQ community. Yet
we are expected to believe that there is no ideology driving the policy decisions?

The high cost of gender equality

Each of the ministers acknowledged that the younger generation appears not to appreciate their
sacrifice as working mothers. Indeed, the ministers lamented the fact that there is a need for
ongoing campaigning around gender equality to educate youth about its apparent benefits. In their
experience, the younger generations do not consider gender equality as important, with many
saying it has “gone too far”. Young people don’t want the government to interfere in families — a
mindset that was perceived as a threat by the feminist ministers.

The personal anecdote of one speaker might shed some light on the younger generations’ lack of
interest in their mothers’ pet project. While building her career in politics, this minister from Norway chose to leave her daughter with her father in another city, five days a week for four years. She told her daughter this sacrifice was necessary because it would secure the opportunity for her daughter to do the same thing to her own child!

It is small wonder that the children do not appreciate their mothers’ choice to prioritise careers over
family life. Indeed, the narrative seems to be that only when motherhood is combined with a paid
career can a mother “reach her full potential”. According to this narrative, that “full potential” is
measured only in dollars — an utterly utilitarian argument which their children have apparently
rejected.

The ‘anti-rights movement’ and the war on men

According to the ministers, another perceived obstacle to gender equality is what they call the
“anti-rights movement” whose claims need to be debunked. The chosen method for this
“debunking” doesn’t involve engaging with the opposition, but instead censoring it, particularly on
the internet.

Singled out specifically was the “tradwife” movement — a subset of conservative Christians who
value traditional family life, particularly traditional gender roles. The “tradwife” is a stay-at-home
mother and homemaker who gladly allows her husband to be the breadwinner. These traditional
gender roles apparently pose such a threat to militant feminists that they are labelled as
“misogynistic” and are seen as part of a wider “anti-rights” movement.

The ministers are determined that the digital space needs to be regulated to censor this “anti-
rights” movement. One specific tool they mentioned was setting age-limits on social media — a
policy which was recently adopted here in Australia. While promising to reduce harmful content for
children under 16, the ban effectively sets the stage for a digital ID system, while still allowing
children to access harmful content such as pornography.

Sweden’s minister for gender equality blamed algorithms for promoting “tradwife” propaganda to
men and boys, citing traditional gender roles as this as “harmful norms and disinformation”.
She declared: “We must regulate the digital world with age limits and similar measures, and we
need to be aware of all the forces trying to reshape the narrative on gender equality and push it in
the wrong direction.”

One “helpful” observation made by a minister was that “men may perceive that women’s success
comes at the cost of men”. She has set herself quite a challenge if she wants to convince men that
the opposite is true!

Traditional gender roles were decried as threats to the modern status quo, necessitating ongoing
resistance to backsliding. This movement toward traditional roles was identified as being universal
and not limited to the Nordic nations, although it was acknowledged that the “toxic masculinity”
movement has been somewhat defused by the introduction of parental leave for fathers.

Population decline

Algorithms were also blamed for the declining population. Apparently young men and women are
victims of algorithms which make them “unable to think alike” when it comes to family size.
In the Nordic countries, the average birth rate is less than one child per woman — far below the
2.1 births per women needed for a population to replace itself — and even that low figure is heavily
reliant on migrants who tend to have larger families.

Serbia was mentioned as an example of a country actively promoting pro-natalist policies. A
current campaign there is encouraging women to have “one more baby”.

The ministers admitted that they find themselves in a difficult position: while they acknowledge the
danger inherent in population decline, as feminists who emphasise bodily autonomy, they know
they can’t force women to have more children. Their solution is to try to encourage, but not push,
women to have more babies.

Where is the data?

The panel of high-level politicians put forward their argument without any recourse whatsoever to
statistics and data. Instead, the only “evidence” presented was anecdotal — their feelings and
personal experience. Statements such as “AI can be used as a tool to oppress women” were given
without any concrete examples being provided.

In fact, the only serious research mentioned was a future white paper on boys and gender equality
which one of the ministers was herself preparing: she said that since gender-based violence exists,
boys need to be educated in order to reduce its incidence. One reason identified as a cause of
“gender-based violence” was a dearth of good male role models.

In the feminist world, that means more men who think the same as the feminist career-women are
needed. Yet perhaps their question should be: why are they so hard to come by? Like the young
people who are rejecting the feminists’ working-mother model, are men finally becoming tired of
being labelled “toxic”?

The Trojan Horse strategy

Although much of the talk focussed broadly on the desires of most modern women, one speaker
revealed the more nefarious agenda at the heart of feminism: access to abortion and the upending
of the natural order. She noted the importance of gender equality campaigns in the global south for
“transforming gender norms” and for “advancing reproductive rights”.

The speaker then went on to explicitly state that under the guise of advancing gender equality is a
push for:

  • the removal of discrimination (gender quotas);
  • comprehensive sexual education (perversion and promiscuity);
  • mandating such sex-ed at schools (giving parental rights with one hand and taking them with
    the other); and
  • nurturing intergenerational conversations which promote the right to abortion (specifically in
    Latin America).

An objection to abortion was booed

The previous comments by the pro-abortion speaker were met with an intervention from a delegate
in the audience. She made an objection to abortion rights on the basis of international human
rights law, asking how bodily autonomy can include the killing of children.

This prompted the moderator to respond aggressively, effectively shutting down the pro-life
intervention and revealing the overwhelming support for abortion found in the room. Applause and
cheering in favour of abortion rights revealed the true spirit driving this and many of the UN’s
“humanitarian” efforts.

Elephant in the room: life’s realities

A second questioner asked how it is possible to balance a career with children. She suggested that
with two competing priorities, women are in an impossible situation. The ministers’ responses were
predictable: the core principle is that women can do what they want and that they need the
courage to follow their dreams.

If many women feel frustrated that they can’t be a bigger part of their children’s lives and if it is
impossible to add to the birthrate when paid careers are the priority, then the government must
create family-friendly policies so that women can both work and be mothers.

Conclusion

While believing themselves to be at the forefront of a successful women’s rights movement, the
five Nordic ministers have instead revealed their inability to convince younger generations of the
benefits of feminist ideology or to reverse a rapidly-declining population rate.

They emphasised their belief that it is wrong for men to be perceived as the breadwinners,
underscoring how feminists impose their own definitions on the roles of men and fathers. They
then keep reminding society of the definitions they have advanced in order to maintain them. This
itself is proof that the definitions are not self-evident: they must be imposed rather than observed.
Despite the slick packaging as “women’s justice”, the Nordic ministers showed that the tools of
choice for feminists are propaganda, censorship, and an unhealthy reliance on the welfare state.

About the author
Kathy Clubb is an Australian mother and grandmother and home-educated her children for the
best part of 30 years. In 2016, Kathy was part of an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Victoria’s abortion
exclusion-zones, which led to a constitutional challenge in the High Court of Australia in late 2018.
Her articles have appeared at Family Life International, LifeSiteNews, the Daily Declaration, Caldron Pool and Fidelity magazine.